The bed was more comfortable than the makeshift transport Mesu had been lying on for the last couple of days. The throbbing continued throughout her body, but she appreciated not being jostled around. She had minimal information about her new travel mates, except for how many there were. Two women and two men had saved her and Anna. More herself, Mesu thought, as Anna was doing well on her own. It was hard to tell if it was minutes or hours that had passed between visits from people. She briefly thought that one of the women hovered over her with her hands glowing, but she had a lot of dreams during the ins and outs of consciousness.
The door opened, and Anna walked through. She gave a half-smile as she closed the door behind her.
“Finally awake? Hopefully for more than a few seconds.”
“We will see. I’m still exhausted. And sore. And embarrassed.”
“Don’t feel that way.” Anna moved to a chair next to Mesu and sat down. “And they already knew about the bulette. They were there when we told the story.” Mesu cringed.
“You told that story. I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
Mesu chuckled and held at her side. Anna stopped her own laughing and fidgeted like she was going to get up, but stopped.
“I won’t make you laugh again. You don’t need to talk either. I found out a lot from our new friends. If you are up for it in a day or two, we can join them too.”
“Join them with what?”
“A treasure hunt. They’re heading in the same direction and invited us along. We would get a cut of whatever they found, and they promised they would keep us safe.”
Mesu was thrown off by this enthusiasm for adventure from Anna. The trip had already changed her quite a bit. Mesu wasn’t sharing the feeling anymore. She had been run off by a weird beast, almost killed by other ones, and was currently staying in a place where she couldn’t answer how she got there.
“Who are they anyway?” Mesu asked.
“Oh, I guess you didn’t get a full introduction. We’ll get you a proper one today with them all. Well, except maybe for Em. He has already left to scout out for us all. But Zoe, Tai, and Russ are here. There’s no sign of the goblins either since that night. Zoe confirmed that those were what attacked us.”
“That’s strange. Those were the things that attacked me before. Should we ask if they hold a grudge or something?”
“Mesu, why would they have a grudge against you? It’s worth asking, though. It sounds like they rarely do anything on their own. They are typically paid or tricked into doing stuff, which is another thing we need to talk about. I don’t know if I should tell you or wait for Zoe.”
“The heavens, Anna, just tell me.”
“I guess I did bring it up. This might seem unbelievable, but it sounds like magic is coming back.”
“What do you mean by that?” Anna’s face lit up, and she moved in her chair again. She leaned forward.
“Zoe was saying that there were some scrolls that they had picked up a while ago. When she was looking through them and started reading, weird things were happening. It was like there were spells on them. They were all written in an ancient language, but Zoe has studied up on some of them as her ancestors used to speak it. She was even able to heal you with one, Mesu. I watched it happen.”
Anna waited for Mesu’s response, but the thoughts and questions came too fast to her mind. Magic was something of legend. There were hints of it in stories, even a couple of Enya’s. It was widely accepted that those were just fables or fabrications.
“And you really saw this?” Anna nodded her head. A smile was plastered to her face since she started talking about magic. “Why are you so happy with all this? We’ve almost died twice now.”
“I know, but I’ve been keeping notes this whole time.” Anna looked for her notebook and realized it was in another room. She continued without it. “We are living out the stories. We are making our own. I was always excited listening to the tales when patrons would come in and talk about adventure. I never really imagined this would be a reality. This job that they have, it will be another tale for us to tell.”
Mesu knew her shock had to be visible. This wasn’t the same girl she had met a few weeks ago. It was different to see her speak of exploring the world. Hearing Anna talk about it sparked the fire in her a little more. She had doubted herself after being pushed from her home. The farm life didn’t sound so bad if she knew that those raiders were not coming back. The attack itself was odd. There was little doubt that those were the same things. Could they have been from the same group or person, Mesu wondered.
“Well, you have some time to recover more and think about it, Mesu. The group is waiting for Em to get back and see if the spot for what they’re looking for exists. They figure it would take him a couple of days at least. This will give you some time to rest up. I think Zoe was going to do the healing spell on you again if you wanted. It seemed to work the first time. There was really nothing to it either.”
The idea of having magic performed on her didn’t sit well with Mesu. She had unwillingly taken part in it, but it was hard for her to tell if it had any effect. Mesu thought about how she was still alive, so it had to do something.
“We’ll see, Anna. If they think that something is following us, it makes sense to have that protection around us. Our battle the first time didn’t go well. It would be cool to find some treasure too.”
They both smiled at the thought. The rush was in her as much as she could feel now. Mesu nodded. The adventure was going to continue, and this time they would have some direction. It would be nice to have someone teach her how to properly fight, Mesu thought.