"Thank you for helping me there," Jax said. "I would’ve been in trouble."
"You would’ve done fine, I’m sure," the young man said, pulling the spear out of the beast’s body.
Jax looked at the Starving Vulture, a look of surprise in his eyes. How had the monster died so quickly? He was sure the monster had only just been attacked, and yet it was already dead.
Jax pulled out a knife and split the Treant’s trunk, gathering the sap it secreted once it was dead. As he gathered it, he kept an eye on the young man, making sure he wasn’t going to attack him.
The young man moved the monster’s corpse around with his spear, seemingly checking it for something.
"Are you going to take anything from it?" Jax asked.
"Oh, I already took the stones," the young man answered.
"No, I meant from its body."
"What can I take?" the young man asked. "Speaking of that, would you happen to know what the name of this beast is?"
Jax narrowed his eyes. "It’s a Starving Vulture. Do you not know?"
"Sorry, I just came to this Carriage today. I have much to learn, I fear."
"You only came here today? What?"
The man had come today and somehow killed the monster so quickly? How strong was he?
As Jax thought that, he suddenly heard an explosive noise from far away that shook the ground. ’What the hell?’ He had never heard something this explosive in the forest before.
"What was that?" the young man asked, walking toward the noise.
"Hey, that bird, are you..."
He wanted to ask the man if he was going to take its parts, but the man was already gone, walking into the thicket of the trees.
Jax took a moment to consider and decided to take the bird’s parts. It was unlikely the young man was going to take it anyway. After a minute of butchering, he stood up and decided to leave.
Today had been a long day, so he wanted to return.
He opened his map and followed the way back home. As he did, he unknowingly walked in the same path that led toward the explosion.
After just a few minutes of walking, Jax paused when he saw smoke from up front. He couldn’t tell why there would be smoke in the forest; he walked toward it to look.
When he arrived there, he had walked out into a clearing of an explosion site, with the young man from before standing on one side and a beautiful woman with long black hair standing on the other side.
The two turned. The young man showed little expression upon seeing him, but the woman’s eyes widened almost immediately.
"Another one," she said in a low voice, but Jax could hear it. She sounded surprised to see him.
"What’s going on here?" Jax asked. "Are you two together?"
"I’m afraid not," the young man said.
The young woman said nothing, simply watching the two of them at the same time. Her mind seemed to race through many things.
Jax didn’t know what was going on, but he knew he could not stay here at all. He needed to leave this place as soon as he could, especially in a place of such destruction.
He couldn’t imagine a monster doing such a thing, so it had to be the young woman before him. How she could do such a thing, he didn’t know.
As he turned around to leave, the woman spoke up.
"You are an Ascendant too, aren’t you?"
Jax froze in his steps, his head slowly turning toward the young woman. His look of surprise was enough for her.
"What makes you say that?" Jax asked.
"An educated guess," the young man said.
"What part of it was educated?"
"A Sorcerer wearing such heavy armors and yet is fine walking. Only an Ascendant would be unique enough to do that," she said.
"You guessed with just that?" Jax asked. "How do you even know I am a Sorcerer?"
"Your Sea of Navi," she said.
"My... what? How can you know I have a Sea of Navi?" he asked.
"I do not wish to answer that. Not to a stranger."
"And yet you have no qualm asking such private questions," Jax said.
"It is not so private," the woman said. "I am an Ascendant too. So is he." She pointed at the young man before him.
The young man smiled. "I was told Ascendants were very rare, and yet we have three of us meeting right here. Do you think this to be a coincidence?" he asked.
"The Navigator loves certain things as much as any regular person would. Having three Ascendants meet each other is not beside him," she said.
"I haven’t met the guy, but I can tell he does like to prank people," the young man said. "There must be a reason all three of us came to this exact village. He must be laughing to himself elsewhere, watching all of this."
Jax found it strange for the two of them to be talking about the Navigator as if they were familiar with him, even though neither of them should have met the being at all.
"Are you a Sorcerer too?" Jax asked the young man.
"Nope, a warrior."
"Then how did she know who you were?" Jax asked.
The young man smiled. "She didn’t. I told her. I saw something interesting and guessed that she had to be one as well."
The woman looked at the other two men. "So, what now?" she asked.
"Well, we should take some time for ourselves and talk things out," the young man said. "But, I do believe there is only one reason we’ve been brought together, isn’t there?"
The woman thought for a bit and nodded. "I suppose there is. So, we’re going to form a party, aren’t we?"
"We must," the young man said and turned toward Jax. "I doubt any of us have a party anyway, do we?"
Jax was stunned. He had just met these two, and they were already asking him to form a party?