Noticing the other adventures arriving Marcus and the party he had been talking to stopped their conversation to listen to the what the arriving adventures had to say. Once the newcomers had finished there introductions to the merchants they came over towards Marcus and the other adventures.
"Salutation, you must be the other adventures that will be joining us on this journey. It is nice to meet you all I am the leader of Shining Ice, the names Bodie, and these are my party members Ingrid and Mia. We are all copper adventures."
'Wow these guys are definitely new adventures like me, in fact they look even more green. They all have cheap leather armor and iron weapons, though I think the girl Mia is probably a mage judging by her staff. I can already see there group dynamic the two girls both like the pretty boy and decided to follow him being adventures.'
The other man that had walked in with them introduced himself right after.
"The names Ari, bronze adventure I use a war hammer."
'Well, that was short and to the point.'
After the newcomers had introduced themselves the party that had arrived first began their introductions as well.
"We are Wild Wind, iron adventures, I am the leader Bryce, this is Jasper, Bo, and Harold."
'I guess it is my turn to introduce myself.'
"I'm Irene copper adventure pleased to make your acquaintance."
After giving his introduction the adventures that had just arrived gave Marcus some skeptical looks noticing his lack of weapons or armor. Seeing that he was running into this problem again Marcus quickly showed off his magic to placate the other adventures. The leader of Wild Wind then spoke up and said. "Well now that introductions are out of the way, since we are the highest-ranking adventures here, I believe we should take charge of this mission are there any who disagree."
Waiting a few moments to see if there would be any dissent the leader of wild wind began speaking again.
"Since we are all in agreement, I think we should figure out our formation for protecting the merchants. Shining Ice, you will be the vanguard, Irene and Ari will be the rearguard, and we will take the side guard. As I have the most experience make sure to follow my directions and we should all make it out of this alive."
'Wow Bryce is a real take charge kind of guy I can tell he has a good amount of experience leading. Now I wonder what everyone's levels are looking like, let's take a quick peek.'
Using his creature appraisal skill Marcus inspected all of the other adventure as well as the merchants.
'Hm, as expected I cannot see any of the levels of the wild wind party, or Ari, but shining Ice is about what I anticipated all of them are level eight and are definitely the weakest link. Of the Four merchants the kid is level six, two of them are level seven while the last one is level ten like me. Judging from his attire and the sword at his waist I suspect he was sent by the boys father as a personal guard.'
Once he had finished his appraisal Marcus headed to the rear of the carts with Ari as the other adventures took their positions. Once everything was situated the group began to travel towards the west gate of River Landing starting their journey to Loursend. The group managed to exit River Landing without any trouble and got on the road heading to Loursend. The group traveled for hours on the road with the river to their left and rolling hills to there right.
'Well, this is boring, I thought traveling might be more fun but so far all we have done is walk and staring at the river or hills got boring around an hour ago. I also tired talking to Ari, but the dude is like a brick wall, I may not be very sociable myself, but this guy is quite as a mouse.'
While Marcus was thinking to himself, and the party was just making it to the top of a hill Marcus saw a breath-taking site.
'Holy shit those are some huge mountains, some of them are so tall the tops are covered in clouds, it reminds me of the Himalaya Mountain range back on Earth.'
While gazing at the massive mountain range before him it took Marcus a minute to notice that the rest of his group was leaving him behind and he hurriedly ran to catch up. Marcus slapped himself on his cheeks to get his head back in the game since he was not here to sightsee but make sure that his clients stayed safe.
Soon the rolling hills made way for a massive forest that seemed to go on endlessly making visibility a lot worse than before. The leader of Wild Wind then stopped the convoy and began addressing the whole group.
"This is where things start to get more dangerous, whatever you do, don't go to far into the woods and stick together. There are a number of threats such as magical beasts, monsters, and bandits, make sure to keep on your toes."
After giving his warning the group began moving again and entered the woods. Once inside Marcus felt a sense of familiarity realizing that these trees were the same species as the forest, he had previously resided in.
'Now that I think about it considering its name this could just be another part of the Great Gome Woods, I wonder what kind of threats were going to run into, there were somethings I saw previously that I am certain we could not handle.'
As he was reminiscing about his time in the Great Gome Woods one of the leader of Wild Wind spotted something approaching the carts.
"There is an armored bear approaching from the north, prepare to defend the merchants, Wild Wind formation D, the rest of you back us up and stay out of our way."
After wild wind pointed it out Marcus got a good look at the incoming enemy.
'Ah it is my old friend the scaled bear, or I guess its proper name is armored bear. This one looks to be seven feet long about the same size as the one I managed to kill. I wonder if I will be more effective now that I am two levels higher.'
Once the bear got closer it gave an angry growl and charged towards the members of Wild Wind who had finished setting up their formation. The leader and another member had a long swords and shield and were facing down the bear. While the other members were wielding a spear and a bow attacking from behind the protection of the shields. The bear tried to swipe its claws at the members of Wild Wind but with their expert shield work they deflected each of its attacks. The other member did not sit idly by during this and pressed the attack with flying arrows and swift spear thrusts.
'They are pretty impressive I can tell they have a lot of battle experience with each other. However, the bear's scales are pretty tough, and they are not doing that much damage. This is a good chance to see how my new scythe can perform let's get in there.'
Marcus then rushed towards the bear having already cast his iron skin spell over his arms and torso to protect himself. Once in range he took out the scythe from his item box and slashed it towards the bear's side. When it connects it stabbed into the scales but only traveled around three inches into its flesh. The bear snarled at Marcus and swatted his scythe away before lunging towards him with a bite. Marcus barely managed to roll away as the bears jaws closed like a vice mere inched from him.
"Are you trying to get yourself kill let us handle this, back up and support us with ranged spells if you have any."
Marcus did as he was told and backed up and shot off the occasional fire shot towards the bear while thinking.
'Hm, I thought that I would be able to do some more damage but I barley cut into the surface of the bear… wait didn't the storekeeper I bought this from say something about channeling mana through the weapon, and now that I look at it, I think the weapon of the leader of Wild Wind has a green aura around it.'
After his epiphany Marcus started circulating magic through his body like he does when casting a spell but instead of using the mana as fuel for a spell, he sent it into the handle of his scythe causing his mana to engulf the weapon.
'Hah it worked I can feel that my weapon is a lot stronger, now let us see how that bear holds up this time.'
Marcus once again charged towards the bear scythe in hand, and he slashed the scythe downward with all his might and unlike last time the scythe sliced through the bear like butter. Blood stated to gush out of the horrible wound Marcus had just inflicted and the bear let out a death curdling roar. Realizing it could not win the bear turned around and tried to retreat, however, Marcus was not done testing his new enhanced scythe and slashed sideways lobbing off one of the bears hind feet causing it to stumble. The bear then was quickly worn down by Marcus and the members of Wild Wind until it took its last breath signaling victory.
