Risk, after all, was opportunity. Opportunity was the path of ambition and greatness. The Path was a minor risk, but where better to find both spiritual enlightenment and seek a challenge than in the footsteps of the Supernatural Elephant?

  “We will follow the Path,” Oras decided, once he had sorted his thoughts.

  A clear frown underlined Torm’s displeased hum. “Can’t say I agree with making your life harder than it needs to be, but we have been over this. I’m here to mentor you, so I’ll follow.”

  “You have my gratitude.”

  “It’ll be interestin’,” Theria drawled in her homely accent. “Ain’t nothin’ more fulfilling than feeling the sun on your face and the wisdom of the Supernatural Elephant in your soul.”

  They departed immediately after that.

  Getting on the Path immediately in Kumse was not possible. Although it started there, it could not be traced into and out of the city on foot by regular people. For obvious reasons, the city did not want to have a god-machine sized holes in its fortifications, especially not one that faced the interior of the peninsula, where all the trouble lived.

  The engineers of the Primary Cult had engineered an incredibly impressive system of wall segments that could be lowered and raised whenever needed. Certain ritualistic events may have permitted that to occur outside of the passage of the Supernatural Elephant. Oras had not read about such events ever occurring. Certain was only that they would not lower even one wall segment for one aged and two novice adventurers.

  So they left through the southern gate, then took the turn towards the Path. There was a fork in the road, created by the feet of thousands of pilgrims over hundreds of years, that brought them where they wanted to be.

  The Path of the Supernatural Elephant was a glorious testament both to the hard work of Kumse and the longevity of the Cult. The ground was a mosaic of flat stones, cut by masons and laid by workers over hundreds of years into a multitude of pictures. Some flowed into one another, others were framed as their individual pieces. Some were ancient, others fairly new.

  The Path required constant maintenance. Its sheer length demanded thus. Trees around the laid stones had to be cut down before they got large enough for their roots to mess with the path. Even though the steps of the Supernatural Elephant had long since consolidated the ground to the utmost, the wash of the rain could still cause dirt to shift. If the path was to remain the level work of art it currently was, every village located by its length had to do its part. Thus, the Path was representative of the unity of the Cult itself, harmonious in its shared road to wisdom, despite the many local differences.

  Great pillars marked the edges of the Road. Like the mosaics, some were ancient, others new. The tradition of erecting them originated in the few Precursor pillars, whose purpose had long since been forgotten.

  Theria ran a short bit ahead, making her way to one of the many depressions that had been left behind by the Supernatural Elephant. Every year, it walked the exact same steps and the imprints the untold repetitions of that had left behind were perfectly spherical to Oras’ eyes. The edges had been reinforced with capstone, the sides of each hole decorated by the hands of young artists on pilgrimage. The bottom of each hole, however, was simple dirt. Any art that could have been placed there would have been crushed, ground into the dirt that was so dense that pools of rainwater had gathered in the footsteps, incapable of running off.

  “Ya ever wonder why the water is so clear?” Theria asked, looking down into the small lake. Each footprint of the Supernatural Elephant was easily twenty metres across and three deep. Some of the stones around the edges were specifically carved so someone that fell in could climb back out. “It’s just standin’ in there, it should be a bit stagnant at least.”

  Oras looked up, at the cloudy sky. “It might be the regular rainfall?” he theorized, then shook his head. “No, too much dirt should get swept in these, even if they overflow with some regularity. It must be the blessing of the Elephant. Its benevolent effects through water are well known.”

  “Right, Baptism of the Trunk and all that,” Theria responded. “Still wonder how ya dealt with sitting still in a tub for an entire day.”

  “It was surprisingly simple, I just cherished the fact that I did not have a redheaded tomboy nagging me.”

  “Oy! I do not nag!” Theria put a hand on her hips and wagged her finger in his direction. “I demand!”

  “If you do not mind, we will have to do plenty of extra walking without your delays,” Torm pulled them out of their playful lovers’ quarrel. “The Path ahead is long.”

  “This ain’t your adventure,” Theria retorted.

  Torm pulled his shoulders back lightly, but patiently waited. He was clearly still annoyed by the decision, which rubbed up against Theria’s delight in it. Obviously, Oras has a preferential party member here and thus he took in the scenery with his wife for as long as they both desired.

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  Only after did they step off the path itself and onto the human-walked dirt trail that ran parallel to it. It was a little nicer to walk the long distance there, because of shade and protection from the rain. In their tropical climate, both were an important good.

  Torm kept quiet at the helm of the group. Theria was a step in front of Oras, but looked back frequently. For his part, the Dragonblood was also constantly scanning the environment. Vigilance was just one of the instruments in an adventurer’s toolbox that he wanted to keep sharp.

  Oras’ eyes wandered over the nearby ferns. A light shifting of some leaves was his first warning. His body tensed in anticipation of danger, a first response without commitment. His eyes scanned more carefully. He spotted nothing - then he locked eyes with something in the darkness of the ferns.

  “Sabretooth!” he yelled.

  The animal chose that same moment to attack, sprinting out of the ferns and at Theria. With the warning given, Torm was more than quick enough to join Oras in forming a defensive wall between the cat and its target.

  It was a huge specimen of its species, larger than any Oras had seen in his life before. With shoulders at the height of the party leader’s waist, the orange-furred creature was a mountain of elegance and muscle.

  It stopped short in its charge, slowing to a slow tapping towards them. It did not just have the size to be a maneater, its pale green eyes also betrayed a cunning that most animals lacked. The pair of curved teeth that gave this variety of jungle predator its name protruded in their sharpness from both sides of the jaw.

  [AI Generated Enemy Picture]

  It had lost the element of surprise, yet continued to advance. There was a confidence in its bulk that Oras could not blame it for. “We could try to just scare it away,” Torm suggested.

  “That thing clearly hunted people before,” Theria said, already readying her bow. “We gotta kill it.”

  For just a brief moment, Torm took his eyes off the creature, to look back at the redhead. That was the moment the animal pounced. Its enormous form suddenly broke into a sprint, leaping at the aged adventurer.

  Torm ripped his right arm up just in time for his vambrace to take the bite instead of his neck. Golden light flared around the piece of leather-wrapped armour. Shielding runes formed a barrier that then shattered into dissolving pieces of energy beneath the yellowy teeth of the cat. Although the enchantment was broken, it had taken enough of the momentum of the huge cat that Torm managed to stand upright.

  Corded muscles under old skin tensed. Veins bulged as the superhuman strength the unambitious adventurer had slowly cultivated over his career came to the full front. By the expectations of every regular person, seeing Torm shove back a jungle cat that was, on its hind legs, taller than him was ridiculous.

  Still, that was what happened. The maneater was sent onto its back, immediately turning into a storm of swipes of its paws as it instinctively fought to make any attack against it impossible.

  The calculation worked in the wild and it certainly made the two melee fighters of the party keep their distance - but Theria had only waited for this kind of moment. Calmly, she took aim, her green eyes sharp, focused only on the fight.

  The arrow whizzed between Oras and Torm. A short flight left more of the kinetic force to translate into the body of the sabertooth when it was struck. The sharp tip of the arrow sank deep into the soft belly fur. The cat roared in aggression, then tried to rise.

  Whatever Theria had struck, it had been important. The creature lost its experienced grace in an instant, a grogginess dominating its motions instead.

  Oras struck before it could recover from this. He snapped forwards with the same wildness as the animal and simply slammed his reinforced knuckles into the maneater’s forehead. There was a light cracking, the huge animal’s skull too thick to straight up shatter from the impact. Its mind, however, was not safe from concussion.

  The sabertooth’s legs collapsed, all of its motor function simply giving in. It was still breathing, still alive, but twitching and bleeding intensely from an arrow wound that all the motions had only opened wider. Fluids other than red ichor were mixed into the flow, indicating that Theria’s arrow had penetrated some vital organ.

  Torm took it upon himself to deliver the mercy cut to the neck with his sword. “You got lucky it went for me first,” he let them know and raised his vambrace. “You would not have gotten away that well from that bite.”

  “I agree,” Oras simply stated.

  “You’re really strong, old tim’r,” Theria added a compliment with a wide grin. It dropped a bit when she looked at the vambrace and the indentations the cat’s teeth had left on it. “Hope that didn’t cost ya a bunch of money?”

  “Standard barrier enchantment,” the veteran let them know with a casual wave. “It’ll recover quickly.” He looked at the sabertooth, then into the nearby forest. “You’ve got a classical adventurer’s problem here now,” he told them. “Can’t really skin this thing right here, so you either leave it to rot, which is a shame for the money, run to get someone to buy it off you, which takes a whole lot of time and haggling, or carry it to the nearest settlement, which we could do but is still a detour.” He stopped and looked at Oras. “Your decision, leader of the Dragonhoard.”

  The Dragonblood looked at the corpse of the maneater. It was a huge cat and its pelt definitely was worth a pretty penny. Carrying it was only a realistic option because Torm was with them, otherwise moving that mountain of muscle would have been as impossible as skinning it with their multipurpose knives. They kept them in good condition, but a proper skinning required a sharpness they did not have and the pelt needed to be treated soon after anyhow.

  “Any villages nearby?” Oras asked the more experienced man.

  Torm rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “There should be one Sweetwell nearby. With the carcass, we could get there in… five hours?”

  “Without it?” Oras asked.

  “Two?”

  ‘So four to and back,’ Oras considered. They wouldn’t get as much money out of it if the buyer also had to transport the carcass, but some money was better than none. However, it could also be said that no money would be better than this trouble. It would be a nice pelt, but how much gold would they really get out of it for being the supplier of the body? Not even a tenth of how much it was going to be worth once it was tanned and everything, that much was for certain.

  At the end of the calculation, one fact was clear: some gold was better than no gold. Their mission was not particularly time-sensitive. Nothing would be lost and something stood to be gained.

  “We will carry it,” Oras announced.

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