I keep walking, following the directions that the ground is giving me, until I hear it.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Rival mutters. “It’s led you to a hot spring.”
“I need to do this quickly,” I say, still following what the realm is telling me.
“Got it,” Kill says. “We will spread out around the hot spring and keep you safe. If the realm has told you that this is the best course of action, then we would be stupid not to follow its advice.”
I nod.
They all spread out, and I wait until I know that they’re in position before I dump my bag at the edge of the small spring and look at the water. The realm brought me here, so I know that it’s safe, but I’m still stepping into a body of water with no way of knowing what is in the water, and that’s a concern for me.
I’m sure it would be a concern for most people.
I don’t have the time to let my fear of what could be in the water stall me. I start to take my shirt off when the ground vibrates beneath my feet- oh man.
Seriously? I can’t help but direct the thought at the realm, and I’m surprised when the realm comes back with a resounding yes.
At least that’s certainly what it feels like.
Doing as I’m told, I abandon the idea of trying to take my shirt off and walk straight into the warm water, clothes and boots and all.
I immediately submerge my head under water too, reaching up and raking my fingers through my hair to get any trace of the creature out of it. The water is deliciously warm, and under any other circumstances I would be taking my time and bathing properly.
I would definitely be inviting the others to come in too.
But we don’t have that time. There was an undeniable urgency to the warning that the realm gave me.
I struggle to pull off my wet clothes and leave them in the water like the realm told me to do.
I fucking hate wet clothes.
I pause when I get to my boots so I can pull my jeans off. I can’t leave my boots behind because they’re my only pair, so I scrub them really well and then place them on the side by my bag so that I can use my air magic to dry them off.
Once that’s done, I dive under the water one more time to make sure that I’ve gotten everything that I’m supposed to off and then climb out quickly, pulling on a set of my clean clothes and grateful that my boots are actually dry.
“Alright guys, I’m done,” I call out.
They’re back surrounding me within moments.
“Where are your old clothes?” Rast asks. “If the realm warned you that you needed to get all of the ichor off you, then it probably isn’t a good idea to take them with you.”
I point to the hot spring, “In there. The realm had the same idea, and that’s what it told me to do with them.”
Rast smiles and shakes its head, “It is absolutely nuts to me that the realm speaks to you like it seems to.”
I shrug, “I know. It doesn’t exactly feel sane to me either.”
“Come on, let’s get back on track,” Kill suggests. “We’ve already wasted so much time.”
We all start to turn around so that we can head back the way that we came, but before we can get very far, flames blaze to life in the hot spring. Reaching high into the air but somehow not touching any of the trees, they crackle and hiss and pop. It burns so hot that I wince and move further away, along with the others.
The flames die down as quickly as they appeared, and when my eyes get used to the darkness again, I’m surprised to see that the hot spring looks exactly as it did before.
It’s not even steaming or hissing.
“Holy fuck!” Hades exclaims. “You could have been in that when it did that.”
Chapter Twenty
