Jay was silently following and directing his little two-hander skeleton, Handy, through the forest.
So far, he sensed the marks he placed on the mage hunters had gone west of Losla as well as back to the guild, but as he went further south it was harder to recognise where they were exactly. He went from knowing their exact location to having a vague sense of which direction they were in.
Jay travelled as quickly as he could, jumping over logs, dashing across streams and hopping across moss-covered rocks as he came closer and closer to the tip of the mountain range.
Thankfully, the vegetation was thinning out as he got closer, so his skeleton rarely had to cut open a path anymore.
Jay was also glad as it seemed that there were not many forest animals around to distract him or his skeleton, as they were probably scared off by the large mana wave from the stink-rat marsh.
This made the journey quite uneventful, but it was perhaps for the best.
It may not always be like this though, as there was the possibility that some aggressive creatures would be attracted to the mana pulse, so Jay made the most of it as he covered as much ground as he could.
*huff huff huff*
Jay’s energy dwindled and signs of fatigue began to show themselves.
It seemed the mountain range was much further away than he initially thought.
He sat down for a moment as he waited for his energy to replenish. His new skeleton, Handy, came and stood before him as it waited for new orders.
Jay waited for his energy to recover for a moment but he soon got an idea.
“Hmm... the skeletons have infinite energy...” his lips curled into a mischievous smile.
Jay immediately began to put his skeleton to work.
The skeleton responded to Jay’s thoughts as it went away to begin cutting some small trees - though with one requirement: they had to be long and straight, and about the width of a sword handle.
In the meantime, Jay summoned his other skeletons.
Blue, Red, Lamp, Dark, Heavy and Sweeper popped up from the pile of bones, ready to serve their master.
Jay felt a little more at ease now that his skeletons were around. Previously he almost felt like he was being watched, but there was a sense of safety in numbers.
Somehow, it felt like his skeletons brought a sense of warmth to him.
As Handy chopped the small trees down, a flat cut was left on the remaining part of the tree. It would be much too obvious that this was a human's work, and this is one reason why the skeletons were summoned.
Jay felt a little uneasy making his skeletons do this, but one by one, each of them got down onto their knees and, non-sexually, chewed on the cut-marks.
The skeletons' partly tooth filled skulls were perfect as now it simply looked like the trees had been roughly chewed and destroyed by some wild animal.
The only ones spared from this duty were Heavy and Handy.
Handy was spared because it was busy chopping, and Heavy because it was collecting the chopped down trees to bring to Jay.
Jay changed back into his Molodus coat, feeling much more comfortable as he slipped it on. The coat seemed to adjust itself as it greeted his body once more; almost like it was glad to be home.
Jay ripped up his old cloak into long strands and created two piles of small trees.
Soon enough there was enough wood for Jay’s purposes, so he had Handy and Heavy come back to assist him; he had them remove the extra branches and leaves until they resembled long sticks.
Next, he tied the long strands of ripped up cloak around two bundles of sticks, forming what was like two long make-shift beams.
Finally, Jay pulled out his chair from his inventory and placed it on top of the two long pseudo beams, before sitting in the chair himself.
For a moment he simply sat there as he waited for his other skeletons to finish gnawing on the wood stems.
As he waited, he added the extra bones from the summoning pile back into his ring, but he grabbed just enough to craft an ossein sword and held them on his lap for a moment.
The skeletons finally completed their task and they marched back; each of them had wood splinters, twigs and leaves stuck in their teeth; their jaws stained with a green colour.
Jay felt sort of bad for doing it, but he couldn’t afford to waste anymore time.
“Quick.” Jay said as he gave them more orders mentally.
Three of them lined up on either side of the chair and picked up the wooden beams, lifting the chair and Jay along with it. This was the second reason why the skeletons were summoned.
Jay felt quite royal at this moment, sitting on his throne carried by his loyal troops.
“Go.” he smiled.
Each of them began marching slowly. They had to remain slow because they almost dropped Jay a few times, but after a while it seemed that they got used to it and could travel at walking speed while carrying Jay smoothly.
Since the skeletons were lighter than Jay, and all six of them were dispersing his weight between them, they actually left weaker imprints in the dirt and leaves on the forest floor - though the same couldn’t be said about Heavy.
Heavy had replaced Handy as the vegetation clearer, as carrying all its armour and Jay would have made things quite difficult.
As Jay grew more confident in his skeletons and the ride became more stable, he began to craft weapons while sitting in his chair with the bones in his lap.
After crafting a level three ossein sword last time, it seemed that his class remembered it and he didn’t have to concentrate as much. This helped a lot due to the slight bouncing motion while he was on the throne.
“One down...” he looked around at his skeletons, “four more to go.”
“...and three daggers.” he glanced at Dark and Heavy.
As Jay watched Heavy, he realised he also had to make another shield for it too. He was a little dissatisfied, as unlike the armour, the shield didn’t stay with its body when it died
Jay started with a dagger for Heavy next, as he also didn’t want to let the armoured skeleton dual-wield the ossein sword for too long and possibly influence its future role choices.
During the journey there was some rougher terrain: streams and steep walls of dirt, so Jay was forced to hop off the throne so they could continue their journey smoothly.
This strategy continued for hours, and compared to other adventurers his level, his speed through the forests was unimaginable.
Not only would a normal adventurer have to stop to rest, but they would also be losing energy by constantly slashing at the vegetation - not to mention, the skeletons were even getting faster while carrying Jay.
They started at a slow walk, but after repetitive practice in the last few hours, they could travel at jogging speed now.
Unfortunately, jogging speed was as fast as the heavy armoured skeleton could move, and was simply too slow, so this would be their max speed for now.
Jay didn’t mind though.
There was still the option of unsummoning Heavy, but then he would have to cut the vegetation and resummon the skeleton when he was tired. It would be a waste of mana and may not even be much faster.
Besides, the marks he left on the mage hunters were so far away now that it seemed like they had merged into one.
The tension of escaping was beginning to wane, and he felt like he had succeeded - but still, he kept his skeletons marching forward.
The sun was setting and in only a few moments it turned dark; the thick leaf canopy above blotted out the remains of sunlight scraping across the sky - but Jay kept his minions marching forward as the darkness didn’t matter to them anyway.
Due to their [Shade Vision] they could easily spot a root or a rock in daylight or night time, so there was little chance of tripping over.
Still, Jay felt uneasy as his skeletons continued to jog through the forest since he couldn’t even see the ground anymore. He had to learn to trust them.
As they got closer to the base of the mountain range, the throne was slowly tilting backwards - combined with the darkness and gentle bouncing, it only served to make Jay feel more relaxed.
His eyelids were getting heavier and began closing, and he tried to snap out of it a few times but it was a losing battle.
“Wake me up if something happens or if I need to get off,” he said to Blue.
Jay didn’t plan to sleep but this was just a precaution.
Suddenly, as the last traces of light left the sky and the forest was drowned in pitch blackness, a howl sounded in the forest.
“Fuck.” Jay thought as he looked around - yet he couldn’t see anything and he snapped out of his sleepiness.
More howls sounded out until it became a chorus of howling sounds, almost like they were coming from all around him.
