Tale of Death

Chapter 11 - Travelling Alone

She decided to first search the carriage she came in for a map, along with any useful things that could keep her alive while she walked. However, before doing anything like that, she paid her respects to the old man that bought her so far out and even lost his life, it was the least she could do for him since he gave her advice and was nice. She couldn't do much, but she buried him just under the sand so he would be preyed on by birds, pouring some of the beer from the carriage over the grave, since he liked it so much.

Once done, she began to search through the rubble of the broken carriage, shifting around the wood and looking for anything of use. There wasn't a lot, most of the things were broken, with all the beer and wine now saturating the desert floor.

As she searched around, she found something that caught her attention. A small leather bag that contained a few silver coins, and some salted meat rations for when she got hungry. Noticing this was a great find, especially if she was going to be traveling through the desert, she tied the string around her belt.

After searching around some more, she found a small folded piece of leather that lay on the ground. Opening it up, it showed a very old map, even stained with some things she didn't want to know about. Lacking any detail, it basically just showed the main outline of the larger biomes and main cities, with nothing else, obviously being a low-quality map.

It would do for now though, all she needed was to find her way to the closest city, which would be much harder without the map.

Once she finished searching, she decided to set off before it got dark, the least she wanted to do was find a cave to sleep the night in, sleeping in the open during the night would be like screaming at the monsters to come to get her. She wasn't that stupid, and because she wasn't that stupid, before she left she took a dagger from the dead female bandit.

She didn't know how to use it, but it was better than her bare hand.

Looking around, Shi spotted the horse that was used to pull the carriage a little in the distance, it seemed it returned even after getting released when the carriage was destroyed, he must have been trained well. That was great from Shi, even if she has never ridden a horse before, it was still better than walking. So walking over to the horse, she made herself seem as non-threatening as she could, holding out her hand to ease the horse.

It went well, he didn't seem to be that wary of her, so, she then hopped onto the horse struggling at first to even get on, and stay on, but eventually, she got the hang of it. With one shake of the lead, the horse took off, almost shaking the girl off from the back in the process.

Holding on tightly, she pulled on the lead to get the horse to go in the direction she wanted it to go, at first, she struggled because the horse didn't seem to understand what she was doing, but eventually, it just went the way she wanted it to go, so she gave up on trying to force it.

As they galloped through the desert, sanding kicking up behind them as they moved quickly, Shi stayed observant of everything around them and passed on the trip. She was making sure nothing suddenly jumped out at them, while also absorbing all she could about the outside world, a world she has never had the chance to see before in full.

In just this short trip, she has seen more plants than she had ever seen before, and on rare occasions, she also saw some strange animals that were both cute and dangerous. The environment itself was a marvel, seemingly decorated in large dunes, trees that grew even in the heated sunlight, and what looked like broken pieces of buildings that laid just below the sandtop. It was like a painting, one that she wished she could have taken home with her.

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Time passed quickly while traveling and viewing the wonders, with the sun starting to lower itself below the horizon, and the darkness started to creep onto the land. Shi knew that it would be too dangerous to keep going in such darkness, not only because of how hard it would be to see the path ahead but because of the dangerous creatures and the possibility of more bandits that roam in the shadows of the night as their cover.

After around an hour more of searching, she finally found a small cave which she decided to use as a camp for the night, at least she wouldn't be outside. The cave really wasn't big at all and was quite damp due to the coldness of the desert night kicking in, but if anything it would act as a good shelter for the time being.

Coming to a stop, she first brought the horse inside the cave, so as to not let it be seen outside and eaten, and tied it to a large enough rock she found.

Once that was dealt with, she gathered some stone and formed a fireplace, thankful, during the ride she thought ahead enough to collect some wood from the few trees she saw, in order to make a fire she would need at night, the dwarf had told her about how cold it got at night in the desert.

"Dammit." She said under her breath, slamming the two rocks together once more for an unknown number of times. She had been trying to start a fire for the last few minutes, and all she got were mere sparks, no one told her how annoyingly hard it was to do this.

Exasperated, she slammed the rocks together one last time, and, to her surprise, it worked. The sparks landed on the wood and started a small flame, which she quickly fanned to get going, this was going to keep her from freezing tonight, she needed it.

After a bit of time, the flames grew larger, she added more wood, and soon the entire cave had a nice warm fire going. Shi took a moment to relax, she was so tired, but she couldn't sleep yet, she had to make sure the fire kept burning throughout the night, as well as keep an eye out on the surrounding. Not to mention, she forgot a very vital part of her survival.

Well, not that vital.

She forgot to take a sleeping bag from the carriage before she left. "No, no i didn't forget i just left it, yea, it was heavy and there is a long way to go, it would be extra weight." She said chuckling to herself as she avoided blaming herself for not taking a sleeping bag from the wreckage.

So, her plan was to sleep directly on the ground, she figured the coldness would help her to fall asleep faster if that made any sense at all. Not yet though, she wanted to keep an eye out still in the night.

Hours passed like this, Shi just sitting there as she stared into the flames, her mind wandering from place to place, thinking about her travels so far.

Eventually, she grew so tired she couldn't stay awake anymore, her body was extremely fatigued from whatever she did before, as well as riding all the way here.

Her eyelids grew heavier with each passing second, and without her even being aware of when she drifted off to sleep.