A path to ascention. Soul lords trials.

When Oren woke up in the morning, he was suprised to see that Rex was already awake and in odd sitting postion. He remained as he was, watching over the younger man for aproximately an hour, before Rex opened his eyes and moved, prompting Oren to start acting as if he was stirred from sleep by Rex's movement. As a hunter with quite a few yeasr on his back, it took him no time whatsoever to be up and about, and as he exited the tent, he noticed how fast Rex moved to the still burning campifre, where a few other hunters where gathered and prepearing a breakfast. The meat he had saved from last days doe in one hand and a couple of branches he had picked up on the way in the other.

Wasting no time, Rex found a free side of the fireplace, and proceeded to slice the meat in relatively thin slices and stab said slices on the branches he had brought with him. HE then placed them near the fire. Due to the nature of the thin meat slices, it was cooked rather quickly. Rex repeated the same action untill the entirelty of his meat saving were cooked, after which he moved back to their tent, where he proceeded to devour it all. Oren was slightly suprised by the mans apetite, well aware that he could not consume such an amount of meat in one sitting. The dissapointd sigh from the youth told a different story entirely.

"Should have kept more of the beast, no?" Oren jokingly asked, and his eyes widened in suprise when Rex grunted and nodded in affirmation. Rex then looked towards Oren once again, a single word leaking from his mouth.

"Hunt?"

"In about thirty minutes." responded Oren with a shake of his head, recieving a nod and a grunt from Rex, after which Oren left the tent, walking towards the hunters near the campfire who where prepearing breakfast for themselves and the rest of the younglings.

"What up with your charge Oren? Where did he get the meat? Pretty sure none of the charges should have any food or coin with them?" asked one of the hunters who had observed Rex earlier.

"Went out to hunt yesterday after the introduction."

"No way? And, so?"

"That kid seems off, in more ways than one." Oren responed. "It left like I was in the presence of a seasoned hunter. he did everything with precision and confidence, it was hard to asume he not be one uf us. Only when he skinned the doe that he managed to fell yesterday that I noticed the flaws of a rookie. And that was what he was cooking back then. Or at least what remained with him, after he sold the rest to the guild hall yesterday."

"Wait, are you saying you avoided the Bork patrols?"

"Yes, each and every one of them, it was not even close, truth be told. I somewhat want to see him run into one, for whatever reason. It just feels like the kid hides more than that too. Remember he picked a sword as his melee wapon, not a spear."

"So, a monster has come out of the village once more eh? Anyone heard anything from the other villages hunters?"

"A snippet here and there, but nothing noteworthy." chimed in yet another of the hunters.

"So, no legendary party reborn just yet?" the fourth chimed in.

"Highly unlikely. Rat is quiet to the point of seeming mute. Had he not spoken a word to convey his intent to go hunt, I would asume he was just that- mute."

"Heh, I would say you lucked out Ore. Mine is a chatterbox, through and through, constantly yapping on about something. I can only hope that she shuts up during the hunts."

"Yes Oren, count your lucky stars there, mine is also quite annoying. Believes he is a big shot because his old man is the villages blacksmith."

"Uff, yea. That family has always been a bit too arrogant for their own good." winced Oren. "So, got anything ready for me to chow down quickly? Mine wants to head out already for another hunt."

"Eager much? Did his yesterdays success got to his head?"

"If only. He was up and about before me. Spent gods knows how long in a strange pose, what I can only assume, cleansing his mind, or meditating, or whateber else." replied Oren once again.

"Planning suggesting him as a potential member to the hall?"

"Need to observe longer. While he seems skilled and gifted beyond belief, I have yet to see that spark that can be seen in our eyes when we trail a quarry. So far, it does not look like his heart and soul is in the process."

"Here, the first bowl of porridge." The one stirring the pot, spoke, interrupting their conversation, while another handed him a rather large sized bun.

"Speak later, once we see how the others perform in their first outing."

"Mhm." Orren nooded his head as he blew on his steaming hot bowl of porridge.

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Thirty minutes later, just as some of the early birds of the younger generation started to slowly crawl out of their tents, Oren and Rex left the encampment, already on their way deeper into the valley. Once again, Orren observed as Rex was extremely carefull and meticuluos in his advancement, leaving no uncertainties behind, avoiding the Bork patrols with the same precision and ease as the day before. And while they did not encounter any doe today, Rex did fell four rabits during the first half of the day. What was somewhat suspicious thought, was Rex's offer during their walk, when he spoke quite a bit more than he had so far.

"You hold, We share later. Yes?" he asked as he held the four rabits to Oren, who glanced at him suspiciously.

"Even if I agree, dont expect me to act as you personal porter."

"No. Just these."

"Fine. I dont mind eating some rabbit stew later." Oren responed, to which Rex just nodded his head in agreement. And while oren did not understand Rex's reasoning at the start, Rex's actions later made it all painfully obvious. Whenever they ran into another member of their village, as they prowled through the forest, Rex acted quite a lot more dull than before, even earning a couple of taunts and laughs from his peers regarding his simplicty.

When met with the questioning gaze of his fellow hunter, Oren just pointed at the rabits tied to his belt, then a sneaky finger pointing to Rex, quickly followed by a shush sign, followed with another two, that meant 'Talk at the camp.' Once they were away from the other pair, Rex quickly regained his sharpness, looking like an entirely different beast alltogether. And while Rex did not aquire any other prey during the rest of the day, he did forage quite a few edible plants and berries. They even lucked unto a patch of wild sweet potatoes, something that grew in the valley quitea bit, even if somewhat uncommon in the outer reaches of it, where the hunters spent the most of their time. At least while with their charges.

Once back in the camp, Rex skinned and gutted the rabits quite quickly, spending little time on the cleaning of the potatoes as well. When he asked Oren for a pot, the latter just shrugged and provided his own, well aware that if Rex somehow managed to damage his, the youngster had enough silver from the doe to buy a new one. Another fourty minutes or so later, a rather pleasant aroma wafting out from the pot with the rabit meat, along with the potatoes and quite a few other herbs Rex had gathered.

"Done." Rex grubmled as he took the pot off the fire, gesturing Oren over to the pot. While he himself was not much of a cook as the blood mage of Blythe, leaving all the cooking in the hands of his wolfgirl, the memories and knowledge from his cultivator days more than made up for it. In a life, few centuries long, one tends to pick up quite a few tricks and trades, as it turns out. Filling the bowl Oren had presented with the stew, he placed the pot besides them, as he filled one for himself as well. They both ate in silence, with Oren finding the stew to be suprisingly delicious, quite soon refilling his own bowl with the second helping. Rex did the same soon enough, eventually both reaching the third helping, where Oren felt quite stuffed. Though there was still quite a bit left in his pot.

"Breakfast." Rex quietly spoke, pointing to teh remains of their meal, still in the pot.

"Could not agree more." Oren agreed. He had already mentioned at one point during their hunt that starting from the evening, they would have to rely on themselves and their teams, should they be joining up, for their meals. The first two provided because of the abrupt nature in which their were pulled out of their homes and rushed over. Once they both were inside their tent, Orens expression changed to be much more serious, as he turned to Rex.

"So kid, care to tell me whats with the deception? You act like a simpleton near your peers, probably the same goes for when you are in the village as well."

"A nail that sticks out gets hammered back in." Rex replied calmly, his voice half whisper, though loud enough for Oren to hear. "After this, I can join the group heading to town, where I plan to join aventurers guild. Aint no place for me in the village."

"Ha, ha ha ha. There you are right indeed." Oren chuckled as he heard the explanation, well aware of the nature of such small villages.

"So, care to extend our little agreement to the remaining few days? Whatever small game I take down, gets passed off as yours in the first half of the day. I gather some vegies and plants to make the stews better and we both end up happy. With the doe and a couple more rabits and smaller birds,something I could easily secure in a single day, I should get a decent score, or am I wrong?"

"Right on the money. But why dont you care about the rite?"

"If I register as an adventurer just days, maybee a few weeks after I 'earn' my name, what does it matter how a group of strangers decided to call me for said short amount of time? Only the name thats on my adventurers card matters from that point onwards. Especially if I dont plan to ever return to the village."

"Heh, yea. That does sound reasonable. Too much even. But hey, who am I to judge. Sure. I am game with your plan. Gods know that stew was great. Dont mind having more of it. And if I have to do nothing to earn it, all the better for me. Though the other hunters will be aware of the nature of your act. None will speak about it to you peers though, of that you can be sure."

"Dont care then. As long as I am not inconvinienced back in the village before I can leave for the city."

They soon lied down to sleep after their little conversation, what needed to be said was said, and the questions that were gnawing at Orens mind, answered. He could honestly understand the reasoning behing his charges path of thoughts. The orphans were not only not cared for in the village, but there was even a hint of dislike towards them, the old coots often favouring their own offspring, unless of course one of said orphans turned out to be a pretty girl, that their own children took a liking to.

With their mutual agreement, the remaining days untill the last, fifth one went on in a similar manner, with Rex upping his game a little bit to make their meals a bit more calory loaded and larger, though most of said enlarged portions he ate himself, with Oren already stuffing himself full with what they had on the second day.

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"Well its the last day kiddo." Oren spoke as they finished their breakfast. "Plan to up the ante a bit?"

"Hmrr" Rex shrugged his shoulders dismissivly.

"Huh, thought so. Though know that if the adventuring does not go according to plan, and you want a quiet place to settle down, I can recomend you to hunters hall. I spend most of my time here, or in camp Roimen, two weeks travel from here, on the other side of the valley, with the other camp housing me more. There is a small trading post near there too, making it a much more stable place to peddle your game as well, with this camp being more lucrative if you run into some of the big ticket preys. They are more often encounered here."

"Noted." he whispered the word, quiet enough that only Oren could hear it.

With that settled, they once again left the camp, Rex moved slightly faster today than before, though Oren noticed the same attention to details Rex had showed every day when they were alone. An hour later, a thought crossed his mind, one that was scary enough for an entirely different reason. 'Has he already learned the patrol patterns of the Bork scouting parties? Holy shit, that scary.' And the more they traveled in the forest, the more confident Oren was in his asumption. And while that did not matter one bit for the score Rex would recieve at the end of the great hunt, hunters like Oren knew just know important such skills and adaptability were.

Like the days before, Rex felled a couple of rabits and a couple of birds as well, quite similar to chickens, though with much larger wings that could support their flight. A few hours after midday, Rex suddenly stopped in his tracks, raising his hand to signal Oren to stop as well.

"Have you caught a whiff of blood in the last few minutes too?"

"Wait, you too? It was so faint I thought I just imagined it." Oren responded.

"Thought the same the first time around too, now its even stronger than before and I am not familiar with this particular scent."

"Yea, I dont like the looks of this." Oren added.

"Think one of the charges fucked up?"

"Could be, lets hope that its a group of them succeeding in felling a rather large quarry." Oren added.

"And how often thinking positively actually turns out that way? Did you not know? Everything that can go wrong, will."

"Cant let and old buck be positive for one, now can ya?"

"Just making sure the old buck does not go derranged, is all. See, just how nice I am."

"Lets check it out, just to be sure, yea? We hunters stick together and try to help one another out, if possible." Oren asked, his grip tightening on his bow.

"Sure, a favour for a favour. I do owe you one. And consider this as a half, can spend the other half if we ever meet again."

"Deal."

With their little chat over, their refocused on tracing the smell of the blood that they had caught on, slowly and carefully trecking through the forest. They had to stop every few minutes, as the wind sometimes changed its dirrection, making the smell dissapear entirely. At those moments they stopped, waited a bit, untill the dirrection of the wind changed again and the slight smell of blood caught their noses once again. As the minutes passed and with them getting ever closer to their destination, the smell of blood became stronger, untill eventually Oren spoke, confirming Rex's asumption.

"Yea, thats definetly Bork."

"Hmr, guessed so."

And finally, yet another few minutes later, they came upon a small cliff, a few meter drop before them. And further off in the distance they saw the reason for the smell.

"Well, shit!" cursed Oren, as he saw a group of hunters, along with their charges pused up a rather large tree, aproximately fifty Borks surrounding said tree, schreeching and growling at the people on the tree. Quite a few dead Borks lay around, heavily peppered with arrows, though even more were still active around the tree. There were even a couple of said orcs, slowly chopping away at the tree, but barely making any progress.

"Thats one tough tree." Noted Rex, as he saw the rather grimm situation before their eyes.

"Fuck" Oren grimaced as he was looking for a possible solution to the dissaster at hand, not finding any for the time being.

"Would you get many browny points for busting out their asses?" Rex asked, his tone somewhat light, even with his muffled voice.

"Not helping man. If you have time to joke around, help me figure a way to assist the others."

"I mean, they could ditch the charges, and then use the feeding frenzy to escape, though I assume that would be against the hunter code or something yea?" and seeing Orens sour expression, he nodded "Thought so."

"Fine." moment later he spoke "But I am gonna need your arrows, and afterwards, make sure your friends there dont let out a peep about what is agout to happen. They will no doubt question you... Wait, can you recognize one another by the arrows that you use?"

"Huh? Yea, we all have some identifier on our arrows. Easier to tell who fell the beast in case two hunters happen to blast the same beast as well."

"So, jea. Since they will know those are your arrows, they will question you. And as a decent fellow, you will fork it all up, not wanting to lie. So, once again, this better not reach the ears of the little shits there. No doubt they fucked up something big for the situation to arise. Arrows." he spoke as he extended his hand towards Oren.

"But, thats ove a hundred meters away. What help will arrows do from such a distance."

"Just gimme and watch, and dont try this at home." Rex wiggled his stretched arms fingers, demanding the arrows.

"Fine, take them." oren stretched his arm, his quiver in his hand.