Tarin was also heavy. He was conscious and dragging his feet in the snow, trying to walk with the support of Lyra and Arix, but still he was heavy. The group's pace slowed because of this.
The snow was falling fast with very heavy wind blowing. The sound of the wind was too loud. Arix could not hear anything except for his own breath and Tarin's breath and their footsteps.
He looked over his shoulder at Meilie, who was walking behind, supporting Tarin from behind. She supported him by carrying his backpack, which helped for now.
After about half an hour, Tarin muttered something. Arix looked at him, trying to understand, but the snowstorm drowned out his words.
The snow was getting deeper with every step, their feet were sinking deep as they walked. Arix's whole coat was covered in snow particles, and his vision narrowed—he could only see a few feet forward.
“Leave me. I can walk now,” Tarin whispered. Arix barely heard him and glanced over. His face was flushed red, his coat covered in snow, and he was panting, mouth open, his nose running from the cold.
“What are you talking about? You can’t walk like this.” Arix replied as he looked toward Lyra, she pointed toward something.
Arix narrowed his eyes and found a cave. Then he heard Lyra, “There’s a cave, let's go there.”
"Yes, let's go." He looked over his shoulder again at Meilie, gesturing toward the cave, as they changed their direction.
The cave was not far from them. It was good that they found it within the remaining daylight, because as soon as they entered, Arix looked up and saw the sun was just about to set.
They went a little deeper into the cave but stopped after a while.
"Let's camp here for tonight. We don't want to go much deeper with Tarin like this," Arix said, as they lay Tarin against the wall and started the fire around him.
Lyra took out her water pouch and put it beside the fire. After it was hot, she gave it to Tarin to drink. Meilie and Arix helped make a bed for tonight and lay Tarin down in his bed.
"It's a good thing we have enough food for about two weeks," Lyra said as she was frying the fish in the fire.
Meilie sat nearby, learning from Arix how to skin a rabbit.
Arix had learned to skin rabbits after leaving the forest and was still not good at it, but it would work for now.
After the fish and rabbit were cooked, they served it to Tarin with a bowl of hot water. He was still conscious and had not fallen asleep yet. He sat up before eating one cooked fish with water, then went to sleep again.
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Exhausted from the whole day, Lyra and Meilie also lay down in their beds, ready to rest for the night.
But Arix was not tired yet. He wanted to go deeper into the cave to look for anything he could find.
"Can you come with me, Meilie? I want your staff for light," he asked.
Meilie got up and nodded slowly before picking up her staff, ready to go.
"Don't go much deeper and come back soon," Lyra said as she watched them go into the cave.
The cave was dark and silent. Meilie's light was the only source of light Arix could see. Except for their footsteps, he heard the snowstorm in the distance, probably even stronger than when they got inside the cave.
A few drops of water were dripping from the surface of the cave too, Arix could see and hear droplets falling from time to time.
They both walked for about half an hour before Arix finally broke the silence around them. "This cave doesn't seem to end."
Meilie didn't react to this as she kept walking with him, looking to both sides for anything she could find.
"So, what type of magic can you use, Meilie?" Arix asked, trying to strike up a small conversation.
She looked around, unable to find what she was looking for, and pointed her staff forward. It got dark everywhere as her staff stopped emitting light for a moment. Arix couldn't see anything in the dark, but he could hear the wind blowing above Meilie's staff.
"Wind?" he said, and she nodded. Then the light appeared again.
"Any other?" he asked. She pointed her staff at Arix this time.
He stepped back a little. "What are you doing?" he said, bringing both his hands upward to mean no harm.
She quickly brought her staff back to herself and shook her head. She tried to point her staff at the surface this time, flickering the light from her staff.
"Light?" Arix asked, and she nodded.
"Ahh, you can use light and wind magic?"
Meilie nodded again.
"I see," Arix dragged his words when his eyes caught on something.
"What's that?" Arix stared at the side of the cave, looking at something like a book.
He went over there and picked it up. It was a diary.
The diary looked worn from years of neglect. Its cover was cracked and stiff. A layer of dust was frozen over the diary.
When Arix blew on it to clear the dust, he found text: "THEO'S DIARY."
"Who was Theo?” Arix wondered aloud as he turned the diary over. The pages had yellowed and curled at the edges.
"I am Theo, the first group to leave the island. In this diary, I will tell everything my group has encountered so far on the mainland." The first page of the diary read.
Meilie leaned over to take a better look, and Arix turned the page to find it shredded.
There were only a few pages that were readable. One of which read:
"Just past the Sanctum of Dravenor, we found a field filled with remains of creatures that were not humans. It looked like a big war had happened here. When we walked through the corpses, we found a sword."
The lines below were unreadable and the pages that followed were torn apart.
“Sanctum of Dravenor? War? What is going on here.” Arix whispered as he turned the pages when, after a few more unreadable pages, he found a text. Only three words were recognizable from the page and they read: "The Land of Dead."
Novicius in Arte Medica A Novice in the Art of MedicineMedical School is a Warzone. Ashrahan was failing. Then, the System woke up.
Quote: Synopsis: Sleepless nights, borrowed notes, and caffeine. When exhaustion drags Ashrahan to the edge, a silent system awakens, transforming patients into interactive lessons and textbooks into living networks of surgical precision.