Hopelessly lost at land

by Theseus

Theseus looked down at the prone body of Maruchan, "Maru. Get up."

Maru muttered something unintelligible and rolled over.

Theseus reached down to shake her. "Maru. We have to go. Now. Calculus was taken last night."

Maru looked up at him groggily, "Huh?"

Theseus sighed, "I think Calculus was kidnapped by spongies last night. When I woke up, he was gone. And I found this." He held up a Hell Wyrm doll.

Finally having gotten Maru's full attention he continued, "I don't know why they left us. Luck maybe, or just blind incompetence on their part. Either way I suggest we get moving."

"What do you mean? We can't just leave him."

"Look. I don't know Calc well. But it seems to me he wouldn't let himself get captured unless he had some sort of contingency plan."

"You're saying he wanted to be captured?"

"It's a possibility. But even if they caught him off guard, which is unlikely, there's nothing we could do about it."

"We can't leave him."

Theseus sighed, "I agree. But we can't look for him right now either. The high councilor has to be our first priority. After we rescue her and regroup with the others, then we can save Calc." He paused for a moment, "Right now though, we have keep moving."

They silently picked up camp, and began moving. It was early in the morning and scenery was nice, despite the fact that it was in the hands of the Hell Wyrm. The trip was uneventful until, as darkness fell, the road abruptly ended.

Theseus had been walking in a bit of a daze, and at this point he had no idea how far they'd gone. He looked back the way they'd come to see the road snaking off into the distance. He turned and looked in the direction he hoped was west to try to get a glimpse of the mountains or something to confirm their direction, but all he could see were a few low hills.

He looked over at Maru. "Ok. You set up camp," he said, and pointed to the tallest of the hills, "I'm going to go over there to see if I can see anything."

Maru gave him a look, "Why don't you set up camp and I'll go? Better still, why don't we both go?"

Theseus sighed, "Sorry. You're right. I shouldn't be sticking you with all the work. Let's both go then."

Together they started up the hill. Maru stopped for a moment and looked at him. "Are we looking for anything in particular?"

"I just want to see if I can find some sort of landmark... like the Rhye, ideally. If not that, then the mountains. I want to make sure we're traveling in the right direction."

They continued up the hill. Theseus reached the top first and his gaze slid across the endless miles of plains before them. "Shit."

Maru climbed up beside him. "What happened?"

Theseus turned to her, "I was afraid of this... The road must've been curving."

"Does this mean--"

"Yeah. It does. We're lost."