Spirit Taming

Chapter 131: Steal Away

The day was mostly for rest. All the students had taken the time to recover from the water fairy's antics throughout the night. Clark felt that he had stayed up a little too late since Ella had asked many questions and had Devi display his skills. It was a good way to keep a record since Ella was much more detailed than Clark was.

"Clark, get over here!" Maria called for Clark with some worry in her voice. However, when he got outside the carriage he saw that she wasn't worried but angry instead. "Look at this!"

"What is?" Clark shook his head as he realized what he was looking at. There was a sign stuck in the middle of the camp.

"Meet me at the entrance to Star city by nightfall. You will have to navigate yourself with the maps you have. I will be waiting. Good luck. Doc." Isa caught up to Maria and Clark to read out what they were looking at.

"Now we have to catch up to him? Is this some game for him?" Clark was a little more annoyed seeing that two other groups had silently moved on without a word. But there were still other groups that had not noticed.

"Let's just go. It's a challenge to the groups. Plus, we don't want those annoying people following us." Maria glared at the carriage that had the Cain family pair in it. Their other two group members were forced to camp outside yet again.

"Let me go and try something." Clark's devilish smile returned while he walked silently to the two sleeping on the ground. With a soft tap on each of their shoulders, he managed to get them to open their eyes.

"It's time to leave. Come jump in our carriage so we can get to Star city faster. Doc didn't say that we have to remain in our groups for this part of the journey." Clark glanced at the carriage behind the two on the ground with a telling air about him. The two knew exactly what Clark was getting at.

While they silently grabbed their sleeping gear and stored it away, Clark smiled at his group that had already made it to their carriage. Once they were in the back and moving, Clark breathed a sigh of relief.

"So, what made the two of you follow the pair of idiots in to trouble over and over?" This seemed to hit a nerve.

"They said that the Cain family had the red oak tree sap I needed for my red stag beetles research. The second time that their plans to mess with you failed they got angry and told me they didn't even know where to get it!"

"Oh, you think that is bad? They promised me fifty gold for this trip and asked me to let my keen eyed dove scout ahead and that if it was snatched up by one of the stone falcons that they could just replace it with any old bird. I have raised this keen eyed dove since I was born. How could I toss it aside like it was nothing?"

The pair seemed very worn out by what the two Cain family members had done to them. They had been lied to and treated like nothing. All because the two Cain family members wanted to beat up on Clark and Maria.

"The worst of it is that they can't even say something nice. We accidentally said that it was cool how you brought back so much from the sandworms, and what do we get? We get told that we won't be paid at all. But we were stuck with them."

The rant went on and on. It was a complete unloading of how the two felt to be stuck with spoiled brats. "You won't even believe this though. They have absolutely no battle experience. All of their fighting has been done by guards. Every time they leave for the wilderness since now, they have had paid escorts.

Pathetic for older students like us."

"I was hoping that you two would want to get a little revenge. They will be angry that you two left. Especially if they found out you left with us. But I have an idea. They won't make it back from this trip. It just depends on who they use their spoiled attitudes with when they make it to Star City." Clark was pretty open.

The plan had originally been something akin to letting the two Cain family members cause their own deaths by attracting monsters. It was too easy to see them do something foolish just to seem better than others. However, Clark had changed his mind. He wanted something more humiliating.

He wanted to set the two Cain family members up to fail in another city where their family had absolutely no power. Whereas the Mourne family also has absolutely no power at all.

"We are listening. The two boys leaned in to listen to what Clark was planning. They started to smile for the first time on their entire journey as Clark went more and more in to details.

"Do you really think that Clark is the good guy? Watching him act like that makes him seem evil." Isa shrugged her shoulders.

"Clark and Maria aren't the good guys. They are after revenge. But we aren't good either. I only want research and to get to where I can do my research at a level above everyone else. You want to make a profitable business much better than anyone else's. We aren't heroes." Ella just spoke quickly before returning to her notebook of theories.

"Ella's right there. She knows what we are and what we aim to be. I won't ever be a hero. But Clark is still a good person. He's the first person not to look at me like trash after I was kicked out." Maria smiled softly while they looked ahead at the city beginning to grow in the distance.

"And now we know why Doc made this a challenge. Look at all the pools of water and little streams. The path has to be changing every single time it rains." Clark had glanced at the city walls in the distance. He realized that the route they had seen on the map was very outdated.

"That's the wilderness. My parents told me that they once were out hunting and a mudslide changed the path. They were forced to go ten miles out of their way." One of the boys that came with them chimed in. This was something that they had learned as older students.

"Just let me send out my keen eyed dove. It should find a safe path. We won't get stuck like them." The other boy was already looking for a chance to repay the favor that Clark had done them. A little help there before they actually got in to the city and got a little revenge.

"Let me send my wisp as well. It can gauge whether there is any danger. It can save your dove if anything is around trying to attack." Ella was not ignoring anyone while she worked on her theories. She had heard all the reasons the two boys had lost patience with the Cain family.

"Thank you. I appreciate that." Ella had won herself a grateful friend with a simple act of kindness.