The carriages slowed down as the road quality deteriorated. Soon Lucen couldn't relax as the previous ignorable bumps kept jolting him, and the bumps grew worse.
Liam also gave up on channelling, cursing. "Can we fucking stop moving?"
Their heads bobbed up and down with the rise and fall of the road. Long fields of green grass surrounded them. Lucen could sense things moving through the grass, too scared to attack directly, just waiting for someone to get left behind.
"That's enough channeling anyway," Lucen said. "You'll only hurt your soul if you continue."
"I feel perfectly fine," Liam complained. "Besides, you absorb a huge cloud of mana in two minutes. I've been channeling drops for an hour."
"The amount doesn't matter, you're just stressing your mind at this point."
"I need to cast my first spell before we get to the Withering forest."
Lucen laughed. "Then you have plenty of time, it'll take a week to get there at this pace."
