'Til Kingdom Comes - The Banished Prince Vol 3: The Prophecy

Marshlands

After gathering their belongings and checking that they were not carrying any ants or unauthorised travellers inside their knapsack, they gathered around and planned their next destination that would be about 12-15 miles away from Broderbund.

It was unexpected for them to visit such a village with no means of support system in the surface but there are a whole lot more bountiful resources from underneath every single house.

Even though they did not manage to talk to the rest of the inhabitants, but they had successfully discussed the future with Fat Bastard and that would be a good start.

Who knows there might acquire some means of transportation and they could move out from their dilapidated houses and into a better living condition here at Gracehaven.

"Alright now. Its already past midday and we have our 12 leather skins that had water in them. Besides, we also have some berries that we could make tea but not the Hawthorn one because of its tart taste that might upset our empty stomachs in the long run."

"We also have 12 pounds of flour distributed evenly among us and we would be able to make some flatbread each and make some roasted mushrooms."

"As long as these mushrooms were kept in a dark and cool place, it would last at least e days in our knapsack. We could roast them or even make some simple gruel later on."

"But... Making gruel takes up water and toasted flatbread would be the next best thing. What do you say, guys? Should we break for meals now or we push on until we are near some body of water."

"If we get to the duck pond, we could get some fishes biting on our hooks. We also have meat still with us and we could roast them over the fires to have our meals later on."

Guy made a suggestion and they sat around in a circle while discussing. The Guinness then made up the decision to push on and take a break later in the evening before making camp. At least they could extend their current supplies further and at the same time, they could chew in some meat jerkies along the way to stifle the hunger pangs.

No doubt they were all young and needs a lot of food intake than the rest of the adults so they were making a huge sacrifice at the moment.

"Alright then, Guinness, seems to be a plausible idea. Let's all head-on as we hunt and forage along the way. Hope we would be able to find some good resources here since it's been 3 days since we had moved out and tomorrow would be the 4th since."

"Let's go, Guy, you lead the way. Hope that the citizens of Broderbund would be able to head down to Gracehaven and increase the population, no matter how old they might be at this moment."

"It would be a blessing if they would teach our town folks in how to make mushroom farms, it would definitely be a great knowledge for all."

The Guinness suggested as they head down towards where they had initially arrived at the town and as they passed the outskirts wearing their Adventurers uniform, they waved their hands at the skinny man who was standing at the doorway, presumably to be Fat Bastard as the latter waved back to them.

They were fortunate that they had not met with hostile people during this task.

The party of four trudged on for some miles when the ground underfoot turned to be a bit mushy and wet.

*SPLOSH*

"Hey... This ground doesn't look good at all. Look in front of you, can you see the bright green patch of grasses growing there? It's a sign of some depression on the ground and this could only mean one thing — hazardous sinkhole."

"There's no sand so basically there's no quicksand but the depression there indicates that the earth around it had been covered by water. Let's skirt around it and move upwards, maybe we can find the source of some kind of water then. I had a great feeling that this water may lead to somewhere and it would be a high land with rocks around it."

Guy remarked to the rest as they observed some dangerous spots lurking around to those unsuspecting travellers. Luckily Guy had pointed out to them and once again they learnt a valuable lesson on the go.

"Can this water be drunk, Guy? Since the water do come from a source, do you think it is safe to drink or even boil down to make tea or some sort?"

"No, Guinness, it's not worth the risk. It's better not to have such 'hard water' to drink since we won't know the source."

"A dead animal inside it could poison the whole water, just like what I heard in the front lines where they dump bodies inside the well to make it undrinkable."

"Thus the reason why the taverns had to supply kegs of ale to the men serving in the front line."

The Guinness replied affirmatively and decided to find some twigs and dry kindling or even dry grass along the way and carry them in their arms since the area around them turned into a barren land where only certain places have clumps of grass.

The Guinness sacrificed their blankets to haul the twigs and dry grasses in them and when they saw some bushes with some undergrowth fallen leaves and twigs, that too was salvaged since they would not spend a night without fires tonight.

Besides, the area that they were heading was slightly diverted and soon the ground was covered by some boulders and rocks. Suddenly, Guy stopped and stated that the area would be best suited to make a camp for the night.

The Guinness brought the two blankets filled with the twigs, dry leaves and grass aside and piled it up. They noticed Guy was flitting around some rocks and peering close to them before he managed to dislodge one big piece of a boulder and called the rest over.

When the members went over to where Guy was pointing in an excited manner, they discovered a small natural spring and the water was cooling, fresh and very clean.

"Just as what I thought, the marshlands were caused by this natural spring and in months to come the marshlands would soon be buried underground and become another duck pond."

"Heh...At the meantime, we can use this water for our own use and sorry for the trouble of you sacrificing your blankets. Better air dry them before you sleep on them tonight."

"We would have some meat leftover and we would be making some flatbread and we could store them for some days soon. Since the flour has no leavening, the flatbread should be able to last longer just like the bread that we had brought along the other time."

"We got a lot of water here and we have some good kindling for a quickfire. So tonight there won't be a campfire as usual but we could keep on stocking the fires if you wish to keep away the dark."

Guy knew that the Guinness was not used to spending the night without a light especially in the wilderness like this. So by reassuring them, at least they would feel kind of safe, besides having a fire is the essential key to survival and it gives a morale boost as well.

"Guy, we have a problem. We do not have a skillet to make toasted flatbread. We only have a small pot to boil water and make some stew and also cups to have our drinks."

Seeing their predicament of not having the right tools, the MacDonough let out a hearty laugh. "Why would we need a skillet if we have a flat stone somewhere around here to make ourself a nice flat baking pan and also to make ourselves an oven too?"

"Gillian, could you kindly show how to make an oven top for making this flatbread to the Guinness? I am sure they would be learning to be good travellers and survivalist from now on. Hahaha."

The Guinness watched with awe and didn't know that the MacDonough could be resourceful. Even the flat rocks, when placed on top of a fire, could be used to make an oven top for making flatbread.

Since the was no animal fat, the flatbread would be dry and flaky and the best thing to eat with them would be with rabbit stew and mushrooms...!

The Guinness helped to set up a small oven by placing some rocks and then they placed a fairly thin slab of rock over it. Very soon, a small pot of water was set near the fire to make some Berry flavoured tea.

Guy had scooped some water from the natural spring within the rocks to add into the flour to make a dough. As there was no need to make the dough inside a bowl, Guy had chosen another slab of rock to knead the flour into small ball sized dough.

At the meantime, they utilised another small pot to make stew from the leftover meat that they had and sliced some mushrooms after cleaning them.

The Guinness watched how resourceful these MacDonough and made do by helping around as much as they could. They noticed a few trees growing about a mile or so from where they are and asked for permission to get some wood from there.

"Alright you two, please be careful. Here, take my falling axe with you in case you do not wish to drag a whole branch with you here. Hehehe."

Guy handed the Guinness his falling axe and the latter went over to see what they could find from the trees they saw yonder. After some time, the Guinness returned and indeed, they had pulled along with them a long dead branch with lots of twigs and dry leaves still with them.

The MacDonough couldn't help but laughed at the novicity of those two and helped to show how to chop the branch that they had pulled along into sizeable portions to be made into a campfire later on.

"Alright, one would help to chop the branch while your wife would help to bake the flatbread here. Our tea and our stew would be almost ready and would bring it to a boil before we would consume it. Remember, smoke your meat well for storage and when it comes to cooking them, it's good to cook them pretty well so it won't lead to food poisoning, alright? "

"Don't be afraid to throw away meats that had signs of spoilage. It's better to be safe than sorry. Fortunately, all the meat prepared by Gillian here had been well preserved so it would normally last about 2 weeks. But for us, we could always hunt on the go so food would not be a problem for us."

Guy made his sound advise as Gillian added hers as well so that the Guinness would more or less understand about being a survivalist and also be able to make use of the environment to their advantage when the need arises.

"Thanks for all your guidance, Guy. I guess it's not easy being an Adventurer if we do not have any skills or experience living in the wilderness."

"That's right, Guinness. That's why Minister Gwen had partnered us together. Likewise to the rest of the parties since there would be at least one Irish Traveller among them."

"I wonder how the rest of the parties are doing right now. I'm sure they won't be too shabby like us, either, am I right?"

Guy mentioned to the group since he had no idea in how the rest were doing and coping since there were 7 other groups and they had moved off in different directions and all with the same tasks.

What they were trying to achieve was to gather as many towns as they could, free the serfs and invite the peasants over. At the same time, they would also promote the availability of grains and other resources for the towns to trade with if they may since the distance was one of the main factors.