The four adventures continue their journey to the Ashwood forest trail head. Anna leads the way around a lava river. While she is studying the map, Natalie and Matt take the opportunity to catch up on the events in each other’s lives. Nolegs decides to ride on Matt's back. Halfway up the hill, the group’s progress is blocked by a recent landslide. Anne apologizes for making them walk around the other way, but they respond it was out of her control. Rounding the side of the hill, Natalie points out the probable cause of the landslide, a small black volcano.
As the group prepares to walk around the impediment, Nolegs suddenly jumps off of Matt’s back and starts to hiss at the black rock. The ground starts shaking as the volcano reveals the hiding place of a lava turtle. The turtle roars at the invaders to its territory and begins to spit fireballs.
Anna and Matt rush to cover Natalie as she starts to chant a spell. Matt slashes the nearby fireballs, which explode harmlessly around the others. Dodging the falling cinders, Anna attempts to shoot an arrow at the turtle, but it seems to stop in mid-air. As more sparks rain down, Anna notices they are bouncing off of a shape. Switching to her smaller stinger arrows, the archer fires a volley at the invisible form, successfully revealing a second creature. Enraged, a horned rag monster reveals itself. Its magic had formed a protective circle around its ally.
With Anna and Matt distracting the monsters, Natalie completes her spell. Pounding the ground with her staff, numerous liquid balls surround the monsters, just before engaging in an all-out watery strike. Having no space to dodge, both monsters roar in pain. The water weakens the protective barrier, allowing Anna to successfully shoot the rag monster. However, the lava turtle was still active. Rising on its back legs, the monster uses its massive body to start an earthquake. The resulting rockslide knocks Anna and Natalie over. Once again the turtle’s fireballs threaten the group.
Fortunately, Matt has dodged the falling rocks. Seeing his friends now defenseless in the rubble, Matt points his sword at the threat. The red jewel of his white claymore flashes with light as it reaches maximum charge. A blinding counterattack destroys the Turtle’s fiery assault. Matt proceeds to slam his sword into the ground to create a shockwave that piles a wave of dirt and debris over the aggressor. With the turtle pinned under the torrent, Matt uses the opportunity to cut off the stunned monster’s head.
The threat neutralized, the other 3 adventurers dig themselves out and go to rest in a small clearing. Natalie creates a defense shield around the campsite before helping Anna unpack some food while Matt goes to chop wood. Nolegs decides to jump on a rock to sunbathe. After a while, Matt returns with the wood and has also found some mushrooms. However, some of the mushrooms don’t look right to Anna, so she looks them over while Natalie sets up the fire. After analyzing the mushrooms, she reveals to Natalie that some of them are poisonous.
"Here you are Natalie," Says Anna as she hands her the eatable mushrooms, "About half of them were poisoned. But with fungus one needs to be careful."
"Why am I not surprised?" Natalie glances at Matt, "He used to force us to eat slimes." Matt turns his head away at the mention of slime.
"Really?" Anna smiles, but then remembers her earlier encounter with them.
"Before you ask… slime tastes horrible." Said Natalie as she pokes a stick at the campfire.
“I can only imagine, plus, it is impossible to get out of your clothes.” Responded Anna with a side glance at Matt. Natalie spots the look and casts a knowing grin at the now embarrassed Matt.
"Anyway,” announces Natalie loudly, “A spell message was sent to the other teammates with our location, so they will be here soon."
"... I wonder what the other two will be like." Wonders Anna aloud as she turns the cooking mushrooms over.
"Just another mage and a gunner," Natalie replies, "they are a human and a dragon."
"A dragon?" Anna tilts her head, “Wow!"
“Yes”, Matt states proudly, “Sunset has been with us on all sorts of adventures. Our team would not be the same without her.”
“Still”, remarks Anna, “They are rather rare, it is not as if one is going to drop from the sky right in front of you.”
“You’re right. Our group seems to have better luck with talking unicorns doing that.” Matt responds with a straight face. Natalie coughs to remind Matt that his teammate Sunset preferred her privacy.
Anna groans at the perceived bad dragon joke and heads back to her tent to sleep. Natalie and Matt see each other and sigh.
That same day, elsewhere on Earth(en), an orange dragon named Sunset is conversing with an old man and his overexcited granddaughter.
"Thank you for saving us from that golem," says the man gratefully while shaking the orange dragon’s claw. “I don't know what to say. The woods have been so strange lately."
Rubbing her head in slight embarrassment, the dragon replies, "Well... glad I could help you both.”
Meantime the little girl has temporarily stopped running in circles around the pair to hug the dragon, "Thank you so much, Mrs. Dragon!", she squealed. Then she remembers something "Maybe you can pull out the cave sword."
"Oh, what kind of sword is that?" The dragon asks curiously.
The old man says, "Please let me show you, it is the least I can do."
Following the man, the dragon’s steps bounce a little while giving the little girl a dragon back ride. After walking a while, they reach a cave. Inside is a white sword plunged into a stone.
"This is the sword." Announces shows the man hopefully as the dragon nods in agreement. The man proudly continues his tale, "Legend says whoever can pull out the sword, will be a destiny hero."
Sunset shakes her head in slight annoyance at the flashy title. The dragon carefully slid the little girl off her back and walked up to the embedded object. Taking a deep breath Sunset tries to pull out the sword but it doesn’t flinch. She tries it again but it will not move. The dragon falls on the ground and sighs, "Well, look like the sword didn't choose me."
"Aww...” pouted the little girl. “I wanted you to pull out the mystery sword and become a destiny hero,"
The dragon turns affectionately to the disappointed girl and remarks, "You don't need to pull out a sword to be a hero." Sunset stands up and pokes her finger at the girl's heart, "A hero needs a heart, not fame." This immediately cheers up the girl who hugs the dragon once more. Turning to her grandfather, the little girl lets out a wide yawn. The dragon and the man nod to each other. After carefully placing the girl on her back, they all walk back to the man’s house.
Back at the campsite, Anna wakes up to the smell of cooking. She observes Matt and Natalie are roasting strips of meat over the campfire with Nolegs watching impatiently. The archer is confused because she was taught only bats and dogs live in this area. Then Anna spotted a brown furry mound by the fire. She did a double-take to make sure she was not seeing things. It was a bear.
The archer was surprised. Had her companions gone hunting without her? It was still early morning but somehow there was a fresh game.
“Ah,” groaned Anne, “Matt, I cannot believe you and Natalie went out hunting without waking me! Why a bear, when there are easier animals to hunt?”
“Hunt it?” replies Matt “No, I didn’t hunt it. The bear just showed up when I was out for more firewood.” He looked at the bear and pointed to a fallen tree a short distance away. “Was walking right over there, when this bear charged at me as if I was giant honeycomb.” The swordsman sighed and pointed at the animal “This guy really did not give me any choice but to defend myself. But… at least we have some meat. So no problems. We are all old pros at adventuring.”
“Please don’t be upset with Matt, Anna.” Spoke Natalie as she moved over to fire, “I was the one who put a noise deafening spell around the camp. Matt is not the quietest sleeper so wanted to make sure you got enough sleep.” At the sound of his name, Nolegs perks up and grabs a roasting meat stick. The group laughs at his antics and decided breakfast was ready.
Anna's initial hesitation to eat bear meat disappears after her stomach growls. This earns her another round of laughter from the others. After breakfast, they stand up and continue the journey. However, the archer can’t seem to get the bear attack out of her mind, something felt off about it.
The group is almost out of Ashwood Forest. Walking a little behind her traveling companions, Anna notices how well Matt and Natalie get along despite having been apart for several years. The bear is forgotten as the archer ponders their relationship.
"So…” Anna inquires, “You both seem pretty close. Are you just friends or are you...?"
Matt cheers, "We're way more than just friends."
His answer stuns Natalie. She blushes deep crimson while trying to speak, "We're just ... W-what? We are?!"
Matt continues, "Yeah, we're a team! Nolegs is in the team too." He looks at the blue cat, "Right, Nolegs?" The cat 'meows' happily and returns to his spot on Matt's back.
Natalie sighs in anger, “So that's all I am to you, after all this time?” ‘Yep same old Matt… clueless to other peoples feeling as always.’ She thinks, now slightly miffed.
Anna continues to walk and says cluelessly, "That all then? How boring!" The archer turns her attention back to the maps.
The Team continues to go out of the forest. Natalie is still annoyed that Anne brought up her personal life so casually, so the mage starts to walk faster. Nolegs still hanging on Matt’s neck while he starts to jog to keep up with Natalie. Looking ahead, Anne spots a dangerous crystal growing on the path in front of them.
The crystal is attracted to movement so Anna yells to make them aware of the danger. But her companions, Matt and Natalie, seemed to be distracted. Anne is terrified when the crystal explodes and runs to the pair in the smoke cloud. Luckily Natalie used "Shield" before it exploded so the trio was unharmed. As the smoke clears Anna sees Natalie strutting out the debris glaring at an oblivious Matt. Anna is worried about future dangers so she jogs ahead a bit to find the end of the path.
"Look, we're almost the end of the forest trail," Anna doesn't hear any response, she looks back and sees that the trio is not there. Checking the trail she sees a strange black cloud and hears an unusual amount of cawing. Running down towards the scene, Anne sees the rest of the group battling a flock of black crows. An unusually large black crow tries to attack Matt but Nolegs jumps on its back with his claws.
The bird struggles unsuccessfully to shake the cat off before getting stuck by the feline's sword. Excitedly Nolegs jumps off of the first crow and leaps again to repeat the attack on a second bird. While the feline is preoccupied with his target, another crow tries to sneak up on the cat but is shot down by an arrow. Several more crows get cut up by Matt while Natalie chants a new spell. With a whirl of her staff, Natalie creates an ice storm that freezes the rest of the birds.
Matt cheers, "Nice job!" He raises his arm and adjusts his hat to make himself look cool but Anna bonks him on the head with her bow. “Ow!” Matt replies “Watch the hat! …What? We got this.”
Anna yells at him, "WHY DID YOU START BATTLING WITHOUT ME LIKE THAT?"
Matt and Natalie cover their ears to wait for Anna finishes yelling. When the yelling died down, Natalie manages to say, "Well, it just was some crows right? We can handle it.” Bending down the mage picks up the cat and starts patting his head “Right Nolegs?" Purring loudly, Nolegs curls himself comfortably into Natalie’s arms and goes to sleep.
Flabbergasted at the rest of the group's laid-back attitude, Anna goes silent for a bit trying to process it. The archer is Anna looks at Nolegs and then looks back to the duo, "And who teaches a cat how to fight?" Matt raises his hand, Anna tilts her head, "Isn’t it strange to teach a cat?"
Matt shakes his head and says, "Nah, we have a freaking dragon who can cast spells and teleport."
Anna's eyes widen, "Really?" Anna glees at Matt, "I would love to see this dragon."
"You will meet her soon," Matt spins his sword, "Along with our gunner."
Anna takes out the map and looks at it, "Well... talk later, maybe we should leave the forest first?" The duo nods and Anna leads the way to the final stretch before the end of the trail.
In the last area out of the forest, there were many dying trees and unusual greeneries. Anna looks around for the cause and sighs quietly. It has been a while since she was here last but she and her companions will need to face him before they can depart the woods. After the noise of the crows, this area seems unusually quiet. After walking for a while, Matt and Natalie see something that looks like a robot but is made of wood. It also has a metal mouth and has a wood-metal shield at the right arm and a metal left arm.
The duo quickly turns to Anna and asks, "Okay... what the hell is that?"
Anna sees the robot and notices. "Oh, that is Mighty Oak." Anna explains."Thanks to him, this part of the Ashwood Forest is still green."
Matt replies angrily, "Isn't that just another monster? It's huge! Is it even safe to go near it?"
Anna answers, "Mighty Oak is the forest guardian. Unless he respects us, our group will not be allowed to leave. We're going to have to defeat him in a battle to earn his respect, then he will let us pass." The archer slips the bow from her shoulder, "I remember my fight with him as part of our village’s rite of passage.” Anna almost whispers.
“Wow, so you defeated him, Anna?' Asks Matt.
“Not quite.” replies Anna. “I ended up in the hospital and had to wear a cast for several months." After a few moments of silence, Natalie and Matt start laughing while Anna glares at them, "Hey, that's not funny."
Natalie stops laughing."All right, all right. However it is getting late, we will battle with the forest guardian tomorrow.
The group sets the camp near the Mighty Oak’s area. Matt starts cooking the bear and crow meat while Natalie looks at the Oak to analyze it. After finishing her reconnaissance, the mage returns to the camp just as the meat finishes cooking.
While Nolegs is chewing on a fatty bone. Matt notices the girls are only eating bread and bear meat. “Is that all you two are going to eat?” asks Matt.
Natalie replies, “I’m not very hungry.”
“Well more roast crow for me,” announces Matt, “I’m going to eat a lot.” Natalie and Anna look at each other and grin.
"So, you got two mages in one team?" Anna asks to change the subject, "Don't you have a supporter? Like a priest?"
"Well, honestly just one mage. The mage dragon... eh, I don't know if she considered herself a mage or not." Says Matt between chews, "Well, Natalie can do more powerful spells, but Sunset has much more agility."
Anna gulps as she envisions such a creature, "Is she using her spells to boost the speed? I have seen many mages do that." Anna takes out the bottle of water, "All of the mages seem to have the same disadvantage of low speed plus need time to cast the spell, right? So I could fight her before she could attack."
Natalie stares at her, "Sound theory if you were fighting a regular mage. However, the normal rules don’t apply to the dragon mage."
"I see." Anna pokes the stick to the campfire, "you both have made me even more curious about this."
Matt replies, "Before you can do that we will need to defeat Mighty Oak. Now we should all get a good night's sleep." Matt points at the Guardian. "We will need battle with this guy tomorrow to leave the forest." The girls smile seeing Nolegs curled up comfortably on the sleeping bags. The girls also go to sleep while Matt guards them. Tomorrow will be a good day to battle