Emery

As it turned out, I learned pretty quickly that Avuri was really not built for a standard stake-out.

The travel from Resin to the place that Avuri had marked on her map was actually quite easy. We were able to travel light thanks to our storage rings, and the clothing we bought in Resin worked as well as the shopkeep said it would.

With minimal Qi flowing into the clothing, we were able to move through the waist-, or sometimes chest-high blades of grass. It wasn't the first time I had traveled the Highlands, as Vale had brought me through it at least twice that I could remember, but the whole thing was entirely new to Avuri.

She was enamored with the grass when we first arrived. Despite being so close to the Highlands for the last couple weeks, we had stayed entirely near the Amber Valley, so this was her first time seeing the blades of grass.

And even having seen them once before, they still fascinated me, too. The grass was very tall, and would be incredibly easy to hide in, if not for the dangerous properties it had. The grass was obscenely sharp. If it caught unprotected skin or cloth just right, it could slice a cut so thin that it would barely be noticeable until it started to bleed, hurt, or itch.

When we first arrived, I had sent out my Domain just to see if I could make the blades sharper with my sharpness control. I found that I could, but I could also feel that blades had natural sharpness better than any normal weapon. A Cultivator blacksmith could perhaps forge something sharper, but even that could be a close comparison.

And even with all of that, the grass was flexible, and bent in the wind like any normal grass. The Highlands were wide and mostly empty except for the grass, some hills, and an occasional rock here or there. There were also some unnatural formations of earth - like the spot that Avuri had picked out as the most likely ambush point - but they were likely man-made through some kind of Qi technique or active combat.

Thanks to the clothing, though, we were basically able to dash straight through the grass to the spot Avuri wanted to set up at. We tried to keep the Qi use to a minimum to keep ourselves off the radar, only using enough to keep our clothing cut resistant and our bodies capable of moving at speed.

Once we arrived, I got straight to working on our makeshift shelter. I used Qi to produce a number of metal rods that would function as a frame to hold up the much larger bolt of green fabric we bought for this exact purpose. Once the whole thing was set up, we were pretty happy with it.

The frame gave us a roughly three meter by three meter box that was just barely tall enough for us to stand in. I also cut down all of the grass under the tent and laid another bit of cloth on the ground. The grass would grow back eventually, given I only cut it, but the shortened blades were still plenty sharp - thus the extra layer of cloth.

From outside, the multi-colored green fabric wouldn't be impossible to notice, but it was camouflaged enough to blend in against the grass for passersby. I was confident we'd only be noticed by something looking for us. Or, perhaps, an animal or beast wandering too close.

We also checked around nearby for Antlion tunnels, and found the nearest one was more than far enough away to be a non-issue.

And that was when the waiting game began.

I had gone on simple stake-outs like this one before, so I was aware of how boring they were, but also how important it was to stay alert.

Admittedly, the staying alert part was mostly up to Avuri this time, as I really only needed to make sure we remained safe. I settled in and let my Qi spread out in our vicinity to keep tabs on anything getting too close.

Avuri also went to work basically as soon as we were set up. I could feel her Qi spread from her, but as she molded the shape of her aura, I could feel it extend up into the air and away from the ground. It would let her spy on the areas we were interested in without being readily and easily noticeable from the ground where we assumed any enemies would be.

Time passed by slowly, as expected. It was boring with very little to do, especially for me. I was basically regulated to sitting and keeping an eye out for the unlikely occurrence of something coming near us. But because I needed to be aware, I couldn't just meditate or cycle to pass the time.

Avuri seemed very gung-ho about the whole operation at first, but her excitement faded fast. By the second hour she seemed bored of rotating her far-sight through the three locales. And by hour four, she was actively trying to find ways to entertain herself beyond just moving through our target locations.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that it would only get worse, either. We had no idea whether the potential enemies - that we weren't even truly sure existed yet - would attack during the day. We would potentially be waiting here for multiple days and nights with nothing to show for it.

That was even likely.

The main hope we had was that Avuri would catch some people setting up an ambush before anything ever happened. After lunch on that first day, she added a fourth spot to her rotation to keep an eye on the furthest bit of road she could reach with her First Snow technique.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

If she could get eyes on a cart or something coming down the road, that would be a big tip off for us to watch for something to happen.

We had known going into this that the Highland's Road wasn't popular, but I think we had underestimated just how unpopular it was.

We spent the entire first day - that is, 24 hours - without seeing anything of note. No travelers, no potential enemies, nothing. Avuri even started shifting her vision closer to the ground after dark to see if she could find any signs of living things at all, and came back with nothing. Not even any Antlions moving near their tunnels.

It was a sizable mental blow, seeing quite literally nothing out there at all. By the time the sun rose the next morning, Avuri was basically complaining everytime she slipped back to her own body to report that she found nothing. And I had nothing to offer outside of platitudes and the reminder that if she missed something after all this waiting, she'd be heartbroken.

And that same round of conversation played out every hour or two throughout day two. We took a short break to eat a simple meal around midday in a feeble attempt to keep our spirits up, but it didn't really accomplish much of anything. Ironically, during the short break to eat and try to relax with one another, Avuri was jittery and worried that she might miss something important while she wasn't actively watching.

I understood that feeling all too well. Having been on similar stake-outs with Vale in the past, I was intimately familiar with the paradoxical feelings of wanting to do nothing but watch so you miss nothing, but also not watch because it was dreadfully boring.

There was some minor excitement on the second day because Avuri did see a caravan traveling the road. There were at least six people walking outside the covered wagon in addition to two Cultivator guards. Avuri actively relayed the whole scene to me as she watched them over the course of a couple hours slowly move down the road.

Each time they neared one of our marked spots, we both got tense, but nothing came of it. By the time the sun went down, they had successfully made it into the open ground of the Amber Valley, and would presumably make it to Resin before it got too dark to continue moving.

The night of day two and most of day three went by almost as if we had automated the process. Avuri had managed to enter some kind of meditative state while moving between all of her spying locations and reporting back, doing it with minimal thought. She didn't even complain of boredom, just simply went about the constant rotation with the same ease as breathing or blinking.

Day three on my end was a little less monotonous, but certainly not exciting. There were two roaming Antlions that were getting close to our little makeshift camp. They were scouts, and could have been the sign of more danger to follow. However, both times they got within the range of my Qi, I flared it and scared them off.

Well, I don't know that they were scared, but they did leave.

Day four spent in our little tent went much the same as three. I kept myself alert as much as possible, despite nothing showing up nearby during the day while working on a half-joke Qi technique manual that went over my weapon forging techniques. It was absurd for me to actually write a manual of any kind as a Sky Realm Cultivator, let alone one that basically started with 'be a tortured child'.

Avuri continued her day three construct act, going through the motions reliably with little feeling. When there was nothing to break up the monotony, I could hardly even blame her. Out here, there was simply nothing going on to offer even small breaks while on watch.

At least on previous stake-outs with Vale, I had been able to watch normal people go about their lives in towns for the most part, or see interesting people do weird things. During one of our lunch breaks I even told Avuri a story about how I saw a pair of lovers take an extended break in an alley during one of our watches, leading to Vale trying to awkwardly explain a number of adult topics.

Thankfully for both of us, the pair had been interrupted by the demonic Cultivators we had been waiting for, and Vale didn't have to continue trying to explain sex to a twelve year old in a very awkward fashion.

The memory was a favorite of mine, though. I hadn't ever seen Vale so at a loss for words, and it had barely ever happened since either.

During the fourth night, Avuri and I were both about ready to call it quits. Avuri was reaching her limit on how long she could keep her boredom at bay, and I wasn't faring much better. On top of that, we had both had day four in our minds as the cut-off for when the enemies would appear given the month-long timeline since their previous attack, despite not having any reason to expect them to act exactly a month later, to the day.

And while logically it all made sense to me, it didn't change how ruthless the boredom was. Putting aside the fact that even had they wanted to move on that day, there was simply no one on the road to move against, the lack of any action was rough on our desires to stick it out.

We had resolved to stick it out at least for day five, perhaps overnight if something broke up the monotony of it all, but I don't believe either of us had any intention of making it to day six without returning to Resin for some kind of entertainment.

With so little happening, day five had been a bit of a bore, and we were getting lax on our watch duties outside of the actual watching part. I was still in my darker clothes that matched the overnight watch I was taking in case I needed to move outside of our tent.

Mercifully, Avuri randomly perked up a little before midday. While she never completely returned to body, she said, "There's movement on the road," in a brutally hoarse voice thanks to the disuse, and sat up straighter as if to concentrate.

The caravans on the Highlands roads moved slowly and carefully thanks mostly to the Antlions and the danger they represented. Even seeing a scout near the road could spell danger if it returned later with soldier ants. The danger led to caravans moving slowly with scouts of their own, making sure that there were no antlions ahead on the road. It also meant that despite seeing the caravan before midday, it was an hour or two before they would make it to the first point of interest, which we regarded as the least dangerous.

It was the middle of the afternoon by the time the caravan was approaching the second point we marked. But it was around that time that Avuri also noted movement at the hill we had suspected was most likely to be used as an ambush point.

"I can't get any sort of useful information on them without risking being noticed." Avuri said quietly as she returned briefly to her body's senses for planning. "But I believe we have our targets."

"That leaves us with our first major decision, then." I said, broaching a subject I had left untouched to this point. "Do we make an early move against them? Or do we let them proceed and follow them to their camp?"

Despite it turning my stomach, I knew which answer we should probably choose.

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