Amity and Enmity

Chapter 6

Day: 970

Days Left: 4510

Lives Saved: 5

Lili, Rin, Kai, and Sumit returned back to the camp, their unsuccessful venture weighing on their minds, or rather more on Lili and Rin's as Kai and Sumit pondered on if they could have spent their time more wisely. It was an incursion that Lili knew would take several missions to succeed: to find this sector's Land of the Lost, but in the back of her mind, she heard the voices telling her to just follow Corinna's plan- to learn the location through negotiation and trade. Exploring out on their own was a risk of them being attacked, especially nearing so close to the food drop-off and with the large group that controlled it. She and her team could have easily been overpowered and kidnapped. But then again what was the likelihood of the group actually admitting the location of the Land of the Lost to them? What exactly was Corinna going to offer them in return for that knowledge? What would be worth it?

Whilst Lili was conflicted on whether they should try again tomorrow, Sumit turned to Kai and Rin and said, "oh well, better luck next time yeah?" Though he addressed this to both of them, his eyes focused more on Rin, attentively waiting for a response.

Rin did not respond, seeming to have perhaps not heard and about to head off with Lili to a meeting with Corinna.

"Yeah, we're not going to find it straight away," Kai eventually replied to fill the silence.

Sumit bit his bottom lip, then mumbled, "well until the next one, see you guys at dinner."

"See you," said Kai, smiling.

After a long pause of Sumit waiting, Rin made a small nod of the head, though her gaze never met his.

"Right..." Sumit also nodded, perhaps in defeat. "Gonna go see Oscar." Lingering for only a short while, Sumit then left and went to find Oscar who was with Ivette, preparing the food for tonight.

Once Sumit was out of ear-shot, Kai turned to Rin, his smile fading and the usual brightness in his eyes dimmed.

Rin pushed back her shoulders, prepared for another arduous long accusing rant of his about how wrongfully she treated Sumit, but instead, Kai simply said flatly, "you will regret it one day," then left to talk to Dex.

*

Lili, Rin, and Corinna gathered together and sat on one of the fallen trees that had been knocked over by the giant stag. Corinna gave her report on the gathering of water, estimating how often they would need to visit the Raining Marshes to have plenty of drinking water, as well as for food, hygiene and construction. She omitted in her report anything to do with the water nymphs she had found or there being a portal, the subject still sore, though she planned to relay that information sometime in the future.

Then, Lili and Rin gave their report, short as it was, but their missions weren't a complete waste of time as they could mark on the map the areas that they explored and find them again as Lili marked the trees with her sword.

Afterwards, the three women began to discuss the plan for tomorrow, if any of the members of the teams needed rearranging or if there were other tasks required.

Corinna hesitated, then wrote on her whiteboard that it would be best to remain at camp instead of gathering water. She did not explain the real reason why she no longer wanted to go and came up with an excuse that she had seen enough of the Raining Marshes to help with constructing filtering systems and water collectors.

Rin, after seeing the opportunity, declared that she would prefer to collect water with Dex and Calanthe instead of scouting. This did not please Lili as that left her so few candidates that actually kept quiet for the scouting team. So many of their group were the complete opposite of discreet and stealthy with how inanely talkative they were. She would miss the silence with Rin gone.