Apexus slowly checked every part of his body, internal and external. The position of his fingers. Small displacements of muscles and bones due to stressed regeneration. Whether his skin was still of human quality. The state of his scalp, entirely hairless after he ejected the sorry remains still there.
What was out of place, he carefully nudged back into its optimal position. There were few flaws even worth the effort and none that had truly hindered him. A much larger issue was the amount of body mass he had lost. He was five centimetres shorter and noticeably less hulking than before. A good meal would fix that, but none were in sight.
His two partners were going through their own preparations. Aclysia had confiscated all of the group's bags and sprawled their contents out over the flat, stone ground. Weapons, clothes, washcloths, a waterskin, and various other items, all getting neatly sorted and individually inspected by the metal fairy.
Reysha had taken one of the washcloths and currently used it to groom her naked body. As a source of water, she had a depression filled with rainwater. It wasn't particularly much, but it was enough for the purpose of giving herself some direly needed attention. The tiger girl reeked of cold sweat and, in general, had suffered more from the lack of proper sleeping breaks than her companions.
Defining the reason for their quiet, simple tasks was difficult. Nervousness, perhaps, a desire to return to relative normality, or maybe their minds, still winding down from days of high physical and mental strain, just needed something simple to keep them occupied in the times they weren't quite tired enough to sleep. For one reason or another, they were all keeping silent and waiting.
Indifferent to their plights, the angel Veramas walked up to the other side of the portal. It walked on human feet and several spider-like legs that grew out between the white, golden, and red flowers that covered its body. Its eight, multi-facetted eyes stared everywhere and nowhere. The rose that made up the upper half of its head rustled. Sparks of magic scattered like pollen. Then the portal closed with a sound like a mass of water hitting the ground all at once.
Unified, the trio took a long, relieved exhale. Their way back was cut, their path clear, and somehow that restriction was a liberating feeling. Any and all doubts they still had were now useless. There was only the path forward or waiting out their death by demon.
Alternatively, hunger would also do it.
The three of them had emerged on an island, no more than sixty metres across, marked by its complete and utter lack of anything alive. It was entirely made from rock, specifically the kind of porous stone that was created by the continuous assaults from salt water. As far as their eyes could see, there was only water in every direction. The weather was calm, with only a couple of clouds drifting through the afternoon sky. Despite the sun, it wasn't hot whatsoever.
Although there was nothing to eat around, the island did have two remarkable things to it. One was the portal frame, a ring of metal covered in golden runes, with a couple of weathered stairs leading down from its bottom curve. The second was an outstandingly smooth and untouched cube of black stone, several metres across.
"I want to check on that," Apexus broke the silence and marched over.
"It better contain some damn food, I'm starving!" Reysha shouted after him, scrubbing her armpit with the wet cloth. Sniffing at herself, she shook her head in disgust. 'Not my sexiest moment...' she thought and inspected the rest of herself. This was another day on which she was happy that her species only grew hair in one place under the neckline. Excluding the tail, that was. "Could you do the usual, by the way?" she added.
Apexus just nodded; he was still close enough for her to see it. He didn't particularly enjoy 'eating' her hair, it tasted bad and had little in the way of energy, but he did enjoy her being clean shaven and this was the most effective method they had to ensure that. It certainly was safer and quicker than a razorblade, especially out in the field.
The cube of smooth stone, on closer inspection, had words etched into its surface. The shape of the letters was different than Apexus was used to. Although the language and writing of the Omniverse was generally uniform, all coming from the same set of gods, branches that were further apart or Leaves that had existed for a while tended to differ in the details. Culture evolved, accents changed, but for a Leaf to develop entirely away from the common speech was incredibly rare.
So, even if the letters looked somewhat different, Apexus could read them fairly easily. "Those who come a Long Way, place your hand upon this box, receive your vessel, and head north-north-west to find land," he read out loud. After confirming with the other two, he did as instructed.
The stone vanished into a cascade of fading particles, revealing underneath a sizable rowing boat. It was of outstanding quality, divinely created from a single connected piece of wood. A compass was laid into the wood at the tip of the hull and two paddles lay parallel to an erectable mast.
"It is a vessel," Apexus commented on the obvious.
For some reason, Reysha found that incredibly funny and she started laughing. She continued for way too long. At three different points, she almost fell off the stone she was sitting on. Had the ground looked more inviting or had she worn more than her naked skin, she would have rolled on the floor in her jubilation.
"Aaaaaahhhhh, FUCK I was desperate for a laugh," she shouted at the end. "Hellroots, I want to eat, sleep, and eat, all at once."
"That's a change of pace," Aclysia shook her head, squatting in front of the, by now, orderly aligned ownings of the group.
Reysha instantly knew what the metal fairy was getting at. "Seems like stress kills my sex drive."
"Which proves that at least your biology is still sane," Apexus remarked.
"Hah!" the tiger girl cackled at the joke, she didn't care that it was at her expense. "Honestly, I'm still wondering if I'm gonna crash into a panicked mess any second now."
Apexus walked back, the boat was secure where it lay, and put a hand on Reysha's head. Patting her between the ears, he made her purr. That her hair had lost a lot of its regular wild softness did not bother him. "You are good," he told her. "It's been over a day anyway."
"I guess," Reysha hummed. Shortly after the Deathhound had run back the way he came, they had all collapsed into a long sleep. That had put a bit of distance between that encounter and their past nightmares. Having been face to face with it and surviving, even if it was thanks to a good portion of situational luck, put them more into balance.
"It was reassuring to see that even those creatures have to obey the laws of the Omniverse," Aclysia confessed her view on the situation. Glancing up at Reysha, she mumbled, "Go ahead, ridicule that I ever even doubted the divine."
"Do ya want me to do that?" Reysha asked with a raised eyebrow. "Because I wasn't going to. Those things are fucking terrifying. Wouldn't have put it like that, but what ya said makes perfect sense."
Aclysia had no answer, at least none she wanted to say out loud, for that initial question. Instead, she turned everyone's attention to the items. "We should remove some of our belongings. Their use has passed and selling them off will be more trouble than it's worth."
"What do you have in mind?" Apexus asked.
