Breather

It was still a strange thing to see, a merrily bubbling fountain, when only a short walk away there was a realm of sand where water was the most precious good of all.
Even more so here, in a seemingly forgotten corner where it would not even be appreciated for the little wonder it was. It felt wasteful now that Alexis had experienced what it meant not to be able to quell her thirst whenever she wanted.

She looked around carefully. Was she truly alone here? In all honesty, she would be grateful for a breather from the tension of hiding in a crowd in the midst of a hostile territory.

Of course she could never let her guard down, not here, but maybe she was lucky enough to be able to sit down for a few moments and collect her thoughts.

Still looking around warily, she approached the fountain and took a seat on its stony perimeter. Mindful to keep her features in the shadow of her scarf she scooped a bit of the cool liquid to sample if it was alright to drink, which seemed to be the case.

Only noticing now that she probably had yet again not drunk enough, she drew a few handful more, before just sitting there in silence, recapitulating what she had learned.

So it seemed there were three obelisks, and at this point she felt it was evident they were what the map referred to. How they could possibly connect to the location of the shaft, Alexis had trouble to imagine.
What the obelisks depicted seemed to be a story of a much grander scale than the power struggles among deities. At least it felt like that with what she had been shown.

Still it was all she had to go on for the moment. So could she hope that there where any pointers to be found among the carvings? Any landmarks she could follow even without generations worth of knowledge how to navigate the shifting sands? Wasn’t like she could just ask for a guide…

She would just have to find out.

Alexis sighed. It was not the first time she found herself wondering if Fosia couldn’t have found Himself a more suitable errand boy or girl. Were there really no Odonine left that still revered Him, that He had to make do with foreigners from beyond the sea that happened to stumble into His realm? You know, believers that would wilfully try to restore Him, instead of being dragged along forcefully on puppet strings, maybe even able to walk relatively freely where they had to go, possibly capable to, well, ask for directions? People native to this lands, and not completely ignorant to its ways and its history…

The mercenary bit down the rising resentment. She could complain all day how unfair it all was, but to her knowledge that had never set anything right. She was not getting out of this until it was done or she was done, and that was that. If she -somehow- managed to bring this quest to conclusion, then she might give the Fire God a piece of her mind should she feel particularly suicidal.

But that was far off into the future if at all, and she had to focus on the here and now.