Today begins the third year of my expedition. Two of my current traveling companions set out with me from Atalan. One we picked up in Perduva. The final traveling companion joined us in Razhinoch, officially as a replacement of someone we lost, but more realistically because he is quite smitten by one of our companions. Elendra’Tel, Krista’Mil, Pelmarco, and Rar, are all thankful they joined me on this journey to explore Etnyben. They cannot guess what they might be doing if they had not joined me, but all agree it would be nowhere near as interesting. We’ve talked with Lunari, ridden massive beasts, explored ancient ruins, and done much more in only the past year.
We are back into the Toram River area, just south of a ridge dividing it from the river system that flows through the Razhin Jungle. I’m not yet sure if we’ll stay near the ridge, or if we’ll continue somewhat farther south. Regardless, it’s midsummer here in the southern hemisphere, and the telefs naturally prefer to spend that time in the Toram River area, where it’s slightly cooler than at the equator and jungle regions. Of course, now we once again have the potential for stampeding etagas and attacking jekets. I wonder if telefs have any natural enemies or predators they fear.
At our current rate of progress with the telefs, I estimate we can reach Sehol in about four months. If we decided to continue on to Torheem or Forada on the eastern coast, another two months after that should do it. The Sisterhood operatives expressed little opinion about which city they’d rather visit. Rar isn’t sure he wants to stop at any of them after what happened at Terin and Telin. I guess he assumes all cities will be like those two warring villages, which might be similar to Razhinoch and Puv’l Ewoy. Pelmarco, however, says we should continue to the coast. We can stop by Sehol along the way if necessary, but if I’m dedicating my life to exploring Etnyben, I might as well take the time to see the eastern regions of the land. I’m just not sure how far east the telefs are willing to go, although considering their record so far, they’ll probably go with us anywhere we take them.