The jerky came as a welcome distraction while Valerie waited for the pain to subside, even if she wasn't particularly hungry. The conversation was much for the same purpose, although she was curious. She'd just come suddenly much closer to an angry wyvern than she'd ever wanted to, and she still felt a bit jittery from the adrenaline.

"Two years well spent, if you ask me," she said, putting away the cloth. "We probably wouldn't have escaped so well back there without it." Valerie didn't envision any kind of magical training in her own future, but she supposed it would be foolish to rule it out. For the moment she had enough to learn. She laughed a little at Markus's comment about his lack of a life beyond mercenary work. "Well, we'll have to work on that when we get back."

After a few more minutes of rest they started moving again, delving through the thickening forest. It was a bright day, with the sun thankfully piercing through the trees above them. Valerie imagined it would be easy enough to get lost in here without the proper guidance.

"What do you think that smoke we saw came from?" she asked. She figured that would be their first target, assuming they had no more unfortunate encounters with winged creatures.