Once it had become apparent there was nothing sinister lurking around, Varus had begun to walk around, picking any berries he found. It would be a good idea to save the meat until last, as that would spoil the slowest, but since he barely had enough supplies for himself, let alone a small company, he had to find more food if the meat was to avoid immediate consumption. Once he'd gathered enough for a small meal for each person, he returned to his spot above the cave, wondering how long they'd all been sleeping. He didn't want to wake them prematurely, but without the sun to guide his knowledge of the time, he couldn't be sure when was long enough. He sighed again. He wished he could still sleep...it'd be a lot easier, and probably safer to use it to recover his energy, rather than allow the corruption to feed him energy. He'd often wondered why it did that...the only possible reason was that it needed him alive to finish the corruption, but surely it'd be better to force him to sleep? After all, his dreams were the same as the Dreamers...albeit from his perspective, all the better to watch his own failures...it had been driving him insane until he'd realized he didn't need to sleep. If the corruption ever caught on that it was what had kept him going as long as he had been, then he was doomed.
Finally he couldn't take it anymore. He entered the cave, intent on waking everyone, only to see that Perran and Jack hadn't slept. Frowning at them, he moved around, gently waking the others. "Ok, I gathered more berries for this morning...remember not to drink too deeply from your flasks at one time...like I said we're a couple days from water. Fortunately, the closest lake is right next to our destination, so that's two...maybe three days of travel. Once your flask has run out, you may ask for some from another's flask, but I don't want any of you stealing water from anyone else. I'm not your father...I don't have many rules about what you can and cannot do, but if you steal someone's water...I'll not be happy...understood?" He looked at Gilly as he said that, knowing from the fact that she'd taken Melk's weapon that she was the one most likely to do something like that.
"Ok, let's get going. We can eat while we walk. Stay close together, and alert the rest of us if you see anything, or even if you THINK you see anything. It's far better to raise a false alarm than be lax because the monster you thought you saw turns out to be real and you decided it wasn't worth bothering the rest of us. When we take our first break from walking, I want to evaluate each of your combat skills...except for you, of course," he nodded at Threut, his voice not holding any ill will towards the pacifist. "Alright, ready? Let's go...follow me."
