We took the rest of the day to relax, the burden of that choice finally behind us. Though I was happy that she was able to make that choice rather quickly, it does mean that I have another person to worry about in the middle of battle. She"s, by no means, incompetent; she did most of the heavy lifting that time with those two mages, but it"s still someone else I have to keep track of. The two of us met up the next day at her grandmother"s house, though I did leave a note for Baz and Tyme, telling them to come here when they"re done with their jobs. "Last chance to turn back," I said, sitting down across the table from the kid as her grandma rocked back and forth in a chair."Not happening. Hey, can we go shopping?" Chipper than she was for the past few days, she raced around the room as if she had just consumed an entire tray of sweets. "Can we? Can we?"
"Are the clothes we bought before not enough for you anymore?"
"Well, if I"m going adventuring, I"ll need a weapon, right?" She tilted her head, placing a finger to her chin as she got excited at the prospect of seeing the world. "Oh, wait! Follow me!" She ran over to me, trying to pull me out of my seat; I was in full armor and wasn"t exactly the lightest person. But I decided to humor her, following her to the back of the house into the garden that she tended with her family. She walked up to a st.u.r.dy looking tree, placing her hand on it at the leaves on one of the branches changed from green to cyan. "Please, lend me your strength..." The moment she shut her mouth, part of the branch withered away, leaving the rest of it to fall to the ground beside her. "Thank you, Mr. Tree."
She took the piece of wood, feeling the strange leaves between her fingers before she knocked all of them off by spinning the whole thing over her head. "A staff, huh? Do you know even know how to use that?" I asked as I watched her hit herself.
"I don"t, but I have muscle memory. I"ll be fine." She tried to rea.s.sure me, tossing it into the air before she stretched out her arm to suddenly catch it. "See? Like magic!"
"We"ll talk about that with the others when they get here. Let"s get back to wait for them." She followed me as I returned to the inside of the building just as Baz arrived with his face covered in dirt. "What"s up with you?"
"Oh, this? A couple of the farmers" animals went missing, so I had to keep an eye on the rest of the herd. I couldn"t just let it slide either since wool prices have been going up, every sheep just got more valuable, so I followed them everywhere..." He knocked the dust off of his shoulder, walking in and instantly getting drawn by the bright blue branch that was in the kid"s hands. "What"s with the stick?"
"Stick? It"s my weapon! Feast your eyes on the legendary Arbonlade!" She said, boldly striking poses.
"Where"d you get it?"
"Hahaha! It was a gift from the king of the fields. Lord Gr"
"It"s a branch from a tree in the backyard," I said bluntly before I received a blow to the head and my vision was filled with cyan light. "Ow."
"Boo! You"re no fun! Baz, let"s play" She tugged on his sleeve much like how she did to me earlier; she also couldn"t move him.
"In a bit. So, what"s the plan now?" The swordsman chuckled, grabbing her to sit her down in the chair beside him. "The nearby crypt again, a second run to get everything we missed?"
"Maybe, but now something else is on my mind. I won"t bring it up unless it becomes important though." I replied, looking out the window to see if our last member was nearby; she wasn"t. "How"s your pay for those jobs you"ve been doing?"
"It"s not too shabby. Wanna join me?"
"I"m good. Anyway, it"s been quite a bit of time now, she"s usually very punctual." I kept glancing out the window before a knock came to the door. "You"re l Tyme? Are you okay?" Her body fell forward, her weight falling on my arms as the other two rushed over to see what was going on.
"So tired...quest failed." She muttered, shutting her eyes as her breathing slowed down to its normal rate.
"She fell asleep!" Rose walked over, softly poking Tyme"s cheek.
"She was looking for another one, huh? What is with this place and things going missing?" Baz gave an offhanded comment, but his words were all I could think about. "Let"s give her a bit, then we"ll go to the crypt."
"Yeah, I"ll leave her with you two, I"m going to go check on our cart." I waved them goodbye, shutting the door behind me before I walked down the road. "What"s up with this town?"
I walked through the streets, it was quiet even though it was only one in the afternoon; it only added to my suspicions. Most of the stores were unmanned, security was lacking, no children playing in the streets, something sinister was brewing here. Perhaps I could get answers in the church. It was quiet before, especially yesterday since everyone was outside for the funeral, but it was completely abandoned when I arrived. I walked toward the altar, looking for a vial of holy water so I can start a spell. "You called?" Wiltop"s voice asked me playfully.
"Wil. Why did you answer him as well?" Thalis, her tone akin to that of a young teen. Do G.o.ds get embarra.s.sed?
"I don"t mind. I need as much guidance as I can get." I prayed to the two deities that currently watched over me. "Something sinister has plagued this town, has it not?" I asked; they both confirmed my theory. "It"s responsible for those missing cases that Tyme was working on, right?" Again, I was right. "Finally. Can we kill-"
"Sage, look below you!" Thalis opened my eyes to a large, circular shadow that formed around my feet. I quickly hopped to the side as black tendrils reached out to attempt to wrap me up.
"So you"re the one at fault..." I said as the tendrils retreated into the floor and the shadow disappeared. "I have to tell the others!" I muttered, running out of the church and making a beeline for Rose"s house.
"Sage, what"s wrong?" They all looked at me, and Tyme seemed to have gotten her energy back.
"Something"s wrong! We need to set up an outpost tonight!" I said, panting, before explaining what I saw. "I"m not sure if we can even kill it, but if we can give it something we can follow, then we might be able to find everything and everyone that went missing."
"But what do we give it? Giving one of us up to it would be extremely risky since it might just kill them." Tyme pondered, crossing her legs as her brain tried to think up a strategy.
"What went missing so far, maybe there"s a pattern?" Baz chimed in and all our attention turned back to Tyme, who had been searching for them already.
"People, animals, there were also pieces of jewelry or parts from a carriage. It"s just too random."
"Only parts from a carriage, and not the whole thing? Maybe it was too small to take the entire thing." Rose muttered, ever the optimist. "So whatever we use, it has to be at most smaller than a horse. How about this?" She ran out of the room and back, holding one of the skirts that we bought.
"That might work, but how are we going to watch it?" Tyme asked, looking at Rose as the kid opened up a window. A small bluebird landed on the window frame, tweeting its song as Our strange new addition muttered something to it."
"The birds told me that they"d help, aren"t they nice?" She turned to face us, a few more birds entering the house and landing on her head. "So let"s get started, we"ll be back soon grandma..." She looked over at the empty rocking chair that continued to creak on the wooden floor, a small and still shrinking circle of darkness on the seat.
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"It took her! Quick! One of you, go try to find her with a spell." Quick on the draw, our archer dashed over to the chair to scan for any traces of whatever that thing was. I closed my eyes, offering a short prayer as I felt the life-giver push my senses in the right direction. A pulse of energy reverberated out from me, bouncing back and telling me where I should search.
"She"s on the move!"
"Grandma"s moving! We have to go!" The four of us dashed out the door, Rose and I in the lead by following the spell until we reached the edge of the town. "She"s still moving, and getting faster! We have to save her!" Rose stomped her foot, looking back at the village she called home, now mostly empty.
"We can"t keep running like this, we"d never catch up!" Tyme pivoted on her heel, about to run back. "I"m going to get the horses!"
"We don"t have time, we have to go now!" Rose twirled the branch around, slamming it into the ground as the leaves lost their light. She ran up to me, climbing on my back as feathers started popping out of my armor. "Get on! I"m not going to lose another family member!" Her eyes burned brightly with the cyan light, her arms extended to pull the others on my back.
"Hold on! We"re really going to fly on Sage"s back?" Baz gripped onto me tightly as I raised my head. "Alight! Let"s go eagle-boy!" I"m not healing him later!
Using the transformation bestowed upon me, we soared into the air as I followed the pulses of the spell I cast earlier. Flying toward the signal, we flew over trees until our group arrived at a familiar sight; familiar to the three of us. "The crypt..." It would"ve taken days for us to walk here safely, maybe half a day if we disregarded safety; the fact that we got here in an hour made me think of ways of flying more often.
It was still crawling with mobile corpses, those which we ran past in order to get to the more dangerous enemies that lie deeper, but some of them were newer, their signs of decay not as p.r.o.nounced as the rest. "Some of them match the description of the people I was supposed to look for..." Tyme muttered, gripping my feathers tighter; she pulled out a handful. "They"re..."
I landed nearby, returning to normal the moment Rose lifted her spell off of me. "What"s the plan? Charge in like last time?" Baz already moved his hand to grip the hilt of his blade. "You can just do the thing again, right? Just make them explode with your holy magic s.h.i.t."
I thought about what he said. "I can"t do that. Not anymore." I walked toward the crypt. "We"re going in, we don"t have time to waste." The four of us made our way to the entrance of the crypt, already facing down a dozen zombies. Raising my hand as Baz ran up to them, I summoned flames from the ground that set Tyme"s arrows aflame.
"Wait for me!" Rose yelled, running behind Baz and whacking things with the twig while mixing in punches and kicks. Then she stopped, surrounded by three of the fresher ghouls. Were they some people she knew? She can"t let that stop her. I knew her joining us wasn"t a good idea. "Goodbye!" Exploding with the light that surrounded her, she blinded everyone that looked at her, including me. The moment my vision cleared up, I found all the zombies we were fighting charred to a crisp by a floating ball of bright blue flames that hovered beside her.
We all took a few seconds to get our bearings. "She"s still there. Let"s go in." I said, pointing toward the stairs that led underground. I stood as the head of our group, keeping my eyes open as we descended into the darkness.