As he stood there reflecting, footsteps drew closer behind him, and Jack turned to see Rose and Madeleine approaching, Rose with her sword back in hand, Madeleine carrying a large sack of something over her shoulder. When they drew close, Maddy dropped the sack with a thump, and Rose flipped her sword around and slid it into the scabbard with a small thunk."Is the shaman dead?" Rose asked, looking where Jack stood.
"No. But I drove him off." Jack said, turning towards the two. While he wasn"t distraught anymore, he was sure that his face wasn"t doing a very good job of hiding that something was wrong.
"Well, that"s good, right?" Rose said, seeing his face and putting on a smile. She seemed to be misattributing his negative expression to him failing to beat the boss. "You should be proud of yourself!
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Before Jack could respond, Maddy looked around, and then fixed Jack with a stare.
"Where"s Ellie?" She asked.
Rose stopped, and glanced around, her face taking on a more confused look. "Actually, yeah, where is she? Did she run off or something?" She asked.
"Well, I-uhh.... she"s...." Jack stammered, trying to find some way to explain what was going on. As he struggled to find the words, Maddy"s eyes bored into him, and after a moment, her eyes grew wide.
"She"s gone." She said, her face slowly taking on a more and more horrified expression.
"Wait, WHAT?" Rose said, jerking around to face her little sister, before immediately turning her attention to Jack. "Where is she?"
Jack sighed and hung his head. He"d really hoped to have some small moment to prepare before all of this, but he should have known better. He lifted his head and made eye contact with Rose.
"The shaman took her and vanished while I was fighting him. She was already beaten and hurt when I got here, and he managed to use magic to escape when I tried get to the two of them." Jack said, trying his best to not slump back down in defeat.
"Why didn"t you stop him?!" Rose said, her face flushing in fear and anger. "You"re the hero of legend! You"re the strongest fighter I"ve ever seen!"
Jack hung his head. If he wanted to crawl into a hole and die before, this certainly wasn"t helping.
"I didn"t know he was planning on running with her. He threw a barrier up that broke my eyeline with him for a few seconds. That"s it. I had no idea he was planning on running, and there was no way I could have done anything even if I had known." Jack said. As he spoke and explained himself, he felt a little of the guilt lift.
"f.u.c.k!" Rose said, less at him and more to the air in general. She looked back at him. "Do you have any idea where they went?"
Jack nodded.
"They"re in a hideout cave a couple days travel from here. I spent the reward Frumpkin offered me on knowing where they went. It"s a cave in the side of some mountain, with skulls around the entrance. And I know generally how to get there." He said.
"Well, do you where she is inside? Or how many will be guarding it? Or which mountain it"s in?" Rose asked.
Jack shook his head, his face showing his frustration and disappointment.
"I don"t. I"m sorry. Knowing where she is being kept and how to get there is the best I could get. Frumpkin even said that he couldn"t tell me more, even if he wanted to, because of some set of rules or something." He said.