Thunder roared in the night sky above Damien, rain sizzling as it evaporated on the molten ground around him. A layer of steam was beginning to form up to his knees, only seeming to add to Emra's unease she crept further from it. That development had set its own brand of depression upon him, though he knew now wasn't the time to try and fix their relationship. She seemed well enough with Kastra nearby and him far enough away.
Glancing forward, Damien found his left eye was drooping some and quickly commandeered it from his new roommate. He could tell from his jumbled thoughts and overall slow attempts to move that the God seemed injured somehow, perhaps even weakened. If Damien hadn't let him try and control that eye at his insistence, he'd have never gotten control of it in the first place. The way it almost immediately started drooping downward until it hung partway below his eyelids was more than an indication of Rai's current state.
"I've come to collect you, Ventis. It is time for this foolishness to end; you will return home with me."
Damien's eyebrows shot up as he absentmindedly lifted his right hand to feel at his throat, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. The voice had come from him without a doubt, yet it had been foreign. Similar in tone, but more powerful and ethereal at the same time. He could tell Rai was utilizing mana to speak with his vocal cords rather than air, tweaking them to match his tonal preference.
A God inside him, another before him, and the goal of saving his wife from murder-happy angels. The entire situation he found himself in currently seemed implausible and yet, here he was again, in a scenario he never could have dreamed himself. It seemed to be a reoccurring theme ever since coming to Eleria.
Glancing over at Kastra and Emra again took the mirth right back out of him though, as a missing shadow loomed beside them. Teeth gritting, Damien looked forward once again, the amalgamation of Shades now only reminding him of why he'd allowed himself to be drawn here. His patience for the standoff before him disappeared, wanting instead to take off immediately, sprint through the forest with abandon and use the newfound power he felt coursing through his mind and body to reap through the camp of idiots that had taken Alexa. He knew doing so would only end with the monsters before them hunting at their backs, so he reigned himself in for the moment. He was mostly sure they were still Shades, simply taking on the will of something else, but he wasn't willing to bet Kastra on that.
'But why can I see... sense them?' he wondered to himself as the figure began to speak.
He hadn't been able to feel they were around before, yet now he knew where they were individually, even if he couldn't see them exactly. He could feel their presence, their movements...
"Come to collect... A pity," a deep, raspy voice resounded from the shadows before them. "I thought... hoped you might be here to join me."
Damien could feel how absurd of a notion that must have been to Rai, his mind being assailed with foreign emotions. It felt as if the man wholy rejected that statement, interpreting it as slander, but when viewed from Damien's own perspective, the shadowy figure had seemed genuine. Downcast, even.
"Do you mock me, brother? Join you? Abandon our family? The Mother? You're a fool. Come, before you injure this rotation any further, or my patience runs thin. May the Mother be lenient on your treachery,'' Rai finished.
The Shadow before them seemed to sigh, the face it was beginning to form almost downcast as all the pieces of its body stared hard at Damien. He could feel their eyes on him, each one of them, whereas before he could only vaguely sense that there was a threat nearby.
"It is not treacherous to care for your followers, brother," the shadow responded. "It is treacherous not to. They live, build. Have lives and family, and we take it all. You used to underst-"
"You talk about caring for them while you slaughter villages, frame innocents, and sew conflict throughout the world? Who are you attempting to play the fool for here, Ventis," Rai barked back angrily.
"A temporary measure to buy time before the Mother returns. The trees are far and take much searching-"
"Thousands of years of effort you destroy with your silly crusade," Rai interrupted hastily. "Stop delaying this any further. You will answer for what you've done."
The floating head sighed and seemed to shake from side to side lightly.
"You used to care for your own before, you know? The time we last spoke, you were distraught over their fate. Inconsolable, though I tried as much as Geril. Yet now, you-"
"And I've since realized I'd grown too close, as had Charna, and as have you, Ventis. Charna's death is regrettable, and the Mother's replacement will come next rotation. I do not want that to happen to you. Please, do not make us replace you as well, brother. Come home," Rai implored.
Damien, watching on and soaking in as much information as he could, felt the palpable emotion in Rai's plea. The being before him merely shook its head from side to side again in response, leaving a foreign, bitter feeling floating around Damien's mind.
"Perhaps you didn't care for them enough, then," Ventis stated as his shadow began dissolving into the many Shades that made it up, a few scattering to various parts of the forest while the others lingered. "Maybe next rotation will be the moment you break and another must come bring you home."
Before Rai could respond, the remaining Shades acted, splitting off one another entirely and scattering into the surrounding trees.
"I will find you!" Rai's voice boomed out, hurting Damien's own ears as he watched his left arm lift jaggedly to point at a retreating group of three Shades, pain wracking his muscles at the speed they were forced to move. "It is my duty, no matter how long it takes!"
With more intensity, speed, and soreness than Damien had ever been able to accomplish himself, a bridge formed and a bolt exploded out of his outstretched fingers, entirely missing the shadows it had been aimed at. They hadn't had time to dodge, but each still seemed injured to a minor degree, bodies slightly deformed. None of them slowed and soon they were out of sight entirely.
"Damn... body..." Rai huffed. "Awkward... weak. Stiff."
"I think you lose moving privileges for a while," Damien responded, healing the tears in his arm while wincing.
"...Fine. I need to acclimate to the new situation anyway. I am a lot more present than I had expected to be. Something... went wrong. I have a lot to think about."
"Something went wrong?" Damien asked, but the God didn't respond.
It was as if the being had just gone dark, and any small tidbits of his emotions Damien had been picking up before disappeared entirely. He could still feel Rai there, like an unexplored space in his mental map of his body, but probing at it did nothing.
Damien looked back over to where they'd initially left the forest, noticing Kastra sitting atop Emra, watching and waiting. Moving in their direction had Emra once again on edge, moving closer and further away almost simultaneously while whimpering and growling.
Damien sighed, flexing his newly healed arm. Happy with its condition, electricity began to gather inside him from his surroundings, crackling along the surface of his skin as he let it permeate throughout his muscles in a mimicry of what Rai had done mere moments prior to move his body. Focusing on the tingling sensation, he tried to remember what had happened when he'd been able to sense the shades before. He knew they were there, yet he couldn't see them or sense them with his mana. Damien closed his eyes and felt at his body without his mana sense, trying to locate himself in the same way he had them, searching for the energy housed within his body. He moved his arms up, down, side to side... he could feel them move in more ways than just physically, but he couldn't see it. He felt like he should be able to. Knew, he should be able to.
Sending a pulse of electricity throughout his body, Damien watched it travel all around until it finally reached his head, rocketing all around the insides of his mind until it accidentally raced across his eyes. Staggering backward as if he'd been hit with a flashbang, a brightness enveloped his vision that he'd never seen before. Motes of blue, white, and every combination of the two were everywhere inside of his body, racing around at nigh imperceptible speeds. The spectacle caught him so off guard that for a moment, he felt his control slip and loud crack sounded throughout the forest. A mass of electricity, centered on his head, ejected itself into the clouds above him without restraint. A small shockwave rolled over his body at almost the same moment, prompting him to quickly put a leash on the rest of his volatile energy still trying to escape.
Opening his eyes to look around, he found nothing damaged in the nearby area, relieved to confirm visually what he'd felt. He closed his eyes a second time and prepared his mind as the myriad of colors once again covered his vision, like stars in the sky, but outlining his entire frame and ever moving. He noticed a pattern in the colors as it brightened and dimmed depending on where he concentrated the electricity he was hoarding, prompting him to adjust its voltage. The colors began to dim fast, changing the overall hue of the foreign energy to a darker and darker blue, easing the pressure on his consciousness considerably. Though he couldn't blind himself like this, it was still extremely unpleasant for a white too bright for his mind's eye to handle to suddenly fill it entirely.
'So the bluer it is, the lower its voltage is then...' he mused internally.
'Maybe for a weak Human mind trying to make sense of what it doesn't understand,' Rai's voice responded sarcastically throughout his subconscious, making Damien jump a bit.
"What the hell, you can read my mind?" Damien asked aloud.
Rai didn't respond and had disappeared entirely once again.
Damien shook his head, focusing on his dark-hued frame again. He could sense energy rapidly gathering from his surroundings and morphing from lighter hues to a darker blue at almost the same instant it entered his body.
'Now, if I combine this externally with how I felt the Shades... Holy crap.'
Turning his senses outward, another blast of color assailed Damien's mind, though not nearly as intense as it had been before. He could see the ground, the rain, the trees and rocks around him, Kastra and Emra lightning up in a different way than everything else, Emra's eyes in particular glowing in a familiar light. It was as if a blanket of stars had been laid over the entirety of the world nearby. Unlike his normal vision, it showed him everything. The back of objects, the front, each individual organ of a bug hidden underneath the bark of a nearby tree... He could feel it all, see it all.
He was speechless as he observed an entirely new world around him, reminding him of how giddy he'd been the first time he'd experienced magic since coming to this world. Reminding him of how small he was sometimes.
"It's beautiful," he mumbled.
Kastra turned her head toward him and furrowed her brows, opening her mouth to speak with each of the actions taking an awkward amount of time. He tilted his own head slightly, confused. When she finally did speak, it sounded slow. Normal but slow as she asked him what he'd said.
'Strange.'
Cutting off the energy he had infusing his body, he looked up at her again.
"Is that better?"
She nodded.
"You were speaking quickly before. I couldn't unddeerrrstttttaaaand you."
Damien's brows lifted, surprise evident on his face. He'd filled his body with energy as she spoke and it had once again sped up his perception, with the enhancement cutting off the moment he stopped. He didn't even understand the logic behind the action, but somehow it worked. Unlike before when he had to know the ins and outs of whatever he was doing, now, a general idea inspired by Rai was all it took...
"It's no wonder people commune," he said to himself, a light headache showing him a potential cost of overusing the newfound ability.
Kastra nodded again.
"It will be helpful. Shall we go?" she asked a bit impatiently, floating over to his shoulder as Emra looked on helplessly, wanting to bring her back while wanting to follow her in equal parts.
He could see the animal's distress, plain as day, as well as feel the hurt and confusion she held through their bond.
Damien nodded, a bit ashamed at taking so long to experiment though he knew it was necessary. Once again, he coated his body in a layer of electricity but excluded his mind this time around. His nose was glowing a faint blue when his eyes surged with electricity, augmenting them.
"That's a giveaway," Kastra stated plainly, looking directly into his eyes from his left shoulder.
He nodded, closing his eyelids as a dark blue replaced what would normally be a pitch black.
"I think I'll be able to adjust that later. If she can, I don't see why I can't," Damien stated, motioning toward Emra who was slowly creeping closer, freezing the moment he glanced at her. "For now, I think I'll be fine with my eyes closed."
Kastra nodded and Damien once again hopped on the balls of his feet as his eyelids shut, setting his new sights on the trees. Furrowing his brows, the ground cracked beneath him as a faint trace of electricity surged around his calves, the man and Fae disappearing into the forest.
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The rain continued to fall from the night sky in a torrent, dropping out of the trees as it gathered into large droplets and hit the ground. Puddles had long since formed the storm raged, causing most of the wildlife to hunker down in their caves, trees, nests, and tunnels. The wind howled fiercely, already having taken a few trees down while two figures hoped the tree they stood by wouldn't be the next. Still, they stood, opting to hunker down rather than risk traveling through the night.
"We shoulda stayed," Laurent stated irritably. "Woulda been easy to finish 'em off. Didn't get nearly enough fight in."
"Minerva," Maura scoffed out, agreeing completely as she glanced over to see Laurent's grimace. "If it had been Charles in charge... Well, we'll have our fun soon enough. Now that she got her precious little prisoner, we will focus on raiding, like the other groups."
"Finally," Laurent grunted with nod.
Maura grinned. It wasn't hard to find someone to agree with her in this camp, but Laurent held the same level of violence and anarchy inside his heart as she did. It was hard to find someone willing to dissent with how tight a hold Minerva held over this camp, and bitching was all Maura wanted to do as she stood, soaked twice over in the downpour.
"That's enough," an older, deeper voice demanded from behind them. "Shut it and stay focused. It may be raining but the dregs of that Caravan still might come searching. We lost more than a few Nivari on the run back to that fucking Grask. We can't afford more setbacks."
"Yes sir," the two responded in unison, looking back to meet Uhren's eyes.
He was their senior and both Laurent and Maura wouldn't be here if not for him. They followed him, trusted him, respected him... and because of him, put up with Minerva. In fact, though they understood it sometimes, they both hated his deference to the bitch. She was too... cautious. Too calculating. And Uhren was all too willing to jump at her beck and call, agree to her plans, and leave them out in the rain rather than raping and pillaging a nearby village as they should have been.
"Setbacks," Laurent mocked while shaking the water out of his wings, certain Uhren was out of earshot. "We coulda killed twice what we had but instead sacrificed nine of ours for one stupid girl. Barely got away too, from what I heard."
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"Both their wings scarred to hell and burnt in multiple places. Idiots," Maura mumbled. "Wouldn't have been able to fly somewhere else even if the rain and lightning weren't keeping us from going up."
"And the Grask," Laurent chuckled out. "Good thing we was flyin above, eh?"
"I bet those Nivari shit themselves when it dragged them into its layer, barely sparing the survivors a second glance. Exploded out of the ground and disappeared just as quick I heard," Maura added, laughing as well as she nudged him. "Should make them take up scouting duty; see how many faint as the nightlife's sounds reach them."
"Good thing those beasts only hunt what's needed. Fuck, I love fighting as much as the next guy, but I don't have a death wish. I bet anyone in this camp woulda had a rough time against it; thing musta been ancient. Could you imagine if it had followed them up?" Laurent asked.
"Yeah, that would have... what? Somethin' on my-" Marua started, a cool breeze wrapping around her neck softly before her voice cut off, rasping as a warm sensation flashed across her neck.
She'd tried to ask why Laurent was looking at her with wide eyes, but couldn't seem to form the words anymore, a sticky, warm substance causing her throat to gurgle instead. Then, her eyes went wide as she saw something dark but reflective wrap around his throat, coiling up like a snake and then unwrapping just as quickly.
She tried to warn him, but instead, opted to scream as his head that had been tilted to the side to look at her dislodged and rolled to the ground. His body collapsed to its knees shortly after and eventually, fell forward, headless and leaking blood. She tried turning around to yell for Uhren, but her body refused to move, like she was caught in a spiders web.
That was when Maura realized she hadn't been screaming, either. She wasn't making noise of any kind in fact, the downpour masking the last few gurgles she managed as her perspective slowly slid forward. Finally, it tumbled downward, flipping in and watching what looked like her body falling back and away. When she hit the ground with a thud, she saw others at their posts nearby beginning to fall as flashes of a dark metal glinted through the night.
Finally, someone noticed something was off and Maura heard the first cries of alarm as her mind faded.
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'To your right forty feet,' Kastra sent, confirming what Damien could sense as well.
It had taken them ten minutes to get here from where he'd communed. His legs were on fire having constantly surged them with electricity to force them beyond their limits. Luckily, healing his own muscles took barely any effort and it was worth speeding over. Every minute he bought back was another minute closer to seeing Alexa and ensuring she was alive. She was still alive, in fact, but he wasn't sure how long they would keep it that way.
He snuck up on another two Hellials guarding the edges of the camp and felt as Kiara slithered forward, silent and invisible in the night. He wished he could use both his blades, he'd be able to execute the two at the exact same moment then, but Eira being a pale white was much too bright and reflected the torchlight the watches were using. It had almost gotten him caught with his first pair a minute ago and since, he'd been doing one at a time.
It was quick and easy, almost too easy to control his blades now. Like a third and fourth arm, he could feel his blade moving forward in his mind, climbing up and slithering the branches of a nearby tree trunk. He could see his surroundings in a way he never had before, feel the electricity that charged the air and figures around him. It was exhilarating, and it couldn't have come at a better time as he couldn't use his usual mana sense right now, or his tremor sense. He'd tried feeling the vibrations in the ground and almost yelped at the overwhelming amount of data the rain caused the world to feed back to him. At the same time, if he used his mana sense, the Hellials and Mages hiding deeper in the camp would definitely sense it. He might be able to mute his presence enough to fool those around his own age but he had no illusions of tricking the men and women he was infiltrating.
At least he was able to hide his own mana from external view currently, though that wasn't through the effort of learning how from practice yet. Kastra was keeping a thin barrier over his body that reminded him of the Shade's own, turning him into almost a black hole in the surrounding mana. Similarly, though, he also couldn't sense any around him, like he'd been cut off from viewing the power entirely.
'That's fine for now, though.'
Damien felt he was at his peak condition, entirely ready for this undertaking. If there were anything he'd even try to complain about, it was Rai. Unfortunately, the God was something that hadn't gone according to plan. For all his posturing and all his boasting, the God had been almost comatose and non-responsive ever since they'd begun sharing a body. Not because the connection to Damien was too weak either; Damien could feel him there and easy to mentally prod. Which he did, many times. From what Rai had finally explained in an irritated tone on the sprint over, he'd been forced to give too much of his soul to form the connection. The entity seemed to be on the verge of figuratively collapsing, having his soul so completely torn between the two places. He'd implanted almost forty-three percent of his own to Damien for the usual boost of knowledge the Gods typically imparted, and when he had finally gathered his mind enough to speak without sounding pained, he'd been nothing if not useless, complaining about pain and fog.
Damien ignored him mostly, realizing he'd be of no help early, and instead tried to process alone the raw information and changes in his abilities to wield their Element. Flexing his control showed astonishing improvement in both his fine control and sheer quantity he could hold of the Element. He felt like as long as his body could handle it, he could house infinite amounts of electricity inside of him, as if he were the world's largest and most efficient battery. Instinctively, Damien could feel levels that would be safe and knew not to push too far past that lest he be vaporized, but the option was still there.
Regardless of Rai's inability to function well currently though, he'd assured Damien he'd be of help in a few minutes. Until then, Damien had to handle things on his own, but he honestly didn't believe he'd need the God's help at his rate.
Looking through the dark, foggy, rain-laden forest, Damien's next two targets shown like torches in a room with dim candles set everywhere. If the sky above him were a torrential ocean of light, those before him were two ponds, far beneath but still letting off rays of their own. Everything around them was doing the same, but in different tones, different shades of blue. The ground was almost black, save for a few spots where bugs resided or where surges of energy seemed to be coalescing. Glancing toward where he felt Alexa, he could tell she was in a cave while all around her, a blurry, undulating mass of energy roiled about within. If he focused hard enough, he could tell they were all individual people, but so far away he couldn't tell them apart from one another. He couldn't even pick Alexa out of the pack, and she hadn't moved for over an hour.
Still, regardless of how easy it was for Damien to sense others now, he still needed Kastra's eyes. He wasn't used to this form of perception yet, and when one disappeared behind a tree, it confused him. He could tell exactly where they were and what they were doing, but sometimes they almost seemed to blend into the trees when they didn't move for long enough, or appeared like trees themselves. But when he could see them, oh could he see them.
Damien shook his head and refocused on his two targets, idly chatting about nothing important. Certainly nothing that would save them right now. The last three groups their captain had just checked on had fallen moments after, decapitated in an instant, and now it was their turn. Kiara finished sliding up the tree and in two movements that took less than a second to perform, Damien wrapped her sharp edge around both of their necks and pulled his blade inward while rotating it like a saw, ending two more lives as he gently nudged the second body forward to keep it from crashing back. Unfortunately, it ignored his prod, as did the first body, both crashing backward and to Damien's distaste, landing directly on top of one another with a crash of metal.
"What was that?!" a voice bellowed, loud enough for Damien to hear from over fifty feet away through the rain. "Laurent?!"
Damien sprinted toward him as Kastra confirmed the Hellial's location, sending Eira at him. The blade whipped forward without any stealth in mind, glinting in the torchlight. It swam through the air in an s pattern before Damien started a wave at the base of the blade, sending it along until right as the tip of his sword reached the man, the wave of energy caused it to whip aggressively to the left in an attempt to decapitate the loud man. The soldier's left hand and shoulder moved blindingly fast, pulling his sword from its sheath upward and intercepting Eira with a shower of sparks.
"Sound the alarm, enemy attack! Damn Nivari, what the hell are they doing?!" the man yelled out, retreating out of Damien's range as the group of people began running about.
"Well, I guess stealth isn't an option anymore," Damien whispered to himself.
"I'd still keep that advantage as long as possible, at least until they can track where you are," Kastra replied.
"Agreed. It will take another few moments yet for them to find you with spells. Continue forward, take out the last few stragglers that are retreating," Rai's voice commanded through Damien's mouth.
"Don't speak using my mouth," Damien snapped. "You said you wouldn't be able to take control without -"
"That was before I almost put half my person inside of you, fool! Now go," the voice whisper shouted back as Kastra sat on his right shoulder, looking uneasily at Damien arguing with himself. "This is nauseating enough as is, I don't needmmm-"
The voice cut off as Damien forcibly held his mouth and throat shut while sprinting across the wet forest floor.
His swords were attached to his back by force of will as he sprinted, vaulting over a downed log with his left hand as he neared the first group of two that was retreating to the inner camp. When he was within range, Eira and Kiara both left their sheaths, striking like the deadliest of vipers as they coiled through the trees silently, relieving both Hellials of their heads simultaneously in a brutal display of shredding. Almost too fast for either to react, though one had almost gotten his arm in the way of Eira. It wouldn't have mattered if he had, but Damien resolved to find a way to at least darken his white blade somewhat in the future if he needed to do something like this again.
So far, it was all too similar to the training he'd gone through at the academy with Layla and the others, the way he was using his swords, but never had his control been so refined. It felt like he could ask them to do anything and they'd oblige without even the slightest effort on his part to magnetize them. Almost as if an image was enough to get them to act.
Continuing forwards, Damien bounded to the right of the cave in a crescent arc, finding another two nearing the camp outside of it. He changed course, darting inward to try and intercept them. Another group was running out to meet them, weapons in hand, but he wasn't close enough to strike yet. He needed another ten feet, and with another step he only needed five before they were in range, but the group of ten was nearly on them. Damien grit his teeth, feeling as his brain relayed the electrical impulse to jump and magnified it, hitting the muscles in his legs with a surge of energy that caused them to shove his body forward harder than it should be allowed. Both his swords lanced through the darkness almost simultaneously, extending to their full length, hunting for the rear of the retreating men's necks, but it still had taken too much time.
Damien adjusted his target just as the three closest brought their swords upward, attempting to intercept the attack aimed at their comrade's necks. Their eyes widened as their swipes met open air, the whips of metal diving downwards at the last moment and piercing into the backs of the Hellials, poking just a bit through the front of their stomachs.
Having gotten another couple feet closer, Damien sent a wave through both swords again but pulled Kiara back out of the man as a downward swing aimed for her, threatening to shatter the brittle connections while extended. The wave of movement struck the other Hellial's back and Eira ripped out of his stomach to the left, biting into the side of another Hellial that had been standing by as both whips retreated to their compact form. Damien moved on, rapidly gaining distance between the dead and dying men as he disappeared into the trees, aiming for the last isolated group in the vicinity.
It was a squad of three. Rather than flee, they all had their backs to one another and though only one held a sword, their eyes scanned the surroundings with extreme vigilance as another group of five broke off from the cave's entrance to go collect them.
"That's the final group," Kastra confirmed in his mind.
"Then I don't need to be hidden after this anymore," Damien replied, looking upward as his eyes behind his eyelids seemed to glow brighter for a brief moment.
The sky responded as he dove forward at the same time the three scattered, no doubt sensing the danger of staying put, though it mattered not. The bolt came down and split apart, grounding into each of their backs and slamming them to the ground as his trusted companions slithered through the darkness and relieved them of the burdens above their shoulders.
"Retreat right," Kastra ordered as the forest to his left suddenly shone a bright orange.
Damien obliged as his vision distorted slightly, the shimmering field around him breaking its uniformity for a second as the heat disappeared inside of it. The light went out and darkness once again absorbed the forest, lit up only occasionally by a bolt of lightning far off in the distance and by the torches up ahead. Damien moved further back from the camp, circling to the left, stalking around the Hellials and Nivari that were stationed there.
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"Uhren, what the hell is going on out there?!" Minerva yelled from inside the cave.
It was a spacious cavern, originally having only been a few feet deep and wide but with a little effort from their Mages, it had been remodeled to the size of an amphitheater. A temporary base for them, located about halfway up the mountainside for cover from the rain. They'd planned on retreating to the other side of the mountain the moment they retrieved the girl, but due to weather and a greater number of casualties and wounded than they'd expected, they needed to stay overnight. Over half her retinue had died, and everyone in Uhren's strike force save for himself and Laurent had perished. She'd underestimated the civilians from Eleram greatly.
The Nivari had made it out with only one casualty from the fight as they were mostly hidden from the battle and not required to advance into the enemy like the Hellials. Only a rogue blast of fire had landed among them and scorched one to death instantly while the others sustained minor burns.
Regardless, even with their losses, Minerva had still planned to travel overnight. That had been the plan through the deaths, her injuries, the weather, the slippery hillside, and the irritated Hellials, all the way up until the Grask. The monster, coming out of the ground like a reaper claiming his dues, swept away twelve of the Nivari's casters, including their replacement commander, before disappearing back into its cave. It had been hidden under the mountainside from all forms of mana sense somehow and managed to take a sizeable chunk of her forces without so much as giving her the opportunity to retaliate.
Perhaps if it wasn't dark, maybe if they'd been able to hear better without the rain, or if the water hadn't obscured the entrance to its layer, perhaps then they might have survived or lost less. The thought of going into the cave to retrieve them hadn't even crossed her mind. That was the final straw that decided they'd settle in for the night. Continuing to travel through these mountains without being able to sense the wildlife was just begging for death.
And now it seemed some other force of nature was here to ruin her night. Despite hunkering down and setting up scouts, something was attacking her camp. She'd finally sat down to heal her wings after an afternoon of fighting, running, giving orders, and helping to excavate this cave, only to be interrupted once more.
"Pull the scouts in! Send more men out to retrieve those too far!" she heard him shouting with more than a bit of irritation in his voice.
"Uhren, what is happening?" she asked a second time, standing up to leave the cave.
She moved away from their two prisoners, one unconscious and the other whimpering. The second had ran back with their group to retrieve her brother as they'd discussed and she'd had a slave collar placed on her neck, as Minerva planned. The brother was frail, weak, and useless, but the sister had made her abilities in infiltration and strengths known. Minerva would use her until she lacked a purpose.
Approaching the entrance to the cave, she scanned their outside camp as her eyes finally fell on Uhren, widening in shock. The man had a long gash down his left arm and was sat, being healed by the Nivari as he issued orders to the camp.
"Something is attacking the scouts. We don't know what it is or where it's coming from, but it's not giving off a mana signature and four of our men are already dead, perhaps more."
Minerva stared into the darkness surrounding their camp, searching for a hint of battle. A few shouts erupted from her left and when she swiveled her head in that direction, a group of her men limped into the torchlight that lit her camp. One was dragging another soldier forward with his hands underneath his armpits, the man appearing uninjured but motionless. To their left, two more of her men were dragging another limp body, though this one had a huge gash in his stomach, like someone had ripped out an entire section of his flesh. He wasn't bleeding much, indicating he'd either managed to slow it or that they'd burnt the wound closed. The last was helping another with a deep cut in his side. Unlike the other injured, he was twitching and walking with jagged motions while moaning with each step.
She didn't know any of their names, and she didn't much care. They were all disposable, pieces to her. That being said, they were her pieces, and she didn't plan on losing more of her forces here. It would even worse on her weekly report to command and she'd have to request more, not to mention the imbalance of power with the Nivari until she received her new forces. Thankfully, it seemed those three would be fine. Two relatively uninjured and one needing healing, but not too bad. They may all even be able to fight soon.
Feeling her anger starting to abate, Minerva glanced around at the motionless Nivari.
"Heal them," she demanded, startling a few near her as she turned to Uhren. "And find the intruder."
One of the Nivari moved forward and met the injured party at the edge of the light as Uhren turned to her.
"They've been searching for the last minute or so," he said, motioning to a group of five Mages seated on the ground near the entrance, protected by others. "Whatever manner of creature it is gives off no mana and moves in the shadows. The trees are thick here. They've tried other forms of detection as well, but all have failed. It's effectively invisible."
Minerva considered his words for a moment before nodding.
"A Rippler then?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"This far east, not likely. And they hunt in packs. Unless it was chased out of its pack... Lone Ripplers are extremely dangerous, but I'm not so sure. The attack I received didn't feel like a Rippler. It looked like a snake of metal. I've sent groups to assist our scouts in retreating," he added, looking over his shoulder, "but it doesn't look like they've returned yet."
"Call them back," Minerva replied, sighing. "And get everyone to retreat to the mouth of the cave."
He nodded and stood up, shaking of the healer and barking orders as she turned back to the group with survivors, watching as two healers hunched over the three. After another few seconds of watching, the one that was inspecting the downed men stood up and moved to her quickly, ignoring the shouts of the three behind him demanding he heal their comrades. When he finally got close enough to her, he met her eyes gravely.
"The third one is alive but the other two are gone. There isss nothing we can do for them," he reported.
Minerva's eyebrows went up. A gash like that being fatal wasn't unheard of, but the fact that he had died without much bloodloss and the other was...
"That one isn't even injured, why can't you help him?" she asked irritably.
"They have both... given up," the lizard-like man replied simply, shrugging his shoulders. "Their heartsss do not beat. They have left. Fell on the walk back."
"What?" she asked darkly, glaring at the creature.
He flinched lightly and looked down before speaking.
"They were burnt inside- not bad. But still they do not move. Their heartss have stopped. We don't understand," he explained, motioning back to the other Nivari. "He isss burnt too, but livess. Shaking. Can't move right."
Minerva glanced back at the injured for a moment before looking around the camp. The last two groups that had gone in search of the scouts had finally trickled back in while Uhren ushered the everyone into the cave. In the center of the camp, a few of her men and Nivari were moving [Light] spells around the perimeter of the trees and setting torches up near the entrance.
"Leave them. Get the others-"
Minerva's voice faltered, interrupted by a myriad of yells from the few Mage Nivari that were searching for the intruder. They'd lept to their feet and were conjuring up a few [Barriers].
"What are they-" she began to ask the Healer, stopping when the first few swords appeared out of the forest, embedding themselves inside the chests of those closest to the darkness.