The mood within the Misfits was tense. Aurora, Simbad, and Sion were constantly at the camp’s edges, patrolling and keeping an eye out for the Undead. Their surroundings were like a dead, abandoned field that once had to be filled by a sea of crops circling the ruined city before them. Lia was standing on the wall facing toward the townscape, thinking about what to do next. To her left, Rinzen was climbing up to her on the collapsed part of the wall, looking around warily.
“We can’t stay here.” She said after a moment of silence, making Lia bite into her lower lip.
“The archway is our only way out, and I am not keen on going into the ruins, leading everyone into a trap.”
“We have days to go…” Rinzen said, looking back, watching the rest, scouring the camp for resources, battle plans, maps, and anything that is going to be helpful while they are stuck here. “This base was attacked once and destroyed. If they come back for the bodies, we are going to be sitting ducks out here. We need a hiding place from where we can plan our next move.”
“Haah…” Lia sighed, letting out a long breath, “Sadly, I came to the same conclusion.” She raised her hand, tapping her bracelet, but it did not react at all. “The Silly Fox said before coming that it should work… well, it does not. Or I would remain here until he or others arrive to our aid… But that has been thrown out of the window! Look!” She pointed, towards the distance, at a 5-story, sharp-looking building a few dozen kilometers away.
“Mhm?” With a flick of her hand, crystal-clear ice formed around her wrist, turning into a magnifier as she took a look. It was a building with a pointed top floor, built from some kind of metal, still standing strong. Its windows were dirty and blacked, but only a few were broken in at the lower levels. “The surrounding buildings cover the bottom floors, but it looks intact from here.”
“And tall. The tallest one around its surroundings, so we could have a good look from it and keep an eye on the exit from there.”
“Looks good enough. When are we going?”
“As soon as we collected everything that is useful and-” She looked at her, but then all of her words remained stuck in her throat.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up at the black, cracked sky as a loud rumbling of thunder echoed inside the whole sub-realm while sick, greenish light flashed above them relentlessly. In the end, those green bolts passed over an invisible layer, striking the huge, spiky towers deep in the Core Region, blasting at them before returning to calmness once again.
“What… was that?” Lia asked, but Rinzen had no answer. But someone else did.
An animalistic, deep, and reverberating roar washed over them, coming from far away. None of them ever heard something remotely close to it, sending fear down their hearts. It was as if an ancient beast had woken up, shouting at the sky in indignation for what happened a moment ago.
“We better hurry,” Lia said, waiting for no answer and jumping from the wall. The still-smoking ruins and pits where the dead bodies were burnt were like billowing signals for anybody else in their vicinity. Nobody asked questions as nobody had any answer to them, but they all knew it was best to get somewhere hidden.
After leaving the destroyed camp, Simbad played the scout role, leading the group’s trek hundreds of meters before them. On the other hand, Aurora was lagging behind at another hundred or so meters, guarding their rear. Even in the middle, they were keeping at least four to six meters between them, so they would not be caught up in an area of effect spell if ambushed. Sion and Keily were at their sides, ready to battle at any time, nervously scanning the empty ‘field’ they were walking through.
“We are nearing the first row of ruined houses,” Simbad said, his voice coming from a peashooter’s round mouth, sitting in a pot held by Ceiline. On the other end, Simbad had a miniature one, sitting right on his shoulder, recording his voice, transmitting it back efficiently. “They look empty and damaged. I already see at least four that collapsed in a fight. I can’t tell when they were destroyed. It may have happened a long time ago!”
“We will tighten our formation,” Lia answered back. “I want you up on the roofs so you can have a bird-eye view for us while we go through the streets.”
“Roger.” He answered simply, flashing once in the distance, and they could see him appear atop a 3-story building, waiting for them to catch up.
“Are we trusting the map?” Koa asked, watching Lia, who was holding a folded-out parchment with an ancient-looking map drawn on it. What was fascinating was that the map itself was constantly redrawing itself as they walked, showing a 500-meter circle around them. “I have never seen something like this.”
“Me neither,” Lia answered, shrugging. “But do you have a better idea?” She asked as the first buildings appeared on the map with a text under them titled; Housing District.
“It has to be an ancient artifact,” Ceiline said, coming closer, looking at the map as she found it. “My guts are telling me that it is bound to the sub-realm.”
“Maybe.” Raufon’s voice chimed in, too, “We have the bracelet that has an interactive map, doesn’t it? Who says in the old days they didn’t have something similar?”
“No matter,” Lia stated, closing it up, wanting them to pay attention to their surroundings. She knew they were trying to start a simple conversation just because they were afraid… but this was not the time for it.
“Undead.” Arrived Simbad’s voice through the potted peashooter, making everyone flinch, “Five. Looking like stragglers roaming the street ahead. They are walking back and forth and wearing ancient, ragged clothes. They look dried up! They are not fresh kills.”
“See any movements further away?” Lia asked, hastening her steps as they all broke into a run.
“No. Only those.”
“We can dispatch them quickly.” Sion’s voice chimed in, who was closest to reaching Simbad.
“Do it! Make no noise, and don’t let them see you!” Lia ordered, and they only saw two bright flashes of light as an answer.
By the time they arrived, five bodies were cracked into hundreds of pieces, still twitching, trying to move, but they were crumbling away. Their heads were already reduced to nothing but a pile of ash. Keily asked no questions, stepping forward and burning the rest away while Aurora secured the smoke from it was captured by her spell and not let into the air. After that otherworldly roar, they ensured their location was not easily given away.
“They were truly crumbling,” Sion said, watching the old, abandoned buildings. Some still had faded tapestries inside, small chairs or tables signaling that they were maybe a restaurant, a coffee shop, or some kind of bakery. One of them did have a broken-off sign before its decaying door, saying it was a barber shop back in the day. “And I mean the Undead.” He looked at Lia, “One hit and their heads were gone, turned into dust.”
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“This clearly indicates these bodies were more than 3000 years old.” Simbad agreed with him, “They decayed greatly while being stuck in here!”
“So the older they are,” Raufon knelt down, pinching into the ashes, grinding it between his fingers, feeling how smooth and minuscule its particles were, “the worse they get?”
“You saw them in school,” Keily explained, drawing back his flames. “When opened up, they are empty inside; their organs shriveled up and are slowly turning into dust! I read a lot on the topic, and they are deteriorating constantly. Much, much slower than any other organic thing… but they do.”
“Even in No-Space.” Lia added, “Remember our first find from the telescope? That thing was also…weakened.”
“Whatever the reason,” Aurora wrote, pointing towards their original target, which was much closer by now. “We better move!”
“Yes.” Lia nodded, and they were on their way again, Sion and Simbad jumping from rooftop to rooftop, scanning their surroundings. “Most of the buildings here were for housing families.”
“Families of whom?” Ceiline asked while they walked the narrow streets, and their steps echoed loudly on the hard, concrete roads. It did not help that the empty buildings were amplifying it, giving their voices a creepy, reverbing undertone.
“Brrr…” Keily shivered uncontrollably, glancing at the black sky without stars, moon… or sun. Yet the realm was in a perpetual dusk-like state since they arrived here, never changing.
“Dunno…” Lia answered, watching the map again, “It does not say. But every street is named after someone, I guess. Our target is called Tower of Lyda, whoever that may have been.”
“Can you imagine what it was like here thousands of years ago?” Raufon asked with a sigh, “These buildings are not even made of rocks or bricks but metal and… concrete! My tribe lives in a village where everything is made out of wood!”
“I lived like that too,” Keily murmured, finding no problem with it. He did see the place as interesting but wasn’t admiring it like Raufon.
“It had to be beautiful,” Rinzen spoke up, remaining silent for most of the time. “Also, I was thinking, I… I think I have an idea why everything is made out of metal.”
“This place had to be filled with people practicing the Element of Metal. Electricity, to be exact.” Lia finished for her, making Rinzen nod.
“But that is a guess only. Don’t take my word for it.”
“I can see that.” Keily said again, thinking hard, “I picked it for my second element, and I have been learning about it! It is not as easy as I thought it would be… but we are said to use metallic instruments while practicing! It ought to help channel our mana and change it into electricity!”
“Your encounter with Palvina highly influenced you, didn’t you?” Koa smiled, making Keily blush and remembering how she wiped the floor with him in their first year. Subconsciously, he was trying to do the same and prove to nobody in particular that he could do it way better than her.
“Don’t lose focus!” Lia raised her voice, watching them before putting the map away. “We are nearing it; stay vigilant!”
After exiting another narrow street and abandoned rows of buildings, they came to a little park with a broken-down chainlink fence surrounding it. Inside, there were old swings, slides, and spinners lying around, once built for children, now nothing but only bare husks. The towering building at the other side of it stood tall and sturdy, its front-facing windows and doors broken in, dismantled over time.
“Well… we can at least go in easily,” Koa said, watching the desolate scenery and the few blackened trees standing around the sidewalks leading to its entrance, looking like oversized toothpicks.
“Do you feel anything?” Lia turned towards Rinzen, but she shook her head. “Ceiline, go and plant peashooters around the perimeter! We need a warning system set up! Raufon, you go with her!”
“Yes!” They nodded, getting to work immediately.
“Aurora, Koa, Keily! I want you to check all the buildings surrounding our new base of operation! Make sure nothing is hiding here and gather us still usable tables, chairs, whatever you find! We need to board up the bottom floor windows and door!”
“Right!”
“The rest, come with me!” She headed to the front doors while Simbad flicked his wrist, summoning small, floating balls of light, dashing forward and illuminating their way.
Entering the building, it was clearly a spacious lobby once, and the floor was made out of marble-like stones. There had to be couches and potted plants around once, but what remained of them were only broken pieces of the pots and the metallic frames of some furniture. The half-circle desk at the far end was only standing because it was also made out of black marble, looking as if it was raised directly from the floor under their feet. Behind it were remains of chairs and old appliances drawing their attention, making them examine them, trying to figure out what they were.
“That looks like some kind of brewing machine,” Simbad said, pointing at one on the left, still having a dusty porcelain cup standing next to it, stuck to its surface by thousands of years of grime.
“And this one had to be some kind of communicating device.” Sion pointed at a weird, brick-shaped device with multiple buttons on it, a rotating dial at one end and a broken handle at the other that had a mouthpiece still attached to its bottom.
“How are we supposed to go up? I don’t see any stairs.” Lia asked, turning her eyes away from the strange, ancient devices but saw no doors other than their entryway or any holes in the high ceiling. There were no broken-down stairs nor anything that indicated how they could reach the other floors.
“True…” Rinzen nodded, closing her eyes and sweeping them with a burst of her mana. “I see!” She said, walking to the other side of the table and looking at the strange device Sion pointed out.
“What is it?” They asked, looking curious.
“There is a formation etched onto the floor,” Rinzen said, waving her hand above the device, letting ice form on it, then melting, sucking up the multiple layers of filth like a sponge, cleaning it in a flash. She allowed her power to create a black, nasty-looking crystal ball, throwing it out of one of the broken windows.
“Ouch! Hey!” They heard Raufon’s voice coming from afar, finally making even Lia chuckle a little.
“...” Rinzen looked slightly shy before ignoring it and reading the faded text, barely making it out. “It seems… like… names? And numbers… probably there are homes up there? Assigned to families?”
“Hmm… So… we press a button, and it takes us to the floor? To the home of that specific family?” Sion asked, and Rinzen was about to press one when Simbad grabbed her wrist without hesitation.
“We should not touch things without knowing how they work.”
“It is a control panel,” Rinzen said, unbothered by his firm grip, stopping her from pushing any of the buttons. “When I let loose my mana, I felt multiple formations, one in the ground before the table… and that is connected to this device. Sion is right. I think.”
“Simbad, let her try….” Lia spoke up, watching them, and Simbad let her go immediately. Evidently, he wasn’t seeing Rinzen as one of the Six but only as part of Lia’s group.
“Let’s see…” She murmured, already watching the multiple buttons, finally choosing one with 2F on it and with an unreadable smudged name. The moment she pressed, it echoed with a loud clank, and they could hear ancient gears turning somewhere deep below them. They saw that a faint, yellow, highly complex formation lit up for a millisecond in the middle of the room before going dead again, and the slight shaking under their feet also stopped. The button clanked again, jumping back out to its default position, and silence fell in the hall.
“Well… it is out of order.” Sion shrugged with a sigh.
“Or… energy…” Lia murmured, “We may need to recharge it….”
She was about to say something again when they felt a shake. It was not just them or the building they were in, but the whole realm that shook once. Then a second time. A third... Rushing out, the rest quickly gathered in the old playground too, looking for its source.
“Isn’t it… getting darker?” Keily asked, and he was right. The perpetual dusk was fading, replaced by pitch-black darkness slowly but surely. Next came a howl from far away, sounding like a broken siren, echoing from the past straight to the present, bringing along thousands of years of wrath.
“Get in… now…!” Lia whispered, her voice shaking a little, and everyone headed into the building, unceremoniously huddling together while hiding there.
The shaking was getting stronger and stronger, and it had a periodical feeling, like…
“Steps…” Aurora signed, and nobody said anything. Despite the darkness, they could read her sign language, and everyone thought the same. Then they heard a whooshing sound; the strong wind blew through the area, whistling like a banshee, squeezing through the broken windows of their building.
Looking out, they could glimpse something massive flying over them, making rounds high in the sky, sometimes letting out a howl like a fog horn. Even without making out its shape perfectly, even without seeing it closely… every one of them knew what that was… a Dragon… an Undead… Dragon.