Kiran knelt beside Juna’s bed. He began rummaging through some of her things. Normally he wouldn’t go through someone’s stuff like this but these weren’t normal circumstances he was dealing with. She was still missing after several hours of searching by himself and many others. Therefore, he felt it necessary to dig for any clues.

All she had to her name was whatever she had on her currently, and a big brown bag he began searching through. He examined the few personal items she kept in it. She didn’t have much. A few different pieces of clothing were stashed inside. One unique item stood out amongst it all. It was a dirtied and mangled bearlike doll with one black beady eye.

There’s nothing here to help our search. He supposed the fact that she hadn’t come back to get it all meant something. He wasn’t sure what to conclude from that though.

Where the heck have you gone Juna? He felt agitated towards her, but he quickly stifled away that emotion knowing that she might not be doing this out of her own will. A banespawn could’ve potentially done something to her although deep down it didn’t seem like that was what was going on here.

“Any luck?” he said telepathically. He stuffed everything back into her bag and sat it aside.

As he stood back up, Lar responded. “Nope. Not a sign of her. If we keep searching we’re bound to find her eventually.”

“Unless she’s not in the upper or middle sector of the city.”

“You think she might’ve gone into the lower sector?”

“It’s possible.” Kiran just hoped she hadn’t somehow found herself outside of the city. If she was running away that could be a possibility. They were quite unlikely to find her in that instance.

“Well, this kind of behavior isn’t exactly typical of her,” Lar telepathically said.

“I know. That’s why I’m concerned.” Juna was indeed not herself, but just going off and hiding away like this was unusual.

He walked outside as a pair of guards walked past him. He headed towards Rinas who was at the opposite of the circular street that wrapped around this area of the city.

A part of him was quite frustrated. They finally had a few successes even given all of the destruction and death, and now she has ended up disappearing on them all of a sudden.

Whatever was going on and the more he thought about it, the more he thought this was entirely under her control. The moment things settled down here, she disappeared.

If that was the case, why? Why not at least tell them where she was going or planning to do? It boggled his mind and did little to calm him.

“Kiran,” Rinas said as he finally neared him. “Still haven’t located her?”

“No. It appears she’s left most of her things so she didn’t go back to grab them.”

Yorais eyed him. “We’ve gone ahead and asked Felmir to lend us a hand so that they can aid us in our search. They can’t expend too many of their own however since they’re having to continue to assess all of the damage in the city and secure it properly.”

“Completely understandable. Whatever help they can give is appreciated.”

“Did she not tell anyone where she might be going?”

“Not at all,” Kiran said. “I recall her standing right by me and Lar right before I had to confront Lucias at the gate. As you can imagine, I wasn’t exactly paying close attention to what she might’ve been up to once I became preoccupied. I suppose I should ask. Has she ever gone out of her way to disappear before?”

Yorais gestured over towards Hoghdar who was walking by with a few other coalition members. “Perhaps we should ask him.”

Hoghdar appeared before them as he appeared eager to continue with the search.

“Have you ever known Juna to just disappear suddenly?”

He shook his head. “The Juna I’ve known for years doesn’t exactly disappear. No, that’s not the way she’s ever behaved. She’s always been good at notifying us of her movements throughout the time I’ve known her.”

“That’s what I suspected.” Yorais lifted her hand to her chin. “You’ve known her longer than either myself or Rinas. What do you personally make of this?”

“I couldn’t tell you. To be perfectly honest, I’ve always gotten the impression she’s held a lot back from us. It’s never really been a problem, but I’ve always had a sense there’s more going on with her than she might want others to know about.”

Kiran could easily ignore what Hoghdar was suggesting. However, he could look back to several different times he had been with her to know that Juna had plenty going on that she kept to herself. Whether it was stuff from her past or her real thoughts on things. There was much about her that she kept sealed.

We all have our secrets. He was not one to judge too much in this regard, but it did make him think perhaps he should’ve dug a little deeper or tried to not ignore these brief glimpses Juna every now and then revealed to him. That one particular moment when she had so easily appeared ready to use violence against that medicine woman stood out to him as just one example of a side of her that she might’ve been keeping dormant.

“I think,” Kiran said causing them to look at him, “that we should expand our search into the lower sector. We haven’t been having any luck searching around here, so maybe she’s somewhere out there.”

“Maybe,” Hoghdar said crossing his arms. “It’s still not safe out there though. Halmond mentioned that they’ve begun spotting more banespawn coming out now that things have calmed down. It’ll probably be another week or two before they’ve either killed them all or captured them.”

“If she’s out there, we don’t have a week or more to wait around.”

“I agree,” Rinas said. “If you and a few others want to take the risk of going out there to expand the search, then you’re free to do so but we can’t afford to send more than that.”

“Alright,” Kiran said. “We’ll make do.”

He would’ve liked him to consider sending more out there to help, but he was their leader. If he were one of the faction leaders, maybe he’d be more willing to press Rinas further, but even he knew the importance of hierarchies and knowing when to press and when to not press due to his position within the coalition.

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Kiran began heading for the gate. “I’m preparing to begin a search in the lower sector,” he said telepathically. “I don’t know if there’s even the slightest chance that I’ll find her out there, but I want to at least try.”

“Do you want me to come join you?”

“No. Keep searching with everyone else. I’ll go alone for now.”

“Are you absolutely sure? It’s not exactly safe out there.”

“I’ll be fine. Rinas doesn’t want to put too many people at risk anyways.”

“Just be careful out there, alright? I don’t want to hear you screaming into my ear saying you’ve ended up in trouble again and need me to rush to your defense.”

He smiled a little as he reached the front gate. “Don’t worry about it.”

Felmir noticed him standing there. He sniffed a little as he maintained his bear form. “Are you wanting to go out there?”

“Yes.”

“If that woman—“

“Her name’s Juna.”

“If Juna’s out there, she likely doesn’t wish to be found.”

“Is that something you know or is that just your interpretation of her actions?”

He grumbled to themselves. “I don’t know her personally. But I’ve known some people who have taken similar actions. One day they just get up and disappear without saying a word to another. It’s more commonplace than you might imagine. All I’m saying is that if she doesn’t wish to be found, you’re putting yourself in danger for a fruitless endeavor. Leave it to us to secure the lower sector properly before you go risking your hide so soon.”

“Risking my life is what I do best. I’m just doing what I always do.”

Felmir sighed finding his words to not have worked on him. “So be it.” He twisted his big furry body around. “Open the gate for him.”

It was becoming a normal routine for him to leave safety and become thrust into danger. He was so used to it at this point, that it didn’t unnerve him like it might for the average person.

Perhaps that was a good thing. Or perhaps that was a bad thing. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter. He simply uncorked a vial and drank its contents to enhance his vision so he didn’t have to travel with a light source in his hand. Once the darkness past the gate became brighter, he walked past the gate and entered that oh so familiar darkness.

It wrapped around him like a blanket. It dwelled and possessed every nook and cranny.

He hadn’t taken much of a gander of this sector since he previously fled it. This street that sloped down a little wasn’t the same the last time he traveled through it. Many of the buildings had taken lots of damage. Some were entirely broken apart due to Lucias. The street itself concaved a little with cracks running through the cobblestones.

Amidst the rubble and destruction were the occasional banespawn underneath it all. Their bodies were little more than mush and dried blood. Unfortunately, banespawn weren’t the only victims.

Not everyone had managed to escape with everyone else when the city was being initially assaulted. Some remained behind barricading themselves in their homes instead. For some, this might’ve worked and allowed them to avoid any banespawn from breaking in if they lucked out. But they couldn’t exactly defend themselves from a giant serpent that destroyed everything it touched.

The further he made his way through the lower sector, the more destruction he spotted and innocent victims crushed by it.

Not all of them died unintentionally by Lucias. Some had likely already been slaughtered by the banespawn. But some indeed had become collateral damage when Lucias and Noreko fought together.

Death was a tiresome thing to witness. It was everywhere he went. There was no escaping it. It merely followed him like footsteps in the snow.

The scent of it also lingered in the air quite prominently. While the sight of it was offensive enough, the smell was in many ways worse than what his eyes revealed. It wafted in the air and its intensity varied depending on where he stood.

Thus far, he didn’t notice any live banespawn. Which was one blessing he supposed. There wasn’t supposed to be very many of them remaining out here but some did lurk about if the reports were true.

An eerie silence surrounded him as well as the darkness. He tried to hear for anything that might suggest someone was around. If Juna coughed or made any kind of movements, he just might be able to locate her. He couldn’t see any signs of her though. The more he remained out here, the more hopeless he felt. There was just too much to search through which was why he had to rely purely on instinct to direct him in the right direction.

He began to hold his breath and stop walking. He listened intently hoping to hear anything that might alert him to another being’s presence nearby.

After another few moments, he exhaled. Then he pressed onward.

Other than his own carefully placed footsteps, the slightest semblance of a sound produced from another source appeared. It came from his right. It was so faint that he doubted whether it even existed.

It was something to go on at least. Or perhaps that was what he thought to himself to justify him remaining in this sector any longer than necessary. If Juna was instead in the middle or upper sector of the city, then being out here was truly folly. But it was as if his heart knew somehow, that she was out here someplace.

He headed down another dilapidated street. This time, all of the buildings towards his left were fully collapsed. He recognized one of the buildings. It was the smithy he had visited a couple of times. He hoped that the blacksmith and his wife had made it out alive. He hadn’t seen them though for a while so they might have been buried in all of that mess. It was also possible they had successfully made it into the middle sector when many others had as well.

Kiran kept to his task of trying to locate the source of the faint noise. It became more evident that he was hearing something. He just wasn’t sure what it was. It was also rather sporadic.

His right ear perked up a little as it sounded like it may have come from the inside of a building. He looked over towards a still intact stone structure with its front door wide open.

Someone or something was inside there making this noise. As he approached it with a hand gripped tightly around the hilt of his sword, it sounded more like a muffled grunt. It wasn’t prominent enough that he couldn’t make it out very well.

The sporadic grunting continued as he stepped inside. The wood beneath his feet buckled a little.

Thankfully he could see well enough inside this small home that was in a complete mess. There were all kinds of things lying all over the floor. A rectangular wooden table was tilted strangely. It looked like some kind of fight had gone on inside of here. That would explain the state of this room.

He stopped going in any further as he felt something sticky beneath his feet. He stepped backward noticing a small pool of blood with red droplets around it.

A trail of blood ran through this room over towards another one further in the back. He positioned his sword strategically as he followed the trail. He took each step carefully to minimize the sound he produced. No matter what he did, the wood would creak ever so slightly.

Whatever was grunting strangely was still unaware of his presence since they kept to whatever task they were up to.

He wasn’t quite sure what he was about to find, but the closer he got to them, the grunting sounded human at least to him. It also didn’t sound like it came from a man although it wasn’t high-pitched. It was just very unusual sounding.

As he neared the very back of this place, he found himself stopping and lowering his sword. It was in fact Juna who he found.

But that wasn’t all that he found. No, there was something much more disturbing that he couldn’t stop witnessing.

She kept raising her arm into the air with a bloodied knife plunging it over and over again into a banespawn’s body with an almost inhuman motion.

A pool of blood gathered beneath her legs and her feet as she remained there on her knees. There was so much blood, he couldn’t tell whether any of it was hers or just the dead banespawn.

What in the world are you doing here Juna?