I spared one last glance to Nis as we left. The jungle would slowly retake the area. In a few seasons, only the walls would remain and in a dozen only crumbling ruins would. Perhaps new settlers would come back before this happened, or they would build on top of the remains. Only time will tell.
I sent a small prayer to Gaia to watch over those who had been taken. Whoever had done this, their days in this world were numbered. Even if it took a hundred years, we would find them.
"Let's go," I said.
Without any serious rainfall, the tracks the invaders had left were still visible in the ground. They followed the trade route that connected Nis to Niu and the rest of the network. Vel and I followed the path at a quick jog. Alan watched from above and kept an eye out for anything dangerous or interesting.
My hope was to reach the intersection within the day. I knew the trip took around a week with a travel caravan but that took into account the slow speed of carts. Two elves alone should be able to complete the trip in a fraction of that time easily.
After around an hour and half, Alan found something.
Great Mistress, I received through the link, Alan has discovered an abandoned camp!
I dove into his sight. Under him was a clearing with some camp remains. There were the remains of two fire pits and several discarded crates. Vel and I cautiously approached the place and observed it from the tree line. The wagon tracks looped around the clearing as well, four this time.
Only the unloaded wagons had been in the clearing. It had been their staging point. Far enough from the outer barrier to have little chance of being detected immediately.
Then, once the attack had happened, the last wagon had joined the rest.
> Skill Investigation has reached rank 1, level 3 (+2 levels)
> Skill Mental Mastery has reached rank 1, level 14 (+1 level)
I quickly scanned the area a second time through my sphere but there was nothing else of interest.
"Let's continue," I said to Vel, "they're long gone."
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We avoided any groups of monsters while following the trail. Alan proved invaluable for that. Despite the heavy foliage, his eyes managed to spot movement at an impressive distance. Those that escaped his watching gaze were caught by my sphere before they could see us.
After five hours of travel, we stopped for a quick lunch. Vel wasn't much in the mood to cook and we dug into some of the rations instead. With magical preservation techniques the dried fruits were still fairly tasty, the pieces of flatbread had a texture closer to biscuits but were very filling. However, I could understand how they would become hated by scouts due to the lack of variety.
Several more hours later, we reached another clearing. This one was on the map, it was the crossroads of the trade paths. The one we had come from led to Nis, the one on our left connected to the wider network, and the path on the right led to Niu.
I walked around the clearing and examined the tracks left. In addition to the four wagons that had come from Nis, I found more in the direction of Niu. From the relative freshness of the tracks, it was clear that both villages had likely been attacked at around the same time.
However, what was strange was that none of the tracks left the clearing. The way to the wider network was completely clean. The wagon tracks circled around multiple times but none of them ever left.
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It was as if the wagons had … vanished.
But again, maybe they had.
This group had mages powerful enough to get through the barrier. It wasn't too much of a stretch if they had mages capable of teleportation. A portal was the most probable option. The tracks did seem to stop abruptly without going anywhere.
> Skill Investigation has reached rank 1, level 5 (+2 levels)
> Skill Mental Mastery has reached rank 1, level 15 (+1 level)
The scholar in me wanted to study it more but I doubted there were any meaningful traces left. The dense mana in the air had washed any spell residue away.
"Found out more?" Vel asked.
She handed me a bowl filled with some soup. I picked at the floating chunks of meat while gathering my thoughts.
"Yes. And now I'm certain it was a coordinated attack," I said, "the invaders split their forces between the two villages and struck at the same time."
"But why? There's at least two dozen smaller villages that are less well defended. They could have easily picked those off for much less trouble."
"That … I have no idea. Maybe it was more dangerous to hit multiple villages one after the other. Even if they are relatively isolated, news travels fast in the jungle. The attack required a lot of setup, two medium sized villages right next to each other were probably a good balance in terms of risk."
"And where did they go? Did you find more tracks?"
"I did but they vanished. The tracks just … stop in the middle of the clearing. I think they used a portal spell."
"That's … more high level magic. Who are these people?"
"I don't know."
"It doesn't matter," Vel said with conviction, "we'll find them! Even if they hide themselves to the end of the world!" Her magic was flaring about aimlessly.
I took her into a hug. She calmed down and leaned into me.
"Don't worry," I said, "we will find them. We'll save our families, our friends, all of them. Even if they are scattered to the four corners of the world."
----------------------------------------
We left the clearing with a few hours of daylight to spare.
Our first planned stop were the ruins Vel had spotted on the map. It was a bit of a detour from our route to Asril, around a day or two, but I think we were both too curious to skip it. It would have been possible for us to follow the trade path as well but it took a sinuous route through the jungle to avoid dangerous areas and almost doubled the length of the trip.
Instead, we opted to take a more direct route. More dangerous but also faster.
I was confident we could manage it despite that. The average monsters in the jungle was at rank five with some elite specimens at rank six. I knew it was possible to cross that gap with the right tools and I intended to increase our escape capabilities as well. Not every encounter went to plan and having the option to retreat was a must.
The way to our first camp was through another taratect hunting ground. Unlike before, we didn't avoid the spiders in our path. They didn't pose much of a threat as their levels were lower than us due to the relative proximity to the village.
Taratect spiders were usually solitary ambush predators as well. Hives, like the one close to Niu, were few and far between. Thank Gaia for that. The spiders liked to create their nests in twined trees, plants formed from multiple smaller trees melding together into a single one as the tree's chaotic appearance concealed the spider and its web more easily.
They then strung thread around their tree to be alerted when a potential prey approached. For anyone without Night Vision and a good eye, the incredibly thin web was almost invisible. This made the trek through the area a lot slower than expected.
> Your group had defeated [Young Taratect Hunter (Level 44-56, Rank 3)] x 15
> Experience gain reduced by 20% for fighting with a group
> Experience gain reduced by 50% for fighting enemies below your rank
> Experience gain reduced by 10% for fighting a familiar enemy
> Essence Absorption collected 90 ES
>
> Your group had defeated [Young Taratect Hunter (Level 52-67, Rank 3)] x 12
> Experience gain reduced by 20% for fighting with a group
> Experience gain reduced by 50% for fighting enemies below your rank
> Experience gain reduced by 10% for fighting a familiar enemy
> Essence Absorption collected 72 ES
The steady increase in the levels of the Taratects as we progressed was a good indicator that we were traveling away from Nis' sphere of influence. I didn’t expect to gain levels any time soon, the penalties were steep for fighting below your own rank.
I was glad for the essence however, the upgrade to Essence Absorption made a big difference. I also jotted down a small mental note to search through the perks for one that allowed the transfer of essence, to allow Vel to profit from it too.
Once the sky started to dim, we decided to camp inside one of the twined trees and rest for the night. Thanks to the territorial nature of Taratects, it was unlikely another one would wander too close to our little camp. Vel created a shelter for us inside of the tree's canopy while I pulled out another hog carcass and butchered it.