Ali shouted as loud as he could but no one except for his party members could hear him. He then tracked down Tian in the dim light before he caught sight of the creature the air serpent warned him about. The sharp teeth and claws made the creature resemble something in nightmares. As soon as the creatures growled, the sound echoed throughout the entire cave, getting the attention of all the Dark Cult members. Despite standing nearly three stories tall, the creature was extremely agile and it soon began its slaughter of anyone in sight. No defensive ability could halt its attacks and, when everyone attacked the creature, their resistance only angered the creature further. The unfortunate ones were picked up and tossed into the creature's mouth.
“Everyone! Grab the supplies from the nearby carts!”
After giving the order, Ali jumped into the cart closest to him and began tossing everything into his cart. As soon as their cart was filled, the party began reversing the cart to escape the carnage. Before they turned a corner, Ali watched as the last Dark Cult member was slain by a claw going right through his body. Within a few minutes, dozens of people were slaughtered with only the four of them being the last survivors. Their only concern was to get as far away as possible and hoped the creature wouldn't pursue them. Once they covered some ground and the creature's presence was gone, the teenager checked with the others, including his summonees, but no one knew what the creature was.
Tian! Scout ahead and see if you can find another exit. We’ll exit the mountains and walk from there.
An hour later, the party gathered as a cave mouth. They organized the supplies to better distribute them among the four of them. Even if they were separated, they would have enough supplies for several days. Ali wasn’t too happy about the weight he had to carry but he preferred the discomfort over running out of supplies before they arrived at a settlement to restock. Belen was the fortunate one as her storage bag made such a task trivial.
“I think we should keep going east,” suggested Belen. “That’s where the airship was heading. I trust in the Dark Cult in picking the safe route.”
With that, the girl took out her compass and took the lead. The others followed her as they navigated a rocky path overlooking a large valley. With the help of Tian, the group arrived at a small village built on a mountain plateau. The village was long abandoned but there were still supplies they could use to restock their own. After five days of travel, the party rested in a small cave to wait out a dust storm.
“I wonder how the war is going,” said Kurata. “Hard to navigate through a nation when it’s embroiled in a conflict with no sight of an end.”
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“From all the abandoned settlements we’ve seen,” replied Belen. “I would say that we need to find a major fortified city if we want to be safe. Only bandits and criminals are wandering the lands now.”
“Given how suspicious all the guards are, we’ll probably be labeled as spies and be executed on the spot.”
“If only we can find a city with a Dark Cult hideout,” muttered Ali.
The party members all recognized the situation they were in. With just the four of them, they couldn’t possibly hope to do much. They were no different from the refugees seeking protection. If they were fortunate, they could make it to the slums where they had to make a living somehow. With the escalation of the conflict, even reaching the slums seemed impossible.
“I think I might have something useful here.” Kurata dug into his bag until he took out some documents. “I focused on retrieving these documents when the others were more focused on the valuables.”
After reading through it, the party has a better understanding of the nearby Dark Cult bases that they could seek shelter from. Even the smallest base had over a thousand members. The challenge was reaching the settlements and establishing communication. Kurata’s contributions at least saved them a lot of time but they wouldn’t be in the clear until they made contact and convinced the Dark Cult that they weren’t spies.
An airship is coming in this direction, Ali! It seems to be losing altitude. I…I see fire on the ship and the people aboard are all panicking.
After hearing about the burning airship, the party members discussed amongst themselves, unsure what to do. They could assist and maybe save someone with influence in one of the settlements. Conversely, they might save a bunch of people who would become a burden on their limited supplies, thus hurting their chances of survival. There was also the dust storm which posed a threat to them. The most conservative approach was to remain in the cave until the dust storm ended before they went and maybe find survivors from the crash site.
“Let’s have Tian keep an eye on the situation,” said Ali. “We aren’t much help right now anyways.”
While the air serpent kept an eye on the crash site, the party members went over the map as they figured out what route to take. The path ahead was dangerous which was why airships were used in the first place. To travel by foot meant they had to be extra careful.
If we get additional help from the survivors, we might get through this. If only the dust storm can end.
Then, an idea came up for Ali so he checked with the prompt.
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Yes, a weather ability like rain dance can replace other natural weather phenomena like dust storms. If two weather abilities are used, the higher level ability takes precedents. If the two abilities are the same level, the stronger user wins the control over weather. To the untrained eye, weather created through abilities appear no different from natural weather.
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Tian, use your rain dance ability! We’ll see if we can actually make the dust storm disappear.
Here goes nothing!