Rieren had no intention of falling down with Mercion. As she plummeted towards the ground, she summoned up the Dawn Cloud.
Her Domain Summons wasn’t solid, unfortunately. However, it did absorb enough of the water around her to cushion enough of her fall that she didn’t plop out of the cloud’s bottom to strike the ground anyway. It also helped that the Dawn Cloud intelligently moved down along with her to help her remain within the Summons even as she kept falling.
Even though Rieren was submerged in the depths of the Dawn Cloud, she quickly rose through and broke out of its top surface. Rieren quickly got into the proper position atop it.
The sound distracted her. She and her cloud had fallen down enough that they were a little too close to the cultivators below. Rieren looked over the cloud’s edge and saw several of them were looking up at her. Many of them were preparing their techniques to get her.
“Go!” she yelled.
The Dawn Cloud shot away from the location.
Rieren was able to get a quick glance behind her before it all dwindled. Mercion had been caught before he had crashed to the ground. Otherwise, the fall would have been fatal. The wound Rieren had delivered was deep, potentially fatal if he had been any regular person, but a competent healer would ensure it left no lasting damage.
She didn’t think he was going to die that easily in the first place. After all, he had fought back while they had been raised high in the air. He would be fine, especially with a powerful Abyssal possessing him.
The flicker of shining silvery hair even made her think that Silomene was there. Rieren decided not to think too hard about that. What Silomene did and where she went wasn’t any of Rieren’s business so long as she stayed safe. Considering how she had attacked Mercion, Silomene likely no longer had a favourable view of Rieren anyway.
More curiously, she wondered if anyone would find evidence of the Gravemark Puppeteer’s influence now that Mercion was in a vulnerable state. It was a bit of a long shot, but Rieren wouldn’t rule it out.
The more interesting thing to note was who was following her. Even as Rieren had escaped on her Dawn Cloud, several cultivators had decided to give chase.
She swallowed a little. Some of her pursuers were rather fast. At this rate, she was in danger of being caught eventually.
One cultivator was sitting atop his own speeding summons, which was a shaggy carpet that looked like it hadn’t been washed in generations even from the distance between them. Another rode on a bird-lizard hybrid Spirit Beast that zipped through the air at an incredible pace. A third cultivator was riding a literal fireball. Though, closer inspection made it look more like a meteor.
An ironic choice, considering what she intended to stand against.
It was obvious, though, that speed wasn’t going to help. The Dawn Cloud could only go so fast. Even at its most powerful stage, her Domain Summons had never been the fastest. But that didn’t mean Rieren’s getaway would be supremely difficult.
Rieren had been flying over the city of Falstrom. A city where, for all that its activity had reduced thanks to the depressive gloom brought on by the Abyssals’ invasion, was still bustling and populated enough to hide her. So, long before the pursuing cultivators could get to Rieren, she made the Dawn Cloud drop towards the streets as she jumped off and then sent it away.
She hadn’t made it vanish entirely, of course. It could go a pretty distance without her, and the low altitude of flight through the buildings would hopefully obscure it enough from the cultivators to make them think she was still on it.
Rieren hid behind a few barrels, ignoring the look she received from a nearby man pushing along a cart. A few heartbeats later, the cultivators passed by without even glancing around. The one on the bird-lizard was fastest, with the ones rising on the carpet and the meteor following not far behind.
She waited until the noise had disappeared. The winding streets would grant her some time before they finally caught up with the Dawn Cloud. That was, unless it broke due to getting too far away from Rieren.
Shaking her head, she quickly got out of her hiding spot and approached the man pushing the cart. “How much?”
“What?”
“How much do I need to pay you to buy your cart?”
“Who in the Abyss are you, girl?” He looked up at the sky. “Did you just drop from the heavens?”
Rieren sighed. She pulled out the small bag of spirit crystals Mercion had given her and Silomene what felt like so long ago. They were supposed to have spent them in the city, on frivolities that would have been relaxing and happy. Well, fat chance of that now.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Here.” She held out the bag of spirit crystals at the man. “You can have all of these. All I want in return is the cart and your cooperation with one small task.”
The man’s eyes had gone wide as he heard the jingle of crystals in the bag. He tugged it from Rieren’s grip with his grubby hands and peeked inside. At that, his eyes almost seemed to pop out of his head entirely. “Cart’s yours. And anything else you want too. I can polish your sword, or… or dispose of your bodies, or even lick the soles of your boot. I’ll do it!”
Rieren held up a quick hand. “Nothing so dramatic. Though, it might feel a little scary. You’ll just have to trust me for a bit.”
The man looked one look away from grovelling at her feet. “Anything at all, mistress.”
Rieren led him off to an alley where no one else would come upon them. A good amount of time had already passed. Her Dawn Cloud would be dying soon enough and then the cultivators would start looking elsewhere for her. Smart as her Summons had proven to be, she doubted it was intelligent enough to run around the entire area in a circle to stay within range.
“What are we doing here?” the man asked.
“You will be fine,” Rieren said. “I only need to use a small Enchantment on you and then we can go our separate ways.”
“Enchantment?”
Instead of answering verbally, Rieren decided to show him what she meant. Her Enchantment came into play, covering the man in water from head to toe. He was undoubtedly scared, and Rieren unfortunately needed to pull her sword and threaten him to stay in place lest she kill him outright. Frightened out of his mind, he stayed quiet.
He certainly didn’t find his voice when the Enchanting water left him and covered Rieren instead. Now, she looked just like the man standing opposite her.
“We are done here,” she said. “Enjoy your coins.”
She didn’t wait for his answer. Instead, she headed out into the street, gathered up his cart, and began pushing it down the road. It was going to be difficult to get out of the city as a random citizen, but she would worry about that when she reached the gates.
Right now, Rieren had to get away first. Considering the fact she had ended up using her Domain water for her Enchantment as normal, it was highly likely her Dawn Cloud really had to have vanished by now.
The journey to the gate wasn’t troubling. There were times she spotted the cultivators flying overhead. At those times, her entire body screamed at her to move away as fast as possible. But no, she couldn’t forget the disguise she had taken. It would be her main ticket to leaving Falstrom in one piece.
It was slow going, however. Fast as she tried to stop forward, things were complicated on foot. There were patrols to navigate, other people to go past, little blockades she had to find a way around. In fact, she had to abandon the cart in her storage ring to move more freely about the city.
The gate came into view soon enough. It raised Rieren’s spirit to see it standing ready to be used, but she didn’t dare let down her guard.
Unfortunately, the news she heard from passers-by quelled her spirit back down again.
“They’re closing it down,” one old woman was saying.
“Are the monsters here already?” another one was asking. “Can’t those fools do anything right these days?”
“No, no. I heard there’s some other commotion going on. Some fugitive trying to run away. Sect business.”
“Sect business.” The second woman’s tone left no doubt what she really thought about that. “Now’s not the time for their blasted business.”
Rieren didn’t hear the rest of the woman’s complaints. She had moved on, face tightening in expectation of what she might see when she finally reached the gate. If they were closing it down, she had to find a different way out of Falstrom.
Thankfully, that didn’t prove difficult. Like the saviour it often proved to be, Batcat flew in out of nowhere to land next to Rieren.
“Cat,” she said, a little surprised, but pleasantly so. “Did I not tell you to make your way to the battlefield?”
Batcat meowed at her.
“Yes, you are correct,” she admitted. “It would seem I require some assistance to get out of this pickle.”
Batcat took off as though she had asked it to get her out of this mess. Rieren sighed. She had a backup plan already, but the kitten was intelligent so she didn’t begrudge following its lead for now.
It turned out Batcat’s idea of getting out of Falstrom was the same as Rieren’s secondary method. The cat ended up leading her to the sewers. Rieren smiled down at Batcat. Great minds certainly thought alike. For all the precautions the cultivators were taking all over the city, the sewers were unlikely to be watched this early on.
She went into them without trouble. The alleyway was deserted so there was no one to see a strange young woman awkwardly removing the iron grate and heading underground.
It was dark in the narrow tunnels underneath the city. Not to mention stinky too. Rieren wrinkled her nose as she pulled out her torch to light the way, or at least illuminate the area enough to keep an eye on Batcat who seemed to know the way out. Her Mortal Realm map would have worked, but she didn’t need it when the cat had such a good sense of navigation.
After what felt like half an hour of waking, Rieren began to hear strange sounds. Thunder and lightning wouldn’t have been alarming in and of themselves. After all, that was the favoured Aspect of the Ordorian clan.
It sounded distant, however, making her think that it was occurring on the slopes of the Stannerig mountain. Rieren had left the meeting in a mess. It wouldn’t be surprising if they had come to blows anyway, even after she had basically redirected all aggression towards herself.
After all, it was all too possible for some fool to insinuate that the Clanmistress was responsible for Rieren’s actions as Avathene had harboured her for so long. Completely disregarding the fact that Mercion himself had allowed Rieren to establish a presence in Falstrom and the Shatterlands, to the point of anointing her an honourary Ordorian.
Rieren decided not to think too hard about it. After almost an hour of walking, she and Batcat exited out through a vent on the side of the sewer. It deposited them into the river that cut through the centre of Falstrom. Rieren was dirty and wet after the trawl through the sewers. But cleaning herself up left her mind when she looked around.
The lightning wasn’t coming from the slopes of the Stannerig mountain. No, it was farther out from the city itself. Dark lightning that burst out of the gloomy sky with ferocious intensity to hammer the land far below.
The Dreadflood was almost upon them.