The Banausic Cardinal's leader took in the peaceful sight playing out. His entire team sat around the campfire, drinking, laughing, and swapping stories of days gone by. Well, most of his party was. Errant did not join in on the conversations often, but that was just the type of person he was. The blond leader could just imagine all of the corrections and interjections he was self-inserting during the retelling of that dragon story. Errant just didn't understand branding.
Fetter might have imprinted her own personal reason for joining the Sodality of Rain's counterforce against the Pleurothallidinae, but the real reason the leader accepted the quest had more to do with managing team morale. They needed a break. Any military effort, even one against the mokoi would take time and patience to accomplish. This was the perfect way to basically force the group into a vacation.
The blond man was aware that he wasn't the most skilled or intelligent member of the team, but there was one thing that no one could doubt: he could lead. Well except for when they fought that dragon, that was an unmitigated disaster, but it was also too good of a story not to tell.
While the blond man leaned back, taking in the sight of his group, he noticed another soldier walking toward them with quick, purposeful steps from the edge of the forest. Her name was Weltschmerz, and she was one of the citizen volunteers from the Sodality of Rain. She could be succinctly described as the intense type. Her eyes were red, and it was clear she'd been crying—though she was doing her best to hide it.
Trying to ease her into the group, the blond man grinned and offered a purposefully comical introduction. "Hey Weltschmerz, you were out for a while. Take a big dump?"
The blond man's words brought Weltschmerz into the fold while shifting most of the group's attention to him. Fetter slapped him across the shoulder and began scolding him about how indecent and rude his behaviour was.
Meanwhile, Mortise, catching sight of Weltschmerz's red eyes, misinterpreted the situation entirely. She grew mortified, assuming the tear-streaked eyes were a direct response to the blond man's comment. In a flurry of panic, Mortise began profusely apologizing on his behalf.
Errant silently watched the comical chaos unfold, his gaze fixed on the exchange as Fetter continued her scolding and Mortise floundered in her apologies. Despite the amusing spectacle, his attention was gradually stolen by Weltschmerz. There was something seriously wrong.
Weltschmerz ignored the lively clamour of the Banausic Cardinals, interrupting both Mortise and Fetter as if she hadn't even clued in that they were speaking to begin with. "I think there were mokoi scouts around here. We need to scan the forest."
The soldiers still riled with mirth and drink, simply laughed the girl off. They clearly thought she was being paranoid, which she usually was. One of the soldiers, spilling some of his drink in his drunkenness, laughed out to Weltschmerz. "You're probably just psyching yourself out, feeling vulnerable with your pants down. Nearly all the mokoi are out on a hunt somewhere."
Weltschmerz did not take the comment well. The laughter and dismissiveness only seemed to stoke a fiery rage within her. It flowed through her muscular body, her jaw clenched tight as her fists tightened at her sides. "The latest report said that they had lost track of the hunting unit. Perhaps they know a route that we aren't aware of and slipped by."
The soldier shook his head dismissively. "This is our territory; we know of all the routes."
Errant could practically hear the explosion brewing within her, the simmering anger on the edge of boiling over. He watched as it happened—like a spark igniting a blaze. All the rage and spite poured out of her lungs and into her words as she shouted, her voice filled with a raw intensity. "It hasn't been our territory for nearly a millennium now, we can't know!"
The Cardinals liked Weltschmerz; she was kind, respectful, and reliable, but it was clear that she came with a lot of baggage. Part of that baggage was evident in her zealous disdain for mokoi. The Pleurothallidinae was her number one target in that regard, and it was evident to anyone who had spent any time with her that she would jump at any opportunity to make them suffer, even if it wasn't always the most rational course of action.
She was still an intelligent person, even if her lividity against the mokoi seeped into her every thought and action. She wouldn't come out and say what she did pointlessly. Regardless, this was a proper military operation, and maintaining order and calm was just as important as addressing the threat itself, something that the waking camp behind him indicated was in jeopardy.
The blond man stood up from the wooden log he had been sitting on, his eyes scanning the group and seeing a rising tension. A few soldiers were getting ready to scold Weltschmerz, which would only further exacerbate the discord. He needed to quickly placate both parties without raising any panic on either side.
He cleared his throat and spoke, his voice steady, ready to take control. "Alright, we still need some soldiers stationed at this checkpoint to make sure the 'mokoi' don't waltz by while we're gone, so how about we look around instead, just in case." He looked at his half-finished cup of liqueur, he thought briefly but he probably wouldn't be fighting anything tonight, so he chugged down the rest of the drink and placed the empty mug on the log next to him. "Will that make you feel better?"
Weltschmerz did not falter in her position. Her eyes were wide, and her voice trembled with urgency. "We have to tell the main garrison to strike now. If the mokoi hunting unit gets back to the valley before the invasion tomorrow, then there's no way we'll win!" Her breathing was becoming erratic, each word coming out in a rush, and it was clear she was working herself up into a frenzy.
The blond man tried to calm Weltschmerz back to a more reasonable level. "Let's not say anything to the garrison yet. If you were mistaken, we don't want to cause an unnecessary fuss, and if you're right, then they could have already made it back to the valley, and it'll be too late."
He gave his team a wave, signalling for them to prepare. The Cardinals put down their drinks and food, all of them moving with practiced efficiency. One by one, they slipped into their respective tents to gather their gear. The blond man stayed behind, watching Weltschmerz carefully and ensuring she didn't do anything else to rouse the camp.
Instead, Weltschmerz seemed on the verge of tears. Her fists were clenched so tightly that her nails were drawing blood from her palms. Her breath hitched as she struggled to hold herself together, managing to grit out a few words through choked breaths. "But they can't come back yet. We were so close."
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The poor woman, he thought, she must have gone through so much to get to this point. But then again, so had everyone, hadn't they? Wasn't that the reason the Banausic Cardinals were taking this break in the first place? The blond man gave a small sigh, then turned his attention back to Weltschmerz, his voice gentle but firm. "If they really did make it back to the valley, and that's a big if, then we'll just wait for the next hunt. There will always be another chance. Now let's go do our job and actually figure out IF they are back." With that, he stepped into his tent and began to equip himself, taking a moment to center himself before the next task at hand.
Soon the entire group was ready to depart. The blond man had his intricately beautiful bow, Way his thin rapier, Mortise and Infirm their staves, Fetter her bulky crossbow. And Errant, ever the radical, wielded his ludicrous slab of metal he called a sword—as wide as he was and twice as tall—more an obstacle than a weapon, but a weapon nonetheless.
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Weltschmerz led the Cardinals to the spot that had sparked her earlier outburst. At first glance, it seemed like an ordinary patch of forest, little more than a secluded corner next to a small pond—barely more than a puddle, really.
Mortise stared, confused, at a random human-shaped groove that indented into the mud next to the pond. "Uhm… what exactly were you doing out here?"
Weltschmerz averted her gaze, clearly embarrassed by the question. "I was… powdering my nose." She clearly lied.
The rest of the cardinals didn't pay much heed to Mortise's interaction with Weltschmerz. They were far more focused on something else. The Cardinals were all investigating the strange break in the forest canopy that Weltschmerz seemed so convinced was evidence of a mokoi scout. All except Errant. His attention was drawn elsewhere, towards the pond, where something had caught his eye.
Errant stepped away from the group, his gaze locked onto the strange discoloration in the shallow pond below. There, in the muddied water, something unsettling was floating—vomit, awkwardly sloshing with the subtle shifting of the puddle's surface.
The blond man, noticing Errant's distraction, called out, "Errant, do you see something?"
Errant didn't respond right away. He was trying to piece together not what the potential mokoi were doing here but rather what Weltschmerz was doing. He wasn't quite sure what his conclusion was, but he at least knew that Weltschmerz would save a little face if the rest of the Cardinals went unaware that she puked into the pond.
His wandering thoughts were interrupted when the blond man shook his shoulder. Quickly snapping out of his daze, Errant turned toward the canopy, redirecting the focus. "No, it was nothing." he said, dismissing it with a casual tone, careful not to let the blond man notice the vomit.
Fetter had made her way up a nearby tree to get a closer look at the broken branch. Getting a better inspection, it was obvious to tell that something had accidentally slipped up and caused a much bigger mess than it had intended. Fetter called down to inform the rest of the group of her discovery. "Bad news. It definitely looks like something big that didn't want to leave a mark was here. But there's no trail or anything. I'm looking all around, and I don't see any signs of where they came from or went. Like it just flew in and out."
The blond man was alleviated by these results. "That's a good sign at least. If it was some sort of bird, then it couldn't be the mokoi."
Errant wasn't going to correct the blond man and send Weltschmerz into another, what he assumed was a panic attack, but that wasn't quite right. Although quite rare, there definitely were subsets of avian-like mokoi. Though the Pleurothallidinae was a relatively small army, chances were low that they would have any of these flying mokoi in their midst.
Fetter, being the only one who could properly see the mess caused in the forest canopy, also doubted the blond man's naïve optimism. "... That's one big bird."
The blond man was ready to congratulate a job well done and head back to camp but he noticed a shift across his party. It wasn't just Weltschmerz crying wolf anymore; both Errant and Fetter were looking increasingly suspicious, and the rest of the party was slowly joining suit. He relinquished himself to a long night and decided he better appease his workaholic allies.
Their leader clapped his hands to gather everyone's attention and cobbled together a basic outline for a plan. "Well, whatever it was, it clearly didn't want to be found. So maybe it just got better at hiding itself and the twigs here were a slip-up." He didn't actually agree with his own statement, but this seemed to be the conclusion that the rest of the group had come up with.
"We should go ahead and do a perimeter check just in case and see if we can find any more spots like this. Mortise and Way, you two go with Weltschmerz up north. Infirm and Fetter will go south with me. West is camp, so fingers crossed there's nothing that way. Errant, you'll be fine searching east on your own?"
Errant simply gave an approving nod to their leader.
"Alright, let's just do a quick search. Lucky for us, the day star has decided to come say hi, so it should get easier to track as we go on. Chances are it's just a bird, but If you find something, don't initiate a fight; just head back and alert camp."
All three groups split off in their respective directions, disappearing into the dense shadows of the forest. Despite the incredibly heavy slab of metal slumped over his back, Errant moved out at a similar pace to the rest of the groups. His confidence in the mission's success was tenuous at best. From the little he knew of avian-like mokoi, the fact that it had left a trace at all of its presence would have been an exceptionally lucky catch on their part.
If the mokoi had passed through here, they were already too late. The Pleurothallidinae would have reached their stronghold by now, rendering the weeks of preparation for the ambush meaningless. The thought was a bitter one, but only in a nebulous general sense.
After all, this wasn't his war, and scanning the forest for nothing wasn't the worst way to spend his time. He had willingly declined to take leadership of the Banausic Cardinals long ago, leaving the responsibility of command to others. He'd rather not be involved in that kind of decision-making.
His skills had far outstripped theirs years before, but he stayed for reasons that had little to do with strategy. They were his companions—his friends—and he valued their camaraderie more than any tactical advantage his presence might bring. If the price of that bond was an occasional pointless traipse through the woods, or commingling with drunken militants, then so be it.
As it turned out, the mission wasn't as pointless as Errant had assumed. His steps faltered when a soft chime rang out, clear and resonant against the quiet hum of the forest. Two bells. One echoed faintly from the far north, almost swallowed by the distance, but the second came from directly ahead, cutting through the stillness with a sharp, deliberate clarity.
Errant's grip tightened instinctively around the hilt of his weapon, his fingers flexing against the worn leather wrap. He scanned the treeline, his gaze sharp and unyielding, while his body coiled with readiness.
Where the bell had chimed a small pink rhombus suddenly grew out of thin air. Or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards Errant holding a glowing parchment: It read.
You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Umbra