{-Myr-}

“Do you have any idea about who it might be?” Zetai asked.

Tinath’s answer was quick, “I already mentioned it. I haven’t talked with anyone from Nankohm since I came with you guys. Whatever they’re planning, I’m not a part of it anymore—if I really ever was to begin with.”

“But you’ll be able to recognize them, right?” Reynneak prompted. “Would you know who they are if that’s who’s there?”

“I think I’ve met everyone that’s assigned to work here. Even then, it’ll only take one or two familiar faces for us to know if it’s Nankohm or not.” She shrugged. “If they’re familiar, it’s Nankohm, if they’re not, it’s the Rune Reactivation Project. It can only go two ways.”

“I’m not really sure which one I would prefer…” Llewel mumbled nervously. “It didn’t sound like there’s somehow a chance it could be neither…”

“I guess it’s always an option,” Tinath said in an only half-reassuring way. “Wouldn’t be the first time a bunch of players lurked around an area for something. Could be that someone said there were valuable drops in the area or some party decided to be ‘special’ and make it their base.”

“Can we go with that?” Myr suggested. “We don’t even know for sure what it is yet. I don’t think we should start worrying about whatever it is until we actually know…”

It seemed she was only half listened to when, a moment after she thought they might have agreed, Reynneak remarked, “We should’ve tried asking to see if Kulric knew specifically where we were heading. There’s… a lot of different mountains they could be lurking around in.”

“No matter what, it would be pretty hard to miss them,” Zetai pointed out. “Let’s just start with whatever quest is nearby and we’ll see if they’re around there.”

“They’re somewhere close enough to the city that more than a few people have seen them, yet far enough away that most don’t know that they’re there.” Llewel paused. “Might’ve been better to ask what kind of people he hung out with. There’s places that normal people wouldn’t go but more… adventurous types might. Knowing who he got the information from would at least give a better sense of where it might be.”

“We can ask him again when we next go to the city,” Tinath said. “If we don’t find anything here now, it’s not going to take too much time to check in with him again. Maybe someone else would have some information by then, too.”

Reynneak pulled up the map and after a moment announced, “It looks like there’s a quest right over there—probably just a bit of fighting, from the looks of it. We can look around that area first.” With no objections, he led the way.

All of them seemed to be looking for something. Myr was certain the others were still more concerned about whoever was messing with things in the mountains. She, on the other hand, had one specific individual she was hoping to catch a glimpse of: Esaphi. Esaphi had to be around here somewhere. Myr had read over the list Enreru gave her at least three times by now—she wanted to see if it would work. Or just that Esaphi would appreciate the thought at all.

The thought of it got Myr to break the silence and ask, “Do you think Esaphi’s okay..? She’s somewhere in these mountains, possibly close to whoever they are and whatever they’re doing…”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“She never seemed like the kind of person that would stay and hide somewhere if she felt there was danger.” Llewel paused. “In fact, she’d be the one who traveled halfway across the region to get away from it.”

“You really think so? And you’re not just lying to make me feel better?”

“I wouldn’t lie to you about that, at least.”

“So you’ll admit to lying about something…”

Tinath shrugged. “I wouldn’t say you should take it personally. Big siblings lie to their little siblings all the time. Whether that be to get them to stop being annoying or to protect them from something.”

“Oh yeah, my brother told me all kinds of dumb stuff to get me to leave him alone,” Zetai remarked. She nudged Reynneak. “You’ve probably lied to your siblings, right?”

He almost seemed offended at the thought. “Of course I didn’t. They knew what I knew. I needed to take his role, remember?”

“I didn’t think that happened until after the divorce.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I don’t know how this is supposed to change anything,” Myr remarked. “There’s got to be a difference between important information and whatever you did.”

“Nothing different,” Llewel mumbled, “because it’s nothing important. Trust me, if it was something I thought you should know, you’d know it by now. When will you stop asking..?”

“When you tell me what you talked with Duuzlo about.”

She really couldn’t be sure if he was going to argue or let it be, but what stopped whatever would’ve come next was the sound of someone else nearby. Well, multiple someones, from the sound of it. She lost her will to argue, too, when she started to get a headache nearly as suddenly as they heard those voices.

All five of them stopped, instinctively moving a bit more out of the way so they didn’ alert whoever it was. Though, they barely had a good vantage point—they could tell that something was being worked on, but they couldn’t see what, or really most of the people doing it.

Still, Zetai turned to Tinath and prompted, “Do you recognize any of them?”

“Give me a minute, this isn’t exactly the best place to try to spot familiar faces.” Tinath mumbled something to her hawk and it flew off, perching on a tree closer to where the other people were. After a few moments it returned again and went back to its spot on her shoulder.

“Well?”

“They’re definitely from Nankohm. I think they’re a part of the crew that Mr. Mair sends in to take care of overworld issues. It’s not the full team, though—there’s not enough people for that. The rest are probably somewhere else.”

“Could you hear anything else about what they’re doing?”

“First, I was only there for a minute, and second, only sight works, not hearing. I wouldn’t have known what they were saying no matter what—none of us would, unless you’re willing to risk getting closer.”

Zetai mumbled a reluctant agreement and sighed. “You’re right, but how else are we going to be able to figure out what they’re doing? Don’t suppose you know how to intimidate these guys into listening to you or something?”

Tinath shrugged. “I’m sure I could intimidate them, but I doubt they’d actually tell me anything. Probably wouldn’t go well when their supervisor realizes I’m there, either—they’ve got to have someone watching over all of those idiots.”

Reynneak and Llewel might have given suggestions, until something else caught their attention. Myr thought she might’ve been prepared for anything that came out of the rustling bushes.

She was wrong. But she didn’t think she’d ever felt this glad to be wrong.

Before she’d thought to stop herself, she’d excitedly picked up their intruder and spun her around. “Esaphi!”