Glasses [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczPOZMKQh3bKOz2ndD00u6GdnqmHKB89om542LpvTnc6ikp-kv_ZlnVmzE0Bx2BRJIcgW1-UcyUjvFYzIfv4Y6cD6o5fLdhLgf9a_sjEJMsHUz7wkDOhjGLg36UVbOZFZUA6KDSdswCFxA-EdAcpy4v-=w1024-h1536-s-no-gm?authuser=0]
“I yield!” Uriel cried out as she swung the practice sword down on his, only for it to be intercepted by Dazien’s actual sword.
“Phoenix!” the Defender reprimanded, “I told you that you needed to modulate your strength if you want to spar with him. He’s still Crystal and can’t take the full force of your anger anymore.”
She froze when she finally came back to her senses, having let herself get lost in the rhythm of combat like she had been able to do before when her friend brought her here to let off some steam. She had been upset with the High Priest’s words that she was too destructive to be considered a good mender.
Uriel, seeming to understand her best, had offered the outlet and they had returned to the World Tree to try out one of the training rooms Presley had furnished to their liking. Dazien had been taking Paul’s place in overseeing her weapons training with his half-decade of experience honing the skill, and Uriel had tried to accept her wrath.
“I’m sorry,” she replied, flushing in embarrassment and pushing the loose hair out of her face. She reached out a hand to help him up, and her new Strength was even more accentuated by the task being laughably easy despite his much larger size.
“It’s fine,” Uriel replied, trying to catch his breath and making her more aware of her lack of it. “I think I’m going to need Daze to take my place, though. Unless Rayna wants to learn a weapon other than her body.”
“Pft, I’m plenty on my own, thank you very much,” the bard replied from the small area at the other end of the room designed for some to lounge around in while others fought. She and Saiya were both working together on a new dirge they were expecting to need soon and claimed that today had given them a lot of inspiration for it. Phoenix just hoped none of it would mention a Saint.
Uriel moved to join them, and Dazien surprised her by going over to the wall of practice weapons and selecting a new one that was far removed from the sword in her hand.
“Here, try this against me instead. This won’t give you the same mindless release but it should help distract you by forcing you to change up your style. You can go all out, though; no need to hold back with me.”
“Are you sure about this?” Phoenix asked as she took the solid metal spear from him and he took her sword to use for himself rather than his conjured [Excalibur].
“You got to learn the Six Sacred Stances of the Weapon Wielding Warrior, and you’ve only been utilizing a fraction of its capabilities,” Dazien responded with exasperation, “While you’ve gotten fairly good with the dagger and passable with the sword—”
“Oh, just passable, is it?” Phoenix said with lifted eyebrows and a slight smirk, “Give me back that sword, and I’ll show you just how much I pass.”
He smiled back, “That might work against the others, but you haven’t beaten me yet, remember?”
“Well, we can test it out now.”
“That’s not what the goal is, so quit trying to get out of this. You’ll be lucky if you can manage to land a scratch on me with any weapon. Show me what you can do with that instead,” he said with a gesture towards the spear still held upright, “Or are you too afraid I’m going to knock you on your arse again?”
“Hey, that was one time, and it was Rayna’s fault for jumping towards me like—” Phoenix didn’t bother with the first on guard position, instead lunging forward to try and catch the Defender unaware as her spear sliced forward through the air towards his shoulder.
Dazien easily knocked it away with his sword before stepping into her guard and reminded her with a teasing grin, “It was at least twice. Remember the cake?”
She kept the momentum as she whirled the spear around her body to come at him from the other side and replied with a huff, “Also Rayna’s fault!” There was a clash of metal on metal as their weapons locked for a moment. “She ran into the room with actual chocolate cake. I’m not just going to pass that up.”
“You know I can hear you blaming me for Daze beating you, right?” Rayna called over without looking their way.
“I think Saiya might have been right,” Dazien replied as they continued to trade blows, “Best way to get you to drop your guard is with sweets.”
“I have multiple questions about that,” Phoenix said as she kept up the continual motion, trying to find a weak point, “Do you often talk about me with Saiya, and why are you trying to make me drop my guard?”
The swordsman was easily keeping pace with the twirling and jabs of the spear as he answered, “One: of course I do; what kind of leader wouldn’t consult the Healer about the status of their party members. Two-” he ducked once more and spun low to come up between her arms, their faces almost touching as he said, “If I don’t know your weaknesses, how can I protect against them?”
Phoenix faltered at the words and his proximity as he flicked her forehead and caused her to trip over the foot he had deftly placed behind hers and onto her backside, but he managed to catch the spear before it fell from her grasp.
“Not fair,” Phoenix grumbled as she got her feet back under her, “If you know all my weaknesses, then how am I supposed to guard against you? It’s totally cheating.”
She was surprised when Dazien and Uriel spoke in unison as they both responded automatically, “It’s only cheating if it’s against the rules.”
They all looked at each other for a moment before the two men broke out into laughter. Phoenix was about to voice her confusion when Dazien waved it off and said, “Just a little inside joke, you could say. Anyways, I’ll try not to so blatantly exploit your weaknesses again,” he said with a slightly apologetic tone.
“Oh, so you’re going to subtly exploit them?”
“How else can I keep my winning streak?” he asked with a cheeky grin and held out the spear for her to take, “Ready to go again? Your spear work was rather abysmal compared to the sword. It’s not a staff, Phoenix; you need to reduce the amount of swings you’re incorporating and go more for the piercing thrusts.”
“I don’t actually want to kill you, remember?” Phoenix said as she glanced once more toward the metal spear. Despite its blunted tip, she was fairly certain the maneuvers seared into her mind from the martial Knowledge Tomes were going to punch a hole straight through him and the Sliksilk under-armor he currently wore.
Dazien shrugged in response, “You can always heal me. Just don’t aim for the head or the heart, and I’m fairly certain I’ll survive.” The fiendish tease then added, “If you can even hit me.”
“Oh, you are so going down,” Phoenix retorted as she snatched the spear from the Defender and took a new combat position.
“Maybe in your dreams,” Dazien chuckled as he took up his own position, raising his sword towards her.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
She rolled her eyes at the braggadocios gemite, “I literally have a spell to make dreams a reality,” she retorted, causing the others to laugh as metal clashed once more.
There was a knock at the door that caused Uriel to stand and go to answer it as the two warriors continued to attack, not giving the other a chance to capitalize on the obvious distraction. He made his way over to the door to see who it was only to react in surprise as he opened the door to allow the visitor inside.
Uriel spoke to get the two friends to stop attempting to stab each other, “Hey, Phoenix has company. Break apart.”
At the information and agreed upon command, both Dazien and Phoenix took a few steps back from each other and lowered their weapons simultaneously before breaking their gaze to look at the newcomer.
“I, um… I can just come back later,” Camilla Saren said shyly from behind the larger man as she fiddled with her glasses.
“No worries, Cami. What brings you here?” Phoenix asked as she went to return the spear to the wall of the training room.
“Well, I… um, well… you see,” the magical researcher seemed thrown off by the odd setting as her eyes darted around the room and had trouble focusing on her words.
Phoenix took pity on the older brunette and offered, “Why don’t we go grab something to drink from the kitchen and head to the study? That should be a better place to talk, yeah?”
The woman nodded in gratitude as she muttered, “Y-yes, thank you.”
“Should we meet up with you later?” Dazien asked as he moved to put away his own practice sword.
They were all a bit surprised when Camilla spoke up in a rush, “No. You can help too!”
The Adventurers all looked between one another in silent agreement before nodding and leaving the room together. They quickly grabbed some tea and the new coffee Phoenix had begged Chef Emilia to find that could replace her Crystal Caste one before making their way to Paul’s replica study.
She took the seat that normally belonged to her mentor as Camilla took the chair opposite at Phoenix’s gesture towards it. Dazien took the chair next to the researcher while Uriel wandered around the room, busying himself with perusing the bookshelves while he feigned disinterest in the conversation. Rayna perched on the edge of the desk while Saiya moved to the side closer to the nervous visitor.
“So, what’s troubling you, Cami?” Phoenix said as she took a sip of her coffee, hoping to help put the clearly agitated woman at ease.
“I…” Camilla began, then took a sip of the tea before taking a calming breath and beginning to speak in a tone that sounded more like a practiced speech than an off-the-cuff explanation of the situation, “I didn’t know who else to go to since the people at the Alliance of Adventurers keep turning me away and the Ducal Guards say they don’t have the resources to spare for an investigation.”
Dazien made to speak but Phoenix waved him down to hold off his questions until after their cousin finished getting through her prepared information.
Camilla didn’t seem to notice the movement as she continued looking at her lap and tea while speaking, “I was helping with the task of taking inventory of the personnel after the last battle with the Soul Reapers’ forces. As more rubble gets cleared and more monster attacks happen on the fortress towns, the civilian death toll keeps increasing.”
The mood in the room became much more somber as the researcher continued her story, “While I was going through the reports coming in from each of the towns and the capital itself, I noticed an odd kind of pattern. A few cases stuck out as not only incongruent with certain attacks but also connected to one another by an odd thread.
“I was hoping you would hear me out and help me investigate further since I don’t believe these deaths were actually caused by monster attacks or from the Soul Reapers’ invasion.” She paused and then raised her head towards Phoenix without ever making eye contact.
“I know you have a knack with numbers,” Phoenix said after a moment when she realized Camilla was waiting for a response, “Our talks about enchantments alone are enough proof for me. If you say you saw a pattern, then I’m willing to believe it. What are we going to be looking for?”
As if on cue, the researcher began further explaining what she had found, “There are people being reported as dying in pairs, but no bodies are recovered, and there are never any witnesses to the death itself. The means of death are inconsistent, but there’s always two together and isolated at the time of the incidents, and they always disappear without a trace.”
“Who would be hunting couples all of a sudden?” Rayna asked, not able to hold back her curiosity, and Phoenix almost palmed her face at the interruption.
“I, um…” Camilla glanced around the room for a moment as her train of thought got interrupted, “I n-never said they were, uh, couples, in the traditional romantic sense. If th-that’s what you were implying?”
“I was, but I thought that would be the most likely case to find a pair alone.”
Camilla nodded, “Some of them were, b-but it was not a factor in the pattern.” She paused for a moment, looking from her tea up to Dazien’s silky purple hair as she hesitantly added, “It… was not just recently either.”
Dazien frowned but didn’t say anything in response, and his brow furrowed in thought.
Camilla looked around the room again as she continued, “Deaths following this pattern seemed to consistently happen a few times a year, but there have been massive spikes during the blood moons…”
Their cousin pointedly looked at the amethyst hair again as she emphasized, “Pairs killed while alone with no bodies recovered and listed as monster casualties…”
Dazien’s eyes went wide as he seemed to finally make the connection and said in almost a whisper, “My parents?”
The researcher nodded abruptly as she took another drink from her cup.
Phoenix scrunched her face as she looked towards her brother, noticing Uriel had made his way over to stand beside his partner, and she asked, “Didn’t you say your parents died during the last blood moon?”
“Yes,” he said softly, the stunned look on his face leaving her worried, “Since I was only four, I wasn’t told much at first. When I got older and could read the reports myself it only listed them as killed by monsters when responding to a spawn in the city.”
He took a moment and placed his head in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees, then recounted, “My parents weren’t Adventurers. My father was just a swordsmith, and my mother was an odd utility Caster, from what I was told. She helped in the forge while taking care of me. Neither were combat-oriented, but when the monsters attacked… well…”
“Everyone helps during a blood moon,” Uriel said flatly, finishing the oft-spoken phrase.
“I always thought it was odd that they never found the bodies, but they said that could often happen with monster attacks,” Dazien explained before falling silent again.
Phoenix leaned forward to get their attention as she said to Camilla, “Count us in. Bring us everything you can about the different death reports that fall into your pattern. Go back as far as you can, and we’ll work our way through them. Perhaps we can find something to tie them all together further and lead us to the culprit and maybe even find the dead.”
“You mean the missing,” the researcher corrected, and all of them stared at her intently as they registered her words.
Dazien swallowed before clarifying, “You… you mean to tell me that you think they could still be alive?”
The woman’s fidgeting became worse under their gaze as she tried to clarify, “Not, um… not necessarily… Especially the older cases, but with no bodies recovered… At the very least, I believe they were kidnapped first, potentially killed elsewhere, but until we know why, it’s not accurate to assume anything.”
“So we need to get an accurate count, figure out what, if anything, ties the targets together, discover why they were kidnapped and by who, and hopefully find where these missing people are,” Phoenix listed off, her expression souring with each step, “That’s going to be a lot of work with not a lot to go off of it sounds like.”
The others nodded in agreement to her words. Camilla stood and said, “I, um… I’ll go get started then.”
Phoenix nodded towards her and said, “Thank you and good luck,” as Camilla gave a small bow and left to begin the project.
Everyone seemed to refocus on Dazien with concern once the visitor left. Before any of them could ask, however, he said, “You don’t have to worry about me. It happened so long ago, and I was so young… I barely remember them.”
“That doesn’t make it hurt less,” she said softly, “I never knew my biological father since he died before I was born, but I’m pretty sure I would be freaking out and want to know for sure if he was kidnapped and likely murdered.”
“We don’t know that’s what happened,” Dazien said firmly, “We need more details, and we need to stay detached. We’ll be less effective if we get too emotionally invested. This is meant to be an investigation, and we still have other duties to fulfill.”
The party leader leaned back in his chair as he said with a bit of frustration, “Who knows how much time we’ll even have to dedicate to this side project. We don’t have to stop searching for answers when the blood moon ends, though, so we have plenty of time later to be chasing ghosts.”
“It’s not just ghosts, Daze,” Uriel pointed out with a frown, “We don’t want more kids showing up at the Parent’s temple because we took our time in finding a monster in our midst.”
“There will be more kids whether we’re fighting monsters within the capital or the ones that spawn in the towns,” he retorted, “We’re fighting monsters either way. We’ll just be working overtime by taking this on. Are you all sure you’re up to that?”
“Of course we are,” Phoenix said without hesitation, “We’re going to find out what happened to your parents, Daze.”
He met her gaze steadily for a long moment before giving a soft smile, “Thank you.”