Chapter 13

  Into the Mountains

  Military command in Myrrh was an intricate structure, having changed many times since the Kingdom was formed. While local guards of each town were independent from the military, they still obeyed when matters required the military to act. While each branch had its own priorities to follow, the central power and authority of the Mystic Grove superseded all local authority when there was a crisis.

  In the hours following the attempted coup and resulting riot in Nita, the entire situation of the town flipped on its head. Military forces had arrived to assist in cleaning up the last of the Zori Swarm. The hills where the swarm had been contained were already so damaged that the overwhelming firepower of royal mages were able to be used without restraint.

  The end of the crisis meant that the regular forces that had been called out of Nita were free to return, including the main force of guards and wardens responsible for the well being of the town, as well as the many slayers and adventurers that had aided in the defense. The news of what happened during the swarm came as a great shock to those returning.

  As the actual rioting had been quelled before the military arrived, the efforts changed to stabilizing the town and ensuring its people that they were safe. Following the reports given by Mien and the guards who were involved in the incident, Roland was decried by the guard force for his actions and declared a corrupt individual agent. When this was not enough to put the people at ease, the guards promised to look into the matter further and have the military investigate their organization for other instances of discrimination towards adventurers.

  Despite everything being handled by the relief team, Mien had busied himself with getting involved in the stabilization of the town. From the moment he melted the ice and restored the pond, having failed to keep track of the suspects he sought to apprehend, Mien focused on making sure the people were taken care of. During the rather bombastic coup and rioting, several criminals had seized the chance to commit robberies throughout the city under everyone’s nose. Mien, regarded as one of the greatest trackers in the realm, helped to locate many of these people within hours.

  “Watching him work is incredible.” Pierre stated, still filled with a sense of awe for Mien’s perceptiveness. “How does he keep track of everything?”

  Kris sat near Pierre, both resting after a few hours of their own volunteer efforts. “It feels like he is just working to stay busy. It’s like he can’t sit still.”

  “You think so? He seems so much more cheerful than usual though, when he is helping people.” Pierre watched as Mien handed a stolen item back to its owner, and saw the sense of accomplishment it was giving the former prince. “Do you think this is the kind of thing he’s been doing since he left the royal family?”

  “Ask him yourself.” Kris waited for a few more moments before rising to salute as Mien approached. Pierre had already stood up the moment he turned towards them.

  “Enough of that.” Mien grumbled, taking a seat at the other side of the table. They were in the very park where he had failed to capture the dissident hours before. A report had come in that Michael and party had fled to the south soon after leaving the battle, with Sebastian among their number of all people. Why did it have to be Sebastian?

  “Taking a break, sir?” Pierre asked, offering some food. Mien accepted the offer without replying to the obvious. “I’ve already contacted the capitol to give my report, and gathered what you requested.”

  “Good. And you Kris?”

  “Got everything you asked for, and resting like you said.” Kris leaned against the table of the park bench, tapping one foot on the grass. It had to have been Sebastian manipulating the water through the grass during the fight. How had Mien missed that detail? Had the entire conflict been scripted?

  “Sir?” Pierre asked after a minute of silence. “Did... you have any more orders?”

  “Just rest for now.” Mien focused on his food, still replaying the battle over in his head. There were so many things he needed to know the answers to, and issues to solve. Kris was still on edge since he had been unable to capture those responsible for the destruction of her home. Had he not intervened, would Nita have ended up like Liniva? Something didn’t feel right.

  Mien continued to eat while stewing in his thoughts, while Pierre sat around with a nervous patience. The silence crept along like the slow motion of the suns in the afternoon sky, and Kris had withstood enough of it. “That’s it! I’m going after them myself!” She hopped to her feet and grabbed her spear in the same motion, making Pierre flinch in his seat. Mien did not hasten to finish the bite of food he was enjoying.

  “Have you journeyed through the Drakmor Mountains before?” Mien asked, stopping Kris in her tracks. She turned to look back at the table, already a few yards away.

  “No.”

  “Then you might have some difficulty. I have crossed them once myself, and would not go there myself without a mountaineer or some recent pass data.” Mien hadn’t even looked up from his meal, but his words were enough to turn Kris around.

  “Then I will find a mountaineer to take me.” She declared after a moment.

  “Might be a challenge. Most of the experienced trackers have been summoned to the capitol, which leaves the ones that take their time as they go through the passes. Hikers that double as artists or surveyors.” Mien looked up and glanced at the mountains looming over the city along the southern horizon. They could not compare to the titanic majesty of the Great Sky Mountain back west, but even peaks that did not reach snow capped heights could be treacherous or fatal.

  Kris walked back over to the table, punching it hard enough to leave a dent. “I’m not just going to wait around here while the people responsible for the destruction of my home get away. It’s bad enough that I missed the confrontation in the first place!”

  Mien leveled his gaze at Kris, a stern emotionless look that made her shirk back a bit. Despite being seated while she stood, it was clear she had no power over him. The quaint wooden picnic table might as well have been a masterful desk wrought of the finest woods with Mien at its head. “You and Pierre gathered what I asked of you without question.” He started. When they nodded he spread his hands, “Then you have done enough to be ready. You trusted me to lead you back in Liniva, so I did not waste time explaining the plan. Have a seat.”

  When Kris sat back down, Mien continued. “The mountains are too dangerous to enter without preparation. I already commissioned full data the moment we learned where the suspects fled to, and it’s close to the promised delivery time. Once we have that information, we will begin our pursuit.”

  Pierre seemed uplifted by the information, and his nervousness faded. Kris relaxed, which had been the order Mien gave them to do in the first place. He had already planned ahead, she just hadn’t known. It was a familiar sense to her, just like her military job. There was a plan, so she let herself rest.

  “What about the suspects though?” Pierre wondered a minute later, “If they fled to the mountains without pass data, won’t they just get lost and trapped? I don’t see why we can’t just follow their tracks.”

  “If we were dealing with an ordinary group, I might agree with you.” Mien folded his hands together and gritted his teeth. “The trouble is that we are dealing with Sebastian, a man who graduated from the tactician course of MAW and even earned black trim honors. He is a genius of everything strategic, from large scale warfare maneuvers to the most minute of tactical operations.” Mien closed his eyes to shake his head, “I learned much from him in our schooling together. He should have gone on to become the chief strategist of Myrrh, but he chose to travel the world as a scholar instead. For any plans we make he will have six countermeasures thought up before we can even carry them out.”

  Kris arched an eyebrow. “Which one are we talking about now, the white haired kid or the flirty guy who ogled me?”

  “He is the blonde Evari, a bit older than me. The rest were all youths, barely even adults.” Mien made a simple sketch to illustrate his point to the others. “Sebastian is probably about fifty, a skilled man with lots of experience and learning. The brown haired Valon swordsman in red looked to be about twenty or so, one of the townsfolk said he was called Hyato.”

  “I didn’t see that one entering Liniva, just the girl and the other two guys.” Kris pointed out.

  “Ah, so he must have joined up here in Nita or on the way.” Pierre deduced, “There were just three tracks leaving Liniva, right?”

  “No, I think there were four afterall.” Mien indicated the sketch of the petite woman, “The way the woman named Yan moved it’s clear she is a monk or ninja. She had light enough steps I might not have been able to track. She and Michael both look to be about nineteen or twenty as well.” Mien lingered on the last picture, the dark skinned berserker with black hair. “According to the reports from the guards and people, he is actually white haired. He was always wearing shades though, so he is the empty eyed one we were looking for.”

  “Two quarter feral valon youths of wolven blood, an evari, and a valon.” Pierre looked over the drawings, they weren’t bad but didn’t have enough detail to be recognizable. “Hey, this Michael guy is a white wolf quarter feral like you are, Mien. Could he be your missing brother?”

  “Not a chance. My brother is sickly, with a thin frame from his disease and too weak to do much more than hold a brush. Also, he has the silver hair and eyes of our lineage, not white hair.” Mien shook his head, “Michael is just another white wolf. They are uncommon, but not all that rare either. A few clans of them still live in a tribal fashion on the west side of the Mountain.”

  “But doesn’t Michael have purple eyes? That means he has been altered by magic.”

  “There has never been a case of Bone Rot that has been cured, and my brother Mistan has one of the most severe cases ever seen. His muscles have been atrophied all his life, and his growth is stunted too.” Mien heaved a heavy sigh, grinding his teeth. “I don’t think anyone expects that he survived falling from his tower.”

  “But, we can leave that to the rest of the trackers summoned by my father. We need to focus on seeking justice for Liniva, or no one will.” He looked at the others who gave serious nods, then he stood up. “Alright, I think it’s time we took back the initiative. Instead of waiting around for the data, let’s go get it ourselves. And then, we head to the mountains.”

  Steep roads wound up steeper cliffsides as the first trails into the Drakmor Mountains revealed themselves. The farther into the mountains they got, the less the roads were maintained. It proved to be a challenging hike from the outset, and had no signs of getting any easier. The small victory of clearing the first slope just led to further bends as the main path became more uneven and rocky.

  Heedless of any of the game trails and offshoots, Sebastian led everyone along the most direct path into the mountains. “Why didn’t you get an updated pass map? I thought you said you prepared our supplies!” Yan complained.

  “It’s not like I could have prepared for every possibility, you know!” Sebastian countered, keeping himself moving. “We were still busy tracking the Revenant and earning money, you know.”

  “We’ve been hiking for ages. Are we sure that the Revenant came this way?” Michael waited for the others to catch up, but seemed eager to keep moving.

  “The bandit fled towards the mountains, so he must have come this way.” Hyato claimed. He seemed certain, yet offered nothing more than that.

  “If the Revenant takes over a host but remains themselves, then we just need to find out where the bandit is going. They don’t often operate alone, so we need to find out where people are being robbed and follow them.” Sebastian explained, forgetting his fatigue as he spoke.

  “Or where they take the people they kidnap.” Yan added.

  “Right. Either way, we’d best keep moving as fast as we can. The man who is after us is not to be trifled with. We need to find the Revenant and deal with it, before he catches up to us.”

  “What if I cover our tracks as we go?”

  “Mien is one of the best trackers in the world. But more than that, he has all the training of a Myrrhmidon, the Kingdom’s most elite soldiers. It doesn’t mean he is all powerful or anything, but he has combat skills and access to powerful tools and spells that most people won’t know how to deal with. Even if we try to cover our tracks, he will find them.”

  “Who is this guy? And what does he want with us?” Yan was worried she already knew part of the answer and glanced at Michael.

  “He is the former crown prince of Myrrh, and he is convinced that Michael is behind the destruction of Liniva.”

  “He’s not wrong, is he?” Michael muttered, “I destroyed it.”

  The others looked alarmed, and Yan touched Michael on the shoulder. “I thought you said you couldn’t remember what happened when you turned into Dark Michael?”

  “I don’t remember what happened in Liniva, but I remember Nita. That rage... I hated everything that moved. I wanted to tear everyone apart... even...” Michael looked away from the others, trying to calm himself down.

  Sebastian approached and offered Michael a consoling pat. “Listen, Michael. What’s important is-”

  “ZORI!” Hyato shouted, leaping into action before the others snapped back to reality. A group of thin orange skinned creatures dropped down from a cliff clinging to rocks and small boulders. The zori tried to smash them with a sneak attack, but Hyato conjured a meteor shield in time to bounce them away. Undeterred, the gangly monsters surrounded the party and carried stones and sticks, waiting to begin the attack.

  The short thin creatures had odd musculature that distended their forms like an imitation of people. Bulging spherical biceps and calves leading to whip thin forearms and legs, it was like they had no body fat to speak of. Each one garbed itself in random plants, furs, and other inedible protections, while gnashing at the party with sharp teeth and bulging eyes. The sheer variety in the shapes of their heads, ears, and overall frames looked bizarre to Michael. He glanced at Sebastian for an explanation.

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  “Gibzori. Kill them quick, don’t let them swarm you, and make sure to finish them off before they explode.” The barrier provided by the world wavered and flickered out of existence, causing the gibzori to scream and rush from all sides.

  Hyato and Michael drew their swords at the same time, blinking through the encirclement in opposite directions with Flash Blade. Michael left a shallow cut on a couple of the zori, but Hyato sundered one in half.

  Michael turned to deliver swift strokes to the nearest zori. It contorted to dodge in a way that made Michael shudder, but the backslash landed clean and knocked the enemy away. Three of the gibzori were focused on Michael, and the others each had to deal with a few of their own. His instinct to ask how he was doing had to be suppressed for the time being.

  The zori did not wait for Michael to plan his attack, nor did they seem to have any patience at all. One of them rushed in ahead of another, throwing Michael off an attempt to block and causing him to backpedal. He caught his feet near the edge of a drop and had to focus not to fall. A gibzori leapt at him so he slashed it in half, but then a cloud of dust was kicked up in front of his view.

  A surge cleared the dust away and knocked back one of the gibzori, and Michael stepped in to cut through another with a downward stroke. He started to feel more confident in his motions when the remaining gibzori latched onto his leg. Michael punched it, but the little monster clung tight.

  “Watch out! Get it off now, Michael!”

  Ominous glowing energy built up within the body of the gibzori and Michael began to panic, striking at the monster on his leg several times. He tried to slash and sweep at it, but it clung even harder with an insane grin and bit down. In a desperate bid to escape Michael threw himself to the ground to stun the gibzori, then burst as much energy as he could to toss it away.

  The gibzori’s glowing body made it a few feet before a rush of force and sound crashed outwards as it exploded. Michael was slammed into the ground and tumbled into some rocks, his ears buzzing as his body pulsed with pain.

  Delirious from his wounds, Michael couldn’t focus on the world around him. The sounds bouncing around made no sense as they mingled with the ringing echo of his latest mistake, so he just tried to lay still. He could feel the pain pulsating through his body as if his veins were beating to the march of a drum, but a numbness was starting to dull what he felt.

  After a few minutes his pain reduced to a soreness and he felt his vision and hearing return. He looked up from where he lay to see the others with light wounds, having finished off the ambushers. Like all zori, these ones left no trace of their defeat, but the impact of the one Michael let explode had left a small crater.

  Michael sat up as Hyato and Yan rushed to his side. “Are you okay?” The latter asked.

  “No.” Michael grumbled, his voice hoarse and dry. He braced himself and pushed himself to his feet, “But I can keep going.”

  Sebastian had approached as well, but stood apart from the youths. “I would normally suggest that we rest, but this location is likely too open for that. We should continue. Are you well enough to discuss the threats we may face?” Michael nodded and creaked forward. The others seemed hesitant, but followed along as well.

  “Yan, if you would be so kind, could you alert us to the dangers we may expect to find in these mountains?” They had returned to their marching order, but Sebastian seemed intent on keeping the conversation going.

  “Sure. Gibzori and Elazori are the most common fiends we stand to face. We also need to be careful about rockslides and chasms. The weather can be rough, and sometimes there will be Wild Storms.” Yan explained it all in one go, but it was clear there were parts that needed elaboration. “Ask your questions.”

  “I can’t say that I am familiar with these Wild Storms you brought up.” Sebastian mentioned, before glancing over at Michael. “And we might as well go over each point anyways.”

  The mountain roads resolved into gentle curves as they continued. They were still not very deep into the area, but the initial hike was over. Yan stayed focused on her search for details as she spoke to the others without looking back. “Wild Storms are rare and hard to spot. So long as we get under cover if one appears we should be fine, I will keep an eye out for them.”

  “Why don’t you want to get caught in them?”

  “The winds, rain, and lightning they bring are far more erratic, and there are zori too. It’s better to keep inside, you are safe there.”

  Michael picked up a pebble and bounced it around in his hands. “So, the zori here explode? What else happens?”

  “It’s not because of where we are, Michael. Gibzori always blow up if you don’t kill them fast enough.”

  Sebastian nodded, “She’s right. It’s called an energy meltdown. They usually explode, but if they survive it they transform into a stronger version of themselves. They go from being Gibs to Obgibs. Much stronger, and another meltdown would make them into Hobgibs, the most dangerous form they can assume. For Gibs, you want to kill them as fast as you can.”

  “Isn’t that the case for all zori?” Michael reasoned.

  “Discretion can be useful as well. We need not fight everything that we encounter.”

  Michael frowned and he squeezed the pebble in his hands. “Whatever. So the Gibzori look somewhat like people and the Anozori look like beasts. What else?”

  “Elazori. Just think of them as twisted elemental monsters. Some are incorporeal, and most are difficult to battle.”

  “So then how do you fight them?”

  “Spells work best, though your energy techniques might work.” Sebastian contemplated something, “It would be best if you had some spells to use, but we aren't going to get any copies for you to learn out here. We'll need to use a different approach.”

  Yan spoke up from the lead. “I’ve fought Elazori before, they can be tough but aren’t impossible to beat.”

  “Still, it pays to be prepared.” Sebastian considered how best to deal with the issue as the conversation dropped. He wondered why Hyato had not spoken up about anything, but as he was looking away Michael continued to bounce the rock in his hand. After a moment, Michael tossed the rock down the path.

  The clattering made Yan flinch and the others look over. Sebastian grimaced, “And that could be a way to cause a rockslide.”

  “It’s just a pebble.” Michael protested. The sudden disapproval made him bristle.

  Sebastian sighed and rubbed his forehead, “Yan, let’s find a place to rest for a bit.”

  The mountains were full of nooks and spaces nestled away from other places off the road. Many of these little groves had a bevy of grasses and root plants thriving in the soil and stone of the region. Yan pointed out a few edible clovers and wild forage that could be dug up for a trail snack, which Hyato sampled without hesitation. In one such area, they stopped to have lunch as the suns reached their zenith.

  Michael toyed with the empty can after he finished his meal, all but confirming Sebastian’s suspicion. “We need to give him something to do while we are travelling.” He said to Yan. “I’m thinking of having him train as we walk.”

  “It’s no good to tire yourself out on the road.”

  “He’s too distracted otherwise. It’s like a kid with too much energy, he needs to burn off more than what simple walking and fighting can manage.” Sebastian had difficulty accepting his own words. All that hiking was exhausting.

  Yan considered for a moment, “He did seem to have a ton of stamina when we did odd jobs in Nita. More than I have ever seen in someone.”

  This made Sebastian nod and make up his mind, approaching the center of the clearing. “Everyone gather up. I’m going to teach you a skill you can use against Elazori.” Sebastian flourished his hands out and created an orb of water in front of him, and the others gathered closer to see what he was doing. “Elemancy. A skill developed in the Broken Times that allows someone to conjure and control elemental forces.”

  “Is this how you controlled the water in the park?”

  “Yes, for the most part. I happen to be most attuned to the element of water, but it's possible to access other elements. The best part is, it’s a mana based skill so it won’t interfere with your energy styles.” Sebastian caused the water to stretch out and fly through the air in a ribbon, like an eel, to demonstrate the skill. He finished by causing it to strike a stone, drilling through deep enough to gouge out a hole.

  Yan noticed what the others didn’t, “You are using your hands sometimes, but other times you aren’t. I don’t understand.”

  “Good point. Elemancy is a psychic technique. You can use the motion of your body to help visualize it, but it’s not needed. It’s the foundational skill that has been adapted to be used in different ways, so there are some variants that use the motion of the body, but don’t worry about that for now. Just follow my instructions.”

  Sebastian showed the others how to attune to the elements through meditation, then taught them the basics of Elemancy. It took some time for each of them to be able to manifest anything. Hyato created a small candle flame, Yan generated a tiny puff of wind, and Michael managed to conjure a little water droplet. From there, Sebastian had them incorporate Synergy into their training, which intensified things by a degree of magnitude for faster results.

  After an hour had passed since they came to rest, Sebastian clapped to break everyone out of their training. “Alright, we should focus on getting as much distance as we can. We are still barely in the mountains.”

  “Right!” Yan hopped to her feet and got ready in an instant, then waited for the boys by the roadside. Hyato and Sebastian joined with their things, and Michael trailed along with a small tornado floating above his hand. “Don’t use synergy to train while we are on the road, Michael.”

  “Okay.” Michael let his focus on the training lessen, ceasing to channel the power of the world through himself. Tension left his shoulders and neck, and a clarity that had been focused on his task pulled back to take in the world at large again.

  The party climbed higher and farther into the mountains. They continued to trek uphill to higher grounds, but the peaks seemed as far out of reach as ever.

  Their climb in elevation was often broken by a brief descent as the path wove from hillside to mountainside and further. The treeline had stayed behind as they moved ahead, replaced by boulders and cliffs in browns, mauves, puce hues.

  The foothills and valleys of the Drakmor mountains were not without vegetation. Ivy crept along walls and from stone to stone. Clusters of clovers hid clumped in corners, picked over by small endemic creatures and the occasional Hyato. There were even small bushes of berries eking out a life amongst the stone.

  Hyato was told off for eating too many of the edible clovers after he gave himself a stomachache. Yan remained on the lookout for any signs of passing, finding enough to give them an idea of where to head. Michael trailed along in the middle of the group as he continued to practice Elemancy, which kept him from trying any pranks or fidgeting.

  Whenever the party came to a forked road they paused to consider things. Yan checked around and made decisions on which way to head within a minute each time, so that they were not lagging behind. “Most of these forks end up going the same direction, but some are faster.”

  Sunlight stretched thin across the sky, casting an orange hue over the world. “We should probably look for somewhere to camp soon. It wouldn’t be a good idea to travel at night.” Sebastian looked around as if to find a cave.

  “I’ll find us somewhere- wait.” Yan narrowed her eyes and pointed ahead with a sudden intake of breath. “Is that?”

  “The Revenant!” Hyato snapped, drawing his sword as everyone focused ahead. A bandit in simple clothing carrying a club, just as Hyato had described, was ahead along the path. He had noticed the party as they noticed him, but was too far away to attack or converse.

  Sebastian assessed the terrain as fast as he could. It was a stone road stamped down from use, straight enough as it followed a natural curve between them. To the left was a cliff wall, too tall and steep to worry about ambushers. Off the right side of the road it fell to a gentle slope down to a narrow valley choked by bushes and other plantlife. “We need to close the distance.”

  “Got it!” Michael and Hyato rushed forward without another word, picking up speed to cross the gap with all haste. Sebastian and Yan followed along too, keeping back to observe and support.

  Long as the road between them was, it wasn’t easy to see details on the bandit. He stood at the ready, neither approaching nor fleeing as Michael and Hyato rushed closer. The patience of the man made Sebastian worry, and soon he saw why.

  A snap of thin line triggered a sudden plume of smoke, a trap embedded in the wall. The area where Michael and Hyato had been became lost in total obscurity, and Sebastian stopped his approach. “Be careful!”

  “Don’t worry.” Yan leapt up and ran along the wall of the cliff, over the smokescreen. Sebastian extended his will forward along her path and conjured a wind, which he swept down into the smoke.

  Most of the smokescreen was dispersed, revealing several tubes jutting from the wall that poured out continuous streams of the white vapor. Purple and red energy lashed out from within the obscured area to cut down the traps, allowing the rest to be dispersed by Sebastian’s wind.

  As the smoke cleared Yan was closing in on the bandit. The man ignored her approach, lifting his club with both hands to gather energy before slamming it against the cliffside. The shockwave crashed along the cliff, creating a chain of small explosions along the breadth of the cliff. Yan started to fall, but used a falling stone to leap back up the cliffside.

  “RETREAT!” Sebastian screamed, taking off at a dead sprint towards the others. The entire cliffside crumbled as rocks and boulders tumbled down to the road like torrential downpour. Michael and Hyato skidded to a stop and burst waves of energy to turn back and run the other way with all haste.

  As the stones came crashing down all around them, a moment of terror struck the fleeing swordsmen. They were not outrunning the rockslide, nor could luck keep them from being crushed forever. Michael dragged his sword along the ground and used Dark Blade to try and knock some of the stones off of them, but the momentum of the collapsing cliff would not be stopped.

  Sebastian closed towards the edge of the collapse and thrust his hands forward, along with every ounce of focus he could muster. A diagonal sheet of stone jutted from the mountainside at his behest, diverting some of the rocks before they reached his companions. A few dozen stones were launched away before his manipulated stones collapsed under the pressure too, so he gritted his teeth and kept trying.

  Michael rushed past Sebastian with incredible alacrity, taking several dozen yards to slow down and look back. Hyato had not gained as much speed, but a blur from above dove into the chaos to his rescue. Yan slipped past the boulders faster than they fell, grabbed Hyato around the waist, and hauled him the rest of the way out.

  The collapse of the cliffside took less than a minute, creating a cacophonous echo throughout the valleys for miles, but the party slipped out with enough time to fall back. The aftermath was a ringing silence, with half of the road consumed by the rage of the mountain. Dirt clouds spread everywhere, save for a bubble of elemanced wind around the party.

  “Great, now we can’t even pursue the Revenant.” Yan complained. The pass was blocked over by upturned stone and soil, a mound too thick and unstable to approach.

  “This was a clear trap, and we walked right into it.” Sebastian said, “We should have expected something.”

  “Ran right into, really.” Hyato brushed dirt from his clothes and looked down at Yan, “Thanks for the rescue.”

  She paused for a moment, then turned away from the rockslide, “Yeah, you’re welcome.” She tried to dust off with elemental wind, then settled for using her hands, before looking towards the sky. “It’s way too late to try and cross that rockslide, and there’s no good spot to camp here. Let’s backtrack and take another path forward until we find a camp.”

  Following Yan, the party rushed back to the most recent fork to take the other path the way they came. It led in the same general direction, with more curves and slopes to deal with. The fact that they had spotted the Revenant, but let it slip away again, made the trek one of silent frustration.

  They found camp just before the dark of night began to set in, leading to most everyone breathing a sigh of relief. Michael didn’t understand why night scared the others so much, and had no intention of finding out. A swift dinner followed the securing of the perimeter, and the party wound down for sleep, still feeling the remnants of frustration.

  “I think we should reassess our attitude, going forward.” Sebastian suggested, before the others headed off to bed. “The Revenant is aware that we are pursuing it, and is taking steps to counter us. I think it wise that we slow our pursuit, not rush quite as much to catch up.” The others listened in without objection, so Sebastian explained his plan.

  “As long as the Revenant is focused on us, it won’t have time to destroy anything. Additionally, there isn’t much damage it can do to the world here in the mountains in the first place. If we take our time and track where it’s headed, figure out what it wants to do, that will also buy us time to come up with a better plan for capturing it. Let’s face it, we weren’t actually ready to restrain it any of the times we’ve encountered it so far.”

  “So, we are still after it.” Michael confirmed, “But we don’t get too close? When do we know when to attack?”

  “When we have a plan, and know more information.” Sebastian waited for a response, and was met with nods from the others. “Alright. Then let’s get some rest. Starting tomorrow, we will keep tracking it, but with more caution. Good night, everyone.”

  When the rest of the party went to sleep they seemed more at ease, and Sebastian felt he had done well. It was a plan, which meant more than nothing, but did not ease his own concerns. If he had grown so careless to not see so simple a trap, what else had he failed at? There was much to do, and it was time he started doing something about it. “Tomorrow then.” Sebastian created a whirl of elemental water around his arm, then dismissed it. The journey into the mountains had just begun, and there was so much waiting for them when the sunlight returned.