Touch of Fate

With Lily leading the way, they were able to make good progress through the district. Thankfully, even when they barged into major battles, both sides seemed more interested in their enemies than a group of unrelated mortals. That being said, there were a couple close calls with the vampires, who were more indiscriminate in their attacks, that resulted in a series of running skirmishes as they traveled.

It was during one such fight that Tal finally caught Mike's trail. She was in the middle of directing her spirit to create a line of earthen spears in the path of a contingent of vampire soldiers, when she heard his distant voice.

Thanks to her long years of working as an adventurer, she was able to maintain her concentration on the spell, and successfully managed to drive the enemy back. However, as soon as she had room to breathe, she concentrated on her senses and tried to pick up the trail again.

The sounds of the surrounding battle began to fade from her awareness as she focused. One by one she identified the obscuring noises and eliminated them from her consciousness.

"...could be a little more helpful." Mike's voice rose from inside a large government-type building roughly 300 meters away. "They nearly got me that time."

Another person answered, and at first Tal found herself confused. It almost sounded as if Mike were trying to disguise voice by intentionally making it deeper and more gravelly, but there was an unnatural distortion to the sound that would not come from a human's vocal cords.

"Be content with this, mortal. I will not exert myself any further without sufficient cause."

"That's your choice, I suppose," Mike replied, sounding strangely cheerful. "Just remember, our lives are intertwined right now. Don't make a decision you'll regret."

"I'll-" The other person started to growl, but Tal lost the connection as she was shoved from behind. Glancing around, she saw Sera grappling with one of the vampires.

Channeling power from the mana storage bracer she'd gotten from Mike, she muttered a quick chant and conjured a wind blade that decapitated the snarling undead warrior. Unfortunately for Sera, the newly created corpse on top of her displayed an unsettling tendency that they'd been noticing in some of their opponents.

Apparently, some of the vampires were better fed than others, seemingly containing larger quantities of blood. When such individuals were slain, they tended to bleed violently, producing a veritable geyser of gore.

"AH!...pft, pitoo." Sera coughed and sputtered as a large amount of blood covered her head and face. Once she'd managed to roll free of the corpse, she spent a few seconds wiping her eyes before glaring at Tal. "Thanks, I guess, but couldn't you have found a better way to do that?"

The elf took a second to evaluate the state of the battle, which was nearing its end after a group of large, reptilian demons armed with wicked looking halberds had flanked the vampires causing them to break and flee. It was fortunate that the horrific creatures were actively assisting them, since they would have been tied up indefinitely if they were forced to fight through every encounter with the vampire forces.

Tal replied tersely. "Was focused."

"Yeah, yeah." The Oracle muttered while picking herself back up. "What were you so focused on in the middle of a battle? You nearly got chomped on, if you hadn't noticed."

"Found Mike."

"What? Where?"

Tal pointed. "There. Moments ago."

Sera turned back to the rest of the group and yelled before marching towards the building she indicated. "We found him! Let's move!"

The other three, who were still in the midst of recovering from the fight, looked up with varying reactions. Lily simply dropped the remnants of her door, which was little more than a few splintered and blood-spattered pieces of wood, and started following after them. William, who lacked the skills to really contribute to the fight, took his place next to her while still wearing an uncertain and anxious look on his face. Thankfully, both of them seemed free of any major injury.

Morris, on the other hand, looked battered and beaten. His armor and shield were bent and scraped, giving him the air of a battle hardened veteran returning from the frontlines. Of course, he also seemed completely exhausted, and struggled to catch up to the others. Tal caught a hint of a self-deprecating smile on his lips as he came to realize that he was in the worst shape of the four combatants.

"Come. I'll help." She announced while sliding under one of his arms to offer her support. Although it wasn't visibly obvious at the moment, she could tell that he had suffered some kind of leg injury during the fight, and was having a hard time keeping pace.

"Thanks." He replied breathlessly.

They headed towards the building in question, and as they got closer, she realized that it must have once been a headquarters for the city guard. However, it had obviously seen better days.

Clearly, the fort-like building had been targeted early on in the conflict, and whatever defense efforts had failed. Despite being the likely center of the city's military resources, it was little more than a burned out shell. Scattered corpses in the uniform of the White Lions littered the area around the large gate leading into the compound, and even more could be seen inside the courtyard.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Sera asked once they caught up.

"Heard him. Inside." She tried to concentrate again, but could only detect the sounds of combat.

Nodding her acknowledgement, she glanced at the man she was half-carrying. "Are you able to go on?"

"I'll be fine." Morris grunted through gritted teeth. "Nothing more than a flesh wound. Believe me, I've had a lot worse."

Sera frowned at that, but obviously didn't know how to broach the subject.

Tal suspected that he was acting. The wound in his leg was definitely deep, and they'd left a trail of blood up to this point. Considering the possibility that they would be fighting again in the near future, he could become a liability.

"Hold still." She muttered while leaning him against the compound's wall. He grimaced a little as weight settled on his bad leg, but otherwise remained silent.

She drew a scroll out of her bag, unfolding it and placing one hand on his injury. Activating the item, a pale green glow emanated from the parchment before transferring into Morris. Within a few seconds, the man's wounds were closing and his bleeding stopped.

Looking down at his leg in surprise, he asked. "A high level healing scroll? I know you all have money to spare after the events in Almira, but don't you think that's a bit wasteful for that kind of injury?"

"Was free."

"Eh?"

Sera offered an explanation with a look of regret on her face. "She means that we got these for free from Mike." As she spoke she showed him a few more she was keeping in her bag. "I should have thought of them sooner."

Morris looked at her for a few moments, digesting that information. "I know he's worried about us getting hurt, but..."

"Don't let it get to you. Based on what I've seen, he can whip up one of these with a red mana stone and ten minutes of work. Hells, by now he could probably make something a lot more effective, but I doubt it's occurred to him to do so."

Tal watched the poor man come to yet another realization about his friend for a few moments, and was about to suggest that they move on before any of the vampires in the area decide to focus on them, when she detected a quiet conversation nearby.

"...entered through there. Six nobles are trying to keep him occupied while another two are preparing a binding spell to seal his movements. I believe they will fail however. He has demonstrated an increasing resistance to most of our inherent magics, so I doubt this will do anything more than momentarily distract him."

The male speaker was discussing something serious, but kept his tone neutral and detached, almost as if the outcome of the situation was of no concern to him.

An immature female voice answered, "He's proving stronger than we anticipated. In truth, he almost seems to be getting more skilled the longer this battle goes on. Even the Hero's Destiny shouldn't be providing this much of a correction. Is there another factor?"

"Considering that he went from Tier 1 to Tier 4 in a matter of months, that's probably the case."

"Then our actions here have been a mistake. By failing to crush him immediately, we are only providing him a chance to grow through adversity. Should this continue for too long, we'll have a real monster on our hands." The girl sighed in a strangely childlike way.

"What are your orders? Should we join the fight and try to bring him down?"

"No, I'm still not at full strength, and even if I was, it would probably be a close fight. With the exception of the Queen herself, there aren't many in the Court that could match him on even terms." She lapsed into silence for a few seconds before continuing.

"I'll recommend to the council that they petition for the Queen to get involved. She didn't approve of this course of action, but she should move to prevent a substantial loss in our military power. Outside of that, we should fall back and wait for a change in the situation."

"Just to be clear, we aren't warning or helping the nobles that are currently attacking him?"

"Why would I warn our rivals when they are so obligingly running headlong towards their deaths? So long as we avoid any serious losses ourselves, this will only benefit our faction..." The girl's voice answered.

There was a slight pause before she continued. "We are being monitored. I didn't notice due to the mana fluctuations that man is putting off, but someone is listening to us."

"...An enemy? Or one of the nobles? If it is the latter, this could be trouble." The male voice asked, sounding nonplussed.

"I am unsure, but I'll take care of it."

With that announcement, Tal's senses were suddenly deadened, and she could no longer hear anything from that area.

"Trouble coming." She told the others, who had apparently been waiting for her to explain what she was listening to.

Sera frowned in thought for a second before asking, "Can we handle them on our own?"

Based on the nature of the conversation she'd overheard, Tal guessed that they would be no match for the pair of speakers. Shaking her head, she explained. "Too powerful."

"Alright then, we're going in." She shot back while boldly stepping into the compound, moving at a brisk pace that nevertheless gave her the ability to scan her surroundings in the process. A faintly glowing mana arrow formed on her bow, ready to fire at the first sign of trouble.

The rest of the group filed in after her, with Lily and Tal bringing up the rear. They entered through the broken door to the main building, and pushed past a bloodspattered reception hall.

Tal did her best to guide the group towards the sounds of fighting while also keeping a lookout for the mysterious speakers. However, she could tell that they were using some kind of stealth skill, since she hadn't heard or felt any sign of them since they'd noticed she was eavesdropping.

As a safeguard, she manifested her earth spirit and had it sink into the stone floor, having it follow the group at a distance. While it wouldn't be able to give her much of a warning, she could at least take defensive measures should it succeed in detecting them.

While they were moving through a large mess hall, the spirit sent her a tentative warning. Something was in its vicinity, but it could not tell anything beyond that. Glancing back in it's direction, Tal didn't see anyone, but did notice a few wisps of mist that had not been there before.

Steeling herself, she began communing with her air spirit while yelling back to the group in her monotonal voice, "Run!"

She didn't have any attention to spare to see if they were following her guidance as a wave of dark fog swept towards her from the corridor behind them. Conjuring an air shield with a quickly muttered chant, she was nearly bowled over by the force of the cloud slamming into her defenses.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see one of the large tables starting to melt and burn with purple flames from brief contact it made with the attack.

She quickly expanded her shield to cover the rest of the group, drawing every ounce of mana from the bracer to reinforce it. However, even her best efforts were unable to halt the full force of the mist, which steadily eroded her defenses until her spell shattered in a concussive blast that sent her sprawling.

Recovering quickly, she tried to get back to her feet, but was stopped by a sharp impact on her shoulder that pinned her to the ground. A thin, girlish leg was holding her down, and yet Tal was unable to move the restraining limb even a little bit.

"There's our little rat." The girl said with an amused smile. She was about to continue, but had to momentarily stop to block a devastating punch from Lily, which she did easily. With a flick of her wrist, she sent the giant blooded woman flying across the room.

The powerful vampire glanced dismissively at the rest of the group as they hesitantly spread out in front of her before looking back down at Tal. "Now, I think it's time to teach you a lesson about eavesdropping on your betters...what did you just do?"

Tal let the shattered remnants of the pendant fall from her fingers as she stared up at the girl. If she had the capacity to smile, this would have been a perfect opportunity to grin. However, she had to make do with a confident stare.

"What did you-" The vampire started to demand again. A beam of intense, white-hot energy, cut through the wall of the mess hall, neatly avoiding the other members of the group but striking the girl accurately.