Soul of the Warrior

Chapter 104: Spring in the Desert

It only took them a few additional minutes to verify that Dowell and Cinna's families were in the same situation as Sten's. There was no indication that anyone had been killed, so they assumed they had been taken. That was all it was at this point, though: an assumption. It was better than assuming the alternative.

"Let's go search the Adventurer's Guild and see if their communication tools are still around," Fira said. "If it was another kingdom that attacked, they would have their own branches, so they would know about the communication tools. If they wanted to keep things silent, they would make an effort to take or destroy them, so let's hope someone had the foresight to hide one."

"If it's hidden, how do we find it?" Sten asked. "I know you guys can Sense Mana, but if they're not on, wouldn't they not have any Mana running through them?"

"That's a valid point," Fira said, "but I have a magic item that can ferret out other magic items if in close proximity."

"That sounds like it could come in handy," Reivyn commented.

"It's alright," Fira dismissed it. "Usually, there aren't many magic items hidden away. There are some in higher Tier Dungeons that have secret rooms and such, but most of the time the rewards are distinct. I just have it in my storage pouch in preparation for the future, and just in case, like situations like this."

The Party made its way to the central part of the city. If there was an intact communication device, it would be found at the central Guild Branch, or, barring that, one might be found in the city administration building.

The central area of the city was on the main path of destruction. It was much more heavily damaged than the surrounding residential neighborhoods. Buildings were smashed, the road was shattered, and rubble and splintered wood littered the ground.

"There's no way there weren't significant casualties from this attack," Reivyn said, peering at the damage as they walked along the broken road. They had to pick their way over the rubble. "But there are no bodies or blood stains. Whoever did this had to meticulously clean up the carnage afterward.

"You guys were just here about two weeks ago?"

"That's right," Fira confirmed.

"In that case, they probably haven't had enough time to get that far away from here. Unless they attacked the literal day after you left."

"We'll have to figure out which direction they headed."

"Isn't that something we should send in the message?" Sten asked.

"Yeah," Fira nodded her head. "We should have someone go out and check to see if they can tell from the tracks. There's no danger in the city right now, so it shouldn't be a problem to split up. Might as well multitask."

"I'll do it," Reivyn volunteered. "You guys know your way around the city and the buildings much better than I do, so I'm just tagging along at this point. I'll climb up the intact parts of the wall and get a look to see if I can tell which way the tracks lead out."

"Sounds like a plan," Fira said. "We'll take an hour to scour the Guild Branch and the admin building. If we don't find it in an hour, we'll wait for you here, at the central square. We won't come looking for you, because we won't know which side of the city you'll be on in your search. If we go looking for you and you're looking for us, it will take longer."

"Ok. I'll see you guys in about an hour. Hopefully, I can figure it out."

Reivyn gave a wave and a small smile to Fira. She gave a small smile in return while Sera glared at him. He chuckled to himself as he turned and headed off, back to the walls of the city.

He carefully made his way back over the rubble, but once he made it to a less damaged section of the road, he picked up into a run. Might as well take advantage of my Stats to cut the time. It only took a couple of minutes to reach the first part of the walls he wanted to check.

Not all of the walls had been demolished. There were sections on three sides of the city with gaping holes in the fortifications, and one side was still fully intact. There were multiple towers with stairs leading up still intact. Reivyn ascended the first whole tower he found and peered over to inspect the tracks of the wheels.

This first section only has a couple of marks to indicate siege weapons. I can see where they trundled forward into place, and then they turn and head off to the east. That might be where they met up after the siege, so I'll go over there.

Reivyn descended the walls once more. He went to the outside of the city this time, so he wouldn't have to pick his way through winding alleys or over the rubble. It was much quicker to run along the outside of the city, and he made it to his destination in about ten minutes.

He could see how the ground was torn up from all of the foot traffic and other wheel marks as he ran by, but he couldn't make any sense of it from the ground floor. He ran back through another broken gate and up into another tower to get a clear view from above.

That's a lot of tracks, Reivyn thought. There had to have been tens of thousands of assailants. Makes sense if they wanted to subdue an entire population. Conventional wisdom for assaulting a fortified location is 3-to-1 troops, too. I don't know how many people were mustered to defend the city, but it obviously wasn't enough.

Reivyn studied the tracks for several long moments.

Ok, I can see where they came in from off in the distance, and I can see where the other sides converged, too. If I look close enough, there's a portion where the wheel tracks make deeper ruts in the ground where they must have lined up in formation. So if I exclude the parts where they're shallower and dispersed, I can see that they headed off to the northeast.

New Skill Unlocked!

Tier 2:

Tracking (0 ->1)

Successfully deducing the differences in the tracks led to Reivyn unlocking the new Skill. He just nodded his head as if he had expected the outcome.

I don't know what's in that direction, but the others should.

The desolate sands the Party had arrived from were to the northwest of Kirlon. It appeared that the siege army was skirting around the sand dunes at first glance.

Reivyn checked the time and saw that it had taken him about forty minutes total to make the discovery. Most of the time he had been running from place to place. It would take about ten to fifteen minutes to run back to the central area. If the others weren't done by the time he got there, he wouldn't have to wait long for them.

The trip back was uneventful. The silence of such a large city was a little unnerving, but Reivyn just focused on the trek.

He spotted Fira and the others sitting on the edge of a water fountain, waiting for him. They stood up as he approached.

"Could you figure it out?" Fira asked.

"They left in the northeast direction," Reivyn confirmed. "Did you find a communication device?"

"Yeah, the Guild Master apparently had a spare that he hid away in his assistant's office."

"If it was in the assistant's office, why do you think it was the Guild Masters?"

"He left a note," Fira gave a simple response. "Anyway, that's not important. It's only half of the communicator. We can send a message out if we pump it full of Mana ourselves, but we can't receive a reply."

"Alright. That's good enough, I suppose. So we just send a message out that says Kirlon has been sacked and the invading force left to the northeast? What's in the northeast?"

"The next closest city is due east of Kirlon," Fira explained. "There really isn't anything to the north until you get much further away from the sands, so I don't know why they would be heading off in that direction without further information. Could you tell where they came from?"

"Not so much," Reivyn shook his head. "The tracks leading up to the city were from a centralized rendezvous, apparently, and I couldn't see from where that came from."

"It's fine. It's not as important. It would just let us know the likelihood of them having attacked another city already. Let's send this message out."

Fira pulled out the communication device. It was just a handheld, forked wand. It was supposed to interface with another magic tool that would display messages received, but the one it was linked with was either destroyed or confiscated by the invaders. She gathered a decent amount of Mana - about a thousand or so if I'm judging correctly - and then concentrated on the message she wanted to send.

"It's done," she said after a moment. Sweat beaded her brow from having to use so much Mana at once, but she didn't appear to be close to a Mana expenditure backlash. Heck, the sweat could just be from exerting herself in this heat. I don't know how difficult it was for her to use that much Mana. In my expert opinion, though, I would say she's north of 3,000 Mana.

"How much Mana do you have?" Reivyn asked. Might as well see if she'll tell me.

"That's a bit personal, don't you think?" Fira quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Doesn't hurt to ask," Reivyn shrugged. "I'm not trying to pry. I was just curious."

"I know, I'm not mad," Fira said with a slight smile. "Ok, so I'm open to suggestions for our next move, but I recommend we head east, toward Oreck, the other city I mentioned."

"Sounds good to me," Sten said. Dowell and Cinna nodded their heads in agreement.

"I don't have an opinion," Reivyn said.

"Are you sure?" Fira asked, concern on her face. "Your priority is to find out where you are relative to your home. I know I asked for your help, but we can't expect you to abandon everything for this."

"Is there an Adventurer Guild Branch in Oreck?" Fira nodded. "Then our tasks aren't mutually exclusive. I can stick around with you guys and accomplish my own goal at the same time. I'll probably have to wait around for an answer, anyway." Reivyn shrugged.

"Alright, then we'll head to Oreck."

Sera didn't have an opinion on the matter. Reivyn noticed that she went along with everything Fira said without question. She reminds me a lot of Erik. She's not as stoic as he is, but her actions and attitude are a mirror to his. If that's the case, then who exactly are Fira and Sera? I'm sure I'll learn one day. It's not a priority right now.

The Party decided to check the stores for provisions before they left. From what they could tell, most of the goods had been ransacked, but they had seen things here and there to indicate that not everything had been picked clean.

Reivyn was directed to an establishment that had catered to all the needs of Adventurers when he asked Sten. He sifted through the debris. It was slim pickings, but there was the occasional find underneath some rubble that Reivyn used a combination of Gravity and Earth Mana to lift out of the way.

"Aha!" Reivyn shouted in excitement. The others looked up from their own searching. Everyone had some success in finding some provisions that would be useful. Reivyn bent down to secure the prize he had discovered, and he stood back up holding a satchel. "It's a spatial pouch!"

"Congratulations," Fira said. "Now you won't have to bum off of me, anymore."

"I'm not going to say the first thing that came to mind," Reivyn said with a smirk.

"What's that? What's the first thing that came to mind?" Fira tilted her head in puzzlement.

"Don't worry about it. Just help me transfer my armor over if you would."

"Ok, if you say so."

"Pervert," Sera muttered under her breath, a frown on her face. Fira glanced at her with a strange look, but she just pulled the armor out of her pouch and handed the pieces to Reivyn. Reivyn ignored the comment from Sera and stored his gear away in his new storage satchel.

"Thanks," Reivyn nodded to Fira.

"No problem," she replied. She turned to face everyone.

"Ok, has everyone had a chance to refill their rations, water, and any other gear they could think of?" Everyone nodded in response to the question. "Then let's go ahead and get started. It's still just before noon, so we have most of the day to travel. It's not ideal to travel during the day, but it doesn't make sense to wait any longer in this situation.

"Will you be able to handle it, Reivyn?"

"Sure, I should be fine," Reivyn replied. "I snagged some extra water skins, and I filled them up with some cool water. It'll stay fresh now that I have my own storage pouch, and I won't have to borrow yours anymore. I can get hydrated any time without bothering you."

"I didn't mind."

"I know. I'm just saying it'll be easier."

"In that case, let's go."

The Party tidied up their gear and headed to the east gate. It wasn't as eerie traveling with a group through the silent city, and it definitely wasn't as bad once they got out into the open field again.

The Party traveled with a heavy heart. Intellectually, they knew that the populace was most likely still alive, but that didn't mean they were fine. There was no telling what their captors were putting them through or making them do. Sten, Dowell, and Cinna were impatient to save their families, but they knew there wasn't anything they could do with such a small group. They needed to get to another city and form up a proper resistance force if the news hadn't spread and one hadn't been made yet.

Reivyn was mostly silent, but he still bantered with Fira occasionally. It was still amusing to him to push Sera's buttons with his interactions with Fira, but that was no longer his main motivating factor. He had started flirting with Fira because it was funny, but now he was enjoying it for the sake of flirting itself. Fira was also receptive to it, and she was actually more open and less prone to blush after he had kissed her.

My interest in her reminds me a lot of the dreams I've had. In the dreams, the man I'm seeing through had no interest in any girls until he met his wife. I'm not saying I intend to marry Fira, I hardly know anything about her, but it's parallel. No other girl has ever engendered any of these kinds of emotions or thoughts in me before.

It was another five days or so to Oreck from Kirlon, and they made decent time. There were apparently fewer instances of roaming monsters like there were goblins and orcs in the Tier 1 Region Reivyn had grown up in, so they weren't interrupted on their trek. They still kept a lookout, though, and made sure someone was awake during the evening. Any roaming monsters or beasts were guaranteed to be at least weak Tier 3 like the feral lizardmen in the cave system.

They were seated around a campfire on the second night. Reivyn and Fira had taken to sitting next to each other with a bit of space between them and the others. Sten had briefly made as if he was going to sit closer to them, but a glare from both Sera and Fira had stopped him in his tracks. He gave a meek smile as he rejoined his two friends, finally fully giving up on any pursuit of Fira. The assist from Sera had come as a surprise to Reivyn, but he assumed Fira had said something to her.

Reivyn hadn't been too concerned with Sten's obvious interest in Fira. It wasn't his intention to get between anyone, but he had noticed that it had been a one-sided pining from Sten, and he hadn't really even done a whole lot to try and get closer to her since Reivyn had joined the Party. It was kind of an unspoken rule to not actually talk about their budding relationship, though, and they just naturally went with the flow.

"I have over 6,000 Mana," Fira suddenly whispered. Reivyn looked up at her in surprise. She was looking down, fiddling with a stick in the dirt as she blurted the information out.

"You didn't have to tell me," Reivyn said back.

"I know. I wanted to. I just didn't want to say it in front of everyone else. It's none of their business."

"And it's mine?"

"It is now."

"Do you trust me that much?"

Fira was silent for a moment as she continued to doodle in the dirt with the stick.

"I trust you enough with that much information," she finally replied. "I'm not going to tell you all of my Stats or secrets, though. Not now."

"Not now? So in the future?"

"I don't know. Maybe. We'll see."

"In that case, even though I'm from a Tier 1 Region, my parents aren't. My parents are from a Tier 4 Region."

Fira stopped doodling and looked up at Reivyn. He could see the fire dancing in her eyes, and it accentuated the beauty of her ruby irises. Reivyn gulped at the stare, and Fira's mouth twitched up into a smile.

"So that could explain some of your prowess, but not all of it. What other secrets are you willing to divulge?"

"There's no harm in telling you," Reivyn shrugged. "When I said my first Class was Fighter, I meant my first, First Class." Fira tilted her head in puzzlement. "I was conscripted before I was Tier 1. I never had had a Villager or Citizen Class, and there were extenuating circumstances that prevented me from receiving the Peasant Levy Class. Light Magus is my Tier 2 Class, not my Tier 3 Class."

"Wait, so you're saying you're only Tier 2?" Kefira's eyes opened wide in astonishment. "Tell me you're at least close to Tier 3."

"Level 7."

"Wha-?!" Fira stared off into space, unable to comprehend the information right away. She shook her head to clear her thoughts before she continued. "Then you either have a butt load of Achievements, a powerful Bloodline, or both."

"I do have a lot of Achievements. Kind of comes with the territory when you're thrust into conflict at such an early age," Reivyn shrugged again. "But you're also right about the Bloodline. I have a pretty powerful one. I don't know all of the intricacies, so please don't ask."

"Fair enough. I also have a strong Bloodline. My family is from a Tier 4 Region as well. I'm sure you've noticed by now, but Sera isn't my actual sister. She's my bodyguard."

"What are you doing all the way out here in a Tier 3 Region delving into caves to beat the market price on silk? Shouldn't you have more of a protective detail so far from home?"

"It's all about Life Experience. If I had a larger group, the System wouldn't give me full credit. And while my parents love me, let's just say that I have a lot of older siblings."

"Ahh, so you're some sort of noble, then?"

"Something like that."

"You remind me of my friends Melissa and Larissa," Reivyn looked off into the distance with a wistful look. Fira frowned at his expression.

"Melissa? Larissa? Who are they?" Reivyn looked over and saw the frown on her face.

"What? Are you jealous?" Reivyn smiled.

"Jealous? What do I have to be jealous about? You're here, and they're there."

"Uh-huh. They're two girls that I met when running a Dungeon. They were daughters of an affluent family that had ties to a Tier 2 kingdom's noble family. They had their own bodyguard, Erik, as well."

"I see," Fira trailed off. "I guess I can see the similarities, but don't think I'm some hick from a backward Tier 1 Region. The similarities end there."

Whoa, that was unexpected. Her reaction reminds me of my mom, actually, Reivyn chuckled to himself.

"Ok, ok, I get it," Reivyn held his hands out, placating her. "But you're wrong about one thing. There's one more similarity." Fira tilted her head, waiting for him to continue. "You're pretty."

"Hmph," Fira flicked her hair behind her shoulder. She didn't even blush at the compliment. "I know exactly how pretty I am. I would bet that's more of a difference than a similarity."

"I don't know..." Reivyn said. "I doubt you realize how pretty you really are."

"Oh yeah? Well, how pretty am I?" Fira leaned forward, intent on his answer.

"You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."

Fira finally blushed once more. Reivyn watched as the heat climbed up her neck to turn her entire face red as she looked down, trying to hide. She mumbled something under her breath.

"What was that? I didn't catch it," Reivyn smirked. He did hear it, but he wanted to hear her say it louder.

"I said," she looked up, speaking louder. She startled herself, though, looking around to see if anyone else was paying attention. She continued in a quieter voice. "I said, 'you're not too bad, either.'" Reivyn felt a warm feeling suffuse his chest as she looked at him. "And you actually smell pretty nice, too."

"I'll take your word for it. I can't smell myself."

"A good thing, too," Fira quipped. "When you stink, you stink."

Reivyn rolled his eyes.

"There you go again."

"It's not my fault I have a sensitive nose. Maybe I notice it because of the contrast."

"Maybe," Reivyn said. He scooted closer to Fira. "How do I smell right now?"

Fira looked away, acting shy.

"Good."

Reivyn smiled. He reached over and grabbed her hand. She looked up at him, not making to withdraw her hand from his grasp, and he just smiled as he held it. She looked away after a moment and let him continue to hold her hand.

They passed the rest of the evening like that, butterflies flapping their wings in Reivyn's stomach.