Finding the Lost

"Quick," Alaine muttered, well and truly pissed off. "Killing these fucking things isn't going to be quick, Lilithe," she said, blood running down her lips while she looked at the Risen approaching the tornado. Her mouth tasted of rust, salt, and fire as she spat out another glob of blood. A Risen axeman leaped through the ripping winds, pieces of flesh and clothing torn from his rotten, grey frame.

The mercenary's magic broadsword rose and fell, ripping through the undead like a knife through butter, shoulder to hip. The head fell into the winds, and was torn away before the whole body dissipated.

Granted a brief reprieve, Alaine sheathed her blade of ice, and drew out instead her bloodred longsword. The killing spirit within this blade surely hungered. Withdrawing some vulnerary, Alaine poured the thick liquid down her throat before applying some to her leg. It would not get rid of the acid, but it would re-knit the muscles at least somewhat. The bottle, still two-thirds full, was stashed back into a bag somewhere. The fire in her leg intensified, but Alaine stifled the pain with her tongue again.

Gripping the hilt of her sword with both hands as another Risen approached through the wind, Alaine swung the bloodstained metal.

It crashed against something solid, and sent back a jarring report to her arms. Alaine's sword was pulled back, and the figure stepped through the wind. Heavy armor covered it, sandblasted on one side, and in its other hand was what her blade had crashed against; its tower shield.

Well, shit, she thought, the undead knight raising its sword to cut her to shreds.

The girl cloaked in darkness let out a small sigh of relief as the black-haired woman rebounded the axe outside of her earthen shield's defensive radius long enough for her to stabilize it into something proper and sturdy. Returning to her shielding duties, the girl glanced about, looking for where the next attack would come from. No sense letting anyone get hurt except the Risen.

Her glancing about in the wrong direction did provide an opening, and by the time she turned back around at the CLANG of the red-haired woman's sword on armor, it was a bit late for her to get the earthen shield there in time with any sort of durability to stop that sort of weapon.

No other options, then. Without wasting time on thinking ahead, the girl dropped her focus on the earthen shield, instead taking a deep breath, the black shell around her flickering in and out of existence rapidly before shattering into fragments, then to dust, and joining the air in being breathed in. As the armored Risen's sword came down, the Risen itself was forced back by the sudden impact of a very powerful surge of black flame breath.

Walking forward, trying not to hit the red-haired woman with any sidewinder flames, the girl no longer cloaked in darkness pushed the Risen knight back into the tornado... which then proceeded to erupt with the black flames itself. Normally, adding fire to a tornado would be a very bad idea, but this situation had two differences. One, it was a dark flame, not an ordinary one, and two, the tornado wasn't going to last all that much longer.

The black flame tornado began to dissipate gradually about a dozen seconds later, but while it lasted -- unlikely to be more than maybe fifteen or twenty seconds longer -- they had a bit of a reprieve: anything that touched the tornado in this state was liable to be turned to ash and bone shards very quickly. Property damage would very likely result from this, but that was kind of a given anyway, with all the Risen around.

Of course, such a tactic had not been without cost. The cloaked girl staggered about for a few seconds, getting dangerously close to scourging herself on her own flame tempest at least once, before simply falling flat on her frontside on the ground in the middle of the eye of the tornado. The world was spinning too much for her to handle right now; she'd be rather useless and defenseless until she could move again. Question was, would that be soon enough for her to be of any more use, or had she just signed her own death warrant with that thoughtless move?

Lilithe sighed, it was her bad to expect anything like a strategy from mercenaries. They had no single tactic to fight these risen, and they did not seem to care to come up with one to survive. From her point of view, it was as though they were going to keep fighting until they exhaust every last bit of their stamina just to become humanoid sandbags for the risen. I was her mistake to join in this battle from the start.

The dark mistress walked to the center of the barrier and stood still with her arms crossed. She took back a little trust she gave to these people, as well as to the barrier that was protecting her. From now, she did what was needed to keep her alive.

She waited for the requiem while mumbling a incantation of a forbidden spell.

The death melody began when Alaine fell one more time. The cloaked man rushed to her rescue just to reveal that he was a young she, appearing younger but mysterious. The other fact was that she was capable in using dark spell. The girl succeeded in saving Aliain, however, it cost all of them the dust barrier that was canceled. Instead, they had a stronger black flame tornado barrier that destroyed even an armored risen, though it was only temporary. The make the matter worse, the shaman girl just collapsed with her head rocketing down to the ground. It was no surprise, for someone who cast at least three high level spells in a row.

The dark mistress unsheathed her slim sword to be ready for the coming risen, who will come for them with the spell faded.

Once the flame tornado reached its limit, it reavealed to the group that it was raining outside, just not so much anymore. The risen around them didn't look as energetic as before, but they still kept attacking.

Lilithe stepped aside to dodge the strike without much effort before she slashed diagonally and turned the thing to dust in one blade. Another one came from her right side with its axe, the dark knight stepped back a little to have a firm standing ground and blocked the attack directly. Normally, the attack would push her back yards away, but she didn't even flinch this time. She cast a spell, while blocking, to have an ice pillar piercing out of the ground and exorcise that undead.

Fortunately, it worked just in time. Lilithe thought. It was the right decision to summon the rainy cloud with 'Phantom Rain', as it weakened badly all the enemies, and their weapons, in this open area. She only needed time for the undead to get soaked with the acid rain, and the tornado spell helped with that matter.

Not for long, the rain stopped completely, and left them with weakened and weapon-rusted risen to battle with. It was time for the human to strike back.

Alaine checked her clock. Behind her, she knew, were the girl and the cloaked swordsman. To her side was Lilithe, and further out from that, there were perhaps four of the monsters left. Her sword held with the blade down and to her left, Alaine approached one. Its grey flesh smoked and its skin crawled as if irritated. Rust covered its weapon and what armor it had. "Time to die, Smokey...," Alaine muttered, raising her sword.

It crouched in a battle stance, but when it flinched from whatever was ailing it, the mercenary chopped downwards. Black, dead blood bathed the blade before the corpse was dusted.

#
The cloaked swordsman leaped towards one of them and broke the guard it tried to put up with its weapon. The weapon snapped under the force, and he slaughtered it. He moved to the next one, kicking it before throwing it to the ground and stabbing it in the back of the neck. "Last one's yours, lady," he said to Lilithe as he was returning. He pulled off his hood to reveal an older man, not exactly middle-aged, but older than Alaine. Perhaps late twenties, early thirties. His hair was a deep green color.

He walked over to the cellar door by the inn, smashing the lock with his sword's pommel. He opened the door and called down, "Hey, come on out ya'll! Town's under attack, we need to get ya out of here!"

#
When he began calling, the wounded and in pain Alaine hadn't paid attention, her focus on stifling the pain of the acid. She looked at the man, and noticed his hair. "Hey, you!" Alaine called to him, making him look up. "You wouldn't happen to have a daughter about yea-high, with your hair color, and silver eyes, would you?" she asked, gesturing the girl's height with the hand that wasn't grabbing her sword to hold her up.

"Yeah, I do. How'd you..."

"She asked me to come get you. My crew's escorting her and the others to Riverton as I speak," Alaine said, her back straightening from her slouch in pride as a smile donned her face. She had succeeded in finding the girl's father.

However, the people he'd called out of the cellar surprised her. Not by their being, of course, happened with any conflict of nations. What surprised her was how many there were in the cellar. Two dozen, all told. "Hiding Plegian refugees, were you?" Alaine's smile morphed into a smirk.

"Yes. I and a few others," the swordsman admitted after a lengthy silence. "The other group left yesterday, and we were going to send this group on tonight when the attack happened."

"That's treason, you know," Alaine said neutrally, examining the ends of her left gauntlet's fingers.

"And? They're people, too. They're running from what they know and hate, into the unknown, for the meager hope that it's better than their life over there. Helping them isn't wrong. I know it isn't," the man explained, hoping to persuade the woman to keep their secret.

Alaine smirked again, "Well, it's not like Riverton is going to know the difference. The whole town became a refugee camp for them. And it's not like I'm going to say a word. After all, I'm just some dumb mercenary. What do I know?

"Come along, then. Let's make this as quick as we can," the mercenary sheathed her red blade. She turned, picked up the little dark mage girl, set her on her back, and began limping back to the town gate that would lead to Riverton. Perhaps not all the Risen were destroyed, but there shouldn't be too many more to contend with. The trip out should be easier than that fiasco back there.

Her gamble had paid off. The others had dealt with the rest of the approaching Risen just fine, and the black flame tempest had offered plenty of time for the black-haired woman to set up a grand area spell of her own. The dark lightning burns from earlier still hurt, but she'd manage. She wasn't able to pay quite enough attention to catch the general gist of the conversation, but she definitely noticed being hauled up onto the red-haired woman's back.

This was very uncomfortable for her. Making it worse was the fact that in using that last spell, she had worn herself out to the point that she didn't have the energy to flail about or even complain, so she'd just have to tolerate it, constantly on edge, until she did have the energy necessary.

This was going to be unpleasant.

Lilithe didn't have time to reply the man there was no need to leave the risen for her as she was not fond of killing, not to mention how meaningless to kill something that was already dead. She simply turned to the approaching damaged undead and summoned a dimension blade of darkness to end the thing. The living life force was drained to rejuvenate her health condition.

She looked around to confirm that all raisen in the area were destroyed, then she followed others to the cellar. She intended to just bid farewell and go on her way again.

However, some facts she had learned from entering the cellar denied her decision. There were a group of Plegian deserters among the townspeople that she felt responsible to keep them safe. It was not only her that began to doubt in the fell dragon. The other reason was the other dark magician, who was still unconscious after her collapse in the fight earlier. The dark mistress saw that this group was quite weak without a mage with them, not to mention they were in need of a brainy companion. This girl did well but she needed to get up in time before the next fight erupted. Until then, she will need a replacement, and there appeared to be no one except Lilithe.

Lilithe looked at the girl again. There was no sign of reaction even after she was being carried by Alaine, completely exhausted.

"So be it." The dark lady sighed as she followed the caravan. It was going to be a long day.

"Sorry that the ride's not more smooth," Alaine apologized, whispering. "My leg is still on fire. Bastard had acid on the spearhead." Her limp was less noticable by now, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. She continued, "Anyway, I wasn't gonna leave you for dead. I might be a mercenary, but I'm not without pity. No one's gonna hurt you." The mercenary kept limping forward. "And, for what it's worth, thanks for... for saving my life back there."

The group passed the gate, beyond which it seemed that Alaine's comrades had slaughtered all the Risen. Still, though, best not to chance staying in the area.

The road to Riverton was wide and the flat farmland made it easy to see any people or other threats. For miles, the fields all looked empty. Alaine was almost sure that she saw Riverton, but that town marked a transition in the landscape. Flat farmland became rolling hills, so the town was neatly hidden from view behind one.

"So, Miss Lilithe, you're good with both magic and a sword, eh? How'd you come by that combo?"

Hopefully the red-haired woman wasn't expecting any sort of response, as the cloaked girl was not in any reasonable state to answer. That said, there was no reason why answers couldn't be pondered, even if they couldn't be articulated at present.

The ride's smoothness or lack thereof was not exactly a concern, as such things would be overriden by how much she disliked being carried in the first place. The rationale behind carrying her out of town instead of leaving her was sound enough, if not unexpected, but the thing that caught her most off guard was... being thanked.

That was a first.

"Not much, Ms.Alaine. It's just that there were times in the past that I exhausted my magic resource and became useless," After saying this, Lilithe glanced at the shaman girl a little, hoping that she didn't hear or not take her speech as an insult. She really didn't mean to. "...or situations the the casting time was not given. Therefore, I've just recently been carrying this saber for that purpose, though my swordplay is far from polished."

The dark mistress looked at Alaine's weapons, both of her swords seemed to be very well-forged, something she would see it carried by a master swordsman. She doubted she will be able to swing such heavy looking blade with her lithe body.

"If we have a duel, I don't think I'll stand longer than ten seconds."

Lilithe then looked around the wide plain, and empty farms, then to the hills they were heading to. Their destination seemed to be somewhere there. She hoped they will get there without any problem.

"Well, that's a pretty pragmatic solution. I like it," Alaine smiled despite the pain in her leg. Thinking about it, she decided that repaying her for her help would probably be a good idea. "I'm not a teacher when it comes to magic, but I can help you with wielding a sword, if you need it. I might not be a sword master or a great hero, but I know something of how to swing a blade. It'd be repayment for your help today."

Not too long after the exchange on the subject of swords, the cloaked girl had recovered enough of her energy to move again, at least somewhat, and demonstrated this by rather unceremoniously dropping herself off the red-haired woman's back.

"...ow."

It was not the most dignified of landings, given that it dropped her flat on her back, but it was still more comfortable than the situation she was in before. Shakily getting to her feet, the cloaked girl began plodding along the path with the others, though staying a handful of steps away from the red-haired woman -- Alaine, evidently -- eyeing her cautiously with a 'don't come near me' sort of look on her face. But why?

"You do not need to repay me anything, Ms. Aliaine."

The dark mistress replied. She might consider her sudden answer to be rude in other occasions, though she felt she could be a little more direct talking with mercenaries. Lilithe thought that all she did back then was to save herself, and she had already abandoned the rest of the party in her mind. Therefore, she knew she was going to feel guilty and horrible to take the credit.

Still, having a real sword-fighter to develop her swordplay would be nice. Magician training herself a sword had limited progress, since it could be just as basic as using kitchen knife.

"...though, if you would be so kind to guide, this one would be very appreci--" The girl fell off. "...ated."

Before Lilithe could properly finished her sentence, the tiny magician girl fell from Alaine's shoulder to the ground. While others were still frozen seeing that, she tried standing up by herself and joined the walk. No word was spoken. To make thinks even weirder, the girl kept her distance away from others while starring Alaine, probably with dissatisfaction or attitude.

If Lilithe was good at maintaining herself emotionlessly, this girl could be the opposite.

"Ms.Alaine, did you perhaps... drop her?" The dark mistress quietly asked while looking at the magician girl with curiousity.

Alaine felt a push on her back, and a sudden lack of weight on her back as Lilithe was replying. She thrust her foot out to catch herself from falling forwards, landing with a great deal of momentum for such a minor action. She only belatedly realized that it was her left leg, the bad one, and even then, she had to bite her tongue again, her fingers crooking into claws pointed upward as she tried to keep herself from screaming. And to make matters worse, her elbow had bashed the pommel of one of her swords.

The solid metal pommel.

Alaine's face turned red as tears brimmed in her eyes while she stared at the blue expanse above her in incomprehension. Her lip trembled, but she kept herself from both screaming and sobbing. She managed to stand straight once the pain let up.

She spat again, but it landed in the dirt, so she couldn't tell the color. "She kicked off me, more like," Alaine replied, her voice slow and measured. Now her tongue was sensitive, and she was still trying to reorder her frazzled perceptions. "Let's keep on going. I'm fine, or I will be, anyway."

As Alaine began to limp towards Riverton again after her Pandora-related mishap, she replied to Lilithe, "Then, I'll instruct you just as soon as my leg's tended to. I hope that I can provide proper guidance."

The cloaked girl probably should have shown some remorse for hurting Alaine like that, but a mix of fatigue, being the age she was, rather desperately not liking being touched, and a few other things besides ate away at any sense of obligation to apologize she may have had. At the very least, she stopped looking at Alaine with the 'don't come near me' glare, instead turning her attentions toward the open road, tucking herself a little deeper into her cloak, as if to try and shut out the world around her.

The fact that she was staying with them within that not-quite-next-to-them distance instead of heading off on her own might have spoken something she was unwilling to say herself, though.

By looking at the mage girl, Lilithe couldn't help seeing an image of herself in the past when she entered the world outside first time. She experienced a similar social awkwardness with almost every person she ran into, and it was difficult to adjust. Even now, she didn't think she had gotten much better, just averagely well to not get caught siding with Grimle.

She wished she had a time to talk with the girl, but it didn't seem to happen anytime soon. The dark mistress shifted her attention back to the red mercenary.

"...she isn't a friend of yours?"

Lilithe thought the mage was another mercenary in Alaine's guild. She now notice that they didn't talk much before either. Then, that raised another question in her head of the reason that the dark mage assisted in fighting the raisen until she collapsed. What was her objective?

"Anyway, I thank you in advance for your sword lesson, Ms.Alaine."

She glanced at the wound on Alaine's leg, it needed to be tended as soon as possible. After getting wounded, she kept fighting for a while, and still forced it be carrying the mage girl for quite a distance. No matter how she look at it, the mercenary was straining it too much already. She felt a bit guilty now to ask for the training. She thought Alaine can just guide her verbally, but the real swordsman might see that training through action will be better. So she kept that opinion in her mind.

Gazing at the horizon, she wondered how soon they will arrive their destination. No raisen was in the area for sure, however, she knew that there were people who can summon them at will. There was a low chance such people will want anything from these townspeople, but she also knew her bad omen usually came true too...

"Nah. Just met her today," Alaine said, limping determinedly, a hand on her sword. "And you're welcome. Thanks for all the help back there." She grunted, pointing at a small rise. "We'll be able to see the town from that rise there. With any luck, we'll run into someone from my company. Agh!" Too much concentration was being wasted on talking. She forced down the pain and continued on... without biting her tongue this time.

She finally came to the top of the small hill, and saw it. The twinkling river in the distance, the thatched rooftops, the refugees from earlier today. A wyvern was flying low over the town, and Alaine knew it to be Verana's beast. "At last," she grunted. "We're in sight." The sheer relief that flooded through her nearly drowned out the pain, and she began limping with a renewed vigor, closer to walking than limping.

Her family was close. Just a bit more...

Lilithe looked at Alaine with concern when her leg pain acted up, but didn't say a word as the injury didn't ask for her support. The mercenary wasn't the type to rely on others much, and will only do that when it was necessary. Therefore, she didn't dare to ask.

"That's good to know."

Lilithe said with a sigh of relief when Alaine pointed her the visible destination. The flying wyvern made her uneasy at first but the mercenary said like that was an ally. The dark mistress looked at the caravan, with a gentle glance toward the dark magician girl, to see if they were in a better spirit as well.

Everything was going well so far, though it somehow made her worry in secret. She could only hope nothing bad like in her imagination will happen.

The cloaked girl stayed quiet for most of the remainder of the trip, rather firmly marking her as not the talkative type; as if that much wasn't obvious already. The one thing that knocked her out of her silence was the revelation of where the group was going.

"...company?"

It wasn't much, but that one word, spoken in a tone more worried than curious, still said something about her emotions and perspective. She glanced over at the black-haired woman -- Lilithe, if memory served -- at the same time as Lilithe was looking at her, letting her worry be seen. Ally or no, the cloaked girl still had some trust issues and social issues. What would these people think of her if they knew who or what she was?

Alaine limped down the path, answering the one-worded query from the darkmage girl with, "What, you thought I worked alone?" The mercenary paused, looking back at the group. She decided to wait, let the refugees go on ahead of her. She let her sword hand rest on the hilt of her blades as the swordsman from before paused while the Plegians walked by her. The redhead was surprised to see that he was looking at her, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Rightful, probably, she thought. After the refugees were ahead of them, Alaine resumed her limping.

"'Mind explaining why you don't care?" he asked in a low voice once the others were walking ahead. "You're a Ylissean mercenary."

"'Mind explaining why you do?" Alaine retorted, annoyed, though her voice was hushed as well.

"I'm not letting these people get deported if I can help it," he declared, protective. "I say again, you're a mercenary. You'd probably sell the information for money if someone offered, right?"

"..." Alaine thought about her response for a second, sorting her thoughts. "Fine, I'll tell ya. I'm helping them, because one, they were in danger and I could do something to stop it, and two, I am Plegian. I was adopted by a soldier when the last war ended and moved here. My life turned out pretty alright, so perhaps theirs'll turn out better."

"...Only alright?" he asked, morbidly curious. "You're a mercenary, and fairly decent at the fighting, if what I saw back there was right. You live in a small mountain fortress, and you've got work almost all the time. To anyone else, that would be a pretty good life. Am I wrong?"

"Watch it, asshole. I might be helping you, but we're still strangers," Alaine growled, her sword creeping out an inch. "Your girl's cute, but dig any deeper and she won't like me for what I do to you."

"Hmph," he snorted, walking faster and rejoining the group. "Crazy-ass woman," he muttered, not quite out of earshot.

"Paranoid old man," she shot back.

#
Meanwhile at the front of the group...

"Halt!" a booming voice commanded as they reached the top of the rise. "Who goes there?" a man asked. He was twenty yards on down the road, tall and broad-shouldered, with an ax in his hand, pointed straight towards them. Worn clothes and armor decorated his frame. Behind him, flanking him, were a dark-haired archer and two more light-brunette swordmaidens, none of which wore much armor to speak of. The archer had an arrow nocked, and the swordmaidens held naked blades in hand. Riverton lay a few hundred yards behind them.

When her eyes locked with the girl, Lilithe thought whether she should greet the girl a bit, just to let her know they were from the same group of interest. However, she shot out her own idea when she thought it was not the right place to do that, they may be at risk to reveal their identity to the Ylisse. She just nodded lightly to the girl before turning to her front.

Lilithe didn't pay much attention to Alaine's conversation with the old man, but that was until they began arguing. She didn't say anything in response, however, she was not fond the way that uncle talked to his life saver. She understood that, for being a mercenary, the redhead already went out of her way to help these townspeople, not to mention the extra Plegian refugees who tagged along. Still, she was too afraid to give a piece of her mind to the elder, as he might shift that attitude to her too. She was not as strong as her companion to endure it.

That was when she noticed that the caravan had stopped, she wonder what was happening over there.