Embris walked out of the building as Cinder and Feon told her about what had happened to them since they'd parted during the bandit attack, despite a good amount of what they said having already being covered by the letter Embris had received from Feon earlier. Though, what surprised Embris the most was the tale of the airship that had flown in over the Marquis' castle. Part of her wasn't sure that they weren't just making that up to make their story sound more interesting.
Then when they finished, Embris started to tell them what happened to her, ignoring everything she'd told them in her letter as well. She even told them about the friend she'd made called 'Jen' and how she'd been the one to convince Embris to stay here. Though, part of her wondered if maybe she'd have decided to stay here eventually anyway. After all, Nymis and Rephis were happy and making friends with the other children, which Embris couldn't say would have happened if she'd remained a traveling mercenary, doing whatever she could to earn enough money to care for them.
Although, the news of the wolf attacks had Emris worried about what might happen if the wolf went for any of the children of the settlement. As while they tended to play away from the less settled parts of the area, every so often they did venture closer than Embris would be comfortable with given that news.
"Embris, are you okay?" Feon asked, pulling Embris' thoughts back to the present, away from the news of the wolf.
"Yeah, it's just something that I'd heard about recently that's been on my mind sometimes."
Embris didn't want Feon or Cinder worried, but she couldn't say that she'd be able to keep the news from them, since there was always a chance that they'd overhear the wolf being discussed just by passing someone who was talking about it.
"Is it something important?" Cinder asked, looking at her the way he always did when he wanted to know more but respected her right to stay silent about it.
"Kinda," Embris hedged. "It's something that's being taken care of by others, but it's still something that I think about."
"Well, you said that Nymis and Rephis are around here, right?" Feon asked, looking for their siblings, clearly wanting to reunite with them as soon as she could.
"Yeah, but they often move around with whatever game they're playing," Embris said, not wanting to admit she only ever knew the general area that they played in. "I'm sure we'll find them if we just continue looking."
"It'll be good to see them again," Cinder remarked, looking away, almost as if he didn't want Embris to see the expression he had on his face. "I was worried that you guys might have been made slaves or worse."
Embris put a hand on her brother's shoulder. "Don't worry about that. We're fine and soon you'll see that Nymis and Rephis are doing well."
Out of the corner of Embris' eye, she noticed Ralph and his friends walking towards where the newest expansion of the settlement was being worked on, where housing for the latest arrivals was supposed to be built. Which was supposed to be built better than what they'd built so far of the settlement with the carpenters that Jenn had been able to bring with her on her latest trip. She wasn't sure what they were doing over there, but they at least had a few of the Silverthorns with them as their escorts, so Embris couldn't say that she was worried about them.
Besides, it wasn't like anything had been marked for anyone to keep away from it. The only place like that was the room where the Blue Rose's stand-ins slept. Though, with the stand-ins for the Blue Rose, Embris couldn't figure out who the Blue Rose might be. Especially since she was supposed to be able to let her stand-ins know what she wanted done when it came to things that happened among the people Embris had chosen to be a part of.
"I think I see something over there!" Cinder said, pointing towards the trees to the south of the settlement.
Embris looked to where Cinder was pointing and saw the children that they'd been looking for. "Looks like that's them. Let's head over and see what game they're playing now."
Embris wished that Rephis would at least have friends who weren't as eager to follow the girls around, but she supposed that in this kind of situation, that more boys wanted to be more like the girls. Though, part of her wondered if maybe some of the boys were following the girls around because of how some of them might have a crush on some of the girls. After all, she did remember her father commenting about Cinder following a girl around when he was six.
The only problem with that girl was the fact that she died from the spotted plague just before Embris' family came down with it, leaving her spared from that problem because she was out foraging to help feed them when the spots were first discovered.
As they approached the children, Embris couldn't help but feel like she was calling her siblings in from playing during the day because it was time for them to head home, where their father would have a meal ready for them to eat when they got there. The only problem with that scenario being that their father had been killed in the bandit attack. Leaving him missing from that picture.
While their mother would fill that void if she was there, Embris couldn't say where she was right then. All she really knew was that she was out with her mercenary company, though she couldn't help but wonder if maybe her mother had been killed in some fight far away from where their village used to be, that her parents were already reunited again where they all would go when they died, like the church says.
"Nymis! Rephis!" Embris called out when they could hear the laughter of the children playing. "Come here!"
Embris had thought about waiting until they could see Rephis and Nymis, but neither of them could be seen. Though, she wasn't sure if that meant the children had divided into multiple groups or not, just that she couldn't see her two siblings.
"Something wrong?" Feon asked, looking around at the children ignoring them as they played.
"I'm not seeing Nymis or Rephis," Embris answered, wondering if maybe she should see about getting some of the other guards to look for them. After all, she knew that Tchisa had authorized such an action before when some of the children had gone off too far in one of their games, leaving behind worried family members. Yet, at the same time, Embris didn't want to be the one to ask Tchisa for something that might just turn out to be nothing as serious as that.
"Maybe we should see if Amelia can help us," Cinder suggested, making Embris wonder if something had happened between the two of them, since she hadn't heard Cinder sound as respectful as he did just now when suggesting asking Amelia for help.
"How would she be able to help us?" Embris asked, not wanting to refuse the suggestion out of hand, even though she wanted to be able to do this on her own.
"Well, she could use her magic to see if she can find anyone who's nearby," Cinder answered. "She did that once when we were trying to herd the goats together on our way to the Marquis' castle and one had wandered off. We didn't know where it had gone, but she was able to direct us right to it, making the problem go away without wasting that much time."
"That was Wes who did that," Feon corrected her brother. "Amelia was too busy helping keep the goats that hadn't wandered off from wandering off themselves."
Embris shook her head. She didn't care who it was that had found the missing goat, she just wanted to find Nymis and Rephis on their own. Though, before she could say anything about that, she noticed some of the children coming out of a bush along the edge of the trees, making Embris hope that that's where her two siblings had wandered off to.
While she was worried about the wolf, she tried to reassure herself that it wasn't likely to be around at this particular moment. That if it did appear, she'd at least be able to do something to try and keep any of the children from being harmed. Especially considering the fact that none of the children seemed like they were scared of anything in the woods.
"I'll check those bushes," Embris said, doing her best to push the thoughts of the wolf out of her mind. As she didn't want to worry about something that might not even occur while they were there.
_
Ralph wasn't sure he liked it here. Primarily because it reminded him of the time they were hiking in preparation for this expedition, just without all the modern conveniences. Even when they'd traveled through this world before, it didn't have the same feel. Not with the buildings starting to be built and trees getting cut down so they'd have space to build more and clearings having been plowed to grow food. As such, it felt like it was a completely different world. One that he and his friends hadn't actually visited yet, even though it was accessed through a gate that they had passed through.
"You know, I think that's the mountain where we'd reach the gate to the elves' world," Hannah remarked, pointing to a distant mountain.
Ralph wasn't sure if that was the same mountain or not, but it certainly looked taller than he would have guessed. Unless that's just how things seemed when you weren't so close to the peak of the mountain.
"You know, maybe if they continue expanding this settlement enough, we could maybe ask if they'd build a structure that would make climbing that mountain much easier than it probably would be when it's time for us to return home," Wes remarked, sounding almost wistful.
"Maybe, but I doubt we'll still be here when they'd be able to get around to doing that. Let alone finishing it," Amelia remarked. "I mean, that's gotta take years to accomplish. Given how high it'd need to go, I mean."
"Not to mention how difficult it'd be to scale that entire mountain," Tim added. "Though, part of it would depend on where they started the construction as I'm sure it'd be best for them to try and avoid building it across that glacier, no matter how small it is right now."
"Well, if it's small, that means it'll be shrinking, right?" Hannah remarked. "Which means that it wouldn't be something that we'd really need to worry about.
"Just because it's small, doesn't mean it's shrinking. As far as we know, it could be starting to form and become a massive glacier," Tim returned calmly. "Which would be a problem for construction if that was the case."
"What if they started it on the other side of the mountain, away from the glacier?" Amelia suggested, picking up a stick and swinging it absently at some plants that were nearby.
"That would work unless it grows to cover that side of the mountain too," Tim answered.
"Well, fine. Shoot down all my thoughts and see if I'll contribute more to the conversation," Amelia playfully pouted, as if she was really upset at Tim's response. Which Ralph knew wasn't the case.
"If you want to be helpful-" Hannah started to say when something large moved through the trees, startling them. Even though it was gone before they could get a good look at it, all of them were convinced that something had been there. All that was left was figuring out exactly what it had been.
"Did you see that?" Wes asked, looking like he usually got when they were watching a scary movie and something scary was about to happen.
"Yeah, I saw it," Tim confirmed.
"We need to get back," one of their escorts said, sounding on edge. "We don't have what it takes to hold that thing off."
"You know what it is?" Ralph asked, starting to feel excited for reasons he couldn't quite explain. All he knew was that he had been getting bored with the excursion so far, but now he felt like he was fully awake.
"A wolf has been attacking us recently, but we haven't been able to do anything to it just yet."
"Well, good thing we're here," Ralph said, pulling his focus out of his pack and pulling on his magic to create velociraptors with saddles so all of them could ride.
"Wait, you want to go after that thing?" Amelia asked, her face looking a particular shade of green.
"Why not? If nothing else, it'll make this trip more eventful," Ralph replied, climbing on the back of the raptor, vaguely aware that their escorts were just staring at the raptors themselves.
"What are those things?" one of the quieter members of their escorts asked, sounding rather fearful.
"Don't worry about how it looks, they're safe enough," Tim said, climbing onto the back of one of the raptors. "We can follow the wolf faster this way."
The escorts looked at Tim with a degree of the same shade of green that Amelia had, though a couple climbed onto the backs of the raptors anyway.
"If you get hurt, don't come to me to heal your injuries," Amelia warned.
"We'll be fine," Ralph said, noticing Wes had joined him while Hannah stayed with Amelia, only one of their escorts staying with the two girls. "I don't plan on getting close enough to the wolf to let it have a chance at me."
When they were all ready to go, Ralph stood up as best he could in the saddle, flicked the reins and called out, "Let's ride!"
He though maybe he was overdoing it a little but couldn't find it in himself to care if he was. As the raptors started to move, he sat back down so as to avoid a branch from knocking him off almost immediately.
That would have been embarrassing, Ralph thought to himself as they started heading the way the shadow in the trees had gone. Ralph wasn't sure if he should use his magic to see if they could figure out if the creature had gone. Ralph thought that it might be dangerous to assume that it was a wolf, given it could just as easily been something else. All they knew was that it was large, but they hadn't encountered any creatures on their first trip through this world, so it was entirely possible that it could have been another large animal altogether.
The raptors suddenly changed the direction they were running, making Ralph wonder if they had a sense of smell or something despite being illusions, as he certainly couldn't think of a reason for them to turn on their own. Though, as he glanced at Tim and Wes, he couldn't help but wonder if maybe they'd made their raptor change direction, which in turn caused the others to change the direction they were running in. Though, while it was possible, Ralph had his doubts that they'd have done that. Mostly because he knew that they knew as much as he did about what they were chasing.
Then suddenly something lunged at them, almost as if it came out of nowhere and Ralph had to fight to keep from getting thrown out of the saddle as the raptor he was riding avoided the creature.
Looking back, he saw the wolf turn to follow one of his friends, the raptor running, but hardly concerned for its safety.
Ralph raised his focus, imagining a fireball shooting out to try and barbecue the wolf, hoping that it'd be over quickly and he wouldn't have to worry about the wolf turning on him or trying to run away. Then, almost as he imagine it, flames arched out from his focus and hit the wolf, knocking it to the side and down for a moment before it got to its feet snarling, its fur singed a little but otherwise undamaged.
Since fire didn't seem very effective, Ralph shifted his thoughts to try something else. Something a little different that he hoped would pierce through the fur. Although, he hoped it wouldn't be as much of a waste of time as the fire had been.
Before he could ready his next spell, let alone launch it, he saw lighting shoot out from Wes, as if it was shooting out of his hands, slamming into the wolf, causing its body to convulse from the electricity coursing through its body. Ralph couldn't imagine how much that had to hurt, but when it was over, the wolf got up, a little unsteady on its legs, but otherwise just fine.
As Ralph held up his focus again, he noticed vines snap up from the ground and entangle the wolf, holding it in place, as if it was about to try to move and either launch another attack of its own or to flee. Ralph didn't care. He sent out spears of ice that shot through the air, causing a whistling sound to be heard a moment before they slammed into the giant wolf, skewering the beast as it let out a cry of pain, falling down as it ceased its efforts to free itself from the vines.
Ralph was about to let out a breath of relief when the wolf was up again, fighting to free itself, nearly making him fall out of his saddle in surprise. Then as he launched more spears of ice and Wes shot out more lighting at the wolf, he saw their escorts approaching the wolf, their swords drawn.