Mina's back didn't ache because of the work she did. It ached from the same reason as Ulrina's did. They both had spent over half an hour according to the whims of the one they call 'moving-rock.'
All for the mere sake of the vision Mina has of Ashtrim.
But his whims were not anything if not pent up sensual wants, crossing even that.
She sat down in the reception's chair of Borough Hall of Adventuring. The desk piled up with numerous reports of devastations in many unwalled and walled towns and cities.
"These are too many," Mina herself had survived a devastation similar to the few reports she had read.
Ulrina descending the stairs to her left. A hum on her lips. Yet, it did not match the broken hollow heart within. How it could? She had only become a teen adult this year few months ago. She may as well be a teen.
A teen in a city where the adults were gone. Stolen.
The one nicknamed by the two as 'moving-rock' burst through the door.
"Now, now! I want another round of you two!"
It echoed in the semi-filled building. The many who knew had never discussed it with each other. The few who speculated never had any hints concrete enough.
Mina poured her rage aside. "Hello, moving-rock." A deadpan silence ricochet over.
Ulrina's hum had a disturbance hidden under it. She kept going as if this particular adventurer always pulls stunts like that.
He however, closed the distance between him and Ulrina. Avoiding Mina's call.
His hand mere dozen lo-leagues away from her cheek. "Open up." His voice a whisper in the silence.
His entire palm was the size of Ulrina's face. Keeping her non-chalance, she said as she leaned her head on to his rocky palm. "Hmm, did you need something?"
Ulrina's eyes painted the depth that had become an abyss. Darker than what her pupils chose.
Moving-rock's voice, like magma bursting between solidified obsidian, worded his thought. "Yeah, the same thing as ever…for what you asked me to do."
His palm already closing on her skull.
"Clink."
He looked up.
A known adventurer. One the moving-rock has trouble fighting against was staring down him from the gallery above. A mug rolled over to his foot. The adventurer bent down and picked it up.
"Hey! Ulrina! Mina!" He waved the wooden beer mug. "We ran out!" He burped.
Mina exaggerated her sigh. The adventurer who merely acted to have ran out of drinks was her new accomplice. And he did not need her or anyone's body as payment for doing their work.
Moving-rock's palm did not close around Ulrina. Ulrina however took that opportunity to turn around and step up.
Mina called out, "Any body else need refills?"
An aged lady sitting in one of the ground floor's benches raised her mug. "I do!"
She as well was staring moving-rock.
Ulrina had been the one to introduce these two to Mina. Ulrina herself was introduced to them through Litora and Slin.
Slin had stated to Mina to keep a lookout for the male adventurer with a simple statement. "He only became aware of him after Cheal left with that particular wanderer."
It spoke volumes. To her. Because even she had not heard the name, Ekro.
The aged lady, as Ulrina told her based on what Litora gathered. "Niqva is an old acquaintance of the couple staying in the Regent's Palace. Anything before the conquering of Ashtrim about her is only known to her or the couple…or the adults that are in Rigac now."
None of that was anything that concerned her to even be on her mind as a whisper. The one hidden in the outskirts. According to her understanding, he or she has caused the many recent explosions in Ashtrim's outskirts and two of the boroughs.
Moving-rock has been demanding more and more of both of their bodies for his pleasure just to subdue the explosions.
What baffled more to Mina was how was an explosion keeping itself going even after everything it could burn had already been burned. Slin and Litora were caught trying to contain an explosion that happened a tenth of a league away from their room on the Earthen wall.
If that wasn't enough escalations, Mina who had returned few minutes ago before moving-rock burst into the hall, received two different set of news.
Both were delivered in person by the old couple of Regent's Palace.
First, the aged lady Niqva is a surviving Erudite. Mina only knew that this name is important because she could not perceive any vision of what that name held. Same as when she thought of Niqva's name.
The other part of the same news was the fact that Ashtrim's army was filled with Erudites. Mina only took that seriously because it was this precise couple. The couple that led the army against Monarch Gweren hidden behind its frontal tacticians.
It only told her one thing whatever Erudite is, it wasn't enough to fight against Monarch Gweren. When she pieced that together, it reverberated in her, 'That explains why Ashtrim could not make a last stand like all those previous wars. Gweren was possibly way beyond than what Ashtrim could ever be prepared for.'
The second news she received escalated her plans.
"The city is under siege. It will soon be under siege by something much worse."
Ulrina gently placed her hand on Mina's shoulder.
She looked up at her friend. The only friend she considers.
Ulrina did not have to see the swirling thoughts. She simply placed a glass of water in front of her closest friend. And gave a smile to her not for her but for the ones that were sneaking peeks.
Mina returned it.
Moving-rock still hadn't moved up the gallery. Standing in front of the stairs to the gallery above.
He and Ekro in a stare down.
Niqva meanwhile was enjoying her simple remedy she had made. The recipe? A secret she guarded.
A thought in the back of her mind did remind her to guard the city. She returned out of her hiding place because of that. A worm of thought she couldn't forsake.