The pair of warriors sat against a relatively undamaged section of the cavern's walls. The battlefield littered with craters, rubble, debris and webs of fractured earth revealed by the sunlight that poured into the gargantuan underground arena spoke volumes to Racarra. Shades were terrifying creatures, the manifestations of a primordial evil that stood the test of time in a stubborn bullheaded fashion.
Yet it was nothing compared to the beast that they had cooperated to slay. Elder Banes, once humanity's greatest allies that fought for their sakes had their minds ravenously devoured by the tar like essence of the Shades. Despite it's clear madness, there was a semblance of intelligence from it's yesteryears to wield mana and weave it to meaningful and chaotic magic.
She had not been dismissive nor dabbling in falsehood when she gave her respects to Myuriem. A deeper sense of respect bloomed within her, a certainty of his talents proven to be true with the damage the den had endured.
The atmosphere was blanketed with a stillness. It was disturbed upon a loose piece of rubble from the open jagged hole fell victim to gravity and landed with a crack.
Myuriem, lost in the fog of his mind, flinched. Eyes scanned the area with panic etched in them.
"Relax," Racarra said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder, "It was just some rocks. Nothing to be so jumpy about."
Tension slowly left his body, a groan leaving him, "I think we should go to the surface. This place is eerie even without the Shades being here."
He stood up, dusting his clothes, offering a hand to Racarra.
She gave a weak smile and accepted being dragged to her feet.
"Fair enough, I can still feel the goosebumps from earlier." She said.
With a tap of her staff, a pillar of earth lifted the two up towards the sun, a familiar warmth washing their battle worn bodies. Myuriem let a deep sigh out, relief and exhaustion mixed together. However, a thought occurred to him, the bridge of his nose pinched with a subtle frustration.
Racarra glanced questioningly at him, "Something wrong? You didn't, perhaps, forget anything down there, did you?"
"It's not that," Myuriem reassured, "We're a ways from Milrada or any kind of civilisation. Thus, no inns nearby for me to wind down."
The woman hummed in acknowledgement, "I can take care of accomodations."
The man shook his head, "You've already done this much for me. I can just sleep outside, it's not big deal. Besides..."
Myuriem cast a scrutinising glance to her, "I don't trust that experimental teleportation of yours. I'm not exactly in the mood for a wall to bisect me."
Racarra crossed her arms and scoffed, "You wouldn't be complaining if I hadn't told you it wasn't perfect. And also, who said anything about me paying for an inn?"
As the pillar stopped at the edge of the pit on the surface, the two leapt off. Trees and other plantlife that were closest to the pit were ripped from their roots. The explosion of wind and water proving too much for them to bare.
Myuriem tilted his head, "Then what did you mean by accomodations?"
Racarra chuckled to herself, "You think that a wandering traveler like me wouldn't have some sort of measure should I want to rest on the road?"
With a swift tap of her staff, an array of symbols glowing with a warm amber light manifested in the ground in the form of an intricately woven ring.
Mana seeped out of the tapestry and shifted the air. As the energy spun itself like a web of an arachnid, Myuriem felt a wave of familiarity reach him.
'So I wasn't imagining things,' he thought to himself, his gaze taking in the meandering and melding of energy together, 'This mana...'
His gaze slightly sifting over to Racarra. A slew of questions rested on the tip of his tongue. Some wonderous, others filled with an accusatory bite. Yet they fell dormant as he recalled mere moments ago, the battle she had waltzed into with him.
'I guess it wouldn't kill me to wait for answers' he concluded with a sigh, 'Its not like I'm free of secrets either.'
At that, his hand went up up to his cheek, caressing the spot beneath his eye.
As resignation left his frame, the mana that twisted in the air suddenly solidified into a single form. His eyes widened as he took in the structure that appeared before him.
Racarra glimpsed his baffled expression and chortled, "Surprised? You shouldn't be though, that's how the storage spell works. "
Before them sat a two storey cabin. It's scent of wood, stone made its way to Myuriem's nostrils. The wood that served as the basis for the humble house had a deep red appearance, reminiscent of his bow. A small cobblestone chimney sat at the top, a soft and charming feature highlighting it's homeliness.
He felt his mouth gape and close before clearing his throat, "How did you even manage to store this?"
Words from old memories slipped into his mind, "I was told that storage spells have a set capacity that's, I don't know, not enough to store an entire house."
The mage hummed questioningly, "What school taught you that? You can store anything with the storage spell as long as you have placed the insignia of said spell on the object and run mana through it."
An involuntary flush crept up Myuriem's cheeks and ears. The mage snickered at his expense, making it stretch more in his face.
She walked up the small steps with calm yet hesitant steps. Her eyes scanned the building, ordinary and unassuming as it had always remained. The echoes of times past with this house re-emerging, eliciting a knot to form in her throat. Nostalgia, melancholy and regret gnawed at her like an apparition's fangs.
'I can't keep getting like this whenever I bring it out for goodness sake.' Racarra thought to herself with gritted teeth, willing unshed tears to remain so.
Myuriem, embarrassment leaving him, noted the downcast air around her, "Are...are you sure it's fine? For me to enter, I mean. I can tell that it has a great deal of importance to you."
"Ever the considerate one, aren't you?" Racarra snorted, "The nights get awfully cold as you can imagine. Besides, it wouldn't sit right with me letting my acquaintance sleep in the wilderness while I'm here. Not to mention, it's not like you're planning on wrecking it."
She glanced back at him, "There's no need to be overly polite, especially at this point. Come in."
A comfy atmosphere softly washed over him as he stepped through the threshold of the cabin. Senses that strained to pick up the faintest hint of danger loosened as easily as the laces of footwear after a gruelling day of work.
A hearth crackled with a gentle flame, a long brown couch sat in front with a wooden table between them. A chandelier cast a warm shade of honey throughout the living room. A flight of stairs rose up behind the couch. Further inwards sat a dining table, a white cloth draped over it with four chairs, two at the left and right ends.
"This...this is a very nice place you have." Myuriem said softly.
A strange pang struck her heart at those words, "Thank you. I try to make sure the place isn't a mess. It's nothing special but...but it's mine."
Clearing her throat she continued, "At any rate, your room is upstairs. It's where your weapons you had with you are. The storage spell I placed on your hands take whatever it is that you have and place them there."
Myuriem nodded numbly, still enamored by the coziness of the cabin.
Racarra snickered to herself, "You haven't seen a cabin before? Like I said, it's nothing special, there's no need to be so floored with it."
Sauntering over to the couch, she discarded her cloak and sunk into the cushions, "You can go relax for a bit. We can talk later when you're feeling up for a chat."
The man numbly nodded before heading up the staircase.
As Racarra let herself loosen, Myuriem's voice called out to her.
"Ordinary as this house may be, it's well kept and cared for. I can't express it as I may want to, but I do mean it when I say this is a nice place you have."
With that, the man ascended, his footsteps softly ringing to Racarra's ears. Her hand went to her chest, her heart beating with an odd skip.
A smile spread across her face as she sighed, "What a strange guy."
Myuriem laid on his bed, armour discarded and hair released from it's band to pool on his pillow. As he sunk into the mattress, a subtly stubborn feeling of fatigue clung to him.
He left his eyes scan the room once more to somewhat alleviate the odd and insistent sense of drowsiness that clung to him. The room was illuminated a honey shade by the overhead light bulb, wooden walls were painted an earthy colour of brown laid oddly bare. The floor was matted with a soft carpet that had mixtures of cream, grey and black.
A desk sat at the foot of his bed where his armour sat, a table lamp shining it's light on the set. His sword and bow rested against the cabinet at his side.
The room made his chest tighten and a weighty melancholy pressing down on him, seizing his body without issue or restraint from him.
Echoes of the past surfaced once more, fresh on his mind as though years had not even passed. Soft laughter reverberating through the halls, the quips that either landed or missed their mark accompanied with the sound of groans filled with mirth, even the rhythmic sounds of blades colliding with one another along with dutiful instructions and comments of encouragement.
A heavy sigh escaped him as the somber feeling enveloped him like a pebble in an ever moving stream. Drowsiness slowly but surely won the battle as he surrendered to slumber.
The echoes from the past persisted even in his dreams, as though they were unsatisfied with mere rememberance in the wake of self.
Explosions drowned out the mirth, the vicious sounds of metal clashing like the relentless waves to a cliff. Where the guiding instructions once were, there was only his name called out to with a voice tinged with distress.
Myuriem, run!!!
The voice called out before the thunderous sounds of glass shattering followed after. Blades clashed once more in a cacophony of violence. The male voice, once steady and teasing, was drenched with worry and pleads. Not for life, but a return of reason.
His reply was the sound of blade meeting flesh, followed by the same thundering crash of glass.
A force slightly shook him rhythmically, his body like a ship at sea. The sounds slowly sunk deep into the depths, lying in wait to continue it's sheet for it's sole audience once more.
His eyes groggily opened and glanced to his right.
Standing over him was a silhouette, it's frame being that of a woman. No features stood out of the uniform darkness except it's hollow eyes.
Just like his, a mixture of pale blue and purple, stained with tears peered at him with a sickening emptiness despite the emotion that pooled in it's tears.
His heart ceased it's beating, chills ran over his entire frame. He felt his fingers twitch, the need to grasp a weapon gnawed with stubborn fervour at his hands.
'Its not real', he thought to himself as he left loose a shaky breath and shut his eyes, 'Its not there. She's not here.'
"Wow, look right at me then try to go back to sleep?," a sarcastic voice said, "After I made you dinner too. How could you treat me so coldly in my own home?"
As the feverish chills that ran over his framed settled, Myuriem sat up, a hand running though his hair.
"Sorry about that," he said with a raspy voice, "I...I honestly didn't think I would doze off so easily. Must have gotten a bit too lax."
The man looked to Racarra with a shaky smile, beads of sweat running down his head. The bags under his eyes darkened and deepened more than before.
A slight frown crept up the mage's face, "You don't look like you're relaxed though. If anything, you look-"
"You said something about dinner, right?," Myuriem hurriedly cut off, "I wasn't aware you could cook."
Racarra let her words stick to her throat, a fleeting flicker of understanding passed through her eyes followed soon after by a scoff.
'So that's what it is,' She thought to herself as a scrutinising look pierced Myuriem's oddly fragile frame, 'He does look the type to have night terrors.'
Her gaze fell to the clenched fists curling the blanket. A brief tremor shook them as the knuckles proceeded to whiten. Looking back up at his face, she was met with eyes that crinkled with pleading and a smile that stubbornly yet weakly remained.
'On that front, hero, we're awfully alike,' she thought with a weary breath leaving her, 'I don't see any reason why I can't play along for now.'
Shaking off the heaviness that slithered into her heart, she fired a mock offended expression.
"Seriously, what do you take me for? Of course I know how to cook." Racarra said while crossing her arms.
A brief glimmer of gratitude shone in Myuriem's eyes before rising from the bed with a strained yet firm smirk on his lips, "My apologies. You didn't give the impression that you knew how when we first met."
The mage huffed as she turned to walk away, "I could always consider just tossing out your share and leave you to starve, you know. And I already told you that it wasn't the best first introduction, give me a break already."
The man snickered as he followed her, "Just try not to give me food poisoning, alright?"
"Forget about considering it, I will leave you to the jaws of ulcer, you ungrateful heathen."
______________________________
'Well,' Myuriem thought to himself as his face stubbornly raged with warmth, 'This is just mortifying.'
His gaze was fixed on the now empty wooden bowl in front of him. A sight he had seen twice before now.
The melodic yet mocking drumming of digits rang out in the atmosphere, enhancing the warmth that spread from his cheeks down to his neck.
"Well", Racarra's teasing voice called out, "How was it? My supposedly awful cooking?"
The man wiped his mouth while averting her gaze and question. Clearing his throat, he rose from the table with both dishes earning an inquisitive yet cocky smirk from Racarra.
"I had a sneaking suspicion that good ol' rice with chicken stew would get you," the woman said, "Thanks for doing the dishes, I was about to ask for a reward for making dinner."
Myuriem huffed, the warmth from his face slowly slipping, "I get it already. No need to rub it in."
A snicker peeled out of the mage. With a pulse of mana, a leather back notebook appeared in her hands along with a pen. Flipping through the weathered pages filled with notes, she started to let her memory sink into the pages.
The sounds of pen scribbling on paper, dishes and cutlery being scrubbed and washed as well as the soft crackling and popping of fire from the hearth filled the room with a sense of serenity.
"Hey Myuriem?" Racarra called out, her attention still on her notes.
"Yes?" Myuriem replied.
"What do you plan to do after this?" Racarra asked.
The question made his frame stiffen slightly before his shoulders squared themselves. With the last of the dishes discarded, he returned back, sitting across the woman whom ceased her writing.
"I was naturally thinking that I'd just head over to the next country to hunt for the Dahlia." Myuriem said as his eyes clouded over.
The mage's brow quirked, "You say that as though something has changed?"
A slight click of the tongue was her reply, "You must have seen their files and records, right? That, among other unfortunate factors, is where my issue lies with me going."
Racarra hummed, her fingers drumming against the table.
'I wondered briefly why the organisation itself would cut this specific branch off,' she thought to herself, 'Not just that, none of the members seemed to have any major complaints with-'
Her eyes widened, darting to meet Myuriem's. A deep frown etched itself on her face before holding the bridge of her nose.
"They were expecting you? No, even worse they somehow could tell where you were headed next and readily discarded it." Racarra groaned out.
Myuriem hummed plainly, "It looks like they had a solid idea of where I might end up going next about five or six months prior. That's the last time anything akin to major reports or routine checks occurred."
As Racarra parted her lips, Myuriem continued, "And no, none of the documents I got my hands on had a hint of the Dahlia being tipped off. Closest to that would be inventory checks and the occasional letter from the head of the branch, which has no reply. Most likely any incriminating documents, if any at all, were destroyed upon recieving them so as to prevent me from finding them by the time I get there."
"That doesn't make a lick of sense," Racarra said as she leaned back into her seat, "How could they have tracked you to begin with? You said that you didn't have a solid clue where each branch was located it in which nation they were in and I can assume that you laid low after taking care of them...."
The mage peered at Myuriem, "Were there any survivors?"
Myuriem indignantly shook his head, "Absolutely not. I ensured that all within the base and any that for some reason or another were absent, were killed."
"Was it discreet?," Racarra pressed on, "Not just about survivors but could any of those sites be linked back to you?"
"Also a no. I may be an expert and primarily use elemental magic but I'm sufficient enough with other effective spells to negate any obvious pattern."
"Spies?"
"I hunt them down before heading for the base itself."
Racarra rested her chin on her palm as her mind continued to sift through possibility after possibility. Only one conclusion stood out in her mind among the myriad of possibilities.
Myuriem leaned back with his arms crossed, resting his head against the top of the chair causing it to creak. He shut his eyes, letting his mind settle on the incessant possibility that rattled within him, before sighing.
"Someone knows me." Myuriem said with resignation.
Racarra hissed, "I thought of that too but it still doesn't make sense. No spies were able to report to other bases, no survivors were left, no clear path of destruction in any general direction, not even a set uniformity in the magic used at each site. It's also odd how the Elfas Kingdom's base was seemingly fine with just sacrificing themselves like that and left like sitting ducks."
"No," Myuriem said with a grave finality, "All of that is possible if that person is involved. It would all make sense in that case?"
Racarra cast a glance at the man, "Someone knows you well enough to determine your movements without information and all the other identifying factors? That...that person must have an otherworldly instinct to be able to know and determine where you'd strike next."
'Otherwordly instinct isn't all she'd need.' Myuriem thought to himself bitterly.
The mage sat up and leaned into the table, "Care to tell me who this individual could be?"
Myuriem felt a wave of fatigue wash over him, his fists clecnched till the knuckles whitened.
A sigh slipped out of the man.
"The head of the Dahlia Garden and the one who turned the former illegal mercenary organisation into a worthwhile security measure for quite a few nations in the Northern Continents." Myuriem said before settling a resigned look to Racarra.
"The renowned hero, Emeralsia."