-Oru'ou-
[The Demon Realm's fourth largest city, just barely
Beat out by Al'din. Its name combines Orun and Jarou, and refers
To the natural dam on which the city sits.]
Our journey back to Fyrun was peaceful, if unbearably hot. While noon is effectively mid-day, it still ends up being that a few hours after that is when the day is at its hottest. And that just happens to be when we left. So, aside from me wanting to whine and complain about the heat, but having to keep it in, "lest we look unprofessional in front of Lord Raen," as Oroske put it, it was a peaceful journey. I didn't engage in much conversation myself, but mostly listened to the others speak.
I listened to Oroske tell Raen that the city our detour will take us through is just on the other side of this very dense, very tall forest. I also overheard the name of the city is Oru'ou, which is a fun word to say. When asked why we couldn't simply travel through the forest and straight to Oru'ou, Oroske explained that navigating the forest is a huge pain to navigate, due to its density. And while we couldn't see much of it from where we were, its terrain is rough and hilly. We would either arrive in Oru'ou after all the inns close, or we'd end up spending the night in the forest, which isn't a safe place to sleep. "Especially as travelers in our situation." He finished his explanation.
No other conversations really stood out to me, and I scarcely remember any details about them. Regardless, the trip back to Fyrun felt significantly shorter than the trip to the bridge village.
Sure enough, we got back pretty late, late into the sun setting, long shadows being cast by the Western mountains. The inn's proprietress met us at the town's entrance, and showed us to our rooms at the inn. We roomed with the groups we traveled with as usual. My group all just went to sleep without talking much, but I could hear Ranfa's group making quite the commotion in the room next to ours. I imagined Nadred and Jarou's group were probably chatting as well, but I couldn't hear them from across the hall. As much as I would have liked to chat with people more, my exhaustion won and I fell asleep very quickly.
That night I dreamt of that girl, my 'Second Soul,' again. The dream was hazy at best, and I couldn't remember much. Aside from her running through a thick forest, the trees' roots snarled and came up out of the dirt all over. The dream was over quickly, and it faded from my memory even faster.
For once, Oroske didn't wake me up super early. In fact, I was the last one of my group to wake up. Oroske, Raen, and Vai'ra were already outside, chatting in the hallway.
"It'll take almost a full day to get there, will that work with the conference schedule?" I heard Oroske ask Raen as I exited into the hall.
"I believe it should, we usually give ourselves a two day buffer for cases like this. And so far we've been following the schedule pretty closely, so we should be able to make it in time," Raen responded, "Just means we won't get a free day in Ish'din, and we'll have to keep moving almost the entire time." The very idea of not being able to take many breaks during our journey was enough to make me feel exhausted. "We'll also need to leave very soon. We should probably just purchase whatever supplies we may need and get on the road."
"Indeed," Vai'ra concurred, "The sooner we go the better, if you ask me."
Everyone agreed and we went to collect the rest of our party. We found Nadred and Jarou sitting on their beds, waiting for the Humans in our group to wake up, chatting quietly so as to not disturb their sleep. Vai'ra decided that while it was a nice notion, it was probably too nice. She walked in the room loudly, walked up to the guy closest to the door, who was already stirred by her loud footsteps, and yanked the blanket off him. Thankfully he was still wearing some clothes and was well covered up under the blanket. His noises of surprise woke the others. "Hurry up and get dressed, we need to leave as soon as possible," Vai'ra commanded.
Raen and Terib reviewed the current stock of supplies while we waited for them to get ready. After much careful deliberation, taking into account the current time, the time it would take to get there, and other possible factors that may come into play later, they determined it would be rough, but we should be able to make it to Oru'ou with the supplies we have.
Once everyone was awake and ready to depart, Oroske briefed us on the road ahead. "We'll leave through the South exit out of town and follow that road. It's mostly a straight shot going Southwest, and primarily downhill, thankfully. However, it's still very close to Fyrun here, and the route has been a hot-spot for Sigil and bandit encounters as of late. Sigils are one thing, we Tsumi can take care of them easily. Bandits are another, however, and if we encounter any things may get hairy, depending on their strength, numbers, and motivations. That said, hopefully we won't encounter either. We are in luck, as it seems like it's going to rain in this region today, so the heat isn't going to be as bad today as it has been.
"That's all," he finished, then turned to Raen, "Is there anything else we need to do or discuss before we leave?"
Raen shook his head, "Just that we'll be staying the night there in Oru'ou, and if we take too long we may not be able to get an inn. So let's not dally, and get going."
The old lady that took care of us during our stay saw us off, along with a couple other members of the community. The Southwestern road leading out of the city was much rougher than the one that went to the bridge, and through the main part of town. In fact, while those were properly paved, this road was more like packed dirt. I imagined the journey from Fyrun to Oru'ou wouldn't be particularly comfortable even in an Aeth'mobile.
It took nearly a mile before the slope went from a barely noticeable decline to a noticeable one, and at that same point it curved a bit more Westward. The terrain in general started going more downhill, and from the point where it curved, you could see Der'venn'ya, way off in the distance, over the treetops. Looking along the path we were following, it was a mostly straight shot with the occasional, very small, insignificant curves. The road was surrounded by dense forest, several types of trees making for an interesting spectrum of colors, from almost pure-white wood, to dark oak, to even pitch-black ebony. On occasion, the treeline would break, and a small path through the woods would appear. In a couple spots, paths appeared even where the treeline was solid, and weren't nearly as visible as the other spots. The trees next to these almost-invisible paths also bore strange markings cut into their wood. Finally, looking all the way down the path, you could see it curve slightly once more. It felt like that point was ages away.
We had made it probably half way, mostly walking in silence, when suddenly loud crashing noises came from the forest. A small clump of trees next to the path suddenly burst across our vision, large pieces of wooden shrapnel going everywhere over the path. Following the trees, a large, light gray Sigil lumbered out into the open. Its body was horribly disfigured. The Sigils I'd seen until now were disproportional and disfigured, but still recognizable as being some-what humanoid. This one however, had really mangled-looking limbs, was walking on all fours and just generally seemed like a beast. Its limbs actually had an extra pivot point, which contributed to its mangled-look. As it turned its head to face us, it revealed it had an unhinged jaw and three eyes.
"Great Guardians, that's an ugly beast," Oroske cursed. He turned around and shouted, "Nadred! You're up! Kuro," He lowered his voice, "Help him out. Good luck!" He pushed me out towards the monster as Nadred ran up to the front, weapon in hand.
"You ready?" Nadred asked me. After I nodded in response, he told me to take the lead.
I sprinted full-speed at the beast, summoning my scythe, the blade trailing behind me in the air. I jumped up in the air, augmenting my height with wind magic, and focused so I could see the red energy. I threw it out like a rope, straining my focus to command it to wrap around the monster's front-left limb, and try and pull it up to knock the beast off balance. I succeeded, to some degree anyway. The limb was lifted a couple feet off the ground before my concentration broke, and with it the energy rope. Thankfully, that was enough to knock it off balance for a moment. By then I was pretty much right above it, and ready to attack. I flipped my scythe around, and with a burst of wind magic began my rapid descent, spinning around, the scythe blade spinning like a saw.
I thought for sure I had enough power and speed to cut clean through the limb I had pulled, but my scythe was stopped not even half-way through the cut. It let out a terrible howl and threw me off. I had to hold onto my scythe with an iron grip so it wouldn't get left behind, or thrown off somewhere else. I clicked my tongue in frustration, and began my next attack.
I decided I'd attempt to use magic offensively for the first time in a while, as I usually used it to augment my physical abilities. I once again threw myself into the air with wind and carefully considered my options. Well, sentem and selr are both solid options as they're my affinities. I don't really have any grasp on aspects, so elemental attacks are my best bet, I thought. Let's try hitting it with a powerful lightning slash, probably the same spot I hit earlier.
I focused on re-creating the spell from the lightning blade scrolls Oroske bought me for my previous Hunt. I didn't get it exactly right, but it was pretty close. The main thing I failed to recreate was the range-limiting part, which probably made the blade itself weaker. I managed to hit the exact spot I hit before, but once again the blade was stopped short. If the cut was any deeper, it wasn't noticeable. I tried driving the blade further but to no avail. While I still failed to cut the limb off, it seems the lightning was successful in spreading through the monster's body and stunned it. I figured the stun wouldn't last long though, so I had to take advantage of it quickly. I shot a powerful wind blade at the monster's face, after landing almost directly in front of it. The magic seemed to have no effect, however, as it seemed like the blade just bounced off of its tough flesh.
That's when Nadred walked up to it, and said "Stab its neck with your scythe, and I'll try to neutralize it with magic."
I did as he instructed, though it took me a couple swings before I got it to go into the flesh. It seemed as though it was very resistant to magic, and almost like it was armored. I dug the blade as deep as I could, but the flesh didn't even swallow half of it until I couldn't get it any deeper. "Send selr through your scythe and keep it stunned, if you would," Nadred ordered as it let out a nigh-deafening howl.
I did as he asked. After it seemed to sit still, Nadred lifted his hand up to its face. A small blue-green circle with a triangle in it appeared in front of his palm, and he began saying something under his breath. Once he finished, the circle flashed, and from it erupted a blinding blue light. I felt the magic sending feedback through my scythe in the form of very intense vibrations. I lost focus of my stunning magic for half a second, which was enough time for the beast to break loose, letting out another shriek. My scythe was ripped from my hands as it reared its head.
I looked over at Nadred, who was on one knee, clearly struggling to keep himself upright. I panicked and ran over to him, grabbing him and taking him away from the Sigil's retaliation. "Damn it all," he cursed, "If only I had a little more strength." I set him down to rest and turned to face the Sigil once more.
Its tough skin was massively dented on its head, and looked like it was cracked open a bit. I figured that would probably be my best shot at beating it. I pulled my sword from my Demon Sheath, and once again charged at it.
I augmented my speed with wind magic, and jumped at it, spinning in such a way that I could put all of my force and weight into my sword, hoping to drive it into the monster's forehead in one hit. Its skin might be resistant to magic, I realized as I was preparing to send more lightning through my sword. I might have better odds without it this time.
My sword hit a little off the epicenter of Nadred's blast. Thankfully, it seemed the contact point was tenderized enough that the blade broke through. My sword stopped once the blade was roughly half-way in, and the Sigil retaliated in pain once again. I had to hang on for dear life, lest I get thrown off and lose my best chance at victory. I had no time to think, I just had to act. I decided to send fyrun into my blade instead, commanding the aether to explode near the tip. I sent as much aether and power into it as I could.
The resulting blast exploded the head from within, leaving almost no trace that there even was a head attached to the beast's neck. All that remained intact was the unhinged jaw, which buried itself into the dirt road from the force of the blast. Unfortunately, the head was not the only thing that had been destroyed. From a little lower than where it had entered the head, my sword's blade was completely obliterated. Upon closer inspection, I found there were fragments of the blade all over the ground.
I was thankful that this was a Sigil, and not some run-of-the-mill beast, otherwise I and the surrounding area would be caked in blood. Instead, I was caked in the dusty, ashy remains of the soulless monster.
As the Sigil's body disintegration reached the neck, my scythe fell to the ground with a clang.
"Well done, Kuro, Nadred," Oroske congratulated, "I'll admit, I severely underestimated the Sigil's strength. It would have been much safer to have Kared or I fight it."
"Indeed it would have," Nadred said as he stumbled to his feet. "But I'm grateful for an opportunity to test myself."
Oroske laughed in response, "Yes, I suppose you would like that." He looked over at me, "I'm impressed by your quick thinking, Kuro. That's what really saved the day here. But really, you both did great. If you hadn't worked together, this probably would've turned out much worse."
I thanked him for the praise. It felt wrong for him to praise me as highly as he did. And to imply that I did most of the work. I'm a little surprised that Nadred got so exhausted so quickly, I thought, perhaps that spell was much more powerful than I thought.
After Nadred regained some more of his energy, and I collected my scythe, we quickly began traveling again.
"Is Nadred okay?" I asked Oroske after we'd been walking for almost an hour. I was worried about how exhausted he seemed after the fight.
"Yeah, he'll be okay." He said flatly, "He doesn't have a whole lot of endurance when it comes to using magic, much to his annoyance. He can let out a large burst all at once just fine, but it'll leave him out of commission for at least a couple hours. But even using small amounts of magic, he can only do so consecutively for a few minutes. A bit ironic that the guy who dedicates so much time to studying magic can't use it for very long." He was silent for a minute, "Oh, don't tell him I said that, he'll probably punch me."
I wanted to ask more questions, but I decided I'd wait until we arrived at our destination. Which took a few more hours from then.
After the slight curve, it met up with a more properly paved road, and from there it was a short distance to Oru'ou.
The city was located entirely on a rock that formed a natural dam in the river. There were small bridges on each side to close the gap between the island and the rest of the land. The river gushed underneath these bridges and around the rock loudly and made waterfalls as it went lower into the ravine.
Suddenly, the name Oru'ou, being composed of the words for water and stone, made more sense.
Having arrived a little after sunset, we ended up having to hop between a few different inns before finding one with openings. We had wanted to find one near the West side exit, but ended up settling for one on the Northern edge of town. We all had to bunk in a single room, as that was all that was available. Many of us ended up sleeping on the floor. Thankfully the hotel staff provided extra pillows and blankets. I'm pretty sure all of us fell asleep almost immediately after laying down. At least, I know I did.