The party decides to split apart during the night. The time they have to find their companion is limited and the chance of him being horribly injured are quite high. Trying to cover as much ground as they can, Hellas decides to return to the crypts. Tika And Cristal on the other hand will immediately try in the city itself. Their divine or arcane powers could give them the edge to detect their companion. Whilst Hellas, the tracker, needs a trail to follow.
A plan heavily reliant on luck and perseverance. Two things that their former leader Fia was very proud over. Even when her luck eventually ran out.
Hellas fidgets with the thorny rose necklace around his neck, thinking about the days that've passed. The warm days and the cold days, the love he found and then lost. Another face intrudes his thoughts, the face of the man who brought the colder days. His grizzled beard and the many scars on his face. A ruffian and at the end, a low life murderer.
Their grief turned to distrust and anger. Vowing to never accept anyone else in their group. Many tried after all. The spare children of nobility eager to earn fame or even the poorest beggar trying to climb the social ladder. Some even had valid arguments and were tempting. Yet the scar they had would not let them.
'She would be turning in her grave.' Hellas thinks whilst walking down the catacombs stairs.
The time he spent with Sol now roaming through his mind. The new recommendation of Pallas, something unimaginable for the party. Especially after what happened.
Hellas found himself in a crossroad. On the one hand, he wanted to dismiss the idea. To curse out his sister for even daring to mention it. On the other hand he knew how much she suffered from it. Kir's fist after their fight can still be felt in the early mornings.
What used to be a strong bond of more than 20 years, became estranged in 3. The pink haired ranger enters the cave, following the faint track of what his companion could have left. With his eyes ablaze, he moves quickly. Time not even waiting for the best of wishes.
He descents into the cave, the small traces he can find leading to a hole in the ground. He drops a stone looking at the distance. A few seconds pass before the stone hits the ground. Luckily it seems that the mercenaries have done their jobs properly when searching the cave originally. Having left behind the hanging rope, probably just in case they have to descend again.
The ranger pulls up the rope, inspecting it closely. The rope has seen some wear and tear, the amount of mercenaries a probable factor in its decline. Still the rope is sturdy and would be able to hold a man of even Gunnir's size. Hellas throws the rope back down, following it as he climbs downs.
He arrives at the wide dark cavern, unable to see anything clearly. Until now some forms of used torches remained. The mercenaries seemed to have grown tired of simply carrying torches and thus decided to light up the entire path. Hellas reaches to the ground and quickly finds a torch laying on the ground. He grabs an orange powder and sprinkles it before cutting it on the torch before cutting it with one of his smaller daggers. The cut he leaves ignites with small flames as the rest of the torch follows shortly. With a source of light, he walks next to the cavern walls. Igniting the other recently placed torches that the mercenaries placed. At the fifth one, he leans closer. Touching the torch as he inspects it.
'This torch didn't go out on its own. Did the mercenaries putt it out themselves?' Hellas questions, lighting the torch before he continues on. Hellas walks around the cavern wall, his torchlight shining on another side. A barbaric sight of undissolved wrath. A man impaled against the cavern wall, bones piercing its body. Carved in his naked upper chest words as "traitors" and "cowards". Other words seem to be written as well. However, the body has not been spared from the smaller carnivorous beast hiding itself in the caverns. The corpse riddled with holes and claw marks.
Hellas now shines his torchlight near the face of the man. The left side of the face has also suffered from visitors, but even still the ranger recognized the man. One of the mercenaries who met them on the road, Lhedo's companions.
'Do you know who else I killed?' The words that Lhedo still linger in the ranger's head. Their party was the one to enter the caverns first.
'He was wounded, and they decided to kill him. For what? But even more importantly who killed him?' Several thoughts flow through the pink haired ranger's mind as he stands there the torchlight still focused on the corpse's face. The sound of the hidden carnivorous little beasts scampering around, hiding until the big living being leaves the only thing continuously bringing him back to reality.
'For a murder this brutal you need motive. Traitors and cowards. Multiple… If he survived… He would have motive.' Hellas begins to pull his long pink hair slightly, his theory going further and further.
'And if he did… Then his trail is one next to this body.' The ranger theorizes as he leans down searching for even the faintest of signs. Unlike magicians, aura is useless to him. However, he was not the only one in history to be born without an aptitude for magic. Are the ones who hunt all magicians? No, rather the opposite.
It is mostly those without magic concerning themselves with feeding their family. Surviving another winter, tracking a boar in the freezing morning cold. Like his father before him, Hellas learned to track. To discern every little detail of anything possible. Honing his instinct with his daily hunts since the age of 8. As his father passed away a year after. Leaving behind him and his sister without anyone else to rely on.
With that same determination that he's always had. That determination that helped him lie still in the snow for more than six hours waiting for that one boar to return to its hiding place. And the one he used when he shot it in the neck. He continues following the trail, just like any other hopeless hunt.