Chereads / Shadows of Judgment / Chapter 4 - Departure

Chapter 4 - Departure

Soon, out in a forest that overlooks the capital, a large rock, roughly the size of an average door, slides away from a larger boulder looking structure, and Caleldes and Duvainion soon step out, and the rock looking door slides closed again once they're out. The city can be seen in the distance from where they are. Parts of the walls and even some buildings are crumbling, and there are even fires that had ended up breaking out in various places amongst the city; it's just in almost complete chaos.

Seeing all this upsets Caleldes, and she tries to keep Duvainion from being able to see it, and tries to usher him off quickly in the opposite direction, but he now seems curious as to what she's attempting to hide from him, and easily manages to squirm from her grasp, heading back to try and take a look at it, while she attempts to stop him.

He just stops when he sees it, not having expected it. Caleldes just grabs him, picking him up and takes off with him in the other direction again. "...What happened...?" Duvainion asks in disbelief.

"...Some bad people broke into the city, and... started to hurt our people. We had to leave so that they wouldn't hurt you."

"..." He just seems to be trying to contemplate it in his mind for now. "Why are they doing it...?"

"...I suppose that it may be because we have something they want, but they didn't want to share it."

"What did they want?"

"...I don't know. Let's just keep going, alright?" Having put some fairly simple clothes on both of them, and a hooded cloak for both of them as well, she pulls her hood up, and his, hoping to hide their long pointed ears, and their identities, as best she can.

"Okay..."

Although, as they head through the forest, she soon spots a small patrol of Orc soldiers heading through the forest. She quickly grabs Duvainion, and jumps up into the treetops, whilst also trying to hide their auras, just incase. She watches the orc soldiers as they pass nearby, though they don't seem to be searching for anything in particular, just simply patrolling. She notices this, and does seem to be a bit more relieved, but still plenty cautious about their presence.

She keeps a tight grip on Duvainion, uses a quick spell designed to make her steps quiet for a short time, then starts to jump from branch to branch, making sure to quickly spot and pick the strongest ones as she travels, so that they won't end up falling.

And if the orcs patrolling the area nearby were smart enough to be aware of their entire surroundings, and not just what's in front of them, then they may have been able to see a branch every now and then shift slightly under Caleldes' weight as she travelled through the treetops.

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After travelling through the treetops for a bit, and making sure that there was no one around, she eventually drops down out of the trees, places Duvainion down, and then deactivates her silence spell. They then start to head off again.

Although, shortly afterwards, she stops, looking around, though she doesn't see anything, but she does seem to have sensed something nearby, despite nothing being seen. Though after thinking for a moment, she decides to create a ball of light, floating it up into the air above them, and it shines brightly once it reaches a certain height, now revealing a small group of a black colored wolves, numbering 5 in total. This does seem to surprise her a little, though. 'These are shadow wolves, I wasn't aware that a pack had made its home in our forest... When did they get here?' She quickly creates two swords made out of pure light magic energy, dual wielding the swords. 'I can handle them no problem, but also having to protect Duvainion makes this just a bit harder...' All this going through her mind in nearly an instant, having been trained to be able to think as fast as possible, for nearly any situation.

"Get down!" She calls this out to Duvainion as the two nearest him start to lunge towards him. Duvainion quickly ducks down, and Caleldes prepares to strike the two, her swords looking like a cross just before she slashes at the two shadow wolves lunging for him, and she cuts their very skulls right in half with her horizontal slashes. Though now the other three, seeing this, go for her all at once. She manages to turn around fairly quickly, stabbing one in the chest, and kicking another away with a magic strengthened kick, but the third does manage to bite her on her right arm. Though as it does, she just cuts it in half. And as the wolf that she had kicked away previously gets up, before it gets another chance to attack, she just throws one of her light swords at it, the sword embedding itself in its forehead, and the wolf just collapses again. She then pries the wolf that had bit her off her arm, its top half now joining its bottom half on the ground.

She looks at the bite mark, the wound itself isn't too bad, but a darkness can be seen ringing around the teeth marks. "Sh*t. That's not good. And that won't be easy to reverse, even with my light magic..." She then looks around, though doesn't see Duvainion, getting worried now. "Duvainion?" She calls his name out, looking around. Though she soon hears some squeaky barking from the nearby bushes, and she goes over to check it out. Parting the bushes, she finds Duvainion, sitting down, with a small black shadow wolf puppy on his lap. "Duvainion, those things are dangerous."

"But this one isn't, it's just a puppy."

"We can't, Duvainion. It'll grow up to be dangerous. It may be nice and little for now, but it's still a wild monster." She tries to reason with Duvainion.

But Duvainion just isn't having any of it, seeming just as stubborn as she is. "But he's my little buddy." He gently hugs the wolf puppy. "Besides, he's all alone now."

"..." After a moment, she just sighs. "Fine. But it's your responsibility, your job to take care of it. If it hurts anyone, then I will not have any other choice, got it?"

He just nods enthusiastically, getting up while carrying the puppy in his arms.

'I really hope that I won't end up regretting this, later on...' She just sighs again. "Come on, lets get going." They start to continue on, again.