"What's the situation, Sir Fulgrith? I've never seen magical beasts behave like this before." Elkieth inquired.
"Neither did I. Every blisterhound from Northwood to the damned Ulut River must've swarmed these canyons for whatever reason, their numbers are insane." Fulgrith revealed.
"Their behavior is also strange. Some groups we encountered were frenzied and charged on sight, while others seemed content with simply blocking our path forward." Explained Elkieth before looking up to the sky and continuing in a grave voice. "We're also being followed by that thing."
As Fulgrith looked above, his brows furrowed.
"Yeah, I've sensed it. Let's just hope whatever that thing's up to has nothing to do with all this, though I strongly doubt it. This does not bode well at all." He sighed as his face scowled in worry.
Rethys never saw his mentor wear such an expression, as he always hovered between his usual cheery demeanor and the calm and focused face he wore when fighting or working. He also wondered about what the identity of the creature tailing them was to elicit such a response from a normally unflappable person. While he could sense a presence floating above them, the clear sky betrayed no trace of their presence.
"If you've rested enough, we should get moving and regroup with the rest. High Mage Zeritel has rallied all who remained into a makeshift fort to defend against the hound attacks." Fulgrith eventually said.
"So some of us fell..." Said the noblewoman while wearing a frown of her own. "What of the main camp upon the plateau?" She asked as she rose to her feet and dusted off her clothes.
"Communications showed that no hounds approached it, the knights would remain there to guard our supplies in case the beasts do decide to attack, while us mages will remain here until the threat is neutralized." Fulgrith explained.
With the group rested it was time to get going. Fulgrith once again imbued the group with his body-enhancing Life ether while Elkieth renewed her defensive barrier on all of them.
As they began to move, Fulgrith approached his apprentice to check up on him, closely examining him for any injury or trace of it.
"Don't worry about me." Rethys reassured his mentor. "Lady Elkieth's protection kept me safe. You're the one who looks like a mess Master Fulgrith."
"It's nothing Reth! I just had to punch through their fires a few times." Chuckled the burly mage. His jovial expression didn't last however, turning sour again the moment he peered back at the sky.
The walk from there was tense but silent. Both mages were wary and constantly combat ready but surprisingly no hounds attacked. Unimpeded, it didn't take long for them to arrive at the base erected by the mages of the expedition
"We're here." Said Fulgrith.
As Rethys looked ahead, what he saw first were hundreds of blisterhound corpses in all sorts of sizes piled high.
There were the smallest variants that were still bigger than regular wolves and dogs, and there were huge corpses of larger variants, a few of them more impressive than even the biggest one they encountered earlier.
Further still he saw the high spiked stone ramparts in place to halt the hounds advance, with a few spikes sporting impaled beasts upon them. The lack of a door leading inwards through the jagged barricades made Rethys wonder if they were going to take another detour, before a strong wind enveloped the four of them and drove them upwards.
As they floated almost weightlessly above the ramparts, Rethys could see the full extent of the mages' base. It sat in the crossroads of many canyon passages, and each was blocked by its own spiked barricades and contained its share of hound corpses which in their entirety must number at least in the few thousands. If that weren't enough to display the sheer extent of the blisterhounds' frenzy, the spectacle in the middle of the base did. Surrounding many corpses of massive hounds was what seemed to be a giant ice sculpture but was anything but.
Encased in a great prison of ice and earth was a behemoth of a blisterhound that must've stood at six meters of height at the withers. It shared the same features of its lesser but still massive counterparts around it, having a furless grotesque body of bulging musculature covered entirely in extreme burns and chars. This creature however cranked those features to extremes, having an entirely pitch-black exterior and seeming completely faceless, its horrible fires burning away all but its terrible jaws.
But what truly horrified Rethys was not its hellish appearance, rather looking at its shape trapped in ice and stone, he could very clearly feel its presence within, shining like a blinding beacon even to his faint senses.
"It's still alive." He murmured without realizing.
"A terrifying thing, so long-lived and so far removed that thing is from its smaller siblings that it has its own name, a Hellmaw. We tried taking it down, but it was pointless, the thing didn't tire and wouldn't bleed. It was vulnerable to extreme cold however, and with the help of the High Mage we managed to drive it into hibernation in that ice prison." His mentor revealed as their time in the air drew to a close and the lifting winds lowered them down into the base.
As they touched ground, they were greeted by the two mages that Rethys presumed had levitated them in. Fulgrith and Elkieth took to briefing them of their arrival's circumstances while Nyvren rushed to her master Turavar, who himself was tending to a few wounded knights and mages.
Rethys kept to his master's side as the two approached the elderly mage calmly sitting in the middle of what seemed an improvised field hospital, all the while slowly channeling his Restoration ether towards the wounded who themselves were busy dressing one another's wounds.
"How are the wounded Turavar?" Fulgrith asked.
"They'll live. And Zeritel will have us move back to the camp as soon as they can walk. Kid doesn't realize I need to do the job of two, what with that other Cygitir dimwit getting himself killed, but what can you do." Turavar sighed, it seemed that the expedition's main healer, a man Rethys noted to have strange white hair but never got the name of, had fallen.
"Do your best and I'll enhance them, should last enough to make it out of here." Fulgrith proposed.
"Thank you, Fulgrith. Though take care to keep enough energy for your own use, you're our only good vanguard here apart from those flimsy knights." Turavar said.
Fulgrith nodded and gestured for his apprentice to stay there while he headed towards the middle of the camp to talk with the expedition leader.
Looking around, Rethys saw a few mages standing guard at each of the ramparts leading outwards, a few resting in the shade away from the midday sun to recover their spent energy, while in the distance, the rest of the mages crowded around High Mage Zeritel, either reporting in or receiving orders. As the highest ranked mage in the expedition, the mantle of leadership fell on him, as well as the responsibility for the lives of everyone else, and it showed in his tense face.
It only took a moment for Fulgrith to return carrying his torn mantle and coat. Stuffing them in his apprentice's pouch which also contained a few magic tools and what little they found before the hounds' attack. He then clumsily sat down next to Rethys, waiting for Turavar to finish his work.
"The kid seems to be handling it well." He said, addressing the elderly mage.
"Yeah, he's the one who convinced the Order to sponsor this expedition, after all." Replied Turavar "Even though no one could have seen this coming, he'll still have to take the fall for this."
The two then returned to silence as Turavar resumed healing the knights. Rethys finally saw an opportunity to ask a question that had been irking him for a while now.
"What is that thing you said was following us by the way? I could definitely sense something up there but I'm not seeing a thing." The young man inquired now that he found the chance to talk freely.
"You can sense it? Interesting..." Murmured the master before adding to his disciple. "It's an origin elemental. Strange creatures these are, as all ethereal elementals are, but those of the Origin element are just downright confusing."
"How so?" Rethys knew little of elementals, aside from the fact that they were entities comprised entirely of extremely high purity Ether of their respective element.
"Hmm... Picture this, material elementals, like those of Water or Earth, dwell where their element is dominant, either in expansive bodies of water or deep under the earth respectively. Ethereal elementals on the other hand weave themselves in and out of the immaterial Ethereum as they please, whether they be elementals of Life, Mind, or whatnot.
"They do not dwell in permanent locations like their counterparts of the material, instead wandering between places where the core concept of their element exists or can be created. You'd hear tales of Restoration elementals visiting torn settlements, descending upon them like angels of healing, their powers so intense they even fix buildings simply by existing there. While Life elementals for example like to protect groves of overgrowth in deep wildlands where they shelter and nourish, well, life!" Explained Fulgrith, seemingly enjoying this opportunity to rant, even with things as they are.
"What about origin elementals then?" Asked Rethys as he looked up at the mysterious entity still following them for the umpteenth time.
"That's the thing." Chimed in Turavar, deciding to participate in their conversation. "We know little of the Origin element, and next to nothing of its elementals. They manifest randomly, move around seemingly aimlessly, do inexplicable things for unknown reasons and vanish just as they came. There are theories about what these things get up to but seeing as no human was ever born attuned to their element, confirming any of those theories has always been an impossibility."
"One of the very few things we do know of them, however, is that they avoid humans and especially mages." Fulgrith continued as he looked upwards at their unwanted companion. "The fact that this one seems intent on shadowing us, while exceedingly interesting, remains an ill omen."
Looking up at the now identified origin elemental, Rethys thought to try something. It was his first time seeing an elemental whether material or ethereal and had no reason not to give it a go.
Focusing on some ripples in the air and using those as a visual aid, he managed to somewhat see an outline of the strangle flying entity. He kept staring at the vaguely shaped cloud of ether that slowly meandered above and around the camp until a word surprisingly did appear in his mind.
'Kindred.' It spoke.
And it was at that moment that Rethys, looking directly at the elemental, got the spine-chilling feeling of being seen in turn. It did not feel anymore like looking at a distracted creature, rather, it felt as if he was making eye contact with the thing.
'Better not think about this too much.' He promptly concluded, quickly looking away and deciding not to linger on his manifestations or the strange sensation.
It didn't take long after for Turavar and Fulgrith to finish preparing the wounded for the trip ahead, and soon they all stood up and headed to the middle of the base where all the other mages had gathered at this point. As Rethys walked behind his master, he could start to make out the heated discussions of the mages ahead that began to quiet as the now main healer Turavar approached the High Mage.
It was time to move.