She tracked down Ludendi, who was visiting her usual supply shops.
"Did you find him?" Ludendi asked.
"Yeah," Ellen lied.
"What did he say?"
"It was a fluke. We're just team members, and that's it."
"It's probably for the best," Ludendi said. "We don't need you two clawing at each other when there are monsters chasing us." She smiled. "You made it back just in time."
Ellen accepted the block of wax Ludendi handed her and carried it back to their room.
She crossed paths with the black haired boy along the way. He glared at her, and she glared right back. He'd already wasted one of her skewers of meat. What more could he want?
But he kept his distance and said nothing, probably because Ludendi was with her and he was too much of a coward to face both of them.
Ludendi went straight to making candles once they returned to their room, and Ellen joined her, claiming she wanted to help.
"Sure," Ludendi agreed, "but I can tell you're just doing this as a distraction." She flashed Ellen a knowing smile.
It was true, but she'd hoped it wasn't so obvious.
"I know you're nervous, but we're going to have a whole extra team with us for our next mission. What's the worst that could happen?" Ludendi's smile turned wicked. "If you're really anxious, you can always go spend some time with your friend again. You know the one."
Ellen felt uneasy, not because of Ludendi's devilish smile, but because she knew very well that something worse could always happen, but only time would tell.
Chapter 14
Ellen stood alongside her friends near the entrance to the fortress. It was a cold morning. She shivered while she waited.
Their mission was to escort a group of miners to a mining site near the edge of the plains and provide them protection for five days.
A group of two dozen men soon arrived. They pulled two wooden wagons full of food, water and mining equipment behind them.
"Should we introduce ourselves?" Barry asked quietly.
"We should," Ludendi whispered, "but, um..."
"Let's wait," Ellen said. The miners were all much older than them, and none had a face that invited conversation. Most looked like they might lash out and attack if someone came near them.
A group of five arrived next. They were all men as well, but they were not nearly as old as the miners. All five had long and distant gazes.
The oldest had a peculiar looking great sword made out of a strange black metal strapped to his back. He approached Ellen and asked, "Who might your group's leader be?"
He sounded more sad than Barry during his most glum moments. "I-I'm our leader," Ellen stammered, not expecting someone so mournful to be a team leader. "My name is Ellen."
"Julius. We can speak later, Ellen. We need to get moving." Julius led his team towards the miners, spoke a sparse few words to them, then called out, "We'll take the lead. Watch our backs, and don't let anything creep up on us."
His team led the way. The miners followed behind them, dragging their rickety wagons as quickly as they could over the bumpy dirt road. Ellen waited for them to gain a small lead then led her friends forward. They left the fortress, moved off the road and headed into the plains, straight towards the dark tear in the sky.
"Something tells me this is going to be a long mission," Ludendi said with a sigh.
"Both groups look discouraged," Trevor said. "Do you think it was something inside the fortress that made them that way, or something outside?"
"You heard what that man from the special forces said. Other teams haven't been returning. There's something out here, and it's not friendly."
"I bet there's a lot of somethings out here," Barry said with a nervous chuckle. "But we'll be fine as long as we have our shield."
Ellen frowned at him.
The trek across the plains dragged on for hours, the miners had trouble getting their wagon over the lumpy, uneven ground, but the whole area was calm and no new monsters appeared anywhere.
The mining site soon came into view. A giant gray rock formation stuck straight out of the ground in the center. It was surrounded on all sides by yellow grass. A short distance from the rock formation sat three buildings, two long wooden cabins and a small shed, and a clearing with a burned-out fire in the center.
Ellen felt a tinge of relief as she looked over the site. It was a wide-open area that would need constant surveillance, but they'd at least be able to spend their nights inside with their doors locked, hidden from the gazes of any wandering monsters.
Her only concern was the eerie forest in the distance. Its massive trees covered the whole horizon. Very little light made it through the treetops. Something awful could be lurking in the darkness, waiting for an opportune moment to show itself.
Julius fell back and spoke to her. "We'll split up and check the area," he said. "It does look quite peaceful here, but I shouldn't need to tell you how deceitful appearances can be."
"Okay," Ellen agreed. Despite his dejected demeanor, Julius struck her as being intensely serious about their job.
"We'll meet at the campfire in an hour," Julius concluded, then he led his team away.
The miners headed straight for a tunnel carved into the side of the rock formation.
"I need to get this backpack off before I do anything," Barry complained. "It's probably just the extra supplies, but it feels like somebody put a load of rocks in here."
"I'll go with you," Ludendi said. "I don't think I'll need my map book for a while."
They marched off towards the campfire.
Ellen glanced at Trevor. "Let's look around," she said, and he nodded.
She walked in a wide circle around the mining site. The grass reached as high as her knees. It stood straight up; there wasn't so much as a breeze in the air.
Trevor followed behind her, his binoculars in hand. "I saw a lot more teams on patrol compared to our last mission," he said. "The fortress might be safe for now, but... it's not going to make much of a difference in the end, is it?"
"We can't fix the dimension," Ellen agreed glumly.
"It's going to be strange when we have to leave the fortress for good. I don't know if I'm ready for that."
He was scared. Ellen couldn't blame him. "I don't think anyone is ready."
"That's true." Trevor smiled a weak smile. "I actually joined the Fortress Brigade because I wanted to become an administrator someday, but by the time I'm old enough for that, there's not going to be a fortress to administrate."
What could she say to someone who had their dreams crushed by a force outside of anyone's control? She didn't have the faintest idea. "We... still have to do our job here."
"That's true, too." Trevor lifted his binoculars up to his eyes. "The fortress might get wiped out, but I plan to continue living for a long time to come. I'm sure everyone else does as well."
"Even if we don't have the fortress, we'll still have each other," Ellen said, and Trevor smiled. Whether it was because her sappy comment managed to cheer him up or because he was holding back his laughter, she couldn't tell.
Barry and Ludendi soon caught up.
"This place seems calm so far," Ludendi said. "Maybe this is the dimension's way of apologizing for all the teams it killed."
It was a nice thought, but Ellen had her doubts. "It's probably getting ready to send something really awful at us," she said. Her friends all looked terrified, more so than she had expected, so she quickly added, "The monsters probably don't know we're here yet. But once they find out-"
That only made things worse. She shut up.
But the area was calm, she couldn't deny it. Julius and his team, who they met with on the far side of the mining site, said the same thing as they passed by.
The rest of their searching didn't yield any results, but considering they were looking for monsters, it was probably for the best.
They met Julius again back near where they first arrived. "We couldn't find an
ything," Ellen said.
"It was the same for us," Julius said, still sounding discouraged. "While we have this brief moment of peace, would you object to a fire?"
Ellen couldn't think of a good reason to say no. She followed Julius to the burned-out campfire and took a seat on one of the log benches.
She had only a moment to rest before an explosion startled her upright. It was such an awful sound she had no doubt there was a monster nearby. She pulled out her knife.
It was a bomb one of the miners had set off, she soon discovered. A cloud of dust erupted out of the main tunnel leading into the rock formation. Once it settled, the miners picked up their equipment and moseyed inside.
Ellen sat down uneasily. The explosion could be heard for miles. There was no telling what sort of danger the miners might attract if they kept causing commotion like that.
Her friends, who seemed even more nervous than her, sat down beside her, then one of Julius's team members retrieved a bundle of wood from the shed and started a fire.
"This will be the only night we'll have such a fire," Julius said. "If it wasn't so peaceful today, I wouldn't have one at all. If you have any torches or candles or other sources of light with you, put them away and leave them there. It's for your own good. I'll tell the miners the same thing in the morning." He glanced at Ellen. "I was told you four have only finished one mission."
"This is our second mission," Ellen agreed. "But I grew up in the wilderness," she said carefully, trying not to dismiss her friends' efforts.
"We're not so different then," Julius said. "After seeing all the horrors a dimension can give birth to, it is quite pleasing to know that a place such as the Monad Fortress can exist, wouldn't you agree?"
Ellen nodded. Julius was similar to her, she realized. They'd both found the fortress then volunteered to defend it. The thought gave her some comfort.
She stayed beside the fire for hours. So did her friends. They didn't speak much, and neither did Julius's team members. Despite their peaceful surroundings, they looked as cheerful as corpses.
"Our cabin has only eight beds," Julius said after a while.
"Ellen and I can share a bed," Ludendi said. "We're used to it. We sleep together all the time."
Julius gave them both a quick glance then averted his eyes. It was the first time Ellen had seen any sort of cheer in his expression. "You ought to head there now," he mumbled. "We'll be on our way after a quick patrol."
Ellen stood up and headed for the cabin. The building was masked by darkness, but a torch near the front lit up the entrance.
Ludendi followed close behind her. "I figured that might cheer him up," she said quietly. "He's so depressed looking. He's not going to be much help if he's zoning out on the job."
An awkward "U-um" was the only word Ellen could say. Julius and his team could certainly use cheering up, but there had to be more honest ways to reach them.
She pushed open the door to the cabin. It was a long, dark building with four beds on each side and a small storage room in the back. The beds weren't quite as welcoming as her own bed, but they were magnitudes better than the ground and far more safe.
She headed for the first bed on the right, placed her knife beneath her pillow, slid under the blanket and closed her eyes. Ludendi laid down beside her. The noises Barry, Trevor and Julius and his team made as they found beds for themselves kept her up a few minutes longer, but once they quieted down, she drifted off.
An explosion woke her up the next morning. It rocked the entire cabin and shook a cloud of dust free from the ceiling.
Ellen grabbed her knife, leapt out of bed and darted outside. She expected to find a colossal monster tearing through the mining site, but it was just the miners again.
She frowned at them, although she doubted they cared. The least they could do was wait until someone was awake to protect them before they started causing commotion.
She strapped her knife to her back and drifted towards the campfire.
Ludendi joined her along the way. "That's going to get old really fast," she said tiredly.
"It's annoying," Ellen agreed, "and it's dangerous."
"But we signed up for this, so we can't complain too much." Ludendi yawned. "Maybe you should talk to them and ask them nicely to stop," she said with a snicker.
Ellen shook her head. If the miners weren't concerned about their safety now, nothing someone her size or age said would change their minds.
She stopped beside the burned-out campfire. Gazing at it left her feeling a tinge of sadness. Given how quickly the decay was spreading, the fire would probably never be lit again. The mining site itself would soon be abandoned as well.
She didn't have long to dwell on it. A section of grass off in the distance started to shake, then a monster appeared.
It had a small red body shaped much like a bundle of raw meat, two tan wings that flapped furiously as it rose out of the grass, and two narrow arms with claws and nails almost as long as her knife.
Ellen reached for her knife, but before she could pull it from its sheath, a ring of knives shot passed her and flew towards the monster.
It was one of Ludendi's attacks. Not only were there twice the number of knives compared to the last time she'd used the same attack, but the ring had perfect accuracy. It hit the monster head-on and cut its body in two. Chunks of red flesh scattered in every direction.
"Did you see that!" Ludendi said excitedly. "I thought I was going to miss, but I killed it with one attack and I didn't even need my shield!"
Ellen thought about praising her, but the word shield irked her. Her shield was a tool, not her identity.
"Very well done," Julius said from behind. He gave Ludendi a pat on the shoulder. "May I borrow your knife?" he asked Ellen. "That creature might have some salvage meat, but a sword like mine isn't fit for that type of butchery."
Ellen hesitated. There might still be some life left in the monster, and Julius would be looking at her very suspiciously if that life suddenly flowed into him.
"You can you use mine," Ludendi intervened.
Julius accepted her knife only to drop it a moment later.
It was the second time Ellen had seen his face light up. There was fear in it now.
Chapter 15
Ellen took out her knife. A black monster longer than the miners' wagon was creeping towards them, hugging the ground as it moved. Its spiral horns and dark eyes were the only parts of its body that stuck out above the grass.
It stood upright, roared and charged forward.
It ran on four stout legs, its claws ripping apart the ground with each step it took. The axe blade on the end of its long tail shredded the grass behind it.
Ellen stood her ground. The monster had a bulky body and powerful limbs, but it was alone. She had two friends with her.
Or rather, one friend. Julius shoved Ludendi back behind him, told her to keep her distance then joined Ellen's side. "This is a powerful creature," he said as he pulled his sleek black sword from his back. "If you're too scared to attack, I suggest you flee now."
She wasn't scared at all, but Ellen didn't say anything. There'd be time to explain her oddities later.
Julius slashed his sword through the air. From the burst of violet energy emerged a magic weapon. The new sword rocketed forward, shredding a long stretch of grass in an instant.
Despite the weapon's speed, the monster leapt over it with ease. Then it retaliated with a lightning fast swipe of its tail. Each swing cast a magic axe blade forward.
Ellen watched the blades intently. There was eight of them, all heading straight for her. It was too bad monsters couldn't feel shame, because she was about to put all its efforts to waste.
"This is no time to freeze up," Julius warned.
He grabbed her and tried to pull her away, but she grabbed him harder and held him in place. Then she summoned her shield and repelled the axe blades away. Seven sailed harmlessly out into the plains, but the eighth went right b
ack at its owner and cut one of its forelegs off. The monster collapsed onto its side and started flopping around in the grass.
It had been ages since she hit a monster with its own weapon. Ellen dropped her shield and watched the monster in awe.
Julius cast another magic sword forward. The monster was too busy trying to cope with its lost limb to avoid the attack. The magic weapon split the monster's head, neck and part of its torso open. A cloud of ragged red and black meat launched backwards out of its body.
"You're strong," Ellen said earnestly. She'd never seen a single attack cause so much damage, or set loose so much blood and gore. She almost wished it hadn't; the sight made her stomach churn. She averted her eyes from the carnage.
"That's what it takes to survive the wilderness," Julius said. "I'm sure I don't need to remind you." He glanced at her. "That's quite a unique ability you have yourself."
Ludendi joined them. She immediately shoved Julius's shoulder. "I know how to fight. If you try to kick me aside like that again, I'm going to kick you right back." She eyed the monster. "It's too bad we can't get lucky like that all the-"
Two roars interrupted her, and two more monsters leapt out of the grass and started rushing forward. They charged in from opposite directions.
"Now's the time to remember your roots," Julius said, his voice racing.
He charged off to meet one of the monsters, but only made it a few steps before the monster started casting magic axe blades at him, forcing him to shield himself with his sword.
For a second Ellen considered running over and shielding him, it was only a matter of time before his makeshift shield failed him, but the second monster was already upon her, trying to cut her down with its own magic blades.
Her shield sent them away, none in the direction she wanted them to go, and it also limited their options. The rest of their teams had yet to awake and Ludendi was the only one not pinned down.
Ludendi hid behind her while the blades came. "Who should I help?" She didn't wait for an answer. "You're an expert at this. I'm going to help him." She took off running in Julius's direction.
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