Chapter 34: Fort Elaina

Balwyn Hill and Fort Jackie were originally military outposts that turned into true cities later on but seeing Fort Elaina showed what they used to be. It wasn’t just the massive walls and even larger castle he could see over the top of the walls. It was everything, the bustling soldiers he could see on the tops of the walls. The overall oppressive, domineering presence the fort gave as they approached was completely different feeling than the other two former forts. It was almost hard to explain, it was like the normal liveliness he expected from a city or town wasn’t there.

Hanging off the walls were the banners of Count Hill and the local lord’s house crest. The Counts banner was a green and blue shield, sitting atop rolling hills. It represented what the Hill family were tasked to do, they were the defenders and protectors of the kingdom. The local lord was the Lane family, their crest was a purple serpent on a grassy field. He didn’t know what that was supposed to represent.

As they approached the gates Thomas got a better look at the groups of soldiers and knights’ movements. Not only was there soldiers on the walls but there was a constant stream of soldiers patrolling the surrounding area. Based off what he could tell they were focused on going south, west and east.

A quick nod towards the most recent group that was leaving he said, “Maybe I am wrong, but that doesn’t seem normal.”

Abigail nodded and said, “Based off of what I know Helsara and Balmar aren’t having any issues, yet they are sending multiple patrols towards the border. Not just that but they are sending them deeper into the frontier too. I have a lot of questions about what’s going on. Notice how there isn’t that many adventurers either. I only saw two groups of adventurers.”

Thomas nodded and said, “Agreed, something feels off. If there was some sort of emergency, wouldn’t they want to use adventurers too?”

As they rode up to the gate they received the most scrutiny they had experienced so far on their travels. Normally when Abigail showed her A-ranked adventure card to the locals, they would just let them in. This time they inspected the card and Thomas had to show his to get entry into the town. After passing the heavily guarded gates they headed towards the adventure’s guild. They needed to find out what’s going on.

The trip to the guild showed whatever was going on wasn’t nearly as bad as it seemed. There was still a lot of people going about their normal days. The civilians that ran the shops and kept the economy going were going about their normal business. There was adventurers walking around taking care of their own business.

When they made it to the guild, they took Angel and Mila into the back courtyard were the stables were, tossing a few copper to the young man working back there. Making it into the guild it was completely packed full. It almost stunned him; the noise was overwhelming. Teams of adventurers where eating and drinking in the tabled area where people could relax.

That didn’t seem to ease Abigails tension as she seemed even more concerned now. He could understand why adventurers were there to do quests and earn money. All of them being here meant something had to be going on.

They had to almost push through the crowd to make it to the reception desk. Making it to an open receptionist Abigail pulled out her guild card. The middle-aged woman didn’t seem impressed at her rank, she had to almost shout to say, “The guild is currently not issuing quests. Please wait until the situation changes.”

Abigail seemed annoyed as she pulled out her High Inquisitor badge and said, “I need a meeting with the branch director or someone in charge now.” Abigail only waited long enough for the receptionist to see her badge before she hid it away again. It was clear to him that she didn’t want the adventurers to see who she was.

Getting a wide-eyed nod from the receptionist. Abigail didn’t even wait as she went straight to the door that would take them to the meeting rooms upstairs. Thomas followed suit and flashing his Inquisitor badge as well. They walked into a meeting room and left the door open so everyone would know where they were.

Thomas said, “I am guessing it’s not good if the guild isn’t issuing quests. What could that mean?”

Abigail was back to her professional way of carrying herself that she only showed when it was time to handle a task. She nodded and said, “The most likely reason is the Lord put the fort into a state of emergency. That or there is something wrong with this branch or surroundings bad enough they had to halt all actions here. We will find out soon enough.”

They sat there for while waiting for someone in charge to come. A guild staff member eventually came and informed them that the vice director would be coming soon. Neither of them were in the mood to talk, the seriousness of the situation had him on edge. It wasn’t long before an exhausted looking man came into the room.

The man was well dressed but had bags under his eyes. Looking him over Thomas could tell he was exhausted and probably been working hard for a few days. The man spoke saying, “I am Adrian Wright. I am the vice director here; How can I be of help?”

Abigail answered, “You can start off by telling me what is going on here.”

Adrian fell back into a chair and muttered, “So you aren’t here to help with this.” Before he cleared his throat and said, “Fort Elaina and by extension the guild are in a state of emergency. There is reason to believe there could be a beast horde forming. Over the last week or so there has been a major decrease in monster encounters. Director Sara sent a B-ranked team to investigate, and they returned with a report. The summary is most of the monsters have migrated south. With the uncertainty of what they were doing Lady Emelia Lane put the fort on high alert. Lady Emelia started sending out regular patrols to find any evidence of it.”

Abigail took that information in and looked at Thomas as if asking if he had any questions. He shrugged at her unspoken question. She asked, “We need to have a meeting with the Branch Director and Lord. First, I need to send a message to the Guild Master. Can you take me to your information node that can send a message?”

Adrian nodded and led them out of the meeting room and took them to a room that had a metal plate set in the middle of a table. The room was bare, and it made it clear that the room was only used for the node. There was one person in the room, but they quickly left after Adrian asked them to leave. Even with everything going on Thomas was excited to see the information node up close. Once they were in the room Abigail asked Adrian to step out so they could have privacy.

Once they were alone Abigail looked at him and said, “This your first time seeing this up close. I have special privileges so you will get to see more than normal.”

With that she placed her hand on the sheet, and it started to glow. Before she did anything else she pulled off her High Inquisitor badge and placed it in a slot he didn’t notice. Next, she placed her guild card in another slot. It lit up and showed a few different options like local reports and quests. She tapped on one and the screen changed and started to display names. He quickly realized they were names of cities and people from all across the continent.

She tapped the name Alisa Crow, she explained, “Alisa is the Guild Master’s receptionist, I personally call her his handler. She has a node designated just for her and she practically lives at her desk so she should respond quickly. I can’t write a long message about twelve words, or it won’t work properly. I think it has to do with the mana and the way the runes are set up. Not sure though. But all I am going to say is: Fort Elaina, lockdown, possible beast horde, permission to explain? She will know exactly what I mean.”

She wrote the message, picked the level of urgency and sent it. Abigail showed him some of the features she knew about while they waited. Like the active quests in the area, even pulled up some information about the current situation. There wasn’t really any new information in there. She explained that she has the ability to send a message to practically every guild. There was always someone in the information node room to receive messages and get the information to whoever needed it at all times. That person was also responsible for updating the information when necessary. The standard receptionist can update quests, issue them, and as he saw before open a guild bank account at their desks. It was a complex and confusing system that she admitted she left to the professionals and only really used it when she needed to send out private messages.

Eventually something flashed red and appeared in the corner of the plate. Abigail pressed it and a message appeared that said it was from Alisa Crow, GM knows, handle at your discretion, give minimal info. Abigail sent a follow-up message saying understood.

She leaned back in her chair and sighed. Thomas asked, “How do you know it was actually from Alisa?”

“They are keyed to your mana which it gets from your guild card and in this case also from my Inquisitor badge. She has a badge of office too and you need both for them to even be able to view the information. Since it came from Alisa, I know it is her. After I am done no one can view the information except for me. It would be different for you since you are just a Junior Inquisitor. The branch director and maybe vice director could override it and see what you were doing. Maybe even your messages but that isn’t likely. That would still send an alert to whoever is next in your chain of command which is me but since I am never active on it the alert would go to the Guild Master as well. Either way we have permission to release some information about our investigation. I was already allowed to divulge the information if needed but I have a feeling we are going to have to spill some secrets and wanted to get the go ahead first.” She said with a sigh.

Thomas sat back realizing he should probably stay away from information nodes for now. Getting back on track he said, “Do you think this is related to the cults?”

She shrugged and said, “Not sure but they said they found tracks heading south. Could be something powerful migrated in but I don’t like coincidences. We haven’t found any proof of the cults and now we find there are monsters moving oddly? The same thing happened in Les, seems like a coincidence to me.”

Thomas nodded and said, “That is what I am thinking, but what are they doing and how did they get monsters to move like that?”

She shrugged again and said, “Before we make any guesses, we need a clearer picture of what is going on. Let’s go set a meeting with the branch director and the Lord. I could demand it now, but I don’t want to start throwing around my authority right away.”

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Going out they found Adian, after a quick discussion he said that the two leaders would be having a meeting in the morning at the lord’s castle and would inform them that they would be attending as well. That sounded great to Thomas he was tired and honestly wanted to relax before being thrusted in front of even more influential people.

Sadly, for him after they left and secured an inn Abigail dragged him out for a spar. It seemed relaxation wasn’t going to happen. Clearly, she was worked up because she thrashed him slightly more than normal. He wasn’t complaining after the fight with the bandits, he wanted to improve even faster and if he had to suffer through some brutal sparring session he would. Even if she didn’t say it, he knew he was lucky, if either one of those three he fought where slightly better it could have ended badly for him.

That was the same reason that after they sparred, he made sure to practice his mana control and then used the Hammel cycling technique. Even if the technique made him feel like he was drowning and was exhausting to use. He knew it would eventually start showing it worth in helping expand his core. He was still worried he wouldn’t be strong enough when he needed to be. Time was his true enemy; he didn’t have enough time. If things escalated to fast, he wouldn’t be ready. The only comfort was that Abigail was pretty adamant that the investigation will take months or years to complete. He hoped he had enough time to be strong enough to be of actual help when the time came.

The next morning Thomas was nervous. He was meeting another noble and the Branch Director would be there too. With a deep sigh as he pushed the nervousness and worry away. He couldn’t let his reservations about meeting with people in power stop him from doing his work. Especially with how severe the current situation could end up being. If the demon cults were actively causing the monsters to move out of the normal, then it was worse than the people in power thought. It was up to them to truly assess the situation and act.

Getting ready, he put all his gear on and put his new spatial pouch on his back right hip. Easy to access but out of the way if he got into a fight. He was ready; after meeting up with Abigail he was somewhat surprised to see her in full armor looking ready for battle. When he asked, she explained it was a statement, she was ready for anything.

They quickly ate breakfast that the inn offered. When they were done, they set off towards the castle. Upon arrival they were quickly let in after showing their identities. After being ushered into what he would call a war room. There was a map of the region on the table, it had everything marked on it. All the towns from Fort Elaina to the border of Rathian, with all the small towns in between. Ruthmire was the most clearly marked on it as if showing its importance.

Looking over to Abigail he asked, “How long will it take us to get to Ruthmire from here and why it is more clearly marked than most other areas around on here?”

She got up walked over as she thought for a second, “If I had to guess it is about three weeks or so it’s not that far. About halfway across the southern border of Balmar. It is more clearly marked because it is an actual town. It popped up because there is a good-sized lake with good source of fish. That wasn’t all either they found a rather large iron mine and the lord of the region, Lady Emelia, took direct control and appointed a mayor.”

That raised another question, so he asked, “How large of a territory does Lady Emelia rule then?”

“From what I know she splits the southern border with another lord that rules the fort on the Rathian border. She took control of Ruthmire because it was just barely inside her territory. Of course, they both report to Count Hill.” She answered easily.

After that the door opened, and two woman walked in. One was dressed in a flowing dress that seemed to show her wealth and elegance but not overly so. She was shorter than he was, she had shoulder length brown hair and matching brown eyes. She carried herself with authority and power. He instantly knew she was Lady Emelia Lane.

Beside her was another woman who carried herself in the same way. She was wearing a guild uniform; she was slightly taller than Lady Emelia. Her hair was bright blonde and was longer than he thought was practical. She had bright green eyes and smiled when she saw them, giving them a small wave. He knew that must be Branch Director Sara West.

Thomas turned and bowed, knowing that even though he was an Inquisitor he was still a nobody compared to everyone else in the room. Abigail only gave them a nod as she spoke, “Good morning, Lady Emelia Lane and Director Sara West. I am Abigail Thorn, and this is Thomas. We are Inquisitors and have a few questions about the current situation.”

Lady Emelia nodded and spoke, “Good morning, High Inquisitor Thorn and Junior Inquisitor Thomas. Sara informed me that you would be joining us this morning.”

Director Sara jumped in, “Hello! I was surprised when I was told two Inquisitors showed up at my guild. What questions do you have?”

Abigail started off, “Can you start from the beginning. All we know is that the local monsters have seemed to migrate in the same direction. Which is a precursor to a beast horde. We just need a better timeline and anything else you may know.”

A flash of annoyance crossed Lady Emelia’s face he thought it was from Abigails tone and the lack of any respect in it. The Director answered though in her cheery voice, “It was five days ago I got the first reports of monsters not being where they were supposed to be. I put a quest out for a team to go look into it. It took them a day and they confirmed that a majority of the non-mana beasts were just missing. Not just that but some of the normal mana beasts were gone too. That’s when I brought it to Lady Emelia’s attention, and we sent out another team. This time they confirmed they migrated and followed the tracks south for a while but ultimately didn’t find them. The team thought it was in the fort’s best interest to report back what they believed was happening. We agreed and days ago the fort was put in a state of emergency in case of a possible beast horde. I sent word to the Guild Master what we believe is happening, and he is waiting on more information before sending an S-ranker here. He did say he would divert a team of A-ranked Enforcers, but they could take a while to get here. He didn’t tell me he had two Inquisitors poking around though.”

She finished with a pointed look at the two of them almost contradicting her cheery tone. Thomas took it as she thought they knew something, and she wanted to know. He could understand since having two Inquisitors appear right when things went wrong couldn’t be a coincidence.

Lady Emelia continued, “I have been sending out a small contingent of knights to do a sweep of the border and they didn’t report anything either. I sent a runner to the outpost that’s a week’s ride away to put them on alert too. The fort is ready in case if it is a beast horde. My concern is that if this is a beast horde how long until they come.”

Abigail tapped the table for a moment before speaking, “That is also my concern. A normal beast horde happens when a powerful beast either convinced or coerced the surrounding beasts and attacks. It either happens slowly over years as they gather beasts or it’s almost instant. They flex their power and force them to follow its lead.” She paused as if in thought and he knew she was saying that more for his benefit than theirs.

Lady Emelia spoke up saying, “Now could you tell us what you are doing here?”

Before Abigail spoke, she pulled out the silencing rune plate she had used before and activated it. She then gave the two woman a cold look as she spoke with such clear authority it almost made him shiver saying, “Let me make this clear, what I am about to tell you will not leave this room.”

She didn’t let Lady Emelia speak whose face flashed with anger, she held up a hand and said, “Lady Emelia, I have to authority to back it up. I really don’t want to prove it, but I will if needed.”

Lady Emelia’s rage contorted face stilled and spoke in a tone that didn’t hide her anger, “High Inquisitor Thorn, you come to my fort, my territory, and make demands. No not demands, threats, and I am just supposed to believe you? I don’t believe I will take it on your word alone. Please provide proof right this instance or there will be consequences.”

Director Sara took a step away from Lady Emelia. She didn’t look pleased but seemed to believe Abigail when she said she had the authority to pack it up. Abigail stilled and seemed to stare a hole into the Lady, but she ended up nodding. She pulled out a scroll, on it had the signatures of all the leaders of each nation. Thomas knew it was her authorization to investigate and had rights to act as needed. It purposely didn’t say what they were investigating. It clearly stated that she had authority from the highest levels.

Abigail opened the scroll and turned it to the hostile noble. As she read it and seen the signatures and mana seals of each ruler. When the realization set in her face grew pale and she bowed deeply as she spoke, “I do apologize for any offence High Inquisitor. Please tell me how I can help.”

Lady Emelia or the Director couldn’t see the quick look of disgust that crossed Abigail’s face before she stored the scroll. Thomas wasn’t sure what that look was about and would bring it up to her later.

Abigail spoke again, “It is fine Lady Emelia. Let us continue the discussion on what is going on.”

Lady Emelia righted herself and Director Sara seemed worried, she voiced her concern, “What is going on that they would issue you that much authority?”

Abigail ignored the direct question and said, “For the last few months we have been looking into a group that may have ties to demons. We haven’t confirmed it yet. We first encountered evidence of them manipulating beasts, but we stopped it. There is a high likely hood based on what you said that they could be responsible for what is happening here. If that is the case, we need to either prepare by making sure the fort and surrounding area is ready or send a group to track the missing monsters to where they are. My personal recommendation would be to do both, but the decision is ultimately yours. We are here to investigate and will not take command of the situation. The only thing we will do is ask to be included on the decisions as it could pertain to our investigation.”

Lady Emelia turned even paler before she looked at Director Sara. He guessed to see if she knew but the Directors face turned a few shades lighter also. Lady Emelia finally spoke, “What makes you believe they are connected to demons?”

Abigail nodded, “The traces of chaos mana that was found. I won’t go into more detail than that.”

Lady Emelia didn’t even react to being shut out this time and said, “Of course we will gladly include both of you on the decisions we make. Your expertise will be the extremely valuable.”

She paused in thought before she quickly glanced at Sara before saying, “We should set up an expedition to see where the beasts have gone and what is happening to them. While we verify the fort is in top condition and ready in case it comes to fruition.” The Director seemed to agree and nodded along.

Abigail nodded and then asked, “Have either of you heard or seen anything within the fort that is out of the ordinary?”

Director Sara answered first, “I had a few C and D Ranked adventures go missing within the fort. From what I have gathered they were last seen going into a known gambling den called Krogs. That’s really not that out of the normal. Adventurers running up a debt or cross the wrong person and flee is typical. The only difference is normally it’s one or two every few months, but it has been six in the last month and a half. I was planning on putting in a request with Lady Emelia soon to have the gambling den be investigated.”

Lady Emelia seemed to be thinking for a minute before she said, “I overheard one of my captains mention that one of his sergeants disappeared for a few days before he showed back up. Apparently, he went on a drunken bender at that same gambling den. I think it’s time for that depraved place to be closed for good. I haven’t heard of anything else, but I will need to check in with my commanders to see if they know of anything.”

Abigail got a look on her face he couldn’t place. She eventually said, “I need to confer with Thomas for a second please wait.”

She pulled him to the side of the room before she whispered to him, “I will be honest, my gut instinct is telling me they are working in the fort as well as setting up for a beast horde. I think there is a chance they have been in the fort for a while preparing. I want us to be hands on with this. One of us is going to need to investigate the fort while the other goes out and see where the monsters have gone. Which one do you want to do?”

Thomas tapped his foot as he thought about it. Would he prefer to hunt down humans or beast? Simple answer, he told her, “I would prefer to find where the monsters have migrated too.”

She sent a light jab to his arm as she smiled and said, “That’s what I figured.”

They walked back to the other too and said, “Thomas will be going on the expedition, and I will stay here and investigate the fort. As long as that is acceptable to both of you.”

They quickly received nods from both the woman. It was clear to Thomas that they were more than willing to let them do what they wanted.

With that they started hashing out the details on how it would all work out in a practical sense. Lady Emelia wanted some of her trusted men to be part of both groups. Director Sara tried to state that investigating where the monsters had gone to was a guild matter. They bickered back and forth for a moment before Abigail eventually intervened. The final outcome was a few knights would be allowed to join the expedition with Thomas along with adventurers. Abigail would mainly be working with knights since they would be working within the fort itself and would only use adventurers if the need arises.