Chapter 242

As much as I wanted to go through all of my piling-up notifications, we were still on the clock.

"Good job, everyone," I said nodding to Silva. I immediately turned around and started heading back to Bella and the others. The area was destroyed, we were at the edge of where the bazaar used to be and now there was nothing but wreckage and corpses. Most of the people here looked like slaves and beastkin who had participated in the riot mixed in with a few dead guards and priests. Once the bone twister demon finished destroying the slaver's guild it immediately started killing everyone around it and turning the corpses into thralls. There were signs of weapon wounds on some of the corpses where the rioters were keeping the guards and priests back. What were they thinking trying to help the demons like this?

Bella, Mimi, and all of the former slaves were okay when I returned to them. But, judging from the deceased demons trapped in roots and vines, not without some hardship. Everyone looked unhurt and in one piece though so they had done a good job protecting everyone.

"Gods, how does she use this weapon? I'm starving..." I heard the hyenakin say as I approached. Their weapons were bloody so it wasn't just my two girls that had protected the group, I was happy to see that they were serious about helping each other.

"It's easier for me to handle the curse than it is for most people," I told her as I walked up.

Silva followed while carrying an armful of weapons. "I found some of these lying around."

Mimi took the cursed claymore back while Silva handed out new weapons to the two hyena sisters. None of the other former slaves looked capable or willing to wield any of the others so Mimi held onto the rest. Nelly, the cowkin, did take one of the priest staves that had been abandoned though. I was a little curious about that but decided I could ask about that later. Bella dug one of our rations out of her pack to give to the hyenakin to wolf down quickly. It seems the curse on that sword is pretty hard on non-succubi. It just made me horny faster when I used it but I could tolerate that for a while.

"We should look for survivors," Bella said looking out at the ruined bazaar.

"Not a good idea, I can hear guards coming. We're trying to escape with a bunch of slaves. Even if they are happy about us killing the demon, we'll get bogged down trying to talk our way out of how suspicious we look," Silva argued.

I looked over the ruins of the bazaar. It doesn't look like anyone could have survived the horde of bone thralls that thing created. There was debris and dust everywhere, it would be difficult to search through so much without getting boxed in by the guards.

"Please! At least let me look with magic! I'll be quick!" Bella begged.

I sighed. "Okay. Quickly with magic. We can't stay long but maybe there is someone that needs our help nearby."

She kneeled down and immediately started to cast a nature spell that flowed into the ground and spread out through the dirt and stone like large roots. She was teary-eyed by the time she pointed in a direction. "There's one there... they seem like a child."

Bella led us through the rubble to a spot where some stone pillars had collapsed and created a small pocket that had trapped a young beastkin girl. She was crying and covered in dust and blood, she was so dirty that I couldn't even identify what kind of beastkin she was.

"Can you move this safely, without any of it falling?" Bella asked Silva.

Silva studied the stone pillars. "I can't tell. If I move something it could all collapse."

Bella nodded. "I'll reinforce the structure with roots. They should hold everything still until you're ready to move it."

"I'll help too," Kal'daeryn said stepping forward.

"Me too," Mimi said as she walked around the stone so she could help support it from the other side.

"Are you going to be strong enough to hold it up?" Kal'daeryn asked her.

"No problem," Mimi said confidently.

"Can't you just store the stone?" Torien asked her.

Mimi shook her head. "No, the stone is too heavy and dense and there are remnants of warding magic still. I wouldn't have room to hold it even if I emptied everything out, and the remnant wards are still disrupting my magic enough that I can't just eat the stone. But I am strong enough to hold things still while we free this person."

Kal'daeryn hesitantly nodded. Looks could be deceiving in this world but Mimi looked short and petite relative to the rest of my friends. She didn't look like someone who would be able to lift a rock larger than she was. None of the rest of us doubted Mimi though so Kal'daeryn didn't argue any further about it.

After Bella had finished reinforcing everything as much as she could using her nature magic, Silva gripped one of the chunks of stone. "On three then?" Silva asked.

Once everyone agreed, each of them took hold of one of the large fallen chunks of stone. "One, two, three!" the three of them counted in unison before physically lifting the large chunks of stone off the trapped girl and dropping them to the side. Bella scooped up the girl and pulsed healing magic through her as soon as she could reach.

Nelly came over to us once the child had been freed. "I'll take care of her while you look for other survivors."

Bella handed the kid over to her but just shook her head and wiped her face. "There are no other survivors here..." Bella replied grimly.

"Where are your parents little one?" Nelly asked the kid.

The kid still hadn't stopped crying but she pointed to... a couple of bodies nearby. They looked like her.

I turned to Bella. "There's no one else?"

"...No," her voice sounded defeated.

"I'll check too," I said. I kneeled on the ground, closed my eyes, and cast my detect hostiles ritual with [Light Scribing]. Since other people could be trapped under rubble I thought that lowering my waist, the point on my body it used to compare with others, could better find people lower to the ground. I may have to change that aspect of the spell. As far as the spell could tell me, I didn't see anyone else. The only people who registered at all were the people with us and the hostile people on the other side of the wall we had erected.

I opened my eyes and shook my head. "I don't see anyone else either."

"What should we do with the little one?" Nelly asked.

I turned to Bella and my other friends but no one volunteered a course of action. Silva was the first to speak. "Whatever we do, we should do it quickly. If there are hostile guards on the other side of that ice wall you made, it will only keep them away for so long."

Nelly rubbed the little girl's back. "Dear, do you have any friends or neighbors we could take you to? Any other family?"

The little girl sniffled and shook her head. "We don't live here, mom and dad are traveling traders... I don't know anyone here." She immediately started sobbing again as soon as she finished.

Bella turned to me. "Let's just take her with us, maybe there's an orphanage in Goldenhearth... It's not safe to leave her here."

I frowned. "Okay. We need to start leaving now. We'll take her with us."

Nelly cradled the young girl in her arms as we all got moving again. This part of the city was deserted now and there were nothing but bodies left in the streets as we made our way through the city. When we reached the eastern gate the portcullis was down but there was no one manning it. The line of wagons going in and out of the city were abandoned and many of the horses that had been pulling them were dead or missing.

"We can go through the gatehouse. I don't hear anyone in there," Silva said.

"Let me go first," Lorriene replied before jogging forward. The rest of us took up positions around our non-combatants to protect them while we waited for her to return.

"Do you have somewhere to take this child in Goldenhearth?" Nelly asked me. When I glanced over the kid, she was asleep in Nelly's arms.

I sighed. "I don't know. One of the people we're meeting up outside of town grew up as an orphan in Goldenhearth, so she might know what to do. We also have lots of friends there. I don't know if they're in a position to help or not... and I don't know if taking her there is a good idea, but they would be better equipped to know what to do with her than we would."

"I see..." she replied.

She looked in the direction of where the slaver's guild building had been. Because of the nearby buildings, it couldn't be seen from here even if it was still standing... but I could tell through the bond that's what she was looking at. A lot of confused emotions were roiling through her right now. Understandably so.

Nelly turned back and faced me more directly. "You... saved all of our lives. You said that you helped others escape to the Northern Greens and then you still came to free us even though we are the ones... most wouldn't care about." She looked over at Kal'daeryn who was on the other edge of our makeshift perimeter keeping watch. "You even restored her limbs and fixed my leg. Just... thank you. For everything."

I smiled. "You're welcome. I can't wait to get to know you better once we're all a little more safe."

"Hey, someone's coming!" Kal'daeryn called out.

I immediately snapped to attention and saw two figures walking up to us. I recognized the pair immediately, it was Sophin and Lyric.

I walked over to Kal'daeryn. "No need to worry, I know them. Wait here." She nodded and continued to look around. Silva came with me as I walked away from the group to greet them.

Sophin nodded to me. "I see you successfully escaped before the building collapsed. I'm glad. I still have some cleaning left to do here before I leave the city, but I wanted to meet with you briefly while I have the chance."

"Is it done?" Silva asked.

"For the most part, yes," Sophin answered. "The Tamin church is wiped out in the city. There are still a few leaders we couldn't get to, and not all of the priests and paladins are dead, but enough of their forces were killed that they won't be able to have a strong presence here anymore. Since some of my assassins were in the area when the slaves you freed were traveling through the city, I also had them take care of some of the demons and guards that would have gotten in their way. As far as I'm aware, everyone who intended to go to the elven embassy made it there alive. Though some split off into the city on their own of course."

"It's a relief that they made it," I said.

Sophin smiled, his relaxed presence felt at odds with the kinds of things he was informing me about. "I'm also glad to hear you made it out of the building safely. I was worried when I heard you didn't come out with the group you freed and that you may have still been in the building when it collapsed."

"What about the demons in the city? Are they still running rampant?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No. The guards and Tamin paladins were quick to block off parts of the city and contain the demons. The only parts of town where they ran rampant was in the southern and eastern quarters, and even then, we were able to contain and protect many of the people in the southern quarter since most of us were in that part of the city when it happened. We made sure not to kill any priests or paladins until after they finished fighting the demons, or died trying. We also stepped in and killed the demons ourselves in a few cases to reduce the damage. I was fortunate not to have to get involved too directly, I believe I'll escape the notice of other high-levels that may have been drawn here. Since the demon the Cult of Amphores summoned destroyed the slaver's guild so thoroughly, they should be crippled and have to operate on a smaller scale, if they can continue at all."

"Did you find out any information on the cult?" Silva asked.

He shook his head. "No. By the time the bone twister demon appeared, whoever summoned it was gone. We were looking out for the cult members too, but once the demon appeared, the best we could do was help people escape the area before the demon turned on the rioters. We weren't able to track the cult down at all. They undoubtedly still have undiscovered bases in the city still. I'll leave some people here to look for traces of them, but they already completed one of their apparent goals in all of this, the destruction of the slaver's guild. I doubt they'll continue to linger here."

"What about the Duke of Torquin?" Silva asked.

"Already done. He's dead and we have people covertly guarding Marquis Saffadder. We won't let him die the way we let Count Korland die. This is our only hope to stabilize Torlimal at this point. We're confident the Queen of the Northern Greens can push him to ban slavery in Torlimal and I have confirmation their soldiers are already on the way here. The guards should be able to keep things from getting worse until the elves take the city, but they'll have no choice but to surrender to the elves once they get here."

I nodded. "So things are working out as we planned then?"

He shrugged. "For the most part. Things were a bit messier than I would have liked and the cult got away from this without any repercussions. There weren't any attempts at recruitment as we had originally suspected, they just jammed the collars and dropped the demon in the middle of town before disappearing. It was even less organized than the attack on Goldenhearth. I'm really not sure what to make of their actions other than destroying the slaver's guild."

"Could they be less competent than we thought?" Silva asked.

"I don't know. I'm not the type to blame things on incompetence but it's not like it's impossible." He paused to look up at the sky for a moment before turning away. "I have to go and it seems Lori is waiting for you now. Our forces are wiping out the remainder of the demons in the city and then we'll leave the city too. If I don't meet with you in Goldenhearth, I'll see you in Traehall. There's still a lot I'm sure we'd both like to discuss but that will have to wait. Good luck."

"Good luck to you too."

After a short trip through the eerie deserted gatehouse, our group began walking down the road. It was going to take us a while to make it back to the canyon where our carriage was stashed but none of the people with us complained. Quinn the cougar guy was helping the two hyenakin take care of the non-responsive former slaves and Nelly and Kal'daeryn were watching over the kid we found. Bella and Mimi were talking with the scarred person and the burned person about the transformation and feeling out if they would consider the offer.

I was too drained to think about any of that right now. Overuse of that ritual had left me with a headache and draining so much of my mana pool left me sluggish. I just stayed focused on watching the horizon for threats with the twins as we made our way back. We came across a few monsters but none of them were much of a challenge. It was nearly sundown by the time I could see our friends waiting for us in the cavern by the carriage.