After resting for a few mio catch their breaths, the group starts preparing to move on. Callum and harvest usable materials from their prey, assisted by Maeve, while the others take turating tain their mana and helping to strip corpses. Emily, though, watches their surroundings.

  She pulls out the sealed Mensacus to check it after a few minutes of the quiet trees. The seal still seems solid, the cursed objely leaking enough corruption to reduce her intelligence by one. She uses burning hands to open the bck iron lump anyway, just in case, and releases another flood of corrupted mana.

  Woah, that’s a lot of build-up again. It did say it verts death, so I guess killing so mas near it caused that.

  She reseals it, hoping that it’ll struggle to find enough fuel to weakeal again, given that most of the nearby beasts are already dead. An hour after the fight’s end, they finish resting and harvesting their victims, deg to leave some of the less valuable materials behind, having filled their spatial stes. They gather together once again to tiheir march.

  The rest of the day passes quietly, with only a couple of small beast groups attag them. The night is also calm, returning to the same still quiet it was on their way into The Gde.

  The m they set off into the noticeably thinner fog, getting closer to the edge of the uling forest. They run into a few beasts, but Emily and Dante deal with them easily before they trouble the rest of the group. However, an hour after they eat lunch, Enzo fgs an oddity in his eartheion s.

  “There’s a small group of people ahead fighting some beasts,” he says with surprise, looking at Oscar.

  “Really? Let’s go check it out. Stay quiet and don’t get spotted until I give the signal though.” He nods to Emily, so she quickly sets off a s to locate the people before leading the group towards them.

  They creep forward, carefully stepping over dry branches and slipping around bushes to avoid making noise as they close the distance. Within a few minutes, Emily starts to hear the frantic sounds of battle, so she drops infra-sight to get a clear view of the fight.

  Standing in a small formation, with their backs pressed together, are five mages. In the tre of their formation is a sixth, lying on the floor and bleeding profusely from a deep gash across his chest. Surrounding them are ten mudscraps, held off by arrows of fire and bdes of wind.

  Three of the mages, a short man with messy brown hair, a tall woman with an ashen, dirt-speckled plexion, and a short woman with long matted bck hair, all cast attack spells frantically.

  They’re panig.

  Emily looks to the other two, a tall man with a nasty-looking scar running across his left cheek from his lips to his ear, and aall man with a dirty blonde ponytail. The scarred man has his hands pressed to the floor, sweat dripping from his brow as he blocks the mudscraps’ ground diving, and the blonde man maintains a thin barrier of water around them all.

  Emily turns her head to Oscar, expeg him to suggest helping them, but is surprised by his expression. His face is cold and indifferent as he watches the small group struggle and, wheices Emily looking at him, he silently signals to retreat.

  Raising a brow, Emily looks back at the group, fog on their crests. They bear two different designs: one has five wide, greeals surrounding dozens of small silver or broamen-like petals; and the other has five pale blue petals spiralled around a silver or broar.

  Ah, I see.

  A knowing grin spreads across her face as she turns around and creeps away from the struggling mages.

  Good luck house Hellebore, ally of house Mandrago.

  The other members of their group follow Oscar’s instrus without question, although a few with slight hesitation, leaving the suffering mages to their fates. They move quietly, apanied by the sounds of spell ts and tearing flesh, not speaking until the fight leaves their eartheion radius.

  Ohey’re clear, Maeve breaks the silence.

  “Why did we ighem?” she asks quietly from the middle of the group, clearly unnerved by their as.

  “Didn’t you see their crests?” Oscar asks iurn.

  “No.” Maeve and most of the group members behind Oscar shake their heads.

  “I see. They were mages of house Hellebore and Periwihe Salvia household has no friendship with those two households, so I saw no reason to help them.”

  A wave of uanding spreads over the group as almost everyone seems satisfied by his answer. Ivnces uainly between Oscar and Emily, but seeing her say nothing, he holds back his curiosity.

  Quickly moving on from the distra, the group tinues walking through the outskirts of The Gde. They only run into a couple more beasts before nightfall, and calmly set up in a small clearing as the light above starts to fade.

  Sitting alo the edge of the camp, enjoying the faint moonlight falling through the trees along with a light drizzle, Emily turns her head as Ivor approaches her carrying a hunk of meat. Handihe food, he sits dowo her and asks the question he’s been holding on to since earlier.

  “Are you okay with ign those mages? Aren’t you allies?” he signs with fusion.

  Emily scoffs at his question, reag down aing her hand on the pouch holding the Mandrago’s unication crystal, which they’ve still never tacted.

  “I was old to help the family’s allies, and if I don’t say anything, they won’t know I ever could have,” Emily answers with a dismissive shrug.

  “Okay.” Ivor nods, dropping the subject. “We should be leaving The Gde tomorrow. Are you looking forward to getting back?”

  “I don’t know about you,” Emily says, stretg her arms behind her head. “But I’m looking forward to getting in a real shain.”

  Ivor silently chuckles while nodding in agreement. They chat for a bit about their pns when they return to The Dome before Ivor stands up, patting Emily on the shoulder.

  “I’m going to head to sleep then. Good luck,” he signs, turning towards the tents.

  “Sure. Sleep tight, don’t let the mudscraps bite!” Emily says with a grin, receiving an exaggerated eye roll, that she see through the back of his head, iurn.

  She chuckles while turning back to gaze out into the forest.

  I wonder if Jules will really be sed circle whe back.

  A warm smile spreads across Emily’s face at the thought, and the rest of her watch slowly creeps by, the m ing far too slowly.

  ***

  The day they break camp early, excitement and anticipation filling the group. Emily stands at the edge of the clearing, as everyone else finishes pag away tents, looking bato the depths of the magical forest.

  I do want to get bay workshop, but I’m gonna miss this may.

  She takes a deep breath, looking at the stats that increased during her meditation st night and enjoying the refreshing feeling of mana filling her lungs.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Attributes:] Strength 12 (16), Dexterity 34 > 35 (36), Agility 26 > 27 (29), Vitality 13 (16), Intelligence 60 > 61 (60)

  _____

  “We’re ready. Emily, help with the barrier please!” Oscar calls from the tre of the clearing.

  Tearitention away from the forest, she follows his request, gathering all of the barrier stakes and bringing them to him at the head of their formation. They set off into the trees, marg with light-hearted chatter as their caution slowly starts to slip.

  They don’t meet as through the m, and as the sun sits high in the tre of the sky, Emily steps out of the treelio the open pins beyond. It feels like a weight is lifted from her shoulders as she leaves the trated mana within The Gde, and her groupmates behind her all let out sighs of relief.

  “gratutions, everyone!” Oscar says, walking out ahead of the group and turning to address them with a wide smile. “Well done on surviving an incredibly successful expedition into The Gde!”

  Everyone cheers, and Emily smiles, joining in with the iious atmosphere. After letting them celebrate for a bit, Oscar calls for calm again before tinuing.

  “I called for our transport this m, they should be arriving soon. For now, let’s settle down a some lunch.”

  They move further away from The Gde’s border just in case, and sit down together with some more ocex meat.

  “You know what else I’m looking forward to?” Emily asks as she takes a bite from the tender flesh, practically tasting the mana infused into it.

  “What?” Dante asks as all of her friends turn to look at her.

  “Eating something other than cats again.”

  “Haha, true,” Dante chuckles.

  “I certainly won’t miss this aspect of the trip,” Enzo ents, looking down at the meat in his hands.

  “I don’t think anyone will disagree with that one,” Oscar adds dryly.

  Emily gasps exaggeratedly with mock horror.

  “You mean ocex isn’t your favourite food? Given how muade us eat, I was sure it was.”

  Everyone ughs, and Oscar cracks a grin, joining in with Emily’s act.

  “Damn, you realised? I guess the cat’s out of the bag.” The group all groan at his pun. “I just ’t get enough cat meat. You know, we actually had enough ratioo never eat any, but I just couldn’t resist!”

  Lunch passes enjoyably, and soon a motorcade rolls into view. Emily he reduumber of cars ing to collect them, clearly already informed about their missing members. As everyone else notices too, the jovial atmosphere fades. Realising this, Oscar chooses to address the deaths of their panions.

  “While this trip was a resounding success, we ’t fet the sacrifices made along the way. In a few days, the Salvia family will be hosting a proper wake to show respect to our fallen rades. Attendance isn’t mandatory, but I’m sure it would mean a lot to the families of those lost if you all chose to e. Now,” he says with a cp, moving on from the depressing topic. “Let’s get loaded into these cars a back!”

  The cars soon e to a halt before the group, the drivers stepping out and opening the doors to wele the mages aboard. Emily, Ivor, Enzo, and Dante once again climb into a car together for the return journey, mirr their trip out.

  “Wake me up whe there please,” Enzo says to Emily and Ivor, purposefully not looking at Datio him.

  “Sure,” Emily nods with a smirk, watg Dante exaggeratedly feign offence.

  They sit in silence, and Emily watches The Gde slowly fade into the distahrough the window as the motorcade trundles onwards. No one speaks in their car for the duration of the trip back, all lost ihoughts or sleeping to pass the journey quickly.

  Soon, Emily’s attention is drawn towards the metal behemoth rising up in the distance, i. The tall wall looks daunting from below as they quickly approach. When they reach the base of the wall, they stop and the car’s engine is turned off at the entrao the access tunnel. Emily knocks Enzo and Dante’s feet, waking them from their slumbers as she watches Oscar alight from the front car through the window.

  He approaches the guards blog the entrao the city, speaking to them for a few mihey fall silent, but Oscar doesn’t move to re-enter his car.

  Did something g?

  Emily starts shifting forward in her seat, preparing to leave if needed. A mier, a young-looking guard in loosely fitted body armour runs over. His clockwork rifle is swinging from a sling hanging loosely over his shoulder and, in his arms, he tightly csps a silver metal sb with several green magic crystals embedded in the surface.

  He presents the sb to Oscar, who pces his palm against it and is mana. The glow of mana envelopes the sb for a sed before it fades and the guard nods at Oscar, saying something Emily ’t hear. Oscar says something to them before turning aurning to his car.

  The cars all start their engines again and drive forward into the tuhrough the wall, the guards stepping out of the way to let them pass. They drive quickly through the fiery underbelly of the city wall, passing the burning coal fires p the meical ws hidden withial monster surrounding them. The repetitive hiss of steam and the grinding of gears weles them back to the noise of the city.

  A small smile parts Emily’s lips as she sits bad enjoys the meical hum. The cars leave the tunnel and tinue deeper into the city, soon ing to rest before the same elevator their jourarted at. Everyone disembarks their transport, and athers them all before the elevator doors.

  “We’re almost done, and then I’ll release you all to finally get the rest you deserve. But first, we o divide the loot!”

  Excited chatter breaks out among the group and Oscar has to hush them to tinue speaking.

  “It won’t be long. We’ll head to the Salvia estate and divvy it up there. Now, everyone make your way orderly into the elevator a’s make a good impression!”

  He turns aures towards the elevator as it opens on his cue. Emily frowns at his choice of words.

  Make a good impression? Are there people waiting for us iation?

  Everyone files into the elevator, but Oscar reaches out and stops Emily before she enters with everyone else.

  “You should wait o me. Holy, if it weren’t for keeping my family’s face, I’d make you stand in front of me.”

  Emily groans as his words firm her suspi.

  “Who’s waiting for us up there?” she asks, unamused.

  “Just a few allies,” Oscar responds with a smug grin. “When I sent for transport, my family spread the word of our triumphaurn. After all, we’re ing back from one of, if not the most successful trips to The Gde i twenty years! It’s only fair that we have a proper wele back.”

  “Fair py,” Emily cedes as the elevator doors shut and they start rising.

  The group chatters excitedly behind them, but Emily waits in silearing at the closed doors ahead.

  Wait, did his family spread the word to their allies, or the entire Dome? If it’s The Dome then maybe...

  Her thoughts are cut off as the doors slide open before her and a slouse greets their entrance. Emily and Oscar step out of the elevator, side by side, and as Emily gnces around at the crowd, she sees a streak of hazel barrelling towards her out of the er of her eye.

  Turning with a grin, she opens her arms wide as Juliana rams into her at full speed. She giggles while spinning Juliana around to kill her momentum, holdiight. A few moments after they stop, Juliana releases her and pulls back, frantically looking her up and down, going slightly pale as she sees the tattered state of Emily’s robes and the armour beh.

  “Are you okay, Emi?” she asks with .

  “I’m fine, Jules. I told you we’d e back safe,” Emily answers with a warm smile, pulling her ba for a kiss.