Terbius and Kindle readied themselves for the small journey that lay ahead. They were not ones to leave as soon as the sun rose up but they were definitely active in the morning. Kindle went around a few shops to gather some simple supplies they might need, while the boys prepared their weapon for combat, just in case. After about an hour or two of the sun rising the trio set out for Ervic.
The walk was about as long as they expected, though it could have been shorter if Terbius wasn't always in the mood to fight whatever Demon came their way. The twins usually fought as a pair that complimented each other's decision in battle with perfect harmony. While the boys fought any Demon that came their way, Kindle sat back and provided support, mainly attacking anything with range since she was quicker than Terbius. Seeing the town in the distance the boys got excited and ran ahead of their older sister. They couldn't believe what kind of damage had been done to such a town.
Terbius slowed their movements as they noticed most of the town was in such shambles. Kindle had finally caught up and took point as the trio found themselves in front of some of the townspeople. Many of them shouting at the twins for being Earth Spirits, throwing threats trying to get them to leave.
"We are only here to help, we mean you no harm," Kindle did her best to keep the growing angry mob under wraps, but it was no use as the commotion grew.
It wasn't until the boys took initiative and started moving towards one of the damaged and half collapsed buildings. The people of Ervic grew increasingly proactive towards their rebellion as Terbius approached, many of them throwing stones and various household objects, none of which made them flinch and they proceeded with their actions.
Vox had noticed the commotion, the moment he caught sight of the Earth Spirits he scooped up Lee, who looked like she was ready to try and fight them off. He quickly made his way back to Aliya who was absolutely focused on analyzing mana from the cursed townsfolk.
“Ailya!” Vox panted, slightly out of breath from running there as fast as he could. “There’s two Earth Spirits in town. A Fire Spirit is with them too but…”
“Take me there now!” Aliya interrupted him with urgency in her voice. She had a pretty good guess on who it was and she figured the town would be on edge regardless of what Earth Spirits they saw since they were the majority of the Spirits that comprised The Earth Legion, with a handful of exceptions. She wanted to make sure the townsfolk didn’t get out of hand if her hunch was correct.
Terbius stood before the building not saying a word, knowing actions spoke louder than words. With a pillar piercing one of the walls and the second floor half collapsed, Terbius began to work. Bius focused his energy and forced the pillar back into the ground while his brother started manipulating the scraps and piecing together the broken wall. Then the two joined together, manipulating the stone that dwelled within the structure and forced it to stand once more, intact and fully stable. The crowd grew silent and Bius spoke up, "We're not here as part of the war, we're here to help."
“I don't know if you guys are brave or stupid for coming here now!” Aliya raised her voice and the crowd split so that the Spirits could clearly see each other. She had a coy expression recognizing the trio of Spirits before her.
“Definitely stupid,” Kindle glared at her carefree brothers in annoyance.
“Aliya!” Terbius lit up upon seeing her. They were still hoping their sister would change her mind so that they could help her out. Running into Aliya again in Ervic made them think there was still a chance.
“Honestly if you hadn't helped me yesterday I might be either interrogating you or fighting you guys right now.” Aliya approached Terbius with a friendly smile. Aliya turned and addressed the townsfolk around hoping her voice reached all of them. “Please don't fear these Spirits! I know it's hard to think, but these Spirits do not follow the will of the Earth Celestial. They helped me before, and they will help you too if you allow them.” The people around seemed to instantly ease up upon hearing her words. Some dispersed but some remained out of curiosity.
“Friends of yours Aliya?” Molly had joined the crowd late but she heard what Aliya was saying as she approached. She greeted the three new Spirits with a sweet smile.
“Sort of, we really only met yesterday but they have good hearts,” Aliya looked at them with approval in her eyes. Kindle felt bad for getting so mad at Aliya before since she was now standing up for them, despite how Aliya reacted to her negative words towards her before she was surprised Aliya wasn’t mad at her. “This is Kindle and the twins are Terbius,” Aliya gestured to the respective person as she spoke. “This is Molly, she is in charge around here. The Wind Spirit there is Vox and the tiny one attached to him is Lee.”
“Wait, both of them are Terbius?” Vox looked confused over the notion while Lee hid behind him, peeking out from behind his leg.
“Yeah I don’t quite get it either but that’s what they told me!” Aliya shrugged.
“They aren’t baddies right?” Lee asked quietly, watching them nervously.
“No way we are friends!” Terbuis smiled cheerfully, kneeling down to her level.
“My brothers may look big and scary but they won’t hurt anyone here,” Kindle knelt down on Lee’s level and smiled. “They are just big softies.”
“You guys are going to help us?” Lee stepped out from behind Vox, now only hiding behind her cat plush.
“You bet!” Terbius both put on a big goofy grin for her and she eased up. Satisfied that the people weren’t terrified of them now they focused on what they came to do.
"We'll make sure all of your homes are repaired,” Ter stood towards the crowd and offered assistance to all.
“Along with any other damages that they may have caused," Bius voiced as they stepped forward to work on fixing the town more. Molly found their enthusiasm admirable.
“I’ll stick with them. Make sure no one gives them trouble.” Molly told Aliya with a faint laugh in her voice before walking off after them.
“Sorry for what I said yesterday,” Kindle apologized, not looking at Aliya. “I'm sure you understand my concern for their safety.”
“Don’t sweat it!” Aliya’s voice was so cheerful she didn’t seem affected by it at all.
“Thank you for standing up for them,” Kindle felt a little relieved she didn’t take it to heart. “They really are one of a kind out here, they want to prove to the world that not everyone is bad, I admire their mission but I'm afraid the world won't accept them right now.”
“Carved from a different stone, I see,” Aliya shot Kindle a smirk along with her joke. Kindle returned her smirk with a slight eye roll at the bad joke.
“Are there any injured? I can heal them up,” Kindle took a slightly more serious tone.
“Depends, are you good at reversing curses?” Aliya crossed her arms, a puzzled expression filled her features. “I healed the wounded but there is a petrification curse on many of them.”
“Once upon a time, I used to train under the Fire Celestial. It was forever ago but he taught me just as much about curses as he did fighting.” Kindle gave off an air of confidence in her training.
“Learning from the best then,” Aliya was impressed. She knew the Fire Celestial was an expert in all sorts of magic artes but he had by far the greatest knowledge of curses of anyone in this current age. “I feel more confident you can help these people better than me.” Aliya turned to Vox, her next goal on her mind now, “Mind playing scout for me in the meantime? I’d like to know what The Earth Legion is doing out there…”
“Count on me! If you can help this town I'll help you!” Vox perked up, excited to have a task to do.
“Vee-Vee! I wanna go too! I wanna help!” Lee tugged at the green rags that hung from his belt.
“Now now!” Vox bent down and gave her a serious look. “You need to stay here, it's not safe! Head back to your mom! Okay?!”
“But we are partners! Remember!” Lee whined, she looked like she was going to cry.
“I know but it’s dangerous for you,” Vox’s expression shifted to worry. He didn’t like the idea of losing her, let alone to something he did. He put on a brave face and smiled, ignoring the thought. “I’ll be fine on my own. Don’t worry about me, Lee-Lee!”
“Okay…” Lee pouted and started trudging off in the direction her mom went.
Vox left on the north side of town, following the road. As soon as the forest spread to both sides of the road and the Wetlands faded away, Vox changed to his true form as a Spirit along the treeline. His overall form was much smaller, he was an extremely large raven with a more humanoid body. His dark green feathers, perfect for blending into the tree canopy.
Vox flew high up in the treetops, swiftly maneuvering around the branches, keeping an eye out for The Earth Legion. It wasn’t too long before he spotted something out of the ordinary. The earth of the road was raised to meet the treeline, forming a small fortress. Four Earth Legionnaires paced the base of the fortress on either side of it, two covering either side of the fortress on the road.
Vox silently perched on a high branch, his head tilted to see what was going on inside the fortress. Inside the outer walls was a grid of walls focusing on a round central platform. The masked Earth Spirit stood on the round platform as two more Earth Legionnaires paced atop the walls near the forest.
Vox took off, it was so tempting to attack them himself to get payback but he knew he wasn’t strong enough to take that many on himself and he figured Aliya had some sort of plan and that's why she wanted him to scout. He wanted to join in on whatever it was. He wanted to hurry back so it could be that much sooner he could ruin their day. He still flew widely around the forest just to make sure there was no one else. He remembered there being more in the initial attack but as he flew among the trees he didn’t see much of anything aside from a few magic artes set as a trap that had triggered on some unsuspecting animals.
Vox flew most of the way back through the forest, returning to his humanoid appearance on the edge of town. Already as he walked in he noticed how nice the town was looking thanks to the work Terbius was doing even though he wasn’t even gone very long. Not everything was restored but the small portion of town that looked like it was back to the place he’d known all his life.
Vox spotted Aliya and Kindle right where he left them. They looked rather concentrated on trying to reverse the curse on those turned to stone. He was glad, such good Spirits came to his home to try and help pick up the pieces.
“Vox! Perfect timing!” Aliya called out to him as soon as she noticed him approaching. She waved him over, “We may have figured this out but we need your help to be certain.”
“What do you need me to do?” Vox tilted his head in curiosity.
“From what we can tell this is mainly a result of an over saturation in Earth Mana that moves at an incredibly slow rate,” Kindle explained. “Instead of trying to speed it up a more long term fix would be to balance out the amount of mana of each element. Since humans typically have a balance of all four mana it should reset their system so to speak.”
“If the three of us use a healing arte saturated with our respective mana elements they should return to normal,” Aliya placed a hand on her hips with confidence. “Why don’t you give it a go? We just did ours.”
“Sure thing!” He held out his hands towards the petrified man. “Pure wind blows in, bringing light to the soul, Life Draft!” Wind swirled around the outside of the human statue and passed through him. He slowly turned back to normal, the fearful stance he was in before gave way to looks of confusion and then relief. Vox beamed as the man looked his way, “It worked! You’re okay!”
“What happened? Wasn’t The Earth Legion just attacking?” The man looked around slightly panicked before settling his eyes on Vox for answers.
“They did a few days ago,” Vox nodded in confirmation. He was so giddy it showed in his voice. “You were cursed but you are fine now thanks to these Spirits that came to help our town!” Aliya and Kindle both gave a warm smile and a wave then the man looked their way.
“Lee!” Molly’s voice filled the street, there was a mild concern in it. She hadn’t seen her in a while. “Lee, where are you?!” She spotted Vox and lit up hoping he would be the one to know, “Vox! Have you seen Lee? She was with me for a little while but when I was helping Terbius she ran off again. I assumed it was to find you.”
“I haven’t seen her since I left…” Vox’s voice began to fall away and his eyes filled with panic. “No! She didn’t try to follow me did she?!”
“If she did then we need to go after her immediately!” Aliya stated urgently. She knew they would want to regardless. “If she’s out there then The Earth Legion or a demon could attack her any moment!”
“Actually, just The Earth Legion to worry about,” Kindle's matter of fact tone did not match her serious expression on the matter. “Terbius and I handled most of the mindless Demons in the area before we showed up in town. If there are any around now they’ll probably be human.”
“Now’s as good a time as any to attack then!” Aliya looked down at Kindle hoping she would join her for at least this given the circumstances. “Kindle, would you and the boys help me take them out and rescue the girl?”
“Do you even have to ask?” Kindle turned in the direction Molly had come from and cupped her hands around her mouth to amplify her already booming yell, “Terbius!”
“Yes Sis’?!” They both poked their heads around the corner to see a look they knew meant a fight was going to follow. They came running up before she could even say anything.
“Gotta go save a little girl!” Kindle started off towards the road North with the boys skipping along after her. Aliya and Vox lingered a moment longer.
“We’ll bring her back I promise!” Vox looked at Molly dead serious, the only other time she’d seen him like that was when he was protecting them during the attack.
“I’m coming too!” Molly couldn’t just stand by when her daughter could be in danger. She didn’t know what she could do to help them but she didn’t want to wait around. “She’s all I have left! I can’t lose her too!”
“I won’t let that happen!” Vox shook his head.
“Are you able to use Rune Magic Artes?” Aliya had noticed the large Wind Rune pendant she was wearing. “You wear a pretty sizable one.”
“Only a few…” Molly grew nervous under Aliya’s cold, calculating gaze.
“I know you’ve only ever used them for healing.” Vox grabbed her hand and leaned in his eyes pleading with her. “Please stay! Lee needs to be able to come home to her mom! I don’t want anything to happen to you either!”
“Stay here Molly!” Aliya turned swiftly and started toward their mission. “I give you my word as Lady Azurius’s Kinbound, we will bring Lee home safe.”
“Wait! You are a Celestial’s Kinbound?!” Vox quickly followed her, surprised by her declaration. He’d only ever heard about Kinbound from his brother. Spirits that were considered Celestial Kinbound were granted incredible power under a certain condition as an exchange. It was such a rare occurrence that the powers were almost legendary.
“I am,” Aliya looked at him with a completely straight face devoid of emotion. “I would appreciate that you don’t pry about it. Its terms are not something I can discuss.” Her look and her tone had frozen him in place, she was always so warm around them he didn’t expect her to flip completely the way she did. She paused her stride and took a deep breath, closing her eyes. Her warm smile returned. “I’m sorry that wasn't like me at all. Please, if you can, just drop it for now and let’s go save Lee!” Vox nodded, a little confused, as they both started heading out.
“Please come back safe, all of you!” Molly yelled after them. She decided to take their word and to stay out of their way. She was just as worried about them as she was her daughter. “You’ve all done so much for us already…” Her last sentence was so quiet Vox barely heard it.
“Don’t worry about us. We’ll be back before you know it!” Vox waved back with a reassuring grin on his face.
“So what’s the plan?” Kindle asked Aliya as she approached. Kindle had reeled the twins go getter attitude in and they waited on the road just outside of town for Aliya and Vox to join them.
“First, Vox, why don’t you fill us in on what you saw,” Aliya’s gears were already turning over a plan but she wanted to know exactly what they were dealing with before she finalized it to the party.
“Well, if we are sneaking up on them we’ll have to be careful because they have Magic Artes set up all over the forest to act as a trap. Pretty sure they go off remotely. I avoided them just fine flying around up in the trees.” Vox closed his eyes and tilted his head to recall all that he saw. “There are seven of them in and around a little makeshift fortress they made as a complete road block. Two on each side of the road on ground level and three up top pacing the walls. One of the ones up top is the masked Spirit that caused the petrification curse.”
“Sounds like they are waiting to ambush The Water Legion when they show up,” Aliya placed a hand on her chin finalizing her plan with the knowledge of their numbers.
“Not a very sneaky ambush if you ask me,” Kindle shrugged and shook her head.
“The fort is likely a distraction. I’m sure it’s the traps all over the place that’s the real play. When The Water Legion tries to sneak up on them or to try and surround them to try and ambush The Earth Legion, they’ll know when the Magic Artes are triggered and pounce. Ambush the ambush, so to speak.” Aliya explained she didn’t know much of the tactics involved with the war but she guessed based on her own experiences in the past. She turned to Vox again, ready to start the plan. “Vox, it still gets rather foggy this time of year, correct?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think we can wait around hoping for that to happen,” Vox looked at her, concerned that she would.
“We won’t need to. I can make it happen,” Aliya held out her hands, glowing blue with water mana. She simply hummed a short tune and moisture began to fill the air ever so slowly becoming visible. “Might take a bit since I’m trying to make it look natural. In that time we can confirm whether or not Lee is actually there and get into position. Vox you keep her safe, as soon as you see an opening you get her out of there and away from everything, since you can fly I don’t imagine that will be a problem. If she isn’t there then you focus on finding her in the forest.” She looked towards Kindle and Terbius with a thoughtful smile. “I'll sneak around to the other side and distract them, they are looking for Water Spirits after all. Kindle, if you could attack them at that time you could get the jump on them. Terbius, if you can bring their walls down, that would be perfect.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Kindle placed her hands on her hips confident that she and the twins could do their part.
“We got this!” Terbius voiced with confidence.
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