Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 127: Scars

Mawar followed suit, drawing her energy into herself. Once it became reasonably difficult to sense the retainer's energy, I did the same.

All three of us bore silver cores, so it would be difficult for any average mage to detect our cores regardless of stealth. This was just extra assurance.

I withdrew the damaged metal vicar's mask from my dimension ring; the same one Mawar had scarred with her powers. I let it settle over my face, the new straps easy to tie back.

"Let's do this."

—

We approached the edge of the canyons with speed, the wind at our feet. As I got closer, the mana signatures of the many vicars became easier and easier to sense. Their blaring presences pulled me onward like a beacon till I was crouched over the edge of a chasm.

I peered down. A catwalk of dark metal was bolted to the side. Far below, I could see the reflective glint of crimson water coursing slowly through the base like rivulets of blood. No doubt the Redwater bled some of its source into these ditches. Aurora's construct had shrunk from the size of a hawk to that of a sparrow as it clung to my shoulder, peering down as well.

I looked along the catwalk, spotting a vicar up ahead as he walked at a sedate pace. He wore a hood up high that shadowed his face from my sight, even though the sun had already set. His black robes couldn't quite conceal his deathly pale skin.

Where Renea Shorn's skin was light as death, it still somehow seemed healthy and full to my eyes. Yet the arms of this priest looked like that of a living corpse. Sevren moved next to me, but I held my hand up for the two of us to wait.

The vicar passed underneath us, his boots clanking as they plodded over the metal.

Once he passed, I whispered, "Follow me," making sure I tethered the sound to our area with my magic.

I let myself fall. The wind rushed past my masked face as I plummeted toward the deep crimson water below.

As I passed the catwalk, I quested outward with my telekinesis, a flare of white appearing on the railings of the metal. It creaked just barely as I pulled myself, arcing underneath the platform. My boots impacted the wall without even a hint of noise, my psychokinetic pulls keeping my soles lashed to the stone.

Sevren arced down next. With a blur of red, Promise embedded itself into the wall next to me, trailing a taught thin wire. Sevren swung in a bare instant later, holding onto his hairavant wire as Promise's blade kept said wire anchored to the wall. Mawar was the last to reach us. While she wasn't nearly as graceful as Sevren and I, a few tendrils of solidified void wind managed to worm their way into the rock nearby.

I looked at each of them in turn, before whispering, "We're going to follow."

The vicar hadn't gotten far ahead of us, but the way he walked with purpose clued me onto him as a target. As he strode over the metal, I began to walk along the wall underneath his platform, keeping every noise I made muffled and quiet. Mawar followed at a similarly sedate pace, yet the Denoir heir had to let a bit of distance build before quickly removing his dagger and throwing it out again, using that strange wire technique of his to make it change direction midair to embed into the wall once more.

Even as I muffled every sound my companions made, the slow gurgle of the water beneath us would've masked our presence well. But as we slowly trailed this priest, another sound began to scrape at my eardrums.

A horrid, familiar sound. That of buzzing wings and clicking carapace. Of hundreds upon hundreds of chittering bodies working in tandem.

The vicar reached a fork in the canyon. A long, thin pathway opened into the rock at our side that stretched all the way to the canyon floor. Yet overhead, a slathering of stone made this into a cave.