Your party has defeated:

Kexid Skirmisher x26

Based on your contribution, you have earned 325xp.

Spears has reached level 4!

Trauma Suppression has reached level 6!

You have learned a new skill: Detect Secret

Helps the user detect hidden details. Scales with Perception.

Prerequisites: 25 Perception

Note, as a detection skill, the effects of Detect Secret are augmented by God’s Eye.

In the aftermath of the fight, I scrolled through my notifications. Belatedly, I realized it was likely God’s Eye and my new Detect Secret skill that had allowed me to see the mana thread at all. For all I’d doubted the Elder, maybe me being a Protagonist was going to help out here.

After that, we traveled for three days. While we had plenty of time during our march, no one was quite in the mood for games anymore.

The two that had died had been buried. It was apparently a forest shadow custom that the dead should be buried in the forest, but as far out as we were from the forest and with it not being safe to split up, there was nothing to be done. Nearly everyone had known the two, and as we continued onwards and the landscape darkened further and further, so too did the group’s spirits.

Knowing what we now knew, Rock tightened our formation into a single group as we marched. There wasn’t much good in being spread out and scouting ahead if the enemy could appear beneath you at any time. While we walked, I strained my hearing, listening carefully for any signs of the grating noise that had preceded the previous attack, but they never came.

As the food supply began to run lower and lower, everyone’s mood only soured further. We’d carried with us enough food to last for two weeks after leaving the forest, and if the journey took much longer, we’d be forced to turn around or risk running out on our way back.

After three days, however, we saw it.

Rather, I did, at least. Everyone else, quite notably, did not.

Up ahead was an incredibly large dome of mana. With the low light and from this distance, it was hard to make out exactly what it covered, but I could barely make out the suggestions of structures. Unmistakably, it was our goal. The mana thread coming off of the now-docile kexid led straight to it.

“I see it. We’re almost there.” I called out to Rock and pointed in the direction of the dome. At my words, everyone grew tense, and Rock simply nodded.

Then, he turned, and began to walk in the completely wrong direction.

“Uh, Rock? Where are you going?” Did he know something I didn’t?

He stopped moving and scowled. “What do you mean ‘Where am I going?’ I’m going to where you pointed.”

“Uh, oh. I actually pointed that way.” I once again gestured towards the dome in the distance, only to have the commander attempt to burn a hole through my skull with his eyes.

“No, girl, you did not.” High-strung as he already was, evidently he wasn’t in the mood to admit he was wrong. Admittedly, he didn’t seem to be the type to ever admit that he was wrong, but at least it was a bit more forgivable in this case given the circumstances.

I shrugged, determined to keep my mouth shut. It wasn’t worth fighting over right now.

That was, until he began walking in a completely different wrong direction.

“Stop.” I walked out in front of the group, towards the dome. “Is something wrong? This is the direction I was pointing in.”

“You have a bad taste in humor if you think this is the time to be playing games, girl.” His face was a mask of composure, but his eyes seethed.

Unless the commander had a significantly worse sense of direction than I was aware of, however, I couldn’t imagine that he’d mistake the direction I’d gestured towards twice in a row. “I think there’s something wrong. Try walking over to me.” I walked ahead in the proper direction, curious if it’d be any different if he had a fixed point of reference.

Seeming to accept that I wasn’t having a joke at his expense, his eyes cooled down to their normal icy stare, and he made his way over to where I stood.

Only, he didn’t.

Instead, he took a few steps off to the side before frowning, realizing something was amiss, and then reorienting himself. He repeated this process a number of times, going so far as to close his eyes and walk heel-to-toe to ensure he moved straight towards me. Ultimately, each time he ended up careening off to the side, unable to reach me. Finally, he stopped, his mouth bent into a bitter frown.

“There seems to be a disorientation spell at play.” He gritted his teeth back and forth for a time, making intense eye contact before continuing. “I… apologize for snapping at you.” The act seemed to physically hurt him.

It wasn’t the time to gloat, so I waved it off. “How should we do this then?”

His frown only deepened as a thought seemed to enter his head. “Why aren’t you affected in any case? Some special Protagonist power?”

I shook my head. “I’m guessing my Perception is just too high. I also have some illusion resistance from a skill.” I still wasn’t thrilled that so many of my points had been dumped into the stat, but at least it was helping us out here.

He sighed. “What an odd one you are. Who would level up Perception before anything else?”

“I didn’t tell you?” My eyebrows shot up. “All of my stats get allocated randomly.”

He stared at me mutely, as if the information had blown some sort of fuse in his brain. Finally, in the middle of the lifeless, darkened plain, with the possible homebase of the enemy just ahead, he started snickering.

I folded my arms and waited for him to finish. “It’s not really that funny, you know.”

He appeared to make an honest attempt to control himself, but failed, his snickers evolving into full-blown laughter. “It’s… No, it really is that funny. Randomly allocated!” He bent over, the ice in his eyes finally thawed at my expense. “No wonder you were so bad with your weapons. Probably barely have a lick of muscle in your entire body! Oooh my, that’s just a little too much for me.”

The other shadows, confused at the exchange, simply stared at the commander who was finally coming to grips with himself.

“Maybe it’s lucky that I’m not the Protagonist here after all, girl.” He let out one last chuckle for good measure and then held out his hand.

“Uh, what’s with the hand? Are we shaking?” Thus far, I’d mostly seen the shadows stick to bows.

“Well, I seem to be a bit bumbling right now, don’t I? It appears I need someone to hold my hand.” He grinned down at me. “Everybody!” he shouted. “There’s a disorientation spell at play. Link up and form a chain! The Protagonist will lead us onwards.”

I sighed, walking over to the brute and taking his colossal paw of a hand. With that we began the long walk to the dome.

Holding hands didn’t completely erase the effects of the spell. Sending a few glances back as I walked, I thus got to witness what looked like a drunken conga line of trolls, complete with a few trips and falls along the way. Likely there would have been no better time for the captured kexid to make a run for it, but it made no attempt. At the back of the line, it simply allowed itself to be pulled along by the shadow that gripped it.

Despite the evident struggle it was for the shadows to walk in a straight line, the strategy seemed to be working, and bit by bit we inched forward. Eventually, we got close enough to more clearly make out what lay ahead.

Scattered across the plain was what generously could be called ruins. The remnants of what must have once been buildings had been worn away to the point where they were nearly indistinguishable from rubble. Whatever city we were looking at, it must have been abandoned a very, very long time ago.

Finally, we reached the dome. Realizing that no one else could see the blue shell of mana, I called out. “We’re here!” The shadows behind me tensed.

Gingerly, I extended my arm forward and tried to extend it past the mana, only to find that… it was solid?

“Oh,” I exclaimed. “Well, fuck, I guess.”

“What is it?” Rock pushed past me on shaky legs, only to collide with what, for him, must have been an invisible wall. “A spell barrier?” He pounded on the wall to no avail and then scowled, as if the force of his discontent would cause the dome to collapse.

“I guess let’s circle around it and see if there’s an entrance?” Short of bringing back some sort of powerful mage, I wasn’t sure what else we could do. Frankly, I didn’t really know what mages could do either — would Elphaea have been able to get us through this?

Rock sighed, visibly deflating. “Very well. There’s nothing else to be done.” He relayed the game plan to the shadows behind him, and we began skirting the ruins.

For nearly half an hour, nothing changed. As we walked, the view inside the dome simply shifted from one pile of rubble to the next.

Growing agitated with our lack of progress, Rock stopped the group. “We’re getting nowhere. All shields have their limits. Have we considered the simple solution might be the best here?”

“The simple solution?” He didn’t just mean banging on it, did he?

“Banging on it,” he replied. “Hard.”

Well damn. He was right — that was pretty simple. “You think that’d work? Seems pretty solid.”

He shrugged before shouting out. “All shadows, weapons ready! On the shield at the count of ten!”

In a long, arcing line, shadow after shadow leveled their spears at what for them was an invisible wall. Thankfully, the disorientation effect seemed to have largely dissipated this close to the ruins, or the plan would have likely caused everyone to skewer one another.

Rock counted down in ten thunderous booms until at last the count was complete. With perfect precision, all of the spears rammed into the dome at once, bouncing off of it.

The barrier held. A few of the shadows probed out with their spears, grimacing at finding the wall still there.

Except it wasn’t still there. Not completely at least. A small opening had appeared in front of the commander, the force behind his strike evidently the only one large enough to affect the dome. Not aware that he’d succeeded, he stood there with a stony expression on his face until I informed him.

“It opened! In front of you!” I made to run through the opening, but Rock grabbed me, holding me back even as his expression shifted into one of deep relief.

“I will go first. We don’t know if it’s safe.” He steeled himself, donning a visage of resolve, before courageously walking headfirst into the barrier, bouncing off of it with a scowl.

“Uh, a little to the right, actually.” I pointed.

He glared at me as if the mishap were somehow my fault and then tried again, this time successfully entering through the doorway. Seeing that he was all right, I followed him in.

“Simple solutions.” He nodded in satisfaction before beckoning the other shadows to follow behind me.

The moment I crossed the threshold of the barrier, however, the opening snapped shut, locking us in. The shadow in the lead of the progression collided with the reformed wall, equal parts confusion and consternation playing across her face.

“It… It closed. Unless you can get it open again, we’re stuck inside.”

I stared at the barrier, horrified. It was one thing to be trapped inside the magically protected ruins of an ancient city that seemed to weaken everything in the surrounding area and was linked to freaky zombie bug people. That, I could handle. It was another thing to be trapped inside them with Rock.

“Then we’ll reopen it, damnit!” He ran up to the barrier and thrust his spear into it, but nothing happened this time. “Shadows on ten! We strike it again!”

In a repeat of only moments before, he counted down and the entire force struck at once. This time, however, the barrier stayed closed.

Not yet done, the commander struck out again and again, hammering away at the barrier until at last he turned back to me, defeated. “No use. It appears this task falls on us now, Protagonist. Do you still know which direction we need to head in?”

I sighed and pointed ahead. The thread from the kexid was still visible, and now that we were closer to our destination, I could faintly make out a number of other threads all leading to the same location. There was no chance of getting lost.

“Everyone! We’re going on ahead. Camp here tonight, and wait for us for two days. If we don’t come back by then, return to the tribe and let them know what happened here. For the forest!” The commander beat his fist against his chest in a salute of sorts, and the rest of the shadows responded in turn.

“Well girl,” he said with a grin. “Here we go then.”

And with that, we walked into the ruins.