Sera, Ethan, and Yori were roused early the following day and fed a large breakfast. Ethan hadn’t slept much, tortured not only by the two women in his life fighting for his devotion but also by imagining what excruciating pains the captured knight must be going through. Ethan could uniquely understand the amount of anguish one could feel when one of the elements of their existence fought against them. But having trained supplicants violating all four at once could force a man to do anything.

Thus, with great surprise, the group was informed that the knight had not broken.

“If he knows where the Elemental is,” the Supplanter informed them as they gathered in the temple's lower levels, “he isn’t sharing. I also don’t think he will be able to talk for a few days, so there is no point in waiting around here. We have an informant in Brighton who should be working on locating the weapon right now. Brighton is four days’ travel from here. I don’t wish to tarry any longer.”

The Supplanter finished his speech for the collected group and waited for any questions. Ethan took stock of the audience, not surprised that there were additions. Brittany and Quarton were joining them. This close to the end, the Supplanter wanted to make sure they were successful, and there was still the threat that if these three got all four to themselves, with no absolute loyalty to the Supplanter religion, they could hold out for a higher price, or possibly find other buyers, even the paladins.

Ethan, Sera, and Yori were all dressed in their travel clothes from the previous trip, and their weapons were waiting for them in this dark, lower room. Quarton wore his outfit from last night, stiff black leather on his chest and dark gray pants. Brittany still wore her grey cloak but had leather armor and dark trousers underneath. Each carried weapons.

As the mercenaries reequipped themselves, Ethan wondered why they were down here in the first place. It was three levels up back to the main hall, from which he assumed they would exit. His concern was answered when Brittany moved over to a round portal and rolled aside a massive wooden door to reveal a long sloping tunnel. Only the first few dozen feet were visible, but Quarton produced a torch and started down the tunnel, showing it went much deeper.

The rest of the group was just about to follow when loud footsteps came from behind, and they turned to see another grey cloaked figure descending the stairwell that led back up into the main temple. “Wait. I will be coming as well.” It was Natasha.

She looked rejuvenated this morning after her ordeal the previous day, her skin as radiant as ever. Sera frowned when she saw Ethan’s immediate rapt attention. The supplicant wore a tightfitting leather halter underneath her cloak that almost touched the top of her black skirt, revealing a bright strip of skin around her navel, giving maximum movement and support. The skirt was long but practical, as it had slits along both sides, allowing her to take full strides. After all, she wasn’t going to be lounging around the temple but trudging through the foothills of the Border Mountains. That was, if she was coming with them.

“You will not,” the Supplanter said quickly. He looked at her traveling outfit underneath the cloak, complete with a slender rapier strapped to her hip. “Your place is here in the temple with me, focusing on your progression with your element.”

Natasha smiled at the man, daring to look him in the eyes as she stepped toward him. She placed a hand on his arm. “My place is in securing your future as the savior. That requires obtaining the last of the Elementals and keeping the three we have safe.”

The Supplanter started a response by opening his mouth, but he said nothing. Ethan watched his eyes glaze over slightly and knew precisely what was happening. Natasha was imposing her will on him. He thought this must be what he looked like when Sera did that to him. The younger woman did it because the Elemental inside him recognized her importance in his heart. Natasha did it through her own cultivated power, which the Supplanter was naturally tied to.

She leaned in closer, letting him smell her freshly washed hair and whispering in his ear. “I am the only one you really trust here.” She didn’t back away from him, but he turned his head slightly to eye the three mercenaries, the enforcer who had already betrayed one master, and Brittany, who scared him more than he was willing to admit. “And,” she paused for further effect, though her spell had already worked, “we can finally be together when I return.”

The Supplanter did lean away now, clearing his throat to try and gain some composure. “Very well. It only makes sense to balance the party, and if things go south, we may need additional people to bring back the Elementals.”

Brittany looked like she would object, but the Supplanter silenced her with a hand gesture. “It is decided. Six of you will go. You should return before two weeks unless the paladins have sent the last weapon across the sea.”

Quarton didn’t care how many people came; he just wanted to get moving, preferring action over debate, which was one of the reasons he had left his old Order in the first place. Seeing no more discussion, he resumed his trek down the long tunnel. Brittany had planned on bringing up the rear, an unenviable position, but now she felt they had a new volunteer. The large woman let Yori go next, and thought it best to split up the islanders, so she held up her hand to stop Ethan and Sera and then offered her unlit torch to Natasha. “I will go next. You take up the rear.”

Ethan and Sera exchanged looks between the two women, wondering if there would be an argument, but Brittany didn’t wait for one and left down the tunnel. Natasha smiled at the pair, letting them know what the impassioned thought about the stupid decision to allow the three of them to walk together in the back. She motioned for them to proceed with one hand while gripping the torch with the other. After a second’s concentration, a flame leaped to the head of the torch.

Ethan was surprised by the ease with which she accomplished the spell, but she had been doing tricks like that for weeks now. However, this near to Ethan, Natasha felt she didn’t even need the torch and would be able to hold a flame on her bare hand that would be twice as bright as the burning stick. Sera nudged the infatuated young man forward, determined to stay between the Elementally charged pair. This would be an interesting trip.

The tunnel was extraordinarily long and angled steadily downward as they walked. It was as straight as an arrow with no end in sight. After ten minutes, Ethan chanced a look back, and though it was tough to make out anything through the blinding light of Natasha’s torch, he thought he could see the entry almost a mile back. He hoped they would keep it open while they were in there, for as comfortable as he might feel inside caverns, this tunnel was a bit narrow for his liking, and the idea of being shut inside was not comforting.

Ethan was happy to find that he had just enough clearance to walk in the round passageway without stooping. Yori needed to adjust his bow and spear, as the tips had scrapped on the tunnel ceiling, which looked about six and a half feet high.

After another fifteen minutes, when they had walked almost two miles, Sera started to get fidgety. “How long is this?”

Everyone else had been lost in their thoughts, and hers was the first voice spoken in the tight passageway. It echoed forward and back, giving a sinking sensation that they were at best halfway. “The tunnel is almost four miles long,” Brittany answered.

“It must have taken years to dig,” Sera replied.

Ethan shook his head, answering for the supplicant. “Delvers could dig this in less than a year, easily.” He said it with a sense of pride as he ran his fingers along the smooth wall. The tunnel was perfectly circular, and the slight angle down never seemed to vary. “In fact, no amount of human engineering could ever produce something this perfect.”

“But why are we taking it?” Sera asked. “Aren’t we just going deeper into the mountain?”

“You will see,” Brittany answered, her tone suggesting this should be the end of the conversation.

After another 25 minutes of silent travel, they saw an irregularity ahead by the light of Quarton’s torch. The end was blocked, but after putting his light down, Quarton stepped up to the door and easily rolled it to the side, letting in a rush of cold air that blew both torches out. The air was cool but refreshing, and all six travelers breathed the fresh oxygen deeply. Ethan also noticed that while it was cold compared to the tunnel, it was not the freezing mountain wind they had experienced yesterday.

Early morning light streamed into the tunnel along with the wind, and the group stepped out into the light. They were not in the mountains anymore. The tunnel had gone straight south, cutting through the bases of several peaks to the foothills on the Talla side of the range. Trees filled their forward sight, with the sunlight just streaming over them. After they were all out, Quarton rolled the door back in place, and they saw it looked just like a rocky hillside, invisible unless you knew to look for it.

There wasn’t exactly a trail leading away from the secret entrance, which would give the backdoor to the temple away; instead, an unobstructed valley wove between a few small hills and underneath mammoth pine trees until they emerged in a clearing with a stream on their left, and a trail running perpendicular to their path. A bridge 200 feet ahead beckoned to them, and once across the water, they saw buildings.

“The supplanter has horses here,” Brittany said.

Natasha looked at the woman curiously. How did she know all this? The physicals had more jobs outside the temple than the other women because shoveling snow and felling trees was too hard for anyone who didn’t spend time strengthening their bodies. But if the master needed people to tend to horses or grow crops, the impassions and scholars would have been perfect. Natasha had whispered to the Supplanter that he only trusted her, but that was apparently not true.

A few men ran the stables and had strict orders to supply anyone from the temple with the horses they needed. They had close to a dozen, so finding six to fit this group wasn't hard. Sera and Natasha required ponies, while the other four took larger horses. Natasha’s decision to wear a skirt made sitting on a horse difficult, but the slits allowed her to manage. It just meant her legs would be exposed to the cool spring air, but out of the mountains, the temperature was warm enough, and she still wore her cloak, which draped conveniently over each side of her mount.

They also took provisions from a small farmhouse, which had completely slipped Ethan’s mind. They had eaten a big breakfast after waking, so he hadn’t even thought that they should bring food, but now with horses and saddlebags, carrying additional provisions made sense. Soon, they were trotting off to the east, the sun rising before them, granting most of them the first natural warmth they had felt since last summer.

Sera wanted to hang back with Ethan, but Brittany insisted on guiding her horse amongst the three people she trusted least. She had doubts about Ethan being an assassin, and Sera’s status as a warrior was untested in her eyes. Natasha had been a last-minute addition, and the physical wasn’t so dumb that she didn’t know the impassion had wiled her way onto the expedition with her powers of persuasion. She wouldn’t have done so without an ulterior motive, so Brittany insisted on knowing why.

With the large woman constantly weaving her horse among the three of them, they had little chance to talk about anything meaningful and were left discussing the scenery and weather. Sera and Ethan had never been in Talla, but only Ethan felt safe saying so since an islander would have had to pass through the breadth of Talla to reach the northland. So, Natasha told him all about her home country. Ethan felt he could listen to the woman talk for hours, which was good because that is precisely what he did.

Emoyen and Terrance rode into Brighton around noon, a full day before they expected Sir Gerhold to arrive with his caravan. With just the two of them, the knights could move much faster than the collection of wagons they were tracking, and they had only stayed behind them until they were confident they were heading to Brighton and that the paladin they were chasing wasn’t going to jump onto another caravan in Golden Coast.

After the destination was confirmed, they moved ahead of the wagons one evening, under cover of darkness and just ahead of a storm coming in from the west. They had been staying off the road, moving along dirt paths that crisscrossed between the numerous farms in the plains, but now they used the well-traveled highway and made much better time. They had changed into their armor to deflect any questions as they traveled through Toraford and then the many small villages around the massive city of Brighton. As paladins, they were spared the constant inquiry usually given to lone travelers from merchants and local law enforcement.

Both of their spirits lifted once the spires of the many tall buildings in Brighton appeared on the horizon. Emoyen loved the big city, having been born in one of the surrounding villages and appreciating the bustle and endless activity. All of the production in the northland, whether it be goods, food, news, or just family travel, funneled down to the capital city.

The land they had just ridden through was rich with farmland. The storms that blew in off the White Sea were funneled through the two valleys running southeast, releasing much of their furry, so once they got past the hills north of Red Valley, they held only rain, which was dumped liberally on the fertile farmland throughout the summer months. Droughts were not something they worried about.

The northland was also blessed with a wide variety of ores and minerals and no shortage of wood to harvest. Red Valley was named so for the fruit it produces yearly: apples, cherries, and strawberries flowed out of the valley, and the vineyards on the hills had the best wine on the continent.

Torra to the south was ruled by a harsh royal family and lacked the free trade and commerce found in the north, so they were forced to trade for all of these goods, bringing even more wealth and prosperity to the northland. There was always talk of conquest from the kingdom across the Bright River, but Talla was filled with artists, poets, and priests and wouldn’t want to steal time from their social and political games to ever muster an army. And most felt that a soldier from the north, even if he was an untrained farmer or miner, was worth at least two Tallashite fighters. The kingdom could only ever afford to hire enough mercenaries to protect their borders or chase down political enemies, never enough to start a war.

Emoyen suggested they not go to their keep. There was no chance that Sir Jenkins had sent word to the order that she and Torrence were to be stationed in Red Valley, protecting an Elemental that almost certainly was not there anymore. So they could show up and have free room and board while they waited for Gerhold to arrive with no questions asked, but they instead decided on renting an apartment overlooking the city gates in the north. They expected the caravan by the following day, so they didn’t anticipate waiting long, and then Gerhold would lead them to the Elemental.