Logan informed both Marcus and Amalia about his most recent hunt, alongside the betrayal at the hand of the vampire, Quayvan. With enough trust in his friends, he also told them about the issue with the progenitors.

Marcus had a strong stare strained on Logan for all of it, rarely blinking as if he could lose sight of Logan in such a confined space. With the final word spoken, leaving a gap for a response, Marcus asked, “What do you need me to do?”

“Find Jirango or Xican, either one should be able to prove my innocence, both would cement that fact. Any evidence otherwise will just be a backup, really”, Logan put forward as he leaned backwards in his chair.

Logan looked tired, his hair a bit dishevelled, but Marcus could tell it was more stress than anything.

“I’ll do everything in my power. Six days?”

“Seventh will be the final day before Quayvan is set loose, at that point, you can count me as good as dead”, Logan sighed.

Amalia looked between the two, adding little to the conversation and feeling out of place. “Do you need anything while you’re in here?” she asked.

“Actually”, Logan began as he paused a second before continuing, “I need to ask you, Amalia. Will you accept this quest?”

Amalia stared somewhat astonished in reply.

Logan continued, “Your system could track them down, and if so, far easier than anything Marcus could get his hands on with such short notice. Even if it’s just guidance, you’d make my victory much easier.”

Marcus looked at Amalia as he awaited the reply too. Logan didn’t need to ask Marcus to do this, they both knew they’d die for each other at this point and had done so already. Amalia was mostly exterior to their plot right now.

Amalia looked to the side, in a sense of deflection or a state of contemplation. Though Logan could understand that a quest window would have appeared for her to look at, Marcus only had brief descriptions of them.

“Please, say yes”, Marcus thought to himself as the seconds felt extended into eternity.

Amalia sighed as she looked back at Logan, “I do have a bit of a debt to return, I suppose. Yes, I’ll help.” Amalia blinked quickly as she looked to the side again.

Marcus placed a hand on her shoulder as they sat next to each other, “Thank you.”

“Thanks. I was able to sneak these away, hopefully, they can aid you”, Logan thanked as he handed a pouch to Marcus.

“I guess we better head straight to it. Amalia?”

“We at least have a direction to head”, Amalia replied as she kept looking to the side.

As they all stood, Marcus moved around the table to give a solid hug to Logan before leaving.

The midday sun was hotter than usual, more inconvenient as Marcus moved to block its rays from his eyes. With the seasons having shifted into the falling some time ago, the weather had started its decline to the start of chill, where the Ice King was to revive.

“Nothing will happen this year”, Marcus thought to himself as he led Amalia away from the courthouse.

Amalia jogged to her ally’s side as her focus was split, “Marcus, are we heading out today?”

Marcus fumbled with rings on his fingers, “That is the plan, how far are we travelling?”

“A hundred or so miles? Seems to be in the mountains to the east.”

“That’s more than a hundred miles”, Marcus replied with a tinge of annoyance, “Do you need to get anything before we head out?”

“I need to stop by the inn to pick up some of my gear.”

Rushing up to her room in the inn, Amalia donned her full armour, sans the helmet which she placed the headband of which into her bag. Grabbing her kite-coffin shield and her bag of spare shields and weapons she returned to Marcus.

Marcus was scanning over a map in hand before looking over his companion, “First time I’ve seen that getup.”

“First time I’ve used it.”

“Anything left to get?”

Amalia rechecked herself before nodding, “Should be all set, aside from food.”

“Hopefully we won’t be gone that long. I have supplies for a good week, for two.”

“I don’t suppose you know what we’d be fighting?”

“At a guess? People. Possibly elementals and golems too.”

“I’ve only fought a few people so far, mostly in the under market raids.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle most of it. Just block attacks where you can and keep my heading true”, Marcus replied with a half-smile.

The pair headed outside, Marcus putting a hand on Amalia’s shoulder as he pulled out Logan’s eyeglass with the other. “Get ready for a teleport. East, right?”

“Yes”, Amalia mentioned as she rotated slightly and guided Marcus, “there.”

Warping into their centres, Marcus and Amalia began a circuit of teleportations from the items handed down from the Spellthief.

The wind howled as it bit at all who stood on the mountain range. Tree canopies could be seen in the distance, as well as even a Magi’s Tower. The muddy and rocky terrain of the mountain saw white powdering as it went higher into the sky ahead.

Marcus pulled up his hood as he wiggled his fingers and looked over the area, “Teleportation blockers. Damnit to the below.”

Amalia shivered, “What?”

“We can’t warp any further. One pro is that this place is protected, so something must be worth it”, Marcus replied as he looked back and threw a blue coat at Amalia.

Amalia pulled out the headband, placed it on her forehead, and had it extend out into her full helm before putting on the coat. “We’re still a few miles away from the circle”, she shouted through a raised visor.

“Pondress, cure my steps”, Marcus spoke under his breath as he began the slanted climb.

Climbing the incline for around an hour started to take its toll on Amalia’s legs, she had been mostly sedentary while Marcus had been training daily to catch up with Logan’s progress. This was shown in the effortless movements of the Devout as he made wide strides upwards.

“Is teleportation still… blocked?” Amalia asked through deep breaths.

“Yes”, Marcus replied.

As Amalia took another step, her foot slid on a patch of ice, scraping stone as she started to fall. Waving her arms to steady herself she was quickly caught by Marcus who pulled her back up straight.

“Thanks.”

“It’ll get rougher the higher we go”, Marcus informed as he waited a few moments for Amalia to compose herself.

“Colder too”, Amalia chuckled.

“There’s going to—”, Marcus began before swinging his staff wide, smashing apart a compacted snowball that hid a rock within. “Snow mites!” he yelled as several blue-coloured bugs stampeded toward the pair.

Two-foot-tall flea-looking insects, six furred legs and two long antennae wiggled over the terrain that did well to hide them for ambushes. The middle pair of legs rolled up snow as they ran toward their foes, hiding weapons within before tossing them.

Amalia brought up her shield as it was pelted with children’s playthings, the snow shattering and leaving scratches on her steel. Rocks and glass fell to the floor, while others were empowered with spellforce to have dangerous velocities.

“Gaia Wall”, Marcus shouted as he summoned up a white wall of stone and snow to block the charging insects, “Back-to-back!” he commanded as he threw his upper back into Amalia’s.

Amalia let out a short breath as her metal clanged against Marcus’s robe, more out of emotion than pain.

The bugs darted around the sides of the wall, two for Marcus, and one for Amalia.

Raising her shield, Amalia blocked the charging grapple of the insect, the chittering and scratching was incessant and annoying to Amalia’s ears. Dragging her sword up, the Guardian pierced through the bouche hole on the side of her shield, chitinous armour dampening the strikes somewhat but still yielding green blood.

Marcus spun his staff into the head of a leaping snow mite and heel dropped the other onto the floor. Reaching over his knee, Marcus grabbed the prone foe and chanted, “Gaia Grasp”, exploding outwards white stone, splattering green across the floor and his hand.

The smashed snow mite rolled across the snow as it reared itself and charged at Marcus once more. Marcus moved his hand from the corpse and aimed at the maw of the mite, “Gaia Shot”, forming a shard of rock and piercing the creature’s head as it slid next to Amalia.

Amalia continued to piston her sword arm into the grappling foe, eventually bringing it to the floor.

Further mites made their way over the wall and around it, one even burst from underground between the two adventurers.

Marcus looped his arm under Amalia’s as he pulled her to the side, moving his arm to his side he pulled a dagger and threw it at one mite atop the wall.

“What’s the plan here, Marcus?”

“Defend and slash, take it slow!”

Amalia reaffirmed her defence stance as another mite toppled atop the mass of metal, this time Marcus spun and slammed his staff into the foe’s back as he crushed it into Amalia’s shield. The force was felt through Amalia’s arm as Marcus did it a few more times before the mite hit the floor.

Stabbing the staff into the floor, Marcus pushed down and lifted himself over the swipe of another foe, let go of the staff, and spun into a hind grab on the insect beneath him, “Gaia Grasp”, exploding white and green from within another foe.

Kicking the floor, Marcus lept over one mite who crashed onto the floor as they missed the Devout, hitting their face into Amalia’s shield as she pushed it down and pinned the tumbler, stabbing its back.

Spinning the staff overhead, Marcus used the momentum to bat away one mite and return to another as he took on two again. Their attacks are somewhat random and lacked unity, allowing Marcus to counterattack relatively easily even if they were a bit faster than he was.

Amalia was done with her easier foe, so moved to aid Marcus. Shield bashing a mite, she was able to slash at it once to fell it, weakened by her ally’s strikes. Marcus finished off his final target. The final body hit the floor as chittering and twitches were slowly drowned out by the howling wind.

“We’re good”, Amalia announced as she saw experience numbers that were invisible to Marcus.

“These are just natural monsters for the area, I doubt they are guards”, Marcus announced as he brushed off some of the green blood.

“They’re slowing us down, and draining our resources regardless.”

Marcus sighed as he pulled out two black rocks and handed one to Amalia, “More climbing to be done?” he asked as he crunched his.

Amalia took the rock and crushed it in her mouth, “Another hour or so.”

Climbing ever higher, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say the chill had come early. Eventually, the pair came across a mouth in the mountain, a cave to hide their targets or themselves if they wanted to rest.

Amalia pointed inside, “The circle is all around this area. I guess it’s in there?”

Marcus brought out a potion and chanted as he placed another hand on Amalia’s shoulder, “Essence of power, grant onto others. Enhance Strength, Sustained”, her body had a grey glow appear over it, and several more times as he did the same for Agility and Constitution.

Drinking his spellforce potions, Marcus did the same for himself but could do it silently. These spells granted 12 extra attribute points for Amalia, and 14 for Marcus, stronger than any trinkets they had encountered to his point. Combined with all his skills, Marcus had this occur due to getting Enhance to tier 7 mastery.

“This feels much stronger than last time”, Amalia mentioned as she looked at her armoured arms.

“Always have to keep moving forward”, Marcus mentioned as he pulled out a torch.

“Speaking of. The circle isn’t getting smaller like Logan said.”

“Use Identification?”

“Still no change.”

“I guess Logan has a better skill”, Marcus thought to himself. “This should be good enough. You can guard the entrance if you want to.”

“With these buffs, wouldn’t it be better to stay together to make the most use of them?”

“They were more for your protection. Fourty-four minutes should last you long enough for my return, or any that followed us here.”

“I want to be more of use. I owe Logan, maybe not as much as you, but it’s all the same”, Amalia admitted as she walked ahead.

“Is that what I looked like?” Marcus asked himself in his head as he followed close.

“So, was it elementals you said?”

“Yes, among other things.”

“Then I think that’s what’s up ahead, Identification is picking something up”, Amalia mentioned as she brought up her shield.

The deeper recesses of the cave, while dark, shifted at the duo’s change in demeanour.

“Then it’s time to return them to the earth.”

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