The Soul Keeper

"The plan is on." As soon as these words left my mouth, Theresa raised her head to look at me, a huge grin forming on her face. "Awesome!" She whispered.

I chuckled, it was great to see them both happy, despite the circumstances we are in. "So, what happened here?" I asked, glancing around. "Last I was here, this place was in shambles."

Laura smiled. "The furniture was easy to fix with magic and Theresa had way too many animal furs on her, so we decided to do a little bit of decorating." She glanced outside. "It's a bit tough to sit and do nothing all day after all."

I nodded. They couldn't go outside to grind because of the Ereth patrols and sitting inside all day was bound to get boring at some point. "I think you did great." I glanced at Mona. "How is she?"

Theresa chuckled. "Exhausted." She grinned. "She levelled up after her ritual, then noticed she could learn a useful spell." 

"What spell?" I asked, my voice filled with curiosity. 

Theresa shrugged. "She didn't tell us, but she went outside to try it, then soon came back happy and exhausted, so I guess it worked?" 

Laura sighed. "If only she would tell us." The blonde woman glanced at me. "Have you eaten yet? There's some food over at the counter." She gestured towards the far end of the room, where there was only a counter to separate it from the kitchen. 

When I looked over and saw the plates, I noticed how hungry I was. "Oh yeah," I mumbled as I stood up. "I'm starving, actually."

They both laughed as I hurried off to the counter. I filled an empty plate, then returned. 

"By the way," I mumbled between two bites. "Where is Lucius? And is Asher not back yet?"

Laura shook her head. "No, he's not back. Lucius is asleep. We trained a bit in the stables during the day, so he was exhausted."

I raised my brows. "The stables? I didn't know we had those." Wasn't the rest of the building basically inaccessible ruins? I thought the only usable rooms were this one, the kitchen, the couple of bedrooms upstairs and my predecessor's study.

"We also cleaned the place up a bit." Laura made a vague gesture. "Got rid of the rubble, fixed the walls where we could, cleaned the bedrooms so we don't have to sleep in such dusty rooms."

Remembering how many times I woke up sneezing the other night, I couldn't help but feel grateful. "Seems like you guys did a whole lot of work while we were gone." I chuckled. "I feel a little guilty for not helping you at all."

Theresa shook her head. "We didn't do all that much anyways. Plus, we were bored out of our minds!" She tapped on the table. "At least we know these won't break under the weight of a book now." She grinned.

We chuckled, then I continued eating. Once I was done, I put my plate back on the counter. As I headed back to the other two, distant thunder echoed.

"Oh, not again." I mumbled, glancing out the windows. While there we no glass panes to cover them, now a magical shield kept the cold, wind, and rain out. "Alex and Rina aren't back either yet." Laura added. "They're going to get soaked. And so is Asher."

I nodded. "What's going on with the weather lately?" I asked with a sigh.

Naturally, the only answer they could give me were shrugs. None of us knew – how could we? Far all we knew; this could be the seasons changing. Perhaps it was normal for it to rain so much during this time of the year. Or perhaps it was a magical phenomenon. Maybe the demons or the Ereth were causing these storms. 

Before we could ponder any more about this though, the door swung open, and a soaked Asher stepped inside. 

I think he was about to loudly declare something, but he swallowed his words just sighed as he noticed the sleeping Mona. "I'll be right back," He said in a low voice instead, and headed upstairs, leaving a trail of water behind.

I heard a chuckle and glanced at Theresa only to see her trying to hold back her laughter. Laura just shrugged, though she was also smiling. "At least he didn't get struck by lightning." 

We chuckled, then waited for the blonde sorcerer to come back down. He didn't take too long to change, since he was back with us within minutes.

"Whatever is causing all this rain, I want to kill it." He declared with a low hiss. "I absolutely loathe the rain – do you have any idea on how difficult it is to fly when you can't see a god damned thing?" Wide eyed, he looked at me almost as if he were daring me to oppose him.

"I hate it too." I said, choosing not to rise up to the challenge. Theresa nodded enthusiastically. "I'm glad you made it back before the thunderstorm got worse," She added, pointing at the windows. "I feel bad for Rina and Alex."

Asher's ears perked up as he heard the two women's names. "Are they not back yet?" He asked, letting go of whatever annoyance he was feeling at the time. His ability to change his focus like this was admirable.

Laura shook her head. "No, not yet. They did say they would probably return sometime after dusk though, so it's not like they are late or anything."

I furrowed my brows. "Hang on, I know that they left after us, but they weren't going so far." I glanced at Asher. "Let me see your map."

He shot me a weird look before summoning his interface and navigating to the map panel. "Look, this is where they were headed," I said, pointing at a nearby village. It was only a couple hours of walking from here. "What could take them so long anyways?" I asked, curious about the answer.

"Rina wanted to check on something else on the way." Theresa chimed in. "She said she wanted to look at a certain ruined building. Something about a clue about tainted demonic magic and all that." She seemed just as confused as I felt as she tried to remember Rina's exact words. "I honestly don't remember what exactly she was talking about."

"The girl." Mona's sleepy voice sounded. Startled, we glanced at her.

"Did we wake you up?" Laura asked. "Sorry, Mona."

"Nah, I was awake since just before Asher came back." She pushed herself up to a sitting position, then yawned and stretched her arms out. "Rina wanted to check on the little girl I told you about ages ago." She glanced at me. "The one who created those creatures during the siege of the Howling Hills."

I flinched. We hadn't talked about that day in such a long time that her words caught me off guard. "Ah," I mumbled as memories rushed from the back of my mind. 

"The day Samantha passed away," Laura spoke in a low voice. "You're right, we did tell Rina all about Elise. The ruins she nearly died in are nearby now that I think about it."

"Elise… That was the name of the summoner, wasn't it?" The name of the girl who had used an immense amount of power to trap us atop that peak for so long. The girl, who I still partly blamed for Samantha's death. I took a deep breath and clenched my fists. "Do you know why she wanted to go there? What is left to learn about Elise?"

Mona shrugged. "I don't know. But you know Rina better than any of us. She probably figured something out or has a theory and wants to make sure of it before telling us anything." The cheerful druid stood up and approached the counter. "Yummy," She mumbled as she picked a couple of fruits, then sat back down on her fur covered bench. "Anyways," She continued. "What I don't get is what Elise has to do with our current situation."

Silence followed Mona's words. None of us could see a connection between destroying Divine Pillars and the little girl who could summon entire armies.

"Maybe it's not her she's looking into." Theresa suggested. "Maybe she figured out something else."

I shrugged. "There's no way to know, really." Almost as if the universe decided it had enough of this conversation, a loud thunder echoed just as I finished my sentence.

"They will have trouble returning with all this rain though." I mumbled.

And thus, we waited for the two women to return as we chatted, planned, and passed the time mostly idly. After about an hour or so, as worries began to mount and I began pondering whether I should head out to search for them, the door swung open, revealing two soaked, angry, and freezing figures.

"I figured it out!" Rina shouted as soon as she stepped inside. "This is important!"