Chapter 107: Everyday Life (2/2)
Ilea believed her when she heard the woman talk, painting a rather different picture of the mage than she had of her before. Then again it wasn't that surprising. They all were at a certain level of strength and Ilea started to form a theory on how Eve had gotten there.
The team was flying eastwards soon thereafter, towards Damwell, one of Lys' cities by the sea. Hopefully this job would be a little less emotionally draining but Ilea tried to prepare for everything as she flew through the empire's lands, carrying two of her team mates next to her.
It took another three hours to reach the city and the suns of Elos were slowly moving downwards on the horizon. Ilea thought of dinner as the group landed near the city gates and soon joined the few travelers nearby, most of which were adventurers or merchants protected by such.
They did get a few looks but considerably fewer than on their first mission. This changed quickly upon entering the city itself where most people weren't part of one or the other adventurer guild, making the group of armored mercenaries quite a scene to behold. One of the city guards escorted the group towards the responsible station where they would be further instructed on the job.
After the initial mention of a queen harpy no other adventurer had even tried to enter the cliffs, the monster too dangerous a prospect. Claire finished up with the city official rather quickly as the team waited outside. Ilea was getting a little sick of the constant attention they got due to the black wisps and heavy armor. 'I could just switch to my leather one... but the others are still here... eh.' she thought and summoned her monster encyclopedia, looking for the Queen Harpy entry. Ilea was sure that at least Claire had looked it up beforehand when they were still in Viscera.
A queen harpy appears in a harpy nest around every other decade. Usually the monsters fly towards a high mountain or an isolated cliff side to build their new nest. When a queen appears the harpies grow more defensive and ultimately aggressive towards the neighboring species. The monster itself usually reaches a level slightly above two hundred. No notable capabilities besides the purely physical have been reported.
She read the text out loud to the loitering team members also waiting for Claire's return.
“So we go there and kill the birds...” Kyrian said.
“They're like half human right?” Ilea asked as she looked at the picture of the monster before the book vanished from her hand.
“Since when do you care, the last job involved killing actual people.” Trian said from the side, looking around at the guards sometimes glancing at the group. Ilea shrugged at the question and thought about it. It seemed comparable to not eating meat on earth but then again if a wolf pack attacked the lifestock of a farm they would probably be hunted down as well.
“We can focus on the queen, less work for us and we're doen quicker.” Trian said.
“Me and Ilea sneak in while the rest makes a lot of noise at the entrance?” Eve suggested and Kyrian nodded.
“The close quarters might not be benefitial for us if there are a lot of them in there.” he said but Ilea wasn't quite so sure about that. They would probably do fine either way and splitting up didn't seem like the best idea.
“Let's ask Claire about it once she's done.” Ilea said and ended the conversation there. The rune mage came back a couple minutes later, and quickly briefed the group on any new information she might've received. There wasn't a lot, other than an increasing amount of harpy attacks near the southern parts of the city. Fishermen and adventurers were avoiding big parts of their usual hunting grounds because of it.
They didn't have to stay in the city for any longer and quickly left towards the south, where the location of the supposed queen harpy was. Claire was ok with the plan of splitting up as long as Eve first scouted out the cliffs to find the queen. Ilea would go in with her to ensure they could actually take the beast down. Eve wasn't sure she could kill the beast quickly enough in addition to escaping without getting hurt.
The group landed twenty minutes later on an empty beach, the stormy waves of the ocean hitting the sand and rocks with cold water. Ilea breathed in the salty winds and looked around. There were many openings in the cliff side and Eve's illusions went towards them at a quick running pace. Sadly her clones didn't have the same chameleon like ability she could manifest herself.
Ilea and Eve went to hide near a rock formation while the others prominently made their stand on the beach itself. Runes were carved and placed by Claire and Kyrian while Trian hovered above, his lightning ready to strike.
“Got it...” Eve said around ten minutes later. One of her illusions had found the location of the queen harpy, apparently inside of an open cave with plenty of water and sunlight inside. She motioned to Claire who was just finishing up carving into the cliff side with Kyrian carrying her up and down the formations. She nodded to Eve as the two landed back inside their defensive rune formations below Trian.
The lightning mage nodded as well before blue lightning formed around his hands and impacted the cliff side. Claire added a couple smaller explosions to the mix and they got the intended response. Loud and angry bird noises came from the caves before the first of them burst out. To Ilea they looked quite a bit different than the ones she had seen before, perhaps a different species but most notable was the look in their eyes.
“They seem crazed or something...” she whispered to Eve who started to assume her surrounding's colors, becoming nearly invisible in mere seconds.
“Come.” the woman said as more and more birds poured out of the tunnels to attack the apparent intruders. Eve started running, masking herself so well Ilea had difficulties making out the woman, even with her perception skills. She tried hiding as best she could with her Embered Body Heat. She also quickly switched her elven armor out with a leather one to make a little less noise while walking.
The explosions resounded through the caves as the two women sneaked deeper into the cave systems while more harpies flew out above them. 'That's quite a number...' Ilea thought, a little more convinced of their chosen method. The beasts were between level seventy and one hundred and thirty so Claire and the others would be fine for quite some time. Maybe the whole colony would be wiped out already when Ilea and Eve exited the caves again but the First Hunter doubted that.
Luckily nearly no harpy was on the ground and all of them were too crazed to notice the two women below. They still had to hide sometimes as they went around corners and deeper into the caves. After a while there were non crazed harpies standing guard to any tunnels that would lead further in but combined with Eve's near invisibility and Ilea's blinking ability the two moved through undiscovered until they finally came into the main cave where the queen harpy resided.
The monster looked a little taller than the rest with horns on its head but Ilea couldn't quite make out any other differences.
[Queen Harpy – lvl 205]
'Just as in the monster book.' Ilea smiled and looked towards Eve. They had decided on an approach beforehand and now executed it. Ilea waited in the small hiding spot between rocks and looked towards the beast which was standing at an elevated position in the cave. Ilea activated all her buffs a moment later when the beast's eyes went wide and blood spurted from its neck that had been sliced.
She blinked twice as ash formed around her, staining the ground black and gray and filling the air with a mist of the magically created substance. It twirled around her as her wings came alive and carried her the last ten or so meters. The harpy was gurgling and screaming with all her power as it tried to remove the dagger from her neck, black veins slowly forming near the blade. It hit around herself but Ilea knew that Eve was already quite a distance away, waiting. Ilea impacted the beast and gripped the blade before pushing it in further, ignoring the claws that scratched against her Veil of ash.