Stone Statues

It didn't take us very long to reach to large stone wall, it did however take us some time to find an opening to enter inside.

Walking past a collapsed section of the wall, we entered the city and came face to face with a series of broken-down stone houses withered down with the passage of time.

"Let's camp here while I send out Duskwraith to check the surroundings," I spoke while cautiously glancing inside a somewhat intact house closest to the window.

Aria and Tess nodded as well, briefly checking our immediate surroundings, and entered the house.

Once inside I sat down with my back on the nearest wall and summoned Duskwraith, the markings on my arm disappeared giving rise to the werewolf like figure.

No words needed to be said; the duskwraith knew what I wanted and quietly exited the door. As it left, Aria and Tess used some of the large stones from the nearby buildings to seal the door.

As for me, I tightly closed my eyes, pulling on my connection with the Duskwraith. Soon, its senses became mine as I carefully began combing through the city, going from building to building, searching for something, anything dangerous.

Of course, my search only stayed limited to the outermost district. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever even think of going towards that crater in the city center.

Inside the room, Aria and Tess began setting up our stuff, taking out some torches to light the place up and searching for some emergency escape pathways just in case.

"This is odd," I spoke, causing the two of them to turn in my direction. "There is nothing here, not even something as low-tiered as sandweavers."

"Keep looking; if there is nothing, we should be able to explore the city tomorrow," Aria spoke and continued with her work. I continued as well, trying my best to scour through every last part of our immediate vicinity, only to find nothing.

The place was a ghost town with no sign of those nightmarish creatures. I wasn't sure what to make of any of this, was it even a good thing that we were alone, or was there a reason for those beasts to avoid this place.

It was almost sundown when I was finished with the outer part of our side of the city. Deciding that it was enough for today, I ordered the Duskwraith to turn around.

Clank, Clank, Clank.

Sounds of sudden mechanical footsteps caused the duskwraith to pause in its footsteps. Without a moment's delay, it activated Shroud and ran to a nearby alley, blending into its surroundings, slightly peeking past the corner.

Past the street came a group of stone statues, walking in perfect formation.

This… looking at the stone statues, I slightly furrowed my eyebrows. Those statues, weren't they a bit too similar to the ghost ships that traveled across the shattered sea?

I urged the duskwraith to take a closer look. And I was right; the patterns on the armor they wore were completely identical.

Those things are going somewhere, so I decided I had to check this out. I ordered Duskwraith to start following them from a safer distance.

The statues kept moving, walking through the streets, moving past the gate, into the middle district.

Duskwraith followed as well, moving past the gate inside. As it did, I suddenly felt a grab on our connection. Startled, I dove inside my soul to see the thread connecting us, thinning and weakening.

This was a bit troublesome, I had already suspected this ability to have some kind of range limitations but I never expected I had to find it out in such a way.

"Somewhere between 400 and 500 meters," I mumbled under my breath and stood up.

"I'll be back in a while." Saying so, I rushed out of the door and into the empty streets. At the same time, I instructed Duskwraith to continue following after the statues.

Walking out into the street, I began running towards the middle district, trying my best to maintain the range between me and duskwraith. At the moment, half of my mind was busy following those statues every single moment, while the other half was busy cautiously navigating through the street.

This continued for a complete hour, at times statues would turn around into the street, allowing me to stop and not go too deep into the city, then they would proceed on a different route once again furthering the distance between us.

After a while, the statues finally came to a stop when I was just on the edge of entering the middle district. On the other side of the street stood a large torn-down building made of pure white marble. Its top was missing, yet perhaps it was the way it was constructed that stood out among all the stone-made nearby buildings.

Yet that wasn't the first thing that grabbed my attention. In front of the building's gate stood the figure of tens of stone statues moving around in perfect unison, surveying their surroundings and patrolling the nearby streets.

"This must be it," I mumbled and asked the duskwraith to carefully find a way inside without alerting the stone statues.