Ch 39: Directed to a Certain Path

"Sir, I have something to confess." Aisling said.

They had cleared out the shrine and Piaras had just set it on fire. He looked at her to proceed.

"Right after we arrived on this world, I noticed some Infernius energy coming from a carriage back in the capital. I snuck out that night and tracked it to the red light district and found the carriage at a brothel. That kind of place would be perfect for an Accursed Stone to gather energy." Aisling continued.

"Hmm, so whatever cult this is might be a bigger problem. And it could be a greater part of this world's society." Piaras looked towards Baldeur.

They both had the same thought. The village that the saintess wanted Baldeur to go towards might have something to do with this cult. Piaras assumed she was trying to get Baldeur to take care of the cult for their church.

But Baldeur knew that she had a connection to the gathering of Accursed Stones from various locations in the kingdom. Whatever this cult of Sathanas was, it had already infiltrated the kingdom's main religion.

Shortly after that the other three rejoined them. Night was fast approaching at that time.

"We got most of those that ran off. But there's about a dozen or so that we haven't caught yet." Sigurd reported.

"Let's get going, we'll camp at the mouth of the pass to the next valley. Hopefully letting them live doesn't come back and bite us in the ass." Piaras said.

The sun had fully set by the time they made camp. During Baldeur's watch, he looked back into the valley to see a few lights moving around where the village would be.

Rumors would no doubt spread about a group of travelers from another world that massacred a village. The truth of the matter wouldn't be able to spread that far.

In the morning the group headed further into the mountains. With their primary mission of figuring out what happened to their missing team accomplished, they moved on to looking for some Blue Rooted Elms. Their company still had a client back in the City of Gates that was expecting a delivery.

After a few days and passing through one more inhabited valley, they found what they were looking for.

"Damn it's a shame they took that route. If they had taken any other path, they might have been able to avoid those psychos." Sigurd said.

The inner passes were a spider web of valleys, with multiple ways to get to where you wanted to go.

The trees they were looking for were growing in some deep ravines where it was difficult for anything to grow, let alone elms. Only about one Blue Rooted Elm would grow every hundred years and would live for about 400 years. They were hoping to find a sapling but the youngest had a trunk as big as a man's thigh.

They ended up taking some cuttings of the roots and a few of the healthier branches. A skilled arborist would be able to graft the pieces onto a regular elm that would turn into a Blue Rooted one over time.

After Piaras preserved the cuttings with Anodular, the group made their way back through the mountains. They took a different route to avoid the cannibal village.

A few days later they arrived in a small village that had a number of refugees from a neighboring valley.

"Can I ask what happened?" Piaras said.

"Seems there was a beast tide nearby. A few valleys were overrun. Thankfully these guys were able to cause an avalanche in the pass that connects our valley, so we should be fine." One of the villagers said.

In places where magical beasts lived, their populations could experience sudden growth if the Source energy in the area had a sudden spike. Since there was limited living space, they would rampage into surrounding areas causing devastation.

"Is there anyway around them? Or is the way out of the mountains cut off for the moment?" Piaras asked.

"That's tricky to say. We're too far in for any kingdom to give a damn about sending people to take care of it, so it will just have to exhaust itself. That means they'll have to spread out among the different valleys killing each other.

"Thankfully the only other way to get to where they currently are is about three valleys away. They'll be thinned out if they come here the long way. You should just wait it out. Shouldn't take more than a week or so." The villager said.

"It wasn't a beast tide. They were monsters from hell. I've never seen anything like them." One of the refugees said.

"I'm sure it felt like that but the pass is blocked, so you don't have to worry about them." Another villager said.

"I know what magical beasts are in these mountains and those things weren't natural. Their limbs bent wrong, they had strange coloring, and they seemed more like large insects." The refugee said.

"They could have been mutations. Maybe there was a Mana storm near one of the peaks and some breeds got mixed." Someone said.

"You won't understand until you see them." The refugee fell into silence after that.

Piaras took a moment to consider what to do next.

"We'll try our luck and head the long way around." Piaras said to the villager.

"Then you'll want to head through the north pass from here. Then I'd recommend making your way towards Murfen. It's one of the larger villages along that path. If the beast tide spreads in that direction, they'll have the strength to defend against it." The villager said.

"I'll keep that in mind." Piaras gave Baldeur a look at the mention of that village.

It looked like fate was going to push their group towards the saintess' desires.