Chapter 31

At the large round table, now were almost all the dignitaries of the city. Among them were: the priest of the main temple, the head of the security council, the head of the food guild, the first assistant to the deputy head of the city, the leaders of the population committee and the chief treasurer.

All of them, as if arriving in some kind of trance, sat absolutely still. And although their eyes were open, they could not see anything with them, because their mind was under the control of a completely different person.

Sitting a little to one side, Kyo pondered over what he had just learned with the help of a hypnotic spell.

"Spending a whole day gathering all these people and not getting any worthwhile information from them is a real failure. Apart from the most elementary knowledge about the island and the dominant sect worshiping those creatures, I learned almost nothing. Although there are a couple of interesting points. For example, the head of the city disappeared more than three days ago without informing his colleagues about anything. And this disappearance, in a strange way, coincides with the time when Sen and Leiko moved here. Which suggests a connection between the two events. Also, I found out that Mr. the head of the city did not go to work yesterday, and according to my information, her house is located relatively close to the southern forest, where, with a high probability, these two were moved by the tablet.

"Of course, there is a possibility that they were captured or killed a long time ago, these blue-skinned creatures, but I did not notice any signs of a battle in that dungeon at all, and it is too difficult to believe that two royal elves, hung with artifacts, could be destroyed without a fight. . In addition, one must take into account the fact that they are able to easily read the thoughts of their fellows, without even using spells. Therefore, I will probably give priority to the version that Sen and Leiko, having captured the head and his deputy, are now trying with might and main to survive and find a way back. And in the current situation, the very first ray of salvation for them will be the temples, in which the runestones of movement are located. Hmm…"

"What if we continue to think in this direction. Neither Sen nor Leiko, unlike me, are able to conjure light and make their bodies invisible to optical perception, so crowded temples, like the one in the city, are inaccessible to them. The temple in the forest, I destroyed, an abandoned temple on the main road to the western ruins, is too dangerous, because it stands on one of the central squares of that area, on which a lot of onlookers constantly walk. It turns out that there remains the last of the temples that I know about, namely, the abandoned sanctuary in the western ruins, which I think I need to go to. But before that, I need to decide what to do if I meet those creatures again.

"Of course, it would be nice to take at least one of them prisoner and interrogate, but I simply cannot do this, because their language and thought process in general remains a complete mystery. If, however, one of these individuals is taken, not for interrogation, but for subsequent research, then another problem arises related to the fact that it is tritely difficult and extremely irrational to carry around the territory of the enemy, a little studied and extremely dangerous enemy.

"Many questions are still connected with these creatures, without answering which it is impossible to properly prepare for the consequences of their possible captivity. Not knowing such banal things as whether they can communicate with each other at a distance, or what other aspects of radiation are available to them. They make it dangerous to catch them."

"Yes, you can first kill, and only then capture, in order to have at least a body in stock. But, if I dig deep into my memory, I can remember a number of creatures that, even after death, could cause a lot of problems. For example, dark spiders, when they die, mark the culprit with a special pheromone, according to which his brothers can find the offender and kill him. The image of death-beetles also pops up in my memory, the corpses of which emit a powerful poison ... "

" It was decided that in any subsequent meeting with these creatures, destruction will be a priority.

* * *

Earlier…

Having made a halt near the ruins of the temple, a group of three adult elves and two children, having had lunch, decided to discuss the current situation.

"Judging by what we saw," Sen began, "the allies who came to our aid have already encountered those terrible creatures and started a fight. From which comes the fact that they already have some idea of ​​our enemies and their forces. But at the same time, we personally do not know how much help the empire was able to transfer to this island. In this connection, we can only talk about what we saw personally, namely the technique of punishing the sun, which belongs to the master Kio. Also, I want to assume that there was no full-scale invasion of the island, because if everything was like this, then the troops, who have nothing to fear here, would simply simply give us an air signal about their deployment. And since this did not happen, then the group of those who got here is not so large in order to openly conflict with an unknown enemy, and she, in turn, leads a secret movement, looking for information. And where should the group go to find the information they need? That's right, in a place with a large population, in other words, a city.

Listening to Brother Leiko's conversation, she looked at him with the eyes of a man who obviously wanted to ask, "Are you sure Sen?"

"From which I conclude," he continued, "that our allies will soon know about the same thing as we ourselves, for they will surely be able to knock information out of any elf in the city. And given that they already know about the only place in the southern forest that no one in the city knew about, then everything is going quite well.

"And what do we do, where do we go?" Leiko, still surprised by these changes, asked her brother.

"We need to continue our march and stay in the temple.

- What? But why?

"Judge for yourself, master Kio and all the hedgehogs with him will very soon have approximately the same information that we have. What do you think they will do?

"Hmmm, exploring temples?"

"Exactly, the only connection between us, them, the island, and those creatures is the temples with runestones of movement. So they are the number one target. Besides, I'm sure that Master Kio, who is well aware of our abilities, will be able to understand that we, too, will go to one of the temples. And to what?

"From the hill we were on, we can say that that technique most likely hit exactly the dungeon in the southern forest, which indicates the destruction of the temple hidden there.

- That's right, one minus, three left. Well, since the master knows that we do not own secret penetration techniques, he will immediately cut off the city temple and the temple on the road. And what will be left?

The girl smiled and hugged her brother.

— Why are you Leiko?