C48 Paper plans and Building Blocks 7 pt2

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"Beryl! Beryl! Can you hear Mama?! We're on our way!"

The sound of snapping twigs and rushed movement through the forest could be heard as Sophia slithered as fast as she could manage.

"Beryyyl? If you can hear us, please respond!"

Cressida called out, barely keeping pace as she did her best to leave a trail for the guards following them.

"Cressida, we're getting close!"

Sophia yelled to her partner as they continued advancing. As they moved through the woods, the scent of something odd caught their attention.

"Sophia, do you smell that?"

"Burned flesh, yeah!"

Cressida and Sophia followed the scent to its source. Having covered most of the distance already, it was barely another two or three minutes until something odd came into sight.

Is that a building?

Sophia squinted as she asked herself this.

"Hey, somethings over here!"

Approaching the out-of-place steeple, a much more apparent clearing came into view. She could not see much of it initially, but as she got closer, its size became more and more apparent, just as the building did. She called out to Cressida and what guards that managed to catch up to them.

"Beryl? Are you here? Beryl?"

Sophia yelled out as she approached, Cressida now joining her. As the two continued whilst awaiting a response, a weak call to them was heard. Their daughter calling back to them in response to their yelling.

"Moth-Mama Sophie! Mama Cress!"

Her voice was strained and weak, terminating from beyond a section of brush that obstructed their view into the clearing. The same thought ran through each Lamia's head.

What could make our daughter so weak as to call them by their in-house names?

"Beryl! We're on our way!"

Sophia yelled out, suddenly rushing forward to the brush. Cressida attempted to stop her or slow her down, but Sophia was absorbed in checking on her daughter too much to hear her partner just at that moment.

"Sophia-wait, careful!"

"Beryl, I'm almost- Ahhh!"

Sophia shot through the brush, greeted by a sudden decline that left her scrambling to maintain her balance as her body broke traction and she slid down into the clearing.

"Sophia! Be caref-... ful... By the Gods."

Cressida ceased her speech; her eyes caught on the source of the smell. The burnt flesh of a monster was inevitably the culprit; she assumed this. Yet the true source, the smoldering corpse of an absolutely massive Bulette, was a virtually unbelievable sight for her. She'd never seen one of this size, let alone expected to see it so far from the plains region to the west. Of course, who else was located in its proverbial shadow other than their daughter, Beryl. Coiled around her two friends, one of which was unconscious and the other bordering on it just as she herself appeared.

"Beryl!"

"Mama!"

Shortly after the fight ended, Beryl's parents and a group of guards found us in the clearing. It was maybe ten minutes after Beryl's second strike killed the Bulette. Now we were sitting in a tent alongside Beryl's family tent. On one makeshift bed, Beryl was laying down, now asleep from the exhaustion. She looked comparatively more sick than she should have been, at least by my experience so far with mana exhaustion. On another laid Vaughn, who was still unconscious. He seemed to be coming around as he mumbled things in his sleep and wasn't appearing distressed. I, however, was very stressed, sitting in front of two very distressed Mothers who were actively pressing me for some sort of explanation.

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