Eight Intertwined II

230 - Gate

In the end, Cyrus didn't spend any time in the library in Duskbarrow's ruins. The travelers were too tired to even think of continuing their research that night, so they instead took that as their cue to turn in for the night. They fell right asleep after returning to the inn, each of them ready for what the next day and the next leg of their search would bring them. 

Once again, the plan was for them to split up into three groups to cover as much ground as possible. They would be able to travel to six towns in one day via two groups of three and one group of two. The first party consisted of Olberic, Cyrus, and Ophilia, and they would be going to Riverford in the morning and Wellspring in the afternoon. Primrose, H'aanit, and Tressa would go to Sunshade and then Marsalim. Lastly, Alfyn and Therion would start in Northreach before going to Orewell. The group had decided they may as well send a group to every town they had visited in the past just to make sure they covered all of their bases. They would be rather be safe than sorry, and if that meant making a few unnecessary visits to towns that yielded no information, then that was alright. 

While they hadn't gleaned much the day before, what they had found was weighing heavily on all of them. Olberic's first thought that morning had been about the voice whispering to Ophilia through the Sacred Flame. He believed her when she said that it was Aelfric, but he was worried about it all the same. What had happened for Ophilia to get back in contact with Aelfric? That hadn't happened since she had the Ember, and much had changed since Aelfric last directly summoned her somewhere. Olberic had assumed that it was nearly impossible for the gods to reach out to the travelers without some kind of vessel, and the Ember had been a stand-in for Aelfric even before the group arrived at his shrine. If that was the case, then why had Ophilia been able to hear her through the Sacred Flame?

The far more concerning fact about that entire situation though was what Ophilia had learned. If Aelfric was right--and Olberic had no reason to doubt her--then that meant that Galdera's champion was still out there. Beyond that, none of them knew who it was. Olberic kept pressing his mind to give him any details possible about the strange chosen of Galdera, but he always came up short in the end. He felt like he should have known who it was, but he never uncovered what he needed to. What was he missing? What were all of them missing?

Whoever the woman was, she must have taken over operations of the Obsidians after Simeon and Mattias passed on. Someone must have killed Esmeralda, and Olberic didn't know who else it could have been. The woman who Esmeralda mentioned before her death had to be the same mastermind they were faced with finding now. Unfortunately, their only lead was now being buried beneath the sands of Grandport, and Olberic doubted they would be able to learn anything from Esmeralda's corpse. 

He pushed the thought as far out of his mind as he could when his group arrived at the border of Riverford. Olberic blinked slowly, and he glanced up to see the town had already started to improve massively in the wake of Werner's death. There were no more guards stationed at the edge of the city, and as such, there was no reason for Olberic to slip the army a bribe to let himself inside. The pollution in the air seemed a bit less severe too, though Olberic couldn't say for certain how great of a change had been made in that department. It would take a long time for the land near Riverford to heal and finally return to full life, but at least there was already progress being made. 

The mission for the day was to ask Harald once again if he had found anything in Werner's records. The travelers had already investigated Werner's estate as much as they could back when Riverford was first reclaimed, but it never hurt to look around once again. If they missed the one crucial detail that would have told them the truth behind the Gate of Finis, then they never would have forgiven themselves. Olberic's hopes were appropriately low, and he didn't think they would find something new, but he allowed himself a bit of optimism going into the city.