It was like that most terrible sensation of falling when lying down on your bed, which always had the perfect timing to appear right as you fell asleep, this feeling of freefall only manifested for a split second normally, but right now, it was continuous, and it grew stronger, as they were pulled to the left, the right, as perception of the cardinal directions were flipped upside down.
Until finally, Isilt feet touched the ground, which did not mean much as he still felt as though he was falling for a few second, this coupled with the intense nausea making his head spun round and round, he fell right on his backside struggling to keep the content of his stomach within even though he had already endured the teleportation once, which was not the case for everyone.
Feeling a warm carpet of sludge-like liquid spreading over his chest, the trainee could only blame his instincts to protect Pitit, by grabbing her, he had ensured that all would be puked directly upon him, at point blank.
Swallowing the need to also empty his bowels, Isilt stared up at the knight draped in a white cloak, green metal decorating the helm, there was no doubt about it, if he had not been convinced by the barrage of javelin only one person was known for, then the knight-in-training was certain now.
"Sir Aramap! How- What was this?" he wanted to ask multiple questions at once and just ended up mixing them together.
"Knightling, you are lucky, I was not certain to be able of helping anyone, my job was only to ambush the undead"
Taking his helm off, Aramap sighed heavily.
"Follow me you two, and take off that shirt kid, it's beyond filthy" listening the first knight, Isilt finally paid a closer attention to his surroundings, he first thought himself to have been transported to the royal castle, after all, it only made sense for it to be the base of operation, but no.
Clearly, this was not the stronghold that stood as the first line of defence against the rest of the continent, the walls were naught but jagged rocks, lights was provided by luminescent moss growing all over the place, even though Isilt had only even been the royal castle once before and never really seen much of it in details, he felt confident that the regal home of his king was not a cave.
Only the easterners lived in caves, everybody knew that.
Aramap led the way, Pitit still reeling for the wild ride she had just gone through, thankfully, there was nothing else to be unloaded into a spray, Isilt did as he was told and carefully took off his shirt, not wishing to drag the filth right across his face.
"Are you alright?" he asked his sister, who definitely looked a lot paler than normal.
"No… My stomach feels like it got turned inside out…"
"Why did you do that? You could have gotten yourself killed back there!" Isilt knew very well that one strike from Frenand was all it would have taken to kill her.
"It's alright… His soul would always shine bright when interacting with children, it was obvious that he would not do anything…" after learning about the undercover operations thanks to her brother and Grigri, Pitit had also begun paying closer attention to the undeads patrolling the farmlands.
The undeads had souls like livings did, only that they tended to hover in between dark and bright wildly, specifically, their souls would turn brightest when interacting with one another, and darkest when interacting with the living, as though they all had dual-personalities that came forward depending on the situation.
By focusing so much on her curious ability that she had never really brought into question, since she had been capable of seeing souls, or whatever it was, Pitit only referred to them as souls for convenience, as such the girl had not realised that it was odd until quite late in life.
In any case, by actively using this special ability, it seemed like more could be gleaned about the souls of others.
The soldiers and knights of the vanguard might hold particularly beautiful or vile souls, but all were also severely bound by a firm loyalty, a reverence that took precedence upon their reasonings and personality, they answered to this allegiance before anything else.
But of course, there were a few exceptions, as she had claimed, Frenand's soul would get exceptionally bright when he was faced with younger livings, it had still been a bit of a bet on her end to use herself as a rampart in this instant, but she kept this fact to herself.
Isilt could only shake his head, what was done was done, but he had to think about the rest of their family who would inevitably wonder what had happened to them.
Helping his sister to get back onto both feet, they walked after Aramap, who moved in wide strides, moving through vast tunnels, they eventually reached an opening, illuminated by even brighter moss, simple tents and cabins populating the view alongside small ponds of brilliant waters, and corneaus grazing upon patches of grass, redlemon flowers blooming here and there.
It was incredible, Isilt remembered spending some time in a few mines as part of his training to build up some muscle, and he definitely remembered that even the natural mines never went very far deep, most were purely man-made.
His gaze landed upon the central pond, or rather, what was within it, a misshapen mass standing upon a pole, Isilt did not know what he was looking at, but it seemed to be moving.
'Why does that have a soul?' Pitit stared at the dull shine of this being, viewing it as an actual creature, she recognised that it had ribs pushing against its skin, a face that was partly encased into its own chest, being basically nothing but a limbless body of some sort of beast.
"Don't worry about this, it's just another gift from Maulerd, the most valuable of them" explained Aramap succinctly.
"It seems like the undeads dismantled our little operation, it was always prone to failure, but it is worse than expected, but on the bright side, they are probably convinced that this was our main plan…"
"...In any case, you two should probably get some rest, things might start to get hectic around here" with these parting words Aramap pointed them to an empty tent and moved toward a cabin that was clearly placed in a more important spot than the rest.
Aramap went to meet with the king.