Antieeld felt a sort of message trickle into her mind through what little light could pierced through the steam, making the commandant frown as she retrieved her sabre from the chest of a formerly living elite invader, it did not seem one wanted to mutate.
'Attacking from the south? Probably a tunnel? Mmh… This is getting more and more suspicious' the red-haired girl cleaned the blood off her sword and continued onward, she had stepped into steam by herself, or rather, without the company of people of flesh and blood, she had her own allies that could appear at a moment's notice.
From the very beginning, she had been alert about the movements and decisions of the enemy force, so far, it seemed like they wanted to have as many casualties as was possible, but also, it felt like they truly wanted to accomplish something on their own, whilst those two concepts seemed to clash, it didn't have to be the case.
'They have many means, and seemingly access to countless ways of power, including those strange magic items that work with silver wires and other strange devices… I haven't found any proof of it yet, but what if they aren't just having troops walk through the portal and then leave the area? What if they teleport them out instead? What if their gateway can be controlled to appear outside of their hideout for a short while to deploy troops? Then, their base of operation could be completely closed off and impossible to discover by just walking around…' she had spent quite a few sleepless nights trying to find out, and even gotten the assistance of Molc, Spula and many others in her attempts at cracking a certain mystery, which answer should tell the commandant who the invaders were proceeding.
But they weren't fools, they must have learned extreme caution through whatever horrific training the undead subjected them to, as they constantly ran decoy operations, made feints, feigned actions, or cancelled some of them at random intervals, the groups that ventured about were part of that, they made it seem like those ventures had a clear purpose, a goal and a destination, but often, it was all just fluke, or not that important.
No one had ever actually witnessed their reinforcements arriving and putting themselves in place, at one time they weren't there, and the next, they simply were, the invaders always did anything important under the cover of the night, they waited for the emerald moon to be totally absent to do anything, always awaiting total darkness.
And furthermore, they would employ further methods, casting veils and opaque barriers, and taking into account the fact that most of these were mere distraction, Antieeld had never even been able of confirming that soldiers were coming from the steamy region at all.
'If they do not need a physical exit to their base… Then they could be directly beneath my feet, surrounded by countless means to prevent detection, and I wouldn't even have the slightest of clues…'
Antieeld grasped her sword, but was quick to relax as the presences she felt were actually familiar ones.
"Fancy running into you four here, did you find anything?" she asked, stepping up to the quartet.
"Well, we ran into this suspicious area, see how the pebbles all over here seem to have been pushed further away? It feels flatter than the rest too… But we can't figure out if this is a red herring, or if we are just not finding how this works" explained Eppie, the mage was the leader of the group, by simple virtue of being the least volatile, having been deemed the thinking head amongst the four for quite a few years before even stepping into the Emerald Realm.
"You can summon spectres, or shades of sorts, right? Can they go through the ground and check if there is actually anything?"
"They can go through somewhat thin surfaces only, and I can only summon them where I know for certain that there is an empty space, so no, I cannot check that way" she replied, looking at their disappointed expressions.
"Why not just break down the ground? Ample amounts of spirit life should be flooding in soon, so no one will give you an earful for a bit of destruction"
"Ah! What did I say? We should just smash everything down!" Cassi raised her kanabo and didn't wait for further confirmation to channel a battle art and bring it down on the ground, although the redhead wasn't any bigger than the average Tamarisian woman, she hit like steel chariot at full speed, repeatedly slamming against the stone, like some sort of demented miner as her figure went out of sight, actually moving down into the ground.
Antieeld allowed a slight expression of surprise on her face, although she had interacted with these four many times over the years, she still tended to forget that they had originally hailed from peasantry and were far less refined than their clean looks and Tochian-style clothing implied, so she had not expected Cassi to just get to hammering without stop like the earth beneath their feet owed her money.
"Aherm… Did you encounter any of their elites?"
"Yeah, some cold guy with a trident, almost turned into into some beast with antlers even after having his head turned into liquid, pretty strong and could create and manipulate some freezing mist, I would have liked to check something as I didn't sense any energy being used, but even with four of us, I didn't really feel like trying to defeat him without killing him, like… Those guys are not strong like they are super scary, but not weak enough to be jokes, they hover somewhere in the middle, like you know that you have the advantage, but still feel a bit nervous, you know?"
"I see what you mean, though, I don't think that is the case for all of us…" Antieeld turned to the side, having just sensed three people approaching the area as well.
"We heard some severe destruction and tremors… But it seems like it was nothing to worry about?" Helena spoke first, realising that it was the 'big club girl' as some called her, that was responsible for the mess.
"There was something suspicious, so we had to check- Cassi! Notice anything yet?" Lynn lowered herself by the edge, her voice echoing down into the pit.
"What's happening? Is it here?" Eppie did the same and moved close to the edge.
Soon enough, all three other members of the quartet were mimicking one another under the gaze of the other four people present.
"Nah, I broke through the bottom of the realm, and I think that there is a Queen Arahtazthat that isn't happy about it… She's looking at me weird… Oh, it's because I blasted the portion her eggs were stuck on and they fell into the void… I… I'm sorry?"
"The bottom?! It's so close? But more importantly, get back up here before you get mauled!"
"At least we know for sure that the invaders did not put their base in this exact place, there is no room for doubt"
"Is she going to be alright?" asked Milo, interrupted the mage and archer discussion amongst themselves
"Probably, Cassi is like a little child who falls and hits walls, somehow never gets hurts"
"I heard that!" the redhead popped out of the hole, covered in dust and dirt.
"Well- Oh, we have some company"
Multiple silhouettes were drawn through the steam.