Even though Nura had been out the town many times leaving this time was hard. Every step towards the front gates felt harder and harder to make. In her mind it was like she was never going to see the town and all of its people again, even-though this wasn't the case. Nevertheless, she carried on, slowly strolling up the main street towards the town's gates. Loid was strolling just behind her, taking in the sights of the town before he left. There where plenty of shops and buildings he would have like to visit but he supposed that there would be more in Potentia to find. The people of Norton real had it good Loid thought. The perfect walled community, he wondered if they would come across anything remotely similar on there travels, community tavern, thriving and busy market, friendly residents. This revival to Loid spirit was definitely worth it. He was actually quite happy about the fact that he was back on the road exploring new places on the west of Potentia. In stark contrast Nuras slow stole had deteriorated to a sluggish hobble as the got closer to the gate.
"Did you experience much danger on your journey west?" Nura asked Loid hoping his answer would be no.
"Not much, I kept away from the main roads as much as I could. Even so there were some unsavoury individuals but once they figured out that I didn't have anything to steel they let me go on my way," Loid replied honestly even though he should have just said no. "It will be much safer traveling together though. Thieves are much less likely to target people traveling together, besides you have a Wonder of Man, that's as much fire power as we need if something does happen."
"You should know Amora isn't really an offensive Wonder of Man, sure she's much more powerful than your typical blade but she focuses more on defence than offence." Nura explained to Loid.
"Is that not a good thing, we should be protecting ourselves and staying away from confrontation as much as we can." Loid responded.
"Amora only has as much strength as I do, she is channelled through me after all. So, we still need to be very cautious," Nura felt it important to really drill in that Amora can only do so much for them. "What about you, can you hold yourself in a confrontation if it came to it," asked Nura curious to gage Loid combat skills.
"I've had my fair share of scuffles, I'll be able to hold my own if it came to it," he answered. As they got closer to the gates of the town. They were shut.
"Oi Nura, did you actually think you could escape without me knowing," an older man draped in armour yelled from the top of the gates.
"Oh shit," she said quietly under her breath.
"What is it?" Loid asked just as quietly.
"Dad…" she spoke in an almost silence.
Nura's father was a big man, either that or the thick layer of steel armour that looked like it was eating him alive made him look artificially larger. In all his define wisdom, Nuras dad decided to make one hell of an entrance by jumping of the walkway on the top of the tall gates and fell to the ground with a large thud. Loid didn't know what to think of the man, it was like he had gone slightly mad, who on earth would just jump of something that high. The crazier thing about it was he didn't seem faced by the drop at all, he picked himself of the ground and glared at Nura.
"I need you to clarify some of the things I've been hearing lately dear daughter," he said this while walking a little closer to Nura and subsequently Loid who was now unintentionally hiding behind Nura.
"What might that be farther?" Nura asked pretending to play it smart.
"Well first, you wonder back into town with a man, a stranger, a stray that you've picked up and brought in without knowing him at all," Loid slowly stepped back behind Nura, "Second you bring this, man, into my favourite tavern and get absolutely hammered with him. An absolute stranger. Then you bring him into my house where he could have done anything to you or our stuff. And to top it all off you are running away on some adventure with this man that you only met the day before. I absolutely forbit its young lady." Nura didn't know how to respond to this proclamation. "And YOU, Loid is that what you call yourself? Come forward."
Loid very slowly and silently emerged from behind Nura and made himself seen. The rage on the man's face was very apparent. "Hello sir, it's so nice to meet you." Loid stuttered his words in fear that this man, Nura's dad, would do something. He was after all the most powerful person in Norton.
"Hello Loid, my name is Darius Varon, and I am the Warden of Norton, now tell me, has my daughter caused you any trouble?" Darius asked completely flipping his previous tone on the head.
"Um, no Sir," he replied quickly not knowing how to speak to the man.
"Dad, listen, I need to do this. I need to go," Nura pleaded. She knew the man to be very iron willed, this made my aggravatingly stubborn, if he decided that she wasn't going to leave the town, then she wasn't going to leave it. Or at least he wouldn't make it easy. She new other ways, it wouldn't be impossible but with her dad knowing the guards would make it almost impossible.
"Why do you need to go daughter, why do you want to leave me like your mother did? You barely came back last time," saying this brought a tear to the man's eye. For the hard exterior that he portrayed it seemed that he was nothing but a kind caring man on the inside that didn't want his daughter in danger.
"I do this for mother, it is her legacy. Why do you think she went out all those times? She was trying to find something; she must have told you that at least. Let me find what she was looking for all those years," She panted trying to reason with the man.
"You're not going to stop are you, until you find what she gave her life looking for," Darius said mournfully.
"No, with every fibre of my being for the last ten years I have picked up where she left of, going out for days at a time like she used to, and I've finally found the last thing I need. There is nothing you can do to stop me leaving this town," She preached passionately at him hoping for him to give her his blessing and let her leave on good terms.
"Last thing you need?" He asked wanting clarification.
"Loid of course, another like me searching for something. I need him like mother needed me," said Nura trying to justify bringing a complete stranger with her.
"Fine, I give you my blessing, but you better come back alive. Id never forgive myself if you didn't, do you understand?" Darius yielded with a sigh and signalled the guards above the gate to open it.
"One last thing, Loid, you protect my daughter. Do you understand? I don't know why she's picked you of all people to take with her, but if you follow her, please make sure she stays alive," he spoke this in an extremely serious tone.
Loid, being pressured by Darius, started feeling some degree of responsibility and replied, "I will protect her to the best of my ability."
Darius remained silent, Nura used this an opportunity to signal Loid to follow her out of the town and Loid followed leaving the man in silent contemplation in front of the gates.
It didn't take long for the guards to shut the gate behind them leaving the couple outside of the town. When the two got a good distance from the gates Nura look the opportunity to discuss this resent encounter with Loid, "Protect her with the best of my ability," she giggled repeating what Loid had said to her farther. "I honestly can't believe that worked."
"He made me feel bad for him, what else was I meant to say?" he pleaded.
"Literally anything else," she continued to giggle, "At least I left on semi good terms with him."
The two set of from Norton back up the winding cobbled track they went down originally to get to Norton. Loid once again marvelled at the simple beauty around them, all of the ripe wheat and barley ready for harvest, all of the livestock grazing in the adjacent fields separated by a short, cobbled limestone wall. Nura on the other hand having seen this sight all her life was more focused on where she was going. She remembered, back she was a child she took this very route, it was like she was chasing her ghost. Up an endless track, meandering around the bendy footpath that devolved into a faint footpath that looked like a giant snake and bended and slithered it's way through the ever taller grass leaving a conveniently human shaped route to navigate through. Large boulders started littering the field as they got further and further in. Nura was transfixed aimlessly following this winding footpath into quite literally the middle of this random long grass field.
Loid was quite enthralled by his surroundings; it looks him awhile to figure out that they had already gone quite of course. He had been following Nura this whole way and noticed that she hadn't really said much since leaving Norton. "Nura?" he asked, no reply. She just kept walking forward fighting the dense brush, it was like she was looking for something in the middle of this random field.
"Nura!" He called out again, this time with some success. She turned around, not saying a word. "You, okay? Where pretty of track."
"Uhh yeah, I guess." She replied not believing herself.
"Where are we? you just started going this random direction," Loid asked a little concerned that Nura appeared to be unknowingly traveling in a direction that she didn't know.
"I don't really know, I was just following my nose and fell into a bit of a daze," she puzzled.
"Drink some water, you don't want to dehydrate yourself," Loid threw a water flask over to Nura.
"Thanks, but thinking about it this place does look familiar, like I've been here before," she gave Loid his flask back and had a wonder around the tall grass, Loid following closely behind so they didn't lose each other in the dense long grass.
"I could had sworn I had been hear before, all this tall grass is getting in the way, I can't see past a phew feet," she pondered out loud.
"What is that?" Loid saw through the dense grass a strange arrangement of large rocks and what looked to be a clearing. Nura Turned in faint excitement, she was enjoying this little mystery and exploring something she didn't quite understand, but that all changed when she saw what Loid had seen through the grass, one large bolder standing resolute in the centre of a collection of smaller stones surrounding it making a near perfect circle. Nura's face, before was excitement and intrigue, all of that had gone, replaced with a face of distorted horror and sadness.
Loid noticed the sudden change from Nura and swiftly asked, "Is everything alright?"
Nura didn't answer, she slowly walked towards the stone monument, past the remaining grass and into the clearing with the stones. Loid followed silently.
"Hello mum," she said so inaudibly that she might as well had said it silently. "How have you been all this time?" she placed her hand on a different stone that stood away from the circle. 'Hear lies Emlyn Varon, protector and defender to her family until her last second.'
She took Amora out of its sheathe, it had a faint glow that grew more potent the closer it got to its grave. She placed it carefully in front of the stone and knelt next to it. "Non sit malis audiam qualisque erat. Hunc locum sicut tu me protege, per omnia saecula." (Let there be no evil hear like there once was. Protect this place like you protect me, for all eternity.) The ground around the rock begun to glow and pulsate in rhythm with Amora growing in careful intensity before fizzling out back to normality.
The two of them stood silently for what felt like many minutes, Loid resigned himself to silence as he waited from some indication from Nura to begin speaking or making any noise for that matter. He felt it would be wrong to make any kind of comment or gesture given what he had just seen. This is because what he had just seen or at least what he thought he saw was sorcery.
Sorcery or any kind of magic or enchantment in this world was incredibly uncommon and usually heavily frowned upon. This was because the practice of it was, to put it simply inhuman. Sorcery was usually the tools of beasts and monsters inherited from their predecessors to wreak unimaginable havoc on whomever was unlucky enough to come across it. There were also the ancient races that no longer inhabited this mortal plain who used sorcery no different than a person using a ballpoint pen or a smith using a hammer. This is what some though the "ancients" used to forge the Wonders of Man and bestow such amazing gifts upon them. In this modder age though it was most likely to be used by what the common folk called witches. This was fortunately an uncommon stereotype and most witches where actually quite pleasant; they just got this unfortunate stereotype from being outcast by the common folk for using what they thought was dark magic but was more likely to be a normal jinx used to remove mice and other ferment from a pantry. Loid however did not know this, instead he elected to heed the common stereotype that magic was probably best left alone and decided to stay well away from it. So instead of electing to ponder why Nura was able to use what sounded like quite a complicated incantation he ignored it and decided blissful ignorance was the best cause of action. Nura however, after seeing the bewildered look upon Loids face decided it would be best in ignore Loid's notion of blissful ignorance and explain herself.
"I'm not a witch," she explained quickly while trying to analyse the interesting facial expression Loid wore on is weary face, "Its Amora," she pointed at the sword having picked it up placed it back into it sheathe.
"I used her to place a protection enchantment upon these grounds," at this point she was expecting Loid to make some kind of savage remark at her for using something forbidden as sorcery. Instead, his face loosened up and his expression went from one of mild horror to one of avid curiosity.
"Why would you risk doing something so controversial over some standing rocks?" he asked not seeing the very obvious headstone that until now Loid could not see behind Nura, who after hearing this question moved slowly out of the way so Loid could see better.
"This is the resting place of my late mother Emlyn, this is also the place where I inherited Amora, as such my connection to her is quite strong hear. She compelled me to cast a protection enchantment on this land so no harm can come to anyone hear ever again." Nura who had generated a small tear in her right eye after recalling the events ten years prior didn't quite know why she was saying this, in-fact she confessed to herself that she really didn't want to say what she had just said. Maybe out of fear that Loid might turn tail and run after seeing she had used dark magic, or at least that's what she would have thought in his shoes. Or maybe deep down she thought that Loid should just know what transpired here ten years prior, or simply she just felt the need to vent to someone about her mother and Loid was not only conveniently nearby but also couldn't really escape any potential explanations she may have to say. She thought this any many other observations all at once in some confounded way of justifying it to herself. Before she could make any comment on the matter to anyone Loid stepped in and with some uncanny wave of understanding in his voice said, "I understand, you don't need to explain anymore if you don't want to, but if you want to talk about it, its not like I'm going to be particularly far away given current circumstances".
Nura was pleased to hear this and decided it would be best to yield to Loids offer of consultation, especially since it was kind of relevant to the current journey they where on. Nura gestured towards couple of the smaller standing stones in the ring of stones just past the grave of Emlyn and sat down leaning against one of them. Loid shortly followed and sat aside her on another one of the stones. Once the two had settled she began speaking.
"It was ten years ago," she sighed heavily and continued. "My mother, Emlyn would often take me on these trips, kind of like we are now. We would go anywhere and everywhere, up and down steep hills and along long roads to the middle of nowhere. One day we found ourselves going down a long grassy path north from Norton to a strange arrangement of stones in a near perfect stone. This just so happens to be this very location; we spent a number of hours hear in blissful silence. You see we would go to these places so mother could meditate with Amora, she was looking for something, very much like we are now. This blissful silence didn't last forever, however. No, the silence was broken by a dreadful shriek! It came from the tree line to our west; you won't see it now though because this grass has grown so much over these many years. Anyway, this unholy sound came barrelling towards us and with this horrid sound came an equally horrid, berserk beast. This thing had a bloody blade strapped to its hand. It was attached to him from the hilt with these bloody looking thorny vine things, it turned out that this huge weapon turned out to be one of the Wonders of Man. It caught mother of guard; she was in a deeply meditative state with Amora and so was substantially weakened by the time I could get her out of her trance. She put up a great fight, weakened the beast substantially but," She got to the bit she really didn't want to reimagine. "But it got the best of her in her weakened state and took her life, but not before throwing Amora at me. That was the first and only time I've had a proper face to face conversation with Amora, she promised she would do anything in her power to protect me in exchange for something in return, that I don't know exactly but in that instant, a ten-year-old me had touched and interacted with a Wonder of Man. It should have killed me. But I suppose Amora kept her promise and protected me. Anyway, with the beast weakened by my late mother and with the unrestrained power of a Wonder of Man I was able to finish that despicable beast off. I don't remember anything after that, just waking up in Norton a couple of days later with Amora clenched tightly in my hand, I was told by the nurse that was looking after me that I absolutely refused to let go of her the entire time I was unconscious, and I haven't let her out of my sight since." She paused for a moment to let that sink in, she had never told that hole story to anyone, not even her father. She had guessed that her farther had figured out the story himself and refrained from asking Nura, a shaken ten-year-old, for any of the grim details. Or at least she had assumed as much given that the disgusting bloody weapon used to reap her mother of her life was chained and bared with every protection imaginable in their family vault.
After a phew moments Loid thought it best to say something to Nura to consol her after recalling something she very clearly would have rather buried deep in her mind where she would never have to relive it again. "I'm so sorry to have made you relive that."
"No, its fine, I think you should know this anyway because I think the thing we are looking for is the same thing my mother was looking for before she handed Amora to me subsequently handing me the mission she had been on for all those years." She smiled and continued, "On the bright side most of the work has been done for us."
"How do you mean?" Loid pondered as he picked himself up and leaded back against the stone.
"A good couple years after mother passed, I was allowed access to mothers private study, it turns out that whether she meant it or not she had left me hundreds of research notes." She pulled out an ancient looking leather-bound book from her pack and showed Loid. "I've compiled these into one of he