Letting Thera stop to sleep and eat for just a few hours before the sun rose, it wasn’t long until they were on their way again, once more speeding through the clouds, only dropping back down when Abel spoke up. “You’re coming to another site. Maybe four hours behind?” Four hours isn’t bad. Slowly but surely they were gaining on him, the shifter fast but all of them faster thanks to Thera covering the transport, with her carrying them down closer to the ground but without stopping, the lower altitude solely to run a minor investigation of what Abel had seen fit to point out. With it being a town that time, marking their fourth settlement which by all accounts had seemed empty to her when she’d raced through it using her creations but still demanded at least a cursory look for survivors, even if they had to do what they could to make it quick. Every delay meant that someone else could die somewhere farther ahead but any intel there might have been to gain from anyone who hadn’t been killed would have been invaluable, even if Ben quickly found that once more, it wasn’t meant to be. Flying above the rooftops, he stretched out his soul as far as it would go, hoping to find someone, anyone, yet once more the place was left empty and barren, same as the rest and a result that left him clenching his jaw before speaking up. “Nothing, let’s move on. If Foast was here only a few hours ago then that means we’re close, so Thera, do you think you can go any faster?” Read full story at 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹✦𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖✦𝓷𝓮𝓽 “It will make it hard for me to react and put more strain on my mana, but yeah, I can if you help me out.” He sped up her thoughts to compensate for the increase in speed and felt the instant acceleration as he started dumping his mana into her pool, with his regeneration rate creating enough leeway to help top up what she was losing as they went, helping them make more and more progress as the time ticked down until eventually something appeared in the distance, leaving a sinking pit in his stomach. Somewhere he’d been to briefly before, ahead was a city. Not one he’d ever seen from that angle but his mind was perfect and easily able to rearrange the buildings he’d seen from within its limits to tell him he’d been within its bounds in the past and let him know exactly what he’d left there. A gate, the network utilized by people the world over and the very thing that would give the shifter access to the planet as a whole. Would he use it or just kill his way across the place like he did the last? Ben wondered. If he’s being actively controlled then there has to be some sort of range between him and whatever’s controlling him which would mean it wouldn’t make sense to let him through when that would either break the effect or create room for the effect to wear off but what if it’s more passive? What if his mind’s been restructured somehow to make him an obedient slave instead of leaving whatever did this to him needing to constantly supply new commands? If that’s the case, then he could go anywhere to fulfill the role he’d been given and from everything we’ve seen, he’s being made to kill. Fuck. “Abel, how far from him would you say we are?” “A few minutes. We’re catching up.” “Okay, give me a moment.” Myriad Myriad Myriad! We’ve almost caught up to him, but Foast has just reached the gate city of Welenot. Whatever you have to do to make it happen, get the gate blocked as soon as you can. Hell, get the closest earth or ice or barrier mage to completely seal it off, I don’t care what. We can’t have so much as a fly getting through! Well, you’d better start working on it while I do my best to sort things out on the other side! “Alright everyone, we’re going to do the best we can here but we’re going to have to work fast, which means expect a rough landing. Group one, contact the adventurers’ guild and tell them there’s an emergency in the city, make them aware of everything we know as quickly as possible. Group two, the same thing but for the local guards. Remaining groups, this is a gate city, so your job will be to keep anyone from coming in and leaving until the gods finish arranging having it blocked off or getting someone else to help and you need to remember, he could look like anything. A person, a pet, a bug, you can’t let anything through. Should anyone give you any issues, tell them you’re under orders from the apostle of Myriad as well as two third tiers. Do whatever it takes to get the seriousness of this across while myself and Abel do our best to handle the situation.” “So I’m on the gate,” Thera asked him. “You are. If you want to encase the entire thing in stone, I say go for it and just keep anyone else from breaking it down. Even if he escapes from us here, I don’t want him getting in the network.” With Abel there, he didn’t think they’d lose him but he didn’t want to take the risk. Foast was there, just needing to be found and as Thera came to a sudden stop at the city’s edge, the change in momentum throwing them all forward for how quick it had been, they wasted no time jumping out of their craft and running, feeling their feet pound on the ground below them for all of a few steps until faced with an instant need to change their plans entirely as he connected to the group to tell them as much, slowing down in the face of who he could already see in the distance. Foast, the true shifter, waved happily to them, a bright smile on his lips from across the street as he called out, seeming light and casual and completely happy to see them as he spoke up. “Well well, I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon, now was I? Ben, Thera, Abel, what brings you all out here?” With the world frozen around him for the question, Ben faced a completely different problem. A mistake based on a faulty assumption. When Foast had walked over, he’d entered Ben’s range, showing him that everything he’d thought he’d had to deal with was wrong.