Melding with her surroundings, Harriet slowly followed in her Captains footsteps, his magic suppressing any sound he made. For her it was always eerie how he could walk so quietly, in his at least for a mage, heavy armor. If someone were not looking at him, they would only notice his presence the moment he strikes. It was a useful skill to have while out on hunting missions.

  People would always ask them in secret, if their captain was truly a mage, as he always dressed more like a warrior. But she, and her teammates, knew how dangerous their leader was. Especially within tight spaces… like the deep forest of their last mission, or within buildings … like they should expect for their current one.

  Rounding the corner of a small warehouse, just beyond the wall, both almost stepped on the first body of the day. Its clothes identified him as a mage of apprentice rank, within his society the lowest rank. Cause of death seemed to be the large burn wound going down from his neck, to his lower back. His robes, near the wound completely burned away, had long stopped smoking, and now showed his badly burned back to the outside world.

  The surrounding building had traces of the battle as well. Soot stains and burn marks everywhere. It was too early to speculate what had happened.

  Following the street, Harriet noticed two more corpses and an oddity. “Captain …am I the only one with the impression that these two, both mages of the ember-society, had fought each other?” If you look at the body near the wall over there” she said, pointing at a dead mage, leaning his back against a building wall. ” it is obvious that he died from shock and blood loss after getting hit by a, as it looks, potent fire spell, in the face… poor guy by the way”. “ And the other one, over there” she gave a short nod to the third corpse of the day, lying face down on the ground, “ had his feet, up to the knee burned away”. “ Both are facing each other, more or less”.

  Captain swift followed her direction and taking a closer look of his own, signaled his intent to take her observation for now into consideration. “But we still don't know the reason for all of this. what happened here last night?” was the only return question, she got out of him.

  These many dead bodies, so early in their investigation, did not help the odds of finding any survivors deeper in. By now, reaching the central administrative building had become their number one Priority. There they should find information about the last missions, these people had participated in, and if some unexpected had happened. Something could motivate someone to start a small civil war over.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  And why were these apprentices so badly burned? With their magical understanding, not one of them should be able to put out so much energy. That is not how mana, and magic works.

  Whatever had happened that night had led to many dead bodies and a large group fleeing the camp as soon as they noticed the unfolding violence.

  Suddenly, captain swift signaled her to stop advancing. Looking in his direction, she saw him pointing to one of the small ditches, running throughout the camp. These were obviously for the remains of natural, human processes… and smelled so as well.

  But the smell was not the point of interest here, instead it was the human remains, halve buried within the ditch. And these were by now nothing more than blackened bone shards.

  It almost looked like this one, was overusing his mana channels so much, that he literally burned himself out over it. But that self defeating act went against all common sense.

  Entering the administrative building, both noticed the smell of roasted meat, drifting into the enclosed corridor, from the mess hall on the far side of the opposite wall.

  To their left, near the building's entrance, was the small staircase leading up the second floor, and down to the guard station, marked by obvious signs.

  By now both were sure that nobody else was alive in this camp. This meant on the other hand that they could search alone, without risking getting dragged into direct conflict with other mages.

  With a short nod to the ground, Harriet indicated her intention to go down the stairs and visit the guard post.

  Deciding to meet up again, in a few minutes, they split up with her going down and captain swift taking up the second floor.

  The moment she had arrived at the lower floor, leading up to the guardstation, she heard strange noises, coming from the single jail cell in the adjacent room.

  Thinking about it, in all the carnage, she had not noticed until now, that they had never seen any animals inside the camp. And so many remains were welcome meals for scavengers.

  But the source of the strange noise was not a rat, but the single girl occupying the only jail cell.

  She looked small and with her off-white skin and hair color almost vanished under white bed sheets of the little cot, placed in one of the rooms corners.

  The noise Harriet was hearing came from the girl, and almost sounded like she was snoring.

  Except, Harriet had noticed right at the door that the strange girl was not sleeping and just pretending.

  Having found the seemingly only survivor, one who liked silly games, Harriet decided to return to the main entrance and wait for her captain. It was, by now, only a matter of time ,to regain access. Her two other team members should by now have arrived at the central building as well.

  Harriet was still angry that they had no down time between their last mission and this excursion. But this won't stop her from having some fun at their upcoming meeting and talking last.

  She was curious how the others, including their captain, would react, when hearing about the single survivor, sitting useless inside a jail cell.