Heron met the Ashen Elemental’s charge. His aura spread across his spear, and he swept it at the thing’s torso. The elemental met his attack with a swipe of its arm, and when the two forces met, there was a loud bang and an explosion of sound and dust. Gwendith danced back a couple of steps even as she created several Ice Daggers via the Ice Bolt spell.

Saki cast her Shadow Bolts, which splashed against the elemental’s boiling cloud body, leaving nothing but ripples. The thing hesitated for a moment, but pressed the attack.

Heron spun his spear around and over his shoulder, then spread the aura covering it into a flat surface. The impact against the ashen cloud caused it to ripple, and the elemental froze in place as it struggled to contain the forces brought to bear against it. While it was occupied, Gwendith sent the daggers inside and swirled them around. The heat within the ashen cloud slowly transferred over to her daggers and melted the outer layers. That seemed to harm the creature more than the kinetic forces and it roared angrily at her.

It attempted to bypass Heron to get to her but now that they had a bead on its weakness, none of them would let it get the upper hand.

Saki cast Ice Bolt, and even if it took her a bit longer to cast than her native Shadow, it was more effective anyway. The bolts shattered over the elemental’s arms and torso. The creature didn’t have legs, but floated on a whirlwind. It rose above them, but Heron jumped over the creature and slammed it right back down.

Gwendith and Saki peppered it with Ice Bolts and the elemental’s pained roars soon turned to muted wails, then faded away entirely. The ashen cloud’s cohesion disappeared with a poof, leaving only a fist sized stone.

Gwendith stared at the stone for a long moment, then noted the way Fire Elemental energy seemed drawn to it, along with what she assumed was Earth Elemental energy. She couldn’t see the latter, but the Fire Elemental energy was twisting around something.

She picked it up with her kinesis, but nothing much happened. She half expected it to gather enough Elemental energy to revive, but that wasn’t the case. A couple of minutes later the stone stopped gathering energy and it seemed completely saturated. It actually began to leak out the energies now.

“Ah, we’re supposed to put that in a container to prevent it from leaking out completely,” Saki said. She reached into her backpack and came up with a metal box that was barely big enough to contain the stone.

“What is it, anyway?” Gwendith asked.

“It’s an Elemental Stone,” Saki said with a smirk. “The locals need these things to forge their Elemental Hearts. If it was pure, it would be worth a lot more, but this one is worth seven golds, I think. Maybe more, depending on the buyer. The Guild will buy mixed cores for that price though.”

“Hmmm, I guess this is a good haul,” Gwendith muttered.

“Yeah, but we need to find a way back first,” Heron said.

“Well, no sense in dawdling.”

They continued their original route heading towards the distant city. The layer of ash had receded and was replaced by low weeds and dust. She noticed dry stream beds every now and then, as well as fallow fields. The skies were overcast, and the sunlight dim and gloomy.

“Any guesses on how big this Chaos Fount is?” Gwendith asked idly.

“Who knows. It seems deserted though,” Heron said.

The solitude did not last for long, however, as an hour into their trek, they heard the sounds of battle. Saki cloaked herself in Shadows and hurried ahead, while Heron and Gwendith slowly followed. The sounds came from over a ridge, and when they crested it, they were greeted with the sight of several dozen combatants, humanoids mostly, fighting against each other. The distance from the ridge to the battle was about a couple of hundred paces, and though the two of them took care not to be obvious, they were still spotted by one side and soon fired upon.

The bullets plinked off Heron’s aura which he expanded to cover Gwendith. Both of them hastily backed out of the open, though the brief look had been more than enough. There were at least two sides, but Gwendith wasn’t that sure if that was all. Both wore something akin to uniforms. One side wore red overcoats, fitted to their bodies and looked similar to Imperial and Bresian fashion, while the other side wore concealing robes that were either grey with yellow stripes running down the arms, or pale blue with silver accents on the shoulders.

Both sides had erected earthen walls as cover and were shooting at each other with firearms or with spells. The ones in grey robes had the most weaponry, from long rifles with bayonets attached, to shotguns, shortswords on their waists, and what looked like pistols on the opposite side. The ones in pale blue robes were casting numerous spells that weren’t familiar to Gwendith, though that wasn’t really saying much as the only spellcasting she was exposed to were the Nirian style.

On the opposite side, the ones in red surcoats, were arrayed in a more disciplined line. The ones at the front shot volleys of bullets before ducking under their defences. Another line would stand to shoot, then duck back down. Each line stood and shot but not with any kind of regularity. They were able to catch the grey robes in a withering assault every now and then, while suffering little from the retaliatory strikes. The ones at the back cast spells, but it was geared towards neutrailising the enemy casters instead of seeking to deal damage to the grey robes.

Flankers from both sides shot at Heron and Gwendith, so she wasn’t sure where to place herself in the conflict. On the other hand, she wasn’t sure what they were fighting over, and only the annoyance of getting attacked without warning prompted her to try to retaliate. Heron looked calm, however, so she wasn’t going to stir anything else up.

A few minutes later, Saki came back. Gwendith and Heron had moved away from the ridge. She started building up their own cover using Conjure Earth, but it was slow going. Heron helped, of course, but he was rather slow at casting. He took nearly a minute longer than she would have to finish casting Conjure Earth and Stone, and even she took a couple of minutes to go through the fifty spell nodes the spell required. By the time they had a suitable nest, Saki had returned.

“They were fighting over one of these,” Saki gestured towards her backpack. “The robed ones won and have driven away the redcoats. They’re securing the perimeter, and they’re going to head over here in a few minutes.”

“The Elemental Stone?” Gwendith asked, and received a confirmation nod. “Who are they?”

“They were speaking in their native tongue, neither of which are Bresian.”

“Oh, that means we’re farther afield than we expected,” Heron said grimly. “What are our choices?”

“We could hide and follow them to their exit point,” Gwendith said. “Negotiate with them openly, or simply go our own way.” She pursed her lips. “Though both groups fired upon us without warning.”

“They were in the midst of battle. It's understandable,” Heron said. “Annoying, but understandable.”

Gwendith nodded. Left unsaid was the fact that neither of them really felt threatened by the group. It was an arrogant reaction, but she was a follower of the Ancient’s Way. She knew that they were stronger than any other practitioner at the same level, and it didn’t look like those groups were beyond the Magi level. Even so, Gwendith was confident she could overpower anyone at a level above her, especially considering that Magi were specialized for ranged combat. As long as they got close, they’d probably win.

She glanced at Heron and smirked to herself. Especially with Heron’s brute strength.

Still, there was little reason to get careless.

“Let’s go our own way,” Gwendith said. “We’re not in a hurry enough to take undue risk.”

They had more than enough ration bars stocked in their backpacks. Yuriko had given them the lion’s share of the supply, since she and the others were living in the city, there was little need to endure ration bar cuisine.

It was a bit too late, though, since by the time they exited their nest, the robed fighters were already cresting the ridge. A group of grey robes pointed their rifles at them, and yelled a few words in their native tongue. It sounded lyrical and rolled off the tongue, melding into combined sounds that made it somewhat difficult to distinguish individual syllables.

When neither of them answered, one of them fired a warning shot that slammed into the ground in front of them. Gwendith responded by flinging an Ice Dagger at the grey robe, which snagged his weapon and tore it off his hands.

They didn’t like that, of course, and after a yell of fury, the five grey robes opened fire on them.

Plink! Plunk!

The bullets slammed, then flattened themselves on Heron’s aura. He lunged towards them, spear already extended and poised to sweep them off their feet. Gwendith grinned viciously and conjured a dozen Ice Bolts using Arcana Weaving, though it took her a couple of seconds for each cast, she supplemented them with her Animus technique and reached the requisite numbers before Heron reached them.

The sound of gunfire was muted as the grey robes were using the enchanted bullet version rather than one that used gunpowder. Even so, it was loud enough in the silence of the Chaos Fount, enough to catch the attention of the remaining robed people. By the time Heron arrived in front of the grey robes, a dozen more of them, and a couple of blue robes, crested the ridge.

The blue robes immediately began to cast. Saki had faded into the Shadows, and unlike that time in the Wasteland, she was not easily distinguishable from the background Elemental energy.

Gwendith sent her Ice Daggers flying towards the casters, only for the grey robes around them to fling their bodies in the way. The Ice Daggers slammed into the cloth, tore through with some difficulty, and ultimately protected their charge.

The grey robes in front of them toppled as Heron cut their legs off them. Blood sprayed in the air, hanging like crimson jewels.

Whips of Shadow and Flame emerged from the two casters, each aimed at Heron. The fire whip lashed against his aura, and rebounded off, while the shadow whip coiled around his Anima armour, entangled his legs, and was pulled taut.

Unfortunately for them, Heron’s physique was more than a match for their strength. He had enough bodily strength to push down Yuri if he could get leverage, and that little leash was nowhere near strong enough to keep him at bay. The moment Heron moved back towards Gwendith, the shadow whip snapped. The blue robe holding it toppled over backwards with a high pitched squeal.

In the meantime, the Ice Daggers burst out of the grey-robed blockers and swept towards the blue robes, this time, they were blocked by a fiery shield that popped out of the robes. Gwendith grinned as she used her Ennoia control to siphon the heat out of the shield, leaving it sputtering impotently. She drew the heat towards her hand and extinguished it.

“Time to go,” she said to Heron and Saki.

The grey robes, the one still standing, glared at them warily. Their faces were barely visible from beneath the cowls, but Gwendith identified diverse races, from human, to beastkin, across the entirety of the troop. All of them were men, however.

“Wait!”

The shadow whip blue robe called out in heavily accented Wojan.

“What?” Gwendith called back, though she did not stop moving away.

“You’ve got a strong battle slave! How much for him?”

Gwendith blinked, and Heron’s eyes bulged as he mouthed, ‘Slave?’

Alright, now this was something else.