Chapter 212: Familiar Places

Chapter 212: Familiar Places

“This is where you... arrived?” Aila quietly asked, her voice only audible to the few standing near her. “Back in the spring?”

“This is it,” Jay replied, her own voice somewhat muted. “Well, technically I arrived somewhere up there, along that ridgeline to the northeast. But yeah, this is the place.”

“I can’t imagine spending so long in such a lonely place,” Eir murmured as her eyes traveled over the frozen scene. “Even more so when demons prowl the land.”

“I had ways of keeping myself entertained,” Syd assured the priestess dryly as she thought of her time spent in the temple under the watchful gaze of D’s smirking statue.

The day after Sabina had gifted Jadis with her cursed bracelet, the expedition had finally made it to the Sweet Pine Valley where Jadis had spent her first month on Oros. The first split-peaked mountain that Fortune’s Favored had come north to investigate lay to the east of the abandoned village. It wasn’t one of the mountains that made up the Sweet Pine Valley, but it was adjacent to them so it was relatively close by. Originally, Jadis hadn’t planned on stopping at the old mining village, but after the events of the fort ambush, she decided it was worth a visit.

From her view standing at the edge of the forest clearing, the village didn’t look much different from how Jadis remembered it. Certainly, the roofs were all covered in snow now, but otherwise the place was the same. Small stone buildings, abandoned to the elements. Several with caved-in roofs and at least one building had a whole wall missing on one side due to a suspicious tumble of logs that was piled up next to it. A temple with a tall tower stood at the far end of the village, practically abutting the cliff face that hemmed in the valley to the north. On the northwest side of the village rose a hill, at the top of which was an artificially created pond with a few buildings next to it, along with the wide entrance to a natural cave. While she couldn’t see them, Jadis also knew there were more buildings hiding in the woods surrounding the main village clearing.

The question was, what else was hiding in those woods?

“Lots of tracks,” Otto reported as he and Gerd came back from doing a quick scout around the village perimeter. “They look to be a day old, nothing as recent as this morning. No sign of movement, but the tracks go all throughout the buildings, including the hill.”

“Didn’t go close,” Gerd added in his hoarse voice. “But we could see tracks going into that cave.”

“Not much reason to go into a cave like that unless you’re mining ore,” Captain Willa muttered as she stared intently up at the hill.

“Or you’re running from something,” Dys commented. At Willa’s raised eyebrow, she shrugged. “We have some experience with the latter.”

Jadis and her team stood slightly off from the soldiers, but all had gathered at the south side of the village to observe and wait for word from the scouts. Otto and Gerd had been sent to scout the closer perimeter, but Ada and Friedkin had been sent to scout the larger area surrounding the village. Kerr had also stalked off into the woods to investigate, her direction fueled by Jadis’ description of a few buildings that she knew had cellars where people might choose to hide.

As they waited for the return of the other scouts, Willa stepped closer to the gathered Fortune’s Favored to review their plan of attack.

“Are you sure you three want to take the lead?” Willa asked as she eyed the three Nephilim. “Trap spotting isn’t in your skill sets.”

A statement of fact, not a question. Jadis couldn’t argue.

“No, it’s not,” Jay said as she took a step closer to speak with Willa directly. “But surviving huge amounts of damage is. We can take the hit if another ambush is sprung on us. Plus we’re faster than any of you, too. We can get out of the way if they try to drop that temple tower down on us.”

“I would hope they wouldn’t perform such a sacrilegious act,” Eir said with fervor. “A holy place dedicated to the worship of the gods should never be defiled in such a manner.”

“Should we check up there?” Bridget asked as she pointed her flail towards the hill.

“Not until the rest of the village is cleared,” Jay answered.

It took some time, but eventually they managed to check all of the buildings on the west side of the road, leaving just the temple to the north untouched. Willa and her troops finished their own search a minute or two later, reporting that they too had found no traps and no hidden enemies.

“What are the chances we won’t find anything in there?” Jay asked the captain as she motioned to the closed temple doors with her hammer.

“I don’t make bets,” Willa replied as she motioned for her men to take up positions along the side of the temple.

Jadis wasted no time and did the same. One thing she immediately noticed was that the large windows running along the sides of the temple had all been boarded up. When Jadis had left, they’d stood open, their glass shattered and presenting no barrier at all. One of the temple doors had been off a hinge, too, though that was no longer the case. Clearly someone had taken the time to secure the building.

Motioning for the others to stand back, Jadis’ three selves moved to the temple doors. Cautiously testing them, she found that they were barred from the inside. Readying herself for a trap, Jay took a step back before slamming her metal mallet into the doors, breaking them open in one powerful blow.

Nothing happened. No irritating powder. No spears or spikes. No giant boulder. Just the echo of a dark and empty ruin.

Taking careful steps inside, Jadis let her eyes adjust to the dim light, taking in what she could see. The interior of the temple was certainly different from how she’d left it. The old wooden pews had been removed, leaving the stone hall almost completely barren. One of the windows in the back of the temple had been fitted with stacks of stones, turning it into a makeshift fireplace. There were a few bits of trash and refuse left in the corners, things that Jadis knew she hadn’t tossed in those spots and looked like the remains of old meals or unwanted bits of cloth. There was one change in particular that took Jadis a moment to place. She almost didn’t realize, though once she did, she couldn’t help but let out a cry of confusion.

“What the fuck?” Jay cursed, taking a few more steps into the temple.

“What is it?” Willa called after her. “Any sign of the bandits?”

“No,” Jay shook her head. “Well, I guess, looks like they might have been living in here. But that’s not what I mean.”

The others cautiously made their way inside as Jay spoke, taking in what little there was to see. As Kerr peered around the dim hall, she shook her head.

“What’s the problem? Looks all clear to me.”

Barely after the archer had finished speaking her words, Eir let out a gasp of surprise.

“Where’s the statue?”

“What statue?” Willa asked as she drew up next to Jay.

“Exactly,” Jay said, pointing at the dais at the end of the hall where an empty pedestal stood. “Where the fuck is D’s statue?”