A/N:

Part 1:

RK: Well, we tried to post this yesterday but apparently FF doesn't like us and wouldn't post it even though it sent out emails (including to us) about how it posted. Still not sure exactly what happened but Mara no longer remembers our password and was away from the computer yesterday which means she couldn't do anything about it. And I had school until late plus things went down, so I couldn't figure out what happened either. So posting had to wait a day, which actually kinda worked in a way.

So yeah, sorry about that, I just figured I should let you know about it, hence the part 1/part 2 of the A/N. (The part two was the original planned but slightly edited A/N we had originally had)

Part 2:

RK: Well, this is really exciting!

Mara: And why is that?

RK: Because! It's our one year anniversary! Meaning we've been working on this fic for a year! (Or rather posting it) It's been a long run and we may not have gotten as much done as we'd hoped but it's been a work in progress and I say that's an awesome accomplishment!

Mara: So we wanted to thank everyone who has been a part of our fic so far, those who read it/like it/review it and especially to our beta reader IHaveNoIdea8 for sticking with us this long and hopefully much longer.

RK: Seriously, we have to thank you. I know that if it wasn't for some of the reviews that we've gotten, I likely would've stopped writing especially when Mara had to leave for awhile. It's awesome to know that we have people who like our story enough to favorite it or follow us or even review for us.

Mara: Here is chapter 11, and you'll have to thank RK for this since I actually had no part in it, been too busy working to be able to help her out.

RK: Enjoy and please stick around with us for much much longer!

"You know, when you said morning, I thought the sun would be up!"

To say she was annoyed was an understatement. She'd been woken up and was told to get ready, with the sun not even peaking over the horizon.

"The Colonel wanted to get a head start; we're already running behind," Tear told Valeria as she checked the blonde's wound once more. "It's fully healed, though you should probably ride on Nyla until we get to Akzeriuth."

Valeria looked at Nyla and sighed, "I bet miss furbutt over there would've made me anyway, even if you hadn't said that."

Tear looked at Nyla and chuckled softly, then appeared confused when Valeria gave her an odd look. "What?"

"Nothing, just never figured you laughed a lot. I mean it's clear you like cute stuff, you spend a lot of time around Mieu and have given Nyla some looks when she's being playful."

"W-what?"

"It's not a bad thing, just means you're human. Everyone has some sort of weakness," Valeria told the melodist as she began placing bags back on Nyla's back. Though as she looked around she realized one very important thing. "One of my knife pouches is missing..."

"Did you say something?"

Valeria didn't respond as she thought it through. She'd had them before the fight with Aeron, but now she didn't. So either she dropped them... Or Aeron had taken them from her...

Either way, she was pissed. The pouch that was gone was the one she'd just gotten in Baticul, and she hadn't had a chance to use the new blades yet.

"Hey, Jade? Did you see one of my knife pouches on the ground near the fight?"

Valeria knew it was too much to hope that he had her knives, but she liked having a variety of knives to choose from. And if she'd been thinking about it logically instead of just using instinct, she would've used her new knives against Aeron.

"I wasn't aware you'd gotten another pouch, so I hadn't checked to see if there were any lying on the ground. The only knife we have that didn't automatically go back into your pouch is the one that Aeron, I believe you said his name was, had managed to stab you with."

Valeria growled under her breath, a noise Nyla seemed to take insult with, as the Arka looked affronted.

"However," Jade continue,. "I did come across some knives. When the Sword Dancer disappeared, he seemed to have left them behind. I'd actually forgotten about them until now."

Valeria eyed him carefully, knowing that last bit had to have been a lie. That jerk never forgot things, but she supposed this might've been the first time he could've brought it up.

"Can I have them, then?"

Again, he seemed to hesitate, but nevertheless dug into his group's wingpack to pull out a handful of darkly colored knives.

The moment Valeria took them from his hands, she could see why he'd hesitated.

These knives were enchanted.

Before she could look into them more, she heard movement on the other side of their camp, followed by some sort of whining. Valeria rolled her eyes. Luke was awake.

Thanking Jade, Valeria got out one of her spare pouches and placed the knives in there, promising herself a better look later.

They'd walked awhile before Valeria had realized that someone was walking closer to Nyla than she thought he would.

Glancing over at the blond, Valeria raised an eyebrow. "You look like you want to say something, but can't form the words. What's up?"

"O-oh, uh…" The swordsman ran his hand through his hair, looking embarrassed. "I just wanted to apologize."

"Huh…?" The fonist blinked at him, not sure why he would possibly need to apologize. "What for?"

"When we were fighting that Aeron guy," he explained. He seemed to hope that was all he needed to say, but continued when he saw her confused stare. "He kicked me away and my sword sliced your collarbone."

Valeria honestly couldn't remember that happening, so she went over the fight in her head. It hit her a moment later and she hung her head before looking at the blond walking next to Nyla. "You do realize that it wasn't your fault, right? Aeron's fighting style is keyed to stuff like that, in fact he loves it when he manages to induce friendly fire, so to speak. I don't blame you for that injury, not to mention it was healed pretty fast anyway."

"You sure?"

"Yep, nothing to worry about, I know it wasn't your fault," Valeria assured him.

Guy looked relieved, so apparently he'd been worried about it for some time. Glad that it was cleared up, he moved forward to walk next to Luke.

A couple of hours later, they began to see signs of Akzeriuth. A purple haze was filling the air miles ahead of them and seemed to drop into the ground.

No, Valeria realized, into the town itself. She'd forgotten that the mining town was actually mostly below ground, dug further and further into the earth.

Seeing their destination in sight, Jade had them pressing on, so within the hour they were walking into the haze-filled town.

The sight that greeted them had Valeria's insides growing cold.

Bodies littered the ground all around them, some covered in no-longer white sheets and the smell had both Valeria and Nyla cringing as well.

How many people had died because of this? And how many more had died because of the side trip they'd had to take...

Nyla came to a stop, so Valeria jumped down and walked forward a bit more, looking at the disease and destruction the miasma has caused.

Buildings had been boarded up and had pillars supporting their structures, as if to try and keep them from falling apart. Yet the more she took in, the more Valeria saw the destroyed lives that had been a part of this large town.

"This is worse than I imagined."

Valeria looked at Jade, a frown on her face. "If you thought it was going to be bad, why did you come with me to Choral Castle?"

"Are you sure you want to bring that up? After all, you did need our help to defeat the Sword Dancer."

Valeria made a face, but then again, even if she couldn't remember what happened at the end, she had to admit that there was no way that she would've been able to defeat the thing if it'd just been her and Nyla. Not that she would admit to Jade.

Walking further into the town, Valeria watched calmly as the princess suddenly rushed past to go to one of the bodies that was on the ground, placing her hands on the male, who looked up in surprise. Valeria blinked, she hadn't thought that man was alive…

"H-hey, Natalia, they're dirty. Get away from them. You might catch something."

Valeria placed her hand against her forehead, it was either that, or she'd end up hitting the redhead.

"What am I going to catch?!" Natalia demanded. "How could you say such stupid things?!"

Valeria sighed, "As much as I would love to continue this conversation, shouldn't we be finding the mayor or something?"

"Since when are you in charge?!"

Valeria chose not to answer that annoying question and walked on ahead, letting Nyla decide whether or not she wanted to follow or go around gathering things and checking on people like the rest of the group decided to do. Luckily, Jade and Natalia seemed to decide to follow her as she walked toward the first of the remaining buildings.

"Hey, did you guys come from the Kimlascan side?"

The three of them paused and looked over to see a worn down man wearing a miner's helmet. When he got close, Valeria noticed that he seemed to be limping as well, though after seeing some of the others that were still alive, he seemed to be healthier than normal.

"That's correct. My name is Colonel Jade Curtis, Third Division Malkuth Imperial forces."

"I'm Natalia, Princess of Kimlasca. We've come to offer aid at the behest of His Majesty, Emperor Peony."

"And my name's Valeria, I'm with the Colonel."

"Ah! A man named Grants told us you'd be coming!" the man coughed. "My name's Pyrope. I'm the local supervisor for the mines here. The mayor fell ill, so I'm handling things in his place."

"Where are Dorian General Grants and the rescue team?" Jade asked, "And do you know how many men the General brought?"

Pyrope scratched his head. "Grants is inside the mine. He's attempting to rescue our companions who collapsed there. As for the number of soldiers, he brought a vanguard unit with him when he first got here and a couple platoons of soldiers have arrived since then, maybe three or so? At least one Kimlascan and one Malkuth, though I couldn't tell you."

Jade turned to Natalia. "Do you mind passing on orders from me or would you like to take control?"

The princess shook her head. "I haven't had the same military experience; I'll leave you to command and help with the healing."

"That will work fine, first we need to locate the captains."

Valeria poked Jade as he moved to walk away, then pointed in the opposite direction he'd been about to head in. "There's a small group of soldiers clustered that way."

The Colonel looked at her, then the direction she pointed and turned mid-step to head toward the group of people. Valeria followed at a slower pace, and sure enough the captains of the squads were huddled around a map.

"P-princess Natalia?!"

"I've come as part of the relief team, though I'm going to be relinquishing command over to Colonel Curtiss. You'll receive his orders and follow them as if they were my own," Natalia ordered the Kimlascan captain who'd spoken.

Jade in turn had turned to look at the captain from the Malkuth platoons. "Ah, Grey, I didn't expect to see you heading this platoon."

"Colonel Curtiss!" The Malkuth soldier saluted Jade before dropping his demeanor and looking over the map again. "Dorian General Grants came through Kaitzur and asked for a squad or two of volunteers that could be spared. They needed a Captain to lead them in case the Dorian General had to be away so I volunteered."

Valeria had blinked in surprise at hearing the name, but immediately ran over as soon as the other man had spoken. "Grey!"

The brunet soldier barely looked up to see the blonde blur knock into him, her fist going into the man's gut. But before the older man could touch her, Valeria had danced out of his way and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Ouch…" Hazel eyes regarded her with annoyance. "What are you doing here, Valeria? You do realize that your brother sent a squad out looking for you, right?"

The blonde girl shrugged, it wasn't the first time and it certainly wouldn't be the last. And the hazel eyes that stared at her seemed to realize that as well since their owner sighed and turned to look back at his commanding officer.

Valeria looked Grey over as he began talking with Jade. The captain was younger than Jade, yet older than her - so probably in his later twenties. He'd been with the military for a couple of years, having joined late in life. He'd been moved between divisions a couple of times when they needed replacements, yet has remained with her brother's division for a year or so now. That was the only reason she knew him, since when the brunet first joined the division, he'd been sent with a couple of other soldiers to find Valeria before she got into trouble.

Ever since then, they'd had an interesting relationship. He'd pick on her, she'd abuse him for fun, and then her brother would eventually have to break them up before a real fight broke out.

"—anyway, Pyrope gave us the basics right before your group got here. Apparently some of the upper tunnels have been abandoned for a while, so there's no need to go looking in them. Tunnels seven and eight have collapsed in the past few days, which has put a lot of strain on the lower tunnels. Luckily no one was gravely injured during those collapses, though they were suffering from the miasma, and everyone who had gone into one of the tunnels has been accounted for," Grey told them, indicating on the map which tunnels were where.

"Our main issue is getting the people out of the remaining tunnels. Due to the collapse of the others, we had to pull our men from their original posts to help evacuate the people from those tunnels and now we don't know who is accounted for and who isn't," The Kimlascan captain informed them.

Jade seemed to mull this over before turning to look at Valeria. Seeing the look in his eye, she sighed but nodded before Jade addressed the others. "Alright, we'll have to split things up. I'll keep charge of the Kimlascan troops and will divide them accordingly; we'll take tunnels nine through twelve, which seem to be the largest of the mines. The Malkuth soldiers will take tunnels thirteen through eighteen, since those tunnels aren't as long, start by bringing the uninjured out to be checked and then sent towards the top of the town where the miasma is lessened."

"Colonel Curtiss, I forgot to mention one thing. The miasma seems to be the strongest in tunnel fourteen, the tunnel that the Dorian General has gone into," Pyrope cut in.

"In that case, we'll leave that to him for now. If need be, we'll begin helping with that soon."

"One more thing, Colonel. You said that you were in charge of the Kimlascans, who's in charge of my platoon?" Grey asked.

Valeria noticed the moment Grey realized, right before Jade pointed at the one he was putting in charge. "You've worked with her before, Grey, and you know she's been learning from her brother. I'm leaving Valeria in charge over here while I deal with the other platoons."

The brunet hung his head, though it seemed to be more acceptance than annoyance, before looking at her. "Well, you heard him, brat."

"Shut it, old man," she muttered. She took the map from him and glanced over it briefly before looking around at her surroundings. "Just to be sure, how many platoons and how many men are in them?"

"We managed to get two platoons together, each consisting of fifteen men, so thirty in total."

Taking that in, Valeria bit her lip. "Any healers?"

"Three and one trainee."

Valeria nodded, thinking things over. Her interest was piqued when she noticed Guy, Anise, and Tear heading her way.

"The Colonel asked the three of us to come over and assist you," Guy explained. "Though he didn't say what he wanted us to do."

"Okay, first thing's first, like Jade said we need to start clearing the mines out." Valeria placed the map down and began indicating different mine shafts. "I want the men divided up into groups. Groups A and B with six people will head into shafts thirteen and fifteen respectively, groups C and D with five people into shafts sixteen and seventeen then group E with four people into the final shaft."

"I take it the healers aren't to be assigned a group yet?"

Valeria smirked, nodding to Grey as he seemed to realize what she'd been planning. "Once each group is inside, I want one man to do a quick tally of the amount of people, counting the injured first and bring the list outside to me while the remaining men begin to help the uninjured out of the tunnels. The healers will be sent into the tunnels with the most need while Guy, Anise and our remaining soldier will be helping escort people to the top of the town after getting their full names documented."

"Well, you are your brother's sister all right!" Grey chuckled.

"Stop laughing and get moving!"

Saluting jokingly, Grey moved back to begin following her orders while Guy, Anise and Tear stared at her in shock. "What?"

"It's just; I never really thought you were a soldier…" Guy admitted.

"I'm not."

"Then what was that?!" Anise exclaimed, her arms waving around wildly.

Valeria shrugged as Nyla finally meandered over to her side, dragging a wagon behind her, though how the Arka had connected herself to a wagon was beyond the blonde. "My brother's high up in the military. On his days off he would go over battle and evacuation strategies with me for fun, it was entertaining enough for me at times and I actually learned stuff. Jade knows that, especially since he's been involved in a few of them, though he hadn't known it at the time, so he knew I could lead a platoon if need be. Normally it's not good military procedure, but he knew Grey would listen to me and he needed to focus on commanding the Kimlascan soldiers."

The three of them actually looked impressed, which bothered Valeria a little. Did they really think she didn't know anything? Or had they just been assuming that she was a cold-hearted girl who was fine with killing?

"I'll tell you what I told Grey: get moving…"

By the end of the day, group E had completely cleared their tunnel, having been the shortest due to being newly dug. Once that had been cleared, Valeria had ordered them to split themselves among the remainder of the tunnels and the stream of people being brought out of them had slightly increased. They were in no means clear, as some of the tunnels were apparently longer than the map had indicated, much to the blonde's annoyance after she'd been informed.

Luckily it appeared that group D was nearly finished with their tunnel, only waiting for one of the healers to come in and help with the final injured person within those depths.

Grey had been running around and acting as a go between for the Kimlascan and Malkuth forces, even without Valeria asking, so she knew that Jade's groups weren't nearly as close to being done as hers were.

Strangely, especially since she'd made sure to keep an eye on tunnel fourteen, she hadn't actually seen any soldiers of any nation come running out with any of the people within the tunnels. That worried her, but since she had to keep track of her own groups, she decided to brush it off for now and went back to going over her lists, comparing the ones from her people to the town roster as well as the lists she kept getting from Jade whenever Grey brought her another updated version.

By that point they'd managed to get a pretty large chunk of people out of the way and up where the miasma wouldn't harm them as much. And thankfully, a small squad from Kaitzur had come, all but one of the six members being healers. Those healers had been assigned to keeping order and making sure no one else got sick while up in the temporary camps right outside the town.

Right now a lot of movement had been slowed, most of the soldiers not wanting to risk damaging any injured citizen any further with the sky quickly growing darker. Work was still being done, yet it had to be done carefully or else a lot of injuries could happen.

"Valeria!" Looking over at Grey, the blonde saw him heading her way with a look of annoyance on his face, a stack of papers in his hands. "Got two more lists for you. The Colonel says that they're just about done with one of their tunnels and he plans to use those who'd worked in that tunnel to begin forming parties to escort citizens through the pass. Only thing is, he can't just send them by themselves."

"Let me guess, he needs a commanding officer to oversee the transport?" At his nod she sighed. "You've mostly been an errand boy, I can just shove that off on someone else, likely Anise since she needs a break from using her puppet. If the Kimlascans will follow you, you're free to lead the first few groups through the pass."

"Jade figured you'd say something like that, he also wanted to know if you've seen or heard anything from the Dorian General."

"No, and that worries me. From what we can tell, we're still missing a large chunk of people and strangely, tunnel fourteen appears to be rather large, almost larger than some of the upper level tunnels that had been mined very deep. There should be people in there getting the miners out, yet I haven't seen one person run out."

"Neither have I."

Valeria turned her head to see Jade walking over to her, a lantern in his hand. "If you were going to come over here, why send Grey?"

Coming to a stop by her table, Jade looked at the maps she'd laid out as well as marked. As people had been taken out of the tunnels, the fonist had begun marking off the portions of the maps that shouldn't have anyone in them and had her people focus on the ends of the tunnels before making their way to the beginnings of the tunnels. It was slow work but needed to be done.

"I thought of something after he'd run off; I also wanted a chance to see how you were doing. I know you do badly when not around fourth fonons, and I can guess that there aren't many around here."

Now that Jade said it, Valeria realized that he was right. Closing her eyes, she couldn't feel any fourth fonons directly around her, and yet she seemed to be doing just fine. The miasma definitely had taken the place of some of the natural occurring fonons, there was no denying that, and she should be able to feel the difference of that, especially since she was further down in the city than Jade had been.

"I feel fine…"

Jade's eyes narrowed on her and she held up her hands. "Seriously, I hadn't realized it until you said something. I'd been busy doing my duty, which you should go back to doing yourself."

He nodded, but his eyes had moved up two levels to land on where the entrance to tunnel fourteen was. "We should have seen some movement by now, it's been an entire day. If nothing else happens with that tunnel by tomorrow, we may need to check it out ourselves."

"Agreed. One other thing before you go." He turned back to look at her. "Where is our illustrious ambassador right now?"

"Ah. I originally had him moving people, yet when he didn't do that I sent him to scout around the town. Last I saw of him, he was out at one of the tents bothering Guy."

Valeria nodded and then went back to tallying things on her paper, handing Jade one before he walked off to handle the rest of his duties for the night. Looking at the papers, Valeria knew that she wouldn't be able to get a lot of sleep that night, especially since she was planning on relieving a couple of her men so that they could take a small break before they overworked themselves.

"It's going to be a long night…"

Nyla's growling was what awoke Valeria, the girl rising into a crouch with a knife in her hand. Blinking slowly, she remembered where she was and managed to stop her blade from sinking into Grey's thigh. Groaning, she put her knife away and ran a hand through her hair, making a sound of annoyance when she realized it had fallen down sometime in the night.

"Gotta say, never been around when you've first woken up, and it's an amusing sight!"

Pulling her hair back up into its tight bun, the ends of her hair spiking out of the rubber band, Valeria gave Grey an annoyed look. "What time is it?"

"Last I checked, nine a.m."

Three and a half hours then. The blonde vaguely recalled the sun peaking over the clouds as she and Nyla had chosen a spot outside the town to curl up at to get some form of sleep. "I take it Jade asked you to wake me up?"

"Correct, he's down at his small little command post. Told me to wake you up then begin gathering the seven men he'd given to me and round up the uninjured citizens. We're to get one of the carts and take about thirty people through the pass, one third of that number being the non-critical injured, hence the cart. A couple of able bodied just in case they're needed. Once we're done with that group, we're to come back with anyone else that can be spared from the checkpoint and begin taking more groups of people through."

"Then I don't know why you're still in front of me. Step to it, old man." Valeria yawned, stretching.

Grey reached out to rub her head before running off, fear of the knife the blonde had drawn being the reason he beat a hasty exit. Finished stretching, Valeria went back into town and found Jade right where Grey said he'd be.

"How many hours of sleep did you get, Jade?"

"More than I would've liked," he sighed. "About six, apparently my men hadn't thought to wake me up when they found a dead body."

"Jade, we're surrounded by dead bodies…"

"Yes, but this one was killed by a sword to the back."

Valeria's eyes widened and she realized what he was insinuating. "I take it we're heading to the fourteenth tunnel today?"

"That is correct, I've left command of my group to their captain; and I have a feeling your men already know what to do, so you can just put the assistant captain in charge, since I've sent your captain elsewhere. Our ambassador group should be enough to assess the situation within the tunnel; I've already woken Guy and asked him to gather the others."

"Even the ambassador?" Valeria asked, disdain clear in her tone.

"I imagine if Guy is coming, so is our noble leader."

Valeria kept from doubling over laughing at his response, only because the small little group they had come with we're walking over to meet them. Looking them over, none of them seemed any worse for wear, not like Jade and her in any case, but they did seem a little tired.

"Okay, now that everyone's here. Valeria, explain."

Scowling at the four-eyed bastard, she looked at the others. "Yesterday we were informed that Dorian General Grants had arrived with the soldiers we've been using, as well as a vanguard unit of Kimlascan soldiers. After having been informed that the largest tunnel with the most issues was fourteen, he left to that tunnel, taking his unit and leaving the remaining soldiers to wait for our command. Throughout yesterday, no one had heard anything from the vanguard or the Dorian General himself, so our group has been tasked with going inside the tunnel to see the damage and assess the status of the vanguard and their leader. Questions?"

When no one asked anything, Valeria looked to Jade who nodded. "Let's go."

Right before their group could enter the tunnel though…

"Locrian Sergeant Grants!" The oracle soldier who'd shouted ran to catch up to them. "My name is Hyman. I'm the one who informed Grand Maestro Mohs about the Seventh Fonstone."

Valeria looked between the soldier and Tear, not sure she heard right. They were still looking for that thing? And why would it be out here, aren't the Fonstones usually protected?

In any case, Tear looked relieved. "Good work."

"The Seventh Fonstone?" Ion inquired. "Don't tell me it's been found?!"

"We think so, but we can't be sure until we excavate it," Hyman explained.

"Tear; please go confirm the Seventh Fonstone's authenticity," Ion ordered, though to Valeria it sounded more like a request. The Fon Master needed to work on his authoritative tone a little… "I'll go with the others and catch up to the vanguard."

Tear seemed to hesitate a little, knowing they might need her healing skills, but finally relented. "All right. Please take care of the villagers."

With that, they entered the mines, slowly picking their way around the tools and mining equipment that was still on the ground. Though the moment they entered, Valeria felt a wave of energy engulf her, knocking her back off her feet. The only thing that saved her was Nyla walking behind her, the Arka's snout rubbing against the blonde as if to ask what was wrong.

Did no one else feel that?

But looking at everyone, they didn't seem any worse for wear. Maybe the miasma was finally getting to her?

"The miasma is pretty bad in here..." Luke groaned.

"Maybe the source is deeper in the mine."

"So the farther we go, the worse it'll get...?" Guy guessed, responding to Anise's comment.

"Well that's going to be fun, I didn't need to breathe much anyway."

"Valeria…" Jade sighed, annoyed with her comment. "I know it's dangerous, especially without Tear, but there may still be people left within the mine."

"May? There is no may, Jade. There are people in this mine, it's the only location the men haven't checked and we're still missing a large amount of people." Valeria countered.

"But with the miasma this strong, how can we be sure there are any survivors?"

The blonde looked over at Guy, sad to admit aloud that since there hasn't been any movement there might not be any survivors.

"Well we still have to try, right?" Anise argued. "Maybe we can do something about the source of the miasma, too. I guess we'll just have to go further in."

The talking was kept to a minimal after that, each person either lost in their thoughts or not wanting to breathe in more miasma than usual. For Valeria, it was the former, her thoughts keeping her occupied so much that Nyla had to stay next to her the entire time, directing her with occasional nudges so she wouldn't topple over.

What was the Dorian General doing?

She wasn't awake during their trip in the Zao Ruins and no one had volunteered information about it, either. So all she knew was that the God-Generals were taking orders from someone, and she had a hunch it was Van.

It only made sense, he was the one who found and selected the people who held the title God-General. The only one that Valeria had a feeling hadn't necessarily been picked by Van was Dist, but that was just because the scientist wanted to continue his research unhindered by everyone else, so he went out to search for a position that would allow that.

Still so lost in her thoughts, it took her a second to realize that they had entered a cavern with people spread out along the floor.

The miasma here was thick, making it hard for Valeria to breathe; Nyla seemed to realize this since she began whimpering. She rubbed her fingers along the Arka's mane before shoving her away. "Go, see if there's a way for you to transport these people, I'll be fine."

Natalia had run over to a couple of them, the others spreading out as well. Jade looked rather concerned, his eyes scanning the cavern.

"Something's wrong. I don't see the vanguard anywhere."

Now that he said it, Valeria realized that they hadn't actually seen any of Van's men at all during their trip through the mine. They should've actually seen a good number, if Pyrope was to be believed.

Since she wasn't going to be doing any lifting at the moment, Valeria wandered over to another part of the cavern. There were two more tunnels that led from this one; she noticed Ion and Luke heading towards the right one, so she decided to head towards the left.

It was a short path that led to another cavern, one that had her immediately gasping at the sight. Where the other cavern had been filled with purple miasma and still breathing people, this one had shades of brown, purple but mostly red.

Blood…

Knives cleaving against flesh, screams filled the air as the small blonde girl rolled away from those who attacked. Gritting her teeth, hand clutching her own knife, the small figure dashed past the multiple large figures running her way, her small stature allowing for quicker movements than the lumbering tall males around her.

One of the men launched himself at her, managing a swipe against her before suddenly slipping, the amount of blood already on the floor making it hard to stay upright.

The blonde let her knees buckle, sliding across the blood to get away from those chasing her. More and more of the still hot liquid from the floor spilled across her already splattered form as she rose into a crouch, arms held in front of her, heedless of the wound leaking her own essence to join the already large pool on the floor.

Metal gleamed in the lantern light, pieces of broken swords stuck in the ground while others had pierced through the armor of the bodies littering the ground. Looking over, Valeria noticed a more condensed area of miasma around a number of bodies. As she moved closer, she realized the miasma had begun to eat away at the dead bodies, half of their lower anatomy having been eaten away to reveal darkened flesh and bone.

Hissing under her breathe, Valeria fell back away from the larger amounts of miasma, happy to see that the poisonous substance appears to affect dead people more than those who were still alive, even if it did appear to make it harder to breathe.

But one thing was for certain.

These were the bodies of the vanguard…

Though she did see that there were some bodies belonging to Oracle Knights.

How was it possible no one saw Oracle Knights coming in here and murdering these soldiers? Why would they do this? And if they were going to kill the soldiers, why leave the citizens in the tunnel alive?

Jade needed to know about this.

Turning back around, Valeria ran back into the other cavern, though when she got there she realized that Jade was gone. Thinking he'd gone on ahead, she turned and went down the tunnel that she'd seen Luke and Ion head down earlier.

Reaching the end of the path, she saw the remains of what might've been a door. Curious, even though she felt some little piece of information try and jump from the back of her mind to the forefront, she moved through the door before halting as a pain erupted in her head.

"— you…st… it… troy every…he… roth…—!"