For a moment, Fanilly was silent at Lilianna's words. But she knew it was the truth, nodding quietly after a brief pause.

"You're right," she began, "I was already questioning it before we set out. I couldn't understand how a raiding party of orcs could possibly have come so close to the capital. There's no way their movements would go unnoticed."

It didn't take deep expertise to know that orcs were not the most subtle of creatures. Their strengths were in their numbers and their ferocity, not their tactics. And certainly, absolutely not in magic. Orc magic was almost unheard of, not even the most cruelly intelligent minds among the barbaric, cannibalistic race were capable of feats of magical prowess. And that was because it was not a matter of intelligence. As a race, orcs were simply without the capability to do magic. The meager amounts of mana within them were simply that which was found within all living things. Which meant...

"... Is it possible that... if that mage is their ally, is it possible that they somehow helped the orcs reach Brennan?" Fanilly asked. She wasn't sure if Lilianna would be able to answer such a question, but she did not have a deep knowledge of magic herself. She had no idea if there was any kind of spells that would allow such a numbers to move covertly, but it was one of the only possibilities she could think of.

Of course, moments later that train of thought was interrupted when the town's defenders approached them. The first was a young man, handsome, with dark hair and blue eyes. His armor was fine, though not without splatters of blood here and there.

"On behalf of my father, Lord of Brennan, I offer my deepest gratitude to the Iron Roses," he said, planting his sword in the ground and getting down onto one knee. Ah? He was doing something so... Fanilly almost made to stop him, but he quickly rose again.

"There are those among our number who perished here, but your efforts have ensured their lives did not end in vain. May they rest in the moonlight," he continued, his voice taking a solemn tone. Fanilly lowered her hands. Ah... she wished they had received the news sooner, regardless. Or if they had made it with more speed, perhaps some of those guards who had died would still be alive...

The young man sighed.

"My father would like to speak with you, to thank you personally for coming to our aid."

He seemed a little uncomfortable. Not simply because of weariness from battle, but... why was it his father had not come personally? Was something wrong?

Had the Lord of Brennan not participated in the defense of the town...?

[hr]

"... Ah-hah... I... guess you could say that," responded Sir Avlin, awkwardly, as he lay there. His leg exposed, Lyrie could now see the full extent of the damage. An ugly dark bruise had formed halfway down his shin, a deep purple blotch with a bulge in the center. It wasn't hard to guess what injury it was, but she needed to see exactly what the damage was.

"Sir Avlin, please remain still," she said, before placing her hand(now cleaned using the warm water Sir Tiral had provided) as lightly on the bruise as she could. She shut her eyes.

"[i]I wish to see beyond flesh, to what lies beneath. Reveal it for me.[/i]"

It was one of the earliest spells she had learned over the course of her lessons. It allowed her to see, within her mind, what was beneath the surface she was touching. To be honest, it was a modification of a spell made to perform this process on [i]any[/i] solid object, but tailored to the process of seeing through flesh.

And in her mind, the girl could see it. Sir Avlin's leg had cracked, the bone breaking all the way through. On one hand, it was not a simple fracture and would be more difficult to fully mend, but on the other the bone had not pierced through the knight's flesh and jutted out of his body, which would have made realigning it more difficult. The lack of pain he felt was likely shock...

She could do this. She had practiced before. She had to do this for Sir Avlin.

Lyrie took a deep breath.

"Y-your... your leg is broken, but... I'll h-heal it!" she declared, trying to sound as confident as possible. She didn't want her patient to worry either.

[hr]

Angeline lowered her shield. The exterior's glow was fading slowly, but it still felt like it was blazing hot in her hand. And yet she made no effort to drop it.

"... So it was a trap, then," she said, simply. That certainly seemed to be the case. Whatever magic had been involved here was entirely for the purpose of destroying anyone who had come to investigate. It was not only the tree that had been destroyed, there was a small crater at the epicenter of the explosion.

The moment Tiral arrived, however, well...

He didn't even have to try and detect it. No, the sheer residual magical energy that hit him would be possible to detect even without any active attempts. The trap in the tree was something powerful, something [i]beyond[/i] the work of a regular mage. The one who had done this was deeply, incredibly gifted in the magical arts. It perhaps was not unexpected. Not when the perpetrator had presumably also fired the beam of magic that had melted rock simply by passing close to it.

But still...

This level power would undeniably be disturbing.

As if to immediately shatter the mood, however, a certain set of [i]new[/i] figures arrived on the scene.

Peering out from behind nearby trees, roughly a dozen tiny figures suddenly fluttered onto the scene. Each one was small enough to fit in the palm of someone's hand, uniformly they all resembled human female children.

Fairies. They were hardly uncommon in Thaln's forests, and soon they were scouring the area, peering at the blasted apart tree and the crater. [url=https://safebooru.org//samples/560/sample_481d0368ecc432b84b94654a56f600e6b88c2e7e.jpg?562352]One, however, fluttered up to the knights, her wings thrumming. Another swiftly followed her.[/url]

"Oh, oh! It's knights! There's knights here, Feeree!" said the one with shorter, lighter hair.

The longer-haired one with darker hair(presumably Feeree) looked thoughtful.

"Do you think that they're looking for the dark lady?" she asked, aloud.

[@PKMNB0Y][@Raineh Daze][@Crusader Lord][@TheFake][@Noodles][@Crimson Paladin]