Running like this was actually a much lower strain on her body than trying to move twelve people using her wind bubble. As such, it was around forty-five minutes later when she reached her destination. She’d nibbled on some of the meat along the way, and it was doing a fantastic job of keeping her energy in peak condition, as mana rich as it was.
When she was within a half mile of where the fight took place, she’d gotten more serious, putting the meat away and slowing down to stealth through the trees. The three mesmer she’d seen were on the ground, but she wanted to make sure the treetops were clear before she went lower. It was a good thing she did, because there was a lone mesmer patrolling the treetops, looking for evidence of what happened in the branches. It was currently inspecting the spot where she’d pinned the second mesmer like a bug.
The reason she could see it was mostly because of her mana sight. The roiling sickness of their aura was evident to her even in the darkness. She felt a breeze pass by and stiffened, her hiding spot allowing her to see the mesmer’s head perk up as it sniffed the air. It abandoned its spot, moving silently, but swiftly, in her direction. She guessed it didn’t want to alarm its quarry, if possible.
Sadly for it, that quarry was her. As soon as it was around twenty feet away, which was about her range for creating effective wind walls, she trapped it, cutting off its air and thus its ability to signal its companions down below. It struggled ineffectually at her bindings, clawing at its own throat in an effort to dislodge her merciless walls. For good measure, she called the blood from its heart and brain to spike out, causing the figure to finally go limp.
Gently setting it down on the branch, she glanced to the forest floor to make sure its companions hadn’t been alerted. Thankfully, they seemed to be talking amongst themselves as they gathered the scattered bodies and parts. She noticed they were bringing the last of the bodies together, having been working for some time already.
Not wanting to waste the element of surprise, she dove from the treetops straight towards them. It was her cloak that was her undoing. It gave one loud flap from a random gust of wind, the sound thundering in the quiet forest. The three mesmer looked up, only to see her descending like a reaper towards them, her eyes cold.
The three bent their knees, each instinctively jumping towards her with claws outstretched. Sending out three wind waves that were as sharp as she could make them, she intended to behead them. However, given that they were all midair, her aim was a bit off. She did manage to take off the upper half of one of their faces, so that one was...close. The second was cut in half near the ribs, while she missed the third entirely. The force of its impact sent her much lightened body careening into the nearest tree, and the only thing that saved her from both claws and impact was her wind armor.
“You’ll pay for thisssssssss!” The thing hissed as it jumped towards her. In her hand appeared a weapon it had never seen before. As it sprang, she pulled the trigger briefly, and yet that small release smashed her against the tree once more.
Falling to the ground, she glanced up, trying to blink around the bright spots ruining her night vision. The mesmer was blown back, the violent nature of the laser carving a line all the way through its chest, leaving a gaping arc that went clear through to the other side. The look on its face was disbelief as it tried to clutch its wound, only making it worse before sinking to its knees and falling to the ground.
She put her beam gun back into her ring, walking forward gingerly to inspect the corpses before her. She knew she should be leaving, that the light from her attack had been a terrible idea. Still, she couldn’t make herself leave just yet. With all the bodies laid out before her in an orderly fashion, she saw things she hadn’t noticed before.
While each of them was deathly pale, probably from lack of sunlight, she’d never before taken careful notice of their clothes or skin beyond that. Now that she was looking closely, their bodies were marked with crisscrossing scars everywhere, making their skin bumpy. She’d only ever seen one thing like it before, and that was when one of the nurses showed her pictures of the arms of an attempted suicide. The person had been cutting themselves for ages, and their arms were covered in tiny white lines of scars.
The clothes the mesmer were wearing were dirty rags, but she could still see the shape of some of them, and they reminded her of the gear the guards wore. Aside from them being in ragged condition, most of them had ripped at the calves and thighs, as if those areas expanded beyond the initial capacity. Still, the tops looked like they fit these creatures at some point…
She began to rummage through the rags they wore, looking for pockets, anything… On the sixth body, she found an old wallet tucked in the coat pocket of the mesmer. She pulled it out to find a few coins and two metal cards, one of which was a copper library card, and the other was the credentials of a guard.
Gagging, she turned and jumped away, landing in a cleaner area as she gulped in huge amounts of air, trying to clear herself of the taint she felt teeming all around her. She called water from the air, scrubbing at her hands in an effort to make them clean, to rid them of the taint. She’d put the wallet into her ring.
She glanced back at the bodies before her, the horrid truth finally becoming clear to her. The mesmer weren’t just monsters. They were intelligent beings, because they were their former victims. The marks on their arms were left from when they had been fed on, the rips on their pants from their transformation. Obviously, when enough of the taint entered the bloodstream, it would begin to change them. Their enemies were those they believed to be lost to them forever.
Several things clicked in her brain. She knew how Tisha and the others had been taken, or at least she was fairly sure. Shaking her head, she began her ascent into the trees, ignoring the branches to fly above the canopy and into the dark sky. Only it wasn’t that dark, because the moon was now visible, creating a silvery sheen on the leaves.
Creating a wind wall, she cut her sound and scent off from the world as she pulled out a mirror, inserting her mana and calling for the person she wanted. It took nearly thirty seconds before the call was finally answered, and King Derrick and Queen Ashanna looked startled, obviously having barely woken. They were still in their bed as Derrick asked in a worried voice, “Jade, is something wrong? Has something else happened?”
Shaking her head, she stared at them as she asked quietly, “Sorry to wake you up, but I have something I needed to confirm. I was told the mesmer that took your children came in through a secret passage. Is that correct?” When he nodded, she went on. “Am I also correct in that very few people knew about that passage?” Another nod. “Was Brodie’s father one of those people?”
A troubled look crossed their faces as they exchanged glances, and Ashanna answered, “Yes, but why would that matter? Do you think he told the mesmer?”
Jade looked away from the mirror, out at the expanse of trees around her. Shaking her head, she sighed and looked back at them. “No, I don’t think he told the mesmer...I think he IS a mesmer. I was studying their bodies…and I’ve realized how they multiply. Their victims become them. Once enough of the taint enters their body, the virus forcefully transforms them into the monsters that attack us. They retain their intelligence and memories, it would seem, at least in some form, though they lose their humanity. I don’t know exactly how it works, but if I had to take a guess… I’d say that Tevon is very much alive, or at least, in as much of a sense as in he’s moving around. Just...as a mesmer.”