Chương 55: Interlude IV

Interlude IV: Jinn Jinn was mildly surprised when Ashlyn said she was going to come along with him on scouting duty today. Among the few duties of the newly formed militia, scouting the Candor Mountains was one of the more necessary ones. Half the time, the assignment fell upon him, since it wasn't an easy or timeless task to move a group of ill-fitted auxiliaries through the strenuous mountain paths. If it was a few years back, Jinn wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if Ashlyn had offered to accompany him.

She had been with him for a few of the roughest times. But for the last four years, Ashlyn had left behind her life as an adventurer and a fighter; she had even put off her craftsmanship, never taking tough commissions that demanded too much out of her. Her old injury hadn't allowed her to do any strenuous task for a long period. However, this whole debacle with the corpse flies and the rift magically disappearing on its own hadn't sat well with her—enough to bring her out from her shell.

Thus, while Arilyn attended the institution, the two of them trudged through the tenacious path into the mountains, towards the cavern channel where they had previously found the rift. They could have taken a squadron of auxiliaries with them, but they would only slow them down. The cavern was as dark and damp as Jinn remembered, although the nasty reek of those demonic creatures was nowhere to be found. Even the foul stench of the dark essence no longer lingered in the air.

A couple of weeks was all that was required for all of it to return to normalcy. A squadron of sentries still guarded the opening; their earlier week's worrisome looks had shifted to usual colours, with nothing going amiss in the meantime. Ashlyn's appearance did turn a few heads, but they descended into the ghastly trench unceremoniously. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Drawing a trace of essence into his eyes let him make out the otherwise pitch-dark cavern, as he led Ashlyn through the narrow path that gave way to the deeper cavern system.

"Tell me again," Ashlyn asked, when they neared the heart of the cavern system, "what are the chances of the fabric of dimension repairing itself without any human involvement?" Jinn didn't need to think hard to give her an answer.

"On the front lines, it's quite impossible, but around here…" He paused.

"The dimension laws around here should be stronger, solid, making it easier for the rift to repair itself." But that would also make it harder—nigh impossible even—for a crack in reality to stretch beyond the margin to form a rift. Honestly, Ashlyn should know more about all this than him. All the concepts and theories about essence and how the laws of physics worked always went over his head. Jinn knew his strengths, and anything related to astral concepts was not one of them.

His strength lay in throwing himself headfirst at problems, literally and figuratively. For problems that required studying and theorising, he was within reason to leave all that to smarter people. People like Ashlyn.

"In all my experience working around rifts," Ashlyn muttered, scrutinising the space where the rift had been a week ago, "there's never been a case of a rift repairing itself. Unless someone went inside and cleared it. Or someone foolhardily trying to nullify the chaotic spatial waves."

"Hey, that worked," Jinn grinned. As always, Ashlyn threw him an admonishing look, as if to say he shouldn't be proud of such an event. Truthfully, since that incident, he had never built up the audacity to try to use his gift on a wild rift ever again. And if Zaguar wishes, I would never have to.

"It would have been another case if the rift had been open for a long time," Ashlyn said, spreading her essence all around her. Rifts usually burst open with all the monsters inside if they go unchecked for a long time. It could take a few seasons at the minimum, or years at the maximum. However, none of them believed that this rift had gone unchecked for longer than a season. If it had, there would have been far more disturbance than the minor scuffle with the corpse flies.

"We need to examine the whole cavern system," Ashlyn said.

"It doesn't sit well for a rift to appear so close to the sanctuary."