After the battle we butchered a couple of the wolves that weren’t damaged too badly. We still had food available but meat was lacking. A search of the area didn’t turn up any more monsters to fight. The battle probably scared the smaller ones away.

  Luckily, we didn’t seem to draw in any larger monsters either. I was happy to have a successful outing with no one getting hurt. The monsters didn’t get close enough to test the protection of our robes and armor but I was ok with that.

  Our weapons performed well. With the staff, I could tell my spells were more powerful while also using less mana. The bows with the special arrows also had tremendous stopping power. Unfortunately, there was a limited supply of arrows in the vault. There were still enough for Lin and Nix to not worry about using anything else for quite a while.

  The arrows from the vault were not only made from rare monster materials but also enchanted to fly faster and penetrate better than normal arrows. Normal arrows can’t hold enchantments or so Ann told me. So, to have arrows made from materials that can was highly unusual and expensive. Some would even say wasteful.

  We returned to the palace in good cheer. The others hadn’t returned yet so we decided to start grilling up some of the wolf meat. I had long since lost my aversion to monster meat. My mouth was watering in anticipation of the meal to come. As soon as the meat started cooking, a sleepy looking Shadow deigned to grace us with her presence.

  The others got back toward evening. Their hunt had been successful as well but since they were hunting spiders there wasn’t much to bring back. They were happy to see a meal already prepared for them. We all ate and regaled each other about our separate battles.

  It seemed their equipment performed as well as ours. Lux and Torg both had enchanted shields and swords along with better armor while Emily had a new robe and staff similar to Ann and I. We all had at least one magical piece of jewelry as well. Some of us had rings while others had necklaces or bracelets. They all had magical effects that buffed us in different ways.

  Just one set of our equipment would have been the star attraction at the auction house. Many people would try and kill us to steal our artifacts but I wasn’t very scared anymore. With how powerful our items were, I was feeling pretty confident in our ability to defend ourselves.

  The next day I had Torg and Lux accompany me to the summoning circle at the top of the palace’s highest tower. There hadn’t been any storms since we arrived. The weather had been much more volatile at West Port and Emily had said that the capital got maybe one storm a month.

  The chamber was different than the West Port tower in that there was no balcony above it to look out over the city. Instead, the ceiling was a glass dome that let the light in. There were wide windows surrounding the room that did offer a good view of the city, however.

  My companions took the opportunity to enjoy the view while I studied the summoning circle. It seemed the same as the previous one with script running up one wall. I could even see the lightning rod sticking up above the tower through the glass dome. Since there was no ladder or balcony, there was no safe way to reach the lightning rod.

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  There were flight spells but even then, I didn’t know how one would fly and still be able to rip out the sturdy lightning rod. I thought the easier method might be to break the script on the wall or the circle to disrupt the summoning. First, I tried throwing a few of my spells against the wall but they didn’t even leave scratches.

  Next, I called out to Lux and Torg to let them have a go. They took turns using their new swords to try and chip away at the script on the wall. They tried the same on the floor but it was no use. At this point I was out of ideas. I had already gotten Emily to give it a try and she wasn’t able to damage anything with her powerful spells either.

  There had to be a way, I just hadn’t figured it out yet. With a sigh, I joined Lux and Torg back at the windows overlooking the city. It was quite a view and we had barely explored any of it. I was about to leave when Torg grunted and pointed.

  I looked to where he was pointing and saw what looked like smoke rising into the sky. It was coming from near the gate where we had entered the city. At first, I thought there might be a forest fire but there wasn’t enough smoke for that. It looked more like cooking fires but that didn’t make any sense.

  My next thought was another survivor like Emily. Lux however had a different take on it. “We were followed.” He grumbled. If that was the case, which seemed likely by the number of campfires, then we were in for some trouble. Whoever it was would definitely not be friendly.

  There was no way to tell how many of them there were so we would need to do some scouting. We descended the tower to tell our party the bad news. Emily was excited to meet more people until we informed her of our situation and past battles. Nix and Lin immediately volunteered to do the scouting for us.

  It was decided that Torg would go with the girls for added safety. Emily showed them the best route to take using a map of the city. The map was found in the library and while it showed all the buildings and streets, it didn’t actually label anything.

  Our scouting party was told to be careful and headed off. In the meantime, we set up a spyglass we had found in the vault up in the tower. We wanted to see if there was any movement by the gates of the city. The spyglass was enchanted and was able to zoom in but the walls blocked the view of what was right outside the city.

  Also, the buildings got in the way of what was happening in the streets. We still decided to keep someone watching while our scouting party was away from the palace. If they got in trouble, they would be firing off a flare for us to see.

  It was evident that whoever they were they weren’t trying very hard to hide their presence. By the number of cook fires, it was a good bet that we would be outnumbered if it came to a fight. Our uninvited guests wouldn’t know about Emily or our powerful equipment. They also wouldn’t know about Shadow.

  Counting too much on Shadow was a gamble though as she was an unpredictable creature. She was usually lazy but sometimes would go out on her own into the city doing who knows what. Whether she felt like joining in if we ended up fighting would be a roll of the dice.

  There was a good distance between the palace and the gate so it would take the scouting party a while to get there, do their scouting, and get back hopefully before dark. Even Emily didn’t like going out into the city at night. That was when the majority of the creatures came out to play.

  I felt nervous so stayed up in the tower with the spyglass. I had brought a book with me but couldn’t concentrate on it. The others took turns coming up to the tower to have a look but we still couldn’t see anything. Ann decided to stay with me and rubbed my stiff shoulders, saying there was nothing to worry about.

  She was probably right but I still didn’t like it. Finally, toward evening our scouts came back safely. It was as we thought, our guests were definitely not friendly. Many of them wore Red Fang armor. By their count, there were 14 altogether although two of them seemed to be sick or injured.

  There was no indication that the scouts had been seen. Even though we were still outnumbered, I liked our chances. It seemed like the enemy had a hard time trekking through the jungle and were still recovering their strength. We didn’t intend to let them do that.