*siiiiiigh*
'Where could he have detained Kai? Seriously, with his stature it should be nearly impossible to find a proper hiding place – and even less a place where he could detain someone that can fly,' Ray grumbled inwardly, while continuing to search for his friend.
By this point Ray had been looking for Kai for three whole days inside of the dark city. The only time he didn't look for him was when he slept, or had to hide from the actually dangerous fallen creatures wandering the streets and their territories.
'Guess there is a reason why he was able to survive the longest, among all the people currently trapped here, huh… Maybe I really should've taken Effie or Henry with me…?' wondered Ray, but ultimately shook his head.
Henry was definitely strong, but his aspect had was useless for now, since most of the things inhabiting the dark city were beyond what they could comfortably kill, and hiding with the veil was risky.
It had worked once, when they were stormed by a smaller horde of nightmare creatures, but that could be attributed to the fallen creatures having found immediate other targets before they disappeared afterwards.
'Nevertheless, both of them have a ton of experience navigating the dark city…'
The morning he went out to go search for him, he had given a short notice to Effie, Henry and also Neph – all who offered their help in searching, though Neph seemed to be less genuine than his other two companions.
Ray was currently sneaking around, through the remains of what appeared to have once been a smithy – or whatever the old inhabitants of the dark city had instead of it. He was not historian or was really interested in such things.
The darkness began to recede as the next day, the fourth day, was currently starting.
Coming out of the remains of the smithy dejected, after not having found anything like a basement or cellar where Kai could've been detained, he stumbled into what was once a… plaza?
There were some wall surrounding the place, as well as more than a bit of rubble laying around everywhere. The most interesting part though… was definitely what lay somewhere in the middle of what was most definitely a turf war.
In the middle of the carnage lay the bodies of multiple nightmare creatures, mostly spiders and crumbled stones. Ray couldn't help but forget for just a second his original objective and stepped closer, examining the remains of the dead creatures.
The spiders were less interesting. Though, they may not be extremely typical in these parts of the dark city, meeting one was by no means rare. The interesting part was the crumbled stone and what could be made out in them.
'Stone Saints…'
By this point they were nearly more of a myth than something people actually encountered here. This was not just because of their very low population size in the dark city, but also because they were probably the most dangerous awakened nightmare creatures in the whole of the dark city.
They weren't especially tall, they also weren't as strong as many other abominations that hid in this city, but the very few stories he knew ,both from listening to Effie and from the memories of the pathfinder, described them as machines of war. Killing machines that can defeat nearly everything of the same rank and sometimes even above their rank.
'Now that would be something useful to have as an echo… what a shame,' Ray thought with a hint of regret, as he crouched down to take a good look at them.
Giving them one last look, Ray straightened up again and began his search anew.
-----
Barely a few minutes later, he began hearing something unusual. Voices.
"So people know that you like to spend a pretty penny occasionally?"
"I guess so, I'm not often very secretive about that part, and many know that I have gained a decent amount."
At that point Ray turned the corner, and in front of him… were a dirty young man and the person he had been looking for in the past few days, Kai.
The two noticed him quickly, and after having grown tense for a mere moment, recognized him.
"Ray, what are you doing here on this lovely morning?" greeted his auburn-haired friend cheerfully.
"…"
"Oh, right. This here is a new friend I made just last night. He helped me out quite a bit. You see, as it appeared the mission that I told you about was merely a trick to capture me and gain my memories. Well, that was at least how it seemed in the beginning, before Tessai went off with me and just threw me into some cellar before barricading the entrance. Just like that."
"…"
"I really thought I was done for this time, but by coincidence, last night as I was humming a little tune out of pure boredom, the ceiling crashed down, and in came a nightmare creature. Though it was already dead. Following the nightmare creature came another being, this one with two glowing red eyes in the darkness, but luckily, it was just my new friends echo."
Kai continued recalling everything that had happened to him till last night with a dramatic flare, all while Ray looked at the two of them – well, actually only Kai – in a way that seemed to say: "That is cool and all, but seriously how do you still look so fresh and have that much energy…?"
"Oh right, Ray, this is Sunny. Sunny, this is Ray, my friend," as if snapping out of his wild spiral of thoughts, Kai realized that he hadn't even introduced the two with each other.
"We know each other."
"We know each other."
As if out of one mouth, both of the others present answered at the same time, causing Kai to give them a weird look, before smiling, "Well, that makes it even better. Eh, I know I promised I would directly join you after I'm done with the mission, but I promised Sunny a reward for getting me out of there, so we were just on our way back to the castle, you coming too?"
"Dude. I'm only out here, because I was looking for you, since you completely disappeared for two weeks. I've been looking for you for three days now… and now you stand here right in front of me… well, excuse me if I need a second to gather myself."
After gathering himself again, Ray took on a slightly more serious demeanor and directed his gaze at Sunny, "So… are you coming back?"
The currently dirty young man looked slightly uncomfortable for a moment, before answering a few seconds later with a shrug, "Well, yes. You heard him after all, I'll head to the castle with him, do what I want there and then leave again."
Ray seemed somewhat disappointed, not directly by the answer, but much rather by the behavior of him. "It's your decision. If that is what you want to do, then do it. I won't support it, but I won't hinder you either." A moment later he also added, "I – of course – won't tell her about this, that much should be obvious.
Sunny gave an awkward, but also somewhat thankful nod, but remained silent.
Kai looked between the two a bit out of place, but in the end broke the silence, "Well then, lets go. I really need some real food. The food Tessai had thrown in there with me went out days ago. I'm starving"
Without further ado, the very unusual trio walked alongside each other in a silence that was between awkward and tense. Kai tried to engage both of them into conversations more than once, but both of them didn't really seem to be in the mood. Therefore, after trying it twice with both of them, he eventually gave up and just walked with them in silence.