Chapter 1.3 - The mage and the prince

"Sold?" He acted shocked, like something like this could have never happened under his watch, Ronnie watched him silently her eyes narrowing, she had been under suspicion that a fae had lured away the children and eaten them but it didn't seem to be the case, it was a simple solution of humans doing what humans do best.

"We're just asking for a profile of all the rich families in the area so we can scout for any suspicious activity," Lucas said, explaining their next course of action.

"Well, the only man rich enough to buy children is the Baron in charge of this fief and the neighbouring towns.

"Alright, then if you don't mind we'd like to speak to the villagers that may be involved in this" The chief hesitated but later agreed as he had no reason to decline the mercenaries.

The man soon left them in the room alone, Ronnie turned to Lucas who nodded knowingly, the chief was nervous. From fidgeting to sweating to avoiding their eyes or glancing at the door, it felt like he was being suffocated by an invincible force and he was desperate to end the conversation.

The first villager that came in was a rather elderly man, the next was another elderly man, and the next was an elderly woman, around 50 villagers came in and they were all elderly, Ronnie felt that it was strange unless they had made the elderly population get interviewed first, but the last person entered and left and no one else entered the room. She frowned speculating as to why the parents of the missing children weren't here, that was until it dawned on her, there wasn't a single young person in this entire village.

"We need to leave this place right now!" The alarm bells in her head rang loudly as she rushed out of the building which wrapped around them, so that was the reason the chief was nervous, this entire place had been infested! They reached the door and walked out to what seemed like a different reality, the sky was pitch black with a shimmer forming a dome around this village, this village was a nest.

A burse of laughter instilled fear into the two humans, Ronnie noticed that she suddenly felt heavy as her clothes had been completely soaked through with her gold braids stuck to her back. They were underwater, they had never left the lake. Or rather, the entire village had been submerged and they had only just noticed. The gorgon they had met earlier appeared before them with an amused smile.

"Did you honestly think I would let you go? Without eating you?"

This sent chills down her spine, she instinctively grabbed onto Lucas, she hadn't noticed his eyes look at her with a strange expression.

"Gordon's don't normally eat humans, so why do you want to eat us!?" Lucas wasn't backing down, he had never heard of a monster that could take human shape being this aggressive in hunting. Ronnie was even more perplexed, she honestly knew nothing of the monsters of this world, she had heard stories from the giants about the other races but this was the first time she had to fight a monster. Her heart beat wildly against her chest as she felt her excitement begin to rise, this was what she died for, a chance to live adventures.

"What did you do to the villagers!?"

"Why does it matter? No matter how many humans I eat it won't amount to a bite from that girl"

"Do you know know how precious that little girl is? If I eat her I would never have to worry about food again, I could look completely human and live among humans and feast as I want! Lucas again could not quite understand what was so special about the girl next to him, apart from her using powers that he has no knowledge about despite allegedly being his age she looked like a normal foreigner.

"You really don't know?" Gorgon asked with a trace of surprise, "I thought everyone knew, the day this girl fell into this world we all knew because we could feel it, right now it is a question of who will eat her first!" With that, she launched at them her body smashing the buildings around them. "Cover me!" Lucas said before running towards Gordon with his sword in his hand, he had faith that he could match Gordon so she closed her eyes, a big smile appearing on her face, if Lucas saw it he would be confused as to why she was smiling. He didn't know she had been waiting for this moment her entire life.

Ding!

A pastel purple screen appeared in front of her with a few words on her next mission.

[Defeat Gorgon (Kelpie)]

She stretched her neck a little and gripped her staff in her hand, she watched Lucas dodge The pythons attached to Gorgon's head cutting a few off and watching two grow in its place. Gorgon's hands reached out to snatch the girl but Ronnie jumped backwards before jumping up onto one of the roofs of the houses that hadn't been destroyed. She closed her eyes and focused on imagining the air around her shift and condensing into small balls, as much air in as small a volume as possible. She mused herself as she remembered her physics tutor, a higher pressure with a small volume could only mean one thing. Her eyes shot open as the bullets flew towards Gorgon. "Lucas move out of the way!" Lucas instinctively jumped away, creating some distance between them and he watched Gorgon approach Ronnie with terrifying speed. But as soon as she came in contact with the air bullets they exploded from nothing blowing up Gorgon's body, The force pushing back any rubble in the vicinity. Lucas was stupified, what was that? What made that explosion?

"Lucas! We need to leave! The barrier is falling!" Lucas looked up to see the pitch-black sky cracking as water forced itself into the barrier as he was suddenly reminded that they were at the bottom of a lake.

He ran to Ronnie holding her tightly, "hold your breath!" He closed his eyes as the waves drowned them, he held on tightly refusing to let go until he was in a comfortable enough position to swim up.

Ronnie coughed violently expelling the water in her lungs, she severely underestimated how long she would have to hold her breath, she had no idea how to swim as she never learnt, she felt like she had been hit with a tidal wave, her body felt as heavy rock. "Are you ok?" Lucas was completely fine, he was physically fit and knew how to swim. "We need to leave" She managed to squeeze out, "She's not dead, we need to leave now!" She pushed herself off the ground with as much strength as she could muster and was helped off by Lucas who had yet to ask her any questions, but she was fully ready to answer them all.