Chapter 274: That Way Maybe
After looking around for a while Lake eventually found a single footprint around 500 feet away from where the trail ended. If it hadn't been for Detector he wasn't sure if he would have ever found it but that wasn't really what he was worried about. "Why do you think they changed up the way they were moving?"
Looking at the Temple Head while he waited for her to answer, Lake could tell she was really thinking. "It's most likely just to make it harder for anyone who is able to track them but it could have also been to avoid being seen. If there just happened to be a person here as they were running, maybe they jumped over the area so they wouldn't be seen."
"So you don't think it could be a fight or anything?" Lake had kind of been hoping that maybe Tiffany had been able to get away on her own and they had fought up in the air or something. He hadn't been able to find any of her tracks though so he had wanted to know what the Temple Head thought.
"There would be more damage to the area if there was a fight." Lake knew that as well but he said. "Not if the person was trying to avoid hurting who they were carrying."
"Her name is Tiffany, but you're right there is a chance the fight could have been devoid of any big attacks. I wouldn't really call that a fight though more of a chase." Hearing that the temple Head finally said Tiffany's name he was happy he could finally use it without worrying. "Well do you know if Tiffany can fly or anything like that that wouldn't leave tracks?"
"Not that I know of but she is pretty fast so her tracks might be far apart." Anyone with high agility could jump long distances which made the way he was tracking them less useful. "We'll continue after the person who grabbed her just to be safe." Lake didn't want to waste anymore time and just started to follow the tracks again, only stopping whenever there was a gap since he had to look around to find where the tracks continued.
"I think you were right about it just being a way to throw us off. I can feel intention from where they're jumping to make it harder for us to find the next set of footprints." It was always somewhere that he would have to pass through a forest or something to find the next one so it was obvious that they were trying to trick whoever was after them.
He was sure they had other tricks they were throwing in to stop other methods of tracking but he wasn't dealing with them since he was just going off of tracks so this was the only thing slowing them down. As he was saying this he could tell the Temple Head was looking around at the surrounding features of the land to keep track of where they were heading.
"It looks like we aren't heading in a very straight direction either so there's no way to guess where they're actually going." Hearing the Temple Head was being vague with who they were actually after Lake asked. "Who do you think we are after?" With no evidence at all he was asking her to guess so he could also guess where they might be going.
"The demon Worshipers are the most obvious group but they don't usually take people alive since their body is as useful as the living person so we think there's a chance we're dealing with one of the dark guilds and this might be them looking for a way to blackmail us. My guess would be the Assassins guild since Tiffany has had dealings with them in the past."
Lake knew what the Temple Head was talking about since he had been there when it happened but he acted like he didn't and asked. "What happened?" He could tell the Temple Head almost didn't answer him because it probably wasn't a good idea to spread news of a conflict with the Assassins guild on the off chance they decided to come and settle it to shut you up.
After a while she did start to talk, having made up her mind that telling him was more important than trying not to step on any toes. "She was taken by them but someone who doesn't work for us stopped it so it's not a problem for me to talk about it since the Assassins guild will be after them for payment. Alright let's get moving."
Lake had realized he had slowed down to talk to the Temple Head and asked. "Could you move faster if I wasn't here?"
"Yeah but I can't tell where we need to go." Thinking back to what he had done to Helain to speed them up, Lake said. "Let me ride on your back. I'll still be able to tell you where to go and when to stop." Lake was sure he could go as fast as her but he didn't want to show off his top speed so this was his only option left to speed them up.
"Usually I would never let someone that I don't really know that close to me but fine, climb on." After the Temple Head said this she took a knee to allow him to get onto her back. "Where do you want me to hold on?" This was an awkward question but he knew she wouldn't like him just going for her neck without asking.
"Do you think you'll be able to hold on to my shoulders and not fall off?"
"We can try it but don't go top speed right away. Increase it slowly." Lake knew there was probably no reason for him to say this since she had probably carried loads of people before but sometimes it was good to say what felt obvious. "Alright get ready." Feeling her start to move, Lake told her to just go straight and held on.
Once they had passed the speed at which he had carried Helain Lake had to get his face really close to the Temple Head's ear so that she would be able to hear him but when he heard her tell him to back off of her ear he guessed she was able to hear him even with this much noise. After a while they were going much faster than what they had been doing earlier and he really had to grip her to make sure he didn't go flying off of her back.
"Stop." Calling a stop, Lake climbed off and started to look around for the next set of tracks. Eventually finding them he gave the Temple Head a look and was about to ask to get back onto her back but she just let him with no need for any words. "I'm going to speed up faster this time, hold on tight from the beginning."
Lake clamped his hands down and could feel most of his body come up off of the Temple Head's back being dragged like a cape behind her for a few seconds before he was able to get his legs back by doing what was essentially a crunch. Once he was nice and secure he started to giggle a little and said. "Turn slightly to the left."
After a while they got into a rhythm and they were able to cover a massive amount of land that was similar to what he could have done on his own if he wasn't trying to hide how fast he was. "Stop here the trail ends again." It seemed whoever they were chasing had a large amount of patience to still be trying to slow down anyone who had been able to stay on the trail this time.
As he was looking for where the tracks would continue he went ahead and asked. "Where do you think we're heading at the moment if you had to guess." He had asked around twenty times at this point but he really liked to know where he was going. "My guess would be the fire Domain. We're getting close to it but that doesn't mean that's where they are. They could have just passed through."
Lake took in everything she said before he said. "The track will probably be over there, let's go look." There was a river and the person they were chasing had jumped over almost every river they had seen so far, sometimes even landing in it before jumping again. If it wasn't for Detector he would have never had any hopes of seeing this but he had no problem using his cheat-like skill.
"There it is, but it looks like they kept jumping for a while." They had never jumped more than three times in a row so Lake wasn't worried about losing them here. Eventually finding another trail of footprints Lake was about to tell the Temple Head to let him back on but he saw this set stopped after ten or so paces. "It looks like they might have changed it up again."
Lake had no idea why but he thought maybe whoever they were after had been able to tell they were tracking them and had decided to throw them off like this but all he needed to do was think of a way to use Detector to get past this new trick and they would be back on their heels.
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