Chapter 322: Smoke
Seeing as they were about to reach the top of a mountain, Lake went ahead and stopped because it was a perfect place for them to look around. He felt this was something someone who was actually looking for someone would do so it would make the lie he was living more believable. "Are we close?"
Hearing the Temple Head question Lake just shrugged and said. "I have no idea but this is too good of a place to have a look around to just pass it." This mountain was the tallest they had been on up until now so it really did have a great view of the surrounding area. "Are you hoping to see some smoke or something?"
Lake just nodded as he scanned the skyline for anything that could be considered interesting. Surprisingly eventually he saw some wispy black smoke on the horizon and pointed it out to the others saying. "You were right, there's smoke over there." When Tiff had suggested this as a possibility he hadn't felt there was even a slight chance someone would be out here with a fire but he guessed other people could get out here if they had a reason.
"We should get going before they move on. If all they're doing is cooking they will start moving again soon." Lake loved the fact this small stop had added so much credibility to the fact they were chasing someone through the mountains, he just hoped they didn't end up finding someone near this fire because it wasn't really where the dagger was.
...
Seeing the smoke Tiff couldn't believe that they were so close to tracking the dagger down. When the God of Light had made this her first mission there was a part of her that felt it would actually be impossible since at any time the Demon Worshipers could have found it first and destroyed it but it seemed fate was on their side and brought them Lake.
Without him she didn't think there would have ever been a chance that they could have found it on someone who likes to hide out in the mountains of the Metal Domain. It seemed the Temple Head was as excited as she was because as they started moving again she could tell the Temple Head had started moving faster than earlier.
At this speed it would only take like an hour to climb the mountains that were between here and where the smoke on the horizon had seemed to be coming from. She just hoped the person they found was actually Jon and he was as nice as she expected him to be based on their last meeting.
It would also be nice if he didn't bring up her plans to run away that they had discussed last time they had met. She no longer wanted to run away but having this brought up would be kind of awkward since she now held a position like the Temple Head's in the temple.
...
It didn't take long for Donny and Rigbis to straighten the halls inside the golem to make it seem the two of them had been the ones who finished what the golem was too weak to do. Now that they had Metal mana back it was as simple as walking around touching walls and of course with the golem not actually out of mana it helped slightly as well.
Once they had everything livable they went out and did more work on the exterior where everyone could see them and added to the trick that the golem was useless now. A few hours after they arrived the fortress was ready to be filled with the people they had arrived with and Rigbis gathered everyone to give a quick speech about what he expected for them to do.
Donny was quickly replaced in his position next to Rigbis once the speech began by the people who always surrounded him and went to join the rest of the people to listen. Donny wasn't sure if Rigbis' lackeys were in on the plan to trick any of the traitors that were still hiding within their group or not but he had already been told by Rigbis to not tell anyone so he didn't plan to ask.
"For now we will just go back to how we were while inside the barrier with one group sleeping while the other group guards but we now have actual rooms and space to be alone. This is nice since it means we won't be crowded any longer but with privacy comes the fact any bad actors could cover their tracks easier so be on guard of your neighbors and come report anything you see."
Donny guessed this was a good thing to say to everyone but he would have probably kept that unsaid if it was up to him. Donny was pretty sure people knew to be suspicious without being told so saying it like it was going to happen made him think people might over do it. This made him wonder if Rigbis was going for something by saying this.
If the Demon Worshipers thought it was safe to plan in their rooms maybe Rigbis could use his connection to the golem to take advantage of this in some way. It would be really funny if they all ended up giving themselves away because they dropped their guard thinking there was no way anyone knew what they were talking about.
"Alright everyone can go inside now. I'll send people to tell you what your jobs are in a few hours." As he was walking in Donny went towards a room he had seen earlier while he and Rigbis were forming the hallways because it had caught his attention at the time for being in a good place and larger than average.
He knew this meant someone else might think it was their room but Donny was pretty sure the room was malformed from the golem doing an obviously bad job turning into a fortress this last time so no one else would know it was extra luxurious. Being the first person to this part of the fortress he had no problem claiming the room as his own.
Closing the door He went ahead and made some simple furniture for himself and sat down. A metal bed wasn't exactly what one would want for their room but all the furniture that had been in the fortress before it moved was gone as far as he could tell so he didn't have any other options.
He guessed they had gotten all the beds they had been using up until this point from the city before the fighting had started but he had no idea if that was right or not. He felt like by the time the fortress had taken shape the fighting would have been too intense for them to take the time to salvage for beds and chairs from the buildings around them.
"Growwl." Donny was snapped out of his thoughts about furniture by his stomach making a loud noise reminding him how much they still needed to get food. Being reminded of this he walked out of his room knowing this would make it possible people could think it was empty and take it to go look for Keel.
At the end of the day having a slightly bigger room didn't matter when he was actually hoping to be one of the people that was sent to find food. After walking a few of the hallways he finally saw Keel standing next to a room and walked over. "Has Rigbis given you any orders yet?"
Keel shook his head before telling him what had happened in the couple of minutes they had been inside the fortress. "They haven come out of the room yet." Donny didn't find this surprising since it would take more time than he had given them to plan how to keep them all alive with no obvious ways to get resources.
It took a while for either of them to say anything since neither of them actually had anything to say but eventually Keel went into small talk. "I know you two were trying to get done as quickly as possible but you didn't do a great job at making the floors even."
Looking down Donny knew Keel was right and he should have flattened the floors before they stopped but he and Rigbis had been trying to keep the rough shape of everything to make it seem like the golem was unable to finish its transformation. "Yeah but there's always time for that in the future."
They would probably end up being here for a while so once he had more energy he could pass the time by making the floors perfect. He could probably do it while he was patrolling the halls as a guard if he didn't get to leave to go find food for the fort to eat.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺