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Though it probably wasn't necessary, Fumiyo led the entire way through the small harbor town to the ferry. She Idly chatted with Elias the entire way in her teasing, playful manner. The solder would notice her presence drew the attention of several eyes, most likely due to her exotic appearance and beauty. She seemed to pay the looks no attention, though her tail did wag a little. Once they had reached the ferry, Fumiyo paid the fees for both Elias and herself. She claimed it was in thanks for keeping her company. "Who knows what other ruffians might have accosted me! I'm afraid I draw more attention than I desire. Though, I guess I can't blame them, hehe."

Once the ferry had launched from the docks, she took a position on the brow. It was a warm and the sun was high in the sky, but the cool ocean breeze made for a pleasant environment. As the ship gently rolled over the waves, the wind blew the against Fumiyo's outstretched face, making her raven black hair to flutter about her. After enjoying this sensation for a while she turned back to Elias to talk. "So, I don't believe you've told me the story of your ravens yet. How did you come across two such fine pets?"

Fumiyo thoughtfully listened to Elias's story. [b]"Hmm, I see, so they are more your companions than pets, interesting. They must be quite loyal to you to stick around like that after being given their freedom, even if the one does act rebellious." Fumiyo looked up at the ravens as they flew following the ferry, a small smile upon her lips. "You are lucky to have such friends."

After her last comment Fumiyo turned her attention back to where the ship was heading. The southern tip of the island began to loom into view and the wolf girl's tail began to wag furiously. However she quickly realized this and stopped. She flashed Elias a bit of an embarrassed look. "I-It has been a long time since I've returned to this island. I have fond memories of of this place."

As the ferry approached the island, a little port town, similar to the one they had just left, began to come into view. Though she was being much more subtle about it now, it was obvious that Fumiyo was becoming more excited with each passing moment. However, there was a sudden shift in her mood. Her masked excitement abruptly gave way to a look of concern. "That's odd... there's smoke rising from the temple." And indeed, from a large structure situated in the mountains behind the town, a plume of black smoke was rising.

"Wait, Elias!" Fumiyo shouted at the soldier but it was already too late. He had taken off into the air with his fire jet ability leaving the wolf girl behind on the boat.

As Elias runs through town from the docks towards the temple, he will notice that the citizens had taken notice of the fire at the temple as well. Several were now staring and pointing at the rising smoke. As he gets closer, he sees no flames in or on the shrine but black smoke is indeed emanating from a hole in the top of the structure.

When Elias reaches the bottom of the winding mountain trail that leads to the shrine he will see several town guards blocking the path and warding away curious townsfolk from entering. Indeed as Elias approaches, a guard puts out his hand and motions him to stop. "I'm sorry, no one is allowed to enter the shrine at this time. Please return to the town until access is restored to the shrine. Everything is under control..."

As the guard speaks in a bored manner another one suddenly cuts him off. "Eric, don't you recognize the insignia on his sword? He's from the military. He's probably here to assist us."

Eric retorts back in an annoyed manner. "Yeah well, I will still need to see papers! Why would the military be interested in this, anyways!" The guard eyes Elias suspiciously as he waits for him to produce his military identification papers.

Back at the ferry....

As the ferry nears the docks, people on the ship begin to notice the black smoke as well. Fumiyo turns to look up at the raven Elias has tasked to follow her. She flashes it a small smile and speaks to it in a playfully regretful voice. "I'm sorry Huginn, but I must go now where you cannot follow. Head back to your master; I will join him shortly." The wolf girl then dashed below deck, where she quickly vanished from sight.


At the mountain pass...

The four guards at the base of the trail turn and look at each other in confusion as Elias blasts away. One of them finally speaks up. "Should we do as he says?"

Eric grumpily shakes his head. "We are the town guard. We are not part of the Vatra Military. The only person I take orders from is the captain, and he told me to stand here and ward citizens away. Besides, there's no one left up there except that monster and twelve of our finest. They got this situation."

The other guards seem to agree with Eric but then the one who had identified Elias's sword earlier speaks out in protest. "That may be true, but we should still respect his authority. We work with the military all the time. He is a Lieutenant Colonel; he must have a reason for being here."

Eric looks angrily at the dissenting guard. "Maybe because they're the ones who created it. In all my time I have never seen a creature such as that! But very well Jonathan--it looks like you just volunteered. Go ahead and help the Lieutenant Colonel escort 'ghosts' down from the shrine. Frank, go ahead and go with him so the officer's feelings don't get hurt when he only sees one guy following him. ...But you guys better hurry; he's already at the top with those little flame jets of his."

Jonathan gives the guard an angry look of his own and snaps, "Eric, you're an a**." He then turns and begins to sprint up the stairway with Frank.


At the shrine entrance...

As Elias flings open the doors to the shrine he feels a tremendous wave of heat rush over him. The heat is so strong that it is almost unbearable, even for a fire elemental! Several male voices gasp in surprise as the doors open and someone yells out, "Close those doors! She'll escape!" ...But it was too late.

For a brief second through the hazy smoke, Elias gets a clear view of the situation. In the middle of the room, there stood a young woman, the likes of which he has never seen before. Her eyes are closed and her hands are clasped together in a channeling sort of position. She looks to be the source of the unbearable aura of heat that is causing the walls and furniture in the room to smoke and smoulder. Small fires have even broken out in certain areas.

A dozen or so weary looking guards are pressed against the walls. A few of them look about ready to pass out. The guards are staying as far away from the girl as possible, though they are also positioned in such a way to prevent her access to any escape route. At least, until Elias opens the front doors.

The flame-haired girl looks up directly at the solder with her glowing yellow eyes and smiles. The heat aura suddenly collapses in on her and erupts into enormous jets of flame from her hands and feet. Like an unstoppable rocket, she blasts through the open door with lightning speed. The force of her movement is so powerful, it knocks everyone out of her path and causes the floor beneath her and the door frame to catch fire. Within moments she is but a blur in the sky.

At the shrine...

A great weight seems to be lifted from the guards's shoulders as the heat dissipates from the room. Despite their obvious weariness, several of them begin to stamp out the fires as others tend to their more exhausted friends. It is immediately clear these valiant men are a cut above the rest. After another moment or so, Elias would begin to even recognize a face or two. A few of them must be ex-soldiers that he had trained in the past--one such guard comes up to Elias to answer his questions.

The guard renders Elias a salute before speaking. "Sir, we don't know where she came from or how she got here. We first received reports from some citizens that there was a strange girl lingering at the entrance to the shrine and that she seemed suspicious. When we sent some guards to investigate, the girl retreated into the shrine. They confronted her and began to ask her questions. From what I was told, she seemed to become agitated and began to give increasingly evasive answers as she was questioned. She was wearing hooded robes that covered her entire body. However, one of the guards questioning her saw something glimmer from underneath the hood and immediately became suspicious of her hiding something. He grabbed her hood to remove it... and that was when all hell broke loose."

The guard pauses for a moment to reach for his waterskin. He holds it up and pours a bit out onto the floor. Much to his dismay, it is still boiling hot. He lets out a sigh and continues. "What happened next is not entirely clear. It was said her robes burnt off her very body revealing that... creature you saw today. She then threatened to burn down the shrine if she was not left alone. It was at this time that the guards evacuated everyone from the shrine and we were dispatched from town to take care of this matter. When we arrived she created that aura of incredible heat to keep us from getting too near. We sent a runner to get additional back-up while we tried to block all the exits--though, to be honest sir, I don't think we could have stopped her. I think her leaving at that time was simply her own choice. We... We have never seen anything like her before.

"I'm afraid that is all the information I have. If you'd like, you could speak to Eric and Johnathan. They're down on the road, warding off the townsfolk. You must have passed them on your way up here. They were the original guards to question the girl."

At that moment the Johnathan arrives at the the temple entrance with Frank in tow. His eyes are wide in bewilderment. "By the two divines, what happened? We saw an enormous fireball erupt from the shrine and take off into the sky. Why, the whole town must have seen it! Was... was that her?!"


At the mountain pass...

Eric and the other guard are still staring up at the shrine in amazement when he feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns around to be greeted by the sight of a comely elf woman in white and red robes. Behind her stand about ten of the most impressive warriors and mages the guard has ever seen.

The elf holds out a piece of paper to the guard. "Good afternoon; my name is Menithleia. Here are my clearance papers. As you can see they are signed by your king and give permission to me and my associates move about freely, as I see fit, to accomplish our rather important mission. Now, If you would not mind getting out of the way. We need to get to the the shrine."

Eric is taken a little off guard by all that has just happened but he recognizes the king's signature (though it had been a while since he has last seen it) and the validity of her papers. He steps aside and quickly stammers, "G-go ahead, M'lady, though I think you might be a little late."

The elf looks back at the guard bemusedly. "That's what I'm afraid of." She then begins to run up the mountain path with her mercenaries in tow.

"Uh, yes sir. My name is Jonathan." The guard seemed to be a bit confused about what Elias was asking about but then he realized he must have wanted to know about earlier when they initially questioned the girl.

"Ah, yes, Eric and I were the first guards on scene. We quickly identified the girl as the suspicious individual based on descriptions given to us by concerned citizens. When we approached her she seemed to become tense. Originally we feared she might have been subject to some sort of abuse, so we began to ask her questions. However she started to get increasingly irate at the questioning and gave evasive answers. All we really got out of her was she was waiting for someone. Due to how she was covering herself Eric became suspicious of her hiding something. When he asked her to remove her hood and she refused, he tried to forcibly pull it down and that's when--"

As the raven flew into the smoking building cawing frantically, Jonathan was momentarily distracted. To him, it seemed like quite odd behavior for such a creature but he then noticed Eric was paying attention to it. "Is that bird a pet of yours? I wonder why it's behaving like that..."

By now the guards had extinguished the fire and fresh water had been brought in buckets from a small mountain spring that ran behind the shrine. The room was still quite hot but doors and windows had been opened to help ventilate the smoke and cool the place. Several of the guards were now sitting on the piers, stripping off pieces of their armor and cooling themselves with the water.

It was at this time the elf woman entered the shrine. All but one of the imposing mercenaries that were accompanying her stayed outside. The one who came inside with her looked to be some sort of mage and began to go around the room, checking corners and shadowy areas. Every once in a while the mage would mumble something under her breath and cause her eyes to glow momentarily.

The elf woman began to speak and, from her accent and the way she carried herself, Elias could tell she was from the lands of Aria. Her voice was friendly but authoritative.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen. You did a valiant job today. My only regret is we did not get here in time to assist you; otherwise we might have taken the fugitive into custody. What you encountered today was a dangerous wanted criminal on the run from the Aria Kingdom. My name is Menithlea and I am a consul of the king put in charge in the apprehension of these escaped enemies of state." The elf woman produced and showed her papers to the guards and Elias. They were signed by the King of Vatra himself and gave her permission to employ any endeavors necessary to accomplish her mission as long as it did not cause harm to his subjects.

After putting away her papers Menithlea continued to speak. "I imagine few words were exchanged with the subject, but if anyone can provide any clues as to why she was here and what she was up to, it would be of the utmost help. I also would like a debrief on everything that has happened up to this point."

Menithlea suddenly turned to Elias. "I was told there were only town guardsman up here. What business brought an officer of the Vatra military to be involved in this?"

Menithlea listened to Elias's explanation for his presence and his brief description of what had transpired. "I see. Well, that was very noble of you, if a little foolish. I'm afraid I do not have any further information to share, other than what I have already stated. Given the international nature of this mission we are not currently working with any nation's military. We find it only complicates things. Hence, the reason why all my assistants are mercenaries. Although..."

Menithlea looked the Lieutenant Colonel up and down and then smiled. "Ever fancy doing any mercenary work? You look like you must be quite the combatant and we can always use more help in tracking these bandits down. I would have to garner permission from your command to hire you, but that shouldn't be too much of an issue. What do you say?"