As Beloc's blade sinks into the loamy earth, the tendrils let out an audible shriek. On Sypher's side, the ground is now bathed in a deep golden light that the darkness actively recoil from. Within a few moments of Beloc taking up his end of the fight, the light spreads from Sypher and is met in the middle by Beloc's own golden aura radiating from his blade. Despite the voices briefly assaulting Beloc's mind as well, they've gone completely silent for both man and elf.

The golden light forms a completely new circle that overlaps the summoning sigil, and with and crack like lightning, sinks into the ground completely replacing the foul taint. After about 10 seconds the golden sigil fades, and the summoning circle is no more. The brown and decaying grass already shows signs of a few sprouts of fresh, green blades sprouting up in response to the overwhelming presence of positive and natural energies.

Both Beloc and Sypher are dripping with sweat, but the task is accomplished, and both feel a strong sense of relief now that the strain has lifted.

"Well, that was different."  Sypher bows his head for a moment and offers a silent prayer to Iehova.  Then he stands and wipes the sweat from his brow.  He checks Beloc to see if the elf is injured in any way.  Seeing that he is not, he sheathes his sword.  There is nothing else evil in the vicinity.  "A wonderful lesson we have learned here today, my friend.  The powers given to us to fight this darkness are even stronger together.  We should remember it in the days to come."  Sypher smiles warmly and holds out a hand to Beloc, the first true feelings of camaraderie blooming.

Shiaran's eyes grow wide at the spectacle then she purses her lips and moves them to the side while her brows furrow in thought.

Beloc locks forearms with Sypher and stands up. "Thank you, friend." He cleans his blade and sheaths it. "A solid victory, to be sure."

"Luckily, Rebort was able to align my weapon against the darkness. Otherwise, I don't think I would have been able to give you the edge you needed. As you said, we learned something valuable here." A thought dawns on him. "That reminds me. Kallium's book. He left it to me just before..."

He pauses for a moment as the events of last night catch up with him. "Just before we left. Perhaps it will give us a better idea of what we're dealing with."

"Perhaps we should consider it when we finish casing this place and getting the supplies we need.  Shall I take point?"  He indicates the building next to them, the one farthest to the East.

{Building @ JKLM on map}

"Agreed." Beloc looks over to the next building. "After you."

Sypher leaves his hands free, but moves toward the building.  He checks the door and scans in any nearby windows.

Shiaran follows, guns out.  Once they arrive at the door, she slides forward and checks the door for any traps.  "Aha, you little rascal."  She pulls out some tools and snips a wire up at the top of the door.  Inside, a grade is strapped to a table leg.  The string would have pulled the pin.  Shiaran detaches the string and the grenade and puts it in a pouch at her belt.

She looks around for other potential traps within what appears to be the mess hall.

Sypher will look around as well but will only go where Shiaran has examined for traps.  He will generally stay close to her until the whole building has been cased.

Within the mess hall there are no further traps be to seen. Food still sits on the table, starting to spoil. There are no signs of struggle, only a hasty exit from the meal. Several books, which turn out to be mundane in nature sit around the tables as well.

Back in the kitchens, a large grill has gone cold, leaving nothing but ashes and charred meat on top. A strange rod of blue metal sits on one of the counter tops, with a rime formed over it.

"Looks like everyone was in a hurry to leave. Some of them might have survived and escaped."

"We could hope, but this is a military base.  Look, the trap was set and everything is left undisturbed as they exited, but there is no damage to the building.  That was a pretty big summoning circle.  Something is not adding up here.  What kind of event took place here.  We need to look for the place where the conflict happened."  Shiaran glances over the rime crusted rod, but though it is strange, she doesn't have time or spells prepared to test it for magic or use.  Instead, she lets it lay there and moves on.

R.E.B.O.R.T. enters the room last, covering their flank. He takes notice of the rime covered rod as well, but something about it catches his eye. He slings the rifle over his shoulder as to not bump the counter as he leans in to take a closer look.

"This object radiates magic. Some sort of conjuration." He picks it up, and though his hands are primarily wood and metal, it still feels cool to the touch.

"This will be a nice mystery to unravel once we get back on the road."

After a brief moment in Rebort's hand, the rod let's out a slight puff of frost, and a fine sized chunk of ice, twice the size of a walnut falls from the rod and lands on the counter. It doesn't begin to melt, and instead begins to move of its own accord, taking the shape of a fine sized humanoid, though very blocky and squat in stature.

The little ice golem looks up as Rebort towers over him, and cowars in fear, shrieking in a barely audible tongue that Rebort does not recognize.

"Aw, Rebort, how cute."  Shiaran is intrigued by the rod, but moreso Rebort's ability to tell it was magic just be looking at it.  The golem was curiouser and curiouser.

The tiny golem continues to cower, and despite not speaking in a more common language, its body language suggests it's begging not be be squashed.

R.E.B.O.R.T. lowers himself to eye level with the tiny golem to reduce his threat level. "What manner of creature are you?"

He lays his hand on the counter, palm facing up, inviting the golem to climb on. "Odd that someone would leave you behind in this manner."

Seeing Rebort's gesture, the tiny ice golem reluctantly approaches his hand, and cautiously climbs aboard. It looks longingly at the rod he spurted forth from.

He stands back up with the tube in one hand, the ice golem in the other. "Worry not. The ice tube will come with us." He places the tube in a compartment on his hip and the golem upon his shoulder.

"There's nothing here.  Let's move on to the next building.  The more time we spend, the more likely we are to be discovered."  Sypher heads out the front door.

Shiaran smiles one more time at Rebort and then follows.

The tiny golem holds on for dear life. His pleaful gibberish has turned to more of a grumble now. Outside, Darius is still sitting up on the wall, and is flipping through a book. The birds still chirp, and the carrion eaters have started to disperse. The sun still sits high enough in the sky that it should be at least another two hours before it slips low enough behind the wall to cast shadows on the garrison.

"Right, let's go." Beloc follows on behind Sypher.

R.E.B.O.R.T., infatuated with his new friend, heads out last and not really paying attention to much else at the moment. He doesn't notice Shiaran's curiosity, as this might be one of the first beings he is able to identify with at an existential level in a long time.

He appears to spend more time making sure the tiny golem is safe and secure over scanning for threats.

Beloc whips his head around and blurts out "Hey, robot, we're still on duty here." He frowns. "Focus."

R.E.B.O.R.T's head swivels back and forth between Beloc and the golem and then readies his rifle again. "Yes, of course, my apologies."