Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

After an entire day's worth of flight, Raven and his party finally hit solid ground. Setting foot on soil, they began marching forward, all the while, Mercedes continued to complain inside of their ears.

"LET ME GO! I DIDN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING TO YOU! AND WHY DO YOU EVEN CARE WHAT I DO WITH THOSE HALFWITS?!" Her voice felt even sharper at such elevation, and Regalia almost wanted to plug her mouth again and would've done just that had it not been for Raven advising her against it.

Watching Mercedes' patron bouncing around and throwing a fit, had to be enough solace for now as they continued on marching. The city wasn't far, just behind a thicket although even from afar the party could sense the corruption bleeding from between the many trees that lined the border.

Stopping in front of them, Raven turned to Mercedes but the merchant appeared to be in no mood to answer any question. He tried to grab her and look through her memories, but the blood-fed fairy prevented his gift from working on her just like it had when they first met.

"What is going on beyond this point?" He finally decided to ask when his magic didn't work.

But with a smirk on her face, the merchant refused to open up.

"Let me just beat the answer out of her!" Growing upset by every passing second in the standstill, Aria stepped up beside the merchant but was quickly pulled back by the party leader.

Raven didn't want her injured given Mercedes' claims of being good friends with the queen. Dare they present her battered and bruised, things could quickly take a turn for the worse, even worse than them simply presenting her as a prisoner.

'If the queen has a liking for her, this whole plan will just crumble like wet sand…' The thought alone made Raven grow more cautious, and yet brushing away his doubts, he led the party through the thicket to arrive at the city whose name had been forgotten by its own citizens.

The moment his eyes scanned his surroundings through a tiny iron gate, his senses perked to the max and his body tensed to the tension lingering in the air.

"Watch out…" He whispered, extending on hand to the back to alarm his companions. Your journey continues with empire

A sea of zombified citizens were walking through ruined streets, and every corner and every inch of the city was covered with corrupted flora, from moss to flowers and even the trees. Stretching from underneath them were glowing vines branching up a path, one that inclined uphill towards a desolate castle at the very edge of the horizon.

Slowly making their way forward, Raven made sure not to touch anyone or anything as the zombified people didn't appear to be reacting to them and he didn't want to alarm them into action either. Moving through the streets, the party slowly began to grow more comfortable in their movement, and before they knew they were headed for the queen's castle with the snarling of zombies dissolving into the background.

Something terribly wrong was going on in this place but with Mercedes refusing to talk, the party only had one way to find out what it was. Meet the queen and potentially the false heroes as well, and in preparation for that, Raven was absorbing as much corruption as possible to feed the powers granted to him by Tatiyana Umbra.

After soaking corruption to the limits, his veins had turned dark and the white of his pupils turned completely black. His neck, the nexus of nerves, had shifted hues to pitch dark as well, almost giving an illusion of a tattoo that covered his whole neck. Watching him change so drastically, Mel moved to his side and held his hand close to her heart. Making sure he could feel her heartbeat, she wanted him to guide him through the darkness.

And from the tension easing in his body and the corrupted tattoos disappearing slowly into pure power, it appeared to be working and that's when Aria too decided to walk up beside him. Leaving Erika and the spirit to watch their backs along with Ameidth and Liliyana, Raven continued marching forward with a faint smile tugging at his lips.

"Let me know if you need healing," Erika whispered, a bit jealous of the other two, but still not compromising on their safety.

As for Regalia and Maria, the two had barely ever been in a region of corruption and the chill up their spines had them hurdled in the middle of the entire group. Even so, more prone to battle than the ex-queen, the wolf-girl was handling it much better and was even looking after or rather carrying Mercedes on her shoulders.

"Are all horrors like this? Frozen solid or zombified?" Maria asked after remaining silent for a long time.

Thinking about the subject for a bit, Raven wondered just to what extent he should tell Maria the truth so that she might not become vulnerable through fear of the horrors to feast on.

"No, but keep your guard up and you should be fine…" Everyone except Maria and the spirit knew that was a lie, but even so, keeping their lips shut they refrained from freaking out either of the two.

Horrors feed on negative emotions and if they grew too fearful, the zombies no matter how passive right now, were bound to chase after them for a direct lick of that horror in their hearts. Marching forward and forward, the entire party steeled their hearts and continued their journey to that castle in the distance.

Unfamiliar ground with just a hint of familiarity, for the plants, the zombified people, and the growth of corrupted life all around, reminded Raven of someone–someone he respected but couldn't save so she could see the light of the next day.

'Lilith…I'm sorry, again.' He said to himself, and before long the party had arrived at the overgrown castle. Armored skeletons greeted them at the gates, they led the party through the corrupted garden while the flowers hissed in their direction, and finally, as they all stepped in, a strange heaviness befell them all, reminding them of something they'd experienced before yet again.

"A keeper…" They whispered in the same breath.

After all, they never would have guessed that the cause of this silent mayhem could be the queen herself. But it was far too late to back off or reconsider their option, so even though Raven knew it was a bad idea, he led his party to meet up with this alleged queen of the nameless city and the kingdom.