Finding my Parents in Another World-Chapter 79: (Raorka) Fort That Shouldn’t Be

Raorka was lost. He was sure of it as he looked at the map for the tenth time. There was no fort marked on the map. Instead there should have been a fork in the road right here, and Raorka was to take the right road.

However it stood there, a big black monstrosity mocking the map he held in his hands. It had been three days since he had left Temuril. Initially the journey had been smooth as butter, he was able to perfectly follow the route on the map and match it with the helpful checkpoint pictures Lumina had provided in her box.

However now this was the first conflict he faced. The road he had followed here was straight on, he had even verified the big banyan tree that Lumina had provided a checkpoint of a couple of miles back. But here, where there should have been a fork in the road, stood a fort.

It seemed deserted. No one was manning the large iron gates, and the four small towers on each side of the fort also seemed to be deserted. However there was an ominous feeling radiating from it, perhaps because of its solitude.

Raorka looked at the map again. The path shown was to follow the right road. There was no road on the right, but maybe it was there beyond the fort? Maybe the fort was either built anew after Lumina had travelled the path, or it was simply too insignificant for either the map of for her.

There was really no other option. Folding the map and keeping it in his jacket, Raorka walked forwards through the ominous gates of the fort.

.XX.

Inside the walls of the fort, was four residential areas, built around each of the four archer towers. There was an open area connecting all four to each other, with doors leading inside each structure. There seemed to be no direct exit in this open area, so the exit outside should be in one of these towers.

Roarka looked at each of them in turn. There were two towers in front of him, and two to the side. Usually he would expect the tower that led to the exit to be in front, but the map mentioned a path to take to the right, so he made for the right tower instead.

The door to each of the towers were much smaller than the main fort gate, but almost as heavy. The door was studded with gems in an oblique symbol that Raorka didn’t recognize. It looked like a distorted triangle with a snake coiling around each side of it. He slowly pushed it open, having to use his full force due to the sheer weight of the door.

Inside the door was a long corridor. Raorka did a double take when he saw the corridor, for it was not a straight one like he was expecting. Instead the corridor twisted and turned, much like the snake on the symbol drawn on the door. There didn’t seem to be an exit door visible from here, but there were several doors on either wall of the corridor, and and a snaking staircase leading to presimably higher floors until the roof of the archer tower.

Should probably check out the roof first.

Raorka made for the stairs. The stairs were quite steep, and he was out of breath after the first few. When he stopped to take his breath, he noticed that there didn’t seem to be other floors, the staircase was leading straight up to the rooftop. Sighing, he resumed his climb.

There were a lot more stairs than he was expecting, so it took almost another thirty minutes for Raorka to complete the climb. In the end he stood before another door, this one much simpler and made of wood. He pushed it open easily, grateful for the much lower effort required and then stepped onto the roof of the archer tower.

The roof was also much smaller than Raorka thought, just the size of a small room. There were low walls on all sides of it, but Raorka could still easily see the surroundings.

There was the straight road to his right, from where he had come from. In front of him was the path he was supposed to take. Raorka had been right, there was a path snaking forward from this tower and in the distance he could see the Binotii River from where he would have to take a boat directly to the Capital.

But something was wrong. For a long while Raorka couldn’t figure out what it was, and then he noticed.

The same path was also on his left.

Scrambling, he looked behind him and sure enough it was the same path, identical in everything down to the height of the trees to the flow of the Binotii River.

What the hell does this mean?

Three identical paths, but only one of them could be right. Raorka could have considered that the Binotii River went around in a circle around the fort, but the paths to it couldn’t be exactly identical on all sides.

A magik illusion?

Raorka wasn’t too familiar with magik yet, having only learned it a few weeks back, but it was likely that there would be magik capable of producing an illusion like this. Which meant there would be someone using this magik somewhere as well.

No...not necessarily.

Gingerly Raorka put his hand in his pocket and extracted the one item he always carried around with him. The Die of Reknown. It had saved his life when nothing else possibly could have, and although it was generally useless, the magik in it was exceedingly powerful.

And more than that it was proof that there could be strong magik imbued in objects.

Objects like this fort.

If the fort itself was a magik item, then it would make a lot of sense why it was not on the map, or in Lumina’s notes. Maybe it was itself created using magik. For what purpose? Raorka couldn’t know.

But one thing was clear, he would have to determine which was the correct path by brute force. He wasn’t skilled enough in magik yet to know how to dispell items imbued with magik.

Sighing Raorka resumed the long climb back downwards.

.XX.

When he returned to the corridor, something felt amiss. As if the corridor had been curved in a different way when he had gone up. Doors at different places than they were before.

Raorka tensed up, keeping himself on full alert to activate his Inito at a moment’s notice, as he walked slowly towards the end of the corridor. After moving a few steps he could see the end of the corridor and a small door leading outside there.

As he proceeded towards that, walking past the scores of doors on either side, he could hear some sounds coming from inside. He paused in front of the first door. The sound from inside seemed like scratching, incessant scratching on walls. His hand hovered over the knob, but he didn’t dare to open it yet. Not only did the sound deeply unsettle him, but he was also in a hurry.

Thus he ignored the scratching and kept moving forward. Each door had a similar sound emanating from within - a constant scratching. On each door Raorka tried his best to keep moving ahead, drown out the scratching sound poisoning his ears.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, Raorka stood in front of the exit door of the tower. He pushed against it quickly, eager to get out into the wilderness, even if it was a fake mirage created with magik.

The outside was indistinguishable from reality. Of course Raorka didn’t know if this particular ’outside’ was fake or not, but if it was then the magik user who had imbued this fort was truly skilled.

Maybe even as skilled as this Wizard of Reknown.

The thought stayed with Raorka for a long while, as he started moving through the path.

There was nothing much amiss in the twisting path. Raorka was expecting to be attacked at frequent intervals, but nothing of the sort happened. The journey along the path was completely serene and peaceful, with even occassional chirping of birds. There were no actual birds which Raorka could see though, which made him think it was quite likely this path was fake. Still he decided to follow it through till the end to at least see what happened.

After an indeterminate amount of walking, Raorka could finally see the Binotii River coming up. There was nothing unusual about the river, except for the fact that there were no people on it’s port. There were a couple of ferries tied to the port, presumably the same ones Raorka would have to board to reach the Capital, but there were no people. No guards, no passengers, no nothing.

Something was telling him that this was where he could expect the attack to come from.

With a sigh Raorka moved forward and entered the deserted port.