69 - Book 2: Chapter 6: Plans and Learning

69 - Book 2: Chapter 6: Plans and Learning

Vex couldn't help but feel anxious. Something about this town about Fendal felt off to him. Where the presence of mana was usually a comfort, this time something about it felt... dangerous. Like it was a warning. He wriggled in his seat, slightly annoyed by the fact that the chair was tall enough that his feet didn't even touch the ground.

Derivan wasn't having any problems with his seat. The armor sat ramrod straight in his chair, paying polite attention to the old man that was apparently in charge of this place. Gensen, apparently. Vex watched Derivan for a moment, distracted, and then jumped when Sev spoke.

"You said in your request that there was an infestation," Sev said. "What kind of infestation?"

"Let's not speak of such things to start with," the old man said, though not unkindly. The exhaustion seemed to vanish off of him as he spoke. "You must be tired from your journey, surely. Perhaps I can get you a spot in one of our inns?"

Sev blinked. "That would be... nice? But I'd really rather you tell us what's going on first."

"If you insist," Gensen said.

Vex wasn't paying attention to what the old man said. He watched the mana instead it was drifting through even in this building, and wasn't that strange? It didn't move the way it usually did, though; there was nothing freespirited about it.

It moved with intent.

The lizardkin wondered if there was someone controlling it with [Mana Manipulation], or a variant thereof. He'd never seen mana moving with such purpose before. It almost made him want to try to reach out with his own [Advanced Mana Manipulation], to see if he could touch on it maybe do what Derivan had done before, and just ask the mana

"Vex?" Sev said, and Vex blinked.

"What?" he said, and when he saw everyone was looking at him, he flushed. "Um, sorry. I wasn't paying attention."

"Apparently there's a goblin camp nearby," Sev said. "They raid Fendal every so often and take the mana crystal stores sent by Elyra, among other things. Gensen wants us to help... clear the camp. You're the resident tracking expert, so I wanted an estimate of how long you think that might take."

Vex absolutely wasn't the tracking expert, but he was the 'rogue', and he frowned in thought. The story didn't add up. It didn't explain half the things they'd noticed felt off. And the others felt the same way, too, given the looks on their faces; Misa had her brows drawn together skeptically, and Sev seemed like he was doing his best to be diplomatic. Derivan's helmet allowed him to keep the best straight face out of the four of them, but Vex could practically sense his armored friend's concern radiating from him.

"Um," Vex said, mostly to stall for time. He wasn't exactly sure what Sev wanted from him. The cleric shook his head just slightly delay, he interpreted the gesture as and saw two of his fingers twitch just slightly. "We'll need some time to investigate, of course. Find out where their camp is, what kind of numbers we're looking at. I'd say we'll have a plan of attack in two days or so."

"Of course," Gensen said with a nod and a kind smile. "Shall I settle your lodgings, then?"

"Please," Sev said with a nod, and the old man hobbled off to talk to... someone. The entire town hall seemed empty, actually, which was another oddity; Gensen slipped into another room, but as far as Vex could tell, there weren't any other people in that room.

That didn't stop him from coming out with a set of keys. "There's a room waiting for you at the Sleeping Bird inn, a little ways south of here," Gensen said kindly. "It's the fifth door to the right on the second floor. It's quite a spacious room. I hope you enjoy your accommodations."

Vex opened his mouth to ask why in the world Gensen had keys to a room in an inn here, in the town hall. There were ways that could be done, of course, but teleportation spells weren't cheap at the best of times... maybe the town hall had replicas of all the inn keys?

...That made Vex feel kind of uncomfortable, somehow.

He stopped short just before actually asking the question when Sev gave him a warning glance, and diverted the movement into a yawn instead. He trickled some power into [Advanced Mana Sight] as he did so, eyeing the room Gensen had just emerged from but besides the presence of ambient mana, it all seemed normal. No traces of magic, at any rate.

"S'long as we don't have to pay, I don't care." Misa threw herself back onto one of the couches, ignoring the way the whole thing rocked back with the force of her weight. She groaned with pleasure. "Fuck, I'm grateful to the Guildmaster and all, but it's really nice to have an actual seat."

"No kidding," Sev agreed, though he was much more polite about taking a seat in one of the unoccupied armchairs. Vex and Derivan occupied the last couch opposite to Misa, though Vex grumbled a little at the way he had to curl his tail around. Most seats just weren't really built to accommodate lizardkin.

It was a small gripe, though. Misa took barely a second to switch gears again, changing the subject and leaning forward, her expression serious. "But let's talk about this. Do we think Gensen's being controlled?"

"I don't think so," Vex said, then hesitated. "It's definitely a possibility, but it's too early to jump to that conclusion. At best we keep in mind that he might be compromised and keep investigating."

"I'm inclined to agree," Sev said. "I'm not sure I believe the story about the goblins at all, though. The people here don't act like they've been raided recently."

"If he is not compromised, he could be lying," Derivan suggested.

"Why would he lie, though?" Misa frowned. "Someone put in a request with the Guild and told us to get in contact with him. There has to be a reason for that."

"He's either pointing us in the right direction, or else he's a lead himself," Sev concluded. "Either way, I think it's prudent for us to investigate things besides the goblin raids."

"I can look into the raids," Misa said with a grunt. "Some of the guards are pretty good at tracking. I can summon 'em, ask them for advice. That kind of thing."

"Then I'll talk to the people and see if I can get them to talk about the raids that have supposedly been happening," Sev said.

"I want to look into what's going on with the mana here," Vex said. "I've never seen ambient mana be so active inside a town. Too many skills and spells being cast pretty much all the time mana doesn't typically like that. Derivan, I'm thinking maybe if you try that new method of casting you've got here, we might see different results."

"New method of casting?" Misa asked curiously, and Vex nodded vigorously.

"I still haven't figured out how to do it yet! But he found a way to cast spells without relying on the system or on runic constructs," Vex said, his tail moving to wag almost without him being consciously aware of it. "I've been trying to learn how, but it's slow going on my part. You wanna show 'em, Deri?"

"I will try," Derivan said, though not without a faint hint of fond amusement in his tone. He reached out again, and Vex watched him with bright eyes, following the movement of the mana. The abundance of ambient mana made it easy to cast here, at least Derivan's particular brand of spellcasting, he suspected, wouldn't work as well in normal cities, where whatever ambient mana there was was mostly dead and lifeless.

Just like before, Vex watched as the mana responded to Derivan, starting to form into the familiar shape of the basic barrier spell

and then the barrier flexed, and shattered.

There was a small silence.

"That has never happened before," Derivan said, sounding concerned. Vex couldn't help but echo that concern, too, because he was watching the mana move in the aftermath, and it was agitated.

Worried.

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