Chapter 185: Not Surprised in the Least

Chapter 185: Not Surprised in the Least

Tala found the Mage Hunter waiting for her as she approached the northern gate of Bandfast.

She waved and called out to him. Master Cazor! Im so sorry, did I keep you waiting?

He smiled and shrugged, pushing off the wall hed been leaning against. No, were both actually early. I was just earlier. He chuckled. I prefer to wait for people, rather than make them wait on me.

Tala looked around. They were still a few dozen feet from the actual gate. Cazor had been leaning up against a blank wall and had moved away from it when hed spotted her. That should work. Follow me for a moment; theres something that we need to discuss.

She took Kit from her belt and threw it past him at the wall, where it transformed into a door.

Tala pushed through the door, and Cazor hesitantly followed.

What is this? A fully morphable dimensional storage? Very nice. He looked around the inside of her large, front room but quickly returned his focus to her. So, whats this about?

The door closed, and Tala willed it to seal them off from outside. She knew from prior experiences that no sound would transfer either in or out when she did that.

This trip is partly so I can be bait for a mind altering arcane who seems to be able to infiltrate human cities.

Cazor froze, seeming to process what shed just said. To his credit, he didnt panic, nor disbelieve her. Shed been half-expecting to have to argue with him about her claims. Wellrust.

-Memories?-

Thats a good idea. Do you have an Archive link or tablet?

He gave her an odd look, then nodded. I do.

-Access given.-

Ive just given you access to some memories.

Memories? How-

She shook her head and cut across him. Im sorry, but thats unimportant for the moment. I want you to be informed before we leave the city.

Cazor pulled out a slate and began manipulating it. What he was able to pull up was a sort of grayscale version of the memories, without sound. Interestingly enough, it almost seemed like the memories had too much information to easily be displayed on the empowered stone surface, making the whole thing less clear than if it had been pared down and simplified.

Huh, I didnt really consider quality differences.The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøv€l-B1n.

-Yeah. Hopefully the important parts will be clear enough.-

Cazor finished looking at the two memories before returning his attention to her. So, what was that?

She spent a couple of minutes explaining the parts that he couldnt glean without sound or better-quality renditions of the memory.

So, if I understand correctly. The powers that be believe that youve been targeted by an arcane who can manipulate your mind, and that he has already infiltrated the city at least once?

Thats right.

And youre going out, today, to act as bait. To try to draw him out.

Thats my understanding.

And hes a Revered?

Last I saw him, yes. I dont really understand how arcanes increase their rank.

Its not that hard to grasp, but nows hardly the time. Cazor ran a hand through his hair. And here I thought you were bringing me in here to explain why youre suddenly dipped in iron and hiding it.

Talas eyebrows rose. How did you notice that?

He gave her a mildly condescending look. Come on, Mistress Tala. I manipulate magnetic fields. I have to have a way of perceiving them, and youre all sorts of obvious with that sight. Not sure how you masked the magic-reflecting nature of the material, but Id bet it has to do with the visual illusion?

Near enough. Theres a magical one interwoven through the visual part.

So, you still have your inscriptions, but the illusion is hiding them.

Thats right.

He grunted. But were off topic, now.

True enough.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. So, do you even need to go harvesting?

Oh, yeah. I need to get as many ending berries as I can.

He gave her a long, incredulous look. If anything, he seemed more dubious of this, than of an arcane having entered the city. Ending berries.

Thats right.

He rubbed his face across his hands. Mistress, those are toxic to Mages, and do all sorts of unpleasant things to mundanes who eat too many. Theres a market for them, sure, but a highly regulated one. Theres enough reasonable use for them as protection during one-off, incredibly dangerous jobs, but the number you can safely sell, and not crash the market, makes even a single Archon going to harvest them a losing prospect. Mundanes love them for the one off protection, but theyre still not worth the hassle.

Tala paled slightly. Unpleasant side effects for mundanes? What do you mean by side-effects? How do they harm mundanes?

Crazor shrugged. Has to do with the warriors of old. If the berries are used enough to make an impression in the persons natural magic, those spell-forms begin to draw power from their gate to stay empowered. That sounds wonderful. Theyre now naturally more durable. The problem is that mundanes dont increase their throughput as a general rule, not really. So, that power is no longer going to other areas. The results are almost always a lessening of magic reinforcing other, critical for life systems. The berry users get sick easier, they die younger, that sort of thing.

Is there a cure?

Sure, they can become a Mage, but then the berries magics have to be overridden, and until then, they clash with any other magics the new Mage pursues.

You know an awful lot about this.

I was a mageling on assignment with Mage Hunters who had to hunt down an ending-berry seller. My master thought it would be instructive for me to research the topic thoroughly. In the end, it wasnt really needed. She wasnt precisely hiding her actions. Who knows how she was harvesting the things, but the woman was selling them as miracles, which would protect the user from harm. She didnt bother to tell her clients any of the side-effects. He growled. A large one being that when people get a feeling of invincibility, its hard for them to think rationally about danger. More often than not, a mundane goes into a situation where ending-berry power protected him in the past, without proper consideration or eating another. They die; they die horribly. He shook his head. No. Im not going to help you, and Ill probably even stop you, unless you give me an incredibly good reason why I shouldnt.

Tala was feeling a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing. Well. I use them myself. A large subset of my inscriptions are directly modeled on the ending-berry power.

Cazor tilted his head up in contemplative surprise, looking at one of the upper corners of the room and scratching under his jaw while he bit his lip. Huh. You know, that could actually work. In theory. But doing that would require a truly insane number of inscriptions to function properly. He closed his eyes and scratched between his scrunched eyebrows. Is that even possible? The level of detail required He shook his head in disbelief.

Can I show you what I look like under the illusion without you freaking out? She still had Kanniss reaction vividly in her memory. If this man thought she was an arcane, even for an instant, things could go badly wrong.

He narrowed his eyes. What am I going to see?

-If I had to guess, Kit, Terry, and your other gear is adding to your magical echo. With a caravans worth of storage, youd have to be going a lot slower to avoid this effect.-

And the iron isnt blocking it because this, by its very nature, is magical turbulence. She nodded to herself.

-That would be my guess, yeah.-

They were going too fast for easy conversation, so Tala just smiled and gave Cazor an appreciative gesture.

He waved back and smiled, clearly enjoying himself.

Tala noticed that Cazor had pulled out some glasses to protect his eyes from the wind. Her own eyes werent bothered overmuch, but as a test, she extended her senses and power into her elk-leathers and found the right path to manifest a magical defense in front of her face.

It worked wonderfully. Instantly cutting off the wind.

It also drew a lot of power, because she was manifesting it without the physical component of the defense. So, she was forced to connect a couple of void-channels to her outfit to speed up the flow of power.

They werent strictly necessary, as the soul-bound item could pull directly from her gate and reserves, but the use of the void-channels increased her flow, which was required given the increased demand from the item. Everythings a trade-off.

After fifteen minutes, Alat grunted within Talas mind. -Oh, thats unpleasant. I only have access to my own files, now-

You lost touch with the Archive?

-No, not that. I can still pull some information, though its a lot less than before. I dont even seem to be able to modify anything I created, though I can access all of it much more easily than the rest. If I had to guess, its because we just dont have the magical weight required to access the central Archive.-

Then why can we access our information?

-I think because its magically closer to us? As Holly implied, this is probably why this sort of Archive access doesnt usually happen at such a low rank.-

That made some sense.

In less than half an hours travel from Bandfast, they reached the mouth of the twisting valley indicated on Talas map and slowed. That diminished Talas magic boom considerably, for which she was grateful. It had been beginning to give her a headache.

A few more minutes travel up the valley, and they came around a bend almost running headlong into the leading edge of towering trees.

Cazor reacted quickly, pulling them both backwards, even as the nearest branches lazily swung through the space that they would have entered, had they not slowed and pulled back.

Gah! These things should be trimmed back a bit.

Tala laughed, noticing that Terry had flickered away and was waiting for them on the ground, well out of reach of the trees, even if one were to topple over entirely. Thats probably a smart move.

Cazor lowered them to the ground back near Terry; Tala tossed the bird a big portion of jerky; and the discs broke apart and returned to the Mage Hunters belt-pouches.

Before them, the grove loomed, completely filling the mountain valley, between two short cliffs, just barely twice the height of the tallest tree she could see.

Grass filled the area around them, knee deep in places, but it got noticeably shorter, the closer it came to the trees.

Through the center of the grove ran a pleasant stream that babbled and bubbled and burbled happily into the stillness of the late-morning, winter air.

Not too cold. Something about the area seemed to be warming the valley. Hot spring? There was a bit of steam rising from the water. Fascinating.

Cazor cleared his throat, bringing her attention back to the matter at hand.

So, how do you usually harvest the berries?

She shrugged. Well, I used to strip down and use this. She pulled out her long berry-picker, which shed purchased in Alefast. I then put the berries into an iron barrel to process as I have time, later.

You strip down

Tala glanced away and cleared her throat. Didnt think that one through before I spoke. Well, I didnt want to destroy all my clothes.

He shook his head, seeming to choose the wiser course and not comment on the topic further. Alright, so is that necessary?

No? I can mirror my ending-berry like defense onto my clothing. So, it should be safe from the trees, so long as I maintain focus.

Soul-bound?

Soul-bound, yeah.

Nice.

How about you? How do you think you can harvest?

He grinned. Oh, I think a demonstration is better than just saying it. He lifted his hands, and they practically radiated palpable power.

Iron dust shot from his pouches and flowed over the nearest tree, sweeping it from base to top-most leaf, leaving it utterly undisturbed.

No. Thats not right. All the berries were gone.

The iron cloud came back, seeming more substantial than a moment before. Barrel please?

Tala quickly pulled out one of the barrels and removed the lid.

Cazor gave her a puzzled look when he saw the barrel, but didnt comment.

Bloody barrels

Instead, he gestured, and his iron cloud deposited a miniature mountain of berries within the barrel, easily at least ten gallons.

Tala gaped and Cazor sank down to sit on the grass, looking strained. That was harder than Id expected. He looked down at his arms, clearly analyzing the scripts there. Rust, the trees magic even wears away at power, forcing a greater through-put. Im not sure how many more trees I can pluck before this portion of my inscriptions are spent.

At least a few more? Tala looked into the barrel. All I have to do is remove the seeds and press berries. He didnt take any stems, or leaves, or anything.

Yeah, at least a few. He regarded her. You know, I really should have asked, but whats your plan with the seeds?

She shrugged. I toss them back among the trees.

He didnt look like he really understood, but shrugged nonetheless. Alright, I suppose. So long as you arent planning on selling them. With a groan, he pushed himself back to his feet. Ready for the next?

Yes, please. She reached inside Kit and pulled out her other barrel. Place the new harvests in the first barrel. I need to process these. She began biting the berries in half, quickly removing the seeds and tossing them in among the trees. Then, the two halves of the berry went into the new container.

Cazor stared at her for a long moment, then let loose a single barking laugh. She puts the seeds in her mouth. Somehow, Im not surprised in the least.