Dear Arthur,
Thank you for your correspondence, it was the correct decision to inform me.
It is truly disturbing that Corbin has attempted to detain and abduct a famous alchemist on spurious grounds. I cannot believe that Landar is claimed to be aiding the monsters. Your contact with the knights has done well to obtain news of her request for arbitration so quickly. It shall be well received among the Minmay household, see to it that we pass on the message with all due urgency.
I strongly doubt Corbin's motives in this affair, and where she is making a move, Selabia is never far behind. I cannot know why she has taken such a costly and seemingly pointless action, there is more to this matter than greets the ear. You may expend a measure of the special funds to investigate, I trust your judgment in this as much as I always have in the past.
In the shorter term, I suspect Corbin will not let Landar's escape go for long. Unless her escape has nullified the same reason, we cannot assume that she is out of danger. Landar must be confused and scared, she will almost certainly appeal to her family for help. And while I would rest assured that Iris can protect its own, we cannot afford to let the Central Territory encroach into what is ultimately a local affair.
Extend an invitation to Landar, present it as a proposal for a new order and invite her to my estate to discuss the details.
Needless to say, I must urge caution and discretion in this matter. Chancellor Duport may be looking for another excuse to start a border dispute again and will certainly be on the look out for such an opportunity to obtain the services of her name if he hears of her need. Furthermore, I have received dispatches from the Ektal court that attention is being drawn our way after hearing news of the three inventions we last spoke of. It would not do to have the Minmay name sullied by internal disputes that escalate to royal attention.
I have concluded my business with the Greenspring towns and will return with all haste. Send further updates along the standard route and I will meet your couriers on the road.
I have always trusted your intelligence and independence. I believe I can trust you to act in my stead in this matter until such time as I arrive to take over. There can be no stronger emphasis on the importance of this task.
Signed and Sealed,
Chancellor Minmay
----------------------------------------
"I am ready, Head Yan. "
"You came quickly," the man said, not looking up from his meditation. The classic ball of light hovered motionless above the man's head, although the rumours said that he could sustain multiple balls for hours.
"May our stones weather together. "
"You understand then," he said, still not opening his eyes.
"Yes, Head Yan, my family have agreed to lend my aid. I will confirm her safety and return her to your side. "
"Even if you must anger the nobles of this land?"
"If I must. "
Head Yan finally opened his eyes and looked at the man kneeling in front of him. He said in a less formal tone, "she is not as strong as she imagines, so you may be able to drag her in but a caged bird does not fly. Her safety comes first, I do not want the nobles to touch a single hair on her head. "
Not any more than they already did of course. Yan continued, "My daughter may not wish to return, encourage but do not force her. If she insists on going her own way, once she appears to be safe again, you may consider my request discharged. "
The man bowed his head in acknowledgement and waited.
"The sword of the stone is in your hands and the debt of names grows one longer. "
----------------------------------------
Danine balanced on the top of the belltower, her tail bobbing up and down to adjust against the wind. Below her was Corbin, spread out like a drawing on those maps that Cato so loved.
The town was laid out in three sections. The main street, which turned into the trade road leading east, was where the central market and warehouses were. Further along the road was the tiered rows of wealthy stone houses of the original construction. The town also grew down towards the south as it overflowed its walls and the houses were of progressively worse construction the further south she looked.
Built right up against the defensive wall, the not-quite slums were packed to a high density that allowed the roof walking to take her all the way up to the town wall itself. Roofs of varying tiles, heights and construction butted up against one another as neighbours cared not for architectural niceties and simply built their houses however they liked. Little dead spaces, tiny alleys and secret passages would be a godsend, Danine thought, tracking someone through the town was going to be downright impossible.
The wall right where that smithy was located was also more ragged than usual, which gave her enough handholds to climb up and over the wall into the town proper. The more aristocratic areas inside the town itself did not adjoin one another though, standing a respectful distance from each other, and also inconveniently preventing her from scrabbling over their roofs. Well, it wasn't as if she needed to run away from any gangs in there, ruffians were... discouraged from entering the area.
And so were Fukas, but the meager town militia didn't keep Danine out. They didn't even notice Danine had climbed up here to the belltower at the center of town.
Danine caught sight of a small group of Fukas popping up onto the roofs above her favourite perch above the baker's shop. So Tam had managed to get some interest. She squinted. Hmm. Tam she thought she recognized, but the others were around the same size as him. No adults in that group of six.
Danine stood up and waved at them. One of them saw her and pointed at her to Tam. They waved back.
All right, it was time to fight back.
----------------------------------------
Danine frowned at the small circle of Fukas sitting on the roof in front of her. They were all children, like Tam. In fact, out of the seven of them, Danine was the oldest.
"Is this everyone?" she asked him.
"Everyone who could come," Tam confirmed, "the adults won't listen to me and those older are too busy with errands. "
So only the relatively useless children had any sort of free time to roam around. How was she supposed to turn this lot into a gang to rival the Redwater? They might be able to fight off the bullies if they stuck together and didn't run away at first sight, but to think that these kids could match the Redwater was a sick joke. Her idea wasn't looking so bright now.
Danine sighed and exchanged introductions with them. The smallest was Ashild, a tiny girl who was too small even for a six year old, one of her ears was tragically broken and perpetually lay flat against her head. The eldest and largest was Ikine, another girl only a year younger than Danine. Her eyes bore into Danine with a mix of skepticism and disbelief.
She hauled herself up mentally and thought, what would Cato do? The answer came to her quickly enough.
"All right," Danine said, "I'll be honest, there's no way we can go up against the Redwater. But that doesn't mean we won't ever be able to do it. " She looked at all them again. "I know some magic and I have someone who I can learn from. I'll teach you how to use magic and then we'll strong enough. "
The wonder in Ashild's eyes was almost worth every single moment of magical practice, Danine nodded at her unspoken question. Yes, this was real.
"What good can magic do?" Ikine said, "we're still children. "
"I fought off the three bullies who like to go after Tam with it," Danine pointed out.
"From what Tam told me, their clumsiness when climbing was the reason," she retorted.
Danine looked at Tam for help but there was nothing forthcoming. Ikine spoke up again, "how much can we learn anyway? The knights take years to get that good and we don't have years before we all grow up or get beaten up by them. "
"But I've grown enough," Danine said, "it's only been a month since I started and I can already-"
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"So show us," Ikine snapped.
Danine looked at the girl in dismay, she didn't understand why this girl seemed to keep attacking her like this. How could Danine even try to show off when she was still this weak? They would all just laugh at her.
Oh what the heck, she didn't have a choice. Better they laugh at her now than be disgusted at her lies later. Danine stuck out a hand and collected the magic in front of it, pouring out as much as she could.
"That's as much as I can manage," she said finally, keeping her concentration on the ball of magic, "as for what you can do with it..." she pushed out all the other colours and left a red ball of heat in its place. Then with another push, Danine launched the ball forward.
The tiny bolt of fire magic landed on Ikine's tail by sheer coincidence but that didn't stop the girl from leaping into the air like a startled grass racer.
A few moments of frantic scrambling over the roof later, they finally managed to calm down. Danine heaved a sigh of relief, her power wasn't enough to actually set their fur on fire, Ikine might have been seriously injured.
No one questioned Danine's magic after that.
----------------------------------------
Cato pointed out the house to the cart driver and helped the man unload the carts. Despite the cost, Cato had bought out the other tenants' leases so he had the entire building to himself.
Wrapping up his affairs with the various merchants here, ensuring that they could continue to operate with only occasional visits and advisory letters, was going to take some time. A week or two at least. And it would still reduce Cato's share in their enterprises.
At least when they were out visiting, Landar did visibly carry a pair of small bowguns and Cato was armed with a full sized set and twenty arrows. The enchanted weapons they had were more than enough to make most people leave them alone and put pause to any assassin who wanted to survive an attack. Landar enchanted their clothing as a last line of defence, although they were rather poor as cloth could sustain only a little magic. But hopefully it would let Cato survive a sniper if any tried to take a shot.
Furthermore, it was more likely any potential assassin would lie in wait at or near they stayed, after all assassins didn't magically know where Cato was right at this moment and Danine had proven quite capable at getting them well and truly lost in Corbin. That lead to Landar moving into the upper storey rooms. She had offered to add various magical defenses to the house and the offer was too good to resist, Cato was rather attached to his life after all and despite his success against the two guards at Corbin's manor, Cato knew that he couldn't really fight. Not in a world where any knight was also a mage capable of demolishing his house.
He maneuvered the last heavy box onto the ground and thanked the cart driver. Man, what did Landar have in here that could be so heavy? It was like carrying gold around, except that most of these boxes radiated strong magic.
Cato gave the final pile of Landar's boxes a stern look and walked up to the street facing door to fetch Landar. He had just got past the large crate holding the robot next to the front door when a sudden chill ran down his back. There was magic on the door.
What the heck had that alchemist done while Cato was away getting her stuff from the Academy storage?
"Landar?" he raised his voice, "is it safe to touch this door?!"
"Coming!" came a distant shout. There was a sound of running feet and then a ping of magic from beside the door. "All right, you can come in now. "
Cato gingerly raised the handle to lift the bolt that held the door in place. The door failed to explode. Cato shook his head and pulled the door open. "I've got your crates, Landar," he said, eyeing her disheveled appearance as she ran past him with a large grin.
When he left this morning, Landar had come in heavy work clothing but it was clean and her hair was still straight. Now her black hair stuck out at odd angles and there was dust and scuff marks all over her body. Also, now that he was through the door, Cato was feeling a lot of magic around the house. It was practically smeared all over the walls.
"What... what happened here?" Cato looked around, taking a step into the two storey building.
Landar crowed behind him, "Yes! It's here! I knew I made something like it before!"
Cato turned around to see her standing in the middle of a bunch of opened crates, lifting out a wooden plank. The plank glowed with magic.
Landar grinned evilly and ran back past him into the house again. Cato watched her place the plank carefully on the floor some ways inside the house while keeping an eye on her boxes outside.
Landar hummed to herself as she worked her magic across the floor and then looked up and rubbed her hands gleefully before running to the back wall to fiddle with what appeared to be a pair of strange contraptions.
No, not contraptions, those were crossbows. And Landar had managed to put them on a pedestal to aim directly at the door.
"Um I have to ask, is that a trap?" Cato asked when she came back out to root among the crates.
"Of course!" Landar said happily, still digging around a box full of small non-magical metal parts.
"Can it kill someone?" Cato asked again.
She stopped examining bits of iron and looked at him strangely, "it would be a poor trap if it couldn't. But I learnt a lot when I built that suit of armour and I think I see how I can make coordinated traps and aim them and-"
"Why don't we start by moving the boxes indoors?" Cato said with a small smile.
Landar never noticed the nervousness concealed behind it.
----------------------------------------
"That woman," Elma muttered as he read the report .
"Yes, we do seem to be hearing a lot about her," Klaas remarked dryly.
"It's not her doing," Elma said, "the Mad Alchemist of Wendy's Fort is famous yes, but last year she managed only a few eccentricities. Solving the problem of the magical arrow was acknowledged to be the high point of her fame. "
"Cato, yes. We are familiar with him too. "
"More than most people, thanks to his iron. Our branch here in Corbin are pouring more iron than all the workshops in Ektal City!" Elma nodded, "Will you believe that our master craftmen are still finding things to learn about in that furnace design? Apparently the type of brick lining the inside makes a difference in the iron's strength. So no, you still don't get to kill him unless we learn everything he knows about iron. "
"Corbin will try to kill him," Klaas observed.
"Corbin can perch on her roof and sing to Selna," Elma laughed a little, "Landar's thing is right outside his door. Unless she's suddenly raised enough money to hire an army of mercenaries? For that matter, I don't know if many adventuring groups would wish to try their hand against that. "
"She can't be in it all the time," Klaas said, "what if someone waits in their house to ambush them? Or climbs in the window to slit his throat?"
"Hm," Elma blinked. He was a smart person, Klaas reminded himself, but not a fighter.
"Hm," Elma blinked again and tapped his finger on the report, clearly slightly worried now.
"So am I to try to save him?" Klaas asked.
"No," Elma said finally, "Landar can do more than just build a big piece of armour. A very useless piece of armour now that you point it out for me, but it did result from her working with Cato. Maybe she has another surprise. If Corbin sends someone and you try to save Cato, who knows what will happen to you? They think you're an enemy. "
"So we just sit down and wait?"
"Just watch him. I won't expect you to track him now that he's learnt the back alleys but watch the house just in case. If you see the chance to help him, do so, it will make him indebted to us," Elma steepled his fingers, "and if you can't, then we will only have a river of gold instead of an ocean of it. "