Watching Maggie rapid-fire questions at Raia was quite amusing, but asking questions without giving the other time to respond seemed to be in poor taste. Instead of watching, I wondered how I would react within Mundus, if I was truly embodying Morgana, not just wearing the body, so to speak.

“Let her reply.” I ordered, speaking softly into a momentary pause as Maggie demonstrated that she needed to breathe on occasion. Maggie’s expression flickered for a moment, before settling into a pouting grimace, but she didn’t continue her interrogation, allowing Raia to go into detail, essentially describing the rest of the battle.

It turned out, there wasn’t that much more, after the trolls had lost their leader and Droram had his steed knocked out from under him, forcing him into retreat, Raia had taken command, not that their tactics actually needed a lot of commanding. With each falling troll, more soldiers could join together in the attacks on the remaining trolls, leaving them in a quickly accelerating death-spiral. Mopping up, essentially.

“What can you tell me about your foes? What made them infused? Where do they come from?” I asked, looking for a pattern. I somehow doubted that Ardros would be able to tell me more about the Arachnids, though I would have to ascertain that assumption. For now, I wanted to know more about the other battle.

“Good question.” Raia admitted, glancing over to Droram, who, in turn, looked to Tobiuno. Passing the buck up their chain of command.

“The Blades of the Realm govern and, in turn, protect a relatively vast swath of land in the central-south of the Empire, a partially wild region, though geographically contained. The deeper mountains house monsters far too powerful to drive out without concentrated, Imperial effort, something which has yet to happen. Maybe, in the future, it will be a major raiding or high-level zone, but I doubt that anyone will be able to actually master the zone during the Beta.” Tobiuno explained, making me nod with understanding though I wasn’t quite sure where he was going with that.

“Lately, these monsters have caused trouble in the outer, wild regions, though the location is a little weird, and we decided to nip the problem in the bud, before they could boil into the civilised regions and begin to seriously attack livestock and maybe even the people.

Nodding, mostly to myself, I looked at Ardros, asking the same question, though I already knew the answer and had to stop myself, from laughing when he described the countless spiders they had blown up, getting almost no experience in the process, only to get feared into their webbed traps and quickly snuffed out.

With both sides focusing on me, I decided to share, curious if they would draw the same conclusion. I was reasonably certain that the biggest hint was the Infused.

“What we were fighting was called a Lycantroll.” I explained, the name getting groans from everyone. “Tobiuno, you and your people might have heard of the Savages, as they are called in Aletoma. It was similar to them, just replacing the human with a troll. And yes, adding the template of a monster famous for its regeneration on top of a monster famous for its regeneration makes it regenerate really, really quick.” I added, feeling that the information wasn’t worth anything to me. I wasn’t about to actually explain how we had killed it.

“Suffice to say, killing it took some time and was not fun, those claws were vicious.” I finished, getting nods of acceptance. I had explained the least, waiting for questions from anyone but Maggie, who was giddily asking about details.

“So, Infused Trolls, a cursed Troll and tons of spiders that give little experience when slain?” Tobiuno summarised, getting nods in return.

“Altered Beasts?” Raia asked, mirroring my earlier conclusion. “Altered, by some outside force? That would fit for the ‘Infused’ moniker and the cursed beast, too. If the Spiders were somehow altered by an outside force, their experience-points might be greatly lowered to account for that.” she continued to reason, following a similar path as I had earlier.

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“It is plausible. The Priest travelling with me was quite convinced that nothing ordinary could create the creature we have fought, it certainly wasn’t natural and the curse I observed was…” I paused, trying to find the right word to describe the magnificent spell-work without coming too weird. “something else.” I finished, shaking my head lightly.

“Did you manage to analyse those Trolls? You must have, right?” I asked, my mind extrapolating connections between the information I had received. Whatever the outcome of their analysis, I had a feeling the meeting was related to it.

“We did some analysis, we even got some native Guild-Mages to help out, as you probably know, all things Divination, scrying and analysis-magic are incredibly complex, making it difficult for players to get into it.” Tobiuno explained, and I noticed nods all around. Once more, I was reminded just how valuable and apparently rare Lenore’s sight was, especially as it came with an experienced user of that particular way of perceiving magic.

“The result was inconclusive, there was talk about remnants of Blood Magic,” saying that, he focused on me for a moment, “but nothing that could really be understood, let alone traced. In a precise way. Maybe you have an idea, Morgana?” he asked, bringing a grin to my face as the reason for the meeting began to make actual sense. Merely exchanging information could have been done over the forum, if there was even a need to exchange.

“Ideas? Without even seeing what was done, I can tell you little. Blood Magic, as almost every actual Magic-Skill, is incredibly versatile, making it difficult to guess at the workings on some trolls an ocean away. I can tell you that Blood Magic has ways to strengthen a body, and as that one leaked video demonstrated, there might be ways to make those permanent, though I have yet to further my studies on that subject.” I explained, carefully choosing my words to give nothing of value away without making a deal for it.

“It might be possible to alter beings in a way that makes them more powerful, it might even have a side-effect of reducing their minds, making them more bestial, driven by their instincts. It is possible, although I wouldn’t know how. “ I admitted, even as a part of me remembered that marvelous magical curse that had created the Lycantroll, that tiny seed of Divine Magic that had used the trolls mind to draw in an excess of power, frying it in the process before using that power to transform and enhance the body. I doubted that any mortal could simply use the Divine Curse, but it was quite possible to create something similar, copying the outcome, if vastly less elegant.

“And those spiders we fought?” Ardros asked, sounding a little bitter.

“Without more information, I can only speculate. But from what I saw in the footage, both the footage in the Highlight-Reel and the footage you posted on the forum, I’d guess that those spiders knew you were coming, allowing them to prepare an ambush.” Raia mused, voicing her thoughts in an unhurried manner.

“But for an ambush, they needed some prey, which they presented, but why would they need actual prey? Why not simply use some sort of temporary magic to grow a bunch of ordinary spiders to giant size, letting them skitter about? No idea if that is possible, but it might be. Or maybe they used Illusions, or some mind-fuckery to draw you in without sacrificing anything of actual worth for them.” she speculated, accurate to the point that I made a mental note to keep an eye on that one. She seemed to be quite competent, making me curious.

“That sounds plausible.” I agreed, nodding along, simply to keep from giving away what I knew.

“So, we need to investigate more.” Tobiuno nodded, mostly to himself.

For a little longer, I watched Maggie pester Raia, while throwing some questions my way every other sentence, which I answered with the bare minimum, just to be polite. After a while, the questions ran out and with them, the meeting did, too.

“Morgana, would you lend me a few minutes of your time?” Maggie asked, as we were bidding each other farewell. For a moment, I was hesitant but at the same time, I was curious.

“We can talk at my place.” I agreed, partially because I didn’t want to let the preparations I had made after learning that people could visit my Capsule Space go to waste. I had even considered opening a part of my space to the public, allowing people to wander the lower levels of my Frozen Spire at will, the areas I used to play around, testing how some things looked, sculpting in Ice and Shadow. Trying to create art, in a way that few people would consider.

After a second to make sure that the set-up was as I wanted it to be, I sent an invite to Maggie, before returning to my capsule-space with a quick, mental command.