Undine rubbed her horses main and dismounted, her boots hitting the hard ground with a little halo of dust. She hadn't needed any directions after reading the letter Corky sent as The Source was her old stomping ground. A tapped out Pilgrim ruin with no claim had been a perfect place to spend a year or two studying without too many distractions.

Now, however, she had a less enjoyable visit ahead of her: Finding her wayward apprentice. Hari was a bright girl with about the same sense when it came to people as a bag of rocks. It was a time honored tradition for many races to just blame the elves for any problem, as often one could point to something they had done ages ago that made the cards fall just. What differed from all those cases was that this time it was entirely the fault of the two elves who called themselves her parents. If they had thrown her to be raised by wolves she'd have the same manners but perhaps be more focused.

Nearly three months ago, Undine had arranged for to join a fourth and fifth advancement mixed party as a way to get her used to doing day to day adventuring without supervision and as a way to get her to bond better with others, and of course help her learn the value of her role as identifier, opener of doors, greaser of wheels both mundane and arcane.

The first sign of trouble was a report from the local guild, furious that Hari had spent probably every coin she had on buying almost every potion in town.

The second was when instead of passing along a response as to what she was thinking, the guild reported to Undine a week later the group was missing, with no sign of them in the ruined city.

Undine had to cancel her plans exploring the new and unclaimed ruin that had surfaced far south on a sunny unspoiled tropical island to instead go tromping around a playground ruin that had been long ago looted to the ground looking for clues. She didn't find any sign of foul play, nor had any adventurers seen them outside the first day. What she found very odd were rumors that Hari had been leading her party rather than the other way around.

Then nothing for two months, except of course endless worry that she'd wasted years trying to help the poor girl, and then what? Khorkos is seen at the capital, but not with Hari in tow, no no no! He had some other human girl in odd clothes with six ranks in Investigator.

Undine tracked their worthless hides down before they could get on a boat to the ruin SHE had wanted to go to, and was ready to skin them all when she was presented a story that reeked like dung about going to another world, and Hari telling them she fell in love with the strongest warrior she had ever seen, and dying and coming back. It was a worse lie than kind of pulp that bards slung to half drunk sheep herders!

More infuriating was the girl was carrying a brand new copy of a first printing of 'Arcane Investigation'. As far as Undine knew, every copy anyone knew of was at least the seventh generation, full of errors from being a copy of a copy of a copy and so on.

She felt her forehead veins bulging as she thought about it! The damn book smelled new! It was in a language she'd never seen before, granted, but [Understand Language] fixed that. It didn't fix her sputtering in shock as she read the correct way to cast [Binding Ray] and [Glimmerstorm]. She... needed a moment just thinking about both how little the group valued that book AND how stupid she had been to not see the correct spellwork!

She would have kept being angry, but her source from the guild threw a big wet goat turd at her feet: The reports from the Adventurers guild, delivered by a very, very brave platinum rank adventurer, stated that there was a group of at least fifteen gold ranked and up adventurers with Hari. Given the mix of gold and silver, she already would have had doubts on anything reported by them. Then she heard the claim that the girl, barely a third stage Investigator three months ago, somehow was fighting toe to toe with several tenth stage second tier classed adventurers at once.

That was on top of them stating there was a super high level monster that the group had been hunting that had JOINED the group Hari was with and repelled the attack with them.

What she didn't doubt was the information that the group had a VIP hostage. She had to pick between heading into town to pry who that was out and rushing to find Hari, and choose to move quickly with the later. It still meant there was likely more complications with the group, and if you learned one thing as an adventurer it was how horrible any sort of escort mission was, even without the presence of danger.

She thought about all this as she prepped her gear and cast a few spells to make her harder to see, then pulled herself to stand on a block and look over a taller obsidian wall fragment at her target.

As reported, she spotted what looked like a great mass of black crystal spikes exploding out from one of the little chunks of land the streams had carved. The metal carriage they were using was parked not far from it, with signs of a make shift camp extending out from it. There were also a trio of tents further out... well that didn't make much sense from a defensive perspective. Perhaps camp followers? They had picked a slightly higher rise to camp on, possibly from the spines, but there were taller ridges between the streams, with walls like the one she was on even, that would have been much harder to view without climbing.

Undine considered how to proceed. If the thugs from the guild were telling the literal truth, then there was either a blanket identify block on the camp or everyone viewed had found some sort of fountain of essence and gotten the same set of powers. The third option was absurd: that everyone in the camp all had high enough advancements that the adventurers couldn't see their levels. Undine herself was a prodigy and had rocketed to the seventeenth advancement before she was thirty, but it was almost impossible to find enough monsters to push past twenty, and at twenty two she had very few things she could fight that were worth anything outside of hunting down the other old hands in the adventuring game or picking fights with dragons.

So, it was more likely the earlier blanket ID was the culprit, but she wasn't born yesterday when it came to walking into enemy territory underestimating them. She decided to focus on scouting, and see if Hari was in the group and what the possible threats were that had kept her pupil from reporting in.

She twisted a ring to warm herself up some more, then intoned “[Eagle Eye]”.

It was still early morning, but there were sentries on the carriage. They seemed bored, but were doing their job somewhat well. One was a reedy fellow with a fishing harpoon, the other looked big even from this distance. She looked over at the tents but saw no signs of habitation. Why were they far away?

She saw a fit man step out of a tent, then start preparing something to drink. There was no watch over the far camp, and Undine decided that if she needed information, that would be the best place to go as there was likely no more than six people for those tents.

Still, she wanted to test how strong the block was before she did anything else. She invoked one of her class skills, boosting the range of her spell multiple times, then another to boost accuracy, then hard cast [Investigate] with a full chant.

Reaper-Of-Fish (Buck)

Level 16 Spearman (1)/Level 20 Angler (2)

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Assessment: Green

Race: Human

Undine blinked. Two classes? It wasn't a dual Class, as that always had a single level with the classes subdivided. Well, now aside from rescuing Hari... a hint of her greedy side made her smile. This group had a secret, and she wanted it.

Undine turned to the big thug, who was reading a comically small book while sometimes looking around camp. Poor discipline, why didn't Reaper beat the hired help senseless? Maybe the big one was some sort of idiot helper. She felt her skills re-align and used them to try to register his stats, but her instincts stopped her mid cast and she ducked behind a rock. Her gut rarely acted up, but she was certain if she tried to identify him, even miles away from cover, he'd spot her instantly.

She thought about it, then cast [Relay], burning a solid chunk of mana but giving her a point to cast out of that wouldn't draw his attention to her. [Wizard's Eye] let her bounce her vision to the spot too. All that set up, and she aimed at the large man and used [Investigate], which failed. She used a few meta magic tricks again, and pushed out [Investigate mk 2].

From her magic eye perspective, she saw his head turn instantly, and an eyebrow raise.

GRUNT: HELLO LADIES ;-) LIKE WHAT YOU ID?

STRIKE TEAM THUNDERSLUGS 4 EVER

Level 17 Thug (1)/Level 15 Warrior (1) / LEVEL ??? (?????)

Threat Level: BLOCKED

Race: BLOCKED

Undine's blood ran cold. The only way she'd see one advancement and not the other was if the man had attained twenty seven in the class. The only person close to that was the Emperor himself at twenty five, and that's the result of destroying multiple armies using his empire's defenses. Also, she had never seen the spell just... fail.. to spit out a threat color, even as a novice trying to find Plantina's level. All that on top of some sort of tampering with the spell...

She sat there, crouched for seconds that ticked by as the man raised a hand to wave at where her [Relay] was, then resumed reading.

No, she would not try to tangle with that brute. Especially not on his home turf. She waited a good five minutes for some sort of other response or alert, but to her trained senses nothing was happening.

Undine shifted her focus. Remote camp then. First was a human woman. Looked like one of her former party members, actually.

Bellithica Terueshi

Level 5 Spoiled Princess (1) / Level 7 Squire (1) 7

Threat Level: Deep Green

Human / Terueshi Bloodline (0)

Undine hissed, “Ashes and shite stew... no wonder they didn't take her back!”

The 'White Elephant Princess', as she was known, looked like she was just staring at the fire. For a prisoner to not have a minder or even something to slow her down, it looked like she could just walk off. Then again, the plains were not friendly to someone who didn't know how to hunt, nor who might not know practically or magically how to keep themselves warm. She didn't look angry at the moment, just frustrated.

It fit with what Undine knew about the woman. Thirties, three failed engagements, was a large burden on whatever branch of the adventurers guild she operated with. Undine thanked all three moons and the small stars that The Emperor was kind enough to never foist Bell on her. Every person who had dealt with her had stated that training her was like trying to cuddle a mountain lion, except a beast master who stated it was like trying to cuddle a mountain lion who didn't like you.

There was that fit fellow with a spear near the princess, who was trying to speak with her. The princess was frowning but her body language had her leaning towards the man as he spoke and she mirrored the way he was holding his cup of steaming drink. A man made interesting by the fact he was taming her alone. She queued up another spell through her focus.

Corvayne

Level ????? Armsmaster (4)

Threat Level: Red

Race: 'Human'

(ADEPT:VITALITY)

Tier Four? FOUR? Undine jammed fingers into her leg, biting her lip not to shout out 'How!?' Even the Emperor was a Tier 2. Ignoring that two people with advancement above twenty seven was a major new power in the region, she HAD to speak with the man. At least, she was considering diplomacy for a moment before she saw Hari slip out of his tent, obviously putting her clothes back on.

For a moment she was angry. Then she coolly considered her pupil's play. If the man knew how to unlock higher tier classes, he could completely shift the balance of power between The Empire and their neighbors. Perhaps she had finally started thinking in a way more fitting of a freelance Investigator.

She tossed an identify out to check if she had made any progress.

Hari

Level 20 Scry Blade (2) / Level 0 Adept Initiate (1)

Threat Level: Yellow

Race: Elf

Undine's background headache surged as she saw the ghostly letters of fade away. Her little pupil had somehow reached 20 and gotten a system boost to [Investigate] since she had unlocked the second tier class! Also, she had two classes! Undine turned back to her horse. Power differences be damned, she was going to waltz into camp and shake Hari upside down until all her secrets fell out!

Of course, refocusing on her remote construct she spotted the bluish steel gleam of an Airfoil blade on her side. Undine double checked that her own was still there. It had taken her years and years to source one! She spit and checked it for blood. Her pupil, one who tried to escape every lesson, had found some once in a century source of essence AND treasure! What the hell else could happen?

She was about to cancel her spell when she saw a Drow elf wake up from a tent near her pupil and start walking what looked like a levitating squid around the black spines. No defenses showing, but her skin changed color as she walked, as did her pet. Possibly some sort of underdark Drow-Mind Flayer creation?

She invoked her spell, and was for a moment pleased that it connected fully. Then she read what it said, and she felt her vision focus on the ghostly glowing words, her head pounding. She was seeing a little red as she pushed all her meta-magic abilities into casting the spell again, to be sure. [Investigate mk. 3] gave her the same results, her eyes failing to find a hint that she had missed some waiver.

She read it a third time as it faded, then her heart stopped and Undine felt her chest explode in pain and she started involuntarily gasping for air. She forced herself to curl her hand to her belt and pull out a healing potion as chest pains started lancing up her arm. Her wrinkly fingers slipped on the stopper and she fell and had to push it to her face and use her teeth, then shoved the glass with shaking hands into mouth, possibly cracking a tooth as she half breathed, half swallowed the healing drought before it hit her bloodstream and she felt her heart start to beat again.

She coughed and rasped for air until the healing potion had enough drowning damage to evaporate itself, and she was staring up at the sky, trying to breath and process what she had seen.

Lady Blood Claw

Level 15 Enchanter (2) / Level 10 Blade (2) / Eff Level +10 due to previous classes

Threat level: Yellow

Race: Pilgrim