Harlan double checked his list and packed everything he needed.

Part of the double check was that the chest he had made was soundproof in case the man woke up but that it also air holes that couldn’t be seen through.

Harlan could’ve easily paid for gates, or in reality, asked Sepul for one, but he wanted to ride through the country.

Amber and Zella had no such desire and he had them gated directly home before he left.

One carriage was full of mostly his things, and the other was Harlan and Adina sitting side by side with the chest taking up the other seat.

He hadn’t realized how much he made or purchased during his time there, or how little Adina really had.

Harlan hoped that they could speak with one another along the way about topics that he hadn’t wanted to get into until now.

Once they were home it would be her home just as much as his and it was time to be upfront about what he had been running away from this entire time.

Assuming that the man in the chest didn’t turn into an abomination in the next year, he would have no more hiding behind an argument of anyone born of him being a monster that couldn’t be fixed.

To even call a child a monster for such a thing pained him and sent his mind spiraling again.

“...”

Adina was talking, yet he didn’t hear a word of it.

She pinched his arm to get his attention, unfortunately Harlan had taken after Ava and now wore his golem armor at all times under his robe.

She had to move to pinching his cheek instead.

“Huh? Sorry, were you saying something.”

“You said you wanted to talk about something and then you got really quiet.”

“Right, yeah. I think I should be honest about why I have refused to be with you as more than a friend.

We both want it, and I am running out of excuses for why I shouldn’t do it or don’t deserve it.”

“If you don’t want to talk about it then don’t, I don’t mind. Just being friends is enough.”

“The woman who gave birth to me, I know I’ve mentioned her before.”

She could already tell that he was forcing himself, but she did not stop him.

He explained all of it and he could tell that she was only getting more upset the longer he went on.

She was filled with fury that could not be contained, and for the first time he saw her hair lift up and the air ran cold as her water and air alignments affected her surroundings.

When he explained that that woman had basically sold him to The Darkness the inside of the carriage began to grow a layer of frost and tears flowed freely from her eyes.

For Harlan he had months to deal with his feelings on many of these things which he was now dumping on her, yet he worried that if he stopped now he would not have the strength to talk about it again.

He hated how it made her feel but for him it was really now or never to just lay it all out, no holding back the scorn, the despair, the fear that flowed like poison from his tongue as he spoke of these things.

Once he was done she embraced him.

She had thought that there really wasn’t a worse feeling about her mother than never knowing her, but the idea that her mother would’ve lived and treated her like her father had touched a primal fear of rejection.

Both of them were drying their eyes but not a word was shared, they just leaned on one another and felt that someone else was there.

Harlan hated how it felt, to have reduced himself to a sobbing mess, but he knew that was an idiot's pride talking.

Finally they had to do something, the border town closest to the academy was fast approaching and they would need to decide if they wanted to kill the day there and have a rest at a higher quality hotel or if they would keep going until they found a town while it was closer to dusk.

“Do you want to go in, or should we just ride past?”

“I think we should both stretch our legs and have a nice meal. Might cheer us up to find out what passes for entertainment here.”

“I think that sounds nice, just the two of us having a day in a town, nobody else we know to rib each other about how romantic it all sounds.”

Adina had something else she wanted to say, but instead she just said it sounded nice.

They approached the gate and were stopped, the war was over, but that didn’t mean they didn’t make sure that everyone who came through the borders were who they said they were.

“Sir Fomoria?”

“Yes, that is me. I have my signet ring right here.”

“And her?”

“My Minister of Justice, Adina.”

“Formerly of Reino?”

“Yes. All of her paperwork is in order and she has a ring as well to verify her identity.”

“We just need to double check, this is her first time entering the country through a border as a citizen.”

“Very well, am I allowed to enter the guard house along with her?”

“Of course, Sir Fomoria. Our captain has asked that you visit him if you intend to stay in town for the night.”

“We will be staying here for the night, I would be glad to have an audience with him when he has time.”

“You should speak with the officer at the front desk for that. But he has been expecting you so I am sure there shouldn’t be a wait.”

They pulled the carriages over to a stable that was inside of the double walls which surrounded the city.

Alongside him he saw merchants and other nobles who needed their identities and in some cases the contents of their wares checked.

Harlan was being exempt from these checks, many of the nobles who crafted items like he did just needed to declare everything in the boxes and mark each of them appropriately.

Partly this was due to Harlan having a good track record and partly because those in high places had the king and Sepul making it clear that Harlan could be trusted, or rather, it was in their best interest not to try to find out his secrets.

Another guard guided the two of them inside the building and to a small interrogation room with someone already waiting for him.

The process was simple, she just quizzed Adina on who she was and verified the ring then filled out a file that would go to a central office.

Under normal circumstances people didn’t bypass the border for months like she had, so this was really a formality.

“Alright, you are free to go. Welcome to Ragne.”

The woman shook Adina’s hand and off they went.

Yet before he could reach the door a messenger found Harlan and told him that the guard captain had time to see him now or in 2 hours.

Harlan decided that now was good, he didn’t want to go into the city itself and then end up needing to come back to the wall where the captain was.

They turned back away from the door and went deeper into the structure.

The outerwall was strong and solid, the inner wall was effectively a fortified building with stairs leading to different floors and sometimes single rooms.

Were it not for signs telling people where to go it would be quite confusing as any staircase be it up or down could lead to more hallways or to an office.

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It did not take more than 5 minutes for Harlan to reach the captain’s office.

The man had clearly been clearing papers from his desk and getting a nicer chair brought in before Harlan arrived.

Harlan took the simple chair and left the nicer one for Adina.

He was perhaps in his 40s, well built from his years as an enforcer of the la2 but he was showing the signs of having slowed down.

There was something off about him mentally, but Harlan didn’t trust his mind right now, he put up a good act, but telling Adina everything had taken its toll.

“Good morning, Sir Fomoria.”

“It is closer to noon really, but yes, good morning.”

The man awkwardly coughed.

“I’ve heard quite a lot about you. I am told you have a special talent for divinations regarding finding people.”

“My power extends to all living creatures as far as I know. But yes, I am good at finding people.”

“While I have no right to ask this, I would like you to help us with a case. We have a divinationist coming, but the cost of a gate is nearly the same as hiring them.”

“This is not the first time I’ve encountered a city who seems to have trouble hiring mages, are your budgets really so tight? Though the last one had an issue with corruption.”

The man was sweating, though Harlan was sure if he was afraid of being found out or just because Harlan was softly accusing him.

It also could’ve been because the walls didn’t have great ventilation and it was early summer near the equator.

“We have a lot of crimes to handle, so calling in mages for every one of them would be a bit of a waste.

It is just a matter of not using a cannon to kill a fox. I am only asking you now because we knew you would be passing through and you have a helpful reputation.”

“I do not mean to be rude, but please, get to the point.”

“Right, a few children from the slums have gone missing. At first we thought that they had just run away after a fight, as is common for children there, but as more reports came in we realized that there was something odd going on. Now, the strange part is one of the children came back in perfect health, but then the mother disappeared and when she came back she was very insistent that we just stop looking at the case and that all of the other parents were crazy people. We would like to find the other children, but this city stretches for miles and is built on top of a cave system which was used as the basis for our sewers. We don’t know where all of the water even goes and nobody has ever really mapped the entire area out.”

“This is exactly the kind of thing that I am willing to help with. First, can you either bring the boy and his mother here or have somebody escort me to them?”

“They are both already here. I left out one detail, a lecher was peeping on the mother and she chased him down and beat him to death. From what we can gather she was never particularly strong, let alone fast enough to chase down a grown man and take him apart like she did. Witnesses said she completely outclassed him.

The captain led him and Adina down to the jail, which stretched through a sizable portion of the wall but was mostly empty at the moment.

It was refreshingly cool and the captain seemed more comfortable down here, perhaps he just didn’t handle heat very well.

They reached two cells across from one another, the boy in one, the mother in the other.

The pair was off in the same way as the captain, he began to wonder if it was related to his own mental state, if having been open with Adina had awakened some new empathic ability somehow.

“I’ll speak with the boy first.”

The captain opened the cell and Harlan felt a familiar sting, the array that stopped people from casting most spells inside a city was especially heavy down here, yet now that the sigil settled in his mind the reaction passed in a few moments.

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Why am I here? Why can’t they tell me? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Hey, it’s ok, as soon as I figure out what happened you can go back home with your mother. Have you noticed her doing anything odd lately? Perhaps she took up physical training, maybe she started seeming faster or stronger out of nowhere?”

“She hasn’t changed at all, she was just defending herself.”

The longer he sat with the boy, asking pointless questions, the more Harlan focused his mind on that odd feeling.

It was no emotion, it was a second smaller mind inside the body.

“I’m going to talk to the captain for just a minute, but I don’t think there is any reason to keep you here.”

Harlan stepped outside the cell and telekinetically restrained the captain before placing his hand on his lower back.

“Who are you?”

The other mind was terrified and didn’t answer, all Harlan could tell was that it was not a human mind.

From what he knew there really wasn’t many things that this could be.

“A Spinal Spider?”

The mind panicked, but what was really strange to Harlan was that it communicated with the captain and then they both spoke to him.

“Sir Fomoria, this isn’t what it looks like.”

“I hurt NOBODY, only help.”

“How about you explain what this is then?”

“I was injured, the cost to heal me was more than I was worth, so the army sent me back here to live out my days as a useless person. ”

“Not useless, broken. Man not useless, not listen to him.”

“Skit, not now. As I was saying, the injury was to my spine, I was only ever a good, but not great soldier, so once I got back I got enough for me and my family to live on, but I understood that they could get more from me dead than alive.”

Harlan felt both minds become sad, yet he could also tell that they were linked without the spider having complete control as one would expect.

“I went to the tunnels, figured the money would keep coming in, and then once I was gone my family would get my death payment.”

“Don’t you need to die while working as a soldier.”

“I never was bright, now let me finish. It took hours to drag my legs that barely worked deep enough that nobody would find me. But before I could put a dagger in my heart my body went limp and I woke up some time later, and I was walking. It was incredible I-”

“Wrap it up, you called me here for a reason, and I am a sword over your head.”

“Skit fix broken part, control not work right, only get legs, manfriend have rest of body. Skit talk good?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Harlan let the captain move again and they spoke aloud.

“Alright, now, in short words, why am I here.”

“The other spiders, they are making moves against the city, they would start in the slums, then if the could go 15, 20 years without being caught, they would run the city and start putting spiders in travelers.”

“Just like in the summer of 438.”

“What?”

“Outbreak of spiders, it was a serious issue at the time. Hundred thousand dead, a lot more left crippled since healing magic wasn’t as developed as it is right now. After what Yggdra the first did their population never really recovered and they became a very rare occurrence.”

“What did he do?”

“Turned cities into graveyards. At the time they didn’t really have a better option. If soldiers went in and got captured the spiders would just gain more information and bodies. So long as they were alive enough to think the spiders were crafty healers who had no problem repairing their vessels. We actually learned a lot about spinal structure and the nervous system from them. After the parasites were removed the hosts still retained some knowledge from them.”

Adina was wondering what happened in the last minute that Harlan seemingly attacked the captain, then let him go, and was now explaining something about spiders from nearly 1000 years ago.

“Harlan, could you take a minute to bring me up to speed?”

“The captain has a broken spine, a Spinal Spider tried to take control and now he just controls his legs in a symbiotic relationship. A faction of spiders is looking to turn the city into a breeding ground.”

Adina just blinked and rubbed her temples before stepping out of the conversation again.

“So, what, you brought me here because you wanted me to find the spiders, and kill them. Why not contact the army or the mages guild? Spinal Spiders are on an instant kill list.”

“If I called them in and told them how bad it really was, then I would be questioned and the city would be swept for them. I don’t want them to find Skit. so I was hoping you would come in fireball in hand and get rid of them without calling anyone.”

“Why would I do that? I am fully aware of how bad they can be, and I agree, every one of them down to the eggs should be left charred and dead like the horrible monsters they are.”

Realizing that the captain was either about to fight or flee he amended the statement.

“Expect maybe not Skit.”

“Skit has never hurt a soul, if not for him I would be dead. I can’t let him be taken away.”

“I am not asking, I am telling you, somebody is going to judge Skit. His species exists only through the forcible taking of bodies, they turn people into spectators in their own lives, they have to watch every day as something else lives inside of them and then turns the people they know into more walking dead like that. Even if you take the spiders out most people end up with their minds broken by the deep violation of human decency and free will that those monsters do as just a part of their lives. If I decide that I don’t like him before this is over I’ll kill him without a second thought because his existence is antithetical to mine. If you stand in the way, I will kill you. So, let’s work together and resolve this so that something like that doesn’t need to happen. You are a one in a billion unique case, but don’t forget, if you were a normal person in that tunnel, he would be living your life in your body. You got lucky.”

“Skit says he knows where the main colony should be, unless it changed in the last 20 years since we met.”

“Alright, now, I will call somebody else, this is far too important to just let it be handled by a 15 year old.”

Harlan didn’t let the captain out of his sight and it was clear when they stood on the wall and Harlan called Sepul that something very off was happening, but none of the other guards moved against him.

They liked their captain, and he seemed to do good work, but he could be a bit of a goofball sometimes and they figured that the weird boy had gotten upset and scolded him, it wouldn't be the first time.

While they spoke under a veil Harlan told Adina that if he made any sudden movement she should hit him with a nervous system disrupting bolt, a non-lethal way of knocking out unruly patients.

But boy would it hurt.

“Harlan, did you forget something?”

“Do you want to help me take out a large nest of Spinal Spiders in the city nearest the border to the learning zone?”

“How… no, trouble just finds you, doesn’t it. Have you confirmed that they exist?”

“The city guard captain has been living with one in him for about 20 years in a symbiotic relationship, a mother and son are sitting in jail with spiders inside them.”

“Symbiotic you say? I’ll be there in… 15 minutes. I am having tea at the moment.”

Harlan dropped the veil.

“Now, where is that colony?”