Velik halted twenty feet away from the old monster hunter. Torwin was holding his bow in his hand and had a quiver of arrows at his hip, but he wasn’t making any threatening moves with them yet. That hardly reassured Velik, however, as there was no doubt in his mind that the old man could have half a dozen arrows in the air in less than a second.

“I had something to do,” he said, “but I ran into a problem. You were the only one I could think of who might be able to help.”

“I’m a bit busy with my own work right now.”

“This won’t take long,” Velik said. “I just need to ask a question. We could do it in less time than it takes to finish a meal.”

Torwin chuckled. “I suppose that’s fair, considering how I ambushed you during yours. Alright, what do you want to know?”

The mana compass was sitting in Velik’s pocket where he could easily access it. He’d been taking it out and studying it as he traveled, trying to figure out what correlation there was between the direction the arrow pointed and that particular stretch of the deep wood. Fishing it out now, he held it up for Torwin to see.

“Can you explain how to use this?”

“A mana compass?” Torwin asked in surprise. “What do you have that for?”

“To look for mana.”

“Obviously. Why do you need to find mana?”

“To see if the monsters are coming from where the mana is.”

Velik had no idea if it would work, but he didn’t have a better idea and he needed to try something new. Besides, he’d already wasted all his decarmas on the compass, not having realized it had a bunch of customizations and no instruction manual.

“Is there… a reason you think there’s some connection between pockets of mana and monsters appearing?” Torwin asked slowly, a thoughtful frown on his face as he absently scratched at his beard.

“I think champion elites can only claim an arena where there is enough mana for them to grow from their seeds. If that’s true for champions, why can’t it be true for weaker monsters?”

“What? No, that’s not true at all,” Torwin said. “Champion elites are created by dungeons to guard specific areas. The dungeon itself feeds the seed the mana it needs to grow into a monster. Truthfully, that’s how it makes all of its monsters. That’s why everyone’s first guess about the rising monster population was that this old place was active again.”

“But it isn’t, is it?” Velik asked. Nothing looked different from the last time he’d been here, but he hadn’t gotten a look at the core yet.

“No. It’s definitely dead. There are no monsters coming out of this dungeon. I don’t think you’re going to find any random mana pockets out in the forest that are spawning monsters, either. But… hmm… this dungeon might be dead. That doesn’t mean there isn’t another one somewhere else.”

Velik looked down at the compass in his hand. “Dungeons produce mana, so this could lead me to it if there is one?”

“In theory,” Torwin said. “It depends on the range of the compass. There are a million acres of untamed forest to comb through, so it could still be years of searching. Can I see it?”

Velik tossed the compass over, and Torwin caught it easily. He let out a low whistle as soon as he looked at it and shook his head. “Spent a good chunk of decarmas on this thing, huh? I don’t even know what half these runes mean.” He flipped it over and looked at the ruby set into the back. “Did you even attune yourself to this thing yet?”

“Attune myself? Like I did with my spear?” Velik hadn’t realized he’d need to. He’d been thinking of it more like a potion, just a tool that he used when he needed it.

“Exactly. Right now, it’s just pointing at whatever the closest source of mana it can detect that’s within the default threshold and parameters. You’ll need to attune yourself in order to change those.”

“What do the symbols you understand mean?”

Stolen novel; please report.

Torwin shrugged. “I know this top slot is for environmental or living mana, maybe a few other things. I used one once when I was hunting down a wyvern out by Mestia, but someone else configured the compass for me so that it would exclude anything under a monster of a certain level of strength. Took three tries, but my team got the wyvern in the end.”

“What about the rest?” Velik asked.

“More filters for what kind of mana you’re looking for. I think this one is for how chaotic the mana is here on the left side, and the opposite one measures an elemental affinity. I’m not sure about the rest.”

With another shrug, Torwin tossed the compass back to Velik. He studied it for a moment, committing the symbols—runes, he called them—to memory. Now that he knew he needed to attune to the compass like any other piece of gear. Should have thought to do that, myself. I can’t believe I wasted days walking out here for a thirty-second conversation about this thing.

Something must have been showing on his face, because Torwin said, “If it makes you feel any better, when you’re done with that thing, you can probably sell it at the second-hand market in Cravel. Depending on how good you are at haggling, you can get at least half what you paid for it back.”

“I’ve never been to Cravel,” Velik said.

“Three hundred miles south of Alnsberth. Just stick to the road and follow the signs at intersections. The speed you move at, I'm sure you could be there in under a week.”

If it was open road, Velik was guessing more like two days, especially if he started the journey at sundown and didn’t stop for sleep. Of course, once he got there, he’d be completely out of his element, having never set foot in a town with a population bigger than five hundred.

“Thanks. I’ll consider it,” he said.

“Mind if I ask you a question, too?” Torwin said suddenly.

“I don’t promise an answer.”

The old hunter barked out a laugh, loud enough that someone stirred in the core room. They both glanced back through the open door and he said, “My apprentice.”

“Jensen,” Velik said.

“Yes. You know him?” Torwin blinked in surprise.

“No. Heard you say his name a few weeks ago.”

“When did you… never mind. I was hoping you could show me where you found the class orb when you were a kid.”

“Sure, it’s back behind you.”

“In the core room?”

“No, behind one of the walls.”

“The walls?” Torwin glanced back over his shoulder through the open door. “How in the…”

“There are plenty of cracks. We were seven. It wasn’t hard to squeeze through one.”

“Okay, but why is there another room behind this one?”

“I never thought to ask,” Velik confessed.

“Hidden treasure room, maybe. But the team that cleared it should have found it. And if they didn’t, there would have been more than just a single class orb in there,” Torwin muttered to himself. He shot a look at Velik, then added, “If it even was a class orb.”

“If that’s all, I have my own work to get back to,” Velik said. “Thank you for the help.”

“Actually, if you don’t mind, I’d like to walk with you for a bit. I want to discuss coordinating our work to resolve this whole monster problem.”

“Coordinating?” Velik repeated. “Why?”

“Look, we’re obviously both trying to do the same thing, here. Sharing some information can’t hurt, right? You probably know a lot about the area that I’m still getting caught up on. I bet I know a few tricks you haven’t thought up yourself yet. We can help each other out here.”

“I don’t like working with other people,” Velik said flatly.

Torwin nodded along. “And I get that. I’m not asking you to follow me around and take orders. I’d just like to avoid duplicating effort. The faster we get this infestation cleared out, the better it is for everyone.”

It made sense, but Velik was hesitant to trust someone so strong. Even this conversation was a risk, though less of one with the moon in the sky. If Torwin did attack him, he was confident he could escape and outrun the older hunter. He’d made sure to keep some distance between them and his back lined up with the exit. There were enough intact pillars to give him some cover if it came down to it.

“I don’t think there’s anything more to talk about. I’m going to hunt for sources of strong mana. If this ends the problem, you’ll know for yourself soon enough. If not, then I’ll think of something else to try.”

“Yeah, I thought that’d be your answer. Kid, you’ve lived a hard life and relied on nothing but yourself. I respect that. And you’re strong, so I’d say you’ve done alright. But you need to learn to accept help, and how to trust other people.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Velik said as politely as he could manage. Then he turned and started walking away.

Thankfully, Torwin just let a heavy sigh escape his lips before walking back into the core chamber. A few minutes later, Velik ran between two buildings and out into the trees, leaving the dungeon far behind. The whole time, he looked over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being pursued, and he spent the rest of the night using every trick he knew to obscure his trail to keep from being followed.

Now I just hope that he doesn’t have his own mana compass that will point him in the same direction as mine. No way to avoid that, though, not and still learn what I needed to.

Hopefully, the gamble had paid off.