Ian returned three days later. Sophia emerged from the inn to greet them. Irene didn’t realize that Sophia was in the square. Irene wondered if she was there the whole time, or if like Irene, she slipped out for some of it.
Irene was awash in iron ingots. She still needed to find an anvil. She managed to set up another woman as a beginner woodcrafter, using a similar method. She knew these victories at establishing the square as a working community were small, but she felt better about these efforts than her failure at Londontown to stop the violence.
“I brought you a gift,” Ian said to Irene. He presented a new set of hunter’s greens. “I noticed your current set is losing its color.”
“Oh, that’s the color of my magic staining the fabric,” Irene responded. “These will discolor too. They are really nice, I haven’t gotten a new set in forever,” she said as she ran a hand over the fabric. She usually paid to have her greens repaired. After a certain point, repairs never really returned the article to new. After that they just fell apart no matter how often they were fixed. Irene was wearing her worn leathers because her greens were getting close to that state. Time out of the structure didn’t appear to count on the wear of integrated cloth. She was surprised by how often her greens needed replaced when she stayed full time in the structure.
“What do you mean your magic stains the fabric?” Ian asked.
“Because I am tier four,” Irene said as a quick explanation. She reached out and ran a hand around the dark red edging around the collar of Ian’s armor. “It is the same mechanism that makes your red so dark,” Irene responded. “That dark color is how I know you are tier five.” Ian was startled. He thought his tier was a secret. It was disturbing to think he was walking around advertising it. “My magic isn’t green, so when it stains the fabric it causes the discolor. If you wore green it would be even worse.”
“What if I wore blue?” Ian asked.
“It would turn purple. I don’t know how long it takes at tier five, but it is a couple days before it is really noticeable at four,” Irene said. “I’m going to change into these,” Irene said. She went into the inn.
“When were you going to mention you hit tier five?” Jake asked.
“When it was pertinent,” Ian responded. He didn’t mention his increase in tier because he didn’t want questions asked about how he did it. “What happened when we were away?” he queried Sophia.
“The usual,” Sophia responded. “There haven't been any unexpected visitors.”
“What has Irene been doing?” Ian asked specifically.
“She goes out with the gatherers to the green in the morning and scavenges in the afternoon. She has some weird fascination with crafting tools,” Sophia commented. Sophia only just returned from her own side trip to Chicago. She left Chicago the instant she heard Ian’s team arrived. The information she was giving Ian came straight from her morning interrogation of Ellen.
“Crafting tools huh?” Ian asked. “That’s interesting.” Ian wondered if it was her engineering background that made her interested in the tools. Ian went into the inn to seduce a princess.
----------------------------------------
“What is all this stuff?” he asked later that night. There were chunks of iron, tools and fiber spread all over the room. A frame pushed against the wall held a stretched hide. He kicked a small spool as he made his way across the room. It skittered away in a good imitation of a miniature rat.
“Oh just stuff I’ve picked up scavenging and a few side projects,” Irene said. “I wasn’t expecting company.” She didn’t mention that this was just from the last few days. She emptied out her bags each morning in order to have empty bags to gather with. She just left it all on the floor. She needed to work on getting someone trained up to make her more bags. Her rooms always tended to become overwhelmed if she stayed anywhere too long. Since putting items in and out of inventory either reduced the amount or wore the item, she avoided that if she could. She would put most of it into her inventory when she left to travel to the next place.
“Next time we can sleep in my room,” Ian commented. He could feel a slight buzz from the half dozen skinning knives and blacksmith hammers mixed in with the tools. Ian realized he felt something similar from Irene herself most of the time. Ian made his way back over to the bed where he cuddled Irene close to him.
“How long have you been tier four?” he asked, in an effort to make conversation.
“About a year,” Irene responded. “It will probably be a decade before I reach five,” she commented.
“Why did you spend so much time figuring out the tier five spell if it will be a decade before you can cast it?” Ian asked.
“I like the puzzle of it,” Irene responded. “Plus tier five spells are so rare, I mean I only know a handful of tier four spells. I’ll probably not find another one in the next decade. I think that one must be there for you.”
“Me?” Ian asked. He thought so too, but he wanted to hear her logic for it.
“Yeah, haven’t you noticed that spell hints usually occur near someone who can use the spell?” The structure also seemed to rig things so that certain spells would solve a situation very easily. Those situations or events could be solved with other methods, but the alternates were usually more difficult. Irene didn’t like to think about a situation when a ‘take them with me’ spell would be the best choice, but she also didn’t like thinking about being in that situation and not knowing the spell.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Ian responded, even though Irene’s theory matched up close to his own thoughts. “I saw a bunch of tier two and three spell hints when most of us were only tier zero.”
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“That was the early days,” Irene responded. “I think there were ‘leftovers’ from whoever was in the area last. When they moved on or died out the systems here shut down to conserve power, including the remodel system.”
“If that spell is for me, I should learn it,” Ian observed.
“Be careful,” Irene responded. “I think you could easily kill innocent bystanders with it, without even noticing. You’ll need to get well away from occupied areas before you cast it.”
Ian thought about the description Irene gave for the spell. A wave of death that was actually killing in a spherical pattern. Her innocent bystander comment made him aware that she thought the spell would travel through walls. He would have to go out to those ponds and look at the images himself. Killing from behind a wall seemed like the perfect assassination tool to him.
Thinking about the power of the spell he felt himself becoming aroused. He pulled Irene close and initiated sex with her again. He may have been a little too forceful, but Irene surprised him by giving as good back. A smile of satisfaction spread across his face as he reached his release. He would plant his child and tie her to him in a way she could not break. If she became troublesome to him down the road, well the kid would be a grandchild of the queen. Irene fell asleep shortly afterward. Ian thought about going back to his own room, but he was strangely comfortable laying beside this woman.
He awoke to Irene moving around the room. She was piling crafting tools onto the prize altar and dropping them into her inventory. He realized he couldn’t hear her movements, only feel the vibrations through the bed. Her hair was wet and she wore only the shirt from the new hunters outfit he bought her. She possessed a beautiful body and moved with an unnatural grace, granted by her tier four status.
“Good morning beautiful,” he murmured. He stretched, making sure to expose more of his muscled form than was strictly necessary.
“Good morning,” she said. “I hope I didn’t wake you. I was just trying to straighten up a little.” She sat another stack of tools on the altar. This time he heard the tools clink against the stone surface. There was more floor space visible now than last night. Ian could still feel that light buzz of weapons, but it was fainter. Ian rose smoothly to his feet, displaying his own unnatural dexterity.
He ran a hand up her back and pulled her to him. He kissed her with the intention of driving all thought from her mind. Irene melted into his grasp. They were both breathing heavily when he pulled back away from her.
“I think I’d better clean up in my own room,” Ian said, “or I’ll get a late start on the day.”
“Would that be so bad?” Irene asked. Ian smiled and planted a light kiss on her nose.
“You tempt me,” he said. He released her and stooped to pick up his armor. He roughly pulled the pants on. He gathered the rest of his clothing in one hand while picking up his boots with the other.
“Take these,” Irene said. She rolled several sheets of vellum together and slipped them into Ian’s boot.
“What is it?” he asked.
“They are my notes on the last resort spell. You will need them if you're going to learn it,” Irene explained. This action surprised him. He didn’t even ask for them. He leaned forward and kissed her nose again.
“Thank you,” he said, before making his way out into the hall. He strolled down the hall in a relaxed gait to the door to his own room. He turned back to find Irene peeking at him from the open door to her room. He winked at her, before disappearing into his room.
Ian never jointly rented a room, so he didn’t have to worry about Sophia laying in wait for him. He suspected she might have been in the hall outside his door except it was late enough that there would be witnesses to that. Sophia liked to pretend that Jake didn’t know she slept around with others. She hunted him down later in the day.
“You stayed with her all night,” Sophia accused, when she finally found him. They were just outside the square at the base of the waterfall. Ian was sitting on the edge of one of the terraces studying a sheet of vellum. He habitually sat there, since it made the gatherers happy to think protection was close by. He liked a salad with his steak. It was a simple thing to do to get a good meal. Additionally, the location allowed him to have private conversations in the public eye, which was useful.
“She’s not the kind of woman you sneak out from in the middle of the night,” Ian responded. “You need to get over your petty jealousy. I have long term plans for Irene. In the short term we’ll use her as a guardian for the square. That will free more of us up for retaliatory raids.” Sophia liked the sound of that. She didn’t like getting left behind to keep an eye on the women. It made her think Ian was plotting to get rid of her.
“When do we start the raids?” Sophia said.
“We won’t. Either Londontown or Paris will decide the best way to get rid of the threat will be to strike back first. I’m betting on Paris, since we got the upper hand there,” Ian explained. “Darien will call an emergency meeting, and to save face, he will order raids on Paris.”
“What if he doesn’t?” Sophia asked.
“If he doesn’t he’ll look weak. I’ll call for a vote of no confidence. As the suburb who has done the most to protect Chicago from the threat, we should be a shoe-in for his replacement,” Ian observed.
“And what if the blues don’t strike back?” Sophia questioned.
“Then we will raid them again. If nothing happens in the next month, we’ll hit their scavengers and hunters when they are away from the square,” Ian responded. “We’ll lose less warriors that way. I only hit the squares directly this time to drive them to strike back at Chicago itself. Darien won’t be able to hide an attack against downtown.”
The plan still sounded good. Although Sophia didn’t see any role in it for Irene, except babysitting the civilians.
“Can we trust Irene to keep visitors from carrying word of the square?” she asked.
“We are getting to the part of the plan where that won’t matter anymore,” Ian replied. “In fact I have an idea for the end game where we will want the blues to know we are here.”
“How would that work?” Sophia asked.
“If we are all here fighting a war we won’t be suspected of being someplace else,” Ian explained. Sophia was very careful not to show any reaction to this observation. Ian did not like it when underlings did not obey him exactly. Not watching the square in his absence was definitely not what she was ordered to do. “If something tragic were to happen to Darien, it would be our duty to see justice done. This spell,” Ian said, tapping the vellum, “is going to make taking him out easy.”
“What spell is that?” Sophia asked.
“It’s Irene’s tier five spell. She calls it a spell of ‘last resort’. I think ring of death is a more accurate name,” Ian said. “She gave me her notes.”
“Of course she gave them to you,” Sophia said, shaking her head at the woman’s nativity. The woman was too weird for words. “How long will it take you to learn it?” she asked.
“Probably six months,” Ian said, “Maybe longer since I won’t be able to dedicate all my time to it.”
“Are you sure it is worth it?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” Ian replied.