“The necklace. I’d like to see it,” Walibeld said, holding out his hand.

Trenton handed the necklace to him without hesitation. Maybe Walibeld would know more about where it came from. Walibeld held it up in front of his face, inspecting every surface with his right eye. After a couple of minutes of looking at it, running his hands over the intricate piece of work as if it had some form of braille woven into it, he handed the necklace back to Trenton.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it, but so far as I can tell, it’s harmless. The spell woven into it isn’t offensive, rather defensive, or protective,” Walibeld said, handing the trinket back to Trenton. “Have Era look at it once we get to the Academy. I’d wager he can figure out the exact nature of both the necklace and the book.

Trenton took it, slipping the necklace over his neck and thinking of a way to store the book on his person. But, just as he thought about where he could put it, the book disappeared into a spray of blue particles, which slowly dispersed, fading into nothing. For some reason, he felt as if the book was still nearby, although he had no idea where it could be, or what just happened to it.

“Who was that? What was that? What is going on?” Leo said, his head swiveling frantically back and forth between Trenton and Walibeld, before locking on Trenton, “and why do you keep attracting weird guys who deliver vague monologues? This is the second one in two days.”

But as Leo looked between the other two, both seemed just as lost as him. It seemed no one knew what was going on, everyone equally in the dark. After a moment, Leo put his head down, deciding to rest on one of the nearby benches instead. It had been a long day. Everyone could use some rest. Perhaps tomorrow they could find some clue to assuage their confusion.

Just as Leo sat down, Walibeld began to talk, standing at the front of the room so as to be easily visible to both boys. “I’ll make this quick. As I said earlier, I don’t intend to spend much time on presence. It's far too complicated. However, it’s still one of the fundamentals so I’ll cover just today, and after that I’ll focus on combat and magic training,” Walibeld sat down on the steps leading up to the altar, “presence is the physical manifestation of power, which extends out from your core in every direction, and it can be controlled like it’s an invisible body of water surrounding you. It’s best thought of as a 6th sense. It has many applications such as being able to tell specific traits about people if you read their presence, but that’s hardly important right now. Presence can bolster your body, increasing your strength many fold without adding to your body's mass. Later, you’ll be able to even perform unique maneuvers because of this particular property…” he trailed off, the light in his eye fading, “...oh, and it grows by getting stronger. This generally correlates to more experience and combat prowess. Recall that presence expands based on mental influences just as much as physical. And, uhhh…that’s it, I think. I would go on, but I’ve not slept in four days and could desperately use the rest. Since this room is secure,” he nodded his head at the once again sealed door, “there’s no need to keep watch tonight. However, once we move from this room, I’ll set up guard shifts that we’ll switch around. It will allow us all to rest, while also keeping our guard up. That’s it. Sleep well,” Walibeld said, collapsing backwards and beginning to snore softly.

“We didn’t even eat anything tonight…whatever. I’m too tired for this. What a weird day,” Leo said, sprawling out on a bench and following Walibeld to the realm of dreams.

Trenton looked at the both of them for some time, thinking about the two gifts he’d just received, the necklace hanging quite comfortably around his neck. But, he too succumbed to his earthly weakness after enough time, splaying out on a bench and drifting off into a fitful sleep, his mind consumed with the odd events of the day.

When they woke, Walibeld made them a quick breakfast consisting of some preserved meats he had on hand. It was quick and simple, much like every other meal they’d had while traveling. Once everyone was finished, they set out, weaving their way back through the temple, and out its grand doors. They started traveling out into the forest, resuming their northward heading, pushing their way through some new cliffy terrain that was now intermixed with a fresh bounty of foliage. It was a nice change of pace, albeit small. Eventually, they found themselves walking a wide dirt path that trailed along a cliffside, this one much smoother than any they’d walked before. It was almost like it was artificially created, a road designed for travel, an absurd thought out in the plains, but less so after witnessing the grand cathedral yesterday.

Walibeld held out his arm to stop the group, his eye locked on the sky. For a moment, Trenton couldn’t see what it was he was looking at, but then he saw something, a black blot in the sky slowly getting bigger. With a resounding boom, a large man slammed into the path ahead of them, cracking the ground and creating a sizable crater from the impact. However, despite the clear force with which he fell, he didn’t look bothered in the slightest. In fact, as the man’s face lifted to look up at them, he smiled, throwing his arms wide as if meeting friends in the comfort of his own home, and not a group of dirty strangers out in the middle of nowhere.

“Walibeld! What are the odds of running into you out here?” the man said, his eyes focussed on Trenton and Leo.

Walibeld regarded the man with his usual stoicism, “Geren. What are you doing here?”

“Wait, Geren? Geren the Giant?” Trenton said, now taking in the man before him properly.

He was unusually tall, half a foot taller than Trenton at least, and sturdy too. He had sharp, chiseled features, his curly sandy hair falling to either side of his face. How could this be Geren the Giant? He was supposed to be several stories tall at least, or so the rumors went. But the man before them couldn’t even be seven feet tall. To put it bluntly, he was no giant. He was still one of the Conqueror’s seven generals, of course, so it’s not like his strength was in any question, but still, he could be taller. It’d be a lot cooler if he was taller.

“The one and only,” he said, his smile iridescent.

“Aren't you supposed to be taller?” Leo asked, cocking his head to the side.

Geren laughed, “I like to think I’m perfectly tall already. Big and strong!” He flexes his quite impressive arms

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“Why are you here?” Walibeld repeated.

Geren’s smile wavered, before vanishing completely “I received a missive three days ago about a sort of cataclysm in Aria. Unfortunately, we happen to be without proper hands at the moment, so I’ve had to make my way over by foot. I’ve been making my way along as quickly as I could, but it’s still slow,” he paused, rubbing his hand across his perfect features, “you came from Aria didn’t you? Tell me what happened.”

Walibeld quickly recounted his way through all the information he was privy to, starting with how he left and finishing with how he found Aria when he returned,“There’s nothing left. So far as I can tell, these two are the only survivors. Still, something bothers me. Well, a couple of things, actually. Firstly, I didn’t send that missive. Who was it from?” Walibeld said, his right eye squinting at Geren.

“I’m uncertain. It was unsigned. A crow bearing an odd symbol on its back delivered the message. Typically I wouldn’t go chasing unverified information like this, but…” Geren trailed off, “...well, no message channel can actually get through the castle, at least so far as I was aware, which means whoever sent the missive has special permissions not even I’m privy to. On top of that…”

“The Conqueror's gone. Aylin and Zalis, too, if my intuition serves. Someone could have been exploiting the weakness in your defense,” Walibeld finishes.

Geren looked up at him, his eyes tender. “That’s right. The Conqueror left on some mission a month ago, and something came up a week ago that forced Zalis and Aylin away from the capital. I don’t know any details, but from what I’ve heard, it’s dire situations on every front.”

As he said that, something clicked far back in Trenton’s mind, something that he’d found odd at the time, but couldn’t place until now, “He was rushing,” Everyone's eyes turned to Trenton, suddenly interested in what he’s saying. “The man who attacked, he had no idea where I was. If I was really his only target, then he should’ve just attacked in the middle of the night. It would’ve been too easy to just go room by room until he found where I slept. Instead he attacked in the middle of a crowded ball when I’d be far harder to locate, which means he wasn’t operating with a plan. He probably had a day he planned to attack, but had to jump forward once he realized Walibeld left. An opportunity like that would be far too perfect to risk passing up.”

“An enemy that knew of my absence as well as the Conqueror’s and his hands,” Walibeld said thoughtfully, “the only way they’d have such a broad net of knowledge would be if they were part of some sort of organization, and a large one, too. They’d need men on the inside, as well. No individual could hope to infiltrate Daselliums castle unnoticed.”

Geren sat there for a moment, thinking over the new idea, “It’d be impossible for any of the generals to be rats, but if someone was able to sweep the castle, they could notice the Conqueror’s absence first hand. It’s not concrete, but it might be enough to work on. Especially if they saw Aylin’s watchtower was empty. I’ll take a look into it when I return. Do you have any suspicions about who would’ve known of your absence, Walibeld?

“The only people privy to that information, who could be of reasonable suspicion, would be the servants of the Boulreguard manor, but that’s not my area of expertise,” Walibeld said, looking over at Trenton.

Trenton thought about it for a moment, trying to think of anyone who might’ve been acting suspiciously the day of, before remembering his interaction with Jade, “Jade was acting weird when I met her, but I don’t think it’s her. I remember her seeming concerned about Pallia knowing you were gone, Walibeld. On top of that, I wasn’t able to find Jade anywhere during the ball itself. My best guess is that Pallia was the spy, Jade found out somehow, and was chasing her down. But, I don’t understand why she would even assume there was a spy among the servants, much less bother to chase them,” Trenton said, looking around at them to see if anyone else had any other insights, but all he was met with was a wash of confused expressions.

“So, there’s probably rats in our ranks, and they’re running around now. That’s not exactly helpful. I can’t imagine we’ll make any headway if we can’t at least get an idea of who our enemy might be. Was there anything of note about the man, anything weird or notable?” Geren asked, indicating towards Trenton.

Trenton thought for a moment, painfully running through the memories of the night, desperately trying to recall anything relevant. “He had this sort of weird red translucent tendril that connected him and Delis, but I didn’t get a good look at it.”

At this, Geren shot forward, his face suddenly intense, “Are you absolutely certain that’s what you saw?”

“Yeah, I think so. I wasn’t paying too much attention at the time given…well given I was dying.”

Geren sat back for a moment, crossing his arms and staring vaguely up into the sky. After a second he motioned Walibeld to approach, whispering something Trenton couldn’t hear to him. Walibeld’s face soured, and he too paused to think about this information.

“Rumors aren't good enough. I’ll not make any decisions on weak guess work,” Walibeld shook his head, looking at Geren, now. In response, Geren threw his arms up and shrugged.

“It’s the best I have on hand. I’ve never met the guy personally, but that’s how the Conqueror described him to me. Keep it in mind is all,” Geren responded.

“What? What is it?” Leo said, confused.

Walibeld sat pensive for a moment, before responding, “Nothing to worry yourself with. I don’t mean to worry you over something that we couldn’t verify…but if that is true–then this would be the biggest international affair in centuries. For everyone's sake, I hope you’re wrong, Geren,” Walibeld responded dismissively.

For a moment, Geren stood there, not moving, stuck between two worlds, before deciding to throw caution to the wind, “But, if I’m not, then this isn’t something that can wait. I’m not supposed to do this with others around, but I can’t take any risks,” Geren pulled out a small device, an intricate pyramid like structure with some sort of circular receptacle at the top.

Although Trenton never had one himself, he saw Walibeld carrying one once, and he’d heard of it many times. It was an emergency communicator. For exactly one hour long conversation, the device could transfer one’s surroundings and voice to a matching device anywhere on the continent. They were incredibly useful devices, but were extraordinarily expensive to create, the spacial magic required taking even the greatest space mages thousands of hours to charge. And, given the signature Dasellium sigil on the bottom of the apparatus, this one was probably directly linked to the Conqueror himself, no surprise he’d splurge on a device like this for his elite. But, just as Geren started to fiddle with some mechanism in the concave slot at the top, Trenton felt a peculiar rumbling through the earth. He had been so caught up in the conversation, he hadn't even noticed the approaching force until now. He barely had enough time to start shouting out a warning before hundreds of cliff crawlers came swarming over the edge of the cliff.