Chapter 114: Crystal Quarry 6
After two weeks of monster contracts to oil up Nara’s rusty combat gears, the team was ready to jump back into something more challenging. As usual, John’s unique skill set of investigation meant that their team had the unique tools to tackle contracts other iron rankers avoided.
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[Two-star Contract—Investigation of Crystal Quarry 6]
Villagers and dead bodies have periodically gone missing in Crystal Quarry 6. The cause was originally written off as bandits or monsters, but the regularity of the disappearances have been suspect. Prior investigation has turned up inconclusive.
Reward: Adjusted based on result.
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“Not bandits this time then? Like a certain medieval television show?” Nara asked. “It’s usually just bandits.”
The team ignored the second question.
“I don’t think bandits have a reason to steal dead bodies—”
“You know back on Earth a few hundred years ago the poor would exhume bodies and sell them to medical examiners—“
“Bandits usually don’t have a reason to steal dead bodies from morgues.” John amended. “Because bodies in a morgue have all of their possessions stored away already.”
“Especially not bodies of villagers,” Eufemia continued. “They would not have anything of value.”
“It has to be for other nefarious purposes then. What sort of nefarious purposes does this world get up to that you’d need a dead body for? You have things like sacrifices? Cannibalism? Occult rituals? I know you have summonings for sure; just look at John.”
“Usually use you living people for sacrifices,” Aliyah said. “Life force is the integral component in a sacrifice.”
Eufemia narrowed her eyes at Aliyah suspiciously, “And how do you know that?”
“Oh please, it’s not that hard to guess. And using life force in a ritual isn’t problematic as long as its your own.”
“Aliyah Sahar,” said Sen chidingly.
“I didn’t actually use my own life force in a sacrifice ritual, I’m just saying that it’s perfectly ethical. In limited circumstances. Hypothetically, if I wanted to.”
(Sen cast her a sideways glance that communicated, I’m keeping my eye on you because I don’t trust you. Aliyah rolled her eyes as if to say, it’s nothing that the Adventure Society has banned. Sen glared back, That’s not the point.)
“I guess doctors did experiment on themselves back on Earth,” Nara said, “They’d give themselves an illness then test the cure.”
“That’s true,” said John cheerily, adapting extraordinarily quickly, a skill forged in the streets of Nekroz. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. It doesn’t seem so morally bankrupt now.”
“Magic makes everything sound more ominous,” Nara said. “I mean really, is injecting the almost dead matter of a virus in order to develop an immunity to it much better?” Nara paused, “If you all just cleanse away the viruses, then does that mean the people here have no viral resistances?”
“That could be bad,” John mused. “Thankfully, that crisis was averted. We were reborn fresh as a baby’s bum.”
Because they had been outworlded, their bodies were blank slates and carried no viruses or illnesses.
“I’d know, I’m American. Actually, isn’t that the British’s fault first at first? Everything is usually Britain’s fault historically, and America’s fault in the present.”
“The Great British Empire has committed many atrocities over her lifespan,” John said, “And one of those atrocities is America,” he joked. “You threw out perfectly good tea.”
“To be fair, I tried some of that historical tea and it tasted pretty bad. It deserved to be thrown into the sea. Who thought ‘smoked tea’ was a good idea? Of course it was the goddam British. I’d never throw out perfectly good Sanshi tea. British food and British tea both belong in the bottom of the ocean. Bangers and mash,” Nara said, shaking her head with disgust. “Beans on toast.”
“You take that back.” John lips thinned into a grim line, mortally offended. “There’s nothing wrong with beans on toast. It’s a comprehensive breakfast staple.”
“My god, your wife cooks, doesn’t she?”
“I help!” John protested. He turned towards the team for support which he would not find. “It wasn’t that bad, was it?”
“John, there’s a reason you’re banned from the kitchen,” Eufemia said, “It isn’t because your food is ‘to die for’. If that’s your cultural food, I’m on Nara’s side.”
Sen crossed his arms. “I like our current arrangement.”
“What arrangement?” said John.
“The familiar cooks, and you don’t.”
*****
In recent years, Crystal Quarry 6 had grown in population, pocketed in a region of low mana quantity and quality that generally prevented monsters from straying too close or from manifesting within the town. While the arrays that most cities and towns used warded monsters, they did not stop direct manifestations in town. Frequent array and magic use disturbed ambient magic, which lowered the rate of manifestation in population centers. Essence users would generally just kill monsters on sight within the city. With ample healers and essence users, the damage was contained. One of the signs of a monster wave was direct monster manifestations within in a city, as the strengthened dimensional barrier brought increased mana saturation that overcame the mana disturbance generated by array and magic use.
If a monster began to manifest in a city, the people of Erras had long been taught to run away, drilled into them like fire evacuations in elementary school. Monster manifestation took longer depending on the strength of the monster, but even iron rank monsters required a few minutes before they fully manifested. Like ‘stop, drop, and roll’, the reaction to run at manifestation was taught to every child of Erras, at home and in education (if applicable). Unless it was a normal rank monster, in which case one could freely punt it with their shovel. Erras residents had a learned sense for how long a normal rank monster took to manifest; anything longer than that was trouble. Some would stick around however, hoping to get their lucky break with a manifesting essence or awakening stone. At iron rank, perhaps, it was still worth the risk.
“With a growing population,” Encio continued his recitation of the attributes of the growing township. “It’s reasonable that they wrote off the disappearances. It could have been any number of reasons. The town is pretty far from Sanshi as well. Over three days of travel.”
“No wonder the contract has been unclaimed.” Eufemia sighed, “Who wants to spend three days traveling out into the country?”
“A town of that size will likely have an Adventure Society outpost. We’ll be able to gather some preliminary information there.”
Outposts were far smaller versions of an Adventure Society branch, usually operated by one or two locals with no official power. Their jobs were to post and update contracts and assist the adventurers in the area. Outpost positions were paid for by the main branch, in this case Sanshi. They ended up being comfortable and enviable jobs within small towns (and in some cases a political position, as the unscrupulous could attempt to control communication between the outpost and the main branch or hide contracts of rivals and enemies.)
“I could try to astral jump there in advance,” Nara said. “Stake out the place.”
“No.” Sen shook his head. “We’ll be taking other contracts on our way there.”
“Best not miss out then.” Nara agreed.
“Shouldn’t we travel there as fast as possible?” John said, “There are people dying from this unknown threat.” As always, he fielded his life-first moral imperative. They expected no less from their healer.
“Lives are always at stake,” Sen said firmly. “These monster contracts are not meaningless.” He pointed to the map, tracing out the route they would take. “This is a primary trade route, up towards the north-east. The route is usually well-maintained, but the lesser trade roads we need to travel are not. Eliminating these monsters keep the roads safe.”
“Other adventurers can do that.”
“They could,” Sen acknowledged, and he waited for John to respond, in his usual weighty silence, expression unflappable. But Sen was the local here, and John had a feeling this was an argument already lost.
John sighed, “If the contracts are still available, no one has taken them.”
Sen waited.
“We take the contracts,” John agreed. He had just been out-argued by a twenty-year-old. Sen was no ordinary twenty-year-old, and John was younger in this world than him. He felt oddly conflicted, yet strangely reassured.
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“It’s decided,” said Sen, standing. “I will make the arrangements at the Society. Nara, you are in charge of acquisitions. Sage, you’ve been making a list of necessary items?”
“I have, Mister Arlang,” Sage said, manifesting. Because Nara couldn’t be trusted to make a comprehensive list and even then, to remember to purchase all the items on it. Thankfully, she had two adults she could depend on, Sage and Chrome.
(And Thanatos, of course, good boy.)
“Split up the item list between the rest of the team. We’ll meet tomorrow, at 5 am.”
Eufemia groaned at the early start time but didn’t otherwise verbally protest.
*****
The issue of ‘getting there in time’ was an age-long issue for iron rankers. Once essence users hit bronze rank, portals were the fastest method of travel, if an essence user in the party had a portal ability.
Sanshi’s small scale transportation was worse than Earth’s transportation. Skimmers had lower top speeds than cars. Their air transportation was superior, with sky ships able to haul large amounts of material and people through the air. It was nowhere near the top speed of a plane, but also more efficient and less polluting. As for top speed, fighter jets were only matched by diamond rankers who could literally jump to the moon as if they were merely stopping by to visit a neighbor a few blocks down.
High magic regions had monster detection grids. A low magic region like Sanshi, however, could not sustain the expensive large scale array. With limited communication technology, they had to rely on snail mail (or familiar carriers, which could have impressive speeds, if paid for.)
John wasn’t an impatient person, but his new abilities and training had developed his personal sense of responsibility. He was a healer, and it was his role to protect his team members and save lives.
He didn’t initially agree with Sen; he thought they should ignore the monster contracts and head straight for Crystal Quarry 6. As he calmed his mind and overturned his thoughts, he realized Sen’s point, although his conclusion still sat weighty like dense British pudding in the bottom of his stomach. The investigation itself would take an indeterminate length of time. Whether they got their earlier or later had an unknown impact on the disappearing villagers and the dead bodies, which weren’t dying at a high rate.
John didn’t like how analytical that thought made him feel. That he was weighing the lives of villagers against the probability of traders dying from a monster attack. He was a data officer, but he had never been on the side of responsibility and action. If he extended his impatience to other aspects of their lives, then adventurers should never relax or take time off. There were always monsters to kill. People with a lick of common sense would wait for adventurers or local essence user organizations to handle monsters before resuming business, so casualties outside of monster waves or other extraordinary events were usually infrequent.
There were always idiots, however.
John sighed and leaned against the skimmer that Aliyah operated with Tools of the Magister. There wasn’t a wheel, but a crystalline orb that Aliyah held her palms over to manipulate, adjusting speed, elevation, and direction. Vehicles on Erras were oddly like coin-operated machines; a coin slot at the front allowed refilling of magic that the vehicle used to operate. There was a maximum capacity of magic a vehicle could break down and hold, so there was no point in overfilling it.
Skimmers were more open jeeps than actual cars; a metal awning held up by metal supports with a flat bottom that hovered over the ground. The chairs and backrests were decently comfortable, although safety wasn’t much of a concern. There were no seatbelts and no crumple zones to protect them in a crash. Benefits of hovering instead of rolling included a total lack of bumps and shakes, which John appreciated, even though his back no longer ached, although sometimes he imagined the throbbing echoes of his old life and old body.
They had opted for land transportation rather than air or water transportation since they needed to make frequent stops to kill monsters. The skimmer was built for durability and adept as an all-terrain vehicle, so they could drive it relatively close to monster sightings.
They bumbled along; their frequent stops extended the 3 day trip into a 4 day trip. The stone spires stuck out of forests and plains, as if a titan stuck their stone chopsticks into the ground where they irresponsibly forgot them. The landscape was patchwork between trees, farmland, grasslands, and sheer stone that jutted outward into mountains or down into stone burl canyons.
The largest and most traversed river, the Blue Jade River, flowed from the north where Arlang was down to the south towards Sanshi. Occasionally, they crested a hill enough to peek past forests to spy the massive river to their left in the distance. Gatherers fished actual fish as well as water quintessence from its depths, selling it to Sanshi to power artifacts such as faucets and showers (although plumbing and water systems did exist.)
Crystal Quarry 6 was one of many mining towns that used the Blue Jade River for transportation. They were aways situated out from the river. They used land haulers to transport stone and crystal to the river, where it was unloaded at a riverside transportation hub. The most dangerous stretch of the journey was the first part, where villagers traversed countryside roads with less protection. Most of the time, there was no issue; a partial essence user, a few normal rankers with decent weapons, or iron ranker usually guarded the convoy. The low mana quantity meant that those measures were enough. Iron rank monsters weren’t dangerous unless in large quantities or as they approached peak iron rank strength. The relatively clear terrain from mine town to transportation hub also allowed normals to get the jump on any approaching monsters, if they were unlucky enough to have monsters manifest nearby in the first place.
The town came into view—mostly one and two story buildings of stone built at the foot of one of the larger stone spires of Sanshi, which extended out of view as they approached like the tower of Babel. Plants grew more sparsely here, but they were still green, matching the environment of the local area. The frequent foot traffic had scattered dirt over the compacted roads, shaped by an earth essence user. Along the foot of the spire, mining operations were set up. Cut crystal and stone blocks were hauled out of the spire and set in organized piles on the ground.
The six rode in on their skimmer, moving slowly over the busy roads of the town. Crystal and stone business was booming, and an emerging craft industry was slowly forming. Occasionally, Nara sensed other essence users. Most had only one or two essence, not even a full set. Very rarely, she sensed an essence user with all four, but they never surpassed iron rank. According to John’s Magic Photographer ability, they mostly possessed earth, stone, might, adept, and crystal essences, with a few other essences such as water, plant, axe, hammer, chisel, chain, and shovel.
They disembarked from the skimmer, and Aliyah pushed it into her inventory. With her influx of spirit coins, she had purchased a personal skimmer so that she didn’t have to rent one from the Magic Society.
They met the mayor in the town hall, which was slightly more impressive than the rest of the buildings. The carvings on it was elaborate, but not overly so. It was enough to demonstrate its status without overdoing for income bracket of the town. A wide paved stone walkway resembled a driveway if not for the lack of cars.
“I’m the town head, Haoran Jing. Thank you, adventurers, for accepting my request.”
He was a celestine with cinerous copper brown hair and eyes with accompanied sun-tanned skin worn from hard work. Even with his age and worn body, his celestine features made him oddly attractive in a way that a middle aged lumberjack was attractive.
Haoran Jing was a reasonable and experienced man. Under his leadership, the village had started to flourish. The mysterious disappearances were not the first issue he’d had to overcome; he knew better than to let a problem fester, like termites burrowing through wood. His intuition told him this problem needed to be addressed, but no adventurer had managed to solve it thus far. He was disheartened, but welcomed this group of adventurers with the same graciousness he had welcomed all the ones before them.
“And you all are?” Haoran asked.
“Forgive my impoliteness, I am Sen Arlang. We’re adventurers dispatched by the Adventure Society regarding the dissappearances. Could you elaborate on this situation?”
Haoran’s eyes lit up. An Arlang? That was good news. Even if this iron ranker and his team couldn’t solve his problem, he may escalate his case to someone more qualified.
“The dissappearances have been ongoing for the past two years…maybe longer. I’m ashamed to say I may not have noticed before then. The disappearance have been sparse for many years—one person every few weeks. For a town of this size, and with the frequent movements…”
The Arlang scion nodded. “Low enough to attribute it to monster attacks.”
“If it is a monster, it needs to strike regularly to feed. However…”
“No iron or bronze rank monster lives beyond 2 years. If it was a silver rank monster, this entire town would be wiped out already.”
“Whatever it is, it’s been careful for a long time. Recently, the disappearance have been increasing in frequency. The behavior is strange for a monster, so I thought it could be cultists. Not many want the dead.”
“You think it could be the cult of undeath?”
“For a provincial town like this, you think that’s likely?” A ruby haired celestine interjected. A Fenhu perhaps? Haoren reasoned, although it was unlikely to have two scions in the same team, from what he’s read of The Familiar’s Tidings. “What could they possibly gain harassing a town at such a glacial pace?”
“How often do vampires feed, Eufemia?” Sen asked.
“The ones I know? Once a month. And they don’t even have to kill. This all seems so overdone like some amateur scriptwriter trying to make their first mystery.”
“You know vampires?” Haoran said with nervous surprise.
“Not for you to know. How about you focus on your issues, and not on mine?” She shot back with a glare.
Haoran cleared his throat, undisturbed by the celestine’s bloody dagger stare. It was true she was offering her expertise, and knowing a vampire wasn’t a crime. Vampires were universally hated in Erras; she must have her own circumstances. A daughter of a cultist who escaped the family profession? It was uncommon but not impossible—he’s heard of Shanyin, the refuge for the less fortunate. Since she was with an Arlang, Haoran would not worry much about it. She must have been thoroughly vetted.
Haoran retrieved a key from a lockbox in his office and handed it to Sen, “This is the key to the archives. I’ll have an assistant retrieve and organize the papers related to the dissappearances. I’ve already prepared your lodgings at a nearby inn. Let Mattie know if you need any adjustments. I’ve instructed her to accommodate you to the best of her capabilities.”
“We are all very thankful for your consideration and generosity, but we have other arrangements for our own lodgings.”
“Whatever you decide, let me know. Should you change your mind, it will be waiting for you. We’ve had other adventurers try their hand at this case, so the people know what to expect. If anyone is causing you any trouble, let me know so I may assist.”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, town head. We are appreciative of your support.”
*****
Since they wouldn’t be using the town lodgings, they drove over to the outskirts of the village. Nara held out her flask and streams of psychedelic dust flowed out into solid form. Some townsfolk stopped and stared, ooh-ing and aw-ing at the spectacle.
“So much for adaptive,” John said, observing the gathering onlookers. “But this may work out for use. We’re gathering quite the crowd. This may be a good opportunity to make some friends.”
Sen nodded his approval, and John headed off to glean some information through friendly chit-chat.
Immediately, John was surrounded by mothers and their children. He radiated friendliness and approachability like no other; so entirely harmless in aura and so normal in appearance that the normal folk forgot he was an adventurer altogether. Encio and Eufemia, the team’s social butterflies, went with him, using the excitement and goodwill generated from the overt magic to introduce themselves to the townsfolk.
Encio and Eufemia were different; they were superstars, local celebrities that people couldn’t wait to chat with and take a selfie with, if this world had had smartphones. For a more discrete investigation, Eufemia could transform herself into another person. For now, the two probed for what they could while flashing smiles at the local youth that would have tripped over rocks to swoon onto them if not for their good sense of respecting an adventurer’s personal space unless invited. If either wanted a bed warmer, there were takers. Sen too, except he engaged with the more respectable members of the town that had wandered over to observe the excitement.
Despite John’s comment, the nebula house transformed into an ordinary two-story stone pavilion house typical of regional towns. A stone fence bordered the house, containing the blue-green weedwood forest that swayed with their flexible stems and long thin leaves like reeds in the wind. It provided subtle privacy and cooling shade. The only reason it stood out was Nara’s obsession with greenery, but there was always one house in every neighborhood just four glass walls and a roof short of a greenhouse. A brand new house on the outskirts of town was more eye-catching than Nara’s penchant for plant life.