“Remember, Markus, that we are here to talk with everyone’s parents. You-”

“Me and everyone else will go and get our supplies ready. I know,” Markus said resignedly.

“And stay in the city, too. And don’t talk to strangers.” Zenith said.

“Yes, aunt. We’ll be safe.”

Markus grumbled and walked ahead, away from his nagging aunt. Paige glanced over and sighed.

“Relax, Zenith. They’ll be safe here in the city. The Healer Hall and Royal Family are making sure of that. And Tyler will be shadowing them. Nick too, if you want extra assurance.”

Paige stepped in to stop Zenith from making another fuss. She didn’t want to make a bad impression as they stood outside a rather plain-looking house. The courtyard could use some touching up, but at least it wasn’t too far off the beaten path and was fairly inconspicuous amongst the other houses. The only difference was how many people were surveying the area with a keen eye. She could spot at least eight watchers in the area just from a glance, though three of them were much harder to spot.

Zenith was stressed, Paige realized. They were just going to have lunch, not a fight to the death.

And after her conversation this morning with the Healer Hall, she knew that her Party would be under heavy watch. There was just too much at stake for the Imperial Healer Hall. Even if they tried something underhanded, her willingness to destroy Wardstones to change their status was a powerful deterrent.

“No, I’d rather have Nick with us, Paige. But are you sure we’ll be safe?”

“I’m positive. We have enough defensive equipment on us to fight Dragons. Trust me, the moment they start a fight, we’ll win. Even if they somehow powered a magic circle, they don’t have a Party Leader strong enough to stop me. Their safest bet is to have their Assassin buffed by the Party, but I’m confident I can survive. We, I mean,” Paige said quickly as she noticed Zenith’s sidelong glance. “We can survive. And there’s Nick.”

Paige tilted her head to the corner, where Nick was swiftly approaching. He was dressed in his leather outfit, the very one Paige had crafted for the festival. It was far nicer than his other outfits and was close enough to his usual Ranger wear that Nick hadn’t complained much about it. But Paige focused on the package in his hands. She frowned as she stared at the bottle.

“Wine? Really, Nick? We hardly needed to bring anything.” Paige watched as Markus stepped into the courtyard, already waving at Lily and Tyler, who was standing safely inside.

“It’s called good impressions, Paige. And it gave me a good enough excuse to watch the gates. A few Protectors left quickly, just like you said.”

“They have to leave if they are going to establish a blood oath,” Paige whispered.

“Hm?”

“Nothing, Zenith. They’re going to accept the deal I proposed. But the Grand Healer has to seal the oath.”

“And what did you have to give them in exchange?”

“A… formation I had memorized. Back when I was still part of the Imperial Family. Something to ease the pressure off of us in the long run.”

“Oh? You memorized formation patterns? Which ones did you give them?” Zenith asked, pleasantly surprised that Paige hadn’t foisted that job onto her. She was happy that Paige was taking up more responsibility now that everyone was out of the forest, which was far more than she could have ever hoped for. But it was about time Paige stepped up; a Party Leader should at least act like a leader.

“[[Scattershot Fireball]] and [[Eye of the Pathfinder]] for the Healer Hall, [[Lightwall Defence]] for Alcudia.”

“Hm? But those are just standard formations? Even I know those,” Zenith remarked.

“Yeah, but they don’t have them. And you and Tyler know them as well, so if I made a mistake the two of you could correct it.”

“Why didn’t you give more to Queen Rebecca? I thought you and her were friends?” Nick asked.

Paige waved off the question and looked at Nick. “Appearances. I have to offer more to the Healer Hall first. For now, [[Lightwall Defence]] will be enough to slow down the invasion. Tyler and I will figure a way to give them a spell or two once we settle in Alduit Academy.”

Walking into the courtyard, Paige glanced around for any signs of a trap. So far, there was nothing besides a simple [[Alarm]] formation, just like they had in the forest. Suspicious, to say the least. All in all, it looked like the Demon Party was trying to keep the peace between them. She hoped.

“You’ve figured a way for us to get in? How?” Zenith asked. Nick paused and stared at her, his eyes already narrowing in thought.

“Yup. I’ll, uh, tell you more about it when we have our talk. We might not need it, but it might help us in the long run,” Paige hastily evaded the question. That part she hadn’t run by Zenith yet. Still, she turned around and waved them in. “No offensive magic circles are active, so we should be safe,” she said quietly.

“Why wouldn’t we be safe?” Lily asked from behind.

Paige turned and blinked as the three kids were staring at her. They were a lot closer than a moment ago. Still, she had a valid question, so Paige reluctantly answered. “Haven’t we taught you the dangers of walking into an area with an active magic circle? You could tell that the gate and courtyard have been set up to activate a spell as soon as the gate is closed.”

“I know that, Miss Paige. I saw Isabella deactivate it before. But how did you realize there was one the moment you stepped in?”

“The, uh, ambient mana shifted slightly.”

“I thought only Mages were sensitive to mana though? You always said to let Lily worry about the mana, and that I should focus on real threats,” Tyler asked with confusion.

Paige blinked. Well, that was partially true. Very true, actually. But that was where experience and skills helped to bridge the gap. “Well, -”

“It just takes practice, Tyler. You can feel it in your gut when the ambient mana changes,” Markus interrupted. “Just go to the library every day and you’ll be able to feel a difference eventually before and after you enter.”

She nodded reluctantly as Tyler looked at her for confirmation. That was indeed one way to do it, though it would be hard learning it naturally like that. Markus had a lot of advantages that Tyler didn’t, and he would probably learn it faster through battles than through passive means like that.

Adding a new training regime for Tyler to her list, Paige looked around as Markus kept talking, but she could feel that something was interfering with her senses. Since both Lily and Tyler were here, Isabella, and by extension, her mother, should also be around. The building was heavily warded somehow. Not like the Library was, nor was it a typical magic circle either. Demon magic? No, if that was the case, she’d have seen it in during her trips into Evidia. Not even Dragon’s could hide from her this close.

She shot a look over to Zenith, who was frowning at the surroundings as well. Paige could hear her whispering something under her breath. No, a spell. She was invocating a spell, trying to draw the mana from her surroundings instead of her mana core. Paige watched her from the corner of her eyes. A few green wisps were floating around Zenith; not many though, which was kinda surprising. As a Wind Magi, she should have been able to convert far more than that, especially now that her affinity had been increased substantially.

‘...the surrounding mana has already been converted into a mana dense zone? But what type is it? ...Bah, that’s a stupid question to ask yourself, Paige. It has to be dark mana. They’re Demons, barring Isabella, after all. But the kids don’t look like they are suffering? Have they already acclimated to it?’

“Tyler; Lily, where is everyone? Are we supposed to go inside?” Paige asked.

“No, Bella’s getting ready inside. Her mom’s cooking, but I haven’t seen the rest of her family today.”

Tyler looked up, eyeing the shadows on the wall. “Miss Luna should still be at the library. I don’t think her shift is over until evening. Maybe the Night Librarian hasn’t arrived yet?”

“Well, let’s not keep our hosts waiting. We’re coming in!”

Paige yelled at the door, fully aware of Zenith and Nick’s stare behind her. She reached for the door and stopped short of grabbing the handle. She blinked as a gut feeling told her to be wary. The door was a simple sliding door with an indent to push the door to the side, but the entrance was strange. It was pushed a few inches into the house. Paige realized why after a moment. The door would slide into the walls as it was opened. They must have modified it themselves since sliding doors were not common in Alcudia.

“Umm, probably not a good idea, mentor,” Tyler said from behind. “It shocks you when you touch it. We have to wait for someone on the inside to open the door.”

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‘Typical. Well, there’s more than one way to break an enchantment,’ she thought to herself.

She reached to her hip and pulled something absently from her bag. A small wooden spade, fashioned in her spare time. Idly feeling in her bag, she looked over to the kids with a mischievous smile.

“Well, lesson number thirty-six, you guys. When presented with an enchantment that is activated by touch, the easiest thing to do is to drain its power supply. Unless they know you can do that, then the easiest thing is to do something else. Like so.”

Paige smiled as she found what she was looking for. A metal string and a small metal spike. Both were a simple blend of steel and silver, just what she needed for her demonstration. Tying a simple knot to the handle of her spade and the stake, she dropped the stake and pushed it into the ground, whistling all the while.

“Paige, this is a terrible idea,” Zenith said. She eyed the stake in the ground and the wooden door, backing away slowly to a comfortable ten steps away.

Lily blinked, and pulled Markus and Zenith back as well, standing roughly the same distance away. “Mentor? What is Miss Paige doing?”

“She’s attempting to draw the mana out of the enchantment. The mana has to go through a focus of some type, either a stronger piece of material or some type of mana conduit. Just like how our wands help draw and focus our mana, every permanent enchantment must have one as well. The trick though is finding it.”

“Way to ruin my lesson, Zenith,” Paige mumbled. ‘And way to put the pressure on me.’ She eyed the plain wooden door as she spun her spade around in her hand. Zenith had failed to mention how hard it was to do it on the first go. She was ready to just fling it into the door, but now that would look terrible if it didn’t work.

Conventional wisdom would suggest the middle of a magic circle, and in this case, probably the middle of the door; but she had no idea how the door was even enchanted! Much less how it was powered.

‘Think, think! How would I power this door if I was Zenith.’ Paige paused. ‘That’s a terrible line of reasoning, Paige. They are all Assassins. Think, if I was an Assassin trapping my own house, how would I enchant the front entrance?’

‘…’

Paige spun the spade a few more times before letting go, watching as the spade shot towards… the upper door jamb. The odds were rather high that the focus was either the handle or hidden on something in contact with the door. And more importantly, the upper left door jamb was the ]only part of the door still protected from the evening sun. A perfect spot for the Demon’s to mask their mana.

The wooden spade embedded itself deep into the wood. Paige blinked and jumped back as her gut told her she was right. She landed near Zenith as the spade started to darken, the silver and steel cord slowly started to darken as the dark mana traveled down the thin wire. The ground started to darken as the mana was forced into the ground; the doorway itself creaking as whatever material was used for the enchantment slowly warped as the mana was forcibly removed.

All in all, it was about what she had expected would happen. Seeing the kids surprised face helped her mood though. She knew she wasn’t the best teacher, and little demonstrations like this would go a long way.

“How’d you know where the mana was being channeled from? I was going to help you out after a few tries.” Zenith whispered.

“Tch. Mhmm, after I made a fool of myself. It comes with age, Zenith. There are only so many ways to change a door trap.”

Looking over with mock disdain, Paige stepped forward on the balls of her feet onto the now darkened patch of grass. She half expected something to happen, but the soil was slowly returning to its normal color.

Paige chuckled to herself. “Duh, it was a non-lethal trap to begin with. Who in their right mind would trap a trap? Tha-”

I would.

Paige backed up quickly, peering at the darkened patch of soil.

“Aunt, what’s wrong?”

She pointed at the darkened patch of soil. Motioning Markus and Lily to move forward, she quietly explained, “If you know what your opponent will do, an easy way to hurt them is to set additional traps. Like this one. You could learn something from this, Markus. Lily, do you see what Isabella’s mom did?”

Lily peered at the soil. “Not really? But it hasn’t changed back to normal. Mentor?”

“...she created a secondary formation, just in case someone tried to drain the mana into the ground. [[Shadow Blade]]?”

“Yup. One of them is pretty good, considering their actual Class.” Paige took out a tiny metal spade and dug into the ground around the darkened patch, looking for the magic circle that had to be buried nearby. It had to be made from something that wouldn’t rot, yet also wouldn’t degrade with time. A metal circle would be ideal, though she supposed metal shavings would also work just as well, depending on how long ago it had been created.

Zenith rolled her eyes. “It’s wasteful if you ask me. At that point, you might as well just create a secondary magic circle that would target us from a distance. They had no way of guessing you would try to disarm the trap instead of me. The magic circle would have to be made of pure silver, at the very least. Who in their right mind w-”

“They did.” Paige tapped on the metal band, the etched symbols on the side fading as Paige sliced the band in two with the edge of the spade. Peering at the band, she rubbed the tarnished silver and handed it over to Lily, who was looking at it with interest. “It’s been sitting there for a few years, at the very least. Here, you can tinker around with it, Lily. Maybe draw some inspiration from it and try making one for yourself; though if you do want to try it out have Zenith show you the proper steps. Working a spell into a bracelet like this is a little different than drawing a magic circle on the ground and activating it.”

“But Miss Stella might want it back?”

“Meh, it’s a gift from them to you.”

Walking up to the door Paige knocked on the door and opened it soon after. “We’re coming in!”

“Paige…” Zenith said reproachfully.

“What? I’m being civil. I knocked before entering, and they were already expecting us.”

She waved Zenith’s concern away, more focused on the now open doorway. She could sense that there were people inside there, now that the formation was broken. One was clearly panicking, while the other was acting normal. Paige was impressed. A linked magic circle? It must have set some type of alarm off, judging by Isabella’s panicked reactions. Still, she felt just a tad bad about her actions now.

“Bella, hurry up! We haven’t got all day, you know! We’re supposed to be having dinner with our families tonight!” Lily looked over to her mentor, who nodded in agreement. This was all Paige’s idea. She had just randomly decided to drop by for lunch since Markus was supposed to meet up with his party here anyways. “Miss Stella! Markus’s family is here!”

“I noticed. You owe me for the damage you caused.” A voice greeted them from the side. Paige turned to look at the wall as the shadow from a nearby bench swiftly traveled up the wall. Paige could feel Stella’s presence moving from the kitchen to here.

Paige blinked as Stella walked out of the shadow, dressed in… a dusty apron. Her hair and hands were covered in flour, her fingers covered in bits of dried dough. She really was cooking.

“You’re here. Early, I might add. All you had to do was wait for Isabella to open the door. Do you even know how long it took to set up that formation?”

“Meh, we’ll pay for it. I know you were busy cooking, so we just wanted to drop by and help with the cooking and all. You know, as a gesture of good faith.”

“All three of you?”

“There’ll be a big crowd tonight. I’m sure they have some variation of ‘The more the merrier’ where you come from,” Paige happily said as she lied through her teeth.

“...”

“...”

Paige felt her face cramping from all the smiling. Even the kids had backed off at this point. But it really did look like Stella could use some help. It would have been far more sensible to have everything catered, but it wasn’t her job. More importantly, it wasn’t being held at their own place.

“Paige, I thought you said we were invited?”

“We were, just not exactly for lunch.”

Stella sighed. “I don’t have time for this. Don’t touch anything. Isabella, when you're out in town, send word to your Aunt Shavie that we have guests.”

Paige turned to face the kids. Hopefully, Markus hadn’t forgotten, but she spoke aloud anyway. “And Markus, remember what you need to do in town. You need a standard training set and a guild ranking. Aim for a guild ranking around the low thirties or so. That should bring your whole party to roughly the low fifties or so.”

She stopped as she ran through her mental checklist. There was something else that Markus had to do, she was sure of it… Ah, Markus’s identity. They needed to fix that little problem. Besides the local census, Markus had no concrete identity. But a few letters and a high guild ranking would solve most of the problems. After all, Paige knew that child geniuses were afforded far more leeway than an average person.

“...oh, and go bug the Queen about a few letters of introductions too. Lily, you can go with and give the Queen your weekly updates while you’re there. I’m fairly certain that your dad has been making you send the agricultural reports to her.”

Paige nodded as she silently checked the items off of her to-do list. Now, there was just one other item that she had to deal with today.

Stella.

“Something smells like it’s burning. Zenith, you and I can help cook. Nick, can you take them to the Guild Hall? I’m sure Markus will need a sponsor, and you can sponsor their Party for a rank update. I just found out that they’ll have some competition at Alduit Academy.” Extending her hand into a pocket, Paige threw something over to Nick, who caught it. “Use that if they question your Guild Rank.”

Stella eyed them warily. “You’ll follow the laws of hospitality?”

Paige blinked. That was the first time she was asked for a long time. “You don’t think we’d follow basic etiquette?” She tried skirting around the question, but the look in Stella’s eyes made Paige’s heart sink. “Fine, I hereby swear on my Class that my Party and I come in peace, and will leave in peace. So long as our host abides by the same rules.”

She could feel her mana slowing as her oath took effect. While not quite a formal ritual, it would still limit both parties from devolving straight to a fight.

“Paige,” Zenith asked quietly, “What exactly did you do now?”

“It’s an oath. Not quite a formal one, but it levels the playing field. The Party that breaks the peace gets punished.”

“Punished how?”

“Bad luck, ill fortune, etc, etc. I think Stella also applied another Skill in addition to the oath. Since she’s a shopkeeper… I would say it has to be something like [[Shopkeeper’s Watch]].”

“[[Shopkeeper’s Reputation]], actually,” Stella said tiredly.

“Meh, basically the same thing,” Paige countered. The burning smell was getting stronger now. All she had to do was wait and eventually Stella would cave in.

And she was right. She could practically see the gears in Stella’s head turn as she smelled the food burning in the kitchen. Stella gave an exasperated sigh, she hurriedly shooed the kids away, but not before telling them to be back before dinner.

Paige watched as they left, watching Markus and Isabella walk away. “Why doesn’t Isabella have more clothes? She’s still wearing the same outfit from yesterday?”

“She likes that one. Now then, why did you really come? It's not a coincidence that you showed up here when everyone else is busy.”

Stella stood in the middle of the doorway, her dusty hands on her hips. Something nipped the back of her mind, though Paige shrugged it off. Their silent match of wills continued, right until smoke started wafting out of the kitchen like a fog. 

“Not going to let us in?” Paige asked with a frown. That was a lot of smoke. What was she trying to cook?

“No. Even with an oath, I’m not sure I trust the two of you that much.”

Stella took a glance upward and sighed as the smoke started wafting through the open door. “Nevermind. I need some help. We can… talk while we cook.”

That was all Paige wanted.