The villager—he looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t put a name to his face—blinked at me slowly. “Shel?” he repeated. “She left years ago.”

“Left?” I asked. “Left where?”

The man just shrugged, but then a suspicious look came over his face. “Who’re you, anyway?”

“Who would know?” I asked, ignoring his question.

“You one of those, what’cha call ‘ems, the magicals?”

It seemed things had changed more than I’d expected. It had been a while since I’d used this particular interrogation tactic, but I doubted my victim would realize what was happening. I formed a connection with his mind and started reading his surface thoughts.

There was suspicion there, of course. I was a stranger in a village that didn’t see much of the outside world. I was asking for a woman who was no longer around, thus confirming I knew something about Old Alkerist, but not enough to keep up with recent events.

“What’s a ‘magical’ supposed to be?” I asked.

“Maybe you ought to ask around in town,” he said, “They might be able to tell you more.”

But his thoughts painted a different story. He was planning on siccing the local militia on me, such as they were. Their numbers were reduced to the point where instead of having dedicated village guards and hunters, they had a bunch of farmers who were trusted to access the local armory in times of need.

I also picked up that he meant mage when he called me a magical. It seemed the knowledge I’d introduced to Old Alkerist had caused a schism in the population. “So a bunch of people decided they were going to practice magic despite the council trying to stamp down on it,” I said, more to myself than to the man.

His face screwed up in confusion. “Who are you?” he demanded, reaching out a hand to grab my shoulder.

My shield ward caused him to stagger to the side when it shoved him away. He blinked down at his hand for a moment like it had personally betrayed him, then his brain caught up to his eyes. “You are a magical!” he snapped. “Get out of here. We don’t want your kind. Go back to your fucking caves!”

“Caves? What caves?”

“Screw you. Get lost before I call someone over to give you a beating.”

So much for subtlety. I gripped the man with greater telekinesis and lifted him off the ground. “I’ve done nothing to deserve this attitude,” I said coldly, “but if you’re going to treat me this way, I might as well play the part. Now, you’re going to explain to me exactly what the hell happened to half this village.”

The spell enveloped him, preventing any part of his body from moving. I left enough slack in it to keep his chest rising and falling so he didn’t suffocate, but it wouldn’t be hard to correct that if needed. It would be even easier to just wrap a band of force around his throat and prevent him from getting any air in the first place.

“The caves,” the man stammered out. “West of town! Most of the magicals fled town a few years ago. Abandoned their families, too.”

“Why?”

“Wanted to practice their evilness. Wouldn’t listen to the voice of the ancestors.”

I needed more context on that. Had Old Alkerist been infested by a cult? I knew there was a general belief that the spirits of their ancestors guided them, but this whole voice thing was new to me. Actually, now that I thought about it, I didn’t care that much. The person I was here to see didn’t live in town anymore. Worse, those who remained were undeniably hostile toward mages.

There wasn’t much reason to stick around at this point. I wasn’t going to change any minds with my presence, and if I truly wanted to address this problem, my efforts would be better spent tracking down those who’d been driven out of town and ensuring they’d found a way to live without being poised on the brink of starvation or fallen victims to monster predation.

More importantly, it wasn’t likely that I’d get what I came here for, and I didn’t need someone else to grow things for me. I had that covered. I needed supplies today. It was probably worth the effort to scry the area and attempt to find this group, just in case. If they were really living out of some caves, I could probably offer some tempting services and knowledge in exchange for any magically infused herbs they did have.

I released the man with a shove, sending him backward three steps in a futile attempt to regain his balance before he fell on his backside. “I think I’ve seen enough of this place. It’s just as backward as it’s always been.”

There was no need to wait for an answer. I didn’t care what this man had to say about me or anything else, really. I’d already plucked the information I wanted from his mind; all that remained was to confirm it, and I could do that just as easily in the air where no one could distract me.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

While my scrying sensors swept across the foot of the mountains west of town, I debated on what to tell my family. They’d been born here. Mother still had family living in town. Senica had left friends behind that she probably held some fondness for. Whether those people had stayed—and in the case of Mother’s family, I’d checked to confirm that they had—or left, there were bound to be individuals my parents would want to know about.

Alternatively, I could simply not tell them. It would save me a headache, but I felt like that was the wrong answer. It was easier for me, but this was something I knew they’d want to know about. This was going to be one of those annoying morality things.

Maybe I could just leave them a note detailing what I’d discovered. That way they could process without me there to hold any hands. That was probably a good compromise. I’d pay for it later, but it was better than dealing with breaking the news to them in person.

While I pondered the best way to navigate this situation, my divinations worked overtime scouring the mountains trying to figure out where the rebellious villagers had disappeared to. I would have thought this would be easy, considering how few caves there were that could actually hold a few dozen people. That was proving to be an incorrect assumption.

Most likely, I was operating on bad information. Sure, that guy believed what he’d said about a bunch of people squatting in caves, and maybe that had even been true for a little while, but why would they remain there for years? At best, I was going to find a starting point to a longer journey that probably led to them founding their own little magic village out in the mountains.

Half an hour of searching didn’t suddenly reveal the location, which meant that I’d officially reached the threshold for how much effort I was willing to invest into looking for them. I had better things to do, and this was the kind of project that would be perfect to hand off to someone who cared a whole lot more than me. I’d just have to deal with the fallout of breaking the bad news.

‘Hey, are you busy?’ I telepathically asked.

I could feel a wave of surprise roll back through the connection, then my sister angrily formed a reply. ‘Don’t do that! I didn’t even know you were here.’

‘I’m not. I’m in the sky above Old Alkerist.’

‘What? But then how are you connecting? That’s way outside this spell’s range.’

‘Linked it off the scrying mirror in my bedroom,’ I explained.

‘Oooooh. I… didn’t know it could do that.’

‘I’ll show you how to do it some other time. It’s the same basic concept those emergency messaging stones I made for you last year run off of.’

‘Right. That makes sense.’ There was a pause, then, ‘So, did you need something or…?’

‘Well, I stopped by the old village and found out that everyone who ignited their core was driven out of town. I haven’t been able to figure out where they went though. I need someone to do some long-distance scrying to track them down.’

‘Oh, that. That’s easy. I know where they are.’

If my will wasn’t as unbending as steel, I’d have fallen out of the sky in shock. ‘You what?’

‘I know where they built their new village. They reached out to Dad years ago to purchase enough food to make it through their first season until the crops started growing in.’

‘Wait, so you all knew about this? And nobody bothered to tell me?’

‘It’s been mentioned in your presence more than once, Gravin. You’re just so self-absorbed that you don’t care. I’m surprised you’re interested now. Actually, hmm, what did you want from them?’

‘Alchemy ingredients,’ I admitted. ‘And I’m not self-absorbed. I have a lot of other problems I’m dealing with!’

‘That, and you don’t care about them beyond your own needs.’

‘That’s not fair.’

There was another pause. Finally, she sent back, ‘Do you want to know where they are or not?’

‘Yes,’ I sent, somewhat grumpily.

One of the nice things about mind-to-mind communication was that words weren’t necessary. It was easy to have a conversation that mimicked talking, but we could also do things like share images or even memories if the mages involved were skilled enough. Senica’s map was a bit rough and unfocused, but I managed to line it up with the landmarks I could see.

That explained the failure of my divinations to find them. They were technically ten miles or so west of Old Alkerist, where the foothills started to turn into mountains. But they were also fifty miles south, buried deep in a hidden valley that was completely inaccessible without flight or the blood of a mountain goat running through an expert climber’s veins.

It was a pretty enough valley, I supposed. There weren’t nearly as many trees, and the valley floor was far flatter than mine. Two streams cut it into roughly equal thirds, and the village had been built in the center with fields flanking it on either side. Just going by the count of homes, I expected to find at most fifty people there, which lined up with my guesses based on how many of Old Alkerist’s citizens my own actions had reduced the village’s population by.

Unlike Old Alkerist, this new mage village definitely had contact with the rest of the island. Even through my scrying spell, I could see traces of my designs in their buildings. It was obvious that a lot of transmutation magic had been utilized in their construction. The wards were too far away to study, but I knew they were there and I was willing to bet I’d see a lot of familiar rune structures if I bothered to look.

Perhaps most importantly, there were greenhouses and herb gardens in the village. This whole trip hadn’t been a total waste after all. If Shel was there, and I suspected she was, it would be easy enough to trade some lessons or resources for what I wanted.

That was assuming they had the ingredients I needed. I had no proof of that yet, so I made an effort to keep my expectations reasonable. This was simply an exploratory mission. I wasn’t out much beyond an hour of my time if things fell through

‘Thanks,’ I sent to my sister. ‘This saves me a lot of time.’

‘You’re welcome. You can pay me back by showing me the linking spell like you said you would.’

‘I will, next time I come home.’

We ended the connection there and I took a moment to consider whether I wanted to fly or teleport. It was a nice day, and, ultimately, flight cost me no mana. Master-tier spells, unfortunately, were still too difficult to combine with lossless casting, though I was getting better every month. With that in mind, I started cruising across the sky toward the hidden village. I wondered what exactly I’d find when I got there.