“I'm a firm believer in letting them wonder if you're an idiot, rather than speaking too quickly and removing all doubt.”
-Chris Gordon, God Touched by John Conroe
Grey continued on past the disgruntled delegation, holding out a hand for Eli as he went by. Already used to Grey’s fights Eli just skipped over to him and they proceeded down the path, Eli reaching out to pick a flower she found pretty and putting it into her hair.
“What just happened here?” Ashling muttered mostly to herself looking back and forth between the bodies littering the forest and the man calmly walking with a little girl happily playing around him. Which version of the man was real? Was it the kind man that let a small child use him like a playground and yell at soldiers over a small scolding or was it the monster that had just decimated an entire goblin raiding party in less time than it took a pot of water to boil all the while smiling? Whichever one it was, she knew hat she had to keep an eye on this man.
“It appears that this man is a bit more capable that I originally thought.” Seths grumble-rumbled out. For his part, Seths was replaying as much of the fight as he could through his mind. The style of fighting and the magic used were certainly not anything he had seen before. While that in and of itself wasn’t a bad thing, the man’s mannerisms weren’t anything they knew of either, prime example being that weird greeting that had his men shoot at him. It was certain that he was dangerous, and Seths vowed to learn as much as he could about the man.
The rest of the delegation were shuffling a bit back and forth, primal instincts warring with their duty. It was a good thing that Ashling shook away her shock and motioned for the group to follow the two before they lost sight of them up the trail.
For his part, Grey had been keeping slight tabs on the delegation, making sure to not get too far ahead and ensuring that there weren’t any other threats in the area. He pulled his map out of his storage ring and checked the landmarks he could find to determine where they were. From what he could tell, they were not too far from a small sheltered clearing that would make for a decent camp site for the night. As the delegation wearily made their way up to Grey and Eli, Grey turned around to address the group again.
“Listen, it’s getting late and I’d like to get tonight’s camp set before the sun sets. There should be a spot about ten minutes that way that looks good. That work for everyone?” Grey asked back to his normal tone.
“That is agreeable to us. However, I must ask, do you have your own provisions? Ours are running a bit low with all of the attacks we’ve had.” Ashling asked slightly sheepishly. Some people, no matter their race, do not like to ask for assistance nor even admit to not being in control of the situation. Grey could tell that Ashling was one of these women, fox-person, something he’d have to figure out later.
Grey gave her a gentle half smile and just nodded turning back to the path and leading the group onwards to the clearing.
Upon arriving at the clearing, it turned out that this would indeed be a good place to make camp for the night. There was about fifteen or so meters in each direction that was backed by a twenty or thirty meter sheer cliff. Off in the distance, there was a faint roar of a small waterfall, signaling they would have water as well as a spot to stay.
“I’d say this looks pretty good. Eli, do you want to go pick out some firewood for us so I can start on some dinner for us?” Eli smiled at Grey and bobbed her head once in acknowledgement before scampering off into the woods.
“Stay within hearing range!” he shouted after the disappearing little girl with a bit of a chuckle.
“Are you sure that’s safe?” Ashling hesitantly asked him.
“What? Oh, as long as nothing big comes, she should be able to make it back fine. Besides, I’ll hear if she gets into any trouble and should be able to ensure she’s safe” he said a bit dismissively. Making his way over towards the cliff face. After kicking aside a few stray branches and rocks, he made quick work of setting up the tent and sleeping bags from storage. While not completely uncommon, it was still a bit rare to see an adventurer or random traveler with the funds to be able to have one. So it did cause another mystery to be added to the growing stack of them that was Greyson.
It wasn’t much longer than the Ashling, Seths and the rest of the group had cleared their own spaces and set up their bedrolls. While they were getting settled, Grey meandered his way towards the center of the clearing and begun to set up a few rocks for his fire pit. It wasn’t too long until the Johann perked his head up and looked out to see Eloise waddling back with enough sticks and branches that it was hard to even see her. Every few steps had another one of the smaller twigs falling out of her pile, leaving a trail in her wake. Johann and one of the other warriors, Franks hurried over to help her and they all set about building a nice cooking fire. The group settled into, while not completely comfortable, but companionable silence as the fire’s warmth settled into each of them and enough coals had formed for them to start cooking.
Grey pulled out his cooking pot and set bout getting a stew going, pulling out vegetables, something that resembled potatoes, and a few horned hares he had grabbed back in town. He formed a hand length cooking knife and quickly went about cleaning the rabbits and tossing strips of meat into the pot as he went. For their part, all of the delegation had been transfixed on the hares and weren’t paying attention to the knife made right before them. Well, all excepts Seths.
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“That’s a very convenient ability it seems” deciding to act a bit more diplomatically now that they weren’t in an immediately dangerous situation. Grey shot a quick glance over at the bear-kin to see if he was being sincere or if it was some sort of subtle jab at him. Seeing mostly curiosity and only a mild tinge of weariness, he settled on mostly genuine.
“Yeah, it can be pretty handy. I don’t even want to know how long it actually took to learn though.” He said with a bit of scowl at the memories rising up to the surface of his consciousness. Ashling perked up at this bit of information, finally being able to tear her eyes away from all of the food Grey kept casually pulling out of his storage ring.
“Pardon me, could you explain what you mean when you don’t know how long it took to learn?” Ashling asked, reverting to as formal a voice and phrasing as her own years of training had instilled in her. Grey sighed, and as he tossed the last piece of hare into the pot, he flipped the knife into the air letting the mana disperse into the air. He looked down at the scraps and frowned realizing that if he didn’t do something about them, they would most likely bring more trouble around them tonight than he wanted to deal with. So he wrapped the remains and stone he’d been using as a cutting board into a mana ball the size of a basketball. Without standing up, he picked up the mana ball, aimed, and threw the ball. The whitish sphere snapped out of view, above the tops of the trees at the other side of the clearing and kept sailing on. A few of the warriors jumped a bit at the sudden movements and were even more startled when they realized they never heard the ball hit the ground.
Greyson was staring into the fire, watching the flames dance back and forth, licking the edges the cooking pot every so often.
“If you couldn’t already tell, Eli and I aren’t from around here.” Grey began slowly, his words coming out soft and subdued.
“Hell, we’re not even from this world. I don’t know too much about where Eli is from, but for me, I’m from a world very different from here.” He paused again, seeing that he was rambling a bit and skirting around the edges of the topic at hand.
“Anyways, the short version is I was summoned and things went wrong. In the end, I was stuck on a world that was meant to be a training world before I got to my original destination. There wasn’t anything really to do there, no books, no movies, no one to even talk to. So I kept myself busy as much as possible training. Ultimately, I got bored of that too and decided to see I could learn magic. I couldn’t and made the most of it until I figured out how to use mana directly. I still look like I did when I was summoned and I stopped counting after the first decade or as near as I could figure of being there. So no, I really don’t know how long it takes to learn. It didn’t matter.” Grey said his last words trailing off in a whispered sigh.
The whole group remained silent for a few moments until Eli quickly stood up, walked over and sat down in Greys lap. Once there she burrowed into his chest and gave him a hug. While the two sat there watching the fire leap and prance, the rest of the group was going over what he’d said. It was Seths again that asked the next question.
“What do you mean, use mana directly? Is just the power that allows magic to occur.”
“Yes and no. Yes it’s power, but that’s the thing, so is everything else. I’m cheating a bit because I mostly just hold the energy in a single construct instead of actually turning it into matter, but its all the same process really.” While he spoke, Grey created a small sphere in his left hand about the size of a golf. He slowly let the mana dissipate into the air from the top down, while at the same time slowly building a second one in his right hand.
“In a nutshell, I’m either creating or destroying objects of energy. I just get to choose how and when they are made or are broken.”
“That’s as clear as a tree” muttered Seths. Grey perked up at this looking at bear-kin with hope filled eyes.
“You have clear trees here?!” He asked excitedly.
“Uhh… no. I meant I still don’t really understand at all.” The bear-kin grumbled, shifting around in his seat a bit uncomfortably.
“Ohh… that’s too bad. Those would have been cool.” Said Grey looking like a mean man had just stolen his lollipop.
For their part, it seemed that all of the delegation was trying to understand what Grey had just said, with no real luck. It was Ashling that decided to pick up the conversation next.
“Can you explain how you found yourself helping us then?”
“Well, once we got away from the cultists that wanted Eli, we brought the rest of the prisoners to Tenax. The commander there noticed my level and asked me to check in with your group just to make sure that you made it to them safely. It seemed interesting enough and would give up some reputation in the area, so here we are.” Grey said easily.
“You risk your life and hers for strangers for a bit of prestige and because it interests you?” Ashling said, slightly astonished.
“Hey now, unless there is something around here much stronger than what I’ve seen, Eli isn’t in any danger.”
“Still, this seems a bit much to do for the sake of curiosity.”
Grey’s eyes deadened and his voice went flat. “When nearly every day you can remember, aside from those that feel more like a dream or a past life, has been exactly the same. Day after day after day after day. During which, you don’t hunger, you don’t thirst, you don’t feel tired, the only sounds come from what you make, you are entirely alone. Tell me that you wouldn’t look for the very first thing that could bring some spark of life to your pitiful existence.” Grey slowly brought his face away from the fire to look into Ashling’s eyes. The look that she saw was enough to wish that she had the strength to look away. It was that of a man, and yet not. More the empty shell of a person hollowed out and acting as one would imagine a person to act. While she remains still and watching Greyson, her tails shot straight out behind her in surprise and agitation. Grey only held her gaze for another few moments before looking back down to eli and giving a brief but real smile.
“Well, that’s enough talk about depressing things. On top of that, I think our food is ready. Let’s dig in everyone.” Grey seemed to singsong out to the group, all of his previous seriousness disappearing with a bit of a wan smile. Ashling most assuredly had more questions, but that could wait. There was meat to be eaten now!