Cuby and Karrol Stir were both waiting for me when I landed back in the square—apparently I’d taken the longest.
“Hey, Alatar!” Cuby said, smiling. “Let me know if you get a bounty quest for Haroshi just because I mention it.”
“What?”
Quest Unlocked: Bounty: Haroshi
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, I did.”
“Good!” said Cuby.
I opened my log to accept the quest:
Bounty: Haroshi
Objective:
Kill or capture Haroshi, then bring news of the deed to the leadership of Oromar’s Bastion.
Reward: 500 Gold
“I got it from the head woman,” said Cuby. “Also, here’s some bombs!”
Cuby has offered to trade.
You receive item: Uncommon Equipment – Concussive Grenade (3)
“Great,” I said, looking down at the grenade:
Uncommon Equipment – Concussive Grenade
This grenade deals very low damage, but has a potent knockdown and deafening effect. This item always has a pure Physical Affinity
“Remember,” said Cuby, “it has the same 10 second cooldown that your grapple gun has.”
“I hadn’t noticed that my grapple gun had a cooldown,” I said.
“That’s because you have Mighty Leap,” Cuby said. “I picked up the technique card for it, but I don’t know if I want to replace anything yet—I could use another five or six ability slots, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”
Cuby glared at me. “I got us some potions.”
“I couldn’t find any.”
“I got you two focus potions, too,” said Cuby. “And I also brought some spare elemental weapons from what we looted, in case we see a need to switch damage types.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
Karrol Stir spoke. “I gave Cuby some maps that the head woman gave me,” he said. “As well as a compass and spyglass that increases the distance at which you can tag other creatures.”
“Other than that, we’re almost ready to go!” said Cuby. “We just need to buy some skills.”
“I have… a lot of skill points,” I said. I brought up my character sheet to check: I had 13 General Skill Points, 12 Mage Skill Points, and 6 Psychic Skill Points. “I’m going to leave a few in case it’s useful to have me pick up a lore skill, later.”
“But get sneak.”
“I will,” I assured her. “I’ll take tracking too, I think—it interacts with lore skills.”
“Oh,” she said, blinking. She seemed to focus on a point in the air in front of her—her skill menu, I guessed. “All right then, I’ll skip it. You can be the tracker.”
“I’m taking the affinity skill too,” I said. “For lightning, I think. I doubt they have potions of resistance like we’ve got, and my Devour Magic can eat any Elemental Aegis, which takes a long while to recast.”
“Say,” said Cuby. “Good idea. Maybe I should take one. They’re so expensive, though, and I’m sure the added damage won’t amount to the difference I get from taking the extra 100 Hit Points.”
After a minute or so I had finalized my picks:
Elemental Affinity: Lightning
Type: Magic, Martial
Cost: 12, or 8 if you have another Elemental Affinity skill
You gain an innate Lightning affinity. By spending 5 seconds in focus, you can disable this affinity.
If you already have an Elemental Affinity skill, you don’t gain an innate affinity from this skill. Instead, you gain the ability to change your old affinity to the type granted by this skill by spending 5 seconds of focus.
Tracking
Type: Talent
Cost: 6
You are adept at discerning the tracks that creatures make through most types of terrain, though creatures less obvious tracks in different types of terrain. Identifying which kind of creature made a certain kind of tracks typically requires the relevant lore skill.
Sneaking
Type: Talent
Cost: 6
You are adept at moving silently and unseen, and at discerning through study when conditions are favorable for doing so.
I spent the all of my Mage Skill Points on the affinity, all my Psychic Skill Points on Tracking, and 6 of my General Skill Points on Sneaking, leaving me with 7 General Points.
I waited for Cuby to finish as the faint, cool tingling that came with skill buys entered my brain. “The way I see it,” I said. “We should try to find their tracks at the east gate. Once we know what direction they’re headed in, we should scale the peaks and see if we can see any of their lights.”
“The first thing we need to know is whether they’re heading to Mirakkatet,” said Cuby. “If we can track them, let’s track them until we find evidence that they’ve regrouped and chosen a direction.”
I nodded, then turned to Karrol Stir. “Looks like it’s goodbye for now, friend.”
He bowed his head toward me. “Do well.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Bye, Karrol Stir!”
“Do well.”
We left the square to leave by the east gate, and none of the posted guards interfered as we walked out onto the narrow road that sloped and winded its way down the mountain—a path that looked so arduous that I scarcely had to wonder why Kontor had led us through the mines, earlier.
“How long until your focus potion wears off?” Cuby asked.
“Twenty minutes,” I said, checking the buff.
“Here,” she said, offering to trade. She gave me 8 Health Potions and 2 more Potion of Steady Focus.
“Worried I won’t be functional in twenty minutes?” I asked.
“Yup!” she said.
I wasn’t offended. “Me too,” I said.
“But at least that means the potion worked though, right?” she said. “It was a pretty good idea, on my part.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, looking down at the item description.
Uncommon Item – Potion of Steady Focus
Drinking this potion will grant you a + 5 bonus to your focus stat, along with rendering you immune to emotional alterations. Lasts 2 hours.
“It’s strange,” I said. “I still got hit with an Unnatural Confusion spell by the mine—I remember thinking I was at a sleepover. And I doubt that it would have stopped the Invert Hostility, either. But “immune to emotional alterations” applies to just… general stress about battle? About killing?”
“Sure,” said Cuby. “The point is that you can fulfill the mental components of all your abilities.”
“The only mental component that any of my spells have isn’t an emotion,” I said. “It’s just listed as M – Focus. I just need to be able to concentrate, I guess.”
“Yeah,” said Cuby. “And I figured that when the potion said it made you immune to emotional alterations, what it really meant was that you couldn’t feel anything so intense that it would keep you from fulfilling your mental requirements—from focusing. After all, what else could it mean?”
“Huh,” I said. “Makes sense, I suppose. Too bad none of their psychics chose Unnatural Terror at level 2—I was immune that whole time.”
“Oh,” she said. Then she cocked her head. “Wait, nobody took the crowd control? What was the other ability?”
“Mighty Leap,” I said.
Now Cuby laughed. “Yeah, that makes sense then. Though I don’t think we saw any of their psychics cast that, either.”
“Probably because they died too fast,” I said. Then I shrugged. “Who knows, maybe they took Unnatural Terror and I just didn’t notice them cast it. But who would skip Mighty Leap?”
“Not me,” said Cuby. “I skipped the affinity and got an extra technique slot for it—if I used the grapple gun for regular travel then I’ll run out of power cells, and we need to move fast to get ahead of Haroshi—or run away if things go badly.”
“Good,” I said. But I was a little distracted. I kept glancing behind us at the gate to Oromar’s Bastion, which was growing more distant, and dim, and then ahead of us, at a narrow road twisting down the mountain and into ever-deepening shadows. The moon was on the other side of the mountain, and now that the lights of the town had diminished, I realized how incredibly dark it was. I stopped.
Something wrong? Cuby asked in thought-speech.
I’m worried about an ambush, I said. It seems very unlikely that they’d group up, then decide to lie in wait for anyone who follows them, but…
Without Haroshi, they’d probably be too afraid that the whole town might give chase, Cuby replied. Maybe once he’s found them again, but I doubt they’re hiding behind the rocks just ahead.
You’re probably right, I said.
But so are you, said Cuby, reaching up to stroke her chin. We should be careful anyway. I think it’s a bad decision, but they could make a bad decision or I could be wrong.
I want to get off the road, I said. Follow it by climbing the slopes and then using the Charm of Gliding. And let’s keep our conversations in thought speech. It’s been maybe a half hour—they can’t be too far. One second.
I looked at the ground and used my tracking ability, and my mind slid comfortably into a set of thoughts and procedures that I had never been familiar with in my life. I drew my weapon to get a little light, then scanned the ground beneath us for a minute or so, my eyes seemingly automatically drawn to the scuffs of grass and the indents and ridges in the dusty gravel or packed earth that marked the passage of people.
Tracking is working, I said, stowing my weapon. I can tell that at least a dozen people made their way down the mountain in haste. I think we should gain some elevation, get sight of the whole road, travel with gliding and leaps between the higher peaks, and check the next crossroads for their trail if we don’t spot them before then.
Sounds good! Cuby said cheerfully. We’ll go as stealthy as we can.
Right.
But travel was much more frustrating than I’d thought it would be, all for the simple fact that it was just too dark. Oromar’s Bastion had been lit by the occasional glowstone lamp, but I had underestimated just how unforgivingly dark an unlit night could be, especially when we had no moonlight. Heightened Sight made it possible to move along the steep slopes of the mountain—but actually climbing it, even with my increasingly superhuman strength and endurance, even with the ability to leap more than 10 meters vertically into the air, was slow, precarious, and upsettingly loud as our feet kicked at gravel and snapped the unseen branches of evergreens.
Our weapon’s affinities, along with my Elemental Weaponry buff, along with our Gift of Empyreal Might, all had glow effects that combined to make a mix of color—red, blue-white, and gold normally shimmered along the length of Cuby’s kukris. But right now they were stowed—eyes, even ones not enhanced by Heightened Sight, are extraordinarily good at making out light at great distances, and so we traveled in darkness, hoping not to be seen by Haroshi or his crew. I was sure my Sneak skill was helping to mitigate our noise—but in the silence of the night every brush of a tree-branch or scuff of a boot against rock rang in my ears like an alarm bell.
Eventually we had enough height that we launched ourselves from the side of the slope and glided out over the road, which had become a thin line winding below us. It twisted out of sight, and we turned and gradually rounded another small peak to see a large valley open up below us, one corner of it lit by a slice of moonlight that had found a tor to shine through.
As we lost altitude, we landed on this second peak, climbed it much like we’d climbed the first, and launched once again—it was then that we spotted the crossroads. We circled it, looking for an ambush, then landed in the shadows of some nearby trees.
Still unsatisfied and perhaps a little paranoid, I snuck around the crossroads in a circle, sticking to the shadows and using, for the first time since level 1 or 2, the magic detection ability that came with my Mage Class Passive. I could sense, quite easily, the magic that emanated from Cuby—a sort of cool, glassy feeling that registered as both temperature and texture seemed to come from the Mana Shield, and a chaotic assortment of spicy, loud, and fearful sensations seemed to come from her sheathed weapons.
But I sensed no magic in the bushes around us. They’re not here, I told her, walking to the center of the crossroads and analyzing the dust and packed earth. But they were. They were here a while—I think this is where they must have stopped and talked about it. And Haroshi….
I strode over to the other path, the one that converged with ours before they both led off into the valley. It took me awhile to find them, but—
He came from this direction, I said. Or someone did. And then they seem to have all gone that way. I nodded over to the valley. But not before staying here awhile—either because the group was waiting for Haroshi, or because they all stopped to talk a while. They shouldn’t be far ahead of us.
We circled back, then climbed the side of the nearest slope that faced away from the valley, agreeing that the extra time would be worth the added stealth, especially when we were so loud ascending in the dark. Once we reached a reasonable height, we launched again, gliding out over the valley, hugging close to the base of a mountain that rose to our right.
I see them, Cuby said suddenly.
I had to search a moment, but soon I was looking at what she’d seen: a small glow on the next slope over, set amongst the silhouettes of pointy tents.
Haroshi.