“No, they just changed their Path recently. It was super weird, for some reason they needed to put all of their Affinity into some monster parts. I even got a Feat for helping them.” As he spoke, Rob looked outside as though he was just casually mentioning- like- the weather or something.
Kaelan opened his mouth as though trying to say something, but was interrupted by Rob who seemed to not even realise that he wanted to speak, “Oh shoot, I gotta go if I want to do this Job today,” He pushed the Bestiary back into Kaelan’s hands and then just left, “See ya!”
“Wait what? Rob! Hold up!” Kaelan ran after him, but he didn’t have even a single physical skill so actually catching up to Rob was unlikely.
“I’ll tell you about it later if you’re that curious! Bye!”
Rob turned around a corner as he spoke, but Kaelan still fruitlessly yelled, “You can tell me about it now as well!”
He seemed to realise that Rob probably didn’t even hear that last shout and sighed, muttering under his breath, “Man, how the hell does Rob keep getting into these weird situations? Is he doing it on purpose?” before walking back into the Job Hall.
A couple of people gave him strange looks, probably because of the shouting, but he ignored them so that he could find a good Job for a Fire Mage. Technically he was on more of a teaching focussed Path, but he was over level 30 by this point so his stats and General Skills would be good enough to compete with even a level 20 Fire Mage on the battlefield.
It doesn’t hurt that my Skills make it easier to learn the theory.
After half an hour of searching he’d found a few that he would consider doing when he had the time, and then decided to head off to the training fields a little earlier than agreed upon so that he could get some practising of his own in before Render arrived. But that plan was put on hold when he actually got there and found Render standing by the entrance, so still that they looked like an empty set of armour that was just set up for decoration.
Obviously, to Kaelan it was obvious that Render was there, he could sense his Activated Mana Pool after all, but it was a lot less obvious to the worker prodding at them and trying to move them out of the way.
“Hey, Render. How long have you been waiting there?” Render twisted their head, the silence of the action still slightly unnerving to Kaelan even after teaching them for so long, and the worker startled and backed away fearfully.
“I have been standing in this spot since the morning. I do not know the current time so I cannot give you a more precise time frame.” They took a moment to move each of their joints, maybe unhooking something that was keeping them in place, and began to follow Zephyr to the area that they’d unofficially claimed.
“Really? You can just do something somewhere else while you wait, I won’t even mind if it makes you a little late. Standing in place all day sounds boring and exhausting.” Render tilted their head in the way that Kaelan gathered meant they were trying to puzzle something out.
“It is not exhausting, and I have spent the time meditating. I do not have the Skill for it, so reaching the same state as the one called Robert has been difficult, however I believe it could be valuable to be able to do so.”
“Ah yeah, I guess that makes sense. I’ve never heard of someone managing that without the Skill, but then again I’ve hardly heard about people using the Skill in the first place!” Kaelan chuckled at his joke, but Render just politely laughed and then ignored it.
After a short but awkward silence Kaelan decided enough was enough and tried to break the ice by bringing up the whole reason they were actually there.
“So anyway, let’s get started on that Mana Sense, shall we? Let’s start with the usual, I’ll make a few Mage Lights and you need to tell me how many there are. Ready? Go!”
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They spent the majority of the rest of the day trying to improve Render’s Mana Sense, but without actually using the Skill Render would have no assistance from the System. Needless to say, it was slow going. After a week of focusing almost exclusively on it, they’d managed to get him up to the equivalent of Level 1 in the Skill, which would be pretty useless if he needed it to cast or examine spells.
Fortunately, all he needed it for was to find a notorious serial killer. Not a big deal, really.
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After hours of working on it, they decided it was time to move onto the second thing they were doing here. Strategising.
Since Kaelan was more focused on theoretical magic than practical, he actually knew a great deal about various magical and anti-magical Paths, so he had a lot of valuable input on attempting to counter whatever strategies the Mage Killer might be using. Basically, they were here to figure out anti-anti-mage countermeasures. (which is not what they were calling the strategy)
First, as always, they went over the same possibilities for the Killer’s Path, just in case there was something they missed. If they could somehow figure it out then countering it would be as easy as looking up its fundamental Skill and disabling that.
Unfortunately, they’d made almost no progress on that front. All they knew for sure was that he couldn’t have had an Oath (no God would allow their followers to go around killing people) and they didn’t have a Common Path (they’d have to be a ridiculously high level, somewhere in the 40s, and there were very few Common Paths that could achieve something like this). So that just left a Pact, a Rare Path, or a Noble Path.
Trying to plan for an unknown Pact was a fool's errand so they simply didn’t bother. They all had highly unusual Skills that were far more powerful than those of any regular Path, although it comes at the cost of any number of General Skill Slots. And it was at this point that the discussion reached its natural conclusion. Neither of them had any new information to share, and the Rare or Noble Paths tended to have closely guarded Skills, which made planning for them almost as hard as it is for a Pact.
From there, they simply discuss magical theory until the sun dips below the horizon. Render, whilst not on the Path of a Mage, actually provides quite insightful opinions on many magical subjects. The discussions almost ended up being more useful to Kaelan than they were to Render, which firmed his resolve to improve his Skills.
As a Teacher, my students should really be learning more than I am. Well, Rob certainly learned a lot from when I taught him, so I guess it evens out.
“Goodnight to you, Kaelan. I will be resuming my patrol for the night. Perhaps this will finally be the one on which I find this Killer. Safe travels.”
“The same to you, Render. See you tomorrow, same time?”
“Of course. Are you sure you do not need me to escort you? If the Mage Killer targets you they are likely to succeed.”
“Oh, are you calling me weak? Don’t worry so much, I’ll be fine. My Affinity for Fire is higher than most, so this Mage Killer’s gonna be in for a nasty surprise if they think they can kill me.” Kaelan’s confidence bled out into his grin, and Render couldn’t help but feel put at ease.
“Very well. I will return here tomorrow.”
And with that, the two parted ways. Kaelan followed the main street towards the edges of the city where the house he’d managed to get relatively cheap was. It wasn’t particularly large, but it was more than big enough for just one person. Really, the only problem was the commute, the Centre was at least half an hour away by foot and he needed to walk that twice every day, double that if he forgets something.
It’s not good for a Mage to walk so much, I’ll be physically fit if this keeps up.
Suddenly, a strange feeling creeped up the back of his neck. It was like two hatefully pinpricks stabbing into the back of his head, filling him with a sense of unease that he’d never felt before. Spinning around to find the source of the feeling, he summoned Fire Mage Lights all around him, their light should have been enough to light up the entire street and then some.
Only they didn’t. The spells came out much slower than he was used to, and their power was greatly diminished. His first thought was that somehow his Affinity had somehow been reduced, but he’d never heard anything about a Path that could do such a thing.
But of course I wouldn’t, if it came from a Pact holder.
“Gods Damn it.” Kaelan swore, and began to conjure fire all around him, forming dense pinpricks of intense heat behind a cloud of roaring flame.
Something laughed from just beyond the light of his flame, it sounded deep and mocking, like the speaker found his attempts at defence funny. He tried to figure out where it was coming from, but the noise reverberated across the buildings around them, obscuring its source.
“So you’re the Mage Killer then?” The question was rhetorical, there probably wasn’t a single other person that this could’ve been.
“Well, that’s what they’ve been calling me, I suppose. I’m impressed you figured it out so quickly, you must’ve been expecting this.”
Ignoring the implied question, Kaelan asked one of his own, “So, is there a reason you’re hunting Mages specifically, or is it just a coincidence that we’ve been your only targets?”
“Hah! How conceited, I suppose you’re preparing some big spell behind all that fire? Trying to stall for time until you can unleash your,” His voice took on a mocking tone, or at least more mocking than it was already “Ultimate attack?”
“What? Nooo, I’m just a curious guy. Come on, humour me.”
“Well, if you insist. I do it for the one simple reason anyone does anything. Power. That’s all there is to it. Now go on, use your big spell, I’m curious to see what it is.”
As he finished speaking, Kaelan’s flames burst apart violently in a wave of burning orange. The dense points flew with it, managing to reach halfway to the edges of the light before being forced to reveal themselves.
That deep, reverberating laugh echoed out again. The flames flew completely aimlessly down each end of the street, accomplishing nothing apart from creating enough light to disturb people further away. Strangely, there was no such disturbance anywhere nearby.
“What, is that it? You realise you can’t hit me if you don’t know where I am, right?” The voice sounded genuinely confused at the weakness of the attack, but Kaelan only grinned.
“I guess I don’t really have a clue, but the thing is I don’t really need to know, do I?” The voice sputtered for a few seconds as the speaker tried to make sense of Kaelan’s statement, but they were rendered silent by the unusually loud sound of metal boots striking stone, “Looks like th-”
Kaelan suddenly found himself completely unable to speak. He tried to shout out, but it was like his voice was stuck in his throat.
“Looks like what, Fire Mage?” The voice spoke softly from right next to Kaelan’s ear, when did he get this close?
Something squelched and crunched as the Mage Killer stepped away, and suddenly Kaelan found himself unable to keep himself upright. He fell to his knees, then collapsed to the floor entirely, the whole time struggling to yell out for help.
“Perhaps next time you shouldn’t be so arrogant, hmm?” There was a sound like someone slapping their forehead, “Oh, what am I saying? There won’t be a next time, will there?” The metal footsteps got closer, probably less than 10 metres away at this point, “Perhaps we’ll meet again in Hell, if you’ve led a careless life.”
What- and the world went black.