As the blood continued to soak her office floor, Fatalina stared dispassionately at Hossidus’ warm corpse. She walked over to his body, lifted his head up by his golden hair, and yanked her dagger free from his face. Once free, she unceremoniously dropped his head, smacking it onto the floor. Then, she grabbed the sleeve of his ornate silky robe and used it as a cleaning cloth to rid her dagger of his blood.
She continued to listen to the pleasing sound of his blood as it rushed between the shattered glass as she thought about the future.
Right now, at this very moment, there was a man in the kingdom capable of changing it with little to no effort, for better or for worse.
Her mind raced as her eyes flicked back and forth rapidly. She was moving pieces of her puzzle, changing their sizes, deciding which pieces were needed, and figuring out which ones wouldn’t want to be placed and, therefore, would have to be discarded.
Given the choice, she would much rather have this man, Lee Barnes, be on her side. She didn’t have enough information to make an informed decision about him quite yet, but she was leaning toward peaceful cooperation. He had willingly come into the country to do exactly what she wanted. Now, she would just have to see how far she could stretch his cooperation.
He wouldn’t fight in the war. Nobody in their right mind would ever suggest someone with two titles fight on a battlefield. Not to mention, the very same person was the only teacher of healing magic known ever to exist. You wouldn’t risk their life on that alone.
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Pausing in his office in the Consortium of Magical Scholars, Nitis Sindris sneezed.
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No, she would make sure he was comfortable and willing… If that wasn’t possible, she would have to try another way.
She sat down in her chair and opened the second Copy Scroll. As the passcode was from Felispar, she assumed that this was the report from Jeremy Blight. Her hand trembled slightly as she inputted the code, but the message began to appear once she did.
To General Fatalina Castana of Emerson.
I am Jeremy Blight, son of….
She growled and skipped all the fancy noble decorum. She wanted actionable information, not to be friends.
I am writing to you a report of my findings on Lee Barnes. Be warned that all written henceforth is observations during our travels across the kingdom.
Fatalina then stared blankly at the ornately drawn page-break filigree of a mountain chain, probably those nearby Felispar. She took a deep, shaky breath and repeatedly clenched and unclenched her hands as she tried to calm herself.
We are in the small border village of Breye, less than a few hours from the Wall of Shadows. During my short travel here, I have learned many things about Lee.
Firstly, he is unlike any healer I have ever interacted with. He is common-born, dislikes formal addresses, and seeks normalcy. It is a very contrasting behavior because of how abnormal he is.
He makes this easier on himself by having the ability/skill to turn off his titles whenever he wills it. Almost as soon as he had departed from the wall, he had disabled them. Since then, he has not activated them once. He is trying to keep a low profile.
As we traveled to Breye, he informed us that he had learned how to use magic from the Dark Elves. He did so by casting an expert-tier spell mid-travel after stopping our wagon.
I had never seen such instantaneous destruction up close. It was a spell of ice and frost which erupted out from him. By my estimates, everything around him for about 10 meters was instantaneously frozen. He told us it was Glacial magic.
He then told us about who taught him the magic, an elf named Neia Sindris.
Fatalina paused, then reread the name listed several times. Something about it was important. Something on the outskirts of her mind was nagging her that the name was familiar. She wrote down the name and element for later research before continuing.
As she finished and proceeded to read on, she began to frown. She skimmed the formatting of the scroll as her brows furrowed together. It… grew sloppy.
I fear we have made a great mistake treating him as a healer from our kingdom.
We arrived at Breye, and I took it upon myself to find us our lodgings for our stay. Lee had mentioned wanting to rest here to experience what our kingdom has to offer and so that he could heal those in the village.
I sequestered the village head’s home—a man by the name of Robert Fillin.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
For most of the first day, all was well. I had begun writing the beginning of this report when Lee stormed into the building. He was upset at us for taking the home from Robert, the village’s head, for the duration of our stay.
He told us in no uncertain terms that he would no longer stay in Robert’s home and that we would now camp on the outskirts of the village.
He then went and apologized to the village head in public.
Fatalina grew a smile upon reading. She could work with this. If the healer didn’t have a stick up his ass like all the others, she wasn’t going to complain. This man seemed unreasonably reasonable—a rarity considering his position of power.
She continued reading as the formatting and writing grew sloppy and frantic.
Before all of
* He charges too cheaply for his healing.
* He has never met another healer.
* He carries with him a pelt of untreated fur infused with mana.
* He lent the mana infused fur to one of our squad members so that they could potentially learn magic. For free…
I am
He visited
He had
He knows I am making a report on him. He has informed me that he knows directly and is even suggesting things to add.
He has visited the Defender of Breye in their watchtower. After his visit, he told me that he believes the kingdom's defenders should be treated better and to relay that information to ‘whoever you are reporting to.’
Fatalina paced back and forth, crunching the glass shards beneath her feet and splashing blood about as she tried to put herself into this healer’s shoes. What causes a man like that to care for people like that? Most common folk disliked knowing about their defenders, but they were indeed people. They were treated as such by the kingdom…
She grabbed her quill and began making some more notes. If she could gain some favor from this healer by improving the quality of life of the defenders, she would jump at the chance. She also wrote some more notes on things she needed to look into. Such as the name and details of the Defender of Breye.
Once finished, she continued on.
* He is teaching Em, the defender of Breye, his healing magic.
* We are staying in Breye for the foreseeable future.
* He knows about dragons.
* He is either skilled at enchanting or knows a master enchanter.
It was here that Fatalina had to squint. The writing was sloppy, done in extreme haste if she had to guess.
After Wall Commander Timberson stopped by Breye, he met up with us to question us about Lee. During this, we told him all we knew. We were showing him our camp and… inspecting Lee’s personal items when we were caught in the act.
He was not pleased in the slightest.
Under Truth Stone, Lee informed everybody in the camp that he could kill them all in under ten seconds… without using his magic.
He then said, and I quote here because it is fresh within my mind.
“Do not go through my stuff. Do not invade my privacy. You may report whatever I freely show or tell to whoever you wish. Go ahead and write down what I just told you. I’m sure that’s important.”
That is the end of my report.
I think
Perhaps
Maybe we
We should not have offended someone blessed by the gods.
Jeremy Blight, 16th Squadron of the Wall Vanguard of Thexis.
She slowed in her pacing, eventually coming to a standstill. After rereading the final bit of information, she threw the Copy Scroll to the ground and began stomping on it in anger. Like a toddler playing in some rain puddles, blood splashed all around her office, staining her white walls and notes.
TELL ME AT THE START THAT HE IS GOD BLESSED! IMBECILES!
“REGINA! ENTER!” She angrily screamed.
No less than a few seconds passed before the door slightly opened. Regina slid through the gap of the half-opened door before dispassionately looking around the room, which was fit for a horror movie. After her inspection, she thinned her lips and glared at Fatalina.
“Really?”
Fatalina swatted the air while heaving breaths of air, ignoring her complaints. “We’re going to have a lot of work cut out for us in the near future. Something vital has come up. I’m going to use your desk while someone cleans up Hossidus’ mess.”
Regina gave the room another once over, walked over to give Hossidus’ corpse a small kick, and then sighed. “You know, there’s going to be complaints about what you’ve done here. He was a pretentious prick but a valuable one.”
Fatalina let loose a growl while she finished writing some notes. She then bundled them up, walked up to Regina, and thrust them at her chest. “Take these and send them to the capital—priority ten. I’ll deal with whatever fallout Hossidus brought upon me. He should have watched his tongue.”
Regina slowly looked down at the notes which were pushed at her chest. “Ten?”
“Yes. Ten. Now go. Time is of the essence. I’ll be at your desk.” Fatalina finished by throwing the door to her office open and storming out into the hallway.
The servants who had been cleaning up the remains of Fatalina’s desk started to funnel into the office but stopped once they saw the gore-ridden room. Some fell backways and scrambled away in shock and fear back into the hallway. Others ran out of the room and instantly lost their lunch, vomiting onto the floor.
Regina casually left the office and slowly began to make her way toward the message centre, leaving a trail of bloody footprints along the way.