Lake Spire was both exactly how Azura pictured it, and extremely different. He had seen the spire it was named after well before the town. Not surprising given the fact it was huge. It was even taller than it looked given the fact it apparently extended all the way to the bottom of the lake and beyond. Lake spire was a town for powerful adventurers and mages or people training to be such. Based on the reading he had done about the town the spire was used as training grounds for adventurers of all levels, and supposedly there was some special treasure at both the top and bottom of the tower that no one had been able to claim.
It was an interesting place to be sure. If he didn’t have the opportunity to go to an advanced magic school he could well have seen himself going there to gain strength and notoriety. Still he honestly didn’t think he’d make it to the top sheerly from the amount of stairs. The tip seemed to extend past the clouds. “Let’s not stay in this place too long. I can already feel the unworthy beings gazing at my scales with envy.” He rolled his eyes. He was sure the ‘gazes’ that Reign was receiving were assessing whether he was a threat or not. After all, a dragon was no laughing matter even in a city full of warriors.
“Yeah it’s probably best if you don’t land at that size we would probably be shot down from the sky if we get too close.” He smiled. It had been a while since he got to make a dramatic entrance. The only downside is that Katy wouldn’t be here to complain about how unnecessary they were. She was right, but plenty of things in life weren’t needed. Didn’t mean they weren’t fun. “Go ahead and shrink once we're over the city, we’ll enter in free fall. It’s not something a normal dragon would do if they were attacking so that and me falling with you should assuage their worries of attack.”
“Why would they be worried? A dragon of my pedigree deigning to accept their offerings should be the greatest honor.” Azura held in a groan. He really needed to find a way to fix this dragon’s attitude. This situation just about described his luck though. On the surface the dragon familiar was amazingly lucky, but it had taken all his time to get, and so he hadn’t had a chance to realize he would have been better off with a normal familiar.
He didn’t get a chance to respond before Reign decided to listen to his suggestion even if the dragon hadn’t seen the sense of it. He sighed as he began angling himself into a dive to speed up his descent. At least Reign knew when to trust his judgment… sometimes at least. He extended his senses as far as he could. It would be really bad if they were attacked from below, but as long as he sensed it before it happened he could manage.
To his surprise he found himself rather happy. The wind rushing past his face as he tore through the sky was more than enough to get his adrenaline pumping. He had flown before of course, but never this high, and never without using his wings spell. The wings didn’t really detract from the situation, but there was a certain excitement of having to think of the best way to land. He could make sure he didn’t splat on the ground in a lot of ways, but he wondered which would look the coolest.
He spread out his body to increase wind resistance and slow his descent slightly. He probably had half a minute left until he would hit the ground. A shame the falling couldn’t have lasted longer, but he probably had to decide how he was going to land in the next 15 seconds if he wanted to have time to properly pull it off. Too many people were right around where he’d land to do any of his bigger entrances, so he’d have to go for a mysterious vibe. The timing would have to be perfect, but he had been practicing with this spell a lot after learning it.
He shifted back into a dive, and summoned a magic circle on the ground less than a second before impact. He dove through the magic circle and calmly shifted into a sitting position on the rooftop a decent distance away from the crowd. Blink didn’t normally drain his momentum like this, but he found that to be a rather easy adjustment to make. He watched as the crowd looked around in confusion after the falling person had disappeared. Reign sat perched beside him. The dragon didn’t look particularly bothered by the crowd. Which meant no one in that group was the person/ one of the people that had been watching them so intently while they had still been high in the sky.
“That was quite the entrance you made.” He sighed. He had hoped the man had just come to observe, make sure he wasn’t a threat and all that, but it seemed he would have to interact with someone dangerous. Moreover this man was highly trained. He wasn’t able to get a read on their magic or their current thoughts. He sighed, guess he’d just have to hope the guy wasn’t looking for violence, and prepare for the worst just in case.
“I’ve always been a fan of big entrances. Does a good job of setting the tone for all the crazy things I end up doing.” He sighed, never turning away from the slowly dispersing crowd. Despite his nonchalant expression his mind was whirring to make sure there weren’t any surprises. He counted 4 other people, but they all seemed content to sit back and let the first guy handle this. Allies? Or other factions that were unwilling to reveal themselves. One of them was sharp. They’d picked up that he had detected them and started moving further away. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised at their competence. This was a town of adventurers after all, and a town right near the wild lands on top of that.
“Well flying in on a dragon and then diving through the ground definitely counts as a big entrance, but I’m sure you can understand how someone who can freely teleport and has a dragon companion is a little worrisome.” Spatial magic wasn’t easy, and the fact he was young worked against him here. Doing the things he had done was impressive, but not unheard of. Doing the things he had done while being 15 on the other hand. He couldn’t blame them for being suspicious. Looking younger than you actually were was hardly unique, but few mages would want to look as young as he did. That and Reign being with him were probably painting a pretty uncomfortable picture.
“I assure you I have no ill intentions, in fact I hardly intend to be staying long. I seek a guide to World’s End. Once I’ve found said guide I intend to get out of your hair as promptly as possible.” Reassurances of his intentions probably wouldn’t do much, but a promise of leaving quickly would help ease suspicions, and if they were overly suspicious of him they might even help him find a guide just to get him to leave faster. These weren’t the kind of talented individuals that ended up attending Great Forge, but they did have years of experience backing them up. He didn’t fancy his odds against any of them 1 on 1. Though he highly doubted they would be anywhere near as frightening as the heir of Crimson was.
He still hadn’t turned to look at the man, but he could sense the surprise emanating from them. His current actions were a bit of a mixed bag. Calmly sitting and not making any sudden movements less threatening, but had the unfortunate side effect of making it seem even more like he wasn’t as young as he looked. No matter how you look at it he was clearly a suspicious person. Well he had met his goal of mysterious stranger vibe, might as well stick with it at this point. “Well? Am I free to go, or do you need something else?” The man had been internally debating long enough that he was starting to worry he may actually need to defend himself.
“You can go, but just know we’ll be keeping eyes on you while you’re here so don’t do anything stupid.” He smiled slightly at the man’s warning. It was a bit childish, but he found that he rather enjoyed messing with people. He already knew that of course, but this was the first time he had done it in such a manner. But certainly not the last time. With that thought in mind he casually slid off the roof falling into the magic circle he had made moments prior in case it had come to a fight. He disappeared again without a sound.
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***
Graham had seen a lot of strange things in his time as an enforcer for Lake Spire, but that ‘kid’ was definitely up there. Usually when a mage made themselves look younger it was so they could blend in, but not this one. Thanks to their crazy stunt they were the center of attention, for both the enforces and the rest of the populace. Worse yet, whatever kind of spatial magic that ‘kid’ was using was seriously advanced. He couldn’t find any traces of it after they went through it. It was pretty rare to find someone who was skilled with spatial magic. No one would dispute its power, but it was extremely dangerous due to said power and how hard it is to keep stable.
If he had to guess he would say 9 out of 10 people who try to study spatial magic cripple or kill themselves before attaining any real skill with it. The only branch of magic more dangerous to study would be time magic, and there was a reason there was only 1 known mage to have ever become a master of that particular branch of magic. He wasn’t sure why, but he had a feeling the ‘kid’ had dabbled in time magic as well. In fact that was probably why he looked so young. Experiment gone wrong. Still if he was alive after practicing both of those fields of magic he probably wasn’t someone to mess with lightly.
He wasn’t paid enough to stick his neck on the executioner's block like that. If the mystery man decided to cause trouble he would bring an army to stop them, and if he ended up at the very back of said army well surely he couldn’t be blamed if the ‘kid’ escaped. Plus he could still take credit if they were captured and/or killed. The perfect plan if he said so himself. So why? Why did he still feel so uneasy?
***
“The enforcers here sure are competent.” No matter where he went in the town 3 enforcers were immediately there to keep tabs on him, and he had to teleport quite far to escape their range, which inevitably led to new enforcers watching over him. He had honestly expected them to be more brutish, given they had no formal magic education, but he supposed that was just bias drilled into him by his father. Not going to a magic academy didn’t make someone stupid, it just meant that their skills would have to be hard earned through battle and experience. Great teachers, if not safe ones.
He chuckled as the enforcers currently on his tail stiffened. He stifled a chuckle. Really it was unfair to them. They were quite skilled at staying hidden, but they weren’t Katy. Even with advanced senses and clairvoyance she still managed to be tricky to keep track of. Compared to her these guys might as well have been giant rhino’s for how easy they were to keep track of. He wouldn’t normally have acknowledged he knew they were there, but they already thought he was much more powerful than he was, so he figured he’d play into the image. They tried to put some extra distance between them, but his sensory range was without a doubt larger than theirs, so since they had to keep track of him they couldn’t get to a place where he wouldn’t be able to sense them.
He sighed. He had gotten a little off track. The security system of this town didn’t matter, he needed to find a guide. He had done a lot of research on the adventurers guild in preparation for the trip, and was rather surprised by how different it was to the mages guild. It was an odd distinction since obviously adventurers were also mages if you simply use that word to describe someone who uses magic, but they were focused entirely on the practical use of magic. Theory didn’t matter for them, and they tended to lean towards getting creative with simple magic rather than learning complex magic for specific tasks. Honestly he thought that part was rather admirable, and he hoped to learn from their example in that regard.
He shook his head. Something about how scenic the town was made it surprisingly easy for his thoughts to wander. He needed to find the adventurers guild, but he wasn’t exactly in the position to ask for directions anymore. That would ruin the whole vibe he had going. Oh well he’d just explore the town a bit. He had seen a map of the town, but it didn’t do all that much good when it was built the way it was. As a frontier town it was most important to be protected from the inevitable monster attacks, because of that this town was built like a fortress. There were several sets of thick wall both around the town and running throughout the town splitting it into zones. The monsters would have to take over 40 zones in order for the town to be overrun, and the gates people used to travel between zones were heavily reinforced.
His teleportation ability was probably the biggest reason that the local guards were so wary of him. All the defenses in the world didn’t mean anything if he could skip right past them. He hadn’t reached that kind of level yet, but they had no way of knowing that. Either way it was hard to get your bearings when 60 ft walls were around you at all times. The only visible landmark was the spire the city was named after, and that was hardly enough when he didn’t know his current location. He should have focused more when he landed. Aimed closer to the guild in the first place. Perhaps Katy was right about him being over dramatic? Oh well, not much he could do about it now.
He sighed, it wasn’t in this zone either. The gate to the next zone was also closed, so he couldn’t teleport to the next zone unless he wanted to wait for someone to open or climb up the walls. Both were viable, but they would probably give away the nature of his blink ability. In theory that wouldn’t be a problem, but not knowing what he was capable of was probably one of the biggest reasons they hadn’t picked a fight with him yet.Perhaps he could play it off as curiosity about the gate?
“Can’t say I’ve seen you around here before. You a new adventurer looking to take on the spire?” Well this was a novelty. He had been snuck up on, it had never occurred to him to keep track of the people who weren’t emitting magic pressure. No rather he had been subconsciously ignoring them. He’d have to fix that. It didn’t take magic to stab someone with a poisoned dagger when they weren’t paying attention.
“Not quite, though perhaps someday I’ll come back for it.” He figured that honesty was going to be the best policy in this town. Aside from the embellished mysterious stranger act he had going on that was. Who knows perhaps this man would know where he could find a guide, and if not he’d almost definitely know where the guild was.
The older man raised an eyebrow and leaned forward putting more weight on the cane in his hand. The old man looked thin and frail. Honestly he was kind of amazed the old man was even able to walk. “Oh? Then if I may ask what’s a young mage like you doing around here? Aside from the spire we aren’t what many would consider a tourist destination.” Part of him wanted to return the question. This man was obviously not an adventurer. Even when someone was so much stronger than you they could hide their presence to seem like a regular person there were still certain tells that no one could get rid of. They wouldn’t have given the man away when he had first approached, but Azura couldn’t possibly miss them from this close.
“Just the first stop in a long journey I’m afraid. I’m here to find a guide to World’s End.” He doubted the old man even knew where that was, but hopefully he at least had an idea as to where a guide might be. Azura was too caught up in playing the character he had set for himself to just ask, but if he simply mentioned it and the old man gave advice unasked, well nothing wrong with that.
“World’s End? Good luck finding a guide to take you there. Not to say there aren’t any, but you’d have to prove your strength first. If that’s really what you’re going for you’re probably going to want to give the tower a try after all. I’d say you have to at least make it to floor 10 if you want guides to take you somewhere as dangerous as World’s End.” He hid his surprise. In hindsight it made sense, what kind of non combatant would live here if not an analyst. That would explain the weak magic emanating from the man. Analysts were impossible to distinguish from regular civilians, unless you interacted with them long enough. How fortuitous, seems he had met someone who would be able to tell him everything about this town.