When Seras left the magic society it was the morning of the next day. She now had the badge of a Senior Associate and had used the generous amount of credit to fill her storage space with a wide variety of magic textbooks in her pocket space. Seras made sure to skim them before hand to make sure they weren’t packed full of fluff, but unfortunately some degree of useless padding was inescapable.
By the time the attendant was finally finished with explaining to her all the tools and resources at her fingertips they were nearly falling asleep at their desk. Seras had the bad impression that the poor guy had been required to stay up late into the night to assist her.
But he had left her with a good tip. “Now that you’re a senior associate you should consider looking ahead into what your specialization will be.”
“Specialization?”
He yawned as he nodded. “That’s the next highest associates level from where your at. Once you’ve begun to develop your advanced knowledge you should look ahead to where you’ll specialize. No one but the very few magical geniuses can study all fields of magic, most pick a direction to focus their efforts.”
“What kind of fields are there?” she asked.
“Formations, magical healing, artificing, arrays, summoning’s, astral magic, and many more.”
Seras’ mind caught on that last part. “Astral magic. Is that space, or transmissional stuff?”
“The last one. Astral magic researchers focus their time on understanding the astral and how it interacts with our reality. I don’t really know much more than that, but I will say its not a popular branch. Not many who go into that field really make many world-famous advancements. I’ve heard that most branches use their Astral magic researchers for basic clerical work and drudgery.”
Seras had then spent the remaining hours until dawn tinkering, she got maybe four hours of work out of the rented lab space, but it was some quality alone time spent with her guns. It reminded Seras of the old days when she would hole up in one of her armories and spend days tinkering with her weapons until the next job came. She hadn’t really had the opportunity since coming to Pallimustus, but it was calming.
Now more confident in her capability to hurt the bronze ranked Omeda archer Seras was walking with a slight swager. Maybe her confidence would cost her later, but Seras was happy with what she had made.
Her good mood ended the moment she stepped through the doors of the inn and saw the place packed with armored men and women. The atmosphere was tense, and they had all been listening to a familiar Smolder at the front until Seras came in. They all turned to stare at her.
“This Inn is closed, adventurer society business.” A tall blonde Elvin women said coldly. A wave of bronze rank aura washed over her, urging her to walk back out of the room.
Seras glared and let her own aura burble forth. It wasn’t any near as good as the elf’s, but that wasn’t the point. Seras was tired of people trying to bully her with their auras. Dundee was forgivable given the circumstances, but this bitch? Fuck no!
“Miss Caras,” Dustin interjected his own aura wafting out and pushing both of their clashing auras away with ease. “This is Seras Cross, another member of my crew and the one who fought the Omeda Bronze ranker.” He explained.
The elf, Caras, sneered down her nose at Seras. “He must have been a pitifully weak core user if she bested him.”
Seras sneered back “We were evenly matched, and I wouldn’t call him weak since he withstood a bullet to the head.”
The elf snorted “Any bronze ranker could withstand the attack of an iron ranker.”
“Wanna bet.” Seras said, summoning her pistol to her hand.
It was bluster, but Caras didn’t know that, and as the adventurer eyed the strange weapon with wary eyes Seras knew she had fooled her.
Upon entering Seras had quickly noticed how the iron rankers like herself had been pushed off to the side as the bronze took center stage. This did not sit well with her, maybe rank as a good indicator of power for other people, but Seras was strong beyond her rank and refused to be ignored or set to the side. She had to prove herself to these people, and the quickest way to do that was in a quick pissing match with the first person who challenged her.
The Elf stepped back, but kept her eyes on Seras.
Seras ignored her and stepped towards an empty chair near Dustin, she spun the chair around and sat on it backwards. “Catch me up Dust.”
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Dustin had been watching the whole scene, but only intervened the once. He had let Seras handle herself and gave her a nod of approval. “We just got news that the Omeda struck again in the early hours of this morning, two more towns on the periphery. I have sent out messages and these are the teams that replied the quickest. We were just going over the quickest way we can get there and figuring out lines of communication.”
Seras nodded “Do we know which way they fled?”
“Only a general direction.”
“Then the best plan sounds like sending in scouts and trackers to pinpoint the enemy while the main host assembles at point nearby. Once we know where the Omeda are then the full force of our expedition will be in place to strike.”
They all gaped at her.
“What?” Seras asked.
“We’ve been discussing this for an hour,” the elf said cautiously “and it took us that long to come up with a plan. Did Westbrook send word ahead of time to you or-,”
“Its just the most logical conclusion.” Seras said with a shrug. “This aint my first gig.”
“Gig?” the Elf asked.
Flint cleared his throat. “Seras here is an Outworlder, on her world she saw much combat and fighting. When it comes to killing people there aren’t as many more experienced at her level.”
“The way you say it makes me sound like a murderer.” Seras shot back.
“You are.” Flint grumbled.
“Enough,” Dustin interrupted. He shot Flint a glare before turning back to Seras, “Any other ideas?”
“None besides the obvious, pick out our fastest and stealthiest members, make sure to plot for escape routes, sabotage their wagons. And identify where the captives are being held so we can avoid hitting them in the cross fire. Oh, and identify the bronze rankers and see if there’s anyone they all report to. Its unlikely a silver ranker is heading this enterprise, but we should still keep an eye out for one.”
“That’s a bit paranoid don’t you think?” the Elf challenged.
“Plan for the worst, hope for better.” Seras said nonchalantly.
Dustin glanced around and nodded. “It seems like we have our plan, every second wasted is time they have to flee. Send me your fastest and I will coordinate the scouting mission while the rest of us gear up, we leave at eighth bell. Seras, I’d like to have a word.”
The crowd began to disperse, some grouped up while others immediately left to the inn to prepare.
Seras stood up and walked to Dustin who activated an odd magical device that created a field of strange static around them.
“You certainly made your presence known.” He said in greeting.
“I didn’t feel like being pushed around.”
Flint looked unconvinced “Be careful of Lady Caras, she’s Phoenix nobility, and even bonded with one of their young.”
“I take it that should mean something.” Seras said cautiously.
Dustin nodded “The nobility of Cuprik are those the Pheonix clan deemed worthy of partnering with, adventurers of old with brave and noble spirits. Not everyone lives up to that expectation, but those that do and are given the right essences and stones to bond with their young. Alicia Caras is one of only five young scions who are bonded at this time, that gives her words extra credence and respect. Be careful of making an enemy out of her.”
Seras nodded, understanding the implications of what he said. “Why would someone like that come here anyway? I got the impression from Arlee that the nobility wanted no part in this.”
“No,” Flint said while shaking his head, “what he said was that he didn’t have the right to call upon the nobles to lead this expedition. Lady Caras came out of her own volition once she heard word that Dustin was assembling an expedition. We’re fortunate she hasn’t tried to suborn leadership.”
“Hmm,” Seras hummed thoughtfully. “Anyway, I want to be apart of the scouting party.”
“You can’t be serious?” Flint questioned. “None of your essence abilities are suited to stealth.”
“No, but my active camo allows me to smother my own aura. And I have lots of experience in scouting and tracking.”
“Where did you get forest tracking skills? Your world has no forests.”
“No, but I’ve done wasteland tracking before, and I know how groups like this think. Besides, you’ve got no one to coordinate the scouts, and with that display I just put on I’m your best bet.” Seras crossed her arms and met their questioning gazes.
“We have Rohan-,” Flint began but Dustin cut him off.
“Rohan didn’t speak once during the meeting, and only just reached iron. He can’t lead. Seras, are you really confident in doing this, or is this just bluster?”
“One hundred and ten percent.”
“Good. You and the scouts ride ahead, we’ll be meeting up at the town of West Rock.” He pointed to the map and Seras nodded.
“So, they’re fleeing into the surrounding mountains. Do these… Heidel-Back Mountains… have any viable passes? Might narrow things down.”
“No, no passes. We believe they might have found a labyrinth tunnel that leads though the mountains. That’s the only explanation we have so far.”
“Alright, that’s a bit harder.” Seras said as she began to plot out her course.
“By the way, what took you so long?” Flint asked.
Dustin gave her a concerned look. “Did you stay up all night tinkering?”
“Ah sort of. I was held up at the Magic society almost all night, only got a few hours of tinkering in.”
“Held up, by what?”
Flint groaned “Please tell me you didn’t cause trouble at the Magic society.”
“Did you at least pass your test?”
“Did they throw you out?”
Seras held up her. “You guys need to have a little more faith in me. Of course, I passed my test. I did so well that the Magic society director came to speak with me personally.”
“I don’t believe you.” Flint said flatly.
“I agree with Flint, did you really talk with the Magic society director?”
“Are you calling me a liar?” Seras said offended.
They exchanged glances and then in unison said “Yes.”
“Wow, okay, that’s a bit hurtful. But if you must know I really did speak with the Magic society Director, Director Roland Dundee.”
“Oh Gods no” Flint muttered.
Dustin was frowning “Why does that name sound familiar?”
Fint put his head in his hands. “He wrote the books of magic primer I lent Seras.” He moaned through his hands.
Dustin looked aghast and the fiery lines on his face dimmed, making him look pitch black. A smolder version of going deathly pale. “You,” he said in a shaky voice, “You didn’t insult him right?”
Seras suddenly found the ceiling to be very interesting.
“Seras!” Dustin pressed, “Tell me you didn’t insult a magic society director in his own branch.”
“I would…” Seras began, “but I’m not a liar.” She finished.
“Oh gods.” Dustin muttered.
“Its fine, turns out he agreed with me on all my gripes. He even let me take the senior associates’ test after our talk. Which I aced thank you very much.” Seras said smugly.
Flint pulled his head out of his hands. “Senior, not novice or proficients?”
“Yeah, Roland gave me the senior test and I passed it with flying colors.” She pulled out the badge to prove it.
Flint’s eyes went wide, then he cursed. “Damnable Outworlders. I spent years studying to get to this point and you get to insult the director and skip three whole ranks.”
Dustin patted Flint on the shoulder. “There there, it was your books that got this far.”
“Don’t patronize me.” Flint grumbled, but didn’t shake off Dustin’s hand.
Seras watched this and began to wonder how deep their ‘partnership’ went? “Do you need anything else from me, because if not I left some grenades upstairs that I need to grab.”
Dustin looked at her sharply. “Wait, is that what was in the basket, those weird, ridged ball things were bombs? Petra said she knocked over the thing!” he looked stunned and nervous.
“It fine, those are just the shells, I still need to put the explodey bits in, I was going to finish doing that before I left.”
He looked tired as he shook his head, “just grab your things and go.”
Seras ran up and grabbed the grenade casings and pins before she ran down to the stables to saddle up Buck.