The next morning, everything ached. Tahir had trouble standing and moving around, but he could manage. The recoil from fighting under Mikharma’s tier three affinity still hadn’t healed even with his aura recovery going overnight. Though the power he gained proved impressive, he still needed to acclimate himself to the aura output, or it’d keep destroying his body. This was a problem he didn’t even know existed, but he supposed that was due to the scarcity in items that increased aura affinity compared to staves and wands for mana users, so he’d never heard of anyone getting recoil from using aura outside of people who’d just unlocked their aura pools and didn’t know how to properly use them. On the bright side, he had no problems fighting under Mikharma at tier two, and he only needed to spend the aura and mana of a tier one summon to get those effects.
Ah. You are awake. Tahir heard Mikharma’s voice in his mind.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was tired last night, I completely forgot to release the bond.” He said back to her over their mental link.
At ease, little hunter. In days past, the shamans would call the spirits forth to speak to their people in times of seasonal passage. Very rarely would I be summoned fully, though, only inhabiting the body of the shaman that I might speak through them, or in the case of a force that threatened our homelands they would call upon me to defend. It has been refreshing to walk among my people in flesh and blood after all this time.
That made him wonder if Gameda would have summoned her, or if he was forced to summon another spirit to defend the grove, since the shaman did help establish Tahir’s bond in the first place. Come to think of it, did he know this was going to happen? “Oh, alright. In that case, do you want to stay out until we leave the Grove or until anything else comes up?”
That would be nice. I will be nearby.
As everyone else awoke and got themselves ready, Tahir adjusted the bond down to tier one. At this point, he could still move around well enough even though everything hurt, though he probably couldn’t handle any fights unless he used exclusively magic. Once everyone was ready, they made their way back to the tents where the Crow’s Black Feathers were staying, with the exception of Shukri, who decided to hunt for food instead. Tahir appreciated, but denied the offers to help him walk from Meti and Theo. He also noticed that they walked slower than usual, probably to spare him any additional pain in his steps.
Once they reached the main tent, the four of them made their way inside in order to meet with the Raven, who sat at his desk much like the first time they arrived a couple of days ago. “Well now, you lot are up rather early. I thought you would have taken some more time to rest, you’ve certainly earned it.”
“This is easy enough.” Tahir replied. He had to imagine the Raven mostly referring to him, since he’d seen Tahir carried off by Shukri the previous night. “How’s…well, the guild?”
“Well enough. We had a thorough interrogation of everyone using truth-telling spells, and everyone who might have dispersed when I sent them to help the Grove I can safely assume had something to hide. If they don’t make their way back within the next couple of days, their names will certainly be posted in every mage guild on the continent.” He explained. “Most of the mercenaries simply elected not to speak, so I simply gave them to the people of the Grove to deal with.”
He set down the quill that he wrote with and let out a sigh. “All in all we’ve averted disaster, and we’ve essentially wrapped up our research. So once we do a bit of work to set the surrounding forest on the path to growth again after the fire, we’ll be leaving the grove.”
“You’ve finished your research?” Meti asked, and the Raven responded with a nod.
“Quite. We were already working on a bit of an accelerated schedule since the rifts started increasing the intensity of the nomads’ hunts. I believe our talks of wrapping up in the last couple of days is also part of what caused them to take such drastic measures, along with your disruption of their plans.”
Tahir sighed, somewhat relieved that everything that happened last night wasn’t entirely their fault. “Well, if you’re done with your research, could you tell us what that ruin site is for?”
The Raven simply smiled. “Unfortunately, the information has become rather valuable at this stage. With the attempted sabotage, I’m at liberty to only reveal the information in an exchange rather than for free. But rest assured, we are incredibly grateful for your assistance in this matter and we will be compensating you accordingly, just not with this.”
“So you’re forcing people to give up secrets or bribes to figure out what you’ve learned? That’s kind of funny.” Hasio said. “Especially since the nomads are probably gonna deny anyone else trying to investigate the ruins for a long time after what happened.”
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“Info for info, huh?” Tahir thought about it for a moment, then looked to Theo and Meti for confirmation. Meti just shrugged, while Theo gave an encouraging nod. “We might have something to trade.”
“Oh really? What might that be?” The Raven asked, his interest piqued.
“An epic spell. One you definitely don’t know.” Tahir smiled, and looked to Meti, who moved to pull Zorhe’s spellbook out of her storage bag.
“There are a couple of options. You may take your pick.” She said as she handed him the book. The Raven took the ancient tome gently, then opened it and began to flip through. His eyes widened as he poured over the text.
“You are quite right, I do not recognize many of these.” He flipped a few more times, eyes quickly flicking back and forth over the pages, before he realized what he was doing and cleared his throat. “This is quite a marvel, about as old as the ruin we were just investigating, where did you find this?” He asked, and closed the book.
“A ruin that popped up north of Balrech.” Theo answered, and she, Meti, and Tahir took to explaining everything that happened there, including the lich and the erinyes.
“An ancient lich’s spellbook. This…” The Raven trailed off, seeming to think about something. “I would like to examine this more than the capacity of a single epic spell, but I can certainly offer you something else in exchange. I have something in mind that might benefit all of you, since you all seem to use aura in some capacity.” Without waiting for an answer, he handed the book back, and brought a fresh roll of parchment in its place. He picked up his quill, dipped it in ink, and rapidly began to write on the parchment. Within a couple of minutes of the group silently watching, he had a long recipe with accompanying diagrams drawn. With a word of magic and a snap of his fingers, the fresh ink dried immediately, and he handed it off to Theo. “There, that might also be something of interest to Callipho as well.”
“This is- wait.” Now it was Theo’s turn to rapidly take in the text. Everyone else leaned in to get a read, but it was full of alchemical jargon and processes that Tahir could barely fathom. He only got a quarter through before Theo closed it. “This is an elixir for increasing aura!? Where did you get this!?”
“A joint effort by alchemists in Shinevi and some other acquaintances of mine unearthing an old recipe. Both the base ingredients and a plethora of viable substitutes are included. It should provide a similar effect of increasing your mana at a leyline crossing.” He said with a smile. “In exchange for allowing me to study the spell book, it’s all yours.” The answer came immediately as they handed the spellbook back to the Raven. He set it down and to the side. “Wonderful. Now, your compensation for the earlier matter is being prepared, but while we wait on that, I can speak of our original agreement, what we found at this ruin.”
So much had happened just then that Tahir nearly forgot. “Right, of course. What did you find?”
“I’ll spare you all of the complicated processes and notation that allowed us to come to our final conclusion. As far as we are able to tell, this ruin is an anchor of sorts. Likely one of multiple throughout the continent. Something, or someone, is held in place by the magic contained within.” The Raven explained. That explained to Tahir why the Raven would have hesitated to use powerful magic while within the barrier the previous night. Who knows what he might have disrupted if his magic destabilized the anchor. “Whatever it is isn’t sealed here, most likely. I’d imagine it would be sealed in another Vudranian ruin.” Tahir’s eyes widened. As he gathered his thoughts on the matter, they inevitably led to the fact that he’d soon be investigating the largest Vudranian ruin ever unearthed in the coming months. The Raven glanced toward him and seemed to notice that Tahir had caught on to something. “I’ll leave it at that for now. I suppose I’ll simply ask you to be careful of any ruins from ancient Vudrana that you’ll happen to visit soon.” He said. “In any case, I do believe your pay is on its way.”
Seconds after he spoke, a couple of mages came in with hefty sacks of coins, depositing them in the group’s hands. “Some twelve-thousand gold, split between gold and platinum pieces.” The Raven said, smiling at the shocked expressions on all four of their faces. “The agreed upon pay of both the mercenaries we hired and our currently missing guild members. Though there are plenty of things we could do with the money, for all of your assistance we felt that it was better that you walked away suitably rewarded for your help. Even if you feel like you didn’t do too much, I place a lot of value on your work to root out the corruption that existed just under my nose, within my own organization. And I’m sure as well that the people of the Grove will recognize you fighting in the Grove’s defense.”
After a while, the group manage to stammer out thank-yous and make their way out of the tent, struggling a bit to fit the sacks into their storage bags before making their way back to their tent. “So, what now? We just got a massive payout.” Hasio asked.
Tahir groaned as he sat down on the pile of bedrolls where everyone slept. “Rest for a couple of days at the very least. Unless we get contacted by Murabi, then I’ll drink one of Theo’s auric recovery potions, and we’ll head out as soon as we can.”
“As much as we’ve been working on letting me make stuff without a full lab, I think I’m going to need master Callipho’s help to make the elixir the Raven gave us.” Theo said. She’d taken out the recipe and looked it over one last time. “I still can’t believe he gave it to us.”
“We did tell you that the spellbook would be worth much to mages.” Meti replied to her. “It must have been nearly worth finding a second ruin to him. The elixir might seem paltry in comparison.”
“It works for us.” Tahir said, and then sighed. “Looks like we’ll be stopping back in Balrech after all.
“Well we’re all much stronger now!” Theo said. “And master Callipho’s still there. We shouldn’t have to worry too much about the collective, right?”
“They’ll probably try something the moment they find out I’m back, we have kind of screwed them over multiple times.” Tahir said, glancing at a smirking Hasio. “It’ll be annoying, but we have to deal with it. It’s probably time for Hasio and I to try to qualify for Platinum.”