“So, to explain our predicament, we’ve been investigating a number of attacks and disturbances by seemingly individual spirit mages.” Merui began to explain, as he and Namilah led Tahir down the hallway. “The spirits summoned are mostly of the fiendish or aberrant variety, and the disturbances often grow violent, causing harm to guards and civilians or property damage. Most are the level of power that the average guard or group of them can’t handle, and on one other occasion, a spirit at the level of power that miss Ankhta here senses from you caused a major commotion that she happened to be involved in.”
Namilah shot Merui a look that Tahir assumed was her silently telling him not to speak any further in that regard. That partially explained her hostility at Tahir in particular. The spirit the other mage brought forth was at tier two. While she wasn’t present at the time, Tahir had Mikharma out at tier three. It didn’t seem like he’d figure out what happened with Namilah right away, but a tier three spirit would need either multiple gold ranked redclouds or one platinum to fight safely, and that was only if they didn’t have a high level of intelligence.
“Alright. Well, firstly, spirit magic isn’t hard to get into. I used a ritual I learned from the library in Balrech to summon my first couple of spirits, and it only cost a handful of gold for the materials. Summoning more powerful spirits becomes prohibitively expensive, though. Someone can increase the power of some of the lower level spirits, but at the expense of their own mana - or aura in some cases. Even then, summoning those spirits would cost 100 gold each, or about 500 gold for the one the spirit mage from earlier had.” Tahir began to explain, though talking about the other spirit mage reminded him of something. “What happened to that guy, by the way?”
“Still unconscious, but in custody.” Merui answered. “A consequence of the backlash from destroying his spirit. One that we’ve seen with similar attackers. That is interesting, though. So you’re saying that each of the perpetrators would have had to pay a notable amount of gold for the materials to summon spirits?”
“Yes, and they’d have to go to a leyline crossing to summon these spirits. Either that, or they have access to a planar crossing to make contact with spirits directly.” As Tahir spoke, they’d started up a flight of stairs, the same that they’d originally brought him down when they first put him into the interrogation room.
“Indeed, we’re quite aware of that. We’ve monitored leyline crossing in Nagyermend since the first incident, but no one has come in to summon a spirit of any kind. Though it is odd. Planar magic isn’t easy to come by, and if they had someone with around a level of knowledge to cast it as a mithral or adamantine Redcloud might have, why would they need to have proxies?”
Tahir thought about it for a moment, and the answer nearly caused him to trip on the stairs, with Namilah catching him and setting him back upright. “Sorry, I just-” He paused, needing a moment to collect his thoughts. “-maybe they don’t need someone who’s as strong as a mithral or adamantine Redcloud. My friends and I just dealt with someone using magical artifacts to create planar crossings barely a week ago in the unclaimed lands east of Isanthyr.”
“Oh? You think they may be connected?” Merui said, as they finally reached the top, and led Tahir back into the lobby of the building.
“Possible, mainly because the leader of that whole operation had a powerful spirit himself despite being an aura user. One of my friends took some time to examine and analyze one of the artifacts after we’d destroyed it, so I can get you whatever she wrote down if it might help.”
“It would be appreciated. You’ve certainly given us quite a bit of information to follow up on. I’m very glad you decided to cooperate with us on this matter..” Merui said, glancing forward as Tahir heard his name called and several footsteps rushing toward them. “That being said, I do hope you’ll help us make a good impression on your allies. We’ll be in touch if anything relevant comes of our investigation, and you can leave any additional information here for us.”
With that, Merui pushed Tahir forward slightly, just as Shukri reached forward to grab him and pull him toward her, possessively wrapping her arms around his waist. She, Mikharma, Murabi, and Hasio of all people had shown up. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” He assured, glancing back at Merui and Namilah. “I’m staying at the Redcloud’s lodgings, and you can always go to the guild if you need to reach me.”
“Understood. You’re free to go.” Namilah responded.
“You continue to be a walking lure for trouble as always.” Hasio joked. “I came because I spied these three practically running through the city, and then heard from them that you’d been arrested, but you seem perfectly fine.”
“Indeed.” Mikharma said, stepping close to Tahir. “Though I have had an interesting time, as you are no longer in danger, I can take my rest.”
“Of course. My thanks as always.” Before the eyes of everyone in the lobby, Mikharma disappeared as Tahir released his bond for the time being. His body went back to normal, losing the catlike features he had while he summoned her with aura. When he glanced back at Merui and Namilah to give them a wave goodbye, he found both of them looking at him with wide eyes. Oh right, the question never really came up in their conversation, but they could have very easily taken him for beastfolk instead of human. “Okay, I know I have some explaining to do, so let’s get back to the Redclouds’ before sunset.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
They walked out with no issues, though Tahir practically had to pry himself from Shukri’s grasp. He couldn’t help but notice the death-glare she gave Namilah, too. He supposed Mikharma described to them what she saw when they shared vision. She definitely would have seen Tahir getting slammed into the wall by Namilah as well. There went starting with a favorable impression with her, at least.
***
Tahir explained everything that happened on his trip to the library to the group on their way to the Redclouds’ lodging, then again to Meti and Theo when they all gathered in Shukri’s shared room to speak. Once they chided Tahir for jumping into trouble yet again, they began to speak about the implications of what he’d learned.
“I didn’t think we’d potentially encounter that same planar magic we dealt with in the grove so soon.” Meti commented. “I can make copies of the notes from the piece that I examined, but I’m not sure if they’ll be of any use.”
“No guarantees on it being those things in particular.” Tahir replied. “But it would explain how people are getting access to spirits without using the leyline crossing if they had access to some kind of planar crossing. Either way, the thing that concerns me the most is that there’s someone with a tier three spirit out there. That means they either know what they’re doing, or are strong enough to summon a spirit of that amount of power while possessed.”
“Well, other than getting those notes to them, what are we gonna do now?” Theo asked.
“Nothing.” Murabi answered. “This probably isn’t something we want to force, since we wouldn’t know the first place to look. We go digging too much and tip enough people off, then it’ll make it harder for the guards and other parties investigating. Tahir’s gotten himself in on it, so they’ll probably let him know if and when an opportunity for us to help arises.”
“Murabi’s right. Nothing left to do but keep to our own business in the meantime. The ruin will open up soon and we’ve training to do. Speaking of which, Murabi, Shukri, how’d it go?”
“Stellar.” Murabi replied. “Shukri took to the basics pretty quickly, but Mikharma really surprised me. She seemed to already know the first stage, which was manipulating and ‘throwing’ her aura, so to speak. Based on our conversation about it, she seemed to learn it around the time where most of her stories are told. Near or at the height of her power when she was alive. I think it goes without saying, but even the version of her you summon at tier three isn’t near her prime. If I had to guess, she was probably around an adamantine Redcloud’s power.” After a moment, Murabi sighed. “Which means it might just be something you learn intuitively once you get to that level of strength. Makes me wish I could talk to living adamantine Redclouds that use aura, but getting ahold of them is famously difficult for anything short of a world-threatening disaster. In any case, I taught her some of the same things I’ll be teaching you over the next couple of days, so I suppose you’ll see if you take to them quicker than normal.” With that, Murabi stood, and let everyone know that he was turning in for the night.
Hasio quickly followed, noting that he’d keep people watching in between training sessions and ruin delves to see if he could learn anything about the rogue spirit mages on his own, leaving just Tahir in Shukri, Meti, and Theo’s room. Meti had taken out her notes on the planar rift-creating device and started to copy them to new parchment. “And so you still prove yourself danger prone even in one of the safest places you could possibly be. It is honestly impressive.”
Tahir sighed. “How was I supposed to know they’d attack out in front of the library of all places?” He replied. “It seemed random - the spirit mage summoned a spirit he knew would be difficult for guards to deal with, but with a risky amount of mana, so it made me think that it was a distraction for something, and he never meant to get involved.” He shrugged. “Well, I said that to myself out loud when I was waiting for them to question me, so they might follow that lead themselves. In any case, I’m ready to put this behind me until they need me again in favor of some training, and for that I’ll need to sleep.”
He stood up from the seat and made to leave, only for Shukri to stop him by grabbing his wrist. He turned to look at her, noting that her face, which had lost the scowl from earlier once Murabi started talking about Mikharma, had a pensive and thoughtful expression. “If I may. I would like to sleep in your room tonight.”
Tahir blinked, and took a couple of seconds to process what she’d asked him. “I-what? Why?”
“Just so I can be assured you won’t disappear in the night while I’m not with you.” She said, giving his wrist a squeeze, her ears downturned and flat against her head.
Tahir thought back to how she must have felt - running through the city with Mikharma, Murabi, and Hasio, and only hearing about where Tahir was and what had happened to him second-hand. He’d be beyond worried if that happened to anyone else. “Sure, Shukri. Let’s go-” With a smile and a wave back to Meti and Theo, she took two large bounding steps past Tahir and pulled him along by the wrist back to his own room.
And so, he spent the night with Shukri. She wouldn’t have it when he tried to sleep on his own very comfortable chair, and remained staunchly attached to him the entire night. Her arms wrapped snugly around his chest to keep him close, as if he really would just slip away in the middle of the night if he didn’t. That being said, she fell asleep much faster than he did, and felt her squeeze him tightly at multiple points - so tightly that he almost suspected her of using aura in her sleep, but had to accept that it was just the differences in their physique.
Still, he’d be lying if he tried to say he didn’t enjoy the attention, and this time around, he didn’t feel the need to summon a spirit to keep watch.