“Taveon, Faye, I’ve found something!” Gavan shouted.
Faye looked over in surprise. She had stopped paying attention to what the others were doing and had no idea what they were up to. Taveon had also moved away from the mage and looked up with a similar expression to Faye’s.
“You did?” the old schoolmaster called.
Gavan did not reply other than gesturing them to come over quicker.
Faye dismissed her status screen and moved over to the excited mage. He was circling the spot of the ruined fortress he had set up a ritual in, glaring at the lines on the ground and something in mid-air as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.
Frowning for a moment, Faye realised that there probably was something interesting hanging there.
She activated [Mana Sense].
Suddenly, the multi-coloured swirls of mana popped into sight. They spun and twirled around the ruin but were drawing inexorably closer and closer to the ritual point. There, blazing as brightly as a roaring fire, spun an orb of mana.
“What is it?” she asked when she was close enough to not have to shout.
“Mana signature,” Gavan replied. “A complex signature.”
Faye nodded, as if that answered her question. Gavan did not notice but Taveon had. He offered an explanation.
“Long term use of magic, or extremely powerful magical effects, are likely to leave behind traces. By using a ritual designed to concentrate those traces, we can see what we tend to call the mana signature.” He pointed at the one Gavan was studying. “In some cases, they are incredibly complex and are made up of many strands of mana. In others, they are much easier to unravel.”
“What makes this one so interesting?” she asked.
“That spirit,” Gavan said, waving a hand vaguely.
“The Ancient Spectre.”
He nodded. “Right. It was here for a reason.”
Faye frowned. “Like a divine reason, or like a ‘someone planted a trap’-reason?”
“Neither. It was a side effect of some incredibly powerful magic. We cannot see the full effect of the spell; the ritual is not capable.”
Taveon hummed. “Interesting. High level magic is at least this complex, as a rule.”
It was beautiful. The lines of mana were in constant motion, just like normal, but the ritual had pulled the mana together to show a pattern that the mana flowed through endlessly.
“Beautiful,” she said, “but that still doesn’t tell me why you were searching for it.”
Gavan looked up, a shocked expression writ plainly on his face. Faye made a face and put her hands up.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, don’t make that face.”
Taveon laughed. “Hah, don’t worry about him, lass. It’s just that we talked about this, at length, earlier.”
Faye felt her cheeks flush. “I’m sorry, I really am. My head was in the clouds.”
Gavan just shook his head a little. “For someone who was so interested in magic…”
“Hey!” Faye said, “I am interested, I just—”
“Get baited easily,” Gavan finished, with a grin. He waved a hand. “Okay, so we were looking for evidence of whatever magic prompted the Spectre. You, and an entire adventuring team, were drawn here. They were killed. You almost were.”
Faye’s mouth dropped open.
“Drawn here?” Faye said.
“Aye,” Taveon said, “you were, by all accounts, an incredibly low level. The adventurers were not. If they were affected by whatever magic was here, it stands to reason that you were as well.”
“But I was miles away, days even!”
Taveon nodded. “And instead of wandering east, towards the lowlands and the sea, you wandered into mountains.”
Faye thought about it. She could hardly recall her choices at the time but looking back on it there was nothing inherently bad about the decision. Was there?
“Was coming to the mountains a bad idea?” she asked.
Gavan shrugged. “In most cases, a mountain is not going to be a clever idea. Less food, more monsters, harder terrain.”
“Ignoring the monsters,” Taveon said, “for your lack of knowledge, it is still a questionable decision for someone finding themselves in the middle of the wilderness.”
Faye supposed she had to agree. Even now, it was tough to remember what her reasoning had been. Nothing the mage and schoolmaster were saying triggered any memories of her thought process.
“I don’t know why I came this way. But, if you think that the magic, whatever it was, could have reached me all the way down there…” she waved a hand vaguely in the direction she had come from, “then I guess I have to agree.”
Stolen story; please report.
They all turned to look down the slope of the mountainside, into the foothills of the valley below as it nestled between the arms of the mountains around them.
“It would be a wonder to see the place you first found yourself in, Faye,” Taveon said, his eyes glinting in the light. He grinned. “I am certain that scholars the world over would eat their own arms to get a copy of our research if we examined it.”
Faye nodded. “I’m sure, but I doubt I would be able to find it. It was days to the east. I remember vague milestones along the journey, but there is no way I could find my way back to the starting point.”
“I know,” he said with a sigh, “it isn’t feasible right now. Maybe, one day, the mystery of your coming here will be revealed. Until then, we have rebuilding efforts to join.”
Gavan said that he wanted an hour or two to study the spell signature. Whilst they had to get back, there were still a day or two left in the time limit they had initially set themselves.
In truth, Faye was eager to get back, but Taveon was more than willing to give Gavan the time.
“Is everything alright?” she asked him. He was ‘packing’ his things, despite them having already packed everything they needed. Taveon was removing and adding the same items over and over.
His hands faltered.
“Not really,” he whispered, looking over his shoulder at the still-busy mage. “I really messed up, Faye. Those kids…”
She laid a discreet hand on his shoulder.
“We will always feel like we could have done more.”
Taveon shook her hand off. “I know that, but Faye… those kids were my responsibility. I was supposed to ensure they were safe whilst their parents defended the town. They relied on me, and I let the Primalists—”
“You didn’t let them do it,” Faye whispered, insistently. “None of us let them do anything, Taveon. They stormed the bloody town and did what they pleased. None of us knew what was coming.”
He made a sound in the back of his throat. “I know that. I do.”
She eyed him. “You didn’t pick up a bane, did you?”
Taveon paused for a moment, and then shook his head, “Nope, just an old fuck up.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, just in case that didn’t translate, that was my way of telling you to shut it and stop being ridiculous.”
The old man sighed and stood up straight. He looked her in the eyes. “I appreciate it, Faye. I’m not beating myself up for no reason, though. I should have done better.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Everyone probably did at least one thing in a sub-optimal way, or managed to miss something, or got someone hurt, didn’t move fast enough to save someone, or a myriad other things. At the end of the day, the town has a lot of learning to do after this.”
“The adventurers most of all,” Gavan’s quiet voice added.
They both spun around to look. He smiled apologetically.
“Couldn’t help but overhear.”
“Bah,” Taveon said, waving a hand. “Wasn’t being too quiet.”
“The team over there,” Gavan said, nodding at the bodies wrapped in shrouds, laid out in a row by one wall, “were professionals. The biggest, most put together team that Lóthaven had. They failed. Sometimes, there is nothing we can do but try to do better next time.”
They lapsed into silence. Faye clapped Taveon on the shoulder again.
“Gavan, get your study on. Taveon, let’s prepare to take the adventurers back.”
The Guild had provisioned them with a stone of recall. It was an expensive magical artefact that would take them from wherever they were back to the Lóthaven town square. Faye half suspected that if the possibility of them returning with the dead adventurers had not been present, they would not have been given the expensive and rare item.
As it was, Faye had already used one. The adventuring team had had one but were unable to use it before succumbing to the spectre.
The explanation for the stone was simultaneously more than she had been expecting and less complex than it should have been. Anything in touch with the stone before its use would be teleported back to the anchor location. That meant they would need to arrange the bodies in a manner that allowed the three of them to be in physical contact with each other and the bodies.
If whoever used the stone slipped out of contact with anyone, or anything, before activating the artefact… whoever was no longer in that daisy chain of touch would be left behind. With no supplies.
She shivered and turned to do what she had suggested. No use gathering wool.
----------------------------------------
The first time Faye had unknowingly used a stone of recall, she had found herself pulled between places in a strange, interminable split second that lasted aeons.
This time, it was as if she blinked and moved an inch.
She did actually blink and stare around the town square, unable to believe the simplicity of the teleport. Gavan and Taveon were crouched next to her. They had lain the bodies in an overlapping pentagon and then each of them used a single hand to grab hold of each other person, and one hand to hold one of the adventurers.
The crowd around them grew silent quickly.
Word must have spread about their goal, no one seemed surprised to see them. One of the women nearby came close and offered them all a waterskin to drink from.
“Here, drink something,” she said, handing the skin to Taveon. He took it with a nod and swigged from it with gusto. He passed it to Faye.
It was a sweet wine, and it went down easily, but Faye resisted gulping too much of it. She knew that the wines here were often much stronger than they first tasted.
“Our thanks, Nef.”
She gave a sad smile, sad something quietly over the bodies, and moved on.
It occurred to Faye that she knew nothing of these people’s customs and religions. Did they practice a religion? Were there priests that could dress and bury the bodies in a respectful manner?
There must be, she thought, but I can’t say I’ve seen one the entire time I’ve lived here.
Lóthaven was one of those places that was small enough you felt like you knew the whole place, but large enough you were more than likely able to run across new people every day.
Soon enough, Guild attendants arrived with carts. They were careful in loading the adventuring team onto them. The leader of the attendants stood close by as they worked. He lowered his voice to a near murmur.
“What happened to them?”
Taveon glanced at the man. He did not seem to be gossiping but was genuinely curious. He had noticed their shrouds covered whole bodies, rather than bloated remains or picked clean skeletons.
“High level monster,” Taveon said. It was what they had agreed to say, nothing more, nothing less.
“What kind o’ monster does that to people?”
“The kind that won’t be doing that to people ever again,” Faye said.
The man turned to look at them with a new expression. Awe.
“Is that so?”
“Just the job,” she replied.
The man hummed and nodded to them as his team was ready to move back to the Guild.
They watched them go. The carts laid two per bed, which was as respectful as they could be amongst the wreckage and rebuilding of the town. Faye looked around. The town square was messy, seemingly disorganised, and filled with people that carried building supplies or shifted debris from piles to carts.
“There’s so much to do,” Faye said.
“Best get on with it then, hadn’t we?” Taveon said with a gruff sigh. “Right, I’ll get on and see what I can do to help. Faye, you get up to the Guild. I will see you when you return.”
She turned to the old man. He was acting like a distant geriatric, but she could sense the warmth underneath. She grabbed him in a tight hug.
“Thanks, old man. I’ll be back.”
“Good journey,” he said back, returning the hug and patting her on the back as they broke apart. “Travel well and come back to us in one piece, won’t you?”
“Aye, I’ll try,” she said.
The next moment, he nodded and turned to stride off into the crowds. She did not want to stand around and get emotional, so she turned for the road toward the Guild hall. Gavan stepped in beside her.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It will be here when you return.”
Faye did not know what to say to that. She had thought the same thing before they had left for the Steading to the north, as well. They had come back to a town under siege.
She sighed and put on a burst of speed.
“Well, let’s get this started.”