Even before the sobering news hit the auditorium, the adventurers stilled under his presence. Each breath he took, each instance his shoulders rose and fell, Val’s gaze would snap back into focus—sharpen, even. Something she couldn’t pinpoint drew her to his frame, and it wasn’t only her. The aether particles themselves, ever frozen and indifferent, drifted towards his direction like his body’s mass inducted its gravity onto them. Regardless, his words didn’t need much power to carry across the dead silent room, especially considering the content.
“Rifts that concern Novices like you—Copper-rung rifts, specifically—are and have been acting strangely. The Rule of Progression is completely defective as of late. To top it off, we are reaching record-high numbers in rift ruptures,” he said, stating three major implications.
“With these troubles plaguing every region, the government put out a call for aid. I am here to inform you that a decision has already been made by myself and other figures in the guild.” For a beat, he let his information sink, eyes narrowing a tad as the room’s energy shifted.
“Age of Atera agreed to be a helping hand wherever requested. As one can guess, the majority of souls inside this room are affected. All I can do is ask for your cooperation. Nothing will be held against you if you decide to take a break from rift-diving. I just hope you can understand that the country, too, requires our support.”
Val hummed in thought, taking in not the message, but the messenger. The relatively tall guildmaster looked to be clocking into his sixties, his time slowly but surely ticking away. According to Magus Kane, in front of her stood a man who paid respects to adventurers across the country. To her, though, this was a simple old man she stumbled across in Runic Mead, barely making a show of her mistake and going so far as to wink at her.
He wasn’t sugarcoating the heightened perils one would find in a rift. For a time, diving harboured its dangerous half far more than its lucrative half. Yet, Val still believed he’d remain true to his words even if the entire rank of sixth-class and fifth-class adventurers retired their badges for a season.
With these facts laid bare for all to see, she gathered this was precisely why it would be so well received in the next few seconds. Not due to the fact he said and gave what many may call the standard treatment, but because he was the one standing at the front, relaying his choices.
The seasoned adventurers of the likes of Rick and Bo offered guildmaster Thorne a mage’s bow in their seats and the remainder of the congregation followed their example so swiftly, it might’ve appeared practiced to the average eye. Magister Thorne’s smile reached his ears, gratitude woven along the groves of his expression.
“Your service will be remembered,” he said, returning the favour to his guild members. Attention ever on their guildmaster, the colleagues at his back snapped a mage’s bow in accordance, hands across the torso. The weight of the agreement hung heavy on the assembly, knowing at least one of them might not be sitting here by the end of the summer. They signed up for this, essentially—doubly so in Val’s case, an Aether Artifact wielder.
Magister Thorne continued to explain the logistics behind his decision in its entirety, spelling out the types of requests inbound for the hundreds in their seats. Heavy-hitting artillery squads were likely waiting on damage control assignments—which were attempts to curb a rift in advance of it's rupture—while swifter squads composed of more Hunters were designated rescue missions for trapped teams. Val shivered at the thought, confined to the wilds with no means of escaping, no help in sight.
With the lengths to which the guildmaster went to describe the sudden crisis, Val could only imagine the country’s distress rising once word hit the news. That’s if it isn’t already out.
“I will now consider this meeting concluded,” he announced twenty minutes into his speech. “If there are answers to be had, please look to one of us—” he swept a hand to the lined mages at his back “—or the higher-ranked adventurers next to you. Thank you. That will be all.”
Adventurers erupted into discussions as soon as possible, and Val caught hints of ideas in the works, from schemes to take advantage of the times to vacation locations and dates. People spilled into the aisles, only pausing to greet the esteemed mages atop the stage. Hammer Squad, on the other hand, turned to Magus Kane with the same strained question in their narrowed gazes. Was their ban lifted under these circumstances?
Magus Kane seemed hesitant, frowning in thought for well into a minute. Then, he gave the smallest shake of his head, his near-shoulder-length dreads shaking the slightest bit. “Sit tight. These situations call for far more nuance and skill than prior.”
No one could argue with his reasoning. That didn’t mean, however, they were any less disappointed. Otis’ slipped back on his hat, wisely covering his face in the action, and the quieter ones—Lenson and Nightingale—settled to press their eyes shut and let out a soft sigh.
“Riiiiiick,” Caro whipped around to her former team, long limbs splayed over into the row behind. “Take me with you!”
“Seconded,” Jesal said, turning to his older cousin. “Sil, you know you owe me.”
“Not a chance in hell I’m taking you,” she replied in a heartbeat.
Rick wrestled a smile off his lips, failing to suppress a chuckle. “You know I would if I could. For the most part, in Carielle’s case,” he added a second later and shot Magus Kane with a look of poor understanding.
“I know right,” the Magus muttered, and Caro whipped onto him so quickly, Val could practically hear every word and insult in her mind. Realizing a Magus was the one sitting next to her, she froze midway, mouth cracked open. Everyone broke out in laughter at her antics—especially the sore losers from earlier in the day—and, in a blink, Hammer squad put the letdown behind them. Well, most of Hammer Squad, that was.
Once again, Val couldn’t shake the feeling that something—or rather, someone—was watching her. It felt entirely different from Clemintine’s cold, taunting look and far off from guildmaster Thorne’s force-filled, dream-invoking aura. Instead, it scratched at the base of her skull, tickled at the forefront of her consciousness, and played a weird game with her arcane senses. Out of impulse, she searched for the source, and her instincts brought her to where she last saw the wild-haired mage adjacent to Magister Thorne, the Bane of Humanity.
In a play of fate that Val was pretty sure she’d been a part of before, she was already gone…
----------------------------------------
The ball fell. Over and over—and not for the last time—over again, it fell. Rhodes made it so. Once a young mage with too much time on her hand, she’d long ago perfected the art of throwing the object high into the air, barreling at the ceiling above where she lay fully prone, and then swallowed by a space portal she conjured.
As intended, a slight wind would rustle her afro a tiny bit as the ball reappeared beside her, shooting upwards from the connective portal hovering about her head. She’d then manipulate its gravity, knowing that even after it readjusted and its original velocity staved off, it would still break a hole into the room above.
The fact was evident even without her Aether Artifact conveniently displaying the ever-changing numbers of its variables for her, and she’d wish the problem on her mind would be even half as visible. On the contrary, it was all too similar to the complex route the ball travelled—up, then suddenly down, caught in her hands, and dashed into the same never-ending cycle once more.
How was it that Magister Thorne discovered Valory before she’d been declared what Rhodes assumed to be a tri-bound mage with a low gold PAST—and that was the minimum guess, she kept reminding herself—years ahead of everyone. How was it that he’d wrapped the entire thing so flawlessly, his only mistake was not accounting for familial relations. How was it that Valory decided to become a mage during which not one, but two Age of Atera members had been present to support her claim?
Why go so far as to hide it in the first place and—the winning question, really—was it even him? The man, for all his credit, achievements and standing, was the most straightforward person there lived. She could attest to that fact easily by him simply being a friend of her mother’s. Quite atypical for a dean of her class, she detested convoluted things and people.
“Roundabout” wasn’t in Thorne’s dictionary. He built his guild off of merit alone, disregarding the Halos mages were born in and giving his adventurers the tools to build themself up for a feeble fee of 1% percent tax. And of course, the gentleman he was, Thorne excused the first three dives of adventures fourth-class and below.
No one could deem him a hypocrite either, since the Magister started with himself. Each of his banes, from the dear friend she found in Olive to the oldest of the five, had been strays—random people he met on his random trips.
Information never failed a soldier, but damn did these facts leave her more confused than her regular cases. After all, more than half a year passed since the gathering at Commitee's Say following the trials, and Captain Rhodes merely found herself inches closer than before.
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And then the ball, twirling in the hands of a dual-bound Magus and Spiravale’s gravitational force, was caught. Rhodes’ visibility cleared, snapping into focus on the broad hand hovering inches above her face. She moved it aside slowly, registering the lived-in house surrounding her, the aged scent of the decade-old couch she held hostage, and the fingers closing around her palm.
“Not bad,” she grinned, gently reminding herself that no, she was not Captain Rhodes outside of work, inside the Hayes household, staring into the amused eyes above her. “Even a Novice would be hard-pressed to catch it at that speed.”
“Good thing I’m not your average typic,” came Brad’s answer as he rounded the couch. He grabbed her military-assigned hat by the brim, setting it aside onto the nearby table. Taking a seat on the armrest, he loosened his hold on her hand to plant the bottle cap-sized ball into her palm. “Here you go.”
Fiona’s grin dialed back into an appreciative smile, swapping the ball over into her other hand in favour of holding onto his. That didn’t stop her from fiddling with it, rolling it over in her palm, inspecting it between a thumb and index finger.
“Alright, what is it,” Brad—Carielle's older brother—asked in his monotone voice. While any other person would take it to heart, she came to accept it as a trait of his, one of many she learned to look for, to memorize. “You’ve obviously got something on your mind.”
“I’m thinking about... let's just say I'm thinking about talent,” she said, her smile now peeled back into a hard line. “You know Second Lieutenant Edmund, the Lieutenant-Colonel's daughter? She’s about to rank up to Adept. Took her a short five years to accomplish it.”
“I’ve heard,” he said, taking it upon himself to gently comb through her hair—just what she wanted subsequent to a long day inside a Platnium-rung rift in search of criminal runaways. Nothing like the wilds to hideaway, no cameras or laws in sight. Unfortunately, she'd been trained and primed for the exact job of capturing their kind. “It’s phenomenal if you hit it in seven,” Brad added.
“Right? And while five years is nothing to scoff at…” her mind couldn’t help wandering to the list of outright monsters months away from entering post-secondary institutes. “Some prodigies accomplish it in three. Surprisingly, many in this year's cohort may do it in less. I’m talking up to fifty Adepts prior to the end of year two, perhaps including both Carielle and Valory.”
“What?” The fingers running through her curls froze. “Caro and Val? Valory Efron?”
“Yeah, I’m not kidding. Caro’s ASC is terribly high, paired with an above-average PAST. What’s more, the girl lives for the next fight. So she’s definitely on track for that. Val, on the other hand, has your—” she poked his chin from beneath “—work ethic and, on the opposite end, a terribly high PAST. Just a matter of time.”
Fiona’s hardly treated to the comedic sight of Brad’s stoic expression warped in any direction. The laughter that bubbled out of her chest surprised her just as much as it did Brad, but that did nothing to dim the intensity of the arrant delight in his eyes, lips curled upward and gaze far off as he reminisced about one thing or the other.
“Excited for your sister?”
“For both of them.” He turned his head back to the picture wall behind the couch, freezing on Valory’s picture from her elementary days. Fiona found it a bit strange for the rather equal consideration between the two sixteen-year-old girls she discerned in his demeanour. Now that I think about it… He’d always show off Val’s pictures alongside his family during the rare moments he felt like sharing. The detail really never fell into place until now. He’s closer to Valory than I realized, she mused, and a wave of clarity brought a sudden idea.
“Hey, this might come off as a bit weird,” she began, “but has Valory ever been through something traumatic?”
Brad startled out of his reverie and gave her a weird look even as he sighed. “Plenty of stuff. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Start at the beginning.”
He tilted his head, his confusion deepening. “Are you going to tell me why?”
"Not yet."
Brad stared at her from above, studying the strain in her taut expression. Fiona sincerely wished she could fill him in—and she would very soon—she simply required more of the story, to have an idea where it began and ended prior to letting it out.
As people in their line of work—a Defender on one end, and a soldier on the other—they understood the weight behind certain experiences. The story remained the person’s, and theirs alone to share. In the same vein, though, they were prepped to read study cases that delved deep into a subject’s life, personal connections, even their psyche—and she’d very much jump straight into that information well had there been any.
That was the crux of the issue. There was nothing to be found. According to the files, Valory was an ex-pickpocket, borderline orphaned due to unfortunate cirumstaces, and yet remained a top-achieving student, an abiding citizen, and an all-around great sister. It simply didn’t scream hidden tri-bound gold to Fiona.
“You need this,” he stated, more than asked, and her nod said as much.
“If this is for her own good—and knowing you, it most definitely is—promise me you’ll tell her and ask her yourself later.” He lurched forward to ensure she caught the weight behind his statement. Moving in closer, he kneaded the wrinkles pinching between her eyebrows with two fingers, almost like soothing Fiona’s discomfort might do away with his. “Val… doesn’t like mysteries. Can’t fault her when she’s been surrounded by them her whole life.”
Fiona clicked her tongue at the irony in his words. I’m merely adding to the mess on that front. Sitting up straight, she moved to take his hands and clasped them between two of hers.
“Promise. I just…” and when other words failed her, she ended up falling back on the same five she’d thought before. “I need the whole story.”
“Okay,” he said, heaving a great sigh. “Val didn’t grow up having much. Most in Quintar don’t. Her father was a third-rate adventurer and her mother was an average healer with a damning condition. They made ends meet, though, doing odd jobs here and there.”
A smile came upon his face, reaching his light-brown irises. “One of her mother’s jobs had her visiting neighbouring cities. It's how she and my mom became good friends.”
His smile tapered off till it vanished. “It all went downhill once Aunt Tay, Val’s mother, was carrying Andy. Uncle Raven stuck it out in rifts longer and longer to provide for a new kid, and Aunt Tay’s pregnancy kept becoming more complicated. When the time came, the doctors prioritized her child, believing they could siphon the extra aether at a later time.”
A shake of the head. “Didn’t go as planned, and the room they used to keep her alive was nothing anyone in Quintar could afford to pay. So Uncle Raven continued to dive all the rifts he could, until one… one finally did him in.”
Fiona didn’t interrupt his pause, letting him breathe. The story was as much his as it was Valory’s. “Val didn’t lose her father that day—she lost her best friend. You could barely separate the two. Then… then came that nasty rumour.”
Shifting her hand, Fiona rested it on his arm and gave it a squeeze. Likely of its own accord, his features had warped into a deep scowl, and his next words made her join right along with him. “The insurance for teamwipes was meant to be a blessing. His wife’s medical bills had been paid for a decade, and his children’s education was secured. Instead, people thought a man like him—”
“I know,” she cut him off, having found the information in her deep dive. “I know. He didn’t do it on purpose. I find it hard to believe the CAU invested time to look into it. That’s how improbable it is. Nevertheless, it at least cleared his name.”
“Not to most. Not to his Horizon’s Silence,” he spat, citing the guild of Valory’s father. “Not to his teammates’ relatives, not to the general public. For the number of deaths in the teamwipe and the number of lives it affected, people wanted someone to blame, something to pin their grief and anger to. To this day, the rumour follows Val wherever she goes. She went from having loving parents and friends to having no one except her kid brothers in a matter of months.”
And the story from there, Rhodes determined, continued in that downward spiral. Valory, fighting to gain a livelihood for the remainder of her family, was recruited by a shady pub owner. In such a place, exposed to heavens-knew-what, she had to grow up in weeks if she wanted to keep her wits about her—and she did.
She counted every cent that came and went, even when she later stuck it out in mines to add to her income. Pick-pocketing came from a sense of desperation, Brad told her, a means to help her father while he tried to provide for them in her earlier years.
“Landed her in a jail cell most times at the precinct for a day,” Brad went on to explain. “Got her beaten to a pulp other times. It’s why she’s so hard to crack. Luckily she was a minor at the time, so it’s not on her record unless you take a deep dive.”
Fiona rubbed at her face. “She did not have it easy.”
“Far from it,” Brad agreed grimly, and he stared straight into the eyes of a Magus, center-level with his girlfriend. “Fio. Why do you want her background info?”
Not solely her background info, she repeated internally, her sights turning elsewhere. The whole story. On the very, very bright side, Fiona at long last found something, discovered the pieces the culprit left behind in a manner they couldn’t erase.
People. The people surrounding the odd case that was Valory Efron entailed the details she required. It’d been the case for the dean, and the same could be said for Brad. Who else unknowingly held the keys to the puzzle? One thing was certain—she needed her team on this.
She’d been delaying the move until now, hoping to keep the whole operation off the record. Fiona wasn’t ignorant enough to believe she could assign her subordinates unnoticed. Nevertheless, she wouldn’t always so graciously happen upon said clues. In her experience, she might never see a lucky break again when it comes to Valory.
Inhaling sharply, she threw a faint prayer above that her decision to involve more people—including the Defender biding his time next to her on the couch—would not come back to hurt her. “I believe she manifested her elements herself and, as studied, a traumatic experience is a primary cause.”
Brad, for his part, took the news in stride. “Wouldn’t we have seen it, then?”
“Someone banished it. Well, before I did, at least,” she muttered that last part, but Brad remained hooked on the beginning.
He bent low, like his emotional investment weighed heavy on his shoulders. “You’re looking for who?”
“I have a ten-to-one guess on who, at the moment, even if that half of the problem fails to add up either. Currently, I’m wondering what exactly this person is hiding her from and more importantly…”
In the portal the ball flew once again, disappearing the moment she tried to make sense of the situation.
“More importantly,” she repeated, “I’m curious and worried about why.”