“All ready?” Jeremy asked, staring pointedly at Cara rather than Ted.
She nodded, bouncing on her tiptoes with far more energy than the situation called for. “Ready!”
“Food? Water? Arrows? Climbing gear?”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re sounding like Ted now.”
Ted clapped her on the back. “And how many things did I need to remind you about?”
She glared at him and stuck out her tongue. “Tattletale!”
Jeremy muttered something unintelligible under his breath. “I have that gear I promised you, Ted. You too, Cara, unless you’re going to reject it again.”
“I make my own gear,” she said, her chest puffed out. “I can maintain it more easily, and it’s all mine.”
Ted knew better than to step into that one. Personally, he’d take whatever worked best. “Thank you. I’ll take good care of it.”
Jeremy laid out various pieces of equipment. The suit of leather armor was similar to his own. Beside that lay a straight-limbed bow, a curved short sword, and two pairs of leather boots. “At the very least Cara, take the boots. Trust me.”
“I won’t wear them, but fine. If it’ll make you happy, I’ll cart them around with me.”
Ted held up the leather armor. It was clearly high quality, with 480 armor and 96 deflection. “It’s lighter than the one I had before, but has a higher armor value.”
“My backup gear. Optimized for casters, a reduced penalty to casting stability.”
The bow was straight, and taller than other Ranger bows. With his greater height and lesser strength, it didn’t need to be recurved. It had an impressive 357 damage, 446 penetration, and a strength requirement of exactly 9. “A custom bow?”
Jeremy nodded. “I called in a favor to get it done fast. The falchion is not custom. Good damage, poor penetration. Stick to magic against anything with medium armor or above.”
Stolen story; please report.
The falchion was surprisingly light, weighing no more than a few pounds. A crossguard protected the hilt. Despite having a wide profile, the blade was about half an inch thick most of the way along, curving and narrowing at the top to a pointed tip.
It swung nicely, with a balance point just below a quarter of a way up the blade. It didn’t feel as high quality, and the numbers backed that up. 386 damage but only 193 penetration. Definitely not a weapon to use against an armored opponent. “Noted.”
Jeremy tossed a pair of boots to Cara. “Gear up and move out.”
They did as instructed, and headed out quickly. Once upon the forest floor, they headed north, traveling three abreast. They didn’t bother with Stealth. “No point,” Jeremy said. They moved faster without it, and anything that could take Jeremy down would spot Ted a mile away.
A quarter of an hour after leaving the village, Jeremy adjusted course east.
Ted wondered for a moment if he’d read the maps wrong. “Isn’t the Divine Empire north?”
No response from Jeremy, and Cara looked equally confused. Whatever he was up to, this wasn’t an accident. Jeremy wouldn’t make a mistake like that.
“We’re heading east,” Ted said. “Where are we going?”
Cara’s face lit up. “The ruins! I’ve always wanted to explore them.”
That sounded familiar. Perhaps one of the many books he’d skimmed had mentioned it. “What stopped you?”
“Stupid rules. We have a saying, ‘Don’t prod the past, it might prod back.’ I even promised not to touch anything! They still wouldn’t let me go.”
Jeremy picked up the pace. “Not a word to anyone. Normal times, it’s a smart rule. Right now, we need every edge we can get.”
The uptick in speed forced Ted into a jog, alternating between burning stamina and regenerating it. Jeremy wasn’t the kind of person to do this on the off chance there’d be something useful there. What did he think was there? “How old are the ruins?”
“At least ten thousand years,” Jeremy said. “Records indicate it was home to wood elven mages, before the Empire destroyed it. There may be something you can use.”
Ancient magic. Many of the texts on magic had lamented the scarcity of magical aspects. After the Age of Heroes, knowledge had been hoarded, becoming a closer and closer guarded secret. The result was that a lot of magical aspects were now either lost or available only to those in the right inner circles.
Ted’s chest tingled. If this was where their mages used to gather, back when they had them, potent magics might be squirreled away there. And yet, in ten thousand years, no one had dared to explore it? No way. “It’s still sealed, and you can’t open it.”
Silence met the accusation.
Cara shook her head, the idea impossible for her to accept. “Jeremy wouldn’t go poking some old ruin. He’s too straight an arrow for that. Even if he weren’t, no way we’d be able to open it if he can’t.”
“Unless it’s sealed in particular against wood elves.” That’s what Ted would have done if he’d wanted to keep the wood elves down. Win the fight, then stop them from getting back up. Maybe that was why they didn’t have proper mages anymore.
“That’s ridiculous. Tell him, Jeremy.”
Jeremy grinned, an uncharacteristic sparkle in his eye. “What you never learned about breaking rules, Cara, is to not let people know you’re doing it.”