With the monster attack still underway, only a few adventurers arrived as reinforcements. I helped Vel restrain the two thieves with more catalysts and thread. In the end, each was secured inside a tight cocoon of thread held aloft by three catalysts that also served to maintain the sleep and calm spells that kept them docile.
None of them had been injured in the fighting but I ran a quick diagnostic anyway. It was good that I did since I spotted something strange in their mouths, fake teeth with some kind of enchantment. I none too gently pried open the mouth of the woman, she had tried to stab me with daggers coated in a particularly deadly poison after all, and examined the enchantment more closely. Primarily, I looked for any traps that might be triggered if I removed it but it seemed that the enchanter hadn't anticipated that particular scenario.
"What are you doing?" Sarah asked.
"They have enchanted fake teeth," I said, "I'm not completely certain what they do, it could be something that can help them escape captivity, or it could be some form of suicide device."
"To prevent interrogation?" Sarah said, with a frown. "This is extreme, even for professional thieves."
"As I said, I'm not sure, but I don't want to take risks."
With a slight application of Reconstruction, I pushed the pair of offending teeth out and into my gloved hand then, I used Regrowth to patch up the missing teeth. I made them disappear into my storage item and repeated the process for the other two. A quick use of Cleanse removed all the blood that had inevitably dripped from the captive's mouth.
"That was …" Sarah grimaced, she looked a little green.
"The mouth has a lot of blood vessels," I explained, "it can look bad but it's not."
"Healers," she shook her head.
"I did a full scan," Vel said, "nothing else unusual. Lots of old scars, some faint traces of poison in their blood, nothing that looks unusual for a rogue. One of them was impaled on something in the past and his intestines are still damaged. They probably haven't seen a good healer in a while."
"Not sure there are a lot of bandit healers," I said with a shrug.
"Anyway, let's wait for Ottar," Sarah said. "Everyone, stay sharp!" She said, louder this time. "We caught one group but it doesn’t mean they were the only ones."
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Despite everything, the caravan continued its slow advance towards the next checkpoint. It would delay their schedule too much to stop, in addition to the difficulty of defending the whole line of carts once stopped. Ottar reached our group with a small contingent of higher leveled adventurers.
"How did you detect them?" He asked.
"I have several magic detection skills," I said, "they interact strangely with stealth skills under certain circumstances."
It was vague, unlike in the villages, classes and skills were closely guarded among adventurers. It was a dangerous profession that sometimes attracted enemies, the less information they had, the better; doubly so for Vel and I who were on the run from the Crimson Lys.
"Currently, they are kept in magically enforced sleep," I continued, "Velatha and I searched them for any magical items, they had one storage ring, weapons enchanted for hardness and damage, and expanded pouches with a variety of tools. In addition to this, all three of them had enchanted teeth with several spells stored inside, including one to kill the user."
"This is unusual," Ottar frowned.
"We suspect that there is at least one tamer in their group," Vel chimed in, "who is responsible for the increased frequency of monster attacks."
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
"Is such a thing possible," one of Ottar's escort asked, she was a short Harekin rogue with gray armor that matched the color of her long ears.
"If they manage to tame an alpha," Sarah answered, "but it's very dangerous. If they lose control …" She didn't explicitly mention it but it was obvious that the tamer would likely end up as a snack of their own minion.
"We'll interrogate these three first," Ottar said. "Can you wake them up?"
"I will start with the woman," I said.
I disabled the sleep spell in the catalyst and used the diagnostic function of Regrowth to keep an eye on her vitals. I knew the exact moment she woke up, her brain activity picked up and her heart rate increased significantly. There were almost no outward signs, however, only a barely perceptible increase in breathing rate. I wasn't sure if it was the result of a skill or training but it was impressive.
"Did it work?" The expedition leader asked with a slight frown.
"She still looks like she's sleeping," the harekin added.
"Her vital signs show she is awake," I said. "She is only pretending to be asleep." Feeling a bit vindictive, her group had attacked very close to my allocated rest time, I conjured a large ball of cold water over her head and drenched her.
"Ah!" She yelped in surprise. "What the … hell …" she slurred out, her eyes unfocused and glassy, as the Calm spell evened out the spike of aggression. "… did you do to me?"
"She's all yours," I said and moved her towards Ottar and his group.
I hung at the back of the interrogation, Vel had switched her rest period with me, and kept an eye on the woman's vitals. The harekin woman, who went by the name of Rellen, led the interrogation and asked all sorts of questions but the thief wasn't very cooperative. Not unexpected, really, but when the idea of using torture was brought up by one of the interrogators, I put my foot down.
"There will be no torture," I said, my voice brokered no argument, "physical or psychological." There were lines I was not willing to cross, no matter what. I had sworn, as a healer, that I would not allow needless suffering.
Everyone was looking at me strangely, including the thief.
"We must know the danger this group represents to the caravan," Ottar said. "She and her companions are our only source of information."
"And torture is not a reliable way of obtaining this information," I answered. With a wave of my hand, I put the thief back under the Sleep spell. "I will prepare a mind magic spell to make her cooperate with the questioning." It was still an incredible breach of ethics but … "At least it will at least be productive."
There was a long moment of silence in the group as Rellen and I were locked in a staring contest.
"We'll do it your way first," she said, "but if it doesn't bear fruit, then you won't object further to my methods."
"I won’t," I answered, "and I'll see that she survives your barbaric practices."
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For several hours, I dove back into Psychic Magic. It was the branch of magic I had studied the least out of the options at my disposal. I had to rely quite heavily on the knowledge provided by the skill to fill in the gaps. Slowly, with the help of several mental constructs, the spells took shape.
The first one was the least offensive of the two, Detect Falsehood. When cast, it would inform the caster if the target spoke something they knew to be false. There were no real ways to know if what the target knew was true or not, at least not without Knowledge domain spells. The second was something closer to the Dominate spell I already had. The Compulsion spell would, as the name implied, compel the victim to follow the commands of the caster.
I prepared them both into major spell slots.
"The spells are ready," I approached Rellen and her group. They had stayed close the whole time, guarding the prisoners. I had a feeling some of them expected me to free them, for some reason.
"Wake her up," she said. I canceled the sleep spell once again and, this time, the thief did not try to fake being asleep.
"We will proceed with the interrogation," I addressed the thief. "I will cast mind magic spells on you to compel answers and ensure their veracity," I explained, "I will monitor your vital signs and pause the process if it becomes hazardous to your health. Do not attempt to resist the influence of the spells, I will know. Do you understand?"
"Why?" She asked. "Why did you stop them?"
"Because I took an oath as a healer," I answered. "Do you understand what I just told you?"
"Yes," she nodded.
I placed the index and middle fingers from my lower right hand on her neck and cast Regrowth to keep an eye on her. Then, I placed my upper set of hands on her temples and cast both Detect Falsehood and Compulsion, the second one with the intent to force her to answer any questions asked of her. I felt her shudder when the mental command took hold.
"How many fingers, answer truthfully," I held up three fingers.
"Three," and the spell reported it as truth.
"Again but answer untruthfully," I held up two fingers.
"Three," the spell recorded it as false.
I did a few more checks with colored lights and shapes to ensure that it was not a fluke. Behind me, Rellen's impatience seemed to grow by the second.
"Everything works as expected," I said and oriented the thief towards the group, "the spells are holding."
"Finally," Rellen rolled her shoulders. I rolled my eyes. "State your full name."
"Dimsai Stelle," the thief answered. I nodded.