The first night after leaving fort Jackie was interesting. They would now need to camp during the nights since the towns were further apart. They would only run into a town every few days. That meant Thomas got to learn a new application of runes. The first night when he broached the topic of watch Abigail pulled out two sets of rune covered plates. One set was twelve plates that were actually concealment and illusion rune formations. She explained what they did, concealment runes only eliminated mana fluctuations. Thomas hadn’t started his mana sensing training yet, but she explained that most mana beasts were extremely sensitive to mana. It wasn’t uncommon for mana beasts to be able to sense them, including Mila and Angel and try to ambush them while they slept. The illusion runes actually hid them from sight. The plates were linked together and created a circle that it effected.
The second set of six plates where a set of alarm and barrier runes. They would raise an alarm and at the same time construct a dome of mana that would prevent anyone or anything from crossing it. The barrier wouldn’t last for long, but it would give them enough time to get ready for an attack. She would place them within the first set of rune plates and would make it so they wouldn’t need a watch. They were expensive but worth it, it would help prevent anything from sneaking up on them. The formation plates would degrade over time, but they would last for at least six months of daily use before they would need to be serviced by a runesmith.
They had been traveling for a few days into the true frontier. It was a normal evening with Abigail coaching him more on the Hammel cycling technique. She then started to go into detail about the different fighting styles and how they correlated with different weapons. As he watched her get more animated as she spoke, Thomas finally broke and asked, “Okay, I have tried to wait for you to tell me but how do you know all of this stuff? I have waited for you to open up and tell me more about yourself, but you avoid talking about your past. You are too skill and know way too much. I’m not going to act like I haven’t noticed that your cycling technique has the same name as a major city in the Phoenix Empire. A city you grew up in.” He paused realizing it was coming off like he was almost berating her before he sighed and said, “Abigail, you offered me an opportunity that I didn’t know I wanted or truly needed. I just want to know who my companion is, if you aren’t comfortable talking to me about it that’s fair. All I am trying to say is I want to be an actual friend; you can be truthful to me about who you are. If you aren’t comfortable then I will shut up and I won’t push it.”
The normal confidence she had seemed to leave her, she seemed to almost deflate as she looked down at her hands. She sighed and said, “I am bad at this. I wanted a friend or companion to see me for well… Me. I know that it’s not fair to you that I am hiding my background and makes it hard to connect with me.” The end of the statement came out as a whisper before she squared her shoulders and some of her normal confidence returned and said, “Let me start over then. My actual birth name is Abigail Hammel, I took my mother’s maiden name when I left and go by Thorn now. My family are Dukes in the Empire, but I ran away from home because my dad wanted to marry me off to the third prince of Rathian who wasn’t someone I could marry. How I know all this stuff is simple, I am a genius and no I’m not just bragging, I really am. I was practicing mana control by age six, starting weapons training soon after, and having full on sparing sessions by age twelve. By the time I was nineteen I was one of the best. But no matter how skilled I was my father eventually got an offer that was hard to say no to. He thought that he would get better returns by marrying me off.”
She sighed even harder before saying, “My supposed future husband was offering to move to Hammel and bring with him six thousand of his personal soldiers and knights would accompany him as an escort. They would be stationed wherever my father saw fit. On top of that he was offering to facilitate better trading deals between the two nations. Honestly, a deal that was practically impossible to refuse. My dad saw it as a total win, not counting my personal feelings on the matter. His seventh child wouldn’t even need to leave, and he would get a boost in manpower. You would think he would be concerned that eventually I would be forced to move to Rathian, and he would lose my personal power even if the soldiers were forced to stay. Knowing my dad the soldiers would have to stay for a certain length of time. That still wasn’t a huge deal breaker, yes, I am a genius but so are most of my other siblings, and if I was eventually forced to leave then he could rely on his other children still. So, it wasn’t even a real loss. The supplied troops would have been split up and used to reinforce the border between the corrupted lands and the rest of the empire, making it even harder to say no. And no, I have no clue why Rathian would be willing to send away one of their princes.”
She paused again to get her emotions under control. It was clear to Thomas that she had a mixture of frustration and sadness as she was speaking, still she continued staying, “One of the things you have to know is that my dad is a good person and loves all of his children, but he is also one of the true defenders against the corrupted lands and he loves the empire. He saw an opportunity to reinforce his border.”
An almost sad smile grew on her face, almost teary eyed as she spoke, saying “When I approached my dad and said I was vehemently against it, he simply said “Then change it.” So, I did. I left the Hammel lands, I was already registered as a B-ranked adventurer with the guild at the age of twenty-two. Being a quarter elf, that’s roughly sixteen to eighteen years old for you in human years. When the Guild Master heard of my departure from the Hammel house and that I dropping my privileges of being a Dukes daughter, he offered me a position as an Inquisitor. It sounded interesting, a way to use all the education and skills I had learned. And well now I am here, I got promoted to A-ranked during my last quest, with that I got promoted to a High Inquisitor. One of the youngest in guild history I may add. I got asked to do this quest and met you.”
She paused and pulled into herself more as she continued, “I ran away, my family respects strength and honor. It still feels like I threw mine away when I abandoned them. I know my mom and dad don’t blame me for leaving. Nine Hells my dad is probably proud of me, for standing up for my own personal honor but I am still ashamed of it. I feel like I abandoned my people, but I couldn’t just marry that man. I don’t want people to view me differently simply because of my family. That’s why I don’t tell anyone unless I have too.”
Thomas could see the naked emotions playing across her face as she glanced back at him before going back to staring at the ground. He didn’t know any of the noble families in the empire but even an idiot would know a duke was one of the most powerful families in the empire. That would make anyone feel isolated, even if she ran away, that didn’t mean her family wouldn’t swoop in and crush anyone who went against her. Even if that wasn’t likely to happen that fear would drive a wedge between any friendships she could make. Thomas could relate but in the opposite end, he was a nobody, an orphan that didn’t even have a family name. Most people weren’t that dismissive of him, but he still was shunned more often than he would have liked.
He knew he needed to say the right words now or else it could permanently damage the friendship they already had, “Abigail let me start out by saying I won’t be treating you any different. If anyone spent enough time with you, they would quickly learn you are a good person and you got where you are now by your own efforts not because of your family. So, thank you for opening up to me.”
She looked up to him and smiled, a few tears broke down her face as she spoke, “You know the last time I told someone this they requested to be transferred to a different quest the next day. It was someone I worked with for six months hunting down someone who was scamming the guild. I was a little bit scared you would leave too.”
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Thomas waved that away saying, “Nah you're fun to be around. Even if you are just a little bit of a battle maniac.” He finished with a teasing smile.
That got a chuckle out of her as she defended herself saying, “Come on you feel the most alive during a fight! Who doesn’t like feeling their blood pumping and the rush when you get a good fight!”
Nodding in agreement, he said with a smirk, “What was it like growing up as a princess?”
“I wasn’t a princess!”
“Sure… but what about your family? You said you are the seventh kid?”
A wide smile appeared on her face, “Yeah, I am the youngest out of seven. We are pretty close knit even with my oldest sibling being almost eighty years older than me. Everyone in my family are at least in the liquid stage and have some elven blood in us means we will be around for a while. My parents and siblings spent as much time as we could together even with how busy everyone was. My parents would regularly have to go and handle corrupted beasts when they appeared. When my siblings started to get strong enough, they would go to. Eventually my older bothers and sister got put in charge of forts on the border of the corrupted lands. They would still come and spend time with us, or I would take an escort to see them. They weren’t happy with my dad when it came to the marriage thing based off of the letters we have exchanged. We really didn’t talk before I left, and I haven’t been back to talk to them face to face yet. I need to send them a letter soon. You should probably send one to Tessa and that old man at the orphanage too.”
Thomas smiled at how animated she became as she spoke about her family, and he agreed sending a letter would be the right thing to do. Wanting to know more about how her life was he asked, “What is one of your favorite memories from growing up?”
She thought for a moment before an evil cackle left her lips and Thomas already knew what type of story this was going to be. She said, “One thing I should explain is being quarter elf makes you age weird. Yes, you age slower but not as severely as you would think. I looked younger than I was until I hit a growth spurt at around nineteen when my age almost matched how I looked. At the time I was probably fifteen or sixteen, but I looked about twelve. A batch of new knights came to the fort I was visiting at the time. They had just graduated from the Crimson Knight Academy. I was bored and wanted to spar, so I went down to the training yard. They never met me and when I asked to spar, they acted like I was some naïve child. When I completely humiliated the first knight, they got a bit serious. It took the fifth one to finally beat me. The look on their faces when what they thought was a twelve-year-old was beating them was priceless. I ended up staying at my brother Joe’s fort for a few weeks just fighting and training with the knights. My brothers look of defeat when he found me fighting with his new recruits will also stay with me forever. I am just glad they didn’t act weird when they found out I was their commanders’ little sister.”
Thomas laughed imagining that and said, “Of course fighting knights would be a fond memory of yours.” He paused to draw it out before, “Since you are a battle manaic princess.”
“I am not a princess!” as she sent a small ball of ice at him.
He moved his head out of the way and said with a laugh, “That’s what you have a problem with, not the battle maniac part.”
It hadn’t been that long since Thomas and Abigial met but it finally seemed like the barrier that had been between them slowly melted away. The conversation flowed between them, and they ended up staying awake longer than they normally would. Thomas felt like he was actually making a true friend for the first time in a long time. He also understood why Abigail seemed oblivious to a lot of things she did and how outrageous they were. Like how easily she spent money was because she didn’t view it the same way he did. It actually gave him some relief realizing the money she had spent on him really didn’t mean the same to her as it did to him. It also explained how she felt so at ease dealing with people in power, or well deal with any situation. She was trained to handle any type of scenario she could end up in. The more she talked about her life in Hammel the more animated she got and the better he understood her as a person. Not as a High Inquisitor or as a noble lady, but as Abigail.
The days passed quickly; the only difference now was the camping between each of the towns. It could take days before a town would come into sight. The way the towns were designed was pretty much the same as the ones they had seen before. The only real difference is they are made out of some sort of clay bricks instead of wood or stone. It was a specialty of the region, there was a river not too far away from the main road that gave it all the materials needed. It was easier to make the bricks than hauling lumber all the way down to build with. Thomas did find out Les was actually one of the biggest contributors to lumber in the region. The other big difference was the number of guards, and the walls were taller than the previous towns. Even small hamlets had decent sized walls and a good number of fighters for their size.
They followed the same pattern every time they made it to a new town. Thomas was tasked with securing them a place to sleep and start asking around about anything odd going on. Abigail said the best type of training was hands on, so she left a good part of the investigating to him. She would go buy them any items they were running low on, luckily, they stocked up pretty well before leaving Balwyn. She normally only needed to top off the fresh food supplies and even then, it wasn’t that often they actually needed anything. She did so she could spend the time just talking to the locals as her way of investigating.
Thomas would get a room for each of them and then normally head to a tavern. He would listen to what the people around him were saying. Once he got a decent understanding he would normally try and join a conversation. Eventually turned the conversation the way he wanted, to see if anything abnormal was going on. It was starting to get frustrating though, since he never found anything. Each town they passed everything always seemed normal. He even questioned if it was his ability to gather information that was the problem, but Abigail told him that he was doing fine.
After dinner, when they were alone, he talked to Abigail about it saying, “Nothing again, why haven’t we found anything?” He didn’t mean to, but the frustration bled into his voice.
She patted his arm and said, “Honestly, I agree it is confusing. I figured we would have run into something by now. Unless...” She trailed off as she sat back in thought, leaving it open for him to speculate on why.
Thomas had been thinking about it for a while and he let the words flow, “You found proof of cultists outside of Les but nothing all the way down here. Was there any reports from Helsara or Orie adventures guild?”
“No but let’s go with the assumption that they didn’t find anything.” She said as she motioned him to continue.
Thomas nodded and continued his thought saying, “So I am thinking that we are either missing all the signs that they are operating in the area or maybe Les was a test of some sort. If that’s the case, then where are they planning there next incident.” He paused before saying, “Or maybe it is still too close to Balwyn Hill, and they don’t want to risk discovery.” He finished with a shrug.
Abigail gave him one of her beaming smiles that brightened his mood considerably before saying, “That’s the thinking that shows you are a good Inquisitor. I was hoping you would come to a conclusion close to that. I think it’s a combination of those theories, I think Les was a test. There is a decent amount of mana beasts in the woods around it for them to run a test on and it’s easy to hide in the forests. It is close enough to a strong military presence to see how they would react. I also think they don’t want to risk doing something close to Balwyn after they used Les. It would be common sense that there would be more people looking around after the incident in Les was found. What I think they didn’t count on was how tightly the higherups would hold to the information and let the guild take the lead on the investigation. I told you this could take months or years, don’t let the frustration get to you.”
“I know, I know. That does make sense though, I am just worried about what they could be planning.”
“I agree with that.” She said slumping even more in her seat.
They sat in silence for a while before Thomas got a sly smile before saying, “How about we change it up tonight. A light spar then you teach me about mana sense, we haven’t started that yet.”
That got Abigail sitting up straight again, “Oh yes we need to go over that, I kind of forgot.” She finished sheepishly.
Thomas smiled, ever since she opened up about her past she finally started acting like her true self. It was nice, he wouldn’t have called her reserved before but now she seemed truly content around him. It made him feel a little guilty that he hadn’t opened up about his childhood more. Well mainly he hadn’t told her about Lily and what happened to her. Leading him to become an adventurer.
He told her “It’s fine we have been doing a lot every day.”