Alack, The Backwards Step, Pride's Undoer!
Asking a Ritualist and two Small Fry to remain calm in the face of danger, possibly supernatural danger at that, may have been an unreasonable request, but they tried. Maybe the party observing them would miss the strain in their voices or mistake it for a sudden recurrence of puberty. They enlarged on the topic of Yumin laziness and how it contrasted with typical Adaban practices, and all the while they drifted back toward the trees in response to Takki's taps and bumps.
“Of course we admit it. We don't want to lie.” Hugal put a little too much emphasis on “course” and “lie,” but he was holding up better than either he or the acting coach he never had might have expected.
“Ah, and that is the deficiency in your technique. Suppose your immediate superior asks if you believe you earn your pay. You don't want to say yes, for you prize honesty. Therefore you take up a posture of wounded pride, as if you were the one aggrieved, and repeat the question in an incredulous tone. 'Do I believe I earn my pay? Was that the question, sir?' That should conclude the matter in most cases.”
Eyanya objected. “Most isn't enough for me.”
“You are wise to ready contingencies. Suppose further that your superior possesses enough Gumption or Sticktoitiveness to insist upon an answer. Say simply this. 'It is not for me to say so, sir. Whatever your opinion, I can but concur with it.' You must speak as a wronged wife does. Should you be unfamiliar with the type, marry someone and get to work.”
Eyanya gasped. “Adabans are too much.”
Hugal nodded a head heavy with new wisdom. “We didn't close the borders because of spies and invasions after all. It was to stop these abominable methods from leaking through.”
Dirant judged his own performance to be quite satisfactory, and he found objective support for that.
> +1 to Panache gained.
He did have the advantage that his fear subsided as they approached the wood. Soon they would be away from the haunted pond area, on their way back to the camp where Takki would report whatever she had detected. Battlers made excellent witness, he imagined. He would back her up, Kelnsolt Aradetnaf would alter the security arrangements accordingly, and then on with learning if Chunawm Metals really did have an Edition Freeze Picker. If so, he had only to collect said person's name and preferred method of communication to pass to Penneram Densos.
“When he concentrates on stepping over that log, I'll charge him. Probably her, actually.” Battler Millim Takki Atsa's quiet but bold proclamation brought all that earlier fear back and more, all without a corresponding increase in cunning plans. He could hope that the spirits of the place reacted well to being charged by outsiders wielding polearms, but that was about all.
Takki pretended to stumble into Dirant at the appointed time and pushed off him to dash toward the alleged observer. Dirant, Hugal, and Eyanya whipped around to look, and the latter two improved on the tactic by diving to the ground. The peace-loving Ritualist, who had engaged in battle on a mere few occasions and for the best of reasons only, followed a bit later. Even then, his inexperience and curiosity hindered him in his effort to dedicate to the maneuver. He kept his head up and saw, or thought he saw, a blur like a dinner partner viewed through a glass raised for a toast, and that for no more than a second. Then there was nothing but a confused Battler looking back and forth, not to mention shuffling forth and back, her halberd ready to cleave the air. Birds sang. There was a squirrel.
“That's about what we expected, isn't it? Now to go back and look for traces.” Takki's words then may not have been a lie as such, but.
“She definitely thought she'd catch the culprit,” Eyanya whispered.
“No doubt about it,” Hugal agreed.
“Her movements give her away,” Dirant confirmed.
Their caution proved needless, they learned as Takki continued speaking while she extracted tweezers and a magnifying glass from her satchel. “I hoped to capture her, but it would be silly to rely on that.” She dropped to the earth much like the three behind her had done, though for a far different purpose, and started to crawl along, tools at the ready.
The other three, toolless as they were, shrugged and followed along. They still had eyes, fingers, and leisure time. Dirant also had a memory of where the strange figure stood before it vanished, he believed, but no signs remained in that spot so far as he could make out. Takki had passed over that ground as well without finding anything, and for that reason the case for a supernatural explanation grew stronger in his opinion.
That raised a point. “In the event that we fail to find evidence of human activity, when do we accept that as our conclusive result?”
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Takki stopped and looked back. “Never. You know science is always in motion, Ressi.”
“Yes, I should have been clearer. I mean for us. Today. The current investigation.”
“Oh.” She resumed her search. “I don't think we need to set any hard lines, do we?”
“Not if we want to weasel out of admitting that was a ghost,” he thought but did not say. It was too early for pointed comments, the danger too recent, and the feelings too raw. Maybe not that last part, but he decided to hold the matter in reserve to fill some later conversational gap.
Just in time, too. “Oh,” Takki said, not as a prelude to a longer statement or question, but as something full of meaning in itself. The worse-equipped investigators froze and watched her careful tweezers flick aside a few pebbles that obscured the true prize. She lifted something, or so they presumed since they could see nothing from their positions.
“Look at this,” she urged. The three scrambled around to view at last some suggestive evidence: a strand of blond hair, golden like the sun's rays or the metal so many Survyais once rushed to Droinasbirvi to unearth only to settle for iron in the end. No one there needed to say that out of the four freelance investigators, zero of them were blond. In response to Takki's anticipatory expression, Dirant went ahead and pointed out who often was blond, according to what he had heard of the world beyond the GE.
“Is this truly a Stegzin operation?”
“I'm very glad to hear you say so. Confirmation is always nice, especially when it's, what's the word . . .” She swapped to Usse. “Admission against interest.” Then she swapped back and patted Dirant's arm while, if he was not mistaken, shedding a few tears. “You've really shown us a lot of honesty today. The acting before must have been hard on you. Watch out!”
Millim Takki Atsa retracted her hand and rolled away just before a dagger stuck in the ground where she had been, which spoke to the thrower's great force, as hard as said ground was. She sprang up, halberd twirling to deflect incoming projectiles in a display of martial prowess possible for Battlers and perhaps Symbol Knights, Tiger Knights, and Acrobats, but certainly not achievable by Small Fry or Ritualists. Those unfortunates who had picked the wrong classes performed a more slapdash form of standing up, and Eyanya flubbed even that. The two gentlemen helped her up and began their withdrawal.
“I'll cover us. Don't get too far away from me.” Takki backed away, and no missile penetrated her defense. Until daggers and knives started flying in from other angles that is, some of them augmented by fire and lightning, at which point she told her dependants to pick up the pace a tad. It was an awkward retreat they made, the more so since the enemy refused to dignify the proceedings by showing up. The unseen foes instead sent weapons in their place the same way every session of the Chtrebliseu parliament opened with an announcement from a representative of the crown that the king was unable to attend that day. The main difference was that the king only occasionally tried to kill the people in his parliament.
Again Takki withdrew to the trees with the intention of reducing the avenues of attack. There at last the enemy force made itself visible. Attackers leapt into the trees, perched on narrow branches, and flung knives and daggers downward. They wore baggy garments which covered every part of their bodies from toe to nose, all of one dark color or else mottled green, brown, and orange with the evident goal of rendering the wearer harder to distinguish from the surrounding landscape. With their hair either blond or the lightest of browns tied up in buns, tails, or knots above their blue eyes, they certainly matched the descriptions of Stegzin citizens their intended victims had heard.
Though the acrobatic maneuvers and devious camouflage of those dexterous dagger-flingers made a count impossible, they outnumbered the four by a worrying proportion. More importantly, they outnumbered the single elite-combat-class-haver. Yet they held back, and as he watched them, Dirant began to understand why. A strange feeling overtook him, as if he was about to burp but could not, even when he absented himself from company to get it over with. He looked around for Holzd and saw nothing but violent Stegzins, probably, checked his main status and noticed no change, and peeked at his eligible classes list in case that secret Stegzi class talk earlier had any relevance. It did.
“It seems I qualify for that class. It's called Ninja, and the requirements are such that, to be frank, they are likely no match for you in combat, Takki.”
“I got the same impression, Ressi. It's comforting to hear more evidence. What are the requirements?” A dozen more projectiles plinked off her whirling blade.
“54 Sticktoitiveness, 48 Coordination, 42 Receptivity, between 22 and 54 Panache, and below 48 Tit-for-Tat. An odd assortment you must agree, and the lack of Muscle and Verve are suggestive as far as the nature of its abilities, if not dispositive.”
“What was that last part?” He reworked it into Adaban for her convenience. “Oh, yes, I really agree with you.”
Dirant left out the observation that grabbed him even in that perilous circumstance. The potential class list gave no indication as to what god's priesthood a class entailed. Perhaps another ability handled that. He surprised himself with his insouciance until he realized his brain had determined the circumstance not to be so perilous after all but had neglected to let him know.
The battle, such as it was, seemed firmly in Takki's favor, though the three with her might have wished that extended to them more than it did, since surely a single Battler could not defend them forever. Every dagger clinked off the halberd and fell at her feet or bounced off somewhere to be snatched up by a presumably Stegzin Ninja, but surely some would pass her by, or she would get tired, or something. Surely. As time passed, they started to feel a little bad for the Ninjas.
“I guess I don't qualify for it, so I don't have to take back what I said about changing,” Hugal said.
“It still has other uses,” Eyanya insisted in a fervent defense of a class she, too, would never become.
“Jump on to the first mine cart that comes by,” Dirant agreed. That is, he agreed with himself as to the best next step to take.
“Good idea.” Takki agreed with that as well, though whether out of concern for her dear friends, an urge to rush into the bloody fight without distractions, or eagerness to brag to everyone at the main camp about her solution of the mystery could not be determined. Dirant reminded himself to hold on to his initial feeling of shocked admiration at the confirmation of her theory when the bragging happened. He knew he would be tempted to make light of it later, when they were safe and the problem put in the hands of others, which would be unkind and untrue to his sentiments.