by Andrew Rowe
I felt a pang of guilt as I realized I’d just inadvertently made her feel worse. “Sorry, Researcher. I wish you could have one, too...” I pondered that for a moment. “What’s stopping you?”
She turned back and blinked at me. “What do you mean?”
I considered for a moment. “I know you’re a summoned version of a spire monster, but couldn’t your original take a judgment? And if she did, wouldn’t you benefit from it?”
“They don’t let us take Judgments.” She shook her head. “Half-elementals, maybe. But pure ones? I don’t know.”
“Half-elementals? You mean...?”
“Oh, sure. There are some out there. But I’m not one of them. I’m just a Fragment.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “What’s that mean?”
“A specific classification of elemental. Stronger than a Figment, weaker than a Gatherer or a Harvester. We embody specific principles of our element.”
“And you are...”
“I’m a Researcher, of course.”
I nodded. “Right. Help me research something.”
“Of course!” She smiled. “How can I help?
I showed her the circlet. “I need to test an item that only works inside the spires outside of the spires.”
“Hmmm.” Researcher looked it over. “I see what you’re trying to do. Return bells work by drawing on a specific concentration level of ambient mana. There are a few school facilities that are designed to specifically mimic that effect. You can test normal return bells or something like that in one of them.”
She gave me some directions, and I thanked her.
I turned the circlet over in my hands, still feeling weirdly empty. “Hey...Researcher?”
“Yes, Arbiter?”
“Can I just stay and study in here for a little while?”
“Of course.” She paused and frowned, maybe finally picking up something in my tone. “Stay as long as you’d like. Nothing makes me feel better like learning.”
“I feel the same way.”
My words were mostly true, but entirely hollow.
Chapter XV – Replacements
I spent the next few days feeling like garbage.
I knew, intellectually, that it wasn’t worth worrying about what I’d done during the test. I’d failed anyway, after all, and there were far greater matters of import in my life.
And it wasn’t like I’d been entirely forthcoming with everyone about everything else in my life, anyway. I wasn’t above withholding information if I thought it was important.
And graduating was important. My goals might have expanded lately, but that didn’t mean I could give up on graduating.
Still, I couldn’t help shaking the feeling of disappointment in myself.
Ultimately, I think it was because I’d let someone down that I actually respected.
I was used to being a failure in my father’s eyes.
And my mother? Well, I had no idea what she felt about me now, because she hadn’t seen fit to write me or visit.
Vellum had always been critical of me, but she’d also been eminently fair. I think that was why I respected her as much as I did.
And by omitting a little detail on that test, I’d violated a contract in my own mind. I didn’t feel like I deserved her trust.
But I also didn’t have the confidence to just go and tell her about it.
It was silly. I’d failed the test anyway. It wasn’t like she could double-fail me.
Probably.
Either way, that wasn’t what I was worried about.
I was just ashamed.
It was fortunate that most of my finals were already over, otherwise my scores might have suffered during that time.
Maybe it would have helped if I’d shared my feelings with someone else.
But I’d never been good at that.
Why am I so weak?
I asked myself that question many times, but I never found a good answer.
***
I still wasn’t in a good frame of mind when Jin came to visit, and seeing him certainly didn’t make things any better.
Neither did his news.
“I believe we are both being followed.”
I nodded to him. It was hardly a surprise at this point.
I knew someone had broken into my dorm, and I’d figured out a plan for following the trail, but I hadn’t followed it yet. I’d had too many other things going on.
I also knew that Derek was having someone follow Jin. I wasn’t sure if that was still what was going on, or if whoever was following me was also following Jin.
Either way, it was worth finding out what Jin knew, and looking into it further. “Do you know who it is, or why they’re doing it?”
Jin shook his head. “No, but they appear to have countermeasures for my attunement.”
“That implies that they’ve done their research on us, and that they have considerable resources.” I rubbed my chin. “Okay. Let’s go find them.”
Jin blinked. I think I startled him. “I didn’t think you trusted me.”
“I still don’t. But I’m reasonably confident you’re not involved in what I found, I’m in an awful mood, and I’m tired of waiting for potential enemies to act against me. I’d rather get ahead of this. You up for some walking?”
“Yes,” Jin confirmed. “I am.”
“Give me a bit to get my things. I’ll meet you by our dorms in around an hour or so.”
Jin nodded and headed out.
By “my things”, I meant putting on Selys-Lyann, my sigils, and my demi-gauntlet. I was going loaded for a potential fight.
The next thing I did was check in with Derek. “Are you still having someone follow Jin?”
Derek shook his head. “No, Jin was stuck in the hospital for so long that I told my contact to stop bothering with it. I’ve considered putting a tail back on him now that he’s up and about, though. Why? Is he acting suspicious?”
“Because someone is still following him.”
Derek frowned. “Well, that’s awkward.”
I sighed in agreement. “Yeah. I’m going look into it. Can you help?”
“I’m busy. But use the stick if you need me?”
I nodded. “Will do.”
Then I excused myself to go tell Keras where we were going.
“Do you want me to follow you?” Keras asked. “I’m not great at stealth, even with the mask.”
I considered that, then agreed. “Give me a few minutes.”
It took me about a half an hour to put together a basic Arrow of Direction enchantment. It was a two piece item, like a return bell. When active, the main item would show the user a glowing arrow that pointed toward the anchor.
I threw it together in a hurry, so it was the weakest version of each of the runes. That meant the range was limited to about a mile, but I still thought that would be plenty. The concept was useful enough that I wanted to make more of them later, but this would be good for the moment.
I kept the anchor in my bag and handed the detection item to Keras. “You can use this to follow us from a good distance away. If you see us, you’re probably too close. Jin is pretty perceptive.”
“Are you expecting trouble?” Keras raised an eyebrow as he asked.
“Very possible.”
Keras grinned. “Good. I haven’t had a decent scrap in a while. Let me get my trouble coat.”
***
I met Jin back at the dooms, then we headed into my room.
“What’s the plan?” He asked.
“We start here.” I pulled up the cut in the carpet, revealing the enchantment that someone had placed on my floor.
“And that is...?”
Right. It was easy to forget that other people didn’t necessarily read runes the way I did. “It tells someone that we’re here. Someone planted it here while I was away.”
“And we’re going to ambush them when they show up?”
I shook my head. “No.” I drew
my sword, causing Jin to take a step back. “Oh, sorry. Not attacking you. I’m taking this with us.”
After a moment of consideration, I re-sheathed Selys-Lyann and pulled out the Jaden Box. “Retrieve: Transference Sword.”
I used that sword to cut out the section of floor that had been enchanted. I’d used the other sword because Selys-Lyann had a chance of freezing the whole thing, which I didn’t want to risk. Moreover, a cutting aura was more suited to this sort of job. Sawing at wood with a sword blade would have taken forever, but the transference sword’s aura made it easy.
“What are we doing with that?” Jin sounded curious now, rather than scared.
“Store: Transference Sword.” The sword vanished. “We’re going to trace it back to the source.”
I hadn’t just learned the Arrow of Direction spell to find Sheridan — I’d learned it because it could trace the connections between magic in general.
Using Trials of Judgment to find Tristan was one option, but that wouldn’t work as long as he was inside the spire.
Tracing an enchantment to an anchor, though? That was basic stuff.
I slipped the enchanted floorboard under my coat and we headed out of the room, locking it behind us.
“Let’s go find some trouble.”
***
I was pretty excited about using the Arrow of Direction spell at first. Seeing a glowing line that led straight toward whoever had planted the enchantment in my room sounded great in theory.
In reality, though, we had two major complications.
First, distance. The enchantment was much further away than I’d expected. My initial Arrow of Direction spell didn’t work at all.
With some effort, I managed to cast the Citrine-level version, rather than the Quartz one I’d been practicing. That found the target, but the spell still only lasted a few seconds.
I didn’t have the mana to cast that repeatedly.
So, after we walked for a bit, I stopped and changed my plan.
“I’m going to try to make a second enchantment on the floorboard that traces the first enchantment.”
It was almost identical in concept to what I’d just made for Keras earlier. I didn’t have the second item to use as an anchor, but I didn’t need to – the two items were already connected.
I still couldn’t make it stay on all the time, but by making it an enchantment, I could pass it to Jin and he could use his mana to activate it. That way, we could share the mana costs by passing it back and forth.
The enchanting process was a little shorter this time, since I didn’t have to make the anchor part, and I’d just done something similar earlier in the day.
“You sure this is going to work?” Jin asked.
“No,” I admitted, “But I want to know if it will.”
If it did, maybe I could eventually modify Trials of Judgment in a similar way. It would need to be a much more powerful version of the enchantment than I was capable of casting right now, but anything that fed into my longer-term plans like that was useful.
The enchantment worked perfectly.
I was almost surprised, honestly. I’d been in such a bad frame of mind after what happened with Vellum’s class that I’d been beginning to doubt my abilities as an Enchanter in general.
Seeing that glowing line appear when I turned the enchantment on... there was something magical about that.
I grinned and passed it to Jin. “Try it yourself.”
“This rune?” He asked.
“Yeah. Just a bit of gray mana.”
Jin activated the rune, then stumbled back a step in surprise.
I laughed. “Yeah, the arrow is a little startling at first.”
“Indeed.” He chuckled, straightening his stance. “Shall we go?”
***
We followed the arrow for an hour. Then another hour.
I felt bad for Keras, who presumably was still following us.
After a moment of questioning that, I reached into my pouch and tapped the anchor, casting an Arrow of Direction. I knew anchors could be traced in reverse now, so...
....Yeah, Keras was still behind us. I couldn’t tell the distance without a different spell, but it was clear that he was following the same path that we were, rather than being in the direction of the mansion or something.
I gave him a silent thanks as Jin and I continued toward our unknown destination.
Most of the walk had been relatively quiet, but I didn’t mind that.
I was getting used to working with Jin again, and I was pleased to have someone with a better stealth skill set for this kind of mission, even if I didn’t entirely trust him.
“Any idea if we’re getting close?” Jin asked.
I shook my head. “There’s an Evaluate Distance spell, but I haven’t learned it. It’s on my list.”
We walked a little further.
It was sort of nice, for a while.
“Corin, I’d like to apologize again. I should have been honest with you.”
I sighed. I’d hoped this wasn’t going to come up, but I’d known it was probably inevitable. “I still can’t forgive you, Jin. I’m not sure if I ever will. But I’m willing to work with you on this, at least. We’ll see how that goes.”
Jin nodded. “I will endeavor not to disappoint you again.”
Our destination was not what I’d expected.
I’d imagined a lot of possibilities.
The Vice Chancellor’s office seemed plausible. He was one of the few people who knew about what we were up to at all, and keeping tabs on us made a degree of sense.
A mansion for a noble, like Elora Theas or Lord Teft, also seemed like a strong possibility. Both of them had the means and potentially the motivation.
I’d even considered the possibility of running into my mother, and learning that she was back in Valia and watching me from a distance.
Also, I may have pictured a wizard’s tower and a cave with a dragon.
So, when we exited the campus and headed into a residential area, I was a little surprised.
I was doubly surprised when I found myself wandering into an area with run down older apartment buildings.
I was triply surprised when we headed into a dark alley adjacent to one of those buildings.
I was not, however, surprised when the dark figures dropped from the rooftops and surrounded us.
That part I’d been counting on.
Jin reached into his coat.
Someone in the front of the group — they were all wearing hoods and black neutral masks, so details were tough to discern — spoke up. “There’s no need for that. Don’t start anything and we won’t need to, either.”
Jin slowly nodded and removed an empty hand from his coat, opening it to show that he was unarmed.
The leader stepped forward. As they drew closer, I noticed a single green gemstone in the center of the forehead of the mask. “You’re a long way from school, kids. What brings you out here?” Something was altering their voice when they talked, giving it an unearthly quality. Maybe the mask itself, if I had to guess.
I decided to be direct. I tossed a glowing floorboard into the gap between them and us. “That.”
The leader snapped their fingers. Another figure stepped forward, knelt down, and picked up the board. Then they walked back and whispered something to the leader.
The leader spoke again. “Ah, that. Just a routine bit of work for hire, nothing personal.”
I shrugged. “Okay, nothing personal, then. Just point me toward whoever hired you.”
I heard a chorus of laughter from all around us.
More laughter than there should have been, given that I could only see six people.
I turned my attunement on, but that didn’t reveal any invisible watchers. Every one of the cloaked people was attuned, though, and showing Sunstone-level.
Not good odds, even if there weren’t others hiding invisibly, and I couldn’t be confident of that. My attunement couldn’t br
eak through stronger forms of concealment magic.
Jin spoke up. “Perhaps we can make some sort of arrangement?”
The leader waved a hand. “Afraid not, friend. We have a reputation to maintain.”
I frowned. “And who are you again?”
“My, my.” The leader tapped their mask. “You haven’t heard of us? We’re the famous crew of the bravest of rogues — the Blackstone Bandit!”
My jaw opened for a moment before I regained control of my expression. “The train thief? The one based on a fictional character?”
Another series of laughs from around us.
Fortunately, the leader did not appear offended by my statement. “The very same! But I must assure you, our leader is both quite real, and most proficient at the art of roguery.”
“...Roguery? Is that an actual word?”
I was pretty sure that was not a word. It sounded made-up.
The leader waved a hand. “That’s not important. Either way, I must commend your efforts for making it this far, but your quest is at an end here. Run home, children.”
“Wait.” Jin raised a hand. “What if, hypothetically, we wanted to join the Blackstone Bandits’ crew?”
I shot Jin a look. I don’t know what kind of look it was. I’m not sure there’s a word for a combination of shock, horror, and admiration occurring all at once.
I’m going with shorrorulation. If they can make up words, so can I.
There were a series of whispers from among the hooded figures.
“While we are honored that you wish to join our most prestigious crew, you’ll need to wait a year or two. When you’ve graduated, we’ll find you. There will be tests. You may or may not know when you’ve been tested.”
Well, that was an interesting gamble, but it certainly didn’t get us what we needed right now.
Another question occurred to me. “Does your group have any relationship with the servants of the Tyrant in Gold?”
The group went tense, and I realized I may have made a mistake.
The leader simply folded their arms. “Now, why would you ask something like that?”
“The original Blackstone, the fictional one, had a connection with the Tyrant, yes?”
“Ah,” the leader made a hand signal and the others seemed to relax. “Yes. That’s all purely fictional, I assure you. We have nothing to do with those cultists.”