Chương 57: (56) 2.9. An Old Stone

The elder frowned, tapping her cane against the stone floor as she tried to decide what to do. To anyone unfamiliar with their customs and the intricacies of runic carving, it may look like she was fidgeting aimlessly. In reality, she had to be remarkably careful with every tap. Her cane was a powerful runic object that had been passed down from elder to elder for generations, and a few of the spells stored within the cane could level the building they were currently in if she accidentally released them.

Her wrinkles deepened as she stared at the source of her latest problem; a miniature man currently sitting with his arms crossed and a large scowl on his face. While they did have a simple jail located near the center of the village, it really only consisted of a single cell. And it certainly wasn't designed to hold someone smaller than a newborn. Their rushed solution was to grab some leather cord and tie a knot around the tiny man's waist, securing the other end to a loop quickly molded out of the stone wall.

Without his weapons the man would have to spend at least a minute or two untying the cord, and despite the fact that they didn't speak each other's language, the two guards standing with spears trained on him at all times seemed to get the message across that he was to leave the cord alone. She'd also relieved him of his cloak that radiated some unknown magic to her senses, but left him with the many tiny vials scattered about his person.

She was well aware of the hazards that came with handling unknown poisons, and without his daggers they would be useless to him regardless.

"We should make an example of him elder," the head of her Stone Mages demanded yet again, glaring at the prisoner with vitriol burning in his eyes. The man wore a grey, dusty robe, and his whitening beard was frayed from how much he kept pulling on it.

"We need to make an example that these foreigners will understand. They can't just waltz into our village and kill one of our own! And one of our mages no less!"

"Steady yourself Eithan," the elder ordered, not even bothering to look at the man. He'd been up in arms the moment he'd learned one of his fellow mages had been killed, and the usually reasonable man was beside himself.

"We must wait for Raulfa to get back to us with details from her investigation."

"Steady myself?!" Eithan snapped, slamming a fist into the wall. She was lucky it was one of her mages and not warriors having a meltdown, otherwise a good chunk of the building may have collapsed already.

"I was the one who taught Toby his very first spell, and now the man is dead! You expect me to steady myself?"

"I expect you to act like the head of my Stone Mages rather than a fumbling apprentice," the elder said, causing Eithan to recoil as though she'd slapped him. Taking advantage of his momentary silence, she pushed forward.

"Even if Raulfa's investigation shows that this man did in fact murder Toby, you know very well I can't just make an example of these people. Not only did Vin risk his own life to bring back Samtha and her team, he is the key to forming relations with our new neighbors that already outnumber us two to one, and who will only continue to grow in size if their story is to be believed."

Eithan stared at her, the weight of her words seeming to push down on his rage and let a fraction of the calm, reliable man she'd appointed head of the village's mages float to the surface.

"Do we really need their alliance that badly?" The mage asked, his eyes widening at her strained expression. The man was an excellent mage and a fantastic teacher, but he was clueless when it came to anything that didn't involve magic.

"The world isn't changing, Eithan. It has changed," she said, her grip tightening on her cane. The walls she'd built within herself to keep her concerns locked away began cracking, and she let out a heavy sigh as all her years spent as elder seemed to hit her all at once.

"For most of our people, the scariest part of our recent ordeal was the Great Reset. But it was not losing our levels that worried me. It was losing everyone we used to call friend outside the bounds of our village in one fell swoop."

"What happens if we experience another famine and we don't have the cities to lean on? Or a plague sweeps through the village and there isn't a divine wanderer to swoop in and save us? We are strong, Eithan, like the very rocks we carve upon. But we are merely one small village in a world that seems to be larger than ever," she explained, all the worries buried deep within finally bursting out of her.

"We need people we can rely on. Perhaps even more importantly we need not to make an enemy of our new neighbors that come from such a strange, System-less world. We have no idea what they are capable of, and that terrifies me." Silence stretched between the two old friends as they stood there, the elder's outburst weighing heavily on them both. Her words seemed to have had the added effect of dousing the fire raging in Eithan's eyes, and the mage gave her an apologetic look.

"Argy… elder," he corrected himself, clearing his throat as though he hadn't accidentally just called her by her old nickname.

"I'm… I'm sorry. Toby's death came as quite the surprise, as you can imagine, and I hadn't realized just what kind of pressure you've been under these past few months."

"That was my intention," the elder chuckled, giving him a weary grin.

"Half the responsibilities of being village elder seem to be just keeping everyone calm and hiding how much deep rubble we're truly in." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The two of them shared small smiles, and the elder felt as though she was a young girl again, laughing at her friend as he cursed the Great System and struggled to cast his first Shifting Stone spell.

Though as much as she wished moments like these with old friends could last forever, their duties always caught up with them. The hide covering lifted, and Raulfa finally showed herself. The head of the village's warriors was a large woman clad head to toe in thick stone armor that obscured most of her features, but couldn't quite hide the deep scar running down her left cheek.

Rather than a standard weapon, she wore her trademark gauntlets, which rumor had it were the very same pair she'd worn when she single handedly took down a pack of roaming monsters rampaging toward their village. The elder didn't put much stock in the rumor, however. It had actually been two packs, after all. In an unusual sight, their village's strongest warrior actually had a frown on her face, and the elder's heart dropped as she waited for the bad news.

"It was poison," Raulfa confirmed, walking over to join them. Shooting a sideways glance at their prisoner, she paused for only a moment before continuing.

"… poison delivered via a series of small cuts… all located on the man's lower right calf." The silence following her verdict seemed to weigh heavily across the entire room, and the elder saw the two guards standing watch over the prisoner tighten their grips on their weapons, their knuckles turning white as if awaiting her inevitable orders. Not even Eithan dared to speak, his gaze firmly locked on her as he waited with everyone else in the room for her words.

Sensing herself standing upon a dangerous tipping point, the future of their entire village balancing upon the next words to leave her mouth, the elder took a deep, trembling breath. And said nothing. The silence stretched for two seconds. Then three. Then ten. The longer she went without saying anything, the more confused the people standing in the room with her began to look.

After thirty seconds, they began shooting each other uncertain glances, as if trying to encourage one of the others to speak up and ask her what was going on. Finally, after a minute of her standing there thinking, Eithan cleared his throat once more.

"Elder…" he began, stopping immediately as she held up her hand.

"Regardless of what anyone here thinks should be done, I gave my word to Vin that no harm would come to his companion until I spoke with him again," she said, making sure she spoke with all the authority that she carried as village elder." Nobody is to touch the prisoner unless he tries to escape. Is that understood?" Getting two hurried nods from the guards, she turned her attention to her closest advisors.

Raulfa punched her two stone gauntlets together without hesitation, her head warrior used to following orders without question. But Eithan…

"Elder, Toby was poisoned," he said, clearly exasperated.

"…with the injury located in a spot no regular sized person would ever go for. Surely-""Is that understood?" She repeated, narrowing her eyes and cutting him off. The Head Mage's eye twitched, but he slowly nodded.

"Understood. Elder," he finally said, his lips pursed with displeasure.

"Good. Now, I'm going to go speak with Vin. I want the two of you to go around and work on calming people down. Make sure everyone knows that there aren't going to be any more attacks and that they don't need to worry."

"What about Sheila," Eithan asked, his voice cold and hard.

"What should I tell her is being done with her husband's murderer?"

"You can tell Sheila we are investigating the current suspect," the elder frowned, already missing her old friend she'd felt like she'd briefly reconnected with.

"She has a kind soul that girl, and despite how she must currently be feeling, I'm sure she'll understand that we wouldn't want to punish the wrong person in this matter."

"I'm sure she'll be thrilled at the news," Eithan sneered, turning and making his way out of the room, angrily throwing the hide covering aside.

"Want me to follow him?" Raulfa offered once the man was gone, raising an eyebrow.

"You know as well as I do he's almost certainly off to go stir up some trouble."

"Leave him be," the elder sighed, feeling like she had her own set of stone armor weighing her down.

"He's not so far gone as to go against my word. Not yet."

"Toby's death… This is some poor timing with everything that's currently happening," Raulfa said, lowering her voice to the point the guards couldn't hear her.

"You don't think…"

"I don't think the mages are at that point just yet," she said, shaking her head.

"Besides, I've known Eithan for quite a long time. He'd never do something like this, and even if I'm wrong, the man's not that good an actor. If he had something to do with Toby's death, he wouldn't have been able to hide it from me."

"Still, the mages aren't going to take this lying down. And who knows what the other apprentices are going to do," Raulfa pointed out.

"Once they hear you have yet to punish the foreigner, they'll start wondering if he's actually guilty. That maybe Toby's killer was actually someone a bit… closer to them."

"Let me worry about village matters Raulfa," the elder sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. If only she'd known things were going to turn out this way years ago. She very well may have told the old elder that once offered her his cane to shove it where the sun didn't shine.

"For now, prepare your warriors for the worst, but do your best to keep everyone calm," she ordered.

"We sit upon the precipice of total destruction, the last thing we need is some frustrated apprentice doing something they can never take back."

"Elder," Raulfa nodded, punching her gauntlets together in salute once more. Turning, the head of the warriors strode out of the room, nodding briefly at the two warriors standing guard and getting crisp salutes back in return.

"Great System, give me strength," the elder murmured, squaring her thin shoulders and taking a deep, steadying breath. It was time to see what Vin had to say about all this.