Chương 46: Interlude - The Ones Left Behind

A young woman gazes at the sky. She's always loved the night sky—from the lingering twilight hues of the solstices to the shimmering lights briefly visible during the equinox. Ever since she was a child, Talla could pass hours at a time just watching the rings of the great wheel turn, imperceptibly slowly, as the shadow of the world crept across them. It was one of the reasons she'd been so eager to take a commission as a ranger—a rare profession for a lady of her station.

The chance to spend more time outdoors and travel the countryside appealed to her. Alas, reality isn't quite so charming. Traveling through wilderness isn't like recreational camping, and even Talla's love of the night sky wanes after too many sleepless nights. It's grueling, dangerous, thankless work, and it doesn't even pay that well—not that she really needs the money.

"They should be back by now," Talla's teammate Saban comments from nearby. Not for the first time, either. She breaks from her musing to give him an exasperated look.

"You've been saying that all night, Saban."

"Well they should have been back by nightfall," he insists. Saban is a high strung individual, with stubby horns and a wiry frame that belies his actual strength. Exhausting company, but the sniper's bow arm and accuracy are enough to make Talla question the supposed supremacy of alchemical arms.

"Quit whining, both of you," their leader, Draga, grunts irritably from his perch on the ridgeline.

"They'll get back when they get back." Talla frowns slightly at the admonishment. She's not accustomed to men—especially clanless—speaking to her like that. But then, he's not used to speaking to a lady of clan Baanu either, much less as a subordinate. Most rangers are lower class like him, hoping to climb the ranks through their commission. Still, he does outrank her, and it's only his tier three commission that qualifies them for their current mission at all. In other words, it's complicated.

Not that Talla stresses such things, but while she respects his leadership and experience, Draga sometimes takes a bit too much relish in talking down to her. Rather than talk back—or worse, respond submissively—Talla instead returns her gaze to the sky and tracks the world's shadow along the great wheel.

"Saban has a point, though," she admits.

"It's well past midnight now. Something might have happened."

"Don't sound so distraught," Saban jokes sarcastically.

"Aren't they your cousins?"

"Technically only Kiera is," she corrects him.

"Reyna married in and the other two are just bodyguards. Besides, they're from the Gaa family, not my Goa family. I'd never met them before this job." He scoffs.

"Nobles. How'd you land us the job, then? I thought it was a family favor."

"We may not know each other, but the Baanu name still holds weight." Saban opens his mouth to retort, but Draga cuts him off before he can say anything.

"Hold on a second, I think I see something," he says, peering through a pair of very expensive binoculars. Talla tries to follow his gaze, but while her awareness is nothing to scoff at, she has no hope of spotting whatever he's noticed, even if she had her own binoculars. Saban, on the other hand, steps up beside their leader and shields his eyes, squinting into the distance.

"Oh, someone's up there alright," he agrees, holding out his hand for the binoculars.

"Let me borrow those." Draga passes them over. While their leader is by far the superior scout, Saban's eyesight is unmatched once he knows where to look. Talla joins them by the ridge, squinting hopelessly into the gloom as Saban tracks whatever it is they're looking at.

"Huh..." he mutters.

"Ugly looking thing, isn't it? No horns, no fur—except on top of its head—and stumpy little legs. Some kind of troglodyte demon, you reckon?" Draga shrugs and turns to Talla, who sighs at the silent question. She closes her eyes and uses [Recall Knowledge], a more advanced version of the [Mental Note] skill from her former [Scientist] class. In an instant, she filters through the entire sum of her accumulated knowledge and experiences to find what she's looking for.

"Convergence events are known to sometimes produce anomalous creatures and other phenomena, but I've never heard of a furless, stumpy troglodyte," she says.

"I need a better description before I can give you anything more conclusive, though. Any weapons? Clothing?"

"Aha, about that..." he chuckles awkwardly, wincing.

"She's got, uh, Reyna's spear and shield."

"What?! He's tier six! Are you sure?"

"One hundred percent. I think that might be Kiera's belt too, but it's hard to tell. Maybe she got the drop on them?"

"How do you know it's female?" Saban turns to her with a flat look and makes a crude curving gesture in front of his chest. She rolls her eyes.

"Okay, point taken. What else?"

"Orange hair, pale skin with some kind of spots or mottling on her face, weirdly mismatched clothes. No two garments are the same fabric—a black shirt of silk or some other fine fabric, blue-dyed leggings made of a thick rough material, both form-fitting..."

"Surprisingly rich fabrics for something that sounds so uncomfortable," Talla mutters.

"Yeah, which makes this last part even weirder—she's got a ratty looking cloak that I'm pretty sure is made of beggar's fleece." Beggar's fleece—a colloquial term for fabrics spun from one's own fur. It was a fairly common practice in previous centuries, but these days it's only made by the truly desperate and destitute.

"Odd."

"Yeah, especially since she doesn't have any fur. And it's not even the weirdest thing," Saban continues.

"She's got a pair of spectacles made of a combination of some amazingly thin metal and another material I've never seen before—some sort of chitin, maybe?"

"Glasses?!" Talla asks incredulously.

"What sort of demon wears glasses? And how are you even getting all of that?"

"I've got my skills," he shrugs.

"Now I think it's time to use yours. If that thing took out Reyna and Kiera, I think we should get an appraisal before deciding how to handle it."

"Uuugh, I can't even see it!" Talla complains.

"Did you see any sign of the others? Goro and Kellah?"

"No, and I know you had a rapport going with the acolyte kid, but I think it's safe to assume they're dead." Talla's heart aches at the thought of the eager young marksman meeting his end on what should have been a routine church errand.

"If you're gonna do it, you better hurry," Saban adds.

"I think it's heading back into the cave. Need the binos?"

"They won't make a difference," she grumbles. Draga, who had been content to let the two of them handle things on their own, chooses that moment to interject.

"Talla, we need that appraisal," he says simply.

"Cut the excuses and complaints and say it straight—can you do it?"

"I... can," she admits begrudgingly.

"I'm going to wish I had one of Kiera's tinctures afterwards, though."

"Do it, then." The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. With a resigned sigh, Talla closes her eyes to focus. She would never say as much to her teammates, but though she is the lowest level at only tier three she privately considers herself to be the strongest member of their group.

Saban can hit a mosquito from a mile away and Draga's skill with a blade is enough that he even beat Reyna in spars despite their tier disparity, but what she lacks in attribute quantity, she makes up for in class quality. Talla is a mage—a rare and highly controlled type of class capable of manipulating magic directly. Not only that, but while her companions each have core classes graded at three stars, hers is a four -star class twice as powerful as a typical core class of equivalent tier.

Her real secret, however, is one that she is very careful not to reveal. Let's see, she thinks to herself as she draws upon her skills. Higher grade classes have more of them to work with, and they also tend to be individually more powerful. Talla's core class, as a four-star, has eight skills. I'll need [Sense Magic], of course, she muses. [Recall Knowledge] as well, along with... given the distance, let's go with [Read the Skies].

Talla's class is a bit different, in that for its grade, the individual skills are mostly a bit lackluster. That is, until you factor in her pride and joy—the skill she painstakingly developed through years of intensive study, research into topics that sometimes skirted the edge of the forbidden, and a rather embarrassing amount of her parents' money. The crown jewel of her class, well worth delaying her tier advancements for.

[Advanced Thaumaturgy] You can combine the effects of multiple skills to create unique spells. She doesn't have eight skills—she has over a hundred. Thaumaturgy itself can't be combined with others—or rather, it is the base into which all the others have to be mixed—but that still gives her 120 possible combinations before even considering the skills from her secondary class. In theory, anyway. In practice, the more skills she combines, the more magic the spell requires.

Three is her limit—beyond that, the Goddess' presence becomes too overwhelming for her soul to handle. She'd need a tincture on hand to even attempt it, and even then there was a serious risk of killing herself. Even three would be... stressful. But, if it's between that and delving into a potential convergence break uninformed, the decision is obvious. Talla draws upon the well of magic within her, envisioning each of the three skills as a light in her mind.

As those three lights draw together, the world around her expands into dimensions she can scarcely comprehend, the borrowed light of the Goddess scorching her soul and making her feel tiny and insignificant. The cosmos is so grand, and their entire world is barely a speck—a twinkle in the Goddess' eye. It all feels so pointless. Pushing through the depressing haze of nihilism, Talla reminds herself of the task at hand. Pointless or not, she has a job to do.

The lights draw together as one and a new light shines within her soul, where it will remain for as long as she has the Will to hold it. [Clairvoyance] She doesn't waste time reading the description. This is a combo she's used before and she doesn't want to strain herself any longer than necessary. Talla's disembodied perception flies across the mountainside at dizzying speeds, scanning the landscape for the creature her teammates described.

It turns out to be rather easy to spot, shining like a beacon of magic within her expanded senses. From experience, she guesses it must be at least fifth tier to have so much magic. What Saban neglected to mention is how small she is. Reyna's short spear looks full-sized in her hands, and even though her ragged cloak has clearly been cut apart and torn multiple times, it's still long enough to nearly reach her ankles—which are indeed as stubby as Saban suggested.

Up close, Talla also recognizes the unmistakable stench of blood and hears the strange thing muttering to itself in some unintelligible language. The thing is already retreating back to its cave and Talla doesn't want to spend any longer than necessary channeling her spell, so she quickly moves on from her inspection to cast the next one.

Normally, trying to cast two spells at once with Thaumaturgy would be suicide, but she can cheat it a little bit by using overlapping component skills—in this case, the [Sense Magic] and [Recall Knowledge] skills she needs for [Lesser Appraisal] are eclipsed by [Clairvoyance]. It still gives her a killer headache, but Talla is well practiced with her magic, and these spells in particular are among her most useful and frequently used, so it comes naturally.

The moment she casts the spell, the creature's head snaps around, her emerald green eyes wide with panic and her pupils narrowing into tiny points as she looks right at Talla—and then through her. Even disembodied, Talla feels her heart pounding in her chest and a trickle of sweat on her brow. That startled her. There's a clear promise of violence in the thing's posture, brandishing the spear and scanning the horizon for threats. So it can sense magic, too, Talla notes. We might need to reconsider this.

Thankfully, its ability to sense magic is limited enough that it can't actually perceive Talla's mental projection. There are a few accounts of monsters capable of detecting and attacking such projections, and they are usually rather grisly. Detecting an appraisal is a much lower bar, though, as it's a more invasive kind of magic. She watches as the creature gets its own breathing under control and slowly lowers its weapons, still muttering to itself.

As the tension drains from it, Talla is struck by just how scared it looks. Its shoulders droop as though trying to make itself look as small as possible, and its eyes constantly dart around for fear that any shadow could hide its doom. If not for its high tier, ability to sense magic, and the stolen weapons, Talla couldn't imagine how it was possible for such a thing to have killed Kiera's group. It doesn't look like a monster or a murderer. It looks like a lost child.

Before her thoughts can spiral into even more depressing territory, Talla releases the spell, gasping from the shock of suddenly returning to her own body. She clutches her head and groans in pain. Why did I agree to this? Blood and acid, just leave me to die.

"Talla?" Draga interrupts her misery.

"How did it go?" Rather than try to give him a full report—which would just be painted by the malaise of her magical strain—Talla dully recites the results of her appraisal.

"[Tier 1 Sentient], [Tier 1...]," she trails off, furrowing her brows as she tries to make sense of the impression her skill gives her.

"[Tier 1 Leader?], [Tier 1 Traveler]."

"You sound uncertain," Draga notes.

"Tier one?!" Saban interjects before she can respond.

"I think your skill's broken, Miss Talla, because that's impossible. You're trying to tell me a warrior like Reyna got killed by a child?!"

"Take it up with the [World Engine]," Talla sighs miserably.

"I'm just the messenger. The leader thing is... I don't have a word for it, okay? You know appraisals aren't exact." Draga nods, his expression sympathetic.

"Understood. Anything else we should know?"

"She sensed my appraisal," she adds.

"Neither of her classes are magic and she's sentient. That rules out skills and innate senses, and at tier one there's no way she could have enough awareness to do it naturally."

"Blood and acid..." Saban curses under his breath.

"You think she's a chaos mage?" Draga asks.

"I don't know," Talla shrugs.

"At tier one? Unfettered magic would tear her to pieces. A lot of things aren't adding up."

"I suppose we'll have to find out for ourselves tomorrow," he sighs.

"Why?" Saban asks with a frown.

"Our employer is dead. Nobody's going to pay us for an unregistered delve."

"Our employer is the Church," Draga corrects him, "and if we return without evidence of their representative's fate, we'll be stripped of our commissions if we're lucky—executed if not. Given that she's a Gaa Baanu, I'm not taking my chances."

"Great," Talla mutters.

"We're all going to die."

"Ugh, get it together, lady," Saban grumbles.

"I hate it when you get all depressed like this."

"Last time I had it this bad it was because I put your leg back on."

"Yeah, well..." he trails off, unable to come up with a good retort.

"Can't you just buy tinctures or something?"

"Too expensive."

"Aren't you rich?"

"My family is rich," Talla grumbles, rubbing her temples. She does not want to have this conversation right now.

"I'm as broke as you are."

"Which is why," Draga interjects, "we're going to get some rest, then leave first thing in the morning to recover what we can, capture that anomalous creature dead or alive, bring it back to the church, then collect our pay and get as far away from all this blood and acid as possible before it can splash back on us. It's going to be a mess no matter what." Talla casts her eyes up to the sky, observing the shadow of the world already starting to dip beneath the horizon.

"It's already close to dawn," she points out.

"We've got an hour at most to rest before the sun is up."

"Then I suggest you make it count, my lady," Draga replies, putting an end to the conversation and heading back to his own tent to prepare for the day ahead of them. Talla just slumps down onto her back and stares up at the sky, strongly reconsidering her choice of profession. [Level up!] Thaumaturgist of Light and Life is now level 4. +8 Awareness. +12 Ego. +12 Will. Talla bolts upright, her eyes wide.

The last time she leveled in her core class was back in college, and its advancement condition requires her to discover new insights into magic and the cosmos. By all the names of the Goddess, how in the world did she just earn a level?