I wasn’t sure I was supposed to still have “The Six and Their Heroic Curses: Volume 1”, but Yalith hadn’t taken it back from me so I just assumed I was. Plus three volumes on lightning magic, one on basic magic theory, and a final tome on martial squad management which wasn’t quite what Inasyah asked for and yet quite sufficient for our needs since it covered different fighting styles and training methods well enough.
After picking out our intended mission, I took my pile of books out to the wagon. “I think we might have already killed the particular land ravagers that people were worried about,” I commented to Inasyah and Midnight once we were out of earshot. “Though we don’t have any way to prove that. Disembowelers sounded more straightforward than death lizards.”
“As long as we can obtain local currency…” Inasyah shrugged. “For the moment, we won’t be able to stay overnight.”
We quickly transitioned into a radio conversation with Malaliel. We were outside of comfortable range but part of that was not wanting to carry obvious extradimensional gear into a city. Keeping it in Storage would have worked just fine until we had to use it, but since we didn’t have private rooms it was a bit problematic. As it was, we were keeping our voices low to avoid people overhearing us. We would be speaking in the local language for now, but Malaliel’s Translation would fade in another hour or so.
“They handed over several tomes with little to no prompting,” Inasyah said. “Presumably because their librarian is crazy but they might also implicitly trust their kin.”
I nodded, though of course Malaliel wouldn’t see that. “I agree with both, really. I would have expected more suspicion, though. Especially considering the tomes were warded to self-destruct if non-demons grabbed them.”
I still didn’t know what the locals called themselves. It probably wasn’t demons. Inasyah’s professional opinion was that they weren’t demons, and that we could allow Malaliel to be in their presence. If we hid her wings with magic and made sure she wouldn’t be able to bump into anyone, it would be fine. She wouldn’t feel compelled to behead them.
“It’s really weird,” I said. “The humans look like the bad guys, which is… normal. But I kind of expected both sides to be worse.”
Malaliel had a good answer for that. “The bonds of kinship will make some act far more amicably than they would to their foes. We can merely presume that your disguises were not penetrated to receive the response you did.”
“I have a thought,” Midnight commented. “Perhaps giving us the tomes was a test for that.”
“Good point,” I said. “Do you think they were actually suspicious, then? Velsolis had an opportunity to feel my lack of horns… but she didn’t have any private chance to communicate that.”
Inasyah shook her head. “She didn’t notice that. As for suspicion… I do not believe there was much of any. Though Xorrin did relax slightly upon my grabbing the tome, it might have been because it wasn’t damaged from the journey. Yalith was rather chaotic with her approach.”
I furrowed my brow. “I’m surprised she can’t sense active mana manipulation. She was doing some of that herself. Actually, I’m confused why everyone here seems to be insensate.”
“I think it makes sense,” Malaliel said through the radio. “Perhaps they had to develop this particular style because they couldn’t feel active mana manipulation. Or they were aided in doing so by some outside group, and thus never developed the ability to feel mana.”
“But it’s so useful!” I said. “And everyone from my world does it naturally.”
Midnight interjected, “But you do it better.”
“That might be true,” I agreed. Though if we were talking actual people from my world, the sample size was small. The fact that I was better than a handful was insufficient to prove where I was in relation to the average. “So how’s training going?”
“Any practical information you can provide will be well received,” Malaliel said. “The kids have received very little practical guidance and will be more dangerous if left with incomplete training.”
I thought I heard a sound of protest at that. Followed by something like resolving spying teens who didn’t like to be called kids. Even if they were.
“Anyway,” I continued. “We’ll be heading out to-” I felt something. “I’m really interested in taking a look at these tomes of lightning magic. Different regions might have alternative methods I haven’t experienced before.”
I really was interested in that. I just wasn’t fully invested in that particular route at this very instant. I still reached over and flipped through them, though.
Midnight’s reaction indicated that he understood. He could probably feel it himself, and he also had an empathic connection that would indicate my own concern.
Midnight meowed. Excellent job, my companion. That’s exactly what we needed from you. I just had to hope the person scrying us didn’t have translation spells active and able to pick up a single word of warning without other context.
I could have actively resisted the spell, if only it were targeted at me. Or maybe Midnight. Then again, we were almost constantly under the effects of Nondetection. The actual target was instead sitting next to us.
“Do you think I could learn it too?” Inasyah asked as she shuffled up next to me in the wagon. “With my affinity for darkness magic, I might be particularly untalented at lightning.”
“We can only try it, of course,” I replied. “With these, you’ll be able to study without my guidance for a time. Though of course you can always ask. We should get on the road, though. The jostling won’t help our reading, but I couldn’t help but take a look at this.” I really was learning a lot from flipping through various pages. There were so many pieces for me to put together.
Inasyah properly played along by getting the wagon moving after a bit- moving too immediately after would have been suspicious. Fortunately Malaliel didn’t give away our task. Either she could sense our deception through radio, or just understood from context. If I had been the one on the opposite end, I probably would have screwed it up.
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The next ten minutes were quite uncomfortable, as I avoided voicing my true thoughts on the tome. I still gave some proper comments, but I couldn’t talk like an Advanced spellcaster on the subject. Not one from this world, anyway.
I gave it an extra minute after I felt the magic fade just in case. Then I relaxed slightly. “We really should get on the road now to meet up.”
“The Scrying does appear to be gone,” Midnight said in Celmothian.
Inasyah made a face. “So that was scrying magic. Should I have tried to disperse it?”
“Resisting naturally would have been fine. People have natural instincts to do so. However, active dispersal would probably be noticed.” I pondered for a few moments. “I’m going to have to reconsider Yalith’s level of suspicion.”
“And her level of propriety,” Inasyah said. “I assume this is terribly rude?”
“Spying on people always is. Also, you can speak again Malaliel.”
“Best we talk in person. Or maybe not meet up at all.”
“Mana regeneration is particularly high here,” I said. “And we did imply we have further mercenary companies elsewhere. We can certainly maintain disguises during the day. We might also be able to protect the group in general from Scrying, but that…”
Multicasting Nondetection on our whole group would be expensive. Maybe we could shield the wagons themselves? That would look suspicious though. Had she tried to Scry Midnight or me? I didn’t think so. I didn’t even feel the slightest bit of pressure on our defenses.
“I can meet up with them only for a transfer of information,” Midnight commented. “Our destination is the other way out of the city, so I’ll have to sneak over to them regardless to keep up Translation and stuff. I might be able to copy the relevant books before then. If I have help from someone with hands.”
“I’m on it,” I said. “Inasyah… you keep driving. Midnight, curious cat mode! Even if she sees us she already knows you like books.”
The various extra agents with us just waited for orders. Since they didn’t receive any, they were relaxing in the wagon. It was probably an uncomfortable posting, but so far the actual danger had been low and they’d get hazard pay and overtime. Plus the satisfaction of settling an extradimensional kidnapping ring and saving kids.
-----
Midnight was protected from Scrying, since both of us had a habit of casting Nondetection. As that was already the case, Yalith wouldn’t notice anything new if she tried to find him. She might look for the books, though. That was why I had to keep them. The lack of Midnight on our wagon would be easy enough by him roaming, unless she had a particularly large viewing area. That wouldn’t match up with what I felt earlier, though. I doubted that even Zentha Qitris, apparently famous diviner, would be able to see far enough from a wagon to conclusively determine there wasn’t a cat wandering nearby.
We’d have to have him back when we visited the fort again, but that should be fine. We’d be returning with dead disembowelers- or rather their ‘murder claw’. We could have brought back the whole thing with our wagon but they only wanted choice portions. That meant we had to do some dismantling ourselves, even if we were inexpert.
Midnight and I had considered various proposals for what to do while we slept. Ultimately, refreshing Nondetection and nothing else was chosen. Midnight wouldn’t be seen, but with our groups separate nothing more would be revealed even if Inasyah or the books were spied upon.
Should I spy on Yalith in turn? It might provoke a reaction. I hadn’t indicated I was a multi-disciplinary spellcaster like she was… but maybe.
-----
Graciana was the alchemist. I had promised myself to remember her name correctly if she was right about the curse thing, and she was. Of course, I didn’t get to demonstrate it to her just yet because we were hanging out several miles apart, but I did remember. After getting it written down.
The Six and Their Heroic Curses: Volume 1 sure had a lot of information while at the same time saying very little. Maybe the demons didn’t understand it as well as I hoped, or the later volumes were more complete.
I was sitting next to Inasyah commenting on it. “I don’t like that this says the curse might be divine in origin.”
“Why? Do you not believe in gods?”
“I just don’t want this to be from any of them.” I looked vaguely up at the sky. “I don’t think the gods from my old world really do much of anything, but if the ones here are more active it can be a huge pain.” I kept quiet my thoughts that I didn’t know how to kill one. My magic had a limit they were probably beyond.
“Would divine origin make it harder to remove?” Inasyah asked.
“I don’t know. They don’t really have that part. But it would either make it impossible or… not. Typically.”
“Divine aid might explain how some relatively poor excuses for spellcasters were able to summon people from another dimension,” Inasyah commented. “I was wondering about that. Or if our assessment was wrong.”
“Unfortunately, this book doesn’t know how they do it. Though it does have a section in this volume about each of The Six.” Now we had information about the names of the countries. Zuresh was in the southeast of what was basically six similarly sized countries surrounding the demon lands, which was a bit larger than any individual.
Country size didn’t equate to military might. Presumably the demons were superior in that regard, or they wouldn’t have made it this far. The tome indicated this had been going on for at least two centuries with no real success on the human’s part.
“See The Six: Annihilating Their Top Spellcasters for more information.” I shook my head. “I’d love to, but I don’t have that one,” I told the book. It didn’t answer, which was comforting.
The book had the name the demons called themselves. First, the country was Aidura and not The Demon Lands. It was nice to be able to reference it in front of the locals. Demons were Those of the Many-Colored Skins. It was one word, but basically it was people. In disguise, we should all address ourselves as one of those. Interestingly, no reference to horns. Maybe they didn’t think those were important.
As far as learning the local magic system went, the lightning books were useful but the one with basic magic was way more important. That included things like range, targeting, area, and things like that. That was what all the talking and hand signs did, picking those things out. Direction was usually left to the whims of the caster, though one could also make a spell that targeted north. Or left. Or relative to another target and their facing, though that was getting outside of the ‘basic’ level.
It seemed very useful to have such options, and extremely restrictive to require some things. If you had a particularly skilled opponent you were also just yelling at them what you were going to do. Talk about telegraphing.
It could be worth it though. Maybe not in battle, but as I’d already seen with my limited training the spells became way more mana efficient. Not time efficient, but there were always tradeoffs.
I would have to balance flexibility and efficiency if I wanted to make use of any of this stuff. Practically, I’d have to practice a few spells for combat with components and otherwise settle for using this for utility magic out of combat.
I wondered what made these words and hand gestures magic. And if they would be magical in other worlds. Was I now infected with this world’s magic? Would the teens function elsewhere, or would they not? I could see the answer of whether it worked in another world being different for both. I wanted to test immediately, but it was irresponsible to use two Gates to hop back to Earth at the moment. Maybe I could find an excuse next time we had to reprovision though. Just for a quick moment.
