“They were getting through the ward, Robert. It slowed them down, it didn’t stop them. They’d have all been dead if we hadn’t happened to pass by and see some people running away.” Andarit sounded tired and disappointed. She clearly had some good memories of Robert, but they were probably tainted now. “The better answer would be that you’re lying and were trying to rob them.”

Robert paled. “I wasn’t! It was just to scare them!”

That sounded like Zon had something like summary execution for bandits. Something worse than what Robert was expecting to come out of “just scaring them”, at least.

“Who hired you?” Andarit asked the question flatly, obviously taking advantage of Robert’s fear.

Robert seemed to shrink as he answered. “A, a merchant. He works under the sign of the crimson carnation, I don’t ask for names. It’s better that way.”

Serenity shook his head. He didn’t have any more questions, but he thought Andarit might. “Do we take him back with us?”

That struck Serenity as probably the best option, since you never knew what you might want to ask in the future, but it opened up the possibility of escape or even the prisoner overcoming his fear and attacking his captors when they weren’t expecting it. The choice would be easier if they had more people to guard him, but perhaps the wagon caravan could do that.

It was always harder to kill in cold blood, as well, and Andarit knew the man; that made it worse. Serenity expected they’d end up taking him in for information, even though he wasn’t certain he cared about this entire plot. It wasn’t like it affected the people kidnapped from Earth, after all.

Andarit shook her head. Robert seemed to have a little hope for a moment before she spoke. “No. Kill him. He’ll be killed for banditry if we take him in anyway; better you do it here.”

Serenity shrugged. She was the local, and she was a noble; he didn’t really care what they did about Robert. They’d also been attacked by Robert’s minions, so he didn’t feel particularly bad about it.

He still had a lot of mana from Eat Death that he could only use for Death-attuned purposes. That made this easy.

Robert turned to run, but Serenity’s Death Magebolt was faster. The first hit made him stumble and he tripped with the second. A moment of watching showed that he was trying to get up, weakly, so Serenity hit him twice more. At that point, his Vital Affinity started to quickly fade.

Andarit moved up to the body. “Is he safe to search?”

“From my spell, yes. I don’t know if he trapped anything on himself.” Serenity remembered bits and pieces of the different times he’d been surprised by a trap on someone who was dead. Andarit’s question was probably not about traps, but Serenity couldn’t help where his mind went.

Andarit huffed before she knelt down over the body. “He didn’t use traps, as far as I know. But I’d have said he wouldn’t carelessly attack innocents either, and he definitely did that.” She picked up his pouch and several other small items that Serenity didn’t get a good look at; for one of them, she actually had to slit Robert’s shirt seam open. She sighed. “I guess I never really knew him.”

Serenity waited until she was done and had packed everything away. “So do you think the ward was actually sabotaged or was it just an accident?”

That was obviously the difference between attempted murder and a narrowly averted tragedy.

Andarit dusted her hands off on her pants. “I have some questions to ask when we get back to the road. I hope it wasn’t, but with Robert directing the undead I think it’s likely. He might not have known, but even if he did he’d never have admitted it. I think he knows … er, knew me well enough to know how I’d react to that. There were children there. Children and civilians!”

As far as Serenity was concerned, Andarit was a civilian and barely more than a child herself. It was interesting how much perspective changed things.

When they arrived back at the wagon rest, the caravan was already preparing to head out. It might be night already, but they clearly didn’t want to spend the night at the compromised wagon rest. Serenity couldn’t blame them for that; it was a reasonable decision.

Even more reasonable was the question that the female guard, Irma, shouted when she saw Andarit. “Hey there! Would you two guard us as we try to get to the next rest?”

They must have waited, hoping they’d get help. He couldn’t blame them for that.

Serenity whispered to Andarit. “We can if you want to, but delay them while I check out the wagon rest’s wards. I want to see exactly what was done to them.” He was certain she’d agree to help; they were clearly headed in the same direction as Andarit and Serenity were, and Andarit was a helpful sort of person.

Serenity had an additional goal in checking out the ward structure: Robert had said it was an old ward. He’d learned things from examining the runes on the Palace and on the holding cells at Djen’s Hiring Hall; could he learn something here?

---

Andarit’s method for getting the group to wait was simple and straightforward: she told them to take a rest and eat some hot food before they left while Serenity checked out the wards.

The wards were fascinating; he didn’t even notice the food was ready until Andarit shoved a bowl of hot stew into his hands and told him to eat. He ate quickly so that he could return to the wards. Their structure was similar to two or three other types he knew; the actual ward itself wasn’t anything new, though tying it to a circle of stones was somewhat different.

The first difference was the input power system; like the runes in the holding cells, it took in both mana and essence from the ambient energy around it. Serenity had to admit that the way it managed it was clever; it would scale quite a bit based on the local area without a need to change the warding setup. As long as any monsters that attacked were reasonable for the area they were in, the wards would keep them out. He could see how it had been adapted and he took snapshots of the modifications; while they were minor adjustments, they’d be a good starting point if he ever needed a similar ward.

The second difference was the reason they still existed at all. Wards that were used degraded; really, any rune did when it was used, like anything else. The simple fact of carrying power wore out the material. The warding circle had an interesting innovation: while it collected essence like the runes on the holding cells, it didn’t turn it into mana. Instead, it used the essence to repair itself. Excess essence after the repairs were completed was then converted to mana and used to reinforce the ward. There was even an entire runic structure used to compare and verify that it was performing the repair correctly.

It was especially easy to see right now because the ward was clearly damaged.

A Past Built in Layers

Group Quest - Order’s Guild

No Time Limit

Variable Reward

Requirement: Wardsmith, Enchanter, or Runemaster

Many worlds hold artifacts older than the Voice itself. They may be buildings or they may be items. Find one and decipher it, then offer the knowledge to the Voice.

[Completed]

[Reward: Self-Repairing Runescript]

Serenity waved the message away. Now that he knew how it worked, he wanted to know how the ward had been damaged.

It took some time to trace the damage because he had to find it by examining the repair system. He followed the essence trace around the circle until he found a pair of large stones that both glowed with essence. The area around both stones was disturbed; Serenity could see where they’d not only been pushed out of the correct locations but actually reversed.

It had to be deliberate sabotage. Someone wanted the caravan dead.

No wonder the wards were having issues. The stones were similar to each other but they weren’t identical or interchangeable. A little more examination showed that the repair runescript would eventually alter both stones to match the correct formation, but it would take a long time; Serenity wasn’t even entirely certain that it would continue to maintain itself for the entire time. If the ward truly went down, the repair would probably fail.

The better solution would be to return the two large stones to their original position, but he should let the others know what he was doing before he started. They’d already been sabotaged once; he wanted to avoid the assumption that he was sabotaging them again.

Serenity stood up and looked over at Andarit and Irma, the lady guard. They were standing behind him; he had the vague feeling that they’d been talking about him until he stood up. They’d certainly gone silent suddenly. “Irma? Andarit mentioned something about the wardstones being distrubed. It was these two, wasn’t it?”

Irma nodded. “They were shifted out of the circle. Darril moved them back in but the undead were still able to get in.”

Serenity frowned. Having the stones completely out of the circle would have completely disabled it, so moving them back into approximately correct positions, even if they were out of order, had probably saved the caravan by buying time for Serenity and Andarit to arrive. It wouldn’t have been enough without them. “Good. Unfortunately, they’re reversed; it looks like they were just put in the wrong spots when they were put back. The ward’s trying to recover, but it’ll have an easier time if we fix the rocks. May I move them?”

Irma glanced over at Andarit before shrugging. “You’re the wardsmith. If it’ll help fix the ward for the next caravan, go ahead.”

Why did people keep calling him a wardsmith? Sure, he knew wards; any mage with any familiarity at all with rituals should know wards. They were one of the most common uses for a ritual, and wards didn’t have anything to do with smithing anyway!

Serenity grumbled to himself a little as he fixed the stones’ positions, but he knew better than to bring it up. No one understood his complaint, so it really wasn’t worth bringing up again.

Once it was finished, Serenity took the time to confirm that the ward was more correct and should be able to safely restore itself. He hadn’t set the stones down perfectly, but they were close enough; all signs looked positive. “The ward will be very weak for a day or two,” he informed Irma, “But after that it should fairly quickly recover to normal. If you have some way to leave a message…?”

Irma shook her head. “We’ll just have to tell anyone we pass. There won’t be anyone behind me for at least a few days; they’ll wait for the next caravan if they’re smart.”

Serenity nodded. He’d run into similar systems before, when people had to travel through dangerous territory. It was better to travel in groups that were large enough for protection but not so large that they turned into a strung-out mess.

There was one question he still wanted answered. “Do you know who sabotaged the ward?”

He had suspicions about the three people they’d passed on the way to the fight. After all, it only made sense that someone who sabotaged a ward would want to run if monsters arrived.

Irma shook her head. “It must have been one of the three missing guards, but I don’t know which. If I ever find them, they’re going to find out how I deal with cowards and backstabbers.”

The three people who ran were guards? No wonder the caravan seemed lightly guarded and had had trouble with the few undead that had made their way in by the time he and Andarit arrived. As far as he could tell, the only good thing they’d done was warn them to run, and that definitely didn’t make up for abandoning their charges, never mind breaking the ward.

He wasn’t certain if Andarit had mentioned them. “We passed three people running towards Iron Mountain when we were on our way to you originally.”

“Oh, isn’t that convenient.” Irma’s grin was so wide and uncheerful that it was positively creepy.