The tossing or jostling in the bed causes me to wake up. With a bolt of energy I sit up quickly and am rewarded with a swat of a vine to the forehead.

“Oy! Jess, can you not rein in Violet in the morning?” I half curse while rubbing my forehead from the flick.

“Sorry, I think she gets cranky during the night and seems to do better after having a bit of sunshine,” She apologizes while it was her getting up and out of bed that woke me up. I can also hear some grumbling from behind me from the morning ruckus.

I had managed to nod off to sleep last night despite everything. The fatigue from abusing my mana and having it low helped to provide some means of finally getting to sleep. I grab my grimoire that I had somehow managed to stow under the rolled pillow and take a look to see what I managed to accomplish last night.

Interesting... Seeing no reason not to, I try using what ought to be my increased level in the ability to see what the change is. Pushing all my mana into the sphere, I can see the ghostly image of Zoe behind me, Jessica, and the mess of vines that comprise Violet snaking around Jessica’s body.

“So what do you want us to do today Cara?” Jessica asks as she goes over to change into some new clothes, hiding from view behind the door of the armoire. I realize that I’ve pretty much only got what clothes are on my back and in our travel bag that went through too much and ought to be burned on principle alone.

Sadness starts to grip me and with little mana, I turn to my perception of a possible victim. Siding up to Zoey, I whisper in her ear.

“Want to make some money?”

Zoe’s eyes snap open and she sits upright.

“Alright, I’m in, what do you have in mind?” She says while stretching and yawning.

“Well, I need some new clothes, I want to go to the guild to check into what they know about my dad, and I want to take a look at the bronze board to see if there are any requisitions.”

“Shopping sounds fun and I understand checking the guild but why the requisition? Not that I’m complaining, but why check it?”

“I’m more hoping to see if there is a way to maybe check the silver board and get some information on the dark guilder,” my voice catches at the end as I cannot help but think of our smithy.

Zoe simply shrugs acceptance while Jessica rejoins us.

“Just give me a moment, I want to finalize my ‘merchant storehouse.’” Zoe says while quickly closing her eyes and focusing on her mana. I notice a little late, but I can see she’s holding her soul pouch. After a few moments, the girl is grinning from ear to ear and opens her soul pouch just to sigh all of a sudden.

“You didn’t,” I say to a forlorn-looking Zoe.

“Yup spent almost everything to make my ‘merchant storehouse’ as big as possible... 800 embers gone” she says lethargically, obviously struggling with the signs of what we’ve come to call low mana sickness.

“How big exactly? And why do you keep calling it that?”

She snaps open her pageless grimoire and shows it to us.

I’m actually shocked, but then again, I remember that the grimoire is more an extension of your soul and I could get it to show me what things looked like beforehand. Perhaps I could rename skills as well. Or perhaps that is just a part of Zoe’s core being and beliefs and they manifest in her grimoire like that. Something to check out in the future.

We went out to the kitchen and after some fussing from Mrs. Perdu and shoving our faces full of dried fruits and nuts for breakfast, we head off to the guild. People are still doing double takes and keeping away from us. It is eerie and a bit unsettling to have everyone treating you as an undesirable, this is really selling us going back to Denvetti.

Just as we were walking up to the guild’s front steps, a paige starts to come outside, takes a long look at us, and just turns around to go notify some higher-ups within the guild.

“Okay, this just feels super weird,” Zoe chimes in while both Jessica and I respond in the affirmative. Akira seems distracted, watching everyone who watches us and changing their behavior. Entering the guild I realize that I don’t have any real positive feelings about it.

It however does feel quite good upon entering just going up the steps directly to the bronze floor. The couple of odd looks that we were getting changed into stupefied looks. After reaching the bronze floor, we can look down into the main foyer at some of the still stupefied onlookers. With a slight grin creeping across my face, I lead our little group to a board to look over a bunch of requisitions.

“I’m not seeing anything about dark guilders or your smithy,” Jessica mentions after Akira and I scared away a bonze who was trying to rebuke us and after showing that we had bronze plates, they huffed and left.

My attention starts to wane as we stand here, watching some other bronzes come up and mill about. I’m curious and reached out a [Mana Tether] to them. Three of them had pure soft off-white souls to my inspection. Another two have a couple of red scars and the last person that I checked had two red and one black scar.

“Psst. Take a look at the guy with a limp, second from the right. Do you see the black scar?” I ask the two other girls and they soon confirm what I’m seeing. That means that this bronzer actually killed someone before. It is kind of scary how easily you can possibly identify a murderer with this kind of soul vision.

Though that brings up a good point, the guy who attacked Jessica, it was Violet that killed him, as none of us got a soul parasite from that creep’s memories. Even if Violet had not killed him and instead it was me, I would like to believe that I would wear that scar proudly for killing a monster in human skin. Then look at Akira, from what I understand, his scars are so deep and overlaid that you cannot tell them apart, but I cannot help but think he’s a good person deep down.

I kind of want to know how we stack up against these bronzes. Taking a quick read through my grimoire for an idea on how to gauge a person’s strength or danger level, I settle on [Rampant Growth]. Let’s see, it allows me to expend 100% less my level of 1% of the target’s soul’s mana capacity to effectively heal... So while it would let me heal someone, it would also tell me how much mana they have right? Which could help me to maybe gauge how strong they are.

Reaching out a [Mana Tether] to the person on the far left, I feel the tether burning four mana a second as I reach the two-meter distance to them. Then pushing my intent to simply have [Rampant Growth] latch on but not do anything. I feel the mana build up and then finally click into place waiting for some intent. A flow of 99 mana is necessary to try and heal, but more likely to maim or kill the person if Akira is to be believed.

They had a pure soul and I do not engage the mana, leaving it effectively ready to be used in the tether as I move it over from person to person and am kind of flabbergasted that each one of them takes only 99 mana to connect. I reach over to Jessica to make sure I’m not going crazy and feel with her that I’m pushing against a wall and giving up after I’m still being resisted upwards of a thousand mana.

Checking everyone else, I find each and every one of them to be the same, even the person who most likely killed someone appeared to only have a hundred mana. This kind of skill could be amazing for city guards to use for security reasons.

“Should we go see mage Larse in the healing hall?” Zoe asks, pulling out of my musings and I notice while I was not paying attention that Akira seems to be having a chat with Violet.

“What are you two doing? And I don’t think it is a terrible idea. She doesn’t owe us anything, but maybe we can offer to grow her some rarer herbs?”

“Getting more information,” Akira responds as Jessica starts to giggle as Violet unwinds from her and scoots out of her clothing. We are then taken aback as Violet stretches several vines over to the railing to the central foyer, pulls herself over to it, and then up to the next floor’s railing, and disappears like a silent wraith.

“...Violet get back here…” Jessica hisses in a quiet voice as she rushes over to the railing and looks up. We joined her not seeing or hearing anything.

“Akira, what did you tell her?” I ask, now worried.

“We want information, she wanted to know why Jessica was furrowing and I explained that the flat plants on the wall were not the right ones and that Jessica would not be frowning if the right one was here.” He says with a slight smile.

“But Violet cannot read…” That is all I manage to get out before a vine ball whips over the railing and launches itself at Jessica who catches the hurtling mass of tentacles.

We are stunned at first then quickly huddle around Jessica to block her from view as an ecstatic Violet is currently flogging Jessica in the face with four vines, each one impaling a couple of dozen pages. Jessica is in a full-blown panic trying to reel Violet in and stop her from waving her stolen loot around for the world to see.

“Quick, find what we need, and then we need to dump these pages and get away from here,” Zoe says in a slight panic.

“Oh no, she also raided the gold floor,” Jessica whimpers while trying to hold back tears while she ruffles through a stack of papers with holes throughout them.

Every moment feels like an eternity, but Jessica finally says that she found a pair of silver and gold requisitions that are what we are looking for. We make like leaves in the wind, not before Zoe rushes back to the bronze board and grabs a requisition for us.

“Don’t want to look suspicious of coming here for nothing,” She says while we now woodenly walk over to the main floor to check out our requisition. We are still blocking Jessica who’s now hiding a stack of papers under her shirt and looks like she has a single piece of plate armor.

I almost faint when the requisitioner gives us an odd look while accepting Zoe’s requisition for our group. She did not believe us at first until we handed over our plaques and once she turned them over to look at their encrypted backs. After she pulls out a book and triple and quadruple checks something she finally relents.

“Fine, it is your funeral. Find the current location of the Ursa that attacked a group of leads out at the eastern quarry or find their den and check for recent activity. Bonus if there are cubs and you can procure them safely. You are to return with the details for us to send out a pair of silvers to perform the subjugation,” she rattles off in a monotone before handing us back our plaques.

We managed to walk out of the guild as naturally as possible and Akira took the evidence of our guilt and disappeared to go dispose of it.

“So why an Ursa requisition Zo?” I ask, trying to make some small talk while we wait for Akira to return.

“I don’t know, I just felt like we’ve seen them before, and it could be a good way to see how we’ve improved from the Guars to this. Also, maybe we already took care of it with Git? Ursa’s are supposed to be hyper territorial, so the likelihood of them being this close... while not right after winter’s thaw... Also, baby Ursa’s could be really cute and could be used as mounts maybe, or sold at a really really good premium,” she says, backing into the real reason she probably grabbed us that requisition in particular.

We kept chatting before I did a double take, not realizing when Akira snuck up and joined us.

“Keep chatting. Don’t look around, we are being watched by two parties,” he says under his breath. However, saying that and acting like nothing is entirely different. Jessica starts to walk straighter, her arms stiff and swinging like a wooden doll.

“S-s-so nice weather!?” She attempts while Zoe is unconsciously gripping her shirt in a white knuckle grip, her head drifting to the sides before she snaps it back to look straight ahead. I also hear Akira make a suffering sigh at how great we are, but when I look over he’s looking at me accusingly.

“What!?” I ask accusingly.

“This…" is all he says while pointing to all of me. I do a quick glance at myself up and down not seeing what he means. With a bit more frustration than I intended I smacked him in the arm.

“That’s not funny, you cannot just point to all of me,” I say in a huff, which gets him to chuckle.

“That’s a bit better, you being angry at me is at least more natural than you going stone-faced without any emotion at all.”

“Har, har, har, how about we do a bit of shopping, I know I could use some clothes,” I get out before a very enthusiastic Zoe grabs my elbow and Jessica’s hand, earning herself a slap from Violet before she drags us into the nearest shop.

Zoe is grabbing a bunch of things and just constantly throwing them in front of me to gauge if they would look good as we start to ask Akira in hushed whispers what’s up.

“Two people, both men, one staying far behind us, but his eyes haven’t left you three. The other is walking down a side road keeping pace with us and keeps doing their best to keep their eyes on us from between the shops, an obvious idiot. There might be a third that ducked into some shops after watching you three for too long,” my hands become clammy at the thought of us being watched and it is Jessica who comes up with a possible reason.

“Maybe they are some of the silver guilders? Not like we know any of them yet and maybe they are following us to protect us. Let’s go back home.”

Having not paid attention to what Zoe had been sizing me up with, we headed over to buy a couple of black pants with a purple and another dark forest green shirt. I give a quizzical look to Zoe who just chimes in a chipper manner.

“This way you match Akira a bit and also don’t stand out too much if we go back into a forest,” she says. I look over and compare Akira’s black armor with dark purple accents around some edges and cannot help but think that we’d look more like a matching pair by Zoe doing this. Looking over I see the mischievous grin that formed on her face and I quickly reach out to pinch her side.

“Not funny. Are you making fun of me? Trying to start something?” She yelps as she dances away, rubbing her side while motioning me to pay.

I let out a sigh and then proceeded to make the poor woman’s eyes bug out as I summon my soul storage and reach in to retrieve the bag of dens we were given back in Lekthar. I paid 220 Dens for the four pieces of clothing and we made our way back to Jessica’s.

After a bit of shopping, we managed to loosen up a bit and walk down the road a little less woodenly. Once in Jessica’s house, we huddled around the table as Akira took up a position by the window. Jessica’s parents were simply managing the front end of the store while we stayed in the back of the kitchen. Waiting. Fidgeting and waiting.

Akira finally stood up and motioned for us to be quiet and proceed out the back door into the garden. Helping us jump a fence as we went towards the street behind where the Smithy used to be.

“Why are we sneaking around?” I ask in a hushed whisper.

“The skinny guy that was watching us from the street over essentially verified our position and after we didn’t leave for a bit he took off running. We are going to follow the one that seems to want to notify someone of where we are currently. The others didn’t come into the shop to try and talk to us and we should try to limit our chances of being surrounded.”

“So we are like spies now?” Zoe stated while she hunched over a bit and kept to the shadows of the building. Looking a hundred times more suspicious.

“There he is, jogging east, we need to hurry and try to not make too much noise,” Akira starts to motion and I quickly intercept a Zoe who was making a beeline to jump onto Akira’s back.

“We need to be serious here,” I reprimand her and it must have hit her like a carriage as she first looks ashamed with mist starting to form in her eyes before she puts on a serious mask and just nods as we move into a slight jog.

The guy we were following must be an idiot as after only two streets he slows to a hobbling walk while massaging a stitch in his side. We follow him and notice he’s leaving the town heading east then northeast.

We start to give him more room as we’ve left the shopping area and are crossing through the poorer area as we leave the town. He moves into the forest and Akira holds us further back, motioning us to keep quiet.

Akira follows a trail that only he seems to be able to see at first as we traverse the sparse forest, across the bed of dead red pine needles making our steps pretty soft. We keep this up until noon at which point Akira can see that we are getting tired or bored. Looking over to Zoe, she’s definitely bored.

Sensing the lagging enthusiasm, Akira kneels down and outlines what I suppose is a footprint. He shows us how some of the needles have been shifted, exposing a few of their damp undersides. Then motioning us to what an average stride should look like we can barely make out the depression that sprung back from another footfall.

After following it a bit, he stops us to force us to look up and around, to not keep our eyes glued to the ground to the exclusion of the world around us. We keep doing this for hours in silence, following a trail to who knows where. The forest is slowly getting darker with the sun setting while we continue to head northeast.

We had simply cut and run immediately to follow this person who was heading out of town without storing any supplies or camping equipment. If we spent some effort to expand our soul storage we might have all the necessary supplies already with us. I cannot help but feel like kicking myself. I had spent so much time yesterday just trying to increase my [Locus of Control] and to set aside a healthy amount of embers. Perhaps I should focus on one thing instead of dabbling in all of them.

I continue to lament some of my choices as the forest starts to get darker along with my mood. It is during this time that I hear panicked footsteps. Then our quarry that we’ve been hounding sprints past us perhaps 50 meters away, looking as though he’d stared down the devourer itself.

We decided quickly to go see where he was going to deliver news of our location and why he’d left in such a hurry. As we approached more we finally caught a sign, or rather we smelled it. A smell of burned meat wafts over, burned so badly that it must have been charred black.

We keep moving cautiously, our ears open to any sound, but we start to come up to the lower section of an escarpment. As we approach we see the legs of two corpses facing away from us. Approaching cautiously, there is also an acidic smell of vomit and that is when we see the corpse in full.

They are lying on their stomachs, skids on the forest floor showing that the men were running away and went chest first into the ground. Their hands are covered in blisters and boils and from the neck up, or where the neck should be is just black bone. A neck and skull were charred black and flaking from the stress of the temperature.

Zoe is shaking like a leaf and Jessica is now also emptying her stomach. The fact that her family abstains from eating meat altogether, this must be extra hard for her. I can feel the tickle of acid at the back of my own throat, but I grit my teeth and swallow.

I slowly start working myself into a fit of anger. Focusing on being angry is so much easier and the usage of fire just screams that it is a clue to my father. Wanting to be prepared, I open my soul storage and pull out the blade Akira provided to me before that I managed to use when hunting guars.

We continue forward, Akira and myself leading and a much more subdued and green Zoe and Jessica in tow. The escarpment is very steep, going up some 20-25 meters with a lot of tree roots struggling on the incline, their roots having had a significant amount of soil washed away. There are still long tufts of grass poking out here and there. As we follow the steep incline we see a carriage in the distance. It is over-the-top elaborate, it makes the silver carriage we had ridden look peasant worthy.

There’s an emblem on the side that we don’t recognize but it screams nobility.

“Why are one of them here?” I voice my suspicion without expecting a response as everyone ought to be just as lost as myself.

“Maybe bandits caught them and the carriage for ransom or for loot?” Zoe prompts as a possible reason.

The carriage appears to have come from the other direction following the same escarpment and the four Devra are pawing at the red needles, not finding anything to eat in their boredom. The carriage itself is outside of a cave that has been dug into the hill, broken roots hanging from a six-foot ceiling, hanging down a half foot where they’ve obviously all been hacked short by a sharp blade.

There’s another pair of corpses sitting back against the earth, black empty sockets in their blackened skulls staring out. Seeing a body of flesh with a skull on top looks more frightening than anything I’ve seen before.

I unsheathe the sword as quietly as possible as we approach the entrance. My nerves are taught, I’m ready to lash out at anything and mentally prepare 250 embers to snap a [Locus of Control] in place at the first sign of a problem. Not wanting for my head to look like these two corpses. I readjust my grip on the sword as we simply stand outside and listen.

Nothing.

I look over to Akira for reassurance and he comes over and whispers to me.

“You have all the tools you need to deal with an idiot fire mage.”

“But it’s too dark,” I retort back in a hushed tone, not like we have supplies for a torch or anything at this time.

I shake my head at that. I’ve seen in the dark before, or kind of in the past. I slowly reach out a tether and touch Jessica and Zoe, feeling their presence. I then loop it forward and touch the nearest corpse, not knowing what to expect.

Where I’d expect to see the soft white glow of their soul, there is nothing, but there is a red haze around the skull. A question to ask later when there is time.

I reach the [Mana Tether] into the dark cave and grope inside. After three meters, I move it and touch the ceiling, seeing it light up with roots digging up through the earth into a tree. Scanning around the edge, some of the walls and floors also light up with splotches from moss showing up. I increase it all the way up to 8 meters for a cost of 256 mana.

With a bit more confidence, I nod to Akira and we proceed shoulder to shoulder inside, my tether constantly snaking around the perimeter. Jessica has grabbed hold of my shirt to follow behind while Violet has extended from behind her as a dozen quietly swaying vines, touching the roots and starting to seethe in anger. Zoe is following up behind Jessica, creating a slow line that I’m almost pulling the two of them into the dark.

Akira seems unfazed entirely by the ordeal and is simply keeping to my pace. I’ve brushed him a couple of times with the tether and he’s no longer stiffening briefly in response to it. There’s a slight curve to the cave and then the floor drops to a flat floor. It speaks of an earth mage having put some work in to drop the floor and give more headroom. The dark cave slowly lights up at the end, torchlight coming from around a hard corner.

We quietly approach and I use my [Mana Tether] to look around the corner and motion for everyone to come to a stop. I can see two people standing. Souls white, but with maybe two dozen black scars riddling their bodies. I flash two fingers to the group and motion that they are around the corner.

Violet is in a right frenzy, which gives me an idea. I use my tether to grope above the two people and push for some iron grass to grow. Digging the roots deep into the ceiling. I make my intent known, thinking of vines that twist around trees and choke them out. With the goal in place and a third of my mana gone I quickly scan further down the corridor and don’t see anyone with my newfound sense.

With a quick command, all we hear is a very slight gasp and grunt as the two bodies are hoisted into the air. I can see them kicking at the air having been pulled up to the ceiling by the iron grass around their necks. Their hands are grabbing at their throats and one of their hands goes and looks to grab something before we can hear some hacking of a sword at the roots. Though they are quickly exhausting their struggle and the angle at the ceiling is too awkward with all the hanging roots also being in the way. We can see shadows dancing in the torchlight in tune with their flailing legs.

The whites of their souls are slowly starting to fade and I motion for everyone to follow me in the slight glow of torchlight that is bouncing around the corner. I want these bandits to see me. I want to vent my anger at what has been taken from me. I want the last thing they see is a ‘plant’ mage looking up at them as they struggle.

We round the corner and Jessica lets out a small gasp while I just stare at the two bodies that are just twitching, the light of their souls dimming. This is wrong, these aren’t bandits. They are both in armor, sporting the same emblem on the carriage outside. I quickly relay a command and the iron grass starts to unspool, dropping the two of them with the loudest noise so far. There is a raspy wheeze coming from both as Akira goes over and removes their swords and checks for a pulse.

Using a sword, he cuts down my two iron grass and uses it to tie them up. I let go of a breath that I had been holding this entire time.

Had I almost killed two guards of a noble? What happens if they wake up? Where are the bandits? Are they the ones that killed the bandits?

Jessica goes over and kneels by the two, placing her hand into a pouch and sprinkling some seeds around the two. She focuses for a second before two green cocoons form, entrapping the two guards or knights. She binds them and uses the grass to also gag them to try and muffle any warning they might be able to do.

It is during this time that I hear the most horrendous pained cry I’ve ever heard. A chill goes up my spine as I recognize the voice as being my father’s. Without thinking or caring about my accidental two victims I sprint deeper inside, passing some open doorways with crates and other possible stolen items. Going towards where the sound of my father’s cry reverberated from.

I reach down and summon a hundred embers and create a base [Locus of Control], expending 120 embers to fuel the base spell in case I run into whoever is able to roast heads.

I round the corner and proceed several steps before I stumble into what has to be the largest room. Eight earthen tables and benches are in the room with a raised dais at the back. Lit with a couple of torches. There are over a dozen corpses with black skulls at or around some of the tables. Some look to have taken cover behind them but their heads were still burned out.

I can see this in my periphery vision but it is what I see on top of the dais that has my attention. My dad’s sitting on a wooden chair against the back wall, his head is slumped forward and he’s hyperventilating and starting to convulse. I cannot help but make a sound as I strangle a cry seeing his two powerful arms now just blackened bones. From the shoulder down on the right side, I can only see blackened bones, where his arm which used to be thicker than my thigh, is now charred to the bone. His left arm is also bone but there are red embers crackling through the bone as it still smokes from the ordeal he just went through.

My strangled cry gets the attention of three people as they turn around to look at me in surprise. I look at each one, seething with rage, my sword is trembling with how angry I am as I look at them.

Off to the side is a white-haired older man who looks like a butler. A young man sitting at an earthen bench closest to my dad, holding a handkerchief to his mouth and nose. He looks over astonished and then delighted before he turns to start addressing the third man at the top of the dais right beside my dad. My eyes lock onto him and all I can think of is the sheer amount of unspeakable things I want to do to him.

He’s a weathered middle-aged man with burn scars across his face wearing a brown robe. The thing that has my attention the most is that he’s actually twirling a small hoop of fire around his finger in a bored manner.

“Oswald, that girl matches the description of the one with a storage artifact,” a high nasally voice comes from the man with a handkerchief. The butler moves over to join his charge but I’m still fixed on the guy with a fire ring who is now taking slow steps down from the raised dais to stand beside the other two men.

“How’d she get past your two lunkheads? Deal’s still good? Right? You just want the artifact?” Oswald responded, not even caring that I am holding a sword.

A storage artifact? Is this why my dad’s been tortured? Is that why our smithy was burned to the ground? I can hear my own teeth grinding as I am clenching my teeth so hard. I can easily reach my tether over to them, however, the ceiling is too high for my previous trick, so I’ll need to try it from below. Snap it up from behind to grab their necks and pull them down to the ground. I’ve got four times as many mana embers ready and waiting to use to boost [Locus of Control]. Sweeping my tether behind them to prepare my trap, I pass it through them and can see that the butler has more black scars than the two guards outside had combined and Oswald has more than triple that. The man with a handkerchief I surmise must be a noble given the rich clothing. He’s got so many red scars within his soul but not a single black one.

“Tough luck, there’s no artifact,” I say through gritted teeth, trying to stall for a bit to set my trap.

The noble frowns before his face alights with joy.

“No artifact? Then what? A skill or bloodline skill maybe? Oh! We found a breeder,” the guy’s words cause me to freeze from my current plan as Oswald starts to walk toward me.

All I see is red after hearing those words. I small voice in the back of my mind reminds me of Akira’s constant words that fire magic is suicide and I see the guy with the hoop of fire walking toward me.

Change of plans, I move my tether up to the ring of fire. I can feel it, kind of like the locus but different, more open, vulnerable, hungry. I just push half of my remaining mana towards it, I also push the mana embers I had set aside for [Locus of Control]'s boost into it.

The red scar on my soul goes from red to pitch black in contrast to everything in front of me going white as a blast picks me up and throws me out of the room.