“How’d delivering the letter go?” Tahir asked. Once he and Meti finished their business at the heart of the grove, they made their way back to their tent to meet back up with Theo and Hasio. The sun had set by the time they got back, with the last bits of daylight fading away around the time they reached the tent.
“Pretty well I think!” Theo replied. “Unless he just read it out loud as soon as we left. I don’t think he did though. I told him it was from master Callipho and he got all serious.”
“We wrote in the letter to come talk to us as soon as possible, and elected not to be specific with what we found.” Hasio explained. “Although we did say there were some planar shenanigans involved, so that would either push him to actually coming to visit us to find out what we know, or it tips him off to knowing that we’re interfering if he’s actually involved.”
As a precaution, Tahir summoned the earth spirit using aura, focusing on his tremorsense to the area around the tent. “So we’re just waiting to see what happens?” He asked.
“About all we can do.” Hasio answered. “That Blade of Frost is wary - she didn’t know it was me, but she could sense me while I was camouflaged, so I think she’ll be on the lookout for me if I try to go snooping around. We can follow someone if they leave the grove again, but we’ll have to be watching to see if anyone has left, including at this moment.” He shrugged, running a hand through his wavy blond hair. “It’s a bit of a mess, honestly, we’ll really have to see how things with the Raven goes. In any case, how’d your spirit summoning go?”
“Pretty well, actually. The shaman wouldn’t let me summon a spirit from the ethereal, but he helped me make a contract with a local spirit. They were actually a spirit of-” He paused, detecting movement with his tremorsense, and glancing back toward the entrance to the tent. He felt the steps move toward the entrance, and everyone watched as Shukri stepped through, with her spear strapped to her back, and a massive wooden plate full of food.
“I had a feeling none of you had eaten yet.” She said, as she looked around at the group. “And none of you were around to receive a meal. Shall we dine?”
Tahir gave Hasio a look of ‘I’ll tell you later’ regarding the spirit, and looked back to Shukri. “That would be amazing, thanks. We came straight here after we got out of the crossing.” The group made space for Shukri and the plate, and they all sat down and ate together. Shukri wanted to be involved with whatever happened in the aftermath of delivering the letter, so she could react accordingly and potentially warn the rest of the grove if there happened to be fallout. In the meantime, though, while she ate, she asked the group several questions, asking for their perspective on some of the stories that Tahir told her.
In the middle of their recollection, when they’d started describing what happened on the floors they visited in Isanthyr’s ruin, particularly the ones involving Theo and Hasio, where Tahir and Meti hadn’t been involved, Tahir detected another set of footprints with his tremorsense. This time, they moved to the entrance of the tent, but simply stopped and stood instead of opening the tent. After a few seconds, Tahir cleared his throat and said, “We’ve got company.”
Everyone went silent, and turned toward the entrance to the tent as the Raven stepped inside. “Forgive me for such a late visit, although if I understood the letter correctly, I believe I’ve been expected.” He said, with a short bow.
“Sorry about that.” Theo apologized as everyone but Hasio stood up. “We didn’t know of another way to get you to come here alone without letting anyone in your guild know that we knew something.”
“By all means, I applaud you for having the forethought to hand me a letter addressed from Callipho. He’s one of a few whose letters I would take the time to read in private, and most of my guild is well aware of that.” He looked around, eyes coming across everyone in the tent, and coming to rest on one person in particular. “Ah, Shukri I presume?”
“You know of me, mage?”
“Of course.” The Raven said with a smile. “The guild mages I sent out have missed you and the other hunters who were injured or otherwise occupied the past couple of days. Mainly for having to pull their own weight, but a strong hunter like yourself gave them a sense of security that they’ve been sorely lacking in their latest hunts.”
“Good to know that they have a proper sense of what a strong hunter looks like.” Shukri replied, though Tahir noticed her tail flicking back and forth.
With a nod, the Raven turned his attention back to the others. “According to your letter, you have information for me?”
Meti moved to cast the spell to prevent their conversation from leaving the tent - which got the Raven’s attention, but he seemed to realize what kind of spell she cast without any explanation.
Everyone looked between each other, and while keeping an eye out for the Raven’s reactions for any changes, they began to explain what they found over the course of the past two days. Starting from Dahlia leading them to the orb underwater, then Hasio trailing one of the guild members, and finally them finding and destroying the remaining two orbs. As they did so, they brought out the pieces they managed to collect from the orbs.
The Raven stayed silent for the most part, but as their recollections picked up, he began to ask some clarifying questions about the orbs and planar rifts, enough to tell Tahir that he didn’t seem to know about any of what they were telling him. Either that, or he acted incredibly convincing otherwise. After everyone finished speaking, and the Raven didn’t say anything for a long while, Tahir watched him carefully. As he suspected everyone else did.
After several seconds of agonizing silence, the Raven finally spoke. “It would seem that there are a few dissenters within my guild. No, it would be better to say that we’ve been infiltrated.” When he spoke, he noticed multiple sighs of relief from the group. “Ah, my apologies. I suppose it would have been smart to take the possibility of my involvement in this manner into account. Let me be clear that all of the information you have told me just now is new to me. I’ll blame my excitement at our investigation of the ruin, but I’ve been mostly blind to any odd behavior from my guild members, or the escorts that we hired.”
“That’s great! Well, not all of it, but we were thinking that it didn’t really make sense for you to be behind this since they were already letting you investigate the ruin.” Theo said. “But we’re not really sure why anyone would do something like this.”
“I can safely say it’s most likely sabotage from another guild.” The Raven replied. “The right to investigate the ruin to begin with was contested, with the Crow’s Black Feathers winning due to a considerable bid in our coalition’s auction. If all of this is due to the efforts of another guild to hinder us and possibly make off with our research, everything reads more clearly.”
“Right.” Tahir thought back to when they first arrived. “Harris thought Metilia and Theo were from another guild when we first showed up. They were probably trying to turn the nomads against you by making them think your research was causing the monsters to appear, and they took your best mages out of the research at the same time to go with the hunting parties - which just slowed everything down.”
“All so they could fit themselves into the perfect position to swoop in if the nomads kicked you out, or another altercation arose, or they would simply steal your research once you concluded.” Meti added.
“Gods above, are all mage guilds really this cutthroat?” Hasio asked.
The Raven gave a small smile and a slight shrug. “Navigating relations does come with the territory I’m afraid. You can get by quite a bit on good will, but I suppose we caused a bit too much of a stir in grabbing the right to research from under the other guilds’ noses.” He glanced at Shukri. “Although it certainly wasn’t my intention, it seems our guild is to blame for causing your people a great deal of trouble. You have my sincerest apologies.”
“I can expect you to be part of the solution and not just the problem, no?” Shukri asked. Her ears twitched, and she seemed to glance beyond the Raven, toward the entrance to the tent.
The Raven nodded in response. “Of course. I will have to act quickly, since as you’ve said they’ll likely react now that their plans have been dashed. While they currently don’t suspect that I’m aware, I can gather everyone together and have someone use magic to make them unable to lie-”
“Shh! Do you hear that?” Shukri interrupted. The Raven paused, and everyone listened to the sounds outside the tent. Tahir could faintly pick up the sound of shouting out in the grove. Quickly, everyone left the tent to an odd sight. The cloudy sky above painted orange, as if a bright light shone from the surrounding area despite it being well into night. Tahir caught a whiff of something on the wind. Smoke.
“It would seem they’ve decided to act faster than any of us expected.” The Raven said.
“Seriously? Did they set a fire in the grove!?” Hasio asked.
“Not quite. We’d be able to see it if so.” Meti replied. “They’ve likely set it some distance out of the boundaries of the grove, and are allowing the wind to carry embers in this direction.”
“The hunters are moving to make sure it doesn’t reach the grove.” Shukri said, and started walking quickly toward the nearest central road. “But what of your mages, Raven?”
Thankfully, everyone had all of their gear on them already in anticipation of potentially coming to blows with the Raven, so they could follow without having to go back into the tent to grab anything. “If possible, they likely would have joined them. Plenty of them have the means to help fight a fire, or at least stop it from progressing.”
Shukri continued moving fast, although it seemed like she barely kept herself from breaking out into a run. As they reached the central road, they could immediately spot something wrong. The area that held the collection of tents where the Crow’s Black Feathers resided was encompassed by a massive, light blue magical dome. “A barrier.” The Raven noted. “And a pretty strong one at that.” He glanced toward the opposite end of the road, only seeing hunters and other nomads running out to help fight the fire. “One strong enough to block teleportation magic, by the looks of it.”
“We have to do something! They’re trying to burn the grove down!” Theo said.
“And shutting the mages in a barrier lets them either just turn it off when the fire gets close enough, or makes the nomads just think the mages hid behind it until the fire was taken care of instead of helping.” Hasio pondered aloud. “You either lose some people or take the blame for the fire anyway. Devious.”
“Quite, but thanks to you there have been some variables they couldn’t anticipate.” The Raven replied. “I’ll leave you to do what you think is right, and I’ll join you in the resolution of this in due time - but if I don’t find out who’s involved here, then it will cause more trouble for all of us.” He took a few steps forward and in a puff of smoke, he took the form of a Raven, then gave a deep caw and flew out into the sky.
“He’s just leaving!?” Shukri said incredulously, watching his form disappear into the dark. “Isn’t he that guild’s master?”
“He has a point, he’ll probably chip in when he figures out who set the barrier.” Tahir said. “Speaking of which - we should go see if we can release it early. The mages could definitely make sure the fire doesn’t reach the grove.”
“But what about the fire?” Theo asked. “I could go and try to splash it with as much water as I can, but aren’t there gonna be the people behind this still out there?”
“Seems like we’ve got to split again.” He offered. “Same teams as last time. We guard Theo while she helps to fight the fire, you guys go see if you can take the barrier down. Something’s telling me we’ll have people trying to stop us on either side, and we just have to wait for the Raven to do his thing.”
“You’re probably right. If we can’t get the barrier down, we would have just wasted time.” Tahir agreed. “You coming with me, Shukri?”
“Let’s get going instead of just standing around.” She said, looking very close to just dragging Tahir off.
“Wait! Hold on.” Theo said, reaching into her storage bag and pulling out as many potions as she could fit between her fingers. “Take the potions master Callipho made - the aura recovery potions and his versions of the one we found in that ruin. Just in case.”
Tahir took the potions, passing a couple of the recovery potions along to Shukri. “Okay. This escalated a lot faster than any of us anticipated, but let’s make sure the grove stays unburned at the end of all this.”
