The Tower of Emnu

While Aaron observed and waited he tried his best to gauge every groups strength. At first he concentrated on distinguishing groups who looked well equipped and those who were not. But it was difficult to measure a groups power just by their equipment. Enchantments usually did not look like anything and Aaron had trouble sensing any on equipment, which was simply because he was too far away. He could not decide which group even had enchanted equipment or if none of them had. His enchanted dagger did not look more dangerous but it definitively was by magnitudes. The only way to be sure was to get closer and use his mana sense to feel for the enchantments. But that he judged to be too risky. Eventually he started to focus on the mages though. Because the stronger the mage, the stronger the group should be. Again his mana sense was the best tool in his arsenal for that. Aaron could guess at how strong a mage was by how “heavy” they felt in his mana senses. He was not 100% sure if he was sensing it correctly and coming to the right conclusions if he did.

After hours and a dozen groups he eventually selected a medium strength group and followed them. Why did he chose this one particular group? Because of a comment he overheard one of them make.

“Are we off duty at the second floor tomorrow night? I met this girl in the Keg last night…”

“Shut up Kraal. Nobody wants to hear about your love life. And yeah we have 3 days off according to the schedule. This manhunt is so freaking boring. Everyone knows the cultivator managed to go up to the third or fourth floor so why the hell are we still camping the second floor?”

“Because we are paid to do so.”

Aaron was vindictive enough to choose someone he knew was his enemy. But quite frankly he did not know about the political situation in the Town. It was big enough to house thousands of enemies and he did not think that he had seen the strongest of them yet. Aurix himself must have been a powerful mage. Because Aaron had not seen any other mage create a shield, period. Not just a less powerful shield, but any shield spells seemed to be really rare. Merlin the leader of the manhunt and from Ambition did not have a shield or if he had one he had not used it against him. So Aaron had to assume there were plenty of people still in the Town strong enough individually to make him problems. Not to speak of the sheer mass of enemy vessels and mages in a whole big town. Considering what he had seen from the Town there was a good chance they had not even sent a fraction of their power against him. Which begged the question why. Politics probably. So it was probably not just a good idea to pick a group because of revenge, but also because it was better not to antagonize the whole Town. If he had not done so already. There were a lot of questions he needed to answer and if he had grown used to his new technique he vowed to himself to go find some answers.

The group proceeded down a beaten path that functioned as sort of a road and Aaron listened to their banter, even as he thought about if it was wise to chose this group as his targets.

“Mhm. Paid badly you mean. I swear collecting herbs makes 4 times as much now than before the manhunt. Especially if we go to the third floor.”

“Yeah and then the cultivator guts you, when you leave the safety of the Raid, great idea.”

“Nobody has seen or heard of the guy in weeks, he probably died, because he could not get off the second floor.”

“Right and you believe that?”

Another man cut into the argument, the mage if Aaron guessed the direction of the voice correctly.

“It does not matter what he believes or what I believe. Focus guys, lets at least get some missions done for the guild during our break. The bear population is making the whole northeast a nightmare for the newbies.”

“Right, boss. Sorry.”

There was a long moment of silence before one of the men snorted again.

“Bears. Man the recruits get worse every generation. How will they deal with the scorpions on the second floor if they can’t handle a cave bear?”

“Most of the new recruits are Earthers, Kraal. Pampered, weak and unaccustomed to violence. Asperians like us, we are trained, honed in combat with and without magic.”

“I suppose you are right. Still, in our generation nobody had problems with bears.” Kraal spat out and Aaron listened intently. Asperia? Where had he heard that name before? It took him a while until he remembered. Back when he had first come to the tower in the Hall of illusions he had killed a knight coming from Asperia. He had almost forgotten the man. He had known that there were multiple worlds feeding the tower with souls, but it was still fairly hard to believe. These people were not from the Tower or Earth, but from somewhere else entirely. A completely unknown society. Well to be fair, Aaron did not know much about the towers society either. He continued to follow the group, but they kept mostly silent now besides a few jokes, grunts or a short discussion on which path to chose. The group led Aaron into a part of the First floor he had never been to, but he could immediately smell the difference. It had a distinct smell of wolf and bear, of blood and fragrant herbs. He could spot the tracks of small herds of deer and big wolf packs. Sometimes there were the heavy indented paw prints of big, giant bears that everything tried to avoid. The herbs they were looking for were growing everywhere and in such density that the forest itself had stopped being a jungle. Big patches of herbs were between each and every tree replacing the mosses and bushes that usually formed the bottom layer of the forest.

None of this felt natural to Aaron. His mana sense went haywire because of the many spells in the area. In many ways it felt like an artificial farm. The spells of the Tower spawned things and changed temperature and other things he did not understand to make the environment more conductive to growing herbs. It was dense with magical constructs and he wondered if the mages coming here could sense these spells as much as he could, or if this was another unexpected boon of Sensory Harmony.

Aaron watched the group slaughter their way through the forest. The wolves were surprisingly aggressive in this part of the forest and the group left behind a trail of corpses. They also picked a couple of herbs here and there, Aaron did not understand why they picked them at first out of the sheer mass of the same plants that surrounded them until he concentrated on the herbs in question properly. They all had more mana in them than the other plants surrounding them. Maybe an indicator of better quality? He was not sure and although he was tempted to ambush the group here. There really wasn’t a good opportunity. They kept together and their formation tight. 3 Melees in front an Archer in the back with their Mage and another man with a shield and sword covering their backs. But Aaron had time and he did not need to kill one of this group either. So he stayed out of sight and waited patiently. He followed them all the way to the bear caves where they killed around 10 or 15 of the giant bears. The creatures were wild, feral and strong. But the group knew how to deal with them. They set up traps, actual bear traps to Aaron’s surprise and then lured them into them, before killing them from a distance. Only once a bear did not get trapped and they killed it the old fashioned way. Their melees keeping it back with shields, swords and axes, while the mage seared the creatures head off.

When they were finally done and the entire group had their bags stuffed with herbs the group left. They piled the bear bodies up and burned them, making Aaron gag from the stench. It was a huge waste of meat. The wolf corpses were left to rot though and Aaron wondered if he could get some good eating out of those. The bears more so than the wolves. He had heard predators meat was filled with parasites. Well he would see about that. These bears looked like they would make good sparring partners and they would have enough meat on them to be a worthy hunt.

It was dark by the time the group made their way back towards the city. They had lit big lamps and the mage had summoned a magical light as they walked slowly through the thick forest. The night did not bother Aaron at all. He could see just as well in the dark and this meant he could move closer to observe. That was when it happened. An opportunity arrived.

“I gotta piss, gimme a moment.” One of the men called out and the group stopped.

“Fine, lets have a short break guys. Take your lamp with you.”

The man grunted and walked off into nearby bushes to relieve himself. Aaron quickly studied the surrounding landscape. He could abduct and kill the man without any problems now. But that would make the group ask uncomfortable questions like where the man had gone. No, it was better to make it look like an accident. To kill him and then stage it to seem like it was an accident. Silently Aaron flipped through the darkness and searched for a good spot. He found it at a small slope littered with rocks and smiled to himself. It was pretty hard to believe that someone would die from a few feet high drop, but if he landed on his head? Who knew. He collected one of the rocks laying at the bottom of the slope, a particularly nasty and sharp one, before he jumped back up into the trees. The man was a fair distance away from the small drop, but that was fine. Aaron jumped to the closest tree above him, peering through the darkness towards the man who had finally decided on a spot to pee at. His enhanced senses made his passing seem unnaturally loud. But the man sighed oblivious as he took a piss. He had put his lamp down next to him and Aaron took one quick look around before he let himself drop.

With Wind Steps still activated he drifted down, as silent as a leaf on the wind. He landed directly behind the man, took one step and clamped an arm around the mans neck. The man yelped surprised and then started choking. Aaron brought the stone he had in his hand down on the back of the man’s head and he could feel the man’s skull give as he killed him. Blood sprayed in a small gush, spluttering Aaron’s face and clothes, much to his dismay. But at least most of the blood was on him and not on the ground where it would leave traces. His strength was utterly ridiculous now, it felt no harder to crack a man’s skull than cracking open a watermelon. With ease he hefted the man over his shoulder, took the lamp, placing it a few steps closer towards the little drop and then dropped the man down the slope with an audible rumble. He could already hear the group call for him.

Aaron jumped down towards the man and reached out with his hand like he had learned. Then he activated Soul Catcher for the first time for real. It felt like ice was crawling up his arm as he grabbed for the man’s solar plexus. When he touched the man Aaron felt something. It was like a shudder passed through him. A pulsing in his ears and for a short moment there was the smell of ozone in the air. Aaron dropped the bloody rock right next to the man’s head and then jumped into the night.

From the distance and out of sight he followed the groups short search, while he tried to feel for any changes in him. He could not sense the Spirit at all. Had he failed?

“Hey, Kraal? Where the fuck are you? Come on this is not funny.” one of the guys shouted.

But then one of the guys screamed.“Kraal? Hey, what the hell. Guys, come on, help me.”

One of the men jumped down towards the dead man, stumbled on the loose rocks and almost crashed, but he kept his balance and ran towards the corpse.

“Hey Kraal, shit, wake up man.” The man uncorked a bottle and splashed some liquid on the open head wound. Healing potion probably, Aaron guessed. But it was to no use. The whole group appeared on top of the small ridge looking down towards the two men. The man kneeling next to Kraal was frantically shaking and applying healing potion, was trying to make the corpse drink it.

“Gres, hey Gres.” one of the men called out and the man, trying to apply healing potion looked up.

“Check his pulse.”“Shit, he is dead, I can see that from here. What the fuck happened.”

“You don’t know that, check it Gres, he might have survived.” Gres felt for Kraal’s throat and then froze. He stiffened and then shook his head. Solemnly he put the stopper back into the potion bottle and put it back into his belt. The whole group came down and inspected the corpse. The mage peered at the wound looking grim, while the whole group was silent and shocked.

“How did he die?”

“Smashed his head in on that rock there. Still, that wasn’t that high of a drop, wasn’t it?”

“Some people are just unlucky.” one of the men said, but still the group was really tense now as they stared at every shadow in the forest.

“What do we do now?”

“We bring him back with us, combat formation. It looks like an accident, but...lets not tempt fate.” the mage ordered and the group formed up. Two of the melees grabbed the corpse, a feat which would have been difficult for normal men, but did not seem to strain the group at all. Their archer had an arrow knocked and was peering into the darkness, but Aaron was too far away for any of them to see or sense him in any way. Finally they left and Aaron let them go.

He was not sure if they suspected something, but in the end it did not really matter. They had no real reason to suspect foul play and anyone else would think it a freak accident. In that he had succeeded. Aaron could also feel that the technique had worked. There was something there pushing against his Qi, a pressure that slowly settled to a heavy feeling around his solar plexus. He could already feel the Spirits influence a bit. He felt weird, uncomfortable really. It would definitively take some getting used to this sensation. It was the feeling of mild paranoia, of walking down an empty street and turning around because you thought he heard something, but nothing was there. Either way he would have to get used to it. But maybe he did not have to. It was time to go home and then pull the Spirit into his dantian. He wanted to see how good this new technique of his really was.