Zenith of Sorcery

Chapter 006

Sun Drinker

Sitting on the wall of the city, Marcus stared towards the sea, watching the ships come and go from the harbor. Hrastovnik, Elora’s capital city, was a reasonably important trade port, so it saw plenty of ships coming and going every day. Marcus idly observed the flags and insignia they bore, trying to guess where they came from. About half were completely unfamiliar to him. Apparently a lot of the merchant houses had been replaced by newcomers in the six years he had been away.

He still didn’t know why he was here. Why did he end his exile and come back to the lands of the Silver League? He was worried there was some outside influence involved in that decision, perhaps Sacred Oak invisibly exerting influence in the back of his mind, but he felt there was more to it than that. He didn’t regret being here. He just wished he had a clearer vision of what he wanted to achieve.

A giant white butterfly landed on the wall beside him.

“Done already?” Marcus inquired. “Is this place so boring?”

He agreed to let Celer explore the city for the day as payment for her help earlier. He was a little leery to set a fey spirit like her loose on a populated area, but as far as fairies went, Celer was pretty inoffensive. He had let her do this plenty of times in the past, and she never caused too much trouble for him.

“The wind speaks in hushed whispers, bringing portents of things to come…” she said dramatically.

“Yes, I know you like eavesdropping on conversations,” Marcus interrupted. “What did you hear?”

She shook her wings up and down a few times in a gesture of annoyance. He knew she liked it when he played along with her little theater, but he didn’t feel like it right now. Besides, the fact she didn’t try to drown him in irritating dust told him she was only a little annoyed.

“I hear you’re searching for disciples to take under your wing,” she told him.

Marcus was taken aback. What?

“I don’t…” he began. “I mean, I’m thinking about it, but… I haven’t even told anyone! How could they know? How widespread is this?”

“Pretty widespread,” Celer informed him. “It’s not the talk of the town, but I heard it often enough to come back here. Most people don’t know the details, they just heard an elder of the Great Sea Academy is in the area, looking for students. But some of them mention you by name.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Marcus protested, frowning lightly. “As I’ve said, I haven’t actually decided anything, let alone expressed a wish for students to anyone. Did they say where the rumor comes from?”

“It comes from that orphanage you grew up in, I’m pretty sure,” Celer said. “The place comes up pretty regularly whenever people discuss the story. Some versions even claim you already picked a child from there as your successor.”

The orphanage? For a few seconds, Marcus was stumped for an explanation, when a realization suddenly came to him. His talk with Old Pliny… the children were eavesdropping on the conversation. They must have misheard what was being discussed, or maybe just embellished the story to make it sound more exciting.

He sighed heavily. Suddenly, a whole lot of things became clearer in his mind, and he reached a resolution. He still didn’t know why he decided to come back, but at least he had one reason to stay.

“Those little blabbermouths,” he murmured.

“So it’s true?” Celer said, sounding excited. Her wings even visibly twitched a few times.

“Yes, it’s true,” he told her. “I’m looking for students.”

“But you said you’re just thinking about it,” Celer pointed out.

“And I’ve just finished thinking and came to a decision,” Marcus shrugged. “I’m practicing that impulsiveness you praise so much. I feel like teaching.”

“Ooh, that’s exciting!” Celer said. She punctuated this by lifting up from the wall and flying around in a circle around Marcus a few times.

“Why are you so excited?” Marcus asked her curiously. She got elated over such random things sometimes. “Teaching is a long-term responsibility, not fun for an afternoon. You’d get bored of it in a day.”

“You should summon me when you choose a student. Or two. Or twenty,” she babbled, still flying lazy circles around him. “I have a gift for you, or your students, rather.”

Oh boy.

“It’s a good thing!” she assured him. “You’ll like it. The students… well, people can be a little judgmental sometimes, but I’m sure it will work out in the end.”

“Celer…” he warned.

“No arguing! Just summon me, okay?” she insisted, landing straight into his lap. Despite her size, she was as light as a feather.

“Fine, I’ll summon you when the time comes,” he said after a few seconds.

She lifted up from his lap and assumed her previous place on the wall again.

“Why are you still here, Marcus?” she eventually asked him.

“What do you mean?” he asked her back. “Hrastovnik is a really nice city, and I don’t have any real obligations yet. It’s fine for me to stay here for a few days and soak in the sights.”

Gordianus initially wanted to throw a celebration in Marcus’s honor, but since the rift beneath the palace had been kept secret from the populace, it would be hard to explain what exactly Marcus was being celebrated for. So the feast in his honor was reluctantly cancelled. Marcus was pleased by this, as he felt such events were a waste of time, but he did opt to stay in the capital for a few more days, enjoying the king’s hospitality.

He also accepted the monetary reward the king had offered him, but he told Gordianus to deliver it to Pliny and his orphanage instead. The old man mentioned having financial problems when they had last spoken.

“You know what I mean. Why don’t you ascend to the Outer Planes and leave this place behind?” Celer asked. “I would understand if you wanted to start a family and sire a bunch of children, but you’ve always been adamant that you want to dedicate your life to the art of magic. You could do that far easier in any of the six heavens. Are you trying to become a god?”

Ascension wasn’t really Marcus’s goal. He wasn’t usually one for modesty, but aiming for that seemed like pure arrogance. It was well known that becoming a god required more than just great skills, dedication, and high rank. It required something… special. What that thing was, Marcus didn’t know. Some said it was legendary deeds, others claimed it was a moment of oneness with the universe, and others that you needed acknowledgement of the other gods, but it seemed to him everyone was just guessing. All Marcus knew was that it had been centuries since a new god arose on Tasloa, so the requirement had to be extremely high.

Celer’s question was interesting, though.

“Is it easier to become a god down here?” Marcus asked curiously.

“So you don’t even know. Pretend I never said anything, then,” Celer said quickly. “Anyway, staying so you can leave some students behind is good. But after they go their own way-”

“I’ll think about it,” he interrupted her. He had heard conflicting stories about the Outer Heavens. Some of them were a little concerning. “What was that about trying to become a god?”

“Ooh, I’m feeling kind of light-headed. I think I’ve stayed here for too long,” Celer said, swaying side-to-side in an exaggerated manner. “I’m going back to Dreamwood. Don’t forget to summon me when you choose some students!”

Before Marcus could protest that she was trying to avoid the conversation, she disappeared in a puff of white smoke.

He clacked his tongue. He’d have to pester her some more about that next time. It sounded interesting.

* * * *

A few days later, he left Hrastovnik to go seek out one of the few powerful people he felt he could trust. The things he’d learned from Pliny and Titus were encouraging, but at the end of the day they weren’t very highly placed when it came to Great Sea hierarchy. The man Marcus was about to visit, on the other hand, was his fellow elder.

Beortan Samchel was the current leader of the White Dragon Clan – a tribal association living in the Bloodstone Mountains. They lived hard lives, forced to fend off regular monster attacks in a land not suitable for trade or agriculture, but this difficult living also meant they tended to be abnormally powerful compared to most human communities. Once upon a time, their raids menaced the entire western coastline, and more than one spirit mage of the Great Sea Academy perished in battles with them, but these days they were simply a vassal tribe, albeit the most powerful one under Great Sea’s sway.

Beortan was probably the closest ally Marcus had among the other elders. During the war, he had saved the clan leader’s life, and the mountain tribes took life debts extremely seriously. When Marcus had made his failed bid for power, Beortan had been one of the few that sided with him, even when it became obvious his candidacy had failed. He might be angry that Marcus had left him to deal with the fallout on his own, but he would at least hear him out without throwing him out of his house.

Probably.

However, Marcus had a bit of a problem – he had no idea where Beortan was right now. Sure, he knew where in the Bloodstone Mountains Beortan’s usual home was, but there was no guarantee he would find him there.

Beortan had two duties vying for his attention at all times – that of the White Dragon high chief, and that of a Great Sea elder – and that meant he moved back and forth a lot. He also just liked to travel, period. Chances were that if Marcus went to the White Dragon clan lands, he would wait for his return for weeks, if not months.

Especially since Marcus suspected that Beortan would deliberately make him wait as long as humanely possible. It would be poetic punishment in a way.

Fortunately, there was a way for Marcus to contact Beortan without alerting everyone in Great Sea to his presence. In the south of Elora, near the foot of the Bloodstone Mountains, there was a small mercenary guild associated with the White Dragon Clan. If Marcus hired them to send a message to a made up person called ‘Nix Pardus’, they should send a letter to Beortan instead. They would know where to find him better than Marcus did.

Marcus went there and did just that.

“Thank you for your patronage,” the woman behind the counter told Marcus, adjusting her glasses slightly and briefly checking the message he recited to her one last time. “Please wait here while I hand it over to administration.”

“Sure,” Marcus shrugged, watching as she disappeared through the door behind her. She showed no sign of understanding the significance of the letter or the person it was addressed to. Either she was a very good actor, or she was not in on the plan.

He looked around the room to pass the time, drumming his fingers on the solid wooden desk in front of him. The lobby of this mercenary guild was absolutely cluttered with various things, most of them trying to advertise their achievements to potential customers. Several preserved heads of various monsters were hung on the wall, as well as pictures of a number of people that Marcus did not recognize, but which were probably important members of the guild. A polished suit of armor was displayed prominently in one corner of the room, and a number of weapons were likewise hung on the walls.

To his left, a small stall had been set up inside the lobby, and a man in his forties sat behind it, selling a variety of low tier potions and magical trinkets. Though he had put on some weight and wasn’t exactly in best shape, Marcus could tell he was a minor adept of some sort. Probably a retired warrior. He was currently arguing with a pair of young boys, no more than sixteen years of age, who were looking to buy a healing potion from him.

“All done,” the woman said, coming back into the room. “The management agreed to deliver the letter. Anything else? Are you interested in taking on jobs, perhaps?”

Marcus looked at her in surprise.

“You’re fine with outsiders taking on jobs from you?” Marcus asked curiously. Most mercenary guilds weren’t fine with that at all, even if the outsider agreed to split the profits with the guild.

“Some of the jobs have been ignored for a very long time,” she said. “If you agree to a 50-50 split of all profits, we can collaborate on those.”

50-50 split! What kind of scam was this!? If their members have been ignoring these jobs, then surely these are beyond their abilities, so any “collaboration” would be a joke. Just how desperate would an adept have to be to agree to something like this?

“Show me the options,” he told her. “I’m not accepting anything until I know what I’m dealing with.”

He was curious.

“Of course,” she said, quickly opening one of the drawers and handing him a scroll.

Marcus unrolled it and started reading. There weren’t that many things listed on it, to be honest – only 8 jobs were listed, and two of them were crossed out. Of the remaining ones, only three of them caught Marcus’s attention.

The first one was a request for a hunting party to locate and destroy a nearby vespid hive that was raiding local communities. That was interesting, because Marcus had no idea how vespids managed to establish an outpost this far to the south, especially one this strong. Something very unusual was happening here.

The second one was a request to investigate the vicinity of Lake Sher. Apparently a pair of blue, four-armed humanoids had attacked several groups passing next to the lake, and a son of a wealthy merchant was killed. Marcus couldn’t remember any race matching that description, so if the report was true, it was likely another rift had opened in the area. Might be worth checking out at some point.

Finally, at the very bottom of the scroll was a request by an orphan girl from a nearby village. Her parents went into the forest at the foot of the Bloodstone Mountains several months ago and never returned. They were almost certainly dead by now. She wanted someone to go retrace their steps and bring back their remains so they could be given a proper burial.

“This one,” he said, jabbing his finger at the orphan’s request. “I’ll do that one.”

He wanted to stay in the area for a while anyway. This way he would have something to do while he waited.

The woman adjusted her glasses and glanced at the scroll, before jerking back in surprise.

“That one? But sir, she’s not offering any payment. She’s completely destitute. She’s asking for someone to find her parents for free!”

“I know,” Marcus grinned. “We can split the profit of zero equally!”

She stared at him incomprehensibly for a second before sighing.

“I knew I shouldn’t have humored her when she came with that ridiculous request,” the woman said. She crouched behind the counter and started digging through her drawers. After a while she got back up and handed him a small slip of paper with crude directions haphazardly drawn on it. “Those are her contact details. Ask for Cricket from Black Spruce Village.”

“Cricket?” Marcus asked.

“It’s her nickname,” the woman explained. “Her real name is Livia, but apparently everyone calls her Cricket. You’ll probably find her easier that way than asking for Livia. There are many Livias living around here.”

“Fair enough,” Marcus said, pocketing the note. He turned to leave. “I’ll go find her. Please make sure the letter is delivered in the meantime.”

* * * *

After leaving the mercenary guild behind him, Marcus had been walking for less than five minutes when he suddenly spotted something strange in front of him.

Not far in front of him, there was a heavily eroded ruin of a building next to the road. The structure was so badly decayed that it was hard to even guess what once stood there. Several large rock piles lay scattered around the site, presumably where the rubble had been piled on by the workers when they were maintaining the road.

Sitting on one of the largest rock piles was a man covered from head to toe in a concealing black cloak, a plain wooden staff placed horizontally on top of his lap. The staff’s tip was shaped into an image for a raven with outstretched wings. A real raven sat on the man’s shoulder, silently looking at the approaching Marcus without cawing or otherwise making a sound or making much movement except for turning its head.

It was always possible that the man was here on his own business, and that this was just a chance meeting. That Marcus could just walk past him and nothing would happen. But considering what Titus had said to him earlier, he kind of doubted it. He approached the figure, but stopped a healthy distance away. The raven finally reacted, cawing at his approach, and the cloaked man reached out with one of his hands and gave the bird a scratch on the neck.

“Raven Temple?” Marcus asked, unable to hide a note of wariness from his voice.

“Yes,” the man answered easily. His voice sounded young. He then removed his hood, allowing his face to be fully visible, and Marcus realized the man was young. Somewhere in his early twenties if he had to guess. He had short black hair and eyes so dark they almost seemed black. “Don’t worry. You’re not under investigation.”

“So you are here for me,” Marcus said. “Why is the Raven Temple after me? I’ve never done anything to you.”

Marcus could guess why the likes of Giant Thunder Hall and Crystal Mountain wanted to ‘talk’ to him, but he really didn’t have any dealings with Raven Temple in the past. Were they here to represent someone else? That would be very unusual. Unlike the Sun-Moon Temple and the Illuminated Pantheon, the Church of the Raven God had a very narrow focus and rarely stepped out of that domain. They had authority over necromancy, death rites, and maintaining the soulstream… and Marcus was not tampering with any of those.

“What an interesting person,” the man said. His voice was very calm, completely unaffected by Marcus’s faint hostility. “I already said you are not under investigation. I just want to talk. Anyway, shouldn’t we at least introduce ourselves? I am Helvran, a humble messenger of the Raven God.”

“I am Marcus, an elder of the Great Sea Academy,” Marcus told him. This was oddly familiar to Marcus, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it reminded him of. “You’ll have to forgive my caution. Your temple doesn’t exactly have a great reputation.”

He sensed no spirit from Helvran, so the man was likely either a third or fourth rank priest. However, priests wielded powers derived from a god, and thus tended to punch well above their weight when it came to their specialty. And Raven God’s specialty was death and soul magic – some of the most insidious and dangerous disciplines of magic. Marcus didn’t dare underestimate the man in front of him.

“It is a reaction I’m used to,” Helvran said, nodding. “Have you ever heard of the Parable of the Raven?”

Marcus thought about it for a second. “No,” he said, shaking his head.

“It’s a story often told among the faithful of the Raven God,” Helvran said. “It goes like this - there was a town in the past that was plagued by endless disasters. Every year, a raven would descend to the town square and caw ominously, loud enough to be heard all around the town. The next day, without fail, a disaster would befall the city. Fires, earthquakes, heavy hail – no matter what it was, it would devastate the town. Gradually, the citizens began to resent the raven, seeing it as a herald of disaster. If only the raven’s cries would be silenced, the town could enjoy peace. And so, one day when the raven descended upon the town square, the citizens prepared an ambush for him and slew him before he could utter a sound. They celebrated the entire night, praising their luck for being finally free of such an ill omen. The next day, a storm hit the town, but the residents of the town somewhat expected it. It was surely the raven’s dying curse; a final act of spite. They continued their lives with renewed spirit, and as months passed with no disaster in sight, they became sure their troubles were finally over. One night, as the people slept, a massive flood washed over the town. Having received no warning the day prior, the inhabitants were completely unprepared for the calamity that befell them, and were all carried away by the raging waters and drowned.”

Marcus waited for a few seconds for the man to continue the story, but he soon realized that was it.

“What a strange parable,” Marcus finally remarked.

“Not a story the Illuminated Pantheon would tell you, I bet,” Helvran said.

“No, definitely not,” Marcus agreed. “So what’s the moral of the story? Don’t shoot the messenger? Is that how the Raven Temple sees themselves?”

“I came here to warn you that a bounty has been placed on your head,” Helvran said, ignoring his questions.

Marcus gave him a suspicious look. Honestly, that wasn’t a big surprise. The thing was, he found it hard to narrow down who could have done it. There were so many options…

“By who?” he asked Helvran. “It’s the Giant Thunder Hall, isn’t it? They were always the craziest of the academies.”

“It’s not anyone you are familiar with,” Helvran said, shaking his head. “The bounty was placed on you because you are practicing the Soul Tree Technique.”

Now that… that was something Marcus did not expect to hear.

Helvran rose from his seat on the rock pile. The raven on his shoulder wobbled a little, opening its wings to stabilize itself, but did not cry out or lose balance. It seemed to be used to it.

“My message has been delivered,” Helvran said. “Don’t bother asking me about the identity of your enemy, for I do not know it. That is all I was given, and therefore all I have to say on the matter.”

“Wait,” Marcus said, stopping him.

“Even if you attack me, I cannot tell you more,” Helvran said calmly.

“Don’t be so judgmental, mister humble messenger. I am a mage of peace, and would never dream of simply attacking someone for information,” Marcus told him. Besides, he was afraid of pissing off the Raven Temple by killing one of their own with such flimsy provocation. “I wanted to ask you for help with something.”

Helvran gave him a flat look, saying nothing.

“See, I accepted a request for a nearby child to recover the remains of her parents and give them a proper burial,” Marcus continued. “As a priest of the Raven Temple, a mission like this should be right up your alley.”

“I was right earlier: you really are an interesting person,” Helvran said, looking contemplative. “And you’re right. This kind of job is entirely within my duties as a servant of the Raven God, and I don’t have anything important lined up. I will accompany you on this task.”

“Great,” Marcus said, and he really meant it. Finding the bodies should be a lot easier with a priest of death accompanying him. Marcus didn’t really have a good way of searching a large area for human remains. It’s not something he had a habit of doing. “Let’s go. We’re searching for a girl named Cricket.”

He set off down the road, trusting Helvran to follow him.

* * * *

Marcus thought about things as he and Helvran went from village to village searching for this Cricket girl. Mostly he thought about the Sacred Oak and the Soul Tree Technique he practiced. He wished he could discuss this with someone, but it was such a sensitive topic to bring up that it was hard to know whom to trust. He had thought about asking Celer for advice when he had spoken to her earlier, but in the end he’d decided not to tell her anything. She and he were long-time friends, and he didn’t think she would betray him, but she had her own logic about these kind of things. If she felt it would make his life more interesting, she would tell other people about this without hesitation. She would consider that doing him a favor, and not really betrayal.

He still had no idea what she did with the cylinder…

In any case, now he knew that there was even more to the Soul Tree Technique than the Sacred Oak had implied. If the Raven Temple was not deceiving him, someone powerful wanted his entire mage tradition to disappear. In fact, based on what Titus had said, they had likely been pursuing that goal for quite some time. What had the Great Tree Academy done to earn such ire?

His thoughts kept running in circles, unproductive and repetitive. Frustrating.

What was also frustrating was that they couldn’t find Cricket, no matter how many people they accosted. They did find Black Spruce Village where she was from, but she wasn’t there. The villagers told them they had not seen her for several days. The house she used to live in was, curious enough, inhabited by some other family, and they didn’t even want to talk to them. They slammed the door in their faces when they heard what they came for, and told them to never come back.

“This is incredibly suspicious,” Marcus told Helvran, his arms crossed over his chest.

“You are surprisingly dedicated to seeing this through,” Helvran remarked. “I would have expected you to give up by now. An orphaned child from an already poor family couldn’t have paid much for a task like this.”

“She didn’t pay anything,” Marcus said distractedly. “I’m doing this for free.”

“I see,” said Helvran slowly. He didn’t complain about doing all of this without any compensation, however.

To be honest, Marcus was surprised that Helvran was so amenable to his whims. Yes, Raven Temple did have a duty to oversee burials and make sure deceased people don’t rise as vengeful wraiths, but no one would blame Helvran if he decided he had better things to do than pursue this.

The raven on Helvran’s shoulder cawed, flapping its wings. It seemed to be pointing towards the north for some reason.

“Let’s go there if it’s all right with you,” Helvran said. “My friend has sensed a soul that is not long for this world.”

Marcus didn’t have any objections. In fact, leaving the Black Spruce Village was exactly what he needed right now. The villagers knew something, but didn’t want to talk to him, so a little spying was in order.

He crouched and picked up a handful of stones from the ground. Waving his other hand over them, he murmured a quick low-level spell and they slowly morphed into a handful of stone beetles with an image of a human ear carved into their back. Once he was done, he dropped the beetles unceremoniously on the ground, where they promptly scattered in all directions, skittering away in the direction of various houses inside the village.

“Let’s go,” Marcus told Helvran, who simply observed his actions without saying a word.

They walked a considerable distance from the village, where a lone hut stood by a creek, surrounded by some trees. None of the houses Marcus had seen around here were luxurious or sturdy, but this one was in particularly terrible shape. It looked as if it was on the verge of falling apart, and the roof was full of holes. Sitting on a stool in front of the house was an old woman. A very old, very sick-looking woman. Her breathing was hard and labored, and one of her eyes remained shut, but she held a knife in her shaking hands and kept laboriously whittling down a piece of wood into some undefinable shape.

There was a small pile of wooden figurines next to her. They all looked flawed and misshapen, and had clearly been abandoned when the woman had made a mistake somewhere along the way.

Helvran approached the woman without hesitation, and Marcus trailed after him.

It took a while for the old woman to even notice them, her one good eye finally zeroing on them after a while.

“O-Oh. Visitors!” she said, surprised. She glanced at her hands and reluctantly stopped working on the figurine. “What a welcome surprise! I… forgive my lack of hospitality, but I don’t have much to offer to guests these days. My husband died a few years ago, and my health hasn’t been the greatest these days. Ah, but look at me, always complaining! I think I have something I can… something I can…”

She tried, with great struggle, to rise from her stool, but her legs were shaking under the strain and Marcus had a feeling they were about to fall under her if she went through with the idea.

Helvran put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

“There is no need,” he told the old woman. “I am Helvran of the Raven Temple. I am here because your time has come.”

Marcus raised his eyebrow at this. Damn, that was incredibly blunt and cold. He wasn’t going to simply kill the old woman right here and now, was he? Sure, she was on the verge of dying, but Marcus didn’t think he could agree to that…

“Oh,” the woman said, as if that was the most normal thing in the world. “I hadn't even realized it had gotten that bad. The Raven has come for my soul…”

“Not just yet,” Helvran said. “I’m going to help you, but there will be consequences. Please sit still and don’t resist.”

He planted his staff into the ground with a heavy thud, and put his hand on the forehead of the old woman. His eyes burst into pale white flames. The raven on his shoulder stretched out its wings, mimicking the pose of the figurine on Helvran’s staff, and its eyes also started to burn with the same white fire.

Finally, the old woman’s eyes burst into pale white flames as well, an expression of wonder on her face. A stream of white light seemed to spread out throughout her body, pulsing several times like a heartbeat, before finally igniting something in her chest.

The light faded abruptly, and the scene returned to normal. Helvran removed his hand from the old woman’s forehead, the raven folded back its wings, and the old woman made a deep, panicked gasp, breathing deeply several times in order to calm down.

Marcus was a little confused about what had happened at first, but he quickly noticed that the woman was breathing far easier now. Whereas before her breathing was shallow and labored, she now breathed deeply and easily. Her previously shut eye was open, a dull white glow still gleaming in it from whatever spell Helvran cast on her.

She placed her hand on her chest in wonder, before staring at the hand itself. It was no longer shaking, Marcus realized.

“Marvelous,” the old woman said. She laughed excitedly. “I feel absolutely marvelous. Why, I haven’t felt this well in years!”

She rose from her stool, this time finding the action to be much easier. She still struggled a little, but it was clear she no longer had any troubles walking about.

“It is not something that will last,” Helvran warned. “I ignited the flames of your soul, making them burn unnaturally bright. It will keep your troubles at bay for a time, but a candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”

The old woman seemed to take this in stride. “How long do I have?” she asked.

“Three days,” Helvran said. “After that, you will die for sure, and no magic or cure will save you.”

“Three days… that’s enough. That’s more than enough time to settle things here,” the old woman said. She clasped her hands in front of her, lowering her head. “Praise be to the Raven God for this miracle! Master Helvran, if there is anything this poor old woman can do to help you, just say the word!”

“We are looking for a young girl called Cricket, real name Livia,” Marcus suddenly spoke up. “If you could give us some clues where she went, we would be most grateful.”

Helvran nodded, agreeing with Marcus.

“Cricket…” the old woman said, sounding hesitant.

“I already know what happened, for the most part,” Marcus told her. Once they were far enough from the village, the villagers started to talk among themselves more freely, and his beetles eavesdropped on them discussing the situation. Amusingly, some of them warned their families to stay quiet, due to fears Marcus and Helvran were using some kind of magic to spy on them, but most weren’t nearly so paranoid. “After Livia’s parents didn’t return from the forest, you sent a message to her relatives in the north to come and take care of her. However, what happened instead is that they took over all of her possessions, including the house she lived in, and chased her out of her own home. She then left the village and never came back, presumably on a suicidal quest to find her parent’s final resting place. Does that sound about right?”

Marcus was actually pretty angry at the moment. Not really at the old woman in front of him, since she was in no position to do anything, but more so at these traitorous relatives and the villagers that not only watched it happen, but also tried to cover it up when someone came around to ask about her.

“You are… mostly right, sir,” the old woman said. “However, we didn’t invite the relatives on our own. We didn’t even know she had distant relatives. Somebody else informed them.”

“Why were the villagers hiding this from us?” Helvran asked. “Surely this has nothing to do with them? They can just let the situation play itself out on its own, one way or another. Why shield them from outside scrutiny?”

“Times are hard. The village elder said it was better to have a full set of hands in that house than a little girl who can’t support herself, and would be just another mouth to feed,” the old woman said, shaking her head. “Ah, it probably sounds indescribably cruel to distinguished men of god like yourselves-”

Helvran gave Marcus an amused side glance, but said nothing.

“-but this is not such a strange situation around here. The newcomers even gifted away some of the belongings they found in the house to the rest of the village to smooth things over,” the old woman finished.

“Do you know where she is now?” Marcus asked.

“She said she was going to follow the Egara River upstream, towards the Serpentooth Plateau,” the old woman said. “That’s where her parents were going when they disappeared.”

Marcus frowned. That’s where the vespid raids were coming from. He only ever accepted this job on a whim, because it seemed fairly trivial to fulfill. Why did everything have to get so complicated?

However, he was too invested now to just quit.

He glanced at Helvran, who simply stared back at him silently. Marcus interpreted this as a sign that the other man also intended to see this through until the end as well.

They bid farewell to the old woman, but not before she thrust a palm-sized wooden figurine into Marcus’s hands.

“She asked me to make this, but then she abruptly left before I could finish it,” the old woman explained. “It’s not my best work, but I think she will like it anyway.”

The shapes were a little crude and ambiguous, but it was still obvious what the figurine represented – two adults, a man and a woman, embracing a child in the center.

He stashed the figurine in his backpack, and then set off towards the Serpentooth Plateau.