“P-partner?” he stutters, stumbling backwards. The door is still shut behind him, and he turns to run from me.
Without the power of Relentless or Siphon to aid me, I’m starting to run low on magic power, but I still have enough left in the tank to use another Bloodstep. I move significantly faster in this form than I do outside of it, and I can fit through much tighter spaces.
I use it to burst between his legs and reappear between him and the door.
“Shit!” he shouts, steadying himself against the wall. Behind him, the exterior entrance I clambered into swings shut, the engineering of the train automatically closing it to prevent some idiot from stumbling out of it.
The man in front of me is younger than the guards I’ve been facing, it seems. His face lacks lines, and his brown hair tumbles down messily over green eyes that flicker to look at everywhere but my eyes. Though I haven’t personally seen all that many people, I have the knowledge to assess people built into my mind.
I confirm my assessment with an Appraise.
Name: Adrian Stahr
Age: 19
Race: Human
Class: Warrior
Level: 7
Last Used Skill: Swordfighting
Warrior is a basic class, which means that he must not have gone through the same abnormal class evolution that I did. It’s entirely possible that he hasn’t even gone through a class evolution, period.
This is the first human I’ve met so far that’s actually a lower level than me. A fight against him would be uninteresting and unrewarding, though it would grant XP nonetheless.
I have to admit, it feels good seeing someone that doesn’t immediately try to blow my brains out. Still, I shouldn’t be operating purely off intimidation.
“Let’s be reasonable about this, hmm?” I say, drawing on Acting the best I can. I’m not entirely sure who I should be impersonating here, but the skill assists me nonetheless. “What’s your name?”
“A-Adrian, ma’am,” he says. He’s unarmed at the moment. Did he leave his sword behind at his seat?
I almost snort derisively at that. Ma’am? I know for a fact that that honorific is generally used for those who eclipse the speaker in seniority. Though my body and mind may effectively match a much older human, I’ve not even been in this world for a month.
“Adrian, then,” I say, preventing my thoughts from showing on my face. “Where are you going, Adrian?”
“Ravendale, ma’am,” he says, holding his hands up as if to prove he’s not holding a weapon.
“Stop calling me that,” I tell him. “My name is Evelyn.”
“Yes, m—Evelyn,” he says, cringing away as he says it.
“Ravendale, then,” I say, returning to the previous line of conversation. “How fortunate. I happen to be going there myself.”
Adrian does not reply.
“How do you feel about allowing me to join you in your journey?” I ask.
“Do I have a choice?” The Warrior’s gotten his act together now. Rather than utterly panicked, he sounds resigned to his fate as if he’s a man before the gallows.
“Not exactly.”
“I figured, but…”
I look at him expectantly.
Adrian screws his face up like he’s just eaten a lemon whole. “I’m not traveling alone.”
“Acceptable,” I reply. “You’ll just have to introduce me to the rest of them.”
“Just one,” he says. I don’t think he’s lying, though I also don’t have a skill for identifying that yet. Adrian is fidgeting nervously, but I recognize that that energy likely stems from an unmet reliance on the cigarette he wanted to smoke and general fear over this situation. “Sierra. A friend of mine.”
I raise an eyebrow. “A friend?”
He nods fervently.
“Then introduce me to her,” I say. “It’s been a long, tiring day, and I’m glad that a promising man like you is willing to help the new partner you’ve just acquired.”
“I-I don’t understand,” he says.
“Well, you see,” I say, affecting a limp and exposing the brutally scraped parts of my body, “I suffered significant injuries fighting assailants off prior to my arrival here, if you can’t tell.”
My injuries must be nastier than I realize, because he recoils upon seeing the sections of my limbs and torso where the speeding train tore my skin off. Concern rapidly mixes into his fear, creating a confusing mix where he worries over my wounds while remaining utterly terrified of me.
“I’m sorry,” he tries. “I was under the impression that you, ah, were threatening me?”
I am.
“There is no threat so long as you cooperate,” I reassure him.
“You’re still threatening me,” he surmises.
“Will you help me or not?”
I’m more than capable of healing on my own. What I need is a legitimate excuse to get onto the train, and temporarily forcing my way into someone else’s group is the easiest way to do that.
“Fine,” Adrian says. “I will.”
“See?” I say, casually toying with the knife in my hand before storing it, “That was easy, wasn’t it?”
He reaches into his pocket for another cigarette and lights it.
“Fuck,” he mutters, and he leads the way back in.
This train isn’t the same as the last one I was on. Either that, or this car is one that I didn’t get to see the inside of. Rather than striding through rows of cushioned benches, we make our way through a narrow hallway with doors spaced evenly on either side of us.
“We got a sleeper car,” Adrian says through the lit cigarette in his mouth. He stubs it out, blowing smoke, and he points at a door maybe twenty feet ahead. “That’s us. Sierra’s resting inside.”
“Fantastic. Lead us in.” I use Acting to assist myself in the process of keeping almost-perfect straight posture, feigning just enough pain to look realistic.
Adrian swings the door open.
Inside awaits a woman I recognize.
Sharp green eyes, a graceful heart-shaped face like my own, gossamer black hair. She wears a simple white sundress as she lounges on a bed, a book open on her stomach, but her face is unmistakable.
Marie Jade, I recall. The lead researcher on the project that birthed me.
Except it can’t be her. She’s younger than the woman I remember. There are details in Marie’s face that aren’t in hers.
She sits up at my arrival, nearly hitting her head. There’s only one bed in this room, along with a single couch and a simple shower.
“You’ve brought a visitor,” she says. As I make my way through the narrow doorframe, she gasps. “She’s hurt!”
I cast Appraise on her as soon as I can. She seems a lot more sure of herself than Adrian, who still cringes with fear when I get close to him. That apparently isn’t terribly out of the ordinary for him, because his female companion doesn’t react to it.
Name: Sierra Jade
Age: 19
Race: Human
Class: Blue Mage
Level: 19
Last Used Skill: [APPRAISE FAILED]
I hide my surprise. Other than those that my Appraise has failed on before, who could be potentially any level, Sierra is by far the highest-leveled person I’ve seen so far, and younger than most of the others to boot. My initial plan was to coerce the both of them into cooperating and hiding me, killing them both in the worst-case scenario, but this changes things.
Also, her last name is Jade. If she’s not Marie herself…
“Come, come,” she tells me, swinging her legs off the bed. “I can help you.”
“Sierra,” Adrian says for the first time. “You can’t help her. She threatened—“
“Shhh,” Sierra says. “You’d let yourself get bullied by a bleeding child if you let them. I keep telling you to grow a spine, Adrian. Besides, she’s wounded!”
I’m sorely tempted to put a knife through Adrian’s back for trying to betray me at the first possibility, but it’s tempered by the fact that Sierra apparently just does not care.
Also, she can probably easily outpace me in a fight. I’m not going to stab her friend and try my chances against someone eleven levels above me.
“Come lie down,” Sierra says, patting the bed. She gets up.
I lie on the bed. It’s not particularly comfortable, but it’s better than the dirt and rocks were outside. My blood starts soaking into it immediately.
“Sierra,” Adrian says, apparently confident enough to talk now that I’m prone and not physically threatening. “She threatened me! She’s trying to pull something, I swear to you.”
“Adrian,” Sierra says, resting a warm, soft hand on my forehead, “What do you think she is? She looks powerful and wants to secure safety. If you snivel like a coward, of course she’ll do what she can!”
I think I like the Blue Mage. Ideologies aside, she’s going to bat for me, and that’s what I care about most right now.
Adrian sighs. “Fine. I don’t trust her.”
“I don’t trust anyone,” Sierra fires back. “That doesn’t mean you leave an injured lady to fend for herself, Adrian. No matter how scary she looks.”
“I look scary?” I ask. Acting assists me in sounding like I’m in more pain than I am.
“Don’t worry, miss,” she tells me, flashing me a gentle smile. “You’re a beautiful kind of terror.”
The compliment actually gets to me. I return the gesture, and at least part of my smile is genuine.
“Now hold still,” Sierra says. She leans over me, her shoulder-length hair framing her heart-shaped face, and warm magic passes into me. Slowly, my wounds start to close.
Identical wounds start to grow on her body, and I realize why she’s been so worried about me. Her skin flays itself from the bone, blood welling where it peels itself off, and a red stain the size of my palm grows at her abdomen.
She’s taking her injuries onto herself.
“Wait,” I tell her, my Acting skill approving of my reaction. “You don’t need to—“
“Shhh,” she says again, placing a single bloody finger over my lips. “I’m… urgh, this is going according to plan.”
Adrian doesn’t seem to be reacting either, so I assume that Sierra’s going to be okay.
Sure enough, I watch as her wounds start to close.
The Blue Mage winces, but she doesn’t make so much as a squeak before her wounds are done healing.
“Yes!” Sierra exclaims, pumping a fist. “Abrasive Resistance! I’ve acquired a new skill!”
“Sierra,” Adrian sighs, prodding her in the side where she’s stained her dress. “You have to stop ruining your clothes.”
“I can help,” I say. “I can manipulate some fluids, and that means I can move blood.”
I recall the guards at the Underground Site telling each other that blood magic is forbidden, but my memory bank says nothing about this. This is a calculated risk.
Sierra’s eyes widen, and I worry for a second that this is about to get very messy when she breaks out in a beaming smile. “Blood magic?”
“Some level of it, yes,” I admit.
“Adrian, get to your room,” Sierra says. “Do some training or whatever. And if you would like to mention, uh…”
“Evelyn,” I supply.
“Right! Should you mention our sweet Evelyn here, you best sing her praises.” Sierra’s smile is wide as it was before, but bright blue energy pulses in her left hand.
Adrian raises his hands in surrender. “Whatever you say, Sierra.”
He leaves the room, slamming the door behind him.
“Will he be a problem?” I ask.
“Not at all,” Sierra says, apparently not caring about the massive bloodstain at her abdomen, of her own blood trailing down her arms. “Adrian’s sweet at heart. He just likes jumping to conclusions and fighting ghosts. He won’t do something I tell him not to.”
Huh. Does she seriously not think that I threatened him?
“Why does he have his own room?” I ask. “Are you not traveling together?”
Her face softens at that. “He’s been begging me to help him grow stronger for some time. I rented him a sleeper car for him to train in since I can’t be there to oversee him, and he pushes himself the most when he’s scared or angry.”
That was… much more information than I expected. I’m not quite sure how to respond.
“Good to know,” I manage.
“Anyway!” she exclaims. “Can you show me your blood magic?”
I take a second to think it over.
A brief moment is all I need. Doing her small favors like showing her my skills is more beneficial for me than it is to her.
I activate Shape Blood, manipulating the blood from my body and hers to float in the air above me. I don’t remove the blood from her dress, though—I would prefer to seem less powerful than I actually am. Being underestimated is quite underrated, in my opinion.
Sierra practically shrieks with glory at the sight of the floating blood. “Gods, I’ve never witnessed a true blood mage before! So few in the Crowned Islands have the talent for it!”
“I’m pleased to impress,” I say.
She grows more serious. “Evelyn, can you keep a secret?”
“Of course I can,” I say, doing my best to give the statement the appropriate gravitas from my prone position in her bed. “You can trust me.”
Acting advanced to level 9!
You are now 250% more likely to remain undetected when impersonating another individual.
“I’m a Blue Mage,” she tells me, whispering conspiratorially. “Don’t tell anyone.”
I keep myself from frowning. Most people can’t use Appraise, so trusting me with something like this less than ten minutes after meeting her is… not exactly the most intelligent move. Then again, Sierra isn’t necessarily the most rational. I can’t tell if that stems from too much power, immaturity, or if it’s just her personality.
“That means,” she continues, still whispering as if someone’s listening at the door, “that I can learn your magic if you allow me to. A shadow of it, of course, not the entirety.”
Why would I do that? She’s level 18 already. I’ve gotten what I need out of her—why should I give her more power that she could use to attack me?
No. That’s the wrong question.
What can I gain from doing that?
As if to answer my unspoken question, she continues rambling. “I would never presume to ask you this service for free, of course. I would provide you allies. Adrian is weak, but he has potential, and I… I don’t know anyone else my age who has a higher level this side of the Northern Channel.”
It’s not the pitch that sells me. She’s offering to be my ally.
Allies. The concept is familiar to me, but it’s not one that I’ve used at all so far. Alder helped me, true, but that was less allyship and more the kindness of a random man.
Well, it can’t hurt to try.
“I accept,” I tell her.
“You’ll let me imitate your magic?”
“Very well,” I allow. “How will you do so?”
“Proximity,” she tells me, discarding her sundress and tossing it aside. I take a moment to wonder what has her so willing to expose her back to a near-stranger in her underclothes while she fishes around in her luggage for fresh clothing. She pulls on a pair of black leggings and a thin white shirt before finally turning back to me. “Would you like to get washed first?”
I gladly accept. I can remove the blood from my torn, stained clothes, but I can’t use a skill to clean myself of the grime of the river water and mud that I’ve been tumbling in. It takes me five minutes to clean myself, and Sierra offers me clean spares, not bothering to hide her naked interest in me as she does.
She walks me through her process. As it turns out, it’s not very complicated—she just puts me down on the still-clean couch, cradles me in her arms, and instructs me to hold her close while activating my blood magic. The warmth of her breath touches my lips as I use Shape Blood to levitate a small sphere of it above the two of us.
I have questions I want to ask her. I want to ask what her relation to Marie Jade is. I want to know what she’s doing in Ravendale. I want to ask what passes for powerful outside of this area, and I want to know how she’s so much more powerful than the other people her age.
But for the time being, I’m content to simply reaffirm her as my ally. I’m reasonably sure that she manages to achieve her goal about half an hour in, but she insists on keeping the process going. From the flush in her pale cheeks, I doubt that blood magic is the only reason she does so.
If I’m going to try working with her, I’ll build her trust in me until I can make her an asset.
And so we travel, mile after mile after mile.
When we’re less than a couple of miles from Ravendale—according to my objective marker, at least—she finally extricates herself from my grasp. Soon after, she wanders out and returns with Adrian. The Warrior doesn’t seem any happier with me being here, but he doesn’t say anything this time.
“I’m sure you’re wondering what we’re going to be doing,” Sierra says, stretching deeply. “Adrian, Evelyn.”
Adrian’s look of confusion surprises me. Sierra hasn’t told him where they’re going yet? To be fair, I suppose she hasn’t exactly been the most rational planner so far.
“Well,” the green-eyed Blue Mage says as the train begins to slow, “I have it on, uh, very good information that a demon-corrupted dragon recently laid a fresh clutch of eggs somewhere deep beneath the sewers of Ravendale. They’re due to have hatched by now.
“We’re going to find them, and we’re going to kill them.”
I raise an eyebrow.
Back to eating babies again, are we?
Objective: Find Sapphire in Ravendale [PART 1 COMPLETE]
Arrive in Ravendale free and alive.
Distance to target: 0 miles
New skill unlocked: Locate Person
Find a person within a hundred feet of you. This skill’s efficacy increases with your knowledge of the target and decreases with time spent away from the target.
Objective updated: Find Sapphire in Ravendale
Locate Sapphire.
“P-partner?” he stutters, stumbling backwards. The door is still shut behind him, and he turns to run from me.
Without the power of Relentless or Siphon to aid me, I’m starting to run low on magic power, but I still have enough left in the tank to use another Bloodstep. I move significantly faster in this form than I do outside of it, and I can fit through much tighter spaces.
I use it to burst between his legs and reappear between him and the door.
“Shit!” he shouts, steadying himself against the wall. Behind him, the exterior entrance I clambered into swings shut, the engineering of the train automatically closing it to prevent some idiot from stumbling out of it.
The man in front of me is younger than the guards I’ve been facing, it seems. His face lacks lines, and his brown hair tumbles down messily over green eyes that flicker to look at everywhere but my eyes. Though I haven’t personally seen all that many people, I have the knowledge to assess people built into my mind.
I confirm my assessment with an Appraise.
Name: Adrian Stahr
Age: 19
Race: Human
Class: Warrior
Level: 7
Last Used Skill: Swordfighting
Warrior is a basic class, which means that he must not have gone through the same abnormal class evolution that I did. It’s entirely possible that he hasn’t even gone through a class evolution, period.
This is the first human I’ve met so far that’s actually a lower level than me. A fight against him would be uninteresting and unrewarding, though it would grant XP nonetheless.
I have to admit, it feels good seeing someone that doesn’t immediately try to blow my brains out. Still, I shouldn’t be operating purely off intimidation.
“Let’s be reasonable about this, hmm?” I say, drawing on Acting the best I can. I’m not entirely sure who I should be impersonating here, but the skill assists me nonetheless. “What’s your name?”
“A-Adrian, ma’am,” he says. He’s unarmed at the moment. Did he leave his sword behind at his seat?
I almost snort derisively at that. Ma’am? I know for a fact that that honorific is generally used for those who eclipse the speaker in seniority. Though my body and mind may effectively match a much older human, I’ve not even been in this world for a month.
“Adrian, then,” I say, preventing my thoughts from showing on my face. “Where are you going, Adrian?”
“Ravendale, ma’am,” he says, holding his hands up as if to prove he’s not holding a weapon.
“Stop calling me that,” I tell him. “My name is Evelyn.”
“Yes, m—Evelyn,” he says, cringing away as he says it.
“Ravendale, then,” I say, returning to the previous line of conversation. “How fortunate. I happen to be going there myself.”
Adrian does not reply.
“How do you feel about allowing me to join you in your journey?” I ask.
“Do I have a choice?” The Warrior’s gotten his act together now. Rather than utterly panicked, he sounds resigned to his fate as if he’s a man before the gallows.
“Not exactly.”
“I figured, but…”
I look at him expectantly.
Adrian screws his face up like he’s just eaten a lemon whole. “I’m not traveling alone.”
“Acceptable,” I reply. “You’ll just have to introduce me to the rest of them.”
“Just one,” he says. I don’t think he’s lying, though I also don’t have a skill for identifying that yet. Adrian is fidgeting nervously, but I recognize that that energy likely stems from an unmet reliance on the cigarette he wanted to smoke and general fear over this situation. “Sierra. A friend of mine.”
I raise an eyebrow. “A friend?”
He nods fervently.
“Then introduce me to her,” I say. “It’s been a long, tiring day, and I’m glad that a promising man like you is willing to help the new partner you’ve just acquired.”
“I-I don’t understand,” he says.
“Well, you see,” I say, affecting a limp and exposing the brutally scraped parts of my body, “I suffered significant injuries fighting assailants off prior to my arrival here, if you can’t tell.”
My injuries must be nastier than I realize, because he recoils upon seeing the sections of my limbs and torso where the speeding train tore my skin off. Concern rapidly mixes into his fear, creating a confusing mix where he worries over my wounds while remaining utterly terrified of me.
“I’m sorry,” he tries. “I was under the impression that you, ah, were threatening me?”
I am.
“There is no threat so long as you cooperate,” I reassure him.
“You’re still threatening me,” he surmises.
“Will you help me or not?”
I’m more than capable of healing on my own. What I need is a legitimate excuse to get onto the train, and temporarily forcing my way into someone else’s group is the easiest way to do that.
“Fine,” Adrian says. “I will.”
“See?” I say, casually toying with the knife in my hand before storing it, “That was easy, wasn’t it?”
He reaches into his pocket for another cigarette and lights it.
“Fuck,” he mutters, and he leads the way back in.
This train isn’t the same as the last one I was on. Either that, or this car is one that I didn’t get to see the inside of. Rather than striding through rows of cushioned benches, we make our way through a narrow hallway with doors spaced evenly on either side of us.
“We got a sleeper car,” Adrian says through the lit cigarette in his mouth. He stubs it out, blowing smoke, and he points at a door maybe twenty feet ahead. “That’s us. Sierra’s resting inside.”
“Fantastic. Lead us in.” I use Acting to assist myself in the process of keeping almost-perfect straight posture, feigning just enough pain to look realistic.
Adrian swings the door open.
Inside awaits a woman I recognize.
Sharp green eyes, a graceful heart-shaped face like my own, gossamer black hair. She wears a simple white sundress as she lounges on a bed, a book open on her stomach, but her face is unmistakable.
Marie Jade, I recall. The lead researcher on the project that birthed me.
Except it can’t be her. She’s younger than the woman I remember. There are details in Marie’s face that aren’t in hers.
She sits up at my arrival, nearly hitting her head. There’s only one bed in this room, along with a single couch and a simple shower.
“You’ve brought a visitor,” she says. As I make my way through the narrow doorframe, she gasps. “She’s hurt!”
I cast Appraise on her as soon as I can. She seems a lot more sure of herself than Adrian, who still cringes with fear when I get close to him. That apparently isn’t terribly out of the ordinary for him, because his female companion doesn’t react to it.
Name: Sierra Jade
Age: 19
Race: Human
Class: Blue Mage
Level: 19
Last Used Skill: [APPRAISE FAILED]
I hide my surprise. Other than those that my Appraise has failed on before, who could be potentially any level, Sierra is by far the highest-leveled person I’ve seen so far, and younger than most of the others to boot. My initial plan was to coerce the both of them into cooperating and hiding me, killing them both in the worst-case scenario, but this changes things.
Also, her last name is Jade. If she’s not Marie herself…
“Come, come,” she tells me, swinging her legs off the bed. “I can help you.”
“Sierra,” Adrian says for the first time. “You can’t help her. She threatened—“
“Shhh,” Sierra says. “You’d let yourself get bullied by a bleeding child if you let them. I keep telling you to grow a spine, Adrian. Besides, she’s wounded!”
I’m sorely tempted to put a knife through Adrian’s back for trying to betray me at the first possibility, but it’s tempered by the fact that Sierra apparently just does not care.
Also, she can probably easily outpace me in a fight. I’m not going to stab her friend and try my chances against someone eleven levels above me.
“Come lie down,” Sierra says, patting the bed. She gets up.
I lie on the bed. It’s not particularly comfortable, but it’s better than the dirt and rocks were outside. My blood starts soaking into it immediately.
“Sierra,” Adrian says, apparently confident enough to talk now that I’m prone and not physically threatening. “She threatened me! She’s trying to pull something, I swear to you.”
“Adrian,” Sierra says, resting a warm, soft hand on my forehead, “What do you think she is? She looks powerful and wants to secure safety. If you snivel like a coward, of course she’ll do what she can!”
I think I like the Blue Mage. Ideologies aside, she’s going to bat for me, and that’s what I care about most right now.
Adrian sighs. “Fine. I don’t trust her.”
“I don’t trust anyone,” Sierra fires back. “That doesn’t mean you leave an injured lady to fend for herself, Adrian. No matter how scary she looks.”
“I look scary?” I ask. Acting assists me in sounding like I’m in more pain than I am.
“Don’t worry, miss,” she tells me, flashing me a gentle smile. “You’re a beautiful kind of terror.”
The compliment actually gets to me. I return the gesture, and at least part of my smile is genuine.
“Now hold still,” Sierra says. She leans over me, her shoulder-length hair framing her heart-shaped face, and warm magic passes into me. Slowly, my wounds start to close.
Identical wounds start to grow on her body, and I realize why she’s been so worried about me. Her skin flays itself from the bone, blood welling where it peels itself off, and a red stain the size of my palm grows at her abdomen.
She’s taking her injuries onto herself.
“Wait,” I tell her, my Acting skill approving of my reaction. “You don’t need to—“
“Shhh,” she says again, placing a single bloody finger over my lips. “I’m… urgh, this is going according to plan.”
Adrian doesn’t seem to be reacting either, so I assume that Sierra’s going to be okay.
Sure enough, I watch as her wounds start to close.
The Blue Mage winces, but she doesn’t make so much as a squeak before her wounds are done healing.
“Yes!” Sierra exclaims, pumping a fist. “Abrasive Resistance! I’ve acquired a new skill!”
“Sierra,” Adrian sighs, prodding her in the side where she’s stained her dress. “You have to stop ruining your clothes.”
“I can help,” I say. “I can manipulate some fluids, and that means I can move blood.”
I recall the guards at the Underground Site telling each other that blood magic is forbidden, but my memory bank says nothing about this. This is a calculated risk.
Sierra’s eyes widen, and I worry for a second that this is about to get very messy when she breaks out in a beaming smile. “Blood magic?”
“Some level of it, yes,” I admit.
“Adrian, get to your room,” Sierra says. “Do some training or whatever. And if you would like to mention, uh…”
“Evelyn,” I supply.
“Right! Should you mention our sweet Evelyn here, you best sing her praises.” Sierra’s smile is wide as it was before, but bright blue energy pulses in her left hand.
Adrian raises his hands in surrender. “Whatever you say, Sierra.”
He leaves the room, slamming the door behind him.
“Will he be a problem?” I ask.
“Not at all,” Sierra says, apparently not caring about the massive bloodstain at her abdomen, of her own blood trailing down her arms. “Adrian’s sweet at heart. He just likes jumping to conclusions and fighting ghosts. He won’t do something I tell him not to.”
Huh. Does she seriously not think that I threatened him?
“Why does he have his own room?” I ask. “Are you not traveling together?”
Her face softens at that. “He’s been begging me to help him grow stronger for some time. I rented him a sleeper car for him to train in since I can’t be there to oversee him, and he pushes himself the most when he’s scared or angry.”
That was… much more information than I expected. I’m not quite sure how to respond.
“Good to know,” I manage.
“Anyway!” she exclaims. “Can you show me your blood magic?”
I take a second to think it over.
A brief moment is all I need. Doing her small favors like showing her my skills is more beneficial for me than it is to her.
I activate Shape Blood, manipulating the blood from my body and hers to float in the air above me. I don’t remove the blood from her dress, though—I would prefer to seem less powerful than I actually am. Being underestimated is quite underrated, in my opinion.
Sierra practically shrieks with glory at the sight of the floating blood. “Gods, I’ve never witnessed a true blood mage before! So few in the Crowned Islands have the talent for it!”
“I’m pleased to impress,” I say.
She grows more serious. “Evelyn, can you keep a secret?”
“Of course I can,” I say, doing my best to give the statement the appropriate gravitas from my prone position in her bed. “You can trust me.”
Acting advanced to level 9!
You are now 250% more likely to remain undetected when impersonating another individual.
“I’m a Blue Mage,” she tells me, whispering conspiratorially. “Don’t tell anyone.”
I keep myself from frowning. Most people can’t use Appraise, so trusting me with something like this less than ten minutes after meeting her is… not exactly the most intelligent move. Then again, Sierra isn’t necessarily the most rational. I can’t tell if that stems from too much power, immaturity, or if it’s just her personality.
“That means,” she continues, still whispering as if someone’s listening at the door, “that I can learn your magic if you allow me to. A shadow of it, of course, not the entirety.”
Why would I do that? She’s level 18 already. I’ve gotten what I need out of her—why should I give her more power that she could use to attack me?
No. That’s the wrong question.
What can I gain from doing that?
As if to answer my unspoken question, she continues rambling. “I would never presume to ask you this service for free, of course. I would provide you allies. Adrian is weak, but he has potential, and I… I don’t know anyone else my age who has a higher level this side of the Northern Channel.”
It’s not the pitch that sells me. She’s offering to be my ally.
Allies. The concept is familiar to me, but it’s not one that I’ve used at all so far. Alder helped me, true, but that was less allyship and more the kindness of a random man.
Well, it can’t hurt to try.
“I accept,” I tell her.
“You’ll let me imitate your magic?”
“Very well,” I allow. “How will you do so?”
“Proximity,” she tells me, discarding her sundress and tossing it aside. I take a moment to wonder what has her so willing to expose her back to a near-stranger in her underclothes while she fishes around in her luggage for fresh clothing. She pulls on a pair of black leggings and a thin white shirt before finally turning back to me. “Would you like to get washed first?”
I gladly accept. I can remove the blood from my torn, stained clothes, but I can’t use a skill to clean myself of the grime of the river water and mud that I’ve been tumbling in. It takes me five minutes to clean myself, and Sierra offers me clean spares, not bothering to hide her naked interest in me as she does.
She walks me through her process. As it turns out, it’s not very complicated—she just puts me down on the still-clean couch, cradles me in her arms, and instructs me to hold her close while activating my blood magic. The warmth of her breath touches my lips as I use Shape Blood to levitate a small sphere of it above the two of us.
I have questions I want to ask her. I want to ask what her relation to Marie Jade is. I want to know what she’s doing in Ravendale. I want to ask what passes for powerful outside of this area, and I want to know how she’s so much more powerful than the other people her age.
But for the time being, I’m content to simply reaffirm her as my ally. I’m reasonably sure that she manages to achieve her goal about half an hour in, but she insists on keeping the process going. From the flush in her pale cheeks, I doubt that blood magic is the only reason she does so.
If I’m going to try working with her, I’ll build her trust in me until I can make her an asset.
And so we travel, mile after mile after mile.
When we’re less than a couple of miles from Ravendale—according to my objective marker, at least—she finally extricates herself from my grasp. Soon after, she wanders out and returns with Adrian. The Warrior doesn’t seem any happier with me being here, but he doesn’t say anything this time.
“I’m sure you’re wondering what we’re going to be doing,” Sierra says, stretching deeply. “Adrian, Evelyn.”
Adrian’s look of confusion surprises me. Sierra hasn’t told him where they’re going yet? To be fair, I suppose she hasn’t exactly been the most rational planner so far.
“Well,” the green-eyed Blue Mage says as the train begins to slow, “I have it on, uh, very good information that a demon-corrupted dragon recently laid a fresh clutch of eggs somewhere deep beneath the sewers of Ravendale. They’re due to have hatched by now.
“We’re going to find them, and we’re going to kill them.”
I raise an eyebrow.
Back to eating babies again, are we?
Objective: Find Sapphire in Ravendale [PART 1 COMPLETE]
Arrive in Ravendale free and alive.
Distance to target: 0 miles
New skill unlocked: Locate Person
Find a person within a hundred feet of you. This skill’s efficacy increases with your knowledge of the target and decreases with time spent away from the target.
Objective updated: Find Sapphire in Ravendale
Locate Sapphire.
