Reynolds Leywin POV
The rest of the day was calm. After Tessia and her parents returned to their Kingdom Tabitha spent the rest of the day distracting Lilia. Vincent and I left to meet with the noble form earlier and Alice went shopping.
The noble behaved as entitled as before, but at least he bought many artifacts and an armor set, as well as multiple swords. So he was worth all the trouble he caused with his personality.
After that Vincent decided to visit a merchant friend of his and I had a nice talk with his bodyguard Jeff. We talked about the good old days of adventuring. I told him from the stories I had collected, while leading the twin horns, while he told me of his group, the thunder hawks. I had already heard of them, they were quite well known, as they were also quite strong. They focused a lot on clearing Dungeons the first time, while the twin horns focused more on well known dungeons.
It was interesting to hear his experiences, how they had been cornered on one trip, and how they had to fight their way out. The way he told the story reminded me how much I had missed these days.
While we were in the middle of a story, Vincent came out. He looked quite irritated. "What happened?" I asked.
"My friend told me that he expected a delivery tonight, but it hasn't come yet."
"Why don't we help them check where the delivery went?" I proposed, since I knew that our evening was free otherwise. "That's what I was thinking of doing as well," Vincent agreed. After his friend finished packing a couple of things, the four of us left.
As we got closer to the storage place of the merchant group Vincent's friend had bought the items from, I noticed that the place was surrounded by fog. It was weird to see such dense fog in the city and at the beginning of the night. At least if it was really fog. Maybe some kind of artifact or chemical produced this fog.
I went to take a closer look. I couldn't see a single light from inside the warehouse, the fog was only illuminated by the street lantern. The other sides of the warehouse were painted black by the lack of the moon. I remembered, today was a new moon. I surrounded the warehouse only to realize that the fog was limited to the warehouse. Now I was sure that this fog was something weird. I activated my mana core and could feel the reminisce of multiple spells being cast. The whole warehouse was enveloped by an aerie aura.
I came back to the group and exchanged a glance with Jeff. He had also noticed the strange effect that surrounded the house.
"Something happened in there, the mist is either a spell or produced by an artifact."
"What do you mean, something happened there?" Vincent's friend asked me.
"I mean to say, that a few hours ago there was a fight there. I could feel mana residues all over that place."
"I thought only mages with a very high core stage or certain artifacts could detect those" he murmured.
I nodded "That is true. To be able to detect the presence of my spells some hours ago, one would have to be at least a silver core mage. However, the higher the core of the user, the easier it is to detect the traces, if the caster does not conceal them. This is unknown to most people, since a mage would normally try to conceal his casts as much as possible. The only other place I had ever seen residues before was in a dungeon in the beast glades. An old friend of mine was at the yellow core, and I could feel his residues for about 5 minutes after he cast a spell."
"But you said that this incident happened hours ago.." The merchant said.
"Yes I did, and the residues are a lot stronger than that time. The mage who did this was at least a silver core mage." I said. "And the fact that he left those residues can only mean one thing..."
"He wanted to send a message." Jeff finished. He looked pale. "I would like to advise you to turn around. Reynolds and I will investigate. Whoever did this wanted to leave a message, so they must know that someone would discover that. They wouldn't harm us for that, right?" he asked me.
I agreed. This was a statement. It didn't make sense to hurt those that found it.
"No, we will accompany you," Vincent said. "I really think we should scout the place before you enter, '' the bodyguard said. I agreed.
"Okay, in that case we get a guard." Vincent said. I nodded, that was a good idea. We turned around and entered the fog.
Even after that many hours the fog was still so dense, that one couldn't see more than a meter. As I augmented my eyes it got a bit better. We entered the building to see a guard lying on the floor. I checked his vitals. He was dead, but I couldn't find a single wound. As I turned him around I saw how water left his mouth. Around a liter of water left his mouth. "Watch out, it's a water mage. This poor man was drowned by filling his lungs with water. Since his head is still wet I guess whoever did this cast an orb of water around his head." I said to warn Jeff. He was already a couple steps ahead and checked another body. "This one too," he said.
We continued to search the warehouse only to find 3 other drowned guards. As we entered the loading area I got sick. The whole area was covered with corpses of workers, with blood all over the place. They all had multiple circular small wounds and the whole area was covered in similar damages. Even the walls were punctured by these holes.
"I have seen wounds like that before. They are from an air projectile spell. So there was also a mage with air affinity present." Jeff said.
"Or a mage with multiple affinities" I added. We continued to walk through the loading area, only to find even more bodies. I noticed a strange pattern. "Wait a second." I said to Jeff. I walked back a few steps and noticed hole in the ceiling. As I stood right under it, I realized a horrific fact.
"All blood splatters point away from here. It was a single spell." I could see how a shiver went down Jeff's spine. "Le.. Let's get this over with" he said with a frightened voice. I wasn't feeling any better and agreed. The faster we could leave this place, the better. I don't want to be here, if the mage changed his mind and decided to eliminate all traces. Only the basement and the office on the second floor was left.
We decided to go into the basement first. We went down the stairs only to find another body. This one had all kinds of bruises and cuts, but it seemed like the wounds were caused by people of different sizes and various strengths. And they were all done without the usage of mana, I noticed. Or at least not from the powerful mage responsible for all of this. We continued down the hallway to see a couple of cells. They were all opened. Because of the state of the cells and the destroyed chains on the cell doors I guessed that they were all inhabited before this massacre. But there wasn't a single body in them. While there were some dried bloodstains, it seemed like the people that were held in there, probably slaves, were left unharmed and were allowed to leave. Now the injuries on the guard made sense, as they probably took revenge for being treated that way.
With the basement cleared we went upstairs. We heard noises from the office, so we drew our weapons and augmented our whole body. I kicked in the door and Jeff stormed in ready to fight whatever was inside, but we were surprised to see a single man that cowered in a corner, whining. He had all kinds of cuts, but nothing life threatening. I checked the other rooms, while Jeff tried to talk to the man. If one would believe the clothes he wore, he must be the owner of this place. At first I thought that this was an attack of a fellow merchant, but as I saw the basement I thought that the goal was to free the slaves. But in that case it wouldn't make any sense to leave the owner relatively unharmed.
I returned to Jeff and the owner. "The rest of the rooms are empty." I told him. Jeff had bowed down to the owner, but he didn't react.
"We are here to see what has happened. To help you" Jeff told him in a calming voice. But the owner still didn't look at us. Then I realized that he murmured something.
"He is saying something. Listen." I said. We stayed silent.
"Spiders everywhere, get them off me.
I can't breathe.
Oh god, make it stop, I can't take it anymore."
He continued to react to what seemed like gruesome things that he thought happened to him. After a few seconds I understood. "He is in some kind of vision. Can we get him out of there?" Jeff tried to imbue some mana, but it didn't work. I suggested slapping him awake, but that didn't work either.
I stood by him, continuously trying ideas that might wake him up, while Jeff went back to escort Vincent, his friend and the guards up here.
As the guards entered the room they saw the man. "Oh, someone survived this time."
"What do you mean, this time?" I asked.
"This is the fourth place we have found this evening with a condition similar to this. They were all filled with bodies killed by either water or air magic. Let me guess, there also some slaves here?"
I simply nodded. With that my thought was confirmed. Someone had started to kill slave traders.
"Fast, get the mana suppression device here." the other town guard shouted to a third town guard that was still at the entrance.
"The first two other owners were already dead when we found them. The third one died while we were getting a mana suppression device. Some kind of magic creates an illusion that fears them so much their heart gives up. If we get the device here fast enough we can wake him up, so he can tell us what happened.
After a few minutes the guard returned with a device. They set it up and the man seemed to wake up.
"Where am I? Oh guards, that elf. Protect me from her.
No, what am I talking about, no one can protect me. She will come back.
I can't do that another time." He let out in a hurry, before grabbing the dagger from Jeff's belt and slit his own throat.
The guards and Jeff were shocked, but not as shocked as I was. I finally understood the situation. Why Ms. Greffin had left so soon and what she and the former elven king had talked about.
***
1.9k words
In my last chapter I listed my changes to mana, and made some smaller faults.
First thing: Plant is Water + Earth (instead of Water + Wind) (thank you to CarlosEduardo736962 for pointing that out.)
Second thing: I misunderstood decay a bit. Instead of its being his whole own mana form like the deviant forms, its a "support affinity" for other mana affinities. So instead of being used purely, it will be used together with other mana particles.
It will still be visible in the core as black particles, but they will combine with fire for soulfire, water for the acid (of yagrette for example) and with earth for the spikes. (thank you to KaiAsukawa for pointing that out and explaining it)
And I mean it this time: get ready for a masterpiece of art (art like painting, not like arthur :) ) next chapter xD
***