The Way Ahead

“So what I’m getting,” Rillah summarized, “Is that Niall is the guy who taught you alchemy?”

“Well, sort of.”

They were sitting in Edwin’s cart, having finished stabling Bill at the inn they’d picked out to stay in. He’d insisted they wait before he expanded on what was going on with Niall until they were in a more private area, and the mostly-abandoned stables worked well enough. The odds that any of the horses or goats would tell on them were very low, after all.

“Yes, yes, you already knew some stuff. But he introduced you to Zosimus?”

“Zosiman, or rather his Grimoire.”

“Taught you how to make healing potions, and then turned out to be murdering passers-by for potion ingredients?”

“Well, he did a bit more than just teach me…”

“Yes or no, Edwin.”

Edwin reluctantly nodded.

“Then you beat him and all his goons up, took their stuff, and dropped them off at the closest town?”

“More or less; I met with some guards and they took him off my hands.”

“I’m aware, I’m summarizing. You just finished telling me this.”

“Well then don’t get details wrong,” Edwin protested.

“It’s close enough for a summary.”

“Whatever,” Edwin grumbled, “But yes, fine.”

“And so all this time you just figured he was dead?”

“Well yeah, why wouldn’t I? The guards told me they’d take and execute him, but my presence wasn’t required because it was the word of an Adventurer over that of an Outlaw.”

“That is true,” Rillah agreed, “For all that Adventurers are hated, we do have legal weight, which can be very useful.”

“So yeah, why would I think any different than him being dead?”

“You guys talkin about the alchemist?” Yathal asked, making Edwin jump. He hadn’t noticed the dog and his boy approach, and that someone might have eavesdropped made him really nervous.

“Are you thinking of someone in particular when you say that?”

Yathal looked to Kynigos, then nodded, “Yeah. The guy who showed up an’ healed the Magistrate. Really tall but not that strong?”

Edwin shrugged, “I guess, seems moderately likely but… you know him?”

He nodded, a furtive look crossing his face, “Kyni didn’t like him an so he wanted ta protect me. He showed up one day an kicked out the magistrate’s old healer, sayin that he’d do a better job keepin him alive, and he did. Mum said that the magistrate wasn’t doin very well before he came along and she thought he was basically a mage. Then he offered that I work with him for somethin and Kyni didn’t like that. He said I should just listen to him and that the alchemist didn’t wanna help me. I really love Kyni and so when he said I should listen to him I did and then mum…” he started to tear up, but Kynigos began to furiously lick him and he broke into giggles instead.

Rillah turned to Edwin, “So what do you want to do? He’s your nemesis, so I don’t want to intrude.”

Edwin rolled his eyes, “You’ve been spending too much time around Lefi, I think. He’s not my nemesis, he’s just my former mentor, turned against me because of a difference in philosophy and thought long-dead?”

“But definitely not your nemesis.”

“You know I said it like that intentionally, right?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I’m of two minds,” Edwin sighed. “On the one hand, I want to know what he’s doing here, how he survived, and how to stop him if he’s still being a menace. Maybe he really did just do a better job of healing the magistrate and got a pardon that way, but then I want to know how he got himself in a position to heal the guy being an Outlaw sentenced to death, and did a better job than someone with an actual Class for it. I just sense foul play. On the other hand it’s firmly not my responsibility, and the last time I tried to pit myself against him, it didn’t go well and was a phenomenally stupid idea. Is the smart thing to just take off and leave this all behind us?”

“It might be,” Rillah agreed. “We weren’t planning on staying more than a day or two anyway, and then you can take off and leave him alone, just making sure to never return here. Just run away, never find out what’s going on with him or what he’s doing, forever left wondering about this grand mystery.”

“Did you have to say it like that?”

“Of course.”

Edwin sighed, “This is probably an awful idea, but I also can’t just not know, not if he’s impacting people’s lives.”

It’s not your problem, part of him shot back, This kind of thinking is how you got into trouble the first time. But also, does it really matter if it’s my problem or not? I just want to know. Then again, if I go poking into this, Niall will learn that I’m still around, and I doubt he’ll be happy to see me.

How can I be certain that he doesn’t already know I’m here though?

“Edwin, you know I can’t actually read your mind, right?” Rillah’s proclamation brought with it a few giggles from Yathal, but that might have just been residual laughter from Kyni’s treatment.

“Right, I’m just thinking about what I should do. At the moment, Niall probably doesn't know I’m here, probably. I can’t imagine the guy who dedicated his life to killing everyone tangentially related to Imperial authority would just let me walk away if he realized I was around. I’ve gone through a bunch of Class changes after all, and picked up more than a few new scars-” he felt where a few faint lines still traced themselves along his face, “...and I need to shave,” Edwin realized. “I’ll have to pull out the knife this evening.

“Anyway, my point is that I’m pretty much a different person compared to when I met him, and even if he did somehow see me, how would he recognize me?”

“You said he didn’t have any physical Paths, right?”

Edwin nodded in confirmation.

“Well, that might mean he has a bunch more mental Skills, and that may include recognizing you.”

“I mean, it’s possible. But considering we haven't gotten any kind of visit from him or someone he’s connected to, he either didn’t recognize me or didn’t think it was worth following up on. I don’t want to change that.”

“Didn’t you think something similar about you getting away from the dwarves, but when you actually did stop they caught up?”

“No? I don’t think I said something like that anyway, and I wouldn’t say that’s true, strictly speaking.”

Rillah shrugged, “Maybe Lefi or Inion said something like it.”

“Maybe. Anyway… I guess, while we’re here, it might not hurt that much to look around. Try and figure out a bit of what’s going on, but if there's something happening I’m not getting involved.”

Rillah chuckled, “Whatever you need to tell yourself. Are you done here?” She turned to Yathal and Kynigos, wrestling in a pile of straw. They didn’t seem to hear her at first, so she cleared her throat and that got their attention, Yathal scrambling to his feet while Kynigos poked him in the back of the legs with his nose, buckling the boy’s legs and making him collapse in a heap before he picked himself up again.

“Yes, miss Rillah.”

Ah, he was trying to be extra polite then. It wouldn’t really make a difference, but while Rillah talked to the pair, Edwin slipped off to his room, flying directly to its window and clambering in through the open shutter.

He needed to figure out what was happening, why Niall was alive and wandering the streets, and what if anything he needed to do.

That would be tonight, though. For now, he wanted to try and work on Sapper’s Apparatus. He could feel another version of the crystal just beyond his fingertips, but he didn’t know what it was…

Edwin slipped across the night sky silently, if awkwardly. Since passing level thirty, Unbound Tether was able to support his entire weight, effectively removing the distance limit for his flight. Unfortunately, it was immensely awkward to fly with the Skill ‘unbound’, in the sense that he had precise control over what it attached to, but was also forced to manually control said attachment. When combined with the fact it could only push or pull, flying with the Skill was significantly more awkward than its prior form.

Still, it was silent and left almost no trace of him as he jump-flew from rooftop to rooftop, avoiding the handful of avior still out this time of night. He technically wasn’t actually hiding, but he still wanted to feel stealthy, and it was rather difficult when a brown-feathered humanoid taller than he was was busy flapping around.

Well, whatever. He didn’t really need to sneak around. He just wanted to be out and about when there were fewer people doing just that.

Far overhead, the crystal moon shone down on the city, providing enough illumination to see.

It only took a few minutes for him to find where he’d spotted Niall earlier in the day, a relatively major crossroad near the poorer side of the city. Edwin had never much enjoyed spending much time in the slums, and usually avoided it not out of principle so much as simply being irrelevant to him.

But that was neither here nor there. He had a mystery to solve….

...somehow. He hadn’t actually thought this far ahead, he’d just thought that he’d go out and figure out stuff, without really thinking about the ‘how.’

Edwin sighed. He didn’t even have the excuse of Lefi polluting his thoughts this time; that was just him not thinking things through adequately. Well, he’d make it work. He should investigate the slums, after all. If he were a crazed bio-alchemist obsessed with creating life who had presumably gotten some sort of pardon, he’d be experimenting on the poor and homeless. If he were really lucky, maybe he’d see Niall’s minions grabbing someone and dragging them back to his hideout. And then… and then what?

He couldn’t just go charging head-first to Niall’s lair, that was certain. He’d be most definitely outclassed by anyone with a combat Class, and….

Well, I haven’t actually tested myself lately, and I do have my new lead shot. I spent six months training with Lefi! I’m sure I can manage myself against some petty minions or thugs…

He shook his head, Bad Edwin. Overconfidence is the body killer.

If it were just Niall, he was confident about his chances. But even then, he shouldn’t be thinking of violence as a first resort. It was possible that he’d been reformed and was now quietly playing the role of a town alchemist, but that seemed so unlikely as to not even be a real possibility. The Niall he knew was almost rabid in his hate of the Empire, so then why would he be living in a town unless he was forced to?

Gah, speculation was pointless. He didn’t know anything near enough about human nature to try and figure out what was going on, and that was why he was investigating. Heck, really this was just another research project. It wasn’t like he had some sort of mystical insight into the workings of the universe—unless there was a Skill for that? Oh man, it would be so great. Hmm. Would it be Physics, though, or philosophy. Philosophers were like Physicists after all, in that they thought they were the best and that they were the source of all truth in the universe. Unlike Physicists, however, they were wrong.

Where was he? Mystical insight, how the universe worked… Ah!

He just interrogated it until it revealed its secrets, and this would be no different.

The only trick would be finding him.

Edwin landed in the town square he’d spotted Niall in, calling on Memory and Visualization to try and recall the scene earlier that day. It turned out… alright, but didn’t help him figure out anything he didn’t already know. Niall had been in the back corner of the square, near an alleyway that twisted around a block of shops and houses. Hm.

Following the alleyway brought Edwin closer to the city’s center, closer to the affluent part of town. Here, the streets were nicer, the buildings cleaner, the shops offering higher-class wares. It was all unusually quiet at this time of night, but there were a few figures moving around. A pair of city guards, illuminated by an almost too-bright lantern, caught Edwin’s eye as they patrolled around.

They noticed him, as well, and cut directly towards him. Edwin’s first instinct was to run, or fly, but he tamped down on that thought as soon as it manifested. There was no reason for that… hopefully. His off hand grabbed a smoke bomb just in case, but he kept walking at the same pace he’d been going at.

“You there! Halt!”

There was a Skill laced in the words of the Lieutenant City Guard, but compared to the sorts of mental effects Edwin was used to, it was laughably weak, just giving him a momentary pause in his stride. Then he stopped anyway, not needing to get off on the wrong foot with them so early.

“Yes?”

“What’s an Outlaw like yourself doing here?”

“I mean, I’m an adventurer? Anyway, I have as much of a right to be here as anyone else. If you mean ‘out this late at night’, I just wanted to see the sights with fewer people around.”

“Newcomer, then?”

“Yeah, just arrived today.”

“Did you now? And you so quickly forgot about the curfew?”

“Curfew?” Edwin asked incredulously. That was even a concept here?

“Nobody is allowed out on the streets at night.”

“Yeah, that’s… not a thing,” he was fairly confident, anyway. Also, while the streets were seriously quiet compared to what he was used to, they weren’t entirely empty. Not as empty as a curfew would result in, anyway. He was pretty sure that something was going on, even if he couldn’t quite figure out what.

“You’ll need to come with us,” the guard said. His partner leveled her spear at him, and Edwin eyed them both warily.

“I’m going to have to decline there. I’ll head back to my place, but I’m not heading anywhere with you two.”

“Grab him,” the command was spoken so softly Edwin almost missed it at first.

That was enough for Edwin, and he launched the smoke bomb in his hand at the ground as hard as he could. Bomb Throwing fed into it, and with a small poof the world went white.

A hand still gripped Edwin’s arm, and another blindly tried to grab him, but he easily avoided it, striking back with a shove enhanced with Unbound Tether. The guard stumbled back a half-step before a Skill flashed up her legs and stuck her fast to the ground.

That was… annoying, but manageable. Edwin dropped to the ground, suddenly shifting the direction he was dragging on his captor, then pushed Unbound Tether as hard as he could. It still wasn’t enough, so with gritted teeth he activated the potion containers around his arm.

The mixture of mana-repellent and mana-absorbent potion flooded into his muscles, letting Edwin use Overcharge and pull. He still wasn’t strong enough to break the Stand Ground Skill the guard was using, but he did escape her grip for just a moment.

A moment was all he needed.

Mana Infusion flooded into Longstrider, Longstrider fed into Unbound Tether, and Edwin jumped, hurtling into the air at breakneck speeds, leaving the cloud of smoke he’d made far behind.

It was only then that he realized what a clamor was going on, with the first guard calling for reinforcements and the sounds of armored figures jogging towards them. Fortunately, Edwin was very, very fast going in a straight line, and he shot into the air, constantly accelerating until he was a mile above the tiny city below and its few lights.

He stayed there, bobbing up and down slightly while the chilly night wind blew past him. That was… strange. But he didn’t get any answers. At the same time, he didn’t think he was going to get any answers tonight either. He’d have to wait for the morning and poke around the area in the daytime. It would be way busier, but he’d make do.

For now, he just needed to get back to his room, and that… ugh. That might prove slightly complicated.

Edwin’ concentration was broken as his arm felt like it had been lit on fire. Thirty seconds had passed, and Overcharge had worn off, sending its backlash shooting through the formerly empowered limb. It was the least of his worries though, as Unbound Tether had snapped and sent him falling from the sky.

AAAAAHHHHHH

Is it good or bad that I was so high up? Farther distance to fall, but more time to get it… back… up!

Unbound Tether!

The Skill refused to take, and Edwin mentally cursed.

Unbound Tether!

Unbound Tether!

Unbound-

The fourth time, it finally took, and Edwin began to slow down, stabilizing a few hundred feet above the town, a tiny dark figure in a very dark sky. Below him, a few lights were rushing about, but he didn’t care much about those. That was all just… noise. Nothing of substance.

He silently flew back to his inn, perching on the roof for a minute. He tried to slip inside silently, stealing back to his bed, but was foiled by a figure sitting on it, a sight which made Edwin’s heart jump into his throat before he realized who it was.

“I suppose that’s you that caused all that ruckus?” Inion asked.

“...Yeah,” he admitted. “What are you doing here? I thought you were sleeping in the cart?”

“I was, ya. Then there was a buncha shouts and I came to check on you. You snuck off again,” she stated.

He stayed silent.

“Edwin.”

“Look, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

She sighed and looked away.

“What? I wanted to see some stuff, and I didn’t want to bother anyone. Going at night seemed like the most logical way to do that, because there wouldn’t be anyone around on the streets, nobody here cares if you’re out at night, I was in full kit, and I left all my other valuables here. I was careful!” He quietly protested, never raising his voice above a loud whisper.

She pointedly looked out the window.

“Okay, that was something I was not expecting. I didn’t even know that the Empire had a concept of a curfew, let alone one implemented… if they even do. There’s a part of me that expects to find out it’s just a ruse to try and arrest people for Niall to experiment on. Oh, don’t give me that look. I know that’s probably not what’s actually going on, but that’s the only place my brain is going. Something is going on here, I know it, and I want to find out what. I just… I know that no matter what, it’s not my fault if something happened after I left Niall. His actions are on him, they aren’t my responsibility, doubly so after I gave him to law enforcement. But I also need to know. Come on Inion, you know how I am.”

“I do,” she conceded. “You get incredibly self-destructive so long as there’s even a drop of knowledge to be gained.”

“That’s a little unfair,” he tried to protest. “I’m back now anyway. It was fine, I only got into a little scuffle and I didn’t hurt anyone. I just need a good night’s sleep to wipe away my use of Overcharge, and I’ll be as good as new.”

“You didn’t let me watch.”

“Okay, I guess that’s true, but there wasn’t much to see. I also don’t think it’s my responsibility to make sure you’re always watching when I do something? Just that I’m not allowed to stop you from doing it.”

Inion looked unconvinced.

“Can I just get some sleep? You can come tomorrow. I’m not done here.”

Tomorrow, he’d get to the bottom of this.