A Jaded Life

Instead of taking a closer look at the camping party, we quietly decided to continue onwards to our tower. From there, I could use a scrying construct to covertly observe these people, without taking any risks, just in case they were a lot more powerful than they appeared. Or incredibly sneaky, cunning and deviousness could easily compensate for raw power, especially in a situation where the cunning party had time to set up and prepare. Alex was an excellent example of that, their traps and constructs were becoming a force one had to seriously reckon with, or they could decimate almost any foe.

Amusingly, Lia and I had decided to ask Alex to tone their traps down a little when it came to protecting our tower. Having traps that would kill or maim anyone approaching didn’t seem like the right idea, especially as we were planning to set up a Shrine to Lady Hecate on the ground floor. Dead pilgrims were something the Gods took somewhat seriously, it was bad for their image if their people got killed on the way to worship them. Instead, the traps around the tower came in two varieties, deterrence and deadly. The deterrence was primarily in the forest, encouraging people to take the path to the quarry while the deadly variant was only activated when we felt endangered, hopefully giving us enough time to retreat or prepare a defence. Additionally, I had put up a few wards, mainly of the warning variety, though I was also planning to add a few that had teeth of their own. I just had to figure out how to do that.

But before we could consider how to deal with intruding enemies, we had to decide what to do with the party nearly camped out on our doorstep. Sure, we could wait and hope that their goal wasn’t the giant ball of energy floating above our tower but that wasn’t a realistic hope. Plus, even if these people weren’t here for it, somebody would come calling, it was just a matter of time.

For now, the obvious answer was to, as always, gather information. For that, I plopped myself in one of the fairly comfortable armchairs Luna had created with Alex’s help, leaning back as I created a scrying construct. Once again, my preferred choice of a raven came out and soon took flight through one of the windows, my body remaining in the tower while my mind was occupied.

Having my construct sit in a tree and observe was an interesting experience. I rarely observed fixed positions for long stretches of time, more often than not, I took a quick look before letting my construct continue on, or I was trying to figure out some oddity, which usually required movement and a good amount of vigilance.

Here, I was merely having the construct sit in the tree, watching as the blonde guy kept watch, occasionally walking around the camp in an attempt to remain awake and vigilant. The lack of activity on my part let me fall into a bit of a trance, with snippets and fragments of foreign memories occasionally flashing through my mind. They were remnants from my time with Lenore, memories she had shared with me in an effort to show me something or to get a second opinion on something. Now, these memories, or rather, my memories of sharing her memories, came back to mind, likely because I strongly associated the shape of a raven with my dear avian friend. Maybe I should look into some way to transform my body, so I could physically feel the wings. It would certainly be another long-term project but that hardly mattered, for now, I could create scrying constructs or fly with my cloak, both excellent substitutes.

My vigil was interrupted when the party down there changed guards a little before the sun started to rise. After waking up one of his compatriots, a brown-haired guy he called Daniel, the blonde guy, whose name apparently was Jonas, got to sleep, with me continuing to keep watch. Neither of the guys had been terribly observant, I felt they should have noticed the raven sitting still in a nearby tree but apparently, they didn’t know that animals rarely just hung around. Granted, birds did it more often than other animals, but to have a single animal keep watch on your camp should ring alarm bells, even if you didn’t know what was going on. Alas, their failure was to my benefit in this case, so I wasn’t about to complain. Instead, I simply kept watch as Daniel occasionally moved around camp, looking just a little uncertain and lost. It was quite amusing to watch, really, though I felt bad at the same time. There was no doubt in my mind that the guy would have preferred to be elsewhere but felt a need to help his friends.

That conviction was confirmed a little later when he used Water Magic to fill a kettle and Fire Magic to stoke the flames of their campfire as he started to prepare food. Just from that, I could recognise that Daniel had some magical ability, though I would have to meet him in person to learn more about his affinities. Either way, this might be somebody I would want to teach, especially if it wasn’t a case of somebody having conflicting affinities but a case of somebody learning to use a type of magic without the appropriate affinity. The second was a lot more impressive from a talent point-of-view and I really wanted to foster such talent.

The scent of food combined with the noise of cooking was enough to wake the rest of their party and I now got a better look at them. Four guys, one gal, all of them somewhere between their late twenties, Jonas, and maybe their early forties, it was hard to tell with their leader, a guy named Jack. That guy had dark hair but was going grey at his temples, while his body was fairly fit. Though, that was only relative, when it came to physicality, none of them could hold a candle to the last guy on their team, a bald black guy called Murray, who was built like the proverbial brick shit house. Easily two metres tall, with enough muscles for two people and a fairly calm, yet intimidating demeanour. Even if I was likely stronger than him, simply from my stupendous attributes, there was something threatening about him.

The lone female of the group was also quite interesting. Somewhere in the middle when it came to age, with shoulder-length blonde hair she didn’t pose the obvious, physical threat somebody like Murray did but the way her eyes moved and the immediate caution when she noticed my scrying construct told me that she was not somebody to be underestimated, which likely was why all but Jack, their leader deferred to her. And even Jack quite obviously showed that he valued her advice, the moment she brought up the presence of my scrying construct, they all demonstrated increased vigilance.

For a few moments, I considered whether I should do something to reveal myself. The distance between the tower and my construct was short enough to keep my connection to the Astral Power it was composed of directly, without having to merge into the Astral River, so I could alter the construct fairly easily and change it into a humanoid shape and initiate contact. But I had a feeling these people wouldn’t react well to that, so, instead, I had my construct take flight and retreated a little before moving into the shadow of a tree and making the construct disappear. Scrying without using a construct was a little harder, and it was a lot harder to move the focal point, but it was well within my capabilities and I kept watch on the party.

Sadly, they didn’t give me any real indication about their long-term plans, the conversation I managed to overhear was focused on their immediate plans, mostly their continued track to my tower and speculation about the discoveries they might be able to make there. All in all, it wasn’t anything threatening, though I wasn’t about to underestimate these people, they seemed to be remarkably competent, especially given that they lacked an obvious Legacy.

Once they got going, it didn’t take long for them to reach our tower. I continued to shadow them, quite literally and kept watch, amused at their reaction. It was quite glorious, with multiple chins dropping and more than a single request to be pinched in an effort to confirm that they were, in fact, not dreaming.

But then, I had to admit that the tower was quite the structure, with its black, glinting walls and intimidating height, especially as it should be obvious that the tower had been constructed after the Change.

Finally, as they started to move towards the large, open doors on the ground floor, I disengaged my scrying construct and started to move downstairs. It would be interesting to meet these people in person.