Explorer of Edregon

“Vin. What a pleasant surprise,” Abby said, looking up from her paperwork as he stepped into her office. The guard who had let him in nodded, before closing the door to grant them some privacy and returning to the barracks. The vice-captain of the guard leaned back in her chair, putting her paperwork to the side as she raised an eyebrow. “I don’t believe you’ve ever sought me out before. Is everything alright?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to report a murder or anything,” Vin chuckled, fishing the three seemingly identical guard badges out of his pack and placing them on the desk between them. “I’ve got your first artifacts prepped and ready for you, as requested.”

“Really?” Abby asked, her eyes widening a hair as she stared at the three badges. “I made that request weeks ago, but I still figured it would take you some time to get to it. I’ll admit I was planning to ask you to devote your downtime prior to the next wave to try tackling the issue.”

“I ended up getting some surprise practice in, along with some reading on the subject, and decided to finally take the plunge,” he admitted, stifling a yawn. He’d had a late night finishing all three of the artifacts, and then he had three days of sleep to catch up on afterwards. “Consider these three the prototypes. If you let me know which ones work best, I can make more of them down the line.”

“So they’re different?” Abby asked, picking up the first one and swapping out her current badge with it. The moment the artifact was secured to her chest, she blinked, staring at him as though he’d grown horns. “...I can feel you sitting in front of me, as well as the guards over in the main room. Sense Life?”

“Yep,” he nodded. “I purposefully kept the range rather limited, as stretching it too far can be disorienting and dangerous. Not to mention I had to keep the tier 0 spell on the simpler side.”

“I think this is plenty good enough for our purposes,” she said, turning to stare in the direction of her other guards. “Oh yes, being able to feel people an entire room away is massive. What do the other two do?”

“Sense Death and Sense Magic,” he said, tapping each badge in turn. “I figure neither will get quite as much use as the Sense Life badges, but you asked for these spells specifically, so here you go.”

“I don’t think so either, but they will each have their purposes,” she said, giving him a small smile. “Thank you, this is a fantastic first step toward outfitting the guard with the tools needed to better help the citizens of Terra. I’ll put the badges in rotation and collect feedback on them. You said you would be open to helping make more down the line?”

“A few, but I’ll tell you right now I’m not going to be turning myself into an assembly line,” he said, staring at her hard to ensure she understood he wouldn’t be wavering on this. “These artifacts are just tier 0 spells, and each one still takes me a few hours to make. I won’t bore you with the details, but cramming the runic formation into the gemstones is a sensitive and time-consuming process.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” she said, leaving the Sense Life badge on her person and tucking the other two away. “Would I be overstepping my bounds to ask when you’re planning to try your hand at creating an artifact with a more powerful spell?”

“Seriously? You just got the first artifacts I ever made!” he scoffed, shaking his head. “It’s probably going to be at least a little bit before I try a tier 1 artifact, and I already promised Scule he’d get the first one.”

“Ah. The Rogue. An excellent choice,” Abby drawled. “It is a good thing nothing within Terra is actually sold, otherwise I expect he and I would have been butting heads for some time now. As it is, I’ve already been made aware by Commander Spur that someone has been making off with his wine, and I have a pretty good idea of who it might be.”

“So the most important thing is to not let any one guard try wearing all the badges at once,” Vin said hurriedly, eager to change the subject. “I did some experimenting earlier, and similar to making any of the spells too large, it turns out trying to maintain multiple sensing spells at the same time is a huge drain on the mind. Unless you’ve got guards with particularly high focus attributes or who want to go to sleep incredibly quickly, I’d recommend sticking with a single badge.”

“Understood, thank you for the warning. Do you have precise numbers as to what someone’s focus has to be in order to wear two of them?”

“No idea,” Vin snorted, getting a sigh out of Abby. “Look, I’m not a huge numbers or testing guy. I learned how to cast my own spells by repeatedly blowing myself up. Violently.”

“Yes, I am aware of your methods, as is the majority of Terra by now. There is a reason why so few people are willing to walk up and start a conversation with you.”

“What, they think I’m just going to explode in the middle of the street?” Vin asked. “Seems a bit much.”

“You did shatter a man’s hand with your prosthetic arm,” she pointed out, looking at his knuckles and the electric blue light they were giving off.

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“Come on, that was an accident! And you can’t tell me Kyle didn’t have it coming!”

“I’m just telling you the rumors I hear drifting about town,” Abby said bluntly. “If you want to work on your image, perhaps you should offer to do a piece for the newspaper. Maybe just stay away from Jim’s tabloid, unless you want things to get even worse.”

“So Jim did end up taking over the tabloid?” Vin asked, recalling the annoying man who Abby had been forced to knock unconscious the last time they’d spoken. Jim had been a former paparazzi member back on Earth, and not a particularly well-liked man around town. He hadn’t stopped ranting about free speech and freedom of the press, all the while tarnishing the reputation of anyone he could think of with blatant lies and speculation. He’d gone after Lumel, along with multiple members of the council, which had resulted in him getting shut down remarkably quickly and his newspaper being split into an actual informational one, and a silly tabloid. The tabloid was not only printed on bright yellow paper with massive text along the top of each page informing people that it was written for purely entertainment purposes, but he was required to obtain the consent of any individual he wrote about, or he’d be thrown in jail. The goal was to ensure if he wrote about any specific person it wouldn’t be anything hateful, and so far it seemed to have worked.

“Indeed. Such a waste of an Investigator class,” Abby sighed. “Christina has been making improvements to her printing press ever since then, and Alice managed to find a Writer from the third wave who eagerly took over the more official newspaper. Goes by Avaline. Smart woman, that one.”

“Maybe I’ll offer to do a piece or something one of these days then,” Vin decided, dreaming of what it would be like to be able to walk through town without having everyone’s eyes following his every move. He hadn’t really drawn the connection until Abby pointed it out, but it was hard not to see it now.

Everyone really did treat him like he was a magical, ticking time bomb, just waiting to go off.

I mean… I do know Self Destruct now… Maybe they’re onto something.

“Actually, I did have one other thing I wanted to talk to you about while I have you,” Abby admitted, halting him as he made to get up and walk out. “It’s guard related.”

“Oh boy, my favorite,” he sighed, sitting back down. “What happened?”

“There’s been a death within town,” Abby said, causing him to blink in surprise. “A relatively new crafter from the fourth wave, with a specialization in alchemy. He was found dead in one of the many workshops, with an opened vial beside him. It looks like a rather open and shut case, and we don’t suspect any foul play, but seeing as this is the first official death within Terra’s walls unrelated to a monster attack, I was hoping to get your assistance confirming it.”

“First death within Terra’s walls, huh,” Vin repeated, raising an eyebrow at the woman who had personally killed two people over the past few months. Though technically, Patty’s death had been back when they were little more than a disorganized camp.

“First official death of an innocent person,” Abby corrected herself, somehow managing to keep an entirely straight face. “If you wouldn’t mind coming with me over to the hospital, I’d appreciate you checking the body. Witherson built a morgue within the hospital basement some time ago, which is where we’re keeping it.”

“Sure, I’ve got time,” he decided, getting up and following her out of the guard house toward the hospital. Frank was busy tending to someone with a nasty gash across their bicep, but he grunted in greeting when they walked in, before turning back to his patient. Despite the fact that Frank could heal most simple flesh wounds in the blink of an eye, Vin was well aware that the Healer practically interrogated his patients while they were suffering from the pain, forcing them to tell him what stupid thing they’d done to get injured in the first place. According to him, it helped prevent them from coming in with repeat visits.

The morgue was not nearly as creepy as Vin had been expecting. It was well lit, and Abby quickly retrieved the crafter’s body. Thankfully, Frank had covered him with a gray tarp, meaning all they could make out was a head of shaggy hair and the man’s pale face.

“If you would be so kind,” she said, gesturing toward the body.

With a sigh, Vin stepped behind the corpse, placing a hand on either side of its head. He began casting False Life, one of his least favorite spells, and the corpse awoke with a gasp.

“Did you die from drinking your own potion?” Vin asked, eager to get this over and done with. “Were you alone?”

“Yes… Yes…” the man answered softly, his eyes staring lifelessly into Vin’s own. Despite knowing that he wasn’t actually messing with anyone’s soul or bringing them back to life, even just these temporary copies of a person’s memories were too eerie for his tastes.

“Did you willingly drink your own potion?” Abby added, and Vin mentally shifted his spell to allow her questions to work as well.

“Yes,” the man said again.

“That’s good enough, right?” Vin asked, keeping his mana cycling through the man’s skull.

“Yes, that’s all I needed,” Abby said, and Vin happily ended his spell, letting the man’s head drop lifelessly to the table once more. “Sorry for asking that of you, but I had to confirm that’s what happened. Someone breaking into the workshop and forcing him to drink an unfinished potion would have been too easily done. As we suspected, it would appear as though he grew jealous of Bill’s increasing fame around town and attempted to brew a potion he didn’t fully understand, using himself as a test subject and killing himself in the process.”

“I can’t believe he tried drinking a potion that he hadn’t perfected yet,” Vin said, shaking his head as he stared at the deceased crafter. “There are just so many different ways that Edregon is prepared to kill people, I guess I forgot people’s own actions would be one of them.”

“I highly doubt this will be the last time we see something like this,” Abby said, putting the body away and giving him a small smile. “Thank you for your help. I know I’m pushing you a bit for those artifacts, but one of the reasons is so that you can make us items to do things like this, so that you don’t have to. It’s clear you’re not a fan of that spell.”

“It’s definitely not my favorite,” he admitted, leading them out of the morgue and giving Frank’s patient an encouraging thumbs up as they walked by. “Even so, don’t hesitate to let me know if you need me to use it. The last thing I want is for any suspicious deaths to go unsolved when I might be able to make a difference.”