Chapter 107: Six Names on the Screen
Arthur stood in the ruined surface yard of Grayroot Quarry and opened his interface.
The translucent blue screen materialized in his vision.
Arthur Vance
Level 28 → Level 29
Attribute Points Gained: 2
Unallocated Points: 2
Proficiency Improvements:
Whisperwind proficiency increased.Shadow Step weapon-transition proficiency increased.Close-range escape execution improved.
Arthur placed one point into Dexterity and the other into Perception. Faster transitions had kept him alive on the platform, while noticing the fractured floor and shifting armor seam had shaped the entire fight.
Updated Status
Level: 29
Strength: 44
Intelligence: 30
Dexterity: 116
Perception: 110
Mana: 320
Stamina: 39
Unallocated Points: 0
Around him, the rest of the team was reviewing their own screens.
Emily let out a satisfied breath. She had moved from Level 31 to 32, gaining her standard two unallocated points. Her controlled armor-breaking proficiency had also increased. Emily read that line twice, clearly more pleased by it than the two unallocated points.
Felix, on the other hand, did not immediately open his status. He carefully set his shield down and checked the leather record case first, ensuring the latches had not burst during the escape. Only after confirming the documents were safe did he check his interface.
"Level 25," Felix announced, adjusting his glasses. "And an increase in shield redirection."
"Do you actually value five-year-old parchment more than your own advancement?" Emily asked.
"The level cannot be crushed by falling stone, Emily," Felix replied calmly.
Chloe stepped away from Alicia and dismissed her own screen. She had reached Level 25, with improvements recorded in Advanced Battlefield Healing, Foreign Material Removal, and contamination-safe field procedures. Chloe appeared satisfied with the result, though she spent less time reading it than checking Alicia’s arm again.
Across the yard, Leon and Alicia finished checking their results. Leon had reached Level 33, while Alicia had reached Level 31. Both received two unallocated points, which they left untouched for now. Leon’s interface recorded improved frontline coordination, while Alicia gained proficiency in precision and joint attacks.
The completion experience was limited to the six students who had fought beneath Grayroot. Elara and Cedric remained at their previous levels because neither had participated in the survey.
"Alright, that’s enough," Chloe said, cutting the quiet celebration short.
Torn clothing and damaged equipment could wait. Chloe began checking the team for injuries and exposure.
Chloe checked Alicia’s healed arm first, confirming that no crystal or dark grit remained beneath the skin. She then made a quick circuit of the others. Felix’s shield arm was bruised, Emily’s knuckles were intact, and Leon’s breathing had already settled.
Finally, she stepped up to Arthur. She made Arthur rotate his right wrist and close his hand several times. His wrist was sore after the fighting but moved normally beneath the bracer.
Then she looked at his left arm. The thick canvas sleeve of his jacket was torn to shreds near the elbow, the fabric stained and punctured by jagged bite marks.
"The smaller burrower caught the jacket," Arthur explained before she could ask. "It didn’t reach the arm."
Chloe let go of his sleeve. "That counts as an improvement only because your arm is still attached."
"I accept the judgment," Arthur said easily.
They retreated to the old foreman’s house before dark. No creatures followed them from the lower works. With the chamber marked unsafe and the recovered evidence secured, the team could finally rest.
They washed away the quarry dust, ate a simple cold meal, and settled into the main room.
Felix and Chloe spent the final hour checking the recovered evidence. The ledger, road permit, and reseller records had survived the escape, while every physical sample remained sealed and separately labelled.
Felix closed the record case with visible relief. "The contract can now survive a formal review."
"Unlike the lower chamber," Chloe said.
Outside on the porch, Arthur and Leon took one final look at the dark quarry below.
Leon rested his hands on the porch railing. "We mark the lower works unsafe. No one goes back down until a proper clearing crew arrives."
"Agreed," Arthur said. "The survey contract is complete."
Arthur unfolded Rusk’s map between them. Together they crossed out the collapsed chamber, marked the broken entrance, and added the side passage that had carried them out. The revised copy would keep the next crew from trusting the old route.
The following morning, they loaded the carriage and began the return journey.
The road south was quiet, the adrenaline of the previous day entirely gone. Emily sat against the wooden carriage wall, claimed loudly that she wasn’t tired, and fell asleep ten minutes later. Felix ignored the rattling of the wheels and began organizing the recovered dates into a cleaner, sequential report for Sylvia.
Alicia tested her healed arm once after the carriage reached smoother ground. Finding no pain in the movement, she gave Chloe a quiet nod of approval. Leon and Arthur briefly compared the route notes they would include in the mission report.
After checking that everyone else was stable, Chloe finally sat down on the bench across from Arthur. She pulled out her medical logbook and uncapped her ink pen.
Arthur watched her. He remembered Beatrice’s instruction in the loading yard: Chloe will watch everyone else. You watch Chloe.
He noticed her rubbing her tired eyes with her free hand, blinking hard to keep her focus on the page. Arthur reached across the space and pulled the field notes out of her hands before she could write another line.
Chloe frowned, starting to object.
"The reports will survive until Lornfell," Arthur told her, setting the book on the bench beside him. "Rest."
Chloe gave him a suspicious look, but she leaned against the carriage wall and closed her eyes.
Arthur waited until her breathing slowed before returning the logbook to her bag. For once, Chloe let someone else decide that the work could wait.
The carriage rolled through the gates of Lornfell late the following afternoon.
Morwenna, Sylvia, and Beatrice were waiting near the academy entrance. The Obsidian Hand had sent a standard return notice ahead of them, and the faculty wanted the results immediately.
Beatrice looked over the returning group as they climbed down from the carriage. She stopped in front of Chloe. "Report."
"Six returned," Chloe said, her voice clear and professional. "No exposure symptoms. One crystal-shard injury treated and cleared in the field. Recovered records and physical samples are intact."
Beatrice’s attention shifted briefly to Arthur. He met her gaze and gave one small nod before stepping aside for Chloe.
Before Chloe could hand over the sample case, Professor Moon’s faculty assistant crossed the courtyard.
"Professor Moon ordered the Grayroot material kept separate from every previous sample until she examines it personally," the assistant said. "She also wants the foreman’s ledger, the worker complaints, and the copied road permit delivered to her workroom."
Sylvia kept the original records while the assistant took the sealed samples and document copies.
"When does she want us?" Arthur asked.
"After she completes the first comparison. Professor Rusk and Instructor Morwenna will receive her initial findings before the formal debrief."
Elena summoned Arthur, Chloe, and Felix to her workroom the following afternoon.
The recovered samples stood in separate rows across the central table. The black sediment from the stream remained beside the boar crystal, while the Grayroot dust and burrower fragments occupied the opposite end. Elena had also brought out sealed portions of the guild powder and the material recovered during the Founders’ Fair.
She moved between the samples without mixing them, checking each one against the notes spread beside the table.
Felix waited until she finished before asking, "Are they from the same source?"
"Not exactly," Elena answered.
She indicated the Grayroot crystal and then the dark powder from the guild shipment.
"The materials themselves are different. They did not come from the same kind of ore. But every sample disrupts nearby mana in a similar manner."
Chloe looked across the separate rows. "So different materials were affected by the same thing?"
"Possibly," Elena said. "Or by related methods. We do not have enough evidence to choose between those conclusions."
Felix placed the shipment dates beside the samples. The damaged material appeared in records separated by years, not days. Whatever had affected the samples was not limited to recent activity around Grayroot.
Arthur looked at the road permit resting beside Felix’s copied shipment records.
"Same kind of damage," he said. "Not necessarily the same source."
"That is the conclusion we can defend," Elena replied.
She placed the Thorne-sealed permit on top of the unfinished report.
"And this proves that one wagon used a Thorne-controlled road. It does not prove that the Thorne family owned the cargo."
Felix closed his ledger. "Then we still need the original freight records."
Elena nodded. "That will be discussed at the formal debrief next week."
Grayroot had given them altered creatures, contaminated runoff, and freight records.
It still had not given them the source.
***
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