That night, Erani and I left town to go et up with Ainash. We had a new job to do—figure out what happened with those deserted border guards—and this one would likely benefit from her presence, much like most of the other jobs we’d done in the past. However, this one would also probably take a few days at least to do; getting to the border alone normally took around a day, so going out there and investigating a disappearance, then coming all the way back would likely take at least three days, maybe even longer.
We wouldn’t leave until tomorrow morning, but Ainash would need so advance notice and discussion, which was much easier in person. With her project regarding the Goblins, I wasn’t even sure if she could have a couple days away from them right now. Well, of course, she could always bring them with her, but not only was I unsure she had them ready for that, but we’d also be bringing outsiders along, so that’d be inadvisable as well.
Erani had told Ainash the basics already, but it was hard to transfer too much information over the Bond when we were so far away. So we walked the familiar road, cutting off at the right point to head toward the Goblins’ forest where she’d made her ho. Thankfully, with that as the main location she stayed at when we were in town, she was mostly safe from adventurers. We’d told the guild that we had “pacified” the Goblins, but they weren’t dead. So most people still avoided the forest when they could.
As we walked, once we got away from the main crowds of people that lingered nearer to the town walls to pick off Gloomspurs, Erani said to , “Have you used your new Spell yet? It was called Curse of Echoes, right?”
“I haven’t tried it,” I responded. “It says I have to choose another being, so I can’t just practice it on myself. Guess we gotta find a monster that I can Rank it up with.”
“Can’t you just use it on ?”
I stopped and looked at her. “You really want to do that?”
“You use damaging Spells on all the ti,” she said with a shrug.
“Yeah, but that’s because you have Angelic Shield, which can prevent you from taking the damage. You don’t have anything for this.”
“Right, but it won’t do any long-term damage or anything. Just make see things that aren’t there. And I know it’ll just be illusions, so what’s the harm?”
I shrugged. “Just seems…I dunno. It makes you see a bunch of versions of attacking you. I don’t want you to see that.”
She laughed. “I’ll be fine. Besides, it’s probably best if we know exactly what that Spell does, right? Descriptions can only go so far. And I can even transfer the mory to you, so you know exactly what it’s like, too.”
“...Alright, I guess if you insist, I can try. Your Conjuration is lower than mine, right?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s just an illusion. There’s nothing it can actually do to . And my Conjuration’s 126. I get 3 per Level, and then 3 more from Stat Points, so my growth rate is pretty high.”
“Mine is…130,” I responded. “I guess my extra Stat abilities push just a little higher.”
“Those things are so broken,” she said with a chuckle.
“Weren’t you the one who said I shouldn’t have taken Recursive Growth, back when it was offered to ?”
“Well, yes, but that was then. It didn’t do anything to help you in the mont. Now?” She shook her head. “You are certainly reaping the rewards of pushing through the ti where it was a wasted Talent choice.”
“See? So it was the correct decision the whole ti.”
“Just because it happened to work out doesn’t an it was the right choice.”
“‘Course it does. Anyway, you ready?”
“Yes.”
I reached into my mind, finding the command to cast my new Spell for the first ti. I selected my target, and…
You have successfully cast Curse of Echoes on Level 20 Sorcerer.
240 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 1.8k.
Instantly, Rank-up notifications flooded my perception, so much Mana being poured into it and pushing it past several thresholds at once. And looking at the final one, I saw…
Threshold reached. Curse of Echoes XP has reached 30.
Curse of Echoes Rank has increased to 5.
Due to Curse of Echoes Rank reaching 5, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 264 to 271
Duration: From 24.4 to 25.6
Range: From 12.2 to 12.8
Before I could even read through the notification, though, I heard a yelp.
“Ah!” Erani scread. She flinched, shrinking down and shielding herself with her arms.
“Woah,” I said, “are you okay?”
“Y-yeah,” she said. She had her eyes closed, fists balled up with her fingers digging into her palms. “It just…startled .”
“Do I need to shut it off, or sothing?”
“You don’t need to…” Erani slowly opened her eyes again, only to flinch once again the mont she did, shutting them once again.
“You can’t shut it off, anyway,” Index said. “It’ll last for twenty seconds no matter what.”
Erani once again cautiously opened her eyes, this ti keeping them open despite a twitch here and there. She shakily looked around, gazing at whatever it was she saw.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “I just wasn’t ready, is all. I’m not used to being so up close to enemies. And you look…very realistic.”
“What’s it even showing you?”
“Well, it’s you—a whole bunch of you. So are wearing Dark Plate, so Light Plate, so of them just look how you normally do, and—ah!” Erani jumped back suddenly, then sighed. “That one ca out of nowhere. Um, they’re all using whatever attacks you have. So are shooting Rays of Frost, so are charging at with Noxious Grasp active…So are just standing there. nacingly. I assu they’re supposed to be casting Crippling Chill, or one of your other Spells that don’t have any visual effects.”
I frowned. “Wait, so will it just give everything about my fighting abilities away to whoever I cast it on?”
“That’s not the case,” Index said. “It shows the person what they think you can do. So, since Erani knows so much about your abilities, her illusions are mostly accurate. But for soone else, it’ll be limited to what they already know you’re capable of—or, depending on their imagination, what they think you might be capable of.”
“Huh,” I said. “So no free information for them. That’s—”
“Ah!” Erani yelped again, interrupting .
“You okay?” I asked, looking over at her. She was staring down at her stomach, arms out in surprise.
“Yes, yes, I’m okay. I just looked down to see your fist going through my gut. Startled , is all.”
“Damn,” I said, shaking my head. “Sounds disorienting. Which is good, I guess, to hear that it’ll be effective on enemies. Still, I’m, uh, sorry that you have to see this? Sorry that the illusory versions of are so an?” I laughed awkwardly. “I’m…not entirely sure what to say.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said. “Um, how much longer?”
“Just a few more seconds.” I reached over and wrapped my arm around her, and the mont I touched her she scread once again and pushed away from .
“Oh, wait, that’s the real you?”
“Yeah,” I said with a chuckle. “I’m the real one. Sorry, maybe I should’ve said sothing.”
“Good gods.” She sighed. “You scared the life out of .”
For the next while, I continued to cast Curse of Echoes on Erani to practice the Spell up, taking long breaks in between for to regenerate so Mana, and for her to get a ntal break from the Spell. It only took one or two more before she got used to the effect and could go without flinching or getting startled by its effects, though she was clearly worse at talking, walking, pretty much anything with so much going on around her. I had to imagine that fighting soone—soone that could easily blend in with all of the illusions—would be even harder than that.
But despite the breaks, Curse of Echoes quickly ranked up to its current maximum, pushing its effects up to the point they’d be fixed at until we got a Spell Crystal for one of its Schools.
Threshold reached. Curse of Echoes XP has reached 130.
Curse of Echoes Rank has increased to 9.
Due to Curse of Echoes Rank reaching 9, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 292 to 299
Duration: From 29.6 to 31.1
Range: From 14.8 to 15.5
With the duration passing thirty seconds, the Spell was getting to the point where it was honestly quite Mana efficient. Curse of Echoes and Expedite both shared that quality, technically getting cheaper with each Rank, at least as long as you saw the cost as one that you paid per second of the effect. So I was happy to see that effectiveness increase.
As we neared the forest’s edge, Erani contacted Ainash once again to let her know we were close. We hadn’t seen her Goblins lately, not having the ti to physically co to the forest like this, so I was interested in seeing how Ainash’s project was coming. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure what I hoped for. I supposed it would be good if she were nice to them, but I’d worry if they felt like they weren’t under control. Maybe I was just hoping they seed like they’d be helpful as soldiers? But then, what would make Ainash any better than the Dragon tyrant we were trying to free them from this whole ti?
Honestly, maybe letting Ainash do any of this was a bad idea. It really just seed like it was a disaster waiting to happen. But we were way past the point where we could just cut our losses and leave them alone in the forest, so…I’d just have to hope it would turn out well.
“Hey, wait,” Erani said suddenly, breaking out of my thoughts. She held out her hand to keep from continuing—being forced to turn her entire body to do so, since her left side was facing , and that was the side that was missing an arm—and then she pointed over in the distance, down by the treeline.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You see those people? Group of about a dozen.”
“Oh, shit,” I said. “Yeah, I see them. Obviously ard. Probably adventurers. What’re they doing out here?”
“No idea. We never see people out this far from the town walls. They have to be here for the Goblins, right? Or maybe they’re just looking for Gloomspurs out where there’s less competition?”
“No way they’d need fifteen people just to kill so Gloomspurs.”
Erani shrugged. “So people like to keep safe.”
“Well, that doesn’t matter right now regardless. You think we should leave and try to enter the forest from another direction? Probably not a great idea to let people know we’re hanging around out here. I an, I guess it’s not like we’d get in trouble for doing it, but it’s weird enough that I imagine it’d draw so unwanted attention.”
“Yes, that might be a good idea.” Erani turned to leave, making it seem like we were simply wandering the fields, sa as that other group.
But while she did that, my eyes lingered on the people. Did they look…familiar? I swore I’d seen them before. It was too far between us for to make out any specific facial details, but sothing about that crowd just seed…
I unconsciously took a couple steps forward.
“Hey,” Erani said, grabbing my arm and tugging toward her, “what are you doing? I thought we were leaving.”
“...Right, yeah, sorry,” I said after a mont’s hesitation. Even if I did recognize them, it probably didn’t matter. I’d seen plenty of people wandering the floor of the guild lobby, so it was likely just a few of them all working together for sothing.
But then, just as I turned to walk away with her, I saw the group of people start heading in our direction. I frowned, watching as each of the group of more than a dozen all tapped each other’s shoulders, getting their attention and headed pointedly straight for us.
“Hey, I think they’re coming to talk to us,” I said to Erani.
“Hm,” she grunted, pursing her lips. “Suppose it’d be weirder for us to just run off without talking. Let’s just try to make this quick?”
“Sure.”
My mind kept twinging at as the group got closer and closer. So many of these people just looked barely familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Then I caught a glimr of a face among the crowd, and I instantly knew who we were dealing with.
“Hey!” I called out to the group, walking forward to et them halfway.
Erani trained behind, glaring at the group in a similarly curious way that told she probably had her suspicions about who these people were, too.
“I know you people, right?” I asked. A murmur spread among them, and I saw the familiar face almost shrink back at my statent. I continued, “Yeah, I do know you. You guys are that group that tried to mug us, right? ‘Bout a week ago?”
The familiar face took a step forward, breaking out from the center of the crowd and facing . He raised his hands. “Listen, we just—”
“Right, you definitely are,” I interrupted him. “You, you’re the guy we knocked out and talked with. Your na was…Ugh, sorry, I’m bad with nas. Don’t tell , though. I think I rember. It was…Loin?”
“...Loik,” he said plainly. I could practically see the tension rippling from his tightly-wound face.
“Man, I told you not to tell . Ah, I was close, though. Anyway, Loik, I rember having quite the lengthy conversation with you.”
“Yes, and we—”
“I rember talking about so very specific things in that conversation,” I continued. “I an, I obviously told you to stop mugging people. And, judging by the fact that you’ve got the whole gang back together, I have to assu you haven’t done what I asked in that area.”
“No, please just listen,” he said, hands raised. “We’re just out here hunting Gloomspurs, okay? Haven’t taken a single coin from anyone. L-listen. I wanted to co and talk to you because I saw you staring at us, and…And, look, I’ll just cut to the point. Have you been following us?”
I stared at him for a few monts. “Loik, I don’t actually care about whether or not you’ve been mugging people.”
He visibly relaxed at my words. “You don’t?”
“No, I don’t. Now, forgive if I’m mistaken here—I’ll admit I don’t have the best mory, especially after the busy week we’ve had—but I do believe I spoke to you about another issue entirely, back when we had out heart-to-heart. I think, if I rember correctly, I told you that if I ever saw you, for any reason, at any point for the rest of my life, I would kill you.”
Silence rang through the fields.
“Loik,” I said, “I know I said I didn’t care about you mugging people, but I have to ntion this. There’s blood on your handaxe.”
“Th-there is. It’s from the Gl—”
“Loik, Gloomspur blood isn’t that shade of red.” I took a step forward. “Who else would you have been killing out here, in the middle of the night?”
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