James woke up late as usual. He'd been finding it hard to wake up since his injury. The fox kids weren't there.
James didn't pay it any mind. He had work to do today. Work that might be crucial for the survival of this town, and his own life. He had the chance to learn more about the secrets of this world, which was an even greater incentive.
He bathed and dressed in a rush, then he descended to the inn's common room. What he found there was bizarre. His two servants, whose names he still hadn't bothered to learn, sat on a table themselves and spoke cheerfully to one another.
Talia sat with Hansworth and the two children, all of them having heads drooped over the table. Eno was outright snoring. The rest of the mercenaries sat on their own table and looked much more refreshed.
Only Aric saw James as he entered the room, and James saw the man's disappointment. 'Was he hoping the dragon would finish what he had started?'
"So you guys didn't get any sleep, huh?"
Talia started and almost fell out of her seat. The pups both let out strangled yells and jumped at him. Hansworth just smiled slightly from where he sat.
"Where did you spend the night?" Talia demanded.
James met her eyes in the long moments of silence that followed, then he met Hansworth's curious gaze, then that of the kids.
"I, uh, slept in my room."
Talia blinked in surprise. "You did?"
"Well..." he spoke as if to a child. "Yes."
"But the dragon...?"
James shrugged. "I did tell you I wasn't planning to fight it. We just had a chat, surprisingly short, and now I'm to run some sort of errand for it."
Hansworth stood up from where he sat, his expression set. Talia spoke before he had the chance.
"We're going with you."
"No. The two of you haven't had a leak of sleep in hours. You'll be useless to me even if you came."
"You are not doing whatever it is you're doing alone!"
"You should have thought about that before you went and stayed up all night. You'll go get some sleep, because tomorrow we'll be beginning the last leg of our journey to the capital, and I need you guys ready for that."
"You can't go alone!"
"I won't. I was already planning to take Rob with me."
"Huh?" said the mercenary from across the room. "You want to take me? Why?"
James shrugged. "Because I'm in need of your particular talents."
"You will need a warrior to guard you even still," Talia insisted.
"Which is why I'd originally planned to take either you or Hans, but I've got no choice now. You'd be less than useful in this situation."
"But—"
"Sleep, Talia. Or maybe you'd prefer I use a spell to force you to sleep. Then you'd wake up in my bed and wonder what—"
"Shut up right now if you want to live!"
He raised his hands in supplication, then smiled genially as he moved to walk around her. Rob joined him at the door. On the table the mercenaries were sharing, both Aric and Mania were glaring death at him. Jonas didn't look much happier. He felt like trying to invite any of them to come would only be calling for trouble.
"So, where are we going?"
"To the edge of town. There is a system of caves just past the wall."
"And what is it you hope to steal?"
James smiled like the mischievous brat he was.
"Today, my dear friend, we shall be robbing a grave." 'And finding more power,' he didn't add.
Not an hour later, they both lay hidden in the shadow of a great sentinel tree. The caves had ended up being in a valley of sorts, between two short raised pieces of land.
"Those look like town guards, don't they? What are town guards doing in an unexplored, perhaps unimportant cave system?" Rob asked.
"Officially," James started, "they are patrolling the area."
"And unofficially?"
"These are not town guards at all. They are here on their own agenda, and whatever they are doing can't be good."
"Dragon tell you that?"
"Nah. It told me the cave where what I want is located, and finding them guarding that very cave makes me suspicious."
"So its the second cave? I see."
James cast his invisibility spell, warning Rob to make sure he stayed in the shadows if he wanted the spell to protect him. The mercenary gave James a pin which he claimed James could use to knock down an enemy in a pinch.
Sneaking was something James was all too used to. It wasn't surprising Rob seemed just as adept. They moved from shadow to shadow, making sure not to joustle the rocks or dried twigs that would give them away. They were in the shadow of a rock when James heard something that gave him pause.
"When did they say the young master is coming?"
"They said he'd be here today evening."
Young master? Today evening? There was another noble coming to Uluth, and whoever it was was the one who'd agitated the dragon. James filed the information away for later.
There was no cover of shadows from the rock they were hiding behind to the mouth of the cave they hoped to sneak into. So they had to be patient, wait for the best opportunity in order to not give themselves away.
One of the guards went back into the cave. The other stayed where he sat for a long time, occasionally yawning and looking around for nothing in particular. He looked bored and seemed to expect nothing could go wrong this day, as nothing had probably gone wrong the whole time they were here.
It must have been an hour before the man finally left his post. James's mana seemed to be waning, getting close to its limit. He'd never used his spell on another person before.
Still, once the man turned and went to hide behind an outcropping of rock blessedly far from their own, James and Rob took off across the vast path toward the mouth of the cave. James could see his own dark shadow swimming on the otherwise clear brown earth. If anyone had looked and seen those swimming shadows, they'd have been located in a heartbeat.
The two fell against a rough wall once they were safely under a shadow again. The guard returned to his post, only a few meters from where James and Rob lay panting. When James tried to get up, the wall flaked a little, and the sound of falling debris, even if it was very tiny, attracted the guard's attention.
James froze. Even if he knew his invisibility spell was still activated, he couldn't help but feel exposed as the guard stalked up to the wall, frowning.
"Oi, whats going on Jens? Why'd you leave your post unguarded?"
"My post is five metres from here. I highly doubt moving around is unexpected for a guard."
"Just stay out of this part of the cave. Who knows what may happen if you don't have the right kind of protection?"
The guard, Jens swallowed. "I know what you mean. I hope poor Kart is alright."
"Yeah," said the second guard, an unknown emotion deep in his voice.
James could feel Rob's wary glance on him, but he couldn't spare him any thought just then. He resolved himself. It was time to go deeper, ominous warnings or not.
The caves were a jumbled mess internally. There was a system of passages going in different directions. It would have been hard to find the right path if James couldn't sense the ominous aura the dragon and the guard just then had alluded to.
"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Rob whispered. "That guard back there—"
"Don't worry. I know how to protect us from mana poisoning. I'm a mage, remember. And I happen to be friends with a dragon."
Still, even his chat with the dragon didn't prepare him for what he found in the depths of the cave. It stunk worse than a sewer and had an oppressive presence. The air in the room was frigid, heavy, crushing.
And there stood a group of men and women, dressed in white coveralls and what looked like medical masks. They were studying the river of rotting green and making notes. Across from the river was a metallic box inscribed with runes.
"What the hell is that green stuff?" Rob asked in revulsion.
"You can feel it's oppressive aura?" James asked in surprise
"What? No! It just looks awful."
'Hmm, so none mages can't even smell it? How convenient.'
"Thats what happens to mana when a being with too much of it dies. It liquifies and then starts to rot."
"So is that why you came here? To steal this...rotten mana."
"No. What I came for is in that iron box with the glowing runes."
"Hmm. Alright sure, now I can see why you brought me here."
"Im pretty sure there is a manual lock somewhere on it."
"And you can't get the key after subduing all these unsuspecting scholars?"
They didn't look it, but James knew the scholars were mages. Even their protective garments wouldn't be able to save them from this pervasive aura otherwise.
With a tap on Rob's shoulder, he moved to change his position. It was time to start subduing foes in silence. At least it would reduce the number of people they had to fight later.