14. Offsite Meeting

For the most part I only take a few minutes to collect my things, but I do have to buy a tent. I’m not sure if I really need one if I’m not going to sleep, but if it rains I’ll probably be glad to have something to hide under. I also grab my crafting tools, I don’t have any materials at hand, but if I get bored it’ll mean I can enchant some rocks or a tree or something. Who knows maybe I could even make something useful if we get split up. With all that collected there’s just one last thing that probably needs to be done.

I’m definitely getting weird looks in the main hall, and they get much more aggressive when I don’t go my usual route and instead pass between the tables everyone’s sitting at. Still, nobody actually says anything and lets me fill out the form saying I’ll be absent from the guild for around two weeks. I put the form through the mail slot in the Guild Masters door and leave as the gazes all linger on me. I should just do this invisibly next time.

With my illusions up I make my way back to the meeting spot. When I knock on the door Johannes opens up and lets me in like before. For the most part the four of them are dressed up in fairly normal adventuring clothes, very similar to the enchanted leather armor I just made Willard with one exception; Gwendolyn’s wearing full metal armor that’s clearly been enchanted reasonably well. I kind of want to just walk around her and try to figure out all the different runes she’s wearing, but at a glance it seems like it’s mostly defensive stuff to keep the armor from overheating in different weathers and keep liquids out of it, plus some magical reinforcement. As I’m thinking about that she flips up the visor of her helmet. “Ah, you got here a bit early. I heard you four did proper introductions before I got there, so just to complete those my magic is metal magic. With that done I think we have everything ready to go, any loose ends you need to wrap up?”

I shake my head no, and she continues. “Great, then let's get going out the back. Just follow us, it’s a very good way to get in and out unnoticed. Oh, and here” She hands a vial of liquid life over to me. You made five of these, there are five of us, it’s usually best if each person has one since the people who need it may or may not be actually able to drink it themselves.” I put it away in my bag as the group starts heading deeper into the building. I follow along feeling particularly underdressed with my normal clothes, and a sword at my hip that at best probably won’t break when I use it wrong. Meanwhile all the rest of them have enchanted armor and either an enchanted weapon, or magic good enough that they don’t need it. I’m at least not expected to charge into the front or put this sword to any use, but I wouldn’t mind having some armor as a fallback policy. I guess it’s a learning opportunity either way, I’ll just have to remember to cobble together something before next time. As I’m thinking that the group makes their way to the backdoor to the building, and exits out into an empty alleyway. It makes sense as an exit, but they must all have keys if they’re going to use it as an entrance with how close it is to a larger path, and how loud you’d need to knock to get someone’s attention from there.

Outside of the alleyway we look like any guild adventuring group on their way to a job, and nobody gives us a second look as we head out of the village and into the surrounding semi-familiar forests. A bit into the forest Johannes strikes up a conversation. “So Jezebel, what’s your story? Bridget’s been pretty quiet about your life story, but she did say something like ‘you should ask her about it, you might get a really interesting sidequest out of it.’” Well that does sound like Bridget.

“There’s not all that much to say. The guild I work for found me in a forest a few villages over during an unrelated mission. They never found my parents, so even though someone had supposedly been caring for me the guild ended up taking me in. Past that I don’t know all that much about myself. Apparently at some point in my childhood I was given a blessing to not need sleep, although I have no idea if that narrows anything down.”

The entire group just stops to stare at me for a second before Gwendolyn starts waving people forward. Once we’re walking again Johannes starts talking again. “That’s a pretty … unique blessing, but blessing or cursing someone takes an absolutely absurd amount of skill with the appropriate type of magic. Maybe your family was very wealthy or something, would you mind if I look at the blessing? I could maybe get some more information about its nature.”

I shrug. “Sure, as long as it won’t mess with anything important.” I hold out my arm, and brace myself.

He raises an eyebrow, “it’s not going to hurt, you don’t need to look so … once burned.”

I shrug. “It was really unpleasant last time, just bracing myself.”

He gives me a very strange look. “Alright, I’m a bit curious what they were doing last time since light magic isn’t going to hurt, but just give me a second.”

A glow forms around his hands as he reaches out and just barely doesn’t touch my arm. I grit my teeth as it feels like my arm is on fire, and as I’m about to say something he pulls back suddenly and interrupts me. “What the … I … I guess I was wrong.” Looking down it looks like the part of my arm he touched is horribly sunburned. That didn’t happen last time, although it felt a bit worse this time.

Everyone just stares at my arm again before he continues. “I … couldn’t determine anything about your blessing, or even locate it. That being said … I think you are incredibly cursed. Your soul is so buried in intertwining webs of cursed magic that I couldn’t even locate it.”

I can’t blame everyone else for stopping again, I stopped to stare at him after that. “What? What does that even mean? I’m not just going to keel over and die at fourty or something, am I?”

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He seems to think for a second. “I really don’t know, but I can guess at least one of the effects. I think you’re allergic to light magic. It’s a bit of why I almost certainly can’t check further, without burning your skin off. Figuratively of course, but that doesn’t make it much safer than literally.”

Wait … that doesn’t quite make sense. “But I’ve had liquid life before, I didn’t need the healing at the time, but if it didn’t heal me at all it would’ve poisoned me. It was the first time I made it too, so it was about as dangerous as it could get.” I feel a bit bad about how much time we’re using on this, but curiosity wins that emotional showdown handily.

“Interesting … considering the curse is entwined with your soul you might be safe from your own magic, even if it’s crafted into light magic. I can’t say I really know how crafting works, but generally the shapes your magic takes are attuned to your body, a bit how fire magic won’t burn its user even if they’re not at the moment immune to normal fire. To be safe I would highly recommend not drinking any liquid life that you didn’t personally make, and especially not any that was made by someone else’s light magic.”

“I … see. How would I go about getting this cured?”

He winces at that, never a good sign. “I … have no idea. Just from what I saw with a brief look it’s a curse way outside my abilities even under normal circumstances, beyond that … well an allergy to light magic makes any cure somewhere between a miserable time consuming slog by one of the greatest masters of light magic, and just traditionally impossible. Sorry.”

I do what I do best, push every existential crisis back into the corners of my mind until they’re barely even a whisper that I can safely ignore. “Well then if I can’t do anything about it I don’t need to worry, at least not needing to sleep is still helpful.”

Gwendolyn signals everyone to go forward again, and Johannes gives a half hearted smile. “That’s … an interesting way to look at it. I guess I can’t fault the optimism. Just keep an eye out for any other effects. That being said I can see why Bridget thought you’d have a good mission, that’s a fascinating situation, and perhaps finding out a bit more about your past would provide a solution. I’m not exactly offering anything at the moment, but if you were to ask about it as a job, I wouldn’t be opposed to making time.”

Gwendolyn decides to interject. “Well you can figure it out later, we’re going to have to cut through underbrush for a while, Johannes you get up front.”

He jogs up to the front leaving me in the back. I draw my sword, it probably won’t get much action when a few people have magic that should be able to cut through vines, but it doesn’t hurt to have it out. Plus having it at hand makes me feel a bit less like dead weight.

We spend the rest of the day hacking through the vines infesting the forest we’re traveling through. For better or worse the conditions aren’t really conducive to conversation, it at least makes it easier to not fall down another existential rabbit hole, but it’s a lot more boring. I try to help a bit with my sword, but Johannes just rips through the vines without seeming to try all that hard, so I just end up putting it away after a few minutes. At least it’s not just me, everyone but Johannes is clearly getting bored.

As the vines start clearing up Gwendolyn holds up a hand to have us stop. “Alright, we should be far enough from the territory of the Great Vultures, so we’re going to rest a bit early here. Get plenty of sleep, because once we head in we’re not stopping until we’re well outside their area. Normal watch order, Jezebel if you really don’t need sleep then feel free to be a second pair of eyes for the watches.” I can work with that … probably. I nod along with everyone else.

In the meantime the group’s not going to sleep immediately, instead just starting a card game for a bit. I guess I could join them, but I actually have an idea of something I can do to help out on this trip. Looking around I find a reasonably small rock, about a quarter the size of my fist. This would go best with some string, but barring that just the pebble will do. I take out some tools for small scale rock carving and get to work.

It’ll take some pretty complicated shapes, but it exclusively needs illusion magic, so I should be able to cram the shapes together pretty tightly without risking something breaking. Still, letting someone else control such a high variance spell is a challenge, especially without traditional voice commands. Annoyingly I’m pretty sure this would be a lot easier if I used dark magic for the interface, but that hasn’t become a better idea all of a sudden especially as a gift to someone who’s already cursed. As I’m thinking that Willard walks over. “What’re you working on?”

I turn it over in my hand. I could maybe try to preempt the curse, and add a silencing effect I then undo, but there’s no way the curse is that badly made. “It’s supposed to be a gift for Elizabeth, but the control system just isn’t working out.”

That gets the other’s attention, and Elizabeth gives what I think is a questioning look, so I continue. “Technically making sounds is entirely in the domain of illusions, so in theory I could make a magic item that you could speak through, but actually controlling the output is the sticking point. There’re just so many options for what someone could say that unless the item could actually give you direct control over my magic I can’t get it to work.”

She seems to think for a second before shaking her head. Luckily Johannes is there to explain. “We’ve looked into the concept before, the issue is that curses have to wrap around the soul for a reason, and it’s not just to make them more difficult to remove. It’s not an illusion that silences someone, it’s closer to a mental block preventing trying to speak. Maybe if you enchanted it with light magic or something you could push past it.” Or maybe dark magic.

“Ah. Well sorry to bother you about it.”

Elizabeth just shrugs, and Johannes finishes for her. “No worries, it was a very nice thought. There’s just not much that can be done without removing the curse first.”

Everyone goes back to their usual activities, and I just keep staring at the rock. In theory I could maybe help, but … well I like these people, but not so much that I’d stick my neck out that far for them. Maybe if I thought they wouldn't immediately try to kill me … maybe. I stare out into the forest, this is going to be a boring night.