The Sixth School

Author's note.

1). Remember, your help in pointing out errors will help keep me from having to take long periods off to edit. Your help in this is much appreciated.

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All Characters in the story are 18 years of age and above...

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Chapter Eighty-Eight: Blood Trail...

Shalia's eyes fluttered open as sleep escaped her. Some small lazy part of her was tempted to just let her eyes drift back closed and let herself sleep in for the day. Given that she was almost always up before the sun, it'd be hard for most to guess just how much she hated early mornings. Still, the old woman who had been her master for years before she died had inculcated into her the idea that she needed to be up before everyone else, and much to her chagrin, it had stuck. With a sigh of resignation, she rose and began her morning rituals. After a cold bath to fully wake her up, she donned her clothes for the day and started towards the front door ready to head toward the infirmary.

"Mother, you should be resting" Shalia spoke when she found her mother in the living room laying out two bowls of broth.

Her mother wasn't sick, but given that she had given birth just a month prior and was taking care of her younger brother, she needed all the rest she could get. After his injuries forced her father to pass on the title of Town-head, the number of servants in the house had gone down to almost nothing. A few of the town's women would come by and help her mother with this and that, but in the end, she had to do many things by herself. A smile crossed the woman's lips even as she rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively. "Your brother woke me up long before you were even awake," she said.

It would have been easy to believe her if not for the fact that she did this regularly. Not every day, because sometimes she was just too tired, but two out of every three days at least. "Come, sit," Her mother warmly called to her even as she took a seat herself. Reaching forward, she wrapped her hands around one of the steaming bowls and smiled as the warmth seeped into her palms. Despite wishing that she would take it easier on herself, Shalia couldn't help the gratitude that she felt as she acquiesced to her mother's invitation. That feeling only compounded when she took her first sip of the broth.

"How are things at the infirmary?" Her mother asked. They engaged in small talk about her role as the town's healer. Who was well, and who wasn't? Eventually, the talk came around to what her mother had probably been aiming for from the start. "Word has reached me that a certain boy has been making frequent visits to the infirmary," She said, a knowing smile playing on her lips.

Shalia, who'd been about to place her half-empty bowl back on the table, once again brought it to her lips hoping to hide the sudden spread of color on her cheeks. "I don't know what you are talking about," She said from behind the bowl, hating how squeaky her voice sounded. While she did her best to drag out the sip for as long as possible, eventually, she had to put the bowl back down on the table.

The smile remained on her mother's lips, Shalia's denial clearly not convincing her. "Well, that's too bad. I was thinking of inviting Bran's family over for dinner. You know, to allow us to get to know them a bit better. But if you are certain that I'm wrong, then there's no need," She said with feigned resignation.

Unable to meet her mother's eyes, Shalia spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. "It... it wouldn't be a bad idea to have them over," She muttered, sneaking a glance at her mother who seemed to be enjoying this a bit too much. Shalia wasn't stupid. She knew that this was how marriage negotiations between the two families would begin.

This would have been a lot trickier if her father had still been Town-head. With the three families eyeing power, the other two families would never have sat by and allowed one family to get such a leg up on them. The past winter, however, had been rather harsh. Many had fallen and her father had almost been one of them. The injuries he'd suffered had left him weakened and unable to carry on as Town-head. Not naïve, Shalia knew that on any other occasion, the three families would have spilled blood for the title of Town-head. Fortunately for the Aria household, the other two families were badly weakened by their losses last winter and thus didn't raise much of a fuss when they took power. Now, with her father having given up power, and his having peacefully taken power, there was no reason why Shalia couldn't be married to Bran.

The thought caused butterflies to flutter in her stomach even as her mother continued to relentlessly taunt and tease her over it. In the end, with a quick kiss on the cheek, Shalia ran away from the table. The sun was just cresting the horizon as she stepped out the front door ready to start what she believed would be just another routine day. Her steps, however, were brought to a sudden halt as she watched two massive airships slowly moving through the air toward the town...

***

Hira calmly stood in the chilly predawn air on the bow of the ship. Her gaze was aimed at the mountain off in the distance. Given how thin the mana in the air was compared to more central parts of the continent, she couldn't help but be skeptical at the idea that a high-tier mage would stay in such a region. Sure, high-tier mages have a large pool of mana that's hard to exhaust but, by the same token, they have a large mana pool that's hard to fill if the ambient mana is so thin. It was a fact that left her unsure whether to be happy about this assignment or not.

On the one hand, the Draknar alliance was in a precarious position. They really needed this clue sent by Mage Shia to be true. After they lost the only high-tier healer they had in a strange set of circumstances, the rate of attrition for their members had gone through the roof. Despite her aloof and standoffish demeanor, no one in the whole alliance could argue that Mage Alena wasn't a brilliant mind that ran the healing arm of the alliance with damn near perfect efficiency. There weren't many healers out there who could claim to never have failed even a single assignment that they'd signed onto. And of the few that could, the majority of them could only do so because they turned down any assignments that were too hard. Hira, however, had watched Mage Alena take on assignments that no one else was willing to touch. Several times, she had been certain that the woman had finally bitten off more than she could chew. However, time after time, she was proven wrong as the woman's mind proved to be simply unmatched.

It wasn't just her unparalleled abilities as a healer that made her such an invaluable asset. Even the alliance's healers who worked under her had been progressing by leaps and bounds in their ascension. Her insights into the field would probably still be pushing the school of life forward a thousand cycles after her unfortunate demise. She was such a giant in her field that the alliance never wanted for healers. They'd come from far and wide just for the chance to learn under her. After news of Alena's death spread, that had changed. The sixth-tier healer that took over after her was Alena's protégé. A gifted healer in his own right. A few more centuries under his late teacher and he would have risen to untold heights. Unfortunately, for him and even more so for the alliance, his teacher fell too early and he was forced to fill a role far too large for him. The first few cycles weren't that bad, as he strived to live up to the lofty image of his teacher. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before the power that came with his new rank turned what could have been a very promising healer into a fool drunk on power. His teacher would be disappointed.

It never ceased to amaze her just how quickly even large alliances could fall apart. In her close to fifteen hundred cycles of life, however, she had seen it happen so many times that it really shouldn't surprise her as much as it did. In a few instances, it was because an alliance had provoked the wrong enemy and been obliterated for it. In the vast majority of instances, however, it was rot from within that killed behemoth alliances that by all appearances should have survived another ten thousand cycles. Five cycles! That's all it had taken for the healer wing of their alliance to go from the envy of other alliances to one that was uncontrollably losing its healers to other alliances. The effect of this rippled out to the rest of the organization in the sense that their members were no longer guaranteed as high a quality of healing as they previously were. This in turn made them less willing to take risks for the alliance that they previously would have. The fall of Mage Alena might not have killed the Draknar alliance, but there was no question that it had weakened it.

This was why Hira was hoping that the high-tier mage did indeed exist. Even if they were just a sixth-tier mage, it would still bolster their alliance. Ironically, if what she hoped to be the case turned out to be true, then Hira knew that she had an uphill task before her. If a high-tier mage had chosen to stay in such an area where the mana was so thin, then chances are that they were the kind not to want to entangle themselves with the mage world. Part of the allure of ascending to higher tiers, apart from the power it conferred, was the increased longevity. What most didn't understand, however, was that eventually, the cycles themselves started to weigh on the mind. Take her for example, if nothing unfortunate befell her and she managed to live to the end of her lifespan, then she'd live to a little over four thousand cycles. Meaning that at one thousand five hundred cycles, she hadn't even crossed the halfway point of her life.

Different mages dealt with the press of cycles differently. Some chose to indulge themselves in whatever pleasure they could find. Others chose to amass political power and influence in whatever way they could, from creating organizations that operated across many kingdoms and empires, to creating the kingdoms and empires themselves. Some with living descendants focused entirely on their families and creating as powerful a lineage as they could. And some, like their supposed target, chose to entirely separate themselves from the mage world and become hermits of a sort. Hira didn't have any personal opinions on which approach to life was better than the other. That being said, Hira couldn't help her displeasure that this mage seemed to be in the last category. Of all the groups, hermits were the hardest to recruit. If you knew what drove a person, it was easy to convince them to come over to your side. If, however, their motivation was to not be associated with anyone or anything, it became a lot trickier to rope them in.

"Have you spotted them yet?" Came a teasing voice from behind her.

Hira turned around to find a short but stocky Dwarven man with a thick mustache and an even thicker beard, standing a few paces away from her. "Grenad," Hira gave a nod of acknowledgment to the only other mage of comparable rank on this recruitment journey.

Just because mages belonged to the same alliance, didn't mean that there weren't factions in them. The whole point of joining an alliance was to gain more benefits than one could accrue on their own. And where benefits were involved, factions motivated by self-interest were the natural consequence. This was why it was important for any alliance that didn't want to fracture to balance out the growth and power of those factions. That's one of the reasons Grenad had been sent alongside her. It was not an iron-clad rule, but whichever faction did a recruitment, usually gained the new member as a part of their faction simply because they were already familiar with them. By having more than one faction take part in the recruitment process, the one being recruited is given a broader choice of where they want to land.

The other reason for having two seventh-tier mages come was because one was there to back up the other just in case the negotiations turned hostile. After having lived so long, no seventh-tier mage was naïve enough to not plan for a situation where they found themselves in a battle to the death. Of course, by the same token, two seventh-tier mages approaching one who was on his own might be considered threatening, so only one of the two of them would be the negotiator, Hira in this case. Grenad would be hanging back in the airship, as her security. It went without saying that she was rather formidable a fighter. One had to be if they hoped to make it as far as they had. She, however, wasn't arrogant enough to believe that she'd be able to take anything that might be thrown at her. Having a second seventh-tier mage as backup gave her a considerable advantage should any fight break out. Of course, Hira knew that Grenad was also waiting to see if she succeeded or not. If she failed to win the prospective mage over, then he'd also have a shot at it as per the rules of their alliance, in which case she'd be his backup.

"They were just about to approach. Unfortunately, with your face close by, I don't think they'll be as inclined to show themselves anymore," She teased right back. They might not have belonged to the same faction, but all said and done, Hira was happy that he was the one who had tagged along on this mission. Not only was he a powerful fighter, which would make him a good backup in case things went poorly, but even more so, he was a straight shooter almost to a fault. A brawler at heart, the body-enhancing mage was in a way just as direct as his fists. If he said something, you didn't have to worry about double or hidden meanings. Like a punch to the face, you wouldn't have to sit for long hours trying to decipher what he meant to say. And as an added bonus, he wasn't a snob stuck on formalities like most other mages at their tier. Once little more than a street rat herself, it had taken Hira a long time to figure out the circuitous and often indirect way most people in the higher echelons of society spoke. There were always a dozen insinuations and implied meanings with each statement they uttered. It usually left her with a headache. To her, someone like Grenad was a breath of fresh air, which is why she could so easily banter with him.

A snort left the dwarf that barely came up to her waist. "If they've seen my face, then you've already won half the battle of winning them over to our side," He stated with his usual brash arrogance.

Rolling her eyes at the remark, Hira pulled out a communication crystal from her storage ring and spoke into it. "This is close enough,"

The Seven airships that had been flying in a V formation slowly drifted to a stop. The mountain was still far off in the distance, at least another hour by airship. This, however, wasn't a problem. Just like two seventh-tier mages coming together could be perceived as a threat, showing up with seven airships could easily be misconstrued as an attack. "Captain Vena, Captain Krix, advance," she added. The two airships at the tips of the V pulled away from the rest advancing towards the mountain.

Hira wasn't being creative, this was already established protocol for approaching potential recruits to the alliance. First, send in fourth-tier and fifth-tier mages with gifts to the prospective mage. This way, they'd be the more powerful party in that first meeting and wouldn't be threatened. The gifts are to create a favorable impression and smoothen any following negotiations. If they are receptive the advance team will inform them that a seventh-tier mage is following behind to negotiate their joining the Draknar alliance. At this point, the mage can either choose to meet or refuse to. If they aren't receptive then the meeting is delayed as they try to figure out what the prospective mage might want to make the meeting happen. Oftentimes, the first one or two refusals are just a ploy to milk out more gifts from the alliance, which is why they usually never hand out everything they planned to give right from the start. Majority of the gifts would be held back and be given in batches depending on how long negotiations lasted.

The mages on the two airships weren't just there to give gifts. They'd also covertly observe the new mage and bring back information about them to whoever the negotiator would be. Were they a man or a woman? Which school of magic do they pursue? What is their demeanor? Are they easily irritable or staid and calm? What about resources? Do they seem self-sufficient or are they low on resources? Heck, even things such as vices of choice were crucial negotiation information. That's why the advance team was always filled with alluring men and women just to see if one would catch the fancy of the prospective mage. In a day or two, they could return and report on all their findings, arming her with the information she'd need to negotiate as effectively as possible.

Or at least, that's what she had expected. Just six hours after the two airships had departed, one of the fourth-tier mages under Captain Vena came back with an unexpected report. There were only mundane people in the town. Exchanging glances with Grenad, Hira saw the same frown on his face that she had on her own. "Are you sure?" She asked the fourth-tier mage currently bowing on the deck. It was a frivolous question. Given the difference in tiers between them, Hira knew that they wouldn't dare come to her with a shoddy report, lest their lives be forfeit. They had probably figured out that there was no high-tier mage within the first hour. The following five had probably been spent looking for any scrap of evidence for where they might have gone, or even if there had ever been a high-tier mage there to begin with.

"A runner," Grenad muttered, the displeasure in his voice clear to be heard. Hira could understand why he wasn't happy. What was supposed to be a two or three-month mission would now drag on for much longer than they'd initially anticipated. They wouldn't chase the new mage to the ends of the realm, but it was protocol to pursue for at least a cycle. There were, after all, several reasons why a mage would flee from attention. A hermit not wanting their lives interfered with. A criminal running away from due judgment. Or even fear that one's enemies had found them. More often than not, the latter reason turned out to be the motivation for most runners. Again, more often than not, they were mistaken about who exactly was coming after them, but every now and then, they were correct. Whether this turned out to be the first case or the second, they had to find out.

"And the boy?" Hira asked. From the report that had been sent by Alchemist Shia, a young man named Lothar was the reason they'd even stumbled upon the high-tier mage. In a move that was either really bold or stupid depending on who you asked, for some reason, he'd chosen to stay behind. An airship was supposed to pick him up a little over a month ago. The airship had shown up at the town next to the mountain where it was supposed to wait for the boy. The week-long window that he'd given himself before the airship was released from any obligations had come and passed. Unfortunately, the boy was a no-show.

"Nowhere to be found," the fourth-tier mage answered, causing Hira to scowl in displeasure. It wasn't that Hira cared all that much about the boy's fate. Her displeasure was more from the fact that she couldn't interrogate him for information on the high-tier mage.