29: Placating

[Year 21 Month 3: Continued]

[Blessed: 5574]

It took Metis three nights to verify the man as the target of the ‘adventuring’ duo. I decided that we would wait until the Ubrian and her partner entered the city before actually capturing the man.

It wasn’t particularly hard, even when he activated that interesting ability that successfully cloaked him from my sight. Unfortunately for him, I knew his general level, and instead decided to wait him out, placing all of Runehold’s guards on high alert until he decided to creep out of his hiding place.

Overall, it was quite quick, and my golems brought him down into the Burrow within ten minutes of capturing him. The man only struggled briefly, but his class was obviously more devoted to illusions and concealment.

Whatever skill allowed him to hide his mana signature was certainly interesting, as I had no other form of detection. I dunno if there is a solution for that, but magic is 100% the answer if it does exist.

Pushing off that thought, I looked toward my new prisoner. Despite the rather… negative first contact, I made sure that he was kept in one of the more luxurious suits that were made. To be truthful, he wasn’t necessarily trapped; his apartment wasn’t locked, and he could go anywhere in the Burrow, but for now, I intended to learn as much as possible.

If he turned out to be a criminal who had a reason to be hunted down, I would turn the man in. Although I had a feeling that he wasn’t.

Mentally, I sighed before boosting the anti-detection shields around the Burrow, as I felt the elven woman cast yet another spell to track the human down while inside the city itself.

The two hunters had spent several days outside of the city, and the mage Vaelen went around the perimeter casting a similar spell that she used to confirm her target’s presence in the city.

Considering that the spell had worked every time she had cast it so far and pointed her in the vague direction, it makes sense that the mage would be a bit confused. I was curious to watch how the two responded to this issue, and as long as she didn’t continuously cast her detection magic, I could hear what the two were talking about.

Including their plans.

Vaelen wanted to go talk to the local authorities (in this case, Astrid, who was still buried in work despite the help from Metis), but Arnold was a bit more hesitant to ask the locals for assistance.

“I don’t know Vaelen. This whole local spirit thing is a bit concerning. We didn’t expect this, nor was it in the job description.” The large man spoke while they were back in a room they rented at one of the nicer inns.

The Ubrian elf just shrugged, her frustration evident, “Unfortunately, we were already paid; those little humans wouldn’t ever understand the threat spiritual creatures pose.” She sighed, “I think the failure in my divination magic is because of its presence; it worked fine before we entered the city, maybe it’s a proximity thing to its main body?” Vaelen mused quietly before speaking with resolve, “For now, let’s gather some more information. I want to know what type of creature we are dealing with.”

The mage was disturbingly accurate on her guesses, sure, they weren’t really accurate, as my ‘real’ body was still planted firmly on a distant hill in a hidden village, but she understood that my presence was stronger here than anywhere else she had been previously.

Arnold grunted quietly; his displeasure was clear, but he refrained from commenting and instead grabbed a bottle of rum before lying down.

Huh, that worked out quite well.

I still needed to talk to the man of the day, so them taking a bit more time to investigate would enable me to get the full story before taking any actions.

But before I did anything else, I called up my captain of the guard and the local elf.

I always loved the good cop, bad cop movies. Some movies were just so bad they wrapped around to being funny.

Looking over at Osbert, I couldn’t help but sigh. While he was certainly the strongest non-golem guard we had, he was still aging quite quickly. I put him at having maybe another decade or two in him. While his evolved class and higher level put him at a distinct advantage on the lifespan side of things, it wasn’t like that until he was already quite old. Codex had actually studied Osbert (with permission, of course) and noticed that the older you are when you start leveling, the less of an impact it has on you.

I think of it like patching an old piece of clothing; it works to keep it functional for a bit longer, but eventually the thread itself begins to give up. In his case, it likely extended his life by another thirty years, although he had already used a decade of that.

Salfi was a good example of what happened if you leveled at the prime age of a species; elves lived about half a millennium, but she would probably live about 300 years or so longer at the rate she was currently leveling.

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Sighing, I push it off; twenty years was still plenty of time for Penelope and Astrid to spend some time with him. Huh, I need to check up on their kids sometime soon… I have been a bit busy, but nonetheless.

Before long, the two had arrived at the Burrow, and before they entered the man in question’s cell, I gave them a brief rundown on what I wanted them to do.

“So you want me to be nice? Like, try to give him an easy out in comparison to Uncle Osbert?” Salfi seemed to get the gist of it quickly.

“Yes, and Osbert, remember to be a bit more pushy than normal; we want him to prefer Salfi over you.”

The man nodded, “I understand, we have done something like this before.”

Trusting in the two to play their roles correctly, I made sure I was ready to perform my own.