121 – Apprentice

The great, interminable abyss of space hurled Saffra out into the open air, and she recovered her footing with only a slight teetering back and forth.

Still not a fan of that, she thought, making a face.

But she was getting used to it. It was incredible what a person could adapt to given enough time and repetition, and Lady Vivi had dragged her through so many spatial warps that the unpleasant sensations that came afterward now passed in less than a second. The first time, she’d felt a background queasiness for minutes afterward.

Eyes shooting around to orient herself, Saffra saw that she had arrived in front of Crestwood’s old, once-abandoned town hall. Lady Vivi, Eshara, Hollis, and the nine cured humans had also materialized around her.

“Nobody needs anything?” Lady Vivi asked. “I’ll be leaving if not.”

Both Eshara and Hollis returned negatives. Neither of the Titled seemed affected by the spatial travel, which Saffra eyed them enviously for. It had taken her dozens of trips to start brushing the experience off.

But then again, they’re probably not new to it at all.

She reminded herself—as was a recurring source of disorientation—that Eshara and Hollis were Titled. They weren’t normal people, however much they seemed like it. While Hollis probably didn’t have access to spatial warping abilities, another mage in his team likely did. The Roving Justicar’s band of heroes wasn’t only three strong, after all; Hollis and Corvan were just who Eshara had brought along on this quest.

The rest of the woman’s party was somewhere else—Saffra didn’t know the details. She assumed that Eshara had reasonably underestimated the danger involved with the sickness and missing persons reports and not mustered up the largest response she could have. After all, even Crestwood itself had only been hoping for an orichalcum as its savior. As it stood, three Titled should’ve been enough for anything.

Upon seeing Eshara and Hollis confirm that she wasn’t needed, Lady Vivi nodded, waved her staff lazily, and disappeared with a burst of mana, leaving everyone to stand in silence.

Hollis glanced first at Eshara, then at the nine levitating, unconscious humans, back to Eshara, and finally to Saffra. His brow creased as he visibly debated some decision she wasn’t privy to.

“Saffra, dear,” he eventually said. “Do you mind getting started on catching the bailiff up? We’ll be with you shortly, but I need to speak with my team leader.”

The request caught her off guard, but she shrugged after a second. “Yeah, sure. I can do that. Take your time.”

She wasn’t enthused by the idea of giving a report to the town leaders—in fact, she would rather not—but Hollis’s request pleased her for a different reason. She appreciated a sign of trust from the senior adventurer, even if it was just dealing with a minor matter like debriefing the bailiff. She’d felt rather useless throughout the expedition.

She turned and walked away. She knew Hollis hadn’t made the request frivolously either. Eshara seemed like the kind of woman who would take charge in nearly any situation, yet she’d been oddly quiet since their teleportation. Since Corvan had been healed.

Hardly difficult to imagine why, Saffra thought with a grimace.

She headed in through the front doors of the old town hall, sorting out her hectic thoughts as she went—a lot had happened in the past few hours. Exposure to the whirlwind that was Lady Vivi hadn’t somehow immunized Saffra. She was getting better at dealing with ‘Lady Vivi events,’ but to a certain extent, they were situations a person couldn’t get used to.

I wonder if even she is.

The first time Saffra had been inside the town hall, Lady Vivi had blinked them straight into the middle of a random hallway. Thus, she didn’t remember the layout. She wandered around, glancing through window gaps or open doors, until eventually she heard voices and pivoted on a heel. Peeking through a doorway, she found what she was looking for: the town’s bailiff sagging against a wooden chair. A nervous-looking healer—Leslie, Saffra thought she remembered—was wringing her hands next to him.

The bailiff’s gaze drifted to the doorway, probably seeing the smudge of bright red hair intrude on his periphery. He froze, then bolted to his feet, chair scraping against the floor.

“Um, hi.” Saffra finished walking around the corner and waved awkwardly in greeting. She had spent nine months adventuring, which meant dealing with town officials was nothing new, but usually the team’s captain handled any real talking. And she had hardly ever been the agreed-upon captain. Not only because she was often the youngest by a decade or more, but because people weren’t her strong suit in general. Like master, like apprentice, I suppose.

“Lady Saffra. You’ve returned.”

Saffra winced. Lady? She still hadn’t gotten used to that—the way people addressed her so respectfully. Even when she’d been working as a silver-rank adventurer, the courtesy offered had been of a professional sort. Nobody had ever treated her, or her allies, like nobility.

But comparing a noble title against ‘the Sorceress’s apprentice,’ there isn’t even a competition. As far as social status went, Saffra was higher up the pecking order than a duke’s daughter.

“We have everyone outside,” Saffra told the bailiff, brushing off the weird feelings the thought produced. “The townsfolk and adventurers who went missing, I mean. I hope nine was everyone. Lady Nysari is looking around to make sure, but I doubt she missed any. Oh, and they’re cured, but still unconscious.” She perked up. “Has anyone here woken up?”

The timid-looking healer answered, rather than the bailiff. “Y-yes, actually. They started stirring not more than ten or twenty minutes after you and Lady Nysari left.”

“Is there anything wrong with them?”

“They’re disoriented, but healthy.” The woman who always seemed like she was one wrong word from bursting into tears visibly cheered up. Then her brow furrowed. “Though they… seem to have foggy memories of being infected. Most are disturbed by the experience.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Oh.” Saffra frowned, not because that was catastrophic news, but because of what it implied. Corvan might remember his and Eshara’s fight. Not that she thought Eshara would hide the details of this expedition from him anyway, but still. “That’s good,” she said after a delay.

“You have news?” the bailiff asked. “The problem has been dealt with?”

“Yes. Lady Nysari—”

A distant explosion of mana set all the hairs covering Saffra’s arms standing on end. Even from so far, a cold sensation gripped her body, and she jerked her head in the direction. The bailiff and the town healer did the same, paling reflexively and stepping backward despite their gazes landing on an empty wall.

“Lady Nysari is… cleaning up,” Saffra finished lamely.

The bailiff looked at her, digested the statement, and whitened further. He had handled Lady Vivi’s reveal well, but the primal part of a person’s brain would never not respond to displays like that. It was difficult for anyone to come to terms with the fact they were dealing with a woman who could erase provinces with a spell.

“I’m glad to hear that,” the bailiff struggled out. Despite his change in complexion, there was genuine relief mixed into his nervous tone. “We can’t thank you enough, Lady Saffra.”

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Miss’ was about the most respectful title she could take—she really didn’t like ‘Lady.’ Secondly, she’d hardly done anything, so why was she being thanked?

“I’ll pass that along to Lady Nysari,” she said neutrally.

“What was it? A monster?”