A New Star Chapter 106 (Patreon)

We were getting ready to depart, which had made the two of them rather nervous, which made me a bit exasperated. I understood how much the Wilds were talked about; hells bells, the fourth member of our team that would be joining us soon had left her home and people and journeyed across the entire Settled Lands because she had dreamed of the Wilds her whole life. Still, all I could do was shake my head at the combination of nervous energy and excitement that propelled Francesca to be bouncing off the walls and Cain, ever quite and broody, to be rather jumpy and twitchy. I tried not to act like a teacher or professor to the two, but sometimes it was a more difficult task than at other times.

“Francesca,” I said sternly, to which Cain practically jumped. “Deep breaths. And you, Cain; stop being so twitchy. Awareness and focus are good, paranoia is not.”

“But, it’s the Wilds,” she replied, bushing her hair behind her ear and shifting on her feet.

“Yes, and it’s dangerous. But not that dangerous,” I said, shaking my head.

“Are we ready?” Cain asked, doing his best stoic mode, but I could tell from the way he also shifted his weight and moved his feet that he was also rather nervous.

“You’ll just have to experience it for yourself,” I said with a small sigh, making sure they had everything.

I once again felt more like a teacher or an instructor, checking my student’s or trainee’s preparation before an important outing or first job. Both of them had done a good job getting ready, but that had more to do with me knowing what they might need and what was totally unnecessary. I had helped prepare a lot of the supplies and gear that they would be using, so I couldn’t really give them too much credit for the decisions.

We moved in the morning, a little later than I normally would have started, but still with plenty of light left. We weren’t trying to cover ground at the fastest possible pace but simply moving towards our first destination. The thing I found particularly amusing was crossing into the Wilds and the other two not even realizing it. It wasn’t like there was some big line on the ground or some huge sign marking the bounds between Settled Lands and Wilds, and the others had failed to notice that anything was different, at least at first. It didn’t Francesca all too long to figure it out.

“Are we…in the Wilds now?” she asked.

“We have been for about fifteen minutes,” I said, having let the other two lead and walked behind them. It was better if I was at the back, as I could watch the both of them, the way ahead, and scan behind us without them behind me interfering in the scan.

“And you didn’t say anything?” she asked, some mixture of aghast and aggrieved.

“Has some horrible terror jumped out and stolen your soul?” I asked sarcastically.

“Well, no, but still…” she said, a bit defeated.

“That can happen?” asked Cain warily.

“I have no idea,” I replied honestly, which didn’t seem to reassure either of them. “I haven’t seen it or heard of it, but who knows what’s possible? I highly doubt we’ll be dealing with anything of the sort today, or this trip in general. As you can already see, the Wilds isn’t all that much different than anywhere else away from a big city or the main roads. Not that that will remain the cause, so keep your guard up, but this is it. We’re here.”

“It’s a little…disappointing, if I’m honest,” Francesca said with a quick glance around.

“See if you feel that way in two days,” I replied, smirking just slightly.

The rest of the day wore on from there. I took the two of them to my first way stop or hiding location, a little cave with no further tunnels that was in a small hillock. I had carefully adjust a little of the terrain around it and moved some stones by the front entrance, masking the area and setting it up to be a bit more defensive. I covered some of the finer of setting up such a small hiding spot with them, including a few ways to make it look more natural, which they both paid rapt attention to. After that, I explained about keeping the area clear and about scouting around, demonstrating a bit before having Francesca scout the area. She was too nervous to really do a good job, but another part of what I was doing was acclimatizing the two of them to the Wilds and the dangers therein. We hadn’t gone all that far into the mountains yet, those being the Border Mountains, not the Ice Peaks, and things were still fairly safe.

I had them get moving after Francesca’s scouting, not wanting to linger around one of my hideouts, which I had already mentally burned as a place I would use, as it would give away more information about how I operated than I wanted. The next destination was somewhat better for several reasons, including that it would introduce a bit of the wonder of the Wilds into the two of them. Showing them a dirty little cave had been educational, but not all that inspiring, and something to get them a little excited wouldn’t hurt, especially after all the warnings of danger. It would be a good chance to see if they let their guards down, though I didn’t want to be too harsh on them overall.

I gave directions as we walked, sometimes having Cain scout ahead; the big man was quieter than one might think and he was quite durable, meaning even if he made a mistake, we could handle it before it was fatal for him. I wasn’t going to say I was some kind of miracle doctor or anything, but the healing potions and supplies I had were enough that they could fix just about anything, as long as the person still had even a single breath of life in them. Cain getting jumped by some F-rank beast shouldn’t be a problem for him in the first place, but if he got injured badly, he’d be right as rain in just a few minutes.

It took a little longer than I had planned, at least, if we had been going at the pace I wanted, but I had also factored in that I was touring two new people around the area. Them being a decent bit weaker than I was didn’t really matter that much, but the lack of experience was the killer. They hadn’t been in the Wilds, and their education, like I had mentioned earlier, had included a bit of camping, but nothing they had done in the academy had prepared them for wandering the Wilds. I wasn’t upset at all with the extra time, just making a mental note of how much longer it took. I would have to factor that in to bringing new people into the Wilds or on training excursions.

We arrived at the mage’s tower with little fanfare, as the place wasn’t all that obvious from the outside. I, in fact, had to point it out to Cain, as it was something that he hadn’t spotted, though I had noticed Francesca perk up before I said anything. Clearly, she had enough strength with one or more affinities that let her detect things at a decent distance, and she had twigged to the tower being there before I stopped the little group and pointed out its outline to Cain. To be fair to the man, we were still more than a mile away and the tower didn’t exactly stand out from its surroundings, so I couldn’t really blame a newbie to the whole Wilds exploration game to not notice it.

“Is this our destination?” Francesca asked a bit timidly. “What about whatever’s inside that place?”

“There’s nothing inside that place. Not unless it’s moved in in the last week, which I would rather doubt, especially considering it still has an active defensive system,” I replied drolly.

“An active defensive system? Isn’t it even more dangerous, then?” asked Cain, now eying the tower rather nervously.

“Yes, it would be,” I replied with a sage nod. “That is, if the defensive system hadn’t already been suborned by me to follow my orders. If it weren’t already my property, it could be very dangerous to enter such an unknown building, especially without any idea who or what built it.”

“But you know that place?” Francesca asked, calmer now and giving me a critical eye.

“Oh, yes, I do,” I said, striding forward and leading the way up the mountainside. “I have been using this place for some time, so don’t go around jawing about it with everyone you meet. And, if that wasn’t clear enough, I mean this location is secret, even from my family, so don’t discuss it with anyone outside the three of us.”

I knew that wasn’t going to necessarily stick as I led the way up the to the front entrance. That was the thing about secrets, the old saying being true, to paraphrase a bit, once more than one person knew about it, it wasn’t a secret. I didn’t really care all that much about this place being revealed, other than if some eccentrics a good handful of ranks higher than me wanted to come poke around for the sake of idle curiosity. I had never been such a person, but I had known several like that in my previous life, people who just had to run off at the drop of a hat at the mention of any new discovery or interesting place, always poking their noses into other people’s business.

“This is the first layer of security,” I explained to the other two, shaking away the idle thoughts of those old codgers from my last life. “It acts as a simple barrier around the tower, more to keep weaker beasts out. Yes, it can fend off moderately powerful attacks, but it’s not designed as a protective screen, more as a cloaking and deterrent measure. Such a thing is important to know as you don’t want to be running to a place like this as a defensive bastion. If something, or someone, rather strong is after you, they can punch through the outer layer of security rather easily.”

“You said outer layer,” Francesca immediately clued in on.

“Yes, that’s correct,” I nodded. “There are other layers of security, which I will explain, but they’re all about neutralizing anyone that manages to break in. It’s not a bad strategy, in my opinion, especially given where the tower is situated, but it’s not a powerful defense. If someone quite strong were to attack the tower, and all they wanted was to injure or kill you, the internal security measures wouldn’t be of much help. They could interfere a bit, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not designed to block off someone really powerful from standing outside and lobbing in powerful spells to toast whoever’s inside at the moment.”

“I understand,” Francesca said with a quick nod.

“Now, the inner layers,” I said, unlocking the door and leading the others into the foyer or entry chamber. “There’s a system of runes and formations that keeps the place secure, and most of those are just to scan, and then slow or stop, something or someone intruding. There are three formations that are attack or retaliatory formations, which I will point out later, but, again, the tower is more about keeping a low profile than anything else. Let me repeat, that is why I am warning you that, while it is a safe place, especially given the surrounding area, if some T-rank beast, or worse, person, is pursuing you with a vengeance, don’t expect the tower to do much more than slightly slow them down.”

“Understood,” said Cain, mirroring Francesca’s nodding.

“Now, let me show you this,” I said, leading them deeper.

I took them to the small security room that acted as the nexus for all the security runes and formations, showing them the room and given them just a basic explanation of what it was and did. After that, I had each of them keyed in at a lower level of security; I would be worried about keying someone else in if they were far stronger, or more problematic, far better with runes than I was, but neither of those two was stronger or more knowledgeable than I was. That was also being a bit too paranoid, in my opinion, but I had seen some dastardly traps laid in my last two lives, particularly the one before I was a galaxy defending hegemon, but that life was a bit hazier to me. Still, subtly taking over another person’s defensive systems and using them to trap or kill that person was a bit of an old, proven method that a lot of the sneakier, skulkier sort enjoyed using.

Once the other two were keyed into the system, I showed them the rest of the tower. It wasn’t all that big, and that wasn’t just me being someone who was used to massive space stations and starships talking. The place really was rather small, with a dozen rooms in total, though it was fourteen if two of the small suites at the top of the tower were considered two separate rooms. I assigned one of the smaller rooms each to them, taking up two of the four rooms on the second to highest floor of the place. They could use the place as a base and temporary quarters, though I did assure them, in no uncertain terms, that if they left the place a mess, even just their rooms, I wasn’t going to be happy. I wasn’t their nanny or maid; if their personal quarters were a mess, it would irk me, but if they didn’t take proper care of the rest of the place, that would more than annoy me. I assured them, if they had thought training harsh before that, they wouldn’t like what would happen if they didn’t keep the place tidy.

That was all for our first day, the other two a bit disappointed that nothing crazy had happened, outside fighting just a few low-rank beasts along the way. I was more than happy for the whole trip to be tediously boring, and showing them the mage’s retreat had been the perfect thing to inspire them and get them out of the bit of a nervous malaise they had been in. I was also happy that they hadn’t been too excited, keeping enough composure that I knew they would be solid members of the team going forward. Not that I wanted unfeeling automatons or anything like that, but I didn’t want people who bent too far to the other extreme, either. People with lower, more sedate emotions could be solid and reliable, even if they were rarely heroic or inspiring, but the other way, people too excitable and nervous, was where people lost their heads, sometimes literally.

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