Chapter 225: Chapter 216 – Third Time’s the Charm?

Raz came with them. Serenity got the impression that more than a day with only Aki made him eager for more company, but he also had some specific things he wanted to buy for the dungeon. Serenity wasn’t sure why he wanted wildflower seeds and some small plants; the cookware and bedding at least made sense.

Lancaster was waiting outside the hospital on a bench when they got there. “I can’t take all of you. One or maybe two people, as a ride-along, is all I can manage. Despite the obvious fact that we can prove magic is real, there’s still a lot of fear about being caught consulting a psychic.”

Serenity glanced at the others. Shopping or tracking a possibly-worm-infested man? Phoebe at least definitely knew a spell that would work, and it wouldn’t be hard to teach it to Rissa if she didn’t.

The choice was obvious. “I’ll go.”

Lancaster looked doubtful. “I was hoping for someone a little less, er, obvious.”

Rissa snickered. “Show him, Serenity.”

Serenity shook his head, then ducked as low in the seat as he could manage. It was tight with five people in Rissa’s car, but somehow the three men had still ended up in the back, with Rissa driving and Phoebe in the passenger seat. Right now, that was almost convenient; it meant a lower chance of someone seeing the shapeshift.

Serenity noticed that he didn’t feel constrained as he shifted, but as soon as he was in not-Liam’s form, he felt squished again. He looked up at Lancaster. “This enough less obvious for you?”

Lancaster stared. “How long have you - never mind. You don’t even look like … no, you do look kinda like you. More like how you looked early in the Tutorial.”

Serenity waited, and eventually Lancaster admitted, “Yeah, that’ll do. Just remember that you’re not here for anything but a civilian ride-along.”

Serenity hopped out, which let Raz slide out of the middle seat. He walked around to the front of the car, where Rissa rolled down her window and gave him a kiss before handing him his phone. “See you guys later. Good luck with the shopping.”

Rissa laughed as she rolled up her window and waved him away from the car.

“So, what do we need?” Lancaster led Serenity over to his police cruiser.

“Something with a connection to the man we’re tracing. A physical connection would be best - hair from a hairbrush, for example.” Serenity might be able to do a map divination with that. An actual physical connection was powerful; he could use enough less power that he might be able to get a worthwhile range that way.

Lancaster shook his head. “I don’t have that. We haven’t been able to get a warrant yet to break into his apartment; even if we did, I’m not sure I’d be able to justify a hair sample. If we could use it to check for worms we might be able to, but so far we don’t have one. Just the fact that he’s missing isn’t enough. If Made could tell us he was definitely the person we need, it’d work, but she says she doesn’t remember. She’s lost about a week of memory, which gives us a time window, at least.”

Serenity frowned. That was a lot of time to be missing, under the circumstances. “Does she remember her Tutorial?” If she didn’t, that would be an entire extra risk, and he wasn’t sure it would have been caught.

Lancaster nodded. “Yeah. We went over everything she did for the previous week with her, and the Tutorial was a few days before the memory loss. I pretty well ignored everything before that; with as long as a Tutorial takes, if she’d had worms when she entered, she’d probably be missing memories from the Tutorial.”

That was good news, at least. “She must have been in one of the earlier Tutorials.”

Lancaster shrugged. “Doesn’t help narrow the time down, unfortunately. She has been cooperating, at least; she had some of his shirts and a promise ring. So that’s all I have of his. We can also go to his apartment, but we’ll have to stay outside.”

“A promise ring?” Serenity wasn’t sure if that would work or not, but it sounded more likely than borrowed shirts. It all depended on how much it meant to the boyfriend. Divination magic was all about connections, so he needed the best connection he could get.

“That’s what she called it. Sort of like an engagement ring, only not. It just looks like a class ring to me, not sure why it needs a different name.”

“A class ring?” That seemed likely to work. Most people wouldn’t bother to get a class ring unless graduating meant something to them; that was why giving it to a girlfriend meant something, after all. “That might just work. Not as well as a genetic connection, but worth a try.”

Lancaster nodded and opened his trunk. There was a box that clearly held the clothes and a small ring box. He handed the box to Serenity. “Do you need anything else?”

Serenity didn’t generally use paraphernalia unless it served a physical purpose; the maps and sand for the ley line divination weren’t there because they were necessary for the magic, they were there because he’d needed a way to display the results. Much as he’d have liked to start with a map divination, a class ring wasn’t likely to be a good enough link to get the power requirement down enough to be feasible.

In this case, the best display would probably be finding the man.

The question was whether he needed to use a tracking divination or if a hot/cold directional divination would be better. A tracking divination would be easier, but it would also take longer to follow. Since he could regain mana abnormally quickly in ley lines, he could probably manage the more difficult divination. He’d have to repeatedly recast it, but the physical ring wouldn’t go away the way the magic trace would have.

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The real question was if there was an advantage to one way or the other. “Do we need to know where he’s been or do we just need to find him?”

“We just need to-” Lancaster stopped as his brain caught up to his mouth. “It depends on whether or not he can and will talk. Finding him’s the most important, but if we can get a route, especially one that says how long he was at different places, that could be very helpful.”

That … was a much more complex spell than just tracking the man and sometimes figuring out which trace was newer. He’d need a way to determine not only which trace was newer, but an accurate time for each trace, probably a range for everything within his aura if he used that as the measurement device again; he probably would, one’s own aura was always easier to work with. At least he had a good SpaceTime affinity; that would help immensely.

Serenity was so involved in figuring out what he needed to do that he didn’t realize he hadn’t told Lancaster what he needed until Lancaster interrupted him. “So, can you do it?”

“Yeah. It’s a pretty complex spell, though. I’ll need some time to work up the details. Can you get me a paper map of wherever we go? I think it’d be easier to record it on that. That should be all I’ll need other than the ring. We’ll want to start from somewhere he’s been; near his apartment should work, I just need to make sure I catch his latest trail. Maybe we should circle it to make sure?”

Lancaster shook his head. “The more things change … no, I don’t have a paper map. I know where we can get one. Hop on in.”

Serenity climbed into the car, then paused as he clicked the seatbelt. “It’s not strictly necessary, but what’s the guy’s name? I’m tired of calling him Made’s boyfriend.”

“Robert Malfrino. Goes by Bob.”

It took more than an hour for Serenity to design the spell, and the first time he cast it, it didn’t quite work as planned. They started near Bob’s apartment and he was overwhelmed by the sheer number of traces.

After he canceled the spell, Serenity spent the time while he recovered from being dazzled swearing at himself for being an idiot. It was a completely predictable reaction; there had to be a lot of traces here since it was Bob’s home. His old tracking spells had never had the issue, but they’d always been instructed to find the most recent trace and ignore the others, not gather information on them and represent it on a map. It was a good thing Serenity hadn’t opened the map yet to have the spell mark the information down; it was likely that he’d have just ended up with a smudged inkblot.

Serenity would have to limit the spell’s information somehow. “When did Made get back from the Tutorial?”

“Nine days ago.”

Serenity nodded, then modified the spell to ignore any traces older than that. If it was necessary, he could run it with an even narrower window, but he hoped this would be enough.

This time, it wasn’t blindingly bright; in fact, there were only four traces he could find from where they were. “Can you drive around the complex? I’m only seeing four traces, and … yeah, none of them’s more recent than three days ago. I want to know if I’m missing some.”

He wasn’t.

They decided to follow the most recent trail. It led from the bus stop to the apartment building, inside, then up to Bob’s apartment. They stopped outside the door.

Lancaster spoke for both of them when he muttered, “Now what?”

Serenity had expected to find Bob out and about somewhere, not holed up in his own apartment. He looked at the door. He knew he could teleport past it, but that would leave him disoriented on the other side, having spent a decent amount of mana. He’d teleport if he needed to, but if there was another way, he wanted to find it.

Like most apartment doors, it didn’t look well sealed. Serenity thought he was even seeing some light under the door, and he was definitely seeing some at the hinges. Could he slip through the cracks if he shifted into his Void Sovereign form?

He hadn’t felt at all cramped during that moment in the car; he’d simply fit the available space. So clearly it wasn’t the same size, but he didn’t actually know if he could fit through spaces that tiny. He really wasn’t sure what it was made of, but asking someone he didn’t trust to help him find out made him nervous, so he figured he’d live with the uncertainty. He could still find out some things; he knew it didn’t behave like water, since he didn’t fall to the ground in a puddle, but was it more like a ghost or smoke or more like a slime?

A slime might fit under the door, but it’d be close. Something more like smoke might fit through the spaces at the hinges.

Serenity turned to Lancaster. “I think … I think you head back to the car. I’ll stay here for … a bit. See if …”

Serenity knew his acting was terrible, but he didn’t want to get Lancaster in trouble for entering a home without a warrant or something. Hopefully it was good enough (or maybe bad enough?) that Lancaster would realize he had an idea that Lancaster shouldn’t see.

He also didn’t want Lancaster to see the Void Sovereign form. It wasn’t just a desire for secrecy, this time. He wasn’t sure what seeing the form for more than a moment would do, if anything, but creatures of the Void had a reputation of being dangerous to observe.