Chapter 137: Chapter 124: Battlefield intelligence

I knew it! I fucking knew that changeling bastard would keep watching me in secret. He even knew I would know. That’s why he is able to just be so brazen with me about it.

I let out a slow breath to center myself, forcing myself to calm down from the adrenaline rush I got when this guy snuck up on me. At this point, I don’t even care about the audacity of this man for his whole spying thing. In fact, part of me wishes he’d shown up sooner. It would have made a lot of things more simple. Even if he didn’t participate as a fighting force, having him transform into something like a bird to watch the events unfolding overhead would have given us quite the edge.

Well, he’s here now. I was just having trouble locating Tia and the boys. If I can set him to that task, then it will free me up for a lot. As much as I still have my suspicions about him and the queen he’s in service to, the present situation is far to serious for me to go about rejecting aid when it’s being freely offered.

I quickly fill him in on the situation, making sure to mention the apparent objectives of the gnomes, the roles Tia and I had each respectively taken on, as well as my new plan. His reaction to hearing about that Zu being tamed by Tia is subdued, but in a way that tells me her ability to do so is highly unusual.

“That is good to know. If that Zu is an ally instead of an enemy, this changes things a great deal.” He said.

“I would say more an asset than an ally at this point, but… well, you are probably not familiar with technical intelligence terms in our language so you might not know what that means.”

“I can get the general idea.” Sagle said.

“Well, anyway, I believe you can likely assist best at this point by helping me to locate Tiaren and the boys.” I tell him.

He nods. “Yes, that does seem reasonable,” he says. “However, I will not be able to move freely under this earth domain without a strong blessing of wind. Have you discovered how to grant such a blessing?”

“Huh?” I respond and stair at the changeling after this odd request. Come to think of it, he had said something weird about me having some kind of strange thing in regards to nature and wind. Is this thing about a wind blessing somehow related?

“I take that to mean you are not. You should be capable of it since you do have an enninim of wind, but perhaps you have not learned to fully realize it’s capabilities. Very well. For now, simply grant me a living-wood weapon that is meant to have the ability to fly. It will become an instrument of your enninim, and I should be able to utilize it’s power.”

Yeah, I definitely do not understand what he’s talking about at all. However, I also do not have the time to hear a detailed lecture on the subject. Sagle here seems to have the same priorities and gave me a quick and simple method to do the next best thing to what he wants me to do in terms I can understand. So, I guess I should just do as he says.

I place a hand on the tree we’re standing on and pull out a light-weight wooden weapon with far less density than I would normally give it. Just like when I was flying myself, it needs to be light so it’s weight can be supported.

Sagle said it needs to be specifically meant to have the ability to fly. These are unusual instructions, considering the standard for living wood weapons is that they respond to whatever the wielder wants them to do. As such, I get the feeling there ought to be a little more to it than just making it light weight.

He said something about a blessing. Putting the pieces together, I decide to impart a very clear will on the spirit inhabiting this living weapon. It is just like when I first created the seed-pods, telling them that they could eat the earth element. This time, I told it that it is designed for the soul purpose of helping it’s wielder fly.

“Alright, here.” I say, handing over the weapon that had become a sphere of solid wood. “Use this as your wings, it should be able to support you. Although, you might need to use some wind magic to keep aloft. Are you able to do that?”

Sagle held the wooden sphere in his hand and looked around as though assessing his surroundings. His skin suddenly turned from it’s bluish-gray shade to the white-skinned appearance common to the fey, and he lifted a hand into the air. A small localized breeze blew through this section of the tree in a manner that I could sense intuitively was not in alignment with the natural flow of the air.

“It would seem so.” He said. “Excellent. This should be enough. I will locate them for you as quickly as I am able.”

After this, he simply levitated into the air, not even bothering to transform his living weapon, and then flew off into the skies above the town.

I stared after him in mild confusion. He had been saying that he was unable to fly before, something about an earth domain. I understood what that might mean. I’d already picked up that the ruby wall was doing more than just acting as a physical obstruction. It was also enhancing earth mana somehow.

I knew from my lessons in magic that earth mana was opposed to wind mana. Where wind reduced gravity, earth increased it. It was believed by the people in this world that gravity was, in fact, created by the earth element. They also believed that flight via the wind element was achieved by using the power of wind to negate and reduce the hold of the earth element.

I’m not sure about any of that, but Tia did say that wind had false gravity magic that could reduce gravity, and the earth element had true gravity magic that can manipulate it in either direction. That sounded a little different than what the people of this world think, but I can see where this odd relationship might lead them to believe such a thing. I had personal first-hand experience with casting the earth ‘territory’ spell, and increasing the gravity around me was one of it’s effects.

Perhaps this ‘earth domain’ he had mentioned was some kind of very wide-range version of the territory spell. It would make sense, but something told me that wasn’t quite the whole story.

Whatever the case, what the hell is the deal with him asking for me to make a flying device if he’s not even going to use it as I’d intended it to be used?

Well, I did give it instructions to help it’s wielder fly. I never specified exactly how.I guess he found some kind of exploit in the effect I’d imparted.

I still didn’t quite understand how it was working exactly, but I decided to just accept that the living weapon I’d given him can somehow empower his wind magic now. That’s enough to satisfy me, at least until we get out of this situation and I can hear a better explanation. For now, the only thing that matters is getting everyone out of this situation safely.

Well, I can leave the boys in his hands now. I guess I should at least keep watching those gnomes, though.

I scanned the streets and saw one of the groups just leaving a house. They exchanged some looks and demonstrated some kind of unspoken understanding, and I was getting a very bad vibe about what I was seeing.

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One of them gestured and the rest nodded, and then they all moved in the same direction, heading straight toward another house which they promptly entered in a manner that suggested they already knew what they were going to find inside and were ready for a fight.

It clicked in my mind at that moment, and I realized the horrible new method they were using to track down Levin and Rolwen who were able to blend in so well with a common human spirit signature.

Crap! This just escalated to a whole new level. We might not have time to break down the wall after all.

***

Having been alerted to the danger posed by eyes on the wall, Levin and Tia took Rolwen’s direction to stick to the shadows as much as possible. It was a good thing too. Tia had detected that the enemy was definitely moving in a far more organized manner now. However, there seemed to be more to the story, something she wasn’t telling them.

Shortly after they’d made a run when Asaren gave them the not-so-subtle message that they needed to keep moving, Tia said something about Asa getting startled. She signaled that it seemed whatever surprised her turned out to be a good thing, but then a short while after that her face started getting very grim and she began communicating with them less and less.

The gnomes seemed to be a fair distance away at this point. While him and Rolwen couldn’t detect them as clearly as Tia could, Levin was still able to clearly tell their direction and approximate distance. Rolwen seemed to sense it too, and he lead them over around a bind corner in a narrow alleyway, one that he made sure had three separate street-level exit routes.

The roof was also an option with their jumping height if they really needed to retreat, but that was a method they would have to avoid given this enemy who should be able to move faster and jump just as high as they could. Under these conditions, the best defense was concealment, and jumping across roof-tops was a very good way to get seen quickly.

Rolwen turned around to face Tia, and Levin was already on the same wave-length with him as he positioned himself to her other side. They had not communicated their plans to one another, but it was already clear the two of them had the exact same questions and concerns on their minds.

“Alright, spill it. What’s changed all of a sudden that’s got you being so serious?” Rolwen demanded, mirroring Levin’s thoughts exactly.

Tia just stared back at him like she was disgusted at even being asked such a question, but she quickly seemed to collect herself.

“You mean you can’t sense it, then?” She asked. “It doesn’t matter. We have to keep ahead of the gnomes, this has nothing to do with that.”

“Can’t sense what?” Rolwen demanded.

“I said it doesn’t matter. We need to keep moving.” Tia said as she began to make some impatient gestures for them to move on to somewhere else.

In the meantime, Levin decided to start paying closer attention to what his spirit senses were telling him, using all the insights the battlefield had given him on the inner flame method to feel out everything his enemy was doing.

It didn’t seem to be telling him anything different about the enemy that he didn’t know before. They were still moving around at the same distance he’d detected them before, and he didn’t seem to be picking up any other strange new arrivals or unknown enemies either.

However, he quickly realized it couldn’t be anything like that. Tia had said that if they can’t sense it then it doesn’t matter. She would not have said such a thing if whatever she was sensing was an enemy. Even if it was potential help, that would also have gotten her saying something.

“Alright, fine!” Tia said in an assistant tone that broke his train of thought. “It’s that changeling, he’s back! It looks like Asa has made some kind of deal with him, now he’s flying around up above us!”

Really? Levin had not sensed that at all. But, when he started paying more attention, sure enough. He sensed a rather faint spirit signature coming from above them.

But there was something wrong with the way Tia had interrupted them. If that was the reasoning, she would not have been so evasive. Unfortunately for Tia, Asa had taught them to be able to recognize when someone was trying to throw them off the scent of something, and this new ally was not what she was trying to hide.

He started feeling around the spirit signatures around them again, being careful to look for anything out of the ordinary. Instead of looking for what he was expecting to find, he started taking careful stock of what was present now.

He felt the spirits of the gnomes, a stronger spirit signature than everything else. He felt the changeling in the air, a weak spirit signature that seemed to be almost hidden by the din of human spirit signatures covering the city. Then, of course, there was the background-noise of the human spirit signatures themselves, a general static of spiritual stimulation that became easy to miss once you’ve been in crowded cities like this for long enough. Levin had grown used to only acknowledged a spirit signature if it’s directly locked onto him personally.

But, no. He suddenly realized it. That was exactly the problem. The background-noise of human spirit signatures covered everything in this city, but there was one area of the city where the din seemed oddly quieter. A still and quiet zone, and that zone of quiet absence of the buzz of human spirits was in the same direction that he was feeling the gnome spirit signatures from.

“Levin! What are you standing around for! Come on!” Tia yelled at him, and he knew this was exactly what she was trying to prevent him from noticing.

He looked up at her with the guilty face of a child who had just injured themselves doing something their parents had repeatedly scolded them not to do.

“Wait!” Rolwen suddenly said, and Levin knew he’d just sensed it too. “There’s a dead zone in the human spirit energy that wasn’t there before, and it’s in the same area where the gnomes are…” He trailed off as he put the pieces together.

“This is what you were trying to hide from us, isn’t it?” Rolwen accused. “The gnomes have started killing the civilians in their houses so they aren’t distracting them from our spirit signatures anymore!”

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