“On top of that, before coming here I had to wait for the report of every member of the Council who helped the Kingdom against the monsters. If the location of the children of Glemos were to be discovered, we’d have only a few hours to enact our plan.
“Our chances to parlay with the monsters and make sure that the Tyrants’ bloodline legacy doesn’t end up in the Council’s hands would have been minimal. How did your side of the plan go?” Faluel said.
“There were no hitches.” Lith replied. “I planted a tracker on the leader of the raiding expedition during our fight. With a bit of luck, he’s going to lead us straight to our destination.”
“A tracker?” Ajatar blurted out in surprise. “That’s your great plan? Son, that kind of magical device is easy to find with any kind of magical sense and completely useless past a certain range.”
“This is a special tracker.” Lith gave the Drake a confident smile. “It can shapeshift, cloak itself, and even use dimensional magic if necessary.”
Ajatar was about the question of how an Awakened runt could have access to such a wonder of magic when Faluel stopped him.
“Enough with the questions. I trust Lith. If you don’t believe in him, believe in me.”
“Fine.” Lesser or not, all Dragons hated mysteries. “Let’s just hope we don’t walk into a trap. If your amazing tracker gets found out, the monsters might lead us to a crystal mine and blow us up with it.”
“Before I forget, there’s something you need to know.” Lith said. “The attack on Ne’sra was led by a Fomor.”
“Seriously?” Morok said it with enthusiasm, hoping that their race wasn’t extinct whereas Faluel looked worried. “Was he like Echidna or like Typhos?”
“Like Typhos so Awakening is still off the table.” Lith replied. “What about you?”
“I was stationed in Friga and the leader looked a lot like an elf but with brown skin.” Friya replied. “The worst part was that aside from Spirit Magic nothing worked and the guy had some crazy spell I’ve never seen before.”
“That was an orc shaman.” Lith explained. “They can use mana crystals to obtain powers similar to Nandi’s.”
“I know.” Quylla sighed. “When the equipment of the soldiers suddenly stopped working, it was a massacre.”
Upon hearing that, Lith asked them to share their respective battles with a mind link.
“The good news is that it really was just a reverted orc. They have yet to manage to further evolve.” He said. “The bad news is that they are already lethal with a single crystal. There’s no telling how dangerous they can be with a Harmonizer and an entire mine at their disposal.”
“In Beda, the attack was led by a chick that reminded me of a Dryad, but damn tall and muscular.” Morok said, allowing Lith to recognize a reverted unevolved ogre.
“I fought my lost brethren in Lona.” Protector lowered his gaze in shame and grief.
“You mean wargs?” Lith made no distinction between humans, beasts, and plants. Only between friends and enemies.
“I mean Hati.” Protector looked at Tista who took a step back and instinctively took out her wings, checking that they were alright. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to talk about it because I knew it would have upset you.”
Ryman gave her an apologetic nod before glaring at Lith.
“That’s considerate of you but unnecessary.” Tista had her wings disappear, inwardly vowing to not take them out until the end of the mission. “We need information to prepare and if I become a liability, I’d rather go back home than compromise your safety just to coddle my feelings.”
Once everyone was done reporting the kinds of reverted monsters they had faced and their abilities, they turned to Lith.
“How do we pinpoint your tracker? If we need to spread out and search, you’d better have prepared enough receiver units for us all.” Ajatar said.
“I just need a free mana geyser to amplify the signal. One with a mine is fine as well, as long as its energy isn’t absorbed by an artificial structure like a lab or a city.” Lith replied.
Faluel had to contact the local Awakened Lord and call in for a few favors but in the end, she obtained the position of an unproductive geyser.
First, Lith imprinted it, making it available as a destination of the tower Warp. Then, he used the connection between himself and the artifact to call upon it. The tower lacked the necessary mana, but the response still pointed Lith in the right direction.
He also tried to activate the telepathic bond with Solus, but the distance between them was too great for that.
“Damn far away. In that direction.” Lith pointed South, South-East.
“It’s not much but it’s a start.” Ajatar sighed. “Let’s hope that we find your tracker soon or not only will Faluel and I end deep in debt to learn the location of the geysers, but we also might risk the Regional Lords to compare notes and get suspicious.”
“It shouldn’t be necessary.” Lith put a scroll inside Soluspedia, asking Solus if she was alright and if she could get the dimensional coordinates of the hideout with the Eyes and share them with him.
Instead of storing a scroll of her own, Solus took out the one saying: “I’m alright but I can’t write” from Lith’s side. Knowing that they would be separated, they had prepared several parchments with generic answers and stored them inside Soluspedia.
The dimensional spaces were shared and worked for them both no matter how distant they were. Solus had one single piece of paper come out at a time in Lith’s pockets so that he could check its content without drawing attention.
Ajatar and Morok were unaware of the tower’s existence and Lith wanted to keep things that way.
Once pieced together, the message said: “South – Over – 500 kilometers. Under – Water.”
Lith shared the latest piece of information, making Morok whistle in admiration.
“Void Magic, Creation Magic, and now this? Don’t tell me that you have also developed in secret some kind of Soothsayer magic?” The Tyrant passed it as a joke but judging from Ajatar’s “casual” interest in the conversation it was quite a serious question.
“There’s no such thing as supernatural powers.” Lith replied with a shrug. “Only natural phenomena that we can harness and reproduce with science. Like we do with magic.
“The tracker simply registered a spike in the air’s humidity and we know that rain is off the table.” He pointed at the clear sky. “How can you even think such nonsense?”
“Said the man who has received a vision from a couple of hot Dryads about his soul’s deepest desire.” Morok snorted.
“Why did you tell him that?” Lith rolled his eyes at Quylla.
“Because I find it romantic.” She replied with a stern tone that wasn’t addressed to Lith. “Also, I left the ‘hot’ part out of the story.”
“Like it wasn’t obvious.” Morok sighed in nostalgia. “I’ve dealt with my fair share of Dryads as a Ranger and they were…”
“Why did you stop?” Quylla smiled at him, a faint violet light escaped from her closed eyelids.
