Mar’Kir worked hard to curate their local reputation. It’s not like he didn’t trust the locals to fairly judge himself and T’Kere, but his adventuring career taught him a few things. One of those things was just how wary and quick to jump to conclusions people were when someone far stronger was around long term.

Everyone wanted the hero to come through and beat the evil wizard or whathaveyou, but they were perpetually worried that if said hero lived there and went bad, they’d be even harder to get rid of. Mob mentality built itself up quickly, and didn’t tend to stop until their blood lust had been satisfied.

Generally speaking, he did a good job. But sometimes, things fell out of his hands. Such as when the town that was about twenty or so miles away, their closest neighbors named Akerikka, seemed to become possessed of some strange idea that they were responsible for recent raids on their shipments to the city of Saven.

It was an understandable concern, to be honest; they were both competitors to provide fish to Saven, which was the nearest large city, and where all the major local imports and exports went to at some point in time. While the competition with others from the same town could often be friendly, since local generosity could often be relied upon. But the moment another town entered the picture, competition got significantly more bitter. It was not unusual for deaths to occur whenever things went particularly well for one and poorly for another, but it was few. Almost always less than five. Such towns could seldom afford the loss of labor from pointless conflicts. Monsters provided enough trouble without making their own.

This was one such occasion.

It was hardly the first time such a conflict had started, but something was… off this time. Mar’Kir could tell from the very start, something wasn’t right. As usual it was an angry posse from Akerikka sitting outside of town with their carts full of pissed off fishermen instead of the usual crop cargo, but there was something different. Something about their behavior. They seemed more upset than normal, but there was no reason he knew of for this.

By the time he actually left the town gates to speak to them, the tension was palpable between the town guards and the group of aggressors.

By now things had devolved into silence, but that changed quickly when he arrived. The leader of the delegation, another Inzi, stood before a congregation of four carts full of shield and spear-bearing soldiers, each holding six. He was a blue-skinned Inzi man, leader of the village guard for the town over. He had weathered green eyes and hands that had worked the forge for many years. The man was bulky, built well into his frame with useful muscle. He had a short crop of dark red hair atop his head and a well-kept beard to match. “About time you showed your face. Your brute wife’s men here just about called the whole damn garrison the moment they saw us. They need better manners. But I guess we shouldn’t expect any better from brigands,” they snarled, glaring down Mar’Kir as he looked over the lot of them.

You didn’t come with shields unless you were expecting a fight again humanoid weapons. “That’s quite the accusation, Guard Captain Kah’Veris. I certainly hope you have evidence to back it up.”

The “delegate” puffed up his chest, trying to look down on him even though they were roughly the same height. “We do. For one…” he began as he gestured to one of the war party he came with, who tossed him half of a spear and an arrow, then tossing them to Mar’Kir’s feet. “The last attackers were driven off, and one of their weapons was broken in the fight. Not to mention the arrows they left behind. They bear the signatures of YOUR people. This on top of the fact that they were the very same armor that they wear now!” He gave a furious gesture to one of the guards standing between his group and the town itself, referring to the mottled grey and blue gambeson worn over chainmail his town guard wore. The chain was only visible in the form of the hood it made over their heads.

The first major concern that Mar’Kir felt wasn’t based on the evidence, but on the body language of the people here. They genuinely believed what they said; they were here not for some petty contract problem, but to pursue justice. That complicated things considerably. Picking up the spear, he could see why they thought this. It was made of the same kind of difficult to find hardwood their own spears were; the only reason it was even possible for them to make them with it was because of the connections they made while adventuring. Nevermind the skilled craftsmanship of the steel spear head.

More damning than this, however, was the tip of the spear itself. The back edges of the black blades were ended in barbs, as to catch whenever they were pushed into a body. The natural curve of the barbs made the spear twist, both on the way in and out. It took considerable strength to rip out, but one hit was nearly always enough to do the job quickly. This was aside from the central cavity in the spear head, which contained the broken remains of a glass vial likely containing poison.

Combined with the brutal wounds, it significantly reduced the rate of healing one could expect out of an Inzi, which most of the people around this region were. Nevermind humans, who were the second most common race in the area; the Inzi were still wary of them, but they were equally cautious of their orcish and elven parent races due their long history as a servant race.

All of this was secondary, however. As the other delegate and leader of the guard continued to explain that the bandits wore similar uniforms once again, Mar'Kir's brow knit. Something wasn't right. This wasn't their spear, notable by no magical property markings appearing on investigation of the tip, but a far more concerning thing was noticed. Not on the spear, but on the man himself.

Running on his intuition, Mar'Kir subtly scanned the man for influences. That's what it was. The Inzi man had not been nice, but he was never so volatile, nevermind on evidence that could be forged. He was old and clever, and as suspected, Mar'Kir felt the lingering energy of magic targeting the mind.

It was by no means weak, either. Whoever cast it knew what they were doing. Odds are they just underestimated the rude neighbor, as he still offered shreds of resistance, but not much. Enough he certainly didn't realize it if he ever did.

One last test then. "I can see why you think this. But while these weapons bear our basic design, they lack our marking sigil. The one they bear is made of the wrong energy," Mar'Kir explained, still watching the magic traces. What influence the spell retained began to be shaken even further, this last piece of forgotten lore clicking into place, the mage saw what he needed to.

A fresh spell, woven before his eyes from some great distance away. It was subtle enough that he wouldn't have noticed it in detail without looking, and his energy detection wouldn't have made much of it.

The new information was suppressed, and emotions were dredged up. Driving him beyond reason, what little remained.

Fine. If that's how they wanted it, then so be it. There was no salvaging this situation peacefully, then one could only control the violence.

"You expect me to believe that? It's the right mark, bandit, and now it's clear-" the snarling victim began, but was cut off. He found far more compelling the many hundreds of foot long spikes of energy that Mar'Kir had begun to form in the air around them. They were of all kinds of aspects, but mostly intimidating crystal shards.

Mar'Kir stood from where he had crouched to examine the spear, looking as calm and collected as ever. "Enough. I gave you explanation, yet you continue to insult us. Threaten us. You showed up prepared for conflict, yet not enough of you to actually fight, so it must have been for intimidation. To manipulate."

The tension in the air finally cracked as hundreds of long crystal spikes became thousands, tens of thousands, the mostly crystal spikes beginning to make strange places of shade and rainbow refraction. "I will not stand for it, child. You will get this chance to walk away and this chance alone. The next time you dare show up here with threats and shadows of violence…," began the town leader as the sharp shards began to have bolts of electricity arc between them and the air grew heavy with chill, making everyone present freeze in place, "you had better be ready to make real these threats. Because we always are."

After the threats delivered with deadpan stoicism, no one moved, the anger that had begun to overwhelm reason getting replaced by fear of the cloud of death above. "Did I stutter? LEAVE!" The spikes flew into the air, a dark, angry storm cloud forming, already heavily pregnant with hail and lightning.

Stammering out some unintelligible half-hearted threat, the group that had come to threaten turned tail as fast as they could in a cart and took off. A few tense minutes passed before the cloud vanished, Mar'Kir sighing. He hated solving things with violence and threats…

As though from a shadow, T'Kere stepped from between her guards, her face unusually grim. "I suspect that bought us two days at least. I assume you have ideas for who manipulated them?"

The town leader sighed again more tiredly. "Some. I marked this memory to reexamine later, find something to track the influencers by. Gather the energy batteries available in town and bring them to Vashnoruk. She'll know how to handle the army when it arrives, without hurting them. I will seek the manipulators to see this doesn't happen again."

His wife nodded, stepping forward to give him a quick and gentle kiss. "Then I will ready myself to seek the bandits soiling our good name. I doubt they've the grace to deceive this way." She vanished without further word, as though she were never there.

This was going to be a long couple of days.