Chapter 64 — Mortal Fear, Troublesome Divinations, And A Foreign Princess?

Ria formed the Rockshot spell again, causing another rock to come into existence and fly at the target. She had worked out the number of times to cast and the most efficient amount of energy to use so that she would be back to full energy by the time her turn came again.

Elder Genwald had arranged for the class to use a large practice room in the bowels of Parthanex Tower. The earth energy flowing through the walls and floor was dense enough to allow the class to continually refill their energy while waiting in one of three target queues.

To prevent the rocks from piling up, dispelling circles were activated below the targets to dispel the newly-formed rocks when they smashed against the target and fell to the ground. Just like with the terrain generation for the tournament, magically created substances took time to settle into the world as real, and the practice room’s setup took advantage of that.

With the extra energy density present in the room, Ria was able to form the spell directly with ambient mana, practicing that casting method once per turn as well. Gathering and shaping enough external energy to cast the spell did take longer and was more mentally tiring, but with the tournament arenas always full of energy, not practicing using external energy would be stupid, especially since improving her skills would give her a way to keep fighting even after her reserves were empty.

Somewhat surprising was that Ranger, halfway through the session, had learned the spell well enough to occasionally launch his own hunks of rock from beside her during her turns—a development that caused some grumbling among the handful of students who were still struggling to reliably cast the spell.

The practice was mentally draining, but it was also repetitive, and as usual during the practicums, Ria’s thoughts wandered.

Ria’s first stop of the morning had been to see Rente Ravelle. The Office of Student Affairs had been busy, but meeting with the counselors and assistants was more common than meeting with the administrator himself, so her wait was shorter than expected.

Administrator Rente was pleased that she had sought him out so quickly and was involving him in her debut invitations. His observations matched well with the advice Keira had given after dinner, in particular, agreeing that inviting Ophesia and Nielle would be necessary. He thought that getting a High Priestess and High Priest to attend would be highly prestigious and that the benefits would be worth the risk, even if it would be a huge win for House Novidus.

For the other adults to be invited, Administrator Rente stressed the importance of also inviting at least one of their similar-aged children or grandchildren since, even though the party was a dance in celebration of the elven festival of magical crop imbuement, it was being presented as a debut party this year. That, and, besides being the polite thing to do, making social connections with her instructors’ and mentors' families would help her get favorable treatment—or at least prevent her from being disadvantaged by another student that had such a connection!

Additionally, he recommended inviting two of Leriah’s friends from minor noble houses favored by House Ravelle and had some suggestions for improving several of her invitation letters, references to things the families were well known for, congratulations for auspicious family events, condolences for misfortunes, and such.

By the time Ria left for class, she had gained a level of respect for the man’s talent at politics and was beginning to realize just how important it was to be aware of each of the Houses’ history.

Ria handed Zena her invitation when the raven-haired girl came to walk with her to abjuration class.

“An invitation to City Administrator Asara’s Spring Moon Festival event, huh,” Zena repeated with a slight smirk. “Sounds fun. I’ll have to ask my parents, but it shouldn’t be a problem—we’re in the same arena team, so it’s expected after all!”

“Hopefully they will allow you to come.”

Ria watched as the confident girl broke the seal on the magically glittering letter and deftly flipped it open with the fingers of one hand, revealing the soft washes of pale color and moonlit crest inside.

“This letter… It’s ridiculously formal, you know? Who uses enchanted paper and styles their script like this? Are you some kind of dragon-kin princess or something?” Zena cheerfully mocked and winked. “I’d feel guilty not going upon receiving such an invitation!”

“Speaking of princesses, I’m planning to invite Ophesia and Nielle…” Ria cautioned with a quiet voice to not be too easily overheard as they walked.

Zena laughed. “Ooooh, all the more reason why I shouldn’t miss it!”

“Leriah and two of her friends, too,” Ria added.

“Oh?” Zena raised an eyebrow. “Even after what they did?”

Ria grimaced. “More because of what they did, and as part of my agreement with Administrator Rente.”

“Ah, so it’s like that,” the hero’s daughter snorted, and Ria nodded.

The prior day’s incident with Leriah, Sophia, and their friends had played a significant part in her soul-strengthening effort after finishing the invitations with Keira and Miela’s assistance. Fortunately, Ranger ended up napping through the night, saving her from getting distracted with studying beast arts and further dividing her evening study time.

As it was, by the time she started on her soul-strengthening, the evening had still grown late enough that she did ask Ana’s mom for an alertness and focus tisane and borrowed a stamina potion from Miela so the session wouldn’t turn into a disaster like her first session had—particularly since she was planning to be ambitious in order to catch up on the time missed.

The topic she decided on was the trauma from each of the times she had come close to dying, starting with the most recent: being gradually crushed to death by the force of the slowed explosion. The incense was quick to follow that up with the terror of the quickslime darting toward her and forcing its way into her mouth while painfully dissolving her from the inside—a terror which soon became the unexpected threat of the fish-faced grillot slipping upward from the water, gleaming claws and serrated teeth filling her view as her lazy clothes-washing turned to blood and gibbering fear and fire.

But those were just the ones where death had violently come to her. Lurking in her consciousness were other experiences where the fear of death or worse had been more sinister: hiding under the stairs when the soldiers came for her in her own home; Irene turning the elders and the town against her at the trial; the meeting with Renard for discipline for use of spirit magic—a meeting where the risk of being made oathbound left her trembling…

And her new fears: How much of what she knew about her family might be false memories created by mind mages? What if she were already spiritbound? What if her personality was fake—created by the Inquisitors? Would she cease to exist when the time for her purpose came? Would she betray her friends?

It was a terrifying session. She almost gave up early, but her simple act of facing her fear at dinner and confessing the explosion incident to Jarrel rather than avoiding it had given her a surprising amount of strength to face other fears.

The situation with Jarrel’s newfound ability still hadn’t been resolved. She didn’t get any useful answers out of him at dinner, just a thanks for her advice—that it was helpful in grasping the truth he had found. The way he was phrasing his answers sounded suspiciously like elven mysticism, and so, having an alternate target in mind to interrogate regarding the mystery, Ria reluctantly let the topic go until she could learn more from Orlisi, likely during lunch or at Grand Games practice.

A tap on her arm brought Ria back to the present. “You going to be okay to face them?”

She had been so lost in thought that she hadn’t noticed Zena had already brought her to the second floor of the Hall of Defensive Magic.

“Woof?” Ranger also queried, echoing Zena’s question.

Would she be fine?

When she thought about Rienne’s chastising about taking the incidents so seriously, Ria felt rather embarrassed by her overly aggressive reactions. It was a feeling that was hard to reconcile with the anger she had carried with her following the first incident and during the second.

“I’ll be fine,” Ria resolved. If she was to navigate noble society, she would need to get better at hiding her emotions and coping with uncomfortable encounters.

There were some whispers as they entered the classroom, and a few girls avoided making eye-contact. With Zena striding alongside her and confidently returning the greetings they received, it seemed none of her fellow classmates were bold enough to directly comment or inquire about the incident with Sophia and the others.

Or rather, maybe it was because the number of depressed girls sitting in the ‘exiled’ corner of the room seemed to have grown from one to three?

Ria discreetly inquired to Zena about it as they took their seats next to Faris and Yentis, who were discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the technique that was the topic of today’s lecture.

“Hmm…” Zena glanced over at the girls in question. “Charlotte’s family was exposed to have been involved in a bribery scheme related to property claims and unethical lending practices. A noble house resorting to such means is quite the embarrassment. Theraline’s situation is a bit more ugly. A servant girl went missing at her family manor. There was never an adequate explanation, and this morning’s Daily Shadow has a report contending that the girl was whipped to death by Theraline’s mother for accidentally breaking a cherished keepsake and that Theraline’s family threatened the servant girl’s family to keep quiet about the incident.”

“That’s terrible!” Ria gasped.

Zena nodded. “Indeed. Never did like Theraline or her brother.”

Both were names Ria had sent to Desi, and Ria was relieved that Desi hadn’t targeted any of the four girls who had been identified in the recent incident—if Leriah, Sophie, Muriel, or Deitra had been embarrassed by the Daily Shadow, the retaliation would’ve been far too obvious.

The corner of Zena’s mouth tugged upward. “Sure seems a surprising number of noble girls from this class are suffering sudden misfortune. I wonder why that is…?”

Ria let her gaze drift to the side and mumbled, “Haven’t the faintest idea.”

Her weak denial caused Zena to laugh. “Totally a lie.”

Ranger made an inquiring noise, and after realizing that he hadn't been there when she met with Desi, Ria pushed the knowledge of her deal with the third-year member of Twilight's Cloak across the bond.

“How would I have knowledge of anyone’s secrets to share…?” Ria started to argue with Zena, but her friend's gaze following something behind them and a sudden hush settling over the room alerted her to the approach of a Silent-Sky-mantled girl in House Ravelle colors.

Ranger sniffed and made a low growl, sending back images across the bond that made it rather clear who the chestnut-haired girl with lightning-themed earrings was: Leriah Ravelle.

Leriah navigated to the row just behind where Ria and Zena were seated, her face serious, and stopped within arm-reach of Ria, nodding to Faris before turning her attention Ria’s way and holding out a sealed envelope made of flower-pressed paper. “Father said I needed to give this to you.”

“Ah-! I have one for you as well,” Ria realized and dug out Leriah’s invitation for the debut to exchange with her. “You should probably open it somewhere more private though…”

The Ravelle girl turned the glittering sealed letter over in her hands a few times before nodding and awkwardly returning back to where Ophesia and Nielle and the remaining members of their social group were sitting, including Sophia who looked like she'd swallowed something beyond bitter.

Just as speculation on what the exchange could mean seemed about to explode, Master Dolerin hurried into the room, placing a stack of notes on the podium and causing diagrams and hastily scrawled spell theory to appear on the write-board behind him.

“Today, I’ve been instructed to give a lesson on methods to mitigate risk from the unstable unconstrained energy released when a cooperatively cast spell fails or is forcibly destabilized,” Master Dolerin greeted to groans from the class. “Let’s start with simple spells designed to rapidly siphon the energy into safe purpose…”

By the time lunch had come, Ria was getting really anxious to arrange for delivery of her invitations. The letter delivery service at the Enchanters Guild was a method she had considered, but if the fancy sealed letters were delivered in such a showy way during a class… wouldn’t that cause trouble? Really, waiting until after classes was better, but when would she find time?

Eventually, she succumbed to convenience and decided to make use of the courier service available at the library, which it turned out was run by the Adventurers Guild at Seeker’s Hall and had service locations in each of the Halls and Towers for faster service.

Everything was taken care of surprisingly simply—with the exception of Leon’s invitation which required her to pay for a special courier mission. The added expense didn’t overly bother her, even though she wasn’t expecting Leon to come. Not notifying him in time to have the choice would be rude after all they had been through together.

But it was very short notice considering how far away Leon was. In the accompanying letter, she did recommend that he come for Keira’s birthday party instead. She felt a little guilty not mentioning Phaelys being her escort, but he hadn’t mentioned any girls in his letter, and she didn’t want to affect his motivation… and Keira hadn’t said anything about it, so… most likely it was fine. Most likely.

Ria set that future worry aside. With the invitations resolved, her next most pressing concern was finding information on the spells that she was currently missing for preparing the planned ‘tokens of sincerity’. For her apology to the academy itself, basic stone-shaping and the silver manipulation spell Wendra had taught her would be fine, but for creating the statue for Shining Sun Hall, her guess was that she would need to learn crystal-shaping and gold manipulation in addition to rituals for imparting elemental truths into an object.

The crystal-shaping would surely be in one of the crystal magic books and, with luck, wouldn’t be that different from stone-shaping which she already knew. Likewise, gold manipulation would share enough similarities with silver manipulation that she might be able to make use of it without too much extra effort—and gold was closer to orichalcum than silver, so… her affinity might help too. For the imparting, she found two books that looked helpful—though the more advanced one that borrowed heavily from Dwarven techniques made her head hurt just looking at the diagrams used for some of the rituals.

When returning to their usual lunch table, the choice of books did receive eyebrow raises from her friends and Keira in particular, but Ellen’s arrival provided a timely distraction, and Ria quickly buried herself into the research once Ellen had her and Ranger’s meal orders.

“Ah, my fellow lunch buddies. Have I got a scoop for you,” Orlisi greeted with a trickster’s smile as she leisurely took her usual seat at the table, no doubt having been delayed in her arrival by investigating this ‘scoop’.

Ria was pretty sure it was a joke of some kind, so she left the discussion to the others, and Arthur gamely picked up the figurative gauntlet, “Someone discovered a spell that adds more hours to the day?”

“Maybe not that big a scoop, but this one’s still pretty good.” Orlisi laughed, waving a denial and leaning forward, revealing the gossip in a hushed tone, “There’s a rumor going around the diviner Orders that one of this year’s first-year students is… a princess from a foreign country!” The elf girl spread her arms toward the sky dramatically as she said the last part.

“Really?” Zena asked with raised eyebrows. “I haven’t heard anything about that… Have you, Faris?”

Faris shook his head. “No. Maybe it’s just the diviner groups being weird and spreading false divinations again?”

“Ah… but if there is, and one of us has accidentally been rude to the girl…,” Keira worried and glanced in Ria’s direction. “Or fought with her…”

That thought sent grimaces around the table.

Ria wasn’t sure how she felt about a real princess possibly being one of their classmates. She was already friends with Faris and Zena whose parents were powerful nobles, maybe equivalent to dukes or margraves, and her escort for her debut was effectively a prince.

Iselyn didn’t seem particularly interested and was giving her lunch order to Ellen, who was eager to eavesdrop on Orlisi’s big news.

Orlisi waited for them to finish mulling over the news then added with a happy voice, “But that’s not all: being the curious sort of elf that I am, I performed my own divination.”

“...and?” Keira prompted with increasingly suspicious eyes and resigned dread in her voice when the elf seemed content to just grin at them.

“I got a curiously inconclusive result at first, but after changing tack, the result indicated that by attending lunch with my usual lunch buddies here today, I would learn the student’s identity,” Orlisi revealed to stunned faces around the table, each exchanging glances with the members present.

“How would meeting with us allow you to learn the princess’ identity? Are you saying she’s one of us?” Faris asked and looked Ria’s way. “Isn’t Ria, the only foreign student currently at the table?”

“That’s one way my divination could become true,” Orlisi agreed with a face-splitting smile that showed her slight fangs.

Ria gulped as all eyes turned her way, and she waved her hands in denial. “There's no way it’s me. My mom and dad were both commoners.”

After the words left her mouth, her eyes met with Iselyn’s. Wasn’t Iselyn’s dad an unknown troubadour? Apparently, Iselyn was thinking the same thing, judging by the way her expression was draining of color. The other’s at the table noticed the exchange and everyone’s attention shifted to the beautiful dark-haired girl.

“Is there something you’d like to tell the group?” Orlisi teased, with a voice that suggested the elf girl was already party to Iselyn’s secret.

“N-no,” Iselyn denied and propped up her book so she could hide behind it.

“Sus-pi-cious,” their greatly amused elf troublemaker sing-songed and chuckled.

“Um, maybe the result was because Ria can find the person using one of her locating scrolls?” Keira offered.

“Why would my divinations work if Orlisi’s didn’t?” Ria asked, surprised at the suggestion.

“Maybe the person we seek is specifically warded against divination by Crysellians,” Orlisi offered. “But hey, you didn’t tell me you knew divination magic!”

“I’ve studied it a little,” Ria admitted as she made her True-Name-powered locator scroll appear on the table. What Orlisi suggested was plausible. Often more narrowly defined wardings could be made more powerful.

“Oooh, this reminds me of my grandmother’s work. Nicely done,” the elf girl cooed over the scroll then held up a hand to forestall Ria from activating it. “You’ve got divination-blocking jewelry right?”

Ria nodded. Was that a problem?

“It might interfere with the success of the divination,” Orlisi asserted.

Ria wasn’t keen to take her ring off, but the elf girl probably knew a lot more about divination than she did. The chance that anyone was casting a divination to find or spy on her at that very moment would be small, and if she left her divination and clairvoyance obfuscating ring on, then her friends would continue to be suspicious of her even if the scroll didn’t point in her direction. With a sigh, she slid the ring off and placed it on the table.

“Great. Now how do we use this?” Orlisi eagerly asked.

“Activate #47: Princess,” Ria spoke, and the scroll’s magic spread out in a dome.

As expected, no arrows.

Whether to feel relieved or not… she wasn’t sure.

The amount of power produced by the scroll’s activation seemed weak—probably due to distance from its energy sources located in Vorshan’s Hills—so she touched one of the battery constructs and filled it with her energy to boost the range. Still, no arrows appeared.

“Hmm… maybe ‘princess’ is too literal,” Orlisi considered and suggested, “Why don’t you try it with ‘descended from royalty’ instead?”

Ria nodded. “Reactivate #47, descended from royalty.”

Several arrows immediately showed up, and Ria froze.

“Let’s see… that direction is the Crystal Tower and that direction is Whitestone Hall, so those are probably Vesalis or members of related ducal families,” Orlisi noted, pointing to each cluster before indicating the lone arrow pointing in Ria’s direction and grinning at her. “But this one…”

Ria shook her head and stood up letting her finger slip from the scroll. “There’s no way it’s pointing at me,” she whispered in denial, but as the other arrows disappeared when the range decreased, the one pointing at her remained, and it continued to follow her as she tried moving away.

The ward at Whitestone Hall…

Zena laughed at Ria’s attempts to evade the arrow of fate. “You mentioned your parents, Ria. What about your grandparents?”

Ria’s eyes widened. “I don’t know my grandparents.”

Was one of her grandparents…?

“So, Ria really is foreign royalty?” Faris gasped out.

“Or at least descended from a royal. Yup,” Orlisi confirmed. “Assuming her spell is reliable. And most likely through an unrecognized bastard by the sound of it.”

“It would explain a lot,” Keira muttered, and heads around the table nodded and also muttered in agreement.

Was it her mother’s side or her father’s…?

“But wait,” Arthur spoke up. “Aren’t the diviners looking for a ‘princess’? From the divination, Ria’s not a princess.”

“Ah, you’re right!” Orlisi agreed then motioned at the scroll. “Hey, mind if I borrow this?”

Ria was too stunned to object, and after saying the deactivation phrase, just waved for the elf girl to do what she wanted.

Could her divination be wrong? What if it wasn’t…?

Something about the change in her aura after unlocking her ‘body’ gate whispered to her that the divination wasn’t wrong.

As Orlisi scooped up the scroll and made it disappear, the well-pleased elf told Ellen to add something festive to everyone’s orders and slipped the girl a gold coin before skipping off happily in the direction of Whitestone Hall.

Zena clapped Ria on the back. “At least you don’t need to worry about being worthy enough to be escorted by Phaelys any more.”

Somehow that was the least of her worries...