Vance was walking through the village with Mariah, showing her around. He introduced her to some of the locals who were all surprised to see a city girl all the way out here, but Mariah had a way with people, they all seemed to love her.

After a while, they were passing by Ethan's blacksmith shop. It was a small shop by city standards, but it was one of the largest buildings in the village. From inside, Vance could hear the roaring of the forge, but also Ethan's loud footfalls clanging on the stone ground.

"That's Ethan's forge. He's a good man, he does most of the meta-"

"Vance?" Ethan's surprised voice rang out from in the shop as he popped his head around the doorway to look at them. "And a young lady, too. Good morning to both of you. Welcome back, Vance, good to see you."

"You too Ethan, how's business?"

"Alright. With all this outlaw business, I'm getting commissions from some of the city watch for new equipment."

"That's great, I think," Vance said, unsure.

"Sure, for cash. Pain in the ass otherwise."

"Ethan, you have a firestone charm, right? Still got it?"

"Had, lad. Had. The damn thing stopped working about a month after I got it. Waste of 5 gold if you ask me."

Vance thought that was a bit odd, he figured those constructs should last quite a while, definitely longer than that.

Mariah could see the thoughts ruminating in Vance's head. She knew where this was going, she decided to win herself some points.

"Vance could take a look at that for you if you'd like. He's an Arcanist now. Knows a thing or two about fire mana, too."

Ethan stared blankly at Vance, who shrugged at him with a little smirk. Blinking like a stunned fool, Ethan watched the two walk into his forge. He didn't move, but his head dumbly followed them. That boy, an Arcanist? Surely they're having me on.

Regardless, the little stone was busted anyway, what was the harm? Let the kids mess around.

He followed them inside a tossed the little charred stone over to Vance, who, to Ethan's surprise, snatched the stone out of mid-air.

"It's still got mana in it, that's good. This means the entire construct hasn't leaked out."

He zoned in his senses to the stone. The construct was still in place and the earth shape surrounding it was intact. At first, he didn't see a problem, then he noticed the fire lattice at the end of the funnel making up the shift construct was essentially gone. He didn't know why it had happened, but that was the reason the construct was failing. It was gathering mana, but then it never shifted it to fire mana. It was essentially a useless rock.

"I see the problem, but I've never tried working with this particular construct before. Ethan, I might break it if I try, is that alright?"

"Sure, Kid. Have at it." Ethan had a little smile on his face and was gently shaking his head, putting his forging gloves back on, he got back to work. He was forging a blade and it wasn't going to bevel itself.

Mariah was paying close attention to what Vance was attempting.

Vance was currently examining his own core, which was responding nicely to the natural fire mana coming out of the forge. The feather construct was producing a lot of fire mana, which just so happened to be what he needed right now.

Slowly, Vance wanted to remove the old shifter construct. After all, it was essentially broken and he didn't want to try repairing it while battling off a remnant of some other Arcanists will. He copied something that he'd seen Thomas do once and thrust a small amount of gathered pure mana into the shifter construct. Nothing happened.

"Fine, I'll do it the old fashioned way." He focused his will on the shift construct and strained, pulling it free from the will of whoever put it in there. It was actually much easier than he'd thought it'd be. His willpower had evidently come a long way.

He used transference to bring the mana from the construct inside himself, then he deconstructed it and pushed it back out as more ambient mana.

He didn't struggle to create the funnel of pure mana, that much was simple enough. The lattice of fire was more tricky, but he found that after just a few minutes he was able to get it down. Having a fire core mana made the job much, much easier.

Mariah was absolutely mesmerised. First-year students were basically spending all of their time learning to shift to at least one aspect and hopefully create their first mana core by the end of the year. Constructs and the likes come later, but she was seeing them done right now and was learning an awful lot.

"This Vance guy is an anomaly." She mused.

He pushed the shifter construct back into place and locked it there with his will. It took a second to happen, but he saw the mana mechanisms kick into gear and the lattice began to spit out fire mana. The mana was calm and consistent. Thomas wasn't kidding when he said people produce different variations of the same mana types.

"All done, Ethan. I think it should work now."

"Oh yeah? Toss 'er in the forge, will you? We'll see."

Wait - In the forge? Vance let out a little laugh, then moved over towards him, using his mana sense to find the location of the forge.

"I think I know why your construct broke down so quickly, you exposed it to too much natural fire. It doesn't need to be inside the forge, just near it, watch."

Vance placed the stone on the stand that held the forge up at around chest height, but not inside. The flames inside roared and flared with more heat than should be possible with this setup.

Ethan, once again, stared blankly.

"You're really an Arcanist now?"

"Yes sir." Vance smiled proudly at him. Honestly, he thought it'd take him way longer to create that shifter construct. The gatherer from before really had been excellent for his shaping skills.

"And this one will last longer than a month?"

"So long as you don't burn it out. My recommendation is to keep it outside the actual flames and give it a little while to recharge now and again. If the flames start to flicker, chances are it needs some time kept away from the forge to gather more mana."

With a big smile on his face, Ethan slapped a gold coin into Vance's hand. At first, Vance insisted that he took the money back, but Ethan was having none of it and kicked him out of the forge before he was able to argue too much about it.

Vance idly wondered what other things he might be able to do for the people around here once he learned some more magic, could he make things here better for the people he knew? What about Leon? Could he make so much money that his brother wouldn't have to worry about it ever again? He was lost in this thought for a while before Mariah pulled him out of it.

"That was pretty great, right?" She was beaming, looking back at the delighted middle-aged man in his shop as they walked.

"Yeah, Actually. I hadn't thought too much about what I could do when I came back, just that when I did, I'd be able to help."

She smiled at him and pulled her arm away, spinning to face him in the middle of the street.

"So, I have to ask. When are we going back to the college? Your brother is fine, right? All is well?"

Vance's head tilted down a little, she didn't like the look of that.

"Here's the thing, Mariah." He paused for a second, working through his thoughts. "When I first left for Vereece, it was so that I could learn magic to protect the people here. Specifically Leon, but really all of them, not to mention myself. If the outlaws keep coming, I should be here to stop them. I can, now."

This was a dangerous line of thinking for an Arcanist, Mariah knew it.

"Hold on a second there, Mr Hero. You realise that a stray arrow kills you as easily as it kills anyone else, right? You can't seriously be thinking of defending the village against an army of outlaws. Your fire trick is impressive, but there's just no way, not with your skills... no offence."

She was right of course. Vance knew it, but he didn't see another option. He looked a little more serious.

"Well, what am I supposed to do then? Go hide in the college while someone burns my home down? How could I possibly do that."

"You know that's not what I meant." There was a hint of sadness in her voice, Vance knew he'd reacted too strongly.

"Sorry, Yeah. I know. But I'm really asking, what do I do, then? I can't exactly hunt them down and exterminate them."

"There's already someone doing that. There's an imperial inquisitor in the area. Rumour has it they're working on tracking down the leadership behind all of these incursions. Once that's done, the outlaws won't be so organised anymore. Then the watch can take care of them."

"People will die in the meantime. It's not good enough."

"Well..." She didn't really know what to say to that, he was right, but what was there to do?

"Look, Vance, all I know is that this inquisitor, whoever she is, has been in league with the Masters at the college, I saw her at the school, so I'm sure she's got all the information she needs to-"

"Wait, She? Mariah, you're great at voices, right? Did you hear her speak, can you give me an idea of what she sounded like?"

Mariah did an almost perfect impersonation of Gloria, the woman who had questioned Vance the day after the attack at the college.

Suddenly, Vance found several pieces of information started to glue themselves together, he wasn't sure how accurate his thoughts were, but they were worth exploring.

Gloria was in town to investigate the outlaws. She was an Arcanist, not strictly relevant but worth noting. She travelled all the way from the imperial seat to Vereece, yet deemed fit to investigate the seemingly unrelated attack on the college in the heart of the city while she was supposed to be looking for local banditry, something didn't add up.

"What was the name of the girl that died in the fire, at the school? Do you remember?"

"Yeah, Thomas told me about her, he was escorting her into the building just before it all kicked off. Victoria Aimlee, I think."

"Do you know where their family is stationed, by any chance?"

"Can't say I do. They're a family heavily into transport, though." She paused to think. "Probably by the coast. The only real coastal town around here is Ervis, so probably there."

Vance scratched his chin and thought out loud. "And it just so happens that the next wave of outlaw attacks are reported to have struck Ervis, but the next closest settlement, Wethermane is entirely unharmed? That doesn't seem odd to you? They struck all at once before, but now just one place? There were outlaws on the road between here and the city, meaning they're more than capable of reaching out this far."

"Gloria - The inquisitor, I think, Mentioned Victoria's father to me when she was questioning me, asking me if I knew him. I didn't know why it was relevant, but now I think I'm getting an idea. Telis was Master of resource, right? Did that put him in charge of most of the college's transportation business?"

"More than just the college," Mariah replied. "Master Telis was well respected in the city. He was renowned even in his old age. According to the rumour. He could fly."

"That's possible?! Wait, that's for later. Focus." Vance steeled himself.

"Mariah, if Master Telis was so influential in the transport industry, his opinion could mean a big sway in popularity for different enterprises providing similar services. Was he openly opposed to the Aimlee family?"

"I don't know. I know Thomas told me this Victoria lady was trying to get an audience with him for a long time, mostly unsuccessfully. Could be possible, I suppose..."

Mariah trailed off as she caught up.

"Wait, you're suggesting the Aimlee family is actually behind Master Telis' murder?"

"Why else would the inquisitor be so interested in them? She's not even here to look into the attack at the college. Don't you think it's convenient that their village is under attack by those very outlaws at the same time as their daughter is killed in the city? Seems like a convenient excuse not to show your face in the city for a while, even when you probably should."

"There's a lot of assumptions in there." She added, folding her arms.

Vance sighed. "You're right. I don't have any evidence, It's just a hunch." Vance visibly deflated, but he knew she was right and he admitted it.

The two stood in silence for a moment before Mariah began to shift uncomfortably. Damnit, she was interested. Vance was guessing, but it wasn't like it was entirely impossible he was right. And she did really want to know...

"Damnit, Fine!" She exclaimed suddenly.

Vance took an instinctive step back, she was very loud all of a sudden.

As far as he knew, she basically teleported next to him and had his arm locked in place once again. when and how had she done that so quickly?!

She proclaimed her terms.

"Let's go to Ervis and find out. We can, I don't know, poke around or something. But no hero stuff, alright? We need to get back to the college, I haven't learned to fly yet."

Vance laughed. "Alright, no hero stuff, I promise that we will be perfectly ordinary citizens, with a teeny tiny bit of magic."

"Good."