“Explain it again please,” Trinadelle said, his voice clipped.

I had been stomping around the room for the past five minutes like some caged animal. Cussing and growling and mainly just being a big baby about everything. Trinadelle had woken Twix up and the two of them had tried to piece together the chain of events as best they could given my….creative storytelling abilities.

“I’ve already explained it to you,” I muttered my mind on other things already. “And why the hell are you checking on the mayor, isn’t he dead?”

“No. Concussed, certainly. But not dead.”

“Well, it may be best if he remains that way,” I whispered. “Smith could be listening.”

“I doubt that is the case. You said this man, Smith, needed to infect the Denvii to make them easier to control and that it didn’t work as well on humans. This tells us there is a limit to what he can do with that gift of his and even if he were capable of using his gift in such a way, I refuse to leave this man unattended.”

“His limits didn’t stop him from playing you like a puppet or dropping Twix like a rock.” I retorted.

“I was not prepared,” Trinadelle said, his face bent over the mayors still form. “Mental attacks are rare and I was confused at the time. If I had known what I would be facing I would have been better prepared to fight off the attack.”

I growled and went back to stomping. I was picking apart the interaction between Smith and I in my head. Sorting through the crazy was proving difficult but there was also valuable information in there. Like how he said ‘The Lady’ gave him his power. Which was good, because if he had hinted at the gift being from Aeris…well the planet and I were going to have a little talk.

“Chaos seed. Mutant Ball.” I muttered.

‘What?” Twix asked and I almost jumped out of my skin.

“Jeezus! Do you have to be so damn stealthy? I was just remembering what Smith said about controlling the Denvii. He said ‘They’ created a Chaos seed but he called it a mutant ball. He said it was created with a little Earth and a little of us and that he infected the water.”

“And what is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear that?”

“What?” I asked, stopping my stomping for long enough to glare at her. Or at least try. Her face was still in deep shadow and I had no clue what part of her I was staring at. Glares aren’t as effective if they’re aimed at someone's nose.

‘When he said it to you. What was the first thing that popped into your mind?”

“A bath bead,” I muttered, scratching the back of my head.

What! I took baths. So what? Big Bad Alexander Haha October takes baths. Deal with it.

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s like this little ball of oil that smells good. You put them in a bathtub and they dissolve, letting out the oil and it helps you relax.” A light bulb went off in my head. “I see what you did there!”

“The first assumption is often correct.”

I needed a map, a proper one. I also needed to find Nel. I looked over at Trinadelle. He had retrieved some of the stuffing strewn about the room and made a little pillow for the mayor's head. Now the old man just stood there looking thoughtful. He must have sensed my gaze because he looked up and met my eyes.

“I will need to get a healer for him,” he said.

“I need to get my companion,” I said at the same time.

The old man cocked his head to the side before nodding. He gestured to Twix.

“You will need to go, my dear. Alexander cannot be seen outside, his face is too well known by the guards and I will need to remain here in case the mayor wakes up or someone comes to check on all the noise.”

The hooded head nodded.

“I will also need you to get a healer. I believe there is one near the herbal district of the market. An old woman by the name of Nuala, if you tell her my name she will come. Do not tell her who is injured. Alexander, I would guess your friend is hiding?”

“Yeah,” I recounted the place where Nel had hidden as best I could, making sure to use the stalls as reference points since that was all I really remembered. The buildings all looked the same to me. I looked at the hooded woman and the old man and sighed. I needed to trust someone some time and they seemed like good people. Mostly.

“You should probably know…she’s a Denvii…from the Brood…and you do not seem surprised.”

Trinadelle shrugged but didn’t say anything.

“She may attack me.” Twix said.

I had to agree. Nel could be feisty. “Tell her I sent you and say her brother sucks.”

Twix slipped out of the ruined library leaving me and the old man standing over the unconscious ruler of the town.

“So you are the Champion,” Trinadelle said at last.

“That’s what the screen tells me.”

It got awkward again real fast. I almost started rocking back and forth when Trinadelle broke it again.

“You and Twix seemed to reach some revelation.”

“Hmm? Oh, Yeah…I think I know how to stop this, well some of it. I need to find the Mutant ball and destroy it and I need to find Smith and punch him in the face.”

“That is the extent of your plan?” He raised a single bushy eyebrow.

“I have an idea of where the ball is, I’ll need a map though, just to confirm my suspicion. I have no idea how to stop the army Smith promised to drop on my head, but I figure if I can take off the head of the snake the body becomes useless. He can’t control the army if he’s dead.”

“I very much doubt he can field an army, much less control such numbers.” The old man walked over to a bunch of books that had fallen over and heaped them on top of each other before sitting down on the pile and crossing his legs. “If the information you have provided is accurate than he has the entire Dryad Grove, perhaps some of those Messenger plants, and a few pack members. Perhaps a force of a hundred or so. That is not a large force, especially to lay siege to a town such as this.”

“You forget, those are Denvii, wild Denvii. They’re going to be stronger and faster and a lot more ruthless than their tamed counterparts. Then there’s Smith himself. I think he has limited control over humans and the more he tries to control the less influence he actually has over them. He could probably control enough people in the town as he attacks to open the gates and then we’d have to fight on both ends.”

Trinadelle's cold blue eyes regarded me with something like approval. “That is indeed correct. The walls mean nothing if he can control someone to open them.”

“Not just a pretty face,” I said, waving a hand over my face.

The old man did not look impressed. “So, you are correct. We must find this mutant ball and stop its contamination from spreading and we must stop Smith before he can launch an army and lay siege to this Town.”

“We?” It was my turn to cock an eyebrow.

“You want to do it alone?”

“I do if you’re going to start attacking me again once we meet Smith.”

“I told you,” The old man nearly growled. “I was not prepared.”

I wanted to keep poking fun at him, with his upright posture and stiff upper lip, but I didn’t. I went back to thinking. Events of the past few days were lining up and linking together as I got more and more information. Some things though still made no sense.

“How did he disappear?” I scowled at the spot Smith had vanished from. “and why couldn’t I hit him.”

“I imagine enchantments,” Trinadelle said from his spot on the floor. “Or he is a mage.”

“How does that work? The mage thing.”

“You must receive the Gift of Mana first. It’s mostly humans that get it though, the other races tend to be more physical than us, so its a trade-off.”

“Then what? You wave your hands around and Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo…magic?”

“I…is that a spell? Nevermind. No, first you receive the Gift of Mana and then you train it. You sense the mana around you and you try and shape it. Each person has an affinity and that affects the type of mana you control and if you do it enough and you are good enough you get a class related to it. Pyro Mage, or Chrono Mage or so on. Once you have the class it lets you learn the skills to mastery and your deity will help.”

“It sounds like you need to learn it before you can learn it which sounds like a bunch of bullshit.”

“You need to grasp the concept of it yourself. That is true of all things. The gods do not just grant you the knowledge, or what then would be the point of doing anything.” Trinadelle stood up his expression turning serious. I’d only wanted to know about magic but now it looked like I was going to get a full-on lecture.

“Imagine a little boy. He wants to be a swordsman and so does his friend. So the first boy, he practices every day with a stick in the hope that when he reaches the age of maturity his Class will change to warrior or soldier or swordsman. The second boy watches from the side but never picks up the stick himself.”

I watched Trinadelle pace back and forth and wondered if this had more to do with him then my actual question.

“Now they both mature and the boy who practices daily gets his class of warrior and is thrilled. His friend receives the same. The first boy has the skill sword artistry from his days of practice and Aeris lets him learn the skill faster and improves it where he can. The second boy practices less and only has the skill sword work.”

“Should Aeris grant the boy who doesn’t work the same benefits he does the one who does?”

I opened my mouth to answer but he kept talking.

“As the first boy’s skill improves, so does his class. Each feeding on the other until he becomes a Sword Master with a legendary skill. The other boy never amounts to anything more than a soldier.”

“Yeah, hard work is awesome!” I said with so much fake enthusiasm I almost threw up. “but I was asking about magic.”

The old man blushed, looking down and shuffling his feet. “Forgive me. I am something of an enthusiast when it comes to perfecting one's skills.”

“It’s cool. I may need your help with that later, once all this calms down enough for me to focus on what my stats and stuff mean.” I made a little seat for myself from the books and settled down. “Now, you were saying that Smith could have been a mage or had enchantments?”

“The shield he used could easily be a shield spell engraved on a piece of jewelry or something, though it was powerful and the engraving class is incredibly rare. It would make more sense for him to be a mage and had created the shield himself.”

I don’t know why, given everything I’d already seen, but I still had trouble believing in magic. Part of my mind was whispering things like forcefield generator or repulsion barrier. Those made more sense than magic. But forcefield generators were the size of trucks and repulsion barriers…well, I just made that up.

We once more settled into silence as we got lost in our thoughts. The Mayor would groan occasionally but his eyelids remained closed and other than turning to look at him Trinadelle nor I did anything else.

There was the sound of distant voices that slowly grew closer and I smiled when I heard Nel’s voice amongst the mix. I turned towards the door, fully prepared to scoop the woman up in my arms and lay one on her. I recoiled in shock when the first person through the door was a mass of white hair with a nose.

That's what the lady looked like. There was so much white curly hair covering her face and falling past her shoulders that the only thing that stood out was a sharp lumpy nose. I caught the flash of dark pupils as the hair swayed and bounced but other than that I couldn’t tell you what she looked like. She was dressed quite nicely though, in a bright orange dress and soft looking boots.

“But using Rot-root with Dandy flowers would produce a poison!” Nel said, her hooded head turned towards the hairy woman.

I held my arms wide, a smile on my face, and hoped she wouldn’t see the damage around me. I don’t know why I bothered. She was too busy with the old woman. Nuala. It was just like in the forest. Distracted by knowledge.

“You dry the Dandy flower first, child. Then you run water over the dry flowers and then you crush it and add it to the Rot-root tea.” The woman’s voice was strong and warm. Like honey spiced whiskey. I liked it.

“Of course! The toxins would bleed out while drying and the water wo-Oh! Alexander!” Nel finally noticed me and came skipping over, her hood falling back to reveal her attractive features. I accepted a hug from her and quickly disengaged myself with a hasty nod towards Trinadelle.

I was so not into PDA. Who knew?