Rock Mite: Acariformes Murexus Vermin really. These insectoid monsters will eat anything that is rock or stone provided it is rich in the minerals they seek. For that reason, it is not uncommon to find them near precious magical ore or crystal veins. Their ability to dissolve rock also makes them a nuisance and a hazard for buildings in and around where mines of precious mother lodes are likely to be found. While they might seem docile, adventurers are sometimes called in to exterminate the creatures because they are simply too big to leave alone. Left to their devices, they can clog mine shafts with their nests, cause cave-ins and other hindrances. Agitated rock mites have been known to eat through metallic tools. from Philiarz Warnerskemander’s Bestiary for Adventurers: ‘Exotic Beasties and Where To Find Them.’

The metallic gate creaked ever so slowly as Holly squeezed between the opening. She paused to scan the vicinity for movement―nothing reacted. The only sounds she could hear was the soft caress of wind on the leaves of garden trees and the raucous cheer of towners as they indulged in their festivities; the coast was clear. Nevertheless, the woman scoffed at the way they were too carefree, leaving themselves open to infiltration. But who was she to begrudge them if they made her work easier?

Hidden behind the clouds were the waning spring moons; the tail end of the mana storm had yet to fully leave the vicinity. By morning however, she was sure that the skies would be clear as if it had never been there. Keeping to the low hanging branches of the trees along the perimeter wall as she stalked onwards. She wanted to find a way into the mansion without alerting the dozen or so Guardsmen sharing a stiff drink of their own, surreptitiously hidden with their water flasks.

Fortunately, none of their high leveled superiors were around making her infiltration less nerve-wracking. The woman finally made it into the first floor by using the trellis and vinery at the back of the mansion to clamber up the walls. Perched precariously on the apron of the window, Holly chanced a glance inside the smoky glass pane and frowned. The old mansion hadn't had its glass changed in a long time at least according to the previous operative’s logs.

They had to have been enchanted for durability if they still held up to age like that. Even then, she could tell that the runecraft was fraying, the matrices were beginning to unravel around the edges. Its wards were long shorted out barely posing any hindrance to her intrusion.

That aside, her gear subverted all detection wards and she knew there were other ways around them too. However, it would not do to be incautious, so she did a telepsychic sweep of [Life Sense] with her armacus—a nifty little piece of magitech that sleeved her right arm. From its feedback, there were no life signs on the floor— not any that were worth detecting anyway.

“[Glass Shaping ],” Holly muttered under her breath. The spell matrix in her mind’s eye wavered and wobbled before it snapped into place. The glass window rippled, trying to resist her magical disruption of its base state but its magic was old and worn out— it gave in. She shoved her hand through the liquified pane and reached onto the latch on the other side, then the window was open.

As soon as her enchanted boots left the window’s apron, she was already moving. She had to gather clues before the Guards ransacked the house in the morning and unwittingly left nothing for her to find. There was nothing of note on the first floor however as it seemed that everything had been carried off. Rather than a mess of evacuation , the mansion looked orderly divested of the most important things.

Some of the items left behind like some ostentatious furniture had been around before the recent occupant came in. It was easy to tell as they had that tell-tale scent of age on the fabric or the smooth indents around the corners as a result of wear.

Holly had no eyes for those because she only had eyes for what the subtle nudges of her armacus pointed to as she cast it about. It was buzzing against her wrist, more acute at detecting magical residue than her mana sense could. It brought her to the study and pointed her towards a non-descript assembly of gargoyle busts.

‘Are those real gargoyles?’ She frowned as she came up short. ‘Ah, of course not…’ she chuckled uneasily. Her armacus led her to one of them; nothing seemed out of place about it, no subtle tells or signs that it was different from the others. They were all grotesque snarling faces. But for her armacus she would have missed it.

’Like the last operative missed it,’ she sighed, as her eyes darted to the empty shelves and the study desk. There was nothing for her there, so she needn't have looked.

Holly could've poked around with the bust but she was on a clock, so she used another rune and cast [Dispel Matrix]. She only had a few casions to look for the secret passage, before the mechanism established its connection and she had to try again. She would've used [Null Field] but her armacus could only hold so many spell constructs. After a few pars of frantic back and forth, she found the lift.

For some reason the thing refused to budge forcing her to rappel down the shaft. The air was stale and moist with the scent of upturned earth yet beneath her obsiderite goggles, she saw no evidence of the shaft walls having been dug into or disturbed.

Her armacus pinged incessantly until the droning noise in her head became a continuous hum. She braced, bringing her descent to an abrupt halt―the enchanted fae-steel cordelette creaked as it bore her weight.

There, she felt even her mana sense inundated by a potent residual mana. The woman would have mistaken it for the ambient mana around her if her armacus had not alerted her to it—She'd found the double doors to the old enchanter’s lab.

Despite her investigation, nothing of note turned up in the lab; not the cause of the mana dense concentration nor any article therein. What she'd found were used tools left behind and a pair of dead golems whose shattered cores had the faintest echoes of telepsychic resonance. Nothing for her to extract there unfortunately, whatever had been in their memory crystals might have long since degraded because they were too old and had been without mana for long.

However, she was no stranger to seeing the golems without their tertherite hearts; she’d seen worse in the Underneath. The lingering residue on the golems that indicated they had been animated even after losing their mana source would however go into her report. She gave the lab another once over before she made her way out.

It was as she was getting out that her armacus pinged her again and pointed her towards the neighboring estate. It was for the briefest of moments and she would have missed it were she not brooding over the lack of proper mana density measuring gear.

Hurriedly, she scaled onto the mansion’s roof, nimble on her feet despite the moldy shingles. And there she saw it rise under the cover of night. The sleekest aership she had ever seen. It had no livery and no flag, but the marks underneath its keel showed that it had seen battle.

That is what she’d come for―that was what had made the Triad scramble her for the job as a [Seeker]. She was going to visit the site of the thaumosesmic trigger but it seemed she had a bigger wyvern to hunt. That aership had to have all the answers.

However, as she was now, even as she watched it turn towards the North, she was woefully inadequate in terms of gear and her Skid was not suited for long haul missions. Instead she sent a [Message] to the Citadel.

“[ Urgent Message]: the dragonling has left the nest. Supplementary report to follow…”

She said as she sat down on the roof's hip.

“Hmm, so he'd been right under my nose all this time huh?”

”You tell me,” the woman shrugged. “ By Eog maybe we have grown complacent or something.”

The elder dwarven aersmith shook his head and wiped off the beer foam from his beard. He regarded the woman across from him who was twirling her finger around the rim of the glass tumbler and grumbled.

“Nothing to it then,” he let out a tired sigh as he drew another pull from his own tumbler. “ He only came by here once; I was never there to see him but one of my shop front hands remarked serving an [Enchanter], “ Yondouk paused. He regarded the cherry haired woman of his race still brooding over a busted job and gave another weary exhalation. “Perhaps you're right, we've become dull.”

”Haha, ” [Seeker] Holly laughed deprecatingly. “ There was no way to tell; all the items he bought were just your common enchanting supplies. Might have been another of his misdirections,”

”Yer think?” Yondouk's caterpillar-like brows quivered as he scoffed. He scratched at his bald head, a bit shiny even under the soft illumination of the Lux crystals. “That Alchemist took a shine to him,” Yondouk shrugged, “Wouldn't have looked out of place as a boot kisser working his way up the town circles being young and all. Maybe I judged him harshly.”

“So...ties with the sylvani?” Holly asked, finally sipping her own drink. The drink had gone a little flat from losing some of its fizz and the ice had melted away diluting some of its taste. Holly grimaced, pushing away the watery honey dew lager. She was still on the job, so she didn't have a chance of getting inebriated. Not like she could anyway, like any [Seeker] she always had a Potion of Rejuvenation to shake off the hangovers and [Deep Cleanse] was always at hand to reclaim her sobriety. And she was a dwarf for Eog’s sake! Those two livers were not for show.

Yondouk nodded grimly,” The sylvani don't treat their favors lightly. The lad must be acquainted with someone powerful,”

“It's a pity he's not one to go around showing off; It would have been easy to follow his trail.”

“By Eog, he's a wily one alright. Didn't even flinch when the council took him to task for strange incidents,”

“And you didn't think to document that?”

“Bah, woman. My [Seeker] days are well behind me, 'sides I was dealing with aership repairs down at the Port,” Yondouk said as he took another swig of his beer and slammed the tumbler onto the table between them

They were in a private bar; Yondouk's own private bar underneath his business premises. Having underground installation was not just a fad; besides, what's a dwarf without a subterranean structure? They were well at home beneath the ground.

“Well then, that's another dead end I suppose. I could go to the Lalilabs but that would just alert him that we're after him.”

“Hoh? You needn't get ahead of yourself, the Black Company might go after him too. ”

“Ugh yeah, the Mercenary charter on bounties. No wait…,” Holly Scowled. “ He hasn't been moved from the watchlist yet, the worst he'll get is in the greylist,” Holly added, swirling the glass tumbler as if trying to coax some bubbles from it before she put it down.

“Did you know that the Magocracy was here?”

“Truly?” Yondouk inquired. The aersmith got a kerchief to wipe off the rest of the foam from his beard before he turned his attention to his conversation partner. “ I am just hearing of this now,” he grunted.

“ Your informants are sleeping on the job Yondouk,” Holly said, slumping on the tabletop.

“Are you going to publicize his information?” Yondouk said with a quirk of his brow. “ We barely know that much about him. Most people who've seen his abilities say he was mostly an [Aeromancer]. Even the guild master seemed to think so but he was no fool.”

“That's not for me to decide, ” Holly replied. Just then her armacus buzzed. “Ah, I have to pick this…” the dwarven woman said, levering herself off the short bar stool. Before she left however, she added,” I need more information on that Mage. But first I am going to see Dasnoir.”

Being a [Seeker] was not a cushy job as young dwarves cut it out to be; well, most of them were women though. It was the only other thing that they could do besides leatherworking, rune crafting and other light crafts.

Their bodies were more predisposed towards light smithing unless they had skills like [Lesser Strength] and its ilk. Actually, they were more suited to working with their fingers and their craft was unmatched anywhere. The wurmskin gear Holly wore as she walked to she’d parked her Skid was proof of that.

It was stretchy, breathable and had a limited [Self-Repair] working incorporated into the leather. It could deflect piercing attacks, as for blunt attacks, not so much.

Sure it was no enchanted scalemail that could deflect a blow from a stone troll but being Seeker’s gear, it was more than what a Steel rank adventurer could afford. And speaking of adventurers, she’d already gotten into an altercation with drunk sorts who wanted to get handsy with her.

While close combat fighting was not really her forte, she really dispatched them quickly before they could draw attention. A drunken brawl among adventurers was not something the Guard would pay attention to. However, one where the last person standing was a woman who barely came up to the height of the shortest individual in the scuffle would raise eyebrows.

Holly could’ve used the rooftops to cross the town faster if not for the Guards who seemed to have gone back to their state of alertness after the merriment had died down. Other activity was from adventurers who’d taken a job to clear the roofs of wyverns carcasses. Leaving them to the mercy of stray hounds and owlcats was just a waste of good meat and hide. Already she’d walked around several of the parties lowering wyvern carcasses onto hired carts for conveyance to the Guild.

Her Skidbladnir, or Skid as she fondly called it, was parked outside the town's walls, in the forest between Aldmoor and Riftedge. If anyone were to stumble on it they would just mistake it for an impossibly regular boulder.

[Seeker] Holly was looking forward to getting to Riftedge. She knew there were several subterranean rivers that drained into the Rift forming picturesque views in the mornings when the misting waters formed rainbows.

It was also out of the way of nuisance and contained hidden coves where she could stretch her legs and rest a little as she waited for her reports. And most of all, it had dwarven bars that had the right stuff―not that watered down stuff that low vitality humans drank.

‘ I am daydreaming aren’t I?’ Holly mused as she popped candy into her mouth and felt the sweetness of glazed sugar over cavea slowly seep into her taste buds. It had become something of an addiction for her, kept her awake without having to chug on potions.

Past a certain point a potion overdose could give you the runs and Holly didn't fancy that for long haul dispatches. After making sure that the Guard at the gate was looking the other way, Holly slinked into the dark. The golem didn't even see her because she had a misdirection ward that was solely crafted to stump the hulking piles of animated rock. She got out without incident.

Outside, the smell of smoke still hung in the air, residual Pyr was still dissipating and any Pyromancer knew that if they were to cast any of their spellcraft there, it would be empowered several fold. The dwarven seeker wanted to investigate the site too but she’d rather get the information from Dansoir the Blackbeard. With his son having been at the scene when it happened it was easier to get information that way—yet another report she had to write. She popped in another cavea candy. She could damn well eat the whole bag if she wanted, her hazard bonus was almost as much as her payout.

Holly hurried along, thankful for the lack of foot traffic on the road. With a short [Haste] spell, which she’d learnt on her own mind you, she made it to the forest and headed to the location where she’d parked her Skid. First, she sent out a big telephysic pulse to see if there were any suspicious entities around and it returned a negative.

Satisfied, she did a coded rap on the front fuselage of the Skid, and the canopy popped outwards with a hiss of air. Lifting it all the way, Holly got inside to receive the missive that had drawn her attention to the armacus. She would have received it earlier but that was risky— Outgoing [Message] spells could be sent from anywhere but incomings had to be received inside their reconnaissance craft unless they were between a troll and a hard place—Holly didn't write the guidebook.

Holly made herself comfortable on the single seater, draping her feet over the instrument console, frowned and pulled them back. With a sigh, she went through the armacus authorization process before the message bloomed in her mind’s eye.

“[Message]; acquire information on subject from Dasnoir Blackbeard, alleged Arthur Sturmdrache, current status; watchlist level.”

‘Huh? They’ve already made a request to review the bounty? I was going there anyway’ Holly mused as she readied her craft for a short detour to Riftedge. ‘Arthur Sturmdrache huh? We have a name, now we need to find a face to go with it,’

The dwarven [Seeker] checked avenues of travel and decided that she could use the aboveground river to travel all the way. Her Skid was not meant to be seen or heard; covert was the keyword of this assignment.

The incident about the explosion was the talk of the outpost when Holly arrived at the port tower. All she had to do was flash her Triad insignia and she was let in. She observed with curious fascination, the Ikaros as its crafters and other maintenance workers crawled over the scaffolding around the aership as she walked up the stairs to the upper storey. One would have thought that the aership had come from a war with its tattered sails and soot pockmarking its hull. Fortunately that was the only damage of note, the sail was a loss for sure but the mercenary company could afford to cough up some for a new one.

There was no posturing whatsoever as Holly sat down with the Ikaros’ [Shipmaster], now sporting an expression so severe as if someone had chiseled them into his face. He was far removed from the carefree dwarf who had landed on Aldmoor’s walls and for a good reason too. There was some money riding on a bounty he wanted to have appraised and therefore, he had to put up his business face.

According to the dwarven Mercenary Charter, any encounter with possessors of illegal artifacts, air pirates or illegal trade conducted using dwarven aerships was to be logged for bounty appraisal with the Triad. In essence, the mercenary companies were subcontractors and privateers of sorts; even an organization that was the fantasy world equivalent of political and military organization had to outsource some specialists or spread itself thin and collapse.

It was especially pertinent now that the Triad was dealing with the threat of the Void Syndicate, an entity of deranged void mages going around seeking to destabilize the peace or something. But there was more to those disruptions than they let on; classified information reserved for the higher ups unfortunately.

“So, you sent a request for a bounty review? Do you have the scrying crystal that captured everything?”

The old dwarf just grunted, extending his gauntleted hand to receive the crystal from his son who stood off to the side with a similarly hard expression. The skin on one side of his face was an angry red, the aftermath of using a Potion of Healing to patch up a burn.

He’d also had to trim his beard a little to shed the singed hairs ; Holly almost wanted to laugh but she settled for a smile hidden behind a glass of rootberry spirit. There was an overpresent scowl from another young dwarf who looked like he had better things to do than attend meetings.

“ Here,” Dansoir said as he sent the scrying crystal skittering across the table to her.

‘That must be Lezbhan,’ Holly thought in amusement looking over the rim of her glass tumbler.

Holly pocketed the crystal into one of the storage spaces within her thigh pockets.

“Account of what happened, ” she said, extracting another crystal for recording purposes. Unattuned scrying crystals did not send the recordings anywhere, just retained them within until one had a scrying slate to extract them.

Holly waited patiently as she listened to the account of the port tower hand on duty who narrated what he saw. Then the younger Blackbeard gave his account of what transpired during the time leading up to the explosion. All that was corroborated by the elder Blackbeard. All the while the scrying crystal recorded everything so Holly to ensure that Holly captured everything.

Holly remained unfazed throughout, even about when they said they'd used an invisible weapon, not a spell or any runecraft they caught before the deep wurm became an incendiary from the inside out. It was thanks to the junior Blackbeard that the ship didn't crash after being caught in the shockwave.

“There's a reason to believe they survived their own weapon.” Dansoir grumbled. “ Unfortunately we were in no condition to go scouting the vicinity of the explosion; I doubt whatever weapon they used survived.”

‘Of course I know that, I saw the ship myself,’ Holly left unsaid.

“ Mmh,” Holly just nodded. She let the aftertaste of rootberry spirit linger on her tongue a while before she cleared her throat and spoke.

“The Triad shall review the recordings and get back to you with a [Message] on the bounty,”

“They'd better,” the Older blackbeard huffed. “Those mana sails won't buy themselves,” the old dwarf added before he got up and vacated the lounge. His son followed right behind him and Holly was left with the port hand who stared at her helplessly as if waiting to be dismissed. Holly was not of any mind to notice since she was busy mulling over her next steps.

‘By Ustrina's bosom, Something that dispelled Mana Seekers at the last moment and drew the deep wurm would have to be a powerful artifact’ Holly inwardly cringed. She thought about the chance that she would be tasked with hunting whoever possessed it, attempt to extract it through non-lethal means or if need be, call the Blackguard. She hoped she wouldn't need to use the last resort; and she needed new gear too for a long term assignment.

Holly had just seen how fast the mysterious craft could move and while she had a name, she didn't have a face to go with. She could covertly extract the memory from the town golems but that was just a shot in the dark. Also the dead golems she'd left back in the mansion she'd swept though didn't seem to be in any shape to have viable recordings. Humans literally sat on an information trove,

‘Such a pity they don't know the bounds of what the [Far Speak] spell can do,’ she again mused. She got up, noticing that one dwarf was still there waiting on her like some sort of valet. “Do you need anything?” She asked.

”No…” Lezbahn blinked, snapping out of his daze and embarrassedly saw himself out. Holly sent another [Message] confirming she had retrieved ther information from Dansoir. It was time to get back to her Skidbladnir. She really needed a bath and something filling to eat.