Kris got to work immediately. While Orou and Grizz stayed in the barracks, he left, only to return an hour later, saying that he had found a spot to hide away for a few days. Grizz had already pulled out the black powder from his backpack and was disguising himself, though Orou didn’t see much point in disguising, after all, where else would you find a fifteen-meter snake simply slithering on the street.

Grizz pulled out a black cloak from his backpack and donned it before beckoning for Orou to come to him. Grizz held his hand out and was expecting something from Orou, but Orou wasn’t sure what he wanted. He sighed and said: “It’s easy, simply coil around me and we’ll be off.”

Orou stared at Grizz, puzzled by his idea. Wouldn’t it be obvious that he was under the cloak, especially considering his size? Slowly and hesitatingly, Orou started to slither up and around Grizz, trying his best to not constrict and kill Grizz. It took a while, especially considering that Orou had to readjust his body when Grizz complained about not having enough air to breathe or the fact that he was going to die any other second. Eventually, Orou had his head on Grizz’s head and they were ready to go. Kris was hysterically laughing and pointing at Grizz, saying that he looks ridiculous.

Grizz ignored his brother and after confirming the location, started to go deeper into the barracks. It looked like he had done this countless times as he slipped out of a back door and into an alley, moving from one shadow to another. He did so with practiced ease and quite frankly, Orou was impressed by how he moved and avoided getting detected, though he still didn’t see a purpose to this, after all, Orou could do just as well if not better.

When there were no alleyways to navigate, he confidently strode out into the street and surprisingly, not many people stared at him. Orou double checked if there was any magic involved by activating his spirit vision, but he could see nothing that would mask them from the public’s eye. After a few more minutes, they arrived at a small building, which looked like a small gambling house with a run-down sign at the front. Entering the building, he saw a few people sitting around a table, drinking liquor and playing some kind of card game. None of the patrons turned to look at Grizz and he made his way to the bartender, slipping him a note.

The bartender pointed towards one of the doors to the right of Grizz and without any noise, he made his way to the door and pushed it open. Before Orou was a spacious room, lavishly decorated with red silks and tapestries. Sitting on a red coach was an ape with light-grey fur reading a book, and although Orou couldn’t see his face clearly, he was pretty sure this was another one of Grizz’s brothers.

Grizz took off his cloak and Orou was finally free to move about freely. The first thing he did was slither next to the ape beastman and look at the book he was reading. It had a whole bunch of writing in it, but more importantly, it had spirits drawn in it. Although there was no formation for Orou to see, there were two spirits drawn. A regular blue spirit and a much bigger blue spirit, closely resembling the regular spirit, similar to the spirit he had seen in Dawn’s house, inhibiting the chandelier.

The beastman was so engrossed in reading the book that he didn’t even notice Orou slithering right next to him. Grizz stood and watched this with crossed arms and after a few seconds, he loudly coughed. This startled the beastman as he practically jumped up. He stared at Grizz in surprise before jumping up once more when he saw Orou so close to him.

“You scared me Grizz, I swear I’ll get a heart attack because of you one day,” he stood up and practically fled from Orou, quickly approaching Grizz’s side.

“Kris should be here any moment Izz, I figure that he didn’t have enough time to fill you in, but trust me, you’re not going to like what comes after that,” Grizz mischievously grinned at Izz and motioning over to Orou. Izz snuck a glance at Orou before slightly recoiling and saying: “No way, I don’t want anything to do with that thing. Count me out of this whole thing.”

Grizz put his arm around Izz’s head, more in a “you’re not getting out of here” manner than being friendly, saying: “Now, now, you might be pleasantly surprised after you hear the plan and what he can actually do, you’ll change your mind in no time.”

Izz was resisting with all his might before the door to the room opened and in came Kris. He paused, still standing in the doorway and looking strangely at the two of them, one desperately trying to escape and the other trying to keep him here. Izz was the first to speak as he practically shouted: “Kris, make him release me. You know that I can’t stand snakes and look at him, he’s practically a giant.”

“Stop it you two. From what Grizz told me, the situation is quite severe and Grizz has promised me that the snake will be needed,” Kris sighed and closed the door behind him while Grizz slowly released Izz from his hold. Orou caught Grizz winking at him, though he wasn’t sure what Grizz meant by that. Kris forced the two of them to sit down on the couch before Grizz started to explain to Izz what he had said to Kris a few hours ago.

“And that’s why I left so abruptly, any questions?” Grizz finished retelling his story before taking a shot of whatever alcohol was on the table. Izz pondered the issue for a few seconds before pointing at asking Grizz: “Right, but I still don’t understand, what part does he play in all of this.”

“That’s where you come in. You might not know, but this big guy right here has something special going for him. You need to teach him all about magic and as many spells as you can,” once more, Grizz winked at Orou and this time, Orou was ecstatic. Finally, after all this time he will have an opportunity to learn more magic.

“It’s not possible to teach a beast how to cast magic even if I wanted to and I’m not particularly inclined on teaching him.” Izz hesitatingly looked over at Orou only to find him staring at the book lying on the coach, trying his best to flip the page with his tongue. Izz quickly grabbed the book, his eyes closed in order to not look at Orou for too long.

“That’s what I thought before I learned of what he can do. He has the unique ability to see spirits and he’s intelligent enough to understand beastman speech. I have faith that he can learn spells, he seems to be practicing them every chance he gets at least.” Grizz stared at Orou while thinking to himself, recalling his past experiences. Izz had an expression of disbelief on his face and for the first time, he stared directly at Orou.

Izz didn’t say anything but instead, he started casting a spell, a formation of some kind appearing above Orou’s head. Orou quickly slithered backwards and stared directly at the formation, waiting for anything to appear, but to his disappointment, the formation disappeared after forming a few crisscrossed lines in the air.

“You’re absolutely right Grizz, he can see magic,” just as ecstatic Orou was about learning magic, Izz was ecstatic about finding out that Orou can see magic. His fear slightly waned as he continued to cast various spells, only for the formation to dissipate half-way. Orou got angrier and angrier each time Izz did so and after the third time, Orou hissed at Izz, making himself look as menacing as possible. Izz jumped backwards in fear and carefully looked at Orou, considering something or other in his head.

“I’ll try and do my best while teaching him, though I can’t promise any results. Don’t blame me if he can’t learn anything. One last thing, if he attacks me, I won’t care that he can see magic and I’ll retaliate,” Izz made up his mind and turned back to Grizz, confidently proclaiming that he would do it.

If he were to attack you, I don’t think you could live, especially if you’ve learned nothing new in these few months. Do your best to teach him all you know, I’d like to be done with all of this in a month or two, so be quick.”