Sage activated the first level of the Timeless Eyes once again, looking into the past with ‘Hindsight’. Rewinding time as he saw the cage come back into the room, some of the men returning from a back room to make the purchase, his own presence walking past for just a moment, back even further to when they all first walked up to the cage. Sage slowed things down and then let it playback. Not just seeing what happened, but feeling like he was there. All of his senses engaged as he listened to their conversation firsthand.

“Here it is. The variant I spoke about.”

“A Tortoise Hare? Who cares if it’s a variant. They’re useless.”

“Normally, yes. Just look closer. Do you see the markings on its eyes and legs? Those are the same as a Bloodbone Hare.”

The leader of the group looked where the Beast Tamer indicated before he finally nodded, “That’s true, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, there has never been a known Tortoise Hare version of the Bloodbone Hare. Bloodbone Hare’s only live on the tops of mountains, and the high ranking ones all hate Tortoises. There’s no way they’d be interbreeding or mutating from exposure.”

“Then, how do you explain this one?”

The Tamer looked around carefully before leaning closer and lowering his voice, “Habitat. I think it grew up near some sort of treasure that caused it to change this way. If we use a hypnosis technique we can make it lead us back to its home ground. The hunter who brought it in caught it in a canyon surrounded by mountains, but Bloodbone Hare’s live on top of mountains. That means it came down from one of those mountains.”

“So, if we figure out which one, there might be some great treasure on it? How sure of this are you?”

The Tamer looked a bit embarrassed, “Only about fifty fifty, but the Tortoise Hare isn’t very expensive…”

“You just need my Clan’s Blood Hypnosis technique, is that it?”

The Tamer nodded.

“Then we shall go and find this treasure. We can discuss how to split it once we find it.”

Sage kept listening to the conversation, learning of the exact set of mountains they were talking about before he closed his eyes and deactivated the technique. Finally, a good use. I thought it was just useful for tracking or detective work. I didn’t realize Hindsight would also be good for spying.

Since he didn’t have enough money to pick up anything else useful, Sage made a note to return to this ‘Strange Creatures’ establishment later. For now, he took off towards the mountains that those men were speaking of. The group of men were all actually more powerful than he was, the four cronies were level 38 while the Tamer and Leader had already advanced to 41. The gap to a higher rank was great, but Sage was curious enough to test his luck. He wasn’t confident of beating them, but with all his tricks he could probably escape if he needed to.

Anyone else would take this as a fool’s errand, wanting to follow people who had advanced to Foundation Building. Advancing to Rank 4 unlocked Spirit Sense and drastically improved their powers of perception. Sage was a rarity. He’d already unlocked his own spirit sense some time ago and now he had a way of hiding from the spirit sense of others. It wasn’t foolproof, but Sage assumed they were new enough that he could go unnoticed. Especially if they were busy doing something else and not looking out for him behind them.

Sage used the Chameleon Mantis to head to the canyon and mountains the group had spoken of. He had no idea when they would be showing up. Nor where they would show up, so Sage just let the Mantis do as it wished. They sat and waited in ambush, catching some spirit animals so the the Mantis could gorge itself. Sage shared some of the kills with his other insects, reading books from a Memory Sphere while waiting within the Mantid’s internal space. Every few hours he’d have the Mantis fly around the area and search around for traces of people.

On the third day he was there, he finally noticed signs of humans. A small clearing between the trees had been cleaned of all rocks and vegetation like a helicopter landing site. It was just blank dirt, but Sage noticed signs of burn marks and scratches in the dirt. It looked like a quickly performed ritual using some sort of array. Sage closed his eyes and called up Hindsight once more, rewinding time till he found the group of men from before. They cleared the area and the leader cut his arm with a strange silver knife, putting some of his blood onto the Tortoise Hare’s tongue. Then the let the Hare out of a cage and instead of darting off into the woods it obediently led them through the woods.

Sage was about to deactivate the technique, but he instead tried out something new. His right eye was closed, so he used it to peek through the Mantid’s eyes. It took a little getting used to, and made him feel like he was crossing his eyes, but eventually he reached a state of equilibrium and matched up the vision of the past with the sight from the present. Sage led the Mantis along in the tracks of the group that had passed here a few hours ago.

Moving at a more rapid pace than the ones they were tracking they eventually caught up to them halfway up a mountain side. Once they reached the base of the correct mountain the leader of the men and the Beast Tamer had brought out flying mounts and carried the whole group up the mountain. The Hare led them to where they were now, their ascent of the mountain stopped as they found a large gap. This particular mountain had a twin peak, looking almost like the mountain had been slashed by a giant blade and had its peak split in half.

Between the two peaks the rock split and it led down to where they were now. The split between the peaks actually formed a sort of pass and the three flying creatures, the two large mounts and the hidden chameleon mantis, flew through it and entered into what appeared to be a hidden valley. The entrances at either side of the twin peaks seemed to be narrow, but the space beyond the crack opened up and turned into hundreds of acres of forest land. The snow on the mountain peaks and around the pass didn’t reach to here, nor was it just a land of rock and scree like the rest of the mountain.

Somehow the area was sheltered from the elements and this valley was a bed of life. The Tortoise Hare seemed quite happy to have returned to its home and the group followed it to a burrow where it met other Hares. At that point the group of men that Sage was following just tore apart the set of rabbit holes in their search for treasure. The families of Tortoise Hares just had to run away, not even getting to watch their homes getting destroyed. The men didn’t seem to care about the rabbits any longer. The Hare’s didn’t have the treasure they were looking for, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t in the valley.

Sage moved the Chameleon Mantis to sit quietly on a large tree branch. He had no problem with just watching them as they searched the area. The Mantis would show up to their spirit sense, but for now it was just a big bug hunting for food. As long as it didn’t show hostility to their group, Sage figured there was a good chance he would be left alone. His guess was correct. The group of six immediately split up and started searching the area for signs of special energy or ruins, looking for treasure. They didn’t care about the bugs or beasts in the area, only dealing with those that directly assaulted them. They weren’t here to collect monster parts, they were here to look for treasure.

Eventually night fell and the group returned to a nearby area to set up camp. Sage kept a reasonable distance from them and watched them as they slept. Sage could skip sleep for a few days without suffering too much, so he kept watch to make sure nothing unusual happened. A few hours later his suspicion proved fruitful. One of the four men at rank 3 slipped out of his tent and slunk away quietly. A few minutes later, another one of them slipped out and seemed to be following the first one’s footprints.

Hah, somebody found something and didn’t say anything so they could steal it for themselves during the night. It’s just too bad someone else seems to have figured it out.