Amalia sat at Ranvir’s feet, her legs crossed as she examined Alexis. Her eyes saw nothing in the dark, but her soul-sight perceived well enough to make out the general shape of the young person’s face.

“Is he asleep?” Alexis asked. The voice sounded strained, as if trying to speak deeper than natural. It was less noticeable two hours before, but Alexis had been doing a lot of talking since then. Even voices grew tired.

“For now,” Amalia acknowledged. “Though I doubt he’ll allow himself to rest for long.”

She grabbed his naked foot fondly, wiggling it. Ranvir didn’t realize the kind of figure he struck, especially in the dark. Purple eyes glowing just enough to show a hint at the physique usually hidden under his poorly fitted clothes.

Cleaning boat hulls wasn’t easy work, and his years working at the docks showed on his shoulders and back. Not to mention the work he’d done, mostly by himself, on the house. Ranvir might’ve lost a lot of his bodyweight during his convalescence at Elpir’s, but time and hard work had put the muscles and more back on his frame, without adding much in the way of fat.

Amalia knew Alexis was deathly afraid of Ranvir. His outburst during their initial break out had affected Alexis deeply.

Amalia pursed her lips, turning her attention back to the captive. “I am curious what you intent to do now?”

“Me?” Alexis’ voice quivered, pitch lightening. “I’m not sure what I can do? What do you mean?”

Amalia cocked her head. “I’m a scout. I’ll need to go scouting soon. We can plan if we don’t know what they’re up to. What are you going to do when I leave?”

“Uh,” Alexis paused, jaw working up and down. “You’re going to leave me? Alone with Ranvir?” definite quiver of fear in her voice. “But what if I attack him?”

“Then we’ll likely have to find another hiding place. I doubt we could live with the smell you’d leave behind.”

“Leave behind?”

“After he’s smeared you all over the wall.”

Amalia heard Alexis clear her throat. “Are you so sure he’d notice me? I know he’s a sensitive, but you don’t think I have what it takes to sneak up and kill him?”

“First, you’d have to get around the insects,” Amalia hadn’t actually noticed more than three of them in the cavern, but they were difficult to detect at the best of times. “Then you’d have to not avoid the notice of the Spirit of Ideation living within him. After that, you’d have to deliver a decisive enough blow to kill him outright.”

Alexis wobbled her head back and forth. “I guess you have a point.”

“Here’s two things you could do,” Amalia said, grabbing her backpack. “Three things, actually. You probably want to take that wrap off. I’m sure it’s choking the life out of you at this point. I assume it’s still wet?”

“I- ah, don’t know what you’re…”

“Talking about? Really? You think I—whose entire job is to notice things—wouldn’t see it?”

“You’d be the first,” Alexis grumbled.

“Mihail realizes as well.”

Alexis frowned and ran a hand through her hair. “Really?”

“He told me as much when he realized I noticed it, too.”

“How could you tell?”

“You have no laryngeal prominence,” then as she noticed Alexis’ quiet confusion. “No apple on your throat. You’re pretty good at modulating your voice, but it falters when you’re tired or caught by surprise. When we were traveling, as well as when I abducted you, the bindings on your chest were occasionally noticeable, even through your shirt.”

“Oh,” Alexis said in what sounded like a much more normal tone of voice for her.

“Don’t feel bad,” Amalia said. “It’s a smart choice. I’d have said in any other mercenary band it might even have been necessary. But your other two options, is to sit there and do nothing, or…” Amalia drew out a small stone a few degrees hotter than the ambient temperature. “You can prepare some basic food for breakfast.”

Alexis, but after a moment, she reached towards Amalia. Her soul-sight might pick Amalia out with intense accuracy, but it couldn’t really sense her bag. Amalia handed it over, then jumped into the water.

The moment she was fully submerged in the salty liquid, Streamlined’s passive effect activated. The water moved alongside Amalia, turning a leisurely swim into a headlong sprint. With her stats it made the murk-mana based braced faster than an arrow in-flight. She exited the cave, light piercing the waters down to her as she shot between the pillars of rock.

With Aqueous, the dark waters did little to obscure Amalia’s sight, but her attention wasn’t turned towards the abyss below. First, she spent nearly half an hour finding a secondary and tertiary hideout, in case Alexis compromised their current place.

Emerging from the waters with less noise than a whisper between two-lovers, and she knew that for a fact, Amalia crawled into a growth of unrefined fyla. The stone was several meters tall, much bigger than the average, allowing her to scout much further.

Normally, such a heightened position would give just a great vantage to someone looking for her, but the perpetual gloom of the fold aided her in this case. Shrouded in Darkness had a low mana cost, making the shadows a little thicker, smearing her image a little more than usual. Enough that she turned from a silhouette to another part of the growth from any reasonable distance.

Immediately, she noticed three groups of mercenaries. The farthest ranging one was close enough that she could sense them with her soul-sight, the resonance from their power-items making them nearly impossible to ignore. Unfortunately, she’d never been able to detect the specifics of the items, so she couldn’t tell which stats they boosted.

These guys, she called the patrols. They were going from platform to platform in groups of fours and fives. In fact, one was standing on top of their platform right now. Most of them had their weapons out and were clearly still on the hunt for Ranvir.

She clicked her tongue and turned her attention to the next group.

These took a little longer to examine. They were too far away for her soul-sight to reach, but nowhere was too far for her to gaze lines. She closed her eyes, making sure she had a firm grip on the stones before beginning her observations. Though she had the strength to hold herself up for hours at a time, that didn’t help if she lacked the presence of mind to stay on the stone.

The mercenaries were using stone mana, Abilities mostly with touches of their Absolute to break free rocks… fyla stone, she realized a moment later. Miners? She thought, considering the implication. They don’t think they’ll make a profit from this? Is Sabas expecting to see massive losses? Or does he fear the merchants won’t pay him? If he intended to let us go, he’d retracted the patrols, so what’s his game here? Is he just being greedy?

Amalia shook her head. She dismissed the ideas from her mind. She didn’t have enough information to come up with a satisfying answer. Sabas didn’t strike her as the type to build up insurmountable debts. That wouldn’t have been the first time I’m wrong. The thought came sour and unbidden.

She climbed down from the stone, keeping the mass between her and the patrols until she could slip into the water. This really was an ideal scenario for her. She could sneak through trees pretty well. Murk mana did good with physical enhancement and hiding herself, but sneaking through water took almost no effort at all. She barely spent any mana while doing it at speeds most people couldn’t even dream of reaching.

She scouted forth, getting closer to the miners to check if she could sense anything damning from them. She didn’t, unfortunately, but noticed that Mihail was with them. Fortunately for her, he wasn’t much of a tracker. He really needed lessons in properly gazing the lines. Relying on Amanaris was folly.

She tried to get close enough to their main camp, but they’d planted a disrupter at the center. It was a bold choice, but Amalia couldn’t get close enough to see what it was made of. If they’d brought it out inside the fold, though, she’d have to assume it wasn’t fragile.

The hollow thumping booms disrupted both the murk mana within and around her in the water. From where she caught it, the interruption wasn’t a problem, but if she’d been any closer her Abilities could’ve faltered entirely.

That’s annoying, she groused. Annoying, but smart.

She considered doing another round, but decided she’d been gone long enough and should probably begin heading back.