“The Champion of Storms?” Felica exclaimed.

“Don’t get too excited,” I told her with a smile. “I’ll start to think that you’re going to leave me for a Champion with rock-hard abs. Or worse, that you’re going to leave Kyle.”

“Don’t be silly!” she insisted, blushing a bit. “I would never! It’s just… well, the stories about the Champion of Storms are so much more exciting than the others.”

“All of them, or just the last one?” I asked.

“All of them,” Kyle confirmed. “Rakaro likes direct, overwhelming force, and his champions embody that. Lots of fight scenes in his stories.”

“I can’t claim the current one bucks the trend,” I admitted. “He looks like he’s been training, or fighting, very hard for a long time.”

“Probably both,” Kyle said. “He’s level six as well?”

“Yeah, and as far as I know he hasn’t been the beneficiary of a hacked dungeon run,” I said. “All hard work, I guess.”

“Did he say why he was here?” Cloridan asked.

“He’s here because he was invited— by the Isolationist faction if Tinidan’s slip is to be believed. I’m sure he has his own agenda, but he didn’t say what it was. How did your investigations go?”

“They were troubled,” Cloridan told me. “That is, they went well, but the implications are troubling.”

“Par for the course,” I muttered. “Let’s have it then.”

I’d sent everyone out together while I dealt with the Nine. Reynard because he knew the town and could find the people we needed. Cloridan because I didn’t trust Reynard and had a nose for sniffing out unsavoury types. Felicia and Kyle were there to back Cloridan up.

“First of all,” Cloridan said, “We found someone who could identify the arrows. Hidden Hollow, as we suspected.”

“Noted,” I said. I needed to find out who the Elder that represented that village was, whether they were here directly or had passed their proxy on. If they had handed their token to another Elder, I’d have to be at least a little suspicious of everyone else he held a token for.

Tinidan probably wouldn’t want to tell me that, but there had to be someone in the city who kept track of these things. Perhaps Lira would know, or be able to find out.

“So what’s the bad news,” I asked. Identifying the would-be assassins hardly rated as troubling news.

“One of the people we talked to asked about Reynard’s amulet,” Cloridan said. “He said he’d seen it being worn by others.”

“That is troubling,” I said quietly. “Has everyone still got their amulets?”

Everyone pulled out their defensive amulets for inspection, while I started activating [Sense Mana] and cast [Dispel Image]. None of the amulets showed any signs of mental intrusion. No one had suspicious invisible mana lines leading south. I relaxed a bit.

Not completely. As the one with the highest Soul, Felicia held the control that could reset the other amulets. We were betting that she had the best chance of resisting any mental magic that was used on her… but we hadn’t had a chance to test whether that would be enough.

“What’s the story with those amulets, anyway?” Reynard asked. He was sitting a little apart from the others as they made thier reports. We all looked at him and he shifted uncomfortably.

“I mean, I know that the Countess provides them,” he said. “And I know they’re magical. But what do they do?”

“What did the Countess tell you?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Just that I should wear it as long as I was working for her, and that I should always keep it visible. I kind of got the idea that it was what broke my geas, but she never actually said that.”

“You didn’t have in Oakway did you?” I asked. Thinking back, he hadn’t been wearing it.

“No?” he said. “My geas was broken before then, though, I…” he paused. “When did I get it?”

“If you don’t remember, then I certainly can’t tell you,” I said wryly. “But moving on… have you been contacted by any of the Countess’s… people since leaving Talnier.”

“No,” he said shortly.

“Did that surprise you?” I asked.

“It did,” he agreed, speaking carefully. “What’s the point of keeping an eye on you if I can’t report on what you’re doing?”

“And,” I added, “They could have passed on new orders, orders to break your deal and betray me.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“The thought crossed my mind that it was a possibility,” he said. “Can’t say I would have liked it—and she told me straight out she wouldn’t. But she’s the boss.”

“Quite,” I said coldly. “We have a pretty good idea now what the amulet does from seeing it in action in Talneir. It forms a long-distance link, allowing someone on the other end to use mind magic on anyone within range of the thing.”

He looked at me in surprise and then looked down at his amulet. “And you let me get close to you?” he asked.

“I chopped it off,” I told him. “I broke the link. It can be re-established, but only by reuniting it with the other end.”

He nodded slowly. “That explains a lot of stuff. She could get what she needed by reading my mind, and give me orders the same way.”

“Alas, you’ve been cut out of that loop,” I said.

He nodded again. “If you’re expecting me to turn on her Ladyship because she uses mind magic, you can think again. I threw in with her and she’s not the sort that takes breaking up easy.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Without a link to give you orders, you’re no more untrustworthy than any ex-guild oathbreaker.”

He chuckled at that but stopped when he realised something. “That’s what’s got you all heated up about those amulets. If her Ladyship has got people out here, they can get to me.”

“Or to me,” I said. “There’s no obvious reason why they wouldn’t act directly.”

He nodded amiably. “So those amulets are protection against mind magic,” he said. I nodded, choosing not to tell him that they were mostly ineffective. “So how did she get them out here?”

He paused in thought for a moment and then answered himself. “Hector. That’s why he was acting strangely. She got to him, and then he took a bunch of amulets out with him.”

“You were probably the one that brought all the amulets into the town in the first place, you know,” I said sharply.

“No, I never… ah, but I might not remember if I did, eh?”

“Probably not,” I agreed. “It doesn’t matter, though. There were any number of ways they could be smuggled in. We weren’t checking for them at the gates.”

Weren’t. We are now, I added to myself.

“So, are you going to throw me out?” Reynard asked.

“You don’t seem very concerned at the prospect,” I said.

“This is a nice place, but I’ve got friends I can stay with,” he replied easily. “Got a trade, can make some money if I need it. I could head back to Talnier, and get my link established again. I’ve got options.”

“I’m sure you do,” I agreed. “But I intend to hold you to the deal we made, at least for now.”

“As you like,” he said easily. “You’re the boss. Gonna give me one of those protection amulets?”

“No,” I told him. Not that I had any to spare, they’d all stayed in Talnier. “I don’t plan on giving the enemy a copy of my defences. We should be fine as long as we keep you away from amulets.”

I didn’t mention that, given a little time, I should be able to kill any amulets that I saw. He didn’t need to know.

“Anyway,” I told the group. “Our main concern is the people that the amulets have already affected. It’s not limited to the person who carries it, and we still don’t know what the goal is.”

“Should we let Tinidan or the Council know that there’s mind magic about?” Kyle asked. “They might have customs for dealing with it,” he added doubtfully.

“Not a bad idea,” I said. “They may look— and act— like a herd of cats, but they can be surprisingly sophisticated when they want to be.”

“Mind magic!” Lira said in shock. Her ears flicked back and forth in agitation. “That’s a very serious accusation!”

“I’m sure,” I said. “I don’t make it lightly. Anyone wearing an amulet like this one could be a source of it.”

“Then he’s—”

“This one is broken,” I assured her. “But others have been seen about the place.”

“Who? Where?”

“Our guy didn’t know,” Cloridan said. “Out of towner.”

“Was he a badger-kin?” I asked. Hidden Hollow was supposed to be mainly of that type.

“No, he never got a clear look, but he thought they were some kind of cat,” Cloridan said. “They had a hood up, which made wearing the amulet openly all the more obvious.”

“Is that all?” Lira asked anxiously. “I will take this to Master Tinidan immediately!”

“Wait, before you go,” I said. “Is there some kind of register of who is the representative of which villages?”

“Of course!” Lira replied, hopping impatiently from one foot to another.

“Is it open to the public? Or can you look something up for me?”

“I can take you there, first thing in the morning,” she assured me, “But now, I have to go!”

I let her go with a nod.

“Do you think it will help?” Kyle asked.

“It can’t hurt,” I replied. “Mind magic works best when you’re not expecting it. If you are, then mages can see it going on, at least.”

“So what do we do now?” Felicia asked.

“Now? We keep an eye on Reynard, we watch out for anyone suspicious, and we let the Council do its job.”

The four of us kept a watch that night, despite the supposed safety of the room. We didn’t want Reynard sneaking out to try and make contact with whoever was out there, and we weren’t confident that the rooms were as safe as they appeared. Morning arrived without incident though, and Lira arrived as we were eating breakfast.

“There’s been no news,” she said in response to our enquiries. “People are asking around about the amulets and the priests have been alerted.”

“Priests?” I asked.

“Priests of Naldyna have protections against Mind Magic,” she explained. “I think most priests do. Plus, they have a high Soul requirement.”

“Is that true?” I asked the others.

“I never heard of it,” Kyle answered. “But religion… isn’t as important back home as it is here.”

“Tonet could have mentioned something,” I muttered. “She’s supposed to be a Priestess and she’s involved in the defence.”

“If there’s just the one of her, maybe she didn’t want to do all the work?” Lira suggested. “Naldyna is very big on self-reliance.”

“We should have gotten the other temples more involved,” I said.

“I dunno if that would have worked,” Kyle said. “They don’t like getting involved in politics.”

“Naldyna being the exception,” I said.

“I think that’s more Tonet being the exception,” Cloridan put in. “She’s always had an agenda, and I don’t think it’s always lined up with the Council, Naldyna or even Kaito.”

“She did what Kaito told her to do,” I objected.

“Yeah, but she was doing her own thing, before and after that,” Cloridan pointed out. “Just as she worked with you, after she worked against you.”

“She’s probably acting in line with some faction of the Council,” I mused. “I should probably try to find out which. I don’t suppose you know, Lira?”

“That sounds like the kind of thing Master would know,” she admitted. “But… uh, I don’t think he wants to tell you that.”

“He probably doesn’t want us to know who’s representing Hidden Hollow either,” I said. “Are you still going to show us the register?”

“Yeah,” Lira said. One of her ears drooped. “You’re right, but knowing who speaks for whom is public knowledge. It has to be or people couldn’t trust what they were hearing. So he doesn’t want me to, but he won’t stop me.”

“Nicely put,” I told her. “Let’s get going. And if there’s anything else that your civics lessons tell you that we need to know, please speak up.”