Chapter 89: Sparkle Thread

Jaxir had expected the Twinkle Village to make this easy for him, mostly because Grimm’s mansion had given him a very convenient way to cheat his way inside the first time. That expectation lasted until he opened his map and realized this village had almost nothing in common with the one where he’d killed Grimm.

The streets curved differently, the Village Head’s mansion sat much closer to the center of town, and, most importantly, the local dungeon wasn’t connected to it at all. Jaxir stared at the map for several seconds before letting out a sigh.

"This game is too realistic."

Nick glanced over his shoulder. "You’re complaining that the villages aren’t copy-pasted?"

"Yes." Jaxir shifted the map with one hand, checking the streets around the mansion again. "Copy-pasted villages would be very convenient right now."

When he’d gone after Grimm, the dungeon had given him a second way into the Village Head’s mansion without walking straight through the front entrance. There was nothing like that here, which meant any obvious approach would take him through the guards stationed around the mansion and announce exactly what he was doing before he ever reached his target.

That wouldn’t necessarily stop him, but Grimm had already been annoying enough without half a village joining the fight. Worse, there hadn’t been any major commotion here to pull the guards away from their normal duties, so several patrols still moved through the surrounding roads while more stood directly outside the mansion.

Jaxir studied the routes for another moment before his attention drifted toward Nick, and a grin slowly spread across his face. Nick noticed almost immediately and stopped looking at the map.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

Jaxir’s grin widened enough that Nick’s expression tightened. "You said you’re an assassin, no? Go do assassin things."

Nick stared at him. "What does that even mean?"

"You’ll figure it out."

**

Jaxir sat near the window of a rented room with one leg crossed over the other, his attention fixed on a single dot moving across the edge of his map. Getting the room had cost him a little over 100,000 copper, which was highway robbery even by Divinity’s standards, but it gave him a clear view of the Village Head’s mansion from several streets away.

Nick’s job hadn’t actually been to assassinate anyone. The Sparkling Third Eye showed Jaxir plenty of dots moving through its halo, but that wasn’t particularly useful when he had no idea which one belonged to the man he wanted.

Nick only needed to sneak close enough to confirm the Village Head’s identity and send Jaxir the position afterward. Considering how much Nick had complained when Jaxir first gave him the job, it had taken him considerably less time than expected.

Now there was only one problem left.

The Village Head wasn’t coming outside.

Jaxir watched the dot move through the mansion for close to 20 minutes before reaching into his Inventory. If he couldn’t sneak inside without turning the entire estate into a battlefield, then convincing the man to leave on his own sounded much more reasonable.

One of his new Vestigem Cards slipped between his fingers.

―

Name: Sparkle Thread

Grade: Uncommon

MP Cost: 4

Description: Link the user’s perception to one moving target, allowing their position and direction of movement to be sensed without direct sight.

Duration: 10 minutes

Recommended Classes: Ranged; Magic; Melee

―

Jaxir read the card again, then looked toward the mansion.

The range wasn’t listed, which could either mean the Card was far more useful than it looked or that he was about to waste one of his two copies. Vestigem Card descriptions rarely explained everything their circuits were capable of doing anyway, so there wasn’t much point staring at it.

"Let’s see."

Jaxir activated the Card and felt his Mana pour through the waiting circuits before spreading outward. The sensation was immediately different from Twinkle Mana. There was no obvious push or pull, no change in direction, and no sense of force being exerted across the space between himself and the target.

Instead, his awareness seemed to stretch.

The distant dot on his map suddenly felt different from every other one around it, and although Jaxir still couldn’t see through the buildings between them, he could feel the Village Head’s movement as a faint impression at the edge of his senses. Every step carried through the connection, each turn shifting the thread just enough for Jaxir to recognize the change.

Jaxir’s grin returned. "So that’s how you work."

He closed his eyes and focused more closely on the connection, following the structure Sparkle Thread had created between himself and the Village Head. The Card wasn’t simply detecting movement, it had formed a route for information to travel through, one delicate enough that Jaxir doubted he would have noticed it at all if Luxy hadn’t spent so much time explaining how the Naturals used Mana.

The thread carried information back toward him every time the Village Head moved, which meant something was already flowing in one direction. Jaxir’s grin slowly widened as a thought occurred to him.

What happened if he made a little of it flow the other way?

He didn’t interfere immediately. Jaxir let the Card work normally for several seconds while Attune helped him follow the minute changes passing through the circuit, and only when he felt confident that he understood the return flow did he feed the smallest possible amount of Mana into it.

The thread trembled under the pressure, and Jaxir stopped before the disturbance could grow any larger. That had been too obvious.

If the Village Head had any experience with tracking techniques, a sudden surge along the connection would tell him immediately that someone was doing something strange. Jaxir didn’t want him to recognize the bait, he wanted the man to believe whoever was tracking him had simply made a mistake.

He started again with less Mana, allowing the change to build so slowly that even he had trouble noticing it at first. Rather than forcing his presence down the connection, Jaxir introduced small imperfections into the flow, the kind someone inexperienced might leave behind while trying to maintain a long-distance sensory technique.

A little too much Mana leaked through one section before he corrected it, then another imbalance appeared several seconds later. Jaxir kept the mistakes inconsistent enough that they felt accidental rather than patterned, and with every one he allowed the connection to reveal slightly more of the direction it had come from.

When he opened his eyes and looked at the map again, the Village Head’s dot had stopped moving.

Jaxir’s smile grew.

If he was right, the man wouldn’t feel someone deliberately pulling him toward a trap. He would feel a poorly concealed tracking technique and assume whoever had been stupid enough to use it had accidentally exposed their own position.

Jaxir leaned back in his chair and continued feeding tiny flaws into Sparkle Thread, each one making the path toward his rented room a little clearer without ever turning into an obvious invitation. He didn’t need to compel the Village Head to leave or drag him outside with some elaborate trick. He only needed to make the man curious enough to come looking.

Across the village, inside the mansion, the Village Head came to a stop and remained still for several seconds. His eyes narrowed before his head slowly turned toward the distant building where Jaxir was waiting.