198 – Vigilant

“Cryptic doesn’t suit you, Master,” Suyin said after his rhetorical question had lingered in the air for a moment. “Really: who was she, or what was that?”

Master worked his jaw. “I don’t know. But what happened is that I looked closer than I should have. She accused me of peeping, and that isn’t wholly wrong.”

At hearing some of his flippant tone return, Suyin frowned. The exchange clearly wasn’t something to brush off.

And what exactly had he seen? She assumed a passive skill had told him something no ordinary person would’ve discovered, or he’d activated a skill outright. The latter would explain why the necromancer had stomped up. It was outrageously rude to activate an analysis ability on someone—easily worth starting a fight over.

Before she could ask a follow-up question, Master sighed. “I don’t know why I did something so careless. Now I’ve gone and gotten her interested in me. Worse, you. Bah. Always causing trouble for myself, I knew there’d be people like her running around.”

“What did you see?” Suyin insisted. She couldn’t imagine what would have made him sober up so fast, much less treat the woman like a proper threat.

“That isn’t for you to worry about,” he said plainly. “And I mean that. Drop it, and don’t bring it up again.”

Suyin was taken aback. Though he was her master, Faleryn didn’t often give her commands. She struggled with herself for a moment, then bowed with her fists pressed together. “This disciple will do as she’s been told.”

He scratched his cheek. “Don’t be a poor sport about it. You know how you stay out of trouble? When you see a fire in the distance, you turn around and hurry the other way. Pretend we never saw her. Maybe it’ll be enough that this is where it ends. The strategy has worked before.”

“One might argue knowledge of a threat helps better evade it.”

“Brat. You’re not wrong, but there’s nothing more that you need to know besides what you saw with your own two eyes.”

Suyin assumed he meant the key facts: that the necromancer with the painted face could move so fast Suyin couldn’t perceive her, and that the Titled was visibly an unstable person.

…and yes, those factors were more than enough to know she needed to tread carefully. Just because she had a casual relationship with one entity who could slice up a mountain didn’t mean she was safe from the ire and impulses of other monstrously powerful individuals. Master Faleryn was almost alone when it came to reaching the peak of strength, but almost was a crucial clarifier.

Even so, Suyin battled with her curiosity, her questions not wanting to stay swallowed.

Master interrupted that internal debate by saying, “And make sure you keep sharp. Be ready to activate your artifacts if you need to.” He tapped the fingers on his left hand. “I don’t think she’ll come after you, but who knows? She’s clearly not all there in the head.”

Suyin glanced down at the aforementioned items. She had a silver band and a black band on her index and middle fingers. Master had given them in preparation for this tournament. One would protect her from a sudden attack of essentially any type, and the other would teleport her a short distance and cloak her with powerful obscuring spells. His way of keeping her safe.

Bottled magic of that sort was absurdly expensive, especially when it was level-agnostic and strong enough to hold up against unspecified Titled opponents, but any ancient Sword Saint would have a few ridiculous artifacts in their collection.

“I’ll be vigilant,” Suyin said. Master had seemed paranoid about bumping into other Titled from the start, but she hadn’t truly digested that it was dangerous to be the disciple of someone so important. He had hidden himself for her entire life, so she’d never had to deal with the side effects of his status till now.

She remembered how the necromancer had fixated on her, taking interest solely because of Master’s protective posture, and suppressed a shiver.

“Now, let’s forget that unpleasantness and hope whatever she’s here for keeps her distracted,” Master said. He turned, shoved his hands into his pockets, and began whistling as he walked away.

Suyin followed beside him, her thoughts troubled… and her curiosity lingering. What was the necromancer ‘here for’? And had Master’s explanation of ‘sensing something’ been the whole truth? The necromancer clearly hadn’t recognized Master himself, and Suyin wouldn’t say it had seemed like he had known her face either, but his reaction had been nearly instant. Something seemed fishy.

Maybe he knows her by reputation? Or rumor?

Master had been around for a long time, and he had intersected with many stories across many kingdoms. He would have a higher chance than most to have heard of or met a given ‘mysterious Titled.’

A short training session followed by meditation helped calm her thoughts, though only somewhat. Master had told her to drop the topic, so she did; that avenue of questioning was closed to her. For all his faults, she trusted him, and she would do as her master had commanded.

Lady Vianora showed up during Suyin’s first fight of the day—an opening contest that was disappointingly easy.

Once the formality had concluded, Suyin strode up and offered a smile to the woman’s apprentice, then bowed to the golden-eyed elf. “Lady Vianora. The morning has treated you well?”

“It has. Well done down there.” Vianora nodded at the arena.

Suyin accepted the nicety, though she couldn’t help but think that her warm-ups had been better exercise. She was itching to get started with the real fights. “Thank you. Have you registered already? Shall we head to the training facility?”

Vianora offered her hand. One silently invoked teleportation spell later, the environment had shifted around them. Suyin stuffed down the queasy feelings that came with the trip and wondered yet again how Vianora could cast spatial magic on three people across such a distance. Suyin was new to Meridian, but she had a basic understanding of the city’s layout: they’d traveled thousands of paces, well outside the standard range of [Blink]. She didn’t know the precise limitations of mages, but even for an archmage, such a spell had to take heaps of mana. Yet Vianora hadn’t shown a flicker of strain.

Having bumped into another powerful, mysterious person whose story she didn’t know not an hour earlier, Suyin found herself growing aggravated at the persistent lack of answers. She’d never had to deal with mystery before. Despite her being the disciple of a Sword Saint, her life had ironically been rather calm… barring the incident that had left her in Master’s custody to begin with, of course.

But Vianora wasn’t eager to share her past; that had been made repeatedly clear.

Suyin vented the frustration by questioning the mage on what she knew wouldn’t be overstepping, once the woman’s apprentice had been set up and they’d found a ring to themselves.

“I hope my master kept his inappropriate behavior to a minimum, Lady Vianora,” she began by way of introduction.

“Surprisingly, he did.”

“He mentioned something about ‘what happened near the end of the night.’ Master has not always held his booze well… truly, he did not disgrace himself?”

Vianora considered for a moment, then calmly said, “He didn’t.”

Suyin paused, confused at the firm answer. Master had certainly been hinting at some debacle. Or maybe not a debacle? she thought.

“He mentioned something questionable happened,” she said after a few moments of failing to come up with a theory. “I was going to apologize on his behalf, but it seems that’s not necessary…?”

After several training sessions, Suyin had improved at reading Vianora’s blank expressions, so the short hesitation and the way her eyes slid away set off alarm bells in her head.

“The night went fine,” Vianora said. “He grew emotional near the end, but it was harmless.”

‘Emotional’? Suyin’s eyes narrowed as a suspicion finally trickled in. Maybe Master hadn’t been hinting at a mishap, but rather he’d been teasing herabout something.

“Did he… perhaps… discuss me while in such a state?”

Vianora didn’t squirm; Suyin didn’t think the woman capable of such a thing. She did however shift her weight from one foot to the other. “Briefly. Where should we begin with today’s lessons?”

The clear deflection had horror growing in Suyin. Maybe she didn’t want an answer after all. “He didn’t show you that… that illusion artifact, did he? Because he’s been explicitly banned from doing so.” The polite tone she tried to maintain morphed into a growl. “I will gut him like a pig if he did!”

“I’ve developed a few more spell variations I need to work into this style,” the woman hastily said. “Maybe that’s where we can start?”

The response confirmed everything. Suyin had spent enough time around Vianora to know the woman wasn’t subtlety personified, no matter the stony mask.

The revelation had her feeling faint, and also boiling hot. Most people had the privilege of letting their awkward youth fade into the past. Her unfortunate reality was that her Sword Saint of a master had rare artifacts to preserve those moments forever—and she’d made her opinions very clear on what she thought of him storing them, let alone sharing.

More to the point: getting drunk and presenting them to strangers was one thing. Presenting them to Lady Vianora, a teacher, a Titled, and someone Suyin would continue working with for a while longer, was another sin altogether. A whole different category of grievance.

He better not have. I… I don’t know what I’ll do, but he’ll regret it.

Calm down. He won’t have shown her the worst ones. An illusion of her grinning with two missing front teeth came to mind. He has to have some level of self-preservation. Suyin had ways of making his life miserable even if the man could cut rivers in twain.

She dropped the line of questioning as much because of Vianora’s continued dodging as because she didn’t want the full answer anymore. Dizzily, she went through the typical warm-up, then addressed the woman’s previous suggestion to incorporate her new spell variations. Her movements were perhaps stiffer than usual throughout.

“I might be gone for the next few days,” Vianora said halfway through, without a segue.

The change of subject smoothed her tangled thoughts out if just thanks to it serving as a distraction. “Is that so?”

“I had business I was putting off until… certain factors were met. And they have been. It might last a day, or several. I might miss the tournament entirely. Though I doubt it’ll come to that.”

Vianora hadn’t seemed particularly motivated to win, but the nonchalance toward possibly abandoning the competition still surprised Suyin. “I assume it’s personal?”

Vianora nodded.

“Hm. Now’s the best time for it, I guess,” Suyin said. “Orichalcum fights won’t be kicking off for a few days.”

“That’s the idea.”

The orichalcum tier could honestly be called ‘the proper qualifiers.’ Maybe there would be one or two mithrils sneaking into the tournament thanks to favorable matchups or exceptional talent—perhaps Suyin would’ve been one, if she were fifty levels lower—but the other one hundred and twenty-six or twenty-seven would be orichalcum and Titled. Meaning everything up through mithril didn’t really matter.

It also meant the organizers needed to wait until people had filtered up. Most renowned Titled like the Guardian Sage would have automatic placements—it’d be insulting to make war heroes waste their time brawling orichalcums—but that privilege didn’t extend to the lower ranks, or to the unknowns.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” Suyin said. “You know what tavern we’re staying at.” She bowed. “I am of course honored to continue our training whenever you feel inclined.”

“So polite,” Vianora said, lips twitching. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, and maybe Suyin was overthinking the action, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Vianora had been shown illusions she never should have seen and was now viewing her more childishly because of it.

Yes, I’m going to gut him, Suyin decided.

“But as I said, I don’t know how long or short it’ll be,” Vianora continued. “There’s a real chance I miss the tournament, though it’s small. It can’t be put off regardless. And this has been very… enlightening.” She waved between the two of them, indicating their training. “That’s all, simply letting you know why, in case I don’t show up the next few days.”

“May the heavens see you through safely, whatever it is.”

“Thank you.”

Yet another mystery added to the pile, Suyin thought as they resumed. What would have an extremely powerful swordmaster like Vianora running off right before the final qualifiers start?