Hope

After much difficulty and coaxing, Desir managed to get Alice to help them help her. Elizabeth was quite insistent that location mattered for imbibing ambrosia, so they needed their Time mage to find somewhere worthwhile for herself. That mostly manifested in Alice glancing up from her bottle every few moments to look around as they backtracked South through the night.

Irwyn thought they were almost back to the border of Venen by the time she finally reacted to something. At first she had supposedly almost missed it but once they were steered in the right direction by her instructions it became unmistakable - to her that is. Irwyn still felt nothing even as they landed. Before them was a simple, ordinary looking meadow in the middle of a forest. Irwyn felt nothing unusual, though Alice seemed very sure it was the right place.

Elizabeth had managed to coach their Time about the process of imbibing. She seemed to even possess some items that would help in the process, though Irwyn wasn't sure why and didn't have the opportunity to ask. He had tried to listen in, but eventually turned to fruitless birdwatching instead.

Even when paying full attention and slowing down, they had yet to spot a single crow. Perhaps it was impatience acting up, given it had literally only been a few hours of effort. They could maybe hope for better results in the morning, since in the darkness they mostly relied on Elizabeth's superior night vision despite her being distracted. During the day with both Irwyn and - hopefully functual - Alice both on the lookout, the odds would greatly improve.

When she felt ready, the Steelmire heiress walked to into the clearing, and Irwyn finally beheld why they had chosen it. With every step she took, their Time mage visibly accelerated without casting any magic of her own. But there was more to it than that. Almost like the speed was distributed unequally, making her left leg move a bit faster than the other, only to wholly catch up moments later.

It seemed like tripping or at least stumbling would be unavoidable, but Alice showed no sign of struggling despite that, moving through the strange environment with natural ease. Which was probably good because she was still very visibly distracted. At the apparent center of the clearing every motion seemed sped up around a dozen times over from the outside and jittery due to the unevenness. The only person who would be able to tell exactly what the factor was happened to be busy, so Irwyn could only estimate that Alice took about five minutes of immobile silence before finally opening the bottle and gulping down her ambrosia.

Irwyn thereafter found the whole proceeding mildly interesting and wholly unenlightening. He was very happy for their companion, of course, but he had been hoping to glean some insight like he had when watching Elizabeth carve Void - glimpsing the steps of the carving. Yet Irwyn had basically no relationship with Time, and it showed. He felt surging magic and the vague hints of the element, but it was ultimately as useful to him personally as watching a particularly onerous tea ceremony stretched over about 10 minutes. Which made him secretly thankful that it was cut down for them from the presumed two hours due to the location.

Their Time mage also ended up knocked out at the end. Elizabeth seemed ready for that and tried to catch her body as Alice fell. Unfortunately, her spell came out wrong and late due to the dilation, letting their companion crumble to the dirt before the magic had a chance to arrive. Chagrinned and embarrassed, it still took Elizabeth a lot of effort to actually drag the unconscious body out, since she needed to be gentle despite the continuous shifts in dilation. Once that was done, Desir quickly moved to examine her state.

"This is unusual levels of exhaustion I am sensing," he frowned, hand on Alice's wrist. "The body is acting as if she hadn't slept in days, perhaps weeks. It probably goes Soul deep."

"I was bedridden for a full day after imbibing mine," Elizabeth commented. "Alice will likely be even worse off. This much is likely normal."

"It might be best if we stay in place at least until she wakes up then - since she has supernatural sense of direction, being flown around could conceivably end up unpleasant or worse."

"Does anyone have skin paint?" Waylan spoke up as soon as their companion was pressumed safe. "Or at least coal."

"We are not tarnishing her experience with a prank," Elizabeth shut him down immediately.

"Fine," the sneak easily shrugged it off. "But at least make her a bed. Larvish. So huge it will be embarrassing when she wakes up."

"Much more reasonable," Irwyn smiled and did move follow Waylan's idea. "Though, I could just do worms instead."

"Alright, the two of us should go birdwatching," Desir suggested, placing a hand on Waylan's shoulder before he could retort. The sneak responded by immediately vanishing. Not that the shapeshifter let go just because of that.

"We shouldn't split the group into parties without a Concept," Elizabeth immediately protested.

"You know, I have been thinking, and that could be our problem," Desir said. "The crows can supposedly detect pursuit, right? What if they can somehow sense Concepts and that's why we have not seen any yet? Right now is the best place to try it out, since this is a forest in the middle of nowhere. Waylan and I can avoid any hostile fauna if there is anything actually dangerous, and people are impossibly unlikely."

"He has a point," Irwyn admitted as Elizabeth frowned. If nothing else, it was a convenient time to test Desir's hypothesis.

"Fine," she relented. "But don't stray too far. If something happens, send a highly visible spell into the sky and one of us will come rushing."

"See ya," Waylan bid his goodbye before she could change her mind, vanishing from sight again. Irwyn had not even noticed when he had reappeared but it was distinctly not in Desir's grip.

"Wriggled out, did you?" the shapeshifter asked.

"You don't hold hard enough, since you cannot feel me."

"I will err on the side of caution then and instead crush your shoulder next time," Desir mused as they walked into the woods.

That left Irwyn and Elizabeth practically alone, with only Alice softly snoring in her extravagant bed. Just lavish rather than larvish as Waylan had demanded. They shared a look and Irwyn got to work manifesting furniture while Elizabeth began making tea. Irwyn put some effort into it to be a match for the bed, so she was actually pouring the first cup by the time he was finished. What had risen around them was a luxurious, if somewhat mismatched, parlor.

"Is the table supposed to look like the one at my mansion?" she asked with a glint in her eyes.

"And there is a lot more to find," he grinned. It had struck his fancy at the moment, so he had ended up hiding a lot of big and small details in the designs. He might not be able to create anything permanent, but as long as he kept direct hold of the magic, he could still manifest details like most artisans could only dream off.

The two of them ended up talking about many things, large and small. It had not been that long since their last hear-to-heart, but the current one was much lower in stakes. Casual, even if some more important topics reared their heads. For example, Irwyn more closely explained Desir's situation, as there had not been ample time for that before. But there was no real tension in any of that, no genuine uncertainty or fear. Just good company. Group hijinks were enjoyable, but Irwyn thought he could also get used to something, well, quieter.

Hours vanished startingly fast. Alice eventually woke up and while she remained groggy and in bed, she was all smiles as she tested out small spells. As in, small in size but still rather potent in power. Because while she could seemingly not move, it did not stop her from casting easily the strongest spells of her life when it came to the number of intentions.

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"Eight," she chuckled. "I am almost at three of them with minimal practice. Nine and then Concepts are really not that far, are they? I was blustering with six months before, but now just three sound feasible."

"Do you have a plan for yours?" Elizabeth inquired.

"Yep, had my first domain and the way there mapped out since I was maybe 16," she tried to nod, then cringed. "Ugh, still cannot move. Almost at all."

"It will get better fast," Elizabeth promised. "Since the ambrosia elevates your affinity and potential, it causes a misalignment between body and Soul - as those changes took place primarily within. That change is now being transferred over to flesh at varying speeds. Brain, eyes, and heart will have been first while you still slumbered. Now things will gradually progress from those points, as well as other organs and eventually even blood vessels. The ends of your feet and hands will probably feel numb and unresponsive for at least a day longer, but you should be able to mostly function in a few hours with some magic to help you move and grab objects."

"Explains why my back feels like jelly," she said. "Where is the rest?"

"Birdwatching," Irwyn answered.

"Are they now?" she asked with clear doubt.

"Desir hypothesized that travelling without a Concept nearby might make the task easier."

"And he was right," Waylan said, appearing out of nowhere, as was his wont.

"Did you just get back?" Irwyn took it in stride, smoothly turning to his old friend.

"No, I have been waiting for that in for… like an hour," the sneak said in a complete deadpan. Irwyn, frustratingly, could not tell whether that had been a joke.

As he was thinking about that, Waylan whistled, which got Desir to leave a hiding spot behind a nearby-ish tree. They were on the edge of the time-dilated clearing, but there was still a bit of distance to the treeline, so they waited for their last companion.

"Waylan had a rather brilliant idea," Desir exclaimed as he approached.

"Unlikely," Irwyn immediately countered.

"I thought, maybe if we had a crow, we could find another," Waylan ignored the jab and explained. "And then it hit, Desir can change shape."

"Reproducing the iconic caw took some trial and error, but I did eventually manage it with some changes to the vocal cords," their shapeshifter admitted. "Which did actually attract a crow to us. One which I then captured and examined."

"Then went all crow man," Waylan sagely nodded.

"I didn't go that far with the subsequent transformation, but copying the call and the right pheromones was good enough, since I was only trying to get a bigger sample size. I am also pretty sure the crows here do actually have a magical organ that somehow helps them perceive when they are being watched and instinctively react to such. Fascinating, and I have absolutely no idea how it works besides that it somehow sends that information to the brain as…"

"The point being?" Elizabeth interrupted.

"We attracted two more, which I likewise examined. I think that I managed to put a bit of tracking magic on the three that should bypass their ability to perceive pursuit and thus avoid any gatherings as we were warned. Three different methods, to be precise, so If we follow them, at least one should hopefully lead us to this conspiracy."

"Murder!" Alice weakly exclaimed, still unable to lift her head.

"Can she move?" Desir inquired.

"No, but moving her should be fine now," Elizabeth said, then turned to Irwyn. "If you would?"

And he did, lifting everyone on their own platforms as per usual, as well as Alice in the embarrassingly extravagant bed. He assumed the only reason she had not shown any reaction to that was because she could still not look around enough.

"So, the three have diverged," Desir quickly explained. "All flew roughly South, but at a different angles from us. It's been an hour at least for each, so that should be plenty."

"Let's see the closest one?" Irwyn suggested.

"Hard to tell which one is closest," the shapeshifter shook his head. "Trying to avoid that tracking means I had to get creative. And convoluted solutions are rarely optimal."

"What did you even do?" Elizabeth pondered.

"For the first one, I put tracking magic inside what seemed to be the anti-tracking organ's blind spot within the body. For the second I altered its physiology, namely pheromone glands, so that the bird would produce an unnatural smell that I can roughly track. For the last, I thought that since they supposedly eat secrets, I would give it one which I can find it by afterward."

"How?" Irwyn asked.

"A memetic curse."

"A what?" Waylan questioned.

"Weren't you there when he did it?" Irwyn turned to the sneak with a raised eyebrow.

"Something that proliferates through just the knowledge of it," Elizabeth explained ignored them. "Where did you come across something like that?"

"I was inflicted with it as a tracking method once. All bearers of this curse are somewhat aware of each other. It can be spread through the knowledge of just a few specific sentences, most likely how I was tracked all the way to this Realm in the first place. Through much trouble, I have managed to get it modified in a way where it's slightly different and thus disconnected from the original. It's not feasible to actually remove wholly, but I am now the only being bound to this version. Well, suddenly there happens to also be a crow, which I will have to get rid of later."

"Let's go for the cursed crow then, since we will have to find it eventually anyway," Irwyn suggested, which was quickly approved.

"That way," Desir instructed, pointing slightly to the side. "Distance is hard to gouge, but direction is easy enough. It's either traveling in a line away from us or mostly still for now. Promising."

Ten minutes of flight later, Desir stopped them, saying they had flown over the crow, just as they were traveling above a thicket. No one had noticed anything from above, so Irwyn descended them while everyone else tried their best to figure out where their target was. Only to realize that there was nothing. Only maybe-oaks and relative silence all around.

"Further down," Desir determined with some mild confusion.

"I will dig," Elizabeth did not hesitate with action. "Alice, can you keep track of any caves?"

"Nothing better to do anyway," their still immobile heiress replied as Irwyn put her bed down. "Feel nothing right now."

"Good. Desir, the exact spot please."

With Void magic erasing the soil, Elizabeth worked incredibly quickly. She excavated downward, creating a tunnel wide enough for all of their group to comfortably fit. Her performance made Irwyn briefly wonder whether Void was particularly useful for mining, or if it was just the daughter of House Blackburg being the exception with her degree of power. Either way, he brought the platforms down right behind her.

"I feel something, maybe a full cave," Alice commented when they must have been 20 meters down at least. "Just a bit further, it's somewhat obscured by some kind of… illusion? I think the ambrosia also scrambled my sense for space. It will take some getting used to."

"Still in the same spot," Desir confirmed before anyone could ask.

"Be ready for any surprises," Elizabeth nodded and continued digging.

Ten seconds later, she breached the top of the cavern. When there was no hostile reaction, Irwyn brought them all down, quickly realizing it was rather tall. He also did not need to even summon any light as the visibility was plentiful even before they had dug a hole through the ceiling. Quickly tracking down the sources, Irwyn realized that there were channels within the rock that sunlight was passing through. Likely through mirrors if he was perceiving things right in dozens upon dozens of places, eventually projecting all that unto crystalline spots on the ceiling where it refracted across the whole room.

As for the cave itself, it reminded Irwyn a bit of the fae's jungle, albeit on a much smaller scale. There were several broadleaf trees, though none so overgrown as to reach the ceiling. Actually, most of them were very similar in height reaching about halfway to the top. How exactly that was maintained Irwyn wasn't too sure.

As for wildlife, there were, well, crows. At least a hundred of them from a cursory glance. All of which were ignoring their intrusion. Even without Elizabeth's veil, they were not reacting in any way, or at least it didn't seem like they were. The birds were still cawing, hopping around, and doing what Irwyn presumed were generic bird things. But there was definitely no flinching or fleeing away from them.

"This is certainly a good hiding spot," Desir whistled.

"I feel no magic, must have been difficult to setup," Elizabeth commented, looking around like everyone else.

"Wow, a cave ceiling with a hole in it," amend that. Everyone else except the still immobile Time mage who was forced to just stare up.

"Bring me to the ground," Waylan instructed, and Irwyn did as much, ignoring Alice's babbling.

The birds kept still didn't react to them, but Waylan moved with purpose. He allowed everyone to watch him tread towards an empty area in between the trees. Irwyn saw nothing off about the site, but Waylan clearly did as the he retrieved the scroll, pushing it out towards a seemingly empty spot. There was a brief flash of white light, then the scroll felt out of his hand, leaving the sneak frozen in place.

Desir immediately approached but did not quite touch the other man, instead examining him from a short distance away. "I think he is receiving some insight or knowledge based on increased brain activity. Doesn't seem dangerous for now," he concluded with a nod, then stepped away again.

"The scroll is blank now," Elizabeth noted towards the dropped item, though they left it there for now.

"Reporting: The ceiling remains unchanged except for the tree now blocking part of it."

"You got your crow?" Irwyn inquired as they waited.

"Yep," Desir nodded. "First thing I did."

Then they waited, briefly. Waylan only took a minute before stirring. "Ugh," he immediately exclaimed.

"Headache?" Desir asked with a knowing smile.

"Proper mark-grain, even."

"Tends to happen with direct information transfer," Desir nodded. "What did you learn?"

"Well, I just found out about a great dining place," Waylan grinned.