The week of being under house arrest was simultaneously restful and boring. It let Kay’s arms get back to mostly normal, but he was also annoyed at being confined for a week.

“Why are we stuck in here?” He demanded one morning as he and Eleniah sat in the living room.

She looked up from her book. “The City Guard is investigating everything that happened, and they don’t want us running off if they decide we’re guilty of something.”

“Guilty of what? I got kidnapped, and you were rescuing me!”

She turned a page. “Yes, but I also attacked a building full of people while I was doing that. With the Nelamians having connections with the City Council, it’s probably taking twice as long as usual while they try and get us in trouble.” She looked at him over the book. “Stop bitching and get back to practicing. There’s nothing we can do about it, so you might as well train.”

Kay sighed and looked back at the blood floating over his hand. He concentrated on it, forcing it to move to his will. It morphed and twisted, and then there was a solid ring floating above his palm. With a thought, he shaped it into a coin and set it on the table to spin. Staring at the blood coin, Kay made it turn faster, not letting it slow down. It made a whirring noise as it sat there in the same place, spinning away.

Eleniah glanced at the coin. “Nice trick. Now make something more complex; you really need to work the skill.”

The coin floated into the air, still spinning, then dropped into Kay’s open hand. “What should I make?”

“Doesn’t matter, just make something with more parts to it, or a more difficult shape.”

Kay looked around the room for something to make. Eventually, his gaze settled on the cup he was drinking out of. That was easy to make, as was the tiny chair he made after that. Kay glanced over at Eleniah reading. Slowly the simple chair he’d made became the chair she was sitting in. Then a featureless figure formed, holding a tiny book. He tried to make the figure look like his teacher, but he couldn’t keep the details in place.

“That isn’t bad.” Kay glanced up and saw her looking at the floating figure. “I’m not surprised that you can’t get fine details yet. What level is the skill at?”

“Still at six.”

“Hmm.” She gazed at the shaped blood for a while. “I haven’t heard of any skills exactly like this before, although I’m sure they’re out there. We’ll have to experiment to find out more.” She stared some more. “The skill says that higher levels mean your creations last longer, right?”

“Right, and the class effect does the same thing.”

[————————————————————]

Class: Blood Shaper

- As long as they have a source of blood, Blood Shapers are never unarmed or unarmored. Able to make weapons, armor, and tools out of blood, they are highly adaptable to any situation they find themselves in.

Class Effect: Items created through Shape Blood last longer before reverting to liquid blood.

[————————————————————]

Kay chuckled a little as he reread the description. Eleniah’s insistence on training him to react and deal with ambushes better, being “adaptable to any situation” would be ideal. He definitely agreed with her about needing training, too. Not just to avoid her constant lectures either, she was totally right; he really shouldn’t have let a group of men knock him unconscious in an alley.

“Hey.” Eleniah snapped in front of his face, and he jerked back. “I’m talking to you.”

“Sorry.”

She rolled her eyes. “As I was saying. Make something simple, like that ring from earlier, and set it down. Then do the same thing with a more complex object, like the model of a person in a chair or something similar, and do the same thing. But make sure it’s a new one! We’re going to leave them alone and see how long they last.”

“Alright.” Kay didn’t know where his enchanted blood canteen was, and he hadn’t been able to leave and get more blood, so he made a small cut on his arm. The last one had already started to heal. He did as Eleniah told him, made the two objects, and then set them down.

Eleniah went back to reading while Kay continued to practice his skills. The knock on the door had them both looking up.

“I’ll get it,” Eleniah said as she stood up. “You stay here.”

A moment later, Kay heard the sounds of someone talking and Eleniah’s reply. A group of city guards walked, all carrying something.

Eleniah followed them in, and she was followed by Captain Armis. “Just put everything in there.” She pointed towards the dining room. “We’ll sort everything later.”

The guards carrying what looked like Kay’s gear gently placed everything on the table. They all glanced at the Captain, who gestured for them to leave with his head. When they’d left, he glanced at Eleniah. “Mind if I take a seat?”

“What’s up?” She asked as she motioned at one of the chairs.

Armis nodded in thanks and sat. “There are a few things I need to fill you in on.”

“What happened?”

“The investigation into your attack on the Nelamian owned building and the surrounding events has finished.” He nodded as Eleniah and Kay stared at him in shock. “The two of you have been found innocent of any crimes, and you are no longer under house arrest.”

“What!?” Eleniah shouted incredulously, “We weren’t even questioned!”

“I know.” Captain Armis looked off to the side with a grimace. “I brought that up several times, but the Council decided it did not need testimony from the two of you to make its decision.”

Kay frowned. “Wait, the Council made the ruling? Not a judge?”

“For crimes or events of a certain… level of importance, the Council itself sits in judgment. Judges are used for less major crimes.”

“That sounds corrupt.” Kay pointed out.

Captain Armis’ very pointed silence was a reply of its own.

“After all the shit they pulled, the Nelamians managed to keep their grip on the Council that tight?” Eleniah paced back and forth across the doorway.

“I’m not sure what happened to their influence, to be honest.” The Captain replied, “The results of the investigation were… mixed.”

Eleniah paused in her pacing and whipped her head to look at him. “Mixed results?”

“The Council ruled that Graceful Success and all its members are banished from the city for their crimes. A long list of evidence of their crimes was provided to the city by the Adventurer’s Guild,” He shot Eleniah a knowing look, “And they were found guilty of almost all of it, from collusion with bandits, kidnapping you, Kay, assaulting Tumbling Rapids citizens, fraud, larceny, destruction of property, breaking into government buildings, theft of government property and records, attempting to intimidate business owners, and a lot more.”

“They left it at just banishment?” Kay asked, mostly trying to distract Armis from Eleniah’s confused look. “After all that?”

“Several Graceful Success members, including Carter and Coultron, are Nelamian nobles. Imprisoning or executing them would most likely start a war with Nelam that the city wouldn’t be able to afford. The violent crimes they committed didn’t include murder, and the most important of the government records were recovered, so the Council decided that confiscating their assets to repay those hurt by their crimes and banishing them would suffice.”

Eleniah nodded. “That’s pretty common when it comes to foreign interests, Kay. Unless someone commits a really terrible crime, they’re banished, and relations between the two factions worsen. Sometimes there are more political punishments as well, like trade embargoes or such.”

“The Council has been discussing sanctions of that nature as well.”

“Well, all that sounds pretty good, so what made it a mixed result?” Eleniah asked Armis.

“While Graceful Success and its members were banished, the Illuminators and their Director were allowed to stay in the city, as there wasn’t enough evidence to tie them to the criminal actions, even if they are both from Nelam.”

“What?” Kay shook his head. “Kurtis Nel literally told me he was involved in that!”

“Really?” Captain Armis asked, looking very interested.

Kay stopped to think. “Well… technically, he said that he had told Carter multiple times that radical or criminal operations were a terrible idea or something like that. But he definitely admitted that he was working to annex Tumbling Rapids for Nelam.”

“But that isn’t the same thing as being guilty of the same crimes as Carter.” Captain Armis replied. “If they had been trying to conquer the city or raise an insurrection or something of that nature, that would be one thing, but trying to get a city to join Nelam peacefully isn’t a crime.”

“That’s aggravating.”

“Yes, well, we’ve turned over the items of yours that we recovered from the building, and I’ve informed you that your house arrest is over.” Captain Armis stood up, then paused in the doorway. “I would recommend that you leave the city sooner rather than later. If Kurtis Nel was the one who influenced the Council to ignore your testimony, that means he’s still very influential. There’s no telling what he might try to do if he still thinks of you as an enemy and no telling what he could get away with.” He nodded farewell at them both, then saw himself out.

Eleniah stared at the wall, obviously deep in thought.

“Hey.” Kay tried to get her attention. “You alright?”

“Where the hell did they get all that evidence he talked about?” She asked aloud.

“What?”

“I hadn’t found anything like that!” Her brow was furrowed in confusion. “I had evidence of minor bribery, but that gets overlooked all the time, so I was still hunting for more evidence to use against them. And the Adventurer’s Guild said they were using only me because they lacked any other investigators. So where did the information come from?”

“If we’re voicing strange questions we have now, what’s up with Kurtis Nel?”

“What do you mean?”

Kay rubbed at his neck as he thought about it. “Why did he tell me so much in the first place? That stuff he said about Carter’s plans being bad and how he told him not to do that stuff. When I tried to get him to talk about what they were doing, he literally told me he wouldn’t fall for that and then told me a bunch of stuff!”

“That is weird.” Eleniah’s frown turned into a scowl. “Why does Alahna always get me into these fucking messes?” She walked out of the room. “I’m going to go hit something!”

Kay watched her leave, then got up and cleaned up his things that the Guard had brought back. Sitting underneath the pants he’d been wearing when he’d gotten nabbed was the small bag he’d received during his escape. He picked it up and weighed it in his hand. He couldn’t feel anything shift within it, and it was pretty light. He pulled open the drawstring and looked inside. The first inch or so into the bag looked normal, just the opening of the bag. Everything after that was an impenetrable darkness.

Kay stared into the void in the tiny bag, then slowly closed it. He walked outside with it in his hand. “Hey, Eleniah?”

She looked over at him from where she’d been punching one of the training dummies she’d set up in the backyard. “What?”

“Let’s say you’re a member of an organization working for a country, and you’re gathering up important items that need to be kept safe during an attack on the building you’re in. Would you give those important items to the first person you saw?”

“No. No, I wouldn’t. What’s with the hypothetical?”

“Right after I escaped from the cell and made it to the main floor, I ran into this woman who said that this bag,” He held it up, “Was full of important things that needed to be kept safe, and then she ran off after giving it to me.”

Eleniah walked closer, gazing at the bag. “Huh. Were you in the same ‘I’m a prisoner’ outfit you were in when that Coultron fuck broke your arms?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it's another thing to add to the weird list of shit my cousin has gotten me into.” She grabbed the bag and pulled it open. “And it’s a dimensional bag, of course, it is.”

Kay stared at Eleniah, his mind wandering as she cursed her cousin out. He felt like there was a connection somewhere that would explain this. Like he had all the pieces to a puzzle and just hadn’t figured out what went where yet.

“She lies about everything when it comes to her dumb ass plans!” She shouted. “It is such a pain in my ass! Why can’t she just tell me what she wants me to do? Does she not trust me?”

The pieces all lined up in Kay’s mind. “Oh, that is so conniving.”

“What?”

“Your cousin lies to you about how you fit into her plans.”

“Yeah, and I hate it!”

“She lied to get you here to take the job. Could she have been lying about what she wanted you to do here?”

Eleniah slowly turned to look at him. “Keep going.”

“I don’t think she and the Adventurer’s Guild wanted you here to investigate. They wanted you here as a distraction. The Queen of the Seramist Isle’s cousin coming to look into Nelamian plans in Tumbling Rapids? I bet it drew a lot of eyes to your investigation. Meanwhile, the real investigator or spy or whatever the real plan was decided to use your escaping student as a free courier to get the things she was stealing out of the building.” He tossed the bag into the air and caught it again, a wry look on his face. “I wonder if the Nelamians even know it’s missing?”

Kay watched as Eleniah slowly stiffened in place, rage overtaking her expression. She vanished, and one of the training dummies slammed into the wall around the yard, cracking the stone. She stalked back over to him. “I’m going to do something to her. I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to get her back for this.”

“You think I’m right?”

“It sounds exactly like her kind of plan.” She looked at the bag again. “We need to move our timetable for leaving up. If the Captain is right and Kurtis Nel still thinks of us as enemies, he’s going to come after us twice as hard to get his stuff back if he finds out we have it.”

“Even if he doesn’t want anything else to do with us, it’ll change his mind if he does find out we have whatever this is.”

“Right.” She scrubbed at her face. “And anything one of my cousin’s spies decided to steal from them is probably important.” She sighed deeply then turned to go back inside. “Pack your stuff. We’ll deal with everything important and leave tomorrow.” She paused and looked back at him. “And then your training to be better at dealing with ambushes starts.”