Chapter 40 — Witches are Scary, Part II

When Ranger returned, Ria remembered that she was supposed to return the piece of Gebs shirt today. Jarrel had offered to go with her, but he wasn't back yet, and with Leon planning to join them for dinner, she wasn’t going to have time for that now anyway.

She didn’t want to go back on her agreement with Captain Bastach. Which meant there was only one solution. A risky solution. She would have to send Ranger out alone to deliver it.

Whether the guardsman would attack Ranger or not… well, Ranger was stronger, faster, and tougher thanks to the bond, as was proven during their trek through the wilds. Hopefully, he would be fine.

Ranger was excited to have a mission, and after sniffing the fabric scrap, took off into the soggy evening with the fabric held in his mouth. Ria returned to her research but kept some of her attention on Ranger’s situation through their shared bond.

The generalized locator scroll that accepted a voiced phrase to define ‘the thing or person sought’ took some tweaking from her initial concept, but after a few tries, she was able to get a decently acceptable result. Simple descriptions worked best. Complicated descriptions still worked but significantly reduced the effective range and duration.

Interestingly, the generalized locator worked for phrases like ‘person who purchased a phoenix quill’ and ‘person who calls herself a witch’. Which was kind of scary when she considered how easy it would be to find out someone’s darkest secrets just by asking the right questions. Ria would definitely need to look into methods to block divinations from being used against her.

There was one other result that she wasn’t sure how to feel about. Apparently, ‘grandmother’ and ‘butcher’ both pointed below when she turned the paper sideways, but ‘witch’ gave a weak response. It did eventually point at her, but only half-heartedly—like the divination was saying she was a witch-in-name-only and not a real witch.

While she was messing around, Ranger located a house that smelled of Gebs. She told him to leave the fabric on the front porch in front of the door. Then, she had him scratch at the door and take some distance.

Through Ranger’s vision, Ria saw a man holding a crossbow open the door warily. He froze when he saw the cut cloth. When Ranger woofed at him proudly, Ria couldn’t suppress a groan. The man aimed at Ranger but didn’t shoot. He slowly reached out to take the cloth and retreated back into his house, closing the door with a slam and the sound of metal being secured in place.

“What was that about, dad?” Ria heard Gebs voice from inside the house.

“That accursed witch sent her creature to return the piece of your shirt. It’s definitely a warning. What in the hells have you gotten me involved in, son?” Gebs’ father complained fearfully.

“I’m sorry, dad. I just thought I was helping out.”

“Too late to do anything about it now. Just toss this in the fire, in case there’s any dark magic on it.”

“Right.”

That could have gone better. Could have gone worse, too. After sighing to herself, Ria sent Ranger a congratulations on his mission success and told him to head back. He was definitely going to be in high-spirits when he returned.

Before Ranger got too far, he noticed that black cat from over by the spiced-meat place. The cat slinked into an alleyway, and Ria had Ranger go take a look, but it was gone by the time Ranger got there. She hoped that the cat would be safe from whatever or whoever was making the pets disappear but didn’t want to risk having Ranger wander about unattended any more than this.

Turning back to her work, Ria was overall pleased with the design of the generalized locator ward and went to work making a medium-quality parchment version of that one as well.

Ranger met up with Leon on the way back, so Ria used her remaining time to add usage instructions to her successful scroll attempts instead of starting on anything new. While writing, she thought that the healing scrolls would make a good next project. She did also want to try making a fire trap using her phoenix quill, but she had promised not to make explosives in the house.

Leon and a tail-wagging Ranger showed up just as she finished writing instructions on the last scroll.

“Did you send Ranger to find me?” Leon asked when the two of them entered her room.

“Woof!”

“Uh-uh.” Ria shook her head to deny it and started putting the finished scrolls away in the box she bought to protect her paper supplies. "Captain Bastach asked me to return the piece of shirt I cut from Gebs, and Ranger took care of it for me.”

“Woof! Woof!” Ranger barked proudly, his tail wagging even faster.

“Oh.” Leon seemed almost disappointed but soldiered onward. “Any luck with the scrolls?”

Ria grinned triumphantly and gave him a thumbs-up. “Yep. All done. Tested and works with a range of up to sixty paces.”

“Really?!” Leon looked surprised. “Already? That’s great!”

“Yep, yep. How about you?” Ria asked, curious about how his shopping went.

Leon grinned a huge grin and pulled a gemmed medallion out of his clothes. He proudly held it forward for her to inspect.

“Woah, that looks really nice!” Ria excitedly blurted out.

The medallion was made out of a heavy metal that had a color like copper but darker. Four small clear gems were placed near the top, bottom, left, and right. A dark smokey gem occupied the center, and an enchantment was engraved into the surface.

“What do you think?” Leon breathed out, half-worried that his proud purchase would get shot down.

“I think you spent the rest of your savings,” Ria replied with a laugh.

Leon looked to the side, embarrassed, and rushed to explain, “I did, but once I felt this one, I knew it was so much better than the others that I could afford, and it is enchanted to protect me from curses, charms, and any kind of malicious magic!”

The medallion really did feel like an excellent focus tool for earth magic. “Hmm. It does seem powerful, but why do I feel like some of those protections are aimed at me?”

“Ah!” Leon panicked as he realized. “It’s not like that! It’s just with all the talk of witches and the worry about what’s making the pets disappear… and I thought a real Knight would want to be protected against fire and lightning magic and such…”

Ria laughed. “I’m not sure you are helping your case.”

He looked away guiltily.

“Want to test it?” Ria asked suddenly and picked up one of the scrolls she had yet to put away. “Activate #9. Boy who likes me.”

The arrow pointed right at Leon, and his mouth dropped open in surprise. “Y-you can use it like that?!”

“Yep. Deactivate #9. Scary, isn’t it?” Ria put it in the box.

“Yeah… with that, you could easily find out if someone was a murderer or thief… or even a shapeshifting monster,” Leon looked at Ria with amazement at that last one.

“Heh. You’re giving me too much credit, Leon,” Ria denied. “I made that one to sell. But, I did think it might be a potentially useful backup if finding the pets using their fur fails. Speaking of which, any luck getting the pet hairs?”

Leon nodded and took a handful of small envelopes out of his belt pouch. “I ended up using these instead of the vials, since I couldn’t think of any easy way to label the vials.”

While Ria was looking in one of the envelopes that had the name ‘Lisa’ written on it, Leon put the empty vials on her desk. Inside the envelope were several hairs. “Good work, Leon. With this we should definitely be able to track them down.”

“Woof!”

Ria looked over at Ranger who was waiting expectantly. Ah! He’s waiting for his reward! “Thanks for waiting, buddy. I’ll get your reward now. Guess we should head down for dinner, Leon.”

“Ah, okay.” Leon nodded and went over to wait by Ranger.

Ria put the envelopes on her desk. More things for later.

Just then Jarrel poked his head in the doorway and let them know dinner was ready.