Fortunately for Vance and his mouth full of feet, Nathaniel was the one to break the silence.

"Nicholas, this is Vance. He's a member of our household, and is apparently holding something quite interesting in that bucket of his." Nathaniel made a gesture towards Vance, beckoning him over. Vance approached, his head hung a bit low as he did.

"Sorry for interrupting. I was in a bit of a panic. Nice to meet you, Nicholas."

"Likewise, young man. It's a shame we're not meeting under better circumstances. I'm afraid I must dispense with the niceties and ask you to explain." Nicholas' voice was strong and was perpetually a little hoarse. Vance found it quite intimidating. It seemed like Nicholas was the bigger of the two brothers, standing a handful of inches taller than Nathaniel.

"What's going on, Vance?" James interrupted before Vance could reply and was in Vance's personal space before he could move an inch. James grabbed the rim of the bucket, tilted it towards himself and glanced inside. Then, he flinched backwards quickly. He put a hand to his mouth and started retching. It only lasted a moment before he exclaimed "What the hell is that?!"

Nathaniel put out his hand, clearly asking Vance to pass him the bucket. Thanks to his mana sense, Vance picked up on it and handed it over. Nathaniel took it, glanced inside and then called over to his brother.

"Nick, look at this."

Both brothers were looking into the bucket and their heads slowly turned back to Vance.

"I think it's probably a good time for you to explain, Vance." Nathaniel's voice was purposefully calm, but his tone betrayed his seriousness.

"It's from last night. I was sick and threw up in that bucket. A minute ago I went to clean it out before Malcolm would chance upon it and when I cast my mana sense in there, I felt this horrible flood of emotions. I thought it might be dark mana related so..."

"You came to me. Good instinct. Vance, I need to check you over. I know this is unpleasant for you, but-"

"It's fine, I know the risks of dark mana. Do it. Besides, it's not every day I get a chance to study light mana. It might be unpleasant, but I might learn something." Vance put on a brave face, though his lips were tightly pressed together.

"Admirable. Brace yourself."

Vance confined his mana sense to his own body as Nathaniel sent a burst of light mana into him. To Vance, exposure to light mana meant nausea, a loss of focus and all-around strange sensations. Even so, he did his best to try and catch glimpses of this alien mana as it travelled at immeasurable speeds through his body. Vance found that his body's reaction wasn't quite as extreme this time, having experienced this once before, but it was still fairly severe. Just as Vance was on the verge of asking for his bucket back, Nathaniel pulled his hand away, extracting the remaining light mana.

Vance stumbled a little in place, then regained his poise. He raised his hands to his head and rubbed his temples, feeling the start of a headache coming on.

"Anything?" James asked.

"Nothing."

"That's good, right?" Vance asked, shaking his head.

"Yes, though it doesn't explain why you're throwing up dark mana. I've seen such a thing only once before, in a case of possession. Though, I don't quite remember..." Nathaniel began pacing around the room as he spoke.

"Hold on, I remember that. You told me it was because the demon was relatively weak and had possessed a powerful Arcanist. You said that it was because it was, effectively, losing its battle with its host." Nicholas moved in Nathaniel's way and spoke at him.

Nathaniel snapped his fingers and pointed at his brother. "Yes, that's right. We theorised that it was the host expelling some of the dark mana using its natural processes. Quite a feat of magical intuition, considering the host's body had no real method of interacting with dark mana in any significant way. In Vance's case..."

"He has exceptional sensitivity to mana. If he was exposed to dark mana, and he was subconsciously aware of it, then it's no surprise that his body would try to get rid of it. It just doesn't explain why there's none left, that'd mean he'd purged it all." James finished his father's sentence.

A little surprised, Nathaniel turned to his son.

"I've been reading on the subject," James said, a little flustered. A light chuckle escaped Nathaniel's lips as he turned back to Vance.

"Do you have any idea where you might've been exposed to dark mana? Have you sensed anything strange or out of place?"

Vance thought carefully for a moment. He couldn't recall anything specific.

"Just the last few nights. I've been a bit restless, waking in the night and... well, was sick last night. If I had to guess, I'd say then is the most likely time, but that would mean..." Vance reasoned out loud, beginning to worry himself as his theory progressed.

"It'd mean there's a source of dark mana somewhere inside, or around the house." Nicholas finished the sentiment.

Nathaniel sighed, then made his way out of the room. A few moments later, he returned from the kitchen, carrying with him a plate of food and pre-prepared drinks. Malcolm joined him and began bringing other food into the living room, where they began placing the food out on the table.

Maddison seemed a little perplexed. "Dear, what are you doing?"

"If there's even a slight chance that there's a demon or other source of dark mana near our home, then we're spending tonight together in this room. That, and I'm sweeping the building and grounds. There's no sense doing so without a good selection of food and drink, we have a guest." Nathaniel put on an obvious facade of positivity. He did his best to make his impromptu plan seem more like a social gathering than a fortification.

Nathaniel left the rest to Malcolm and came over to Vance.

"Vance, I would like to ask something of you," Nathaniel spoke quietly so that just Vance would hear him.

"Whatever I can do..." Vance felt his eyebrows shoot up unintentionally. Clearly, he was eager for something to keep himself occupied.

"You're going to hate this, but I need you to stay up tonight and keep your mana sense on high alert. It sounds like sensing dark mana might be pretty unpleasant for you, but it's very important that we know it's coming, can you do that?"

Vance wasn't entirely confident that he could stay awake all night of his own accord, considering the previous two nights.

"Yes, absolutely. I'll task James with keeping me awake if I start to slip."

"Good, and thank you for bringing this to me. If you had delayed, we could've been in danger. Though, maybe next time scan the room first, eh?" Nathaniel gave Vance a gentle pat on the shoulder and made his way over to Maddison, with who he had a quiet conversation.

"Nick, how's your fire shift?" Nathaniel asked.

"Still solid."

"Good, stay sharp. I'll be back in a few minutes. Vance, I'm going to sweep the inside of the house. I'll keep a steady stream of wind mana around me, you can use that to keep track of me. If that mana suddenly becomes a lot more intense, or you sense a large amount of light mana, take that to mean that I've found something and get everybody out of the building, understood?"

"Got it." Vance suddenly felt a lot of pressure. Though, in contrast to Nathaniel's task, his job was very, very easy.

"Dad, why aren't we just leaving now?" James asked, clearly concerned.

"In case something is following us. Better to be on familiar ground. Besides, I used to hunt demons for a living. I'm prepared for something like this. Nick knows what to do if something gets in here while I'm away, you'll be fine."

Nicholas placed a hand on James' shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. Nathaniel made his way out of the room and Vance positioned himself in the middle of the room, pushing his mana sense out to cover the whole interior.

"Well, you really turned that on its head." James came over and sat by Vance, a nervous laugh creeping through his words.

"Yeah, sorry about that. We had that really solid plan of not putting our feet in our mouths, too."

A quiet moment went past before James leaned over and whispered to Vance again.

"Can I tell you something really stupid?"

"Sure."

"I'm secretly a little glad this is happening. I've been so on edge about this whole thing, it's nice to see something change, even if it is absolutely horrifying."

Vance just nodded at that and nudged an elbow gently into James.

"You're right, that is really stupid."

"Shut up."

The two shared a shallow laugh while Maddison and Nick were talking on the other side of the room. James was quiet for the next half an hour or so while Vance kept a metaphorical eye on Nathaniel. The sweep of the house that he performed was diligent. He spent a few minutes in each room, checking every nook and cranny he could think of. Vance also noticed that in a few areas throughout the house, Nathaniel would stop and erect small mana constructs around doorways containing tiny amounts of light mana.

"He's setting up defences, I think. I don't know what the constructs do, but he's set up a handful of them already." Vance announced to the room.

James nodded at that and Nicholas piped up.

"How is it you can sense all this, anyway?" Nicholas' voice sounded different, a little lighter. The change in subject was obviously a welcome distraction from his current state of affairs.

"I've got this. Keep doing what you're doing." James patted Vance on the shoulder and went over to explain Vance's whole situation to Nick.

This seemed like a nice enough distraction for the two of them, so Vance didn't have any objections. He focused as much as he could on his mana sense and was staying alert for even the tiniest changes. Eventually, Nathaniel returned and reported that he found nothing strange inside the house. This sparked another quiet conversation between Nick and Nathaniel that went on for a while. Shortly thereafter, they ate dinner and Nathaniel began planning his sweep of the grounds.

To everyone's surprise, he decided that he would be performing his sweep in the middle of the night, around the times that Vance had been waking recently. Naturally, everyone protested, considering the added danger of the night. Nathaniel seemed largely unfazed.

"It is a relatively simple application of light mana to temporarily enhance one's vision. To me, walking around at night is more or less the same as walking around during the day, so long as I have the time to prepare beforehand." Nathaniel reassured.

"Show off," James said, midway through chewing a mouthful of meat.

"I mean to say that you don't have anything to worry about. Vance, how far into the grounds can you reach with your mana sense?"

"Most of the way, from this room. Though it gets a little less precise. I won't be able to spot any natural mana out that far. Also, I think dark mana might behave kind of similarly, so..."

"I understand. That's good enough. Just lookout for the same signals."

Soon after, Nathaniel began his sweep of the grounds. He spent about an hour outside before coming back, reporting that he found nothing. Vance picked up no oddities and the family was both perplexed and relieved. All except Nicholas, who, unsurprisingly, was getting a little restless as time went on.

"You're sure you've searched everywhere, Nat?"

"As far as I can tell."

"What does that mean? What about the outhouses?"

Vance listened to the two of them go over a checklist for a while. Nathaniel was being very, very patient with Nicholas, who was incessant in his questions.

Without warning, Vance suddenly felt something. His mana sense picked something up below them, far below. He wasn't precisely sure how far, it was hard to measure distance with just his mana sense, but it was certainly underground. He felt a similar flood of foreign emotions, that same anger and hatred from before, but more refined and contained. It was as if he could feel those emotions like they were his own, but he'd bottled them up and was waiting for the right time to unleash them, and the source was moving.

As he focused on the source, he began to feel cold and his muscles ached. He began to feel sick, like before, but it wasn't quite as extreme or sudden. As he studied the source, he found that it was constantly emitting tiny, almost imperceptible pieces of dark mana, which floated freely off in all directions. Vance decided to break off his focus on the source, freeing him of that strange cocktail of emotions. Now, he just observed the smaller, much less emotionally impactful pieces of dark mana that approached through the ground.

"Nathaniel, it's below us. There's dark mana making its way in all directions from it in tiny, almost natural concentrations." Vance did his best to articulate this as quickly as possible, but within a few seconds, some of that dark mana had entered the room.

Nathaniel shot up from the chair he was sitting in and began shifting light mana. He began quickly rushing around the room, applying small light mana constructs to everyone to protect them from the encroaching dark mana.

"Below is good. I don't know of any ways underground close to here, I don't think we're in too much imminent danger, we just need to deal with this dark mana first. Well done Vance, this is useful." Nathaniel spoke without looking at anyone in particular as he rushed around.

As Nathaniel approached, Vance put up a hand to stop Nathaniel from providing him with the light mana construct.

"Wait a moment please, I want to test something."

Nathaniel stayed close and ready but did as he was asked.

Vance was very confident at this point that they must've been coming into contact with this concentration of dark mana for at least the last two days, so he wanted to know what his body did in reaction.

When it came into contact with his membrane, his body's automated defences kicked in. He noticed that he was subconsciously transferring the dark mana into himself. Ordinarily, he would shift small amounts of potentially harmful mana back into ambient mana. Unfortunately, his body didn't know how to handle dark mana. He reasoned that instead, it would just try and find ways to eject it. Vance cast his sense out to Nathaniel and James and saw that the minuscule portions of dark mana coming into contact with them simply bounced off of their membranes. Evidently, their bodies weren't capable of picking up the dark mana and therefore, did not attempt to 'handle' it as he did.

Vance put forth some of his willpower and bent it to the purpose of counteracting his bodies natural attempts at dealing with the dark mana. He gathered it all up and expelled it using the same transference method his body was using to bring it in.

"I think you're safe with this sort of ambient dark mana, Nathaniel. It doesn't seem like it's significant enough to get through your membranes. In my case, my body thinks it's cleverer than it is and is trying, and failing, to shift it. Either way, I can consciously transfer it out again, so I'll be alright."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, but if you insist on checking, I don't mind."

Vance thought that his show of willingness and display of practical knowledge would spare him an unpleasant infusion of light mana.

He was wrong.