It was quite fascinating to see Olivia struggle with her own convictions. From what I knew about her, she was completely devoted to Eleutheria but with that devotion came a certain connection to the whole Pantheon of Olymp and, indirectly, one to the nobles of the Empire. After all, the Imperial Family itself based its claim to power on their supposed connection to Alcaeus and his father, Zeus. Similarly. the Nobles were allegedly descended from the mortal companions of that hero, some of them carrying divine bloodlines of their own.

Which left the question, could you be devout to one part of a system while actively working to undermine another part? Especially if the part you wanted to undermine was a rather major one, as rebelling against the mortal descendants of Zeus could easily be seen as a rebellion against Zeus himself? Such delicious irony, it was almost as tasty as the idea of submission to the Goddess of Freedom.

Either way, with the oppressed people right in front of her eyes, Olivia wasn’t willing to look aside and her enthusiasm was enough to arouse my curiosity. It took some effort from Olivia and Adra to convince the humans that they should introduce us to their people and into their base, but they managed. Having saved their lives helped, as did the simple fact that we were powerful. Why would a group of people above level 100 try to deceive a few around level 60, if good, old force would do the job just as well.

They knew that capturing them would be child’s play for us, I had aptly demonstrated that they couldn’t resist me if I wanted to mess with them, and, apparently, there were abilities that made information-gathering via torture work. Mind Magic, mostly, but there seemed to be more, a revelation that made me a little grumpy, as my own ability in Mind Magic was more and more turning into just another club in my arsenal of magical devastation. Sure, scrambling someone’s mind, shrouding them in fear and desolation was a wonderful, highly effective, ability if you wanted to harm someone but if I wanted to actually help? Or communicate, or do any of the many interesting things that should fall under Mind Magic? That, I still needed to learn and the traits I had picked up made learning incredibly difficult.

Alas, maybe once the beta was over, I’d have a chance to re-think some of my choices and traits. I was happy with most of them but some, I could do without.

Either way, the four humans had decided that they’d guide us to their base after spending the night in our impromptu camp. Given that the situation with them was dealt with, Lenore and I decided to find out what the other humans we had messed with were up to. To do so, we had moved away from the group, before I disappeared into my Hallow.

The mist that had confused and scattered them had faded some time ago, the Astral Power it had been made of flowing back into the Astral River but that only meant they were all alone, somewhere in the forest. By the time we had dealt with the four rebels and we were looking for the others, some of them had managed to reunite, but some were still stumbling through the forest, confused and alone.

On a whim, Lenore silently landed on a branch above one of them.

“What brings you here?” she asked, for once not using my voice. Instead, she modulated her voice to make it sound raspy,, almost inhumanely so. The human below, a male, maybe in his early twenties, whirled around, trying to spot the speaker in the dark forest. I wanted to wish him good luck with that, as his first instinct was to search the ground, not the high branches.

“Who?” he asked, sounding both scared but also angry, “Who are you!?” he demanded, trying to project confidence but failing.

“Who, who, who,” Lenore mocked, hooting like an owl, before breaking into cackling laughter.

“Wouldn’t you want to know, boy?” she asked after laughing for a bit, “But I ask again, what brings you here, all alone and tasty-looking?”

“I’m not alone!” he squealed, his head swivelling around, trying to find the being that talked to him. “You,” he began to stammer, trying to sound intimidating, “You should better flee, or my comrades will catch you, and it will be you who dies!” he managed to threaten, the intimidation a little spoiled by the fact that his voice cracked, making it sound more like the whine of a child and making me adjust my earlier assumption of his age down by a few years.

“I’m sure they will be here any moment,” Lenore mocked, drawing a bit on my Ice-Magic to create a bit of mist in the trees around us, “Any moment, after they escape the endless mist I trapped them in, that is.”

“They’ll be here!” he tried to insist, but the mist around him made his voice shake in fear.

“Oh, child, don’t try to lie to me, it’s pathetic,” Lenore chided, letting out a sigh, very much sounding like a disappointed mother that was listening to their child insist that they hadn’t taken a cookie, while their mouth was smeared with crumbs and chocolate. It was quite the impressive imitation, given that I doubted Lenore had ever seen the real thing. Though maybe, some things crossed species lines and mothers being disappointed by their offspring might just be one of those things.

“Tell me what I want to know and I might point you in the right direction,” she prodded and by now, the guy was with his back to a tree, staring into the darkness - and still not looking up the fool.

“Please don’t eat me,” he pleaded and I was pretty sure there were some tears running down his cheeks, “The count sent us to hunt some rebels,” he blurted out, still trying to find Lenore. With the first step taken, Lenore started to poke and prod, at times moving from tree to tree, using her wind magic to make her voice sound from different directions, messing with the guy’s mind as she dragged the information we wanted to know out of him.

Not that he could tell us a lot, but he most certainly was cooperative. By the time Lenore was done with him, I was pretty sure he had been willing to tell her everything he had ever done, including sneaking a kiss from the miller’s daughter a few years back. It was quite pathetic.

“Back to the others, or should we try finding someone who knows more than a peasant with delusions of ability? “ I mentally asked, not impressed by the cognitive abilities of the guard if that was a prime example of them. It most likely wasn't, but any organisation that let such a rookie into an active operation didn’t deserve my respect.

“Let’s go back to the others,” Lenore sighed in my mind, disappointed by the intelligence of the guard beneath us. “Go east, fool, and you should find one of your companions,” she instructed the boy “And you should consider looking for another job,” she advised, before flapping her wings, easily taking to the sky. For once, she didn’t use magic to make herself unheard, causing the boy to look into the sky as we were vanishing. I doubted he had been able to see, but couldn’t be certain.

On the way back to the others, we spied a few more guards that were stumbling through the forest but given the situation, we didn’t try to engage another one. If one guard was telling tales of voices in the dark or speaking birds, he’d likely be seen as muddle-headed or confused by the situation but if there were corroborating statements that’d likely change.

The reassuring thing was, none of them appeared to move towards the camp, meaning we should be fine for the night until we moved towards the rebel camp in the morning.

When we reached the clearing we used to camp, the reactions were predictably different. I let myself drop from the sky, dropping right in the middle of them. Sigmir had felt me approaching for a while, so she wasn’t surprised in the slightest while Adra was perceptive enough to spot me without trouble and smart enough to recognise Lenore.

Rai and Olivia were used to my shenanigans, so while they reacted with surprise, they weren’t too shocked.

But for the humans? They heard a soft, whistling noise and suddenly, I was in the middle of them. All four of them jumped, the three warriors fumbling for their weapons, the spellcaster managing to channel some Astral Power, only for me to snuff out the fire he conjured.

“None of that,” I chided them, walking over to Sigmir, “But I don’t believe we’ll have trouble during the evening, everything looked quiet out there.”