“Hey, did you see someone following us?”

Hearing my partner speak those words silently, my senses tingle. In the last hour, I had a feeling we were being followed. Speaking in a low tone as well, I answer:

“I’m not sure, I had the feeling a couple of times in the last miles, but I did not see any signs of someone following us.”

“What we should do?”

“Let’s just increase the pace a little and not concern ourselves too much.”

“Should we send a message back?”

“Let's send the ‘being followed’ message. They will see we continue on our track and assume it’s nothing too serious.”

“Ok, I just hope that is the right answer.”

“Think about it, what are the risks? They will at most have a general idea from where we came from. So we don’t have to worry about the people back in the village. And few would be able to catch up to us. Let’s just finish the track as fast as possible. We will push as long as we dare without sleep. Even if they sand trackers behind us, it shouldn’t be much of a problem.”

I stop talking given my fast pace. I catch my breath back and continue on the run. There is not much to worry about just yet.

Their conversation is really interesting. For them to even suspect someone is following them, they must be very good scouts. I didn’t know there were scouts so advanced.

I’m fairly certain I’m the highest level in my village. Before counting my 27 level ups, my stat average is 18, and I got lucky unlocking a good uncommon rarity class. The rogue has bonuses to all the good stats. The fact they can detect someone following them is a little concerning. But as long as they can’t make me out, I have nothing much to worry about.

I’m not the most trusted people from Lord Max, but my scouting duties allow me to hunt non-stop. With a class uniquely suited to leveling, I managed to achieve this level. I have yet to have more than a scratch or two from a wolf encounter.

Even with these advantages, they detected something. Let’s just hope they are the best this village has to offer. Otherwise, we will have competition quite close to home.

Following them until the next village, I turn back. I should warn Max we have scouts from another village. Too bad I didn’t run into another of our scouts after seeing them. We could have coordinated for someone to follow them while I went to report the encounter.

Even without knowing exactly where the came from, I still might get a reward from him. He doesn’t trust me too much, but he does reward people who help him.

In another couple of hours, I get back to the village. My class is a god sent. I have amazing agility, perception, and endurance. No one can beat me if they don’t catch me by surprise, and it is quite hard catching me by surprise.

Approaching the entry for the section the lord occupies, I hear.

“What are you doing back already. You still had another couple hours of patrol.”

Even before I see him, I know the source of the sound, a certain douchebag. He speaks with a great sense of self-importance.

“Nothing you should be concerned with. I got business with the lord.”

After some grumbling from his part. I smile at him opening the doors. Perhaps it’s not too late yet, you are not so dumb after all.

I don’t have more trouble reaching Max. I may not be a close council for the chief, but I’m still a decent scout. These simple grunts don’t dare to fuck with me too much. He would behead anyone that stopped important information reaching him promptly.

Arriving at the entry for the last door, I take a deep breath. I may disrespect the others, but the Lord is another matter. He has gotten the berserker class and is a formidable opponent in battle. Unless I manage to catch him by surprise, he would most likely win in a straight battle against me.

With the training set up he has access to, he can level quite fast. He is the only one that might be at my level in our whole village. With the amount he kills every day, he should be level 25 to 27. Even if I misjudged he is at the most Level 29. I was already starting to run into Exp. penalties from killing the wolves. Our level difference was too high. We are too high a level t be killing them. If he over level 27, he is leveling without any of us knowing.

I wish I had wolves chained and brought for me to slay. Maybe he will let me join his advisors. The get a few hits in the wolves and share in the Exp. bounty. Even if it’s only for a few days, it will push me to higher levels.

I push the doors with a little trepidation. The whole set up is like a throne room. Even having been here other times, it still takes me by surprise the contrast to the outside.

A big throne, the table and papers covering it, and a few other well-made items. There is no luxury, he would not spend too much on such trivialities. But everything is of quality. He can’t have people thinking he was poor. All of his subjects need to be impressed by his might and his wealth.

People may mistake him for a brute with no intelligence, but the house of cards he kept up was impressive. He knew if people doubted him in this initial phase, the whole structure could collapse.

Looking over I see a pair of the woman Max has taken for himself. Though taken is perhaps too strong a word. They volunteer to be his whores, not that the other options were much better. Most women did not have skills that paid well enough. Selling themselves is a better alternative to effectively work as slaves.

You can whatever you like, but working for your meals is slavery.

Even with a few of the men arguing for the enslavement of every woman, Lord Max did not cave in. That was a very bad idea and he knew that. By proving ‘choice’ few put up much of a challenge.

My long stream of thought is interrupted by a couple of words. Even if he did not speak menacingly, my blood runs cold. To say the wrong thing now would be death.

“Albert, what are you doing here so early? Something happened?”

His words hit me like a punch. Fainting a little more trembling in my voice than I felt, I answer:

“Yes, my lord. I run into a pair of scouts. I was careful and follow them from afar, but they were very fast and I’m certain they determined my presence. Given their attire and demeanor I don’t think they are from any of the villages we are monitoring.”

“Where is their village?”

“I don’t know.”

With a hint of anger and making his tone measured he speaks. The shiver starts up again, but I keep my cool.

“You should have followed them you fool.”

“I did. I followed them from the village number 5 to the target of our next attack. They just continued from there. I tried my best, but I did not run into any patrols. After they continued from there, I thought coming back and warning you would be the most prudent choice. They were quite fast, I couldn’t sneak away and risk losing them. I looked as hard as could, but there were no other patrols anywhere close to us.”

He grunts unhappy and says:

“Well, that being the case, it wasn't such a big screw up. But you still should have followed them a little longer. You did say they knew you were there.”

“I’m sorry my Lord. I didn’t know better.” Never hurts to play up to his ego a little.

“It’s no matter. At least I learned about another village. One organized enough to send patrols a little farther away.” After thinking for a moment he says: “Ok, we will keep things on track. We will attack the next village and after that, we should consolidate our strength while sending scouts farther away. They might be 100 miles from the two villages you passed through, but I doubt it. You would have recognized from where they come from otherwise.”

“It’s always possible one of the closer villages have changed the equipment their scouts wear.”

“No, they don’t have a reason to, and our spies are hard at work. We would know if that was the case. Never mind that, just go back to patrol and let me worry about this.”

I bow at the dismissal and leave. Too bad I wasn’t rewarded with anything yet. Ge probably will make his pleasure know in the coming days, his complaints were mostly for show. The knowledge was quite useful, and he knew few would have followed the pair so far off the normal patrol route.

I dream of the rewards I could have gotten if he was more generous. He makes us work hard for it. Now it the time for a little more patrolling. Another couple of hours and I will be finished.

I enter the village the next afternoon. No longer groggy from my nap, I head straight for the guild, to talk with the scribe.

“Hi, I just came from the map room. I want to update you guys. All the explorations are on track. But we have a message from the last team of scouts.”

Excited and worried he asks:

“What message?”

“They send the ‘being followed’ and 100 miles later ‘stop’. I didn’t notice any changes in speed or route. Best guess, they were not too concerned with the people following them.”

“That’s a relief. I will tell Charlie about it.”

“That was it, I will be going now.”

Leaving, I continue my day talking to the students I hired. A team of 5 people feels their design was pushed as far as it will go with their skils. They collaborated with the other teams. The focus was the fire enchantment, but part of their design did benefit from all the other team's work.

I go over the details with them for me to understand. If I can help them with something not very obvious, that’s just a bonus.

“But how does this work?” I say. “The mana looks like it simply teleports from here to here.”

Looking at the points I put my finger on the oldest of them, a middle-aged man says:

“We are not sure either. But we tested extensively, several designs have this property. As long as the input is from here to here, it works.” Further pointing and tracing the paths of the mana in the paper sheet.

We go over everything for a few minutes and I do a redesign to suit my purposes. With their help in 3 hours, we are finished and I pay then for their work a higher price them we agreed on. The money from the forging is enough for now, and they are working faster than I was expecting.

With great care, I start to carve the runes in the inner parts of the gauntlets. Hours go by, but the result is the greatest masterpiece I ever made. It’s a little clunkier than I was hoping for, but it will have to do.

Gauntlet of fireball. Summons a fireball and shoots it when the two pieces of the gauntlet are joined. Made by a novice inscriber. Power and range depend on the amount of mana charged. Discharge rate: 1 mana per second. Maximum charge: 100 mana.

That could be useful in battle. For someone with enough strength, it would not be too much of a problem. They could shot a single fireball before the enemies joined the battle. Even if it is only enough to incapacitate a single wolf, the mana would have some use. If we make mana potions, even the warriors might be able to spam these before every encounter.

With ten pounds strapped on my left arm, I find two people willing to volunteer for testing. With a copper coin in the hands each, the first one steps up.

“Ok, just send your mana into the device. Start small, do 5 mana.”

“Ok.” After a moment he starts to charge the gauntlet. He does it in about 3 seconds. I see the mana dissipating and when I try to take control of it, I fail. Leaving the question for later, I say to him.

“I guess we confirmed what discharge rate meant. You need to send mana faster. Try to send for two seconds at a high rate and as soon as you stop, close your hands and shoot the fireball.”

He does just that. Charging what I would guess to be 6 mana in two seconds, there must be 4 mana left. Pressing his hands, the two cylinders in his arm touch each other transferring the mana. A fireball the size of a ping pong ball shoots out a few feet and disappears.

We repeat the experiment a few times until they are both out of mana.

We tested everything we could with the mana we had. Even a fully charged attack. A fireball slightly bigger than a tennis ball shoots out of the gauntlet at high speed.

It travels over fifty feet in less than a second. Everyone pumps a little at the impact. It has incredible strength for so little mass, and the wooden dummy is burned to a crisp in a single impact.

A hit like that would likely kill anyone with normal constitution levels. Even with 20 points, I don't think anyone could come out unscathed from the confrontation. In a fight against people well informed of your capabilities, it might not be too useful, they would just wait for you to shoot at greater range and dodge it.

Against someone that can’t dodge, like in a line of battle, it would be a devastating attack. In the future perhaps the design would be more refined, but for now, it had already greatly increased our attack. With a few of these passing around, the goblin attack could have ended much faster. Perhaps in less than five minutes.

The people that donated their mana for the fireballs were a big help, but in the end, there were too few people who knew how to cast spells properly, and we conserved some of our strength for emergencies.

After they leave, I use tiny amounts of my mana to test it. With a little exertion, I pull mana from the battery. Just like they told me, this battery doesn’t change the properties of the mana as long as it is still inside. After the mana dissipates, it becomes unusable.

In the workshop I set up, we were learning a lot about how mana and inscription behave themselves. This was worth every penny.

As the night is starting to end, a messenger finds me.

“Nash, the scouts are back and Charlie has called you. There is something you should hear about.”

“Ok, I will be right there.”

What could it be? Did they discover something not shown on the map? My feet pound the ground with long strides, as I head to meet with Charlie.