The afternoon sun was shining, the sky was blue as blue could be… what a time for a stroll.

This didn't apply to the duo dredging through Jin-Sukudoma, of course: neither the sun nor its blue backdrop could be seen through the wild nature above them.

Instead, Ivory was sweating like no one's business, swatting the occasional insect as he followed Thissix the [Explorer]. She, by contrast, was not at all wet, likely owing to some kind of snake business. Her hat was catching some condensation that formed on the abundant foliage above.

The language barrier was… awkward. They had been walking without incident for what surely was a few hours now; with no phone and no way of communicating to his guide, he simply had no idea. Ivory had not been told how long the journey was, save for the knowledge that they would arrive at Tsumai today.

All Ivory could really do was poke Misoe to have her look at something interesting, such as a funny tree or a giant piece of fruit. They'd seen some kind of black heron collapsed on the ground, its beak slowly tapping on what he could assume was a gigantic, mooshy pear. That was a highlight, so far.

It was, otherwise, boring. Boredom beat the terror of solo navigation and all the newer death experiences that would entail, so he was grateful for being bored.

The track they were following was more or less just an innate awareness of the [Explorer], Ivory theorised. There was nothing to suggest that this was an established route of travel—though he zero qualifications to make such a declaration.

He thought back to Calanfer, and the spell that was cast on him to find the library, which was surely rudimentary in nature. An explorer in a magical land—an [Explorer]—would definitely not have to rely on mere memory of the land that they lived in. He was in good hands, after all.

As he pondered on her potential Skills, Misoe began fidgeting in his arms. Not aggressively so, but it was evident that she was getting a bit stir crazy.

"Maybe not a good idea if you fly, just in case. Here—"

Ivory held out a hand and three [Eerie Cinders] appeared, which drifted into the seal's open maw.

"Cover your mouth, dear."

He expected a petite burp, if one could be described as such. It was more like a belch, and he smelled…sensed the mana. His innate magical senses were strengthening.

Something else must have as well, because he heard the pssschshhshch of nature being disturbed. It was a lot of nature as well. Ivory looked side to side and saw nothing that indicated anything had moved. Flanking the two behemoth trees; it took easily a minute to pass each, taking into consideration having to navigate the natural landscape. There wasn't much brush at all, actually.

Ivory just looked straight on and kept walking, choosing not to indulge his desire to look up and see what had been disturbed by Misoe's sneeze. No [Dangersense], no worries.

The family of Greater Tigers looked down on the two walkers from their high perch. The juvenile had its claws out, looking longingly at the snacks it knew it just…couldn't have as a force pushed against its brain. Its aged mother never even opened its eyes.

To proclaim 'onwards!' was not really applicable here, as that implied that there was a stop in their journey, or some kind of juncture to pass. Ivory nonetheless thought this—no doombrain, everything's fine.

That minor event—and the drunk bird, who could forget—was the only real notable occurrence during their seemingly endless slog through the rainforest. Jin-Sukudoma.

—--------

Heito the [Onmyouji] stood beneath the great red gate on the town's southernmost point, at the divide between Jin-Sukudoma and Tsumai. For the first few hundred metres, one would be forgiven for thinking that beyond the gate sat a cultivated nature reserve. Ancient wards, spells and all other manner of spellcraft ensured the city's safety from the fauna—and flora—within.

He seldom had cause to peer beyond this boundary to Jin-Sukudoma. In fact, he seldom referred to it by its name—it was merely 'the rainforest'; similarly to how he and the other residents seldom referred to their home as Tsumai, instead merely Dejima. When one who lives locally may say, 'I'm going to pop to the shops,' another who travels some distance may say 'I'm going into to do some shopping'. Let it not be said that Drath was as homogenous as outsiders thought.

Nor, really, did Heito have much to do with Yurluxiamo, let alone direct content with their Matriarch. The revelation that the boy had been kidnapped was… troubling. The moment the connection was cut, he immediately contacted his [Dean] and got him up to speed.

To Heito, it was a case of a foreigner who was barely an adult, having a hissy fit, flouncing off and getting lost in the wild. The conclusion was a simple one.

The reality was far different, and even more confusing. He hadn't enjoyed being berated over his lack of effort in attempting to locate him—a valuable lesson was learned in multilingual [Scrying] spells.

The sun had begun to set when the [Explorer] and Ivory came into view. He saw the boy sag momentarily before quickening his step. The path—and greater Tsumai—began to slowly light up with nascent moonlight, creating a beautiful natural light show; the amplified moonlight danced around the dimming sunlight.

("Welcome, [Explorer].") He bowed to Thissix, who returned it in kind.

("Your journey has no doubt been long; please avail yourself to the academy for the night.") He paused, and continued. ("I understand we have you to thank for this man's life.")

Thissix flushed, and Ivory was once again just standing there. He expected he'd be relieved when he finally returned; instead, he was just annoyed.

He'd humoured some introspection during his trek back. He'd let his emotions get the better of him, that much was certain—but it was warranted, he felt.

("I was merely doing my duty. My Matriarch personally entrusted me the responsibility of bringing him back home.")

She managed to stick to her rehearsed speech, despite wanting to curl up and run home. He had not gone so far through Jin-Sukudoma, let alone visit Tsumai!

Heito smiled; he saw past the stoic exterior and saw the terrified gumption of a fine young Dejimaen.

("You have done well. Over yonder is the academy lodgings for dignitaries,") he pointed directly behind himself. She inclined her head and made her way up the street.

Heito looked at the dirty, exhausted Human standing there. There were little twigs amidst the hair and leafage—the top of his head, for all intents and purposes, was a small nest. The seal he held so dear—literally and figuratively—was rhythmically bobbing her head left to right. She was happy to be home.

Ivory gave Heito an expectant look. They could not converse with each other—he doubted he'd use his [Translation] spell—so he was waiting for him to just lead the way back to his workshop. Where this all began.

Ivory, in his exhaustion, forgot that you should quite literally never expect the expected. Heito, his hands behind his back, suddenly smiled. Unexpected occurrence #1.

Ivory was looking quizzically at him; he had reason to smile, yes, but this was not a ‘welcome back’ smile, it was a ‘heh heh heh heh heh’ smile.

In the next moment, he could see the Snake Beastkin walking up the road with a spring in her step. Ivory did a small step back in shock at the sudden change of view—

“Good evening, Ivory Henderson,” a familiar voice called out. He looked down and saw the hunched form of Xei Shi! He’d used the last shred of emergency energy with that back step; all that he could muster was a deep sigh at the sudden transfiguration.

“Hi.”

Xei Shi, in a time long since past, had made the journey Ivory had just done—she had evidently forgotten how taxing it could be.

“Come,” she said, walking up to him and extending her hand. “I will take you home.”

Ivory took Xei Shi’s hand and felt a lightness on his chest—his other arm flopped beside him as Misoe floated up at shoulder height.

The speed at which she walked once more surprised him; as Xei Shi felt her arm extend horizontally, she slowed her pace.

“A simple illusion was all that was required; it was a speech familiar to me, so it was no trouble. I volunteered to come and get you; I believe it best that you see a friendly face as your first upon your return. I understand that you two did not leave on friendly terms.” Ivory breathed a light laugh at that.

“Could say that. Thank you for coming.”

Xei Shi gave his hand a squeeze. The two walked on in silence until they reached the familiar brush-walk that he had walked, marking their close return to Xei Shi’s establishment.

“Heito and Nozumu are waiting inside. The boy has been anxious these last few days; he claims to have performed magic to help with your return… perhaps it was just a wishful plea."

Ivory grinned weakly. Everyone was underestimating, well, everyone.

"It was magic. Jiji told me someone used weak fate magic on me, and Nozumu's a [Stargazer]... he probably gained a Skill or spell that did it."

Xei Shi turned and gave Ivory a withering, yet sympathetic look.

"For his sake, I will exclude him from this discussion," she withdrew her look and sighed. "I know little of your time away from us, but you were stranded in Jin-Sukudoma. His meddling may be what we have to thank for your return, it is true—but it is impossible to know. Let us say that you had, on a certain whim, decided to cease your travel that would have lead you to Yurluxiamo in favour of routing backwards to us here in town. Who's to say that you would have been rescued—by anyone? You were not being sought after by Dejima."

"A—"

"We shall speak no more of this. After you."

Xei Shi held open to the door of her establishment, to Ivory's surprise—that had gone quickly. To her surprise, he shut the door and let go of her hand; Misoe was giving her the side eye.

"That's not fair. He's the only one of this place that bothered to do anything—and he's a kid! He needs to be given the credit he's owed. For all I know, he's the reason I'm here!" Ivory said, his voice raised as his words turned castigative.

Ivory heard noises come from within, presumably in response to him. Xei Shi was taken aback, but gave a shallow dip of her head and held open the door once more.

A warm homeliness washed over Ivory; his fatigue seemed to disappear—were his legs always meant to feel this stable? It had not even been a week; it was curious how the body—and mind—could forget such simple normalities.

Heito was seated where Ivory had dined on his first morning there. He was knelt in that Drathian—'Asiatic'—style; his back arched to perfection as he enjoyed his piping hot tea. Nozumu, on the other hand, was in the process of sitting back down, until he saw Xei Shi and Ivory hobble in.

Nozumu exclaimed something in Drathian and bolted out of sight. Ivory wasn’t even phased; at this point, his body and brain were running on fumes.

“I have been in contact with the Matriarch of Yurluxiamo,” Heito said, waving a quick hand through the air. “You are to leave Dejima, and Drath, immediately. Nozumu has gone to your room to gather your belongings.”

Heito calmly placed his teacup on its saucer before standing up and retrieving something from his Bag of Holding.

“Here,” he said, handing Ivory a small vial. “A Stamina Potion. You will rest soon; hold on for a little longer.”

Misoe perched on Ivory’s head and looked down at the potion with curiosity. She was aware that this situation was… off. He took the potion nevertheless, taking a delicate sip—he’d used a few drops of his own in a morning beverage for a bit of a kick; he did not want to, like, overdose.

“All of it. It was synthesised to be enough for one use,” Heito said. The calm… relaxation in his voice was incredibly off putting. Not because Heito was a dickhead, but because it didn’t match the context that he was saying it in. Something was up. He swigged the potion.

“Jiji told me that I should leave soon, but as soon as I got back to Tsumai… What did she say to you?”

Heito looked at Xei Shi, who returned the look with a facial expression that he read as, ‘no idea, mate’.

“Who?”

Ivory, now sufficiently revitalised, raised an eyebrow.

“What was it you called her? Matriarch? Her. That’s her name. Well, an abbreviated version of it.”

Both Xei Shi and Heito almost had to pick up their eyes from the floor—a dignified Drathian would never so much as gape.

“First name basis,” Xei Shi muttered.

“Where is Nozumu?” he said, valiantly powering on. “Hidenori has graciously agreed to leave within the hour.

“I think that if there’s any kind of lesson that can be gained from the past week, it’s that we should think about what poor little Ivory wants, hmm? I’m not ready to go; tell Hidenori it’s fine.”

“Bwaah.”

“What she said.”

Before Xei Shi or Heito could say something, Nozumu returned with a rucksack.

“Good. We are leaving. I will personally arrange your future journey to Dejima—or anywhere in Drath—but we are to leave, now.”

Ivory looked at Nozumu who shallowly nodded twice in quick succession. He picked Misoe from his head and exited the hot spring inn. The three Drathians followed suit.

It was only after the water was in view did Ivory realise they were in some kind of formation. Xei Shi was at the front, he and Nozumu in between, and Heito at the back. It wasn’t lost on him that this was likely due to this assassination attempt on his life; what assassin worth its salt would attempt something now? Not only that, his [Dangersense] was silent.

“This is overkill,” Ivory muttered.

“If they think this is the right thing to do, then it is not,” Nozumu hissed in return. Ivory’s eyes shot open at the hostility. This was not the reunion either of them imagined.

“What’s that for?”

“You came here to learn, so listen. Do you think they would be doing this if it weren’t absolutely necessary?” His stomach began to drop.

“I quite literally have a Skill that tells me if I’m in danger. [Dangersense]. It saved my life once, maybe even twice so far. It’s silent.”

Xei Shi’s laugh almost sent ripples through the seawater in the distance.

“Foolish, foolish boy. You should be terrified—Nozumu is half as nervous as you should be. You are in immediate danger. The person an [Assassin] tried to kill has returned. What would you do if you were the [Assassin]?”

Ivory said nothing, but his face told her all she needed to hear. She turned back to the front and waved down Hidenori, who began lowering his ship’s gangplank. Heito began casting spells—barrier spells, his Skills told him. The air was thick with magic.

Ivory saw the crew begin the lowering of the gangplank when they heard an earsplitting crash. Heito swore and began pouring mana into the heavily damaged shield. Like most academics, Heito had not ever been earnestly under attack. An adventurer or [Battlemage] familiar with Drathian assassination culture would know that a barrier for magic as well as physical damage was necessary.

Ivory turned around to see that they were being attacked by huge shuriken! He could not see the barrier, but there were—at a distance—small shuriken lodged some 10 metres in the sky.

(“Hurry!”) Xei Shi called to the crew. Hidenori reappeared portside and began shouting appropriate defensive Skills—the attack was coming from the island, not from at sea, but these attackers weren’t concerned where they were hitting, as the goal was the shattering of the barrier. They were succeeding.

Misoe wiggled free from Ivory and floated over towards Nozumu, who was shaking with fear, squatting on the wooden pier. He caught her and put his face down on her.

Hidenori’s crew were to be commended for their bravery—it is not second nature for a Drathian crew to be under attack, but they managed to get the gangplank down as a cacophonous grinding assailed the ears of all present. Where those ‘huge’ shuriken were, now there were car-sized shuriken spinning on the barrier; the breaking barriers were visible to all present, regardless of magical ability. Heito sent a rushed message to his [Dean], who was aware of the mission. If they could last another few minutes, the might of the Dejimaen Academy would arrive.

“Bloody fuck!” Ivory yelled as more and more of these gigantic shuriken assailed Heito’s barriers. A comparatively wooden tap alerted Ivory that the gangplank was down!

“Time to go!” Hidenori shouted. Ivory bent down to take grab Misoe, who was floating on Nouzmu’s head! Nozumu quickly stood up and handed him the rucksack. He took it and ran up the gangplank and threw it on deck.

There could not have been much barrier left, as four of the gargantuan shuriken were still grinding away. Heito was no [Barrier Mage]—he, and everyone else, would not last at this rate.

As the last barrier was breaking, Heito went back to basics.

The sheer force emitted from the [Megaton Shredder Shurikens] breaching the last barrier made Ivory shield his face, as ridiculous a motion as that was!

As the saying went—if you blinked, you missed it: he lowered his arm to see three huge samurai grapple each shuriken and hurl them out to sea. Heito vaporised the fourth with a fierce white fireball.

It seemed like it was over. The air shimmered with the heat of the [White Tiger Fireball]; Heito's summons still assumed a retaliatory position, and Heito himself was preparing for any sudden attack.

It was only Ivory, in this moment, who remembered that it was him that was the target of all this. He threw Misoe up in the air, coming to a stop some three metres to the ship's mast. He knew he was no match for any [Stealth Assassin] or [Ninja], but he wasn't going to go out without attempting to defend himself. He conjured some searing [Eerie Cinders], and an [Ominous Wind] whipped up around him.

He felt goose bumps all through his body and did a swift 180 turn away from the shore, his wand at the ready. He thought he saw the slightest outline of a person and blasted it with a [Gust], scaring the hell out of a [Sailor].

Perhaps the worst part about all this this was the sheer terror, knowing that he could just… die at any moment. Trapped in Jin-Sukudoma, there was the underlying theme of ‘yep, you’re fucked’—this was in stark contrast to his current situation, where he would otherwise be completely safe. Why the hell were people trying to have him killed?!

Several robed crew flew out—metaphorically—past Ivory and began channelling magic. Ivory focussed hard, and realised what they were likely about to do. He held his arms up and flapped his hands at Misoe, who bolted back into his arms.

“Shit!”

He felt a sharp pinch at his shoulder and saw several shards of metal fall from that spot. He heard a sharp, worried gasp and spun around to see a black-clad figure stumbling backwards, holding onto a small hilt with a shattered blade. Ivory looked at where the kunai had struck him—no mark at all. The assassin lay there, almost frozen—there was a familiar glint in his eyes. He instinctively looked up and saw something very strange indeed.

Staring down were two gargantuan, slitted eyes; each iris a roiling sea of hateful reds and luscious greens. The two [Ship Mages] ceased their casting—whether it was fear or simply knowing better, who could say. The eyes didn’t escape the notice of Heito, who was sprinting over, as he knew who those eyes belonged to.

Just as he reached the gangplank, he was knocked back from the force of a spectral snake that had the assassin in its jaws. It sped through the air and into the forest, emerging moments later with three other black-clad figures hanging from its great maw.

Ivory was certain that he heard a laugh most mirthful indeed.

Before Ivory knew it, the ship was moving ever so slowly as the rattled [Weather Mages] cooked up a [Fair Wind]. He turned back around to see Heito helping Xei Shi up, who had been sitting with Nozumu during the latter part of the whole affair. The non-combatants—wisely—just stayed put. Actually, where was Nozumu? He scanned the pier, but saw no sign of him… until he heard Xei Shi and Heito exclaim in unison

(“What are you doing?!”) Heito exclaimed; Xei Shi merely cackled.

Nozumu was sprinting down the pier, and then leapt up into the air and began flying towards the boat! He landed with a thump, as Xei Shi’s laughter reached its crescendo. Heito’s jaw was on the floor.

He scooted over to his rucksack and laid against it, his tailfeathers disappearing as he reapplied his charm.

Hidenori appeared suddenly and clapped him on the shoulder.

“I don’t have my Skill for you this time, I’m afraid.”

Ivory exhaled deeply and delicately sat down.

“Well,” he thought, “that was something.”

It would be a while before anyone slept, but a certain [Explorer] slept well that evening.

[Explorer Level 15!]

[Skill - Charted Journeys obtained!]

[Skill - Charted Journey: Tsumai obtained!]

[Skill Change - Amicable Ambience → Bestial Respect (Dejima)!]