Mined Games chapter 28

My dad was…less than pleased about me hiding the existence of the mining company. He still understood though, and didn’t snap at me over it. He did ask me to take him in to see it, which I did, and when he entered, he was blown away.

“So.” I said wryly. “I take it this isn’t some secret training dimension that some capital family put together for their younger generation?”

He just laughed. “No. Gods no. This is…I don’t know what this is, but it’s nothing made by anyone at a level I’ve ever seen. A Sage ranked mage maybe? Or a Magus? Maybe an Arch Magus, at least judging by the potential these items would have once repaired. That mana condenser alone…” He swallowed hard. “Its potential is terrifying.”

“As glad as I am to have impressed you.” I said mildly. “I’d kind of like to survive. What the hell do I do? They’ll come looking for me? Right?”

He waggled a hand, sitting down against the wall of the mining company. “Maybe, but I’d wager not. Your instincts here were good. Getting rid of the body will confuse the issue. It’ll be days before they declare him missing, and weeks before they declare him dead. Chances are good your little scuffle will have slipped their mind by then.”

I nodded. “I get that, but…still. I can’t just do nothing. I was framed. You expect me to just ignore the attempt?”

“Of course not.” He snorted. “But you won’t have to look into it. The common sense move for whoever framed you is to try to get close to you. You have some method of disposing of a body they’ve never heard of, which means their research on you is flawed. They’ll try to ingratiate themselves with you to find out what your resources are.”

Giving him a deadpan look, I drawled. “Your plan to figure out who did this is to…make friends? Because I’ll be honest, I was hoping for something a bit more…smart.” He chuckled at that, and I shrugged. “Sorry, but seriously, that doesn’t seem like it would do much good. Can’t you teach me like…investigation? How to examine a crime scene? Find clues?”

The look he gave me made me feel like an idiot. “No. First of all, there is no crime scene. IF he was killed in your room, which he probably wasn’t or there’d have been more blood, you removed all the evidence. As for clues…like what? You think the killer dropped a monogrammed cloak with their initials, address, and class schedule in your room when they were fleeing? This isn’t a book, Caleb.”

“Class schedule.” I grimaced. “So you think it’s a student too? I was hoping I was jumping to conclusions with that one.”

He just sighed. “I suspect you were not. Hard to say for sure, of course, but based on the timing…most likely someone in your combat class who slipped out after the course ended. The timing is a bit tight, so whoever it was is very dangerous. You need to be exceedingly careful when you’re going about this.”

I’d considered that, honestly. Terry was big and stupid, but he wasn’t weak. The stabbing thing had been a matter of opportunity as much as anything else, but in a straight fight Terry would have been annoying to take on, even if he hadn’t learned and spells, which I was pretty sure he had. The clans always educated their kids.

Sadly, there was only so much I could do here. Dad was right. I’d freaked out and tried to rush things but…I wasn’t in danger of discovery right now. Hell, coming here was probably more suspicious that anything, but he was my dad and we’d recently reconnected so it wouldn’t be a huge problem.

I thanked him, gave him a hug, and then escorted him out of the mining company. He wanted to see more, but I knew we’d get sucked in, and while visiting my dad might not be suspicious, missing class WOULD be, and if I didn’t get back to the dorm and get some sleep I would definitely be doing that.

He told me to keep in touch about this and visit again soon, and I left, heading back to the dorms. As I walked, I thought over everything that had happened. This was going to make me so damned paranoid. Everyone who tried to talk to me would be a suspect, and honestly I was kind of expecting more than a few.

Stabbing Terry had been impulsive, but it had also been cold and effective. I was betting more than a few people in my combat class would approach me. I’d seen a few looks as they left, like they were reevaluating me. Being a mage wasn’t always nice, you had to do some hard shit sometimes, but I’d done that out of loyalty, and that would take you far (until people found out you were half elf).

When I made it back to the dorm, Alec was there, and he looked at me oddly as I came in. “Oh good, you’re wearing clothes this time. Can you not…do whatever that was in the room please? I don’t know or want to know where your mattress went. Or your clothes. Just…try to take it elsewhere.”

I smirked at him, slightly enjoying how off balance he was. Then I looked closer. He seemed really uncomfortable. Raising an eyebrow, I asked. “What do you think I was doing? You seem genuinely worried.”

He looked away. “I…I’ve heard advocates of Sivara sometimes perform weird ceremonies like that.” His eyes widened as he realized what he’d said, snapping wide as he held up his hand. “Not that you can’t worship whatever gods you want. It’s just…”

“Sivara.” I finished for him, as he deflated.  The goddess of madness and revelry. Her followers had a disturbing tendency to go insane and start murdering people during parties. Or after parties. Or before parties. They weren’t stable people mostly, though her church was large enough that people couldn’t shut it down based only on rumors and ‘isolated incidents’.

I laughed in relief though, because it was the last thing I’d considered. I’d come up with a reasonable story already though. “I wasn’t doing any ceremony. I was practicing my Blink spell, trying to apply it to objects other than myself. I started with the mattress, and when it vanished I figured my clothes might work better, being so close to me.”

Barking out a laugh of his own, Alec rolled his eyes. “Oh! Yeah, I should have figured. Freshman and all. Spatial magic is so rare I didn’t even consider it. Usually magic accidents involve more things being frozen or on fire.”

Grinning, I raised my eyebrow. “Why do I get the feeling there’s a story there? Did you set something on fire when you were learning spells?” I conveniently ignored that I’d come close to doing exactly that until he put it out with that ice spell. It didn’t seem relevant.

“I set some things on fire even after learning how to cast spells.” He grinned. “But nowadays I do it on purpose. Want a demonstration?”

“I will teleport you up to the roof and leave you there.” I said cheerfully. I wouldn’t, obviously, actually I couldn’t, but he didn’t know that. It was funny, the whole mattress thing would probably be a cautionary tale, and the lie would be so harmless that he’d probably forget it by the time they realized Terry was dead.

That made me feel like shit though. Alec was a friend, someone who had stood up for me to Dalton, and I was paying him back by lying to his face. Worse, I was basically using him as an alibi, feeding him this story so he wouldn’t suspect me. And if Alec hadn’t noticed anything it couldn’t be me right?

The smile on my face became a bit forced, but I made myself push on, slumping back on my bed so at least I could put an arm over my head before I made small talk. Might help me lie more convincingly. “So, I had my first day of combat training today.”

I didn’t want to talk about this. At all. But I needed to make sure I came across as normal. It would be weird not to talk about combat class given how excited I’d been about it. Alec, who I knew had been in the class the year before, snorted. “Professor Teresa is pretty imposing huh? She doesn’t look it at first, but she’s absolutely terrifying. She’s a high Caster rank mage.”

That, I hadn’t known. “Seriously? So she’s probably one of the stronger people at the guild huh? You ever seen her fight?”

He nodded. “Yes, once. I can’t really describe it. It’s like…watching a storm roll in. She and Archie had an exhibition match. Archimedes, that is, the Mana Control teacher. He’s about as scary as she is. She casts FAST. She show you any actual crystal beasts yet?”

“Not yet.” I said, my words tinged with real disappointment. I’d been hoping for that myself, and it would have been interesting as hell. “You think that’s coming soon?”

“Of course.” He said confidently. “She’ll introduce you to some of them, then take volunteers for actual combat against a few weak beasts to see how you all do. Then there’ll be some drills and practice with combat spells, a couple mana neutral ones she’ll teach you so she knows everyone is on the same footing. Then after she knows you can handle it you’ll face the wilderness trial.”

I sat up, looking at him in confusion. “Wilderness trial? What exactly is that?” I hoped it wasn’t what it sounded like. Dropping us in the forest to fight beasts unsupervised sounded insane. Even if it also sounded kind of fun.

“Exactly what it sounds like.” He said gleefully. “They’ll drop you in the forest to fight beasts unsupervised.” Ah. Well alright then. “It’s not so bad though. They have a section of woods marked off for testing, and they make sure there aren’t any beasts past tier two in there. You’ll have some security measures in place too, escape spells and things like that.”

That didn’t sound so bad, honestly. It could even be fun. I briefly wondered if my sudden enthusiasm for the woods had something to do with my elven heritage, but I wrote that off pretty quickly. I’d only just found out I was half-elf, there was no way it was already making me a different person. It was more likely I was excited to use some combat magic.

The idea of neutral combat spells we would all learn was interesting too. I wasn’t sure if I knew of any spells like that, but it would be interesting to see what they could do. I might even be able to cast them with my own mana as an input and get some interesting effects with them. I’d probably need to figure out what spells there were though.

Luckily combat magic was a daily class, not a weekly like hammering. I’d be able to go back tomorrow and find out. It was a mixed blessing given my new mission and the unfortunate events of today. Still, I refused to let myself mope around. Yes, things were getting crazy, but they were also getting fun.

It was sad that Terry was dead, but I had plenty of things to look forward to. Spending time with Cecily (who I could write off as a suspect at least because she’d been with me right up until the last second before I came back), both of us learning new spells.

I’d have magic to compare with Tara that she could actually do alongside me. I bet she’d even have a few neutral spells herself she could share. As I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, I was actually smiling. I’d just take things one step at a time.