16 Rain on a quiet night

Vance was on his way back to the college. He'd purchased some new supplies along the way and was snacking on a carrot. He wasn't far from his destination when he heard someone shouting behind him. He couldn't hear exactly what they were saying, but they were heading away from where he was. Shortly thereafter, another masculine voice rang out, this one closer. He heard footsteps moving at a quick pace towards him.

"Outlaws reported in the surrounding areas, second waves have been making their way through the local villages, the city watch expands it's perimeter!"

A Crier? Vance didn't like the sound of this. He reached out to grab the man who was about to run past him, stopping him in his tracks.

"Second waves? Where?" Vance asked, worried.

"Report came in from Ervis, Sir." The runner broke free of Vance's grip after answering his question, then he carried on running, shouting out his message.

Vance stood in place for a second. Ervis was really close to Wethermane, about a days journey south-west on foot. If they were making their way through the area again, then...

He didn't think about it a moment longer, he went as quickly as he could to his room, where he gathered up his woefully understocked backpack and set his blade on his waist. He hoisted the pack onto his shoulder and left. It was late evening at this point, but it didn't really matter to him.

He'd only just gotten outside of the boys dorm when he heard a familiar feminine voice call out to him, Mariah sounded surprised.

"Vance? Where are you going, I thought I'd find you in your room, but you've saved me climbing the stairs."

"Sorry Mariah, can't talk, I'm heading out of the city for a while." Vance walked past her, swift with purpose, then stopped for a second awkwardly, then turned back to her.

"Do you know where I can hire a carriage? Quickly?"

She could hear the tremble in his voice and her heart sank. Her cheery momentum faltered for a second but she regrouped. She flitted over to him, arranging his arm into something a loop for her to stick a hand through.

"Let's walk, I'll direct you."

Vance was a little taken aback, but he'd had some time to come to terms with Mariah's forwardness, she was anything but the shy type.

She walked with him into town. She set a quick pace, knowing that he was in a rush. To her surprise, Vance volunteered information before she had to ask.

"Criers are announcing more outlaw attacks, did you hear?"

"Sure."

"The reports came from Ervis, it would've taken at least three days for a rider to make it this far to deliver the message. That means they happened at least that long ago. I come from Wethermane, I have family there, my brother."

He paused only for breath, then added.

"My father was killed in the last wave. I need to get back, I need to make sure that-"

"I Understand. You don't need to explain yourself to me." Her grip tightened on his arm a little, giving him a little reassuring squeeze.

Shortly thereafter, they arrived at a busy junction within the city streets adjacent to a stables. There were perhaps a dozen wagons and carts parked around the area, most without beasts of burden.

Vance was about to start asking questions but Mariah interjected.

"You need to be quick, right? I've got this." He felt her straighten up and remove her hand from his arm. He could hear the small shifts of her clothes as she adjusted them and patted herself down.

He heard her do a few small vocal checks, adjusting the pitch of her voice, making it a little higher, a bit more...feminine? It sounded for a moment like she was fiddling with her hair, then he heard her take a few confident strides forward into the square, where she quickly chose a direction and walked with purpose. He followed, but gave her some distance.

" 'scuse me milord. Me and my travelling companion are lookin' for a ride down 'wards Wethermane, you going that way?"

He heard a new voice come out from Mariah. For a moment, he was certain that he was hearing someone else talk, but it was definitely her. She couldn't possible sound more common, why on earth...?

A few attempts later, Mariah found someone who was heading in that direction and got their attention.

"Certainly young ma'am, I have room on the cart for two, I can't promise a smooth ride though, I normally just transport goods, not people. I'll have to charge you 6 silver for the space, mind you."

"Very gracious Milord, nor problem for us, we's been in many a rough ride, Milord."

Vance remarked at how well she fit into the character, she even had all of the little colloquialisms right. He still didn't see the point, but he was impressed and it seemed to be working.

Somehow, over the next few minutes, Mariah actually managed to persuade the merchant to leave immediately. His name turned out to be Percival and by Vance's estimation, he was entirely reasonable about the whole affair.

He didn't have to say a word to the man other that a little greeting as he paid and boarded the cart. Mariah was posted up next to him, then he realised.

"Wait, what are you doing?"

"Coming with you, obviously."

"It's going to be dangerous, Mariah, I can't-"

"What, don't want to endanger the sweet, talented, extremely attractive young woman? Relax, I'll be fine. I'm coming because I want to, it seems like you could do with the help and maybe the company." She nudged him with her elbow, he realised she'd pulled up her sleeves as part of her transformation.

The cart started moving, giving them a little noise to cover their conversation.

"What's with the voice?" He leaned in, conspiratorially.

"Oh, that's just a little trick I picked up. In my experience, Merchants are the sort of people who love to be in control and seeming a little uneducated and a little common goes a long way in making them feel like they're in a strong position, intellectually speaking. Works every time."

She sounded very proud, and Vance was genuinely impressed.

"Thanks, I owe you one. Seriously."

"Consider us even. You stopped me from having to go home and I'm helping you go home, sounds fair to me."

"OK, but I'm still curious, what did you do to your clothes? Surely that's not part of the ac-"

"There are some things you shouldn't ask a lady, Vance." She gave him a playful tap and the two had a good giggle, she was happy to hear that the tremble had gone from his voice.

On their way through the countryside, Mariah was constantly fascinated by their environment. Whenever she had a free moment, which was most of the time, she was trying to spot animals and would describe them to Vance. To her credit, she paid very close attention and picked up on some interesting details.

"There are so many critters around here, rabbits, squirrels and the sorts. Predators must be scarce around here, guess they're scared of the humans. Smart."

The two chatted back and forth, mostly ignoring Percival. To Vance's amazement, when they settled down for the evenings Mariah would effortlessly switch back to her common country girl persona, it took less than a few seconds and she was right back in character.

Vance barely spoke to Percival, he didn't want to accidently unravel this complex deception. On the second night, they had thrown a large tarp over the top of the wagon, it was raining pretty heavily and the three sat in the back of the wagon around a small set of lit candles. The tarp did a pretty great job of keeping the wind and rain out, but it was still pretty cold.

Mariah had thrown a small blanket from her supplies over herself and had planted herself firmly next to Vance, she was currently pretending to sleep with her head rested on his shoulder. Percival had been talking her ear off about recent successful trades. It was truly dull, so he figured this was a smart move on her part.

Vance disliked the rain, especially in times like this. He found that the constant pitter-patter of it's falling made it difficult to pinpoint other sounds that were too far away, it made him extremely uncomfortable. He held his left hand out over the candles and let them warm his hand up. He could feel the feather construct stirring inside, but he kept hold of the fire mana, allowing it to build up to a comfortable point, then began slowly expelling it piece by piece.

He'd begun to find this process reassuring, it reaffirmed some measure of control for him. He was beginning to see why Mariah's plan was so genius, being in control felt good, comfortable, even if it was on such a small scale.

Vance was getting tired and began to nod off as well, he could feel his head was drooping a little when he suddenly snapped to attention. Through the rain her heard something, it was the sound of a large amount of water all hitting the ground at once nearby, breaking the pattern. That sort of thing would only happen if something moved.

"Percival, I think I just heard something outside. Mariah is asleep, can you have a look and see if you can spot anything?" Vance whispered.

Percival took a long, deep breath and sighed. "Fine."

He stuck his head out of the tarp and looked around. A second later, he pulled his head back inside. Mariah had opened her eyes and sat back up, and she was the one who noticed the terrified look on Percival's face. He mouthed a few words to her, not making a sound. She leant up to Vance's ear and whispered.

"Outlaws. Three."

Vance felt like his hands had suddenly become a little sweaty and he found it difficult to swallow. The last time, he'd be more than useless when they'd shown up in Wethermane, granted he'd got one of them but it was mostly dumb luck.

He felt Mariah grip hold of his arm. Was she scared? It hadn't dawned on him that she was actually capable of fear up until this point.

He could hear footsteps slowly getting closer. He made a decision. He gave her hand a little squeeze of his own then said out loud "I'm coming out. Please don't shoot." He picked up one of the candles and held it in his right hand, covering the flame with his left.

"What are you doing?!" She whispered to him, Percival looked dumbstruck.

He didn't answer, but slid carefully out of the back of the wagon, into the rain. He looked to be desperately protecting the little candle he was holding from the weather.

"I heard you coming, I don't want any trouble. My father is inside and he's asleep, I can give you whatever you want from the cart, just please don't hurt us."

He could hear the three men were all approaching from one side of the road, he thought that was a bit odd, shouldn't they have surrounded the cart?

Vance spread out his mana sense, pushing it to his limits. For a moment he felt that same, overwhelming sense of information overload as he could suddenly feel every stone, tree and object around him. He held it for just a second longer to assuage his fears, sorting carefully through the information he could take in.

It was just these three, he was positive.

Just that action alone was enough to cause him a little headache, but that was nothing new at this point.

One man who had his sword drawn approached Vance cautiously.

"We're not gonna hurt ya, boy. Gi'us the money and food you've got in the cart 'n anything small 'n valuable, and we'll let you go. Nobody gotta get hurt."

Good, Vance, Good. You can work with this.

"Yes, absolutely. Just give me a moment, you can probably tell I'm blind, I'm not even really sure where you are." He lied. "I'll just gather up the-"

"No problem kid, we'll help you out." The man spoke with that distinct malice in his voice that he'd heard from cruel men before, those like Marcus back in Wethermane. It was the sound of a man who saw the suffering and misfortune of others as nothing more than a passing convenience for himself.

So far, so good. They were as impatient as he'd hoped.

On the inside, Mariah was listening to his story, he'd mentioned his "Father" - that would be Percival in this scenario and he hadn't mentioned her, which meant his story relied on them discovering her. Clever. She knew what part she had to play. She locked eyes with Percival and looked serious, mouthing "Play along."

When the men approached the cart, they gathered together and pushed Vance to the side. He wasn't any danger after all, just a stupid blind kid.

When they pulled the tarp back, Mariah let out a terrified shriek, and he started to scramble back in the cart like this was the last thing in the world she'd expected.

Meanwhile, Vance was outside, laying on the cold, wet ground, conjuring fire mana in his right hand. The feather construct in his core flared to life. It already had plenty of time to feed on the candle, now he just needed to kick it into overdrive, which would take a few seconds.

One of the outlaws grabbed out for Mariah, a fiendish smile on his face. He grabbed some part of her long dress skirt and pulled her towards the mouth of the wagon.

"The boy didn't mention anything about a sister. She's quite pretty, lads."

Mariah was playing her part well, she looked the perfect mixture of terrified and helpless. Percival acted as if he had just woken and was trying to get to her, but one of the outlaws was holding him back. His performance was somewhat less convincing, he didn't even yell very much. In his defence, he was being compared to Mariah.

The important part of this all was that the three men were leant into the back of the wagon, harassing the helpless individuals inside. This placed them in something of a line, when considered from the side.

Vance stumbled to his feet, playing the part of the hurt brother, desperately about to try and save his family from unspeakable violence at the hands of miscreants. He raised his left hand, as if reaching out for something, trying to find his way. The only one of the outlaws to spot him found it amusing, it was like watching a lost puppy.

In that instant, Vance focused his mana sense in front of him and put his whole will into the effort. For a moment, it was as if he could perfectly visualise what was in front of him. Three men in a line, represented by outlines drawn in pure mana, contrasting with the surrounding ambient mana.

The cart was large, but had a big open space in the middle where there were two more moving shapes of pure mana, likely the membranes that surrounded living bodies, those would be his companions.

He aimed his left hand at the line of three men in that split second, while he knew precisely where they were. Then, he used transference to pull all of the fire mana the feather construct had produced into his hand, where he released it outwards, not bothering to shift it back to pure mana this time.

Fire exploded from his palm in a straight line, like a flash fire. In an instant the three men were ablaze. The flames were so hot that they suffered severe burns in an instant. Mariah reacted immediately. She kicked the man who had grabbed her, he flailed as he fell backwards onto the stone, dragging down his too screaming friends with him. She stood in the next moment and grabbed the tarp from the top of the cart. She jumped out of the cart, over the burning men and draped the tarp over the three of them.

The tarp served two purposes. First, it stopped the rain from putting out the flames. Secondly, it was heavy enough and large enough that it made moving around just that little bit more difficult for them.

Moments later, Percival joined her and stood on portions of the tarp to pin it to the ground, trying to make their escape even harder.

Vance was busy fighting back the mana inside of his core, which he'd let get a bit out of control in order to produce this effect. He didn't know any other offensive styles of magic, so it was his only real option. He had to drown out the sounds of the screaming men and his panting companions. He ignored the rain and the cold and focused inwards.

It took him a few difficult moment to get it under control. He let out a sigh of relief and checked his left palm for damage.

Fortunately for him, this time he'd planned to use the fire mana and had much better control over it. It did not burn his hand too badly this time, though it might be a little tender.

It took a little longer than he would've liked for the three outlaws to stop moving.

He fumbled his way over to Mariah and placed a careful hand on her back when he found her, making sure she was alright. He smiled when she assured him she was unhurt, he could hear Percival moving about as well, it had worked.

"That whole "Make them feel like they're in control" thing really works a treat." He whispered to Mariah through a suppressed, slightly pained laugh.

She gaped at him and laughed openly into the rain. Percival looked at the two of them dumbfounded. Then he looked at Vance. Realising what he had just seen, he bowed hurriedly and said "I'm sorry, Master Arcanist. I had no idea."

Vance turned to face him and then turned back to Mariah. "Wait, is he talking to me?"