A New Way to Learn

The next day as they were travelling the road to the city they entered Grizzly woods, named after the multitude of Grizzly bears, that inhabited them. They were non-magical creatures and didn't bother anyone unless they were being threatened or extremely hungry. There was a stream that the caravan had to cross. It was made easy by a couple of people that knew some earth magic, they damned the river and created a rock-hard road across it. once all the wagons were across, they destroyed their constructs bring the river back to how it had been. the leaves of the trees were starting to change color. they caused a prism effect to the surrounding forest, there were reds, oranges, yellows, and gold hues dancing around on the ground and in the air. The birds were singing, and the small animals were running around. all-in-all Van thought it was a beautiful sight.

Commander Lena was even more vigilant in her duties along with all 30 of the adventurers paid to be there. they were experienced enough to know that now their jobs really started. The caravan was too far from the village and too far from the city to get help. It would be like this for the next 48 hours minimum if nothing went wrong.

Van was relaxing when a red blip showed up on his mini map, showing an enemy. the dot was farther down the road and getting closer.

"Commander, I think I saw someone up the road about 300 meters away and getting closer." he whispered to Lena.

Lena nodded her head in acknowledgement and had her familiar fly over the caravan and up the road.

"Where were they van? she asked

"It moved off to the left side, I am not sure what it was but it was up there."

With that information she sent out a magical signal to the nearest scouts and had them send familiars to the area also. While Lena was directing her troops, Van was continuing to monitor his mini map, watching the red dot, and waiting for even more.

~~ {VAN DUCK!!} Alice screamed in his head.

Van ducked and as he did an arrow flew by his head and lodged itself into the trunk behind him.

"BATTLE FORMATIONS!!" Lena yelled, "PREPARE TO CHARGE THROUGH THE AMBUSH!!" She sent out a magical signal to all her scouts to pull back to the inner circle and to continue moving forward. Everyone was on high alert, weapons were drawn, grimoires were out, high tier spells were being prepped, and a defensive formation was adopted by everyone. All the wagons were moved into a staggered formation and all the drivers were ready to ship their beasts of burden into high gear.

as Van was getting back up, he looked behind him to see the arrow and noticed there was a scroll tied to it. He then checked his map to see that the red dot had vanished.

"Commander there is a scroll on the arrow." He said as he pulled the scroll off the arrow and handed it to Lena. She opened it and read it out loud "Leave 5 wagons here or lose all of your lives. You have until the bend to decide." "Well, aren't they mighty polite." She said after she got done reading it.

"What are we going to do, are we going to leave 5 wagons or no?" van asked

"Why would we do that? We leave 5 here then they attack us anyways later when the other wagons are even heavier and there are more people in defenseless positions."

"But what if they would actually just let us go?"

"You can think that way all you want kid, but I have done enough of these to know better, I will still go discuss with Mrs. Cartwright though since we have the time.

Lena then jumped down from the wagon and rushed to go see Mrs. Cartwright in the 7th wagon back. Van just stayed on the driver's bench and stared straight ahead trying to think of a way out of this, the possible outcomes, and what the best solution may be… He was getting nowhere fast since he had never been in this type of situation in either of his lives.

meanwhile back in wagon 7.

"Hellen, the reasoning for the call earlier was this scroll, it was delivered by arrow and almost hit Van." Lena said to Mrs. Cartwright.

"What do you mean almost hit Van? And let me read it."

"Well, a little bit ago van said that he saw something up the road, but when I sent my familiar and my scouts, they didn't find anything, and then all of the sudden he dropped to the floor as an arrow embeds itself into the trunk right behind him. I don't know how he saw the arrow or reacted that fast because I was completely unaware. The arrow hit faster than I could react." Lena explained as Hellen read the scroll.

"Ma'am we have investigated the site you said too, and we found traces of an array and a blue power crystal powering the array, and the arrow also had traces of the same array on it. here you can take a closer look also." a scout that just rode up informed the ladies as he handed the arrow to Lena.

"An array propelled arrow, and you said Van warned you of this before it happened?" Hellen asked.

"… Yes… I thought it strange that we didn't find anyone. But that just leaves me to question, how did he see it and how did he know to duck?"

"We will ask him later, but for now, what do you propose we do?" Hellen said as she rolled up the scroll and put it away in a bag.

"Well now that we know the arrow was from an array, we don't know when that array was placed. It looks like the power crystal is almost out of Magic, so either the array was placed a long time ago and nobody has triggered it, or it was just put there with an old crystal because they knew it was about to be triggered. I hope it is the former, but we should be prepared if it is the latter." Lena Proposed."

"I agree, we have to ere on the side of caution this time. but I will not be leaving 5 wagons behind. Have your earth mages create earth bunkers for our drivers and you have the support mages cast some defense, stamina, health, and steadying buffs on the animals. I know burning through mana before a potential fight isn't the best plan, that is why I will provide your mages some Magic Potions to help recover. tell them to come get them after they are done with everything."

"Okay" Lena said as she hopped down from the wagon.

"And tell Van to come back here to me, I want to talk to him." she called out as Lena was swiftly running away to organize her troops.

While Lena and Hellen were conversing about what to do, the adventurers pulled back to the inner defensive perimeter. those that had familiars had them summoned and were scouting ahead with them along with a perimeter of 500 meters. Van was still in the driver's seat with nothing to do. he had given the arrow to one of Lena's men but after that he just stared at his mini map looking for enemies. Alice was scanning around him looking for anymore arrays. his system learned the magical signature of the array that shot the arrow at Van so it was scanning the surrounding area for anymore.

"There is a bend in the road about a kilometer ahead of us." said an adventurer that had an eagle as a familiar. he had the eagle fly as high up as it could while still being in range to look far and wide, a lot farther than anyone else. Lena took the report and ordered the caravan to continue to move forward.

"Mrs. Cartwright wants to talk to you kid. she is in 5 wagons back, get moving." Lena ordered Van.

"5 wagons back, got it." Van confirmed as he jumped down and began to run down the line of wagons.

Once he got to Mrs. Cartwright's wagon, she invited him up and told him to sit. Even though Van obeyed the order of Lena he felt that he could do a better job helping the caravan if he was closer to the front. Even though he knew that no one else could know about his system he could at least help by giving pointers on where enemies "may" be.

Van climbed onto the wagon and sat down next to Mrs. Cartwright. Seeing that her grimoire was out his curiosity got the better of him and he looked at the pages that were open. He couldn't read the language that was printed, but he had the system record everything he saw. Even he wasn't sure his eidetic memory would be able to remember all the little hash marks and magic circles he saw. before he could ask what, the weird words and symbols meant, Mrs. cartwright grabbed his chin and made him face her, she then spoke.

"Van, Lena told me about how you saw something up the road and then ducked under an arrow that she said, she wouldn't have been able to dodge. The scouts didn't find any trace of a person, but they did find traces of a magic array. now I don't know anyone that can see a magic array let alone one that small that far away. So, tell me, how did you detect that arrow?"

"I… I don't know how to explain it I… just had a… a feeling that something was up ahead."

"So now it was something when Lena clearly heard you say someone. A feeling huh? that's it?"

"Yes ma'am, a feeling. At the time I thought it was a person but now I am not sure." Van was careful to not say anything that would incriminate himself. He knew that a lie would turn into ten and those would turn into ten more, soon there would be web that he wouldn't be able to escape. He kept his responses short and sweet.

~~ {Van, I have stored the information from the pages of her grimoire, if we are able to see more pages, I will be able to start the translation.}

With Alice's update van tried to change the subject

"Mrs. Cartwright, what is that language in your grimoire?"

"Don't try to change the subject Van. It is very rude to look at someone else's grimoire without their permission. Now tell me how you dodged that arrow."

"I ducked"

"You ducked, are you being sly with me boy?" Her tone of voice getting extremely stern.

"no ma'am, like I said before I had a feeling so I ducked."

Mrs. Cartwright let go of his face realizing she wasn't going to get a straight answer out of the boy. So, she tried the carrot approach.

"The language in my grimoire, and everyone else's, is the language of the elves. It is an ancient language. this word here translates to immolate, and this word here translates to area. this is an area of effect spell. But you will learn all of this at the Arcane College if your magic awakens at the ritual. now be quite and if you get that "feeling" of yours again let me know immediately."

"Yes Ma'am"

~~ was that enough information to translate the spell?

~~ {Yes, I was able to translate the entire spell. So, there was other information on the page besides just that spell. There was the chant to cast it, and details regarding how powerful of a spell it is, and what it is supposed to do. The spell Immolate is an area of effect spell otherwise known as AOE. it is used for crowd control or a mass damage spell. it is a tier 4 spell; I am not sure how powerful that is, but it should be up there since she had it open and ready to use. If we get into a fight, try to look at other pages of her Grimoire and the pages of other people's Grimoires. I will be able to translate them and add them to your known spells.}

~~ Are you serious? I just must look at someone else's Grimoire to learn new spells? That seems like cheating."

~~ {I doubt it will be that easy to look at someone else's Grimoire, they seem to only come out during a fight, and it would be obvious to see if someone else is trying to look.}

~~ Well I was thinking about after the fight. It one person is dead their Grimoire would be easy to take.

~~ {That does seem like a viable way to get your hands on a Grimoire. I will keep that in mind if it ever happens.}