(Path of the Dragon Mage: Exiled) 28. The Long-Eyes (Patreon)

"You're thinking of running," the aged guard said.  "Trust me. That would be a bad idea. There is nowhere you could go where  I won't be able to see you."

"I wasn't going to run," Corvus lied.

Ding!

Your Deception is not high enough to counter the currently running Intimidation skill.

He blinked. Then he looked at the old woman again, reassessing the  message he'd just received with everything else he'd seen: Her amazing  feat of strength, her eerie eyes. They had to come from skills, or...  the Paths.
Something — he suspected his charisma skill — nudged the next words out of him.

"My name is Corvus," he said with a slight bow that would not have been out of place in court.

Her mouth pulled to the side. It was too sardonic to be a smile, but  at least it wasn't a scowl. "Larissa, and if you haven’t guessed, I'm  Duckwater Village's one and only Long-Eyes."

Before Corvus could respond, Larissa's head snapped to the side. She  peered up to a distant wall. Corvus followed her gaze, but even with Night Vision he could not see what she did.

She turned back to him and extended her arm. "Walk with me."

"But the dragons..." He looked back to the pens. All of the ferals,  except for the miserable rose-red dragonet, were watching the byplay  between the two like a big cat would watch a deer for a stumble.

She snorted in an unladylike fashion. "They'll keep. The night guard  can't see what's in front of their faces, but they will notice two  people having a chat near the dragon pens."

Corvus hesitated and then took her arm. Larissa gave him a grandmotherly pat as she turned to slowly walk him toward the wall.

As they did, he felt more at ease. He suspected she was no longer using her Intimidation skill.

"So," she said, "you are on a quest."

He saw no reason to lie. "How do you know that?"

"A nifty class skill I picked up along my Path, oh, thirty years back. I can see to the heart of a person's intentions.

The more focused their intention, the clearer I can see."

That was the confirmation he needed. At her words, he felt like the  ground had opened underneath him. Relief and confusion and a pang of  strange guilt mixed together in his chest. All the emotions he had been  suppressing — the many questions that pressed into his mind without any  way to answer them. His throat felt thick and he was barely able to  choke out, "Then... I'm not crazy? It's real? The things I'm seeing are  true?"

Again, she patted his arm. "If by that, you mean the paths... then  yes, Corvus. It's real and it's true." Another pat. "You are young and  new to the system, I think. What is your level?"

"Four."

"Very new," she repeated. "You'll enjoy level five—and every fifth  level afterward. I should know. I'm on my seventy-second level."

Seventy-second? He had noticed each level seemed just a little harder  to attain than the one before it due to the experience points. He  couldn't imagine the skills she must have, or the experience she had  gained to achieve them.

"May I ask... what's your path?" he asked.

"The Path of Sight, of course. And yours?"

"The Path of the Dragon Mage."

"Ah. That explains your dealings with the beasts."

"I couldn't just… Someone has to free them." He knew they were  dangerous to common folk, and himself. And yes, keeping ferals was  technically illegal, but so was Roan's poaching and Corvus hadn't felt  nearly as twisted up about that. The feeling, the need, to help these ferals was heart-deep. An impulse so strong he had not fully realized it had been driving him until now.

"I assume it's a self-assigned quest?" Larissa didn't wait for him to  reply. She clucked her tongue. "Those can be tricky, and chained to  others down the line. My first took me years to complete. You're  wondering what it was," she said before Corvus barely opened his mouth.  "It was to set eyes on my mother again. The self-assigned quests only  trigger when they're related to your path, you know."

"I didn't know. I have so many questions—Why haven't I heard of the Paths before?"

By this time they had come up to the wall. A rickety wooden ladder  stretched all the way up to the top. Still turned toward Corvus, Larissa  groped to the side until her fingers reached the ladder. Then they  curled around the rungs, tight and steady.

"Young man, you are the second person I've ever encountered to walk the Paths. And the last was more than thirty years ago."

"But... but doesn't every village have a Long-Eyes?"

She snorted. "I haven't visited many villages, but no. From what I've  seen, most Long-Eyes are men and women with access to telescopes—far  seeing devices you put up to your eye." She held her circled finger to  one starry eye in example. Corvus did not tell her he knew what a  telescope was. "The rest are born with very good, though not skilled,  sight. Unlike me," she laughed.

Corvus wasn't sure what the joke was.

"Well," Larissa said, nodding to the ladder. "Up you get."

Corvus stared at her, and then the ladder which led to the top of the wall. "Why?"

"Because the other guards may not be able to see as I do,  but they will notice if their Long-Eyes is not on the wall as she should  be. And if we keep our voices low, we'll be less likely to be  overheard. Just another two silhouettes along the wall."

With that, she started climbing. The armor she wore must have weighed  more than she did, but she did not show the least bit of strain.

If she had access to the Paths, she must see her attributes as he did. He wondered what her strength must be.

Corvus  peered through the night right and left of the wall. There were perhaps  some guards patrolling much further down. He doubted he would be able  to see them without his Night Vision. Larissa was right. It was less likely they'd be observed up there.

He began climbing.

Embarrassingly enough, he was out of breath by the time he had  reached the top. Larissa extended one wrinkled but firm hand out,  blindly, to him. He grasped it and she hauled him the rest of the way.

"What is your stamina?"

"Eleven."

Her eyebrows rose.

"My strength is sixteen," he said, defensively.

"Well, you know where to put those attribute points, when you get  them." Threading her arm through his own, she began to pace a slow  stately gait across the top of the wall. It was wider than Corvus  expected, with a waist-high parapet to keep someone from toppling over.  The view was spectacular. From here the high sagebrush looked like a  forest of trees. The moon glinted off the far-off lake. Here and there,  houses and estates were lit by candlelight, and above them all lay a  thick carpet of stars.

He pulled his gaze away and turned back to the little old woman. "I  have so many questions," he said, "But I don't know where to begin."

She patted his arm. "Let me tell you my story. Perhaps, that will answer some of them."

It seemed to Corvus that she had been looking to tell him something  since the moment she leaped down from the wall. Or perhaps it was a  common thing among the old to tell their lives to the young. He'd been  cornered by enough old nobles in his life to have learned that.

Somehow, he thought Larissa's story would be much more interesting than how Lord so-and-so ascended to power in his house.

He nodded, and because her starry-eyed gaze was no on him said, "Please."

"I don't know how I escaped the blight," Larissa began. "The village  healer diagnosed me when I was one and told my mother I would not live  to see my second year. " She paused. "Have you ever seen a babe with the  blight?"

"No."

"It takes them in their toddling years. It's a slow decline—terrible  for the family to watch. Anyway, my mother refused to accept my fate and  fed me with all manner of herbs. Some she bought at outrageous  prices—some she dug from the forest herself. My energy waned as what  usually happens, but at the last moment I seemed to recover... well,  except for my sight."

"You're blind?"

"I was. The blight put clouds in my eyes and I could never clear them  away. I learned of my mother's fight to save me much later — during my  self-appointed quest, in fact. When it became obvious I would never see  again, she put me in an orphanage. She had bankrupted herself, you see,  and there were other children to feed… well. She thought it would be  kinder."

"But, the herbs?" Corvus asked tentatively. "If you lived, could others…?"

"Oh, other parents try the same thing. There is quite a market to  save blighted babies. I was the very rare exception. Then again, even I  was seen as a failure."

"I'm sorry."

She nodded once, her lips turned down at the corners. The pain was  old but would never quite die. "It was not a bad life at the orphanage. I  learned to get around the best I could. Then, when I was ten, the Paths  revealed themselves to me."

"But," Corvus said, wincing at his own rude interruption. But he  could not let this go. "You were still blind. How could you see the  paths?"

She cackled. "The real question is, how could I read the options without ever once have looked at the pages of a book?"

Corvus opened his mouth and shut it again.

Nodding, Larissa seemed to take his silence as an answer. "Just so."

"May I ask what Paths you were given?"

"A fair few. The only ones I remember with clarity were the ones that  tempted me: Seamstress and the Path of Sight. As a Seamstress… Oh, the  things I could have created, if I could have convinced a master to hire a  blind girl. But in the end, there was only one choice." Her lips  twisted. "I wanted to see. Now, I have the best eyes in the village."

"The Paths gave your vision back? Just like that?"

"Oh, no. And what I have is not quite like sight, the way that I am  told you perceive it. Anyway, my first step was to get myself out of the  orphanage and placed with a family at last—there were many possible  steps I could have taken. Many branches among the Paths. The one I chose  was to be part of a blacksmith family. Along the way, I learned to see temperature. It helps at the forge, you know."

He shook his head. Partially in bewilderment, partially because he didn't know.

Her hands tightened on his arm. "If there is one thing I have  learned, it is that the Paths are ever-twisting. There is no straight  line. Some loop back, some skip ahead, and some will force you to  reevaluate your entire life."

"I know which next step I want," he said carefully. "I'm trying for  hedge-witch, but it seems like events are pushing me toward foot  soldier. My master is training me for war."

She nodded. "I believe there are no wrong paths. Only opportunities to grow and become stronger. And you must become stronger."

"Why?"

"Because there are so few of us, and fewer every decade. This was not  how it used to be. There are scraps of paper hidden in the foundation  of the library—in the small of the night I can peer through the library  walls and read what I wish, you see. But from what I understand, at one  time everyone in the Kingdom had the paths."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. Nor have I been able to find out when it turned. But I have no doubt it was due to the blight."

Corvus fell silent and so did Larissa. Arms still linked, they strode onward.

Corvus supposed his silhouette seemed unremarkable to those who cared  to look. Larissa was so small she would be hard to spot at all.

"I don't know how I escaped the blight." He was on the verge of  saying more. Explaining, perhaps, about the palace. But in the end,  paranoia won out. He shook his head. "I don't know what I'm supposed to  do next."

"You can't go wrong walking your Path," she said but then squeezed  his arm. "But do pay attention to your physical stats. You are too young  to have an old woman run circles around you."

He grinned. "I'll try."

"Hmm. No you won't. I have the feeling the Dragon Mage Path is not for those who value physical attributes."

He ducked his head and changed the subject. "You said there was someone else who walked the Paths?"

"Yes. His Path was of the Blacksmith but he specialized in gems. He  could make such exquisite pieces—some of them charmed with magic," she  added, quieter. "Master quality work even though he was barely twenty. I  would have taken him for a husband if I did not already have one of my  own." She smiled wickedly. "He was on a search for more Pathwalkers. I  was only the fourth or fifth he found. It was his personal quest, though  he never told me how it was linked to his Path. Eventually, his quest  led to the North… and never returned."

"What was his name?"

"Perry."

Corvus filed that name away for a later time.

"But enough of old sorrows," Larissa said, "tell me of your quest."

"Um..." Again he hesitated. "I'm to free the dragons. It's timed, so I have until morning."

She let out a long breath and he could not tell if she was amused or  exasperated. "I can't say that I like the idea overmuch—dragons are  dangerous beasts to have around. But I dislike hearing that she-dragon's  pain even more. The sounds she makes when they kill one of her young in  the pits..." She shuddered.

So it wasn't the first time this had happened to the blue. No wonder she had been so frantic. "Then, will you help me?"

"No."

"But—"

Larissa shook her head. "Quests are a personal challenge.  Self-assigned quests even more so. I won't help you complete it, but,"  she added, "perhaps I can help smooth the way."

His heart picked up pace. "How?"

Larissa tilted her head back and forth in thought. "Perhaps I will  see something suspicious on the other end of the wall--draw the guard's  attention away for a bit. It won't last all night, so whatever your  planning must be quick."

"Um." This seemed to be the point where he mentioned he didn't have much of an actual plan.

Larissa stopped and turned to him. Her eyes seemed to peer through to his soul.

Then she reached out and slapped him upside the head. Hard.

"Ow!"

You have been struck for 10 HP.

"Impulsive teenage boys!" she muttered. "Tell me you at least found the guard's keys."

"... There are keys?"

Her lips tightened and without turning she pointed one gnarled finger  at an angle behind and to the side. Corvus glanced in the direction and  saw a sort of a metal chest latched against a pole not too far from the  pens.

He hung his head, shamed. "Um, it's my first time committing burglary? I didn't expect there to be keys."

"Humph. Well, as I understand it the keys are for the cages around  the muzzles, and any chains. I don't know how they access the  pens—something to do with runes, which I suspect you're equipped for  considering your next step is hedge-witch. And you will have to avoid  being eaten or set on fire by the dragons themselves."

Corvus nodded, unconsciously touching the Hell Hound bone ring. Likely, he would be seeing what a +5 fire resistance did.

"Thank you." Stepping from her, he executed a proper court bow.

"You can thank me by surviving this foolishness. Now, there will be a patrol within sight in a few minutes. I'll distract them."

Straightening up under her armor, she began to walk off at her slow, measured pace.

"Wait!" he said, remembering. "Do you know what the party feature is?"

Larissa turned back. "Don't bother with it."

"Why? What is it?"

She chuckled without humor. "A way for Pathwalkers to form a group  and share points from combat. As I said, there aren't many of us  around." Then she flashed a smile that made her look, for a moment, like  a young woman again. "And anything worth fighting at my level could  kill you with a sharp look."

With that, she waved to him. "Now, go finish your quest. And come back when you can. I'd like to finish our little talk."

Corvus watched her go, bemused. Then, turning back, he headed for the ladder.