The party – if it could still be called that – ground on. It was clear that the mood had been completely ruined, and most people stuck to their own areas, glancing furtively around the room as if Wizen’s clones could have been lurking anywhere in their midst. And, in their defense, they weren’t wrong.

Moxie joined the fake Vermil and the rest of the students at the table, keeping an eye on them while giving Noah, Jalen, and Silvertide more room to speak in private without having such a big crowd that they grew attention.

Godrick did his best to perform proper introductions for everyone, but with the evening’s earlier revelations, it was clear that nobody was particularly interested. They already knew who Silvertide was, and Vermil had already plowed through nearly half of the available food on the table with no signs of stopping.

As for the new students, it was pretty clear that nobody was going to be going around doing any proper introductions until the Wizen issue had been dealt with. After all, knowing more people just meant more opportunities for a clone to get closer.

Noah sat with Silvertide and Jalen through the majority of the party, keeping an eye on the white-haired clone while they waited for her to take her leave. Ulya sat a few feet to their side, nervously fidgeting in her chair.

“So, are you going to properly introduce me to your hooded friend?” Silvertide asked, sending a glance in Jalen’s direction. “I don’t believe I recognize him.”

“Just a traveler,” Jalen said with a dismissive shrug. “Nobody of any interest, I can assure you.”

“Would you find me odd if I didn’t believe that for a fraction of a second?” Silvertide let a wry smile cross his face and shrugged. “No matter. I will not push, even if it causes my curiosity pain.”

“Wise,” Jalen said. “Though I’m starting to wish someone would. I was expecting a considerably more exciting night. Everything was laid out for a play, but it seems you’ve gone and shifted the pieces around.”

“I prefer to work when the playing field is already stacked to my advantage,” Silvertide said. “I would be happy to accommodate you if I knew more of what your desires were.”

Jalen chuckled and tapped a finger to his head in a gesture of respect. “A good attempt, but one that will yield no fruit. I believe I promised to avoid causing too much of a commotion today, so I will not be sharing anything about myself.”

Silvertide shrugged. “Very well. Does anyone happen to know the name of tonight’s target? I must admit that I haven’t had time to properly research the backgrounds of everybody in the advanced track yet. I had planned to do it tonight, but that plan changed when a corpse showed up at my door.”

“Mayreena,” Ulya put in. They all turned to look at her and she shrunk in her seat. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. If we wanted privacy then it would have been rather stupid to speak in your presence. As far as I can tell, you’re in with Vermil, yes?”

Ulya averted her gaze to peer at Vermil, who was currently crushing a large fruit up in his hands to shove it, skin and all, into his mouth. She swallowed, then nodded. “I… suppose so. We have been working together.”

“Then nothing here should be much of a surprise to you,” Silvertide said. “I’m sorry for your loss, though.”

“My loss?”

“Mayreena. She is dead,” Silvertide said.

“Oh. I wasn’t particularly close to her. She was one of the professors that worked closely with Verrud, another researcher. Mayreena always kept to herself and was pretty standoffish, so while I’m sad to hear she died, I’m not personally affected.”

“Or perhaps you’re just too tired to register things properly,” Silvertide observed. “You could carry a corpse in those bags under your eyes.”

Ulya raised a hand to her face, then grimaced. “I haven’t had much chance to get proper rest recently. I’ve been too focused on the plant mage and figuring out how to deal with them.”

“Well, feel free to rest well tonight,” Silvertide said. “Our opponent will be very occupied tonight, so he won’t be doing anything fancy. Puppet users all have a very glaring weakness, especially the ones that use a lot of them at once.”

“Really?” Noah asked. “What is it?”

“Attention split,” Ulya answered before Silvertide could speak. “The more puppets you try to move at once, the harder it gets. That goes doubly so when they’re precise moves like fights or the like. That’s why I almost never use more than one or two puppets at a time.”This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Precisely,” Silvertide said with a nod. “Puppets are a technique that mages adept in Imbuements can use to devastating effect, but they are far from a way to take over the world. A single powerful puppet is often considerably more dangerous than a horde. Is that fast friend of yours around? We may have need of her services.”

Noah did his best to avoid looking over to the table, where Lee was still using his body to stuff her face. He’d asked her to draw just a little bit of attention during the meeting so nobody investigated him too heavily, but he was pretty sure this was more than a little.

“She may be,” Noah said. “But I wouldn’t count on it, especially if we have to leave early.”

Silvertide pursed his lips. “That’s problematic. Remind me of your name, lass?”

“Ulya.”

“Ulya. Are you busy tonight?”

From anyone else, that might have sounded like a proposition. But, from Silvertide, it was practically impossible to take it the wrong way. He spoke like a kindly grandfather finding out if his grandchildren would be willing to spend some time with him – even though he only looked to be in his late-forties.

“I – no. I’m not sure if there’s anything I can actually do against this person, though. The last time we fought, I barely survived.”

“But you did survive.”

“Not through any fault of my own. Something or someone saved me,” Ulya said, biting her lower lip and frowning. “I still haven’t figured out who or why. Part of me fears that it was an intentional move and I was somehow infected, but my domain should have revealed anything like that.”

Jalen coughed into his fist, and Noah shot a glance at him. It was hard to see under the shadow of his cloak, but he was pretty sure that the powerful mage was grinning to himself.

“Well, so long as you aren’t corrupted yet, I’d imagine you’ll be of some help to us,” Silvertide said. “How many puppets do you control? Not powerful ones – just in general.”

“Right now? I have eight,” Ulya replied after taking a moment to think. “But most of them aren’t great at combat. Only three can fight properly. All my other combat puppets have met… unfortunate circumstances as of late.”

“Eight should be more than enough,” Silvertide mused, rubbing his chin. “I don’t imagine there will be more than that. Every active puppet is a loss in overall power, and I doubt our plant mage friend is stupid enough to waste an entire Rune purely just on puppets.”

Noah wasn’t sure he quite followed with what Silvertide was saying, but if he understood it right, Wizen likely only had a set amount of puppets to work with, and it was hard to use all of them at once.

Like any imbuement, puppets took energy to make and maintain, so he’d probably only have a limited number of them wandering around. It almost sounded as if Silvertide wanted to find a way to take out every puppet in a single fell swoop, but Noah had absolutely no idea how he meant to do that.

Could it be that sympathetic magic that Ulya mentioned? I’m assuming it works by some form of correlation, kind of like Voodoo back on Earth. Do something to a representative and the magic carries on to the other pieces. I don’t really know much more than that, but if I’m right, that seems like a pretty reasonable strategy.

“Just defeating the puppet may be more difficult than you suspect,” Ulya said. “And the plant mage didn’t seem like he valued the one that he attacked me with very much.”

“Gero did inform me of some of your circumstances,” Silvertide said, causing a small frown to pass over Noah’s face. If Gero had spoken with Silvertide, then why had Silvertide pretended to not know who Ulya was?

He could have been testing her, I suppose. Testing for what, though? Maybe I’m reading too far into it, and he literally just forgot. It’s hard to remember he’s a powerful soldier sometimes. He might really just not remember.

“Do you know what happened?” Ulya asked, leaning forward slightly, but disappointment passed over her features as Silvertide shook his head.

“I’m afraid not. Nothing about our opponent has indicated he has any form of space magic, though. If you’re a plant, then he is playing at an entirely different game than I believe. Regardless, your help will be useful, even if your puppets can’t properly fight yet.”

“Then I’ll do what I can,” Ulya said, swallowing in a clear attempt to keep her nerves under control.

Before anyone else could speak, Mayreena rose from her spot at the table. The party had been slowing down for a while, and a few of the other professors and their students had already left.

She started to make her way for the exit, and nobody other than the trio around Noah was watching her. Silvertide inclined his head slightly once Mayreena passed them. He stood up with a yawn.

“I’d say it’s about time we get moving. Would be a shame to let her get away.”

Noah sent a glance back at Moxie and the others, his brow furrowing. As much as he wanted to follow Silvertide blindly, he wasn’t keen on leaving his friends alone with the advanced track.

He wasn’t confident something wouldn’t go wrong, and if he was nowhere near, he’d have no way to know.

“You didn’t have any plans of fighting anything tonight, right?” Noah asked Jalen.

Jalen shrugged. “Not at the moment.”

“Mind sticking around here and keeping an eye on them? I’m not asking you to go to war for them, but I don’t want some random Rank 5 or 6 just showing up and randomly killing everyone the moment I leave.”

“Is that something that happens frequently enough that you’re accounting for it?” Jalen asked, tilting his head to the side just enough to let the light touch on the amused grin on his face.

“Now that you mention it – yes.”

Jalen snorted. “Fine. Don’t expect much, but I’ll make sure the fight is fair if nothing else.”

That was about as much as he could ever imagine getting the strange man to agree to, so Noah nodded in appreciation. He rose to his feet to stand beside Silvertide, and Ulya got up as well.

“We’ll be off, then,” Silvertide said, his cane clicking at his side as Noah and Ulya followed him up the stairs, leaving the advanced track party behind in pursuit of Wizen’s puppet.