Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 182: Puzzles in People

Seris Vritra

I strode through the makeshift barrack created for me and my council, moving for an empty room. Outwardly, I was a picture of perfect poise. I displayed everything required of a Scythe: perfect grace and cool, powerful indifference. My mask of apathy was a weapon to be wielded as I saw fit, striking at any who stepped out of line.

But within? I was tense; taut as a wyvern-hide bow. Cylrit had contacted me swiftly, as expected. I knew Retainer Uto had been planning an ambush of Arthur Leywin in concert with Councilor Rahdeas. I'd volunteered my eventual assistance to the Councilor myself, ordering him not to inform Commander Uto of my interference.

I will enjoy snapping Uto's horns from his head, I thought absently, suppressing a ravenous smile. The man had been a nagging thorn in my side for far too long, his crass nature and obvious mouthpiece for Dragoth's inner thoughts wearing away at my patience. Too long have I withheld from breaking that beast.

I buried that vindictive surge. I had more important reasons for what I was about to do. Lance Godspell, above all others, needed to survive for the eventual storm. It would not be just Alacrya caught between the gazes of Kezess and Agrona, but Dicathen as well. And they could not be left without their figures of power.

As my feet carried me forward, I thought of the first time I'd seen the boy, Arthur Leywin, as he spied my entrance onto this continent. I hadn't been able to sense his mana signature, masked as it was by whatever art he used to hide it. But I hadn't needed to.

For that barest instant, I'd sensed how the ambient mana itself seemed to move with the reincarnated man, accommodating his every breath. The air and fire and earth and water bowed to his will, the world seeming to show me his importance for a split instant. Here was a mage whose presence demanded the attention of even the mana itself.

And it was not me alone who sensed Lance Godspell's intrusion. Toren Daen had focused with singular intensity on his location as well, then spoke nothing of what he must have perceived in the aftermath.

Lord Daen himself marched behind me, adorned in his bronze armor and mask and dressed for battle. The look of surprise on his face when I'd ordered his presence with me during the ambush had been something worth remembering, but that wasn't why I took him with me.

I will have to prepare more puzzles in the off chance Toren manages to solve the one I gifted him for his birthday, I thought. That was one of the greatest lessons I'd learned from Agrona Vritra: make plans for any eventuality, no matter how unlikely. I fondly remembered the fiery glint in the young musician's eyes as he dared me to find a puzzle he couldn't solve. That challenge was a mistake, Lord Daen. I hope your mind won't give out on me so quickly.

But for all of Toren's intellect, he was only human. The young man was entirely correct in his earlier assertion that I had no place in his rooms or knocking on his door. I was a Scythe, after all, and he but a pawn on my board. But Toren was more inclined to try and backtrack over his blunders rather than address their verity.

A useful thing to exploit, the emotions of young men.

Toren was a wildcard, certainly. But even as a wildcard, he had patterns. Such as whenever he was alone, or felt comfortable, his tongue and mannerisms would loosen remarkably.

I will have to send inquiries to Scythe Nico on what, precisely, poker is, I thought as my feet carried me onward. A game of chance and cards, certainly, but if it was region-specific on Earth, or bore some other significance...

Sovereign's Quarrel was a game reserved solely for the upper class and well-to-do. There was a chance that 'poker' could be similarly divided along lines of class and wealth.