The Chronicles of a Scalebound Sage: Wandmaker Vol.2

WM [11] The Coming of The Greater Wendigo

Thorfinn didn't attend the going away party for the demons. He was busy cataloging the events of the battle with his magic. There was a limit to how far back in time he could see before the past became fuzzy for lack of a better word. He was running himself magically ragged, trying to make sure he recorded everything that happened and journaled it appropriately for the First Princess' review. After successfully chronicling the battle at the gatehouse, he worked his way backward.

The Patriarch was the focus of his investigation, so he followed them backward through time to the point where Tyr and his disciples and the survivors from the estate planned their assault on the gatehouse. There used to be an escape tunnel that they used to get quite a few of their people out before collapsing it. The odd thing wasn't that, though; it was the size of the chimera familiar. It was massive, easily large enough to carry a wagon, and after he saw further back in time, it did pull a wagon.

"What in the Infernal Planes?" Thorfinn questioned as he rubbed his chin.

He saw the original owner of the familiar, a woodentail wendigo girl. If he hadn't already informed that she was the Shai daughter of the Salstar house, he would never have guessed she was a wizard. He could tell she was an arcanist from her fighting style, but she used water magic with decent efficacy. Something about her caught his attention, especially after she had pulled Joha to the side.

This form of divination magic was his creation. It allowed him to see into the past but not hear anything. However, when he saw the familiar write the word aether on the ground, he knew he had to start reading lips. The visions he projected, especially with it being a few weeks in the past, were cloudy, so to speak. He could make people out, but not with the level of detail that would allow him to read lips without focusing his magic entirely on the small group instead of the entire clearing.

"What were you three talking about?" Thorfinn said to himself as the magic disengaged.

He had to stop and restart the spell anytime he wanted to move it to cover a new space. It is what made chronicling the battles such a difficult thing to do. The magic wasn't simple, and he doubted anyone else could do it. At times like this, when he just needed to focus the spell, he wished he had an apprentice. Then, all he would need to do is stabilize the new zone.

"Well, in theory anyway," he grumbled.

He replayed the conversation, positioning the crystals to form a triangle in the right spot so that only the three figures were in the divination magic. They came through as clearly as if he were standing next to them. He nearly dropped his notes when he started reading Freja's lips.

She mentioned that she was The Sage of the Infernal and explained how she was granted the ability to become a greater Wendigo. She had mental projection magic and skill sheets more commonly associated with cultivators. None of it made any sense. Why would the Salstars perform a Shiagaunt on the only Wendigo Sage for over two thousand years?

"That is not possible," Thorfinn whispered in disbelief. "But how would she know about the Herne Hunter? I am not even supposed to know about that."

He stopped and rewound the conversation as many times as needed to ensure he transcribed every word. This was something he had to tell Sigrun about immediately. Freja was supposedly dead, or at least that's what was said to them by the... demon woman. Wait, he had only ever seen the demon woman during the battle at the gatehouse, not before. He didn't even see her in the clearing during the battle here before he shrunk the zone.

The demoness Sif had some features of the wendigo, namely the antlers, but she didn't feel like a wendigo to his or Sigrun's magical senses. Her maya didn't quite feel like maya either, which to him was like a blank space in the ambient mana around everyone else. Magic casters couldn't sense the enigmatic energy in the same way arcanists and demons couldn't sense mana. However, now that he thought about it, he had seen Sif cast spells with vocalizations, something that arcanists didn't do.