Murderous Mindset: Million Platinum Question

Aspen stood at the lip of the oblong crater staring at the wisps of smoke rolling from its centre. She tilted her head thoughtfully. With a small sigh and a whisper of a spell small pools of ice grew under her feet and clung to the souls of her shoes as she leaned over the massive hole in the earth. The spell kept her from falling if she leaned too far.

As she stared at the oddity she felt a prickle of energy against the back of her neck. Like warm fingers dancing down her neck. Which meant one of two things. The first being someone touching her, which wasn’t the case, the feeling lacked that tactile feeling of flesh on flesh, the second was a poorly done spell that was meant to be subtle but lacked the fine tuned finesse of a practised wizard. Aspen stood up straight and gave herself a once over to correct anything unprofessional in her appearance as a slit opened up in the universe and the tall gangly man, not so much walked but stumbled out of the rift. And not a moment after his last foot was free of the portal it snapped shut.

“Parvil.” Aspen said not turning to face him.

“Blue.” Parvil answered, stepping forward to stand next to her, gaining only a soft grunt of annoyance to his nickname.

Aspen jabbed Parvil in the ribs hard with her bony elbow “You know I hate that nickname.” she said, eyes still focused on the crater.

Parvil rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, Good Afternoon Aspen.” he said, “So…Whatcha looking at?” he asked, bending at the waist so he would be ear to ear with Aspen and sharing her eye line.

Parvil watched Aspen do something he’d seen a million times, and probably would a million times more. When she was confused she’d always scrunch her nose and chew on her lip. And he let the corner of his mouth facing away from her turn up in a slight smile. With her eyes still closed she took her glasses off, and Parvil felt the corner of his coat grabbed as she cleaned her glasses. “I don’t have the foggiest.” she said, in a small voice tinged with frustration. “I’ve been looking at it for almost an hour and still don’t know.”

Parvil scratched his temple thinking as hard as Aspen was.

“One caster?” he asked.

“Yep.” she said.

“Ritual Cast?” Parvil asked.

“Lingering magic says, yes.” she responded.

“Odd…” he replied.

“Oh?” Aspen said, turning her head slightly to meet his eyes. “Why am I missing something?” she asked.

“Not missing…” he said, fiddling with the chain on his amulet.

“Having trouble putting it into words?” Aspen asked, and Parvil nodded in the corner of her vision. “Me too, I feel like I know what I’m missing but it’s like an after image, every time I reach for it, it slips from my fingers.”

“Like sand.” Parvil said.

“Like sand.” Aspen repeated exasperation in her voice.

Parvil crouched and put his elbows on his knees. “What used to be here?” he asked.

Aspen tilted her head. “Hmmm….I think that was in the file.” she said, flipping open the bag on her side and pulling out a stack of papers. Her eyes flashed a nearly white blue, as she flipped through the pages and pulled out one and handed it over to Parvil.

“A manor?” he said looking at the page then up at the ovoid crater. “Fits.” he said, “But why is it…” he flicked the page, then made a vague gesture to the hole in the ground.

“Million platinum question.” Aspen said.

“It glassed the edges.” he said, waggling a finger at the sides of the hole. “Must have been well crafted to not take out anything else,” he said.

“My thoughts exactly.” Aspen.

Aspen sighed. “Any thoughts yet?” she asked.

Parvil shrugged. “I’ll need to pluck on some strings of ‘The Weave’ and untangle the threads, sort out the background noise from the important stuff and isolate the source of the magic.”

“How long do you think that’ll take?” Aspen asked.

Parvil stopped and considered a moment looking at the deepening azure sky. “Warping here takes a lot out of me. But with a few hours of sleep I can probably get to it.” he said.

Aspen sighed, slumped her shoulders then had to fix her glasses. “I knew you’d say something like that. Are you even sure you can pull something like that off? I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone doing that before.”

“Probably,” he said, “It’s just doing a tracking spell but leaving out a few steps. It’s far from perfect but I should be able to get some kind of impression of what happened here. Or the basics anyway. Probably not seeing who did it or how, but any clue is a clue at this point.”

“You amaze me sometimes.” Aspen said, with a rye smile. “No wizard I know or sorcerer for that matter would come up with something like that. They’d just go by the books, and flail around till they figured out some spell that did something, and by then it’d probably be too late.” she said.

“I’ve only done it once before, so don’t praise me yet.” he said, “The Spell is in theory easy, but leaving out steps in a spell is…let's call it tricky.” Parvil said.

After a few minutes of silence stood back to his full height. “I’m going to set up camp. Want me to set up your tent?” he asked.

“I didn’t bring one. I expected to leave before that could happen.” Aspen said, a bit angry at herself for not considering it and at Parvil for not being able to wrap this up right now.

“You can sleep in my bed.” he said, “I only need a few hours of sleep anyway.”

Aspen’s cheeks flushed pink. “You mean at the same time. Think again!”

Parvil had pulled a broom from his bag and was making a spot clear for his portable hole. “No, I meant one at a time, and don’t act like we’ve not shared a bed.” he said indignantly.

Aspen let out a huff. “Whatever I’ll get a fire going. You still stock food in that thing.”

“Always.” he said, tossing the hole down, and it went from a cloth like circle to looking like someone had inked a perfect circle on the ground, and he stepped in, coming back a few moments later with food.

After making a fire, and eating the two sat around the fire waiting for full darkness to take the sky.

“Tell me something.” Aspen said, as Parvil poked at the fire with a long stick.

“Hmmm?” Parvil asked, glancing up.

“Why don’t you get yourself a warp stone?” She asked.

Parvil raised a brow. “What do you mean?”

“You just…” she thought, how to say it nicely. “You’re doing a spell most wizards have trouble with, and you miss the mark so often.” she said reaching into a pocket and taking out her own stone. “I mean even if I use one. Why don’t you.”

Parvil shrugged. “Part stubbornness, part pride I suppose.”

The two talked for a while before Parvil turned in, Aspen taking the first watch, Parvil letting her sleep after about four hours of sleep of his own.

The next morning Parvil was already at the mouth of the crater sitting on the ground crossed legged in the centre of a circle drawn in the dirt. Overnight a faint drizzle had rolled in, threatening to become a downpour later in the day. Aspen hurried over to where Parvil was seated, stopping just short of a shimmering half dome around him. Putting out a finger to touch it, it slipped in and she followed. The inside of the dome was warmer than the outside air, more from Parvils own body heat than anything but it was keeping the area dry. “Sit.” Parvil said in a slow whisper as he focused. Once seated Aspen closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them she could see that multicolored strands of The Weave going this way and that, tangling and untangling and vanishing somewhere in the distance. Now and then she could see Parvil’s closed eye’s twitch and a strand of The Weave jitter like a plucked lute string. And he would inhale, exhale and a string was plucked. He did this over and over for what felt like forever, the light patter of rain started hitting the dome shielding them. Eventually a thread was pulled that caused several to sing in unison. Parvil gripped Aspen’s hand so she could see the vision.

They saw a manor, not as large as something of royalty but not a humble home of a commoner. They saw what looked like two humanoid silhouettes, more like unclothed scarecrows than people, approaching the door and entering the manor. They then felt a lurch forward in time, and the woman fled the home, without the male figure. And a moment after she was clear of the courtyard the manor was covered in a white sphere of light and it was simply gone, as if disintegrated. The blast snapping Parvil out of his trance, taking Aspen with him. The second they were back to their bodies, Parvil gripped his nose between his thumb and pointer and held his head back slightly.

“Are you okay!?” Aspen asked eyes wide with panic, never seeing magic like that she fear he’d suffered feedback.

“Nosebleed.” he said, with a slight cough “But I think I got something.”

“They just looked like faceless blobs of grey to me.” She said,

“Same for me. But I got her magic finger print.” he said.

“What in the Nine Hells was that spell?” Aspen asked.

“Million Platinum Question.” Parvil responded, taking Aspen’s phrase.