Was this kind of talk really necessary?

"It's how Lysska talks when she wants to intimidate someone! Call them something lesser, like cute little playthings!"

Vyra's exact words.

Weirdly specific, but not entirely wrong. It had a certain flair, enough to send folks into pants-wetting terror, so clearly it did the job. Who was I to argue with results?

I let the Milan guy slide down to the floor with a gentle thud. He'd passed out, hard. Could've been the fear. Could've been the whole tentacle-wrapped-too-tight thing. Who's to say? I even gave his feet a friendly little wiggle, just to loosen the mood a bit. Y'know, demonstrate I had a softer side.

…He might've crapped himself when I did that.

Clearly, I needed to finesse my terror delivery. Something with less bodily fluids.

Maybe Lotte could help with that—

[I won't be teaching you how to be terrifying, Jade.]

Was I really that predictable?

Ugh. Whatever.

"Can I take his toes now?"

Vyra popped up beside me like an enthusiastic murder intern. She wore a jagged frost-helmet vaguely shaped like a fox's head, icy gauntlets tipped with talons sharp enough to peel paint off a wall, and enough frost coating her body that you'd be forgiven for forgetting there was a Faerin under all that. She even had the gremlin hunch going.

So the little theatre act was still in motion.

I glanced at Sergiy, still conscious—barely. He was holding very still, staring at the ground like maybe, if he didn't blink, the monsters would just pass him by.

Cute survival instincts. Very mammalian.

"Ah-ah-ah, sweet frostbite," I said, patting Vyra's shoulder with a tentacle. "How's he supposed to walk if you take his toes?"

Vyra gasped like I'd kicked her puppy. "You promised me his toes when I got here!"

"I did promise you his toes. Not his locomotion. There's a difference. Precision, Frost Frost—it matters."

"You're confusing me!" she snapped. "I hate being confused!"

Honestly, we probably looked like unhinged circus rejects to these guys. Dangerous, theatrical, not-right-in-the-head types. Possibly not even local. Which… to be fair, was half-true. Vyra was leaning hard into her fae illusion, and I was playing the part of her older, weirder, more terrifying companion. There was method to the madness.

For one, I didn't want to actually hurt these guys. Even Milan, the one who got mouthy with me—I mean, sure, he was rude, but at the end of the day he was just doing his job. Misguided, maybe. Had a bit of a conspiracy theorist streak. But I've dealt with worse than tinfoil-hat nonsense. After a while, you build up an immunity to being scapegoated. Especially when it's not even personal. Just background noise.

And Sergiy… was clearly out of his depth. And probably leaning toward my side, if I had to guess. He had that look—hesitant, questioning, not entirely sold on the whole "Jade is a terrorist" branding.

Even his mentor, Vorak—grumpy as he was—didn't strike me as a bad person. He just had the bad luck of being stuck in the same space as someone who was, at least on paper, a terrorist. That'd do unfortunate things to your career and cardiovascular health. Especially now that he was unconscious in the Pact's medical wards, from overexerting himself that day.

Whatever mess he'd wake up to later wasn't my problem, but I might need to make it mine.

Still, I had what I needed. Took the info from each of them in turn—knocked one out to talk to the other, rinse and repeat. Improvised, since all my truth serum vials were now gloriously shattered and I didn't have the time or ingredients to whip up a fresh batch.

Ugly work, but efficient. Which was all I really had the energy for anymore.

Whatever. I figured they were being mostly honest. Not like they were top-rung Pact brass—just lower-tier operatives caught in the crossfire. They didn't know anything truly classified, just the usual: who's doing what, what's the gossip around HQ, and how the whole "mysterious barrier" setup worked. Basic structural info, nothing game-breaking.

Still, it was useful. Because if those bastards really were stirring trouble, framing me for gods-know-what, then it wasn't random. Lysska had already voiced her suspicions—hinted that Pact's leadership might be rotting from the inside. Add to that the rumor about them cozying up to an elven ambassador? Yeah. The stench of something bigger was hard to ignore.

Sooner or later, I'd be standing opposite the Pact. That much was obvious.

And as they say: know your enemy. I wasn't going to let fate catch me with my tail in a trap again. Not after last time. With my luck? If anything can go wrong, it doesn't just go wrong—it bursts into flames, explodes dramatically, and wipes out half a city block in the process.

No more gambling on luck. I needed intel. Solid ground to stand on before I planned my next step.

Plus, Vorak be salvageable. Poor bastard was now unconscious, sure, but if Sergiy was telling the truth—and he seemed too terrified to lie—then Vorak was one of the Pact's most powerful diviners. And even he had started doubting their leadership. We might've been heading toward the same goal from different angles.

So, yeah. Worth a conversation when he woke up. Assuming he survived whatever awaited him for being a 'traitor.'

But that could wait. I needed to sort through everything I'd learned.

"Well," I said, clapping my hands together. "Looks like we're done! Frostbite, you may take their pinkies as payment."

Vyra did a happy little hop in place. "Not what I was promised, but it works!"

"Just knock them out first, little frost-frost. I hear mortals scream when you rip things off, and we really don't want that right now." (Not that they could scream—both were still gagged. But hey, theatre.)

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Good idea!" she chirped. Then, with zero hesitation, she conjured a frost axe nearly as tall as she was and calmly bonked a horrified Sergiy on the head. Clean hit. Out cold.

I stared, deadpan. "Don't ever tell me to do that again."

She giggled, sharp and delighted. "But it was so fun! We should do this more often."

"Exactly why I won't be doing it again."

And honestly? She had a point. It was kind of fun. But also dangerously fun. The kind of fun that gets you addicted to kidnapping people and scaring the crap out of them. Literally. They both had… unfortunate accidents. And I was a reasonable dragon, thank you very much.

Vyra gave me a smug sidelong glance, frost mask gone now. Her face just radiated sass. She knew exactly how predictable I was.

Damn it.

"Anyway," I said, sighing, "take them back and drop them off outside the forest. Somewhere they can wake up, collect what's left of their pride, and report that they had a very strange run-in with the mysterious Veilwoods dwellers."

Vyra saluted with dramatic flair. Two spectral frost claws appeared above our guests, gently lifting their unconscious bodies like they were made of spun glass.

"Pinkies still on the menu?" she asked, all wide-eyed innocence.

I pretended to ponder. "Hmm. Non-lethal. And honestly, letting them go completely unscathed after our performance? Suspicious. Just… be gentle."

She perked up instantly—the exact same toe-request gleam. Odd, the sheer joy she wrung from light mutilation, even when purely performative.

Almost like… it wasn't all performance. But I shrugged. Whatever. Who was I to judge, given my own extracurriculars?

"When are you coming back?" she pressed. "And you owe me the truth. No lies."

I shrugged. "Give me a few more minutes. Got other fires to put out first."

As she turned to leave, I narrowed my eyes. For a split second, I swore her gaze lingered a beat too long on their feet…

…Nah. Imagination.

Still, I tracked her movements with my air sense until I was sure she was well out of earshot.

Just in case.

"So, what do you think, Lotte?"

I made sure to feed her snippets of information aloud as I paced—half-mumbling, half-talking to myself—since that was how our link worked. Whisper it under my breath, and she'd catch it. She was probably hanging on every word right now, too; nothing would get her more wired than a juicy situation unfolding in real time.

[Certainly a tricky situation, hatchling. One demanding careful navigation. I intended for you to master the base spell before revealing this supplement... but events may necessitate its earlier deployment.]

My eyes lit up.

Wait—seriously?

The casting condition she'd given me for unlocking it had been borderline insane—a ridiculous time-based performance threshold that would've taken days of brutal practice. And I still planned to work toward it, of course. But not knowing what spell was hiding behind that barrier had been killing me.

"TELL ME!" I said—maybe a bit too excited.

Immediately, a new screen shimmered into view in front of me.

[Observer's Suggestion] Supplementary Spell to [Observer's Mark] Allows caster to implant a simple suggestion into the target's subconscious.

I blinked. Rubbed my eyes.

Read it again.

HOLY THALADOR.

Mind magic.

Except—no, that wasn't a thing. Everyone knew it didn't exist. Not in a spellcasting sense. Sure, you could simulate it with potions: truth serums, compulsion drafts, even affection brews for the bold. But those were alchemical—transient, consumable. Not spellwork. Not direct manipulation via spell weaving.

But this... this was something else. And if I was reading it right, it definitely smelled like brain meddling.

Now it made sense why Lotte had held it back. Sounded less like a tool, more like leverage. Dangerous leverage. And lucky me—I had the perfect target in mind already.

"I'm in. Hit me with the runes."

[Be warned, hatchling. Improper casting risks collapsing the base mark. Worse, the target may suffer backlash.]

"Yeah, yeah. I know how this class of targeting spells works. Let's go."

She didn't waste any time. The runes flooded in.

Of course, just like the base spell, this one was a damn beast. Seventy runes. Again. Why were all of these so needlessly complicated? Even with my perfect memory, learning the structure was one thing—weaving it properly under pressure was another. I'd need practice. A lot of it.

As the final structure locked into place in my mind, I caught something odd.

"…Wait a second. I'm seeing an pseudo-Oblivion rune."

I squinted. Not an oblivion rune itself but some hybrid override rune built into the back end of the sequence. Normally used as a failsafe to nuke the spell if things went sideways.

"And this... this weird A-shaped rune near the end. That's—Absurdity?"

[Correct.]

Of course that was a rune. Why wouldn't it be.

"How does that even work?"

[It scales the suggestion's strength by plausibility.] [Think of it 0 to 100: trivial to utterly impossible. Higher Absurdity values increase destabilization risk—the spell may purge itself.] [The pseudo-Oblivion rune limits fallout. But high-Absurdity implants can still trigger… unintended effects upon collapse.]

"Meaning if I try to plant something too wild, it could go full arcane backfire. Neat."

[Precisely. This spell nudges—it doesn't shove. The target must be capable of accepting the idea. You merely… accelerate the acceptance.]

I nodded. That all made perfect sense—and honestly, I'd kind of assumed that's how it worked. The idea of just puppeteering people with something as innocent-sounding as "suggestion" had always felt way too good to be true.

Of course, it wasn't that simple.

Not only couldn't I force people to do something completely out of character, but even trying something too far-fetched could backfire and shatter the whole spell. Depressingly reasonable, but still kind of a bummer.

I shook my head and refocused. Time was ticking. My fingers began to move on instinct as I started weaving [Observer's Mark] from memory—targeting a squirrel this time. I had, uh, learned my lesson last time about trying it on inanimate objects.

Because [Observer's Suggestion] only worked if the mark was already active—and within range. I just wanted a dry run. Get a feel for how the spell handled before I tried it on actual people. No unexpected aneurysms, please.

So I began. Twisting runes into shape. Building structure.

***

"Vyra!"

"Finished your weird tentacle-arts?" she chirped, poking through the bushes.

I nodded, joining her.

"Was waiting for them to wake up," she added casually. "Might've bonked them slightly too enthusiastically."

I raised an eyebrow. "You didn't…"

"Oh, they did wake up. Started shrieking when I took their pinky toes—so I bonked them again. Quieter now!"

I stared. Flat. Unimpressed.

"Whatever. They're fine like this. Actually, perfect. I need to try something."

"Oooh, is it a new ability? Spell? Something to do with your new form? Something about how that tree explo—"

I held up a hand to shush her before her questions turned into an interrogation.

"Perhaps," I said, "but let me focus first."

I began weaving the runes. Vyra watched, curious at first—then visibly disturbed.

"What the fuck are you even weaving, Jade?" she asked, inching back slightly.

The glowing runes spiraled around me in disjointed loops, forming a jagged ring of violet light, flickering in and out of phase with the surrounding space. Honestly? Looked more like a doomsday summoning than a support spell.

"Something helpful," I said, eyes narrowing as I concentrated.

Once again, the world around me lit up with layers of perception. But I wasn't scanning randomly—I already had a target in mind.

Milan, the senior enforcer, was the obvious choice. More experience. More access. Probably more pull inside the Pact HQ.

But… the spell had limits. [Observer's Suggestion] couldn't implant wild ideas, only subtle nudges—things the target might already be predisposed to. And Milan wasn't exactly doubting the Pact. If I tried to plant a seed of suspicion in him, it might backfire, break the spell entirely.

Sergiy, though… he was suspicious. A junior, sure, but maybe he had enough autonomy to poke around. Maybe even contact Vorak—his mentor—and figure out where he was being held. If it came to that. I wasn't going to let Vorak get steamrolled because of me.

Besides, if I was headed toward open conflict with the Pact… I'd need allies. And intel. Sergiy could be both.

I cast [Observer's Mark].

The spell settled over Sergiy, and a white spark lit up in the back of my mind—like a beacon tethered to my awareness.

No hesitation.

Vyra hadn't even recovered from the first spell when I started weaving the next. Another seventy-rune monstrosity flared to life around me.

[Observer's Suggestion]

The white spark in my mind shifted—now tinted blue. The connection was active.

I focused.

I need to wake up, I whispered internally, planting the idea like a tiny seed in Sergiy's subconscious.

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