Sylver Seeker

“Amaranth,” Sylver said, after a few minutes of silence.

“Rory,” the red-headed elf, Rory, said.

Normally Sylver wasn’t half bad at making small talk, but he was a little rusty, and right now, distracted.

There wasn’t much to say about Rory.

She didn’t have the kind of proportions that someone could describe using words usually reserved for cuts of meat. Her face was neither hideous, nor particularly attractive, and while her hair was a somewhat interesting dark shade of red, it didn’t look right on her head.

[Elf (???+???+???+???) – 107][HP-7,900][MP-???]

“They’re all rogue classes, except the first one, which is a mage type. Invisibility for the most part and a few trap detection related skills,” Rory explained.

“I see,” Sylver said and went back to blankly staring at nothing.

The party wasn’t for a few more minutes, so for the time being, Sylver and Rory were both just sitting in his living room, and waiting.

The thing that occupied Sylver’s mind, was an idea that he couldn’t decide on whether it was good or not.

Ria knew something about the system that it went out of its way to make sure Sylver didn’t hear. It knocked him out and made him sweat blood as punishment.

So what would happen if Sylver deafened himself, and then had Ria shout whatever it was that she knew at whoever Sylver was fighting?

Would the person pass out?

If the answer was yes, Sylver would have the equivalent of instant death magic.

Probably even better than instant death magic, since he wouldn’t need to adjust how much strength he put into the spell to knock someone out, Ria would just shout a couple of words, and then Sylver would slice the unconscious person’s throat open.

He could take it a step further, and have Ria write on a shield or something, or even on Sylver’s mask. That way, anyone who looked at Sylver’s shield, or his mask, would pass out, and Sylver would slice their unconscious throat open.

Sylver would be able to effortlessly kill people 100 levels higher than him, 200, 300, he could walk up to the high king and murder him in broad daylight.

He could probably have Ria write out the information in a way that even monsters would be able to comprehend it, to be affected by it. Sylver could walk into a dragon’s nest, and walk out with a zombie dragon, along with whatever he found in the dragon’s hoard.

Fuck, even the woman in white, Rose, would be powerless against him.

But, the more likely result would be that Sylver would fall into a system-induced coma. It considered Ria a tool of his, considering that it gave him the experience for everything that died in the dungeon Ria had exploded.

Still, it was nice to know Sylver had a trump card to end all trump cards in his pocket.

A trump card that was more likely to kill him than not, but trump cards are very rarely used unless the situation is desperate anyway.

Except this one could really backfire on him…

He was out for 1 day, and 3 hours during the last system-induced blackout, and 9 hours in the one before that. By that logic, the next one would last for 3 days and 9 hours, but that’s assuming the system doesn’t just go for a week, or a month, to really make sure he learned his lesson.

Sylver’s current “plan,” if it could be called that, was to decapitate himself, and have Ria cover his entire head, to see if that would isolate him from the system. Then she could tell him whatever it was that she had seen/heard, and then Sylver’s head would explode the second she stopped isolating him from the world at large.

But as far as ideas regarding breaking the system open went, Sylver didn’t have all that many. He had a couple that involved [Primal Override], but, again, they all ran the risk of landing him into a weeklong coma.

“So what’s your story? You came to the Garden, nearly ripped a man’s heart out in your first fight, and barely 2 months later, you’re a Flower. What did you do before coming here?” Rory asked, and thankfully Sylver had Spring to tell him the first half because he missed it entirely.

“It’s a long story. At least… 4 books long. And I don’t mean those small thin types, I mean each book would be as thick as my arm,” Sylver explained and saw Rory shrug slightly.

Sylver stretched his arms out, and flinched as a muscle in his elbow was pulled a little too hard.

“What about you? What’s your story?” Sylver asked.

Rory looked around the room while she thought it over.

“Not much to tell really. I tried to steal something and got caught, Kass intervened and paid them off to save me, and I’ve been working for him ever since. He’s a good guy… Well, he’s a lot better now than he used to be… I think getting his head bashed in made him rethink his approach to life,” Rory explained and moved around on the sofa until she half lay down on it.

“When did he get his head bashed in?” Sylver asked.

Clairvoyants almost never learned a lesson unless it was already too late. When you can see an ass-kicking coming from miles away, it’s rare that you don’t do something to avoid it.

“I think it was… A year ago? A year and a half, it was right after the Dark Year ended. If I’m remembering right, he slept with a woman who told him her husband worked in the red district but was actually a level 250 something blue district tower climber. The husband allegedly had some sort of perk that hid him away from Kass’ clairvoyance,” Rory explained.

As far as stories involving clairvoyants, what she just said could have described all of them.

Although normally the clairvoyant didn’t survive. Sylver was somewhat immune to clairvoyance on account of him being undead, and he further fortified his immunity using his soul.

The fact that Chrys could still see a future that involved him, spoke a great deal of her talent, as well as Sylver’s weakness.

The Silver Lich could quite literally disrupt centuries of prophecies just by being in the general area. He’d done it by accident more times than he could count, or even knew about. If he put his mind to it, he could essentially make any clairvoyant below 8th tier powerless.

But now Sylver struggled to keep his future hidden from a malnourished child.

The fact that the aforementioned child was being aided by a large quantity of tech, softened the blow to his pride slightly.

But as with most good news that Sylver got lately, it was quickly followed up by equal, or greater, bad news.

Chrys was going to be useless as a clairvoyant once she no longer had the machine to help her. She had the talent to become great, one day, but that’s assuming her magic didn’t get crippled from being separated from the machine and assuming Sylver could find her a good enough teacher.

Even then, it was a pretty big if, considering just about every single mage or person involved with the Ibis knew how to hide themselves from clairvoyants, and if their situation was anything like Sylver’s, were probably actively blocking all attempts at finding them.

Otherwise, Kitty and her lot would have found them, because there was no way they didn’t have at least a handful of clairvoyants in their midst. Clairvoyants were rare, granted, and competent ones were even rarer, granted, but you only needed one to find and train more.

I really should start distancing myself from Kitty and the cats…

The Cord? I’ve got Novva and his nobles to help if I decide to go to war with them, but I would need to replace them with something, and they haven’t been too difficult to work with so far…

I wonder if Nautis is still alive… With [Primal Override]I should be able to fashion him into some sort of brain-dead teleportation creature… He’s already soaked through with my mana from the various curses, although they probably healed it all away while they tortured him…

Would it be worth the effort? If I can figure out how to make fairy rings, they would be more useful in the long run, and far more reliable too.

Sylver shivered as the memory of the time he ruined nearly 30 years of efforts by accidentally feeding one of his homunculi the wrong potion, and had to just sit there and watch as the piece of shit gradually shut down, and stared at him accusingly as if it was all his fault.

Which, to be fair, it mostly was.

Nyx was partially to blame, if she hadn’t dumped a civil war into Sylver’s lap, he never would have been too distracted to triple check his notes.

A civil war that, mind you, she started.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” Rory asked, as Sylver stopped staring at the patched-up kitchen wall with a growing grimace on his face, and instead turned to look at her.

Sylver snapped his fingers and the tip of her oddly thick cigarette began to glow with a faint blue light before the smoke gathered into a perfect sphere directly above her. Rory stared up at the sphere filling with smoke, as she moved the cigarette to her mouth, and saw the sphere move the exact same distance as well.

“I’m decent with illusions, but physical magic was always beyond me. A small 10-gram pebble is about all I’m capable of, thankfully most of the locks in the Garden are digital, so I’ve never had much of an issue. 10 grams is enough to move two wires close together to short circuit something,” Rory explained, as she moved the smoking cigarette in a circle and watched as the sphere filling with smoke followed above it.

“You need a certain mindset for physical magic. But that very same mindset also locks you into physical magic, it is hard to do anything other than physical magic when that’s all you know how to do,” Sylver explained, as he closed his hand into a fist, and the sphere of smoke condensed until it was the size of a pea, and then disappeared in a small puff pale yellow light.

“What’d you just do?” Rory asked, as the smoke coming out of her mouth filled up a new sphere.

“Broke it down so it didn’t smell. It’s still there, just out of sight, and out of mind,” Sylver explained, as he checked his bracelet, and sat up straighter as he saw a teleportation request from Lady Demor.

“Fuck!” Sylver swore, as he stood up from the couch, and gestured for Rory to do the same.

“How did you miss it; it vibrates strongly enough to shatter glass?” Rory asked, as Sylver, aided by Ria, opened the hologram and searched around until he found the teleportation section.

“I can’t feel my hands sometimes, it doesn’t matter,” Sylver argued.

The surgery on his left hand had been a success, but it still hurt a bit, and Sylver didn’t exactly need to feel his hands to be able to use them.

Rory looked around for a place to put her cigarette out on, but another snap of Sylver’s fingers made it float out of her hand and then encased it in ice before it fell into the garbage.

“Do you need me to go over the plan again?” Rory asked, as Sylver straightened out his suit, and put his mask back on.

“What plan? I’m just going to walk around and then sleep with Lady Demor to keep her busy, while you do your thing,” Sylver explained, as he tightened the mask’s string, and wiggled it into place.

“You don’t have to sleep with her, just keep her distracted. You’re a newly appointed Flower and the winner of the Gold Giers Trials, if you ask her for some advice, I’m certain she’ll spend the next hour talking your ear off,” Rory said, as she put her shoes back on, and struggled to get the mask on her face without her hair getting stuck in the strings that held it in place.

“How much time do you need anyway?” Sylver questioned, as Rory managed to get the mask on properly, and now focused on her sleeves.

“At least half an hour, if you can manage that,” Rory said, almost accusingly, as she finished adjusting her clothing, and now checked to see if the tools she had hidden within her sleeves, down her back, and beneath her chest, weren’t poking out anywhere.

“I’m going to assume you’re basing this on personal experience, and I am going to choose not to take offense. You’ll have… 4 hours… Actually, scratch that, Lady Demor is probably one of those-”

“4 hours? Really? How do you…” Rory vaguely gestured towards Sylver’s lower half.

“Youthful enthusiasm, mixed with a very well-trained body,” Sylver said, as he offered his hand out to Rory so that they could teleport together.

“I wasn’t aware men could train that,” Rory said.

“It helps if you can increase your blood pressure on a whim, and can distribute the aforementioned pressure into whichever body part requires it most,” Sylver explained with a shrug, as he accepted the teleportation request, and waited for the bracelet to do its thing.

“Couldn’t you go for forever if that’s the case?” Rory asked as the bracelet started to flash with a bright light.

“I could, but after a point, it stops being fun, not to mention there’s only so much friction a body can handle before-”

The bracelet made a noise before both Sylver and Rory disappeared.

*

*

*

Being the guest of the hour, the newest person to become a Flower, as well as the winner of the Gold Giers Trials, the people immediately recognized Sylver and flocked to him.

The fact that he was the palest person among the very pale human-looking high elves, was likely the reason they recognized him so quickly.

That, and his pitch-black eyes, as well as his missing ears. The mask was pointless, but Sylver kept it on anyway.

It also didn’t help that he was the only person wearing a bright red suit, whereas everyone else had various shades of green, blue, yellow, purple, black, and white.

Almost as if someone purposely didn’t invite anyone who would have to wear a red suit, on account of their flower being red. Sylver had no idea what kind of flower a “Demor” was, but if the tight orange dress Lady Demor wore was to be believed, it was orange.

The best word to describe Lady Demor was tough, she walked with a stride Sylver normally associated with a veteran soldier, and not a noble who likely hadn’t seen a second of battle.

But the fact that Sylver could tell by the shape of her hands, shoulders, and hip, that she’d never lifted anything heavier than a teacup, confused him all the more. He would have understood it if she were a mage, but there wasn’t so much as a drop of mana in her whole body.

Rory was mostly silent while Sylver talked his way through the crowd, and was polite, but firm, in telling everyone to fuck off, without actually using those exact words. A number of the nobles likely swore revenge on him that day, Sylver felt a couple of souls react very negatively towards him, but he didn’t care.

“To be perfectly honest, I invited you with the expectation you would go with someone significantly higher ranking instead. What exactly was the reason you chose to grace my household with your presence?” Lady Demor asked, as Sylver finally managed to get out of the crowd, and joined her at the bar.

The party was inside a very large room, that was as stereotypical of a ballroom as a ballroom could get. Only the fact that the floor, walls, and ceiling, were made out of what looked like frozen in time magma, made it different from the thousands of ballrooms Sylver had seen over his long life.

The chandelier was made out of glass, with glowing flowers that sort of looked like elongated tulips, that Sylver had to assume were Demors.

The way she spoke also didn’t make sense, there was a hardness to her voice that didn’t belong with the look in her eyes or the way in which she was sitting down.

Sylver shifted in his seat, as he gently prodded her out with his mana, but couldn’t feel anything, on account of her interference.

“Luck, if you would believe it. I wrote out the names of people who sent me an invitation, and threw a dagger without looking, and accepted the invite of whoever’s name the dagger landed at,” Sylver explained, with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Why?” Lady Demor asked, as the bartender finished mixing her light blue drink, and poured it into a frozen copper cup.

“I don’t associate with unlucky people,” Sylver answered as if it were obvious.

The pause gave it away.

Not even a second, but just enough of a hesitation for alarms to start blaring within Sylver’s head.

Lady Demor laughed, as did Rory on Sylver’s left, but now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t realized it sooner. Her laugh was exactly what you would expect for a woman with her appearance, in fact, it was too perfect.

Sylver took a sip from his own cup, it was made out of something similar to marble, and the drink tasted strongly of mangos. He put the cup down and for a good 5 seconds sat there with his eyes closed, while he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Do I tell her?

I did what I agreed to do, my end of the deal is complete…

Except Kass could argue I didn’t. By “a certain person” he meant Lady Demor, and if it was the other way round, I’d consider the deal to be invalid if the person whose house he went to, was a fake.

Sylver took another sip from his cup and turned around to look through the crowd doing their best to pretend they weren’t watching Sylver’s every move.

He couldn’t see Poppy or Lily anywhere, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be here in disguise.

Sylver turned back around and stared Lady Demor right in the eye.

As far as disguises went, this was better than any illusion Sylver was capable of casting, especially since he couldn’t feel any magic leaking out of her. Which meant that this was some kind of technology thing.

“The woman I’m looking at; can you tell me what she looks like underneath her disguise?” Sylver silently tapped out to Spring to pass along to Ria.

He felt her uncoil slightly from his arm and lifted his wrist a little as she made a flat bracelet that heated up slightly.

“She’s disguised, but it isn’t something I’ve seen before, I have no idea what she looks like underneath it,” Ria answered directly into Sylver’s ear.

He drummed with his hand on the table, as he stared at the slightly confused woman, and decided how he would proceed.

Sylver turned around to Rory and did his best to communicate with his eyes, and not the tone of his voice.

“I sincerely apologize, but I must leave you here for a moment. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes, Lady Demor and I are just going to have a very quick and private conversation,” Sylver explained, and couldn’t get a read on Rory, and whether she understood what he was implying or not.

When he turned back around to Lady Demor, he almost wanted to clap at how perfect her performance was, if he hadn’t already known, Sylver wouldn’t have suspected a thing.

“Rouge did say you were almost insultingly upfront,” Lady Demor said, as she leaned back to look at Rory. “Don’t worry, I promise to bring him back in one piece,” Lady Demor promised.

“Oh, I don’t mind, there’s more than enough of him to go around, take your time,” Rory said with a playful giggle and the body language equivalent of a wink.

Rory was using something that made it nearly impossible to read her soul, so Sylver could only guess as to whether or not she understood him.

Lady Demor grabbed Sylver by the wrist, and all but pulled him off his chair, and behind her, and led him away from Rory and towards one of the doors on the right side of the staircase.

*

*

*

One of the unofficial rules all mages eventually learned and followed was: “Know what you’re sticking your fingers into.”

In this case, however, Sylver had no choice but to disregard a rule older than him, and likely older than the Ibis itself.

He thought it’d be somewhere in her clothing, but it wasn’t.

He thought it would be hidden underneath her skin, but he checked quite literally every inch, and it wasn’t there.

There were only 3 places left to check, and Sylver had already ruled one out when they started undressing, and Sylver had all but licked her tonsils in his search.

With the mana interference, the range of his mana pulse was almost non-existent.

In a sort of “it’s too hard to cut from the outside, so we need to cut it from the inside” logic, Sylver had to do something he had hoped to avoid.

Thankfully he found it before doing anything…

If there was a word for this, Sylver couldn’t think of it. Shame didn’t quite fit, but that was very certainly part of it.

He wanted to say before anything went too far, but examining a woman without letting her know you were examining her required keeping her sufficiently… distracted.

To make a long story short, Sylver found it before he had to insert his third knuckle. If nothing else, it was dark enough that he could turn his [Advanced Night Vision] off and would wait to hear from Spring, whether or not he should turn it back on, or just remain blissfully unaware.

Some things you were better off not knowing.

“There is a device at the base of your spine,” Sylver whispered into the breathless, and just short of moaning woman’s ear.

It was like he had poured cold water over her.

He felt her remove her hands from him, only for the soft and gentle palms to be replaced by hard and rugged leather-like gloves, that gripped him by the head, with enough force that he got the feeling she would have little issue crushing his skull.

She stared Sylver in the eye, as Sylver pulled his fingers out, and wiped them on the couch before he lifted his hands up to hold her by the wrists.

She said something, sofucking quietly, that even with Sylver being close enough to stick out his tongue to lick her nose, he couldn’t fucking hear it.

Luckily for him, Ria heard her loud and clear and translated the woman’s question into Elvish. Sylver rolled his eyes, as Spring told Ria what Sylver wanted to say, and Sylver did his best to mimic the sounds Ria used.

“We can talk this out, I’ve met with Foma,” Sylver said, in the dark elf’s language, as he allowed his eyes to see in the dark again, and was relieved to see a nude blue-skinned woman with sharp and pointy ears hanging on either side of her head, as she maintained her vice-like grip on Sylver’s head, with her exceptionally muscular and scar covered arms.

Why can’t anything ever be simple? Sylver asked himself, as the nude woman removed her hands, and nodded at him.

Sylver didn’t like the implications of what had just occurred here, even if he was about 99% certain she hadn’t been pretending to enjoy it, but there were more pressing matters to worry about.

Like the fact that the Spring half Sylver had left with Rory, had just returned to inform him she had gone into the toilet and then teleported away somewhere.

One day, Sylver would have a proper, simple, adventure.

He had Spring write that down, for when he was back in Eira and had rescued Edmund. He might even take Edmund and Chrys with him.

But before that, he needed to figure out what exactly a dark elf was doing masquerading as a high elf Flower, and if there was a way for Sylver to use this to his advantage.

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