Chapter 163: Troublesome

Jaxir frowned and looked down at Niri, whose small body had begun trembling hard enough that he could see it from across the table. She looked freezing despite the warmth inside the house, her hands drawn close to herself while the color seemed to have drained from her face. Jaxir reached over without asking, picked her up, and settled her into his lap.

"You okay?" Jaxir shifted her until she was comfortable against him, but Niri only buried her face against his chest and refused to answer. He rested one hand against her back and slowly rubbed between her shoulders while his attention returned to Nick.

"I’ve heard the name Gasini before." Nick’s earlier shock hadn’t disappeared, though he had managed to pull himself together enough to speak. "They were the ones pulling the strings behind the dark cult I used to be part of."

Jaxir’s eyes narrowed as the encounter in the forest immediately took on a different shape. "They approached me because I’m an Archmage, or at least that’s what the man claimed." He paused before adding, "Then he corrected himself when he realized I’d reached Grand Archmage."

Nick nodded, though there was still something uneasy about the movement. "It’s not really the Archmage part that caught their attention, it’s the fact you became one at Tier 1." His eyes moved toward Jaxir before settling briefly on Niri curled against his chest.

"Why does Tier 1 matter?" Jaxir continued rubbing Niri’s back while she remained pressed against him. Nick leaned forward and clasped his hands together.

"Because Tier 1 Archmages are ridiculously rare, and then it gets rare again once you start getting beyond Tier 3 or 4." Nick glanced toward Jaxir’s staff before continuing. "At Tier 1, leveling your character is so easy that most people hit Level 11 long before their Root Abilities become strong enough to qualify them as an Archmage."

Jaxir nodded slowly, following the logic. "So even talented people usually leave Tier 1 too quickly."

"Exactly, and later on you get the opposite problem." Nick’s expression tightened as he continued. "Once your Root Abilities are already around Elite standards or higher, gaining even one more Level in them becomes a nightmare, so people who still manage to reach Archmage or above at the higher Tiers are monsters in their own right."

"And Tier 2 and 3 are stuck somewhere in the middle." Jaxir could already guess where the explanation was going. Nick nodded again.

"If you were Tier 2, they probably wouldn’t have cared unless you were at least a Grand Archmage." He leaned back slightly and looked Jaxir over. "But you’re a Tier 1 Grand Archmage now, so if anything, they’re probably even more interested in you than they were when they first found you."

Jaxir rubbed Niri’s back once more before looking down at her, but she still hadn’t lifted her head. "That explains why they wanted me, but it doesn’t explain who the Gasini actually are." His fingers slowed slightly. "And I’m not going to lie, the chance to fight a real Mage is pretty damn tempting."

Nick gave him a tired look that suggested this was exactly the response he expected. Jaxir ignored it and continued, "If I turn them down now, are they going to come after me?" Nick took a breath before shaking his head.

"Probably not, because the Gasini were surprisingly hands-off even with the dark cult." Nick’s gaze dropped toward the table as he thought through it. "They gave us directions, opportunities and resources sometimes, but they rarely involved themselves directly."

Jaxir frowned because that didn’t sound nearly as bad as Niri’s reaction suggested. Nick noticed the expression immediately. "The Gasini themselves aren’t the only problem, because the dark cult had a lot of players in it, and players look at this stuff differently than the natives do."

Jaxir understood before Nick could finish, though part of his attention caught on the fact Nick had called them natives while Niri was sitting directly against him. She didn’t react, and considering she still had her face buried against his chest, Jaxir couldn’t tell whether that distinction mattered to her at all. He filed the thought away and looked back toward Nick.

"The natives probably actually believe in whatever the Gasini are trying to accomplish." Jaxir leaned back slightly as the pieces came together. "If their whole life’s mission is spreading magic or knocking the Naturals down a peg, then that’s what they’re there for."

Nick nodded. "But the players are probably there for the same reason you are." His mouth twisted faintly. "Opportunities."

"Which means I might not be the only person who found part of the Mage Gods’ inheritances." Jaxir’s expression slowly changed as another connection formed. "There were multiple pages of the Mage Alchemic God’s Tome, so there’s no reason there couldn’t be multiple orbs from the Mage Combat God too."

"Or several pieces of whatever the Mage Formation God left behind," Nick added. "And if those inheritance pieces are what lead to that quest, then there could already be several people inside the Gasini working on the exact same thing you are."

Jaxir’s fingers stopped against Niri’s back.

Anyone recruited by the Gasini would probably be talented enough to meet the same standards that had attracted them to Jaxir, and most of them would have been inside Divinity much longer than he had. They would have higher Levels, more time benefiting from the Gasini, and potentially far more information about the Mage Gods than Jaxir currently possessed. That alone would’ve been annoying enough.

Then Jaxir remembered Maelis.

"My fight is already spreading everywhere." Jaxir looked toward Nick. "And you knew why the String Quintet left that page in the auction because of your connection to the dark cult."

Nick’s expression grew more serious. "Which means other people from the dark cult probably know what that auction was really for too." He didn’t need to finish the thought.

Anyone familiar with the String Quintet’s scheme would see Maelis hunting Jaxir and understand there was a good chance he had taken something connected to the Mage Alchemic God. If they were pursuing the same quest, Jaxir had effectively announced that he might possess something they needed. Worse, most of those people were likely much stronger than him.

For the first time since everyone had begun listing off the problems surrounding him, Jaxir actually frowned. The String Quintet was already troublesome enough without adding an entire collection of talented players who might decide taking his inheritance was easier than finding another one.

"This is quite troublesome."

Silence settled over the room while Jaxir stared down at Niri, still feeling the faint trembling running through her. After a while, a small chuckle escaped him, and then another followed until he was laughing hard enough that Niri finally lifted her head from his chest. Her wide eyes remained frightened, but some of the emptiness had faded as she stared at him.

Jaxir slid his hands beneath her arms and lifted her until they were looking directly at one another. His grin widened as Niri’s expression slowly began to brighten with his, even if she clearly had no idea what he found so funny about any of this. "Don’t you worry, Niri. What do you say we play these people to death, hm?"