Further investigation required

“Hold on, I haven’t even said anything yet. I don’t know how or what exactly trying to investigate your parents means,” John responded immediately, unsure how to handle her quick and seemingly decisive answer.

“Let’s just think about what our first step is… Why are you suspicious of my mom in the first place?” Alice asked, her pace of speech increasing as John could see her running through the logic on her face.

John thought it over for a moment before answering, speaking in the most collected tone he could muster, “do you remember when she asked me to stay down to ask me something? She never did, and after I asked her my own questions about your dad she only dismissed me… Like just the questions I had asked her told her what she already knew. I can’t really tell you much more than that.”

“That’s strange… I wish I could know exactly what you had asked her, but I understand,” she stood up from the bed with an annoyed expression, and sighed, exasperated at the situation or John, he didn’t know. Then, she paused to think. He could hear her trying to calm her breathing.

“Hey, that doesn’t mean she’s actually involved or anything. But I just think that might be a good place to start,” John got up as well and went to hug her, which she accepted readily, relaxing in his hands more than before.

“I just wish this wasn’t all wrapped in so much deceit, and now you’re telling me my mom might have been doing that all this time? How can I not be both mad and disappointed?” she asked, and John didn’t know if she expected an answer or not. He looked around nervously over her shoulder for a moment, unsure of what to do but determined to hug her even tighter as reassurance.

They stood there for a while, in utter silence. Slowly Alice hugged him back, and eventually, she spoke again, “Ok,” she took a deep long breath, “tomorrow before we leave we’re looking inside my mom’s room. And maybe we’ll find something in there.”

“Alright, I suppose that’s as good a way as any to start,” John was worried, and his tone showed his uncertainty.

“It’s the only way, I have to find out if my mother really has something to do with this,” her tone was firm, and he knew she wouldn’t budge, so he said nothing in response.

The conversation changed topic from then on, and both of them were content with small talk for the time being. It wasn’t long before they both fell asleep, cuddling with each other once more.

By the time he got back to the Council’s HQ it was about eight in the morning, and his group, once again including Matthew, had gathered in their classroom. When he walked through the door they were all staring towards him. There was a sense of normality in the air that was quite pleasant in comparison to all of their actions yesterday, the tension had faded somewhat, John figured.

“Took you long enough, boss!” Bass shouted at John, laughing as he settled down onto one of the chairs near her.

“Yeah, sorry, I had some stuff to do in the morning again…” he paused for a second, looking over the room. A sense of shared urgency had seemingly taken over all of them, as they all moved to speak at the same time.

“We’re wasting time… Tell me the plan for today,” Matthew demanded, his tone slightly dejected.

"First, we should probably head to the warehouse to grab the generator and whatever else we earned from yesterday. Then I think we should all go to-" just as he was about to talk about her, Ember entered the room. John paused, he was still surprised to see her there.

'I need to get used to her being with us, she was an immense help yesterday, even with her strange behavior,' John resolved, and a moment later she spoke.

"You may want to attend my class afterwards, I believe I have some tips for all of you. The Council has a few useful secrets that I am in a position to share," she said, her tone just slightly warmer than usual.

“Guess that’s our plan then, is everyone alright with that?” John asked, and after a few nods of agreement they headed to the warehouse. On the way there, he remembered what the lieutenant had told him the previous day. He fell back to walk in line with Matthew and looked the ice mage in his eyes.

“Strong told me there was something you wanted to tell us? I’m not sure what he meant but it sounded important, and I want you to know that even if we have our disagreements we’re still a team. So if there’s anything you want to tell me you absolutely can,” John’s tone was the kindest he could manage, for all of the aristocrat’s flaws he was still human.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Matthew responded, an expression of surprise on his face.

“Please try to remember, I would like to hear what you had to say,” John wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not.

“As I already told you, John, I do not remember. Do not pressure me further,” the ice mage said that far more decisively than before.

’He’s lying now, I’m sure of that much… Wonder what Strong was talking about then. Guess it doesn’t matter,’ he shook his head.

“Alright, I don’t want to push you,” he sped up his walking pace again, finding himself standing next to Yan at the front.

She nodded to him knowingly and then spoke as quietly as she could while he could still hear her, “you know how he can be sometimes. I’m guessing it was something about his family, he always starts telling one of us about it then regrets it halfway into the first sentence. Shouldn’t judge him for it more than the rest of his crap,” John couldn’t discern her tone or her expression, but she sounded genuine.

“You’re probably right, though I’m curious why you know that much.”

“Let’s talk about that later,” John finally noticed the warehouse’s door standing in front of them, and they entered in a small hurry.

Strong was standing near the counter as before, and next to him was a large spherical orb with a bundle of cables and a cylindrical slot jutting out from it, as well as a few of the basic items that had been on the team’s list. The six tents as well as most of the rations they would need, and what looked to be six tablets, as well as a single pistol which was similar to the other guns he had seen the Council use. John wasn’t quite sure if all the items were mundane or Abyssal but resolved to look at that at some later date.

“Is that all our equipment, Strong?” he asked almost immediately, trying to sound professional.

“Yeah, it’s the supplies you guys earned from yesterday. This is the generator I promised,” he took the sphere into his hands, “you can use these fuel canisters to power it by placing it in the slot, they should last about a day each, depending on how much you use them,” he pulled out a few glowing metal canisters with some kind of glowing material inside them. It was of a white-bluish color that appeared to move inside like a gas. “Feel free to do whatever you want with all this equipment now, if you work here again that should be enough to cover your entire supplies. Don’t think I’ll have a mission for you again today, though,” he laughed and scratched his chin before turning back and walking out of the area behind the counter and into the depths of the warehouse.

“So, boss, what do we do with all this now?”

“Let’s take it back to the class and look over everything, we’ll figure out where to store it then…”

When they got back to the classroom a bit later, John thought about what was next. There were a few things he wanted to test, though he was glad he had seen the others use their pocket spaces. Like Orianna and himself, they were able to put items in and take them out almost instantly as long as they were in hand, which would be useful. John also noticed that the items didn’t stack inside his inventory, and in fact when he tried to grab a tent it seemed to take up three slots on its own. After using Observe on and looking over the rest of the items, which were now gathered on the table, he found out a few things.

The tablet was one of Council design, it had mapping and communications software on it, and they were all linked to each other through a specific radio frequency. Six earpieces were there along with the tablets, which John assumed they could use to communicate.

’Useful, glad they thought of that,’ the rest of the items were more mundane except the generator, but apart from telling him it ran off Helium-3 the observe sheet didn’t say anything he didn’t already know.

“I’ve never seen one of these before, quite interesting technology…” Matthew examined the generator with some measure of interest. As John wondered why exactly the ice mage was so curious, he felt a soft tap on his shoulder. When he turned he saw Charlotte standing behind him.

“J-John, m-mind if we t-talk?” she asked, clearly nervous and her fidgeting from yesterday had returned.

“Sure,” she pulled him away almost as soon as he answered, and they both exited the classroom. John saw Yan walk towards the door behind him, but she didn’t leave with them.
“Umm… I wanted to tell you something...” she started, the shaking in her voice had lessened somewhat now, “about yesterday.”

It took John a moment before he realized she had stopped, “what about yesterday? Is everything ok?” he wasn’t sure whether to be concerned or simply find this strange.

“Yeah, I’m f-fine... But there’s something I need to say,” she paused for a second, doubts clearly showing on her face, “i-it’s about why I came here, to the Council. I think my teacher can explain it better than I can… Do you mind c-coming with me to meet her l-later?” her tone was hopeful, but she turned her head and her fidgeting had returned.

“If there’s something important enough that you need to tell me, then of course I will,” he said, trying to reassure the healer in front of him.

“Good!” she nodded her head, then snuck back into the classroom as quickly as she could.

Upon entering the classroom barely a minute later John saw the rest of the group already sitting, and Ember standing at the front of the class. He immediately sat down in the closest chair, which ended up being next to Yan. She didn’t react at all, but the shapeshifter was clearly uncomfortable, leaning back and forth in her chair and tapping on the table with some regularity.

“What I’m going to teach you is a simple technique that is used almost daily by myself as well as most Council operatives. It was created as a modification of traditional methods of hiding Mana,” the spy focused for a moment, then spoke again, “as you can see I have just now placed a layer of Mana on my body. One you can easily detect by using Mana as well. You may confirm this now, if you wish,” John jumped on the chance to test his new form of Observe once more.

He saw it across her body, a cover of white colored Mana, ’huh, it’s even the same pattern I could see on her in the mine,’ when he looked around to the others he could see they all were staring at Ember, various Mana structures resembling goggles on their eyes, each with their own strange structure and color.

“As you are all also aware, you can easily hide this Mana by thinning it out. There is, however, one problem with that. It changes the effect of the Mana itself. For example,” the same instant she said that she utterly disappeared, only the wall behind her was where she last stood. Ember’s Mana, however, was still there. Then, it disappeared as well, and instead of it stood a silhouette of her. It was only visible as a shimmer, but it was still visible.

“I’m sure that shall suffice as an example of what I mean,” Ember reappeared fully, “this was a problem posed to all operatives attempting to work in places where magic could be found, or where the possibility of detecting magic more easily existed. Luckily, it was also solved, there is a way to achieve both. And it’s quite simple, you must create a layer of Mana around the original one to hide it. It must be incredibly thin, and of much the same properties as true hidden Mana. Once it’s placed over it and both are maintained individually, it’ll become impossible to view the second layer under the guise of the first. Be aware, this will require significantly more Mana than the original technique, and can leave you extremely **** if you use it unwisely, so be cautious.