Sylver Seeker

The gold-trimmed carriage moved with a smoothness that shouldn’t have been possible on such a bumpy road. And if someone were to pay close attention to the two light brown horses pulling the carriage forward, they might notice that they weren’t blinking, and despite the cold, weren’t breathing out puffs of vapor.

Inside the carriage was an assortment of weapons, magical staves, gems, unlabeled sacks, likely filled with something valuable, given the items surrounding said sacks, and last but not least, a polished silver-colored metal chest.

The man driving the carriage was dressed completely in black, seemingly covered in a fuzzy-looking woolen cloak. The only piece of skin that was visible was his face, which was a disturbingly pale color, to the point his skin appeared almost transparent. His hair was of a similarly unnaturally pale shade and shifted between bone white, and ashy gray, depending on how the meager sunlight fell onto it.

The expensive-looking carriage gradually came to a halt, and a young man walked out of the dense forest.

“Zelvash said it’s going to snow today,” Edmund said, as he effortlessly floated off the ground, and sat down next to Sylver.

“We’ll probably leave before it really gets going,” Sylver said, as the two horses started to walk again, without any physical input from him.

Edmund ran his hand along the silk seat and tapped his finger against the gold-coated armrest.

“Do bandits really fall for this?” Edmund asked.

“You have to be an optimist to be a bandit. Instead of worrying about the two very odd men guarding the carriage, they instead choose to focus on the contents of said carriage. They’re all failed prototypes, remind me to remind you to incinerate them before we leave,” Sylver said.

“Is early morning the optimal time to go bandit hunting?” Edmund asked as he closed his eyes for a moment, and the bitter chill Sylver had been ignoring disappeared.

“They’re not fish, there’s no optimal time to hunt them. They have people watching the roads at all times, the only thing that can get in the way are guards. They patrol the roads, but there isn’t enough manpower for the sheer length and quantity of these roads, so there are gaps in their patrols,” Sylver explained.

“I’m going to guess this particular road hasn’t been patrolled in weeks?” Edmund asked.

“The last patrol was over 2 months ago. The woman in charge of organizing patrol routes was bribed to keep guards away from this road,” Sylver explained.

“Why?” Edmund asked.

“The noble in charge of the land this road leads to either pissed Lola off, or tried to go against her, or… I think this is the guy who has a competing workshop selling cheap knock-offs, and Lola is making it difficult for him to acquire the rare metals he needs by making this trade route too dangerous for traders,” Sylver explained, as he turned around, and rummaged through the mess of magical equipment, and found the simple looking wooden box he had been looking for.

“If that’s the case, won’t removing the bandits making this road dangerous hurt her?” Edmund asked as Sylver placed the wooden box onto his lap.

“We’re only taking 10. The Krists control the south, and most of the southeast area, so all the bandits that had two brain cells to rub together moved over to the north and west. Whoever is controlling the Krists seems to be aware that getting too close to Silia is a bad idea. Once they got the coast of the Warst Sea under control, they seemed to mostly focus on the elves in the east,” Sylver explained, as he opened the wooden box, and produced two copper cups, and a handful of dice.

Edmund scooted away so Sylver could place the now closed wooden box down to use as a makeshift table. Sylver made a show of rolling up his sleeves.

“You said you couldn’t sense anything when you inspected their metal rods,” Edmund said, as Sylver nodded, and counted out the dice, so there were 10 in both cups.

“And they disintegrated into fine sand when I tried to crack them open,” Sylver added, as he placed his hand over the cup, and began to shake it.

“I read the autopsy reports by the way,” Edmund said, as he did the same.

“Did you read the ones healer Franken wrote?” Sylver asked, as both he and Edmund simultaneously placed their cups down onto the wooden box. The copper cups were upside down, with the dice inside them.

“You want to talk about the consistent excess of sulfur. Is there any dark magic-related reason for having such a high concentration of sulfur?” Edmund asked, as both he and Sylver slightly lifted their cups to peek at the dice inside.

“Five twos. I can think of about a million ways having that much sulfur in your body would impede you, but as for a benefit?” Sylver said as he and Edmund put their cups back down again.

“Seven twos. There are quite a few strength enchanting spells that use sulfur, but even if we’re talking about a fully grown man, 5th tier strength enchanting magic would still only need… point 6 grams? If that,” Edmund said.

“Nine twos. The thing is, it’s so evenly spread I don’t believe it’s there by accident,” Sylver said.

“Four threes. They could be using it as a stabilizing agent,” Edmund said.

“Eight threes. Why sulfur of all things? And that still doesn’t explain the quantity,” Sylver said.

“Five fours. They’re on an island, right? Perhaps they got accustomed to being in a sulfur-rich environment, and their troops get a lifetime supply when they’re sent here?” Edmund offered.

“Ten fours. To do what with? Their bodies have over 5 kilograms of sulfur inside of them, so they don’t get homesick?” Sylver asked.

“Thirteen fours. I know this is a touchy subject, but a good half of those things aren’t “alive.” Not to mention, nothing other than dark magic could have possibly produced something this disorganized,” Edmund said, as Sylver shook his cup left and right, and made the dice inside rattle.

“Liar!” Sylver said as Edmund tightened his grip on his cup.

“How long has it been since you last played this? The mathematical probability of-”

“Stop trying to bring math into this. I’ll say it again, liar!” Sylver said as he gestured with his eyes for Edmund to lift his cup.

It was relatively quiet on the empty road the carriage was traveling on, but if someone were to listen really closely, they might hear the gentle hum of two opposing mana’s breaking apart against one another. Edmund’s hair gained a faint glow, so subtle it could easily be mistaken as a trick of the light, while Sylver…

Nothing.

He just sat there, with a self-satisfied smile on his face.

While making eye contact, both men lifted their copper cups off their dice. A moment of silence passed as Edmund lowered his gaze towards what should have been Sylver’s pile of dice, but only saw 2.

Sylver didn’t even bother looking at Edmund’s pile.

Edmund put his cup down, lifted his thumb up to his mouth, and bit down on the nail, but didn’t chew it.

He didn’t say a single word for over ten minutes.

Sylver used that time to send his shades out, and while he was at it, summed his [Mage Cap].

Just as before, although he was prepared for it, he still felt an impossible feeling of nausea. If he had been standing it would have lowered him to his knees, but since he was sitting down, he barely moved.

The crown of blunt red worms slithered out through Sylver’s silvery hair, and as he had practiced, weaved themselves into an arguably noble-looking crown.

Try as he might, Sylver couldn’t get the nausea to subside while the crown was growing.

It made him vulnerable for a period of time that didn’t even reach a full 2 seconds. It was more annoying than painful, but that small moment of transition made it difficult to use in the middle of a fight.

Edmund made a humming noise and then began to try to guess how Sylver had made 8 dice disappear.

“You didn’t use your [Bound Bones] perk, I would have felt it, they’re not glued to the inside of the cup, you didn’t use abyss magic on them, you don’t have enough mana to do it fast enough for me not to notice, which means the only thing left is some sort of sleight of hand. Except I am almost 4 times faster than you, and I know all your usual tricks,” Edmund mumbled partially to Sylver, but mostly to himself.

“Must be an unusual trick then. But you know the rules, you have to be more specific than that,” Sylver said, as he tried not to enjoy his best friend’s confusion, but failed quite a bit, and had a giant smile plastered all over his face.

About 5 minutes passed, during which Edmund ended up biting straight through his thumbnail.

“Even with that thing on your head, you don’t have anywhere near enough to use magic to trick me. Is it… Is the box rigged?” Edmund asked, as Sylver lightly tapped his finger against the mostly empty wooden container.

“You’re saying I cheated using this wooden box?” Sylver asked.

“It’s either that or your hands… And I can’t imagine how you could hide 8 dice in your hands without me noticing,” Edmund said, as Sylver’s smile grew just a bit bigger.

He made a showing of spreading his fingers out and turned them around so Edmund could look at Sylver’s palms and the back of his hands.

“Last chance to change your mind,” Sylver offered.

Edmund stared at the box, then stared at Sylver’s hands, and spoke slowly, as if he was waiting to come up with a better answer, even as he spoke.

“It’s the box,” Edmund said, with a nod of the head.

Sylver flexed the muscles in his palms, and one of the creases on his palm opened up to reveal a die. The die fell out of the hole, followed by a second one, then a third, until all eight die were sitting in a neat pile on Sylver’s side of the box.

“This is absurd,” Edmund said, as Sylver flexed the muscles in his palm again, and the small slit closed up, and was no longer visible.

Edmund reached out with his hands and tried to use his thumbs to make the opening on Sylver’s palm open.

“It’s stitched closed. You can try to force it open, but you’ll split my whole hand apart first,” Sylver explained, as he undid the stitches, and let the hole open again.

“Tell me you didn’t do this just to cheat at liar’s dice,” Edmund said, as Sylver shook his head.

“Of course not… I can also fit a few cards in there. But it’s mostly for raising undead. I have a modified blood vessel, so I can inject my blood directly into a corpse’s head and heart. I tried keeping a potion capsule in there, but it shattered when I tried to punch something, and I was left with broken glass trapped inside,” Sylver explained, as Edmund let go of his hand, and Sylver stored the cups, die, and box, into his [Bound Bones] storage.

“Do you have metal rods embedded into your forearms?” Edmund asked.

If someone paid very close attention to the carriage, and the dense forest surrounding it, they might notice the shadows shimmering.

“I kept breaking my wrists, so I reinforced them. I’ve got the same setup in my legs, but I couldn’t quite figure out where to put them to prevent my neck from being broken. Anywhere where they would provide any kind of support, would also limit my head movement. So I decided to leave it as is, so if someone snaps my neck, I can play dead,” Sylver explained, as the carriage gradually began to slow down.

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