You head in as an older man with a red and gold cloak walks out.

The room looks like a large office, with the left wall full of bookshelves and the right of pictures and framed documents.

Several blue mages, six to be exact, stand in a line to the left side of the room, simply watching.

At the end of the room is a wide desk seated in front of a massive window. A tired brunette woman wearing a messy, coffee-stained white buttoned shirt is sitting behind the desk, with a tall armored lupus standing to the side.


Tired Brunette: "Lord Elizabeth Hopluit.

How does ten gold for a scouting mission sound?"


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You retry your technique - this time, you form all your Captivate tendrils simultaneously "inside" of you, have them search for tendrils that don't belong to you, and to latch on and "push" them back when they feel something like telepathy.

You cast this spell variant, and just like before, you feel them all die almost instantly with no real feedback.

Sanoa continues staring at you, her expression unchanged.


________________________________________


Popping a Meditate and checking again, it still looks like a void.

Byrnolf: "Guess my construct security works pretty well!

But yeah, that's sorta why we need Emiel. Pop the security on the weapon so you can do your thing."


________________________________________


You take the longsword and shortsword, and check what Monk's up to.

Looks like she's considering dual fighting knives.

Monk: "Hey Baltir, when you're making that armor, can you make the legs and fists extra durable? I do a lot of punching and kicking."

Baltir: "Of course, they'll be highly-reinforced."

Sanoa: "Well, I'll start with how it works.

Normally, you cast magic at the end of a tendril. With practice, you can cast somewhere along the length of one. With more practice, you can have a tendril sense when it touches another, and have it respond by casting a small spell to sever the other tendril. Like a blade through grass.

Captivate, though, has spirits, and they quickly reform the tendril. During that brief period of not being connected, the Captivate spirit falls under the conditions to be removed by a Reaper, but doesn't remain in that state long enough to attract one's attention. If I create a large number of low powered self-replicating artifact spells beforehand, I can ensure that a Reaper is close enough that it would be able to destroy a Captivate spirit the moment the tendril is broken."


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Elizabeth: "Magusalto, and its nearby evacuation shelters directly to the north and northeast. We've lost contact with them a few hours ago, and we need to figure out what happened. As for when, whenever we pull together a few more people for a team, unless if you're fine going solo."

Elizabeth: "Somewhere close enough that you can return back here when the rest of the team is put together. Other than that, it doesn't matter a lot. You will be contacted by telepathy when needed. If you require equipment, you can get some from the nearby armory."


________________________________________


Byrnolf: "Guess you can easily transfer 'em once security's down, so that's proven. So, what do we do with... that?"

You look over at the doll, which seems to be struggling to stand.

... Stand? Shouldn't it be trying to crawl, since it's a turtle? Well, whatever. The doll is drunkenly holding itself upright, holding on to a shelf for support.


________________________________________


You cast Captivate again, this time with each spirit having multiple tendrils connected to you. While nothing happens because you didn't attach a spell to it, you can feel that this cast is actually surviving outside of your body. The tendrils are all being severed at unbelievable speeds, but almost all of them are able to reform a tendril before another breaks. Only the few spirits connected by densely packed tendrils are dying.

Sanoa: "Looks like you found the counter."

Turning on the spot and leaving, you make sure to pointedly ignore the dragongirl as you leave.

Once outside, it doesn't take too long to find the armory, and after asking the soldier managing the equipment for your gear requirements (and making sure that he gets only the Real stuff), he provides you with everything you requested.

Soldier: "It's all free right now. Most equipment and resources are state-controlled until we're no longer in danger of being wiped off the continent."


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Two tendrils seem to survive most of the time, with a few unlucky ones dying from both tendrils being broken at once. Three seems to be the lowest guaranteed number.

A flash of light appears over Sanoa's head, signaling your success at overcoming the anti-magic.


Sanoa: "Vranhal always attempted to maintain a neutral position in all of the Caelum and Daeli conflicts, but everyone else also wants Vranhal. During the Caelum-Daeli war, the Daeli attacked Vranhal and they managed to briefly occupy the city. It was a very brief occupation. It took very little time for Vranhal's hunters to determine the Daeli's weaknesses and slaughter every single one in the city.

Something about spending centuries hunting witches makes people good at exploiting weaknesses and killing things stronger than you.

After that massacre, Vranhal released all the information they learned about the Daeli's Conquest and Captivate abilities and how to counter them, which helped the First and the Third greatly. Most of that information is hard to come by in the Second, for obvious reasons.

So yes, you'll find a fair number of people in Vranhal that know a lot about the Daeli."