It wasn’t exactly a formal feast. We weren’t sitting at one large table forced into a single position where we had to keep to our seats. That wouldn’t have been appropriate, according to Escinca. After all, our oh-so-vaunted guests were nobles now. One of the Great Houses of Zairgon.

That was why Escinca had called it a reception. A more informal thing where people could move about freely as they saw fit.

And it appeared, Lady Kalnislaw saw fit to interrogate me.

“You truly killed the Greater Brillwyrm?” she asked.

“You didn’t believe me the last time I said it?” I asked back, because I was pretty sure I had mentioned it to her son back at Kalnislaw Estate. “What’s going to make you believe it now?”

“Well…” She looked down, then forked up another bit of the meat before biting it off. Her fangs were almost as big as my thumb. “I have stronger evidence before me, I suppose.”

I grunted. “Sorry we don’t have any blood to flavour your dish, my lady.”

“No need to be snippy. I am not my son, after all. But pray tell me more of your story. Killing a Greater Brillwyrm must have been quite the experience.”

I narrowed my eyes. What was she playing at here? I did end up telling her all about the fight against the Greater Brillwyrm. About how one of my party members had at first wanted to keep it occupied so we could run off, about how we had decided against abandoning him, about how I had come up with the idea to kill it from the inside.

“With a Blessed knife,” I added at the end. “I killed it from the inside with a Blessed knife. Because it was a Scarthrall.”

“Indeed.” Her crystal eyes looked like the sharp edges of broken glass. “Did you know that the strength of the Scarseeker in question determines what creatures can or cannot be converted into a Scarthrall?”

I blinked. “I… didn’t.” That got me thinking. No one had mentioned anything like that. Did nobody else know about it, not even Hamsik? Or was it just not that pertinent of a matter? No, it was important. Because with that bit of information, I could start narrowing down which exact Scarseekers to start suspecting.

She really was open to giving me more information about the vampire who was behind all this, if in a roundabout way.

“How does it work?” I asked.

“It’s merely a matter of ranks. A Scarseeker cannot convert a subject into a Thrall if the target is higher ranked than them. So a Silver-ranked Scarseeker has no hope of turning a Gold-ranked human into a Scarthrall.”

“Rank of what, though? Any one of their Paths? All of their Paths?”

“The rank of their Racial Path.”

I huffed out a slow breath. Once again, I was tempted to curse how the more I found out about things, the more I just discovered that there was just so much information out there. Although, in this case, I recalled Linak had mentioned something similar. Oh, right. He had briefly mentioned Racial Aspects, not Paths. No doubt they were related.

Deciding to get myself a bite to eat while we talked, I took up a plate of meat. Just like at the Adventurer’s Guild, the meat tasted great. Flavourful, a little smoky, kind of spicy.

The Ration House cooks had done a good job, especially considering how short of a time they’d had. Although, I supposed cooking in one day wasn’t that taxing. I was just glad the logistics had worked out, despite the rather short notice.

Everyone else had separated into their own little groups too. Escinca was clearly having trouble conversing with Glonek, who kept talking over him. Aurier was trying to back up the Elder.

Hamsik and Zoltan had gotten together with several of the other people who had joined us, and they were all having a strange little game of throwing rocks at a wall.

“I’ll admit I don’t know much about Racial Paths,” I said when I got back. I actually knew jack shit about them.

“Understandable,” Lady Kalnislaw said. “It is rarely a concern for humans below Gold, considering it only manifests truly once you’ve crossed into Opal and higher.”

“Racial Path… is that what allows you to…” I wasn’t sure how to frame it. “Mess with people’s heads?” I paused. “When does it manifest for Scarseekers?”

“Most can manifest once they hit Silver.”

“But you’re not Silver, are you, my lady? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I am not. I am older than you and the last few generations of your forefathers combined, Cultist. It would be rather remiss of me if I wasn’t even Opal. And yes, the Racial Aspects from my Racial Path allow me access to certain concepts that others would need to work much harder to gain any measure of control over.”

I noted that she hadn’t admitted she was Opal-ranked at the moment. For all I knew, she could be even higher, something like Onyx or even Jade. I doubted it, but it wasn’t impossible.

“Regardless,” Lady Kalnislaw said. Her eyes were on something else other than me now, which felt oddly relieving. And then I was annoyed that she could elicit those reactions, though it was nice to find out the reason behind them. “The other side of the matter is that if a Scarseeker is too high-ranked, then turning anyone too far below in rank into a Thrall becomes impossible.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes. For instance, anyone below Opal is safe from a Jade-ranked Scarseeker.”

“So, if I got bitten by a Jade-ranked Scarseeker, I’d be fine, then?”

“No, you’d simply explode into bits of gore and blood. Hmm, I suppose I shouldn’t have said safe. But the point is that the Thralling process requires the Scarseeker to inject a certain level of their volatile Aspected Mana into their target. However, this mana is too volatile at higher ranks, so lower-ranked targets simply detonate.”

“I see. Very safe, indeed.”

Lady Kalnislaw tinkled out a short laugh. It went away soon though, replaced by her customary stoicism, which I was generously not calling haughtiness.

Mostly because I appreciated the information she had shared. Considering that all the Thralls I had encountered had to be somewhere around Iron or Silver, the Scarseeker creating them was unlikely to be higher than Gold.

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“Could Opal-ranked Scarseekers create Iron-ranked Thralls?” I asked.

Lady Kalnislaw shook her head, her silver tresses gently following her head’s motion. “They would be too strong.”

An answer that ruled out Lady Kalnislaw and probably her husband too. Assuming she was telling the truth, of course, but I didn’t have ways to verify the information. At least, ways that weren’t named Hamsik. So the Greater Brillwyrm was most likely high-Gold, not Opal.

Unless there were more than one Scarseeker involved.

I looked around, trying to distract myself from how I wasn’t really getting to the bottom of anything here. Elder Escinca was looking at us, probably drawn by Lady Kalnislaw’s earlier laughter. Besides the obvious relief of getting away from Glonek for the moment, he had a wide smile with no small amount of—was that pride in his eyes for some reason? Odd old geezer.

“Why are you actually asking about my dungeon adventures, though?” I asked, turning back to my Scarseeker guest. “How does it help you to know about the Thralls I faced or any of that?”

Her eyes sharpened even more. I was apparently asking questions I wasn’t supposed to be. “Isn’t sating my curiosity a good enough goal on its own?”

Of course. How dare I, a lowly human commoner, assume that there could be a greater purpose than satisfying a centuries-old vampire patrician’s curiosity?

“I believe we both found what we were looking for,” Lady Kalnislaw said.

There was something a bit more meaningful to her words. Like she was trying to tell me more without actually saying it. Before I could even think about what it could have been, we were distracted by voices rising. I looked over to see a few of the Ring Four residents were arguing with Zoltan.

“You shouldn’t say that,” one man growled angrily, somehow refusing to be cowed despite the significantly taller vampire looming over him.

Zoltan just sneered down. “Mind your tone. And I don’t see what could get you so angry.”

“What could get—” The man sputtered. “You’re blaspheming the holy ground that we’re standing on. You’re disrespecting everyone trying to make things work out. How dare—”

“Watch your tone, little human peasant. Lest you want me to remind you of your place.”

I looked around. Hamsik wasn’t close to them, so I was about to step in before things took a turn for the worse, but then the half-vampire was stalking in with barely repressed rage twisting his features.

Hamsik was having none of it, as it turned out. He went in and shoved back Zoltan.

“You watch it,” he growled. “You’re the guest here, so regardless of your perceived station, you’ll stop being a prat.”

Zoltan’s sneer hardened. “Oh, I didn’t realize just stating my mind was being a prat here. Maybe I’m not actually as welcome as I thought I was. Is that it, hmm?”

Well, it looked like Hamsik’s interruption had only worsened things. I once again stepped forward, but so were a bunch of other people. Escinca and Glonek were coming, but Lady Kalnislaw was faster than any of us, reaching them in what looked like a single gliding step.

I actually blinked at her motion. Was that a trick of her Opal-ranked—or higher—Agility?

“That will be enough, Zoltan,” she said, firm and implacable as a glacier.

Her son wasn’t cowed so easily. “But mother, you saw how Hamsik was being such a prick. Surely, guests deserve to be treated better.”

“Guests are treated as they deserve to be treated,” Hamsik said.

Elder Escinca reached them with an expression that was part apologetic, part exasperated. “Please, Hamsik.”

“Enough, both of you,” Lady Kalnislaw said. “Zoltan, come with me.” She excused herself with a graceful nod, turning to Elder Escinca. “The crowd is rather stimulating, Elder. Perhaps it would do us well to find a more secluded spot to… centre ourselves.”

There was something in her expression that I couldn’t pick out, a new stiffness that was almost robotic.

Escinca smiled warmly. “Of course. Please, follow me. My office isn’t that far and is rather cozy, if I might add.”

Nobody argued, mostly because that aura from Lady Kalnislaw had flared up again. The sensation of internal pressure that made me disinclined to do anything that would displease her, which included calling out her precious little son. Even Zoltan himself did nothing but follow almost meekly, all but physically dragged along behind his mother, despite the venomous look on his face.

At least things settled down when they were gone. I found myself exhaling heavily, then glowering at Hamsik.

“Way to handle things in a calm and peaceful manner,” I said.

He scowled at me. Then he whirled around and stalked off. Everybody else from Ring Four just looked on awkwardly.

Man had such issues.

“What happened?” I asked the others.

They looked a little apologetic too, which I was glad to see because they had a certain hand in things spiralling. Not that I was blaming them at all. Zoltan was obviously the bastard here. But self-reflection and nuance weren’t always easy to find, and I appreciated that these people at least had a modicum of both.

“Apologies, Cultist Ross,” said the man who had so vocally argued against Zoltan. “I didn’t intend for things to get so out of hand. I was only trying to defend the integrity of the cult.”

“I understand,” I said. “I don’t blame you. I just want a clearer picture of what happened. What did he say?”

The man huffed out an annoyed breath. “Well, we were having this little game of throwing rocks, you see. It was a bit stupid, but we were just chucking it to see how far we could throw them. It wasn’t anything, really. Not at first. We were just talking and that was just, you know, something to keep the hands busy.”

“And then it somehow turned into sort of a competition,” a woman said, crossing her arms. “We all started seeing how far we could get ‘em to go, you know.”

“And then he just knocked his so hard, it broke the wall.”

They all turned to a point on the temple wall where a deep crack had formed. A small stone was lodged within the fracture. I frowned. Shouldn’t I have heard an impact like that? Had I been too distracted by my conversation?

“And if that wasn’t bad enough,” the man went on, now getting angry again. “He said worshipping the cult was stupid. It was only the blasted Woven Way that could ever make us be anything more than lousy humans.”

“Did he actually say that?” I asked, a little appalled that Zoltan had gone that far in his stupidity.

“Not in so many words,” the woman admitted. “But it was pretty clear, yes.”

I sighed. At least things hadn’t spiralled out of control. It was strange hearing even Scarseeker nobles espousing the Woven Way thing. Especially when there were Scarthralls using the same term, monsters that were terrorizing a whole Ring full of people.

No wonder everyone had gotten mad.

“Well, it seems Young Master Hamsik is rather upset,” Glonek said, approaching us with a smile. It was somehow not really threatening despite revealing all his fangs. “Although, I do apologize on behalf of Young Master Zoltan quite profusely. You would think they would know better by now. Children…” he added with a shake of his head

The other Ring Four attendees came around and nodded. But screw me, neither of those two were children in any sense of the word.

“I’m not like that,” Sreketh said. I hadn’t even seen her approach, but now that I looked around, Guille and Santoire weren’t far off, talking quietly with Aurier.

I laughed. “Yeah, you sure aren’t.”

Glonek took it in stride too. “Certainly! And that’s because you’re special. You can’t expect everyone to be like that, now can you?”

He was rather good at conversational gambits, was Glonek. I decided to take charge anyway.

“Say, Accountant Glonek,” I said. “What exactly do you believe in?”

What I really wanted to ask was whether he was Silver-ranked or Gold-ranked or even higher. But even if I did ignore the politeness issue and brazenly asked about it—disregarding how talking about ranks would make a bunch of Pathless people around me feel—I couldn’t be sure I’d get the truth from him.

Not that I was sure I could get the truth about the question I had asked, but at least I had a tack to tackling that.

“What a curious question,” Glonek said, his eyes shining. “Why would you ask?”

“Well, it would seem we’re all a bit… rattled that despite you saying you have nothing to do with the Scarthralls, you seem to pray to the same thing. This Woven Way business…”

“Well, I never said I prayed to anything, much less the Woven Way.”

I smiled. My prey was caught. “Great! That means you’d be perfectly happy joining the Sun Cult, yes?”

The flicker in Glonek’s expression, even if it lasted for merely a second, was all that I really needed to make me feel satisfied. I had played my cards just right.