#his scruples about blood magic are his OWN right like the crows don’t have a formal stance on blood magic

[silverhalla]

alright single digit days so it’s time for last-minute baseless + unfounded veilguard theories!!!!!!! I’ll go first: the reason spite can’t take over lucanis’ body is because that body is ALREADY being possessed by lucanis, who was in fact dead and buried in the wake and rebound to a new form in the ossuary

[tendertenebrosity]

Archer looked around, his heart oddly heavy.

Their hunt was almost over, he knew. They’d chased the fugitive mage all along the river, and they were close. Very close. Even if they weren’t, this farm was one of the last before they reached the next town and its garrison of mage-watchers, who had already been alerted and were making their own way here.

Yes, they’d find Rill soon. And it made sense for Archer to be apprehensive about that, because a cornered mage was the most dangerous creature alive.

So that was all it was. Natural wariness. Made sense.

Carver, the watcher who was heading the hunt, was standing in front of the remains of the last spell they’d found. Archer went to join him.

“He’s made it safe,” Archer observed, after a moment of study.

Carver frowned. “Safe? One of these things broke Marcos’ leg.”

“Yes, but it could have sliced him in half,” Archer said. “In fact it would have been a lot easier to make traps that sliced us in half. Look at all of these safety caveats.”

The spell had two types of safety modifiers on it, to shut it off if it was going to slice through human flesh. Archer hadn’t taught these to Rill; he must have learned them from the Academy in Camris, or perhaps found them in one of his books.

Archer knew that the safety caveats weren’t easy or quick to write; each would have added perhaps ten minutes to the time it had taken to make the spell. Were they all like this? When the hunting party was a matter of hours behind Rill?

Carver flicked an impatient glance at him. “Your point?”

Archer shrugged. “He doesn’t want to kill watchers. He doesn’t want to strongly enough that he delayed himself considerably to make these non-lethal. I think that’s valuable to know.”

He pressed his lips together, struggling with an unidentifiable feeling. Rill still held to his morality as much as possible - he wanted to get away, but apparently he wanted to avoid causing death more.

Such scruples would not earn any mercy. Archer knew that.

“He probably just made them this way because that’s how he was taught,” Carver said dismissively. “I wouldn’t read anything into the fact that they’re non-lethal. I admit it’s an impressive feat of memorisation.”

Archer blinked, looking up from his brooding thoughts. “Wha- no, they’re not memorised,” he said, annoyed. “Didn’t you see – it’s specific to the location, how could he?”

Carver looked at the spell. Then he shrugged. “This stuff isn’t my specialty,” he said. “Takes too long.”

He can’t understand it, Archer realised. He can’t damn well understand this spell. Or he can’t be bothered to try?

“Well, it is my specialty,” he snapped, not even attempting to hide his contempt for a watcher that couldn’t read a fourth-level spell. “Trust me, these things require fine-tuning . You can’t just make one the way you made it before and have it work. ”

Carver looked for a moment as if he was considering what Archer had said. Then he shrugged again.

“All right, so he knows to change the distance markers. Easy enough. If he was taught the safe way to draw these, I highly doubt he has the knowledge necessary to modify it.”

Archer ground his teeth and tried to speak lightly. “Ordinarily, with any other mage, that assumption would be correct,” he said. “But I am telling you that this particular mage has the ability to compose more complex spells than this.”

Carver’s response was interrupted by a call from one of the other watchers searching the farm.

“The team over by the river found something!”

 ~

At this point in its course, the river had carved out a deep ravine; over twenty feet of tumbled stone down to the brown-and-white rushing of the water.

There had been a fence. It now had a hole in it big enough to drive a cart through.

The other watcher, Rhett, beckoned Archer through that hole and over to the edge of the ravine. His stomach sank like a stone.

Sure enough, when he peered over the edge, there was a body at the bottom of it, half in and half out of the water. It was charred past the point of obliterating all identifying features – and seemed to be missing limbs besides - but around the blackened meat were the scraps of a once-white robe.  

“God,” Archer said. He turned his back on the ravine, fighting the urge to throw up, his chest suddenly oddly tight.

Why was he so upset? He had known there would be a body at the end of this. This was better than he’d expected, actually, because Rill hadn’t had the opportunity to hurt anybody else, and Archer hadn’t even had to watch it happen.

Rhett steered him back from the edge. “A bit messy, yes,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Looks like he fell afoul of one of his own traps.”

Archer shook himself and went to study the fading spells that littered the rest of the field, because that was better than wondering whether the fall, the burns or the other injuries had actually killed Rill.

It’s probably still a kinder death than the one we would have given him if we’d caught him alive. Archer had been considering - no, he shoved the thought away. Archer would have helped take Rill into custody, if it was safe. He certainly wouldn’t have, what? Put him out of his misery? Tried to spare him pain?

“I – hold on a second,” he said, frowning. “This is – he didn’t make this one safe. This key would have killed whoever set it off.”

“Yes,” Carver said. He indicated the blood soaking the grass. “Looks like it did. Or, not that one specifically, but one a lot like it.”

“This looks… I can’t make heads or tails of this,” Archer said.

Rhett came to look over his shoulder. She, at least, could read spells.

“It looks almost like he started out trying for an Eastway variety here, but then by the time he gets to this part he’s abandoned it and gone back to standard,” she said.

“Yes,” Archer said slowly. He could not fathom Rill making such a mistake. “But that would… interfere with the placement notations…”  

“He caught himself in it,” Rhett concluded. “The other one over there is the same, but worse. I think he accidentally wandered into it.” She gave a grim smile. “If you’re going to fatally botch spells, you might as well be thorough.”

“No,” Archer said. “This doesn’t make any… I can’t believe he would make this big a mistake.” He stared at the key. It was in Rill’s hand, no doubt about it. He recognised the delicacy and precision of each stroke – and he would never have the chance to recognise it ever again, because the man who had written those precise intricate spells was dead.

He rubbed a hand over his mouth, trying to banish queasiness. “How could he be so foolish? This is the kind of stupid mistake you make when you don’t understand how glyph-linking works.”

Carver gave him a disapproving look. “Archer, you’re talking about a mage. He probably doesn’t have a clue what linking even is. Frankly I’m amazed there aren’t more mistakes.”

“No, he does!” Archer snapped. “He knows linking theory backwards and forwards.”  

“We’ve discussed this already,” Carver said. “You keep attributing things to this mage that there simply isn’t any evidence he can do. Mages don’t spell-write. They don’t understand complex theory.”

“I’ve worked with him in Camris, Carver,” Archer said, falling back on Camris as the reason even though it wasn’t true. If they knew I let him spell-write I’d be up on charges. Even though he’s safer than this dullard will ever be! Or - he was. “I know what this mage is capable of, and these-”

“Bear in mind, Archer, it’s been five days,” Rhett interrupted calmly. “There probably wasn’t that much of his mind left. What he could do when in full possession of his wits is not applicable.”

“Yes,” Archer said after a moment. “That’s… true.”

Rill, so confused and maddened by magic that he forgot what spell he was writing halfway through it. Yes. That would make sense. Why did Archer want to push the mental image away?

“I’m glad you understand that magesickness occurs, Archer,” Carver said sarcastically. “With advanced theoretical knowledge like that I can see why my superiors insisted you come along!” He turned away. “Let’s go. The place could still be riddled with traps, people need to be warned. I don’t see anything more for us to do here.”

“Are we retrieving the body?” Rhett asked.

“What’s left of it? No. Leave it for the crows.”