It does not take me long to reach the formation room. On entering the room, I do not find the soldiers that I had sent here. The only person here is Trevor. Before I can ask him about it, though.
"You really should be more careful, kid.", Trevor says. "You had forgotten to set up a guard for the scholars. The bastards tend to notice stuff like that."
Fuck, I had forgotten about them. My work is to escort them after all.
"Well, I am sure that it won't be too much of a problem. After all, they should be able to take care of themselves.", I reply, hoping that I don't sound too defensive. "Even the weakest of them is a fifth-stage foundation mage."
"Maybe, but I would suggest that you think of them like phoenix eggs. Scholars are the type that does not like to be disturbed.", Trevor speaks. "If they are disturbed too much, then they will start to complain to the head office, and right now you don't need that."
"Fine, I will be a bit more careful next time.", I reply. "Where are the other two?"
"Yeah, I have sent the two soldiers to the scholars to act as their guards.", he replies. "They will give some peace of mind to the scholars. I assume that the boarders are also dealt with. What about the two ships behind us?"
"Well, I will be able to tell only after linking to the sensory formation. Right now, my main worry is if the thing is even working." I speak.
As he speaks, I connect to the sensory formations or what is left of it, at least to look for the two ships behind us. The sensory formations are barely working right now. They boost my senses enough that I can tell the ships behind us. Beyond that, though, it is useless. You could say that my being here is pretty ceremonial.
"Well, those fuckers are still following us.", I reply. At the moment I can't help but feel annoyed,
"Well, I won't say that I am too surprised about that." he replies. "I shall be on hook duty. We can't have anymore boarders."
As he leaves, I monitor the two ships that are behind me. While the two ships are still following us I don't think they will reach us. They can try and attack us from far away, but they have already shown his strong they are in that front.
At the same time they won't dare to come close to us. After all, I have annihilated one of their ship. Right now, I am just waiting for the other side to realize that and give up on this chase.
Well, that leaves me with a certain amount of time to kill. That means that I have to tackle the issue of my introduction. I know it is supposed to be the very first thing that you are supposed to do when you go on your first mission. I also know I am a month late on this particular task.
Even before my issues with the thought logger, I had dreaded introducing myself. The issue with introducing myself is the sensitive nature of my identity. I don't know how my master thought that this mission would be a good idea for me. Well, here is my attempt.
My name is Antonio Sevenstars, of the black mountain. My master is the grand wolf of the formation corps. Beyond that, I don't think that I dare to describe myself.
Just this bit of information might end up revealing things I don't want known. After all, the reputation of my master is everywhere on the continent. (Even in this remote corner of the continent, there must be people who know him.) If they know about my master, they might as well know about his most scandalous disciple. Well, I don't want to talk about this anymore.
I will now move on to something a bit easier to handle. That would be to introduce my organisation. After all, it is not only folks from the hexmountain that tend to read these records. (Or so I have been told.)
The black mountain is the name of the organization that I work for, and the Hexmountain is the name of our home fort. The black mountain is the name of the organization, and the hexmountain is the name of a place. I hope that is clear. (You would be surprised how many people tend to get that confused.)
Well, now that this is clear, I will have to introduce my mission and what I am doing here. I have to escort a group of scholars to an old draconian ruin, which they call documented ruin number 32.
The fact that they have a name for it means that this is not a magical ruin that has been visited for the first time. That means that things are going to be a bit easier for me. (After all, I will have the records of the people who came here to guide me.)
If that is clear, let me focus on the people whom I am supposed to escort. After all, the scholars are something of an enigma. To speak of the scholars is to speak about the black mountain. That is how integral a role they play among us. The black mountain might not be the strongest force on the continent. I can say for certain that it is most knowledgeable, though. We know everything. Be it the secrets of magic or that dirty little secret with which a village chief can be threatened.
We have to thank the scholars for all of this. To put it simply, the scholars work to collect information for the black mountain. (By information, I mean everything. From gossip to historical records, they leave nothing.)
The only things that I know about the scholars are their legends. Let me record a few rumours regarding scholars. They say that you should never leave a scholar alone in your territory. The scholar can then figure out the best method of conquering you in a day.
More importantly, the scholars are supposed to be the source of all magic in the black mountain. The same magic capable of crushing mountains, diverting rivers and building forts in a single day. All of these are supposed to be created by the scholars.
That is why the scholars are so important. You want to cripple the black mountain, all you need to do is to cripple the scholars. No, they don't even need to kill them to do this. They just need to make sure that the scholars are not able to do their work.
That is why we are assigned to guard them. Well, guard them would be the wrong word. We have to make sure that the scholars are doing their work as smoothly as possible. (Otherwise, all of the scholars are stronger than me. )
Another task of ours is to reduce the interactions between scholars and outsiders. After all, you never know which scholar might reveal something. Thus, we are their watchdogs as well.
Right now, we will be going to a fort that is close to the magical ruin. A place that they call the frozen peak. It is to northernmost fort that is under the control of the snowwind empire. From there, the scholars will go to the ruin, while I will be doing whatever is needed of me.
Well, I might not even get to visit the magical ruin this time around. There are treaties to follow and contracts to be fulfilled. I also have to stock up on a lot of materials if this ship has to make its way back to the hexmountain. I might even need to replace the entire thing. Now, how much work that will take, I do not even dare to imagine.
As I am recording this, the two ships behind me have started to slow down. It is almost like they want to keep following us, but their mana stone reserves have finally begun to run out. As they slow down, I can finally stop focusing on them. My sight naturally drifts to the horizon as I shut the thing down. I have to control the sense of vertigo, such a sudden change in perspective can cause. I normally look at the Hexmountain to stabilise myself.
This place is one of the rare locations from which the hex mountain is not visible on the horizon. Elsewhere on the continent, the hexmountain would stand there like a part of the horizon. Maybe not so imposing as being closer to it would be, but, indeed, the hexmountain is always there in your sight. Well, I guess that is what happens when you make the largest mountain on the continent your base.
Well, with the enemy ships slowing down, I can finally stop the ship. Oh, right, before that, I will have to record something else. It is a brief rundown of the reasons that we have ended up in our present situation and the Seven Temples incident. Trevor has been very insistent that I record this particular thing in detail.
Firstly, I will have to discuss the Snowwind Empire and our relations with them. The empire is one of the closest locations to the frozen wastelands. Being this close to a mana desert, the place is quite inhospitable. The Snowwind Empire is the only empire that has managed to claim this piece of land as its own.
They managed to carve their territory in a thousand bloody wars. In short, I have blabbered so much about them to explain that they are supposed to be hostile to everybody.
Now, since we are so far away from their lands, the black mountain has an uneasy alliance with them. We might just be the closest thing they have to an ally. Now that would not be much of a problem in normal cases. While I am sure that the snowwinders might not be friendly with us, they would at the very least be neutral.
That all has now changed with the Seven Temples incident. Well, if you want detailed information on that disaster, read the corresponding logs. For those without the clearance, I will explain it briefly. The Snowwind Empire has another ruin under its control known as the Temple of the Seven Stars. (or the Seven Temples for short.)
Much like the ruins we are going to, the seven temples were a place that our scholars could access and study. To put it briefly, the seven temples have many formations that are supposed to be ancient. Activating them without caution will have very dangerous side effects.
Let's just say that one of our scholars got very impatient and managed to blow up the seven temples. That would still not be much of a problem. The main problem was that the scholar in question was under the influence of certain herbs. Do not waste your time asking me what the herb is. All I know is that it boosts the functioning of your mind and that it has the side effect of making you look drunk.
The scholars are supposed to be masters of creating different kinds of potions and herbs. That is their secret, though, one that they rarely share with others. (Even we get our hands on their potions rarely.)
You can imagine what a drunk scholar messing with their ancient formations looked like to the snowwinders. It is a wonder that they have allowed the scholars to this ruin. I am sure that there is a lot of politics behind the scenes that I don't understand. One thing that I know is that the snowwinders need us at this moment. It is clear to even an outsider like me, who has only studied these people from the records of others.
I won't bore you with the politics, I do understand. I will tell you that the place we are going to has a lot of use for formation mages. I am sure that I have been sent here to aid the snowwinders while the scholars do their work at the ruin.
Well, I am also about to be something of a hostage, I assure you. I will be at the frozen peak (doing what is pretty important work for them by the way.) so that they can kill me the instant that anything happens at the ruin. After all, executions are the best way to keep an angry mob happy. It will lead to the fraying of diplomatic bonds between our organizations. So there is that as a consolation.
Still, who can tell what will happen in a moment of emotion? These ruins also seem to hold historic importance to these people. Well, overthinking about this is not going to lead to anything productive.