Wolves of the Wastes: A Progression Fantasy Epic (Keiran: The Eternal Mage Book 2) by D.E. Sherman & EmergencyComplaints

Author:D.E. Sherman & EmergencyComplaints [Sherman, D.E. & EmergencyComplaints]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Timeless Wind Publishing
Published: 2024-06-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

Forty-Two

Ispent the next few hours slowly circling the entire city, doing my best to stay within a block or two of the wall. I ran into some problems on the west side of the city, which was apparently the richest outer-wall area. It was more heavily patrolled by enforcers and even had quite a few regular, non-baton-holding guards. People were cleaner and dressed in better clothes, and the number of abandoned and ruined buildings cut drastically the farther west I went.

I stood out starkly on that side of the city. My own clothes were clean, but they were old, worn out, thread-bare, and torn in places. I was also a small child, unattended and wandering the streets alone. That didn’t fly in the more affluent neighborhoods, and it drew enough unwanted attention to me that I ended up diverting my course back out of the district and circling the long way around near the edge of the city where I drew less attention.

I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did have plenty of time to think. When I’d first come to Derro, I’d felt a lot of pressure to act quickly and decisively, but with my family finally out of harm’s way, I could reevaluate my timetable. I’d been acting as if I were in a race to tie up the Wolf Pack’s attention in an attempt to keep them from dispatching more of their agents to Alkerist. That would be a shame if it happened now, but I wasn’t quite so willing to risk my own life rushing forward to save those of the village.

I’d allowed myself a month to prepare for my trip to Derro, and while I felt I’d done well, I’d taken some risks that could have been mitigated with another few weeks of preparation and a bit more selfishness with my mana. For one thing, I needed a significantly larger mana crystal so that I could properly harvest the spoils of my battles. If I’d had that, I could have banked far more of the mana I’d taken from Freak’s lab instead of feeding it into that mana battery. It was incredibly inefficient to use it the way I had, and I’d barely left enough mana behind to keep the enchantments in the house going for a few weeks without being recharged.

I also needed to focus more on my plan to raid the Repositories to speed up my own growth. It was less necessary now since I’d already begun my probe into the inner city, but the mana stored in those buildings would still be useful to me. Besides, it was always a good idea to deny an enemy their resources.

It was tempting to just hunker down, spend a week or two generating the mana I needed to bring myself back to maximum capacity, and fly over the top of the wall. It would almost certainly trigger some sort of defense, but if I was completely topped off, I thought I had a good chance of fighting my way through and dispelling any tracers that might latch onto me.

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