Midnight and I had to eventually return to Earth #1. We still had jobs there, after all. Our reasons for visiting Earth #2’s Japan had been resolved- successfully, even. We could now properly use Contingency, as we had magic eyelashes. And some that were less magical, and others that were potentially non-magical.

  There was still a lot to think about with material components. Maybe when they added another day into the weak I could get all that testing done. Wait, wasn’t there a spell for that? No, all the time manipulation magic was too… transient. Even Time Stop itself gave less than a minute of relative time, and that was as expensive as Gate. Not a particularly efficient use of mana, unless you really needed to do something with it.

  There were other things to deal with before diving down any of those rabbit holes. After we took a break.

  -----

  Mists appeared in the ‘orb’ in front of me. It was a cube, of course, but it worked for Scrying surprisingly well. The intuition of tech supers was kind of scary in some ways. I certainly wouldn’t have gone from a surface to display information into multiple surfaces so rapidly. And decisively. I was pretty sure Vilhelmiina was still on probation for how much power she used making it. Though given the rate at which she charged for her services, maybe not. It was a good thing all my association with her had been voluntary study and not a commission.

  I kind of wanted some more magic bullets, though. Specifically the dispelling sort, as I could make some regular bullets magical, probably. Was that mana efficient enough to make it worthwhile? Another route to consider, when I obtained infinite time.

  The Scrying cube was being really stubborn about forming anything today. Probably because I didn’t know what I was looking for. Someone that might have my sort of magic hiding in Earth #2, maybe in their Japan but maybe not, was a pretty vague guiding post.

  “Nothing,” I sighed. “Your turn, Midnight.”

  “What’s the actual goal?” he asked.

  “Finding whoever it was that shoved away my Scrying.”

  “Right.”

  Sometimes, Midnight went about Scrying in a way different enough from myself to provide some results where I failed. This time… at least we split up the mana costs. He didn’t form anything either.

  “I’m not sure about this path,” he said.

  “Yeah… it’s not being pulled into a Scrying anchor that we can brute force past or anything. But…” I pondered. “I have a guess. How about we both cast at the same time?”

  “Splitting the mana?” Midnight asked. “Won’t that drop our upgrades a couple points?”

  I shook my head. “Not splitting the mana. Just doing it simultaneously.”

  “... What happens with the Scrying orb here, if it works?” Midnight asked.

  “Overlapping images, maybe? It would be better than nothing.”

  “Or we cancel out from the beginning.”

  I nodded. “Or that. I doubt I’d try if we weren’t bonded. We should hopefully minimize interference. I don’t know if you can tune to what I’m looking for exactly but… try?”

  Midnight gave a sort of shrug- the best a feline could do, anyway. “I’ll do it.”

  The two of us gathered mana at the same time, a total of 22 points between us. That would be a spell beyond normal limits… if it was just one thing. But it was probably far less powerful in actuality, since it was just separate things.

  I focused hard on what I had felt. I had an intuition which might lead to nothing, but it was the best angle I had. Someone with magic like me, hiding and even counter-Scrying after they pushed me away. That would explain the drain on Nondetection, right?

  There could have been a million other explanations. Maybe it was my lucky day, for once. Or maybe it was the fact that we were trying things that most people would never have the chance to. A wizard and a normal familiar could only go so far compared to one that was sapient to begin with.

  The mists swirled, parting just long enough to reveal a scene. I caught a glimpse just before I was thrown back. Midnight also collapsed to the ground as some sort of mental backlash moved us away. This time, the spell fell flat instead of continuing. Perhaps because we were looking for a certain primary target, instead of accidentally stumbling across them.

  I thought I recognized something. But of course, such a short glimpse wasn’t sufficient to know anything for certain. “Hmm,” I furrowed my brow.

  “I thought I saw something for a moment. Should we play back the recording?” Midnight suggested.

  I knew about the recording, of course. That wasn’t the issue. “Let’s wait,” I told Midnight. Would it be better for us to stand apart, or together? “Can you go wait in the B2 rec room?” I suggested to Midnight. “I’ll explain later.”

  “Sure thing,” he said immediately. That showed a lot of trust, after asking him to do something for no explained reason. It wasn’t that weird, but it was still inconvenient to just go somewhere for no reason.

  As for myself, I would be going to floor 6. Francois would be happy to see me, and perhaps happier to know I wasn’t coming with a complaint about some sort of flaw in my outfitting.

  -----

  It happened part way through Francois ranting about magical clothing. “If I could just get my hands on some,” he commented, “I would be able to determine if I could infuse such things in our gear here. Wouldn’t that be great?”

  It really would. I wasn’t sure how long I’d have to remain in my old world to secure magical clothing, though. At least, in a way that wouldn’t make people angry with me. I’d have to have money or have people owe me something. Sir Kalman might do a favor for me, but we tended to keep things square enough between us between actually getting paid and helping each other with quests and stuff.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Maybe I could just keep some of the money in gold coins. It was relatively more valuable to convert, except for purchasing exclusive magical things.

  But that wasn’t important right now. What was important was that my Nondetection spell was draining, even though I was placed central to a few of our local Scrying anchors. I didn’t know exactly where they were, but I had some approximations given that they had to cover all the floors. Worst case scenario there were actually more Scrying anchors than I suspected. That should draw any focus away from me. Would Nondetection still drain even with Scrying anchors helping?

  It was certainly happening, though I didn’t know what that said about my target. We hadn’t gotten to review the footage yet- precisely because of this. If they saw that we actually knew something, they might… I don’t know what they’d do. They were in Earth #2, after all. Actually, the fact that they could target me here was kind of disturbing.

  I tried to act natural, which ultimately mean halfheartedly responding to Francois. “Well, I’ll try. It’s been harder to travel certain places recently.” That was true.

  Was there something familiar about this presence? Was it really just that we’d been Scrying them earlier? Funnily enough, the presence became more clear when my Nondetection finally ran out. This person was good enough to wrestle against who knew how many Scrying anchors and overcome that. Across dimensions. I wondered if they had their own block of diamond to use as a Scrying orb.

  She might have something better. If I was recognizing the presence I thought I was. I didn’t actually know that many good diviners, though.

  My conversational ability suffered as I continued to try to look normal. Magical clothing was suddenly an awkward topic. But I probably didn’t react too obviously to the Scrying, right? Should I have tried to shove it away instead? I wondered if they’d found Midnight, or if I was first. Couldn’t text him yet, though.

  The sensation faded. I had an official guess, now. But how would Zenthra Qitris even get to Earth #2? Aside from one of the portals from my old world. Or making her own. In other words, in exactly the same manner as I had. Yeah, that wasn’t actually a hard question to answer even if it was some other mage. Though I wasn’t certain the diviner was a mage and not some specialist class. We hadn’t interacted that much.

  -----

  I waited another half hour to contact Midnight. I wasn’t Scryed again, or they hid it better. “Did you feel anyone Scrying you?” I asked Midnight. “I would have suggested checking your Nondetection, but I couldn’t be certain they weren’t already looking.”

  Perhaps something I should have anticipated before we made our attempt, but I wasn’t even a couple years experienced with advanced magic. Before that, it was all theory and Shocking Grasp.

  “I did, I think,” he said. “Nondetection certainly faded. Why was I hanging out in the rec room?”

  “Oh. Scrying anchors.”

  “Was there one there?” Midnight asked.

  “Should be some around there. If you were right next to one, it might actually have been less effective.”

  “Right,” Midnight said. “This all makes sense, I guess. So…?”

  “My guess is Zentha Qitris.”

  “That diviner that sent Izzy your way?”

  “Ultimately, yeah,” I nodded. “Allies of some sort with Master Uvithar, too. We might be able to use our combo to find him as well.”

  “Is it okay to speak now?”

  “If she can constantly monitor us for this long without me noticing,” I shrugged. “There’s literally no point in being secret. And if it’s someone else… I guess that will depend on the recording.” I doubted it would be more than a few frames, based on how quickly it had come and gone.

  We looked up the video, and pretty quickly found the right part. We zoomed in on the image of a woman.

  “Is that her?” Midnight asked.

  “You know… I have no idea,” I admitted.

  “... What?” Midnight tilted his head.

  “I don’t know what Zentha Qitris looks like.”

  “Isn’t she famous in your world?”

  “It’s not like people were posting portraits of people all around town. We didn’t have pictures. Or the internet. Or social media.”

  “... Right,” Midnight said. “I’d just assumed you would have magic versions of some of those things.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But not in random villages. And Master Uvithar was more focused on the books than on other ‘extraneous’ magical things.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We text Izzy the image.”

  “Uh… isn’t that risky?” Midnight asked.

  “Not really. If it’s Zentha Qitris, they’re acquainted. And she’d probably not be an enemy of us, either. If it’s not her, then she doesn’t know anything and they’d have no reason to bother her.”

  “We should probably show her in person anyway. Isn’t it a Brigade thing to not copy images?”

  These were my images. But it still might be better. My phone should be secure from snooping, but Izzy’s might not. If this woman was some sort of villain, we didn’t want some other villain to try to join up with her. Though that would be a pretty specific worry.

  -----

  “Yeah, I recognize her,” Izzy said. “That’s Madame Qitris.” Izzy squinted. “Why is she sitting in front of a television?”

  This is why scouts were important. They noticed details like that. “She’s on Earth #2.”

  “Uh… what’s that?”

  “The one with the magical girls. And at least one guy,” I explained. She hadn’t ended up in that particular series of shenanigans with us, but we’d talked about the mission somewhat. It was nothing that directly affected the security of this Earth, after all.

  “And the ninjas,” Izzy said. “Some of which also came here before that.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “Though they might have been unassociated. Probably connected to some extent, though.”

  “So what’s she doing there?” Izzy asked.

  “Presumably not being somewhere else,” I said. “Like our old world. To stay away from some shenanigans. I haven’t asked her.”

  Was it risky to use Sending to contact her? What if I was in the same dimension? Was Uvithar with her there somewhere?

  I was going to find out. For the first time in forever, I was closer to answers.

  I just needed an excuse to go back to that world before she ran. Though if she was going to run… she might have already done it. And if she couldn’t create her own Gates, then she might not be able to.

  The Brigade would give me time for personal missions. Maybe I could even bring backup, though the locals might also suffice.