The other team had fewer magical items, but I did notice a handful. Roland seemed particularly well-outfitted.
I could see several Carnelian-level auras emanating from things he was wearing, including a pair of canes in holsters on his hips. Upgraded dueling canes, most likely.
Was he an Enchanter himself?
That…actually would be a pretty good explanation for why he’d been skipping so many dueling classes. Dueling was hard as an Enchanter, and he might have needed to spend time on studying runes and manufacturing items for other classes.
I couldn’t confirm it right this second, but maybe it was worth asking him directly at some point. He hadn’t volunteered the information, but it was a reasonably harmless question.
I also tried to pay attention to the location of everyone’s attunement marks. That would be relevant if I had to figure out how to fight them later.
And there was very little chance I was getting out of this without a fight.
With that information in mind, I turned off my attunement and headed to the front of the wagons, where most of the others were walking.
The second-year students were the ones driving the wagons themselves. This was good for saving us the trouble, but it also meant that all the students were free to roam and observe each other. Pulling someone to the side was possible, but if I did it this early on it would be conspicuous.
I decided to wait just a little bit before trying to have any private conversations. Instead, I found a cluster of people looking at the map toward the front of the group.
“Looks like it’s about thirty miles to the settlement,” Kyra was saying. “Wagons are going pretty slow. What do you think it’ll take, two days to get there?”
“Low as a day and a half if we can keep up a good pace. Depends on how much we stop to rest. Could be more like three days if we get hit by monsters.” Sera replied. “Or Tails.”
“What kinds of precautions can we take for that?” Patrick asked.
“Might want one or two people riding in each of the wagons at all times. The weight probably wouldn’t slow them down much and they’d be able to defend against any invisible attackers that show up inside.” Kyra offered.
Patrick frowned. “Are invisible attackers really what we’re worried about?”
“It’s what I’d do.” Kyra grinned, cracking her knuckles. “I know you’d probably just throw a fireball at them or something, but we’ve got three Elementalists and a Shaper. I’m not worried about conventional assaults. Sneak thieves are far more likely to do us damage.”
“Uh, not to be too under confident here, but I don’t think having a bunch of Elementalists means we’re guaranteed to stop a magical attack from a distance,” Patrick argued. “They could hit us from any angle at any time.”
I was hesitant to jump into the conversation. I wasn’t particularly comfortable dealing with the number of strangers that were around, especially with the knowledge that we had a traitor among us. But I needed to contribute, and not just to finding the Spiders. “I can enchant the wagons with shields when we stop for the night.”
Kyra turned to me. “You can do that to wagons?”
“Sure. I can enchant pretty much anything, as long as it has a high enough mana capacity. Most types of wood don’t hold as much as metal, but given the sheer size—”
“Okay, I get it. Good. Shields on the wagons. What about the boxes?”
I nodded. “There are a lot of them, but I could probably get to them eventually.” I paused, considering. “Assuming there’s nothing volatile inside the enchantments would interact with.”
Kyra frowned. “Define volatile.”
“Some particular materials react badly to enchantments, but I was thinking more in terms of other magical items. I doubt we’re shipping a bunch of magic swords, but there’s a good chance there are alchemical goods in some of the boxes. If that’s the case…”
“Case. That’s a box pun.” Patrick snickered.
It hadn’t been, but I chuckled anyway.
I continued my explanation. “The simple answer is that I probably shouldn’t enchant any boxes with magic stuff in them. Other boxes are fine, assuming I have enough mana to get to all of them. Might not be able to tonight.”
“Okay, that’s good. Useful. Should we start putting people in the wagons now?” Kyra turned to Sera.
Sera shrugged. “Probably a little early to bother with it. We’re not likely to be attacked immediately.”
“How do we know?” Patrick asked.
“We can’t say for sure, but that would imply a team has been camping out waiting for someone to leave the base. That’s possible, but it doesn’t sound efficient, unless they were told our deployment times.” Sera brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Although it would be nice to get an idea of what level of information our attackers do have, and what their goals are. That might help give us some idea of when they might strike.”
“Don’t think we’ve got much of a lead on that, unless someone’s got info on the Tails in their packet?” Kyra looked hopeful, but we all shook our heads. “Didn’t think so, but it was worth checking. I’ll ask the others later. Maybe someone has a lead.”
“In the meantime, I suspect our best bet is to take a look at the map for likely ambush points. Maybe here,” Sera pointed a finger at a crossroads a few miles down the road, “Or any similar area. Or just right near the settlement. If they’re supposed to be harassing any team, as opposed to our team in specific, their best bet is to set up near the settlement itself.”
“Good point. We should definitely plan to be on the alert when we get close, then, and any time we’re nearing a crossroads or another major point of interest.” Kyra waved at the map. “You holding onto that for now?”
Sera nodded. “I’d like to, if you don’t mind. I’d like to study it for a few hours at least. I can pass it to you later tonight?”
“Sounds good. I’ll go check in with the others.” Kyra waved as she walked away.
It was just Patrick, Sera, and me walking with the map at that point.
I glanced to the side to check on Marissa, just to make sure that Rupert wasn’t harassing her. Fortunately, she just seemed to be chatting with Jin.
I still didn’t trust Jin entirely, but Marissa could take care of herself. She was the only one of us I suspected could reliably handle Jin in a physical fight. As long as she was watching him, I didn’t have to be hyper vigilant about what he was up to.
With that worry dismissed for the moment, I had other worries to contend with.
I already had a few strategies in mind, but it wasn’t time to deploy any of them just yet.
Any sort of traitors would be likely to act either during the middle of an attack by the tails, during a monster attack, or while most of the students were asleep.
If there were multiple of them, they’d also be looking for chances to communicate with each other.
My opportunities to counter them were going to be similar. Anytime people were distracted or asleep, I could try to gather — or place — information.
Any time I could get a single person alone, I could try to interrogate them, directly or indirectly.
I had a few key decisions to make before I made any major moves.
One, I needed to decide if I could trust any of my friends implicitly. This wasn’t a question of whether or not I could know if they were Spiders — I’d decided early on that I couldn’t prove that immediately.
Rather, it was a question of if I trusted anyone enough to cooperate with them regardless of whether or not they were a Spider.