"Hey," Lirelle waved a casual, unenthusiastic greeting as she stepped from the trail leading to town into the small clearing that housed Kerr's cabin. 

I nodded back in way of reply. 

Leaving the shadow of the trees, she squinted as the orange-tinged, late-afternoon sunlight lit up her beautiful, albeit now somewhat haggard face. "...Come on," she said, drawing to a stop next to me and extending a hand to help me up. I saw her eyes flick curiously to the remains of the fire, but she said nothing. "You're needed back at my family's place."

I hesitated for a moment, uncertain whether she was going to volunteer any sort of explanation, but as I perhaps should have expected, no such courtesy appeared to be forthcoming. With a mental shrug, I tossed aside the stick I was holding, took her offered hand—making sure to use my uninjured left arm—and let her pull me to my feet.

Peering at my face, Lirelle frowned. "You're... looking rather pale. Why'd you go out if you still weren't feeling good?"

I blinked, somewhat surprised that it was obvious enough for her to have noticed. "No, uh, I really did feel fine when I left." Averting my eyes, I rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly with my free hand. "...I was looking for something in Kerr's room and found out the hard way that apparently he's perfectly comfortable keeping a poorly-sealed bottle of foul-smelling acid on a shelf right next to where he sleeps."

"...You what?" 

I had only just let go of her hand, but I didn't even get the chance to pull my arm away—in what was probably a reflexive action, she snatched back my wrist and turned my hand over in hers, checking for acid burns.

"By which I mean I accidentally knocked it off the shelf," I clarified quickly, "and it landed on the bed, where some of the liquid then seeped out onto the sheets. I'm totally fine." I hesitated. "...Aside from the smell making my stomach turn."

Lirelle sighed tiredly in something between relief and exasperation, and released her grip on my arm. After a brief pause, she once again stole a glance at the firepit. "...You burned the sheets?"

"That acid is seriously pungent," I answered simply. "Better this than keeping them in the cabin."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "...Why were you snooping in Mucker's room, anyway? You know he's not gonna be happy when he gets back."

I felt my expression fall, and for a few moments I couldn't find the words to say anything in response. "...That's fine," I found myself answering quietly. 

There was a short stretch of silence between us.

"Kerr and I... parted on very bad terms, in the future I remember," I eventually elaborated, staring down at the absence of a scar on my finger as I spoke.

"...But none of that has happened, yet."

My jaw clenched. "To me it did." Kicking some dirt over the embers of the small fire, I stepped past Lirelle, towards the trail to Silent Falls. She failed to follow after me, so I stopped and looked back at her. "...Anyway, I have bigger concerns than playing nice with him right now. I can explain while we walk, if you'd like?"

Although her expression made it clear that she wasn't entirely satisfied with my reasons, she reluctantly nodded, and the two of us began unhurriedly working our way back along the trail. Keeping pace at my side, Lirelle waited quietly as I took a moment to organize my thoughts.

"So, the situation with the Ielyan Alliance..." I began slowly, "...if I understand correctly, the Kingdom still has no idea what the exact cause was?"

She considered for a few seconds. "I obviously can't speak for the royal family or the archmage or anything like that, but... yeah, pretty much. General public understanding is that they had some sort of internal political conflict two weeks ago that got way out of hand and fractured the entire Alliance practically overnight, but no one really knows what that conflict was about."

...As a summary of events it was largely incomplete, but the information itself was fairly accurate.

"Okay... well, you know what Ielya's economy is built on, right?"

Lirelle glanced sidelong at me. "...Enchanting."

I nodded. "The Ensilver-Ielya mana vein, in particular."

The use of mana veins, underground conduits through which highly concentrated natural mana continually flowed, was essential for the enchanting process... and of all those mankind had thus far discovered, the Ensilver-Ielya vein was the only one both large enough and close enough to the surface to support the infrastructure for large-scale production.

We rounded a small bend, and a glimpse of Silent Falls became visible between the trees in the distance.

"I'm... not sure of the exact timeframe," I continued, "but long story short, sometime prior to the Alliance falling apart, there was some powerful seismic activity in the Ensilver-Ielya region. A ton of the below-ground enchanting facilities were destroyed, resulting in a huge hole in the earth that opened straight into the vein."

There was a split second of shocked hesitation in Lirelle's stride.

"...Damn," she muttered, then went silent for a few paces. "So the Alliance's main money-maker is out of commission for the forseeable future? That's a hell of a thing to try and keep under wraps like this, though." Her brow furrowed. "And why did that lead to Archessa getting attacked?"

I smiled bitterly. "Do you know much about enchanting?"

She frowned, caught off guard by the question. "Uh... the basics, I guess...? You put whatever you're trying to enchant in a mana vein for a while to soak up a whole bunch of it, then a mage does the..." She hesitated. "...Complicated magic part."

The path ahead opened up as we neared the end of the trail. Life at the edge of Silent Falls was marching on as usual, a few construction labourers hauling some processed lumber away from the town's sawmill while a pair of workers busied themselves tidying up the yard.

I considered how to go about explaining this. "Then... did you know the work is fairly dangerous?"

"...Vaguely," she answered tentatively. I said nothing, letting her work through the implications on her own. Finally, we stepped out from amidst the trees and began making our way past the mill. "If I remember correctly, they have to take a lot of precautions when working near mana veins, because direct exposure..." As Lirelle's voice trailed off, she abruptly stopped in place. I slowed to a halt as well, and turned around to face her.

At first glance, her expression appeared calm, perhaps thoughtful... but her eyes were open just a hair too wide, her posture just a little too stiff. She'd probably figured it out.

"...Can cause highly dangerous, potentially fatal health problems," I finished her sentence quietly. "The general populace has no reason to know this yet, but it's called 'mana poisoning'."

A strong breeze picked up just then, filling the soundless void between us with the rustling of leaves. In my periphery, I caught sight of one of the sawmill workers, an elderly-looking man, pausing in his cleaning efforts to look over at us curiously, stopped in the middle of the path as we were. 

"Lirelle!" An unfamiliar, gravelly voice called out in greeting, interrupting her. It was the old sawmill worker who'd briefly been watching us a few moments ago—having now set down his workload, he dusted off his hands and hurried over to us with a smile. "Heading home now?"

The man, with his notably tall build and the robust but unassuming muscles built from a lifetime of physical labour, was in exceptionally good shape for his age. His skin, pockmarked and thoroughly wrinkled, was a dark, almost grayish brown that made for a striking contrast with his thinning, pure white hair, and his features were wide and heavyset. I vaguely recognized him—not surprising, given the location of his workplace, but I didn't recall us ever interacting in any capacity beyond me walking past on my way to and from town.

Lirelle blinked. "Oh. Uh... yeah." Quickly collecting herself, she smiled back up at him and somewhat awkwardly gave him a hug... which he reciprocated enthusiastically.

Must be family, I guessed.

"Silt," she addressed me as she politely extricated herself from the embrace, "this is my uncle, Rosch."

Uncle... Nassia's husband, then? Or a sibling of one of Lirelle's parents? The former seemed considerably more likely, seeing as the two of them really didn't look much alike.

The older man smiled widely down at me. "Ah, so he's the one you and Mirea dragged in last night?" 

While I silently reflected that I didn't particularly enjoy that use of the word 'dragged', he took a moment to look me up and down with an appraising eye. "Hmm... I see, I see. Pleasure to finally speak to you, Silt."

My eye twitched. You see... what, exactly? And did you really have to say it twice? 

...I tried my best not to let my thoughts show on my face as we briefly exchanged pleasantries.

"How about you?" Lirelle inquired of her uncle in return once we'd finished. "Do you still have work to get done?"

Rosch glanced over his shoulder at the other sawmill worker, a much younger man who was currently sorting through some wood scraps. He gave a short hum, thinking, then turned back to us with a subtle grin and a glint in his eyes. "...Technically, yes, but that fellow owes me a favour. Just wait here a minute."

Lirelle and I just stood there for a short while, silently watching him go on his way, neither of us proving to be inclined to take the initiative in resuming our prior conversation.

A discomforting tension stretched out between us. It was my nerves that frayed first.

"I don't know," I said softly. "How I'm supposed to do anything to save humanity, I mean. I really don't."

There was a long pause. Over at the sawmill yard, Lirelle's uncle tapped his colleague on the shoulder and said something to him—whatever it was, the younger man was plainly not too happy to hear it, but he gave a slight nod in agreement nonetheless.

"...That's why I've been trying so hard to convince you. I'm overwhelmed and I desperately need someone I can trust to help me figure this out—someone who will take me seriously. If the whole world tells me I've gone mad, I think I'll probably start to believe it."

All of that was true. Admittedly, I'd said it mostly because I felt like my attempts to persuade her may have been a little too calculated and lacking in sincerity, but that didn't change the fact that it was genuinely how I felt. Hopefully, that would get across to her.

She turned to look me in the eyes, her expression unreadable. Neither of us spoke.

Rosch returned in the midst of that silence, still smiling, now carrying a medium-sized pouch that he hadn't had before. "Off we go, then?" 

I couldn't tell whether he'd failed to notice the atmosphere between Lirelle and I, or if he'd simply chosen to ignore it. He did, however, catch me looking curiously at the small bag he held as we started walking. "I found some really interesting pieces of wood earlier," he explained before I could even ask, looking rather pleased with himself. "I'm bringing them back for Nassia."

"She'll probably carve a pendant for you out of one of them, if you want," Lirelle added. "She likes making them as gifts for people."

A memory surfaced—a long, sleepless night spent sick and feverish in a clinic bed, Lirelle sitting in a chair next to me, telling me the story behind the small wooden pendant she was wearing as a way to help pass the time.

"...Has she made you a feather pendant?"

She thought for a moment. "Uh... I don't think so? She's sent me a lot of them over the years, so I'm not completely sure, but..."

I smiled to myself. "Ah. Well, something for you to look forward to, then."