Grub slid three books off the shelf and carried them to the front.
The titles were dense and practical, exactly the kind of books he preferred. One dealt with the theory behind Mgbaaka Maara construction. Another covered common applications and limitations. The third was a technical manual on maintenance, calibration, and emergency procedures.
In Grub's opinion, they were beautiful.
He rang the small bell sitting on Nora's desk and waited. A moment later the purple-skinned librarian shuffled back from whichever aisle she had disappeared into, her eight arms still holding various books and papers as she moved. When she saw the stack in front of him she smiled and set her other tasks aside.
"Checking these out?" she asked.
Grub nodded.
Nora reached beneath her desk and produced a strange handheld device. It was small and cylindrical with a flat end that glowed faintly as she pressed it against the spine of each book. A soft hum sounded with every scan and a mark appeared briefly on the cover before fading. Once she finished, she placed all three books into a cloth bag and slid it across the counter toward him.
"There you are, sir. Take good care of them."
Grub took the bag and allowed himself a small smile.
"See you soon. I'm coming back tomorrow."
Nora's three eyes lit up. She waved with two of her hands as he turned toward the exit.
Outside, the village air hit him warm and slow. Grub slung the bag over his shoulder and started walking back toward the inn at an easy pace.
He pulled one of the books out of the bag as he walked and opened it. His eyes locked onto the first page immediately, scanning word after word as his feet carried him forward on autopilot. The book was dense, its language dry and technical, but Grub didn't mind. Dry and technical was his Forte.
He didn't even notice the shadow in front of him before he walked straight into it.
The impact knocked him off balance and sent him stumbling backward, his back hitting the ground with a dull thud. The book tumbled out of his hands and landed face-down in the dirt. Grub rubbed his head in annoyance and looked up.
The horned man from earlier stood over him.
From this angle—on the ground, looking up—Grub could see a lot more detail than he had from across the village. The man's grey skin was darker than Orobas's, weathered and lined with small scars that each told a long story. His horns were thick and forward-angled, almost aggressive in their shape compared to the teacher's elegant backward curl. His jaw was set hard. His build was heavy with muscle packed tight beneath his clothes and his eyes had black sclera like Orobas's but with a deeper, colder iris. He barely glanced down at Grub before his face twisted into a scowl.
He said nothing.
He simply stepped around Grub and kept moving, his pace quick and purposeful, like he had somewhere important to be and no interest in anything that wasn't there.
Grub watched him go. He noted the way the man moved. Weight distributed evenly, posture tight even while walking fast.
That's someone who can fight.
The man disappeared around a corner. Grub grabbed his books, brushed off his pants, and headed back to the inn without another word.
Once inside his room, he set all three books on the bed and opened the first one.
Then he read.
For hours he sat there, cross-legged on the mattress, flipping through page after page. His notebook sat open beside him and his charcoal moved steadily as he copied down anything useful.
By the time he finished all three, his hand was sore and his eyes were tired. But he had learned a few things.
First, the Mgbaaka Maara on his wrist was not a high-level version. The books described several tiers of the device, ranging from crude low-end models to sophisticated ones that could kill in ways Grub didn't want to think about. His was firmly in the lower category. Either the Colonel had cheaped out on him or simply hadn't considered him important enough for the real thing. Either way, Grub benefited.
Second, because of the bracelet's lower quality, it was possible to temporarily jam or delay its remote execution function by destabilizing the Anima flow linking the bracelet to its receiver. The delay would not be permanent. But if successful, it could buy him precious seconds. And seconds were all Grub needed.
Third, the books described a method to properly deactivate the bracelet using the trigger device itself. If he could get his hands on one of those buttons the Lacert had been waving around, he could rewire it to send a deactivation signal instead.
Grub closed the final book and leaned back. A plan was forming.
It was simple. He would give the Lacerts the information they wanted. Enough to keep them satisfied, enough to keep that button in their pocket instead of under their thumb. He would be obedient. He would be useful and hope that it was enough.
But if it wasn't—if they decided to kill him anyway—the jam would buy him time. A few seconds, maybe more. Enough time to take down whoever was handling the report, grab the trigger, rewire it, and remove the bracelet before the signal finished.
It was not a clean plan. It was full of risks that could kill him just as easily as the bracelet could. That was exactly why he wouldn't rely on it unless he had no choice. He had ambitions. He needed to find the truth about who he was, about what this world was and why he was here. Dying in a forest clearing because he gambled wrong was not how his story was going to end.
So he would play along. Give them what they wanted. And keep the escape plan tucked away for the worst case.
He did feel bad about it though. Using information about the village, about the people who had taken him in and fed him and taught him, to buy his own survival. It sat uncomfortably in his chest.
But he had to.
His mind drifted back to the scene from earlier. Morrigan standing with her hands behind her back, speaking to the horned man and the green giant. The shouting. The single raised finger that silenced the argument.
What was that about?
He didn't know yet. But in the next few days he would find out. Maybe it would be the kind of information the Colonel actually wanted. Something that would satisfy them without Grub having to risk his life with the back up plan.
He counted the days in his head. Today was day one. They wouldn't count the night of the visit, right? That meant he had six more days not including this one.
Six days.
He could work with that. But before any of that, he had something else to do.
Grub reached into his pocket and jingled the Bells Luthiel had given him. According to the book, jamming the Mgbaaka Maara required a specific type of gem called a Jangushut. It was a stone capable of destabilizing Anima. They came in many types and grades, but since his bracelet was low quality, a cheap one would do the job just fine. He would also need some cables for a connector and a few materials to build a small battery.
Grub pocketed the Bells and headed out toward the market.
The village market was louder than the rest of Anwansi. Stalls lined both sides of a wide dirt road, each one covered by a cloth canopy and stacked with goods. Vendors called out to passersby while customers moved between the stalls in a slow, browsing current. After searching for several minutes, he found a promising stall filled with gemstones and magical components. The display was wide and cluttered, filled with stones of every color and size, some polished, some raw, some glowing faintly from within.
Grub stepped up and began scanning the stock. The shop owner, a squat creature with thick arms and suspicious eyes, watched him silently from behind the counter.
There.
The crystal was dark and translucent, with faint veins of silver running through it. The moment Grub reach down and picked it up something shifted inside him.
He felt strangely weak, like something fundamental had been gently pressed down. The weight in his chest, that faint remnant of Death he had been carrying since his journey through the wilderness, surged briefly. A response to something that was actively pushing against it.
Grub smiled.
Even with his limited understanding of Anima, he could tell the crystal was genuine. He held the stone up to the shop owner.
"How much for this?"
The man squinted at him and gave a price that was clearly inflated.
Grub refuted it immediately.
What followed was a back-and-forth that grew louder with each exchange. The shop owner insisted on his price. Grub insisted it was nonsense. When the man refused to budge, Grub leaned forward slightly and began commenting—loudly—on the visible impurities in several of the other stones the man had labeled as pure grade.
The shop owner's face went pale. He hushed Grub down with frantic hands and lowered the price without another word.
Grub took the Jangushut, and moved on.
He bought the rest of the materials he needed from two other stalls. Cables, a few small metal components, enough to build what he needed. When he was finished, he counted the remaining coins in his hand.
He grimaced.
Luthiel was not going to be happy about this. Still, the purchase was worth it. He shrugged the thought off and headed back to the inn.
Once inside his room, he got to work.
First came the battery. It took time. The materials were crude and the design was improvised, but Grub was good at making things work with less than what was ideal. He assembled it carefully, testing the connections twice before moving on.
Then he laid his wrist out on the bed and attached the battery to the bracelet like a set of jumper cables. He positioned the Jangushut between the two connection points and took a slow breath.
This is going to hurt.
He turned the battery on.
Instantly the Jangushut began to glow. At the same time, the runes on the Mgbaaka Maara flared to life, their carved lines burning a faint purple against the obsidian surface. The battery churned and hummed.
Then the heat started.
The bracelet grew hotter. And hotter. Grub winced, his teeth clenching as the metal seared against his skin. His instincts screamed at him to pull away but he held firm.
He picked up the knife from his supplies.
With a quick, practiced cut, he opened a small wound on his other arm and slid the final cable inside. The pain hit immediately as a shot of electricity surged through him. This part was essential. In order for the Jangushut to destabilize the Anima connection between the Mgbaaka Maara and his body, the circuit needed to run through him. Through his skin. Through his blood.
His skin began to glow faintly along his veins, the light pulsing outward from the bracelet in thin lines that traced up his arm. His veins pushed against the surface of his skin, visible and swollen and burning. Pain seared through him in waves. His vision blurred as his jaw locked shut.
But he didn't stop
Then, all at once, the Jangushut shattered. The glow died along with the hum as the heat slowly subsided
Grub shut the contraption down and collapsed backward onto the bed, gasping. His skin was burned red around the bracelet and the cut on his other arm throbbed. Pain wetted his eyes but he blinked it away.
He looked down at the Mgbaaka Maara. The runes along its surface were flickering. Sparking faintly, sputtering in and out like a dying light. For a moment, just a moment, he considered trying to pull it off entirely.
But he stopped himself.
The jam was meant to slow the signal between the button and the bracelet. To delay the kill command sent through Anima. But the instant-death failsafe that came from trying to physically remove it was a different system entirely. That one was skin to skin, direct contact, no Anima involved. The jam wouldn't help him there.
Pulling it off now would just kill him faster. Grub let out a long, slow breath and let his arm drop to the bed.
Finally. Something was going right.
He had a backup plan now. It wasn't perfect. There was still a real chance the jam would fail and the button would kill him instantly the same as before. But it was better than nothing. Better than sitting still and hoping.
When he looked out the window, the sky had turned orange. The day was ending.
A small smile spread across Grub's face.
Six more days.