Amid the jumbled memories of Firefall Town, Ye Wei'an quickly found the crucial fragment:
It was in a dim room filled with the smell of cheap tobacco and sour ale. A man who looked completely out of place sat across from Grumman.
The man was middle-aged, wearing a gray cloak over a well-tailored dark linen shirt. His collar was immaculate, and his long, clean fingers stood in sharp contrast to Grumman's rough, grimy hands. He spoke slowly and chose his words carefully. More importantly, he paid generously.
"Same as always. This time, the target is Ye Weian Xiaxing. My master wants him gone for good. Here's the down payment." As he spoke, the man pushed over a pouch of gold coins.
"So the attack really was planned." Ye Wei'an's spirits lifted.
That face stirred the original owner's buried memories: Lady Xiaxing—the Baron's wife—had a personal manservant whose appearance and bearing were about eighty percent like this man's, though his beard was shorter.
But that made sense. Ye Wei'an had spent four years studying magic in the capital, Suzar. His memories of the people around Lady Xiaxing only went back four years, so it was no surprise if the man's appearance had changed slightly.
Grumman didn't know the man's name. He only knew his nickname, "Gray Crow," because he wore a gray cloak every day.
The man was one of Grumman's regular clients. He had helped him fence stolen goods more than once, and Grumman had handled more than one person for Gray Crow in return.
Grumman never asked about the man's background, but he had his suspicions:
Judging by Gray Crow's manner, his tone, his untouchable status in Firefall Town, and the targets of his past jobs, the man was almost certainly a member of the Summerstar Family. But Grumman had no idea which member he served.
That matched the original owner's memories.
The mastermind behind this assassination attempt was now obvious.
The memory moved on—
Gray Crow briefed Grumman on the job: the caravan's exact route, when it might pass through, the number and composition of its guards... every last detail.
He even provided information on the target, Ye Wei'an himself. The sheer detail was chilling.
There was no way he could have gathered all that from hearsay. The information had to have come from inside the Summerstar Family.
When Gray Crow described the "target" as "mediocre, cowardly, and utterly useless in a fight," Ye Wei'an clearly felt a surge of furious betrayal well up from deep within the memory.
It wasn't hard to understand—
That "mediocre, cowardly, and utterly useless in a fight" wretch had single-handedly turned Grumman's sure victory into defeat and even captured him himself.
Grumman could never have imagined the system existed, so he could only blame his crushing defeat on disastrously bad intelligence.
The fury was so intense that the scene before Ye Wei'an began to convulse, like a lake battered by a violent storm. It seemed ready to collapse at any moment.
Ye Wei'an furrowed his brows. His mental power gathered into a heavy hammer and slammed down.
The effect was immediate.
No matter how furious the Barbarian was, he was still powerless before overwhelming mental strength.
The scene soon steadied, and the memory resumed.
Gray Crow continued to relay the intelligence.
To Ye Wei'an's relief, the briefing on the guards never mentioned an "inside man."
That was undoubtedly good news—it meant there was no spy loyal to Lady Xiaxing among the escort.
Soon, he reached the most important part: how to collect the rest of the payment after the job was done.
Gray Crow brought it up himself. "May Waukeen bless our business. Grumman, if you succeed, bring proof that the bastard is dead to the Dissolute Dragon tavern in Firefall Town. Go upstairs and find the 'Sage' room. I'll be there waiting for you for a week."
The scene shifted. After Gray Crow left, Grumman eagerly tore open the money pouch and roughly poured the coins onto the table.
The reward for this job was two thousand gold coins. By the usual arrangement, he had given Grumman thirty percent upfront—a full six hundred coins.
Unfortunately, in the hands of a spendthrift cutthroat like Grumman, money never lasted the night.
Most of the coins had already gone toward food and drink for his men, new leather armor for them, and Grumman's own spending on women.
Less than a hundred coins remained.
Ye Wei'an saw Grumman sneak out in the dead of night and hide the coins in an abandoned windmill mill in the southeastern corner of Firefall Town, half of it already collapsed.
He pried up a loose floorboard and stuffed the coins into a rusty iron chest.
It was his personal secret vault, a final escape fund he had set aside for himself. Not even his most trusted confidant knew about it.
The memory of the meeting arrangements ended there.
Ye Wei'an's thoughts shifted. He didn't rush to withdraw his mental power. Instead, he searched the memories for another crucial detail: was anyone besides Grumman in on the meeting?
A brief memory surfaced: the infiltrator nicknamed "Goat" was probably in the know.
As the bandit gang's undisputed leader, Grumman controlled all their jobs and fencing channels. Only Goat knew anything about it, since he occasionally helped Grumman come up with ideas.
That fellow had been the first to run when things turned bad in the earlier fight.
Ye Wei'an immediately realized he didn't have much time.
He had to reach Firefall Town before Goat did.
Satisfied that he had found everything he could, Ye Wei'an ended Detect Thoughts.
The moment their connection broke, Grumman seemed to have had his spine pulled out. He pitched forward, then began panting violently.
Cold sweat soaked through his clothes. He looked utterly miserable, as if he'd just been hauled out of the water.
He raised his head with difficulty and met Ye Wei'an's deep, dark eyes. There was no anger in them, only a faint, almost pitying mockery from on high.
"I told you, didn't I? Even if you don't talk, I can still find out what you're thinking."
"You... What exactly did you find out?"
"Firefall Town. The southeastern corner. The abandoned windmill mill. The loose floorboard."
Ye Wei'an spoke slowly and casually, but every word landed on the Barbarian's heart like a heavy hammer.
"The Dissolute Dragon tavern. Upstairs. The 'Sage' room." He paused, watching the last glimmer of hope in Grumman's eyes swiftly die out. "Your secrets are all laid bare. Do you still need me to jog your memory, Grumman?"
The last trace of color drained from the Barbarian's face.
"That's impossible... It's not fair! Such a blasphemous violation of the soul... Uthgar, have you gone blind?"
The Barbarian wailed in despair, but the fierce God of Battle had never answered the cries of the weak.
For the first time, in the presence of this fearsome Wizard, he felt the helplessness of those he had once tormented at will.
His strength and his fury could do nothing to protect him. He had been stripped bare without being able to resist. Every secret and advantage had been exposed, leaving him not even a shred of dignity.
Looking at Grumman crumpled on the ground, Ye Wei'an knew the Barbarian's will had been broken. He would no longer pose a threat.
Ye Wei'an then ordered the guards, "I'm done questioning him. Gag him and take him away. Keep him under guard."
"Yes, young master!" The guards stuffed a rag into Grumman's mouth and dragged him away.
Before leaving, one of the guards couldn't help stealing a quick glance at Ye Wei'an. There was a new, difficult-to-describe awe in his eyes.
Only after seeing a Wizard's power with their own eyes did they understand why the Nobles both feared and admired Wizards.
The power to peer into someone's mind was far more terrifying than any form of torture.
The bandit chief had been taken away, but Ye Wei'an hadn't finished his interrogation. To be cautious, he called over another captive from among the underlings.
As the bandit was dragged out, he cried like a little sissy.
He had clearly been terrified by how utterly broken Grumman had looked.
If even the chief, a tough man like that, had cracked, what chance did a nobody like him have?
"Don't kill me! Please... Earth Mother Chauntea, I still have family at home..."
Of course, he was worrying over nothing.
Ye Wei'an wasn't about to waste a precious second-level Spell Slot on a nobody who didn't even deserve a name.
For a wretch like this, a mere cantrip—Charm Person—was enough.
A flash of magical light passed over the bandit's eyes, and his expression changed at once.
His fear vanished, replaced by warmth.
Through his spell-twisted senses, the demon before him seemed kind and familiar, like an old friend he could confide in.
He told Ye Wei'an everything he knew.
Over the next half-hour, Ye Wei'an screened all the captives one by one and got the answers he wanted.
The underlings really didn't know Grumman's secrets, but they all confirmed that three days earlier, Grumman had indeed taken them to Firefall Town.
Some of them had even seen Grumman meet alone with a "well-dressed gentleman."
More importantly, they all independently confirmed that before the attack, Grumman had stressed that they "must kill the Noble young master in the party," and promised them an unusually generous reward for it.
The clues all fit.
Before you continue