Suitor¡ Suitress? Whatever I¡ Oh, gods, I did it.
My heartfelt¡ light, her head came up just below my head, my chest was basically a headrest for her. I thought about what to say, what to ask and settled on just asking them instead of thinking about them.
¡°Did the tea work?¡± I asked her.
¡°Yes, it¡¯s weird and tingly. Not bad, feels good even. No more spasms, no more pain, just tingles.¡± She told me.
Another twinge of relief. It had worked.
¡°That¡¯s good. I¡¯m glad. I had no balance, had to do that by nose¡± I told her as I let my neck rest on her shoulder and felt her breath and heartbeat echo through her back.
¡°By nose? Is your nose that good.¡± She asked.
¡°Mmhm can smell and hear like a hound. Taste is similar to yours, a little different. But the recipe was in your book, couldn¡¯t have done it without book.¡±
¡°I feel silly never thinking about it. I should have thought about looking.¡± She said regretfully.
My ears finally started to relax to mobility.
¡°It¡¯s ok, now both of us can make it, I wrote recipe. No idea how long it lasts, but plenty more in front room.¡± I told her, moving my ears to loosen them up a bit.
She just sighed. ¡°Thank you. Can I wait her awhile, I have wanted this for quite a bit.¡±
¡°Since you peeped on me?¡± I teased.
¡°I¡ I didn¡¯t mean to.¡± She spoke. When I checked, I couldn¡¯t see her face, but her ears were a bright scarlet. I could feel the heat in them next to my head.
¡°It¡¯s ok,¡± I told her, ¡°Not a big deal for me, different¡ people. Have seen many no cloths, been seen by others, understand?¡±
¡°I¡ Didn¡¯t know, and it was wrong of me anyway.¡± She hedged.
¡°It¡¯s ok; my people are also touchy; want hug? I will do it anytime,¡± I told her.
¡°That would be nice. I don¡¯t know anything about you or your history. I would like to know more.¡± She told me.
¡°I don¡¯t know much about you either, so we can tell each other,¡± I told her, wrapping my arms around her waist.
She wiggled as I did it, relaxing further. I could hear her breathing slowly, her heartbeat too. As close as she was, pressed against me, I could smell the flowery smell under the blood that wafted around her, mingled with the scents I so often paid little attention to, like those in sweat or oil on the skin.
I sat there with her for a while, not talking about anything, as we took in one another and enjoyed the closeness.
¡°Do you still want to talk about ghost baby demon thing?¡± I asked her, breaking the silence.
She sighed again, though this time, it wasn¡¯t in a good way.
¡°Yes. However, it was nice to sit here for a while. So¡ how would you normally deal with¡ a soul?¡± She asked.
I was surprised by her all over again. She wanted to just jump right into it. Sitting in my lap to full-tilt sprint without even moving.
¡°Well. I have a skill for it. Normally they just go over on their own, but this one didn¡¯t; I don¡¯t know if it wanted to.¡±
The questions started immediately; Anna¡¯s full speed of questions made me have to spit out answers at a rapid pace.
¡°Is it active or passive?¡±
¡°Passive?¡±
¡°How do you know if it wanted to go.¡±
¡°Most of them acknowledge me; this one just cried.¡±
¡°What do they normally say?¡±
¡°Um.¡± I tripped myself up for a moment, trying to keep up, keep answering, ¡°I am warm? Apparently.¡±
¡°Warm like a fire, or warm like normal.¡±
¡°Warm like a fire, I think.¡±
¡°So, they¡¯re cold?¡±
¡°Well, not¡¡±
Wait, most of them are normal. But this one was cold. And they got colder when they bit me, heck even I got colder.
¡°This one was. It made me cold too.¡± I told her.
¡°Are you still cold?¡± She asked.
¡°Less cold than before. It¡¯s not a normal cold, it¡¯s¡ inside.¡±
¡°That¡¯s good to know, the cold isn¡¯t permanent. How did it make you cold?¡±
¡°It¡ Bit me?¡± I told her hesitantly.
I could feel Anna take a deep breath before letting it out.
¡°OK then. Could you focus on the skill? Force it over?¡± She asked.
I lifted one hand and gave her a so-so gesture, ¡°Maybe? But might bite more, hurt, and keep hurting even after gone. I have no idea how it works.¡±
¡°If I can see your status, I can use a spell to view it. I would understand if you didn¡¯t want to show me, however.¡± She told me.
¡°Why would I mind? It¡¯s just a status; someone always seen mine. Is that not normal? No going to the temple when you unlock?¡±
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
She moved her head back and forth a bit, which was awkward with how we were seated, but I could tell she was thinking.
¡°Maybe others do that. But I was born a noble, and nobles keep skills to themselves. Letting someone know what you can do can be your downfall. Some skills are a way of understanding someone. Take a skill like¡ [Gentile Caress]. It¡¯s a skill any lord class can get, but the only people who get it are gentle people. A lord could use that. They can get away with more, better trades and more aggressive posturing to get what they want. Or a skill like [Bluster], which makes you appear more intimidating, even when you shouldn¡¯t be, and you can push back if you know it¡¯s just a skill or if you have a skill of your own.¡±
She told me, meanderingly. Building up steam. I listened to her carefully, thinking about it carefully.
¡°As a mage, I can see past those skills, but that just means I keep what I can do closer to the chest. I suppose I¡¯m still not used to being open about it. Honestly, you¡¯re somewhat a breath of fresh air, if I¡¯m being honest¡ you stumbling into my life has left me somewhat unready to talk to someone like a normal human being.¡±
I snorted a bit.
¡°Anna, I¡¯m not Human.¡±
¡°Oh, shush you,¡± she said, slapping my hand chidingly, ¡°you know well what I mean. People. Persons. Whatever.¡±
¡°Sounds rough,¡± I told her. ¡°I can understand, not personally, but I can. If someone knows, they can use it. Sound like Avarice worshipers. Greedy Snakes.¡±
That managed to get a chuckle out of her.
¡°Most of them are.¡±
¡°Gross, but I suppose that makes sense,¡± I told her.
¡°Somewhat. So, to get back to the conversation at hand, you are ok with showing me your status?¡± she asked.
¡°I can, but I need to stand up to cast the spell.¡±
¡°No, you don¡¯t. Why would you need to stand?¡±
I blinked. ¡°Anna, you taught me how to cast [Status]; you know what I need to do to cast.¡±
¡°Yes, for a first time casting it. [Magi] can help with that; when you cast a spell for the first time, you need to do it. Then you know the spell; it''s inscribed in your status, and you learn the pattern and can use the skill to limit what you need to do. [Magi] lets you sense mana, manipulate it, and eventually cut out the necessary movements or make casting it more efficient with movement. Remember, you''re a mage now, even if you''re new to it. How much did it take to cast it the first time?¡± She asked.
I didn¡¯t really get it, but I told her anyway. ¡°Around 40.¡±
¡°Ok, so you can get that down to around twenty. It¡¯s based on the proficiency of the caster, both the literal number and the caster''s skill.¡±
Oh. I suppose that makes sense. You never hear about a mage making a jig before casting a fireball. They just do it, bang fireball.
¡°So¡ How do I do that?¡±
¡°Well, feel the mana around us. You can, right?¡±
¡°Well, yes, though it¡¯s a bit hazy.¡±
¡°Congrats, you are already visualizing and differentiating the types of mana. The higher your stats, the more accurately. Now it will be easier to do.¡±
¡°That¡¯s¡ nice, I guess. So how do I move the mana?¡±
¡°Flex the skill like a passive skill.¡±
I tried.
It was like an extra sense. I honestly didn¡¯t think about flexing the skill. For a sense skill, it was just an extended reach. It was, after all, feeling something around you.
Flexing it instead lets me narrow down on myself and feel the area around me more clearly. Feel it, and as I quite quickly found, move and shape it.
I could only do a little moving in the area, and it was a small area only a few feet around me. But I could shape it.
I started doing some of the techniques, and it started getting thicker. I added some finger movements in, and that helped too. The thicker the mana, the easier it was to move it, which seemed counterintuitive. It was like pouring honey faster than water, but I picked up on it fast enough.
This is so bizarre. Useful too, but bizarre.
It was hard, but I could feel that the more I used it, the more I could do with it.
¡°I¡¯m going to need my arms, but I¡¯ll try,¡± I told Anna, who was apparently just sitting there feeling me fumble around.
I started casting and shaping the mana. It was way easier than doing my dance, and I started feeling it gradually take shape.
I wonder if it¡¯s going to feel the same.
¡°Anna. Will it be the same as the first time?¡±
¡°Hmm? No, it becomes less intense; unless you cast a stronger spell, it won¡¯t be as intense. What did it feel like for you?¡±
I couldn¡¯t tell her; I remained silent, blushing at the idea of it like the coward I was.
¡°Oh. Was it intense? Some people have a weaker or stronger reaction.¡±
Anna, please, no.
¡°Oh. It must have been good.¡±
She leaned away to look at me; I knew I was red in the face, but her looking at me like that made me blush even worse. I had to look away.
¡°It¡¯s fine, Saph. Everyone feels that way the first time, and I do mean everyone; I won¡¯t laugh.¡±
I would feel like a hypocrite if I didn¡¯t tell her, considering my ''tell me how you feel.'' Gods, this is embarrassing.
¡°I¡ You might need to get off if it¡¯s as intense.¡±
¡°Ooh. That good? I¡¯m a little jealous.¡±
¡°Anna, please don¡¯t tease me.¡± I pleaded. Anna didn''t relent.
¡°It¡¯s fine. Magic is commonly a mage''s first time. I know it was certainly mine.¡±
I agreed, if not with words, and kept casting, although I had encountered a problem. I couldn¡¯t quite get the pattern right without standing. I could get closer by moving my arms, but I couldn¡¯t get the pattern right without the full body movements.
I struggled with it for a bit before I felt Anna reach in to help; it was like Anna reaching in and holding my hand. Only her hand was giant, big enough to encompass me entirely. She reached in and started helping, keeping pace with my comparable fumbling, expertly moving the mana.
¡°Your¡ big,¡± I told her, feeling the immense strength of Anna all around me, shaping the pattern with incredible accuracy, moving way more than I could, even with the motions.
¡°I¡¯m experienced, is all. I have two casting classes and skills to move mana away from myself; that¡¯s what you''re feeling; focus; you can cast the spell now.¡±
I let my mana out, shaping it through the pattern, and like I felt before, a distance from myself as me, I was just a vessel, and I flowed out of my vessel as it spoke the words and pulled me into myself.
¡°[Status].¡±
The moment I said the word, I could feel myself shake and lean back into the chair. It wasn¡¯t as intense as last time; I didn¡¯t soak myself for one. Anna didn¡¯t hop off my lap, which was a little embarrassing, but I suppose she was looking at the point of the whole thing.
Mid-euphoria, I looked over Anna¡¯s shoulder and peered at the blue magical panel.
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Name: Saphine
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Race: Kobold Psychopomp
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Age: 2813
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Titles and Information
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Stats and Growth
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Innate Skills and Spells
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Titles: [Saint of Death]
Level: 20
Proficiency: 2
Hit points: 96/96
Mana: 2371/2400
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Build: 42 Dexterous +2|+1
Speed: 5
Senses: 27 Accuity +1|+1
Durability: 96 Spirit +3|+2
Mind: 40 Wis +3|+1
Social: 20 Int +2|+1
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[Natural Senses], [Child of the Aurora], [Guardian of the Ansestors], [Saint of Death], [Marked by the Long Road] [True Immortality], [Magi], [Death Magic Affinity], [Sense Death], [Tenebral Bane].
[Cantrip], [Status].
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Classes
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Class Skills
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Class spells
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[Grave Digger] Level 21
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[Tool handling], [Rapid action], [Toil], [Sense stones], [Displace dirt], [Sense Composition], [Durable tools], [Timeless construct], [Aura of Soil], [Last Rites].
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[Verdant Nexus] Level 21
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[Green Thumb], [Planters Delight], [Aid Yield], [Revitalize Land], [Aura of Renewal], [Guide Plant], [Verdant Touch], [Wild Growth], [Verdant Sense], [Wellspring of Renewal].
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[Apprentice Mage] Level 1
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[Woodsman] Level 1
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Anna was looking at the blue window of my status so intensely I could literally feel it, and not only because she was casting a spell, her presence, though more nebulous after my release of [Magi], was still so gargantuan that I could feel her in the air even as she focused on casting a separate spell. But even her gaze was practically palpable.
And she didn¡¯t move as she cast it. She didn¡¯t even say a word. The pattern repeated over and over as she presumably scanned her eyes over the page.
¡°What is this written in? Is this your language? I have never seen that writing.¡±
¡°It is. It¡¯s Kirish. Can¡¯t you understand them?¡± I asked.
¡°Well, yes. But it¡¯s still weird to read the writing and not be able to parse the words.¡±
She stopped momentarily when looking at age, but she kept casting the spell bless her.
Yeah, I suppose I need to talk with her about that. That is going to be a massive can of worms.
I had gotten the increase in stats I had thought I knew I would. But I had also gotten an increase in my dexterity, possibly from a skill or my new subrace. I had also gotten two new innate skills, one of which sounded quite bad; the other, I had no idea what it meant. Looking at it only gave me a self-explanatory definition. It made me a bane to the use of Tenebrae but did not explain it; whatever it was, I could cause bad stuff to happen when it was wielded in my vicinity, at least at a relatively close distance.
[Death Magic Affinity] was something I did not want to mess with. That sounded like something that would get me hung, like necromancy. Just the words alone sounded bad, like just by using it, I would dawn a black cowl and cape, chuckle, and speak cryptically. It boosted Death magic, which was a type of skill my [Guide] had talked about, which was something I understood little about detail-wise beyond the fact it would make any death magic stronger.
It did not give me a good feeling about my future actions should I choose to use it. Being fantastic at death magic was not something I wanted to be remembered for. I was already freaky enough; tacking on death magic would just make it worse.
Anna did not start babbling about my age nor freak out at the two freaking evil-sounding skills when she got to them.
The thing that I had wanted to look at was also there. [Child of the Aurora]. A skill that connected me to the aurora, the skill no one told me about. It told me of an ethereal song of light and how it would guide me, its child, through the dark. It, too, was cryptic, very cryptic, but at least it was honest with its dramatic speech, it didn¡¯t hide its meaning behind terms I would need to read from a textbook.
¡°Ohh kay then.¡± Anna started, her magic releasing and her presence withdrawing from around me.
¡°Did you get what you were looking for?¡± I asked.
¡°Kind of? A lot of surprises. But I think I figured it out. [Saint of Death] and [Marked by the Long Road] move the soul through you. We would have to figure out how to pacify it first, then send it to the afterlife. Unless you want to risk doing it anyway.¡±
¡°I would greatly prefer not,¡± I told her.
¡°I don¡¯t blame you. Even if the idea of it in here feels incredibly wrong.¡±
I returned to holding her waist with my hands while we waited for the status to disappear.
Some part of me wanted to quip a little; some tiny part of my brain wanted to go for it, tit for tat with her. But I decided against it because I didn''t want to kick.
¡°Thank you for being patient with me,¡± I told her instead.
¡°It''s¡ well, it¡¯s not that the ghost or spirit or whatever it is, the thing out there isn¡¯t a problem, but more that I¡¯m not going to pin that entirely on you. I am a little bit angry at you, don¡¯t get me wrong, but considering the tea, I would be willing to call it even. Just make sure to get it out of here as quickly as possible.¡± She told me, relaxing back into me and letting herself go limp.
I checked the light outside but found that it was already dark. Anna had come home late and tired, and I had lost track of the time.
¡°Come on, Anna, I think it is time for bed,¡± I told her, shaking her a bit.
¡°I suppose... Will you carry me?¡± She asked, either embarrassed or just quietly.
I couldn¡¯t not chuckle at that and I lifted her up like a princess and carried her to bed. She squeaked a little and ended up holding onto me as I exited the study, walked through the main room with its screaming monster baby, and entered Anna¡¯s bedroom, where I laid her down and got in next to her.
Now for my next difficulty. Going to sleep with the screaming child in the next room.
Chapter 26 Blood, Bud and Bone Part 10
The incessant screaming of the demented child kept me up. It warbled, unhindered by the wall, straight to me.
I couldn¡¯t blot it out by covering my ears or by my simple and more common approach of pressing them down against my head. Nor could I cover my head with the blanket and blot it out, it wasn¡¯t stopped by walls, a thin bit of bedsheet wouldn¡¯t stop it.
I simply lay there next to Anna, still as a corpse, waiting to somehow fall asleep.
I didn¡¯t know if my bedmate was still awake, she was on her side, right next to me, but facing away. We were close enough for me to feel her body heat underneath the thin sheets.
I leaned over to whisper to Anna, ¡°Are you awake?¡±
I waited for a moment, hesitantly. I didn¡¯t want to keep her awake if I could help it, but I also couldn¡¯t get to sleep. It didn¡¯t stop. Trying to fall asleep near this thing would be like trying to fall asleep while a dark tide was going on. An endless tide of screaming that passed through the walls, and I alone could hear. All I could do was wait for what felt like thousands of years for Anna¡¯s reply.
When what was in truth was a few moments later, Anna turned around to face me, the sheet scrunching up between us, and I felt a massive relief. It was dark, the starlight only lighting everything with contrasts, I could barely make out her face and the other lighter colours from the darker ones, like her hair. I could barely make out her eyes from her face, but I could.
We were so close my eyes were the only source of immediate light, and it let me see a slight reflection of it in her eyes. Distorted flames reflected in her brilliant eyes, the light and the dark green contrasted in just the right way to make it look like she had glowing lichens in her eyes.
¡°Can¡¯t sleep. Can you?¡± I asked.
¡°No, too many questions, my head is practically spinning. What¡¯s keeping you up?¡± She whispered back.
¡°The thing hasn¡¯t stopped screaming, the walls don¡¯t stop it. Can I help answer questions?¡± I asked her back.
If I can at least help Anna get to bed, that would be preferable. I don¡¯t want to keep her up, and keeping my mind off the thing while talking with her is a win-win in my book.
¡°Yes, I have other questions too, but mostly just about you.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll answer, we can both give one, get one, is that ok,¡± I asked.
¡°Yes, but I asked first.¡± She instructed.
I nodded to her both because I was trying to get her to go for more and act a little greedy and because it was a perfectly valid way to start. Then I agreed out loud because I was feeling dense enough to try non-verbal communication in the dark, apparently.
She stayed quiet, her eyes taking a squint, the flicker of my eyes in hers narrowing slightly in the dark. I expected her to go right for my age, but like always, Anna surprised me.
¡°Where are you from?¡±
¡°I was born here and have never left,¡± I told her truthfully before continuing, ¡°my turn¡ how old are you.¡±
¡°Twenty-seven,¡± she told me in a quick, almost practiced, reply. ¡°You don¡¯t act like your age, are you really as old as your status claims?¡±
I decided to take a page from Anna¡¯s book and just told her, ¡°Technically.¡±
It wasn¡¯t a lie; I had just spent most of my time asleep. I was technically that old, I just didn¡¯t feel it. She squinted at me, but I couldn¡¯t help but smile a bit at it, even with the annoyance of the screaming. I felt right after asking Anna out like I had let go of the weight of it; it was freeing.
¡°What¡¯s your level? If that¡¯s not too much.¡±
¡°28,¡± she told me in a slightly sodden tone, ¡°What would you consider your age then.¡±
¡°24, I would consider myself 24.¡±
I thought for a moment about what to ask.
She¡¯s asked mostly easy questions, but I feel like I need to know¡
¡°Does my age matter? Is it a¡ problem?¡±
¡°No¡ I just was taken off my guard, is all. You asked to court me, which was something I was hoping to happen, and then I saw the age and thought that I might have been taken for a ride. I know it doesn¡¯t make sense, but it still worried me a bit.¡± She admitted, placing her hands in front of her.
I moved my hands over to hers and held them lightly, so she could remove her hands from mine, but she didn¡¯t, she held onto my hands, feeling them, questing around to check my hand. I felt hers in return, small parts that almost held callouses but were otherwise soft. Her hands were smaller than mine, not comically small, but small enough to just fit in mine. Short nails with little in the way of tears around the edge or chips. Her fingers were flatter than mine and thinner in the forefinger, as opposed to mine, which could extend my nail into a claw.
Mine were slightly tougher, callouses like pads on my fingers, and significantly less soft than hers.
¡°I didn¡¯t mean to scare you. If you¡¯re concerned, tell me. I want to be better and be worth what you have given. Need something, you can ask. Concerned, you can ask. If I can help, I will try, and if I can¡¯t, I will still try because trying and failing is still important. I can tell your good people, and it makes me want to be better than I am now.¡± I told her, ¡°I think it¡¯s your turn.¡±
¡°It is, and you asked two questions, so I guess I¡¯ll ask two too. Why did you stay with me? And why court me?¡±
I chuckled at that. ¡°I did it by chance, I was looking for a place to wash myself and ask for shelter and food. I came upon you by chance, but I knew you were safe because they land liked you. Then you offered me a place to stay, and I just¡ decided to stay. And as for why I would court you. Why would I not? I got to know you a little and found you attractive, and more than just physically, I want to be around you and know more about you.¡± I told her.
It had been a totally random occurrence that had grown into something far bigger. Most things were tough. Small desperate things could alter a much bigger thing if a part of them aligned.
Real life was not a fairy tale. I didn¡¯t see Anna sitting on her porch and knew I loved her. But I supposed that was what falling in love was. It wasn¡¯t a sudden thing, you didn¡¯t crash into it, you fell in love.
Even if we didn¡¯t like everything the other did, it was simply a matter of if we fell more down towards one another or farther away, and you never really knew until you fell. I liked Anna, and presumably, she liked me, and that was all there was to it. One day we would find out the answer; if we loved one another or couldn¡¯t stand each other.
¡°Is that ok, or do you want to know more?¡± I asked.
¡°I want to know more, but I can wait.¡±
¡°You said before you wanted to know about me, that¡¯s why you hosted me. But why did you say yes to courting?¡± I asked her. I honestly didn¡¯t know the reason why, it¡¯s not like I had set the mood with my speal.
¡°At first, I was just interested generally. I like to fix things, doing things to change a bad situation is fulfilling, and you were also mysterious, so I figured I could help. Another part was that you were bigger than me.¡± She paused for a moment, and her cheeks got darker.
¡°I don¡¯t know why, but I¡¯ve always been attracted to bigger, taller women¡ I have always been drawn to the idea of being held close, it¡¯s¡ comforting somehow, and I just never really got that from anyone. You were a big strong woman that I could help, and maybe it could be more. The longer you¡¯ve been here, the more comfortable I am, and I¡¯m more comfortable now than I have been¡ well, ever. When you asked me to remove the strange wall between us, I jumped on it. The comfort and supportive feeling gave me the grounding I needed to push a little more, help a little more.¡± She sighed.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Her hands let go of mine and pulled back towards herself. I could tell there was more to it, so I waited for her to tell me. ¡°I¡ I feel I¡¯m a bit contradictory. I want to care for and help people, which is supposed to be selfless. but I want to be cared for back¡ but that¡¯s selfish. I feel like I go back and forth like a pendulum¡ By the trees, I¡¯m helpless.¡± She sighed.
I could see her tension, so I reached out. I was on my side, but I could get one arm around her, pulling her in and planting a kiss on her head.
¡°I don¡¯t know who put it in your head. But selflessness is a virtue. Virtue, when taken to the extreme, is a self-destructive act. Selfishness is the opposite, it is, taken to the extreme, destructive for others. Your selflessness is a good thing, but giving without any support, without taking care of yourself, is just going to hurt you. It¡¯s not selfish to want someone to care about and support you, and it¡¯s not a bad thing to get it.¡±
I could feel my shirt get a little wet, then I heard a sniffle, and I recognized rather quickly that she was crying. I shimmied my pined arm out from under me and held Anna.
¡°It¡¯s all right, Anna. It will be all right.¡± I told her instinctively.
I held her close, as close as I could, not squeezing but holding her, my hand gliding across her back and the back of her head.
I didn¡¯t know why Anna was crying, I didn¡¯t know what emotional scar I had picked open. I didn¡¯t even know if this was a good cry or a bad one if this was an emotional release or a breakdown, but my best guess was good¡ I hoped.
I held onto her until I felt her stop jerking, her breath returning to a more normal pattern.
I gave her some room to breathe, there was only so much air she could get when she was being held against my chest tight enough that my undershirt soaked up her tears.
¡°Are you¡ ok?¡± I asked her, shifting down a bit so as to look her in the eye, forehead to forehead, nose to nose.
Her eyes were more reflective, glistening in the low light of my little twin flames. I brought my hand back in front of Anna and whipped away the tears from the corners of her eyes.
She went to talk but was caught off by a sniffle. ¡°I¡ I¡¯ll be ok. I don¡¯t even understand why I cried.¡±
¡°That¡¯s fine. It¡¯s your turn if you want to keep going.¡± I told her, cupping her cheek in one hand.
I could feel her press into my hand a little, relishing in the physical contact.
It occurred to me then that despite the fact that Anna was human, despite the countless generations between when I had gone to sleep and woken in my tomb, that Anna might have a little bit more mouse in her then made sense. She had scurried, and I knew she was a Mynes, that she was probably Aymes descendent, and so I had thought, ¡®wow she¡¯s like a mouse,¡¯ but I hadn¡¯t ever truly considered that there might be other things that she picked up in addition to that.
Kobolds like physicality, a pat on the head, hugs, holding hands, and sleeping next to others. Closeness was important. We liked being around others and being close. And that was universal. I was relatively low on the scale of ¡®how much comforting do I need.¡¯ Mice were more. More social, more closeness, more-more-more. Big families, lots of kids, and some mice even had slightly larger beds so they could stack up closer to one another.
Something in my head clicked with that thought. Something about feeling her lean into my hand. The smallest thing, just some pressure, but that tiny thing recontextualized quite a bit about Anna, who had been living out here alone, who had gotten very little in the way of physical affection or closeness. Who had to hide away things as simple as her status.
For a human, that might have been a normal thing. A human might be able to get away with that without problems, I had no idea. I had very little insight into a human¡¯s state of mind, but I did have a decent understanding of how a Kobold might feel.
If Anna is like a Kobold, then I should be able to check. The head massage was one thing¡ maybe I could check some other things.
¡°Anna, can I check something?¡± I asked softly, thinking about what I could do to check my theory.
¡°Check what?¡± she asked, sniffling a little.
I stroked her cheek a little, ¡°Nothing bad, nothing ¡ inappropriate. Normal touching, if you''re uncomfortable, I will stop, but I had an idea of something that you might like.¡±
I could feel the warmth of her skin and the movement of her muscle under her skin with my hand. I could feel the tension with the tips of her fingers. I could feel her nose through my nose, her slightly discordant breath on my face. We were close enough that I could tilt my lips and kiss her if I had the guts to do it.
But I wasn¡¯t going to push Anna without asking, not even something as innocuous as things like petting her a little. I was about to do something that might push a boundary I didn¡¯t know existed after all; I wanted her permission to do that.
It took her three long breaths before she answered me.
¡°Yes.¡±
That was all it took. She had given me her trust, and it was important to me not to betray that.
¡°Tell me how this feels, comfort wise,¡± I told her as I put both hands on the sides of her head and made my best impression of a lovey mouse. I had seen plenty of mice, and considering how many there were, a lot of mice comforting other mice. I applied it all, and I got good feedback.
She told me how she felt, and I moved on. Each of the ways I tried based on the mice I had met scored ¡®more comfortable¡¯ than the normal motions. There was some overlap, but only when the motions overlapped.
Anna was like a Kobold in the body of a Human. It was bizarre.
When a human had a kid with another race, when they got the trait at level 35, their kid would be half-human. Their half-human child could have kids with a human and could get traits from both parents¡¯ races. When that kid had a kid with a human, they were generally seen as a human, they might get a trait, or a non-system-recognized thing, like scurrying or instincts. The halving of each generation would keep halving that again and again. Ayme was likely the last Half-Kobold, and yet, despite the impossibility of it, despite the fact that I doubted Anna even knew what species I was, despite everything, she had those mouse Kobold instincts close to three thousand years later.
And not just with that.
I asked Anna to pay attention to how she felt at different distances in bed. Not touching, in arms reach, close and touching and laying down on top of me.
The scurrying, the squeak she would sometimes give, like when I picked her up, the sadness of not having a kid despite the fact that she was still younger than a normal human mother. Most humans had a kid from their late thirties to fifty. Most mice had a kid before thirty, and I had seen more than one mouse get depressed at not having a kid.
I am an absolute moron. I have been treating her like a mousey human, not a human mouse. Hell¡¯s, I¡¯ve even imagined her as a mouse, imagined her with little ears and a nose and disregarded it because she was human. What a foolish idea.
I suppose I need to make it up to her.
I smiled a bit, moving her back to how we started, nose to nose, forehead to forehead. ¡°You are definitely Ayme¡¯s descendant,¡± I told her.
¡°I don¡¯t understand, what did any of that have to do with Aymelin? How did that prove anything? What did any of that have to do with her being my ancestor?¡± She asked a little breathily, all hints of her tears gone from the non-stop chain of affection, not even bothering to whisper.
¡°Ayme was a half mouse; her mom was all mouse. And you act like one, I should have thought about it.¡±
¡°I act¡ like a mouse? Please explain,¡± she asked. She sounded a little bemused with me.
¡°Oh, yeh. I am Kobold, as you saw in my status, but many types of Kobolds. I am, or was, Deerfox, like a fox, but with long limbs. There were others, goats, normal foxes, and so on. There were also mouses. Ayme was half Mouse Kobold. You acted like you had instincts, but now I know you do.¡± I explained, a bit ham-fistedly.
¡°It''s mice, and what makes you think that I have¡ mouse instincts?¡± she corrected, then asked guessingly.
So, I told her about what I knew about mice, how they grew up quickly, about how they liked closeness, the whole nine yards. When I was finished, there was a thoughtful quiet between us.
¡°Kobold,¡± she said it, like she was testing the feeling of the word on her tongue. ¡°One of the first things I wondered was what you were. I thought you might have been half Beastkin. I don¡¯t know how to feel about having instincts.¡± She said ponderously.
¡°I think it¡¯s cute,¡± I told her, the idea putting a smile on my face, ¡°bigger Kobolds like to protect smaller Kobolds. You remind me of my time, it¡¯s nice to see a familiar thing.¡±
¡°Cute?¡± She said it with disappointment.
¡°You can be beautiful and cute,¡± I told her.
¡°No, you can¡¯t,¡± she moped.
¡°Can too.¡±
¡°Nope.¡± She told me, pulling back and placing a finger on my nose.
She pushed a bit, and I craned my neck a bit.
¡°Yes, you can, your both right now,¡± I told her, smirking a bit.
She huffed, actually huffed, and retorted, ¡°Your nose is wet.¡±
¡°Is that bad?¡± I only asked as a formality. We had been nose to nose for long enough that I doubted it.
She didn¡¯t respond, deciding to pout a little instead.
¡°If you don¡¯t believe you can be cute and beautiful, I will have to resort to desperate measures,¡± I told her.
¡°You can¡¯t-¡± she started.
The moment she refuted, I reached out and performed my desperate measure. I started to tickle her. She started to object, but I wouldn¡¯t hear it.
I moved to the side to get her finger off my nose, held her close while she was wiggling a bit, rotated her on top of me, and got to tickling her with both hands, each moment was accompanied by tiny spasms and twitches, she giggled a bit, uncontrollably, gasping as it went on. I kept tickling until she repented with some tears in her eyes.
¡°O- Okay. Yo- you can be cute and beautiful. Please stop.¡±
I did, and Anna fell flat, resting on me. It had taken her a while to crack, and she was obviously out of breath. I moved my hands from the tickling position to a hug, only lightly hugging her in case she decided to roll off of me, but she didn¡¯t.
I decided to just ask a question. We had come quite some way from asking questions back and forth.
¡°What is a Beastkin? I understand the parts of the name, but what is a Beastkin? Never heard of them before.¡±
She breathlessly managed to give me my answer. ¡°They¡ They¡¯re like animal people. Stand upright, but they have fur and stuff, a snout.¡±
Animal people, huh? Wait a moment¡
I let go and laid flat in disappointment.
¡°Goblins.¡±
Chapter 27 Blood, Bud and Bone part 11
I let out a sigh of disappointment. It was an age-old struggle of Kobolds that we got misidentified as Goblins.
At least I know that the goblins are alive and kicking, I¡¯m honestly glad, I hope they¡¯re doing ok. I know at least two of the species I would consider cousins are alive; it¡¯s them and the little folk. And I suppose this time, it at least makes sense. My people are gone, they don¡¯t exist, it¡¯s no surprise that I might be mistaken for one. Although it still seems strange that they would go by Beastkin, the goblins were the most resilient people I know; they hate any change. Changing how they see themselves? That seems¡ strange.
Anna, not privy to my internal monologue, asked from on top of me, ¡°Goblins? What about goblins?¡±
¡°Beastkin sounds like goblins, snout and whisker, fur. Good with animals?¡± I asked her, listing off a few of the simple things they were good with.
¡°Well, yes, they do have those, and they are good with animals, but they aren¡¯t goblins. You can¡¯t just go around calling people monsters, Saphy.¡±
Saphy? I suppose I¡¯m not aver- Wait, monsters?
I blinked, the thought echoing around the inside of my empty head, bouncing off the walls of my skull. Monster.
Monster wasn¡¯t the right word for a Goblin. Sure, sometimes they could be hostile, but they were people. Short animal people who took care of animals and plants. Caretakers of forests. They are almost always gentile, assuming you didn¡¯t clear-cut their forests or kill off their animal friends.
I opened my mouth. I closed it. I opened it again and managed to cudgel my tongue into motion.
¡°Monster? They aren¡¯t monsters, Anna¡ They¡¯re people.¡± I told her, looking up into her eyes.
We looked at one another in incomprehension. Instead of talking, we both got a look on our faces. I don¡¯t know what mine looked like, but I knew Annas¡¯s thinking face.
If what she¡¯s saying is true, something is very wrong, and if it isn¡¯t, something else changed and is very wrong.
I asked the question first, ¡°Why are Goblins monsters, Anna? Do you know why? Are they just aggressive? Or are they true monsters?¡±
I asked it a bit fast, I was desperate, and my mood had gone from good to panicked over the course of a few moments. I had to know.
Goblins were, despite the annoyance of being misattributed, like family. Distant family for sure, but we had a common ancestor. I had already lost my own people; I couldn¡¯t stand losing the resilient goblins too.
Who would be left? The Tuffles, Elves and probably the Gnomes, no one messed with each of them for a reason. Tuffles might be cute, but they could zip around and fight at the same time; the Elves could hit you with a spell that would explode from an arrow that they shot from a mile away and wipe you and everyone with you out, and a Gnome was a Gnome. You didn¡¯t mess with a Gnome, no one did.
There were others, of course, a whole twelve of them, but the Goblins were resilient, natural survivors. The idea of them not bouncing back from something or becoming monsters was¡ Wrong.
¡°I¡ Well, Goblins are a well-known pest, I¡¯ve never seen them personally, but they¡¯re considered a minor monster known for their numbers. If I had to guess, monster is used as more of a catch-all term. I doubt their genuine monsters, more just very violent and aggressive, more like a big pack of predatory animals that prey on people.¡±
I took deep breaths and let them go in an attempt to try and calm my sudden rapid heartbeats. A little, purposeful breathing helped blunt the spike of emotion, even if it still left me twitchy with nerves.
I let out a few breaths before I managed to speak again, calm enough to puzzle out the words I needed to say.
¡°The more I know, the more I feel like I know nothing anymore,¡± I admitted.
I had figured it would be different, things change over time, and that¡¯s how life works. But my assumption was not the same as finding out.
Anna let out a laugh, it was more of a scoff, short and clipped, before she gripped onto me and had the audacity to take a page out of my book and gave me a kiss on the head.
¡°I might not be able to tell what it¡¯s like to be in your position, but the more I learn, the less I feel like I know. I know how it feels to a lesser extent, however. Being a [Druid] in the valley is not what I thought it would be when I first started studying to be a mage. Compared to what I expected, I¡¯ve come to know that the only thing I know for sure is nothing.¡±
¡°It¡¯s nice to know and that I¡¯m not alone, thanks, Anna. I suppose all I can do is keep going forward, just keep going and hope I make it far enough that I at least know something.¡±
She hmmed at that. No doubt using that head of hers, thinking through something. Anna¡¯s ideas hadn¡¯t gone bad so far, what few of them I had seen. I still didn¡¯t know what plan she had concocted after the fight, but if she kept it secret, I figured she had a reason. It¡¯s not like I would squeal.
Or she forgot to tell me. Because apparently, she¡¯s a bit forgetful. I suppose either way, it will work out, if she¡¯s keeping it a secret intentionally, then I bet it will be good, and if she just forgot, then I can tease her a little. Gosh, but she is cute when she blushes.
Her musing turned to talking, interrupting my thoughts. ¡°Well, what do you want to do, what do you want to be? After I started to pick up magic, I wanted to become a [Druid], so I focused on that. Picking something could help narrow down what you¡¯re doing, help you feel less lost.¡± She told me.
It was a good idea. My list was like all lists, a finite step of things I wanted to get done. Short-term goals are only meant to be short-term. The only problem was that I had no idea what I wanted to be long-term and no long-term plan. I only had short-term things. My list has things like learning magic, but not where I wanted to end up with it or what type of mage I wanted to be.
¡°I¡ don¡¯t really know what I want to be. I know what I want to do for now, but not much beyond that.¡± I admitted.
¡°Ah. A double whammy then, you¡¯re a little lost in more than one way.¡± She accurately put, before continuing, ¡°Then work on it a little, we still have our lives ahead of us; you don¡¯t need to worry too much about getting your life in shape overnight. I can help you when you want to think it over a little, assuming you want to return to our conversation or get to sleep anytime soon.¡±
She giggled a little, it managed to lighten my mood a little bit, her tinkling voice was like a light that shone down through my negativity. It didn¡¯t magically dispel the dark feeling from my mind, it wasn¡¯t magic, but it did take a bit of the weight away from the Goblin situation.
If I ever met them, I supposed I could try and talk with them. Maybe they spoke Kilish, that felt like something they would do. I supposed I could pick it up at a later time, if I met a Beastkin and they were descended from Goblins, or just Goblins that split off and took a new name, I would be able to pick up their scent. Kobold problems could be solved by Kobold''s solutions.
Try not to stress it, Saphine, you¡¯re in the middle of a conversation right now. Just keep on going, I¡¯m sure it will be fine.
Oh, who am I kidding? It¡¯s definitely going to come back to bite me; at least, that¡¯s Future Me¡¯s problem.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
¡°I don¡¯t even remember whose turn it is. Were you keeping track?¡± I asked her.
¡°Well,¡± she said a little cheekily, ¡°I didn¡¯t, but I think you just asked a question, so I¡¯m going to take that as me going first again.¡±
She was clearly enjoying some part of talking; I didn¡¯t know if it was the back and forth or what, but I knew I enjoyed it too, the goblin part aside, I thought it was going well. Then she came right out of the gate with, ¡°What i-was your family life like?¡±
She switched so fast from is to was it took me a split second to recognize it as something more than a mispronunciation or a slip of the tongue. I expected her question to sting, and I expected it to ache a little. I missed Skip and Kindly, the thought of their passing still ached a little, but I found that family was just a little sore, like a bruise.
¡°I didn¡¯t have much of a family, apparently, I had others, grandparents and whatnot, but by the time I was born, it was just my mom and me. She, um, she was kind. She thought more about others than herself, and she did things like brew teas, not a [Healer], no magic, but she did what she could with what she had. I based the tea I gave you off the book, but she used the same recipe, it¡¯s how I did it with no weight. We were close, not inseparable, but close. We were indentured, so we didn¡¯t live care free, but she always took time when she could to be with me or bring me with her until I was old enough to go to work on my own. She died before the fall, she just got sick and never got better.¡±
¡°I¡¯m sorry for your loss and for bringing it up. It only occurred to me that it might be a soft spot while I was asking it, my apologies.¡± She told me.
She didn¡¯t say it like most people would, a kind of obligatory phrase, instead, she said it with a greater weight. Not some polite nicety but a genuine statement of sadness, even if it was distanced from herself.
¡°Thank you, but if I¡¯m being honest, I think I¡¯m starting to¡ get over it? It doesn¡¯t hurt as much to think about anymore.¡±
¡°That doesn¡¯t mean it doesn¡¯t still hurt, a scar is still a wound; it¡¯s not kind of me to pick at it regardless, and I am doubly sorry for it.¡± She told me with a rather serious tone.
She sounded a bit goofy when she did it, but it was sincere. I gave her a pat on the head, physical reassurance that I wasn¡¯t going to get her back for it.
I immediately decided to get her back.
¡°So. What¡¯s your family like?¡± I asked her.
¡°Where do I start? Well, I have parents and two brothers, cousins and aunts and uncles and whatnot. Do you want to hear everything or more about my immediate family?¡± she asked in a tone that sounded more exasperated than anything else.
¡°Immediate family, if you want to talk about random cousins later, I have ears, but I only talked about my mom, it would be weird to expect a family tree,¡± I told her.
¡°Well, I can see you have ears, Saph, the phrase your thinking about is ¡®I¡¯m all ears, ¡¯ you goof.¡± She giggled.
¡°Oh no, I got it wrong; what do do?¡± I ugged out in my best cavebold voice.
¡°Let¡¯s see you know, my brothers, you¡¯ve met Strause and seen Clause, Clause is in charge of things right now because Father is in the capital and indisposed to rule, he might have been raised for it, but he¡¯s not taking it well. I never really got along with him, and he¡¯s still a little distant, he¡¯s still my brother, but he is stuck in the same problem my father was, and his was and so on. Strause got the same treatment, but it was sloppier, he was really angry, but now I have no idea what his deal is.¡±
She paused for a moment to think, but the pause extended beyond one singular moment to a second, then another. Whatever she was going to say was continuously being rethought repeatedly, bringing down her voice''s energy from a giggle to a tangible hesitance.
¡°My mother, growing up, was a constant, but it was in a teaching role just as much as a motherly role. She had the three of us over the course of six years, Clause then Me, then Strause, he¡¯s about as old as you. My memory of my mother, my strongest memories were of her when she was tired and somewhat miserable. But now she¡¯s¡ different, I¡¯ve been separated from them for a long time, estranged, but I caught up with her a little. Then there¡¯s my Father, Baron Mynes. I barely know anything about him, he keeps everything close to his chest, he never listens, and he does as little as he can and toes the line. And that¡¯s my family, I barely know them.¡±
She started in a somewhat flatter, hesitant tone, like she was confused, before irritation started bubbling to the surface. But with her irritation came the question of what precisely was so pressing it would cause Anna to be honestly angry. Was it just irritation towards her father or something more? Just because I never knew mine didn¡¯t mean that I hadn¡¯t ever been angry at him for not being there, not pulling his weight.
Not being there for us.
¡°I think it¡¯s your turn.¡± I gently prodded, not wanting to turn her ire toward me. Her ire was not scary, not a raging fury that made me fear for my safety, in all honesty, I wasn¡¯t afraid that Anna¡¯s ire would result in anything negative towards me. I didn¡¯t want to annoy her any more than she is now, nor kindle it with agreement.
¡°Right, well. What did your family do before the indenture? I only know your first name but not your second. Don¡¯t get me wrong, I like the ring of Saphine and all, but I don¡¯t even know what your last name is.¡±
I. Did not have an answer to that question. Only important people had a last name, tradesmen or a skilled job maybe. The closest most would come to a last name was if there were more than one person you knew with the same name and you had to distinguish between them, and my name was rather distinctive.
¡°I, uh, do not have a last name, Anna. I¡¯m just Saphine, I don¡¯t know what to tell you there, but I do know that my family mostly farmed before the indenture.¡±
Anna didn¡¯t respond for a moment, but when she did, it was a bit louder than when she had last spoken.
¡°Wait, what do you mean you don¡¯t have a last name? Everyone has some last name, even if it¡¯s just their parent¡¯s job like a miller.¡±
There was indignance in her voice that I had no idea how to address, so instead, I just explained a bit more.
¡°Most people didn¡¯t have a last name, there was no reason to. Bet there a reason to know if everyone has one, but I don¡¯t, during my time, a second name denoted importance, I am not.¡±
She deflated a bit before mumbling something like ¡°weird¡± into my chest. There was more to it, but I couldn¡¯t pick up the words.
I held onto Anna and swivelled to the side, rolling both of us to the side. She was still slightly on top of me, just to the side.
She pulled her face from my chest and looked at me, ¡°It¡¯s your turn, oh woman of the one name.¡±
I started laughing, chortling really at the name.
¡°Woman of the one name. PFFt. Makes me sound like an ancient relic of great power.¡± I managed to get out between chortles.
Anna, a bit indignant, eventually managed to chuckle, though I think that was more so at my own laughing.
I glommed onto her only when I started to calm down, the choking laugh dimmed down to an inconsistent hiccup.
I looked at Anna through my heavy eyelids, and she looked back at me through hers.
¡°My turn,¡± I told her, ¡°you said your Father never listens, but what about? If it¡¯s not a sore sport.¡±
She reached up, interrupting our stare to play with my ears, which splayed at the contact.
¡°Well, Saphy, do you remember there¡¯s this thing with negative mana, which is apparently called Tenebrae according to your skill. It has this thing where it affects the environment of its container. In this case, the valley. By the end of the year, there will be a famine, next year, the crops won¡¯t grow. Probably within two years of that, there won¡¯t be any wildlife left in the valley. And for the last ten or so years, I have been trying to stop it, but I can¡¯t do it without people like my father listening or a lot of help from mages that don¡¯t live here.¡±
The longer she spoke, the more defeat entered her voice.
I took it in, not with fear or trepidation, I was too tired for that, but with a poorly meandering line of thought.
Kobolds were supposed to protect the valley. We stayed here while all the others left, so we took it upon ourselves to take care of the place where our fallen parents died so that others might live. The valley was important, not just in the historical sense, but to me.
It was the place I grew up.
And it was the place my people died.
It was the place everyone I had cared for now called their grave.
It was twice the grave now, but this time, it only had humans to take care of it, and no offence to humans, but people like Anna were the few, the exception to the rule.
I was the only Kobold left. Sure, sure I could leave, convince Anna to pack up and just head somewhere. But if I was honest with myself, I couldn¡¯t do it.
The thought percolated through my head, and a variety of things clicked.
I was a bane of Tenebrae, I could disrupt it, which meant that I might be able to help, any of my other skills might help too.
I was the last Kobold, the last caretaker of the valley, and I was not willing to let the valley go.
I was courting Anna, and Anna had given sweat, blood and tears to keep the valley I had not been around to help as healthy as possible.
The land, the force of nature that I could speak to at a whim and had always been there for me, was in, if not pain, then in at the least great discomfort at the state of itself.
And a whole lot of good, innocent people were going to die if nothing happened.
Each thought bled into one another, each fusing together until I felt it in my bones, it became one idea.
I could do something, with my newly granted skills, to take care of the valley¡¯s problems with Anna at my side, and I could help a whole lot of innocent people in the process.
And that, in turn, merged with my lack of long-term direction, with my lack of a higher principle.
¡°Anna, I know what I want to be.¡± I sleepily told her.
I heard her yawn before she replied, ¡°Do you? What is it?¡±
¡°I¡¯m going to save the valley,¡± I told her.
She snuggled in, adjusting the blankets a little, and pressed into her in turn.
She never replied that night, but I was too asleep to care that she was asleep.
Little did I know that that stupid line of thought, that careless idea to save the valley, would kick off a series of events that would see my quiet life with Anna disrupted, for better or worse.
One last thing that happened that night?
[Apprentice Mage] has gained a level, and is now level 2!
Interlude A little more [Guidance] a little more screaming
I passed into the weird internal world of my spirit, the ground beneath me conforming to me nearly perfectly.
¡°Wow, you almost blew up your soul, and then you came right back in record time.¡± My guide mock-chided me.
I rolled up to sitting, then hopped up, opened my eyes and turned to face her.
Much like last time, she was still a terribly complex set of skills in the shape of a normal person.
I looked at her for a moment, staring into her wiggly bits where her eyes would have been if she was flesh and blood. She stood there, visibly uncomfortable at my unyielding stare.
¡°Why are you staring at me like that weirdo, it¡¯s called banter.¡± She spoke without a mouth.
I started walking over to her, not letting my eyes blink, which was honestly rather easy, until I could reach her.
I must have been scaring the crap out of her because she started bumbling random nonsense.
¡°Hey, I. Whatever, I didn¡¯t mean anything by it. Please stop staring at me like that, listen, I don¡¯t know what is going on in your head, but I¡¯m not liking this, please stop walking towards me like that. You¡¯re creeping me out. Why are you getting so close?¡±
And so on, until I put one hand on her shoulder and stopped trying to menace her.
¡°I never got your name last time,¡± I told her.
¡°Is that all! You unbelievable bitch. You had me going for a moment there.¡± She said, slapping away my hand from her shoulder.
¡°Well? What is it, you faceless goober? What is thine name, yee long-fingered soul fiddler?¡± I asked the sassy squiggle that was my [Guide].
She only huffed at me, ¡°We don¡¯t have names. I¡¯m a [Guide] we don¡¯t need them.¡±
That confused me a little, even though I had a name. How would she talk with other spirit people?
¡°You don¡¯t? Not even a one? How do you talk with other [Guides]? Do you just shout, ¡®Hey you [Guide]¡¯? Seems like it would be a chore.¡±
¡°No, you dummy, we just know one another, we don¡¯t need names. We don¡¯t communicate like you do. At most, we would just call to them by their role if we¡¯ve never met before, but even that¡¯s rare.¡± She said, huffing with indignity.
¡°Well¡¡± I asked, ¡°Would you be against me giving you a name? It would be a bit confusing to just call you [Guide].¡±
¡°If you must.¡± She said haughtily, breaking the contact. Despite her tone, I was fairly sure she wanted one.
The bigger problem was I hadn¡¯t come in here looking to name her, and it was something I didn¡¯t want to, and something I didn¡¯t want to mess up.
¡°I¡¯ll have to come up with one later if I¡¯m going to give you a name, it should be a good name, not one I came up with on the spot, I would end up giving you a bad one, and that would be a shame,¡± I told her.
She looked a little disappointed, so I chimed in with, ¡°I¡¯ll have to make sure to get a good one.¡± Which got her to perk back up again.
¡°It better be, now, are you ready to get your new skill?¡± she said, turning back towards me with a string in her hand.
I nodded, and we got on with it, picking a skill.
It was a tough pick, but the hard part was picking between two skills.
[Wisdom Proficiency] and [Apprentice of Annabeth Mynes].
[Wisdom Proficiency], while confusing, made me more mentally resilient and would let me lean into using my Wisdom attribute up to my Mind stat. While [Apprentice of Annabeth Mynes] would make me good at learning stuff from Anna and get bonuses for doing apprentice stuff for her.
It was a skill that would level me up and let me learn spells from her faster, and it would give me more quickly, and I could pick up the other skill next time.
It was a temptation I slipped into.
I could also tease her with it, so it pulled double duty, and that gave it all the more utility.
She announced it and gave me my skill, which still grossed me out, but before I woke up, I decided to ask her about something important.
If I was going to start wearing a black robe and spouting obscure sentences, I needed to know.
¡°So¡ Can I ask about the death magic stuff?¡± I asked.
¡°Now you¡¯re asking about magic? Is this Annabeth even a mage? Or is she a fake?¡±
¡°Hey! Anna¡¯s a [Druid] death is not exactly in her wheelhouse, she isn¡¯t omnipotent.¡±
She sighed.
¡°Death magic ends things not just in the killing but in most things. Life prolongs and extends, and death brings things to a close. Death magic ends Tenebral magics and works on the living and the undead equally well. It¡¯s even better against monsters and mages that use the darker magics because it feeds off of the source of their power by ending the stagnancy they rely upon and returning the flow of mana. It¡¯s not evil, it¡¯s not bad, it¡¯s not going to lead you down a bad path, so don¡¯t freak out about it.¡±
¡°I would love to say I understand what your saying, and I kind of do, but I don¡¯t totally understand it,¡± I told her.
¡°Well, get your [Druid] girlfriend to teach you about mana,¡± she indignantly coughed out, ¡°go on, wake up and put that skill of yours to use.¡±
And with that, she kicked me out, or rather, she left, and without her, I drifted back to sleep.
Then I immediately woke up because the angry child did not care about me needing to sleep.
So, I got up, tucking Anna back in, who had once again wound up on top of me. She stirred a little but quickly returned to sleep while I got out and put on some tea.
I cleaned up the board, whipping away the recipes and putting them down on paper instead so Anna could make some if she needed or wanted some, and we could reuse the board.
I also studied the board for what type of mage I could be because it was the natural next step for my class. If I could figure out what I could aim toward, I could work on it.
And it wasn¡¯t like I was doing much else at the ungodly time, so I puzzled out what classes would work for me.
I wasn¡¯t looking for an overly complex class, all that would do was confuse me. I was a straightforward kind of girl, and I did my best work like that. I was also aiming for a relatively normal class, not an ultra-specialized one.
Most classes out of the gate would be generalist, focusing on a type of caster, like a [Wizard], but some were more narrow, like [Pyromancer]. I didn¡¯t know what magic I would find the most useful, picking a class early could seriously handicap me.
I fixed up a list of questions and got to making breakfast, and before long, Anna was awake.
When Anna came out of the room, I started first by showing her to her breakfast, a cup of Kindly¡¯s tea, which I felt I needed to come up with a name for, and the question of if she wanted a cup of purple tea. She still smelled like blood, the tea didn¡¯t stop her bleeding, but it did take away the pain, numbing her cramping.
She did have some tea, so I brought her a cup, and we ate.
Afterwards, I got to my questions when we entered the study.
¡°I have questions about magic, magic questions,¡± I told her
¡°Well, ask away.¡±
¡°So, are there any magical exercises that I can learn? I¡¯m an [Apprentice Mage] after all, I need practice.¡±
She thought about it before agreeing, drawing them down on the board before showing me.
I paid attention, making sure to remember not just the movements but how the mana in the air moved around her. It was a sight to see.
After she was done, I asked about the classes I was checking and got to cross a few off of a list. Then I checked what type of mana they used and made some more disappear from my list. Then I got rid of the funky technical classes.
I was left with a more restricted set of classes, each of which I could take, each of which could function with versatile flavours or attributes of mana. Those types of Mana, like life or heat and whatnot, could then give me enough wiggle room to test them out before choosing a mana specialty.
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If I had picked one of the types like [Pyromancer] and tried to work towards it but found out that I just didn¡¯t like fire, I would be screwed.
They also required a specific approach for a double whammy of specialization, A [Pyromancer] was a type of [Elementalist], whereas a [Pyriphlegethon] was a fire [Sorcerer]. So, by cutting out the less straightforward classes, the restrictive casters, and the ones that relied on a specific type of mana, I got a generalist list.
It also eliminated types of casters, like [Sorcerer], which was generally more inherited, it required someone to be infused with a specific type of Mana. I could go that way theoretically, but it was just as likely to end up very wrong, locking me not only into one death but an endless series of deaths.
Anyone could become a [Wizard] or a [Witch], anyone could tie themselves to something and become a [Warlock], all without possibly killing themself.
After my questions, I could fit all the casters on the board, and with some questioning of Anna, I got one key feature for and against picking them and the number one thing that style depended on.
A [Wizard], for example, was incredibly versatile but required extensive training and time and required a line of sight.
A [Elementalist] could cast incredibly fast but needed to cast on the fly and relied on detecting types of mana.
And so on and so forth.
I kept those on the board and got Anna to show me the exercises again so I could do them to make sure I was good to go.
My hope was rather simple, ultimately, whatever I ended up picking would be based on what I was best with, and then I could take that and use what I needed to help fix it.
Anna was a thinker; she would come up with things that she could do and act on those. She taught and thought until she had as much of the final plan as possible.
Put simply? Anna would check and figure out what was the best way to do something, then she would find out how to get it done, and then get it done like she was writing down instructions.
I was a straightforward kind of girl; all I needed was direction and a method, and I would just do it as well as I could. It was all of that Kirin wisdom floating around in my head that made me think that taking Anna¡¯s know-how and my do-how could fix it. I was probably being a bit too optimistic, but if I was going to save the valley, I was going to save the damn valley, and I wasn¡¯t going to take no for an answer.
I got my chores done in a record time and got Anna to outline the problem while we were on break and how it could be fixed.
It was incredibly simple in concept, just get rid of the blockage. Mana flowed, and when Mana got trapped, it messed everything up. The big problem was that I would have to annihilate a dam to do that. Doing that would cause a load of problems.
The undead in the lake could escape, now with the possible threat of a [Necromancer], that could be a huge problem, even if they were gone, it would be bad because if the undead in the crypt still worked, the undead in the lake would also still work, which would leave everyone at risk.
Some of the food that was eaten was fish, of all things, which would compound the soon-to-be famine.
Most of the transport, especially across the two sides of the valley, was by boat; they used wagons, not carriages, and the roads were old, and in disrepair, so each major settlement had a way to get goods around over water.
A number of possible problems with erosion.
The list went on and on and on. Anna had come up with a lot of problems. She was planning on a scale that I could barely comprehend. But I had my obstacle and a direction. I could fight, not well, but I could do it. I was already planning for it, too, but I would have to find someone to train me a little.
It would be very hard, however, to find a teacher who could teach shovel warfare. You could even say it was not precisely a common weapon or a weapon at all. Anna wasn¡¯t exactly a [Woman-at-arms], but she did know someone.
She wrote a letter, or more technically, three letters, and told me where to go when I brought it up, and with everything done, we went to town.
Or, more literally, to the city because we both headed to Moarn.
Anna was doing the same sneaky scheme thing she was doing last time I was in town, which left me curious, but I decided that if Anna wanted to keep it secret, she must have had a reason. Anna could keep her secret, stepping on her toes would be both a lack of trust and rude and possibly make something go wrong in one fell swoop.
I was sure that she would tell me when she was ready and do what I did best in the meantime. Get down to business.
I still didn¡¯t feel safe in the city, not after what had happened. A part of me still worried about getting bushwacked in an alley by overzealous hunters or just about anyone. It didn¡¯t help that I left a shovel behind. It might have been a paperweight in comparison to most of the things I could have carried, but it was a reassurance I lacked.
I checked over my shoulder rather frequently, expecting to draw attention, but much like when I visited with Anna, it was minimal. In a crowd, it was nonexistent, in a more open space, most people just didn¡¯t notice because they were focusing elsewhere.
I caught more attention by looking over my shoulder than by walking around, and thankfully, I didn¡¯t get jumped in broad daylight as I made my way toward the inner walls of the city.
There were guards by the gates, stern-looking younger men who should turn away people. Approaching them drew their attention and made them tighten their grip on their weapons, short arm-length blades, though I¡¯ll give it to them, they didn¡¯t draw them from their sheaths.
For this, I got out letter number one from where it was tucked into my beltline, checked it, and passed it to them.
¡°Guardsman,¡± I said in my best, ¡®I am not an undead, please don¡¯t ruin my day,¡¯ voice.
They both looked unsure, but one reached out and took the letter, and read it.
Me and the second guard. I kind of just sat there for a hot moment, waiting for the second guard to finish reading.
¡°So. That weather, huh?¡± I asked.
He gave a tiny nod and prolonged the awkwardness with a simple, ¡°The weather.¡±
¡°Lots of the weather going on,¡± I told him, nodding back.
¡°Tons¡¯ a weather,¡± he agreed.
We both awkwardly remained silent after that, each of us attempting to ignore the presence of the other until the guard gave me the go-ahead, and I retrieved the letter and made my way past the crumbling stone wall and was met with a street inside, manses on either side of the street.
Hedges and other miscellaneous ornamentation dotted the lawns.
They looked fancy and left no doubt about the people who held ownership of the gargantuan houses I walked past. But they were not my destination, that lay at the end, and inside a second set of walls as high as the other walls.
It was, well, the Mynes Manor, capital letters. Anna just called it home, but home was an understatement, it was more like a castle. A small one, to be sure.
A baby castle was still a castle, though. I had thought it was strange that the city didn¡¯t have a wall, but it apparently just didn¡¯t have a new wall.
At the gate, there was no one there. So I waited until I worked up the nerve to peek in and try to ask.
I entered the gate and called out before seeing a truly odd sight.
¡°Hello? Is anyone there, I¡¯m lookin''-¡± I called out as I walked in and saw two tables of well-armed people playing card games, who all, in the same moment and same movement, turned to face me.
¡°Uh, I have a letter?¡± I asked.
¡°Oh? Who¡¯s it for.¡± A man asked from next to me.
I turned my head and found a bearded, mustached man next to me. and kept looking and saw his arm extended past me. And then I turned far enough to see an extended blade pressed into the solid stone wall.
He said it conversationally like he hadn¡¯t crossed the distance faster than I could see and almost run me through with a sword.
I blinked at it. Too stupefied to freak out or shout or say much beyond, ¡°Huh?¡±
¡°Are you daft? I asked, who¡¯s it for, girl?¡± He said, his eyebrows scrunching into big brown caterpillars.
¡°One for Clause, and one for uh¡¡± I checked, ¡°I don¡¯t know how to say that name.¡± I told him.
She turned back to one of them. ¡°Taanka, that would be you.¡± He turned to tell one of them.
A man stood up. He was covered head to toe in armour, with no skin peeking out, I couldn¡¯t even see his face through the helmet.
Taanka, as it turned out, was a mild-spoken man who said everything like it was a thing he had done a thousand times. He ended up summarizing my rambling explanation of what my deal was rather succinctly with a strange accent.
¡°So you¡¯re not a fighter but want to fight using a shovel, yes?¡±
I nodded, and he told me his great secrets.
¡°Get a long stick, this long, and do some movements to get used to it here, I show you.¡± He said before showing me a number of movements with, of all things, a big stick. Because apparently, I had been wrong back when I had believed that a big stick might be a bad weapon.
Why?
Because you could stick things on a big stick. Like a spear, or an axe, or a hammer, or almost anything, apparently.
¡°Big stick is an ancient weapon, rivals big rock and hands,¡± he told me, ¡°While we have grown and use metal, we have added onto big stick. Big stick can thrust, like a spear, can hack and wack like an axe or hammer, and is a good starting point for movements. You get?¡±
It did when I thought about it; basically, any weapon, minus bows and whatnot, were just metal sticks. A sword was a short metal stick, a hammer was a metal rock on a metal stick. They just had sharp edges.
¡°I think I do,¡± I told him.
He nodded, ¡°Come back if need a refresher, or when you get good enough to do each movement, I test, then I give you more work. Now go deliver your letter to Lordling. Should be someone close to the door, just give it to them, and then can go back home and practice. Or back to work and practice. Or just practice.¡±
¡°You really like practice, don¡¯t you?¡± I asked.
¡°Yeah,¡± he said, ¡°Practice makes mastery, is why I am [Master at Arms], can use any weapon, because I practice. Once used table leg in a barfight against scary [Rouge], won by using his weapons against him, knew how they worked, so I won.¡± He told me, tapping his helmet with one armoured finger.
A [Master at Arms]? Shoot, that¡¯s like a [Master Swordsman] but for war. What the hell is this guy doing standing outside Annas¡¯ house? That one hell of a guard.
I nodded and took in the rest of the armed men playing card games.
Is every one of them at that level? No wonder I couldn¡¯t see that guy move. He was probably some kind of level 80 [Master Swordsman of Supreme Murder Death]
¡°Why the heck are you guys standing around here?¡± I asked him.
He shrugged, ¡°Where else would we be?¡±
¡°Fighting? The valley has an undead problem and is on the verge of famine. I¡¯m sure you could smash a few skeletons.¡±
¡°I have not seen the undead, seen the fog, but I can¡¯t fight fog, if the skeletons come, I can fight, would be poor practice, but I would still enjoy it. But I can¡¯t fight famine, can¡¯t cut it, can¡¯t smash it. That¡¯s the job of a lord; is not my place.¡± He told me.
I decided not to make a comment, thanked him and delivered the letter before returning home. It seemed strange to me that someone who lived here would see something wrong and decide it wasn¡¯t their place to fix it.
I picked up a big stick on the way back, I just picked it up off the ground. I could whittle it down and use it for practice.
I tried to sign up for some adventuring, but unfortunately for me, there was little in the way of freelancing. The hunters'' guild was contract-based, it was a job, not a place to meet up and get some fighting experience. You also had to have some training to join on, which was apparently where those hunters that grabbed me had gone wrong.
I hadn¡¯t seen them again when I had awkwardly checked, but that gave me little in the way of satisfaction. I hoped I never saw them again, and the fear of it kept me from coming back to the guild.
Instead, I asked Anna to keep an ear out for anything I could do and practice. I practiced like a maniac. I even found that I could get a bit more practice in by doing stuff like getting the grass to grow shorter so I didn¡¯t have to cut it, and asked for a few more good spells to learn. It helped that the screaming thing gave me an aversion to sitting around in the room, so I was spending more time outside.
I practiced magic, I practiced with the stick and a shovel, and I practiced with some basic woodcraft, picking herbs and generally running around the woods like a mad woman, which got me to level five of [Aprentice Mage] and level two in [Woodsman] granting me the other skill I had wanted, alongside [Long Strider]. I didn¡¯t get any total levels, I was still too low with my new classes to get some more bonuses, but that was fine.
A few weeks passed like that until I decided to check in with the little folk with Anna, and I got my chance to get some real work in.
Chapter 28 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms part 1
¡°Are you sure there are sprites? I would be a bit disappointed if we got all the way there and there were no sprites.¡± Anna huffed out.
¡°Yep, we¡¯re still going in the right direction,¡± I told her.
¡°Ugh, will you stop doing that? It¡¯s a bit frustrating.¡±
¡°I¡¯m sure you can figure out a spell for this,¡± I half spoke, half chuckled out, ¡°and besides, it¡¯s fun.¡±
¡°I bet it is fun, I also bet you¡¯re going to run into a tree, so for my sake, will you stop sprinting in circles while we walk?¡±
¡°Aww, but it¡¯s fun,¡± I told her, dropping [Long Strider] after dipping down to my normal speed. I had tried to just drop it the first time and had ended up faceplanting, which had caused Anna to get worried. I felt a little bad for giving her a scare, but the thrill of running as fast as I could cut the legs out from under it.
There was something simple and fun in being able to run fast, pumping my legs to fly across the ground. Sure, it was useful for getting around, but if you were running just to get somewhere, that just wasn¡¯t as fun.
¡°We¡¯re close to the village now, I remember that tree there, have you ever seen a sprite village?¡±
¡°No, I haven¡¯t, and hold on, you remember a tree? Not even I do that.¡±
¡°It¡¯s easy if they''re distinctive, look, it¡¯s got that bump, it looks a little like a ram¡¯s head,¡± I told her, pointing to the weird bump.
¡°Huh, it does look like a rams head. Spooky. So, what¡¯s the deal with a sprite village? Are they like special somehow?¡±
¡°Well, they are really tiny, so they live in mushrooms, if you¡¯ve ever seen a fairy ring, you¡¯ve probably seen a village. All through, this one¡¯s a bit bigger.¡±
¡°Fairy rings? I¡¯ve seen a few but never-¡± Anna started to say but was cut off when we got in sight of the little clearing of the village.
She was cut off by the sound of a tiny voice, tiny but still loud enough to carry across the distance to use.
It wasn¡¯t directed to us, though.
¡°More tall folk! Prepare for combat!¡± It squeaked in Kirish.
¡°ever¡ What was that?¡± Anna finished.
¡°Umm, I think that was a complication.¡± I told her, before calling out to the unseen sprite, ¡°We mean no harm, fair Sprite.¡±
¡°That tall folk speak our tongue, brothers and sisters! What do ye think?¡± the voice called back, once again not directed at us but presumably at the other sprites.
There was some more mumbling, like when you were in a square, and people were talking, all of the voices overlay on top of one another.
I we stopped and waited for the reply.
If they were anything like the sprites of my age, they would be good-hearted, unless something really bad had happened, we would probably talk-
¡°Aye then, charge! Till the queen returns, give no quarter to the tall nor dead!¡± the voice called out.
A swarm of little white dots started to rise from around us, each the size of an ant but countless in number. A cloud of them started to fly toward us, little voices crying out in fury.
¡°Anna, I think we¡¯re going to have to run,¡± I told her.
¡°I can see that.¡± She started.
I spun towards her, picked her up in a princess carry, and bolted away, [Long Strider] taking me from a walk to a run quite quickly.
The Sprites didn¡¯t care that I was running away, however. I could hear their voices gaining on me, baying for a fight.
I clutched her tight to me and put my back into it, making sure to keep a good grip on her as I picked up speed.
Unfortunately, the trees stopped me from getting as fast as I could, I had to keep swerving around them, slowing down enough not to crash into a tree or slip but fast enough to outrun the sprites, who could weave around them much easier.
The voices all the while gained as I zigged and zagged around trees.
I got to an unfamiliar hill and ran up it, hitting the top before sliding a bit on my way down. It was steep, but I could get down it well enough. I partially slid and partially ran until my foot hit a tree root, and I tripped, falling on my ass and started to slide in earnest.
My feet kicked out as I started skidding down the hill, picking up speed, faster and faster as the hill sloped down and down.
I turned to look back and saw the cloud of sprites come over the hill like a plume of dust.
¡°Tree! Saphine, there¡¯s a tree.¡±
I spun my head around.
There was indeed a tree, one too close for me to stop or slow myself down enough to get around it.
I reached out with my sense skills and reached out with my [Aura of Soil], loosening the ground to slow myself while keeping it compact by my foot so I could kick out with my legs and dig my heels in to angle myself away from the tree.
I managed to just skirt around the tree while I hurtled down the slope, but the distance I had gained from the sliding was shrinking again.
So, I compacted the soil to speed myself back up, pushing off the ground with one hand and my feet in a confusing manner.
Anna was freaking out in my arms, but all I could do was hold her tight to me, keep going, and give her something to do.
¡°Anna, tell me if something gets too close or if you have an idea,¡± I told her before turning back to look at the Sprites.
I could just make out one of them charging ahead of the swarm of screaming Sprites. It zipped behind me and lined itself up before it screamed, ¡°[Charge!],¡± and the whole cloud started to pick up speed.
¡°Anna, I don¡¯t suppose you have an idea to speed us up?¡± I asked.
¡°Not unless you want to hit the river so fast we die!¡± I shouted.
¡°What river?¡± I asked, turning back around.
Sure enough, just at the base of the hill, just visible under the canopy, was a river.
¡°Oh. That river.¡± I said matter of factly. As if had just noticed there were rain clouds or maybe a cow grazing ahead.
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My mind started spinning.
Death by a million stings behind me or getting splatted into a river ahead of me. I both needed to go faster and slower at the same time.
No, not at the same time, but one then the other.
I don¡¯t think Sprites can swim, just like bugs¡ something about being too small or something, so if we get to the river, we¡¯ll probably survive. But we need to stay ahead of the wall of angry stinging Sprites.
So. How do we go from very fast to slow quickly?
I kept watching the river approach as the buzzing battle cry came closer from behind. The tiny part in the back of my head that came up with plans started to spin up, one idea at a time.
How do go slow after go quick?
What go up, come down.
Can go fast up and come down slow?
¡°Anna, can you make a ramp?¡± I asked, my brain still puzzling out where I was going with this train of thought.
¡°Yes, I can, why?¡± She asked, obviously confused.
¡°Go fast up a ramp. It lets us go fast and not die.¡± I told her.
¡°Oh¡ That¡¯s a good idea.¡±
I turned back around and was met with the terrifying sight of a wall of ant-sized people close enough to see, each with a tiny blade held in hand.
¡°Anna, if you can speed us up, now would be the time to do it,¡± I told her, trying to keep the panic out of my voice as I reached out and tried to get the grass and underbrush to part and let us through faster.
I watched the wall of sprites close while Anna reached out and cast a spell.
Wait, wasn¡¯t there one ahead of the others?
¡°Uh [Tailwind], [Tailwind]!¡± Occurred at the same time as ¡°[Courageous Dive]!¡±
I felt something slam onto my head as I watched the swarm fall behind as we sped up, it grabbed my hair and something tiny stabbed into the crown of my head.
¡°Ow, I said,¡± reaching up to swat the tiny thing off my head, only to be met with a tiny blade stabbing me again.
It wasn¡¯t agonizing, the blade was tiny, like a sewing needle for the little thing to even hold it, but it still stung from landing with its skill, and it was still sharp.
¡°Stop that, you idiot, get off of me.¡±
¡°Nay, the tall folk have betrayed the pact! And ye folk have given us grave insult and stolen our queen, while I live, I shall fight. For the Queen!¡± it squeaked, swinging at my head.
It wasn¡¯t particularly effective.
¡°We didn¡¯t do anything to your queen, you git!¡± I told it.
I felt Anna cast, ¡°[Shape Earth], [Earth Wall], [Shape Earth]!¡±
I turned back around and realized how quickly we were zooming toward the river.
How quickly?
Quickly.
We hit the ramp about a second after I whipped my arms back around Anna and got tossed up and into the canopy, arcing over the ground until, for a moment, we were weightless.
My back stung in the air, hitting the ramp had hurt, and I was fairly sure I had gotten some cuts from rocks at some point.
For a moment, we sat there in the air.
¡°Hold on, Anna!¡±
¡°I¡¯m not exactly going to let go!¡±
We fell for a few seconds before we hit the water, plunging below the surface.
We hit the water flat on my back.
It was like getting slapped by a giant, it stung like nothing else, knocking my breath out as we hit the river.
But I was still awake.
That was a bit unfortunate for me because I could feel the water flooding into my lungs, which got me jerking instinctively as I started choking.
We started to zip down the river, carried by its current. I didn¡¯t pay attention too much while I was drowning, but before everything went dark, Anna did something, and we got thrown up to the shore of the river.
Anna did something else, and I felt the water get pulled from my lungs.
I sucked down the air, the vignette of dark raced away from the corners of my eyes as I did, I managed to flop on my side before I started coughing my lungs out.
When I finally got enough air down, I rolled onto my back.
¡°Thanks, Anna, you saved me there.¡±
¡°No problem, I wasn¡¯t much help there,¡± she said, walking over to look over me, ¡°Are you hurt? Did you hit your head? Are you-¡±
¡°I¡¯m ok, Anna. I¡¯m good. Are you ok?¡± I told her.
She took a breath and started nodding, ¡°I, yes, I am ok, I just sat there while you carried me, you were the one who took the brunt of sliding down the hill. I¡¯m good.¡± She told me.
¡°I¡¯m good too, although I¡¯m soaked.¡± The sprite in my hair agreed.
***
The trip back to the cottage took a hot minute, but we got back, and I stored the Sprite under a cup while we got some tea ready.
We both stewed over the guest, we had talked it over and decided to interrogate them. They had done some really dumb stuff. If we had wanted to fight, we probably could have caused some major damage.
Well, Anna could have done major damage, I didn¡¯t know any attack magic, but I could have swatted as if my life depended on it.
That and the queen bit had left the both of us wanting to know why a Sprites would go out of their way to attack us.
When the tea got done, we sat down and lifted the cup. Their wings were still wet and stopped them from flying, and they had fumbled their sword when we had hit the water.
The Sprite was slightly larger than the others, they stood half an inch tall bipedal, poofy white fluff and chitin covered them, and four tiny arms lay on their hips, their wings were not in sight, instead retracted into their shell.
¡°So,¡± Anna talked up first, ¡°what reason did you have, what dumb idea gave you the idea to ruin our morning.¡± She said, getting straight to the point.
I did my best to look intimidating to help her out, Anna was too cute to scare people, at least in my opinion, but I was biased. Maybe Anna was scary, and I just couldn¡¯t see it, either way, expressing herself was important, so I was all for it.
The sprite started to act cowed, they scratched their head with one hand, wrung two hands and covered their mouth with another.
¡°Well,¡± they said, ¡°I was a bit hasty,¡± they said, raising their hands from their mouth and head in awkward surrender. ¡°I hate to tell you, though, we were wronged by your folk, we were to be protected, and being wronged gets us in a bit of a tizzy.¡±
I translated for Anna because the sprite apparently could understand Anna but not speak the language.
¡°Do tell, how have we wronged you? Who did you treat with? I certainly didn¡¯t know you were there. If Saphine here hadn¡¯t passed your village, then I would have never realized there was a village, and I¡¯ve lived here all my life.¡±
¡°We¡¯ve called the valley our home for almost thirty generations! We have been living on the land granted us by the [lords] of the land and paying tithes when the sun is renewed and the frosts clear. Our Queens ave always honoured our pact! But our lands have been unprotected, our Queen stolen! We have been betrayed! By my honour as a [Queens Guard] as a [Lady] of the court, I must avenge her disappearance.¡± they said.
With each word, she got angrier, more indignant. Until the guilty tone had phased into a voice so passionate, it was almost magnetic. I translated for Anna again, trying to follow her tone to keep the message, which got her to chuckle at me. I was translating directly, squeak and all.
It gave me a warm feeling that almost messed up my monologue, but the Sprite clearly didn¡¯t care for it.
The sprites were terminally courageous, all of them were noble-hearted. But I could get it, a Queen Sprite going missing was as bad if not worse for the sprites than a normal monarch disappearing, the queen was the mother of the entire place.
Eventually, a Princess would mature into another Queen, but they moved out before they were mature, it might take years, and with how prone to doing dumb stuff like charging a [Mage], they tended to get themselves killed right quick and die out.
I told Anna that, and she looked first at me and then at the Sprite.
¡°How are they still alive?¡±
¡°By living under the protection of others!¡± She indignantly raged at Anna.
¡°Stop that, Anna¡¯s not to blame here.¡± I chastised.
¡°I¡¯m well aware, you glowy-eyed freak, but people like you did, you walking corpse. Just looking at you makes me want to throttle you!¡± She said, continuing her tirade.
¡°I¡¯m not undead, you overgrown vapid bug, piss right off with that.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not a bug, you half-kin glowy-eyed, lying twit.¡±
¡°I think I like her,¡± I told Anna.
¡°Should I be worried about you running off with her?¡± She asked.
¡°I would never,¡± I told her, ¡°I¡¯m not that kind of girl, Deerfoxes are Monogamous.¡±
The Sprite gaged.
¡°Oh, shush you!¡± I bickered at the Sprite, ¡°Now, you said that there were undead involved?¡±
¡°Aye half-kin, on my honour.¡±
¡°Anna, she¡¯s saying undead did it.¡±
¡°Undead?¡± She asked.
¡°Yeah, she thinks I¡¯m an undead, so probably an ensouled undead.¡±
¡°Oh?¡±
¡°I¡ feel a little obligated to help.¡±
¡°You don¡¯t need to, it¡¯s not all on your head, I could send a letter and get some [Hunters] out that way, probably.¡±
That just made me feel more obligated because I trusted them less than myself to fix something. I had a track record of not jumping people in their homes, and if they came across the village and they decided to repeat their actions, there probably wouldn¡¯t be as much left of it as today.
I grimaced, and Anna picked up on it, no words needed, and raised her hand and placed it on mine.
¡°As long as you come back, I won¡¯t stop you miss I¡¯m going to save the valley.¡±
¡°I thought I was Saphine of the one name, what happened with that?¡±
¡°In my defense, only having one name is weird.¡±
¡°It¡¯s not that weird.¡±
¡°It¡¯s downright barbaric,¡± the Sprite countered, ¡°I swear it by all three of mine.¡±
¡°Three names for someone so small? Well, what are they? It feels weird thinking of you as just a Sprite.¡±
¡°If you keep calling me short, it¡¯ll be a grudge between us long-leg, my name¡¯s Selliban Citritan Titania, you ogre, and don¡¯t forget it.¡±
¡°Well, Selly, would you like help getting your queen back or not? Daylight¡¯s burning, and I have to be home tonight, or the fog will rip me apart.¡±
¡°By the lords most high I ought to¡ Wait, you actually want to help?¡±
¡°Yes. I¡¯m going to help,¡± I told the Sprite.
And hopefully, this time, I won¡¯t die mid-fight and win from pure chance, I¡¯ve been practicing, darn it, I want to see it pay off.
Chapter 29 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 2
The first step after Selly accepted was to put on a new set of clothes. The ones I had been wearing were torn in the back, and while I wasn¡¯t a prude, I didn¡¯t want to ruin them by doing something else and ruining the clothes I had gotten from Anna. So I changed inside the closet where I kept my clothes and got into my old clothes, which were a bit more rugged.
Then, with a little food in a pouch, a goodbye hug to Anna, a trusty shovel against one shoulder, and the Selly on the other, and we headed out.
I had already finished what I needed to. I didn¡¯t need to cut the grass anymore, I didn¡¯t need to cultivate the ground. Honestly, most of my job was now done by my skills. I had asked Anna if I could do some more, but I just didn¡¯t have the skills for it, both literal ones with the brackets and the kind you learn.
¡°So, Selly, do you know where they took your queen?¡± I asked the little fluffy woman.
¡°Nay, and I¡¯ve warned you about my name, at least use my first name, I do know what direction they took her through. They took her west, past the old road towards the mountain, and south through the forest.¡±
¡°If I got to the road, could you point me the right way, or is it up to me from there?¡±
¡°Up to you, but I can fly around to help, I just need to let my wings dry a little more.¡±
¡°Can¡¯t you just dry them off on my tunic?¡±
¡°Only if I want to injure myself, your tunic is too rough, I could snap a wing.¡±
Well, that would be a shame. If I could fly, I would probably take care of my wings too though.
We headed down and out of the grove, down into the clearing, and headed to the old battered road. I took it back out of the clearing once I got to it, then took it about as far north as the Sprite Village.
¡°How long ago was your queen taken, Selliban?¡± I asked.
We had bickered a bit, but we had spent most of the time on the road, silent, looking for any obvious disturbances. Unfortunately, there were no big smoking craters and no signs reading ¡®Kidnapped Sprite Queen this way¡¯ with a big arrow pointing towards our direction. They hadn¡¯t clear-cut a path through the woods, but there were enough shrubs and bushes that some damage should exist, even if it was going to be a pain to find it.
¡°Ten days ago.¡± She told me, speaking in a far-off tone.
Ten days wasn¡¯t a long time, but for tracking it could be a bit difficult. It hadn¡¯t rained, so that was a bonus. The lack of animals was also a bonus, some tracks were probably still around somewhere, and if not, then there would be small damage from whatever grabbed her.
But there wasn¡¯t any to my eye, so I stood off to the side of the road and walked along the eastern side northward down the road, scanning and scanning until I happened upon something that looked like it could be tracked.
There were quite a lot of them, and they appeared to be in sets of two, which would make some sense with what the sprite had said.
The Queen, or I supposed the [Queen], hadn¡¯t been stolen away by undead lambs or cows after all.
That intrusive thought conjured an image of a skeleton farmer milking their skeleton cow, which was not possible but got a chuckle out of me.
I decided to follow them back west to double-check, activating [Long Strider] and zipping through the woods in a bit of a thrilling jaunt that got Selly to cuss at me.
Sure enough, they did, so I followed them back west, over the old road, and followed their path and started looking for and found the tracks. So I started going through the woods as quickly as I could, getting sidetracked and following them back as they wound through the trees and bush.
The farther I got from the water, the thicker the woods. The normal tree cover became thick bushland with higher trees. Thicker and thicker canopies with denser, darker shadows, under which tracks turned to trails.
Trails that I could jog down much more easily and without getting lost.
Unfortunately, they also branched off, the packed earth, without the looseness of the normal soil, left no tracks, so I stayed on the most south-westerly path I could, hoping that whoever had done it had taken the easy road and not run off single file into the bush where I hadn¡¯t noticed.
They kept branching and branching, though, until my chosen path broke off in a forest glade with some dear.
I walked in, blinking at the slightly brighter light of the less dense place. I could see the shorter brush and shrubby trees had been grazed to death, joining the forest floor as twigs. The grass was shorter, some patches coming up to my shin, but most barely over my toes.
It had a fairy tale feeling to it like I had stumbled onto a quiet other world, a place where you would find magic swords or a reclusive mentor figure. Like Anna, but older and temperamental, living in a shack instead of a cozy cottage.
Little critters ran and hid in burrows, but what caught my eye were not the myriad tiny eyes of little critters but the mounds scattered amongst the field.
White bonelike skin is hidden under vast swaths of plant, for a moment, it made me raise my hackles, made me take the shovel off my shoulder. But they weren¡¯t skeletons, not constructs of bone.
One raised its head to me, and I could see eyes behind the bone. I could feel no Tenebra, no darkness in the glade, only mana flowing naturally, eddying up from the ground and into plants, then the little animals, and back out into the ground, slowly passing through where it would no doubt flow down into the valley, life turned to poison.
I rested my shovel and knew these for what they were, a twinge of memory, a forgotten idea given to me from who knows where a name. Or, more accurately, a lack of one.
Nameless.
They were living bones, living Kirin bones, somewhere between animal and person and voiceless.
They didn¡¯t have names, like the [Guides], for what was a name with no voice to say it?
But luckily, they could communicate, at least, in a roundabout way.
¡°Land, are you willing to talk for me?¡±
¡°Yes¡±
It was an immediate, strong connection.
¡°Are you closer? You feel closer than normal.¡±
¡°Eyes and Whiskers¡¡±
Eyes and whiskers?
I looked around the glade while the nameless took notice of me, trying to put it together.
There were eyes on me, but those were animal eyes, and to the best of my memory, the land was the land, not the animals, it was soil and plants, mountains and streams and clouds. The earth and waters, the sky and forest fires.
But it didn¡¯t lie either, why would a forest lie? Why would a river? They simply did as they did.
Eyes that are not eyes¡
A tree, a knotted old tree.
An Eye tree, a tree used to make rope, and had great big swells that looked like eyes.
And the moment that clicked, I looked to the grass, the short grass peaking between the longer ones, the little green blades that barely rose above my toes. Whisker grass.
¡°Eye tree and whisker grass?¡± I asked.
¡°Eyes and whiskers.¡± It said simply.
I suppose I can keep that tucked away for later, I¡¯m on a quest.
Selly was yelling on my shoulder, ¡°More bone, more foes, we are outnumbered, long leg be ready to fight!¡±
¡°Shut it, they¡¯re not undead. Look, they have eyes, you idiot. Hold on, I¡¯m trying to talk.¡±
She balked, ¡°Talk? They''re bone lass, what do you mean-¡±
¡°Shush, or I¡¯ll call you Selly for the rest of your life.¡±
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
That shut her up really good.
¡°Can you ask the nameless if other things have been around? Things that walk on two legs like me?¡± I asked it.
¡°Yes, yes, will ask them,¡± it agreed.
The nameless got up on their four stumpy legs, little critters sat and crawled around on them, little squirrels and ferrets and all manner of fuzzy critters that lived in harmony on their backs amongst the vines and brush and lichen.
One of the nameless even had grape vines on its back, another a tiny oak tree.
They were one with nature, more so than even I was, I only lived in nature, I lived off the soil and water and air, I only used fire, they were one with it. They had soil on their backs and water in the moss, shell-like bodies hollow on the inside to give air to the critters who I could feel inside them.
None of them had a fire, but the heat was caught in them, bone and body and vegetation making their insides like a den.
They moved towards us, hulking masses slowly plodding towards us.
They were lovely things in my sight now that I could see them standing. Mana moved from the ground and the light to them and back out to the critters, spiralling out and out and back into the natural world. A circuit that encouraged life.
A microcosmic example of what the valley should have been like. Of what the world was supposed to be like. The world was a place for life to flourish.
They drew close, and I reached out and lay a hand on their head, and they nuzzled their head back into my hand.
None of them were young; I had no idea if they could even have young, but they weren¡¯t immortal to my knowledge, just very, very old, kept living by the magic of stats, from their unending endurance.
¡°A great pool to the west.¡± It told me.
A great pool? Like a small lake? Or maybe a pond? There¡¯s a river that comes from the west¡
I checked my internal compass, checked before I ran like with the sprites, tracking the bends I had taken from the western road until I was sure of where I would be heading. I marked this place down on my mental map, the blurry constellation of my mental landscape that told me where things were in relation to one another.
¡°Thank you land. Can you thank the nameless, can you thank them for me?¡± I asked.
¡°Yes,¡± it said.
And that was that. I took my hand away from the nameless, the one with the berries on its back. I took a few, my family had grown them, so why not have a few bushes?
I gestured, bringing the berries to me, and it nodded, so it certainly didn¡¯t seem to disagree when I placed them in my pouch and brought out some bread to feed the little critters. Ripping up little bits for them and a bigger bit for myself.
I checked, but the nameless did not want any. So I bowed to them and their little serine passengers and left the little grove and back to the branching paths.
¡°I know where to go, Selliban, there at a lake or something. I think we''re just a bit too far north.¡± I told the little figure on my shoulder.
¡°And how do you know that? They didn¡¯t say anything, not a peep. I saw a pigeon that made more noise than those things did.¡± She complained.
¡°Those things are our cousins Sprite. Just like you are my cousin and vice versa. Honestly, have you forgotten the old ways? Forgotten our people''s histories? I¡¯m the last Kobold, the youngest of the Kirin''s descendants, those were the fourth born, the nameless. For a [Lady], you don¡¯t seem to know all that much.¡±
¡°And you seem to know a whole lot for a random girl, who are you to know such ancient things?¡±
¡°A peasant who listened to kind old men and women, apparently, did you not listen to your elders?¡±
¡°Elder Sprites? Those don¡¯t exist, you silly long-leg.¡±
That¡ was in line with sprites, they did have a tendency to get themselves killed off.
¡°Then you should have read a book.¡±
¡°A book? Talk folk letters are taller than I am, and I am a tall sprite. And before you ask about a sprite-sized book, don¡¯t bother. We keep everything straight is hard and has to be worth it, history is just stories, and [Storytellers] can only remember so much. The [Grudge Bearer] knows the most, and they only remember grudges.¡±
¡°No [Historians] or [Remembrancers]? That¡ that seems a shame.¡±
¡°Then tell me a story, long leg.¡±
¡°Maybe I will.¡±
So, I told her a story while we walked through the ever-darkening paths. I kept track of our direction, first south, then west, quickly eating up land as I sprinted with [Long Strider] every step, taking me twice my normal distance.
The path went around, and eventually, we walked off into a side path, off the beaten trail and onto one that was more open.
The brush had been cut back a bit, but once we entered deeper, it was dark enough to not matter, it just became too dark for the brush to grow tall.
I could make out very little above the canopy, the thick branches too dense to see the sky, so I relied on my skills.
[Sense Composition], [Aura of Soil] and my [Natural Senses] let me feel the ground, and [Verdant Senses] let me sense the plants.
I wouldn¡¯t go tripping, you couldn¡¯t trip if you knew where you were and where you weren¡¯t and could remove where you were from where you weren''t.
I had finished my story, it wasn¡¯t so long, only half an hourglass at most, but we had been silent since then, only talking sparsely in the dark.
¡°Selliban, can you fly yet?¡± I spoke up.
¡°Aye, I can. Dried off and ready, where am I going?¡±
¡°I need you to start pulling you''re, all be it, minor weight and check if we are close to a body of water, so up and out of the canopy,¡± I told her.
¡°Sure, can do, and don¡¯t call me light, I¡¯m plenty hefty,¡± she said, her wings buzzing before she lifted off and floated up to the canopy, I couldn¡¯t even feel her lift off of my shoulder.
Do sprites have, like, a reverse weight problem? Instead of being touchy at being heavy, were they touchy at being light? That¡¯s¡ a bit odd, but I suppose it would be rude to keep calling her light.
Actually, that would be funny; I should call every other sprite heavy and her light around other sprites just to mess with her. She did charge us for no good reason, she deserves a little messing with for that, She spooked Anna and tried to stab us. We almost needed to mass murder her and her people in self-defence, which is an idea that should not exist.
My possibly mindless but genuinely helpful friend buzzed up before quickly zipping back down.
¡°Craven monsters!¡± she cried.
I immediately swung down my shovel, my head swiveling around to try and figure out what she was talking about.
¡°Beasts from above!¡± she shouted, diving down to me and tucking herself against my neck, hiding partially in my mane-like neck.
My eyes turned to above.
I could hear nothing, no noise.
My heart started to beat fast, I awaited some great beast, like a dragon or giant eagle or something, that could carry me off.
¡°It¡¯ll be circling.¡± She said, fear lacing her tone, true fear.
It spread to me, and I took cover, crouching down next to a tree to hide.
A great shadow came down, rustling the canopy, and I beheld¡
¡°A bird?¡± I asked, confused.
¡°Aye, the terror of the skies it is, they could doom a village without pikes.¡± She cried.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
¡°You made me scared there; did you find a lake.¡±
¡°Aye,¡± she whimpered, ¡°It''s to the left a smidge, keep me away from that thing.¡±
¡°Sure, I¡¯ll keep you away from the bird,¡± I told her.
¡°Do not mock me, we have a history.¡±
¡°Sure you do,¡± I told her before heading towards the lake.
***
I headed deeper into the forest blindly, but soon enough, I didn¡¯t need to wander. The forest began to have an ominous feeling, the closer I got, the more ominous the dark wood got until I started feeling like I was being watched, the hairs on my neck and arms standing on end.
I felt a visceral unease thanks to my [Tenebral Bane] skill because why not? It was only a skill to help me fight against the force that left me quaking in my sandals, however, could an overwhelming sense of fear and paranoia be a problem?
I had already started to try sneaking by the time I noticed things moving in the dark.
I could barely make them out in the low light.
They were patchy things, they looked like short and deceased things. They had rashes and lesions and shuffled through the dark in a hunched posture like their shoulders came to the base of their neck, clutching short blades.
Luckily, I saw no flames in their eyes.
They were just mortal creatures and did not seem to match the shamble of a corpse. But I also saw no light, which meant they could see well enough to not need it.
I would have to sneak up on them to get the drop on them. I was here to free a [Queen], if I could get through it without causing a ruckus, that would be optimal, although if there was an encampment, I doubted I could get in.
But sneaking as far as I could was all bonuses as far as I could tell.
In a moment of foretaught, I softened the soil and watched, only starting my approach once I had seen a few passes to begin my sneaky fighting.
Once the next set had moved past me, I began to move, coming forward after them, my senses leaving me with no sudden snapping of branches, and my control over the plants and soil left me with incredibly soft footfalls.
There are three of them, but they¡¯re staggered, two in front and one behind. I snuck up behind it, all I had to do was get it dead.
A thought through my head, and I decided to test it. I reached out with my [Aura of Soil] and tried to [Displace dirt]. It was a stretch, like when I got [Tool handling] to work with my nails, but it worked, I pressed up against it, but what did I need to truly [Displace dirt]? I just needed a way to shovel, to scoop it.
And so the skill bent because it was a valid use, even if it was a new one. I could practically feel the experience from it. What I could feel was the very real weight of the thing as it fell back into me, and I wrapped my arms around it, my shovel arm over its chest and free arm around its head, and jerked my arms apart.
There was a far too light snapping pop noise, and I lay the body down without a drop of blood. Smoothly, it fell, and I moved to the next closest.
Either it heard the noise, or it was a predilection because the rightmost thing started to turn to me. I thrust my shovel out, moving from a one-handed grip and a crouch to a two-handed thrust up at its neck, just like Taanka had shown me with a bare stick.
I missed its neck, catching it instead in the jaw, spinning the creature and drawing first blood. It did not slice through like a razor, but cut it did, although I should probably sharpen it at some point if I were going to use it like a weapon.
The noise of the hit so close and the gasp caught the second''s attention. It spun to face me, turning towards its partner, but I brought my spade back and thrust for the neck again. The spin had turned it, leaving its neck open and extended up to strike, and strike I did. There was another snap as my shovel blade met vertebrae and found its mark, and it fell forward.
I turned to the last one as it thrust back towards me in a panic and missed, unable to hit me, I wound up and brought the edge of the shovel down on it. A horizontal slash.
The little thing managed to deek out of the way of the shovel down and under, which wasn¡¯t good. I was trying to sneak, but if the thing squeaked, I might end up a pincushion if others came running. It swung back at me, and I managed to catch the blade on the haft of my spade so it could only scratch me.
The cut stung, but it wouldn¡¯t take me down.
I decided to stop messing around and took a few fast-hits short jabs to try and prevent it from getting out of the way. Three jabs met with three hits. The first caught it on the collarbone, and the second managed to cut off the screech of pain it was about to make when I hit it in the neck, not from a cut but sheer percussion; the third was overkill and just served to cause the body to topple over. Its windpipe was crushed more than cut, but a kill was a kill, and it was bloodless.
I took a few calming breaths and got to digging a hole to hide the bodies, loosening the earth further with my skills, I managed to dig a pit more rapidly than before, double digging with spade and aura together and burying them in record time, leaving behind only the tiny wispy flames, which I quickly scooped up.
They said something in an unfamiliar, skittery language and passed into the beyond with the final words never to be understood.
One set down, an unknown number to go.
I¡¯m sure it will end up fine. Right?
¡°I have a feeling you just jinxed yourself,¡± Selly whispered, ¡°knock on wood.¡±
I taped my shovel handle twice, though I doubted it would do anything.
Chapter 30 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 3
Once the set was buried and their [Last Rites] were given, I started to move on from the fight.
¡°Wow, you just got them, huh,¡± Selly said, a bit of jealousy in her voice.
¡°Yeh, I guess I did.¡±
I hadn¡¯t thought about it. I had just walked up and killed three people.
They weren¡¯t skeletons; they weren¡¯t monsters, they weren¡¯t even necessarily working for whom I intended to fight, though I was reasonably sure they were.
That idea put a pit in my stomach. What was worse was that I didn¡¯t feel all that bad about it, they''re death meant nothing to me. I had stopped myself from killing a man who had wronged me. They had bound me and pierced my body with metal spikes, and I hadn¡¯t killed him.
What was the difference? It¡¯s not like the humans were less hostile somehow. Was it just that he was human? That I saw him as more of a person than the diseased vermin-like people? If they were people.
I didn¡¯t know, and I didn¡¯t know if I wanted to know.
I followed the path of footprints in the dirt as it wound through the dark forest, my senses giving me an ever-increasing ominous feeling.
The feeling of the place, not the physical place, but the magical part, the mana and the way it flowed through the environment, gave me the willies and made my hair stand on end.
I started to feel watched, even though I was, to my knowledge, unspotted by the creatures that I had seen watching over the area.
To check, I had made sure I had gotten off the path and hidden until the next party passed. Three more verminous creatures looked sick with their patchy fur and sharply pointed ears, red with scaring. But they didn¡¯t notice me, they hadn¡¯t sniffed me out.
They just walked on past me, and I once again snuck up behind them.
Death claimed three more, this time, they fared even worse. I took out two silently while they walked in a staggered formation, and the last was confused when I hewed it.
Three more I gave their [Last Rites] and buried.
If I had to guess, they were weaker than the first ones. The feeling of sending their souls off filled me very little, though based on the feeling I had, I was likely to level up already.
I had practiced for a few weeks and gotten less than a handful, and yet I had almost made that up in less than a day.
I caught the feeling of myriad eyes staring at me, again the feeling worsening and paranoia rising as I spent more time on the path, and I found myself looking over my shoulder and looking for a side path or any way to get off the trail and away from the vibe of the place.
It left me unprepared for when I was genuinely being watched and meant that the first arrow took me by surprise. It skimmed past me, a lucky near miss as it skimmed past my shoulder, and while it wasn¡¯t serious, it still drew blood.
I spun to try and find them, and it wasn¡¯t tough to spot them, it was honestly quite an embarrassment.
A group of 5 of the creatures were about 50 feet from me, partially obscured by the brush. At a glance, three had bows, one had something that looked like a sword, and the other had a long pointy stick, not quite as long as mine based on their height but still longer than arm''s reach.
It had been a stupid mistake not seeing them, but it had been a blessing that one of them shot first, the second and third weren¡¯t ready to shoot, and the third was still taking out their bow while the second was knocking an arrow.
They made a warbling hiss of noise in their skittery tongue, a language I had no clue how to translate that probably amounted to ¡®fire,¡¯ and I started to run.
Whatever they were, they weren¡¯t very well trained. Even just a little bit of thought gave me a plan of attack. The two with a way to stab me were to the side, closer to me and easier to hit.
I activated [Long Strider], doubling the distance I could cover to help close the distance and throw off the aim of the other [Archers] and sprinted towards the front two vermin.
They prepared themselves, levelling a spear and sword towards me, readying to strike when I swerved around them.
The second [Archer]¡¯s bow twanged, flying towards where I was going but missing me as I ate up the ground.
My feet pounded against the soil as 50 feet halved almost every other second. The two in the front caught on to my plan and started to move, trying to collapse on me, but it was too late.
They were too slow.
They had put their warriors forward, with their archers to the side and back, to get a good line of fire. [Warriors] in the front to fight, [Archers] in the back. It was the milk and toast of a formation, but leaving the ones with bows farther back left them totally unprotected from me. I was just too fast, and my legs and my skill left the distance negligible.
I pulled my shovel into a two-handed grip as I closed on the one closest to the right side, the one that had barely gotten the bow out. Panic overtook it, it was going for an arrow as it watched its death blur toward it.
It stared at me like a deer, both panicked and frozen solid at the same time, it didn¡¯t even try to get out of the way. It didn¡¯t contest me as I hewed into it, cleaving through fur, skin, and viscera.
The hit almost tripped me, the shovel getting stuck in my body, unmoving while I was going forward, causing me to jerk, pulling it forward and onto the ground.
The first [Archer] took its chance, its shot firing from the bow with a speed that implied a skill at play. That and the skill it spoke, ¡°[Long Shot].¡±
It whizzed towards me, and it was my turn to be a deer. But I wasn¡¯t a deer and wasn¡¯t afraid of an arrow. I put my foot on the fallen creature and kicked it off my shovel with some effort, reflexively ducking to get under the arrow.
It thumped into my left shoulder and stuck in, my shoulder went limp. My fingers numbed and left my arm useless.
¡°Shit,¡± I cursed.
¡°I¡¯m out, nice knowing you,¡± Selly said, slipping up off my now drooping shoulder.
¡°Yeh, yeh. Watch my back,¡± I told her. What else was she going to do? She was less than an inch tall and unarmed.
¡°Okey, Dokey,¡± She replied in a chipper tone, flittering up and out of sight.
In retrospect, trying to duck a skill-enhanced shot was just dumb, but I didn¡¯t exactly have a [Battle Senses] skill.
At least my shovel was out of the thing.
I moved towards the next [Archer], he was winding up a second shot. I jerked forward, pushing off the ground and checked the others behind me who were rapidly catching up.
I can¡¯t let them catch me yet, I still need to get rid of the [Archers]¡ come on, think. I don¡¯t just have a shovel, what can slow them down¡
Trip them?
Can I do that somehow?
They¡¯re too far for my [Aura of Soil]¡
Plants! My [Aura of Renewal], I¡¯m an idiot!
I reached out to the edge of my [Aura of Renewal], which was twice the distance of my [Aura of Soil], which only reached a few feet away.
It reached out farther, and it was thematic, I didn¡¯t know if that was important for extending the skill as I had with [Displace Dirt], but in a fight, I didn¡¯t want to find out.
¡°[Gild Growth] [Guide Plant],¡± I called out, activating and guiding the grass and brush to tangle in the hope of tripping them as I made my way to the second threat. I could feel the plants burst up from the ground, my [Verdant Senses] showing me as they sucked up the mana, rapidly sprouting up and out, rapidly thickening until the grass bore a close resemblance to bamboo, more grass growing up and out until a wall of greenery sprouted up behind me.
Stolen story; please report.
I rushed towards the next bow-thing, for I had no idea if it was a male or female, but it was apparent that it would soon be meat.
It panicked, calling out, ¡°[Rapid Shot],¡± before it began to run, turning away from me and crying out in its skittery voice. The skill caused its arms to blur, grabbing an arrow and firing it rapidly.
Go figure.
I was too busy sprinting at it like a maniac to veer out of its path, and I ran into it. But luckily, it didn¡¯t go anywhere vital, pounding into the same shoulder that was already useless.
It still stung like a motherfucker as it went in, cutting through flesh before slamming against the bone of my shoulder blade. A white-hot lance of pain jolted down my not totally immobile left arm; in a moment, the limb went from just numb and immovable to pure dead weight.
I could see a hint of pride, a smirk on its face.
The thing I thought it had landed a wound on me, something I could not recover from.
Maybe it thought I might flee, run from it and the things behind me where it could turn me into a pin cushion, but I didn¡¯t.
The wall of green came up, and the arrow thunked into my shoulder, and I just kept running at it. Hefting my spade in one hand, relying on [Tool Proficiency] to make sure I wasn¡¯t going to drop it, the thing''s face lost the smirk as it held the spade like a lance, tucking the haft into my armpit and holding the spade at the point of balance.
I still had one good arm, and that was far more than I needed.
It screeched out and levelled its bow, and I heard the first letter of a skill get called out, a simple ¡°[P-]¡± was all it got out before I snuffed its life out by running its chest through. Impaling my shovel through bone and lung just below the collar bone of the shorter being before freeing the shovel, just barely, out the other side of its chest.
I moved around as it stood there, gasping, looking down at itself as I ripped the shovel out of its back, pulling on the head until the haft had gone all the way through it.
I was about to start off after the last archer when, from above, I heard Selly cry out in her familiar tiny voice, ¡°Behind you! Behind you!¡±
I stepped back and away from the [Archer] before turning around to check behind me. Behind the still-standing figure that thought it was still alive, staring at its chest like it thought it would still be there. The spear-wielding thing was coming for me; the second was pulling itself out, but it was still stuck. But the [Spearman] or [Warrior], whatever class it was, was too close for me to get a proper stance and fight the thing.
I spun around and crouched a little before getting behind the still-standing corpse. It was clutching at the wound in its chest, fingers fumbling at the hole.
I was honestly surprised that it was still standing, I could probably see through the hole I had made in its chest. It was almost dramatic.
¡°Sorry, you¡¯re about to have a second hole,¡± I told the thing.
It sprinted up to us in a moment before letting out a bellowed ¡°[Power Thrust].¡±
It gripped the spear with both of its furry-clawed hands, planted its feet, and its arm blurred out in a forward thrust.
I grabbed the thing and pulled it the rest of the way in front of me while moving, getting ready to counter the thrust.
I had been hoping not to get hit by a skill; I had been banking on its incompetence and made a bad plan.
The thrust took the still dying [Archer] through the shoulder, a few inches to the left of my hole. A few inches left for it.
Unfortunately, left for it was right for me.
It came through my meat shield¡¯s back, slaked in gore and caught me in the rib, punching an inch into my left side. It left a painful ache when I pulled back from it and continued to just around the side, hefting my shovel with one hand and hewing around to slash at it. It connected, although it was a bit skewed. The shovel couldn¡¯t be held flat with only one hand, so it bit sideways and down into its shoulder.
It still broke the bone, the strength of my blow, and my [Durable Tool] skill, not letting the shovel break or chip as it bit down.
¡°Behi-¡± Selly cried out in a warning.
A shock of pain cut off her warning, I stopped hearing for a second as the arrow pierced through my lower back. I choked back on a scream of pain and forced my eyes to stay open.
I¡¯m not going to let some pain detract from the fight, not a little pain like this, I have been impaled with stakes. This? This is nothing.
I reached out and started to [Displace Dirt], hurling it up from around me, to back behind me. I even said it out loud despite how well I understood how to use the skill, to use it with a little more oomph.
It wasn¡¯t doing all that much, compared with what I needed to do, at least. I was trying to throw up a wall of earth behind me while fighting the [Spearman].
In a bit of desperation to make it work faster, I had my second goodish idea of the day, the first being a ramp.
I pushed mana into the skill.
The mana inside my [Magi] skill was like a reservoir, a pool of extra mana I could use to cast spells independent of the environment. I didn¡¯t have to do the extra legwork of getting mana from the environment, I just had it.
But there was a source of internal mana.
The body already had some in it, taken from the environment, from breathing the air, from drinking water, and eating and so on, which helped nurture my body.
I found out through reading later that the difference between active and passive skills was that active skills used almost all mana, pulling it out of the body like a spell, just shaped internally.
It was why active skills tired you out, they drained the mana out of you, literally sucking out the energy that nurtured a person''s magically enhanced stat-improved body.
But I had an extra source, and one with a lot more energy sitting in it than my body.
The dirt started to flow up and out of the hole as the mana flooded out of me, hurling the dirt out in a cone behind me.
I blinked as I sucked down air, and my mind did what minds are supposed to do. Come up with a better idea.
I tried a second thing. Pushing mana into a passive skill and found out that it did something as well.
The [Aura of Soil] was relatively short, only reaching about five feet from me, but as even more mana flooded from me, it doubled in range, reaching as far as my [Aura of Renewal]. I reached out and found that my aura could also be flexed, just with much control over the effect.
And importantly, it let me do something that would win me the fight against the [Spearman] because, despite the fact we were both down one arm, the spear could be held in one arm, my weapon was more like a malformed halberd, which was too heavy to easily be used with one arm, at least with my Build.
The [Spearman] called out a few abilities as I reached out to the ground below his feet.
¡°[Retrieve Spear], [Retributive Stri-IEEE.¡± It called, pulling the spear back out of the body one-handed before it began to slip into the softened dirt.
The body, too, began to fall, losing whatever counted as its footing, and both of them, like me, began to drop in elevation when I displaced the earth below them back past me and up to the growing pile.
I managed to duck in time to see an arrow thump into the growing wall of the hole. It would have hit me if I was still up, and I counted my lucky stars that I hadn¡¯t been hit with a second.
I could hear Selly yelling something, but it was mostly freaking out, so I focused on the threat in front of me. The wretched thing was flatfooted as it slipped, vulnerable for a hit in the growing pit.
I changed my grip until I was holding it under my armpit again and thrust at it three times, missing the first, hitting it poorly on the second, but getting a good hit in on the third, where I landed a good hit on its stomach.
It grit its teeth but managed to get out a hissing, ¡°[Retributive Strike].¡±
Its flabby arm aimed and thrust out, its skill empowering its thrust, which lashed out into my gut.
My body tensed from the pain, and I let out a howl, but I powered through the pain, my vision narrowing in on my foe. I managed to suck in a breath before I thrust and kept thrusting, hitting it with strike after strike until I dropped my form and just wailed on it, throwing pound after pound of dirt away from us and into a wall.
It cried out, managing to pull out the spear, but all that did was let me kick its arm before turning my ire to its one remaining arm.
It started howling, too, until my shove hit its head, and it went silent. I hit it a few more times until I saw a flame roll out of its body, and I stopped to breathe.
I tried to hold my hand up to my stomach, but it did nothing, my arm didn¡¯t move, it was totally silent, unmoving. I couldn¡¯t feel it.
My heart was beating frantically. I didn¡¯t even register that it wasn¡¯t moving or that I had a gut wound.
I just needed to fight.
My blood was thumping in my ears, I could hear my heart beating, my mind was baying for a fight, and I could barely breathe properly.
I collapsed the wall and rushed up the slope, my feet and my heart slammed in sync. Hammering my chest. Hammering the ground, I solidified underfoot.
The archer let out a fast shot, but once I got within range, I carved away it''s footing before slamming down on it, once, twice. I could hear its shrill squeaking; its cry grated my nerves, so I kept slamming, no form, no grace or forethought, just animal instinct, momentary taught that flittered into my head before rushing off, and I kept doing it until I heard another shrill cry from behind me.
The blade slammed into me as I turned, but I didn¡¯t even recognize it, I just turned and tried to slam my shovel into it, but it was too close, too unwieldy, so I dropped it.
Push it over, it is small. My instincts told me.
Staring down at it almost a foot, I must have seemed like a red-headed behemoth to the five-foot-tall ugly rat-like thing.
It let out a shrill cry when I grabbed it and levered down on it.
It was so much smaller, so much lighter.
So much weaker.
Its blade came free, panic growing in its eyes as my claws came out, and I started to rake, gouge, and slice at it. It, in turn, started to do the same, dragging its filthy nails through my skin as it slashed and cut at me. It flailed its weapon, poking and gouging my side and back, but I ignored it.
We were a ball of screaming flesh as we tore into one another, horrible, animal brutality, spurned on by nothing more than the instinct to kill and the instinct to live, egging one another one. The part of me that was not a person but an animal saw weakness, guiding my strikes to down prey.
The blood smelled like nothing but blood, the iron tang driving my heart to beat until it screamed in agony. My lungs burned alongside my arms from my excursion. I started to bite it, slamming my teeth into its neck as my one good arm raked over an eye, and I bit down, my instinct to salvage it.
I slammed my head back and forth, trying to snap its distended neck.
I savaged it, blood screaming out to kill the thing below me, and I listened, savaging it.
¡°Stop!¡±
I bit down, tasting blood. It was not sweet or tasty, carrying only a curdled texture and a taste of iron, but my body was thrilled, and I wanted more. My body shivered.
¡°Gods above, stop! It¡¯s already dead.¡±
I heard the voice but didn¡¯t care, it was trying to distract me from my fight. I had to fight, I needed to live, I needed to kill it, to-
The little body slammed down on my nose and started to pound its little fists into my brow.
¡°It¡¯s already dead, you idiot, cut that out. Breath!¡± she yelled.
I blinked at her, I was going to swat it, but I recognized her. It took me a second, but I let go and breathed.
Oh. My lungs weren¡¯t burning from exertion.
I hadn¡¯t been breathing at all.
The part of my mind that recognized that must have passed the message because I started to choke down air as I looked down at the very obvious corpse.
I retched.
Chapter 31 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 4
The retching was just the start. The moment the haze of violence passed it was like sobering up, I started to periodically catch my breath between the retching that left my throat burning and my nose stung.
My heart, which had been screaming to slow down, started to slow down, and with it, I suddenly felt drained. My body started to twitch, and I started to feel very cold as the reality of my situation returned to me.
I checked myself over, looking down at myself, and I found that I was still the same as I expected. My Front was a blood-soaked mess, slick with both mine and my opponent¡¯s gore. The horrible reek of it all, along with my sick, was just too much for me in conjunction with everything else.
Everything else being the pain and the fear. The pain was self-explanatory, I could see why I was hurt, but what I couldn¡¯t see was what in all the heavens and hells had come over me. It wasn¡¯t the first time I had been overcome with a feeling like that. The overwhelming surge of emotion, the need to live, was in a way like the compulsion with the fog, and with it coming from within, it was even closer when I had been overcome with the need to kill the random [Hunter], the overwhelming urge to kill was certainly there.
But even when it was from manipulating me from within, even when I was compelled, I broke out of it. I had broken out because it wasn¡¯t me.
But the overwhelming urge was me, or at least a part of me. The same part that let me pick up and understand smells, the same part that looked at the dark as a child and saw monsters. The part that was there to keep me alive.
I suppose it never got the letter that I couldn¡¯t die. But I supposed I also hadn¡¯t noticed.
When I had been chained, and when I fought the first [Hunter], it had been there, right next to me. It had been there when I was running through the darkness with a concussion. The only reason I had noticed it at all, was that this time, it was not next to me, I was next to it.
¡°Say, Selly, can you heal?¡± I asked her, looking back down at myself.
¡°I have skills to tell if you need healing like [Triage], but no healing, no. And don¡¯t call me Selly,¡± Selly told me.
¡°This sucks,¡± I told her, making my way down and away to hide me from the smell a little. Then, I curled up to keep myself warm as my shivering got worse.
¡°Are you. Giving up? Just like that? Little miss, I¡¯ll save your queen curls up to die the moment she gets cut? It¡¯s bad, I¡¯m not going to lie, but you get back up,¡± she told me.
¡°It hurts, and it¡¯s really cold. I don¡¯t think I can stand up,¡± I shivered.
¡°Of course, it hurts, you were in a fight, but you kind of need to get up so you don¡¯t stay here.¡±
But right now, I didn¡¯t need to live, I needed to get back to fighting shape. I needed to stop being a shivering mass of Kobold.
I would survive this, I thought, I couldn¡¯t be sure. I couldn¡¯t check my [Status] with one arm while on the ground yet, but I could guess that I would get back up, maimed and would go on living, at least for a while.
I reached around behind me clumsily and found the arrow in my back. Gripping it, I went to pull, and the panic settled it.
What am I trying to do? Die? What the hell is wrong with me? Just because I can, doesn¡¯t mean I should. Oh, gods, what is wrong with me?
¡°Hey, what are you doing!¡± Selly asked, drawing my attention back to her.
She sat on my nose, looking me in the eye with quite a lot of intensity. I could see her mumble something like, ¡®Something is happening, something your eyes.¡¯
¡°I¡ I don¡¯t know,¡± I told her.
¡°Well, stop it whatever it is.¡±
¡°It hurts, and I¡¯m so cold¡¡± I told her, shivering at the cold and the pain.
I just couldn¡¯t work with it all. The cold and pain paralyzed my body, and the fear paralyzed my mind.
¡°That¡¯s why you have to get up! You need to get off the ground, Saphine!¡± She yelled, pulling first on my nose, then my eyelids and lashes.
She was strong enough when she wanted to be, at least compared to how she looked. Lifting my lids from my eyeballs far enough for it to feel weird and hurt a little before she let go, and my lids slapped back into my eyes. It might have been effective if I was not in pain if I wasn¡¯t paralyzed by it, but it was just a fart in a gale.
Barely noticed at best.
¡°Stop that, it¡¯s not helping.¡±
¡°You want help to get up? THAN! GET! UP! [Stand] and [Find your Footing] damn you,¡± she shouted.
I stood and found my footing before blinking. My knees and body started shaking, but I managed to use my shovel as a stave, and it took some of my weight handily.
I looked at her with all the annoyance in my quivering body.
¡°Why couldn¡¯t you do that in the fight? If you have skills to help like that,¡± I asked pointedly.
¡°Because¡ Because¡ Well, I forgot? I¡¯m sorry I didn¡¯t think about it. I probably should have. You''re aiding me, but you''re pulling all the weight while I¡¯m just sitting around.¡±
I wanted to point out she didn¡¯t weigh much, but my mind swivelled a little, my feet being under me surprisingly did help a little. It forced me to pull out of the pain, just enough to stand, but it helped.
¡°Well, think now, then. Can you help me, do you have anything that might help?¡±
¡°I¡ Maybe, but it won¡¯t be much, I can¡¯t heal, but I can hold off the wounds.¡±
¡°Well,¡± I started, a bit angered at her hesitance, ¡°Either help me or kill me, as long as it helps me, I don¡¯t particularly care.¡±
¡°Kill you? Why would I kill you?¡±
¡°Because I can come back, healed of my wounds, no catch.¡±
¡°Then do it, you silly long-eared oaf. T¡¯would be easier than me supporting you with buffs.¡±
I hesitated.
¡°I¡ I can¡¯t,¡± I admitted.
¡°What do you mean ye can¡¯t?¡± she asked, a note of her thick accent peeking through.
¡°I. I just can¡¯t do it. I can¡¯t do it on my own. I suppose it¡¯s just like everything else, I need someone to help me do it instead.¡± I could tell I had let slip a little too much how I felt. But I couldn¡¯t not. I couldn¡¯t bring myself to do anything alone, not even die.
¡°I don¡¯t know if I can, the arrow is quite big, at least in comparison to me. But removing it would also make my skills harder to use. Either way, it would just make you bleed out a little more, as is you should be fine, probably.¡± She told me, hedging on the last part, not quite sure if I was going to be ok or not.
¡°Then do what you can, just whatever you can, I can barely stand with the cold and the pain and your skills helping.¡±
¡°OK then, here goes nothing, now it¡¯s a bit of a stretch, I¡¯ll have to hold on to keep it going. These are [But a Flesh Wound],¡± she said.
The relief was instant, near euphoric in its release. My wounds hurt less, my gut-wrenching pain, my shoulder and the somewhat painful numbness of my arm and the two arrows in it didn¡¯t scream when I moved it, and the arrow in my back didn¡¯t make my guts ache. My mind, overwhelmed by pain and fear, was now only overwhelmed by my newfound fear of myself, but with the extra space in my mind, I was able to push that down.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I pushed that horror of what happened down as far as I could. I could go over that later, walk through how my body would not let me die, how it would not let me go softly into death, even though I could not die. How it overcame me and forced my action.
When I had been panicked, it came out of nowhere and pushed my fight into a horrible gory mess of terrible fighting instinct that left me with very little in the way of control, that stole my mind and body from me.
I took it, put it in a hole at the bottom of my mind, and buried it.
¡°I suppose I should have asked for help in the first place,¡± I told her.
¡°You were doing fine, if you had armour, I think you would have been fine.¡±
I wasn¡¯t, I was very obviously subpar. Two weeks of training, and I am still crap at fighting? I could barely fight a likely slightly weaker opponent. Who was I kidding? Selly, apparently, because she thought I was doing fine.
I wasted two weeks trying to copy what was, by all of my reckoning, the most basic, most simplified way of wielding a shovel as a weapon, and I failed to use it properly in a fight, resorting instead to thrashing like a child.
I wouldn¡¯t even be standing now without someone else.
¡°What¡¯s with that face?¡± She asked, interrupting my internal monologue.
¡°Just realizing how much of a total fuck up I am,¡± I told her, bitterly.
¡°Look at me, just for a second.¡±
¡°I am.¡±
¡°No, you¡¯re not, not really, so pay attention for a moment.¡±
I focused on her small form, with her mothlike, humanoid appearance.
¡°What- Ow, fuck.¡± I started to ask when she poked me in the eye.
I swatted at her, but she held on to me, tucking her tiny form down so I didn¡¯t knock her off.
¡°Don¡¯t be such a baby, of course, you made mistakes. You¡¯re obviously not a [Fighter], and you came out of a fight, one against five, against [Warriors] and [Archers] with blood in your mouth. So, how¡¯s about you stop talking down to yourself, you dolt.¡±
¡°Fuck off, what would you even know? I¡¯ve been practicing for weeks, and I have nothing to show for it.¡±
¡°I know plenty. I might use a sword, but most Sprites use weapons like spears to drive off bigger creatures; I¡¯ve fought more than you, I can tell, but for someone new to a weapon, you were fine. Get that through your thick head.¡± She berated me, punctuating it by punching me in on the bridge of my nose, although it felt more like a poke.
¡°But-¡±
¡°NO BUTS! How were you training? What have you been doing for these weeks of training? Were you sparing or just drills?¡± She interrupted.
¡°Uh, drills?¡±
¡°Then you¡¯re totally green, have you even fought something with skills before? Have you ever killed anything?¡±
¡°I fought someone, they were a [Hunter].¡±
¡°Just one? Congratulations. Fighting is like any other skill; you¡¯ve done it six times now with a tiny amount of training. Sure, they were slightly lower level, but that doesn¡¯t mean anything. You won, and that¡¯s what matters. They¡¯re dead, they lost. Stop getting down on yourself for barely winning when you should be sparing instead of fighting. So, get ahold of yourself, we''re in the middle of hostile territory, there could be more of them coming around the bend any time now, so stop moping and get yourself in check.¡±
I opened my mouth to say something, to cuss her out or to make a no doubt poor rebuttal, but I didn¡¯t.
Regardless of what I thought, I took her words as advice and thoughts about our situation, our very vulnerable situation. I also should hide the bodies, that would let me hopefully not get found out, and by burying them I would get some more experience with my [Grave Digger] class.
As for her talk, I didn¡¯t know if she was right or not.
My heart, the part of me that felt, felt she was wrong, felt that I had done poorly, even for someone of my experience. That I should have done better with what I had and that my lack of experience, my lack of skill, was a fault that I was lacking, something I was lesser for lacking.
But much like I had with the fear, I was able to push it down, to bury it, even if it was something that wouldn¡¯t stay down for long. It would come back, like a zombie, to gnaw at my brain later.
Using my new technique, I turned the partial hole into a proper hole, taking what patches of blood I could find and burying them with the bodies. They had nothing I found of worth; I didn¡¯t know how to fire a bow worth a damn, and their weapons were shorter and poorly made. So their rancid smelling blood and bodies went into the hole.
I picked up the souls, their chittering language skittering away while I sent them to whatever afterlife awaited them, but something in the back of my mind stopped me from taking the last one. I got a half-decent idea.
I had learned two spells in the two weeks I had been training, two spells of dubious usefulness. But I could use one.
Of the three spells, well, four but [Cantrip] was barely a spell, [Status] was the first one, with the second being [Appraisal], which was just status with slight changes cast on another person. Funny enough it could be practiced and cast onto nothing, giving a void sheet. But it took about a minute for me to cast, and it was a bit overkill. I found projecting harder than drawing something to me, but there was something else.
The third spell I now knew was [Inspect].
I started casting the spell. It was simpler than [Appraisal], simpler than [Status] even, which I had gotten down to a good twenty-second cast, at least when I had both arms.
It left a circular pattern in the air, almost eye-like, but with a slit pupil that ran vertically from top to bottom, two loops above and below like circular eyelashes. There were no dead ends in the spell, which left all of them slightly loopy. But it was so small I could cast it fast and with low mana use, even though it had the downside that I had to aim it, before simply throwing it out at someone or something.
I could use it on objects, too, but there were only so many times I could cast it and read the description of a tree or grass.
But I wasn¡¯t casting on trees and grass, I was casting it on the soul, and I wasn¡¯t disappointed.
I finished the spell, gave it the mana, and threw it forward and out, I had gotten to the point where the pleasant feeling of casting a spell was just a light tingle of my mana rushed out of me as I spoke: ¡°[Inspect].¡±
The pattern flew through the air as a visible ball of sky-blue light the size of a candle flame, dragging the invisible mana with it in a pattern until it struck the soul and bounced a wisp of the same coloured light back to me before fading into the background mana.
It resolved into a familiar blue panel.
Level 15 Gremlin Soul, Condition: Poor, Type: Disembodied Spirit.
Description: The disembodied Spirit of an unnamed gremlin. The soul is small and mostly unformed, with little in the way of anima. The spirit contains traces of non-transferable corruption that linger after it¡¯s death.
¡°Say, Selly, what''s a Gremlin?¡± I asked, she was sitting on my nose and had continued to face away to watch me flail and read the blue box.
¡°I don¡¯t particularly know, we don¡¯t keep bestiary or many stories remember. But you might find the name in one of your books. They just look like starving sick animals to me, with their big, pointed ears and whatnot.¡±
OK then, not much to say, except they were lower than me in level, and they had streaks of corruption in them, apparently. I don¡¯t know what it means by condition, but that¡¯s not my problem.
I sent the Gremlin to its no doubt horrible fate and finished burying them.
Then, I reached out and encouraged the grass to grow. the ground was a bit sick here, the effect of whatever was at the lake acting like a poison that slowed its growth, but I got it to grow. It looked like a regular space again. I even compacted the soil before releasing my auras to save mana.
I started paying attention to the landscape around me and the way mana flowed. Funnily enough, I was causing little eddies in it around me. I was emitting life mana with my [Wellspring of Renewal], and it was agitating the environment, forcing the land to become renewed while the world around us was otherwise hostile to the idea. I passed through and left a little life in my stead.
It couldn¡¯t have been much in the face of the terrible dark power at the lake, not a blow against its power, but a stone tossed at a Titan. The blow was unknown, a tickle that would result in nothing.
I wish I could get that life mana to heal me. Even just a little. I might be able to cast a healing spell with it if I knew a healing spell. That would sure make my life easier, but honestly, it¡¯s just another thing on the pile of ever-growing things I want to do.
Wait.
Do I need a spell? Would adding life mana to my wounds do anything bad if I were to do it?
I couldn¡¯t see a reason why I couldn¡¯t do that. It would probably be a crappy, unfocused and slow healing, but it was based on the fundamental and most common method of magical healing.
Teas and ointment gave way when you wanted to make a succinct method of healing. You used magical ingredients, and instead of extracting whatever healing properties the leaves had, you extracted the mana in the plant to heal. I was just getting really creative with the idea.
¡°I thought of something. It might be dumb, but it might help me a bit take some of the load off your skill,¡± I told her.
¡°Truly? Well, go on then, keeping you upright is a chore, it¡¯s making my fingers tingle. If yeh can take a bit off, I won¡¯t complain.¡±
With that settled, I took a quick walk off the path until I was hidden from it and tried to push mana into it. The draw was immense, it sucked up mana and doubled in size. I could feel the ground tremor a bit as the life mana intensified.
It trickled up from below, reinvigorating the brush, which sucked it up greedily like a man dying of thirst. It sucked and sucked, and the response was immediate.
I heard the land speak to me then. It was not in words but ideas. I could feel its enjoyment in what I was doing, even if it was small in scope. A part of itself was healing.
¡°Hello, trying to help a bit, might get better.¡± I sent it.
¡°Gratitude,¡± it returned.
It wasn¡¯t much, but they did start filling up with life mana, they were processing it fast, but not fast enough. I could see the blades of grass and leaves and bushes fill themselves up, a portion going to leaves and another to root.
Most of it went to the roots, but the leaves, too, started to fill.
I flexed the skill after a moment, trying to focus on the leaves, but it didn¡¯t work.
Instead, I focused on the aura or tried to. Even with a bit of help using Visualization, it only focused down a little.
But it still worked.
I stood there, mana pouring from me like a river, each moment I grew emptier, I watched life bloom around me. Then, I stopped.
I pulled back from it, gently pulling my mana back into its reserve.
I felt less than half full, but that didn¡¯t matter.
I reached down and plucked at the grass until I had a ball, putting some of the life mana grass in my mouth and chewed it before, like with a more mundane poultice, I pressed it into my gut wound.
I took a smaller bit and just chewed on it and got back on track.
Selly and I headed off down the path, looking for more centuries or a path inward, and as we did, another thing started to dawn on me. A small horror as my mind started to spin and the wound tingled.
I had felt nothing killing those gremlins either, not one thing.
Chapter 32 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 5
I had felt nothing from them dying either, not a single thing. Oh, sure, it was a bit squishy and gross, but their deaths specifically did not resonate with me. I had killed them and had feelings relating to killing them and what had happened when I did, but their being dead did not thrill me, nor did it make me feel Ill.
It was like there was a blank spot when it came to their deaths. A hole where nothing existed. They had been alive, then they were dead, and then I buried them, the middle step was blank.
I decided to bury that fear, too, deep down with my feelings. Right now, I needed to keep my head in the game, I needed to keep pulling the life mana out of the grass in my gut wound and mouth to try and fix my mangled body so I didn¡¯t die at an inopportune time or as my instinct suggested, at all.
I walked down the path that seemed to mark the border of the corruption, checking for a way inward toward the source of the taint I could feel in the ground.
Feel, but not see.
I knew it was there, knowing there was mana, I supposed, just dark mana. I was getting tired of the word Tenebra, and it sounded like an academic term. Like whoever had coined it got bullied about it and decided to give it an overly obscure name to compensate for it.
Whatever practicing the dark magic did to mana, it was here, in the ground and trees and grass, but I couldn¡¯t see it.
That is odd, or at least I think it is. [Magi] can be used to sense mana. Just like any of my other sense skills, I should be able to feel it right.
A wet rock didn¡¯t suddenly stop showing up in [Sense Stone]; a plant''s roots were in the ground, but it still showed up in [Verdant Senses].
I focused on the ground and checked myself while I was at it. There was something there, I knew it was there, I just made sure to keep checking on it, check on the parts I could see, to see if it changed.
After about twenty minutes, I ducked into a bush and hid. I could see, deeper in, moving shapes coming towards me in the dim forest.
I watched the Gremlins come out, six of them two spears, one short blade, one with two blades, one with a sling, and one with a bow. A little hunting party, they were one more than the last one, and while they had less range, they were still more pointy sticks that could and would gore me.
They were leaving, though I had no clue why they were heading out in such numbers.
Is it possible they caught on? That they picked up on me being out there? I hope not, but I honestly think that might work out better for me.
I obviously can¡¯t just fight my way through an entire camp, more leaving means less fighting when I get there. A win, so long as I make sure to finish it quickly.
I waited and hid as best as I could, crouched down in a root hole surrounded by bushes that I [Control Growth] into giving me better cover. As they came towards me, I held my breath and brought my spade close, covering most of my head in profile, as if I were hiding behind the shovel like it was its own tree.
I pulled a little dirt over me to try to better hide my scent in case they had good senses or a tracking skill.
When the voices came close enough to distinguish grunts in their skittery tongue, I thought I was ready. Then I remembered that I had left tracks.
I had left tracks leading right to me, I had covered myself in the dirt but not gotten rid of my footprints. On the path, it was well-tread, the likelihood of someone picking out my footsteps on the path was negligible, but just off the path? Off the path where my footsteps depressed into the soft, tainted ground? My footsteps would lead them right back to my hiding spot.
It was just shy of twenty feet.
I tried to reach out with my [Aura of Renewal] and attempted to shift the soil around and uncompress it with light use of [Displace Dirt]. I reached out through my aura with my mind and used my skill. And it snapped back towards me before it finished, the mana from both the Aura and the skill snapping back, slamming back into me like a rock from a great sling. I doubled over as I lost my breath.
I almost gasped, almost sucked my breath back in, all the while, the loose mana slammed around inside me, stinging and burning, lost in my hurt body, making my wounds kick up a fuss despite Selly¡¯s skill.
I heard them getting closer and decided it was worth the risk of moving. I let my shovel down, shimmied out to the halfway point and extended my [Aura of Soil].
It screamed from the backlash of the failed skill combo, it brought a tear to my eye, but with a light wheeze, I got it out and brute forced the soil to fix itself. The effort of it, pushing it through my shocked body, made it hard, I almost fumbled it at a range, despite my familiarity, it burned so bad I almost contemplated speaking the skill out loud.
It seemed like a good idea for a second, but the seconds passed, and I rained the part of my brain that just wanted to avoid pain back in with the knowledge that if I could hear the approaching Gremlins, they could hear me.
I pushed myself back, whimpering ever so slightly as I pulled at my shoulder wound, but I managed to get most of the way there when I heard a common enough sound that I picked it up despite the gap in language.
It was a ¡®Hold on, did you hear that?¡¯ followed by everyone stopping to listen.
I stopped dead until I heard them start sauntering off to wherever they were headed. Sweat beat down from my brow. I didn¡¯t breathe, I didn¡¯t think, I didn¡¯t even think of breathing. My instinct was right there whispering in my ear.
I could hear it whisper not in words but knowledge, in animal Wisdom.
¡®Do not move, [Hunters] are close, the hidden fox lives, the bold fox becomes dinner.¡¯
Using everything I had at the moment, my instinct said ¡®slowly,¡¯ I got the last few feet back, fixed the dirt and shrubs and pulled my shovel back into place.
Not one breath.
I had no idea how to sneak, no idea how to hide. But my instinct believed it did, so I followed its lead, as uncomfortable as it made me. I sat there and waited and waited.
They moved slowly, on guard, whispering slightly, giving me the only idea where they were. I swivelled my ears to better know where they were, listening to either side of the tree I hid behind.
I heard a few of them stop being cautious, their shrill notes giving the rest a chuckle. And I started to relax when an arrow barely skimmed over me, depressed into the ground in the hole as I was, the arrow only came within one foot of me. I stopped my sigh of relief and focused back on the conversation as another arrow came back a bit farther out and landed closer to my feet. It Thudded into the dirt, and I recognized what might happen before it did.
I scooted forward and out of the way as an arrow pounded into the ground where my hip would have been, then scooted back into the tree.
My heart thudded in my ears, narrowing my focus on the twang of the bow, on the bow being drawn.
All I could think about was where the next shot would be coming in. I had my shovel shielding my head again. The bow twanged at the same time one of them spoke up and clapped right next to the twang.
The shot went wide.
I was trying not to sweat, not to give myself away.
Foxes don¡¯t sweat, right? That¡¯s why their noise is wet, and they pant. See body, no need to sweat, no need to give off any odour and get ganked by them, no sweat required. No sweating.
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I sweated a little anyway, but the gremlin with a bow yowled, and the others made a noise that sounded a lot like cajoling.
There was a bit of scuffing as the noises moved past.
My lungs only got a reprieve after they passed out of earshot.
¡°Too close, way too close,¡± I said aloud.
¡°I¡¯ll say,¡± Selly said a bit tersely, ¡°why did you go out? And what was with the jerking?¡±
¡°My footprints, I needed to cover my footprints. And I messed up covering my footprints the first time. Wow, that is a unique kind of pain.¡± I told her hollowly.
¡°And my skill didn¡¯t block it out?¡± she asked, obviously confused.
¡°No, it was like the skill¡ exploded back into me? I suppose that¡¯s what happens when you mess around with mana. Gods, but that still stings.¡±
I reached for my mana, and it stung me like the sting of a wasp, a zapping fire zinging through me.
I looked down as I cussed while I looked myself over.
There was mana where there wasn¡¯t supposed to be mana. I reached for it again, and the mana in my body contracted, moving ever so slightly, and pulled against the loose mana. I let go again.
It was like a magical piece of shrapnel, or an arrow, pulling against the muscles it was forced between.
I got up regardless of it and kept going down next to the path. There was nothing to it. I might be able to pull it out, but it would rip me the hell up to get rid of it. It should blend back into me at some point.
I made my way down towards the ever more nauseating point down the path until I came upon a ruin and a camp.
Peeking out from the brush, I spotted the lake some few hundred feet away, the bush was not cut back except right around the camp.
The river, just spottable from my position, was partially blocked by a makeshift dam. The bank of the lake was pressed up to account for the intended rise of the lake, but next to it rose up a ramshackle wooden palisade centred around an old mossy pillar.
It took my mind far too long to figure out what the pillar was. It was part of the old aquifer, a riser that would have pulled up water and fed it into the aqueduct and eventually poured down and into old Moarn. I could see the old place where a water wheel would have spun a shaft through a set of stones, each with a foot-ish diameter hole through it, the wood long rotted away.
I could even see the places where a screw or bucket chain would have been mounted.
Those ugly vermin were using old stuff to taint the land, just like with the big dam at the end of the valley. I knew people that helped maintain those, and the vermin were messing with them.
I started looking for patroles and found none, so I approached the wall and listened.
I picked up on quite a few, at least a dozen of voices near me, and as I went around, I picked up something like two and a half dozen of them in the camp.
Far too many to deal with head-on, even if I got the drop on most of them, I would still miss out on getting some of them. Then I would get swarmed and die, and while that would fix some of my issues, but after one revive, there was no way they would make a mistake, I would go in chains and wake up a prisoner, just like before.
There also might be extra undead I couldn¡¯t hear, it wasn¡¯t like they talked or yelled or stomped around or did much of anything. There could be thirty of them standing perfectly still in there, and I would have no idea. If I wanted to figure out the who, what and where of the camp, I needed my skills, but I had messed that up, reaching for my skills actively hurt me, so I pulled back into the brush, hid and sighed.
¡°Selly, I don¡¯t know how to tell you this¡ But I don¡¯t think I can get in. There are too many of them, I can''t feel around with my skills, I¡¯m wounded and can¡¯t fight right even if I was uninjured, with all the bad mojo going on, I can¡¯t imagine anyone but a [Necromancer] being in there to oversee it. I think this might be over my head.¡±
¡°Saphine, lady of long leg and fuzzy ear, ye glowy-eyed grudge maker with one name and little imagination, most of that is solvable,¡± She told me smugly.
I crossed my eyes to glare at her.
¡°Oh yeah? Do enlighten me, little miss I¡¯m afraid of birds. Do I charge in like you did earlier today? Because you were walking a fine line between being just fast enough to spook us into running and Anna whipping up a fireball to reduce you to ash. DO tell me how I¡¯m wrong again.¡± I told her, my tone getting increasingly prissy as her voice struck a nerve that hadn¡¯t settled.
¡°Well, for starters, break it up into problems. You can¡¯t use your skills, why?¡±
¡°Because my skill backfired back when I hid my tracks, using mana at all hurts, and skills use mana, I would have to mess myself up even more, to just use a skill,¡± I spat.
She just nodded, ¡°OK, can you fix it? And or will it go away on its own?¡± She asked leadingly.
¡°I¡ Well, yes, I think I could fix it, and it should go away on its own, but I have no idea how long that will take.¡±
¡°But you can fix it!¡± She told me, grinning with tiny pointy teeth in a shit-eating grin.
I glared at her. I started to think of plucking her stupid wings to get my anger across but tamped that down. Was I having a bad day? Yes. Was I feeling bad about being a bit of a failure who couldn¡¯t do anything on my own and was incapable of picking up any valuable skills other than simple labour? Yes. Was I being hard on myself? Maybe. And was it being made worse by Selly being a little shit while I was in pain? Yes.
But she wasn¡¯t to blame for my pain, she wasn¡¯t the cause of my bad day, even if she did kick it off. She was an earache, a true pain in my neck, but that didn¡¯t make her wrong, nor did it make me justified in my distaste for her at the moment.
SO. I took that anger and put it right next to my fears down below, let them make friends with one another, stoke each other deep down. I could use it later, let it out in a helpful way, throw myself into something and make myself useful instead of pissing it away by yelling at Selly.
It would get me nothing, well, it would get me a bunch of stuff, but it was all negative.
¡°Selly, I¡¯m not having a good time right now, please don¡¯t actively try and make it worse,¡± I told her with only a little gritting of teeth.
I could see her go to rebut the nickname and stop. She nodded.
¡°Sorry, I¡¯ve been making myself a pain all day. I¡¯ll get on with it,¡± she told me, in a half-hearted apology, but even half hearted, it was still an apology, and considering how stubborn she was, I would take it.
¡°Lay it out plainly, I¡¯m a moron, so give it all to me instead of being cheeky, and I won''t hold it against you.¡±
She nodded, ¡°Aye, to avert a grudge, I shall,¡± she told me without the haughtiness she usually had.
¡°You have a few problems, but ye are lookin¡¯ at all of this in the wrong way; your gut wound is a bit better off now. Do you think you could fix your shoulder? You can¡¯t use your skills right now, but you could fix it; ye¡¯ are down on yourself and don¡¯t think you can fight the whole camp, but you don¡¯t need to. You just have to get in and out with my queen to succeed, or with however many more prisoners there are. I was chasing you, and you were coming up with ideas, you were given a direction, and you found your way here, but you¡¯ve been ignoring that.¡± She told me emphatically, gesturing with both arms intermittently to keep contact with me.
¡°You¡¯ve been fightin'' straightforward like as if you¡¯re some [Hero] of yore who can take on the world just by having a smidge of an idea, some gumption and running at their foe with a magic sword. You threw away your best weapon, your head, and you¡¯ve been going sideways ever since. Get what you can fixed, and put your head into it after. I¡¯m sure there¡¯s a way to do it, but coming up with a plan at a low only leads to bad plans. Strength at arms, pales before the strength of minds, a fell blade shatters before the keen edge of whit, both need one another, but the blade will never find its mark without the keen eye of a [Swordsman] behind it. It is so with all things: fix what you can now, sharpen your mind before deciding on any path toward or away from this foul place.¡±
She said it like she was a [Sage], dispersing wisdom to a pupil like I was a particularly thick pupil that required a prophetic bit of insight. All she was missing was a beard she could stroke. And she had managed to say it without insulting or sounding demeaning.
I had never seen a woman [Sage], now that I thought about it, nor had I heard about one.
I wonder if you need a beard for that; imagine that it would need to be based on a skill; maybe it was a beard-stroking skill. [Beard Stroker] or something. [Sages Tic]? Or maybe [Whiskers of Wisdom]. I should see if Anna knows anything about it.
Gods, I wish she had come with me, I have a feeling this would be a lot easier with her. She would know what to do.
I thought on Selly''s advice, running it through my head a few times.
Could I fix my shoulder? At least enough to get a light grip? Would that have a significant impact on my ability?
It would probably help with movement a little, I still had both legs, but one arm being dead weight definitely threw me off a little. I also couldn¡¯t get the best out of my hits. I wasn¡¯t Balanced anymore. I was Dexterity focused right now, Even if I wanted to get back to balance, I needed to remember that I couldn¡¯t get the full effect of my Strength.
That was another thing I had been doing, using my shovel like I had Strength. I should have probably been focusing on making use of my Dexterous body while I had it, slashing with the blade, cutting if I could.
I checked my wound next.
I was a little better, not that I felt for it, it felt like my wounds were less¡ Wounded? My gut wound had stopped bleeding, and the strike to my back, too. The Arrow wounds felt better, not in the way the others did, but like parts of them had fixed themselves ever so slightly.
The gut wound was the most healed; I had dropped the makeshift bundle of chewed leaves back during the ambush, and I had spat out the grass after getting all the life mana out of it, but it was significantly better than how it had been. It had puckered a little, like a wound trying to close, leaving a thinner gash. I could feel that it had also gotten shallower, the narrower part where the tip had cut me was healed.
So, if I pulled out the arrows, could I get it healed up? The arrows are certainly thinner than the blade of the spear, and it looks like it healed equally from all sides of the wound. It should work, I could probably get my arm working soon-ish.
What about my mana? How would I do it?
They were small, sharp little clumps of excited mana, buzzing around inside me like shards of porcelain.
Could I blunt them a little? Round out the sharpest edges so I could work on returning them to my mana pool or push them out? If I could round them out, it would undoubtedly hurt less, reducing it from torturous to just painful or uncomfortable.
I could probably work with that. It wouldn¡¯t be so bad. Probably.
¡°I think I can do that, but I need distance and a break.. and a hole for me to crawl into and get on with this.¡±
Chapter 33 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 6
I moved back away from the camp to get some privacy, this was not going to be a fast, quiet endeavour. The fetid soil was moist but not saturated, so I could make a hole well enough. If I lay down for too long, I might get wet, but other than that, it was a fine hole.
Easily a four out of ten.
I suppose there was no way it would be my best work, considering I had one arm and did not want to use a skill and cause myself any more pain than I needed.
It was decently far from the camp and in the middle of the brush, but I still gathered some material, curling it up as best as I could. When that didn¡¯t work so well, before I started, I wrapped it around the handle of my, or I guess Anna¡¯s, shovel to give it some more give before I bit down.
I am so going to need to clean the hells out of this shovel before I put it back, it is so dirty it¡¯s unimaginable. I might just need to find a new one for her and stow this one somewhere until I get all the gunk out of the wood¡
Maybe I should have thought of picking up stuff before I headed out. I should have. Gods, except for Death, why am I such a dunce?
The gods sadly, or maybe luckily, did not reply. I don¡¯t know what I would have done if one of them did, but my day definitely would have gotten more complicated.
I began to manipulate the mana in my body to round out the disruptive mana but quickly came to a sudden, unexpected, and rather distressing finding. I had been checking my mana periodically to ensure nothing happened since I used so much, but I had been comparing the two values.
When I went to check now and see how much I had to work with, I found that I had not gained but lost mana.
I had gone from around half to a quarter. I had used some mana, but not nearly enough to burn through some 500 points of it.
And I had no gods damn clue where the hell it had gone.
¡°One thing at a time. Ok, I¡¯m going to start now,¡± I told Selly.
She nodded and held on, I bit down, and ignoring my mana reserves, I started rubbing at them.
To say it smarted would be an understatement. Rounding out the sharp fragments of mana with my mana would be like rounding out fragmented bone using my own muscles. It also gave feedback from both ends. The sharp mana cut me, and rounding it out was like rubbing off my fingers. A double whammy of a uniquely horrible sensation I wish I had never felt.
Each moment, however, I made progress, rounding out the sharpest parts, slowly but surely, the sharp pain of the mana turned into a dull invasive presence, like the rock in my sandals, only inside of me in an additional horrible and unique sensation that expanded my horizons and got added to the list of things I hate.
After Rounding it out, smoothing all the myriad spots, I could have left them. The mana that had been rubbed off slowly merged back into my body¡¯s background mana, flowing into my muscles, sinews, bones and fat, not that I could properly distinguish those very well, they were blobby bits of slightly different feeling mana inside my body. Figuring out the different fleshy bits was like trying to figure out the names of three shades of red by eye. Bones were a bit easier, they were slightly different, but they were also similar, like red but with a brownish bit to it.
Instead, I started to continue to round them out, taking short breathing breaks. Eventually, I took the shovel haft from my mouth, the leaves were in shreds, bits of them stuck in my teeth, but the mana was small enough that I could just muscle through the pain without shouting.
I smoothed them out, sanding them away until they were the size of glass beads, then I broke them. They disintegrated, and I finally got relief from the constant presence.
It was like I could breathe again, the heady relief of it masked the presence of the arrows and wounds of my body. It was a high to fight the ages, my body started to release tension I didn¡¯t realize I had been holding.
¡°Selliban, I think your advice was too good. I feel amazing. I¡¯m liable to act unwisely.¡±
She snorted, ¡°That¡¯s just the lack of pain, twil¡¯ pass soon enough yeh silly git. You should probably start with the arrows, my skill is draining me less right now than before because you¡¯re in less pain. Come on, we¡¯ve been here for some time. Pick up the pace.¡±
I nodded, almost groggily. I grabbed up the grass and pre-chewed two bits, then shaped them a bit. Then, gingerly, I held the arrow and tried to wiggle it out. My body did not like that, but the moment it started going, it got easier, the rush slowly slowing to a crawl. Once I got them out, I pressed the grass in and got onto the second, then I filled my mouth with the last of the grass and simply coaxed the life energy out of it as best as I could in an attempt to speed the healing.
Actively tampering with the release of mana felt odd to my body. It was itchy, warm and pins and needles all simultaneously.
I checked the hodgepodge of mana and the grasses nature mana, and as it started to fill in, I tugged the grass out, bit by bit, until the life mana lost its flare, and it slowed back down.
Notably, focusing on it for the first time, I figured out something about Life mana. When it gave other manas energy, like those in my muscles, it changed, but it changed into a mana type I hadn¡¯t seen before.
A mana type I was familiar with.
[Death Magic Affinity] told me exactly what it was. It turned into a tiny bit of Death Mana.
I pondered over it, plucking at the mana to move it around.
On instinct, I moved it from where it was to a place where it should be, my mana pool. There were dozens of little bits of it inside me from all the grass that I had used, so I balled it all up and wiggled the ball of it in at once.
I didn¡¯t know what leaving it in my body would do if anything, but I figured waste not, want not. My mana pool was already low enough that I was a bit worried.
When I tossed it in. However, something odd happened. I noticed it interacting with something I couldn¡¯t see, and when it did, it mixed into it, mixing it and slowly filling up my mana pool.
For a moment, I thought it was making mana out of nothing, but it wasn¡¯t, it was just changing what was already there, something that was all around me that I couldn¡¯t sense properly. Watching it, I figured out why I couldn¡¯t see it, it was like the darkness of a starless sky. The world of mana I saw with [Magi], viewed alone, was different amounts of light and dark and colour, the light was mana, the dark areas between the mana and the colour the type. The dark mana, tenebra, or whatever the proper name was, was so dark it had faded into the background of the lights, where it drained in the energy of the mana around it, diming and contracting it.
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The Death mana changed that, forcing it to release some of its stored mana, and with it, it expanded slightly, filling up past where it had been initially. The Death mana, for a lack of words, killed the dark magic that I couldn¡¯t see.
I tried to encourage the Death mana to stick around and convert more, but it slowly changed to the base mana types that my reserve carried mostly greens, browns and whites of the plants, land and air.
I had been, without realizing it, sucking it up into myself, and I had no idea how to get rid of it.
I adjusted the grass as I stared off into space. And as I waited for it to heal as much as it could, I played around with it. The first ball had gotten me a good bit, but scattering in a bunch was even better. Once I had recovered my mana to a relatively okay level, I started scattering the death mana throughout my body, dragging it around like a fishing net.
That, too, had a surprising effect, at least if Selly¡¯s squeak of relief was anything to go by.
¡°What are yeh doing? I know you¡¯re doing something with your thousand-pace stare,¡± she asked, genuine curiosity in her voice.
¡°I¡¯m just dragging death mana around inside my body. Can you tell me what¡¯s going on? Is your skill draining you less or more?¡±
She looked at me for a moment, mouth open, gaping at me.
¡°How in all the courts does dragging death mana, which sounds rather ominous by the by, miss I¡¯m not undead, make my skill cost less? If anything, it should be increasing it, shouldn¡¯t it?¡± she asked, disbelief stacked so thickly in her tone it had a nigh tangible feel.
I, for a moment, went to find a jibe or emotion like I had been doing for a while, but it wasn¡¯t there.
Ever since I had been running around deeper in the forest, I had been more on edge. Paranoia, fear, anger, doubt, and even sensation-wise with my pain. The horrible cold and pain in my wounds edged me to give up.
¡°Selly, could you drop your skill for a moment?¡± I asked her.
¡°You sure?¡±
¡°I think I can work for a bit without it, I just want to check quickly, you deserve a break.¡±
¡°Here goes,¡± she told me, dropping it. The sensation of all of my wounds came right back, along with new pains I had not been aware of.
¡°Ahh, Ahh, ok, still in pain, ahh, but it¡¯s not as bad as it was earlier,¡± I told her, letting out little pants of pain finding their way out of me on reflex.
Notably, the rock in my sandals was causing me problems. That and the cold were both of an equivalent level of pain where the death mana wove through my body.
I reached down and got my sandals clear so they at least wouldn¡¯t get worse. But I couldn¡¯t easily get rid of all the bad mana stuff floating around inside me. I didn¡¯t have enough death mana to get rid of it, and it was increasing, seeping into me from the ground.
I got the most relief from my legs, where there was a suspicious amount of dark space.
It didn¡¯t hurt, it just made everything worse, taking me off balance and messing with me in small ways I hadn¡¯t been aware of.
There wasn¡¯t much I could do, but hope it didn¡¯t cause adverse effects. After all, any captive who had been here longer must be far worse off than I was, and getting anyone out alongside the Sprite queen was my objective.
¡°Rest up a bit Selliban, I¡¯ll need your help when we go in, but I can handle it right now,¡± I told her.
She looked a little droopy but never showed if she needed to stop or was tired. Or if she did, she did it in a way that I couldn¡¯t understand, some sort of non-verbal tick, like a Kobold''s ears.
¡°Aye, I could use a short nap, I suppose. Just don¡¯t tell my queen. Yeh?¡± she asked me quietly.
¡°No worry, rest up,¡± I told her quietly.
She climbed up onto my head and then stopped moving, a quiet mewing snore picking up soon after.
And for once, I took my own advice and rested up too. The grass ran out of life mana eventually, though there was a little in the soil from my [Wellspring of Renewal], which helped isolate me from the corruption present in the ground a little. Unfortunately, if I used the Death mana it made, I would just open myself up to more corruption, limiting me to only the mana from the grass.
Every bit helped, I supposed.
Why couldn¡¯t I see the Tenebra? I was fairly sure it was just another type of mana, even Anna¡¯s understanding led to that it was mana that was stuck somewhere. And I could sense Mana. So, I should be able to sense it. Instead, I could only sense its presence by how it interacted with other mana.
It seemed to sap away at it, sucking it away, which made it get darker and contract. It was insidious in a way.
From what I could gather, it was like mana had different levels of energy, like a person. If it was high energy, it was like a happy person, they lived their best life and did their best. It went from that to low energy, like a person in mourning, depressed at everything, curled up into a ball on its bed, and taking up less space in a room. The type of pain that brought the mood down in a room.
It was kind of like that, only they could bring the mood down so bad it made other people depressed. Could you do the opposite? Could you just slam a ton of high-energy mana in to bring the mood back? Could you make the dark mana light again? Or was it only Death Mana that could do it? And if so¡ Why? It would, at the very least, ruin my metaphor, but it would also be a strange thing to be hinged upon.
Life made other colours more vibrant and gave up its light to others, if death was the opposite of life¡ did it work in reverse? It didn¡¯t seem to do that to most types of mana, it didn¡¯t suck the life from the earth, or air, or plants, just the dark tenebra mana.
It didn¡¯t make sense to me; I couldn¡¯t see a pattern here, and I had the feeling there was one, which meant that I was missing something.
I was missing a part or a few of this puzzle. Missing parts and a full education on mana. I wonder if Anna would be okay with stepping up my teaching and maybe showing me a few books on it to expand my understanding.
That was for later, though.
I needed a plan, too, and that was something that was a little more pressing.
It was near the water, but the banks seem to have been raised. I could probably dig under the encampment walls, but I would need a way out of here, too. If there was anyone else around, and I needed to bring them out, a hole wouldn¡¯t be enough. They would give chase. And if the person¡¯s most hypothetical were in a similar state to mine, with foul taint in their body to weaken them, or worse, had way too much from constant exposure, they would have a hard time running. Add in possible starvation and wounds, and they would be dead meat. Anyone that wasn¡¯t child-sized or smaller would be a walking corpse.
So how did I bring them out?
A hole could get me in and out, but to get away, I would need something like a cart or, with the water, I supposed a boat. Unfortunately, there hadn¡¯t been any I could see, and I doubted they just had a whole barge just sitting in the lake with a sign reading, ¡®Please steal and ride away with our captives.¡¯
There was also the dam, which I wanted to get rid of. That would be easy enough, or it should be, all I needed to do was weaken one side and let the water hurtle the wood barricade down the river. It might cause a little damage, but this was all recent, it wouldn¡¯t be a thousand-year flood, just a little damage and maybe some missing boats if they weren¡¯t tied down well. I would say halting an increasingly damaging force that would kill a whole lot of people outweighed a little damage easily, I wasn¡¯t going to even contemplate the opposite, it would achieve nothing and waste an opportunity to push back the forces arrayed against the people of the valley.
To top it off, I had to think about how I might handle undead and or a [Necromancer].
I waited and pondered, taking deep breaths, trying to piece together a picture from the disparate pieces I had.
My mind whirled in my head, like the bodies of all of my wise ancestors spinning in their graves.
The dam would have to go last. It would be inherently obvious and alert everything that we were here. I would have to be safe first.
Could I go over the dam? Pack the dirt down and go across, then break it?
That would certainly leave me safe from pursuit, at least for a while. The Gremlins would have to go around the lake or through the river after it calmed down.
It wouldn¡¯t guarantee anything but give me a good headstart. The only problem was, could others get back?
I could keep both of my choices open, that would be the smart answer. Bust the dam if It was just the queen and run back to new moarn. But what would I do if there were more than just the three of us? I could break the dam, but they wouldn¡¯t be able to keep up with me, the likelihood that they would be caught was significantly higher, assuming they could make it.
I could do something similar to what I do inside if any prisoners are secure. I can eliminate undead when they are ready to leave, and I could try and kill any mages I see first, scout a little and try and end as many as I can before ditching and running off if they were in danger.
If I could just figure out how to get them out of here, I could better define my plan.
¡°If only there were a boat, or a big piece of wood, or¡ or-¡± I said, talking to myself while Selly snored, mew, mewing to herself.
My little kobold brain, with its different disparate pieces, suddenly snapped into focus, each part filling in an answer that left me speechless.
I had a plan on how to get everything together, I just had to hope that it wasn¡¯t a very poor idea.
After all, I really didn¡¯t want to drown anyone with one of my hair-brained schemes.
Chapter 34 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 7
I woke Selly up and got to enacting my plan. And with the weight of the prior fights lightened and a little rest and recovery, I felt almost halfway too good. The moment I started moving, however, I knew it would slowly get worse again. While I moved, my [Wellspring of Renewal] couldn¡¯t produce enough death mana to stop me from picking up more of the festering dark magic affecting the area, which meant it would get sucked into my body through my legs.
So, I know I have to work fast and effectively.
And buy a pair of proper shoes when I get back.
That might help too.
I rigged up the dam first, messing with its foundations and reinforcement, leaving it solid enough not to collapse on its own but close enough that I could quickly release it. After a little prep, it was almost ready, but I was interrupted.
I had to hide when I picked up on some Gremlins making a ruckus and got into the brush before a new party left down the path. They were eight strong, but this time, I hid well and didn¡¯t give them a way to find me. I checked the path and stayed hidden, and in doing so, I managed to spot a returning party that passed one another as they moved along the path; they smelled off, but I almost gagged from the stench when I got closer to check.
The source of the stench became clear the second I saw them; they were undead. They smelled like rotting meat and jerked as they moved like they were in the grip of palsy, inhuman movements from a humanoid form. I could see the things rotting, flesh holding on them like loose cloths. I saw one of their eyes and noted nothing was off there, just milky dead eyes.
I checked, and I could feel no soul riding in them either. There was no jade chip to fuel this set of the undead, just a void of dark magic.
It was the first time I had seen a normal undead, the type that occurred in nature sometimes; though they were somehow working for the Gremlin, they followed the robed one, which made me think they were a mage.
I decided to check them properly once I saw them. See how many there were and if I could get the drop on them. They were finishing their patrol, and while I had no idea how long that was, they would be tired at the very least. If I could get the drop on them, it would be that many less to deal with in an escape scenario, that many less that could cause trouble or give chase.
I slunk through and towards, taking proper stock of the group. Two of them were physical types, each with a short blade. They escorted a third, the robed one that looked different from any other Gremlin I had seen. The thing had no proper weapon, just a strange short knife on its hip, instead holding a rod in one hand made from carved wood and an orb of pitted metal in the other.
It had the magic caster look going, with a hooded robe and the things in its hands. It was similar to what I thought of when I thought of death mage sans black robe and with strange items.
It was weird that it wore something approximating normal clothes. Most wore nothing; they were covered in patchy fur and didn¡¯t need clothes. Having a set of clothes made me consider it the more important target.
I was immediately drawn to its hands, but I didn¡¯t know if it was the rod, the orb, or a spell, but I was sure it was using one of them. Otherwise, the corpse things would move around and do things, not follow along after them like a set of disgusting-looking meat puppets.
There didn¡¯t seem to be a rhyme or reason for their group sizes: two sets of three, a set of five, two sets of eight and three with two undead corpse things.
Gods, but they make me nauseous, whatever they are. Please, world, bring back the skeletons; they didn¡¯t stink bad enough to give me a migraine.
I supposed they had skeletons inside them; their clean, stenchless bones were looking for a way out. I could help them escape and do my part to fight [Necromancers] simultaneously.
I decided to fight for team Skeleton.
I moved back through the brush, ahead of the Gremlins and set up an ambush.
I hadn¡¯t ever used any of my spells on someone else, or I supposed after earlier, anyone living anyway. I was intrigued at what I might see if I used [Inspect] on them. I didn¡¯t need to know their stats, and even if I used [Analyze], I would have just given the Gremlin its stats. The window appeared in front of the person it was cast on.
[Inspect] was also quick and cost little; it was a boon of a spell. Even if I thought it might be less than I hoped for, that would be fine. I lined myself up and began casting, tracking them as they came in range before giving it a little lead, like a slung stone.
The tiny bolt of light fired out, and I followed it in, not waiting for the second it took to connect with the hooded figure.
I got the notification as I left the brush and charged them.
Level 12 Gremlin, Condition: Tired, Type: Fallen.
Description: An un-named Gremlin [Cultist] Level 15, [Death pact Acolyte] Level 9.
Gremlins are a fallen people, those who have greatly regressed but have not become Monsters. Gremlins are attracted to and seek places of corruption and devastation, such as temples to fallen gods, places touched by the Darkness, ruins, or places like deserts, swamps, or frozen wastes where places of power are more prevalently skewed towards tenebral power.
[Cultists] revere dark or fallen powers and work to bring those forces power in the material world, like a [Priest] would for their god. [Cultists] are not mages but can utilize magical skills and items at a lower tier.
[Death pact Acolytes] are Acolytes of a being in a Death pact and serve their masters dutifully. Acolytes aren¡¯t mages but can cast magic lent to them through their master''s pact-like any other Acolyte.
That is so much better than I thought it would be. That¡¯s so cool.
It was like getting a new toy as a girl, my imagination wanted to go wild on what I could use it for. I wanted to ask Anna about stuff and spend some time indulging the childish curiosity that remained with me because of my wisdom stat.
But I had to tamp that down, but it put a little spring in my step. A spring that brought me right into the fray, the light that pinged the Gremlin [Cultist] had not gone unnoticed by the living.
I hurtled out of the brush. Holding my spade with two hands again, my second hand was still weak, but it gave me more control over how I moved it. Fighting with one hand was beyond debilitating, but so was how bad the build-up of dark gunk had been.
Now, I was far more prepared to fight again.
The Gremlin I aimed for could barely react, trying to intercept the carved stick between us while it did something with the orb.
The orb, then.
I faked it out, hefting my spade in a way that looked like it might be an attack, before I changed my grip, not hewing in from above at its raised arm but spinning it around to hit from below at the arm holding the orb. I followed it with a [Rapid Action], getting a second strong hit. It landed with a solid thunk on the second swing, and the Gremlin dropped the orb as my spade cut in.
All I had to do was look in its beady little eyes and smell the fear and indecision to know that whatever it could do with its little stick, it was too caught off guard to be an immediate threat for retaliation.
Instead, I turned to the two with the poorly made short swords to protect myself. One of them practically tripped over itself as it turned back to me, its hunched form stopping it from getting in an attack. The other one, however, turned to me far smarter, moving so it could swing at me at the same time. As it came in, leaning into its turn, I turned my moving shovel into its path, throwing off its blade.
I turned back to swing at the one that might be able to use magic and noticed that the corpses had caught up to it, standing motionless about two feet behind them.
I started to grin.
My spin had been almost without interruption, and I didn¡¯t need a second hit this time. It barely moved its neck an inch before my shovel cleaved its head straight off its shoulders.
My spin spun me off balance, but I managed to get most of the way around as the two lashed out at me again, blades seeking me as they yowled and chittered for my blood. The first caught the haft of my shovel and didn¡¯t even bite into my skill-enhanced tool. The second, formerly unlucky, managed to get a good cut on my unprotected side this time, obscured to my right as I spun. I grit my teeth as I twitch. It was a good one, but not life-ending.
I changed my grip again, shedding the blade from my haft and going towards Lucky, the stinking corpses not moving behind me to defend their compatriots in the slightest.
It had overbalanced on its slash, so I smacked it to the back of the head, once again [Rapid Action] doubling it. The bone broke, and it collapsed. At the same time, the one behind me fell, too. Great minds might think alike, but there was none of that for the two corpses, and I doubted they were mentally of the greatest standing anyway. Neither had a good head on their shoulders.
Oh gods, that¡¯s a terrible joke. Not even an accurate one. Bad head. No low-effort gallows humour.
I could see the eyes of the one remaining Gremlin go wide, only for it to flame up to rage.
¡°[Quick Slash], [Deep Cut]!¡±
It lashed out, one strike catching the end of my shovel, only for the blade to flashback and around, flicking out and biting into my upper arm.
I shouted a mindless noise, not putting any effort into it as I pulled the head of the shovel back and away from the body, simply slapping it back into the last Gremlin.
I slammed into its jaw, but between the first hit and the skill-enhanced second, it muttered, ¡°[Draw Blood].¡± While spoken by something with a broken jaw, the skill was easily understandable. You could always understand what was said when you used a skill. And I could hear the vitriol as plain as day in its voice as it spoke.
My shovel slammed the second time, and my wounds started bleeding.
I started breathing, only for the urge to fight to ebb away and leave me gagging at the ghastly rot of the undead.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
¡°Gods, those things reek. You doing okay?¡± I asked Selly.
¡°Aye, though all the spinning makes me dizzy and tired. Bleeders are always the worst, and you¡¯re far bigger than a Sprite. Can we get rid of the undead and get on with this?¡± She asked, low on breath.
I nodded, getting to it, cleaning the blood and bodies, sweeping up the souls of the departed. Then there came the undead. And I got a second idea to add to the plan. I had already eaten my food while I rested, so I placed the orb, weird knife and carved wood into my sack.
¡°Selliban, can you smell?¡±
¡°Yeh, kind of, it¡¯s a bit different. Why? What are you thinking about?¡±
I grimaced.
¡°Well. I have an idea, but I don¡¯t think you¡¯ll like it¡¡±
***
¡°This isn¡¯t going to work, you unhygienic freak,¡± Selly whispered aggressively from my tunic''s neckline.
I smirked down at her. She was hiding in my cleavage and had significantly protested, but when I pointed out she needed to be both hidden and secure, she had caved that it was also safer than the alternative of my hair.
¡°Not with that attitude, it won''t. Didn¡¯t you think I was an undead? Now I look the part, so quiet, you don¡¯t want to give us away.¡± I teased.
She hmphed and shimmied back down.
I had finished my work with the dam and stalked around the wall until I found an isolated area, it was a bit tricky to get the dam just right, but possible.
As for the wall, feeling through the wooden fence for people-shaped blobs was easy enough. Each piece was a felled tree, each post lashed together and pointed on top like a palisade. The other side was well within my sensory range of [Magi], hells, within my aura range and physical reach. My skill set made the process easy in the moist yet compact dirt to tunnel under the wall, stiffening the passage so I didn¡¯t need to fill it in after I passed below the wall. From what I had seen, there were no patrols outside the wall, just a few Gremlins going to and fro from the camp every so often from a front gate, and most of the Gremlins within were not patrolling either.
I smelled terrible; it made me want to be sick every breath I had, but I bet I could sneak in like this.
After all, I had been mistaken for an undead a few times, and I was similar despite my supposed holy nature. I just needed to fit the crowd better to sell it. With the smell of rot, many open wounds, tattered clothes covered in blood, and my flaming eyes. I was somewhat similar at a glance; add a shuffle and a vacant look, and I started to wander the camp with impunity.
I got a few looks, but from the tone, they were more the ¡®huh, I¡¯ve never seen that one¡¯ than, ¡®that¡¯s not supposed to be there.¡¯ I dragged my shovel with me, letting it trail behind me a bit instead of tying it up and sloppily clattering around to sell the act further.
I paid a little attention to my surroundings, but I primarily opened myself up and just felt the mana around me, checking for a tiny sprite-sized blip of mana.
All around me were tiny shanty huts. Constructed of mud, twine and branches, there were burrows of little Gremlins in the camp nursery. Children were left to roll around and bite one another unsupervised. Shacks stacked full of far too much darkness to be anything but a holding pen for the walking corpses stood next to areas that could barely pass for a kitchen, composed of a campfire, blocks of wood, meat and scavenged green stuff I didn¡¯t think was edible along with shattered pottery to hold everything. I swore I saw nightshades and little red bird berries.
Plants that would do a lot worse than give someone a bad tummy ache. Nightshade could be used to make poison. Sometimes, it could be used as medicine, but eating it straight up? A bad idea.
It was cramped, but everything in the camp was cramped. The only place that wasn¡¯t was a cleared parcel of ground with a small mound, with a lashed wooden frame around a shaft that led downwards and into the ground, little more than a hole with a ramp, but it was clean and free of anything.
I took a second pass around the camp to get a good head count, but I only saw something like sixteen grown Gremlins and no [Cultists] or [Necromancers] or anything like it, so I made my way back around and down into the hole.
Sixteen was still too many, and any returning party would notice mounds of dead gremlins or the lack of any living ones, and my goal wasn¡¯t up here. The hole itself was also near a wall, near even to my tunnel, so I knew I could get anyone out if there were others down here.
Assuming there was anyone other than Selly¡¯s queen.
The hole was too short for me, so I changed my posture to fit in. Hunching down into the tunnel, the smooth tunnel took me off guard. It looked more like it had been carved from stone instead of dirt, smoothed by some kind of skill, into almost organic-looking walls.
There was no torchlight farther down, no way to see beyond my skills, lending me their faux vision.
The tunnel wound down, and down the ribbed wall was followed by more ribbed walls until the tunnel passed properly down into the stone below the dirt. The walls became a roughly chipped and uneven circular tunnel. My only company on the walk was the slight slap of my sandals. I had lifted the shovel so the racket didn¡¯t cause me problems, but so far, there was nothing special down here that I could sense mana-wise, but I also couldn¡¯t sense the end of the tunnel, so down I walked.
I walked for quite a while, on and on, into the earth, until I came to an intersection of older, more solidly built construction. It led four ways, one the way I had come, but three off into the dark.
I still couldn¡¯t sense anything important, so I decided to use a less magical sense.
My sense of smell.
I gave Selly a sniff, which got her to punch me with all the force she could muster, which wasn¡¯t much, but I could still feel it. But that was all I needed.
To the left, I smelled nothing, just dust and the smell of old, undisturbed places. To the left, the stink of Gremlins, along with rot. As well as a strange scent that I couldn¡¯t quite put my finger on. But it didn¡¯t remind me of Selly, so I checked the final path and smelled something I didn¡¯t expect.
Humans.
I could smell Humans, or more accurately, human blood, sweat and the miscellaneous smells they gave off. I was not expecting to find any down here, but the only reason for them being down here would be as captives or as cultists, which meant I had a 50/50 on my fallback plan being needed.
I didn¡¯t know what else to do. Neither path had any other clue as to what was down them, nor did they have anything that smelled like Selly, so I decided to check the Human path, avoiding the other one, whose scent made me feel off and uncomfortable.
I set off down the darkened pathway and made my way through more four-way intersections. Each time, I checked for familiar smells, but there was never the smell of a Sprite. The only verifiable thing I found was more human smells, and as I followed, noticeably different Human smells. There was more than one of them, I was sure.
I came down the halls, increasing my pace until I spotted light. I slowed down and started to do my best to sneak. I kept my footsteps light and rolled my feet at a slow, steady pace, altering them until I could barely hear them.
I stalked through the gloom towards the light and found it coming from around a corner. I could also hear from beyond the corner some Gremlin voices and their skittering speech.
I listened, but like always, I had yet to learn what they said. They didn¡¯t speak any language that I knew of, not just one I couldn¡¯t understand, but one that I had never even heard before today.
I could tell they were some distance from the corner where I sat and, after a few moments, that there were only two of them speaking. I decided to take a sniff and found that there should be a third. There were three Gremlin scents.
So, I also decided to reach out and check the mana. I could only get minor, hazy images through solid stone walls, but there did appear to be one leaning against a wall, one across from it, and one farther in, doing something.
I saw it move, and there was a definitive yelp from one of the figures in what my senses showed me were likely cells hewn into the earth long ago to hold something. I could tell there were vertical bars of something similar to earth that I took to be metal.
Something occurred to me that I could feel the walls and stones while paying attention to mana with [Magi], without needing to disturb any air or for them to be in contact with soil. [Magi] was showing me that there was earth mana, and [Sense Stones] filled in the blanks. No smoky trails from where the air moved or anything of the sort. They worked together in unison.
I¡¯m honestly surprised, though I probably shouldn¡¯t be. Sensing through mana was similar enough to feel through my other sense-based skills, they probably work the same way. I could tell there were things there, though it was hazy. If one skill told me there were things there, why couldn¡¯t my skills use that to fill in the details?
It was like how I could use [Displace Dirt] through my [Aura of Soil], whereas before, I had to use my shovel. What was the word? Synergy? That sounds like a Skipseo word.
I¡¯ve just been so narrowly focused on finding the queen that I overlooked it, and I had also levelled up from fighting skeletons, so I guess it was just less helpful before. Does it get stronger as I get stronger? That would be super useful.
If I¡¯ve been too focused to notice that I should pause, pull back from go-mode and think this through.
So, I did. I turned on all my senses and just planned.
The two had spears, I could tell from the wood hafts and metal bit on the end. The other one only had a tiny metal thing in his hand. And he was¡ doing something to a human. The last one had many dark spots, which made me think cultist, but the others were normal, similar to the ones above.
I got myself ready and turned the corner in my shuffling walk.
I approached, and while I got the guards to turn and look, they quickly turned back to bickering when they noticed I was undead.
Suckers.
I wandered to the cultist, who took notice of me and got a look of confusion.
There were cells, and he was torturing a man or what was left of a man. I doubted he would make it. There were two more people left in a state I would consider ¡®alive,¡¯ two skeletons piled in a corner for later use, and one man missing far too much of his body to fight back or continue living. I had to wonder what they were doing. But my mind connected the two disparate factors too quickly.
They had meat, but there were very few animals around right now. The fog had driven them away.
I moved towards the Gremlin as it reached into a pouch and grabbed an orb to attempt to control me.
Fortunately, I wasn¡¯t an undead.
The gremlin started muttering as he handled the orb and looked down to check it. I walked past a woman staring at me with horror, some sort of recognition in her eyes that I didn¡¯t share.
Maybe she was from the city, perhaps she was in the mob, or she had bumped into me on the streets. I didn¡¯t care at the moment; I made sure to turn to her when I dropped my act, and I winked.
Then I got in a [Rapid action] enhanced strike to the back of its neck.
I didn¡¯t even stop, turning with my shovel in one fluid motion and ran to the guards. [Land Strider] ate up the distance between us, and I did the same for the one that could see me. It wasn¡¯t expecting it either, and the unsuspecting one fell without even getting to ready its weapon. It took maybe ten seconds. Ten seconds of cutting and skills before the three were cooling meat.
¡°Selly, can you go check for your queen? We might as well see if she¡¯s here. I can¡¯t sense her, but she might just be further out.¡±
¡°Will do,¡± she squeaked, crawling out from my tunic before taking to the air and zipping off down the corridor.
I checked the bodies and found a key, made my way back, and unlocked the woman''s door.
¡°Can you stand?¡± I asked her.
She stared in incomprehension, just staring at me in confusion.
¡°Can. You. Stand. I need to know if you can move. I¡¯m going to get you out of here, but I need to know if you can move. There is¡ one other person here that hasn¡¯t been cut up for food. I need you to focus. Whatever is going on in your head right now, I need you to toss it out and work with me here,¡± I told her, reaching out and putting my hand on her bare shoulder.
She gawked at me, her mouth opening like a fish. I decided to give her a shake.
¡°If you can speak, I need you to use your mouth. If you''re mute, grab my hand instead,¡± I told her, moving my second hand, clean of any of the muck on the rest of me in front of her.
I wasn¡¯t angry, only tense. I needed her to focus. God knows what she had lived through, but I just needed her to focus for a bit. She could break down later.
¡°It¡¯s¡ you,¡± she whimpered.
¡°Ok, you¡¯re not mute. I don¡¯t know you, and right now, I don¡¯t care. I don¡¯t care if you threw rocks at me or not, not here, not now. Right now, I need to know if you can stand, if you can move on your own, okay?¡± I told her before giving her a smile.
She didn¡¯t seem to like that and started mumbling, scooting away from me into the corner.
I decided to take a closer look, checking her over with [Magi] and was unnerved at what I saw.
Black pockets, giant empty pool of nothingness floating inside of her where her mana should be, dark flows of mana trickling around far too slow for a living person, each moment the flow slowed at the edges of the dark spots as they sucked down on the energy on their body. She looked far, far worse than I had inside.
By all the gods and their many faces, she must be out of her mind right now.
Should I draw up life mana, get some in the wounded one, and then use the Death mana to help? That would use a lot of mana, but maybe I can use the death mana to fill me back up a little like before.
I can tell I¡¯ve filled up with more mana, but I feel emptier, which means that I should have plenty if I draw the death mana out to free up my reserves, then I can help her out, and she can help the other two, assuming the poor sod over their keeps living for long enough to escape.
Maybe he¡¯s rich enough to get proper healing; a potion or something might save his life, though I doubt he will ever fight again¡
Her mumbling clarified, coherency peeking through, along with her fear, and I turned back to face her, leaving one ear cocked to hear around me for possible footsteps.
¡°Didn¡¯t know, we didn¡¯t know. I promise. Please don¡¯t kill us.¡± she whimpered while defensively covering herself like she believed I was about to beat her.
¡°Why would I kill you? I came here to help you. Listen, you''re being affected by this place. It¡¯s messing with your emotions, making you more afraid, emphasizing your pain and paranoia. I¡¯m not going to kill you, so tell me why, get it off your chest, and help work with me here. If we don¡¯t help your friend, he¡¯ll bleed out in no time.¡± I told her, making my voice so gentile that it reminded me more of trying to attract an alley cat than talking to a person.
She let out a quiet wail in response.
¡°We killed you. We killed you, and now you''re going to kill us back.¡±
Chapter 35 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 8
¡°We killed you, we killed you, and now you''re going to kill us back.¡±
I didn¡¯t know what to say to that because what the hell did you say to that? What did you say to someone you were trying to help when they suddenly admitted to torturing you?
Maybe you flew into a rage and took vengeance or turned your back on them, leaving them to their fate.
But I honestly didn¡¯t know what to say, so I said nothing and just took her in.
I had never gotten a good look at all the different members of the party that found me that day at Anna¡¯s house. Mostly, I got acquainted with two of them, the big guy and the other one with the sword.
But right in front of me was one of the people who made me afraid to go into town. One of the people that made me watch my back.
One of the fearsome people that took me down in a place that I thought was safe.
She didn¡¯t look fearsome right now.
She was a frightened, utterly skittish, nearly psychotically paranoid, naked woman. Gone were the weapons and armour, with only grime left where it should have been.
In the back of my head, I had been afraid of them, and here they were, or at least the three of them, and they were more helpless than I was. If I wanted to, I could end them mostly on a whim. The last time our paths crossed, I had never killed another living being, but that had changed.
Last time, I had stopped myself from killing the bigger of them because I wasn¡¯t a murderer. I didn¡¯t know if I would call myself a murderer, but I had killed more things today than I had across the entirety of my life combined, and I had felt almost nothing while I culled the living.
If I left them here, if I turned my back on them and left them down here, they would likely die. They would never come back to kill me.
But looking at her. I couldn¡¯t see her as a threat; I was not afraid of her anymore, and I couldn¡¯t abstract myself from this.
Anna had talked about the valley''s cynical, abstracted, near-immoral lords. The type of person who would look at where I was and see only an easy loose end to tie up. The type of person who could see a person like they were money, a product that generated wealth, a coin that spun either weal or woe, one side they kept and the other was tossed away for gain and they felt nothing at it.
I was not that person. She was not a woe I could just bury. Not a nightmare that would haunt me, not right now.
She was just a scared woman. And despite my killing spree, I still didn¡¯t think I was a murderer, and leaving them to die would be as good as killing them myself. Killing them quickly might just be a mercy compared to leaving them.
I stopped and looked at her. Not in a weird leering way, but right in her fearful eyes, and I told her the only thing I could think of. I made a joke.
¡°You tied me up, showed me off as a trophy, and didn¡¯t even give me your name or buy me a drink before killing me. Come on now, I can¡¯t go killing you if I don¡¯t even know your name. That would make me a hypocrite.¡±
I didn¡¯t even mean to make a joke. It was a borderline creepy and entirely inappropriate line. It was the kind of thing that made me feel gross. The only saving grace was that I doubted she knew I was into women, which at least saved me the embarrassment of her thinking it was a genuine pickup line.
We just stared at one another for a few moments. A silent, not quite awkward pause where she just blinked, too stunned to even be afraid. It was so out of tune with the situation it literally stopped both of us in our tracks.
¡°I¡¯ll just¡ see myself out,¡± I told her, gesturing before I turned to leave.
¡°Clara,¡± she mumbled.
I stopped, turning back to face her.
¡°Pardon? I didn¡¯t quite hear that.¡±
¡°My name, its Clara¡±
¡°Well, Clara, I¡¯m not here to seek vengeance. I didn¡¯t know you were down here. Finding you three was a total accident. I won¡¯t lie. I haven¡¯t forgotten what you did, but just because I came to help a Sprite out doesn¡¯t mean I will leave people down here if I can help it. I didn¡¯t kill your friend then, and I¡¯m not going to kill you now.¡±
She looked at me, fear in her eyes and some confusion on her face. She didn¡¯t look like she trusted that, and I could understand that.
¡°Listen, I don¡¯t expect you to trust me here, not as far as to leave yourself open to me. But I need to know if you can walk Clara. I need to find the Sprite queen because I doubt she¡¯s here with you, but once I find her, I have a way to get you three out of here and back to new moarn, assuming you don¡¯t want to stay here.¡±
¡°Why would we want to stay here? In this hole?¡± She asked, confused.
¡°Well, the place has some amenities,¡± I told her sardonically, ¡°great security, no getting ogled, and you¡¯re always the smartest person in the room.¡±
She looked at me, and there was a small, minuscule twitch of bemusement at the joke, bone not from it being funny but from gallows humour. The craziest part was that it worked to open her up a little.
¡°Security seems a little lax. I don¡¯t suppose you know where our clothes are? Or our weapons? It would do a lot for my confidence¡ and for my chastity.¡± She told me, looking down at herself.
¡°No clue, but I could keep my eyes open for them. Can I just guess that you can move properly? I don¡¯t know if you were paying attention to me when I told you what was happening, but you are being affected by dark magic. If you can, I need you to get yourself in order. I¡¯m going to need a friendly face with your two friends because we don¡¯t have unlimited time here, and they will listen to you before they listen to me.¡±
She took a moment to breathe, then nodded to psyche herself up. She stood, taking a bold, defiant stance. Then, as if coming down from a moment of determination, Clara remembered she had very little in the way of clothes and made to cover herself.
¡°I¡¯ll check around for something,¡± I told her and left before the blush on my face made the situation awkward.
***
As it turned out, their clothes had been mostly recycled into Gremlin clothes. Their padded armour pulled out into sheets of new cloth. Their swords were taken away for who knows what, and their crossbows were gone.
The best I could get her was the cultist''s robe, which was a bit skimpy but good enough to cover her up. Then she got to freeing the other one, still locked up. We were walking back, Selly resting on the dying man, their former leader and the only other one of the group left to keep him stable with her skill. With that, he could walk with only significant help from the big guy. The spears were poor quality as far as weapons went, but they were better than nothing.
They were far from well. Each of them had it bad with dark magic, and everyone was slow and on edge, not just the Humans but me too.
Every time I looked at the large one, a flare of the urge returned for a moment. The urge to beat him over the head still lurked, but it was just the memory of hatred. It wasn¡¯t the fresh hatred I had felt back in the square. At least he was also carrying the skeletons; leaving them, there was no use, and between that and the wounded one, I wasn¡¯t quite afraid to show them my back.
I had looked for the two souls, but they were gone. Just gone.
I had no idea where they went, but I could only hope they had naturally passed on, though I doubted it. Some souls had spent far too long in the lands of the living. Death suddenly doing her job didn¡¯t seem likely.
Now that I think about it, the whole valley is a bit bare of souls. They should be around somewhere. Where were they all? Where had they gone?
The thought made the hairs on my neck stand on end.
I led them back towards the entrance, showed them, and then took a turn and found a place where they could hide to wait for me before I talked with Selly.
¡°Ok, Selliban, you didn¡¯t find your queen, right? I didn¡¯t see or smell anything else but the humans.¡±
She sighed and shook her head, her little head bits wiggling back and forth.
¡°No, not a scent nor sign of my queen, just human, human and a third human. Not even a sign that she was there,¡± she pouted, drooping.
¡°I don¡¯t think they know either. I mentioned looking for a sprite, but they only knew about themselves.¡±
¡°Aye. She¡¯s nowhere, neither up there nor down here,¡± she said, following it softly with a quiet, ¡°Where has my queen gone?¡±
I felt for her; I did. I had lost others before and knew what it was like. If my mom had gone missing, I would have done a whole lot to find her again. If Anna got grabbed, I would be beside myself. I didn¡¯t want her to get hurt.
I could have packed it up, but I knew it was just a passing thought. So I bit the bolt and told her my last idea.
¡°There is one more place we haven¡¯t checked. I was just weary of checking it out.¡±
That got her to perk up. Her little wiggly antennas shot up straight.
¡°Well. What are you waiting for? Let''s head over. The humans are safe enough. They can sit here for a while, lead the way, long legs.¡±
¡°I need you to stay with them, Selly. I swear I will get your queen back if she¡¯s down here. But right now, the other three are too slow to make an exit if I get caught. I need you to bring them up closer to the exit.¡±
She looked crestfallen. She looked like I had just kicked her favourite dog. Or, I supposed, because they didn¡¯t keep dogs, her favourite bee or whatever.
¡°They can make it on their own. Don¡¯t kick me off now, not when we might be this close to finding her. Bring me. Please bring me! I can help any way you need it.¡±
¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m asking you to bring them up Selly. I need to bring them out, but they are too slow. I can run far faster than they can and make it if I get caught. I also don¡¯t have to worry about getting killed. If I get hit with something, and you die now, you¡¯ll have died for no reason. I¡¯ll get your queen back, and you can return with her in victory. It¡¯s got nothing to do with your usefulness. I¡¯m just oddly disposable, is all.¡±
I didn¡¯t want her to feel useless. But based on her expression and everything I had learned about her over our time together, I doubted she felt good about it. She styled herself an honourable [Warrior], someone always up to the task at hand. There was no way she would not want to fight to the end.
But I didn¡¯t want her to get caught up in something and die, and I needed to be in two places at once if I wanted to get the Humans out. She had done more than enough to help me with her skill, slapping some sense into me when I needed it.
Hells, I honestly wouldn¡¯t mind fighting with her.
But I wouldn¡¯t risk her if I could shoulder all the risk.
She started deflating, so I tried to annoy her by ruffling her antenna. She swiped at my finger.
¡°Don¡¯t think I don¡¯t see what you''re doing. Fine, fine. I¡¯ll accompany the Humans out. I just need you to acquaint them with me. I can¡¯t communicate with them after all.¡±
¡°Thank you, Selly, I apreci-¡±
She cut me off in a huff. A bit of the pain from turning her away slipped into it as terse anger.
¡°Unless you''re going to let me see combat with you, you don¡¯t get to use a nickname. Consider that right revoked. It¡¯s Selliban to you until you let me fight by your side.¡±
I nodded and took that one on the chin.
¡°Thank you, Selliban, I appreciate it. And don¡¯t worry, you know where I live, stop by sometime. I¡¯ve elected myself as the saviour of the valley. There will be plenty more where this came from. With my luck, I can nearly guarantee it. Now, let''s get them ready to work with you.¡±
I introduced Clara to Selly and explained what was about to happen, and while they still seemed rather fearful, I could tell that the idea of getting them out instead of bringing them along reassured them.
Holding on to one another like children at the market, they wandered up through the dark. I turned to the second trail once their steps faded to background noise.
They better have kept her alive, or I am going to be so screwed. I swear that if she got eaten, I¡¯m going to¡ I don¡¯t know what I would do, but it would be drastic. You hear that fate, don¡¯t make me do something I¡¯ll regret!
Fate was not picking up on my messages, though, assuming it even existed as a tangible force.
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¡°Land, can I ask if the Sprite queen is alive? I don¡¯t know if you know, but I feel I should check.¡±
It took the land a moment to get back to me, distant, uncharacteristically so for the strange force I had known for almost all my life. It was like the opposite of the grove with the Nameless. I would have thought it might have been because of my distance underground, but the land was the land. I was in the land, inside a corridor.
Strange enough, its voice back to me felt off, just like the change between before I slept and after, where the land had felt bloated, overfull of water. Only it was scratchy, like an old smoker. Scratchy and wheezy and a tad of something I couldn¡¯t immediately place.
¡°No, know, where sprites go,¡± It whispered into my mind, ¡°dark¡ too dark¡¡±
As ominous as that was, it wasn¡¯t going to distract me from my task. I followed the trail down the old stone corridors, old mines no doubt out of use for longer than I could imagine. How they still stood, I had no idea.
I wondered if this was one of old Mynes¡¯s mines. It was outdated as far as I could tell, but back before my time, that¡¯s how they got their name, at least according to Skips lessons. They got their last name from their mines.
Whatever they had mined, I had no idea. The land was incredibly rich in plenty of stuff, but most of the mining in the region dried up when they found out agriculture was more profitable, and they needed to shift priorities.
My mind was spinning as I moved through the dark, not in one direction, but spinning in far too many to be useful. I was thinking about the mines, I was thinking about the land and the feeling I couldn¡¯t name, I was thinking about Selly.
My mind even spun around to my [Guide] and what name I would give her. It would have to be excellent, and I didn¡¯t have practice giving people names.
My mind spun in the dark, and for a moment, it occurred to me that I might be suffering from exposure again.
I checked myself, but that wasn¡¯t it.
It wasn¡¯t external. It was internal. My mind was just spinning.
I took a turn and decided to speed up.
I thought about magic, about what Anna was teaching. It was slow going, or at least it felt slow going, but I had a feeling there was a point to it.
¡°I¡¯m going to try and help. Make it less dark if I can.¡±I sent to the Land.
The land didn¡¯t respond. I didn¡¯t know if it could hear me.
I decided to try and clear my head, and I realized I had a tool for it or a skill.
[Wisdom Proficiency]. It was passive, always going in the background, just like my [Tool Proficiency], but I decided to focus on it and clear my mind. Deep breath, in¡ then out. In and out.
Focusing on it, I could feel my mind slow, the spinning not halting but my mind letting go of them.
This is nice¡ I should have this on all the time.
The feeling of a clear mind was intoxicating.
Now that I can focus¡ let''s get all of my senses up and ready. I should poke around with [Magi] for anything out of place¡ Not much out of place, earth and darkness¡ And something that looks like light but isn¡¯t light¡ Dark? Normal darkness? I didn¡¯t even know that was a thing.
I got myself ready and focused on myself as I moved through the dark shafts, the scent growing ever closer.
It took ten minutes of scuttling around in the dark, and as I did, I got acquainted with the skill.
I had a thought pop into my head as I did run through the dark, though. I had a feeling I didn¡¯t know enough about my skills. I relied on them, like everyone else, but I had a feeling that I didn¡¯t know enough.
Gods, exceptfordeath, I really am an idiot. I should read a book about it. It¡¯s so basic, but at the same time, so is all my knowledge. How much do I know, and what''s the difference between that, and how much do I think I know?
Anna might be forgetful, but I¡¯m the same. I keep looking for answers in people instead of in books. They literally exist to give people information. Skipseo''s bloody library is ripe for the plundering even if I don¡¯t bring it all back, and Anna''s personal collection is right at my fingertips whenever I want to read. If I want to live up to my words, I need to stop being passive. I need to actively do things other than sit on my hands and wait. Training is all good, but I also need to make sure I¡¯m not just going through the movements.
I thought through what I was going to do later all the way until I saw a room through the wall, and I started sneaking.
The room was a significant size and had plenty of noise coming from it once I circled around and approached the entrance.
I peeked in through the stone passage and found a sight that gave me chills. The room, or more accurately, the building, was very large indeed. Stone walls formed a giant semi-circular room with three levels. I could spot on the wall engravings that made little sense to me. Pictures on pictures of a strange style lined the room.
The layers were staggered, like giant circular steps. Two ramps led down the sides in place of steps, meeting at the top layer and moving around a third of the circle to reach the bottom.
The time needed to carve the room alone couldn¡¯t have been sidestepped with magic.
There were stone altars on each tier, and the engravings around them were kept separate from the walls. They were similar to those in the old church, to my eye, which made each an altar to a god. The room was a holy place.
A holy place with strange-looking gods.
At the bottom in the center was an obelisk covered in strange pictures with an altar at the base, facing towards me.
The room must have been ancient. Whoever had carved it was far older than I.
The room was also packed, chittering voices calling out to one another as they worked. Thirty forms were around the room, some undead, some [Cultists], and all around the center. They were drawing circles and symbols similar to those on the walls but thick and harsh.
They set my teeth on edge just looking at them. They reminded me of a spell, the whorls and shapes flat but detailed. But it wasn¡¯t smooth like a spell, with places that would catch mana if it was flowing through it.
It looked like a [Ritual] and gave me bad vibes.
At the back of the room on the lower floor, there was a doorway out of the large open room, and through it, the low light of something that was not flame but an odd light I could only think of as magic.
No sprite in sight, I took careful note of the Gremlins and then walked down with my undead in impression. They ignored me as I walked down and past the carvings and images of things I did not understand.
I did not want to fight this many angry gremlins with the undead as backup, but I did want to check for the queen.
Bypassing them, I made my way into the back. When it was built, it must have likely been a place for [Priests] a place for them to live and work. A big central room, itself too, was circular, with what must have been a pool in the center and arched doors leading off into other rooms, the doorways. doorless
It was a warren, lit by wibbly unnerving light that did not register as proper light to my magical senses. It was similar, but not. Light on the surface permeated everything coming from the sun in zipping lines of mana, this light was more like a ripple on a pond. Dark waves bounced around slowly before changing, sucking energy away from the walls and gaining colour, the walls in turn rippled that out farther, displacing the dark out and into the world.
The light came from lamps. Each a ghastly thing.
The lamps had souls in them: tiny souls mostly, a few bigger. Some bright souls, some dimmed souls. Each cried out to me, trapped in a construct of once living material, bone struts and a thin membrane like sausage casings instead of glass. To cover the inner workings.
The greatest horror? The pool was full of disembodied souls. The fabric was slanted in so minorly it had gone unnoticed. The only obvious point was the lowest part; it was like they had dropped a stone on a firmly held bed sheet. The pool had a ring of the same scrawl around it that the Gremlins were drawing out in the main room. Each line hummed with stuffy, dark power. It slowed the mana in the room, intentionally generating the dark pools of magic that travelled in lines to the lamps.
How many are there? How was this even done? They¡¯ve distorted the veil between life and death. What even is this? What kind of terrible power could even distort that? A Demon? A God?
I would get them out, but I needed to play it smart first. I could practically hear my [Guide] talking about me blowing up my soul again
¡°I am sorry,¡± I whispered, ¡°Wait just a little longer, I will be back. I¡¯ll save you.¡±
I walked deeper into the warrens, peaking into rooms. They had lights near the doors feeding off lines that ran into each room.
One had what looked like a workshop for bone shaping; strange sigils leading back to the pool sat next to more unfinished lamps.
One room was what looked like a room or perhaps a study. One room was a large open room with an additional ritual in it. The line between it and the pool was broken. On and on they went. One room had tools, and I noted something that would help me later. A pickaxe.
Each room was surprisingly organized for the Gremlins, most of whom seemed very haphazard.
But one room was not like the others; one room alone had an occupant.
I had to use my ears to listen instead of my senses because the figure, whoever they were, emitted a cloud of dark power around them.
Whatever it was, it muttered to itself, and for the first time in a long time, it did it in a language I could understand.
I stopped, immediately thinking of a plan to attack it, and decided to listen in on it as it muttered.
¡°LiEnes all wrong. Not right, no for plan. It must be perfect. Must be, Must be. Line wrong, must redo. Complex, necessary complex¡¡±
It had a hoarse, warbly voice, far too light for the way it spoke. Like it was speaking through a perforated tube into a wind chime, it made a snapping noise at the end of its thought that gave me the jitters before letting out a noise that was not human, not Kobold either. It sounded more like a demented bird, a warbling shrieking, ¡°Ee¡¯Yyah¡± noise before the rasping voice drifted to a new thought.
¡°Ee¡¯Yes¡ Need more bone¡ Need more, much more. More¡ Must send weak ones¡ Weakest ones? Weakest ones where? South¡ South for Weakones¡ Ee¡¯Yyahs... EEe¡¯Yah.¡±
Its bones broke once again, and again it shrieked, its rambles shifting before its tone changed to a less chime-like tone.
¡°Must spread the gift¡ E¡¯yes. Just like she asked. Spread¡ Spread and Spread with Sprite¡ Good Sprite? Yes, you are¡ Will do as asked¡ Soon¡ Almost ready. Will join us¡¡±
There was a tapping noise, a rattle of bone as it did something.
Jackpot¡ Now, all I need to do is wack it dead and run. If I can do it quick enough, I can even break the stuff in here quietly after, waltz out, no one the wiser, and get home before dinner.
I readied myself, judging the voice and what I knew of the other rooms to get a picture of this one.
This she it speaks of seems important, Skipseo and Kindly mentioned a woman too¡ It must be connected somehow. Maybe she''s the one who did this, a proper scary [Necromancer]. If so, this one must be a pushover, a minion left in charge of some mooks. At least that¡¯s reassuring.
I took a breath, turned the corner and was met face-to-face with something that made my heart skip a beat.
When Anna had called the Goblins Monsters, it had scared me. At least in my time, the term was not casual.
A Monster was not a savage beast or evil person. A Monster was a thing of nightmares. They were stories you told kids to get them to go to bed at night. They were things that took many forms, sometimes like a beast or sometimes upright. That was not what mattered.
According to Kindly, a Monster was like concentrated pure evil manifested in physical form.
When the Kirin died, they split into twelve creatures. Their deaths created new life to take the place of those that came before. But when the Darkness died or was defeated, the stories were never specific; it gave birth to Monsters by taking the things around it and warping them into horrors to continue its work.
Just like the thing in front of me.
It peeled the lips back from its maws, horrid, fanglike teeth showing the facsimile of a grin. Its eyes burned into me.
It was a horrendous, misshapen thing. Thin, withered skin was stretched around its body, which looked like several Gremlins fused together. It was more like the giant skeleton I had found in the tomb than a Gremlin in its shape.
It stood almost nine feet tall, hunched in the room, its back bent at a right angle, thrusting its top half towards me.
¡°Tricked you, not dead thing¡ Tricked you.¡±
I didn¡¯t give it a second thought. I blurred towards it and swung out for the most prominent head. I reached for every skill that was applicable. I checked the Mana with [Magi] for any movement of the dark around me while I pumped Mana into [Wellspring of Renewal], immediately beginning to burn through my reserves and flooding the room with life mana that would rapidly begin converting to death mana.
It was pathetic compared to just the aura of Vile darkness that swirled around the thing, let alone the amount inside of it.
I slammed my shovel into its head, and [Rapid Action] slammed it a second time just for good measure. The bone snapped under my heavy blows, but it didn¡¯t fall. Instead of gurgling, its arms and body jerked sporadically, flailing out at me.
I backed up, dodging out of the way of its arms, its body shifting unnaturally, forcing me to block one arm quickly with no time to brace.
The force of the tap forced me to slide, nearly toppling me before I managed to get another foot under me. Instead of falling, I slid 5 feet to the side; one of the loops of cording that held my sandals together snapped from the tension, but I still stood. The hit knocked an oof of air from me, but the moment it stopped hitting me, the second my shovel was free, I replied to it by slamming into its head again, just further back, trying to find wherever its neck was.
It shook and shuttered as I tried to force my shovel deeper into its head.
The death mana from my Wellspring started winding through the ground, the life mana extinguished almost immediately as it gave its energy to the rock, and I pulled it up into the air, letting some remain in the air, simply acting against the dark aura while some I pulled into me.
I drew it in, my [Death Magic Affinity] letting me draw it in like it was an extension of myself.
I wasn¡¯t expecting it, but as it began to circulate in the air, one of the skills I had very little experience with gave me feedback. It was as if the part of me Willed itself to be used, and I let it.
¡°[Tenebral Bane].¡±
The effect was explosive.
Literally and metaphorically.
I let my mana fill the skill, giving it as much as it could take. The mana in my body swelled slightly from the death mana I pulled in, that was expected, but what I hadn¡¯t expected was for the skill to affect it as it left me to empower the skill. The skill cut through the dense, dimmed magic that was present in my reserves. It was like filling a bucket and pouring out a keg of mana. Far too much for me to control, it slipped my metaphorical grip, and the skill exploded to life.
Then, the death mana in the air ripped through the Tenebra, releasing the condensed energy in nearly an instant.
The force of the mana expanding slammed me out of the open door, tumbling as I caught the arched doorway. I rolled ass over kettle into the pool of souls and fell right to the bottom, the souls not tangible enough to stop my fall.
The next moment was agony, the souls screaming alongside me, not audibly, but in the same way, the skeletons had, a prickle of understanding that crept from [Wisdom Proficiency]. What I felt was my soul. It had to be. I was screaming through my soul. I was probably screaming audibly, but I couldn¡¯t hear anything as a trickle of blood left my inner ear, getting caught in the hair and fluff in and around them.
I could feel the spell around me as I became an unwitting pump for mana, my everything trying to suck it into myself, just as I passively did, but blocked by the circle, I instead drew it into the circle where it formed the dark taint.
I opened myself up for the souls to flood in, the chittering of Gremlins and two larger humans crying as they were shepherded into the beyond, where they could not be tortured by the array. I could feel the swell return, the sensation that I would level bloating like last time, though not as strongly as before.
Each soul was, on average, far smaller and gave less experience to [Saint of Death]. The feeling made me tear up, but my mind cleared as they departed. The circle started to gurgle, and once I was free of them and clear-headed enough to move, I got up and out of the pit, and it stopped sucking.
I wheezed and coughed blood, pulling the life mana that I still generated into me, desperately willing it to come and heal me. It struggled, only steering along from the sheer force of will I imparted as a need to live flooded my head.
My mind warred against itself, cool and rational, mixed with the heated need to survive and formed a whirlwind in my head.
I got up off the ground, one of the only things they both agreed on and in a moment of stupendous luck, stumbled to get my shovel.
The room was carnage, the mangled remains of the creature, Annas shovel in deep enough to reach its lungs, poked out through the caved-in head.
The cage that had been next to it, on a desk that had once held something, was shattered, reduced to splinters of bone that I couldn¡¯t even see.
It cut through my head then that I had killed her, if she was even here to begin with.
I killed her, oh gods, I killed her and I didn¡¯t even mean to.
I started to look around blindly, looking for a sign, any sign that I hadn¡¯t fucked up.
I whirled when a sharp pinprick of pain bit into my neck, and I slapped at it reflexively.
My hand hit empty air.
What was¡
A Sprite buzzed inaudibly up to my face and started gesturing at stuff, emphatic about something.
I blinked and shook my head, pointing to my ears as I let out a sigh.
This wasn¡¯t Selly, which meant that it was the queen.
I looked at the shovel as the tension lifted, my solemn tool.
I had seen another along with the pick. I was going to go, about to leave, when I spotted the soul of the Monster.
Black, dark enough that I didn¡¯t believe it was a soul for a moment, images played inside it, nonsense to my eyes, but to my senses a sign of its monstrous nature.
It was big, the biggest soul I had ever seen.
I started to move for it when I noticed a deformation in the fabric, the veil. It was deformed, and the soul was pulled back to its body.
A bit formed in my stomach, my ears popping painfully as the life mana finally got to fixing them.
All I could do was blink in horror as I stared at the corpse of the creature, its body beginning to writhe and crackle, flesh mending before it started to stand back up.
¡°That¡¯s just not fair,¡± I griped.
¡°EYYY-es. You will do nicely as a gift to the mistresses,¡± it rasped, drawing out mistress into a hiss, ¡°You and the Sprite queen, good.¡±
Chapter 36 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 9
The thing before me, formed of flesh most foul, was shredded, impaled, had been blown up, and despite all of it, had the gall to just stand back up, just like that.
Like he was me.
I was totally taken aback by the thing talking through its secondary maws, tiny pustules bubbling up on its skin, swelling before growing over, skin transmuting into a set of eyes that opened to stare at me in a blink of my own. The Monster''s torso flexes in front of my eyes, and my shovel, still stuck inside but no longer protected by my skill, begins shrieking as the metal is deformed from the rapid regeneration the creature is undergoing.
It looked at me with its awful beady little fresh eyes, its gaping maws not fit for speech but doing it anyways while the main mouth made sucking noises while it tried to fix itself.
At least the cloud of dark magic was gone, dark magic was no longer stirred around it up by my bane skill and released into an explosion.
My ears were popping over and over again as they fixed, each partial fix returning a little more of my hearing with the tiny clicks of bone I didn¡¯t know I had. Anatomy aside, the situation was middle of the road. The explosion had hurt both of us, but I had been thrown out and was healing from my much more minor wounds, all that had happened to me was being chucked away. The mana had started expanding from me, so I got hit first, but I was out of the room when it ripped through it and crunched the Monster in front of me.
The doorway was even a little messed up, like someone had hit it with a big hammer. Cracks around the frame left it practically free-floating, hanging there, held only by friction and the janky shape of the fracture around the door. The Monster, though? The Monster was worse off than me and healing quickly, something I doubted I could capitalize on.
In addition, I was currently unarmed, but I knew where some more tools were. It was armed right now, there was a blade on its hip, similar in construction to the jagged knives of the cultists, but long enough to be a short sword for someone of my height, engraved like the sticks and orbs of the cultist, with harsh, jagged lines of runes, which was a net negative.
Much of the darkness had been pushed back, including some of the stuff where the blast had caused damage, but there was still some in its body, alongside the blade at its hip, as I watched, some of the darkness got sucked up into the mending parts of its body. Assuming it could cast spells was a worthwhile task, and comparing the amount of power left in its body as a fraction was something like 1/6 of what it had been before. That was good to know.
Less good was my reserve.
My reserve had about the same amount it had when I pushed mana into [Tenebral Bane], and most of it was darker in colour. The blast hadn¡¯t released the energy inside my reserve, which was good and bad. It was good because I really did not want to find out what would happen if my reserve exploded, and bad because it was lowering by the moment, currently resting at something like 1/8 of my total, or around 300 mana. If my wellspring consumed something like 100 mana a minute, that gave me three minutes of use before I was flat-out dry. Not account for mana use in other skills if I decided to use them, like with [Displace Dirt], which I needed to use to release the dam and get away.
If I could use [Tenebral Bane] I might get more bang for the mana I used, but I still needed some mana to use that. I dropped my [Wellspring of Renewal] immediately, stopping the flow and disengaging the skill to save on mana, I no longer needed it to try and cut through the wall of Tenebral mana, the life mana around and inside of me was low, and the Death mana was low, but I didn¡¯t need all that much, I split the dark mana between my body and reserve, the new Death mana that I would generate from healing wounds would be focused into my reserve as well to try and squeeze as much from it as possible.
This was a losing fight, if I had to guess. That would be bad if the fight was something I needed to take.
Luckily for me, the little Sprite queen, who was a bit bigger than Selly and had a kind of dress shape, was my target. I had tried to kill this thing already and failed, whatever this thing could do, dying was apparently not in its vocabulary, so that was off the list. The other prisoners were freed already, so that was done.
All I wanted to get out of this was the rest of the souls, the ones stuck in lanterns around the main room and trying to ruin this thing plan as best as I could.
I started stepping back, not needing to hide the look of grotesque horror on my face.
It continued through its other maws, parts of its main body gurgling while it cawed its noise at me, its head bobbing to complete the facsimile of a bird.
It wasn¡¯t a bird, seeing it now, fully in front of me, I could see the noises were from some spasms. It wasn¡¯t doing them on purpose; instead, it was a tick, something it did automatically. Its neck flexed and jerked, straining with some audible popping of the bones in its body.
It wasn¡¯t a bird, but it also wasn¡¯t a Gremlin. It was to a Gremlin what a child was to its parent, it was far too big and misshapen, but also far too similar to be anything but a Gremlin. It looked far too similar in its general shape, the necks almost non-existent, the long, pointy ears like a dagger. Patchy fur over some of its body, although the patches were more prevalent.
All of it was there, enough to know that this thing was once one of them or something like them and had since grown to its size and shape through some dark power. It certainly had the swollen look down. what little clothing barely holding in the meat of its body.
It was almost like the big skeleton, just fleshy and lacking ballistae arms.
¡°Eeysss. Bigger. You are bigger; will make a good gift. Soul bigger? Stronger? Eee¡¯ah, Maybe¡ Many small and one bigger¡ Or maybe more? Mistress will be pleased, PlEEassed.¡±
I backed up, the lights starting to flicker with their supply of magical fuel started to run out, although they did not snuff out yet.
I reached up to the lamp next to the door and extended my nails. They slid into the lantern before my fingers exerted my grip on the cage. I broke it, it shattered the fragile bone construct, the bone so fragile I barely had to exert force. I grasped the soul, letting the gremlin within pass on, the fear and distrust of the gremlin understandable when its leader was a creature of palpable, tangible malice that would torture its own people, even after death.
It started to move, a slow shamble, its voice rumbling as it took a rasping breath. It sounded like a saw cutting through wet wood.
¡°Come back gift, you- you can not escape this place. Yield, or face- the blade. Do not need you alive; can take your body as a gift instead.¡± It spoke, cutting itself off with demented bird-like shrieks. It wasn¡¯t part of my plan to let it kill me, but it was good to know it thought it could kill me. Honestly, having a chance to trick them was reassuring. I had no idea what it thought I was, but it hadn¡¯t used the S word yet, so lucky me.
I kept pace with it, stalking backwards, using my skills to orient myself in the flickering light. There were 20 more lamps. Twenty felt like a big number. That was two-thirds of the number of days a month had; twenty loaves of bread was more than a week¡¯s worth of food if you only ate bread. It was the kind of number that was just too big to count on your fingers but not truly large, like 100.
Its rumbling-sucking breath sped up as it tried to keep pace with me, and I made my way towards the storage. Acting like I reaching for something and closing in on the wall, I fumbled my hand and landed on the second lantern, snaping with a satisfying sound.
The shovel started to protrude from its hole, the metal shifting inside, loudly warping as the body forced it to move in a way contrary to the shovel''s shape.
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It was a grisly sight, so I focused on everything but the shovel. Namely the closet room with a pickaxe and my preferred weapon of choice, a shovel.
Thank the gods, I was flexible. I passed by the door and leaned in, slamming my hand through another lantern, freeing another soul in the process and grabbing the shovel.
¡°Cease this, damaging the working on the accident was E- Enough on its own. Breaking lamps is just rude.¡±
¡°Lamps, can you even call them that?¡±
¡°I suppose not, no, but mistress says they are lamps, so they are lamps. You will understand, fleshy one, when you see the mistress¡¯s greatness first hand, cease this farce, and E¡¯yyield.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t think so. Whomever your mistress, I doubt she has taste, let alone could be called great, especially if she has servants as gross as you.¡±
The thing froze at my words, its teeth pressing to form a line of gritting teeth.
I had struck a nerve.
¡°All though, if she is any good, I suppose that¡¯s why you out here in the valley. Your mistress must despise you enough to send you out to do mundane tasks. You¡¯re an overgrown, ugly mutt weak enough to get killed by a random girl with a shovel.¡±
Come on, you giant festering sore, let loose, don¡¯t draw that sword, just run at me like the beast you are.
It was on the edge, I could see the twitch of its muscles, the willingness to do violence.
¡°Do not speak ill of mistress,¡± it hissed, ¡°I will not let you speak ill of her, she is your better! Living thing! Your Better! Understand?¡±
¡°I have no better, no master, and no mistress. And what''s with that? Calling some dusty old hag a mistress? What is she, your magic teacher? Because this is the ugliest magic I¡¯ve ever seen. All though maybe it''s both of you. A stupid mutt learning from a shut-in [Necromancer]. I thought Monsters were supposed to be intimidating, but you must both be failures.¡±
I could see its rage, the violence in its beady extra eyes as it literally frothed at the mouth, or I supposed mouths plural. It screeched something incomprehensible in the Gremlin tongue, its voice not fitting the skittering sounds. But it did not reach for the blade, choosing to spit vitriol as it threw itself into a rage. I made sure to get myself clear of the doorway and walked close to the wall backwards around the circular room.
I wanted it to charge at me and into the wall, an easy fight so I could get some extra time to grab the rest of the lamps.
I came up to another one and decided to taunt it again. I passed the next lamp, stopped and looked at it before reaching out and destroying it intentionally.
¡°Wow, these really are shoddy things, aren¡¯t they? You know you can use torches or oil lamps if your master can''t build a magical nightlight, right?¡±
I could tell the moment it snapped and went from fury to bestial rage. It was something in its eyes, maybe, or the movement of its body. It got far too silent¡
¡°Was wrong¡ Not gift. Mistress will forgive me for not taking you,¡± it told me, reaching up to its head and pulling what was left of the mangled shovel out, tearing through its own flesh that rapidly began to stitch itself together. Its eyes, the ones on the main head, slipped open, and I could feel the hatred in its gaze like a strike of a whip. I twitched a little from the hatred like I had been struck.
¡°I will skin you, apostate, I can''t wait to hear your screams.¡± And with that, it moved, rapidly bending over slightly before charging me. It threw itself so harshly into it the floor cracked below its feet as it pushed itself forward. I pushed myself, too, ready for it. I knew it hadn¡¯t drawn the sword, it had decided to try and rip me to pieces with its bare hands instead. With all my strength pushing me forward, my speed, and my fun new skill, I could scrape out from its charge, its body slamming fully into the wall, head first, accompanied by the sound of shattered stone and broken bones.
Its broken upper torso splatted as it hit, but the two maw-like heads were fine. It pulled back, shards of stone tinkling to the ground as it did so. It turned to face me, but it did it late.
[Rapid action] gave me two swings every time I swung, and I directed two of them straight down into its wrist. I carved halfway through by the second strike, its wrists were surprisingly well muscles, its bones stronger in its arms than in its head and chest.
In all likelihood, it would have been easier to decapitate the thing. It had been easier to aim for the head, impale it all the way to the lung and kill it than break its wrist, but it worked well enough to ruin it anyway.
Is screeched, the noise not one that could come from a humanoid mouth nor one of a beast. A scream from a creature that was the enemy of life as I knew it.
I was still moving, still turning, its arm cocking back to hit me. I could move, or I could do something I hadn¡¯t thought of before.
I let go of the shovel with my left hand, reaching forward and grabbing the sword.
I didn¡¯t get the chance to pull it free, but I turned out to not need to.
It punched me straight on, the force of it so great it was actually strong enough to lift me from the ground and send me flying across the room ten feet.
I landed on my behind and rolled across the room for the second time in the same number of minutes, tumbling around myself for another five feet until I ended on my side, quickly getting to my feet with a bit of a roll and a push of my legs.
My sandals, my ancient sandals, finally gave up the fight, the cords snapping so badly that when I took a step, my bare feet touched the ground instead.
I had no time to mourn their loss nor pay attention to my now cold feet.
Because I now had a cursed-looking sword in one hand and a shovel in the other.
I turned and started making my way across the room. The Beast screeched behind me as the lights flickered on and off with their phantom light.
¡°Give back, GIVE THAT BACK!¡± the thing bellowed.
Yeah, right, I¡¯ll hand it back over my cold dead body, you fucking monster. Whatever this blade does, I can''t be anything good. It¡¯s obviously magical somehow, and I¡¯m not going to give you a magical sword back.
I moved, and as I did, I tucked the blade into my belt line, freeing my hand so I could hold my new shovel properly. It was a shoddy thing. The blade was in poor condition, the haft dry with age, coated with a crumbly top layer of wood and dust. It had a square head, made for moving dirt instead of cutting into dirt to make a hole. It lacked the point of Anna''s shovel, now a jagged mess of metal on the floor, coated in so much gore I didn¡¯t think I could grab it.
It was a blunt thing, but it was better than nothing, even if it could use sharpening to get the edges back up to par with what I was used to.
I smashed another lamp.
I supposed I don¡¯t need a blade, though, if I can run this thing in circles. Five down, sixteen to go.
It screeched behind me, and I started to run laps around the room. The lights flickered more frequently, and the monster foamed and bubbled as it regenerated, its flesh swelling, knitting back together with some dark magic I couldn¡¯t comprehend.
It was far slower than my own if I was reading it correctly, fueled not by a divinely granted skill but some magical ability.
I turned back from it to hit my tenth lantern when I felt the creature start casting a spell.
Magical power began to shift, all the hairs on my head and my mane standing on end, making my head tingle and look larger.
The power built as the thing cast, dark magic being drawn into the room from the walls and floors, from the air and the lights and what little power they had left.
The shadows lengthened as it sucked up the power, a shape forming in the air, channelled not by hand but in the same way Anna had, imposing her will upon the mana or for the monster, Tenebra, around it. Willing the power around us to form the right shape, feeding it with magic drawn from a space I could not see inside of itself.
It ramped up, and I got one more before returning to it.
It was still moving, chasing after me, not halting as the spell built up.
Fuck, what is that¡ I don¡¯t think I can get hit by that, but I don¡¯t know if I can get away from it, either. Come on, Saphine, plan. What can I do here? Does magic go through walls? I don¡¯t think it goes through walls, so I need to get behind a wall¡ How do I?
My internal monologue trailed off, knowing what I needed to do. I spun around the room, hitting two more as I moved, bringing my total to thirteen. I put the shovel into my beltline along with the sword, reached into the same room I had grabbed the shovel from, and grabbed the pickaxe before spinning around.
It was closing, but I needed that.
I reached out with [Tenebral Bane] to weaken its grip on the spell, causing it to falter momentarily, plumes of the spell¡¯s fuel leaking out into the air, weakening the channelled spell and sapping it of its power.
15 feet.
I planted myself, ready to get bowled over if I fucked it up. I had a tiny amount of mana to do it with if I fucked it up, I didn¡¯t know if I was strong enough to do what I needed to do.
10 feet.
All I had to do was hit it right, so I lined it up, made sure that I would hit it, and began to swing.
5 feet.
I was going to hit, and I was going to get hit, so I prepared four skills, pushing mana into one and holding onto the other in prep for what was going to happen.
My pickaxe connected while I pushed mana into [Tool Handling], [Timeless Construct] and [Durable Tools].
It connected with its knees, shattering the bone, first through one leg, then into the second leg, missing the knee and hitting its thigh. My proficiency guided my hand and enhanced my strike, the durability of the tool not letting anything wear against the pick and the [Timeless Construct]. That was to hopefully keep it down for long enough to get the hell away from its spell without it following me.
I slammed into the wall when it slammed into me, its mass pinning me to the wall with enough force to break my ribs.
I had expected to die, to get pancaked into the wall, get released, and come back with my [True Immortality] Instead, my lungs screamed in agony while my bones cut into me as I rolled out from under it, avoiding its swiping claws, rolling and rolling and rolling, leaving the pickaxe in its legs, pinning it down.
The spell never faltered, not for a moment.
My best guess, I had twenty seconds to get the hell out of here.
Chapter 37 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 10
My lungs screamed in pain, my ribs were more like rubs, and more than a bit of a panic flooded my body. A part of me, the part of me that was super okay with dying, was calmly observing that I was being an idiot, that there was no way that the Monster I had just taken out at the knees could do anything to truly harm me long term. That whatever it was doing, whatever spell it was casting, it would, at worst, hurt a whole lot and that my main priority was keeping the queen who was crawling through my hair alive.
The part of me that lost its cool wanted me to live at any cost and had gotten carried away enough to tear into a dead Gremlin with my teeth, could only stand in horrified awe at the spell being cast. The working was giant. The biggest spell I had, measured in terms of the size of its channels of it, was [Status] and its counterpart [Analyze], the channels of which needed to wrap around a target to work.
Now, compared to the rest of the spells I knew, it was huge, like a person-sized egg.
The spell it was casting was starting to approach the size of Anna''s bedroom and took up shy of a sixth of the room. It was made of a messy, tangled rats nest of sometimes jagged, sometimes looping strands of black oozing tenebral clouds, feeding in and in on itself in an ever denser, ineffable pattern that made my skin crawl.
It was, quite possibly, the greatest horrifying thing I had ever seen, and it made me all too aware that this thing was capable of potent spellcasting.
I wasn¡¯t in good condition, but that didn¡¯t matter all that much. Neither did the queen''s condition. I had no idea what her condition was, but it didn¡¯t matter. Any offensive spell like that was no doubt strong enough to not care if she was in perfect condition, getting hit with it would probably just kill the both of us.
Getting into cover was a necessity, he couldn¡¯t target me if I were behind cover, at least not directly. But the more powerful the spell got, the more likely I thought it wouldn¡¯t be directly targeting me, so much as targeted towards me.
The problem with that was I had no idea how those spells worked.
A spell cast on a person worked like [Status], and a spell cast at a person worked like [Inspect], but I had no idea how a spell like [Fireball] worked.
If I had to guess, it fired like [Inspect] did but then exploded. The problem was, this spell didn¡¯t give me the impression that the effect would do that, it didn¡¯t look like it could even be fired through a door.
Which left me in a predicament. I could try and kill it again to stop the spell with the disadvantage that it no longer wanted me alive, take cover from it and come back out after it went off with the possibility it didn¡¯t work like I thought it did, or to cut my losses, and get the hell out of here.
And I needed to do it in under fifteen seconds.
My brain started to feel swollen as I went through the ideas, my head rapidly compiling the pros and cons of each option.
Fighting would be worthwhile if I could do it fast enough, pro I would be right here to free the souls con I would mess it all up if I didn¡¯t kill it fast enough. Hiding in a room left me safer than no cover for its pro, for the con a [Fireball] would still hit me.
Running away, pro, I got out with everything I came for, and the con was the remaining lanterns would remain here.
The idea of it was a sour pill to swallow, leaving them here felt more than wrong, it felt tragic. It felt like I would be abandoning them, it felt like a failure.
While I could come back, the fact was that I probably couldn¡¯t today. The Gremlins outside were the ones setting up whatever ritual they were attempting to do. There were a lot of them, and they had pet undead following along or cornering me. I could probably get around them long enough to escape in the wide open space of the ritual room, but they would chase me into the tunnels if I ran, where they could pack the cramped confines wall to wall with the bodies of the undead.
Based on the relative size, it was bigger than the one in here with the souls that could have likely powered it.
The ritual, where is the thing moving the fabric? If I could deal with that, I would be willing to leave.
Oh gods, what in the hells is wrong with me? Damn it, that is fucked up, trading away people for a setback? When did I get given the right to choose? The right to throw people away like¡ like objects? trash? Things to be traded.
Like¡
Like the lords of the valley.
That would be a greater setback than a few lights and a few souls lost or saved, I can''t do it because it would be positive or easy for me, I can¡¯t do it because it would look like a good exchange in a ledger. There is plenty of good I could do by breaking it, I don¡¯t, no, I can''t let that be a reason for why I do something.
I could break it and save, at least temporarily, anyone who dies within the area of effect from the torture of this pit. But I could do that and do something similar back home if I can figure it out, then I could bring any loose souls to me and send them to the afterlife.
Could I¡
I didn¡¯t hesitate and burned more time; it must have been at least 4 seconds, and my head was already trembling from overthinking things.
I was a doer, so I did.
I cast [Cantrip] and attempted to toss the shards of shattered rock left from the thing smashing into the wall. At the same time, I turned my attention to my senses, including [Marked by the Long Road], trying to pick up any connection as to why the fabric, the veil, between life and death was bent.
The pool was the first obvious contender, the bend was centered on the pool after all, but after carefully checking, there didn¡¯t seem to be a connection, the lines didn¡¯t line up with the dip, nor were they symmetrical with them, not evenly distanced.
I checked the pool as tiny rocks got picked up and tossed, [Cantrip] weakly tossing a stone, weaker than me tossing the stone from my hand. On a scale of Neahhh, to Ughh. It was an eh. Very week.
But a rock was still a rock. It still carried weight enough to snap some spindly bones and collapse the thin, sinewy walls of the spirit-powered lanterns.
They flickered as the rock hit, not from my effort but from the thinning power.
I had no time to pick them up, no time as I rushed around the room to the exit, but I could break them, free them of the lamp and the terrible existence I had shared with them. I had lived it for less than a minute, walked three steps in their sandals, and knew I couldn¡¯t stand it.
If I couldn¡¯t save them in time, I would release them from that.
I cast [Cantrip] like an smith hammered, totally by feel and without needing to think about it, I just lined up the shots and magically hucked the tiny stones while I analyzed the-
[Inspect]. Can I [Inspect] the spells? It is fast, but is it fast enough? Am I fast enough? What the hell should I try?
Thinking it and doing it was practically one and the same. I didn¡¯t even know how cantrip could be cast with one hand or what the pattern was to cast it, but I knew I could cast [Inspect] with one hand. My hand, its fingers weak from my encounter with the arrows, my fingers good the simple action of griping my shovel, felt fat and slow for casting spells.
My mind, trembling, clamped down as I started to burn my wisdom. It felt like I was trying to give myself a headache as I tried to work out how to cast the spell fast enough to get information in time to act on it.
I needed to shape the mana faster, like Anna could. The movement of fingers wasn¡¯t needed, they were just ways to manipulate mana in the air, a way to form a spells shape from thin air without needing to use mana to do it. It was a necessary step for someone without a skill to manipulate mana, but it could be done using mana, couldn¡¯t it?
I focused down, trying to flex [Magi], visualizing the shape of the spell and willing the mana to move to form channes as my fingers moved through the air. It improved it, but it wasn¡¯t enough.
I reached out with [Cantrip], a spell that literally manipulated mana, and it still wouldn¡¯t be enough. The channels were just too bulky to shape quickly.
Did Anna use channels? That was the wrong question. Did Anna use channels like this?
I hadn¡¯t sensed her casting that quick spell of her¡¯s like this. It had been more like¡ Like shaping the mana of the spell into the shape the channel left.
With a thought, I spoke the spell before I had finished.
Speaking, ¡°[Inspect],¡± aloud the spell cast, pulling up the mana in the reflexive way one could when they knew the spell like a skill, and in a perfect moment of clarity, as the spell began, the idea of using the mana of the spell expanded. A spell didn¡¯t just pour out into the world if you had no channels, it would still cast if there was enough mana.
The channels weren¡¯t necessary to cast the spell, they were there to constrain the mana, so you didn¡¯t have to pay an astronomical amount of mana to cast it, so you could let the mana shape into the spell without spilling out into the air.
Like painting a picture, you could pour paint on a canvas and waste tons of precious pigment to try and get a painting, or you could delicately brush it on and use as little as possible.
I had just failed to cast the spell like that hadn¡¯t connected those dots. Anna had told me that I could use [Magi] to skip steps, I just hadn¡¯t put that into practice.
The mana from my reserve snaked out, loosening from the passive effect of [Tenebral Bane], though this time, the amount to exit my reserve was just right.
Instead of just using the channels, I stopped manipulating the channels with [Magi] and [Cantrip] and instead focused on guiding the mana the spell needed through the pattern I knew, keeping it hemmed in when it tried to leak out.
Without focusing entirely on the channels, I could simply let the spell come to completion.
Mana burned through the air, sucking in on itself. The power lit a small light, and the spell snapped forward into the depression in the fabric, a whisp of light returning to me.
The whole process took but a moment that felt like it was long enough to have lunch with Anna. It was incredibly fast casting normally, pushing it along squeezed it out stupidly fast. My head hurt, but I knew it would be all worth it as the blue panel popped up in front of me, and I read.
Stone.
This stone, primarily sedimentary rock, contains a small quantity of minerals. The stone was carved approximately 6000 years ago by a level 57 [Cave Carver].
I had not accounted for the spell not contacting the fabric between life and death, but my mind still burned with wisdom. My headache started pounding, slowly but surely beginning to feel more like an aneurysm, like the blood in my brain was trying to explode.
The landscape was not causing the point, it was magic, I just aimed my spell wrong, that had to be it.
I had already deduced it wasn¡¯t the spell circle, and it wasn¡¯t in the pool. A stray thought entered my head, a phrase Skip and Kindly used, all be it used differently.
As above, so below.
I had likened it to a bed sheet weighed down. But I doubted something on the other side would be weighing it down.
So it had to be above.
I looked up as I threw a rock at another lantern, leaving me with only three remaining and eight or so seconds remaining.
I looked up at the ceiling, at the arching room that reminded me of one of the old manor home places I had seen. They had an open common area to let the light in and give some fresh air. If I were totally honest, the room was more than similar, but what I hadn¡¯t expected was what was above the pool.
Where there would be an open area, the roof was instead extra high to imitate it, domed for stability above me, not cathedral high, but higher up than the rest of the roof. Trailing from the tippy top of the dome was what I could only describe as a profane implement.
It was a thing made similar to the lanterns but with spurs and bands of black metal. The bone was so bleached white it could have been marble, the sinewy covering seemed to have spots, a smidge or smudge here and there to give the illusion of a face. There were symbols similar to those both outside in the monolith room and to those on the sword and the magical tools the [Cultist] held emblazoned on the exterior.
It held no soul that I could sense, instead, it held a darkness in it, deep enough that it made my senses feel funny. Its darkness was to the Tenebra in the room as the Tenebra was to the mana. It was like staring into the darkness between the stars on a moonless night. It was not a place where it was just too dark to see; instead, it looked like there was no mana at all.
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A yawning hole in the world. I had never seen a profane object before, but I could tell that was what it was, just like I could tell the being behind me was a monster and that water was wet. It was the kind of soul-deep something I was becoming increasingly aware of every time I came in contact with Necromancy or dark magic as a whole. Every screaming skeleton and soul pit that made the abstract part of me I could not see but knew was there shiver like a newborn.
I didn¡¯t reach for [Tenebral Bane] beyond its passive effects, but for more rocks, pulling on them with [Cantrip] and throwing forward a volley of stones, first pulling some towards me, then up at it, cancelling the [Inspect] before I finished it.
I didn¡¯t want to know what it was or what it represented.
And with that volley thrown, I put everything into reaching the door.
The spell behind me clarified to my senses, manifesting physically as a hissing noise in the air, the sensation of it interacting with my bane skill was like nails on a slate. I slapped my ears down reflexively, but it was, unfortunately, not possible for my less mundane senses to shrug it off.
I got to the doorway, just a few feet from passing through the threshold and out into the room with the monolith. I could see the Gremlins, one part panicking and fearful, and one part ready to fight, blades drawn and the undead readying themselves as meat shields do defend their diminutive masters.
Then the spell was cast, a surge of magical power slamming through the channels in the air fast enough that the feeling was tangible across the room.
It spoke up then, a fury in its voice as it cryed out from across the room.
¡°I gave you a chance to serve in life. Die apostate! Ey¡¯you will serve our mistress soon. [Ankraids Cyclone of Malice]!¡±
The air in the room came to life, the stale air whipping into a cyclone in a moment. The wind dragged at my hair and tunic, and I had to slap my hand down over the queen to keep her from flying off into the vortex that spun up behind me. I peeked over at the spell and found my fears about it founded.
The stone was smoking. Not melting from flame and fire, but from whatever horrifying power the magic had called into existence. It was a spell the likes of which I had never seen.
I had simple spells compared to that, even using [Cantrip] to throw rocks, something that I had felt good over was dust in my mouth.
The spell was not manipulating the world around me, it was not moving rock or fire, the Monster had called whatever the cyclone was made out of from nothing but magical power and its own hatred.
The air hung heavy with a miasma that made the stone it touched wither like grapes on the vine. It came with the smell of decay, a sour rot in the air, like tainted pickled food and the must of mildew.
The stone seemed to roil like boiling water as it passed toward me, and come towards me it did.
It ate up ground towards me, twenty feet every second, every foot an affront to my senses, and every moment compounded that as it flew at me like a bird of prey.
My legs got moving before I even realized I had stopped, the part of me that needed to survive getting my feet moving while I watched the cyclone.
The cyclone and the rocks I had thrown as they sizzled and burned rapidly reduced to so much vapour. The only chance to remove the pit is gone in a moment.
I turned my eye from it as it spread out behind me, a cloud, a wall of dark fog that would eat through me easier than the stone. Sure, as the day was bright, that would be my body¡¯s unmaking.
I had never been disintegrated, and while I trusted my body to heal from just about anything, I had no idea what would happen if it was just gone. For all I knew, I would become a ghost, bound to this side of death for all time, unable to converse with people like Anna.
Even my logical mind could not accept that, and it, too, finally got back to conversing with survival brain and got on board with the plan.
My plan, incredibly complex for the part of me that demanded survival, was to take the better part of valour, and run the hells away.
I ran into the prayer room towards the wall of the undead and pulled my new shovel from my belt.
I aimed for the thinnest part of the wall of undead and punched through. The undead, unlike before, were commanded to fight. Clumsy they might be, but they flailed and bit at me like feral animals, I could feel the potency of the gaping jaws and decided to take punches over bites.
I used the shovel to take off a few heads but mostly to push through, stumbling the puppeted corpses out of my way and towards the shaking line of Gremlins.
The unsure Gremlins began to chitter, shouting, only for the great big monster Gremlin behind me to shout back, furry and fire, making some of the runners stop and look at me. A room of beady little eyes swivelled to me, and many began running. Running up to the escape tunnel, running towards me, running to the walls, one span and ran around in circles before falling on his face.
I didn¡¯t stop, I just kept running my ass off.
I shoved my way free in time to escape the vortex of annihilation, the vortex of dark mana, uncaring of the doorway, moved on through, and panic began to win out for the Gremlins, some beginning to run while others froze up, unable to do whatever they were planning to do.
I hit the stairs and hewed an ankle out from under an undead, short of breath from pushing through tens of times my body weight, and my head screaming in agony was beginning to make my head fuzzy.
I ran up the curved stairs, and as I did, the spell''s effect and how tenebra spells became clear in my periphery. It was growing, feeding on the environment from the room''s plentiful dark magic. It sucked it up, and the mana comprising it lightened, finally able to release its stored energy, and as it did, it expelled its load and sucked up fresh pools of fuel, no, not expelling it, exchanging it.
The more active it became, the more the area was affecting its surroundings, with more smoking melting stone. There was more bubbling as it drained the dark and replaced it with a new mana type, mostly air. The new mana bonded to the earth and went from pockets of air trapped in the malleable stone to earth mana of its own.
It was terrible.
It was overwhelming.
It was what I had expected magic to be like.
Love it or hate it, I had not expected magic to be like more of the same, but with mana instead of¡ dirt.
Holy shit. Did I have an epiphany about mana by comparing it to dirt? I need time away from ditch-digging. I need time away from a shovel.
Tomorrow, I¡¯m going to get stuff for Anna, or go out with Anna, or anything but dig.
I wouldn¡¯t mind going out with Anna, We could make a day of it if she¡¯s not busy. That sounds nice.
I had kept moving and gotten to the top. The hostile spell had, by the sound of it, torn through multiple of the Gremlins. I kept going; the spell had grown in height and girth, and it was close enough to the top of the room that I did not want to stay in its path.
I kept running off into the dark, the queen of sprites, speechless on my head as I coughed and wheezed. I ran even when I started to hear shouting coming from the thing I had fought, echoing off the walls. The pounding of footsteps just pushed me harder.
I almost missed the path up, but I caught the fresh scent of Humans, and I followed it up the ribbed stone passage.
Making it to the surface blinded me, my head span, and my body felt numb and distant. I kind of just stood there for a moment, blinking stupidly like I didn¡¯t understand what the light was before more shouting erupted from the camp.
I made my way to the hole, chased by tiny scabbed and furred bodies out to the dam and almost panicked when I saw movement ahead of me. only for a bunch of humans to pile out of the bushes towards the dam.
I watched them, confused.
¡°Huh. They''re going the same way I¡¯m going,¡± I said drunkenly.
¡°We were waiting on you for soo long, you twiggy, pointy-eared, glowy-eyed, shovel-wielding buffoon. What took you so long?¡± A voice shouted from nowhere.
I blinked at that.
¡°That was rude, weird voice in my head. S¡¯not my fault there was a big monster down there.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not in your head, you daft idiot. I¡¯m on your head.¡±
¡°No, your not, I would feel it, my head is a great big bruise,¡± I rebutted.
¡°We don¡¯t have time for this, get to the dam and do your thing so we can get out of here.¡±
¡°Ohh. Yeh, we need to get on the dam. I remember that. What is that racket? Who is that yelling?¡±
That¡¯s the¡ Whatever that thing is, good gods, is that a pickaxe? Run long leg, you''re outmatched by an even longer leg!¡±
I, not caring for her talk, ran to the dam gayly and hopped on. The humans were there too. I looked at them questioningly.
¡°Are you ready to go down the river?¡± I asked them.
¡°I thought we were going across the river. What do you mean go down it?¡±
The voice in my head was panicking, and I decided it had to be for a good reason, so instead of answering them, I stuck my shovel down into the water and spluttered something like, ¡®Hold on,¡¯ or maybe, ¡®Hol dawn.¡¯
My head was too fuzzy to remember what I said, so I did what I did best. I moved a bunch of dirt, a whole hell of dirt.
The dam listed, and I paid attention as it tilted forward and revealed its longer side. I balanced, then fell into it as it came free, the sound of shattering wood and splashing water smashed my ears as the dam stopped being a dam, and became a raft instead, the sides smashing apart as we were pushed by a veritable flood of pent up water and thrown down the river.
I almost fell in, managing to instead fall on my ass.
I started laughing, but I didn¡¯t know why, and honestly, I didn¡¯t care. I was free! A free bird.
Birdbold.
I started snickering even harder.
I felt a tiny impact on my shoulder and turned my head towards it, blinking at the tiny forms of two sprites.
There were skinny, malnourished people huddling on a makeshift barge, but they were background, so I ignored them as they freaked out a bit, holding some skeletons with them.
Selly and her queen were what I focused on, we were safe, and the humans would be fine. Selly was fawning over her queen, who was slightly larger than her, maybe an inch and a half high. And fawn she was, she was buzzing around her asking her queen. Her queen seemed more normal than she was and if anything, was slightly exasperated, sounding more tired than relieved.
Selly had whacked into me in her excitement.
¡°Wait, Selly-iban,¡± I quickly corrected myself, ¡°Your not going to believe this. There was a voice in my head that sounded just like you.¡±
She looked at me in an expression I couldn¡¯t parse.
¡°Selliban, calm down. I think you''re bugging your queen,¡± I told her.
Selly looked at me and then looked at her queen with big eyes. She looked like someone had killed a puppy. Although I had a feeling if she had one, it was likely to eat her by accident. Maybe they had mice as pets, but even then, it would be like having a horse as a pet.
She had said they kept bees, maybe a bee? A wasp was right out. They were just plain evil, but a bee was a relatively gentile creature. Maybe a moth? They were relatively moth-like already. The Queen had fluffy wings and whatnot. The [Sprite Queen], who hadn¡¯t shared her name, was a bit different from Selly and a closer glance.
Se had a bit more Chitin, including a little white plate that covered her face, a thicker bottom that I supposed made male sprites go wild but kind of just looked like a thorax, she had bigger feelers on her head with a ring of tinny fluffy feeler like things ringing her head like a crown. She had an extra third set of half-wings.
Besides that, it was normal, two legs with four arms, chitin plates like tiny sets of armour covering parts of her body. She had clothing-like folds around her, little silken flaps that covered her otherwise fuzzy, chitinous body.
She was reminiscent of Selly, but I supposed she was a sprite queen; she was related. A queen was the mother of all her sprites sprites.
Something clicked in my tired, empty head then.
She was Selly''s mother.
I had been looking at it from the idea of a [Queen] and her [Lady] for the most part, not from the point of view of a mother being exhausted by her kid. She was an adult, as far as I could tell, but it was still a little more touching.
This whole thing had been, in a way, Selly saving her mom.
I stifled a tear while she wasn¡¯t looking and decided to reenact my plot from before. Get back at her for her earlier annoyingness, embarrass her a little.
¡°Hello, Your Majesty,¡± I told her, bobbing my head slightly in deference.
She turned to face up to me after making a gesture that I couldn¡¯t read at Selly.
¡°Hello, Tall Friend, you have done my folk a great service this day. I believe a Dept is owed to you, though I do not know how me and my people can repay you for your service, but if it is within our power to do so, we shall.¡±
She spoke it with a weight and sincerity I was not expecting. She also put extra emphasis on some words. Tall Friend and Dept were spoken like they had a greater meaning than I thought they did. They had an importance I couldn¡¯t cudgel my brain into piecing together at the moment.
Selly gasped, and not a tiny one either.
¡°My Queen. By the Ancestors. Are ye calling this a life debt? Say it ain''t so. Proclaiming the long leg a Tall Friend is boon enough, surely.¡±
¡°Selliban Citritan Titania, to call our dept anything less than a life dept would be a lie and a stain upon my honour as a Queen. Tis a dept beyond bestowing a simple Title as repayment, and twas¡¯ justly earned, you too will be given honours dear Selliban, do not let covetousness cloud your heart and mind, of the good deeds of others.¡± She told her, both a lecture-in tone and a soft, roundabout comment.
¡°Mo- My Queen,¡± she whined in childish embarrassment. She even scratched the back of her head, wrapping her arms around her stomach and hiding her face.
I didn¡¯t know if she blushed, but I imagined that it was possible. She certainly smelled different, a funny, tingly smell to my nose.
It didn¡¯t smell like a human scent I knew; it just made my nose tingle. I turned and breathed out of my nose and into my mouth to get the tingling sensation out before I sneezed.
¡°What do you say, Tall Friend, of a boon for your work and struggle.¡± She asked, forcing me to turn back towards her, my nose crinkling in an almost sneeze.
¡°Snn, Thank you, your Highness, I- Ah- Acho.¡±
¡°Bless you.¡±
¡°Please don¡¯t,¡± I asked her before rubbing my nose, ¡°I can only say that I couldn¡¯t have done it without Selliban, I am, very literally, only standing because of her. I accept, even if I do not know what I could ask for from you,¡± I told her.
¡°My queen, she seems denser than normal. Should I accompany her back?¡± She asked her queen.
¡°Selliban, she¡¯s right there, and of course. What kind of boon would it be should we not even escort her back to her home.¡± She chided.
¡°Thank you, your majesty, your magnanimity is rivalled only by your weight, unlike Selliban here, who attacked me on sight,¡± I told her.
They gasped, both of them looking up at me. Selly even pointed at me, aghast. I had been waiting to get in a jab at Selly, and complimenting her queen seemed like a great way of doing it. I couldn¡¯t not smile at her.
I felt like I was being petty, but Selly had caused me quite some stress, been kind of pissy about it, and, more importantly for me, done that to Anna. And I wasn¡¯t going to let that stand, so I would get her in a bit of trouble, and by the look on her face, she knew it.
After all, what were friends for if not calling out one another?
¡°Are you calling my queen fat long leg? Are you calling my queen fat!¡± Selly asked in a dangerous tone.
That whipped the smug look right off my face.
Did I misunderstand earlier?
¡°Wait, what? But when I said earlier-¡±
¡°That will get you a grudge, long leg. The nerve of-¡±
¡°I¡¯m not insulting your queen, you hypersensitive gnat, earlier you -¡±
¡°Selliban, it¡¯s fine, stop that...¡± She said in a tone that sounded, to my horror, embarrassed.
Oh gods, what have I done, I can¡¯t tell if I insulted her or complimented her. Oh no, the tingling is back.
¡°Your flattery is kind, Tall Friend, but base flattery does not become you. Thank you for your kindness. Do not be concerned about Selliban.¡± She continued to me, bringing her hands up to cup her head, standing with her legs crossed and hugging her hips.
OH NO, that wasn¡¯t supposed to be flirting, I didn¡¯t want to do that. I was trying to mess with Selly, not this.
¡°Mother, no! Don-¡± She cried, cut off only when the queen¡¯s wing flapped over her face to cut her off.
¡°Do tell me, what do you mean, however, by attacked?¡± she asked in a tone I remembered well.
Her ability to swap between flattered and the tone only a mother could speak in was almost instantaneous. And it was the angry mother voice, too, one who was angry but didn¡¯t want to show off her anger, that was building it up.
It chilled me more than the cursed blade on my hip, which felt like it was sucking the heat from my entire back, the one imbued with literal dark magic that made my soul tingle just by being near its fell magic.
¡°I can explain. I can explain!¡± Selly said, haste the prevalent tone of her voice.
¡°Huh, I totally forgot I took that,¡± I mumbled more to myself than the others.
***
Selly did while we floated down the river, and by the time we reached the point where there was a dock close to New Moarn, it was dark. I pushed us next to the dock with my shovel, and we left the hazardous raft there, I was sure that whoever found it could use a bunch of free wood.
I let the other prisoners go wherever they were going on their own. They were [Hunters], and I was sure they could get some food from the nearby guild hall. They managed to kill me before, I certainly wasn¡¯t going to cut them slack because they got captured, and my conscience told me to save them.
We were free, they could find their own way.
Instead, I made my way back home, the two sprites on my shoulder talking and Selly chiming in every once in a while as I made my way in the dark.
The moon wasn¡¯t full, but I managed to get back without killing myself by tripping into a sharp stick or whatever.
I wound my way up to the door, and after depositing the dirty shovel at the door, I opened it up.
¡°I¡¯m back. Sorry for being late, Anna, I was¡¡±
I stared at the table.
Anna, Strause, a girl I had never met, and a little elven girl were all eating from a veritable potluck, or at least they had been eating until I walked it.
Anna gasped, Strause looked at me with a strained expression under his fake grin, the girl was deadpan, and the elf gagged a little.
I looked down.
Oh yeh.
I was literally coated in blood.
¡°Sorry, I¡¯ll go wash myself off.¡±
Interlude Annas Plan
I had a plan.
I was Annabeth Mynes, and I had a plan.
I had quite a few plans, many plans, but I could only toil and wait for things to change so I could go forward with them.
All of them, except one.
Saphine had gone off with a Sprite on a quest to save a Sprite queen. If I were someone else, I might have gotten angry or annoyed, but I wasn¡¯t. If Saphine was going to run off and try to keep her word, how could I do anything less than try my best to do the same?
I wasn¡¯t about to let Saphy do my work for me just because she decided to shoulder the burden of an entire region on her shoulders without thinking about it.
It had all started with two things, each directly coming from Saphine bumbling into my life. Potatoes, and the tip-off from the [Guard Captain]. I didn¡¯t know if Saphine would live up to her claim, but she had certainly caused ripples even in the short time she had been with me.
She had a straightforward attitude, seemed to wear her heart on her sleeve, and encouraged me to be more greedy.
So I was going to be greedy for her, if for nothing else.
Part one was simple in theory: give people food. Obviously, that was a bit hard with a coming famine.
What would they eat? How would I get the food, and where from? How would I deliver it or pay for it? Saphine likely thought I was dirty, stinking rich, and relative to most people I was. But not to the same level as a wealthy lord or powerful merchant.
So. Where would I get the food if I couldn¡¯t buy it out right. It had to come from somewhere, right?
Well, Saphy had delivered to me a plant that I believed could do some major work.
The Potato, unlike the crops we grew normally, was incredibly hearty. Most of what we grew was grain, and very sickly grain at that. Time in the poor soil, the bad mana, or Tenebra, or whatever its technical name was, and the year on year of fertility treatments I had done had left them as the next best thing to dead tall grass.
I didn¡¯t think the grains we grew were suited for the environment, the soil, the weather, or the slope. They wanted more than we could give them here, and they couldn¡¯t produce enough because of it. To top it off, they would often rot if they weren¡¯t dried right and were prone to infections that could kill or poison people, which by all accounts was a really bad time.
But the potatoes just¡ didn¡¯t care.
Bad soil? Not a problem.
Bad weather? It¡¯s a root vegetable.
And the best part?
It grew like a weed.
It grew like a plague in my Grove, sprouting up like a green shrubby carpet of doom for any plant that got in its way.
But that had been in my Grove, a literal place of power that nurtured plants, so when Saphy had gotten me to share it with a neighbor, I had, but I had also made a test out of it.
It grew slower but still fast. And that was with only a few skills used on it.
I swore them to secrecy immediately; they would earn a nice stack of coins for helping me stockpile them, but I needed the information to stay quiet.
Neighbor, by neighbor, I spread them.
I had been growing them, massing them, storing them up for a few weeks¡¯ time when I would go out for my yearly jaunt down the northwestern valley to the parcels of land where we grew the most food.
I didn¡¯t have enough to save the valley, not as it was now.
So I just had to have more.
With, say¡ a few hundred fields of them? Using the trick Saphine did where she cut them, I could get most of the fields planted with a little bit of potato, then they could be cut again and spread. By summer''s end, there might be enough to let the valley not starve to death over winter, it may even be enough to avert a famine.
It might be a bandage on the gaping mortal wound we were living through, but it was what I could do right now. And I was going to darn well do it.
But somewhere along the way, my brain had crossed two roads, and something occurred to me, and plan part two grew, germinating from the seed of greed Saphine told me to act on and the information from the guard station.
The lords were not good people.
They were crafty and clever, greedy and not great people. And, like most people with similar skill set, they looked out for themselves first and everything else second.
They saw the bad crops, they saw the decline, they knew what was coming, and like rats on a sinking ship, they were going to run. They would run to second cousins and jump ship for whatever they could. Sell everything they could get away with and run as long as it looked like a sound decision.
They would do things like haphazardly train their peasants and sign them up as [Hunters], for example. They would run and take their coin with them. They were losing gold on their land; they knew it, which weakened their position.
And I was giving them an out.
I had written to twelve different lords, and like a gullible fool, I told them I couldn¡¯t help with crops this year, an unfortunate thing, but assured them that I was sure the problems would be a passing fad.
They lept on it, like the Avarice worshipers they were.
I had been writing so many letters.
A word here, an idea of what I was doing that kept me away there. I used every trick, technique and form of manipulation my mother had taught me as a kid.
All I needed was to slip the idea of needing to buy assets with my unfortunately limited gold. I was, after all, an aging woman, how else could I attract a suitor at my age?
And so back and forth, I had led them by the nose to the idea of land, then buying land, and why I would love to buy it, but I have so little money as an unmarried woman, and why, yes, that is within my budget. Indeed, it was a fine purchase that would surely impress a suitor, assuming they were a normal [Noble], I kind of doubt Saphine cared.
They bought it, hook, line and sinker.
After all, I was just a single, youngish woman.
I didn¡¯t have a man to stop me from doing something rash in the heat of the moment. For the more misogynistic of them, I played into it. For others, I didn¡¯t, playing into me being just some dumb [Baron]¡¯s daughter who was about to be swindled for a fortune, a small fortune that would let a [Lord] get a small parcel of land somewhere else. All in all, it was most of my ten years of earnings, but it was worth it.
I would be sweeping out, just in time to make some headway too, Clause had put out a call for the [Lords] to gather. I would ride out, signing documents and ride back to Clause with more land under my belt than almost any single [Lord] in the valley.
And all those [Farmers] and [Field Hands] would get potatoes, what little boost I could give them, and start growing enough food, fast enough to get two or three harvests in depending on the summer. Two on that land would sustain the population just enough to get by without mass starvation and get us to next year, three would give us enough to live out winter and plant properly next year.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
I could help save people by focusing on the issues Saphine couldn¡¯t hit. I couldn¡¯t just sit on my hands if Saphy was going to run off to fight undead. I didn¡¯t need the land or the wealth that would come with it, I made more than enough money all on my own. So I would invest it in growing the valley, countering the other lords that predated their own people.
And when I died, it would, well, if we ended up together, go to Saphine.
Inheritance went to spouses first, and as much as I wanted one, I doubted I was going to end up with a child anyway. Unless Saphy had some equipment I didn¡¯t know about, which would have been quite the feat considering how we slept.
It was strange thinking about Saphy, I had seen her just a while ago. But even the short time away from her was a strain, compounded by my feeling of guilt that had been growing in me since I saw her [Status].
It was a mix of emotions that danced through me whenever I thought about her, she gave me something I craved: the understanding I got when I was near her. And while she was a bit of a dope, she would sometimes encounter something and go, ¡®Oh yeah, I know what this is,¡¯ and uproot my view of her. She recognized a part of my heritage I was unaware of and knew things about me I hadn¡¯t put together myself, and having someone who understood and was willing to look out for me like that made me feel good, both to be understood and cared for.
But the guilt of what I was doing ate at me. I was trying to court someone who would live forever. I could see the consequences of my actions already, where this would end up going, but I couldn¡¯t bring myself to turn her away.
It was the greediest thing I could imagine. It would be kinder to shut her out and never talk to her again. Things were bound to go bad, and I knew it, and I was willing to let it go bad if I could spend my time with her. I could only hope she would forgive me when the time came for it to be an issue.
But there was no time to think about it too much, today, I was busy.
Saphine had gone off with the Sprite, who had tried to run us down, off to save her queen. So, instead of spending time on a picnic, I headed into town with one last letter in hand. That way, I could pass it off to a courier, one final letter for one final property. I had the money ready but didn¡¯t have all the pawns lined up yet, so I needed to finish that up.
I had requested a special dress to help sell it to them and everything.
I decided to go straight to the courier, which was just outside the inner nobles'' district, a few minutes walk from the gate. It was a slightly larger building compared to the shops next to it, the sign on the front marked it as one of the places that catered to merchants and the nobility, with writing on it instead of a picture.
I pulled the door open on its stiff hinges and quickly got to signing a form for where my letter would go before paying the two silver to deliver it and leaving the office back onto the street.
I was only wearing my work clothes, so I wouldn¡¯t be seen dead going into the noble''s quarter. They would no doubt see it as scandalous, and more importantly, it could ruin my plan.
I suppose¡ I¡¯ll go buy some food and maybe order a book or two on managing land. That would probably be best. God¡¯s look at me, I¡¯m confused about what I should be doing. Ten years of being my own boss, and I¡¯m suddenly out of Ideas on what to do with my free time. What am I waiting around for? I can¡ go do some painting and spend time relaxing.
Or I suppose readying some lessons for Saphy. She is my apprentice¡ Yeah, I¡¯ll do that. It¡¯s been a while since I did apprentice stuff, I¡¯ll have to crack a book or two open to jog my memory¡ It was [Identify] next¡ then template spells? No, there was a bit in between the two¡ there were specific questions I needed to get her to think about, right?
I¡¯ll need to get the book out.
I can do that when I get home.
I would have to go to the temple quarter again to get my book ordered. I doubted people would pay attention to me as I was, and I doubted even more that they would remember me. I didn¡¯t stand out all that much. It was still a bit unsettling to think about. The last time I had seen it, there was still a little blood on the cobbles as I had fixed the street up, it stayed even through the rain and wind, a thin film of orange-brown that held on like a bad stain.
The memory of it gave me the willies, a series of goosebumps and a shiver accompanying it as I walked around and past the gate toward the temple¡¯s district. I was going to go my own way and sort out my day when things began to switch up on me. I was brought short of power walking to my destination by the shout of a familiar voice.
¡°Hey, Beth! Wait up.¡±
I stopped, turning to find who was calling out to me, only to see a goofy grin and a hairline that needed to be registered as a deadly weapon in city limits.
Strause pushed on through the crowd, each person moving around him like minnows before a shark¡ª an unconscious decision to move around him by dozens of people, each deciding to go around for their own reasons and just so happening to line up like a group. I immediately pulled mana around me in a barrier, though it wouldn¡¯t help me all that much.
Whatever passive skill he had that used mana was a normal [Lord] skill as far as I could tell and couldn¡¯t penetrate it. While it could be a variety of things, from something like [Calm tone] to [Voice of Authority]. For all I knew, it could have been [Dominating Presence], passively making him seem more authoritative than he otherwise would be while making me more passive and docile.
It wasn¡¯t that I didn¡¯t trust him to not take advantage of me somehow, but more that I didn¡¯t like being affected by the skills I expected him to have at all. My mind was my own. And it would be good practice if I was going to meet less scrupulous [Lords] and [Nobles], who would delight in using those same skills to meet their greedy ends.
He winced a little, though I didn¡¯t know why.
I didn¡¯t understand what my brother could do, not really. He had something that reminded me of enchantment magic, at least in passing. The only problem being that, from what he had indicated, that was only part of the truth. He supposedly didn''t use mana, which meant that it could be anything.
Saphine had seemed to understand what he was talking about, but I had no idea what he was capable of, and Saphine might as well know everything until proven otherwise.
I didn¡¯t want to be afraid of Strause. He was my little brother, but I was slightly wary of him, and I didn¡¯t think that would change until he explained what his deal was.
I waited for him to make it through the crowd towards me, and once he was close enough, I started walking towards the temple district again to purchase some books.
¡°I¡¯m glad I caught you. I was hoping to talk to you, but you¡¯ve been held up in your cabin in the woods, and I couldn¡¯t get any time to myself,¡± he told me, keeping pace with his longer legs in a casual stride.
¡°Oh? Are the [Guard] that busy? I wouldn¡¯t have expected that, it¡¯s seemed to be rather tame, do tell,¡± I told him, trying to mask my emotions behind the boring, small talk.
¡°Well¡¡± he hedged, ¡°It¡¯s not so much the [Guard] as Clause. Do you know how much of a handful he is? I can¡¯t get a day off. He¡¯s not having a good time right now, I think he might die of a heart attack in his office, it¡¯s seriously bringing down the mood,¡± he gripped.
I looked at him.
Clause, being emotional? I somehow didn¡¯t believe it to the extent he suggested. Clause being anxious was normal, Clause being so anxious that he might die? I couldn¡¯t see that happening. He had been preparing for his job all his life, literally.
¡°What, is he panicking about the tax? He can use last year''s tax with a little off the top,¡± I said, not believing a single word that came out of his smiling face.
¡°It¡¯s not just that Beth. With everything going on? It''s getting to him, I know it is,¡± he told me, tapping the side of his head.
¡°Oh, I forgot. You have whatever it is you have going on. I suppose it¡¯s just you and yourself that can confirm it, Mr. Omniscient.¡±
¡°Hey,¡± he griped, ¡°That¡¯s not fair. First of all, I¡¯m not the only one, and secondly, if I was omniscient, I would know what to say to get you to trust me, which I obviously don¡¯t,¡± he told me, one part off-handed, one part defensive.
I snorted to myself. I wanted to chuckle a little. Strause was a dumb ass, as most men were when it came to women. I swear it was like we spoke two languages sometimes. He could read minds but not body language.
Honestly.
¡°I have no doubt,¡± I told him, crossing my arms and glaring over at him, trying to make my displeasure well received I followed it up with, ¡°Forget your hairline, the bigger threat to your love life is how to get any woman to spend time around you, let alone get a woman to agree to spend her life with you,¡± I jibed.
¡°Rude, I can totally get women to spend time with me. I¡¯ll have you know I¡¯ve spoken to six women today. We had deep and interesting conversations on the nature of life, and emotions and stuff,¡± he groused, mock offence and a bit of what I thought might be truth in his voice and posture.
¡°Prostitutes don¡¯t count,¡± I told him deadpan.
He scoffed mock offence in his voice.
¡°I¡¯ll have you know that only two of them were prostitutes. I pay them to keep tabs on stuff for me. The rest of them were friends and a merchant.¡±
¡°Female friends? Strause, are you in denial? Men don¡¯t have female friends, just failed love interests.¡±
¡°Ouch, I can prove it. I wanted to talk to you about some stuff, but you seem busy. I would be willing to do it over dinner. We could do a potluck of sorts, and I could clear my name.¡±
¡°A potluck? With your female friends? You know what, why not, it would be fun to mock you with them, though it would have to be at my place. Saphine is out fighting undead with a sentient insect and is probably going to come home covered in blood, and I should be there to make sure she comes back.¡±
Strause looked at me, and I had the feeling that he was stuck in a moment of disbelief, even if I couldn¡¯t see it on his face. He opened his mouth, lifted a hand to gesture, aborted the motion and generally made fish-like motions with his mouth.
It took him a good thirty moments to pull himself back to composure, and I enjoyed every moment.
¡°I would say you were lying, but I know your not. Do I even want to know? No. Don¡¯t answer that. I swear you and Clause are going to be the death of me. Dinner, your place, I¡¯ll be there and bring some friends. Is that good? Good, I need a drink to work through your statement. See you later, Beth.¡±
And just like that, he walked off, blending into the crowd for a few moments before simply disappearing into the crowd.
I stared off into the crowd for a few moments before getting on with my day. I had a schedule to keep, Strause, coming by wouldn¡¯t ruin it.
I finished up and headed back, picking up some food and got to cooking. I had finally finished setting my plans in motion.
Finally, after all these years, I could bring some real good to the valley, I just hoped Saphy would get home in one piece.
Chapter 38 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 11
I left quickly and headed for the well to sluff off the gore of the day.
Anna, blessed be her name, came out quickly with my third and last set of clothes, and I shooed the two sprites off, they floated their way over to Anna, who looked at their tiny forms and must have connected the dots on whom the second one was. She started performing pleasantries and walked back into the warm light of the house while I washed myself off by hand.
The cool water chilled my skin in the brisk, cooler evening air. I looked up and saw the moon hanging large in the sky. The off-colour chunk was dark and somewhat red against the bright, luminescent blue-white of the other two-thirds.
It was not full, not yet, that would be in a week''s time or so, the brilliant shine of the stars was already beginning to be blotted out by the giant moon. It was large enough to barely fit in the palm of my hand.
It would be the first full moon since I had awoken, the end of the first season after my awakening.
I cupped the water over my face and scrubbed with my hands, getting the viscera out of my poor hair, the flecks of it off my ears and mane.
The mane would thin a bit with the coming summer thinning to let more heat out. My arms and body would lose what little I had, and it would come back in the late fall thicker and warmer than normal.
I wonder if the water will mess with the heat and the chill of the summer and the fall.
Wait, I can ask, ¡°Land, does the water make the summer sun cooler and the winter chill warmer?¡±
I waited while I washed off the gunk, and pulled my ruined, tattered clothes off my body, and got to carefully washing out my cuts and the gore. I would get an infection unless I cleaned them out soon.
Alcohol would be good, though I would need a distillate. I haven¡¯t seen much in the way of alcohol here, let alone distilling. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve seen one [Alchemist], and you generally don¡¯t see distillation without them. Maybe I could visit a blacksmith?
My mind whorled around, the cool air felt nice against the warmth of my body. I basked in it for a few moments before I asked again.
¡°Land? Are you ok?¡± I asked, more focused on the cool feeling of the water than my thoughts. I closed my eyes, relaxed my ears and just savoured the night.
¡°Yes, more questions?¡± It asked in return.
¡°Sorry, I think I missed the answer, could you say it again or send it again? What¡¯s the right word for it?¡±
¡°Sounds funny, water makes seasons less seasonal until dead winter or deep winter.¡±
¡°Oh, makes sense. Is it going to be dead winter or deep winter this year?¡±
¡°Deep winter.¡±
¡°Oof, that¡¯s going to suck. Winters deepest makes light of summer''s abundance¡ Is that how the poem went? I forget.¡±
¡°Should focus on here and now, my [Druid] worries,¡± the land told me, the ideas it sent me bordering on human-level thoughts.
Had I been gone for so long, I was clean or as clean as I could get myself without a bunch of soap and something to scrub with.
Huh, I guess I lost track of time¡ What was I? Oh, right, clothes, I need to get in my clothes and go inside for food. Anna made dinner, and there were people, I¡¯m going to bet a 7 or 8 tonight. Anna is too good for this world.
Why am I so loopy? Am I droopy? I¡¯m loopy and droopy. Am I drunk? No, I can''t be drunk, I haven¡¯t drunk anything in a while. I should drink something I¡¯m kind of thirsty.
I fumbled drunkenly into the clothes, fixing the dressy smock the humans favoured over a tunic, it was a bit fussier, not simply thrown over oneself and belted, but somewhat folded to help cover more of a body than any one piece of a tunic.
I looked down at myself, double-checking the way it fit, the way it sat on my body and adjusted it again before I started inside. The moisture on my skin stuck the smock tight to my body.
I quickly moved back and poured out the bucket to rinse off my best tunic before I folded it and moved back inside.
I stubbed my toe on the cursed sword, but couldn¡¯t be fucked to deal with that, so I put it in with my clothes, covering the blade as best I could and tucked it under an arm and moved to the door.
I Put my stuff down just outside to not bring the smell in, and moved the shovel to the side to keep the gorey blade away from the doorframe because it was quite gross in and of itself before I entered.
The inside was warm compared to the outside, the hearth fire warming the space just right. It reminded me of the church, of coming in on a cold day and being met with the warmth of the place. It was like a hug from your loved ones and a blanket rolled into one.
Inside, I saw the table, the same faces around it, still talking, but now a bit more subdued from my first entrance.
Anna and Strause were there with the unfamiliar faces, not next to one another but across the table, which was piled high with different foods, some sandwiches, what looked like bottles of stuff to drink, and plates of meat and greens. It was so much food that it almost distracted me from the other two guests.
Next to Strause was a woman with a very neutral expression, she gave the same vibe as Strause, a kind of hidden feeling, like she was concealing a part of her that went beyond just hiding an emotion. It went beyond that, though, it was body language that was shared between them, it was in the tilt of their head and the minute expressions on their face. I couldn¡¯t read them for the life of me right now, but I could take a look at her with my special eyes.
My special eyes gave me the special information, the information that was reserved for those with eyes as special as my own. She had brow hair of a length that was less likely to get caught on stuff around shoulder length, she was taller than Anna and a little younger than me, probably by a few years, at least two, so around 19 years old. She had brown eyes, lighter skin and thinner arms like Anna and Strause, which told me she was no farmer and likely did lighter work inside.
My special eyes, which were like normal human eyes but glowy, told me all of this, relaying it to my wibbly mind.
My wibbly mind made a very important deduction. If I had to guess, I was probably the person with the biggest muscles at the table, which just made it more unfair that I was probably the weakest person here, even if it was stats per level, if not in bulk.
Or the weakest person, with one exception.
My mind took in the odd one out, cogitating its great calculation of immense importance for a few minutes.
As my brain calculated, I moved in, towards the seat next to Anna and the new young woman.
There was a plate ready for me, so I scooted on over and sat down. The casual talk quieted down as a bunch of people turned to face me, even the sprites, who had a tiny plate for themselves and were eating singular pieces of food so large in comparison it would be like me eating a whole chicken.
I tried to tap into my limited Charisma and spoke up, addressing the table guests.
¡°Sorry about that, everyone, and thank you, Anna. I was¡ a bit of a mess, sorry if I stole your appetite.¡± I told the group, not quite chuckling but still awkward enough to choke a man.
I smiled, aiming for an attempt at politeness.
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I suppose that¡¯s what I got for having twice as many points in Intelligence and focusing on physical attributes instead of social ones.
I tried to read their expressions, but I had a hard time reading them. One was Anna, and she was a bit worried, it was easy enough to read with the time I had spent with her, but the rest were hard to read from lack of know-how and whatever skills Strause and the woman next to me had that made their faces blank.
The woman next to me moved her hand oddly, but that was it for her, and Strause was, as always, grinning like a moron or like he knew a joke that everyone didn¡¯t.
As for the second new guest¡
I had no idea why she was even here, Strause and his friend¡ girlfriend? Acquaintance? They at least had a direct line with Anna; one of them was Anna''s brother, and the rest of this was totally unknown territory.
Oh go¡sh, am I supposed to introduce myself? Am I being rude? Aw man, I am, aren¡¯t I¡
I turned to the woman next to me and introduced myself to her with all the grace I had, which was very little.
¡°Um, hello, I¡¯m Saphine, I¡¯ve been staying with Anna, sorry about the grossness, I, uh, didn¡¯t know anyone else would be here, especially this late.¡±
She nodded a little and brought her hand up from drooping toward the ground to her lap.
¡°Hello, uh, Saphine, I¡¯m Joan, Joan Tavner, I¡¯ve heard a bit about you from Strause but not a whole lot. It¡¯s good to meet you, uh, grotesqueness aside, I¡¯ve been interested in meeting you since Strause talked about you.¡±
She said it like she was worried about being offensive, but otherwise sounded genuine. I had no idea if that was accurate; her face never seemed to change from the cool, passive exterior, but that was how I read it.
¡°Good to meet you, Joan, Strause, good to see you again. I¡ Actually, I never introduced myself, did I? Huh¡ W-well, I suppose I should then? Um, hello, good to meet you again,¡± I stammered to Strause as I went around the table, right to left.
Luckily for me, he didn¡¯t rib me for it, whatever it was that he hid behind his fake smile, it didn¡¯t seem like it was anything bad.
The longer I puzzled it out, the harder it was to put into words, like whatever I was thinking about was on the tip of my tongue, but instead of coming to mind, it slid down instead of out. To top it all off, I felt disoriented and fuzzy. It had been coming and going as I floated down the river and had settled from a burble to an inconsistent burst of in-and-out confusion.
Part of me looked inward then, inward towards what was causing it, while I outwardly listened to Strause.
¡°Indeed you didn¡¯t, you were a bit shaken up, though, and were still learning common, so its no big deal. I didn¡¯t introduce myself either, I¡¯m Strause, Anna''s little brother, Clause wrangler, and all-around lady killer. A pleasure to meet your acquaintance,¡± He told me in an increasingly joking tone.
Anna Hmphed was a little cute, while I blinked, not knowing where to go with his wording and piecing together the phrase lady killer from a casual admission of murder targeting women to what I assumed was the intended meaning.
And Joan kicked him.
Not hard, but she did it.
There was no change to his face, but he leaned in and whispered in a pained tone, ¡°I¡¯m here to clear my name to my sister, she thinks I visit prostitutes for lascivious purposes,¡± he said, pain shifting to include foux emotion to it before he sat up in his chair and exclaimed.
¡°I could not bear the thought! My brother thinking less of me, I can, even my mother and father, but my dearest sister, my closest female relative, if you judge closeness by age, I couldn¡¯t let it stand!¡±
He went on, talking like a madman, like he was living in a play, even giving an aside, whispering towards Joan, before going back to the same tone. It was¡ Not expected, which, while it was an understatement, was a way of explaining it.
I just stared at him, confused, as he rattled off an overly dramatic explanation that could be summarized as, I met Anna today and decided to have a potluck but went on for more than 40 seconds of uninterrupted, confusing, verbose explanation.
Joan kicked him again, and this time, it got a reaction. Strause winced before she, and he locked eyes and had a 4-second silent stare-down that ended in him acquiescing.
I felt like the conversation was about to lapse into an awkward quietus, so I asked, ¡°Do you go for massages?¡±
I wanted to jump out of one of the shuttered windows when it left my mouth.
Why did I say that? That¡¯s so stupid. Is the floppy feeling my empty head rattling?
Strause stared at me, Anna looked at me like I had grown a second set of ears, and she didn¡¯t know if she liked the aesthetic, Joan wobbled like a shrub in the wind, the Sprites were too busy talking to the second guest trying to bum some meat with a sauce off her plate because they couldn¡¯t serve themselves without getting things dirty. And the guest herself weirded me out in a way I hadn¡¯t gotten to yet.
Strause blinked, then snorted, then in a moment of suddenness, his facade cracked, and he laughed. It was a short, clippy, hiccupping laugh, a warbling, snorting, and very off-normal expression for the normally uncanny goofy-looking man. I had only seen a fake face and a serious face, but I had never seen the underneath.
¡°I- Hugh, don¡¯t think they know how to give one. Spfft, I suppose I should ask next time I check-in. I visit them for a few reasons, but mostly to keep tabs on stuff. They¡¯re the good sort, I never even thought of passing it off as a massage. Heh, since when did they do that?¡±
He was laughing, teary-eyed, and not in control of himself.
In that moment, my Fritzy wisdom, abused by the day but still ever present, clicked something into place in my mind as I saw a tiny fragment of Strause. Cool, calm and collected? Goofy? Strause was none of those things.
And all of those things.
He was hiding what was underneath because it was vulnerability.
He was sudden, abrupt, everchanging and malleable, made from the energy that wanted to play off the room and himself and a state of mind that could be used and abused.
People saw Strause, and saw the mask, the meat. Then he showed the seriousness, and they thought they saw the bone. Strause was not meat nor bone but the marrow. Hidden behind action, inaction, and falsehood. I got a peek, there one moment, but soon enough, the moment passed, eaten by the sands of time.
He wiped a tear from his eye, and the goof was back.
Joan smiled, Anna blinked, and the Sprites got a bite-sized piece of meat, the sauce making my stomach rumble from the smell alone.
¡°I did not mean to even ask that,¡± I told him.
¡°I know, I know. It was a good thought; you have good instincts. It''s good to see you¡ Well, not more stable, but lest¡ Volatile? Explosive? Either or, I guess.¡±
With the weird time Strause gave off over with, Anna chided him from across the table about her being able to look after herself, Joan had a hint of a smile, at least for a moment, then I turned to the last guest.
It was daunting, the idea of talking with her was a bit weird for more than one reason.
I had been thinking about it since I came in and got a good look at her and saw her long blond hair.
She was an elf, a short, very childish elf, and she didn¡¯t even have the hair, elves got brighter hair colours when they aged before it turned white; the colour depended on the elves heritage, but they did have coloured hair. It was like Kobolds and our traits, or the type of animal or plant a goblin took after.
The child was blond, however. A sign that she was still young, not fully matured. I could spot some pigment, a tiny tint of colour, a faint leaf green that would probably compliment her eyes, but that was it.
I didn¡¯t know what to do about this. I had been thinking about it since I walked in, and I couldn¡¯t figure out what to do about it. My normal level of instinctual understanding, fueled by my wisdom, was on the fritz, and it had me acting unwise. I had spat out my massage comment on instinct, and I hadn¡¯t liked that one bit despite the lightness that had come from it.
So I didn¡¯t say anything as I thought about it. She was relatively familiar, the type of familiarity of having seen them before but not remembering where or when.
I didn¡¯t get much time to consider because she looked up at me after bargaining with the sprites and introduced herself.
¡°Hello, Saphine, was it? My name is Gunther.¡± She said it and gave a toothy grin, a very toothy grin, a very pointy, very predatory grin.
She had teeth, more like a wolf than a Human. That didn¡¯t scare me, though, I grinned back.
She blinked.
¡°Huh, that usually works,¡± she said, a bit disappointed.
¡°I bet it works all the time on Humans, but I¡¯m not Human, and before you ask, I¡¯m not a Beastkin either,¡± I told her.
She spoke up a little huffily.
¡°I can see that, I know you¡¯re not. I¡¯ve seen a lot of things in my time on the road as the [Carvan Master] of the West Winds Caravan Company, and you are not one of the things I¡¯ve seen. You''re definitely not a Beastkin or even halfkin¡ What are you, I wonder?¡±
She obviously wanted me to bite and waited for me to answer, taking a drink from her mug that I could tell was alcohol.
A memory clicked together. Me and Anna, setting up an account at the merchant''s house, the child at the bar, drinking.
¡°Huh, I¡¯ve seen you before at the merchant''s house.¡±
She raised one dainty eyebrow as if that was not particularly important.
¡°And what of it? Am I not entitled to creature comforts? I am a merchant with decades of experience, they treat my company well at the houses¡ Or are you confused on some other piece of tedium? You can have a drink by the way, I¡¯ll pass a bottle to you if you want some.¡±
She said it cockily, cards to the chest like a shield, blocking with one hand and poking with the other.
I took no such precaution, I just swung for the hills, ¡°I would have thought a merchant''s guild would know you¡¯re a child and not give in to clout when it comes to giving you alcohol, I¡¯ve met elves before, your not even a teenager, you¡¯ve got no colour in your hair.¡±
She looked at me, a change overcoming her, first confusion, then annoyance, which quickly morphed into disbelief and that discomfort, the look followed by a hand, tiny dainty fingers, not quite spindly, not quite Human, reaching for her hair to pick through it.
A momentary tick, followed by a thoughtful pause.
The pause brought forward a sudden, perilous feeling of familiarity. The same as when Anna whispered to me in the dark but bereft of comfort, familiarity and care.
¡°I hate to say this, but whoever told you they were an elf was selling you something. I might be short, but I¡¯m fully grown. There aren¡¯t any elves left, those cowards ran. We might be their sloppy seconds, but that¡¯s no reason to treat me as a kid, kid. I¡¯m probably ten times the age of your parents.¡±
I sat there and mulled it over, then reached out my hand.
¡°Pass me some wine if you have it over there. I need to stop walking into stuff like this, and I want to ask a bit about that. I can give you a story, if you want it, or a little history, if a story is too childish for you, kid, because the last time I walked the world was before your parents were born, even if you''re older than my mom, I doubt you''re older than me.¡±
Chapter 39 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 12
The others quieted down a little, well, everyone but the Sprites. They couldn¡¯t understand my words, even if Selly already knew what I was talking about, they continued to chat, the queen sometimes jibing her in our mother tongue.
Joan and Strause paid attention, focusing on me and moving to face one another in my periphery, while Anna, who had sometimes gestured, pulled her arms back towards herself to let the elf pass me something around the table.
Gunther, a strange name for a girl, so strange she might as well have used Jane Doe, reached for the bottle while focusing on me to talk.
¡°By the trees¡ So you stupid and dumb looking? Listen, girl, I¡¯m a [Merchant]. If you think you can swindle me with words, you have another thing coming. That¡¯s in my skill set, not yours. Whatever your skill set is¡ What is your skill set? And why does my skill want to sell you shovels and magical foci?¡± Gunther said, slightly annoyed as she passed an uncorked bottle over to me.
She had to hold it by the neck, both of our arms being on the shorter end, her from height, me from being a kobold, but it got passed over with Anna¡¯s help, which got a ¡°thanks,¡± and ¡°you''re welcome,¡± quickly whispered.
I spoke up after I got my hands on the bottle, piecing together what I thought I should say while my intuition flipped on and off. I decided to go shrewd, most people I had met never mentioned their class, or at least not much about it.
¡°I dig, or well, I guess I used to dig ditches, I¡¯m a, uh, a [Gravedigger] now, and that¡¯s as much as I¡¯ll tell you, miss,¡± I told her, ferrying the bottle in front of Anna and checking my cup to make sure it wasn¡¯t full before pouring some for myself.
¡°Smart enough, at least that explains why my skill is trying to get me to sell you shovels. Though, it¡¯s all over the place with you. Honestly. Shovels, healing potions, random seeds, wine, it¡¯s all over the place with you, and that¡¯s just the best deals.¡±
¡°Sounds like a good skill, but I¡¯ll come to find you for it if I need anything, I don¡¯t need you trying to get me to buy things. So are you going to spill on this, miss? I¡¯m not an elf, I''m just an elf, or are you going to keep your secrets like Anna and continue being weirdly young.¡±
¡°Huh, I¡¯m not keeping secrets,¡± Anna tried to lie, but in a way that was so unconvincing it almost came off as intentional until I looked over and saw her face flush and took in the smell of alcohol from her cup, and the look of, ¡®oh no why did I even say that,¡¯ plastered over her face like Strause''s mask.
¡°It¡¯s ok, Anna, I trust your secret keeping isn¡¯t going to go bad. But it is kind of obvious your keeping them,¡± I chimed in, attempted reassurance in my voice.
I wasn¡¯t mad or anything, Anna could keep her secrets, I wasn¡¯t going to demand she tell me everything in her life or peel her open to juice her like a fruit for information. Even if the idea of getting her to open up a little or getting Anna juicy was appealing, forcing her would close her off for both possible paths.
The second also made my face flush, and that was before I even started drinking.
That is for after marriage, Saphine, get your head out of the gutter, it''s not even that time of the year yet, you have no reason to be thinking that. I¡¯m sure Anna would decline, anyway¡ we don¡¯t know each other well enough for that kind of cuddling.
Strause cleared his voice then, drawing my eyes from Anna in time to stop me from checking her out like a creep.
¡°I would personally like to know about these secrets of yours, Anna. Come on, I¡¯m your little brother, aren¡¯t I trustworthy enough to give me something to gossip about?¡±
He said it almost flamboyantly, like he couldn¡¯t believe she had an idea she hadn¡¯t shared before.
That was a little funny, I wouldn¡¯t lie. Strause acted like one of the girls, just short a skirt, a smock and the parts that made us different. He even put on a funny voice. Changing his O¡¯s to A¡¯s and talking like he had not a thought in his head. He followed it up with a series of ¡®pleaz¡¯s,¡¯ like he was a kid trying to rattle answers out of their mom.
After a few moments, Joan slapped a hand over his mouth, ¡°It''s only funny for the first three pleases, then the voice starts to grate.¡±
¡°Mmk,¡± Strause muffled out before peeling her hand off his face, turning back to Anna and giving her puppy dog eyes instead.
Those didn¡¯t vibe with the goofy grin, but how big he made his eyes look was downright uncanny.
¡°I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about, I have no secrets,¡± she said, blushing further.
I reached over and patted her shoulder in solidarity, and because it would make her blush even more. And blush more she did.
Anna only got cuter the redder she got, and she was already pretty cute.
She covered her face with a mug as she took a drink, and I swooped back into talking to Gunther.
¡°It¡¯s not that great of a skill,¡± she told me, waving it off, ¡°any [Merchant] class can get it as a capstone or from 35 onwards, I¡¯m almost sure there''s also a better version at a higher level. Oh, what I wouldn¡¯t give to have it, I can almost imagine the weight of all those¡ Ahem, sorry, I¡¯m getting sidetracked, I¡¯m not an elf, I¡¯m a wood elf,¡± she said, momentarily getting an almost lewd look on her face when she talked about making money before getting herself back on track.
¡°No problem, you are exactly what I think of when I think merchant, only in it for the money, I can appreciate earning coin, at least in moderation. Also, that makes you look like a child how? Even Half-elves are taller, and it''s not just your height. You not spindly enough, the hair colour is wrong, all the rest of it, how does that work if you''re what? More elf than half-elf?¡± I asked her, raising my mug to my mouth and taking in the aroma.
I caught an off-flavour, a series of them, that smashed into me at the same moment I tipped the mug back, back far enough to get some on my tongue. I almost choked as I moved to sip, only managing to swallow the tiny amount I drank with a feat of constitution.
It tasted fine on my tongue, but the flavour was off, way off, and it was all in the aroma. I could smell small amounts of differing rots, the quality of the grapes, cork rot, something like vinegar, and other myriad smells that choked out any of the other notable flavours that should be in wine.
¡°You should, Uhh,¡± I cut myself off, shivering in disgust and gagging a bit, ¡°You should get a refund on this. It''s not even good for cleaning,¡± I told her, placing the mug down and looking into the pale yellow liquid in my cup.
It was too bad. It had just enough sweetness and sourness, and while it had a kind of ehh mouthfeel, it was otherwise okay, but the rest of it took it from a possible 6 to a 1.
Humans making wine, gods above make them learn how to make okay wine, wine for someone with a more sensitive nose.
She huffed haughtily.
¡°What are you? A [Wine Snob]? It¡¯s perfectly good wine!¡± She groused.
¡°Not with a nose like mine,¡± I told her, ¡°here, have your vinegar back, you got any ale over there?¡±
She nodded, and with a pass off and a quick walk over to the window, the poor excuse for wine was where it belonged, and I got to cleaning my cup out for some beer. The only thing left behind was my immense disappointment at the quality of the wine.
Kobolds loved our wine, Goblins did too. It was the great unifier for our two peoples. Good wine.
When I sat back down, I filled up my cup with beer from another bottle and took a sip. It was alright, but it tasted like disappointment. Strause¡¯s grin looked a little more mirthful, and Joan was looking into her mug like she didn¡¯t know what was in there and was making sure of what she was drinking.
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Then she shrugged and drank anyway because I could smell what they couldn¡¯t. I alone bore the terrible curse of having a good nose.
Oh well, the beer was fine, and the bready and slightly caramel flavour was nice.
At least we shared the same sense of taste.
¡°So anyway, how does that make you small? Being a wood elf, that is.¡±
She shook her head, ¡°First, you insulted me, you! Calling me a kid, conflating me with those¡ those twigs! And now you''re calling my product trash. You first, you uppity brat, I¡¯ll hear your story first, see if it rings hollow. And a warning, I will blacklist you if you¡¯re pulling my ear, girl. Honestly, I aught to¡¡± She started to make intelligible words barely, poutily harumphing and grumbling.
¡°Fine, Fine. Before Moarn was scorched to the ground, and everyone and everything in it was reduced to ash, I lived and grew up in the city, in a tiny compound. Just one person amongst many others. I''ve never met a wood elf before, but back then, I honestly don¡¯t know if your people existed. They certainly never mentioned wood elves at church, but they did teach little Kobolds like me about elves,¡± I told her.
¡°So you claim to be from an ancient civilization that knew elves? A Kobold? Never heard of you before. Were you related to Goblins, maybe? They''re as old as dirt too, even if they live and die like spring flys¡±
¡°Funnily enough, yes, but so are you, little miss yes, I¡¯m an elf, but not those elves, we are both related to Goblins, though not in a direct way, but by a common ancestor. They were resilient, we were wise, and we got along like two wet cats in a bag. And yeh, I guess it would be an ancient civilization to most people, but we were a little more advanced than you. More technical classes, better roads and buildings¡ Windmills, and water wheels, that sort of thing. There¡¯s a building I could show you that survived it all. It¡¯s the only building I know of that is readily accessible in old moarn. That¡¯s where I grew up, and that¡¯s where I met the elf I met. I got lost as a kid and headed toward the tallest person I could find. And spotting a person as tall as a tree is a very easy feat for a child, it''s all about how high you can look up and still see them, you know?¡±
¡°You sound drunk already, though you came in kind of drunk to begin with, so I suppose it''s not that much of a difference.¡± She snorted.
¡°I think it has to do with using my Wisdom, regardless of my intoxication, that¡¯s my story, I met an elf like, a long ass time ago as a kid when I got lost, and he brought me to the church I was looking for.¡±
¡°Considering your more hair than head, it must not be much wisdom, especially if you wound up like you did. And despite what you say, despite you not lying in this trade, you got one thing wrong, Wood elfs aren¡¯t considered related to Goblins, at least according to the Goblins, were too Human for their liking, but too close to the Elves to be attacked, so the two of us just walk past one another awkwardly,¡± she said in a correcting tone.
¡°So I didn¡¯t lie; tell your truth, why do you look like a little kid?¡± I asked her, finishing up my cup and filling it again.
She waved it off, ¡°We¡¯ve already taken up quite a lot of the space talking, don¡¯t you think? I¡¯m sure the others don-¡± She started, only to get cut off by Anna.
¡°I¡¯m sure Clause and Joan wouldn¡¯t mind a little talking, I¡¯m certainly interested in how you differ from an elf, I¡¯ve never seen or read much about it, I assumed elves were wood elves,¡± she told Gunther.
She looked around at us, taking us in shrewdly. Checking our faces and trying to read the room. Assumably to figure out if she could worm out of our deal. Maybe she had the skill to slip out of deals. I didn¡¯t know, and she didn¡¯t use one, Joan was on a third cup of foul wine, Clause only a second, and it reflected in the two postures.
¡°Fine, fine. Don¡¯t let it be said that Gunther doesn¡¯t hold up their end of a trade,¡± she venomously spat.
I nodded encouragingly, and it was for one simple reason I didn¡¯t speak up. Joan was on three, Strause two, I was fairly sure Anna was on at least her second, and the elf, she was on her third. Her third of the conversation. She had kept slamming them down like she was at a party. I had no idea how much she had drunk, but she became grumpier and grumpier as time went on, and she was currently nose-diving.
Using every lick of Charisma I had, which was not much, I kept myself from giving her any ammunition until after she told me about wood elves.
¡°Wood elves have just as much in common with elves as we do half-elves. We¡¯re what happens when the two have a whole load of babies, and then they leave them to grow up in isolation, breed true, as it were. Humans live for what, a hundred or so years? Half-elves can live up to 400 if they¡¯re lucky, the key word being IF. And we can live a thousand IF we¡¯re lucky. We age like a human, just ten times slower, we¡¯re not small because we¡¯re children; we''re small because we inherited the fuckin twigs'' longevity, but the frailty of human bodies and the slowed aging of half-elves. By the time I hit the elf equivalent of puberty, I¡¯ll be worm food or better off in the dirt. If you want more, go talk to a [Archivist]. I¡¯m not going to talk about what happens, it would just bring down the mood.¡±
¡°I would say that¡¯s more than enough in trade; thank you, Gunther. I¡¯ll make sure to visit your caravan if I need to buy anything. Sorry for bugging you on your drinking, I didn¡¯t mean to push you around or bring up something sour like that.¡±
¡°Sure¡ sure. Speaking of, I need another drink,¡± and with that, the short woman reached for one of the bottles, found it empty, and found the next. She was tearing through the alcohol like the Sprites were tearing through chunks of food, half again the size of their chest.
Selly was using a knife like a ship''s oar, holding the morsel down with one foot, a pose of victory as she carved pieces off for herself and her queen. Anna was thinking, contemplative thought written large on her face. Not something bad, I didn¡¯t know. It was something else, there wasn¡¯t anything bad coming off of her, I thought, though maybe I couldn¡¯t smell it with the air heavy with the smell of food.
Reminded by the smell, I reached out and loaded my plate up and got to the point of a potluck, stuffing your face with a bunch of different foods with questionable compatibility. The tantalizing sauce, meat, and greens, one of the sandwiches which seemed interesting, even if it was just food in a bun, went on my plate in small servings, and I got to eating.
I decided to pay closer attention to her instead of the confusing feeling of knowing the elves were gone, too. At least they didn¡¯t sound like they died, they were just¡ gone. I focused on her, taking bites of the less appetizing food as I tried to make sense of her expression, and got lost in the moment, Anna turned and started talking to Clause while I saw Gunther slam back a whole mug like it was water.
I focused on her face, the line of her jaw, and the flush on her cheeks, and just let the world go by for a little, managing to trick myself into asking questions that kept me listlessly floating at the moment.
I wondered how Anna kept her hair so clean despite sharing the same things I used to wash my own hair. Was it just that her hair was straight? How did she get that sheen to her hair? Was it a skill? Just a Human thing, maybe? Either way, she found a way to always look like she spent hours getting ready despite never doing it.
Maybe it was magic, like how she always kept the flower crown on. I was fairly sure it was somehow alive, with how vibrant the purple of the Violets always was.
Magic or skill was a funny trick keeping in on her head, even through her nocturnal acrobatics.
Anna shook me a little, ¡°Saphine, hey, are you falling asleep?¡±
I jerked to conscious, though, my mind spinning back up from the inebriated food-propelled glide I had been into a series of conscious thoughts centred on what was happening.
¡°Hmm? No, I¡¯m not falling asleep, just¡ taking in the moment, what''s up? What did I miss?¡±
She looked at me, raising an eyebrow in a dangerous look. It took me a moment to figure out why, but I figured it out fast enough. I had been out of it, so I was either ignoring what was going on or I was lying through my teeth.
¡°Sorry, I¡¯m a bit out of it is all, I kind of overused my wisdom¡ I think?¡± I looked down at the empty cup of beer and decided that I wasn¡¯t going to have a third.
¡°Strause was just telling me about how the lords are getting together to do something about the necromancy,¡± she told me in a way that was obviously her trying to get me to lean into the conversation.
I turned to Strause and noticed Joan being a bit floppy, doodling in some water on the table.
¡°Anything I can do to help? There was the jade, but I couldn''t help. I know where to find more of them, and I have some more cursed-looking magic stuff from today.¡±
Strause looked at me, and his eyes were a bit strained.
¡°There''s more undead? Just around? Free to rampage around the valley?¡± He asked in a strained tone that had him looking like he just sucked on a fresh kumquat, sour, puckered lips, almost dramatically overblown in how he showed it off.
I waved it off, ¡°the skeletons are trapped in a crypt. Do you remember that building I mentioned, the one from old moarn? It¡¯s a church, with a graveyard, with a crypt with a bunch of undead [Monk] skeletons. I don¡¯t think they can climb, but even if they could, there is a lid they probably can''t open, and even if they got both, there is a way taller ladder they would have to find and climb. They''re not that ¡®smart,¡¯ even if they do what they do without input. There are possibly undead running around, but from what I¡¯ve seen, they''re all dumb. The Gremlins I fought used tools to control them, but they were otherwise totally passive, like puppets.¡±
The pucker intensified, ¡°OH? That¡¯s¡ better. They are not rampaging, they are just being directed by hostile forces with greater intelligence. Noted. What''s this about cursed artifacts?¡±
¡°Yep, there were rituals, too, but I broke a bunch of them. There¡¯s a blade full of dark magic outside that I stole from an undying monstrous [Necromancer] thing that was too big to walk through the front door, who insinuated that he was weak and that he had a far more powerful mistress.¡±
Strause''s lips pressed into a thin line, and he started to nod, ¡°That isn¡¯t terrifying or anything.¡±
¡°Oh, that¡¯s just the surface of the mud, they were using souls for lighting.¡±
He stopped nodding, ¡°Please stop.¡±
¡°Sure, sure. Don¡¯t worry, Anna, I¡¯m fine.¡±
¡°I wasn¡¯t worried.¡±
¡°You¡¯re a terrible liar; don¡¯t worry, it¡¯ll work out,¡± I told her, trying to reassure her.
¡°I wish everyone paid attention to the feelings of others, maybe I should move in with another woman.¡±
¡°Eh, tu Joan?¡±
¡°Don¡¯t even, most men have an excuse, you don¡¯t,¡± she told him.
And that¡¯s how the night went. Small talk, banter, a suspiciously delicious sandwich that Strause brought. That¡¯s how it went on until everyone decided that it was time to go home.
Chapter 40 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 13
The event was drawing long into the night, everyone deep in their cups and plates covered in numerous stains from the mix of different foods, each layering over one another, woven together like a rug, when everyone started to pull themselves away from the table, bellies round, pregnant with enough food to spawn a food baby.
Strause, who looked at the world with heavy-lidded eyes, helped up Joan, who had been mopey and stroking something unseen and quite possibly imaginary with her hands for the better part of an hour. Gunther, real name unknown and unspoken, grumbly about talking, waddled her 5-foot form towards the door like some variety of flightless bird.
The Sprites, swollen like ticks, buzzed, using all the strength in their bodies to lift off. They looked like the rest of us, even though they had eaten only a comparable crumb. They buzzed, the queen thanking Anna, which required some translation for Anna to understand.
And then, like a whirlwind to my buzzy, overused mind, they were heading out the door. Me and Anna saw them off as they walked out into the night, the bright moon overhead, though not full, would give them enough light to walk by back to moarn, where they could rest their heads and fall into a blissful food coma
They stumbled out and away from the cottage, then out of the grove, and beyond to town. I reached out and picked up the bundle of cloths, ragged, wet, and still smelling of blood, and decided that I would leave the cloths laid out to dry and only take the blade inside.
Anna walked back in and started picking up dishes, and I went and put the sword away in the closet where my clothes lay before I had rendered them all to strands of fabric.
It was an unnerving thing to feel in my hand. The blade felt too heavy by far for what it was, Like the magic held within the blade, the palpable malignant force ebbing to be unleashed like the dam I had ridden upon, pressed against its boundary, and caused fine glyphs on the blade to shimmer in unholy spectral light purple lilac and vitriolic green, and the foe light of the room with the pit.
There was no soul in the blade, it was only a potent, oversized ritual knife, it looked like it was made to bleed things, along with a thin blade made to create fine cuts. It was the type of knife that could be thrust between the ribs.
I put the forearm-length blade down and headed over to help out Anna.
Anna, incidentally, had decided that doing dishes the normal way was boring and was using a buttload of water and magic to suck everything off the plates. There was a bit of a splash zone, but with how fast she was going through it, I decided that it was a great idea to stay out of her way and get the plates drying, plucking the plates out of the water when they were clean and placing them on the counter and any pottery near the fire to dry. The home was still as warm as when I had come in, perfectly warm.
I went and got a little wood and placed it in the hearth. Kindly had always told me it was his job to keep the hearth lit, though even without Anna adding any, it seemed like it stood lit for far longer than it probably should have, maybe it was because it was blessed, whatever that did.
It was probably magical in some sense of the word, but I couldn¡¯t feel anything special about the mana in the stone, the fireplace, or the warmth it gave off.
It was, to my eye, a normal fireplace. Anna deposited the gunk she pulled from the plates into the fireplace, and I decided to make a sacrifice of it, letting out a little prayer to the Hearthkeeper.
It went through, and I was reminded of the feeling of prayer, a sensation of acknowledgement that my prayer had been heard and accepted. I had no idea if a prayer once heard was not accepted, that was something more in Skip''s wheelhouse, one of the things he didn¡¯t tell us. A [Priest] secret, not given to layfolk.
I bet it was in his library¡ gods so much to do, but so little time to do it in. I¡¯m still learning magic, I still need to practice fighting more, today taught me that much, though there''s not much I can do by repeating the same motions over and over again, is there? I should probably do them anyway to keep it up¡ And I want to go someplace nice with Anna, and save the valley, and get Skip¡¯s library moved, and have space for skips library, and¡ Is there another and?
They were tiny ands. Like hugging Anna, who looked very huggable, my head was still fuzzy, though I was regaining some use of it. Whatever I had done down in that lair had taken a chunk out of my already lacking smarts. I was finding it hard not to act impulsively, which was only spurred on by the beer.
Anna was tapping her feet and moving a little, though I didn¡¯t know if it was part of casting whatever spell she was casting or if it was her dancing a little bit, swaying her hips to a beat in her head.
Wait a moment.
¡°Your casting?¡± I asked, quite stupidly.
¡°Hmm? Yes, I¡¯m casting. Why are you surprised?¡± she asked, turning to face me, not interrupting her jig.
¡°But you already cast the spell¡ and you''re still casting? You¡¯re casting, but not casting, a spell that¡¯s already been cast. There¡¯s no spell pattern thingy.¡± I said, flexing my charisma.
Eloquence, that was me.
My face must have been something to look at because a look of amusement passed her face, though it was a bit tired and more drawn around the eyes. She cleared her thoughts and straightened up with a breath.
¡°Well, [Apprentice],¡± she said in her teacher''s voice, ¡°What I am doing is called [Concentration], it¡¯s a skill common for classes that refer to another power, like [Druids] and [Clerics]. It lets us use the mana we save and put it right back into the spells.¡±
That was something I had not thought about.
Anna had given me two important pieces of information right there, two things I should have probably thought about. A [Cleric] was a [Mage] and a [Priest]; they could already cast spells, and it was the same with Anna, she could cast magic before she became a [Druid]. So, if someone could already cast magic, why would they bind themselves to something else? Casting other spells? Getting given spells? They should be able to learn them, there was nothing I understood that would encourage them to specialize for that reason alone. Anna had already told me before that spells should get less expensive to cast the more I learned to cast them. The first time was sloppy, but then you refined it from there.
But if you could cast a spell through another being¡ Like, a god¡ why would the spell be sloppy at all?
Anna hadn¡¯t cast spells through nature all that much. Apparently, she had caused a storm to form, which, compared to what I could do, was crazy. The kind of thing that would be mana-intensive.
But the sky knew storms well, it knew them and mana on a level I couldn¡¯t even comprehend, I learned that the hard way by asking it.
The second was a natural result of the first, I hadn¡¯t expected a skill to let you cast a spell and extend it. Why would you do that with the spells I had? Extending the [Status] page was a waste, what was I going to do? Read it for longer? And [Inspect] was just fire and forget.
But with a big spell that kept doing stuff the longer it was active, with a super low mana cost, casting the spell again might be less mana efficient than just¡ keeping it going. Like maintenance, fix it once in a while, and you don¡¯t need to replace it, which costs more money overall.
¡°That is¡ So smart,¡± I told her.
My amazement took some of the weariness out of Anna then. Leave it to Anna to tell it like it was, gosh, but she was smart, way smarter than me.
Honestly, I didn¡¯t see what she saw in me.
¡°It¡¯s not so amazing, its only water manipulation, er [Manipulate Water], I only have to do this little dance because, well, I drank a little too much¡ I¡¯m not here enough to hold the spell perfectly without any somatics.¡±
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She said the last part, with a little embarrassment, like relying on the movements, was something to be embarrassed about.
¡°Hehe, you''re still doing way more than I could, and you''re doing it while tipsy-hehe. The sow- Som- the wiggle, its cute and amazing that you barely need any aid, so don¡¯t go getting embarrassed for pulling off a feat of genius here.¡±
That got her blushing, and she missed a beat and made the water flutter for a moment before she caught up with it. She focused on the dishes while I planned my method of attack.
I decided to wait for her to be done before I hugged her. Wait for the plates to get stacked up and the gunk tossed as a sacrifice to Hearth for the warmth of our home and good food.
I waited for the wiggle to end, for the water to get put down. Anna tossed it out the window for the plants. It had taken on a bit of a colour, so hopefully, they liked the food too.
The wiggle stopped, and Anna turned.
A better moment I couldn¡¯t have asked for, I took it, seizing the moment and leaned in for a hug.
I could rest my head on hers when we hugged, standing up and nestling her head into my chest. It was a bit awkward, but I wasn¡¯t pushing it, I wasn¡¯t trying to make a move on her after all, it was a platonic hug, a platonic hug didn¡¯t change just because we were courting.
She hugged back, holding on a moment before releasing a bunch of tension.
I focused on the moment, on the warmth and presence of Anna, until she loosened the hug. I pulled back and gave her a peck on the forehead before talking to her.
¡°Sorry about coming in like that, It was, well, gross would be an understatement. And sorry for running off earlier. I was looking forward to spending time with you, and then I went and ran away and left you hanging.¡±
She gave my back a pat and a bit of worry was on her face. It wasn¡¯t exactly what I was expecting, then again, my instinct was off its rocker right now, it didn¡¯t know what the hell to expect any more than I did without it.
¡°Don¡¯t apologize, not for coming in like that or for running off. I¡¯ll admit that I was disappointed and missed you, but I agree with what you did. Going out to help¡ I think its important, just¡ Just make sure you come back¡ I¡ I know that your hard to kill, possibly even impossible to kill, but¡ God''s Saphine, there was so much blood¡ I can smell it on you.¡±
I could hear the fear as sure as I could smell it, this close without the other around. Anna had been afraid for me or of me, but even with my intuition in a not, I doubted it was the latter over the former.
¡°I can smell it on me too¡ I won''t lie and tell you I didn¡¯t get hurt, that it was their blood, and I¡¯m not still hurt. I, gods, I¡¯m bad at reassuring you, huh? I¡ Well, I fought them, and got hurt, and kept going. I didn¡¯t die this time! How''s that? I got through it, even with the big bad monster at the end. I got the queen out and a few Humans¡ And a whole lot of souls. I-¡±
Anna cut off my poor assurance before it started to get into a half-apology, half-not-apology amalgam that I could tell I would want to take back. She didn¡¯t cut me off as a rule, waiting for me to finish more often than not. It was rare enough that it shut me up.
¡°I¡¯m not asking for an explanation, there''s time for that later. I¡¯m just asking, no, no, I¡¯m telling you to come back safe, if you go out there one day and you don¡¯t come back, I¡¯m going to come looking for you, and Gods help you when I find you. I¡¯ll¡ I¡¯ll¡ I don¡¯t know what I¡¯ll do, but I¡¯ll be very cross with you, you hear that!¡±
She started at a softer volume, but with each syllable, each exhale of breath, her volume increased. It wasn¡¯t just in volume but in emotion, each vowel more pained than the next, and each word brought her closer to squeezing the life out of me. By the end, she was yelling into my chest, head pressed into my cleavage like an axe head.
I could feel her tremble, tucked into me like she was, I could feel it from her hands around my ribs to her belly to her head, pressed flat to me as she was.
My chest felt wet.
¡°I promise I will come back. I¡¯ll always come back, even if it takes me a week or a month. I will walk a thousand miles and more back home. And I¡¯ll make sure to try and get hurt less next time, it will be their blood, not mine.¡±
She snorted a really gross snort and muffled by her apparent desired place to cry uninhibited into me.
¡°Better, you scared me really bad, I thought you were going to fall over like last time. Or die, or I don¡¯t know. But- But- you, scare- scared me-¡±
She became more unhinged from there, venting her emotions and fears to me. I held her close and heard her out, listening to her sadness, and fear, and joy. It was a full-spectrum cry. Not a good cry or a bad cry, but one that was necessary for her.
So, I listened and accepted her emotion. I became her rock and let her cry herself out into me until there were no more tears.
She was weak on her feet, and I would need to wash my one wearable dress, but that was a small price to pay to give Anna what reassurance I could.
And then, to make it known to her, I lifted her up in a princess carry, bringing her up to face level. Anna ugly cried, she was snotty and red-eyed, splotches of dampness where my clothes had failed to wick away her tears.
¡°You know, they say that guys who make girls cry are the worst. I ought to say, I feel like that goes doubly for me,¡± I told her, ¡°I can''t whip away your tears right now on account of holding you, but if its any consolation, I¡¯ll live up to my promise, and next time I¡¯ll make sure to come home without making you cry.¡±
She sniffled and looked at me. She was probably surprised at me picking her up, but she wasn¡¯t fidgeting to get out. Her eyes were big black holes, and it made the instinct of my cave bold ancestors act up. The deer part wanted to protect her, and the fox part wanted to eat her up. both were off the mark, and I focused externally instead of internally, all focused on Anna.
Holding her brought calm to her, she pressed into me. Her mousiness was cute and distracting. The calm wared with confusion in her eyes. Her cheeks took on a flush before she pulled back from it and scowled.
¡°What the hell is going on with me...¡±
She whispered it, quiet as could be.
¡°It¡¯s the mouse in you, I think. It¡¯s the mousey-ness I keep seeing expressing itself,¡± I said, rocking her a little, ¡°You¡¯ve been isolated for a long time, it''s normal when you get close to people and see them hurt to be a little distraught, being a mouse only makes that more extreme. As a Kobold, instinct is a part of us, like it is with everyone, being aware of it is important. Knowing yourself is important.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t like it, the other stuff is ok, but I don¡¯t like this. I feel like a teenager all over again. This sucks, I keep my cool all day, and now I¡¯m¡ Crying like a baby. It''s not fair.¡±
She said it poutily. I was an all too Human reaction, calling something other people had to deal with unfair when it happened to her. I had no stones to throw, though, seeing as I had fought a monster just earlier and called its return from death unfair, all the same.
¡°I know how it feels, my instinct made itself well heard today, too, and caused me no little grief. But a little advice: think of it like this. Those feelings are normal, just heightened. The bad is worse, the good is better, and, importantly for you, the release is more relieving. You¡¯ve probably had to deal with them all your life, tucking them away. I¡¯m not going to judge you for crying anymore than I expect you would judge me for crying, even as rare as it is. Crying is good for you, so don¡¯t try to scrunch it up and pack it away.¡±
¡°I¡ Thank you. I, just don¡¯t know if I like it. It makes me feel so¡ womanly¡¡±
She said womanly in a way that implied context like it was poison.
¡°I¡¯m guessing you don¡¯t mean in the normal way?¡±
¡°No, not the normal way,¡± She sighed, ¡°Womanly in the sense that plenty of men talk about women. Women are unstable, you can''t trust them to make important decisions, Women use their emotions, not their heads, Women aren¡¯t logical, they can¡¯t think for themselves¡ That¡¯s what I mean.¡±
¡°They sound like¡ whats the word¡ not evil but¡¡±
¡°Like they hate women? Like misogynists?¡±
¡°No¡ But those are good enough, they like to see people suffer. Most people aren¡¯t that way, just the ones with too much power.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll say, the lords of the valley uphold good old fashioned values, like hating their wives and desperately wanting as many illegitimate children as possible.¡±
¡°Don¡¯t knock illegitimate children, Ayme was illegitimate, and you¡¯re her descendent.¡±
¡°Gasp, scandal, I must bring this to the court of¡ whoever was emperor at the time.¡±
¡°King, this was a kingdom.¡±
¡°Yes, Yes, don¡¯t wheedle me.¡±
I smirked, the fox within abating, leaving me with only the protectiveness. The still vigil of the great stag, watching over the other animals of the forest.
¡°Think of it like this, at least your not a squirrel, they had it rougher than most.¡±
She looked at me with amusement.
¡°A squirrel, right, and I supposed they buried things?¡±
She looked at my face and realized I wasn¡¯t kidding.
¡°Oh gods, that would be, were they¡ My goodness, being squirrely would be worse.¡±
¡°Yep, by far worse. Twas said in times of yore, you could tell the time of year and whether it would be good by how many complaints the lords made about squirrels. Imagine burying like twenty pounds of flour in a jar in some random field, or when they started to get twitchy, and you needed to avoid them, or they might freak out. They were the most high-strung people I knew of. Good merchants, though, for what that¡¯s worth.¡±
¡°Ridiculous, truly ridiculous.¡±
¡°I never said it made sense, just like instincts don¡¯t, just like men don¡¯t. The world doesn¡¯t make sense, we were not made to make sense of it, just to live within it, what was it skip said¡ To make sense of nonsense is nonsense, only by accepting nonsense can we make sense of our senses. The world we see is a lie, reality is not what it appears; it is all nonsense, and our minds order it to make some sense so we can get by. We put things in boxes because it makes it easier. Men are pigs, instincts are bad, and squirrels are totally normal, functioning members of society. Each is a lie, and each is true, depending on who asks who. Or something like that anyway.¡±
¡°He sounds like a [know-it-all].¡±
¡°Close, he was a [Lore Master].¡±
¡°Close enough, can I¡ Can I ask you something?¡± she asked.
I nodded to her.
¡°Is it really ok¡ for me to be so¡ So¡ Emotional? I hate to reiterate myself, but even you have to agree, my crying is a little gross.¡±
I looked down at her face, covered in the fading signs of her crying, and I came to a decision.
¡°If I promise you I¡¯m fine with it, will you take me at my word?¡± I asked her. She nodded, craning her head to be closer to me.
¡°Well then, I promise I will always come home¡¡±
¡°I promise I will always be better here, and while I fight¡¡±
¡°And I promise that your crying is not going to chase me away, when you need to cry, you need to cry, no matter how many boggers you get on my clothes.¡±
And between each line, I kissed her, not a tiny chaste peck, but a kiss.
Chapter 41 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 14
I held Anna there in my arms while she calmed down, and the blush faded from her cheeks. For my part, I, too, was blushing like a sunset, though I calmed down a little quicker. I had been the one to make the move, after all, so it only made sense that I recovered first.
I spent the entire time paying attention to Anna''s face.
I had to admit to myself, at this point, that I liked seeing Anna off guard and blushing, I liked teasing her. And if I was reading her face right, Anna was okay with it, maybe she even liked it. I could tell by the way her mouth hung open for a moment, her eyes blinking before softening, her mouth drawing back into a happy, small smile. She looked happy, genuinely happy for a moment, and what a gorgeous moment it was.
Despite that, she was older than me, of noble birth, wealthier, my magical teacher, at a higher level than me, and honestly, probably higher on any metric of importance than me; she seemed to like it when someone else took the lead. While those things didn¡¯t matter to me all that much, I supposed maybe Anna was thinking about the situation in the same way, only instead of not wanting me to be uncomfortable, thinking she had some power over me, and taking it slow and steady, not pushing me, not testing my boundaries, and being incredibly passive. If that was the case, it was a little sweet, but it would also leave us estranged. So I made a note of it to myself that maybe I should try to poke at boundaries a little. I was trying to woo her, after all, it made enough sense to me that I should be at least a little active in the process.
¡°So, are you willing to accept that promise? You being womanly doesn¡¯t bother me, Anna, I¡¯m dating you because you¡¯re a woman, not because I expect you to act like a [lord] and bottle everything up until you die,¡± I asked her, smiling down at her in turn.
¡°Well, um¡ yes. Yes, you have. I, uh, don¡¯t suppose you''re looking to make any more promises to me?¡± She asked, blush deepening from embarrassment.
¡°Well¡ I suppose I could. Would you prefer I make them like this, or would you like me to make them in the study or even in the bedroom?¡± I asked her suggestively, teasing her.
Her blush, as I did, deepened again from my insinuation. It was a full-face thing, the type you got when you held your breath.
¡°You know what, I have one more, I promise you that I¡¯m never going to stop teasing you. You¡¯re too cute when you blush, not too,¡± I told her, leaning in and kissing her a fourth time.
This time, when she recovered from it, she started pouting and wiggling in the way one does when one wants to be let down. I got her back on her feet, and she stood up straight for a moment, brushing out her clothes to thin any bunching.
¡°I have a few questions if you don¡¯t mind me asking them,¡± I told her, ¡°though if you don¡¯t want to answer, I¡¯ll keep them to myself.¡±
She turned her attention away from her clothes and back to me, pouting a little, her eyes still puffy from crying.
¡°I¡¯m not cute!¡± She told me, pointing at me.
I smiled and told her in my best appeased the noble voice, ¡°Yes, Mistress, of course, mistress, anything you say, mistress.¡±
She glared at me, still pouting, before she nodded and sighed.
¡°Go on then, I can¡¯t say no to you, especially when you smile like that, but get rid of the voice, please, I don¡¯t need to be reminded of when I was a kid.¡±
¡°I¡¯m going to level, probably a lot, so what are some good skills to aim for?¡± I asked her.
¡°You do that a lot. Your starting to talk about skills like they¡¯re something you shop for,¡± she said, making me almost pucker my mouth with the lack of thought I put into it. ¡°There are some that sound kind of weak but are good. [Ritual] style skills, which let you cast a spell slowly, are good for really big spells, I use it when I enrich crops. There are [Spellbook] skills which help you remember everything in that book, like spells or your skills and stuff. Hmm¡ Proficiency¡¯s are always a bit of a drag, but if you get a proficiency in a type of magic, those are good, I keep wanting to get [Nature Proficiency]¡ I can¡¯t think of much more quiet, general, low-level stuff... Yup, that¡¯s it.¡±
She told me, pausing, thinking and pausing again before finishing her shortlist.
[Ritual], [Spellbook] and proficiency¡¯s
I had a few things that could benefit from magical proficiency, maybe I would pick up one.
Should I tell her? I mean, I¡¯m not the type to keep secrets, but she can¡¯t even use the secret, and it is one of those weird secrets connected with the soul that seems like I probably shouldn¡¯t talk about them, but it¡¯s also one that shouldn¡¯t cause harm on its own.
¡°Anna, can you keep a secret?¡±
¡°Hmm¡ yes, I can. Why? Do you have a secret?¡±
¡°I do, it¡¯s a secret too dangerous for mortals to know, a truth about the soul and the deepest underpinnings of the world we live it,¡± I told her, nodding like I was a [Sage], just a [Beardless Sage].
She looked at me like I was pulling her leg, one dainty eyebrow raised.
¡°Woe, disbeliever, woe be to you,¡± I told her, bopping her nose. ¡°I talk about skills like I can pick them because we do, we just do it while we dream, next time you think you¡¯re going to level, keep in mind the skill you want, maybe that will help.¡±
Her eyebrow dropped, and she got a look of confusion and more confusion.
¡°I can¡¯t tell if you¡¯re being serious or not, but knowing you, you are being serious,¡± she said, sighing. ¡°Though honestly, I¡¯ll try it, if you level, I might level, so I might get a skill tonight, too, I might as well.¡±
¡°I can guarantee you won¡¯t be¡ wait your level when I level? Since when?¡±
¡°Since you became my apprentice, apprentice. I¡¯ve been getting a trickle of experience when you get experience. It¡¯s honestly a bit crazy how fast you¡¯ve been levelling, I would complain, but it¡¯s been giving me a kickback for helping you learn magic, and I have no problem with free levels.¡±
¡°Well, I¡¯m definitely levelling tonight, probably a lot, maybe you¡¯ll get some too.¡±
¡°I can always dream. That¡¯s a good secret, I¡¯ll keep it tucked away up here for when I level up again.¡± She told me, taping her head.
¡°Good place to keep it, I might become a [Journeyman Mage], Oh, what¡¯s the next spell I¡¯m supposed to learn? Is it going to be a cool spell? Is it going to be like a [Fireball], or some kind of fighting magic?¡±
She looked at me with a tired smile, ¡°It¡¯s a-uh¡ a secret.¡± She told me, interrupted by a yawn.
She was starting to peter out, and I wasn¡¯t the type of person to pester her for every iota of life. She could keep her secret, I would find out what spell was next soon enough.
¡°Ok, keep the secret for now sleepy head, lets head to bed,¡± I told her, giving her a head rub.
She looked up at me when I pulled my hand back, and I looked down at her. She wasn¡¯t moving. Noticing my attention, she gave me the biggest saddest eyes and lifted up her arms.
Wordlessly, I understood her meaning, and I had to stop myself from laughing.
I lifted her up under her arms and let her dangle a bit like a cat before running to the room as fast as I could.
She let out a little ¡°WEEE¡± that made me almost choke as I brought her in and put her down, and we got ready and went to bed.
It was deep into the night, the world dormant beyond the shuttered windows when we tucker ourselves down under the covers.
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Anna foisted herself up against me, and I wrapped up around her.
¡°Sleep tight,¡± I told her.
¡°Don¡¯t let the bed bugs bite,¡± she mumbled back.
¡°Silly Anna¡ We don¡¯t have bed bugs.¡±
I fell asleep and woke up refreshed, staring at a sky full of stars and an aurora of flittering green and blue, my back bought by an invisible sea that stretched out forever, out and out into the dark space that made up the core of my soul.
It was refreshing.
My whole body, not being my real body, was totally free of any of the remnants of pain or stiffness.
¡°Ohh, that¡¯s nice.¡±
¡°Is it?¡±
¡°Yeh, I didn¡¯t even notice all the little bits that hurt. Do you think it¡¯ll heal?¡±
¡°How should I know? Do you think I spend much time with meat? I¡¯m made out of soul, which, if I¡¯m going to be honest, seems way better than having a meat body.¡±
¡°It¡¯s nice, but honestly, I doubt I could spend time with Anna if I was a ghost or learn magic. Can you learn magic?¡±
¡°Saphine, I literally perform soul magic, I do that all the time, that¡¯s what I¡¯m here for,¡± she griped, ¡°now, will you get your ass up so I can do what I came for?¡±
¡°I was being rhetorical, just. Just give me a minute. I just want to relax for a second before you stick those wiggly things in me.¡±
She leaned in over me, staring down at the body that wasn¡¯t a body, with her face that wasn¡¯t a face. Arms behind her back like she was staring down at a fascinating thing on the ground.
¡°You do realize,¡± she told me, ¡°Your soul is made out of those ¡®wiggly things,¡¯ right? It¡¯s just Anima, experience enriched by your essence and formed into a string of endless possibilities. Anima shapes mana and is the superior magic.¡±
I looked at her wiggly not face, the bits looking both familiar and unfamiliar to the things I expected from a face. Her features were beginning to become familiar. I decided to suck a little information out of the humanoid squiggle.
¡°Isn¡¯t magic mana?¡±
She huffed, ¡°I am insulted by your lack of culture, though I¡¯m not surprised. Magic is magic. The natural world has its ways, and anything that cares little for the natural world¡¯s way is magic. You lot have mana, I find mana icky, you know, on account of it wearing me down into experience like sand on the beach. Because your [Druid] likely doesn¡¯t understand it well, Occult magics like Soul magic blur the line and show that mana might be the rule, but there are exceptions to those rules.¡±
¡°Ohh, I get it. That sucks that you cant do magic stuff, with mana, that is. How do you hide from mana, isn¡¯t it everywhere?¡±
¡°I¡¯m a spirit, I don¡¯t spend time on your plane of existence, Saphine.¡±
¡°Where do you spend your time? Spirit land, land of the spirits?¡±
¡°The spirit plane, Saphine, it¡¯s not spirit land, it¡¯s the spirit plane.¡±
¡°Gotcha, heard loud and clear, Sophia, loud and clear.¡±
¡°Good, I won¡¯t have you belittling my- Sophia?¡±
I smiled a little at her as she caught it.
¡°You know, you told me I could come up with a name on account of you being a [Guide]. So I came up with one. Sophia. Or Sophy, if you want. Honestly, I came up with it on the spot, but it fits, and if the glove fits¡ Do you like it? I could go back to the slate and think a little harder.¡±
¡°It¡¯s horrible,¡± she said a bit too quickly, ¡°But I suppose I would hate to tax your mind any more than it can take, so, I will accept it.¡±
Translation, I don¡¯t like to admit I like it, good job me.
¡°Heh, you like it,¡± I teased.
¡°I do not! Not one little bit! I take it back, keep your name¡ I¡¯ll just, keep having no name, its not that bad,¡± she said, turning away from my prone form, unable to lie to my face.
¡°Sure, whatever you say, Sophia. So, how many levels did I get, that¡¯s a lot of light up there, not as much as the big time, but close.¡±
¡°Oh, yes. It is a lot. I would say you¡¯re some soul masochist, but this time it''s much more manageable. You¡¯re not going to get an overall level, but you will get quite a few class levels.¡±
It was a bit wild that a similar amount, just a few levels apart resulted in such a huge difference, and kind of dumb, I wanted more levels, but I supposed they would start rolling in soon.
¡°I hate averages.¡±
¡°Your mean level is probably the only thing keeping you from accidentally reducing yourself to chum. Your distaste for math aside, it¡¯s not that hard to wrap your head around. You sucked up a lot of souls, but they were all low-level before they died, and they were in that [Soul Well] for quite some time, they were barely even there anymore.¡±
I didn¡¯t nod, but I hoped my silence would be taken as understanding.
¡°Okay, Sophy, hit me with it, what are my levels going to be?¡±
¡°Well, your main two classes are going up to 28, not crazy, certainly not as crazy as your girlfriend, your [Apprentice mage] surpassed 10 and is now level 13, and [Woodsman] is now level 9. You''re going to have to class up once and get a bunch of skills. It won''t be as bad; your two new classes will feel soft like your classes last time on account of getting so many levels, but you won''t be down for the count.¡±
¡°Oh thank every god and goddess under the sun, except death, I was a bit afraid I was going to be out for a week again.¡±
She smiled or did the next best thing with her face.
¡°You¡¯re totally going to start this with or without me standing up, aren¡¯t you?¡±
The smile grew. Then she spoke, and the pounding of her words and the lights in the sky the kaleidoscope of colour, was sucked in and slammed down around me and into the black, the ripple like always, only came up to me but bothered me not at all never cresting against my form. Bubbles like the boil in a pot let up wafts of coloured gas in the place of steam.
I barely paid attention to the words, their weight far outstripping the full weight of her words and their perfect nature, just the same as a skill or spells name, her words were both word and not word, a language of absolute and perfect definition.
My very being quaked at those words, like the steel under the hammer of a [Forgemaster], and yet it was not a bad thing. I decided to pay attention to everything but the words. The ripple and bubbles and the black sea at the core of my being that fed everything that was connected intertwined with all the rest of my being.
The dark reminded me of something, of a darkness not unlike it, that I had seen in the soul of the monster. It was of a kind, though this was within me, while in was out for everything to see with the monster.
I wonder if it was connected or if it was just a coincidence.
What was the deal with monsters, what about them was so different from us? Beasts were no different, they were just big, scary or magical animals, animals were also no different from us. Hells, as a Kobold, my ancestors literally formed from parts of beasts and the blood and wisdom of the Kirin.
I decided plants were hugely different, they were kind of alive in their own way, the land proved that when it talked about them as a part of itself. They might not have a soul, but they had a collective something, and that was the land, nature itself.
¡°Hey, I¡¯m done¡ Come on get up already!¡± Sophy wined.
I sighed at my own lack of knowledge.
¡°Say, Sophia, why are monster souls black like this essence stuff?¡±
She coughed in surprise, and I had nothing to do but blink at her.
¡°Gods, you do just ask questions like, ¡®hey, what¡¯s the meaning of the universe,¡¯ in the same way you would ask about someone¡¯s favourite food. It¡¯s because of what happens to a monster¡¯s soul. When a monster becomes a monster, its essence is forcibly manifested, which is what happens, stage by stage, as your level reaches the same points classes class up at; its what increases your ¡®proficiency,¡¯ which is basically how much your soul flexes on the universe. Gods have a huge proficiency, which is why they stay where they are, and the world isn¡¯t a nightmare realm.¡± She paced away thinking, sorting the strands, silky and fantastical in their make, on her arm like some kind of pet noodle before coming to a stop and spinning to face me again.
¡°It is supposed to be manifested in stages, the dark one decided he needed a bunch of strong [Henchmen] right now and cheated, giving them an immense power up, at the detriment of their soul''s ability to manifest again. They still level, like everything, but their soul never increases in the same way yours will. The darker the soul, the earlier they did it. Like everything in this world, it was, and continues to be, a trade-off.¡±
There was something about the way she said it, some deeper meaning to her words that I lacked the background on. It was a weary thing when she said it.
It made it feel like a [Trade Off], not just a trade-off.
She reminded me in that moment as nothing less than what she no doubt was, despite the silliness and the alien way she worked. She sounded like the sands of time made manifest before me. A million grains of sand spent, with unending more above her yet to fall.
A part of me, one that sook, craved even, a closeness with people, especially from those whom I was familiar with, wanted to get her to open up, come closer and share her deepest parts with me. The part of me, the part that knew full well that sometimes people trying to look out for you or get you to open up just hurt more, and that sometimes all you could do was be there for when they were ready to come around, even if that was never, was the smarter of the two parts.
So I didn¡¯t pry. I didn¡¯t poke or prod.
¡°Thanks for telling me, I feel like every time I find something out, the complexity decides to increase, and I find that I know nothing. You give good answers to stuff.¡±
¡°Well, thank you,¡± she told me, as I snapped her out of her thought, ¡°yes¡ Well, I suppose we should get to giving you your skills and then advancing your [Apprentice Mage] class, I don¡¯t want to be here all day after all, I have a date.¡±
¡°A date? I didn¡¯t know that Spirits had dates, I thought you guys didn¡¯t do stuff like we do.¡±
¡°We don¡¯t,¡± she smirked, ¡°I¡¯m going to talk to an older, more experienced [Guide], and then we''re going to do a Horizontal Anima Transfer.¡±
She had an expression I had never seen on her squiggly noodle face, I wouldn¡¯t have been able to tell what it was if not for her voice.
She had spoken it as if it was a lewd act like she was going to go and get laid, or hold hands aggressively.
¡°I¡ I don¡¯t know if I want to know what that means, and honestly, I don¡¯t want an answer, just fuck me up and then go do whatever variety of things your about to go do.¡±
¡°Mmm. I¡¯ll get right to it, I can''t wait. I bet I¡¯ll get so many new structures. I¡¯ll be soft for hours after while I incorporate the Anamid into myself.¡±
¡°Oh gods, why does that sound so dirty, can we get going here, or do you need a minute?¡±
¡°Its not dirty, Saphine! Don¡¯t compare it to what you people do, it''s nothing so crude. He¡¯s just going to penetrate my form and load me up whi-¡±
¡°Will you stop that? Down girl, let''s get this over with, and at least make him get you dinner first.¡±
¡°I have needs Saphine! And those needs don¡¯t include food, they include the transfer of Anima structures like new skills Piped straight into my form until I swell with new potential.¡±
I tried to cover my ears, but it was no use, they weren¡¯t ears, after all.
I suppose, at the end of the day, our two peoples were more alike than not, including being thirsty for close contact of the squicky kind.
And if that didn¡¯t just cap off a day of horror, I didn¡¯t know what would.
Chapter 42 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 15
Standing in the endless field of dark, some lights and a smaller aurora above me, I stared into the noodly face of a newly named Sophia while she grossed me out with her talk of getting squicky with another spirit. Truly, it was a mortifying experience that I will never recover from.
¡°It¡¯s been way too long of a day to deal with this.¡±
¡°Oh, come on Saphine¡ We''re both grown up, stop acting like a baby or, what was it called¡ A virgin? Yeh, stop being a virgin.¡±
¡°Hey¡ Don¡¯t go binging up stuff like that¡ I mean, that¡¯s for after marriage, so.¡±
She looked at me, aghast.
¡°Saphine¡ No, what are you doing? Okay, you obviously need some more [Guidance] than I thought. Saphine, the reason why that¡¯s for after marriage is to make sure you don¡¯t accidentally get a kid, so unless your mushy [Druid] is hiding that she has a secret wand, you don¡¯t have to save yourself.¡±
I could feel myself blushing a little.
¡°I¡¯m not a kid, and I don¡¯t need you to weigh in on my private life. Also, don¡¯t go calling Anna names.¡±
¡°Gotcha, no poking the [Druid], but Saphy, dearest little Saphy. You are a kid, or at least you are to me. I¡¯ve literally been here since you started having weird dreams about boobs, do you honestly think I¡¯m going to let you flub a relationship and become a total downer for, like, forever?¡±
That was embarrassing. I didn¡¯t get embarrassed easily, but I couldn¡¯t help but get embarrassed at a prior version of myself. A ghost of the past, hell-bent on making me feel like a hormonal idiot, some six or more years on.
¡°You. You! Don¡¯t go getting on my case. It¡¯s not like-¡± She cut me off, pressing a finger to where my mouth would normally be, which elicited a weird, jiggly feeling.
¡°Saphine, I¡¯m a [Guide], it''s not just for show. Have you ever thought about getting someone to check your blind spots? Because you know you have them, so there''s no excuse.¡±
Did I want her help?
Did I want someone to pick through my life and find my blind spots?
¡°I can see you thinking about it, so how about this, tell me about your thoughts while you pick your skills. You can go through all of them and pick them out, class by class, and just talk, that¡¯s all, and I¡¯ll lend an ear?¡±
Well. That was a whole lot less intrusive, at least in feel. Even if I knew that she was trying to pry a little. I could always just ignore her or skirt around things if I didn¡¯t want to tell her, and it wasn¡¯t like I disliked her.
She was kind of like a friend, but one you only met like a few times a year. Too estranged to be real friends but too close to be strangers.
What¡¯s the word for it? An acquaintance? I don¡¯t know the word sounds so¡ Sterile.
I didn¡¯t know if there was a word for what I had with the guide. Words were for us, for us in our meaty complexity. Words were for us to describe the world around us, I had a feeling that the [Guides], as spirits, did not need them the way we so desperately did.
It was just a feeling, but like many of my feelings, it was rather damn accurate. Even in my state, my wisdom guided me.
And it urged me to say yes.
¡°Sure, Ill pick, and you can listen to me talk about life, I guess.¡±
¡°Atta girl, ok then, let me use a new skill on you, and just let me say, you¡¯re a great source of levels for me. I¡¯m glad to say I can now help you make choices while you''re not dreaming. I¡¯ll show you your Top Three Picks.¡±
She spoke the words in the same power, with the same rhyme and reason as when she spoke before when she pulled the experience down and into me to level me up. But it was not focused on me, but in front of me, in a very similar way as with another spell, I knew.
A box resolved before me, as well as a box, could in a place with no sound, or sight, or light, or at least not real light, and sight and sound. The sound that wasn¡¯t sound writing invisibly before me gained a tangential quality that left it visible without visibility.
It was a bizarre thing to see, but before me, it was a box very much like [Status], just much, much longer.
|
Class: [Grave Digger]
|
Levels Gained: 7
|
Skills Gained: 4
|
Skill Quality: Unusual
|
|
Top Three Picks:
|
[Tool Expertise]
Passive
Prerequisites: [Tool Proficiency]
Additional Proficiency with tools, stats scale with Proficiency bonus. (PB/2) for each stat when in use.
|
[Magical Tools]
Passive
Magically enhances your tools, making them magical tools.
|
[Burry]
Active
Rapidly bury the deceased, forming a viable grave to house a body.
|
|
Top Three Picks:
|
[Detect Sanctified Ground]
Passive
Detect the presence of Sanctified Ground, like in a churchyard.
|
[Graveyard Shift]
Passive
Let¡¯s you use Resilience and Spirit to resist the need to sleep.
|
[Shovel Stones]
Active
Let the [Grave Digger] dig through stoney earth.
|
|
Top Three Picks:
|
[Grave Tender]
Passive
Taking care of a grave keeps it safe from intrusion, preventing the removal of the body.
|
[Shovel Work]
Passive
Burying a body grants bonus experience.
Killing with a shovel grants bonus experience.
|
[Sanctify]
Active
Sanctify a burial, stopping the body from rising from its grave.
|
|
Top Three Picks:
|
[Grave Magic Affinity]
Passive
Grants an affinity for grave magic, increasing the capability for manipulation and a greater ability to form the mana.
|
[Earth Magic Affinity]
Passive
Grants an affinity for earth magic, increasing the capability for manipulation and a greater ability to call it forth.
|
[Mortal Wound]
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Active
Activate to insulate a wound with death magic, cutting if off from magics that could mend it.
The wound lasts for the damage delt x (PB/2) minutes.
|
I looked over the long list, paying more attention to the skills of my main class.
¡°That,¡± I told her, ¡°Is a very long list of skills.¡±
¡°Yeh, but think of it this way: it¡¯s way shorter than all of the skills you could get. It just shows three unique skills for each possible skill you can pick, so don¡¯t go thinking you have to pick between each set of three. So¡ tell me about your life, how¡¯s it going?¡±
I decided to sit down on the dark lake. It was comfortable enough. And I started going through the first little stint for my [Grave Digger] class.
¡°Well, I think it''s going good, definitely better than it was before I crawled into the grave.¡±
She nodded politely, ¡°That¡¯s good, that¡¯s good, how¡¯s your girlfriend?¡±
¡°Good, I think, I don¡¯t think she has anything weighing her down.¡±
¡°Ok, good to know. Anything you want to talk about? There¡¯s some stress going on in your life, no?¡±
I was trying to pay attention to the skills, reading the descriptions for the first time in a way I was aware of and would likely remember. I was finally able to try and understand them, and in doing so, I replied pausingly, not thinking out the words beyond the instinct needed to call them out.
¡°I don¡¯t know how to deal with the Monster I fought today. It can get back up when I kill it.¡±
All three skills in the top row felt like things I would like, something of a second proficiency in tools would make a great difference. If I understood it right, it would literally double my effectiveness with any tool, not just my shovel. The second would make my tools magical, though I had only seen one mention of magical tools before, I had to assume that it could be quite the bonus. The active skill was¡ I don¡¯t know, but it could work well enough if I took down a gremlin, I could have immediately hidden them in the soil, and more importantly, was the information about ¡®viable graves.¡¯
To me, a hole was a hole, but I supposed that to mana, something selective, there might be a difference between a hole and a grave.
Important information you were unlikely to find in normal conversation.
¡°That¡¯s something of a shock, but it¡¯s a relatively normal thing for powerful beings and their servants, if they could be killed by a random cut, they would have a dreadfully poor success rate. They are conditional. However, they can''t come back if their souls are cast to the other side unless they have something to guide them back over, like a Phylactery. If you can send them over, they¡¯re gone, caput. You can do that, so I don¡¯t know why you didn¡¯t.¡±
¡°That¡¯s all well and good,¡± I told her, a bit of snark edging it, ¡°but I can¡¯t even send the soul of a child over, it bit me, and I don¡¯t particularly want to find out what being bitten by the monster feels like.¡±
¡°Wow, it bit you? Crazy¡ You could, you know, just send it over by force? Or bring them to sanctified ground to purify them.¡±
That would make [Detect Sanctified Ground] an interesting pick, the other two are less appealing. I have no problem with sleeping, and while being able to ignore stones while I shovel would be nice, I have [Durable Tools] for that and [Sense Stones] to find them before I chipped a shovel again.
I would never let it down.
[Grave Tender] was interesting, as was [Sanctify], while [Shovel Work] was a pass. Each worked on graves, and there was another skill to make a grave, which gave them synergy.
¡°Next time, I¡¯ll make sure to fight them in a churchyard.¡±
¡°Or just pick them up with your shovel?¡±
¡°I- Wait, I can-¡±
¡°Of course you can, you dummy, you can pick them up. The difference between you and your tool is negligible.¡±
I tucked that little detail away. Just in case I couldn¡¯t drag a fight to a consecrated place.
The last three were all interesting: two magical affinities to balance out my already present [Death Magic Affinity] and one that would be interesting to test out against the regenerating monster.
Nine good skills to pick in total. And if the pattern held, seven I could pick in total.
[Tool Expertise], [Magical Tools], [Burry], [Detect Sanctified Ground], [Grave Tender], [Sanctify], [Grave Magic Affinity], [Earth Magic Affinity], and [Mortal Wound].
¡°So bring it to a church or temple. Leave it, and then suck it up and send it over. Got it.¡±
¡°Yep, yep. So you were hurt, judging by an earlier conversation. So you lived through a fight?¡±
¡°Yeh, I did,¡± I told her, immediately deflecting, ¡°It was a bit rough, I didn¡¯t know dark magic could affect me like it did.¡±
She didn¡¯t even blink at my deflection.
¡°Cute, of course, it can, mana affects you, just like everyone; changes to it affect you too. So, that means you came home hurt? That must have been something, how did your Anna take it, Hmm?¡±
She could read me like a book or maybe a poster on a wall. Saphine: Wanted alive for her inability to tactfully control a conversation. 10 Gold.
¡°Less than well. I made her cry again, I honestly can''t stand it when I make her cry.¡±
¡°Any why¡¯s that?¡± She asked a short, leading question.
¡°Because I made her cry! I scared her!¡±
¡°And?¡±
¡°And I don¡¯t want her to be scared? Because she¡¯s a good person? I shouldn¡¯t have to have a reason not to make her cry, Sophy.¡±
¡°Saphine, have I ever made you think I have said something that lacked merit? Why you do something is just as important as what you do. So, why do you not want her to be scared of you.¡±
I didn¡¯t want to answer that.
¡°Because she-¡±
She cut me off the second I got ¡®she¡¯ out of my lips.
¡°Don¡¯t you dare lie to me, you¡¯re already lying to yourself, which is bad enough. It¡¯s just me and you here, and I¡¯m not going to tell a soul. Why are you afraid of scaring her!¡± She said tersely, not quite shouting but certainly holding the threat of it in her voice.
¡°Because¡¡± I started, looking to deflect it somewhere else. Looking to make an excuse.
But looking at her, I couldn¡¯t.
Maybe it was something in her tone or the way she stood. It was like getting chided by my mom. It made me feel the right blend of familiar discomfort and shame.
¡°Because I¡¯m an idiot. I¡¯m an idiot, and I don¡¯t know what she sees in me, and I don¡¯t want her to go. I don¡¯t know anything except I¡¯m nothing special. I always have been. Until I met Anna, I was a few steps from being a [Slave]. She¡¯s the best thing that¡¯s happened to me, probably ever. She¡¯s smart, and she¡¯s capable, and she makes me feel like I belong, even though I¡¯m just¡ me. And I don¡¯t want to lose that because I¡¯m an incompetent idiot who can''t even stop her from crying over my dumb ass getting hurt, or scaring her.¡±
I had no tears to accompany it here. No sign of distress to mark my fear while I spewed it from my mouth like poison.
¡°There it is,¡± she said, her voice the definition of calming while she stood over me. ¡°It¡¯s because you''re afraid, you''re afraid of pushing her away. Afraid of a whole lot of things.¡±
¡°Oh yeah? What about it?¡± I asked, venom dripping from my voice while anger started to burble up in me, filling the space where the admissions of my fear had been.
¡°Whoa there, girl, calm your tits. It''s fine to be angry when there¡¯s purpose, but you''re just afraid and ashamed of it, so don¡¯t lash out at me. Breath.¡±
¡°Breath?¡± I asked, my tone not faltering as the anger at her numbed away the fear, using it for kindling, ¡°Breath! I can¡¯t breathe. There''s no air here! You, you overgrown squiggle, you just had to pick at my fears like you have any right, like you care, like you¡¡± my anger, flickered like a candle burnt to the base there one moment, and fading the next, ¡°Like you give a shit? Like you understand anything about me.¡±
She took my tantrum without flinching. It was a short tantrum, a spurt of anger, that without her kindling ebbed itself out just as quickly as it had come and left me hollow with its passing.
It was the second time that day that I had turned to anger when another tried to help me. It made me feel like a rabid dog, biting at the hand that tried to help it, sick and confused. But I was not sick or confused, and I doubted this time I could blame it on hostile mana.
¡°Breath,¡± she spoke, no change in her tone, not disappointment, nor disapproval, just expectation.
I did, not with air, but just following the motion, which was just as well.
¡°Good,¡± she said, ¡°Now, let''s get to working on it. First off, I do, in my own way, care about you, but more importantly, you feel isolated; you feel like Anna is the only person you can depend on, and you need to change that. You don¡¯t need to be popular and have a thousand people at your beck and call, but you need to connect with others. You have no safety net, you need one. They don¡¯t have to be willing to die for you, just willing to be there once in a while. Do you think you can do that?¡±
¡°I¡ I don¡¯t know how,¡± I told her lamely, basking in the feeling of guilt and self-disgust.
¡°None of that!¡± she chided, ¡°You did it with noble Annabeth, you can do it with others. Spend time getting to know a merchant while your negotiate and talk with her acquaintances. All you need to do is let people in, and you¡¯ll find them. Just make sure not to push them away again after. Even if you think they hate your guts, because your mind will play tricks on you when your isolated, you''ll see hate and distaste and fear where you expect it, instead of where it is.¡±
I didn¡¯t know if that was in the cards for me. I had a face that could scare children, let alone a random [Shopkeep]. It wasn¡¯t exactly like I walked around as a proud member of the community. They had a right to dislike me, to be afraid of me. I looked scary, I would have scared myself.
"I don''t know if thats in the cards for me-" I said, only for her to cut me off.
¡°Do it anyway," she said, "And you¡¯ll find you get less lonely, even if it doesn¡¯t work out, just keep doing it. Now, second,¡± she told me pointedly, ¡°You need to work on communication.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t have enough Charisma for that,¡± I told her, with only a hollowness there to pick up the lie¡¯s slack as her prior guidance bounced around in my head like a leather ball. It was even lamer than a future pot of glue.
She carried on, not letting my blue mood drag her down.
¡°You don¡¯t need Charisma for that, you dummy, you just need to talk to someone your close with. Honestly, have you told Anna any of what you feel?¡±
I had, but I was too afraid to tell her everything, too afraid that the moment I opened up, really opened up, it would chase away whatever Anna saw in me like it was a shadow puppet.
¡°I¡¯ll take your silence as a no. So, let¡¯s walk you through this. You think Anna¡¯s kind, that Anna¡¯s great, that Anna is the best thing to ever happen to you. And she will what? Suddenly, see that you¡¯re a normal person? Who has feelings and insecurities? That you¡¯ll chase her off like she¡¯s a songbird because she¡¯s so incapable of handling your baggage? You need to open up, you need to communicate, got it? Com-uni-cate. Or whatever you end up having, I can guarantee you it won¡¯t be a happy ending, even if you stay together, the longer that distance exists, the stronger it will stay, and the harder it will be to get closer.¡±
Was that it? Was I just projecting my insecurities on her? I thought Anna was a great many things, but she was no weakling. I saw the hole, the blank spot that my insecurities had wrought from a gossamer thin twine of my own fear that I would not be accepted. Anna was amazing and kind and understanding, but if I told her about my insecurities, she would leave me to suffer on my lonesome.
One thing that could not be was magic, two things that could not be, if the other should exist, was a contradiction.
The loop, the blind spot, snapped shut.
It was no physical thing, for all it felt like it, like the snap and draw of a whip¡¯s crack to my wisdom as it closed and cleared in my mind of the contradiction and recognized my own idiocy. All the things I had promised her, and I had failed at the most basic of stumbling blocks.
And the worst part of it was that, in a way, it was belittling her to assume that she wouldn¡¯t accept me without checking with her. To make promises to make her feel better without checking with her, an omission of such a simple thing that would have meant so much more.
Having spotted one hole, I was suddenly aware of other actions with which I had done something stupid as the branched from it, revealed in stark after turning on the light.
And all it did was make me aware of new fears. Was she putting up with me and my selfish need to make myself the center of the world? Was she aware and disappointed? Was she unaware, and me doing it a moral failing that I could not be forgiven for?
¡°So, a minor course correction for you,¡± She started, almost prophetic in its speech, ¡°You keep making decisions trying to reassure her instead of just asking her how to reassure her. Taking the lead is probably the right call, if she¡¯s part mouse, she¡¯ll like that, but you''re making the communication about you; it¡¯s I will, instead of What can I. A relationship is founded on communication and alchemy, you seem to have the alchemy, but it''s not about you, it''s about her, her and you, and you when it comes to communication. What would reassure you, what can we do, what can I do? It comes with polite speech, you know, She and I instead of me and her.¡±
¡°Ughh,¡± I moaned wordlessly while she continued on, unperturbed by my continued spiraling.
¡°I¡¯m an idiot,¡± ¡°You''re an idiot,¡± we both said at the same time.
¡°Yeah, I am,¡± ¡°Yeah, you are,¡± we said again.
She snorted, but I just basked in the misery for a while.
I spoke up from where I was, one hand on my face as I lay as flat as I could on my back, the ripples of the dark surface lapping up and rippling back out and away on the black surface.
¡°[Grave Magic Affinity], [Sanctify], [Tool Expertise], and [Magical Tools],¡± I told her.
¡°Look at you, being all introspective and also picking, glad to see you can still make a call, action suits you more than sitting down to think, just make sure that you apply what we talked about, are you ready? Oh¡ who am I kidding, here we go.¡±
And she gave me my brand-new skills.
It was just as gross as before, reaching in and shouting out my choices, the wiggling ropes of spirit twined round within me, bending and shaping themselves into the complex, three-dimensional shape of a skill. The tool skills into different shapes reminiscent of tools, with different borders and bits coming off them, grave magic and sanctify taking on the shape of a pit, the affinity with a plume going out, and [Sanctify] a plume going in, an open grave with signs of magic.
But when it was done, I had four brand-new skills and three more classes to go.
And after, I would need to apologize to Anna for being such a little shit, even if she saw no problem with it. It wasn¡¯t who I wanted to be. I didn¡¯t want to be the kind of person who reassured others with words, sweeping them up, and giving them what I thought they ought to want.
Anna was her own woman, she could decide that for herself.
Chapter 43 SSSS Part 16
Hot off the poking and revelation of my own idiocy and about five minutes of moping and beating myself up over it to get my mind back on what I was here for.
I had the skills I needed to get to.
[Verdant Nexus] was up next, and if I was decisive on the first class, this one was a pain.
There was just so much. Too much, and they had no real focused singular synergy but a bunch of synergies. It was way too broad, which I suppose made enough sense for such a transitory class. It was [Green Thumb], and I had dragged it towards renewal, something I had very little idea about beyond simple surface-level implications and understanding that it brought things back, like spring-renewed life from the dormancy of winter¡¯s chill.
Sophia had mentioned that [Wellspring of Renewal] had been an upgrade for my Aura, but something she hadn¡¯t mentioned was that it seemed to run only parallel with verdant magic, the intersection of Life and Plant magic. It touched on something closer to life, then plants, but was enough of its own thing it was splitting my options.
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Class: [Verdant Nexus]
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Levels Gained: 7
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Skills Gained: 4
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Skill Quality: Unusual
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Top Three Picks:
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[Greater Verdant Touch]
Passive.
Your touch is a blam to all plant life, granting an increase to the growth, yield, fertility, and hardiness of all plants touched.
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[Enrich]
Passive.
Tending to plants enriches the plant and the soil around it.
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[Bloom]
Active.
Forces a plant you are touching to bloom rapidly.
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Top Three Picks:
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[Gaze of the coming Spring]
Passive.
Grants a second sight that lets you perceive the world as it could be in the fullness of life.
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[Verdant Aura]
Passive.
Extends an aura of verdant mana around you, encouraging plant life.
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[Overcrop]
Active.
Forces a plant to rampantly increase its yield at the cost of the plant¡¯s health.
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Top Three Picks:
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[Renewing Presence]
Passive.
Prerequisites: [Aura of Renewal]
Everything within your aura is yours to renew. Grants scaling to [Aura of Renewal]. (PB/2).
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[Nexus of Renewal]
Passive.
Prerequisites: [Wellspring of Renewal]
Taping into the inherent power of life, continuously create a focal point of renewing mana around you that promotes the generation of life mana.
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[Renewing Burst]
Active.
Gather and release a burst of magic in an area around you, at a point you can reach, that promotes renewal.
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Top Three Picks:
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[Renewing Conduit]
Passive.
Prerequisites: [Wellspring of Renewal]
Drawing from the ever-present wellspring of renewing life mana, draws life mana up and through the caster.
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[Verdant Magic Affinity]
Passive.
Grants an affinity for verdant magic, increasing the capability for manipulation and a greater ability to call it forth.
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[Verdant Burst]
Active.
Gather and release a burst of Verdant mana at a point you can reach, mending plant life.
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They were all over the goddam place, and stranger still, most of them were that middle ground kind of skill, though there were quite a few I could imagine I might want, the main thing was, did I want to stick with renewing or plants?
Of the first set, only [Greater Verdant Touch] interested me. The other two had their place, but I wasn¡¯t all that interested. However, I did make note of [Bloom], as I at least didn¡¯t have something that replicated that already.
[Overcrop] was something I could technically do, I could nudge plants to grow; I just couldn¡¯t force it, and that was a farming skill if I had ever seen one.
[Verdant Aura] was another skill I might have chosen to pick up, but it was totally outweighed by the first skill in the set.
¡°Sophy, what in all the hells and heavens is the deal with this skill?¡± I asked her.
¡°Hmm? What skill?¡± She asked, paying attention to where I was looking, then snorting to herself. ¡°That''s just a normal skill, though the name is quite pretentious. I know it¡¯s a mouthful, it doesn¡¯t sound like a normal skill, but it is, its just old is all.¡±
Despite her assurances, it was the type of name you gave to something legendary. Something important.
¡°Old like, older than me old, or like, old with capital letters old?¡±
¡°I¡¯ve had that skill my entire existence; my predecessor had it, and I got it when I budded off, so¡ older than Humans old.¡±
I wanted to whistle, but I was too busy trying to imagine that, trying to imagine something that old. The skill made even my vastly inflated age seem like I was a child.
I put [Gaze of the Coming Spring] on my pick list, followed by the much easier next set, though I discarded [Renewing Burst], and then [Verdant Burst].
That left me with [Greater Verdant Touch], [Gaze of the Coming Spring], [Renewing Presence], [Nexus of Renewal], [Renewing Conduit], and [Verdant Magic Affinity] was my shortlist.
Six, less than last time.
The upgrade of the verdant touch would help out the garden, which is always good, and I might get something good with it later. It was the third time I had picked from this line of skills, each was a more potent skill than before. I was going to take gaze because, honestly, the name was far too interesting to leave it be. I decided to drop Verdant, not because I didn¡¯t think it was worth it, but because I didn¡¯t have as much of a use for it, not enough skills, not enough synergy in my picks.
The final thing I cut for now was Nexus.
I didn¡¯t know enough about what the skills pre-requisite did, slapping on more could just confuse me.
That left me with my final four.
¡°I¡¯ll take [Greater Verdant Touch], [Gaze of the Coming Spring], [Renewing Presence], and [Renewing Conduit].¡±
¡°Look at you, two for two and not one need to rely on me. I¡¯m starting to think my skill is too good. I might get lonely myself if you don¡¯t need to talk with me.¡±
I looked at her while she prepared the wriggling strands, each ready to spin out into a new skill.
The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
¡°Oh, don¡¯t be like that. Your starting to mother me. I give you a name, and all of a sudden, your acting like we are childhood friends, what with you trying to talk some sense into me.¡±
¡°Oh, please,¡± she chided, waving it off with her dexterous little fingers midway through setting up the skills, ¡°We both know I couldn¡¯t talk you into making more sense, change comes from you, not some flowery words and a pretty face.¡±
I raised my eyebrow a little at her words.
¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that, I look fine, it''s your freakish, meaty bodies that are wrong. They set a poor beauty standard, it''s what''s on the inside that makes us beautiful.¡±
¡°Sure, but you can''t swoon over a good personality, no one is going to get seduced by a person¡¯s overwhelming intelligence,¡± I argued.
¡°Saphine, you are dating your magical teacher, who you talk highly of in both character and intellect, are you sure about that? Because it sounds like to me, you might have fallen for her looks but stayed for her personality.¡±
¡°That¡¯s not what I was- That¡¯s not why- I¡¯m just saying that most of the time, beauty is an exterior thing,¡± I told her defensively.
¡°I know what you¡¯re saying, I just don¡¯t care, because you are wrong.¡±
¡°We can agree to disagree on that, I guess,¡± I told her.
¡°Sure, sure. If you can tell me when the last time you called Anna beautiful was.¡±
I stopped and thought about that.
The fact that I did was bad enough, an obvious, very blank answer was the only thing that met me, however.
I thought Anna was beautiful, quite often, in fact. Even if she was just herself, no paint on her face that made humans smell funny or big dresses. Had I called Anna beautiful when she was dressed up? I couldn¡¯t quite remember. Had I ever?
The longer I thought about it, the worse it was. The only time I could remember it was when I told her she could be cute and beautiful, and she got pouty about it.
The blank spot came undone.
¡°Oh¡ Oh, man¡ I¡¯m a real piece of work,¡± I said lamely.
¡°There''s another spot gone, good, good. So, are you ready for the last few skills?¡± She asked me, plain as day, ¡°We still need to get your last class upped, so we need to finish its skills if you are going to be a [Journeyman Magi].¡±
¡°That¡¯s all you¡¯re going to say, ¡®Oh good, you figured it out?¡¯¡± I asked.
I didn¡¯t like that it felt like she was in control. I didn¡¯t know what it was about it, but she was leading me around by the nose.
¡°Well, I am a [Guide] Saphy, I¡¯m not here to tell you things, I¡¯m here to get you to somewhere, sure, I¡¯ll answer things if I think you should know them, but just telling you without you doing any legwork won''t work, didn¡¯t you hear me before? The change has to come from you. Has to, not might, not can, must! If I have to tweak you¡¯re wet fox nose, I will, just like I made you voice your fear, now that you¡¯ve told me, it¡¯s easier to think about, too, so it was a good double whammy. And before you say it, I know you don¡¯t like it, Saphine, but I don¡¯t care, you needed it. So¡ are you going to pick or are you going to gripe about it.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll pick, I¡¯ll pick,¡± I told her with a huff.
¡°Oh, I should probably tell you, to pick up [Journeyman Magi], you need [Proficient Magi]. Don¡¯t worry, you can pick up another of the third row for the next skill if you want it.¡±
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Class: [Apprentice Magi]
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Levels Gained: 6
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Skills Gained: 3
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Skill Quality: Common-Uncommon
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Top Three Picks:
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[Quick Study]
Passive.
You are a quick study, apply your intelligence to learning activities.
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[Crude Foci Carver]
Passive.
Allows a person to consistently carve a magical tool called a Foci, like a stave, rod, or wand, to better conduct magic.
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[Midnight Oil]
Active.
Refreshes you, clearing sleepiness and letting you burn the midnight oil
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Top Three Picks:
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[Magic Notes]
Passive.
You can remember your notes by magically tying them to yourself. You can do this with a number of notes equal to the sum of your Intelligence and Wisdom.
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[Magical Tool Proficiency]
Passive.
Grants you proficiency with magical tools. stats scale with Proficiency bonus. (PB/2) for each stat when in use.
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[Earth Dart]
Spell.
Discard a fast-moving shard of earth towards a target.
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Top Three Picks:
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[Death Magic Proficiency]
Passive.
Grants you Proficiency in Death Magic, granting stat scaling with Death Magic spells up to half your proficiency bonus.
Grants finer control over Death mana and a greater ability to detect Death Mana.
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[Proficient Magi]
Passive.
Increases your magical proficiency. (PB/2) for spellcasting, mana perceptibility, acuity and control.
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[Magic Dart]
Spell.
Hurl out a dart of magical power.
Magical Darts bypass obstructions.
|
I could only pick three of the eight skills, and I would have to pick one of them after levelling up again, but I could tell my skills were going to be getting better and better over time with this class.
Considering in most of my other classes, I was getting Affinity¡¯s instead of Proficiency¡¯s, I had to assume it was only up from here, anyway.
I could spot several of the three things Anna mentioned to me specifically, but out of the five of those, the magic spells seemed a little lacklustre. I mean, I had literally done one of them using [Cantrip], oh sure, it would probably be way stronger than chucking a tiny shard of rock, but if I could do it on my own, then why take it as a skill? Same with Magic Dart, if I couldn¡¯t do it, then I might get it. It was an attack skill, or I supposed spell, and the phrase bypass obstructions intrigued me, but it came alongside skills like [Death Magic Proficiency], which was like having a perfectly good meal next to one made by a level 40 [Chef], it just wasn¡¯t fair in contrast.
I started to cross a few out in my mind.
[Quick Study], was ok, but just ok. I could figure stuff out faster, but it said it scaled on Intellect, not one of my main stats, and it just made me learn faster. If I still couldn¡¯t communicate, it would have been a top-tier skill, but things had changed even if I had a notable accent.
[Midnight Oil] was cut, I couldn¡¯t see myself needing it, I wasn¡¯t studying for a test, I could afford to sleep.
With four down and one I needed to take, I had four skills and three picks.
I made two of my final picks after a little more thinking. [Death Magic Proficiency], and [Magical Tool Proficiency]. I had a feeling, and maybe I was wrong, maybe I wasn¡¯t, but if my tools were magical, and magical tools had their own proficiency, I might get two extra proficiencies from levelling up tonight to help with my shovel work.
The last pick I needed to make was between a spell book skill and one that would let me make a magical tool.
Maybe I was crazy, but there was something about having a magical stick that appealed to me, though I would have to figure out how to use them while holding my shovel, assuming I would need to hold them at all, which I did, I might be able to tie them together or something.
Also, while I knew well that I was capable of forgetting, I would need to basically buy a paper and a pen or just mooch off of Anna to use it. The feeling of mooching off of Anna was something I didn¡¯t feel comfortable with at the moment, and it rolled off and into my opinion of the skill.
¡°I¡¯ll get [Crude Foci Carver], [Magical Tool Proficiency], [Proficient Magi] and [Death Magic Proficiency].¡±
¡°Oh? Not going for free magic?¡± She asked contently, ¡°I would have assumed you might have picked at least one.¡±
¡°Don¡¯t think I can learn them on my own?¡± I asked.
¡°Psht, of course, you can, they¡¯re the easiest type of attack magic, of course, you can, I¡¯m just glad you didn¡¯t fall for it. Now¡ Lay down, it''s time to get to business.¡±
I did, I paid as little attention to it as I could.
The winding and wriggling over with, I got on to the final set of skills.
¡°Can I ask a question?¡±
¡°You just did, you weirdo, go on whats tumbling around inside the hollow of your head?¡±
¡°Smart ass,¡± I choked out, ¡°so, why do you have to be so loud? You know, when you do that.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not, it feels loud because I¡¯m reaching out and shaping the material your body is made from. There is no sound here were just kind of... I don¡¯t really know¡ having a heart-to-heart? Soul to soul? It¡¯s not the kind of thing you have a word for, you know? Talking is a good enough way to explain it.¡±
¡°Wait, we¡¯re not talking?¡±
¡°No, we''re not, and you should stop doing it anyways and get your skills finished up.¡±
¡°Yeh, yeh¡ I¡¯ll get out of your hair so you can¡ do whatever it is you were talking about.¡±
A tiny part of me wanted to gag a little, I didn¡¯t want to know how that worked with her, considering the squiggles of it. It wigged me out a little too much to try and think it through. So I started looking through the section for [Woodsman]
|
Class: [Woodsman]
|
Levels Gained: 7
|
Skills Gained: 3
|
Skill Quality: Common
|
|
Top Three Picks:
|
[Survival Proficiency]
Passive.
Grants proficiency in performing and knowledge of simple things to aid in survival.
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[Makeshift Weapons Proficiency]
Passive.
Grants you proficiency with makeshift weapons. stats scale with Proficiency bonus. (PB/2) for each stat when in use.
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[Track]
Active.
Activate to immediately begin tracking a target you are seeking, picking up on tracks or other clues to follow them.
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|
Top Three Picks:
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[Cobblers Bane]
Passive.
Shoes and footwear are more sturdy, improving longevity.
|
[Woodsman''s Stride]
Passive.
When running over uneven terrain, you are less likely to trip or slip and more surefooted on treacherous terrain.
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[True Strike]
Active.
Focus in on one target. While focusing on them, you gain an increased understanding of their weaknesses or vulnerabilities and an increased ability to take advantage of them.
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Top Three Picks:
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[Wanderer¡¯s Balm]
Passive.
Wandering or otherwise traversing through wilderness grants experience.
You can tell roughly where you are as long as you can see the sky.
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[Soft Steps]
Passive.
Your footfalls are softer, leaving less behind to be tracked by and making less noise when walking.
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[Reactive Strike]
Active.
Immediately attain a weapon and swing for an enemy when they launch a surprise attack.
|
¡°Why are so many of them combat skills by chance?¡± I asked her.
¡°Because you apparently need combat skills.¡±
¡°Yeah, I mean, I guess, but it¡¯s a class for being in the woods and stuff, right? So, like, why?¡±
¡°Ohh¡ It skills a hunter might get, early classes, are super broad, and remember, there¡¯s some bleedover from that. Some stuff for hunting, some for sneaking, some for just walking around a lot. [Reactive Strike] is a [Shepard] skill, no clue why that¡¯s there, but it is.¡±
¡°Why would [Shepherds] need a skill to hit something attacking them?¡±
¡°Can you read with your stigmatic eyes? It says when they launch a surprise attack, it¡¯s for protecting sheep.¡±
¡°Ohh, OK, weird skill, but gotcha.¡±
She huffed, ¡°I¡¯ve never met a [Shepard] that wasn¡¯t weird. For them, it¡¯s not a job, it¡¯s a calling. Freaks, I tell you, freaks who like sheep too much.¡±
I couldn¡¯t weigh in on that, I had never met a [shepherd], they just walked around watching sheep while I dug stuff.
¡°Let''s see, this is a little bit easier, [True Strike], [Woodsman¡¯s Stride] so I can run even faster¡ and, wait, is a shovel a makeshift weapon?¡±
¡°Saphine, ask yourself. Are you supposed to hit people with a shovel?¡±
¡°And [Makeshift Weapons Proficiency].¡±
I wonder how much stronger hitting people with a quadruple-proficient magical shovel would hurt. Gosh, that¡¯s so cool¡ I hope it all works together because, whoo, boy, that would be super cool.
I can imagine it now.
I couldn¡¯t, actually. I was imagining digging a really big hole, not the math of it. I didn¡¯t even understand how they worked together, I just knew I could dig a bigger hole now and was comparing it in my mind to how strong I was.
I wonder how much faster I¡¯ll be able to run, knowing it¡¯s harder to trip or slide?
¡°Ok then, so are you ready?¡±
¡°I mean, yes? Go on ahead, let''s finish up, and I can go apologize to Anna. And you can go get your freak on.¡±
¡°Good, good. Just make sure to take care of her needs, too. She¡¯s a person, Saphy, not an [Angel].¡±
¡°Don¡¯t you think I know thaaaa- fuck.¡±
¡°Damn right,¡± She said, quickly sticking the last strands into me, readying me to leave.
They were shorter than most of the other strands of nascent skill I had received today and flipped and folded faster than most of the others too.
¡°There¡ All done, now follow my advice and your gut, and don¡¯t mess it up.¡±
¡°Ughh. I don¡¯t plan on it,¡± I grumbled.
¡°Oh, and Saphine,¡± she said, light and sweet, ¡°Do stop being such a virgin. Your girlfriend is bound to get pent up eventually.¡±
¡°Hey, I-¡± and before I could retort, I was cut off by waking up.
***
I jerked to wakefulness, ¡°¡¯m not¡ Huh?¡±
Anna was on top of me, which was at least relatively normal; she did that all the time, but this time, she had spun herself into a cocoon of sheets, a lump of cloth in the dark of the night.
The only thing peeking out was her face, eyes closed, a wreath of flowers awkwardly sticking out in front of her.
That wasn¡¯t even the awkward part, though, what was is that her legs had pushed up my clothes, leaving me all the more bare as she curled in a C shape, head pressed into my chest, arms around the back of my neck, and legs, wiggling in cloth, pressed between my legs. She was pulled to me in a death grip that, unlike before, was a bit uncomfortable.
She was shivering, not in a way that might suggest she had any idea of what her legs were doing as I flushed, but in the way one did when they had a nightmare.
And just as I untangled my arm and got Anna¡¯s legs out from my thighs and my clothes back down, I reached for her face.
She was, while not feverish, definitely off.
I brushed her face, her cheek, running my finger over the bone, the tip shy of her eye.
Her eyes jerked open as she let out a confused, ¡°Beast Magic? WHY!¡± and woke up.
And, just like that, the day that refused to end got one last laugh.
Chapter 44 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 17
Anna had woken up, the shout of her voice startled me a little in the quiet of the night, and I clapped my ears down. I expected her to sag back to sleep, as was normal for me when I woke up from levelling, I was still tired after all, I could feel the urge to sleep in my bones even now, but she didn¡¯t, instead she just cussed, actually cussed.
¡°Ow, why the hell did I level up so much, Ugh this sucks.¡±
¡°I take it you¡¯re not ok?¡± I mumbled to her, drawing her eyes to me.
She leaned her head into my hand, and she mumbled, ¡°No,¡± pouty.
¡°Well, what''s wrong? You got beast magic, that sounds cool. Or is it more than that?¡± I asked her, my voice quiet in an attempt to soothe.
¡°It- ow, I feel terrible. I got a class upgrade too. Gods, I feel terrible.¡±
¡°Well,¡± I started, ¡°Let¡¯s get you unwound, and I¡¯ll give you a massage and hear you out, how about that?¡±
She mumbled in the affirmative, and I got to work, carefully unwrapping the sheets from around her. She smelled of distress, distress and a little like you did when you were sick or slept way too long. A kind of smell that was better described as death than anything else.
She hissed in pain, as I unwound her, and as gentile as I could make it, I tried to be as gentle as I could, but she was seemingly sore all over.
When I got her out of her cloth warp, I rolled her, as gentile as I could on top of me, and let her rest her head on my chest. And flicking the bed sheet over our legs.
¡°So, talk to me about it,¡± I told her, moving my hands up to her head, and running my fingers through her hair.
She relaxed into me, bleeding out tension as she nuzzled her neck into my chest.
A part of me wanted to snicker at it, using my breasts as a pillow seemed funny to me, but my concern won out.
¡°Ugh¡ I feel terrible. Why does my everything hurt?¡±
¡°Let me guess,¡± I asked gliding my hands through her hair, ¡°It kind of feels like everything is bruised? Like Magic Puberty all over again?¡±
¡°Ugh,¡± She bemoaned in agreement, ¡°Yeh¡ hells this sucks.¡±
¡°I know, I got a bunch of levels a bit ago, remember?¡±
¡°Yes, I remember. I hope I¡¯m not out for a week, I have stuff I need to do.¡±
¡°I think it''s based on the ratio? Is that right? It¡¯s the number of levels you¡¯ve gained in comparison to the levels you have, so like one-fifth or whatever.¡±
¡°It¡¯s not a ratio¡ Well, I suppose you could express it as that levels gained as a ratio of total levels. By the mother of trees, I must be out of it to have to think about math for so long.¡±
¡°Indeed,¡± I told her, finding her weak point and giving her a good rub right where she liked it, ¡°your head is full of new mana, I bet.¡±
She inhaled, not quite a gasp, but just barely, and breathily replied, ¡°Are you saying I have a swollen head?¡±
¡°It¡¯s all those stats you humans get at every level, I bet it makes it harder when you class up.¡±
¡°Maybe,¡± She said, starting to hum a little, ¡°Fat lot of good it does us.¡±
¡°What do you mean? Your are all strong and durable and stuff, and you have more of every stat, your skills are all crazy.¡± I told her, narrowing down on a point of tension on her head and giving it a rub to relax it.
¡°Yeh, but we are all weak too, every point of strength for one of us is a fraction of what it is for you, the only upside is with skills,¡±
That was news to me.
When I was growing up, it was always known that humans were stronger, we didn¡¯t get told that, we just knew because we knew they got more stats than us.
I thought back to Sophy talking a while back about trade-offs, about how bandits got more power for things like infamy, people knew they were bad news, knew what they had done. The trade-off was risk and reward, get rich and strong but never have a place to return to.
I wasn¡¯t sure if that was the right answer.
¡°It was my understanding that Humans were stronger than us, it was one of the reasons we got bossed around, they had more stats.¡±
¡°Well, they were lying or had weird builds, we need proficiency to get enough of our stats to be strong. Didn¡¯t you know any humans growing up? Did you never play, like, tag or wrestle one?¡±
¡°No, gods, no. I grew up in a compound, I knew some Kobolds, and I met a few humans, but we were considered lesser, we went to different churches, ran different stores, and used old wells. If I punched a Human, I was liable to get beaten. Even as a kid.¡±
¡°That¡¯s¡ Good gods, that¡¯s terrible. That sounds like¡ Like¡¡±
¡°Slavery?¡±
¡°Worse than slavery,¡± she told me, ¡°Slaves are a thing, however rare they are. Generally, one gets into slavery by being in debt, you sell yourself into slavery. You¡¯re expected to work to pay back a debt, but there are a great deal of laws around it. That¡¯s a step down from even that. Even Human exceptionalists would blink at a child getting beaten.¡±
¡°Well, that¡¯s nice to know, good to see that it¡¯s gone. Do Humans¡ really not get the full effect of stats?¡± I asked her, confused.
¡°No, we get a full effect from skills and whatnot, but in terms of how people get stronger when you gain stats, we get less of that. Most of our strengths we get from skills, proficiency gives you more, and you can get a bunch of those. I have [Social Proficiency] and [Mind Proficiency], but those are from way back, and I have [Intelligence Proficiency] too, but only those three stat proficiencies, and I¡¯m still not all that much smarter than most other people.¡±
That was Anna being Anna, all humble, and a shock, but it was a shock that I became ever more familiar with. Culture shock, as far as shocks go, wasn¡¯t the greatest of disruptions but the more and more that piled up, the more you started to kind of enter a state of openness. I had made far too many assumptions, and even with all of them getting thrown back in my face, I had kept doing it. I had done it earlier, with Gunther, true name unspoken, when I called her an Elf.
I didn¡¯t even know Wood Elves were a thing before today.
It was a mark that I was starting to take them on the chin, instead of getting lost in the knowledge that the world was not as I had known it to be.
¡°Your intelligence shows Anna, it shows. Gosh, that¡¯s so weird. Do people just¡ Know that?¡±
¡°Well¡ Yes?¡± She told me, ¡°I had assumed you knew. Your strength makes me feel safe, you know? It¡¯s not just the muscles. You could probably arm wrestle Clause, and he has some Physical proficiency he picked up while training with the sword.¡±
I did smile at that, ¡°So you¡¯re saying you like my arms?¡±
¡°Don¡¯t get me into it now, Saphy, it''s more than just your arms.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know¡ Now that I think about it, I remember you swooning over them a little¡¡±
¡°It''s not just those¡ And you have more muscles than just your arms.¡±
¡°Do you have a muscle thing? I have belly muscles too you know.¡±
¡°I know¡ I can feel them right now. It¡¯s not a thing for muscles¡ It¡¯s more the idea that you¡¯re big, and strong, and can hold me. It¡¯s¡ Reassuring, I suppose, you have a presence that makes me know I¡¯m safe, that no one else has made me feel before, and¡ It¡¯s nice.¡±
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I took my hands out of her hair, and wrapped them around her, settling them on her belly, cupping around behind her and kissing her head for a moment.
When I pulled back, I looked into her eyes, green like gems even in the grey of the dark and smiled.
¡°I¡¯m glad you feel safe around me.¡±
She wiggled, then groaned in discomfort and I let off a bit off my strength, giving her belly a rub instead.
She started to wiggle more, jerky. I had found a weak point, and not the kind used for fighting.
She was ticklish.
I tickled her a little, but only moderately and returned her head and ears.
¡°I¡¯m guessing there aren¡¯t many people that satisfy your idea of a partner and are muscley?¡±
¡°Not many, no. Most women, even the strong ones, aren¡¯t into other women, and even the two I have met don¡¯t know one another. I was surprised when you sprung it on me, it was a little like getting everything I wanted. I mean, I had hoped you were into women, but it¡¯s not like you just ask. That¡¯s how you get rumors told about you.¡±
Not wanting to get taken off guard, I decided to ask about that.
¡°Is¡ being attracted to women¡ not ok? Not¡ whats the word¡ A law, you know what I mean?¡±
¡°Illegal? No, it¡¯s not a crime, we can even get married because of a technicality. It is seen as wrong, though. Plenty of people would see it as unnatural, The Church of Fertility declared it that way a long time ago, something like¡ A field that bears no seed, a field that lays fallow, is unnatural, as it should be thick with grain and life. To leave it fallow is a choice against the natural order and against the future.¡±
That was not the type of thing that sounded right, it was too hateful for the goddess of fertility I knew and thought of as a good place.
¡°The same Fertility that¡¯s the patron goddess of [Prostitutes], who claimed they were her greatest worshipers next to her clergy and farmers?¡±
¡°Fertility isn¡¯t a goddess,¡± she mumbled, confused, ¡°There a god, and their church has been protesting the emperor for five generations to ban prostitution as immoral.¡±
More news, more change. At this point, It started to flow in one ear and out the other.
¡°Something changed then¡ We had an old [Cleric of Fertility] that used to heal [Prostitutes] all the time, maybe they were an Epithet? Or the one you know is?¡±
¡°I have no clue,¡± she said, no care in her voice for gods or their secrets, ¡°What¡¯s with you and [Prostitutes]? Should I be worried?¡±
I rumbled and shrugged, moving down to the base of her head and ears.
¡°It was a common job for women, especially Kobold women is all. Some professions we straight up couldn¡¯t do. We were banned from some guilds, we had a hard time with farming because we would get swindled and forced to repay debts that would take generations to pay off. Prostitution was one of the ways plenty of women got their daily bread. I wonder what happened.¡±
¡°I have no idea, maybe you can figure it out from a history, but if you can, the books are not here, I never really paid attention to history.¡±
¡°Maybe I¡¯m more confused about what happened with Fertility. So we can marry on a technicality? That sounds like a dumb thing to limit, Skipseo mentioned that sometimes people couldn¡¯t be with the same sex, but never marriage, that¡¯s the god of union''s territory, it was more of a don¡¯t marry between churches thing. Did that change?¡±
¡°It did, the first emperor, Emperor Halsian the First, decided he wanted to marry more than one woman. And that¡¯s its own thing, but to do it, he placed forward marriage laws, and when they got refined by the peerage. The idea was that a marriage was more than just the man and the woman, it was all of them as a kind of group were married. so technically the women were married to one another. It was floated again sometime later and two men were outlawed, but it¡¯s been kind of set in stone that if they wanted to outlaw two women marrying, they would have to get rid of being able to marry more than one woman, and to them, the idea didn¡¯t really make sense, because, why would a woman want to be with a woman if she could be with a man, so it¡¯s just¡ never been changed.¡±
¡°That¡ Is very dumb. It is the most dumb man thing I have ever heard.¡±
¡°Here, here. Not all of his laws were so weird though, being a [Mage] gives you a lot of rights because of him, I mean, people have always been weary of mages, but you have more rights than a normal person does. Shoot, I need to hand in papers for that¡¡± She said, mumbling to herself.
¡°Sounds like a chore, I¡¯ll help if I can.¡±
¡°Asking to do my paperwork for me? What a good apprentice, or I suppose you are probably a journeyman or something by now. You do grow fast, you know that?¡±
¡°I know. It¡¯s kind of crazy,¡± I told her, smoothing the last bit of tension from her head, and started on her shoulders, her neck would have been next, but it was a bit covered, so I could get back to that.
¡°The fact that its just, ¡®kind of crazy,¡¯ to you is a bit nutty,¡± she grumbled, as I got to relieve the tension in her shoulders. Each moment brought her shoulders a release, a calming of her tension as we spent some moments in silence.
¡°So¡ You got beast magic?¡± I asked her, the question genuine.
¡°Yes¡ And more than just beast magic. I¡¯m a [Druid of Beasts], I¡¯m now specialized in beast magic.¡±
I nodded, the lazy fox in my head getting the crane wheel rolling, ¡°And you wanted Plants, or Nature I suppose, you wanted general nature magic, you talked about wanting the proficiency earlier.¡±
I finished getting the tension out of her shoulders and went back to her head, a small amount of tension returning to her head that I got to riding her of.
¡°I¡¯ve been trying to get it for a while,¡± she told me, ¡°I aimed to be a general [Druid], maybe go for plants¡ But never beasts. It¡¯s my least favorite of the natural magics, and yet, of the four I got beasts.¡±
I thought it over instead of just spitting out a vapid response. I could have just gone, ¡®I¡¯m sorry to hear that,¡¯ or, ¡®Things don¡¯t always go our way,¡¯ but I didn¡¯t.
Sophia had gotten me thinking about me and Anna. A relationship was about her, her and me, and me. It was about us together as a couple, and apart as people, individuals deserving of effort, not just empty platitudes. Anna went out of her way to answer my questions most of the time.
So I put some effort in.
¡°What about Nature magic was your favourite? Why did you want it over other mana types?¡±
¡°Hmm?¡± she asked, confused, ¡°my favorite thing about nature magic? I suppose it¡¯s the mixing of all of the mana types; its general, so you get a little of all of them and mix them better, I would have been able to use plant, growth, heat and beasts together. Now I¡¯m on my way to one of those¡ I suppose I still have [Nature Affinity] at least.¡±
¡°And what¡¯s stopping you from getting [Nature Proficiency]? You could grow your herbalism class towards plants too, or growth if I¡¯m understanding those right.¡±
¡°Because I got beast magic? I haven¡¯t heard of someone getting a magical specialty and then getting another.¡±
¡°My class, just earlier, offered me [Earth Magic Affinity] and [Grave Magic Affinity], I also got [Death Magic Proficiency] and can probably pick up another, I don¡¯t think it¡¯s limited the second you make a choice like that. I bet you might not be able to pick up some other proficiency, fire or something maybe, but you¡¯re still a [Druid] of sorts. That would be like a [Swordsman] being unable to get a [Shield] skill because it¡¯s not a sword.¡±
She wriggled then, and I pulled my hands back as she weakly spun around to face towards me.
She rested her neck in the same place, and I looked at her, our faces scant inches away from one another.
There was a little hope in her eyes when she asked, ¡°Do you think so? Truly?¡±
¡°I can¡¯t promise you, but it seems like the kind of thing that would work.¡±
She got something from that, something that I couldn¡¯t read on her, but I had to assume it was contentment or maybe reassurance.
I hugged Anna with one arm, my other arm around the back of her head, not pulling her in for a kiss but just to run my fingers through her hair.
It made me feel a sting that reminded me of what I needed to ask her. A sting of my own idiocy.
¡°Anna, earlier, when I was making you promises¡ I kind of swept you up in the moment. I didn¡¯t mean to, but I made it all about me instead of about you. I would like to apologize.¡±
She looked at me, thinking for a moment. I could tell, even in the dark, that her head was spinning up thinking about it.
¡°I will accept your apology,¡± she told me, ¡°on one condition.¡±
¡°Just say it,¡± I told her seriously.
¡°In a week, I¡¯ll be heading down the western side of the valley with Gunther¡¯s caravan. I want you to join me on the trip. I know it¡¯s sudden, in all honesty, it¡¯s more like six days away, but I want you to come with me.¡±
I stared at her hesitantly, ¡°Is that it?¡±
¡°Yes? Saphine, I didn¡¯t exactly dislike your attempts to reassure me. But if you feel guilty about it, that makes it up to me by spending the journey south with me.¡±
It seemed too easy. To light.
¡°Anna. You could have asked me just about anything, and I would have said yes. And you¡¯re using it on something I would have done anyway?¡±
I could feel her flush, as close as we were right now, it was plain as day, the warmth radiating off of her and finding my skin.
¡°Well. I mean. When you say anything¡ do you mean anything?¡±
¡°I mean, I don¡¯t know¡¡± I told her coyly, ¡°I¡¯ve already agreed to heading south, but if you just want to ask me for something, I¡¯m open to it if you¡¯ll let me ask you something in return,¡±
¡°I¡¯m not against that,¡± she told me.
¡°What can I do? What can I promise you that will make you less scared? I can¡¯t stand seeing you cry, I don¡¯t like being the person to make you cry, and I don¡¯t like scaring you. So what can I do to try and stop it?¡±
¡°That¡¯s a large ask¡¡± she whispered, more to herself than to me.
I answered anyway, ¡°I know, It¡¯s something that you can think about, I just-¡±
¡°No, no. It¡¯s alright.¡± She told me, cutting me off before just lying down, letting go of her weight onto me, ¡°I think I have a few answers for you. One would be to just not get hurt, but I don¡¯t think you will, and if I¡¯m honest, the only way to do it would be to not fight, and I don¡¯t want to stop you from doing good. Another way would just be here and come back, preferably not looking like you were maimed, but I don¡¯t want you to hurt yourself to look less hurt.¡±
She sighed then, exasperation heavy in it, like rain in a cloud hanging in the sky. The weight of her intention was the calm before a deluge.
¡°So, I want to come with you. I want in. And that¡¯s the only good answer I can think of.¡±
Her words carried a finality with them.
¡°Then, next time, I¡¯ll bring you,¡± I told her, even though I felt a lead weight in my gut at the idea of bringing Anna into someplace like the monster''s den.
It scared me.
But I couldn¡¯t justify not bringing her at the same time. As much as Anna was a cuddly person to be next to, she was also the same person who took down the same squad of [Hunters] that I had just rescued. She could fight all of them, she was stronger than me¡ even if Humans were apparently weaker than their stats indicated, that didn¡¯t factor in magic, which was all stats all the time from what I could tell.
¡°I will, as long as you stay safe while you¡¯re with me. Next time, I¡¯ll bring you.¡±
She hummed to herself in affirmation, an agreement with me agreeing with her, ¡°Ok. So you said I could ask for anything?¡±
She was leading me, but I walked right into it, ¡°Anything.¡±
¡°Well, you made another promise, and you didn¡¯t even kiss me, so-¡±
I cut her off with another kiss, and when I pulled away, she looked out of breath.
¡°You know, you don¡¯t need to barter with me for a kiss, right?¡±
¡°I would say¡ It was worth it.¡±
Chapter 45 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 18
I managed to get Anna back to sleep, though, it took some time. She informed me that we would be going over some magic stuff in the morning if she was okay to move. If not she left me with a few suggestions to start reading through. A book on magic theory, Magic, Stats and skills, was another, a book on my magical rights that sounded like I would rather eat sand, and a book called Magealin the Magicians Guide to Mana, which was apparently a good source as well as a mouthful. Books on books on books, including some that Anna didn¡¯t have, but had put in an order for.
When she had put in the order she had not told me, but she had slipped it in somewhere.
If I somehow mapped out Anna¡¯s activities it would just be everything, all at once. I had no idea how she did it.
It was probably a few hours before sunrise, by my guess, and I was surprisingly not tired.
I stayed for a while, making sure Anna was well and back to sleep before I rolled her up a little and escaped Anna¡¯s exorcism-worthy sleepy time escapade before it happened.
I headed out into the kitchen and toped up the fire, which was still warm enough to catch the wood, the fire up¡¯ed and up¡¯ed and I made sure to get it set up before I headed back to the study, to start studying.
I found her book, Magealin the Magicians Guide to Mana, and cracked it open, and started reading.
It started out normal enough, a table of contents talking and a forward about the properties of mana, and how it changed, and how it grew as it moved, and how you could measure mana using this formula, and a thousand reasons how mana seemed really boring when described in a book.
But that was just the forward, written by another guy. It got good when Magealin started describing properties, and I stopped flipping pages. I was about to start flipping past boring pages when I picked up a look at,
For the elements, it is common to describe them based on how fast they move in a straight line. While other mana types have different more important distinguishing characteristics. While I disagree with this, as it sets an inaccurate example of an element''s capabilities in a reader¡¯s mind, I fear my academic credibility would no doubt be trampled upon by Arcanist Mastromo should I not include them. Instead, simply skip the next paragraph, and know that while I disagree, the speed of their travel only describes the simple template spells, spells like Catapult or even Bombard can hurtle stones a great distance, don¡¯t let the detail of ¡®short¡¯ range hamper your interest in earth magic, they also only apply to a spell fired in a straight line, which many spells don¡¯t do.
That was all well and interesting, I didn¡¯t know that elements had different ranges which was new information all on its own, but what was more interesting was the next paragraph.
It read,
Now, listen here, if your Mastromo, or perhaps one of his cadre. We all know you stole the idea for range from one of your apprentices. You are a hack, and ought to be ousted for this blatant misconduct. I may not be able to duel you, but in publishing this book I¡
Gossip. Old man drama.
A callout in a magic text.
I loved it immediately
It was amazing. He just went on, utterly ripping into the Mastromo guy. It was the best type of revenge, one served who knows how long after the fact. I could imagine some kind of tiny academic furiously waggling a quill pen as he got vengeance on a random mage for stealing ideas, tutting to himself about real mages or whatever.
It was chaotic like Kindly and bookish like Skipseo, and gave me a pint of nostalgia for a person I had never known.
And it wasn¡¯t a short paragraph either, it was like, half the page in length.
It hooked me, right there.
Skipping nothing I got to the next paragraph and read, then read the next. Spells made from elements travelled different distances at the same time, and that was measured and recorded, as was the general way those elements did damage to a target with ¡®template spells¡¯, you kind of chucked it at them, like a crossbow bolt. He also described for the first time I had read ¡®mixed mana types¡¯ like my recently gotten Grave magic and my Verdant magic.
Mixed mana types go by many names, like composite mana or special mana, but I shall use a simple name. They are mana types formed from distinct combinations, or a mixture, of two or more different mana types. If there is a mana type mentioned in this book that is not in the basic list, it should have the mana types next to it, but if it doesn¡¯t, there is a section in the appendix for all types currently known to me and those in good standing, cough chough not you Mastromo, are in agreement with me as I write, though there may be future amendments that add more.
There are also refinements of a mana type, a distinct type of magic that is a subset of a commonly used mana type, such as Stone mana being a type of Earth mana. Dirt alone has possibly hundreds of mana types in it, as speculated by some Researchers, they simply form a simplified mana type, Dirt, which is a type of Earth mana. There is a list in the appendix to help you distinguish. To distinguish between them, Base or Basic mana types refer to the basics discussed later and can be considered the formally recognized ¡®normal¡¯ mana types.
That made enough sense to me.
So there are the basics, presumably like Earth, or Fire, or whatever. And the things that they make when combined, and the things that combine to make them. Makes enough sense things are made of things, but at some point, describing stuff based on its components is kind of useless, like describing a building based on nails or wood instead of its function. If your lowest common unit was a singular nail and you were describing a town, it would be a massive pain in the behind, and describing a building by it¡¯s town its also a pain, so its like a middle ground thing.
I kept reading, getting to the point where he began discussing actual mana and was having a hoot at reading, but checked the candles and found that it had passed quite a lot of time. And as much as I wanted to read the book, I should head out and start on breakfast.
I realized that we could use some more food, something to change up the breakfast situation. We didn¡¯t even have all that many herbs or spices, which was just¡ too weird, considering they literally grew in the garden.
If I was going to pick up a book, then I might as well pick up some herbs and maybe some food. I had a few coins left¡ Well¡ technically, I had a whole lot of coins left, but that was the point, now, wasn¡¯t it?
I thought up a few things I could make and what I would need with what limited food I knew, and came up with a few answers that weren¡¯t potato and bread and meat and remembered what I could while I made some breakfast, boiling some water for root tea, and getting everything ready before going in to wake up Anna.
She was curled up still, wrapped around where I had slept.
It was a quiet moment, silent and peaceful.
She was inverted, her head where my thighs would have been, and her legs wrapped around where my head, neck and shoulders would have been.
She wiggled back and forth periodically.
I decided to not imagine myself in the same position I had been in, with Anna¡¯s head in my lap, and her legs clamped around my head and how that made me feel.
¡°Anna¡ Wake up,¡± I called over to her.
She wiggled, so I walked up to her and shook her lightly, and when that didn¡¯t work, I gave her a tickle.
She woke up with a ¡°Whaa?¡± and I just smiled at her.
¡°Breakfast is ready, how are you feeling?¡±
¡°I¡¯m fine¡ I-¡± She tried to sit up and cut herself off with a ¡°Ughh.¡± It was the kind of noise that someone getting punched in the gut might make, and she immediately folded back flat, letting out other sounds of discomfort.
I reached over and got her supported upright, pillows put under and behind her to take her weight but keep her upright.
¡°I¡¯ll go get a chair and bring you your food, ok?¡± I told more than asked.
¡°Mkay,¡± she groaned as I strode through the doorway, instinctively planting my feet as I turned through the doorway with [Woodsman¡¯s Stride], which, while soft, worked just fine. The stride was different than my normal walking; it planted my weight differently than expected, and I shifted it differently, too, but it felt instinctive and utterly normal.
I got our food and did my best to balance everything before simply taking one set, then another with the chair and getting situated. I took up her cup and offered it up to her.
She shook as she took it, so I kept the cup ready to be sipped from, holding it for her to sip from when she wanted.
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¡°I hate this,¡± she told me, ¡°Not this, but the everything else, outside of this. And this too, but much less¡±
I parsed her words for their meaning but asked, ¡°You mean the holding your drink part? Or the tea?¡± for clarification.
¡°No¡ not the tea,¡± she sighed, ¡°I just don¡¯t like being fed.¡±
I can get that, or at least I think I can. Anna is used to having agency and being able to do what she wants with it, not on relying on others to do it for her in such an immediate way. I have the exact opposite problem, I always rely on others and can¡¯t do things without them.
¡°I think I can understand,¡± I told her, ¡°But you can barely hold a cup. It¡¯s okay not to like it¡ It¡¯s one of the things I like about you, how you can do anything¡ But for now, it¡¯s hard, and¡ I¡¯m here to help. Heck, I went through something similar just a while ago¡ remember?¡±
She nodded glumly, and I leaned in to give her a kiss on the head.
¡°It¡¯s only for a day or so¡ Oh, I should ask, are your skills kind of floppy? Mine are.¡± I asked her, aiming only for no condescension and passed with flying colours. It was the last thing I wanted to come off as.
¡°No, what does that even mean? Floppy? They feel¡ I don¡¯t know, a little soft, maybe?¡±
¡°It means that you can¡¯t use them a whole lot, I think it''s based on the amount you got, maybe? Just¡ don¡¯t overuse them, they''re kind of like an overused muscle,¡± I warned.
¡°Okay then¡ Gah¡ A few days?¡ This sucks,¡± she moaned.
¡°Well,¡± I said cheekily, ¡°It¡¯s the price we pay for getting a lot of levels.¡±
She grumbled about getting levels in a class she didn¡¯t want while I got her dish and a spoon.
¡°Here¡¯s your food,¡± I told her, showing the spoon.
¡°I¡¯m not a kid¡¡± She huffed.
¡°I know you¡¯re not a kid, you are far too mature and beautiful to be a kid. Now¡ Say AHH.¡±
It was a one-two punch of tease and flatter, it worked so well, it was like it was built in a workshop with the express purpose of getting her to open her mouth.
¡°What Are-¡± she tried to say before I pushed the spoon into her mouth, turning the ¡®Are¡¯ to an ¡®Ahh¡¯.
The look on her face made me want to laugh, but I made sure to hold it in and keep my arm steady as she ate it.
When I pulled the spoon out, she was pouting, ¡°My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined. Go on, laugh, I can see you want to.¡±
I replied with my best impression of, ¡°Ahh¡± and started laughing my ass off.
Anna waited for me to get it out of my system, her deadpan look making me want to laugh even harder, which made her mouth twitch into a slight, almost non-existent smile, which got me to laugh louder, which got her to laugh.
Before I knew it, I was rolling on the floor, clutching my sides while they started to hurt, and she started coughing from laughing.
My laugh attack wound down, leaving me hyperventilating on the floor, and for all the discomfort, a smile on my face. One on Anna¡¯s too, despite the wincing.
¡°I can¡¯t believe¡¡± she breathed, ¡°That you used beautiful as a way to make me gape.¡±
¡°Yeh¡ You are, though, beautiful, that is.¡±
She sighed, ¡°I don¡¯t feel like I am. I feel like a dead woman.¡±
¡°It¡¯s just because you¡¯re in bed, I bet you would feel better in a comfy chair or whatnot. And either way, I bet you would look good in black.¡± I told her.
¡°I don¡¯t know¡ Mages don¡¯t wear black, it makes us look like we do dark magic, which is kind of a bad idea to plant,¡± she said hesitantly.
¡°That¡¯s too bad, but most things fit you that aren¡¯t black. Green and green blue make your eyes pop, and brown to yellow probably would work, too, with your hair. Say, I was reading earlier, isn¡¯t dark magic a kind of magic? With mana, I mean. It was in the table of contents of Magelin¡¯s book.¡±
¡°Flaterer. Dark mages have it the worst because they use darkness mana. It¡¯s just a phrase. Black magic, dark magic, evil magic, and so on.¡± She told me, ¡°Black is also the classical colour of Death magic, while Dark magic practitioners, like the ones that do magic that uses darkness mana, often dress in grey and use other names, moon mages, night mages, Shadow mages, stuff like that, it has the most common difference in their naming scheme. Are you enjoying it? It¡¯s one of the better magical reads, she ¡±
¡°Am I!¡± I told her, ¡°He just came right out and scolded someone in the first bit. I haven¡¯t gotten to the mana types yet, but it¡¯s been good so far.¡±
¡°Ohhhh. You¡¯re missing out, there are a bunch of good parts in his descriptions. I won¡¯t spoil it. When I think about some mana types, I remember reading those bits,¡± she said.
She wiggled as she said it, a little jiggle of her hips that I was picking up on as a tell for her excitement. She talked about the book in the same way I would talk about stuff I was interested in but nobody understood.
She was sharing one of the things she liked with me.
It made me feel warm inside, we were sharing a moment over something that we both enjoyed. It was a moment that I would always remember, one that you knew in that moment, you would remember when anything reminded you about it.
And it also made me aware of another hole in my thoughts, a blind spot.
I had been trying to split the difference between me courting Anna and her being my magic teacher, and for some reason, I had been doing that without thinking. I had been watching how I did things to be both where I could and one or the other if I couldn¡¯t. But when I got right down to it, Anna was teaching me something she liked and that almost no one else understood.
She was sharing her passion with me. She was my teacher but not my master.
She was a friend, teaching her new friend how to do magic. Something she loved, something she spent her time doing and loved to do.
And I bet she hoped I would, too.
It was something I should have been aware of, and while internalizing it would change me a little, it was a relief of my mental state more than anything. Anna wasn¡¯t my teacher and someone I was courting; she was a close friend who might be more, and I should get the baggage I hadn¡¯t seen out of the way, get rid of the distance I felt was required when she was a teacher, and keep it closer to how I was now.
I cut the hole in my thoughts in two, my mind, true to Selliban''s pep talk, a blade sharper than any shovel I had ever held, not that I had, but it was a fine edge indeed, and it would only ever grow finer as I levelled.
I smiled at her, nodded my head, and said, ¡°I can¡¯t wait,¡± which I quickly followed with, ¡°Do you want anything else?¡±
She looked at me and nodded, ¡°A little more, but no more messing with me, please. I can open my mouth just fine.¡±
She was open, and the part of me that had fox instinct screamed. Go for the kill, dive in she¡¯s wide open.
Gods help me, but I dove in, the part of me that was just a normal person, with all it¡¯s wisdom and the part of me that was deer and was just chowing down on the mental equivalent of grass and was out.
¡°I know you can. I just like teasing you, and I think you like it¡ Don¡¯t you, mistress?¡± I asked her in a rougher, sultry tone, as husky as I could.
She had an immediate reaction, pressing her legs together under the blanket and perking up. It was a confused response, one part arousal, one part prey, and it tickled my instinct and made me like teasing her.
It also left her mouth open.
Another scoop of breakfast went into Anna¡¯s mouth as it hung open to catch flies or a spoon, as it were.
Her look was caustic.
¡°I can¡¯t help it, I really can¡¯t,¡± I told her, ¡°You¡¯re just too¡ Mousey not to tease.¡±
¡°By the roots, you incorrigible. My mousiness?¡± She said, in total disbelief.
In fairness to myself, I was restraining myself as much as I could, my instinct wanted to nip away at her. I wanted to do so much more when she froze up to teasing it was intoxicating.
¡°You are¡ very teaseable? It¡¯s hard not to tease you when you go all... Mousey. It riles me up a bit.¡±
¡°Riles you up!¡± she lightly shouted, ¡°Riles you up how?¡±
I really didn¡¯t want to answer that. It was always an awkward conversation to think about, and I could only imagine the awkwardness of explaining it to a human, let alone Anna, who was Human, with Human sensibility and the mind of a Mouse and the conflict of her needs. She wouldn¡¯t get it, the idea of a little nibble. It wasn¡¯t something Humans seemed to do.
How do I explain that I desperately want a taste¡ Without coming off like a total freak? Oh, you know¡ I want to nip at you, you know, with my teeth, no, not to eat you, just to get the taste of your skin in my mouth, you know, because you¡¯re a mouse and I¡¯m a fox? It¡¯s playful, I swear. Hah, Good luck.
Oh gods, she¡¯s still looking at me¡
¡°I¡ I¡¯m sorry, but I can¡¯t. I can¡¯t explain. You just are. It¡¯s instinct.¡±
¡°Goodness, you are going to drive me mad,¡± she huffed.
¡°Right back at you,¡± I huffed, muscles tensing at her movements in a way that was unbidden by me.
¡°Another.¡± She told me, and I obliged, spooning another mouthful into her mouth in awkward silence as we both gave each other less-than-candid glances and we blushed like a bunch of children.
Eventually, I, with all my social graces, said, ¡°I¡¯m going to get some stuff from town and the books, do you want anything? Maybe a tea for the soreness?¡±
¡°No, no. Go on. If you have time, make sure to tend the garden; don¡¯t go worrying about me all day, hovering like a nanny.¡±
There was something about the statement that told me she wanted me to come back in, which was a relief. She wasn¡¯t angry with me, I didn¡¯t think, just exasperated with my back and forth, which was reasonable enough I was teasing her a lot.
I was, of course, incorrigible and spotted it as another opportunity to strike, but the rest of me won out, and I made sure to get her a second cup of tea, leaving it near the bed for her to pick up if she could exert herself to pick it up from the chair next to the bed.
I sighed in the big room, got my stuff ready to go into town, and decided to wash my clothes one more time to try and get the dirt and blood out of them as best as I could. They painted a grizzly picture, and getting some of the blood out might at least make them recoverable.
They were a gift, dyed fabric, beautiful, and here it was as shredded fabric. My tunic, with me for uncounted years, was nearly ruined, likely unrecoverable, but it too had been a gift, and if I could, I would see if the [Tailor] would stitch it up so I could at least keep it.
It was a dumb moment to be sad. They were, at the end of the day, just some clothes, but looking at them at the moment, I felt lost at the idea of parting with them.
I would need different clothes to wear when I fought, I would need armour or something else that could handle the fighting it would see, instead of church clothes.
I headed outside to wash them, half dragging the tub out of the door, my clothes under one arm, my other hand hefting the tub when I was taken up short.
Standing in front of the cottage was a sigh more bizarre than anything I had ever seen, which was something that was changing on a daily at this point, but was far, far more hard to get used to than culture shock.
But this one was at least not horrifically threatening, or at least not yet.
There was a small herd of animals just sitting in front of the cabin.
Woodland critters sat in little clusters, rodents sat next to one another, chittering in groups, a mischief of mice, a plague of rats with a [Lesser Rat king] their tails and bodies at the center chittered at a [Lesser laird of Wheat] with the mice, though in a manner I could only describe as cordial, like two [Lords] conversing on the weather.
Nearby, a solitary squirrel, a very obviously magical beast like the king and the laird, chittered at a few crows, and they bobbed their heads back in answer.
A gaze of raccoons looked up at me, sitting on their buts, next to a Wolf, a Dog, and a wolfdog puppy between them that kept looking at the raccoons like it wanted to play.
Foxes, Rabbits, Animals and Beasts sat around on the ground and in the trees as butterflies and bees pollinate the garden. A mother brown bear and her cubs, a deer and a moose, and all manner of creatures I had never seen sat around in front of the cabin, and they all turned their eyes to me as I stood in the doorway, quieting down from background noise I had not even thought about to dead silence.
You could have heard an ant click, none of us even breathed.
I sighed and let the tub down, rubbing my eyes before confirming that they were, in fact, here and not killing one another in some form of gargantuan bloodbath, ¡°What now? What¡ What is this?¡±
A wolf cocked its ear at me while a woodland critter chittered politely.
I sighed.
The brown bear sighed, too, while her cubs looked around, confused.
I would give them this, they were being very polite.
¡°Anna,¡± I called, ¡°There¡¯s a thing!¡±
Chapter 46 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 19
¡°Um¡ Anna¡ How would you feel about¡ Maybe being in a chair?¡± I asked Anna, who was sitting raised up in her sheets, which wrapped around he like swaddling over her sleep clothes.
I had just come back inside after dropping the tub, and my clothes in the tub on the front porch. You know, on account of there being a fairy tale and a half worth of animals in the front garden, each patiently waiting for someone that was very obviously not me.
¡°What was this about there being something?¡± she asked tiredly.
¡°Well¡ I don¡¯t know how to say this¡ But there are like 50 or more animals sitting outside, like right outside on the front lawn, and I think they might be here for you,¡± I told her awkwardly.
It was incredibly weird, weirder even than my instinct¡¯s current verdict on Anna, who looked like she was currently considering the merits of adding a few hundred pounds of raw meat to the pantry. It was a truly unnerving look on her face was bad. A really unnerving one for a normal person was bad, it was made all the worse by her because she was so calm and kind.
¡°That¡¯s a scary look on your face,¡± I told her careful not to get her to turn it to me, ¡°I could tell them to go away, somehow¡¡±
She sighed, ¡°No¡ No, no need. I¡¯ll go talk with them. Sorry about the face, just¡ Annoyed is all.¡±
I nodded, ¡°I can tell, and no need to apologize, your emotions are valid, annoyed or crying, they¡¯re always ok, it¡¯s better to show than to keep them bottled up. I just hope I never, ever, make you annoyed enough to turn it on me.¡±
She looked at me, eyes partially lidded, and smiled. ¡°Then don¡¯t annoy me.¡±
I was about to agree, but for some reason, I stuck a foot in my mouth instead.
¡°Well, stop being so cute when I tease you, and I¡¯ll stop teasing you.¡±
She sighed, ¡°There goes my chance of being called beautiful all the time. Come on then, lift me up, I don¡¯t think I can walk all the way there and your big strong arms could use the exercise.¡±
I did so, holding her like an oversized baby, head held to my chest.
¡°You know you¡¯re always beautiful¡ and you know you¡¯re more than slim enough to not weigh a thing,¡± then to maybe buy me brownie points, I added, ¡°And you know you¡¯re more than beautiful, your gorgeous, even wrapped up in a bed sheet,¡± and I gave her a kiss on the forehead.
She mumbled, ¡°Flatterer,¡± and nuzzled her head into my boob and continued, ¡°your warm, and soft.¡±
¡°And so are you. And you¡¯re the perfect height to snuggle with.¡±
She mumbled, ¡°I¡¯m short.¡±
And I told her, ¡°Your normal height, I¡¯m just freakishly tall.¡±
I kept consoling her while I walked out and over to the front door, keeping my stride short to not jostle my important cargo.
The moment I got to the door, and she looked out and saw the animals, she huffed. They were chittering amongst themselves, going back and forth in groups. The birds were chirping at one another, the foxes were yipping at the dog and wolf. The deer, sturdily annoyed by none of this, was chewing on the grass while the mother bear grunted at her cubs.
It was a minor miracle they were being so polite, in literally any other instance, they would be hunting one another, but in the grove, with it focusing inwards, it highly incentivized them not fighting. Nature it¡ Her¡ Themselves? Being present and focused led the animals to only be on their best behaviour.
¡°Land, are you more of a her?¡± I thought to her.
¡°I am me,¡± She told me, unhelpful to my thought process.
I brought Anna out and placed her in her seat, she observed the animals like they were an unruly court, and she, a fairy tail princess, for all that her throne was a wood chair.
¡°Ahhem, do you need me to help? Or do you think you have this?¡± I asked her, candid in my confusion about how this was going to go down.
¡°I think I have this,¡± she told me, ¡°You can continue, go on, wash your clothes. Just don¡¯t¡ wash yourself without telling me first. I can, how do I put it¡ I can see everything in the grove now if I don¡¯t look away now, or I¡¯ll be able to when it stops being all funky, I suppose. Just something to be aware of in the future. For now, it¡¯s just hazy.¡±
I nodded my head.
I would do that, or maybe not, depending on if I wanted to tease her, but for now, I would. If I was here and there on actually getting together in the biblical sense, I wasn¡¯t going to go flashing myself.
I could understand how funky sense skills were, sometimes you spotted something and wouldn¡¯t even notice it unless you spotted it, it was like knowing you have three extra teeth in your mouth and then thinking about it and finding out consciously that you had three extra teeth and going, ¡®holy hells I have three extra teeth.¡¯
She nodded back, squinting and then nodding her head in return before asking, ¡°Did you just nod your head, or am I crazy?¡±
¡°No, I did, don¡¯t worry. I get it, I have a lot of sense skills,¡± I told her before continuing, ¡°Good luck with your court, my wonderous princess.¡±
I walked over to the bin as Anna called back, ¡°That¡¯s technically treason against the emperor,¡± playfully, and she started calling out to the animals, who obliged, coming up to make random noises at her.
I, for my part, washed my clothes as best I could and then practiced pulling out water like Anna did using [Cantrip]. It was like plucking a loose strand, but I pulled away thimble fulls of water, some of which was stained red-brown with blood.
But I slowly but surely got most of it out, by the end, I had a minorly damp set of clothes that I had a stupidly hard time drawing water mana out of, but they no longer reeked of iron and sweat and death and rot, which was a significant plus.
Now it only smelled slightly of those, and would likely not be detectable for a normal human nose. I gathered my stuff, ready to set out and hauled the basin back inside only to see Anna grousing with the squirrel thing muttering about some snake of some kind. I dropped the basin and left the clearing, making sure to bring Anna her mug, which she politely thanked me for.
The last I heard was of her talking with the dogs, ¡°So little Timmy fell down a well? What do you want me to do about it? Well, I suppose I can write a note. No, no, you would have to deliver it. Well if you care about Timmy so much, then it shouldn¡¯t be a problem¡ I can¡¯t run faster than yo-¡±
And I was down the path and amongst the trees.
It was a bizarre sight. And it was only made stranger with the total lack of animals everywhere else.
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I sped along the ground to my first destination, my feet slamming into the dirt of the path, then the grass. I pushed myself to run as hard as I could, as fast as I could and enjoyed the ability to just run around a little and get some of my energy out and stretch my legs.
I made it into town, not in record time, but still fast enough to get caught in the morning rush, which was mostly working folks trying to get stuff done before they started working, each person moving to and fro with purposeful steps.
As I made my way to the [Tailor], I did my customary paranoid tick of looking over my shoulder and covering my ass, but even fewer people cared to even look at me than last time.
There was something both soothing and disappointing about no one paying attention to me, everyone was just too busy on their own thing to pay attention to a tall person.
It should have been freeing, but I didn¡¯t pick up their uncaring movement, I was still caught up in what had happened.
So I made my way down streets, on uneven cobbles that no longer could trip me, and moved away from the bustle, down side streets and away from the feeling of invisible prying eyes that didn¡¯t exist.
As I did, I came across the furred body of a cat, or a cat as big as a small person. It was the size of a dog and thrice as harry. And it sat in an alley, blocking the side as it lay there. It had eyes and a space where a mouth could be spotted if you had a keen eye and old notched ears. It watched me calmly, like it was the one here that was the greatest threat, and it did not so much as mew or hiss. It looked at me expectantly, its eyes were hidden behind its great big poof of hair and barely spotable. It was yellow and brown, in a pattern that made it look like long grass and leaf litter.
¡°You''re rather big; you¡¯re more of a people size than a cat. I suppose you¡¯re the [Rat Catcher]?¡±
The look it gave spoke of dissatisfaction with my lack of difference, like most cats, it was unimpressed with me.
¡°Well, I¡¯ll be on my way, just passing by, I¡¯ll stay out of your hair,¡± I told the miniature mountain lion.
When I made it to pass it, though, it stood and blocked my way. Moving it¡¯s the bulk between me and my path forward.
It was only an alley, a small one, between two buildings. A path between one more major road and another.
¡°I could jump over you, you might be a [Rat Catcher], but I¡¯m no rat,¡± I told the cat as I stopped moving forward, my movement blocked by the pure girth of the cat.
It was a big cat
It had more in common with a lynx than a common house cat.
I checked behind me, and it was open, so I could back out, all I had to do was weigh the choice of walking through the cat¡¯s territory and going back out onto the street instead of down this alley.
It looked at me with an unnatural intelligence, which was normal with cats, as far as I had seen.
Cats were freakishly smart, even though they were animals, they were smart animals. But the eyes that looked at me were too smart, too intelligent.
¡°Listen, I¡¯m not trying to cause you any problems,¡± I told it, putting a bit of backbone behind my voice, ¡°I¡¯m just trying to go get my clothes patched up, so I''m going to walk past you, and I¡¯ll push you out of the way if I have to.¡±
The cat blinked.
I blinked back and started walking towards it.
It continued to block the alley with its girth, but even with its size, it couldn¡¯t stop me from going through. So I came up to it and pushed its rear out of the way with my leg.
I walked on by and turned back to see it annoyed by my impertinence. The hair on its back was standing on end.
I decided to confront the cat on its level. I shifted around, changing my poster to be aggressive but defensive. I was going to leave, and it was going to leave me be, or we were going to have problems, which was what I showed it.
It hissed, and I hissed back, which took it off guard and bought me time to turn and leave.
Confidently, I paced away and towards where the tailor¡¯s shop was. It was a few more side streets over, but the cat didn¡¯t charge at me. It did follow me, its eyes visible in small patches of shade, reflective eyes, glaring hateful amber pointed towards me.
I knocked and received an ¡°I¡¯m open, come on in¡± from the kind [Tailor] and promptly entered.
It had been a little awkward last time, I didn¡¯t even remember his name, which was the worst part.
¡°Hello, I¡¯m here to see if you can fix my clothes,¡± I told him as I came into his shop.
It was much like last time, him in his fancier clothes, a prim and proper Human man.
¡°Oh, Miss Annabeth¡¯s friend. Have you gotten into another scuffle then?¡± he asked, raising one eyebrow.
¡°Ahh¡ Yes.¡± I told him awkwardly, ¡°I scuffed up my dress again, can you fix it?¡± I asked.
¡°I¡¯ll see what I can do, hand it here¡¡± He told me, waving me over to him.
I did, bringing my clothes over, and placing them on a desk.
They were ruffled and damp, but he gave the dress a thorough look and nodded to himself regardless, humming a little.
¡°It is ever so painful to look upon my work damaged so, you really ought to keep them out of harm¡¯s way. I can fix this,¡± he told me, nodding to himself before placing it on the counter and turning to look at my tunic.
¡°Who¡¯s work is this¡ Goodness. How on earth¡ Were you wearing this when you were¡¡± He didn¡¯t finish his question, focusing instead on the damage and trying to figure out if he could mend it or not, if it was too destroyed to even be fixable.
I could see his eyes flick over it, over and over, noting things I couldn¡¯t about the fabric. His mouth moved, speaking silent, breathless words for a few moments before he nodded and said, ¡°I can stitch it up, but it won¡¯t be pretty. It¡¯s a damn shame¡ I¡¯ll do what I can miss. Would you be against a patch?¡±
¡°No, a patch is fine, thank you.¡±
¡°It¡¯s not a problem miss, It¡¯s a passion of mine, fixing clothes, not as much as dressmaking. But we can¡¯t do what we want to do all the time, now can we? Beggars can¡¯t be choosers.¡±
¡°I suppose so¡¡± I told him, even if It didn¡¯t feel like it to me.
I was far more free now than I had ever been before, I had grown up in a rigid system, and now could get up help do some work, and do other things as I wanted, when I wanted.
Maybe I should ask Anna if she¡¯s ok with a schedule¡ Then again, we do have one of a sort. We get up, wait for sunrise, and tend the garden¡ It¡¯s enjoyable, even if I don¡¯t want it to be what I am for the rest of my life. Tending a garden with Anna almost makes me want to.
I waited and watched as he did his work, his hand moving like a sewing machine, going up and down so quickly that it couldn¡¯t be seen as anything but a blur. He used skills to make the stitching nearly invisible, I could only spot it because I knew where it was, at least for the dress.
It was a bit hypnotizing.
He continued on with my tunic, taking cuts of similar fabric and patching the holes as well as he could. He managed to stitch a design into the tunic that managed to hide a few, it wasn¡¯t any single thing purposefully, but more like lines to draw the eye.
It took a while, his hand guiding thread into the garments over and over. I could see why a [Tailor] might like this sort of work, it was satisfying to look at and watch.
I paid him as he finished, and gathered my now-mended cloths. They were not perfect, I could feel the tiny edges in the fabric, but it was far and above what I had hoped for.
¡°Thank you, you¡¯re an exemplar for your craft,¡± I told him.
He gave a brittle smile, as he looked at me, though he couldn¡¯t quite meet my eyes as he told me, ¡°It was no problem. Just try to keep them out of danger.¡±
¡°I will certainly try,¡± I told him, ¡°Speaking of that, I¡¯ve been thinking about stuff. I don¡¯t suppose you work in armour?¡±
That brought him up.
¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said, confused, more of a question than the statement it was meant to be, ¡°You have a bit of an accent, did you ask if I work with armor?¡±
I nodded, ¡°Armour, not the metal stuff, that would be quite outside my range of means, I think, but cloth or leather, or whatnot, something made to take the hit instead of my clothes and me.¡±
He nodded in comprehension of what I talked about but shook his head once he did.
¡°I am guild certified, miss, I can not. I make clothes, making something like armor would put me in breach of the guild charter. I would risk reprisal. I also do not know how to make any, I am afraid,¡± he told me warily like I was pressing him on his whereabouts after a murder.
¡°Do you know another who could make some?¡± I asked him, not pressing the obviously weary idea of making. I didn¡¯t understand this guild charter business, but if he told me no, I wasn¡¯t going to go pushing him on it, especially if he could face ¡®reprisals,¡¯ whatever they may be.
He shook his head again, ¡°No, I¡¯m sorry. They may both have cloth, but I¡¯m sorry to say the city is not much of a place for armor, or honestly, all that much when it comes to fighting at all. You might be able to find where the [Hunters] or [Guards] get their armor, or you might go to the caravansary to see if any of the travelling merchants have any.¡±
Well, that¡¯s highly unfortunate¡ Although, I suppose I do know a [Merchant] now. I wouldn¡¯t say we¡¯re friends¡ but I know her, and that might count for something. And she loves money, so I doubt she will say no. And I might be able to get some of the other things I was looking for there, too.
¡°Thank you for your time regardless. I think I have an idea of where to go next.¡±
He smiled again, in that way that looked only a little uneasy, ¡°You¡¯re more than welcome, and thank you, for your business and for spending time with Miss Annabeth. She always seemed so very lonely.¡±
¡°I enjoy my time with her quite a lot. I would be with her now, but she has [Druid] stuff going on, so I¡¯m on errands today.¡±
¡°Indeed? Well, give her my regards,¡± he called as I moved to leave, the tint of freight from me gone from his voice.
¡°I will if the [Rat Catcher] doesn¡¯t eat me first,¡± I called back to him before muttering, ¡°The city must be full of rats with a cat that big.¡±
As I left, I got a chill as he spoke something to himself.
¡°That¡¯s funny, I don¡¯t remember there being a [Rat Catcher].¡±
Chapter 47 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 20
Thoroughly unnerved by the comment, I made my way to the closer of my two possible destinations, the caravansary. My feet pitter-pattered across the cobbles, and I realized I should probably add shoes in.
I made my way around toward where the caravans gathered, trying to find where the travelling merchants might be. Sometimes they had stores, sometimes stalls, and sometimes they decided that you came to them and just ran the shop out of a cart.
I would look over my shoulder, and spot a pair of eyes, reflective and too intelligent, and my paranoia would take a turn for the worse, but I could never tell if it was the cat I was thinking about, or if it was just a cat or even something else.
It certainly hurried my paces, though, and gave me the kick in the metaphorical pants I needed to cross into the section of the city that was more wagon than building.
I almost didn¡¯t take it in; the feeling of being followed and watched was so great, but I did once I got near enough to a crowd.
There were some animals, and I made sure to avoid any bad-looking pavers as I slowed my walk and took it in.
Wagons, massive wagons and mini wagons. Hand carts moved goods between the warehouse and stand, where wares wowed the weak-willed, women warded wicker wares. Wholesome wives wandered where wicked wavers waved, worked, and weighed wares, withering working wallets.
¡°Wowza,¡± I said.
It was bizarre, or rather, a bazaar, at least of sorts.
There weren¡¯t stalls on a street where people moved, this was a place where people came to get goods, contribute to the economy, overall, line a merchant''s pockets.
It was a place for merchants, by merchants, and it showed.
Stalls displayed goods, small signs showed prices, people haggled, which against a [Merchant] was pure folly, and little parts showed agencies.
Some people used skills to draw attention, the mana of the skills feeling like a tingle.
It was all at once, an overload, I felt like I wanted to look everywhere, and I did as I walked, though none of the goods were what I was looking for.
Different grains, some ground, some whole for cheaper, fruit kept stable from all over by skills, some that were not even in season, there were followers I had never seen before in stalls next to potters.
In some areas, those where two different companies came in contact with one another, there were people selling the same products, trying to suck money away from one another.
There were sheets out overhead to diffuse the light, not so important in spring unless it rained but adding to the feeling of comfort when it would come to summer.
I ignored it, looking for the company that I was looking for. Sometimes, I would get pulled over by a skill, but when I started to think about spending money on a vase, or a pot or whatever, I stopped and let my wisdom pick the temptation apart.
I isolated the feeling and cut it loose before spurning [Shopkeepers]. More than once, when they played a big wammy on me, or in one case when they got me to buy something, a simple bundle of herbs I could have sworn was simple dry mint, while I was on my way through, I would shout something about how the other side they were competing against was far cheaper, which got them to quit it for a while.
I kept moving through the crowd but managed to spot a tiny bit of cloth that flapped in the wind, a coloured strip with West Wind, which was all I needed to start bushwacking my way towards the green strip like a lost man would by the north star.
I was brought up short.
¡°You there, discerning madam, [Take a look], [I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll like it], [My Wares are fine as Thread].¡±
My head, now full of a want to check on wares, diverted me to a stall just across from where I was planning to go.
I approached and looked the man in the eye, who immediately winced and started sweating.
He let out a [Charming Smile] and gave me his [Best Pitch].
¡°Ah, young lady, have I [Caught your Eye]? I can swear, my grain is fine, though not so fine as you. I can see you eyeing my fine maize. Look at its colour, all ripe, fresh from the fields of the Albrecht flats, sweet, you can eat it right off the cob.¡±
The maze was quite intriguing, it¡¯s mostly yellow, not the tinier multicoloured grain I remembered. His skills drew me in.
I could make some food with this¡ surely¡ And it does look nice. Unfortunately, it has no crunchy kernels, I wouldn¡¯t mind popping some. Maybe I can dry it? Either way, I bet it would taste good.
¡°Sweet, you say?¡± I ask, like a moth drawn to a flame.
I can afford to splurge on this¡ It¡¯s not something they have around here, maybe I could see if Anna wants to grow some¡ Each of those is a seed. If I buy a few baskets of them, we could get both, eat the maize, and eat it too, and still have some to plant. And look! There are baskets right there.
A tiny, nagging voice, way, way back inside my head, reminded me to slow down. And I did, looking at the price and the signage.
It was far too costly for what was delivered. Freakishly high, even, for some simple grain, even as juicy as it looked.
¡°As you can see, as the decerning customer you are, the maize is kept fresh by-¡±
¡°Why is it so expensive?¡± I asked him, cutting off his [Best Pitch].
¡°Well, it is from the flats, miss, it is a great distance away¡¡± he stated, letting out a fake laugh as he continued, ¡°Why, the amount of space it takes up, the weight, and keeping it fresh is quite costly, you see-¡±
I had him on the back foot, and he lost his charming demeanour, the change immediate, like the snapping of a thread. One moment, he was charming, the next he was just a greasy merchant making up reasons for his ridiculously high grain price.
I was being swindled, and for the first time, I noticed the [Merchant] himself instead of just his smile, his smile with a tooth missing. He waved greasy, sweaty hands, his hair dirty from weeks on the road. None of those were deal breakers they didn¡¯t affect the food, but they did mean you had to wash them extra well. He looked like he hadn¡¯t had a bath in a long while, and smelled foul.
I did not like getting messed with like that, not by merchants, not by anyone.
He had an uncomfortable air about him, and it was more than a smell.
He was greasy in the way slimy people were, too, the way he looked at me was the way someone looked at their food, only his food was fighting back now.
He was trying to rip me off, though they are quality¡
My mind was picking apart each skill at a clipped pace, and I was recognizing it, slowly but surely, so I decided to start poking to give me more time to do it.
¡°So they¡¯ve been a long way, I can understand that, but are they clean?¡±
He stumbled as I cut him off and started looking annoyed.
¡°Of course, it¡¯s clean, it''s preserved. Are you even listening, miss? Look here.¡± He blustered, reaching down and picking up an ear and shoving it in my face. Ostensibly to show off how clean it was.
It does look clean, it¡¯s quite the¡ Wait, that bit is off-colour¡
[Take a Look] and [Caught your Eye] backfired, the focus they made me pay on the ear shoved so close, making me pick up every detail. Including details like a few slightly puffy, grey/blue kernels.
¡°What are those grey bits?¡± I asked him, raising my voice so that others might hear, putting him on the spot.
I was somewhere between trying to wrestle the skills and pull them apart from the inside, and the other half of me was fine with buying the maize, even with the colour.
I knew what they were, they were totally fine to eat¡ All though¡ No one listening would know that.
He started blustering, quickly looking at the ear, quickly taking it in, and cancelling his skills, letting the spots fade, but it was too late, I had already seen it.
The effect of his skills was all but gone, my mind free from the heavy hit, the remaining were coming undone at the seams, the skills the man had laid on me growing weak. I had to wonder just how many people he had gotten with that combo.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
They look like smuts, not bad, but what could I say¡ What¡¯s the worst thing I could say more like it, I should set an example after all, invasive skill use like that is just plain wrong.
¡°Are those Witches Spurs? They are! Your selling poisonous grain? You¡¯re unbelievable. Who do you think you are? Get that out of my face,¡± I told him loudly.
He looked around, his face growing angry. He was losing control of the conversation, and he knew it, and worse than that, he was being watched.
The casual crowd, those not totally enthralled by the products they perused, were turning to look at him.
I had him, not all the way. I didn¡¯t have him by the balls and over a barrel, but I bet I could.
My social stats were garbage for charisma, but I had a bit, just a smidge of intelligence bouncing around between my ears. I wasn¡¯t trying to convince anyone, I was just trying to smear him, which was way easier. Take the truth, and just warp it a bit, and then use the stats I had to try and explain why ¡®witches spurs¡¯ were bad.
¡°Now, listen hear-¡±
¡°You listen here,¡± I told him, ¡°selling poison like that, and to a woman no less. If I were pregnant, that could have killed the baby! It could still kill someone. You monster!¡±
All true, ¡®witches spur¡¯ was used to end pregnancy and caused delirium and vomiting. If you caught ergotism and were alone or had no water, you could die from dehydration. No lies so far.
He was taken off guard, still angry, but starting to weigh his losses, he started looking around and realized that most of the audience were working women, homemakers and cooks.
It hit me then, as his eyes flicked to the maize, that he had no idea I was messing with him either, he wasn''t fighting for narrative, he was trying to fight his way out of a corner.
Then, he opened his mouth, and I had only a second to prepare myself before he said something rather unacceptable and not something I had readied myself for.
He spoke with the feeling of a skill to him, that automatic way someone did something, but for his voice, only he was more desperate, not thinking clearly, and like anyone not thinking clearly, and talking on auto pilot, he said something stupid.
¡°Well, someone has to keep you in check. You people breed like rats.¡±
He murmured it, just loud enough for others to hear, but not loud enough for everyone to hear. And the moment the line slipped out of his mouth, it couldn¡¯t get taken back.
His fellow merchants, the ones in his company that were close enough to hear him, started looking at him like he was lighting his wares on fire and was eyeing them to spread it.
They started to try to guide their shoppers away, quickly trying to finish their transactions before the angry shoppers could backpedal, before they could leave with their money.
That¡ Actually pisses me off. And I don¡¯t feel like turning the other cheek, not this time... It''s just too far out of line.
I started to loom over the shopkeep. I was bigger than him, I was bigger than most people, and I decided, for once, to use that gods-given height to impress upon him that he had just made a very, very dumb mistake in opening his mouth, and ohh did I loom.
His eyes widened as I leaned in over him quietly, and when I spoke up, it was a quiet thing, very quiet and very calm. ¡°And, just what is that supposed to mean?¡±
He looked up at me as I intruded into his space and made to open his mouth, but I quickly stopped him, placing one finger in a shushing motion over his lips.
¡°Ah, ah. No talking. You are very, very lucky that I¡¯m not going to seek retribution for that. I¡¯ll settle on destroying your reputation instead,¡± I whispered to him, ¡°But mark my words, if you, or one of your company¡¯s goons, ever uses a skill or talks that way to me again, I will haunt you till the end of your life, and when you die, you¡¯ll get no afterlife, because I¡¯ll never send you to meet Death. I will stack you up in a cabinet, or maybe a jar, or perhaps a little basket, and you will waste away there until the end of time because I¡¯m a [Saint of Death], and I have no people left¡ Nod, if you understand.¡±
He hesitates for a moment before nodding slightly.
¡°Good,¡± I told him, tone forced back down to a normal, less horrifically threatening, but still acrid tone, ¡°Good day,¡± and left, the last skill he held on me broke, snapping from me almost audibly and eliciting a flinch from him as he quaked there.
I crossed the narrow street to the West Winds company¡¯s closest stall and smiled with a hell of a lot of teeth.
¡°Hi there. I want to talk to your manager. Which way is Gunther?¡± I asked the somewhat frightened-looking man, with a big, stupid grin on my face.
He wavered a bit, and I remembered to tuck my teeth back in, humans got spooked by that.
It didn¡¯t reassure him.
Dang it... Strause makes it look so easy.
***
I left the hubbub behind, following the [Merchant] I had talked to through the stalls and away from the scene of my threat. We skedaddled, almost fast enough for me to hear the sound of my feet tip, tip, tapping on the stones. The nails on my feet gave off a tip, tap like light chimes, as I walked with my nails extended for just a little more stability as if I could somehow dig them into the brickwork like soft loam.
I couldn¡¯t, but the kind, very frightened [Merchant] didn¡¯t seem to mind the clicking as we made our way to a building with a larger sign that read The West Winds Caravan Company.
¡°Thank you very much, kind sir. Sorry for imposing on you, but I think I can find my way from here.¡±
He looked at me like a rat, spotting a tiny cube of cheese and checking for traps that might catch it and deny it a prize.
¡°I¡¯ll be fine, go on, you¡¯re free. I just want to go talk to Gunther, it has nothing to do with you,¡± I told him as comfortingly as I could.
He half nodded once and nearly sprinted, his whole body put behind the motion of running as fast as he could away from me.
He didn¡¯t even run in the right direction. I was between him and his stall, and instead of running around me, he ran the opposite way. I watched him run until buildings and carts and crates blocked my vision of him.
I wasn¡¯t that scarry¡ Right? Surely, I hadn¡¯t intimidated him so badly he would sprint from his stall and just ditch. The racist salesman, maybe, but the guy watching?
¡°Am I scary?¡± I mumbled to myself as I wandered to the building.
The door was unlocked, and it led into a lobby, where a homely secretary sat, sifting through documents, writing things down on a separate page.
It was a rugged wooden building with a few chairs and doors inside. There was little in the way of much else. It was the opposite of homely, a kind of nowhere space that you got from a building that was left unused for long periods of time, with no significant personalization.
The secretary and her desk were the only signs of life in the building I could see in the big, open room.
I walked up to her and tapped on the desk to get her attention.
¡°I¡¯ll be with you in a minute.¡± She told me tiredly, her eyes never leaving the paper.
She looked tired, the poor girl, like she could use a pick-me-up. She was tired, bags under her squinted eyes, as they traced over line after line of random, cramped text.
I waited, I had time, her hand looked cramped, and the desk, like clothes one size too small with all the stuff on it. She was cross-writing on one of them, the text would be a terrible pain to read. There was a weariness in her posture like she was a cripple about to be sent to a killing field.
She wrote like she was sending one last letter to an unrequited love. Feverish.
She picked up speed as she wrote, faster and faster, until she stopped, turned the page, and started to continue.
¡°Um, I hate to be a pain bu-¡±
She looked up at me and shushed me before looking back down and continuing to write.
I shut up and just waited.
She finished her letter and placed it off to the side primly before looking up at me.
¡°How may I help you?¡± she asked me board.
¡°I¡¯m just here to talk with Gunther. I promised to buy from her, and I have some stuff to buy, figured I would come and keep my promise,¡± I told her.
She looked at me balefully, ¡°Gunther is in a meeting right now, I¡¯ll have to ask you to wait. Unless you have an appointment?¡±
I sighed before shaking my head, ¡°I¡¯ll wait¡ I¡¯ll wait.¡±
So wait I did, sitting down for a bit, tapping my foot on the wood building, and then, after a while, I paced back and forth. I kept doing so, wearing a hole in the floor intermittently until a familiar set of faces walked out from one of the doors.
They were a familiar pair, though one was more familiar than the other.
A goofy grin and a calm face beside him that I had seen only once before, and not for very long.
Strause and Clause, if I wasn¡¯t mistaken.
They had that familial resemblance going for them, a similarity in their hair, face, and eyes. I could see the resemblance to Anna, and having seen all three of them, I could honestly say that Anna wore it better. There was a harder cast to their features that Anna lacked, and the softer features brought the whole thing together, though I supposed might just be them being men and Anna being a woman. They were both well dressed, though Strause was a little dressed down.
He had a way of standing out, while his older brother looked oddly normal, like a man standing next to a glowing jester might. He was on the taller end for a human, standing on equal footing, maybe 5¡¯ 11¡±, a few inches taller than Strause.
¡°Oh, hi, Strause,¡± I said to him.
He looked over to me and away from his brother, noticed me and gave a little wave.
¡°Hello, imagine seeing you again,¡± he said, surprise in his voice for only a moment before it transitioned into, ¡°It¡¯s been what? Like thirty years since I last saw you? My, how tall you¡¯ve grown, it feels like just yesterday you were arguing with a little girl.¡±
He kind of mixed his voice, first like we were long lost friends, before taking on a foe motherly tone.
¡°You sold the surprise and the first bit, but the motherly bit could use some work,¡± I told him.
He clicked his tongue, ¡°Drat. Well, good to see you come, quickly bro-¡±
¡°Dear heavens, what is wrong with your eyes!¡± Clause said, his hand reaching down to where a sword might sit. He said it not with shock but something more like a statement.
He had no such sword, but he stood his ground, planting his feet like someone who knows how to fight.
Me and Strause acted at the same time, both turning to him and throwing up our hands.
¡°Whoa there, Clause, that¡¯s Beth¡¯s new friend, you know, the one that caused a fuss? Calm down,¡± he said, moving in a way that mirrored the way one might try to calm an animal.
I, for my part, with the tension of the day wearing down and thinking about my clothes, of all things, said, ¡°Don¡¯t do it, my dress is a gift,¡± in the same tone someone might when they¡¯re telling someone to not knock over a vase.
He took everything in without blinking, the whole world focused on him for a moment as he read the situation with no change on his face nor to his eyes.
I couldn¡¯t even see him twitch or smell anything, no fear or anything.
He was a blank slate, and I couldn¡¯t read a damn thing from him.
He stopped reaching for the sword that wasn¡¯t there. And composed himself, brushing off the hem of his very expensive-looking tunic.
¡°I see,¡± he said very carefully as his words tip-toed over thin ice.
There was very little of Anna or Strause in him¡ So, very little.
¡°Is she doing well?¡± he asked.
¡°She gained, like, seven or eight levels yesterday, so a little sore from all the stats, but last I saw, she was having a fairy tale¡ er¡ moment. There was a menagerie of animals, and she was talking to a wolf about little Timmy falling down a well,¡± I told him.
¡°A wolf?¡± he asked tentatively.
¡°Another Timmy?¡± Strause griped tiredly.
Clause looked to Strause, ¡°What do you mean, another Timmy?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t get why,¡± Strause told him, ¡°But little kids named Timmy are significantly more likely to fall down a well, like ridiculously more likely. Like I overheard last week, it was, like, the twenty-second time this year. That''s like, once every few days.¡±
¡°What?¡± Clause and I said at the same time.
¡°What?¡± Strause said in a much different way, ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that. It¡¯s true, and little Timmy¡¯s have some curse on them or something. Oh, don¡¯t give me that look, it¡¯s true. Clause remember [Lord] Vincent, his son? It was like ten years ago, but he fell down a well.¡±
¡°Oh, yes, I remember that. But wasn¡¯t his name Tobias?¡±
¡°Huh¡ Was it? Yeah, I guess it was¡ I suppose he might just be an idiot then.¡±
Chapter 48 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 21
Clause, the receptionist and I, which I had to check with the flick of an eye, stared at Strause in the reception hall. We just stared at him for a moment. Agape, though I was the only one openly gaping, at him.
¡°Strause,¡± Clause said, ¡°What kind of falsified information do you have access to, that I do not?¡±
Strause, for his part, looked hurt, betrayed even, as he answered he made sure to put as much pain into his voice as physically possible, he even tried to sell it, taking on a pained look, like he had been stabbed in the heart.
¡°Clause, my dearest brother, how could you slander me so? Would I lie to you, about such an important piece of information? How could I call you family, if I were to lie to you? Did Father disown me by letter? When have I ever lied to you? I would never do such, nay, have never done you the disservice.¡±
Clause, the receptionist, and I just looked at him, not buying it for a second.
¡°Ok,¡± he said, ¡°I¡¯m not hurt, but I¡¯m not lying about Timmy¡¯s. They do fall into wells like, way more often than any other child ever should.¡±
None of us had anything to say about that for a few, utterly unnerving moments, before the receptionist asked, ¡°What is the ratio?¡±
Strause looked at her like she had just asked if a sparrow was a northern long wing, or southern long wing.
¡°I don¡¯t know, like two or three to one? I don¡¯t have exact numbers on how many kids fall down wells, Beatrice.¡±
He said her name with scorn, but she just hummed before telling me, ¡°Gunther is free now miss.¡±
I nodded before turning to Clause, ¡°Annabeth¡¯s just fine, she has beast magic. She¡¯s in her grove, it would take a whole lot more than a wolf to hurt her there if it meant any harm, it would have been turned away¡ after all, it keeps out the fog, and that¡¯s a god-awful undead thing that wants to kill me, um, Mi¡¯Lord?¡±
Clause turned back to me, and caught himself, which was mostly just him blinking once, before nodding once in reply, ¡°That is good to hear, and I am no [Lord], not yet. I am to a proper [Lord] as a prospective apprentice is a Mage. I have not yet become a proper [Lord], I am but a noble scion.¡±
It was¡ flowery? [Lordly]? I supposed, though not haughty or cocky, which was nice. Nobles were so often cocky or demeaning, but Clause didn¡¯t strike me that way.
He just seemed cold, distant, and also the center of the universe, he never looked like the universe didn¡¯t revolve around him, though it had the stink of a skill to it.
¡°Do you have a skill that hides stuff around you? If you don¡¯t mind me asking?¡± I asked.
¡°A noble never reveals their skills,¡± he told me, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly for a moment, as readable as granite, or even less so.
I shrugged, and then, without thinking about it all that much, ¡°Hey Strause, where can a girl find a sandwich like the ones you brought? I was thinking of having a girl''s day out with Anna.¡±
He gave a comical look, an OHH, like a [Gossip] who just heard the best new scoop to die for, but straightened up a bit before answering, ¡°It¡¯s actually Joan''s family restaurant, I can show you there, what with you being followed.¡±
I was taken aback, stupidly checking behind my back as if the cat would just be there, hiding in the window, watching me.
Clause, for his part, looked between the two of us, and Strause stared off into space before nodding to himself.
¡°I think that did it, they¡¯ve gone and run off,¡± he told me before giving me a thumbs up.
¡°You are, as always, a bit spooky,¡± I told him, only for him to nod in affirmation.
Clause for his part, a bit slow on the uptake, asked, ¡°What does she mean the sandwiches you brought? I don¡¯t get it.¡±
¡°We had a bit of a shindig at Beth''s house last night, Gunther was there with Joan and me. Oh, I have got to tell you about it later,¡± Strause told him.
That just made Clause look more lost if anything.
¡°You had a party, and you brought a bunch of people¡ and I didn¡¯t make the cut? I suppose me and Beth didn¡¯t end our last talk on the best of terms¡¡±
¡°Clause,¡± Strause said consolingly, ¡°It wasn¡¯t you, it was me defending my honor, also, let''s head out, you have an appointment with a clipboard, no doubt. I¡¯ll see you around Saphine.¡±
He started to pull Clause along, and I waited to watch the human tornado that was Strause sweep his brother up in conversation.
¡°I still can¡¯t believe you wouldn¡¯t bring me to clear your name¡ Well, no, I suppose that makes sense.¡±
¡°Brother, you wound me. And to think, you, my favorite brother, are doubting my honor.¡±
¡°I¡¯m your only brother-¡±
And with that, they were gone.
My ear flicked, and I looked to the [Receptionist], ¡°Does he give you a headache?¡±
She responded with a look that could scour metal, eyes slightly baggy, ¡°Yes, please head on in. [Caravan Master] Gunther doesn¡¯t have all day.¡±
I nodded and started to pad along the way they came, following their trail back along the blank wood floor and to a door that held no sign of who sat behind it. It could have been a broom closet.
I knocked and waited a few moments before a muffled Gunther said, ¡°Come in.¡±
I opened the door and saw Gunther behind a desk covered in some parchment and writing slates and, of all things, an abacus.
She was similar to last night, she still had blond hair, merchant clothes, and was still five feet tall, but she had a pair of glasses on that made her eyes look huge. They were half again the size I remembered.
She looked expectantly, then when she saw it was me, she grumbled and took off the glasses, letting them drop to the table.
¡°Expecting someone?¡± I asked her.
¡°Anyone but you, why are you darkening my door?¡±
Who was she expecting? Maybe my stalker? No, no, that doesn¡¯t make sense. I can''t think of how she could even send a cat that big after me, and I can''t think of a reason why she would, I doubt she was that angry with me.
¡°I was looking for some stuff, and I did promise that I would buy some stuff from you. What kind of person would I be if I broke my promise?¡±
She looked at me like she didn¡¯t believe me.
¡°What? That¡¯s why I¡¯m here. Though I do have something else I want to talk to you about,¡± I told her.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She kept looking at me, like a disapproving mother who caught her kid red-handed.
¡°What? That¡¯s it. I¡¯m here to buy stuff and see if I can pay for some services.¡±
She kept looking at me for a few seconds, then grumbled, rubbing her head.
¡°This is just what I need, a person with money bumbling through this battlefield. Did you buy anything on your way over?¡±
¡°Just some herbs, I managed to avoid most of the bad whammy¡¯s. One guy almost got me to buy maize at a ridiculous price, but I turned it around on him.¡±
She looked at me, one dainty eyebrow raised, ¡°You turned it around on him? How? Tell me.¡±
I told her about the [Merchant], and she took it in. When I got to the end, she started to smile, then she laughed, one part thoroughly chuckle, one part cackle.
¡°That,¡± she told me, ¡°Was the best news to reach me all day. That other merchant, did he go back to his stall or run off?¡±
¡°Well,¡± I told her, confused, ¡°He ran off. He looked a little frightened, I think.¡±
¡°Are you sure it wasn¡¯t excitement? Oh, well. He better have been running to the [Criers], tomorrow half the city will think they are selling bad grain. HeHAHaha.¡±
Was that excitement? He looked like he was frightened. Am I just out of touch? Maybe¡
¡°Well, at least something good came from it, or two things, I suppose, I doubt whatever caravan he was part of will use a skill on me again.¡±
She grinned a big toothy one, ¡°I bet all of them will be weary of using skills, that merchant was coming really close to the type of thing that gets people thrown out of a town. Five skills? On one person? What a waste¡ Still, I wish I knew why all this competition is rolling around now, at best, they generally only bring weak competition, if any at all, to the Moarn Valley¡ But no, a half dozen caravans all rolled in two nights ago, they¡¯re messing with the price of grain, all of them, which means it''s deliberate.¡±
Her smile took on a different look then, more like a snarl than a sign of laughter.
I squinted at her, ¡°Wait, is all the grain priced high?¡±
She rolled her eyes a little, ¡°Not all of it, we have some lower-priced gain. What''s left of our grain anyway, Clause bought a lot of grain for Mourns Granary¡¯s, not sure why¡ What''s with your face?¡±
I had contorted my face, furrowing my brows as the idea got pulled in and rumbled around in my head, connecting a few dots.
¡°Because the valley is probably going to have a massive crop failure, and the winter is going to be extra bad, or at least nature thinks so.¡±
I think, for a second, me and Gunther were on the same page because after about half a second was up, she let out an oath that would make me blush about elves and where they stuck their bits.
It was easy to see why a bunch of caravans would roll in now.
A normal caravan, bigger than most, always comes in and sells grain and buys whatever it was that Gunther bought before leaving. So they had a low amount of grain but enough to sell it at a more reasonable price. But if you factored in that Moarn might have a bigger demand, the equations were simple enough for even me to do.
Keep your price up until they sold out, then, when the harvest failed, the high prices were the normal prices. Sky-high demand for grain to feed everyone''s family meant that the sky-high prices for grain were more ¡®reasonable,¡¯ especially when your other option was starvation. Then, they could sell whatever was left over during the uncommonly hard winter, a winter that would see people unable to forage for any significant food and leave a husk with no money behind come spring when the passes became traversable.
¡°That would explain why they have so many guards¡ Fine, fine. I¡¯ll figure out my response later. Why are you standing, coming, sitting? We have a business to talk about. You don¡¯t have to stand around, I¡¯m not your boss.¡±
I hadn¡¯t even really paid attention to the fact I was standing, but I was, so I walked over to the chairs, pulled one out and gave my legs a rest. They were bare wood but not uncomfortable.
¡°What can I do for you?¡± she asked, steepling her hands in front of her face, holding her head on her thumbs.
¡°I¡¯m looking for some food, shoes, and armour,¡± I told her, ¡°Are those things you have, or do I need to go get some stuff from somewhere else.¡±
¡°Well, that¡¯s a very concise and not at all eclectic shopping list. Armour, good shoes and food? Let''s see¡ [I think I have what you want]¡ Yeah, I have a bit of each, but I can¡¯t promise that the shoes or armour are what you are looking for, just that I have some of both¡ You could probably go to a cobbler, though, and I know one of those, so it¡¯s mostly just the armour that¡¯s in the air¡ what are you looking for specifically?¡±
I nodded, ¡°With a skill like that, I¡¯m surprised you don¡¯t magically know. I¡¯m looking for armour, not a specific kind, but I don¡¯t have any proficiency, so just the kind that most people could use well, lighter armour, probably cloth, I just want something to put a layer between me and someone who can stab me; otherwise I¡¯ll end up ruing all my cloths again, and now that I think about it, if you know any cheap tailors that can make some more rugged cheap cloths I wouldn¡¯t mind that either.¡±
She thought for a second before nodding, ¡°I have both that I can reach out for and can get cloth¡ Nothing fit for you, so I would have to see about getting it modified for your upper body¡ I think I can do it, no, I can, but it will cost a bit, with my fee that would be about two gold for a decent set of cloth armour fit for a [Caravan Guard], and three sets of rugged working clothes, tunics, breast coat, and pants, and a cloak, if you want it.¡±
I thought about it for a second, but I was missing some pieces. I didn¡¯t know the quality of the cloth or what level the tailor would be that made the cloths. If it was the lowest cloth and a normal [Tailor], it would probably be a high price, but if they were like my tunic, a bit better quality, then it would be about right. A breast coat was probably right; it was just a padded cloth jerkin and would be reasonable at a price point like that, and pants were rather normal clothes and would be like the tunic.
I decided to buy a bit of time to think and asked, ¡°Will they have belts? I wouldn¡¯t mind having an extra in case mine get cut while fighting.¡±
¡°I could throw them in for a few extra silver, say¡ two gold, ten silver?¡± she asked.
I could have just said yes, I could have paid for that with the coins in my pouch right now and been done with it. But I didn¡¯t feel like just saying yes. If you had asked the me of old to pay without bartering, I probably would have.
That was a bit easy¡ Maybe even two easy. I think she¡¯s trying to seal the deal too quick.
But I had been changing, I had been ever since I had stumbled up into Anna¡¯s grove. And for whatever reason, I felt a little more confident in the idea that I could push that number down a little bit, and not just take the hits and roll with them.
¡°I don¡¯t know¡ You say you have all this, but I have no assurance on any of my good¡¯s quality. One gold, and sixty silver.¡±
Gunther looked at me contemplatively before shaking her head, ¡°They would be the same quality as my caravan¡¯s guards, the human ones anyway, no¡ But if could assure you of their quality¡ Hmm, lets say you can come to me before my caravan leaves after mid-summer and get them stitched up for half price, For one gold and ninety silver?¡±
I knew she was being a bit fast¡ Hmm¡
¡°That doesn¡¯t assure me of their quality, quite the opposite¡ But, I suppose one gold and eighty silver for all of that, and I can get each thing fixed once on the house, then for half off?¡±
She nodded, ¡°I would be amenable to that, [Deal]?¡± she asked, reaching out her hand to shake.
I took it, making sure to match her squeeze.
She smiled, and I smiled back before asking, ¡°So, how bad did you rip me off?¡±
¡°Only about thirty silver. Our guards that take the kit we give them pay a discounted one gold and fifty silver, taken in small instalments. Or one gold and twenty if they buy it straight up.¡±
I clicked my tongue, ¡°Crafty little [Merchant], how much is it before you tack on your share?¡±
¡°A gold,¡± she told me, her smile predatory, ¡°we get our cloth from here, it¡¯s not great, but it¡¯s durable. I have a few younger lads getting some more. It doesn¡¯t sell well, but we can always use cheap cloth.¡±
¡°Damn. So, shoes? I¡¯m not looking for much, just some sandals and a pair of winter boots. I¡¯ll need some if I¡¯m going to stay here, and if you¡¯re leaving in summer, I¡¯ll want them before you go.¡±
She nodded, ¡°For a pair of sandals¡ and I assume you want the type the Beastkin prefer, if your toes are anything like your fingers, and a pair of boots like them, I¡¯ll say sixty silver.¡±
¡°Forty for two pairs of normal shoes, they¡¯re not premium goods like armour.¡±
¡°[Deal]¡±
We shook on it, and she told me unprompted, ¡°I got you down to a more normal price for those ones, you have to aim lower.¡±
¡°Merchant,¡± I said.
She laughed, ¡°You say it as if it¡¯s a curse now food, what kinds of food? Or do you want to browse, we can do either.¡±
¡°We can browse, but in a bit, I want to ask if you are up for something.¡±
¡°Oh?¡± She asked, not at all surprised, ¡°Pay half up front, and I¡¯m all ears.¡±
¡°Deal,¡± I told her, bringing out a gold coin and five silver, sliding them across towards her.
Her hand shot out before picking them up and depositing them somewhere below the desk.
¡°So, I¡¯ve inherited some things, but I need to actually go pick them up. They¡¯re quite hefty, so I would need a cart and a small winch. In theory, I could get them all on my own, but I would have to haul them back to Anna¡¯s cottage over and over. It would take days to go the few hours there and back, while they are not fragile, I don¡¯t want to leave them be.¡±
¡°Sorry for your loss. A few wagons wouldn¡¯t be missed for a day, and I have [Work Hands] for lifting, but I would need more information before I can agree or set a price. What are you inheriting that you would need moved? What kind of stuff? What are you moving, that should be up on the table, I cant go moving Illegal goods or goods that will get my people hurt.¡±
I looked at her, but telling her would do no harm. She didn¡¯t know where they were for one, and she would have to contend with me, and Anna, both because I had agreed to take her along with me, and because I bet she would want to see it, even if it was just once. She would have to cross both me, an unkillable person who could take vengeance on her, and a noblewoman who was the daughter of the local [Baron].
¡°Well,¡± I started, ¡°How much do you know about [Lore Masters]?¡±
Chapter 49 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 22
I sat there, in the baren room Gunther used as an office. The room, lit by a small slit of a window to the side and a lamp held by a fixture to the other side, unlit at the still early hour, was bright enough to read each other or the paper on the desk. It had just been the two of us talking, but at the mention of who I was inheriting from, she drew still.
I could see her breath slow down in the line of her neck as her heart mirrored her lungs. I could see her eyes focus in on me in the casual manner, she held her self-crumbled. She leaned herself closer to me.
¡°I¡¯m sorry, I don¡¯t think I heard that right,¡± she said, looking at me.
¡°I said, how much do you know about [Lore Masters] because that¡¯s who I¡¯m inheriting from. A [Lore Master].¡±
She continued looking at me before asking, ¡°Surely, it''s not what I¡¯m thinking it is? It¡¯s not-¡±
¡°It is a Library full of books. Way too many for me to haul out on my own. What else did you think I could be inheriting? A multi-ton pile of quill pens?¡±
Gunther stopped and started thinking. She looked a little hunted then. She looked like the news was the sign of a coming cataclysm, and I was about to ride out will a Darktide behind me. Her eyes stopped tracking me, focusing into the distance as she began to think.
Shit, I think I¡¯m losing her¡ What can I say to reassure her? Why is she so freaked out by a library, I bet New Moarn has at least one or two. There''s got to be a [Lore Master] here, or at least somewhere in the valley¡ Right?
I had no idea, I hadn¡¯t checked. So, I tried my hand at blind reassurance, ¡°Listen, I don¡¯t know why your so freaked out right now, but it¡¯s perfectly safe. There are no traps or anything, I¡¯ve been there before, it''s just a normal library that belonged to a [Lore Master].¡±
That knocked Gunther out of her funk, her eyes snapped to me and took a second to take me in. I could practically see the bits of her head spinning back up like a water wheel after a dry spell, spurred by words that had gone in one ear and almost out the other. I could see her eyes properly focus back to the here and now. And with a bit of focus, a tiny amount of mana moving¡
A skill? Maybe a passive skill, damn, I should have paid closer attention. I need to get used to paying attention to it as much as possible.
She waved in the negative, ¡°No, no. Nothing wrong with that. I doubt a [Lore Master] would trap a library, that¡¯s practically blasphemy.¡± She shivered at the idea, ¡°Imagine a trap going off and lighting a library on fire. No, it was not a bad thing, I was just thinking, I wish it were mine, is all. Even if I didn¡¯t want to keep it for what was inside, the coin I could get by selling it to another [Lore Master] would be¡ I can¡¯t place it with a skill¡ By the Elderwood, I only get that from priceless stuff.¡±
I looked at her in disbelief, ¡°You would sell it? A supposedly priceless collection? It¡¯s thousands of years old! The building was literally one of the first structures built in the valley by Humans. It is that old. The fact that you were thinking about its sales price is the reason you wouldn¡¯t get one.¡±
Gunther listened to that and rolled her eyes flippantly. She waved it off like a bad smell.
¡°The reason I¡¯m not inheriting a small collection of irreplaceable knowledge is because I¡¯ve never known anyone with one. Do you honestly believe I couldn¡¯t persuade someone to pass one off to me? And of course, I would sell it, I¡¯m a [Caravan Master], I can¡¯t pay to haul a library everywhere I go, and I have no permanent residence, no place to call my own.¡±
I waved her off, which seemed to get under her skin for a moment, but she didn¡¯t speak up, ¡°So it won¡¯t be a problem then? You¡¯re not going to wig out again?¡±
¡°No, no. I¡¯m not going to ¡®wig out.¡¯ You¡¯re hard to understand sometimes, you know that? And that¡¯s for me, with all my charisma and skills.¡±
¡°But you can. It¡¯s not my fault everyone is speaking some kind of gods-awful dialect of my language. Good, the last thing I want is for you to back out halfway because of some kind of superstition about libraries or something.¡±
She tapped the desk, presumably to draw us back to the conversation at hand or maybe as a long-developed tick or tell. ¡°None of that, let''s stay on topic, how much are we moving? How big is the library, or how many books? If you remember the library, then how much is there to move? I need to know.¡±
I thought about the room, about what I remembered of the shelves, and how much room I expected to fill in Anna¡¯s house. ¡°About a house¡¯s worth? A small house, maybe? The Library is a bit bigger than Anna¡¯s main room, and you presumably remember last night?¡±
She whistled lightly at that, ¡°That¡¯s a fine-sized library¡ Are they stacks, or are they on shelves? I¡¯m trying to imagine how many books we are talking about.¡±
¡°Shelves,¡± I told her, ¡°The books are separated in a way, I just forget how, organized, you know? So the crates, or whatever will need to be organized, or names recorded.¡±
She nodded, ¡°Well, that will at least take fewer carts¡ You can pack more books in a stack after all.¡±
To be fair to the library, it was quite a lot of books regardless of the fact that there were shelves. It was more books than I have ever seen in one place, which wasn''t saying much, but that was whatever.
Gunther started writing something down, and I decided to tell her stuff so she could record it.
¡°We¡¯re going to need to bring a winch, the library is at the bottom of a vertical shaft, and people can¡¯t just walk in and out carrying boxes or whatever.¡±
She nodded, scribbled something down, and then returned to scribbling something out. I waited for her to carry on the conversation, but when she didn¡¯t, I decided to do it.
¡°Are you thinking about the logistics? About carts and people and stuff?¡± I asked her.
She nodded, only saying a simple ¡°Yes¡± before continuing.
Well, I suppose if we¡¯re going to lapse into silence, I might as well think about it and figure out what the numbers might look like. Its hard to figure out what the number of wagons we might need is, but figuring out the number of people we might need?
I thought about it, slowly but surely pacing it out in my head.
¡°You would know better about the carts, but I know the place, we can split the difference, I wouldn¡¯t want to tax your little head,¡± I lightly mocked, trying to get an expected answer out of her.
I did not get an expected answer, I just got confused, ¡°Where is it?¡±
¡°Up on the bluff a few hours north and a bit east, hard to spot. There¡¯s a lot of tall grass. I can find it again, but it¡¯s a bit of a hike,¡± I told her.
She hissed in annoyance then.
I couldn¡¯t get a read on her, the moment I had said [Lore Master] she had started acting off. But I couldn¡¯t figure out why, she was in and out of how I expected her to act.
She said she wished it was her¡¯s, but I somehow doubt that¡¯s it. I still doubt she wants to actually have the books¡ Maybe she just wants to read them?
Damn, my charisma. Damn it. I wish I could read her.
I put a pin in it for now and instead started to picture how many people we might need while paying attention to her.
I imagined the room, the hallway and the distance from the doors to the shaft. Then there were three people at the winch, one loading, one winching them up, one unloading, and probably the same number of people moving the books to the wagons.
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¡°Maybe¡ Eight people down in the cave to bring the books down, er, out at a good pace. And the same number on the surface. With three moving the books up¡ So, something like nineteen total. Might want some guards too.¡±
She looked at me then, back to [Merchant] Gunther. ¡°Hold on,¡± she said warningly, one finger raised, ¡°Is this dangerous? For my crew I mean? Because you were already talking about it being safe, Guards are extra.¡±
I shook my head, ¡°Not very unsafe, no. But there are always Animals or Beasts, I know there are some undead nearby in a crypt next to the library, but they¡¯re locked down there, best I can tell. If they weren¡¯t, there¡¯s no way they would still be down there. It''s mostly animals I¡¯m worried about¡¡±
No¡ wait¡ I¡¯m wrong. Anna can deal with any Animals or Beasts, at least while she¡¯s up top. So it¡¯s just anything else that might jump us¡ or I guess maybe a disgruntled member of Anna¡¯s new court¡ I suppose she would probably want to see the library, too, which means she would be down below for a bit¡ Darn it¡ Oh well, a little more money for safety can¡¯t be too much more. What was the saying? In for a penny, in for a pound?
¡°Never mind,¡± I told her, ¡°I just remembered that most wildlife won¡¯t be a problem. I¡¯m fairly sure Anna just met all of the nearby animals and beasts and could probably get any others to stop¡ Still, for the sake of safety, I¡¯m willing to pay for a few guards. Probably eight total would be fine, six up top, two down below to make sure no one gets jumped by an angry squirrel or something.¡±
She looked at me probingly, but I was being upfront with her, so she just squinted at me for a bit.
Did I say something wrong? I can¡¯t think of anything wrong¡ Oh well, she¡¯ll stop in a bit.
She didn¡¯t. But she did keep talking after a dozen awkward seconds or so, ¡°Eight carts is what I¡¯m thinking. Each could probably hold two shelves, without the wood, probably more like three if we keep them organized, and we don¡¯t want to overload carts if they go up and down an incline, is that agreeable?¡±
¡°Sure,¡± I told her while shrugging. I couldn¡¯t tell how much a cart was but with eight gold a week, I could probably cover it.
Now for the big part¡ Skipseo, this better not be too much money¡ I swear if you make me carry them by hand when I meet you again I¡¯ll throttle you.
¡°What will it cost? Nineteen workers, eight guards, and eight carts I mean. The whole package?¡±
She started humming, noting things down on her page. She was starting to slip more and more back into how I expected her to act. Finding her rhythm so to speak.
¡°Hmm¡ Ten gold.¡±
My heart dropped out of my chest at the sum.
A part of me wanted to swear at the idea of spending that much money, on top of the money I paid today. Instead of swearing, I squeaked, ¡°Ten?¡±
She nodded. As if that was a totally normal sum. I couldn¡¯t tell if she was ripping me off or giving me a decent deal.
I could try to argue it down, surely¡ But how? What could I give to cover such an enormous cost? Is she looking to get something out of me¡ Is that why she''s been acting so off? Does she want something? Or am I seeing things where there¡¯s nothing?
What¡¯s the best way I can go about this¡
I had no idea, not even all my wisdom could dig me out of this. I had no cards, so instead, I walked into the possible bait.
I sighed, ¡°Could I lower that cost somehow? What can I offer to bring that down?¡±
She looked at me and just snickered, ¡°How? I don¡¯t know. Sell me on something. What were you expecting, the price to be low? You¡¯re basically hiring out a caravan for a day to do a bunch of work and carry precious cargo. If you want to cut the price down, then you need to offer something because I¡¯m not doing it for free.¡±
I blinked at her in total incomprehension.
I had expected that to be a trap of some kind, for her to go, ¡®I want some books,¡¯ or at least knowing what she would want out of it. But she had played me straight.
For at least the third time during this conversation, I cursed that I didn¡¯t know what to say.
Think Saphine, use what little brain you have rumbling around inside your head and think. Let''s see¡ What can I do normally? I can technically do magic, though I¡¯m not all that good at it, I have a connection with Anna¡ But I¡¯m not going to ask her to get involved in this. That rules out magic¡ I can do physical labour, but I doubt she needs that, and I don¡¯t have a fighting class for all that I have been learning how to fight, so I can''t go doing any of that for her¡
Could I lower what were asking for? Maybe go down to six or seven carts? Or down to 15 workers and six guards?... No, I don¡¯t think I can. She thinks it would take eight carts, then I have to trust she¡¯s not screwing me, and lowering the number of people would do very little to lower the total cost unless I totally gutted it, and then I would be there hauling books, but with carts, I would have to drive on my own.
So I can¡¯t work for it with magic, and I can''t work with my muscles, and I can''t cut costs¡ And there¡¯s no way I can offer her some of the library, Skip would kill me for that¡
I was looking at Gunther, squinting a little as my mind rambled around to come up with a plant, Gunther staring at me like she was playing with her food, smiling with her pointy teeth, when my eye slipped to her desk.
¡°I don¡¯t know what I can offer.¡± I told her, ¡°What about what you¡¯re doing? Could I help with that? You and your [Receptionist] both seem kind of busy with work. Maybe I can lighten the load?¡±
It was a gamble. I could always pay it, but then I would have to go to the merchant''s guild and take out money. The place freaked me out a little, and so did the idea that I could carry that much money on me at once.
Gunther looked at me like I was slow and asked, ¡°Are you any good at math? Because we''re both doing mostly math at the moment.¡±
I stopped for a moment. And then, gut-turning inside out, I thought about it.
I can¡¯t let math stop me. There¡¯s no way in any of the hells I won¡¯t try and get a lower price. If math is what I need to do, I won¡¯t let math stop me.
¡°Pass it here, let me see it. I can do some math, but just the basic stuff.¡±
She raised her eyebrows and snorted but passed the sheet over to me.
¡°Basic math? Let me guess, you can add? Maybe even subtract? Do you need your fingers for the big numbers?¡± she mocked.
I ignored her and looked at the numbers. There were a lot of them in a series of long lines and bunches, scrawled around the page with no rhyme or reason. There was a table with a series of numbers and another number, there were those weird strings of numbers that were letters. Scrawled math was all around the page as she worked through the answers, disorderly scribbles of words with seemingly no connection and lines abounded.
I felt the urge to throw it into a fireplace overcome me like I was fourteen again. I made sure to tighten down on that instinct; burning it would get me nowhere, and instead, I got to actually parsing what I could make out.
It¡¯s¡ Almost all simple math? Just multiplication? Why the hell is she mocking me over basic math? I could do this in my sleep. Skip was trying to slam graphing into my head, but even this is just a straight line, and that¡¯s from what I remember from years ago¡ Even if it''s gross and I hate doing it, this is child¡¯s play.
¡°Is this it? No curves, no weird math¡ Just basic multiplication? A few fractions? Why do you need an abacus for this? I can do this easily.¡±
Some would say that a look could tell you a thousand things. I couldn¡¯t read someone that well. I could pick up a few things here and there or tell if someone I knew well enough was feeling one way or another. I could even pick up on some things in ways humans couldn¡¯t, like smell, or sometimes even with my sharper hearing, even though I tamped those down as well as I could.
But when I looked at Gunther, the only thing I could take from it was a look of extreme bewilderment. The kind you got when you were talking with someone and they just brought something totally out of left field.
Only the expression she was giving me was more than that. She was looking at me more like I had grown a second head.
And then, in a change that rivalled how fast Strause could change his face, her face changed to a very sharp, very focused look.
¡°If you can do this work, and I don¡¯t know that you can, I will pay you fifty silver an hour for your work,¡±
Fifty silver an hour? What the hell kind of overpay is that? No, wait, if she¡¯s that desperate, I should ask for more¡ let''s see¡ I have two days to cover some costs¡ But only for a few hours each day¡
¡°I¡¯ll pass,¡± I told her while I ran some numbers in my head as best as I could, ¡°fifty is too low if it were eighty, maybe, but I can always-¡±
¡°Seventy silver an hour for your work,¡± she countered.
¡°Seventy-five, and I work for four hours each day, today and tomorrow,¡± I said with an air of finality.
The look on her face was like she had bitten into a lemon, but when she opened her mouth, it wasn¡¯t followed by denial, but with a very bitter ¡°[Deal]¡± and an outstretched arm.
I shook her hand and smiled, showing off an ungodly amount of teeth. Because at the end of the day, we were both predatory in one way or another, and this time, I was the one who got the last laugh. And she knew it.
It was a thrill and one that I had never gotten before for the incredibly simple reason that I had never gotten one over on anyone, not once, in my entire life.
And for the first time in my life, half of my instincts were a simple fox, felt wholly sated.
¡°So¡ Can you get my order in? I want them for the outing if they can be ready by then. I can start right away, all I need is what I¡¯m doing and a piece of paper or a slate to write on,¡± I told her.
She mumbled in agreement and found a piece of clear paper while handing me a slate, briefly explaining what I was supposed to do and giving me what I was to perform calculations on. I started while she wrote a form for me and my goods. Before quickly running it out to someone to get the process going.
And that¡¯s how I spent the early afternoon torturing myself at Gunther''s desk, doing math on a slate and handing over the answers to Gunther, who was also doing math and filling in her own answers.
I had no idea what she was doing or what the numbers meant, but they obviously meant something.
The things I would do to make sure Skipseo didn¡¯t haunt me were endless. But hey, at least I only had to pay four gold coins, more than I had ever spent on anything, instead of two and a half times that to move his library in a day.
And you know what?
Maybe it was because I got one over on her or because I had just made the first step to keeping a promise. Maybe it was just because I found it easier to sit still for a bit, or maybe, just maybe, it was because I finally had a real-life reason to use math. But whatever reason or combination of them it might have been, it was the least torturous four hours of math I had ever lived through.
Chapter 50 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 23
Me and Gunther sat around her desk for four long hours. I hated math, but it gave me some time to think, even if some of those thoughts were things like, ¡®I forgot to carry the one,¡¯ or, ¡®Why am I still here, oh gods above.¡¯
That was the worst part about sitting still for ungodly amounts of time, it left you with nothing new to see, which got me thinking about stuff.
None of it was particularly important; I wasn¡¯t contemplating the universe or anything, but I was thinking about Anna some of the time others I was wondering how I might deal with the fog or help with the food shortage.
Each was a tough question, not equally tough, but each was tough in its own way. I also thought over Sophy¡¯s words to me.
Her suggestions, her [Guidance], was the kind of thing that wasn¡¯t a one-off, it was the kind of thing you had to form a habit for. They were also the kind of thing that once you were aware of it was hard not to think about or beat yourself up over.
But I was going to follow it as well as I could.
I had no idea if she was right for some of it, but if the worst following it would bring was a bit of a headache on my end, and possibly give me quite a lot of good in return, I would take it to heart. No, I wouldn¡¯t, I would engrave it on my heart if it would make my life better.
Sophy had never done me dirty, not yet, and I wasn¡¯t going to take her words with a grain of salt.
And hey, look at me now. I¡¯m rubbing shoulders with a [Merchant].
Gunther had spent the better part of an hour, futzing about her abacus with a scowl. She looked pissed, but she also looked a little like me when I was doing math. I just wasn¡¯t certain if it was at me, or at the paper.
I kept my mouth shut, which was the only way I knew how to keep a scary person like Gunther from going off until I finished my work.
Right up until¡
¡°Finished, I do believe that was four hours, well a little more than that maybe¡ It¡¯s hard to tell without a glass to tell time, but by the sun it''s about right. Do you want me to bring these somewhere? Because gosh there are a lot of them.¡±
Gunther let out a sigh and leaned back in her chair. She lifted her arms and gave a good stretch, the type where you got clicks out of your back, and your arms and legs suddenly felt like you had just sucked down a thing of Kindly tea and felt like you had the energy to move after the chair had sucked all of it out of you.
I stood up, my legs wobbly from disuse.
Partly to show off and partly because I felt as stiff as a board, I, too, gave stretching a go.
I leaned back with my hands above my head, then chest forward with my arms behind my back.
¡°Mmm, that¡¯s good,¡± I said, more to myself than to Gunther, while my back gave its pops of release.
I looked over at her, only to be met with a grim look.
¡°Show off,¡± she huffed.
I blinked down at her, confused, but instead of staring me in the eye, she was staring at my chest.
I looked down at her but picked up on it fast enough. I raised my eyebrows, my ears turning to face towards her. It took me a second to really break down her words from annoyed at me to annoyed at me. But once it did, I smiled a little, though if I were honest, it was more of a smirk.
¡°What? Jealous? They''re not that good, if it helps, imagine all of the back pain I¡¯ll have that you won¡¯t,¡± I told her, almost dryly.
Her look turned bitter, though she didn¡¯t fall for my pokes, ¡°With udders like yours? I¡¯ll hold out hope that you go saggy while my youthful appearance never fades. Just keep them tucked away around the men¡ It''s hard enough competing with humans.¡±
I wanted to raise my eyebrows, but they were already up, and I didn¡¯t feel like working out the muscles in my forehead.
¡°I¡¯m not interested,¡± I told her, waving the idea off like a fart, ¡°they''re all yours.¡±
She looked at me, not understanding what I was trying to say. But she just shrugged. She didn¡¯t get it, but she had the spirit.
¡°Good, I assume you want to look through my wares now? You wanted to buy some food, so we might as well take some time before I need to get back to it. Here take these to Beatrice, shes-¡±
¡°Your receptionist, yeh, I know,¡± I told her, cutting her off. She shrugged as I got around the desk and picked up the papers full of numbers that me and her had been vomiting out onto paper with very little in the way of down time. She went over to a drawer in her desk to get something, but I was already delivering the paper to Beatrice.
The look on her face when I walked up and got her attention was so caustic I felt a pang of genuine fear when I looked at her, but when she looked at the papers, her face wound down to tired instead.
She held out her hand towards me, and I gingerly gave her the sheaf of loose paper. She accepted it, bringing it in closer to give it a look.
¡°Wait a moment, is this¡ is this all from Gunther? You didn¡¯t grab any random pages?¡±
¡°No, that¡¯s all from Gunther, I just helped out,¡± I told her, not bringing up why I would help or how many coins I saved for it.
She started leafing through it, muttering to herself.
On instinct, I paid attention to her mana, and while I couldn¡¯t see inside of her, but I could see the wispiness that I had thought was a skill. Deciding to double check I paid attention to myself and engaged some of my passive skills, extending my nails, and noticed that my hands gave off a wispy trickle of mana.
That was as close as I was going to get for now in terms of confirmation. Notably, the mana was coming off of her head, while mine was coming off of¡ well, I was leaking a bit out of all over me, but one of them was from my hands while I used my tool proficiency.
That was good to know, maybe it will come in useful. No, that was the wrong way around, it will come in handy if I find a way to use it. That¡¯s the spirit, anything can be useful if you know how to use it. Too bad I can¡¯t tell what kind of mana it is¡ Though, I suppose I probably could when I get back. Maybe there¡¯s something in the book about it¡ Something to think about later, though those are piling up.
¡°Not bad, a few mistakes, though you have as many as Gunther, so no problems there. I might be able to go to sleep today. Well done,¡± she said.
I looked at her, and sure enough, she did still look tired. Too tired.
I decided not to weigh in on it, not try to stick my nose where it didn¡¯t belong. Being nosy would probably just annoy her.
¡°Good to hear we did you a solid, I¡¯ll be helping tomorrow, too, just for a few hours, but I hope that makes the difference.¡±
¡°It just might, now, if you¡¯ll excuse me, I need to analyze these, I¡¯m sure that Gunther can see to any paperwork she¡¯s created with you. Good day, miss¡¡±
¡°Saphine, my names Saphine.¡± I told her, raising my hand to shake hers.
¡°Well then, good day, miss Saphine,¡± she told me, raising her hand to shake mine.
We shook, though it was nothing special, just a few moments and it was gone.
¡°Yes¡ Well, I¡¯ll get out of your hair. Good day, Miss Beatrice.¡±
There was nothing left to say, so I headed back to Gunther, only to walk in on her finishing on what she was doing.
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She was dressing up.
She looked then more like the child of a noble than any I had ever seen.
She was dressed up, not like someone going to church, with fancy but simple clothes, but like a young noble would to please a parent, or like they were going for a family portrait. It made her look like someone out of a storybook, a little noble scion before they lose their finery and have to slum it with the rabble.
Stranger still, she dressed like a man, a young man¡¯s garb that made me confused for a second on whether or not she was, in fact, he and if I had been wrong. But that wasn¡¯t it, she had a chest. It was small, nearly non-existent, but it was there. She was every part a girl, even in the way she stood.
¡°What''s with the getup, wait¡ None of the others called you a girl either¡¡±
¡°Keep your wet nose out of that, and try not to go spreading my dirty laundry around. And unless you¡¯re going to help me get dressed, which I do not want nor need, I would ask that you simply wait.¡±
I shut my mouth for a minute while she, he? While Gunther finished getting dressed up.
I wonder why she does it. Now that I think about it, there¡¯s no way her real name is Gunther, either. No one has given her a hard time about it, but she, or he¡ or whatever, would have a last name too. Maybe it¡¯s a ploy? But if it is, it¡¯s a weak ploy¡ unless the ploy is to take people confused to give her an advantage¡ I¡¯ve never been good at this.
I waited while she¡ While Gunther finished dressing up like the child of an overenthusiastic [Noble] and started walking, little shiny black shoes think-thunking on the wood floors and what notable traits she had packed below a man¡¯s coat.
¡°Come on then, follow me,¡± they called, walking confidently out of the bare halls of the building and into the streets.
I followed, blinking a bit from the light and sound, but kept following her towards her goods, presumably. I gave a quick check but found no followers, no pre-historic cat perusing from the shadow.
¡°So,¡± I started, ¡°I¡¯m guessing that I¡¯m getting ¡®paid¡¯ for my work with¡ what is the word¡¡±
¡°Credit?¡± Gunther weighed in.
¡°Sure, that. Where we just skip the paying part, and you lower the cost of my expedition thingy.¡±
¡°Yes, Credit is indeed me stating you have money you can take at any time. It¡¯s make-believe money that makes lending and borrowing easier. You don¡¯t even need to give me four coins, you can just make the transaction through the guild, which makes more sense for big transactions. No coins means you can¡¯t get robbed. But you have part of it wrong, the money isn¡¯t discounted, I¡¯m getting paid ten gold, but six of it will be in credit from you, that you get from me.¡±
¡°Mmhm sounds like the same thing to me. Say, I don¡¯t suppose you would have the sandals ready today? The streets are a bit dirty.¡±
¡°The sandals? I don¡¯t see why not, most of it will already be ready, they just need to fit it a bit. Come on then, this way.¡±
Gunther started moving, her little legs moving quickly and mine moving at normal stride to keep up with their brisk jog.
We made our way through side street after street, getting closer to the distant, though reduced bustle of the market streets, until we came out in an area blocked in by merchants with the green cloth that marked them as Gunther¡¯s company.
They were bustling quite hardily, compared to earlier, they were practically in a frenzy of activity, with most of the people coming up to their stands instead of the blue stands across the street.
Gunther started chuckling under her breath as she looked out at it.
¡°Ahh, you smell that?¡± she asked.
I didn¡¯t, but I decided to try and figure out what she was talking about.
I could smell glues, cooked food, spices and herbs, leather and metal polish, sweat and emotions running high.
¡°I just smell normal human stuff or market stuff, I guess.¡±
¡°It smells like people hustling¡ and it smells like victory. I couldn¡¯t have done it better myself, but you managed to close the competition for the day. Well done.¡±
I sighed, ¡°Of course, you were just talking about money.¡±
¡°Come now, let¡¯s get going, time is coin,¡± she said, bustling off.
I followed Gunther around, finding a few things in the process. I got a basket, of all things, and some fruit and even a handful of spices, though just a few, some chillies, which I was surprised about, and some tomatoes, which I looked forward to using. Eggs, and soft bread... I even found some good maize, both dry and on the cob, though they didn¡¯t look as good as some of the other stuff I had seen, they still looked well, and I was coming up with some ideas on what to cook.
We got to the shoemaker and I got my sandals. They were rather bulky compared to my old ones, more bulky than I was expecting, but if they were for Beastkin, they would be built differently.
And speaking of Beastkin, I saw a few for the first time. Oddly, most of them were doing guard duty and in Gunther¡¯s colours, but they were odd all on their own.
I could see, in a way, why I might be confused for one, even if only halfway. We were far more alike than Goblins. They were animal-like for sure, several of them based on different animals with different heights. Some were more wolf, while others were cat-like, though different from the cat I had seen. Notably, however, they were all the way towards animals, where I looked like I might be part human with some animal features, but they looked like they were animals with human features.
Bipedal with fur and hands that split the difference between mine and honest-to-goodness paws. Tails and whiskers, and very little clothing. The clothing they wore looked more like it was for holding things and for style rather than to cover themselves for modesty. Most only wore what looked like a pleated piece of cloth, folded around them in a kind of skirt and sash on the men and what looked more like a bib on women.
I could see why they would, though, all of that fur would leave them sweating, or I supposed, probably panting with heat.
Some of the shorter-haired amongst them wore more human clothes.
I had never seen one in the main streets, but here they were, sticking in with humans, talking, bartering, and generally being around.
A few of them looked at me, but they seemed disinterested, several paid more attention to Gunther than me.
I got my sandals on. They were a bit stiff, but that was expected, I thanked the shoemaker for her quick work and finished up my shopping.
¡°Gunther, which way are the temples? I need to go pick up some books for Anna.¡±
Gunther almost tripped, ¡°Hmm? Books? Oh¡ I suppose those would be over in the temple district,¡± she said, rattling off a few directions to me that I tried to remember.
¡°Well, thank you for your time, Gunther¡ I¡¯ll come back tomorrow to finish my work,¡± I told her.
She nodded, seemingly confused by something in my voice or the situation. I stood there waiting for a ¡®goodbye¡¯ or maybe a ¡®see you tomorrow,¡¯ but it never came.
So awkwardly, I nodded my head at her and made my way off and into the streets.
On my way out, I got a few merchants who tried to call me out, but those who did realized it was me and rocked back like they had been slapped. And I made it out without being harried by them.
I got back onto the main streets just a bit after, back to the bustle of normal streets where merchants were calmer and less likely to sideline me for my rapidly dwindling coin purse.
I made my way past the little islands of them as fast as I could down the streets and around through alleys, though I was more weary about them.
I thought about telling a [Guard], but what would they do? Tell me they would look into a stealthy mountain lion-sized cat thing that may or may not be following me right now. That was the kind of thing that got very little guard attention. They would dismiss me almost outright and waste my time.
Instead, I focused on making it to the temple district, and when I did, it was not all that reassuring.
Far from what I expected, it was not a familiar sight, not one that felt welcoming, but one that felt¡ wrong.
There were temples of a sort, some smaller, some taller. Some were just as I expected, the more modest ones, but plenty of them were¡ more monumental.
It was a bit unnerving, but the worst was the differences.
I did not remember much of my time in here, and I definitely didn¡¯t notice the small things.
Small things, like some gods, have strange symbols. I noticed a church for Fertility, but instead of the symbol I knew, a stalk of grain in a bowl, it was an upright tree or bush or flower with speckles like stars around it. the temples were less rustic, more like Averice in most cases.
I noticed what looked like a tavern with the familiar symbol for Hearth and Hospitality, but for every place I could recognize, I found two places that seemed more like a monument to human greed than to their patron deity. And for every god I remembered, there was one I didn¡¯t.
I looked but saw as many foreign gods as familiar, and the change scared me.
I made my way around, quickly scooting through a familiar open area. The cobbles were just too far apart, and the place smelled lightly of blood, and I decided that I didn¡¯t want to slow down there, next to the familiar temple of Life, wrought in near pristine stone that seemed so far from the moral ideals the god aimed for it made my teeth itch.
At least the same symbol adorned the building.
There were alcoves, mostly dedicated to what appeared to be Epithets, but they, too, were filled with unfamiliar faces next to old ones.
What was the point of a god if they just changed? What was a god that did not last longer than you? What were they now? Just another epithet? I didn¡¯t know if I wanted to know.
I found the place I was looking for. It was a solidly built thing, a stone structure in a kind of cube, with no windows. Outside, there was a shop where different craftsmen wrote and bound books. A familiar mark for a Library marked the top of the door frame.
I slowed and took it in.
This is much more my speed, I like this place¡ I wonder if there are any [Lore Masters] here¡ It would be nice to spot some, though somehow I doubt it¡ This looks less like a library and more like an archive.
It was neither here nor there. I was here for a reason, not a personal visit, so I walked on in, asked the awkward young man for Anna¡¯s books, got them, refused to elaborate, and headed out and into the district streets.
This place was wrong, and I left as soon as was physically possible, the idea of gods I didn''t know instead of the gods I did, frightened me on a visceral level, and with the day I had it wasn''t helping.
By the time I was halfway out of the district, it felt like I had eyes watching me, the paranoia driving my heart to beat a little faster.
I made my way back through the city, quickly finding my way out of the city, away from the center structure. The longer it took, the more it felt like it was hard to breathe. There was a pressure that unnerved me, but I didn¡¯t look behind me, I just focused on getting out of the city as fast as possible. Sometimes, I used my skills to turn a corner or lengthen my stride, anything to get out. The moment the cobbles turned to dirt and grass, I shot off kicking off all of my skills and turning behind me, only in time to see the tail of a cat whirling behind the wall of a house.
I fled across the grass and towards the tree line, finding my way circuitously toward Annas Grove. I did not let up on my speedy getaway until I was into the stands of trees that led up the hill and up the pathway to Annas Grove. I didn¡¯t slow until I could hear birdsong and see the short grass, and animals and Anna.
Only then did I slow down and let my heart slow, the reassurance of the grove lulling my instinct and me to calm.
Chapter 51 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 24
The pressure of the grove washed over me, the surety of it around me stripped away the paranoia. Each moment inside of it calmed me, and let me begin to catch my breath. It pulled the weight of it off and replaced it with the familiar feel of security, like coming home and getting a firm hug.
It was disorienting, going from paranoia and the feeling of eyes on the back of my neck to the reassurance that nature was pulling double duty. It was like getting whiplash, but it was a sorely needed whiplash, and it came in the form of a hug. The hug, in this case, was just nature clutching me closely, well¡ Anna¡¯s magical connection through either skill or spell that projected out and around her home, but the land, nonetheless.
At that moment, it felt similar to how I first came up into the grove all those weeks ago, as stupid as that sounded. I found it hard to tell if it was stronger or if it just felt stronger because I had been afraid, but it was so similar.
Regardless, the presence of it, gave me the surety to stop running, it told me that this place was home and that I was safe here.
I took deep breaths, letting the calm of the grove, the bird song and the rustle of leaves permeate my mind and blow away the fear.
Then, when I had caught my breath, and only then, I looked up.
The grove was largely empty. Most of the animals had apparently said their piece, but the birds had stayed and were merrily chirping, as had the foxes, which sat and watched the sight.
The sight in question was Anna.
She was standing in the grove, a bit wobbly, with birds fluttering around her. They were small things, and danced through the air, whirling around like a clay on a potter¡¯s wheel and taking on shapes. Anna for her part, wobbly turned around, watching them from below.
It was a moment of mesmerizing beauty, her green dress, swirled around her, hiking up at knee height while she walked around barefoot, frolicking. Because that was the only word I could use, frolicking. She was frolicking in the grove, happily whirling around with a smile on her face, flower crown, always on her head flashing her purple flowers as her hair whirled around like her dress.
It was like walking into her grove for the first time all over again. Only this time she was far, far happier than when she sat on her chair.
It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling, seeing her happy like that.
Despite what had gone down today, the math, and getting stalked, and seeing the temples with foreign gods on them. Despite what had happened even before that, with me getting glowing eyes and losing my world and everyone I knew, despite everything. In that moment, the feeling made it all worth it.
If I was asked to go through it all over again right now, I would do it. To see that face, to see her smile like that.
I couldn¡¯t help smiling at it, because it was contagious. Maybe it was the mental whiplash, swinging my mind around, maybe it was the comparison to when I first wound up in the grove, and the stark contrast of Anna now, compared to Anna then.
Maybe it was something else, but regardless the look of unadulterated joy on her face lit a fire in my heart. Each and every breath, calmed my frantic fluttering heart, and replaced it with an equal but positive feeling.
Anna looked up at me and waved, gesturing for me to come over, and I did, though I quickly skirted around her and deposited the basket just inside the door to stop some birds from stealing anything. And kicked off my sandals for fun before I walked back out and joined her.
I met her on the grass, and took her hands as she spun around a little; and if her smile was infectious, the moment was too. The swirling birds overhead distracted me and drew my eye from her as they moved in a mesmerizing way, whirling in and out.
She tapped my hand, and I met her eye as she moved, I followed her lead as best as I could. She moved in a kind of dance, though I didn¡¯t know it. I was never much of a dancer, I never practiced.
But with a little help from Anna, I started to learn a bit.
Step forward with my right foot and back. The same but with my left foot, forward and back. Rotate a bit, diagonally, and around we went, once then twice, as she guided me by the hand. Then two times back.
Then she let go of one hand and twirled out and back in. Then she changed how we danced letting go of my hand, moved her hands to my neck.
Of kilter, I let my hands fall to her waist, and we went around again.
The chirp of the birds quieted, and we went around again.
We pressed close, nose to nose. The soft of her elbow practically hooked behind my neck, my arms bowed out to stay strictly on her hip and not stray below. I let her set the pace, desperately following along, and as she put more and more weight on me, I kept as solid a footing as I could to hold her weight as best as I could.
And then, she went to twirl, off time, and without letting go, and all our weight pulled us over. I righted us as we fell, as well as I could anyway; my weight pulled me down faster than her, and as we fell, I took the landing. We rolled sideways, tumbling over until I lay on the ground and Anna on top of me.
My mouth open from a gasp, was capitalized on by Anna.
I heard the Foxes yiping, and I realized something.
Anna was not normally this forward.
I had been following her tune, I had been following her lead. And I hadn¡¯t thought about it for one moment. And she had thrown us off balance, and at a time when I could take the fall. She had planed that.
And my instinct agreed, still present and accounted for from the return trip.
Is she playing with me like a fox? On purpose? Because this is definitely fox like.
The idea bounced around in my head and took a few times too long to register, but it did, right after processing how fast my heart was beating and right before I realized how hot I felt.
Well, if she wants to play, I¡¯ll play.
I took my hands off her waist and carefully twined my legs around hers, slowly to not alert her. And in a heartbeat, I flipped on top of her. My weight rested on my knees to not smush her and, just as importantly, without breaking the kiss.
I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, I could feel my face flush while her face flushed, and her hands moved while mine did.
She moved to grip back onto me, and I found her hands with mine, twining my fingers with mine before pressing them into the ground next to her head.
She made a noise of surprise, and I pulled back from the kiss and looked into her eyes as they fluttered open.
Her eyes were wide, reflecting the light of my eyes in the dark of hers like black mirrors. They flicked around wildly.
¡°Aww, you broke off the kiss,¡± Anna pouted.
¡°Have you been talking with the foxes?¡± I asked her.
¡°Maybe,¡± she panted.
¡°Did they go and tell you about playing? Or was this a dominance thing?¡± I asked.
She turned her head to the side, towards the chortle yap of the fox couple. Who were no doubt watching us or playing themselves.
¡°We talked¡ About stuff. I hope you¡¯re not angry, but they-¡±
I cut her apology off before it could finish, not angrily, but breathily. My heart was pounding in my chest, my whole body tensed to pounce. My mind was holding my instinct back with less strength than the tip of my pinky finger.
¡°Anna, I¡¯m not angry, I¡¯m doing my best to hold myself back.¡±
My sated instincts were wide awake, every ounce of my being wanted to wind around her, press her flat and fuse my mouth to her neck.
Everything but the tiny pinky finger of wisdom I had on my instinct, and maybe my spirit, which listened to my voice of reason and kept me from moving.
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I focused on her, my eyes¡
And then her head moved towards me as she started talking. The pinky slipped, and I plunged, my instinct, my body, overwhelming my mind.
Today was a day of many good firsts, much like yesterday was a day of many bad firsts. The up to my down, heads to tails.
For the first time that I could remember since I was a child. For the first time in my adult life, they came loose around a friend. Ripping through me like a hurricane, a force of nature that slipped through my fingers like water.
Every part of my body reacted, moving as one thing.
All the senses I kept down slipped through, too, all of them at once. The sounds I so thoroughly numbed snapped to full volume, I could hear her heartbeat and felt it beneath the skin of her neck, pumping blood through her body, I could hear the hitching of her breath as she gasped, the air moving through her mouth, the impacts of our body¡¯s, and the sudden quiet of the foxes. The rustle of the leaves as they fell perfectly still.
My sense of smell picked up everything. The normal human scents, like the smell of skin, and oil, and sweat, each followed by smells that women gave off, some unmentionable in polite conversation. The aromas released when emotions were high started to come off her. Pressed so close to her I could even smell the complexity of her, the balance of each component that made it impossible to pretend to be Anna. Human and mouse, and animal, and me and more. Plants and soil on her hands, the smell of breakfast and the tea she had. Each of the animals she must have pet. I could smell the grass beneath us, the distant smells of the flowers and the lingering smell of rain.
It was a wall of sensation, the totality of which I couldn¡¯t comprehend, that extended beyond my senses and extended to my body, to things like the twitching of muscles that would move a tail that I didn¡¯t have, to minute twitches in my body, to an attempt at a noise that my body couldn¡¯t make.
Everything that made my body and mind different from a human, all moving in concert with one another in a way I never could.
Because it wasn''t for me. It was for the instincts that lingered in my blood.
And¡
And my head pressed into the nape of her neck and kissed her. Anna¡¯s response died on her lips, and she gasped. My body held hers, my legs and arms. My fingers griping around hers pressing them into her.
I won the fight for dominance, and I took a taste of my prize.
I moved on, nipping her playfully, trying to elicit any fight, any resistance, but she didn¡¯t fight back. I clunk to her, trying to cover every part of her, I smelled her, reading her emotion in her smell, in her posture, and sound. I paid attention to her face. Attempting to read it for emotion.
She was hesitant.
This was to be expected, she was prey. Prey hesitated, while those that had the instinct to protect did not.
I was finished coating my prize from atop, now she smelled more of me than the animals. The prey was still hesitant, hesitant and in need of being reassured. So I leaned in, nipping and kissing but not claiming her, it was not the season, not for either of us, and we were not mates. This seemed to reassured her, my prize, of my intent. She was not my meal but one of mine, something to be played with, kept and cared for, not eaten.
As I reassured her, I wound around her, holding as much contact as was possible, ensuring that my presence was felt, was known, as I moved her to her side.
Prey often found lying on their back to be distressing. My prey was strange in that she was not distressed. It was a sign of her oddity but made her all the more precious. Rare was a prized prey like her that could trust one that could predate her. And she was a [Druid] to boot. She was precious, soo precious, and I would make it known to her just how much I thought of her.
I moved around her, lithe and smoothly, until we were side by side, me wrapped around behind her and leaning in from behind, marking her neck again, but on the opposite side. The prey enjoyed this, and so did I so I did it again, making sure to playfully remind her of what we were doing here.
We were not yet mated; we may be in the future, but for now, it was about understanding us. I tested her, holding her firmly but not to the point of immobility and pulled her hair with my mouth. Did she like it? The scruff of her neck was similar¡
She did not, so I let go quickly after giving it a lick, sliding out from behind to lay beside her in her grove.
She turned to me, confused at my playing but ready to move when the voice spoke for us, trying to defuse the situation, calm our breath and suppress our baser urges. We understood the treachery. She was worried¡ Afraid of herself, of us. Afraid of what made us different, just as much prey as our [Druid]
But what resonated, was that she was worried that this may drive away a future mate.
¡°Anna, you¡¯re driving me a bit nuts¡¡±
Our possible mate to be however, was not alarmed by our treacherous ¡®higher¡¯ instinct and voice of reason. While we moved to her side to apologize for nipping the nape of her sensitive neck, she spoke.
¡°The foxes mentioned you¡ A Cousins who walked on two legs¡ Thought that¡¯s a bit of a translation. They asked if you had played with me yet. I¡¯m not a Kobold or whatever, but you¡¯ve talked about my instincts enough for me to wonder about your instincts.¡±
Our prize, or catch, was more than precious. She was crafty, canny and clever¡ She understood, and she wanted to understand us, it was the force of the voice''s trepidation alone that stopped us from leaning in to taste her again, to nip at her neck, to further wrap myself around her.
¡°Anna¡¡±
She shushed our voice as it got, she saw what we knew and couldn¡¯t admit, that were a hypocrite, not out of malice, but out of fear. She saw it, she said it, and the voice took it in.
¡°You accepted me, you did it just last night, with me being emotional. You¡¯ve been telling me about how mousey I am, about how much I remind you of them and accepted it on the spot. You keep accepting me, but at the same time, you¡¯ve been hiding the same emotions from me. We¡¯re courting, Saphine. We¡¯re trying to get to know one another¡ trying to see if we work together or drive each other crazy. But you¡¯re hiding a part of yourself. I don¡¯t know why, even if I can guess, but I can¡¯t know if we¡¯re going to work if I don¡¯t understand you,¡± she told us, though it was the voice she spoke to most of all. We had never hidden ourselves; we had been reaching to show her ourselves, but we had been held back.
She looked at us, and reached forward, reached out to us in the same way we had been reaching out to her. In the same, damn way. Beyond our voices. Beyond our outside and our higher reason, and into us, open for us to show ourselves freely.
¡°If I have instincts, and you are going to accept me for how I feel, then I will do the same.¡± She told me, leaning in to whisper to us, ¡°Over the last few weeks, I¡¯ve felt the growing pains that opening up and being near someone for the first time in a very, very long time has brought to me. I¡¯ve felt things I¡¯ve never felt before, and you¡¯ve been my rock, I can come to you with it, and you just accept it. So it¡¯s ok to be open with me, open up, I¡¯m here, do your worst.¡±
And we wanted to, we wanted to let it all out. I had been quiet for so long, so quiet. There was no need for us. We weren¡¯t a child who couldn¡¯t communicate, who needed to let our mother understand us and socialize us. We were not close enough to others to need acceptance, no mate or family, and we had nothing to defend and nothing to provide for. We had been starved for use, and we had no reason to lift our heads. Content to waste away as the rest of me was too starved for everything it needed, content to lay down and die.
But then we had died and came back to a new world. We had lacked communication with someone we had found, someone we had gotten close to, and we hadn¡¯t opened up. I was starting to have a reason to exist, and a reason to have an instinct.
Anna was experiencing a twin of what I was, with a different cause, sure, a different rhyme, but the same reason. But both of us were starting to feel right again, feel like we belonged again, what we had inside was waking up, ears perking after a long sleep and realizing that we had lost so much of what made us, us below the surface.
As if I could suppress it as I gave it more reason to exist.
Sophia had done some of the lifting, giving me what I needed in preparation for me to make the choices. She had given me everything I needed to make myself better, everything I needed to start making a change in my life for the better if I just reached out for it and started changing myself.
Anna was open on the ground right next to me, inviting me to stop holding back with her. She wanted to understand me deep down like I was trying to understand her and accept me like I accepted her.
I stopped trying to claw back the instinct and worked with it, giving it the voice it so desperately needed, and let Anna see my instinct for what it was¡ for good or ill.
¡°I¡¯ll tell you how I feel, as I feel it¡ Okay? But I¡¯m warning you, it¡¯s a bit more¡ intense than your instinct.¡± I told her.
¡°Shush¡ Show me.¡±
And then there were two of us. One who was prey, and predator, one who was predator and prey.
The deer fox, partook in fun, covering the mouse in its sent, and the mouse let it, welcomed it, she was funny like that. It enjoyed the comfort of being held with no option to move, even though the deer fox would. The mouse was played with, tested, tasted and more, and it enjoyed it.
It wanted more, and they both did, and so the deer fox loosened its hold and the play started all over again. The mouse fought back, and that made it all the sweeter because now it could feel enjoyment.
The prize¡¯s playful struggle, only to be held and reassured, warmed it up to the ideas of how it felt. The deer fox showed the mouse all of her, all of the ways she felt, all of her wanting all of the mouse. Showing off how she would be a good choice in mate. The mouse was sure she would be, and so they twined around and around, the mouse in turn, spoke of how she wanted the deer fox, how it felt as she twined it and held it and loved it. The deer fox found new ways for the two to play and new things that made the mouse enjoy playing.
They moved so much animal as a person, and they spoke like it. The mouse and the deer fox. Testing one another. The mouse came to like this quiet a lot, finding small ways to probe the deer fox, finding weak points. The deer fox, for her part, enjoyed these somewhat and found new weak points of her own.
The mouse loved them, loved being held, being pampered, but she found that the deer fox had sensitive ears and that they were weak to nibbles or playful touches. The twitches where the deer fox tried to move her tail, the one that she didn¡¯t have, was another, and she was soothed as the mouse rubbed her belly.
The deer fox, in turn, found that the mouse liked it when she nibbled her ear, though it was nowhere near as strong as her''s. She found that the mouse had a weak point, just behind her knee, and that she enjoyed, more than anything else, being held in the deer fox''s lap.
They spent the time, almost always close to one another, and as the hour rolled by, they came to know one another closely. The deer fox came to tell the mouse while she was wrapped within her grasp, that she would like it very much if the mouse wanted to be her mate, and the mouse agreed, though she didn¡¯t know how many seasons it would take. The fox told her she would wait until she was ready.
Both agreed on instinct, but the voices didn¡¯t.
They were weighed down, by expectation, and by decency, and by silly things that didn¡¯t matter to either of them but did for the voices.
The mouse''s voice told the deer fox that when she was ready, she would tell her, and the fox agreed and the fox''s voice was less certain, but the fox''s voice would have loved it, and the fox knew it, and the mouse knew it, and the mouse''s voice knew it.
And all too soon, it came to an end. The mouse accepted the fox, and the fox felt fantastic, she offered something for the mouse to nibble on, and they had to stop lying on the ground, stop cuddling in the grove, and let their voice guide them to a late luncheon.
The fox felt fantastic, because she finaly felt complete.
Chapter 52 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 25
I carried Anna to her chair. She was worn out from the play, worn out¡ and probably a little sore. She had red marks all up and down her neck from where I had nibbled and kissed her a little too vigorously.
I wanted nothing more than to just sit down with her on my lap and just forget myself for another hour of the day.
It was a day of firsts, so I decided to make a snack for her before I went and did my chores. wandering inside I took the dry kernels I had gotten from Gunther, and a little oil, and a little salt, and put them in a heated pot and let them pop into tiny white fluffy bits.
They were bigger than the ones I remembered, but then again, so were the kernel and all that would do was make it better.
It was a simple snack, just a little oil and some salt, but it was tasty. I got Anna¡¯s empty cup and one of my own and filled them up before serving the fluffy treat in a bowl for Anna.
I made sure to also grab a cloth, but I needn¡¯t have bothered.
¡°Here we are, one snack.¡± I called out to her as I exited, ¡°Have you ever seen this?¡±
Anna was relaxed in the wood chair, all droopy, but she perked up a little when I came out.
I looked her over, but in the ten or some minutes I had been gone, she had lost all of her energy.
I walked over and put the stuff down, leaning in to ask, ¡°Do you want me to bring you to bed?¡±
She shook her head, ¡°No¡ I¡¯m just running out of energy, is all. I made a deal to borrow some from one of the animals earlier, and it ran out. I¡¯m sleepy, but I¡¯m ok. Are you going to¡ Oh, a snack? Thanks¡ What is it, though.¡±
I didn¡¯t know what she was talking about, borrowing energy from an animal sounded kind of crazy, but it made some sense.
I found it a bit touching that she used up all of her energy to understand me.
¡°Maize,¡± I told her, ¡°Try it. It¡¯s just got a bit of salt and oil,¡± I told her, passing the bowl over to her, where she moved it onto her lap.
¡°Maize? How did you?... Well, never mind that. Salt and oil? That sounds like it would hit the spot. Thank you.¡±
¡°No, thank you. You went and used up all your energy on me. Just relax, and call on me if you need something. I¡¯m more than happy to help. Okay?¡±
She mumbled a, ¡°Mhm,¡± that made me want to scoop her up, but I let that pass and got to work.
I tilled and tended to plants and did a bit of watering. The grass had been behaving, so I didn¡¯t need to cut it down to size. I harvested more potatoes and some of the stuff I planted on the side of the hill.
The Pantry was full to the brim with them, I might have to rethink using some because, at this point, it was starting to look like a full pantry before winter.
We could probably sit back and not need to get any food if we were okay with just potatoes for the rest of the year.
Maybe I should see if anyone could use these? Would Anna know? Maybe¡ But I would probably need to wait until after we get back¡ They¡¯ll keep just fine, so I should use the tomatoes first¡ Wait if we can grow potatoes, we can grow tomatoes. I should plant one in the garden, just for fresh tomatoes.
I decided to set one to the side, I would put one of the chillies to the side, too, even if they wouldn¡¯t grow as well, I might as well check and see if it grows well enough to be worth it.
I stepped outside after piling the potatoes and saw Anna getting to the bottom of the bowl, whipping up salt with the oil in the bottom.
She was a bit livelier now and less droopy, so I got her cup and filled it with some water. I also spent five minutes pulling what I assumed was heat mana out of it, plucking it out to cool the water down before bringing it outside to her.
I had not failed miserably, per se, but I had done a less-than-stellar job.
She took a sip and stared out at the grove. She looked peaceful and a little happy, and I was glad to see it. She had totally ignored the towel I had placed next to her, she hadn¡¯t needed it. She simply flicked the oil off of her fingers, using some kind of magic to separate it from her before letting the motion carry it off into the grass.
I looked at the oil, but it was a bit too complex for me to figure out. It might be a plant or animal, but whatever, it had other stuff in it that made it appear like a separate thing altogether.
Not wanting to knock over the bowl on her lap, I instead pulled the nearby chair over and sat down next to her, leaning in to lay my head on her shoulder.
She reached up and played with my ears, the tickling feeling sending shivers down my spine. I unintentionally leaned in a little before I got a grip and stopped.
¡°I don¡¯t know which one¡¯s weirder, that you figured out my butt, or it took you so long to play with my ears so much,¡± I murmured.
¡°Well, in my defense,¡± Anna told me, ¡°They look very sensitive, and even if I did, would you have been comfortable with it like you are now? And it wasn''t your butt, it was the base of your spine.¡±
¡°Probably not, no. It¡¯s way too easy a spot for someone to go for, both of them.¡± I told her.
¡°Ominous,¡± she told me, ¡°You make it sound like a bad thing. I think it¡¯s cute.¡±
That put me off-kilter, off balance, and I opened my mouth without thinking.
¡°Cute? That¡¯s not- What do you- What are you talking about?¡± I asked her, raising my head from ear scratch range. My ears perked, my instincts echoing that something was afoot.
I looked at her and found her smiling at my confusion, and it took me a few too many seconds to catch why. It had been a trap. An underhanded trick.
Anna, the cunning monster she was, always able to catch me unexpecting, said, ¡°What? You are cute. Don¡¯t worry, you can be cute and beautiful at the same time.¡±
I groaned but replied somewhat painfully, ¡°You can¡¡±
Anna just chuckled, she could have pushed it, rubbed it in, but she didn¡¯t. She was the picture of magnanimity, well, magnanimity with a smirk.
I reached out and tickled her.
¡°Hey! Don¡¯t- Stop that,¡± she wined, ¡°I yield, yield!¡±
I stopped tickling, assured of my victory. Anna nocked my hands away from her, and I pretended that the light whaps stung a little to further appease her wrath.
We lulled into silence, not an awkward one, but one where neither of us felt like we needed to fill the silence. Instead, after a bit, she leaned into me, and I leaned into her, our hands moving to hold one another, we spent some time just enjoying each other¡¯s presence.
We drank, we moved our fingers a little, but that was all.
We sat like that for what felt like an hour before Anna asked, ¡°So¡ Are you going to tell me why you kept your instinct down?¡±
I thought about it for a moment, about it earlier and about yesterday. I thought about the feeling of blood in my mouth and how my instincts refused to let me die.
¡°It¡¯s just been a lot¡ I guess. And it¡¯s not something I really thought about¡ It¡¯s been quiet for a long time, and it was one of those things you didn¡¯t talk about to begin with, not normally. It¡¯s been so¡ I don¡¯t know, active? I guess. It¡¯s been influencing me more than before, and yesterday, it scared me, and today it was also strong. I¡ I just didn¡¯t want to scare you, I guess. Could you imagine if I woke you up like that? If I just started nipping you?¡±
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She let out a tiny tinkle of a laugh, her eyes closing up slightly to reveal tiny crow¡¯s feet. I looked at her, watching the change in her face as she tinkled to herself.
I don¡¯t get it. Did I say something funny? Did I mess up a word and make it sound funny? Gods, I wish I had asked Skipseo how he dealt with Kindly. Maybe he would have it in his journal or something, but I¡¯m not going to get that. Even if it would help me a lot¡ No. No grave robing Saphine, that¡¯s his book¡ I mean¡ would it really be all that bad¡
I didn¡¯t have enough time to finish contemplating grave robbery before Anna stopped laughing and started talking.
¡°You- y- Pff. Sorry, sorry. But if you woke me up by kissing me, I wouldn¡¯t mind it, with or without teeth.¡±
¡°Huh?¡± I said.
¡°Saphine, I¡¯m a spinster, getting together with anyone, even less with someone I would want to get together with. Being woken up with kisses was the last thing I was expecting in my life, but it¡¯s something I could get used to. I can understand the idea of freaking me out, of scaring me, but you really don¡¯t need to worry about that. Its when you¡¯re gone that I get scared for you,¡± she said, looking at me with more than a little mirth.
I took in her genuine face and her tone and gave her my most genuine response in turn.
¡°You¡¯re not even old, you''re like six years older than me. And are you sure your head is on the right way? It¡¯s not just the kissing¡ It¡¯s the whole thing.¡±
She snorted out a laugh at me, ¡°I am old, not old old, but older. If you don¡¯t think I am, I dare you to go looking for women my age who are unmarried. Short of widows, you probably won¡¯t. You¡¯re getting up there in age, too, by the way, young lady. And what do you mean by having my head on the right way?¡± she asked right after chiding me with a foe mom voice.
She left no room for me to follow after either, instead taking a note out of Straus''s book and putting on a pantomime with a voice to match.
¡°Ohhh, No¡ I¡¯ve woken up being held by a beautiful woman with whom I have a possible romantic relationship and am attracted to¡ Oh, no¡ now she¡¯s kissing me¡ Oh no, she wants to be playful¡ Whatever will I do?¡±
Something about that couched the idea of just how much I was overselling it. It gave a spin on my perspective from the other side that simple words didn¡¯t. It also made me stifle a smirk. I found myself letting off a little of the tension I never realized I held inside of me.
¡°Ok¡ Okay¡ I get it¡ You¡¯re an old woman, and I¡¯m the one with my head on backwards,¡± I told her, raising my hands in surrender.
I could have brought up the biting, but she had been ok about that.
¡°Damn straight. I¡¯m going to have to watch you around older women, and trees preserve me if you ever meet my mother without me,¡± she said.
¡°Why? Is she hot?¡± I asked, ¡°Because that¡¯s important. If your mom is old and good-looking, that means you¡¯re probably going to be old and good-looking too.¡±
That caught her off guard and made her blush again.
¡°I- I don¡¯t know¡ Maybe? She was well regarded as a beauty, as far as I remember hearing anyways,¡± Anna mumbled.
¡°Then that just means I¡¯m on the winning side if I stick with you,¡± I told her.
I couldn¡¯t tell if Anna was about to explode or stammer or what, but she was certainly going to do something. She was confused, and possibly happy, and possibly embarrassed all at once. She stayed like that for a shot few moments before she had a sudden look of remembrance.
¡°I have to ask you some stuff¡ Magic Stuff¡ For becoming a Journeyman,¡± she blurted, trying to divert the conversation into something that hopefully wouldn¡¯t make her feel embarrassed.
I raised my eyebrow, ¡°Aren¡¯t I already a Journeyman? I have the class and everything.¡±
She nodded, but gave me a pointed look, ¡°Yes, you have the class. But you got the class after gaining a truly ungodly amount of levels overnight¡ Literally. The fact is Saphy¡ You''re leveling and picking up spells far faster than normal. One part of it is that you''re not a teen. I¡¯ve been learning to do this since before I had levels¡ Mostly background, which is what you¡¯re ¡®supposed to do.¡¯ All the testing is, are a handful of questions to prove you have the background information needed to continue to succeed. I won¡¯t teach you a new spell until after you can answer all five.¡±
I thought that through, and while the process seemed annoying, I could see the reason for it.
¡°Levels aren¡¯t everything, and they can¡¯t ensure that I don¡¯t make a mistake¡ You wouldn¡¯t trust a [Swordsman] to not cut off his own foot without testing him first, even if he was level twenty. Is that it?¡± I asked her, sounding it out as I thought it through.
¡°Yep. That¡¯s the best Idea I can guess at. Responsibility stuff¡ I¡¯m almost sure you¡¯re going to end up pondering them for like three seconds and then pull the answers out of your backside¡ but you never know. Maybe one of these days, I¡¯ll see you use that head of yours for longer than six seconds at a time,¡± she said, voice edging into sardonic teasing.
¡°Hah. I don¡¯t know¡ If I use it too long, my head might light on fire. I¡¯ll have to give the fox that rolls around in my head a union. It would be a horrible mess, and then it all goes downhill from there¡¡± I told her remorsefully.
She gave me a playful whack before wrapping her arm around mine. No doubt because she heard the small ring of truth in my joke. I pressed into her, a little closer, a little warmer.
¡°I¡¯ll go on ahead and give you my questions, are you ready?¡±
¡°Yes,¡± I told her simply, a tiny pit of the unknown forming in my gut.
She cleared her throat before proclaiming, ¡°They are as follows¡ What is the next spell I will teach you? What are the Base Mana Types? With one quirk of each. What is a spell? Why isn''t everyone a mage, and what are the recognized basic types of casting.¡±
I was hit with a sudden pang of feeling like I had forgotten something. I didn¡¯t know if I had or not, but just the feeling alone made my head try and remember.
¡°Uh¡ I have two questions to help narrow it down. Can I ask them?¡± I asked her, stalling for time.
There must have been quite the look on my face because Anna chuckled a little.
¡°You don¡¯t have to answer them right now, back to back, you silly goober. And you can if you think they will help, I don¡¯t remember a reason not to answer a question, as long as it¡¯s not one of the five. Go on, shoot. What¡¯s on your mind.¡±
My head stopped bouncing around inside to get the answers, and I took a breath.
¡°So, first off, I remember the basic types, kind of, from the book, but do I include the, uh, Arcane ones? There was also a section on occult magic, so what about those?¡± I asked her.
¡°I would say that basic mana types include the arcane ones but not the occult ones. Arcane magic is a bit tougher to wrap your head around, but they¡¯re useful to understand. Some of the occult magic mentioned in the book are inconclusive, so you can¡¯t include them all, and I won¡¯t even try to make you. That was a good question, so what¡¯s question number two?¡±
I felt a little embarrassed at the tiny bit of praise, but I pushed that to the side and focused on question two.
¡°So, I assume normally, I would figure out what makes a spell, a spell. But normally, that would probably be about mana, about doing magic with mana, that is. But with what is going on and a little of what I know, should I answer generally for all magic? Or just with mana, or with mana and tenebra or whatever?¡± I asked her.
Each word felt confused, and the same confusion seemed to pass along to Anna, whose look became more and more confused and thoughtful as she picked through my question.
¡°Technically, when we answer the question, we are supposed to give our best and most thoughtful answer. So, in light of that, I¡¯ll ask you to do a general one. If you know something and didn¡¯t include it, it wouldn¡¯t be the best answer, it would just be an incomplete answer,¡± she said before nodding to herself, ¡°Gods, that¡¯s a good question. There¡¯s no way your answer is going to be worse than mine.¡±
I thought about it and nodded, ¡°Okay. I guess I¡¯ll be reading more than¡ And it¡¯s getting late, or late-ish. I¡¯ll make dinner tonight if your ok with that. Maybe I¡¯ll do both at the same time.¡±
¡°Make me dinner? Why would I say no to you making dinner?¡± She asked.
¡°We¡¯ll¡ I don¡¯t know¡ Just figured I would ask. For all I know, you were planning something.¡±
¡°My oh my,¡± Anna said, ¡°Are you planning something special tonight? How romantic..¡±
She drew out the word romantic like you might draw out so.
¡°I don¡¯t have anything special planned for tonight unless you count tomatoes and chillies as special. Tomorrow and the next day though, if you want to try to go for another picnic, I can think of a place, and the day after I''m heading out somewhere if you want to come. Both are somewhere that¡¯s interesting¡ Although I would have to carry you there and back for tomorrow, it¡¯s quite the distance,¡± I told her, my mind wandering towards the nameless grove.
It seemed like it would be a perfect place to have a nice picnic, magic and beautiful and tranquil. If I found Strause tomorrow, I might even get some of that food.
I had even gotten rid of a lot of the gremlins that were nearby, so there was no way they could include patrols that far from their nest.
Should I have told them where it was? I suppose there were those hunters¡ I¡¯ll check in tomorrow if I can find him. He¡¯ll know what to do¡ Probably. He might even do it for me¡ I wonder if Gunther might know where I can find him.
¡°Chillies? Those don¡¯t grow here. That''s a spice, right? Like pepper?¡±
¡°Yep, though they¡¯re kind of¡ Hot. I guess. Like mint, but hot instead of cold. I bought some from a merchant. Would you mind if I plant a little of it off to the side? It would be nice to have tomatoes and stuff.¡±
¡°Sounds interesting, at least, even if it¡¯s not romantic. And sure¡ Go on ahead and plant them off to the side instead of in the main garden beds. As for a picnic¡ Sure¡ Though do you really need to carry me? It can¡¯t be that far, right?¡±
I told her how far it was, and she started blinking at me owlishly.
¡°What?¡±
¡°It is¡ I can probably get there faster this time, I¡¯ll be able to run the whole way there for one, but it¡¯s still a long way.¡±
¡°What could possibly be that far out in the middle of nowhere?¡± She asked.
I shrugged, ¡°That¡¯s a secret. I don¡¯t want to ruin the surprise. Though¡ I can say it would be better than the sprites, though,¡± I told her leadingly.
"And what about the day after, what are we doing?" She asked.
I just smiled at her, not saying a word. She looked at me, measuringly before speaking up.
¡°You tease, you utter harlot, you evil temptress you. ¡ I¡¯m sold,¡± she said with faux indignation.
I sniffed back a chortle and got up slowly, making my way inside, ¡°Well, evil tempting harlot I am, I¡¯m going to go make dinner, anything I can get for you?¡±
¡°Nothing! I can¡¯t believe this¡ Tempting me so¡ Think of the children! Don¡¯t you go propositioning me, were in public!¡± She said, each bit a little louder as I left.
¡°I¡¯m going to go read up, too, you want me to bring out a book for you?¡± I called back to her.
¡°Begone temptress!¡± She shouted back at me, barely holding back a laugh.
¡°OK, see you in a while,¡± I told her.
Chapter 53 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 26
Anna¡¯s shouting aside, my time cooking was rather boring. The reading was a new addition to the formula of cooking, but once I got the veggies cut up and cooking, and peeled the tomatoes, I was basically golden, all I had to do was wait for it to cook off most of the juice. There was also some bread warming but they would be fine.
Then after everything was set, and ready to go, I got to reading.
I wanted to get some of the easy questions out of my head and done with, them instead of letting them live in my head rent-free while I tried to figure out something like the next spell Anna would teach me, which seemed harder.
I got a bit lost in the book for a bit, forgetting which page I was on, but when I found where I left off, I got right back into it.
Spells could travel longer distances in the same amount of time. Then he went into colour, which was apparently somewhat subjective, it was what you thought a mana type should look like, but because most people thought specific ways about the topics, they would often be the same, like fire being red, or plants being green. That bridged into how It was customary for mages to wear robes with a corresponding colour, so a fire mage would wear a red robe.
I was starting to wonder where it was going until he dunked on a random mage for being a total weirdo and wearing a bunch of clashing colours, which brought me back into it.
Apparently, he thought it was super cool how some mages in stories from way back when wore a bunch of colors, so he dyed his robe that way, only to find out it was super ugly.
There is nothing worse than a robe that makes your eyes bleed, let me tell you.
Honestly, I thought the worst part of all of it after the fact, was that in the same book he was talking about, it was mages using colored thread to weave a kind of sash. He didn¡¯t even research what colors they used, just the elements, so they were all awful and clashing.
But, I suppose that¡¯s what you get eh? People who don¡¯t read.
Like you, I bet you missed like a quarter of the things I brought up because you skipped over parts of my long, drawn-out description.
I stopped and skipped back, giving things a quick look through and was mildly shocked at some of the things he had just slipped in without me noticing them. But I had gotten the gist, and got on to the meat and potatoes of it after I finished the section.
The elements, classically four, or if you¡¯re reading from old western sources, five. In our interpretation, these are Air, Water, Fire and Earth. Why are they the elements, you might ask? Because the first mage was very, very, uncreative and figured that¡¯s what everything was made from. That tree over there? Earth and Water and Air, obviously.
It was a product of a less sophisticated time.
Anyway, he got it together, but it stuck as a good aid because each, with the exception of fire, are all rather complex if you were to look at their lesser components. There also plentiful enough that many a mage¡¯s first offensive spell is likely one of these. And why not? Nothing beats a good fireball except a bigger, stronger grand fireball?
Speaking of fire.
Fire is often represented as red, though the shade often depends on the individual and is the second fastest of the four elements.
Fire is the redheaded stepchild of the Elements, as it is technically a combination of air and heat. Despite this, its long-standing existence as the most obvious member of this category makes it unlikely someone will remove it from their list of the classical elements.
I would, but I fear greatly the wrath of all my fire loving colleagues, and the longevity of my rare books.
Fire is useful for burning things, and because of this, in combat, it is used for quickly destroying lightly armored foes, like other mages. Fire has a hard time penetrating harder surfaces and carries very little punch behind it with most normal spells.
Fire can be used in a variety of spells beyond simply hurling around fire, such as with Hearth magic, a combination of Fire and Life, to create an overtime area of effect heal, or imbued food with magical properties after being cooked.
Alchemy also utilizes fire in this way to remove impurities, ''burning'' them away, and bond mana to a alchemical base, ''melting'' them like metal. Magical Craftsmen use fire in forges and can additionally use them to do things like better temper metal as well.
Its usefulness is only tempered, pardon the pun, by its availability, such as with Elementalists, who would have to form fire, which adds a bit of complexity for casting pure fire magic without the spell coming from levelling for many classes.
This complexity, however, is backed by the fact that you can form it almost anywhere, as it''s formed from air and heat, and thus, in a pinch, you can use your own body heat to spark a flame if it¡¯s truly necessary.
I put the book down and then stared at the fire in a sudden loss for words.
¡°I picked up a bunch of other stuff¡ When I could have picked up fire mana to make food tastier?¡±
What have I done? If I could go back, would I go back? Get a different class? Probably not¡ But I still wish I would have known that¡ Maybe Anna knows some spells for that? Gah, I wish I had that now, I bet the food would be so much better.
I knew, deep, deep down, that I could just pick up a spell or a magical cooking class later¡ But the knowledge that I could have cooked it already, the knowledge of the possible, made it all the worse. Knowledge was power¡ Knowledge was¡ far too great a burden.
I let out a breath and just looked sadly at the sauce. I got some eggs, and cracked them into the tomato sauce, and covered it up with another piece of cookware.
¡°Man, that sucks¡ I guess I just get skills that will help me keep stuff dead¡ And that are fun¡ And useful in more than one specific use case¡ I guess I made the right choice, but it still sucks¡ It sucks so bad that I¡¯m talking to myself.¡±
I decided to skim water and air and save earth for a proper read because I had [Grave Magic] but almost got sucked up in it in time to miss taking the pan off the fire.
I had gotten enough into them to know that Water was the second slowest and could be used to hit or pierce a target. It was blue and more useful around bodies of water. Used away from water, it was better for agriculture than combat.
Air was apparently often a light, almost white colour and varied the most between the base elements, sometimes light green or sky blue. The air was fast, very fast. There was a note that it was only beaten by mana types like light, which was considered instantaneous. Unlike the other elements, it could only do real damage by piercing lightly armoured foes at long range.
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The two were apparently extremely important for sea mages, on top of air or whatever was being used in processes in alchemy, though it never mentioned what you did with them, which was what had caused me to almost miss the stove.
When I got it off, it was cooked, and it was okay enough that I thought it would be at least a six out of ten, maybe even a seven. I let it cool down so we could eat it and got the table set before heading over to the door intending to call Anna in.
I opened the door, and looked out at the sight. It was getting close to sunset, not there but just getting there. The days were still getting longer, and today it was just beginning to orange, the sun just lower than a hand length above the horizon, the light filtering in through the holes in the leaves. Shadows of birds, most long since, hung around in the tree¡¯s here or there.
Anna was whisper-talking with the foxes, who were quietly yiping or growling to her in what looked like a conversation.
Anna cut herself off the second she saw the foxes'' ears swivel and each of them turned to me, all going silent enough to hear a bird ruffling it¡¯s feathers off in a tree, a shadow accompanying the movement out on the lawn.
There was a unanimous and very obvious look of conspiracy between the three of them. I would say four, but the younger of them, not fully grown, not quite a puppy, was happily rolling around, yipping normally on the deck a half dozen feet behind the three, without a care in the world.
I narrowed my eyes in distrust, not at Anna, but at the foxes¡
Okay, most of that was at the foxes, who were suddenly giving dopey fox smiles and pretending like they were totally innocent.
I had no idea what Anna could do, but seemingly talking with animals was on the table. The only problem was that foxes were notoriously chaotic little goobers, and if you extended that to the idea that they could talk, it would result in even more chaos.
I was more worried that they were getting ideas in her head, the sliver of distrust in Anna was mostly about her taking the chaos they were giving her to heart.
They had already gotten the idea of me playing with Anna into their head, just what were they doing now?
¡°You better not be doing something bad,¡± I told the foxes before making an exception, ¡°except for her¡ because that¡¯s kind of funny,¡± I told them, pointing at the young fox whos tongue was lolling out of the side of her mouth while she panted, the perfect picture of animal goofiness and innocence.
I had no idea if they could understand me on a level where what I said made sense to their little fox heads. And I couldn¡¯t understand them either.
¡°Uh, dinners ready, but it can wait if the foxes are trying to wrap you up in a conspiracy¡ or trying to get you to raid a hen house with them¡ It¡¯s ready when you are, basically.¡± I told Anna.
The two looked towards Anna, their heads cocked to the side in a doggish confused way. The dog fox waved its tail back and forth, while the vixen was less focused on us, and more focused on the circumstances around her, but they both just stared up at Anna, who looked down at them for a second.
She turned to me, ¡°Can it wait a bit¡ To cool down or whatnot?¡±
¡°Sure, the pan is still warm, it¡¯ll keep a little while, should I go back in? Or¡¡±
¡°I¡¯m just wrapping up a talk with them. I have nothing to hide, though¡ I bet it will look odd.¡±
¡°I saw it a bit earlier, you talk normally, and the animals talk back the way they do. I¡¯m not going to lie, it is a bit funny, but I¡¯m not going to think you¡¯re weird for it,¡± I told her, checking her cup and finding it empty.
I returned inside briefly to refill her cup with water, then I came back out, and the three were talking, a back-and-forth conversation privy to only Anna. I gave her mug back to her, wandered over to my seat, and sat down with my own mug.
I was going to mostly just let Anna do Anna stuff and watch the light, but I got sidetracked from the evening sky by a little wet nose snuffling at me.
I peered over the side and down into the eyes of the young fox.
She looked up at me, her mouth open, snuffling at my hand.
She had a playful look about her, so I twitched my hand over to give her a scritch.
She let out a surprised short chortle and rounded to grip my finger. I gave her a token resistance, whipping my fingers weakly in her mouth before reaching the rest of my hand around to give her scritches.
She bounced back, letting go of my finger and instead zipping to grip my hand, an act of genius, for surely my hand could no longer move.
I moved my hand around to give her more scritches and cupped my fingers around her head, and she let out a surprise.
Shock and awe. Surprise at my truly crazy ability to move my fingers.
The fox quickly dropped my hand, pulling away from the five wiggly fingers, and came with a different approach.
She kept trying these approaches, sometimes trying to hold my fingers down with her paws, sometimes by letting them distract my fingers with the fuzz of her belly or back while she went for my wrist or arm.
She was quite nippy and didn¡¯t know how to hold back her strength, her teeth leaving little red marks where they pushed down, not strong enough to hurt, but enough to show.
She was holding my fingers down in her belly while she held my hand in her mouth when the vixen yiped and she suddenly stopped, turning to look towards her mother. The perfect look of startled, bewildered, confusion.
I stopped ruffling her belly, but she still held my hand while looking at her mother. Her mouth let go, and she yiped at her mother, who let out a whiney growl of annoyance.
The young fox let go of my hand, and I gave her an ear scritch of farewell before pulling my hand up, and away from her.
The foxes grumbled as they left, and I turned to Anna.
¡°Are you ready for dinner? Or do you want to watch the sunset?¡±
Anna was droopier, but she answered, ¡°I am a bit peckish¡¡±
I stood and leaned over towards her before scooping her up in my arms.
She let out a squeak of surprise, but I just hummed to myself and moved her over to the door.
I nudged it open and walked on in, setting Anna down in a chair carefully so as not to let her slight squirming rock her off her chair.
¡°You didn¡¯t need to carry me in, you dummy. So what¡¯s for dinner?¡± she asked.
I moved over to the food, hefting it up and over to the table and away from the fire.
They were still warm, though not warm enough to burn the wood of the table. I brought the food over, still in the pan, and moved the bread over to a bowl.
¡°What all this then? Eggs, tomatoes and bread. Some kind of soup?¡±
¡°Kind of. I present, for your perusal, breakfast for dinner. It¡¯s not anything specific, but I remember some stuff like this, so I made it. I think I¡¯m missing something, and I could add extra stuff, but I want to know what you think of it without extra stuff. So what do you think? Are you willing to help me find the right recipe?¡±
I looked at her as I took my seat next to her, paying close attention to her face and reaction.
Anna was a smart cookie, she liked stuff where she could use her head. I was presenting both a puzzle and dinner wrapped up in one.
Is this going to work? Or is it just going to be a normal dinner?
She looked at it curiously and asked, ¡°How do we eat it? There¡¯s a fork, but that¡¯s it. Do we scoop up most of it with bread?¡±
¡°Yep,¡± I told her, ¡°The eggs are still a bit gooey inside, so you can get them on the bread.¡±
She nodded and took a bit of bread. I mirrored her, getting my own before dipping it in and scooping up a little. Sause, and chili and veggies and egg scooped, I took a bite of the bread.
I focused on Anna while I took it in.
It was a bit lower than optimal, 5-6/10, instead of solidly higher than average.
¡°Well, it¡¯s ok,¡± Anna said, ¡°I can see what you mean by hot. That is quite strange, hmm¡¡±
And then she began to list off a few things, and I took note of them. Sometimes, I would argue back.
I mentally cut one chilli out of the equation, adding onion, adding fresh maize when simmering¡
I asked, ¡°do you have any fire magic for cooking,¡± and Anna shook her head no.
Darn¡ I wish I had some of that action¡ Magic food seems so cool.
I suppose it¡¯s a dream for another day.
We started coming up with smaller adjustments. Guessing at how much would be good instead of just whole ingredients.
She pointed out that the bread would be even better if it was toasted. I agreed.
We talked about it throughout the talk, it started getting so long that I went and got a slate, muttering to myself over not taking the spellbook option I had been offered. Remembering everything in the book was a useful ability, even if it was limited somewhat.
We each had our fill, slowly emptying out the pot until the sun had set, the light behind the shuttered windows slowly slipping out of sight.
We started to slow down, and I brought my book over and started reading about earth magic, while Anna got a book from her study; her legs were slow to bring it back and started reading next to me.
I put a pot on, letting a thing of tea start.
It felt like it would be a late night, it had the feel of staying up to read, and I was planning ahead, it would be a fine night to just stay up late reading with Anna.
It was when we were getting to the last little bit, an eighth or so left in the pan, the sun gone and left, when there was a knocking noise.
It wasn¡¯t a normal knock but a little tap, like a pitter-patter. Neither of us recognized it or gave it heed.
The knock became more apparent, though. We looked up from our books, not knowing where it came from. Maybe a mouse? Something under the floorboards maybe?
Then, it came with a vengeance. Like a tiny furious storm of knocks from the door.
And it was accompanied by a shout, a tiny, familiar shout, for all that it was muted by the door.
¡°Let me in! Oh, by the queen, there are so many of them. Can you hear me? Let me IINNN.¡±
Her shout was followed by a continuous rattling noise.
Selliban was at the door.
Chapter 54 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 27
I sat there for a moment and looked at Anna, and she shared the look back, the green of her eye large from the slight squint of her pupils.
Confusion mostly, though there was a little annoyance at the sound.
¡°Do you mind if I let her in?¡± I asked her, my hand almost closing the book, before I stopped, not wanting to lose my place amongst the pages.
Anna looked away from me, and towards the short entry hall, thinking for a moment before sighing.
¡°Go on, bring her in if you want, she sounds distressed,¡± Anna agreed, waving over toward the door.
I nodded and pulled myself away from the table and towards Selly¡¯s unstoppable yelling.
I saw the door rattling in and out, the strap to keep the door closed flexing back and forth while she yelled, ¡°I swear¡ Oh no, they¡¯ve seen me.¡±
She started yelling when I opened the door and hit a bird on accident, the bird shrieking in fright and flying off. I looked around, and then feeling stupid, looked down to check for Selly.
I found her on the other side of the door.
My rough opening had tossed her out, and into the wall, where she was pressed against the crack where the wall and floor met, with a tiny sword in one outstretched hand.
She was much the same as she had been, a little bug-like body of white and black chitinous armour plates making her look like she was wearing armour, little wings behind her like a dragonfly to let her buzz through the air.
The blade in one of her hands was not silvery but white and a little reflective, the shape of it thin but long, like a porcelain sewing needle would be. She held it in one hand, the blade held out while her body was in a panicked, desperate stance.
The needle sword quivered in her hand pointed up and in my direction.
She looked at every part the dying soldier, ready to fight as a monster rolled over her in a dramatic last stand. Well, every part, except she, was fine, untouched. She was a little bit dirty, but that was all.
¡°Was that the second time in two days I¡¯ve saved your insectile behind from a bird?¡± I called down to her.
She took a moment to connect the door with my words, and two more to answer pride in her voice.
¡°I would have been fine¡ Fighting a beast like that? T¡¯would have been nothing.¡±
¡°Sure¡ Sure.¡± I told her, not believing a word she said, ¡°That¡¯s why you were desperately knocking on the door for us to let you in.¡±
That being said, I looked at the exterior of the door to see how she had done that. I had to look carefully, but when I did, I noticed a small incongruity. There was, as it turned out, a tiny hole in the wood; presumably, it was a perfect fit for the tiny sword in her hands.
She had stabled the door, the crafty little shit. It certainly wasn¡¯t much damage, she was small, positively tiny, the sword was as big as a toothpick.
I looked down at her, but she raised a set of hands in surrender before I even chewed her out over it.
¡°Sorry about the door¡ I needed a way to move it, and get your attention, I¡¯m too small to knock normally, I suppose.¡±
¡°I heard you, I just didn¡¯t know it was for the door. You know there are windows you could have shouted into?¡± I told her, ¡°Or just like, yelled because we could hear you.¡±
¡°You could hear me? Well, I guess that was for the best. You got that flying beast regardless-¡±
¡°A songbird,¡± I cut her off, ¡°It was some kind of songbird.¡±
¡°Aye, that¡¯s what I said. A great big flying beasty. Anyways¡ I¡ May I come in? Speak to the lady [Druid] of this place? I have, um, something to tell her.¡±
I could have been a pain in the ass about it, but I just reached out so she could hop on my hand, and I brought her inside, closing the door behind me.
I walked my way over to the table and saw Anna glaring at the sprite. There was a tad of hostility in her expression, a dislike of Selly leaking through in her face.
I moved over and let her hop off my hand and onto the table before I took my seat next to her.
Then there were two of us, and both of us focused on the little sprite, and she looked between the two of us, awkwardly. She went to raise a hand and then seemed to realize she had her sword out, and she almost stabbed it into the wood, caught herself, and laid it down, the tiny thing clattering lightly on the table.
Anna just stared at her, annoyed, but not more so by the time she took to not damage the table.
Selly cleared her voice, the sound more like a high-pitched humm than humans.
She opened her mouth and then paused in confusion, and turned to look at me.
¡°I just realized she can¡¯t understand me.¡±
I nodded, and I waited for her to ask, an ever-increasing smile on my face as she eyed me, hoping I would just tell her I was willing to translate for her.
¡°Gods but you are smug looking¡ Fine. Will you t-¡±
¡°Of course,¡± I told her, merrily, ¡°For an old friend? Of course I will.¡±
¡°You make me want to kick you,¡± she told me.
I took the better of two paths, and instead of responding, I translated it.
Selly looked at me and sighed, composing herself again before looking to Anna, and beginning her spiel.
¡°Lady [Druid], thank you for inviting me into your home, at such a late hour. I have come to apologize for my actions yesterday on behalf of myself, those I led, and my Queen,¡± she said it like she was choking on each word, the apology seeming to hurt her.
¡°Is that all?¡± Anna asked, not particularly enthusiastic but not coldly.
¡°I would also like to thank you for your restraint. I am aware that you could doubtless have killed us, should you have wished it, and I am thankful for your understanding,¡± she continued like each word was the same as her rolling a bolder up a mountain.
¡°Of course,¡± Anna lied.
My mind spun that out
Wait¡ But Anna could absolutely have killed them. There¡¯s no way that she couldn¡¯t do that. Wait. Wait, did she just¡ forget to cast magic?
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A tiny muscle in my arm twinged, wanting to slap my own forehead.
She kept talking, neither aware of my epiphany. Selly pausing for a second before she managed to push the next few words from her mouth. ¡°For this¡ I, Selliban Citritan Titania¡ hereby swear a life debt to you.¡±
The struggle, the reason for how hard it was to say what was an otherwise normal apology, made a sudden sense.
Anna, however, didn¡¯t seem to understand the severity of this, not quite getting the severity of the predicament.
I looked back and forth between them, and saw the disconnect.
¡°Anna¡ Do you know what that means?¡±
¡°No.¡± She said firmly, ¡°I do not. But it has a ring of severity to it,¡± she confided.
¡°Hold on one second,¡± I told Selly, turning back to Anna. ¡°So¡ A life dept, is exactly what it sounds like,¡± I told her, ¡°She¡¯s telling you she literally owes you her life. I think she¡¯s here to pay that dept... Like right now.¡±
Anna looked at me, second on second, she thought, and with each second a dawning horror spread on her face. She started to shake her head in the negative.
¡°No. No way. I am not going to accept that. There has got to be another way to deal with this!¡±
I looked at her in confusion, only for Selly to kick my hand, the tip of her foot hitting the cuticle of my index finger.
¡°Your makin me sound like a crazy person you git. I¡¯m here to serve her for life, Serve her! I¡¯m not her to giver¡¯ my life!¡± she shouted at me, waving multiple fists at me.
Ooh.
Sometimes, as I turned out, the smallest things made all the difference.
I looked back at Anna, who was looking at Selliban like she was about to predict the future in her own entrails. Horrified at her persistence.
¡°Anna, my bad. She¡¯s here to serve you, not to die for you. Hehe¡ Whoops?¡±
Anna took a deep, silent sigh, placing a hand over her heart. ¡°I would say that¡¯s not much better, at least to me. But I can at least refuse to ask you to do anything.¡± She told the tiny fighter.
She then turned to me, ¡°You had me going there. Sometimes I forget you picked up the language a few weeks ago, instead of a few years ago.¡±
¡°I have an accent. How did you forget that?¡± I asked confusedly.
She flushed and mumbled, ¡°I got used to it.¡±
I looked at her and couldn¡¯t help but snort to myself. I leaned over and gave her a kiss on the head.
Anna flushed, waving me off.
¡°Down girl, we have a guest,¡± she told me, gesturing over to Selly.
Selly for her part, was looking at us like we were covered in refuse.
¡°Ugh, this is going to suck,¡± she groaned, reaching up with a pair of arms and rubbing her face.
¡°Aww, what¡¯s wrong?¡± I asked her.
¡°I thought you were better than that. Damn shame that you¡¯re just as sick as everyone else,¡± she said.
She said it like I was terminally ill, or like I had some rare wasting disease.
¡°What?¡± I said, more a statement then the true question I meant it to be.
She looked at me like she wanted to explain, then quickly said, ¡°You¡¯re being all¡Ugh¡ Lovey. Gross,¡± and spoke the word lovey like it had killed her entire family, pet bee included.
¡°Well, lovey or not, me and Anna are trying to see if we will work together or not. You know that, right? If you go giving her a life dept over you, you¡¯re going to end up seeing us together a lot,¡± I pointed out.
¡°I know, you dolt. Don¡¯t remind me. Honestly, I don¡¯t care in theory; just don¡¯t rub it in my face, and we¡¯re square,¡± she said, ¡°And keep any bedroom activity away from me¡ Please,¡± she shivered as she said it, revulsion in every ounce of her body, which wasn¡¯t much in ounces, but all of her body was still all of her body.
Her plead not only hit me from an angle that I hadn¡¯t expected, but also in a way I hadn¡¯t wanted to think about.
The idea of bedroom activity was a bit daunting to me, and I still didn¡¯t know how to approach that. For a moment, we both had a distaste for the conversation on being ¡®lovey,¡¯ but for two very different reasons.
I shied away from the topic, pulling myself back from the conversation and the feelings and ideas it brought to the back of my mind, where me, and my instincts were at odds on what to do with them.
¡°There¡¯s no way I¡¯m going to bring you in on that, and I highly doubt Anna would either. You can understand her just fine, she doesn¡¯t even want to go through with having a life dept.¡±
¡°Aye. I know. But I have no other way. My honour¡¯s in question, I shant return to my people, not without her acceptance of my dept to her at the bare minimum,¡± She said, a weight to her voice, a ring of a whole and uncomfortable truth. ¡°Your Anna is confused, Saphine, you might want to bring her in on the conversation.¡±
I turned back to Anna, the look of our conversation bringing obvious intrigue and a little annoyance, though that wasn¡¯t pointed at me or Selly. I had to wonder if she was thinking about how annoying it was that she didn¡¯t know what we were saying.
Maybe I should offer to teach her. If Selly¡¯s going to be here, there needs to be a way for the two of them to speak, which means one of them will need to learn the other¡¯s language. I won¡¯t be here all the time, after all.
Maybe both will learn one, and Selly can be grouchy about it together with me.
¡°She was just telling me she can¡¯t, or rather, won¡¯t go home without you accepting the debt,¡± I told Anna, cutting out the portion that was a bit more sensitive. She had told me that, not Anna, and while she might tell her in time, I wasn¡¯t going to spread everything she said like I was trying to get her in trouble. We had a little history. Even if it was a day of doing stuff together and not years of friendship, it had meant that she had told me and not Anna, it was too casual for how Selly had been communicating with Anna.
Anna, of course, picked up that something was amiss, but I just said, ¡°The rest was just us bickering,¡± a simple truth.
She magnanimously let it go, not trying to pick her way into what we had talked about.
¡°That¡ Is a truly massive pain in my rear. Are you telling me that you would refuse to leave should I tell you to leave?¡± She asked, and recognizing that I had missed out an important part.
¡°Selly¡¯s dishonoured herself. Forgot to mention that. It¡¯s more like she won¡¯t go back and wouldn¡¯t be welcome back, either.¡± I told her, Anna taking it in and nodding in understanding while Selly made a gesture of agreement towards me, a gratefully universal simple gesture of acknowledgement.
Anna got a thoughtful look on her face as she began to use that wonderful mind of hers, letting it do it¡¯s work, slowly whittling down option after option.
I didn¡¯t know Anna well enough to tell what she was going to say, not word for word. But knowing Anna, it wasn¡¯t going to be a no.
Anna was an angel, she really was. I didn¡¯t think she had a bone in her body that would actively wish another person harm.
Her head just wasn¡¯t on the right way around to think about it that way.
I hadn¡¯t thought my head would have either, but if I was honest, I couldn¡¯t deny that I absolutely could and had thought about it, as much as it disturbed me. I was a killer now, even if they were ¡®fallen,¡¯ whatever that meant.
I might be a killer¡ But I suppose it¡¯s not about not killing another person, but only killing others when you have no other choice, and when I make that choice, there should be a reason for it.
I remembered the lack of feeling I had on killing the Gremlins. The lack of anything that had scared me upon killing the first living thing with more intelligence than a chicken, and I didn¡¯t like it, and I didn¡¯t know how to deal with that.
Selly was giving me a look, ¡°My queen also sent me to help you, Saphine. She knows there is a dept she can¡¯t repay, but she wants to make sure that you get your due, but we can wait on your [Druid] to make up her mind,¡± she told me, bringing me out of my thoughts.
¡°Yeh¡ Sure, yeh. She¡¯s bound to answer you in a bit,¡± I told her.
¡°You sure?¡± She asked, ¡°Because she looks like she¡¯s having an aneurysm.¡±
I looked over to Anna, and sure enough, she looked like the thinking was going to make her head explode.
¡°Anna,¡± I asked her, reaching and arm around her to comfort her, brushing her droopy shoulder and realizing that she was tired. She was so tired. She was thinking through a haze of sleepiness, trying to think on it so hard she was breathing half as much as she should, her face reddening.
¡°Anna, you¡¯re tired. You could always let her stay the night and decide tomorrow after a nice long rest. Or, you can have a cup of tea if you think you need it. The waters close to ready,¡± I told her in an attempt at kickstarting her head, trying to give her a route to fix the problem that was plaguing her now so she could fix the problem she was setting herself against.
After all, she would know what she needed the most.
Anna didn¡¯t pick on me, she just leaned into me and let out a sigh.
¡°Selliban, I will be honest, I don¡¯t understand just how important a life dept is for you. I don¡¯t understand enough about you and your culture too. But, regardless, I accept that you have a life debt to me. I will accept you to rest here, in my home, as a guest, so long as you are willing to accept guest right, otherwise, I will ask you to return tomorrow for further talks,¡± Anna said, each parcel and piece she spoke intentional, and measured.
Selly agreed immediately, swearing to follow guest right on the name of hospitality, much like I had, though in her own way. ¡°I swear to act as your guest, on the name of the kin of the hearthkeeper, and my kins honour and all that. Honestly¡ It¡¯s like you don¡¯t trust me. I¡¯ve eaten at your table, and stood next to your funny eyed bedwarmer yesterday.¡±
Selly, as always, was unabashedly herself, and in the only way I could, I made sure to represent that with the whole honesty of her words, and let her dig her own grave.
Because Selly, was sometimes, too much Selly. And I wouldn¡¯t let Anna get blindsided by her true feelings only after she decided how to use Selly¡¯s dept.
Anna, however, angelic as always, just accepted it, and waved, ¡°Feel free to eat, or drink. It¡¯s not much, but you are small enough that even that egg could fill you twice over. Just be quick about it, because I¡¯m tired, and bound to get cranky if you take too long,¡±
And just like that, there was a new guest in Anna¡¯s home.
Chapter 55 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 28
Selly stuffed her face, jamming bits of food into her mouth like she had shovels for her hands. I had gotten her a tiny amount of water on a spoon, and after she downed it in one go I got her a cup so she could scoop the water from it instead of me going back and forth constantly. Anna had denied a new mug of tea, so I, and I alone drank the tea.
Selly could really eat¡ I mean, she ate fast and abnormally large amounts for someone her size aught to. She used her sword to cut the egg and skewer it, scooping up the sauce with a chunk of her bread.
She moved like a food-eating machine, and for all that it was interesting, I turned to read up on earth magic and intermittently paid attention to Anna, who rested against me while reading on her own.
I was part of the way through Earth magic, reading about how certain disciplines use it to shape housing right out of the ground or shape the landscape for agriculture, when she pressed into me, and didn¡¯t pull herself back up.
I turned to her and found her sleeping, her book still open, a finger below a page, ready to flip it. She was breathing lightly, though somewhat uncomfortably, with how she was lying limply against me.
I poked her face, with one finger, not really expecting her to complain but when I did, she felt it, and turned her head, and it slipped into her mouth, awkwardly sliding into her mouth and between her teeth.
I wanted to snicker a little, but when I went to pull it out, her teeth pressed down, not hard in a bite, but strongly enough to cause a problem.
¡°Oh shoot,¡± I mumbled to myself, reaching over to the other side of her head and around to brush against her skin, lightly. Her head turned, her mouth opening and my finger coming free.
I brushed my hand, drying it on the hem of my dress.
¡°I¡¯ll be back Selly, ban, Selliban,¡± I bumbled.
¡°Mhm, go on, I won''t cause a fuss.¡±
¡°Thanks, I don¡¯t expect you to, but thanks,¡± I told her, both for her solemn oath and for not getting annoyed at my slip-up.
Keeping Anna up, I slipped my chair out, and moved around her, moving to lift her up and out of her chair. I slipped her out from the table and carried her over to our room, nudging the door open before I walked over and gently slid her into bed sliding the covers up and tucking her into bed.
She turned towards me, grasping through the sheet towards my arm, hers trying to wrap around mine before I managed to pull away.
Anna looked uncomfortable and rolled back over, curling up a little like she was trying to become a ball.
I sighed, knowing that I couldn¡¯t curl up with her, and left, walking quietly before closing the door and letting Anna have her sleep.
She had been going through it all day like a soldier, trundling through the day while sore and exhausted.
I came back to the table, tucking in Anna¡¯s chair, before sitting down in mine, making sure not to drag the wood and cause a racket.
Selly was starting to tire of filling her stomach, and her eating slowed. She was holding a bit of egg yolk like a loaf of bread, taking bites out of it.
¡°How do you fit it all inside of you? Where does it go?¡± I asked her.
¡°whut uu yoo meen¡¡± she swallowed, sparing me her talking with an open mouth, ¡°What do you mean? It goes to my belly. Obviously?¡±
I looked at her. Unable to determine if she was messing with me or just missing my point.
¡°You¡¯ve eaten, like, three times your weight?¡± I asked, ¡°If I ate that much, I would be dead. That bit of egg is almost the size of your arm, for crying out loud.¡±
¡°No, I haven¡¯t. Just a quarter. It¡¯ll last me today and tomorrow. Don¡¯t worry about it,¡± she told me, waving off the incongruity.
¡°A quarter? Oh, only a quarter, silly me,¡± I told her.
¡°Eyy!¡± she said, ¡°don¡¯t go being weird about it. So, I suppose I should talk about what I¡¯m here for on behalf of my queen. I can wait till tomorrow if you feel like it? Put it off and let you take a snooze?¡±
She said it with the intent to tease me about it, but I wasn¡¯t here for that.
¡°If you gained like seven levels in a day, you would be tired too, you dolt.¡±
That shut her up right quick.
Her dainty mouth slapped closed while her eyes seemed to boggle a bit. She literally dropped the loaf of egg yolk in her hand, too stunned to speak, I could see her mouth, ¡®Seven?¡¯ before she took a breath and said it out loud.
¡°Seven levels? By the first¡ What the hell has she been doing, and how can I get in on that action? Ugh, I wish I had that problem. Forgive me¡ About being a total wasp about it.¡±
I had no idea what ¡®being a total wasp about it¡¯ meant. But I could tell she was talking about being a pain in the ass from context. She was incomprehensible, but she had the spirit, I supposed.
¡°Come on, then, you little wasp. Tell me your secrets before I eat the rest of the pan¡¯s worth and send you upstairs or pin you to a corkboard to examine how you fit so much food in you,¡± I told her, not caring about the morbidity of my words.
¡°You don¡¯t scare me. And you would be sorely worried about doing so. I¡¯m under guest, right, and you know it,¡± she said pointedly.
She wasn¡¯t wrong. I had sworn I would be a good guest¡ Assuming I even counted as a guest anymore and not a more permanent resident.
We had gone a bit above and beyond being hostess and guest.
You generally don¡¯t kiss your innkeeper¡ Or sleep in their bed for free.
¡°Out with it,¡± I told her, ¡°come on, I don¡¯t have all night.¡±
Selly, being Selly, crouched down and picked up the hunk of egg before she started talking.
¡°My queen sends her regards. And wishes me to do two things for you. One is to make you your title of [Tall Friend], and to work, in place of my queen, to aid you as well as I can. She was quite insistent despite my incredulity. I am to try and help you in any way I can, for whatever reason, and if I can¡¯t, I am to reach out to other sprites of my clan and ask them to aid you in repaying my queen¡¯s debt to you. Though you can ask for another boon if help forever was too little upfront for your boon? You do get to pick it after all.¡±
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That caught my ear, twice over.
A title and a boon.
I had almost forgotten, but the queen had mentioned them, swearing on in.
I had a title, though I had no idea what it really did. It was just words to me. It was still captivating however, the word [Tall Friend], sounded distinct, though not particularly over the top.
The boon, too, was interesting. Letting me ask for help with something forever? It was attractive. I could ask for something, like goods, or a service, or something else, I supposed. But what else would I ask for? A lifetime supply of honey? I had money, I could buy some¡ Probably. And if I couldn¡¯t, I could probably find someone who would want to do it and ask a sprite to help them become a [Beekeeper] or [Honey Farmer]. I could ask for a specific, costly service, like¡ Well, I didn¡¯t know what I could ask from them, but I could ask for it.
Instead, the queen had seen to it that I could ask for help, for some assistance.
A boon on a level with the life dept she had thought of owing me as a concession, just with no control over the sprite queen.
I was more than fine with the difference. I had no wish to have any control over anyone like that. Not one little bit. Her switching the ¡®dept,¡¯ the sprites held so important, from her life to a title and a boon that went on forever, was more than I had ever expected from helping her.
Speaking of.
¡°I accept. Though you¡¯re Queen is aware that she doesn¡¯t need to repay me¡ Right? I expected nothing, and was fine with it,¡± I reminded her.
Selly nodded, vigorously, her mouth open at the bottom of her face, cramming the egg in before pulling it in with her mouth and swallowing, there was a bulge in her neck, that rapidly lowered into her abdomen. It was like watching a snake swallow a rabbit, the bump moving far too quickly.
¡°Ohhh. I know,¡± She said, the moment the bump got below her neck, ¡°My queen is far too good for you, In my opinion anyways. But she is an exemplar of living up to her own personal honour, and it would be beneath her to do nothing.¡±
She spoke with a great deal of recovery about her queen, who was basically her mother. It was touching, in a way.
I missed my mom.
I worked to hold back the pain of her loss, the weight of it standing right next to Skip and Kindly, and everyone else I had known, for how little I knew or cared about them in life.
¡°You¡¯re a momma¡¯s girl, aren¡¯t you?¡± I asked her, more to distract myself than as a jab, though she ended up taking it as one.
¡°Wha- Why you. She¡¯s not my mother¡ Well, she is, but not really! She. Is. My. Queen! My parents are none of your concern,¡± she said sourly.
I looked at her, a smug feeling spreading through me, twinging the corners of my lips up.
¡°Momma¡¯s Girl it is,¡± I told her and waited for the fun to begin.
¡°I! I¡¯m not!¡± She shouted, following it with a short, very pointed tirade. Billowing on and on.
I didn¡¯t even pay attention, I just smiled, cackling to myself, which only set her off worse.
She was rather creative with cussing, it was quite¡ colourful.
She blew so hard she had to gasp air in, sometimes mid-sentence. She would say something like, ¡°Sharp to-OOOah-thed she bitch,¡± and just suck in air mid-word, her face looking like she was sneezing in reverse. Her mouth opened with her head rocked back, the tiny insect mouth hidden behind her chin hinged open. To suck in as much air as possible before it snapped shut, and she opened her tiny front mouth to keep shouting.
It wasn¡¯t even all that loud, though with every shout and motion, she was giving off the tingly scent she and her queen had. A kind of emotional cloud that made me feel a need to sneeze.
I let it go on for a good long while, egging her on when she started running low on steam, but everything came to an end eventually. It was starting to get uncreative, she wasn¡¯t just running low on steam, but on the rest of the stuff.
She was being, had been the whole time she was here, all tense and stuff, and all the yelling was just as much a way to vent frustration as it was her being pissy at me over calling her a momma¡¯s girl. She had been tensed the entire time, hard posture, wings out, even while eating and drinking.
I reached in and bopped her head with a finger lightly. She swatted at my hand, half-hearted, not the full force I knew she could. Her antenna pushed back towards her head, drooped under her finger, her wings folding back and in, siding under a patch of fuzzy ringed flaps of chitin on her back as she crumpled forward onto her knees and practically fell forward, pulling in into herself. A pair of arms held her while I pulled back, and another pair of arms held her face.
She made a noise like she was coughing, a choky-clipped noise.
She let out puffs of tingly pheromones. Bug scents that I couldn¡¯t understand.
I thought for a moment that I had hurt her despite the lightness of my tap. My skill told me that the antenna on her head was a weak point, but I didn¡¯t feel the skill go off. My head rumbled around to one time I had gotten in a scuffle with a guy and kicked him between the legs, and I started to get my head around to an apology.
I opened my mouth, holding back a sneeze when she managed to get a soft, tinkly sentence past her coughing noises.
¡°Don¡¯t¡ Don¡¯t talk about my mom¡¡±
And all of that laughing, all that egging on I had done? Winding her up because she had a temper and seemed to need to vent? The smile on my face and the words on my lips turned to so much ash in my mouth. Because I knew that tone and I knew those words, I would know them anywhere.
For all I had never in my days seen a sprite cry, I had heard those words before, and I knew, just like that, that I had hurt her.
I might not have wounded her myself, but I had hurt her. It just wasn¡¯t with physical blows. But an accidental, carelessness
And the worst part was it all made too much sense.
So many tiny clues, so many little things about her, about the situation and the way she was acting, the tension and everything.
She had said it herself.
She couldn¡¯t go back.
And I didn¡¯t know what to do about that.
¡°Oh¡¡± I croaked, ¡°I¡¯m¡ I¡¯m sorry for your loss.¡±
It was lame. Clich¨¦. Overused and unhelpful.
I had hated those words. I still did. And them being the first words from my mouth made me want to beat my own face in.
They were worthless. For all that, they were the normal fare for those who didn¡¯t feel the pain of your loss. They weren¡¯t hateful or cruel¡ they just felt like something better left unsaid, something made for a lesser pain, a lesser loss.
They felt like the words you would tell someone when they lost a pet like they lost a keepsake.
Lost¡ like it was just misplaced, something you might find if you just looked hard enough.
The loss was just¡ too small a word for the kind of words you should use when someone had been ripped from another¡¯s life. It just didn¡¯t work.
There was no word for losing a part of your world, for a personal cataclysm, for the feeling of empty desolation that would hollow you out if you just let it until you were a husk. The feeling of¡ powerlessness Death left behind in her wake.
Time did not heal grief, it did not mend all wounds, it just left scars. Scars on top of whatever got in while it took its sweet ass time to scab over while your soul went septic. Left you no other option but to cut it out to save yourself like an infected leg.
Sorry for your loss¡ My condolences¡
Words that you used when you had nothing else to say.
I wish I knew what to do.
In a way, I knew what had helped me, even if it hadn¡¯t been enough. But I didn¡¯t know that it would help.
We were acquaintances, maybe, maybe even friends. But we weren¡¯t that kind of close. The kind of close where being vulnerable around one another felt safe. I couldn¡¯t even offer a genuine word about her mom; I had never met her. And for all I knew that pain, I didn¡¯t know how to say it in a way that wouldn¡¯t sound like I was making it about me.
And that might just be worse than nothing because it made everything after it worse.
And I was supposed to be a [Saint of Death].
What a cruel fucking joke it was that I was supposed to help in this exact fucking scenario, and I couldn¡¯t even reassure someone in pain right in front of me.
Good job, me. Good job.
I reached out a hand and let it lay near her, near her hands. Near her new sword. Pristine and white, and not the same as the one I had seen her use yesterday.
New.
Or new for her, at least.
I remembered what it felt like for the people around me, for the community I had, to simply look at me like I was looking at Selly. Unable to bring themselves to do anything.
It was one part the feeling of knowing what I would have wanted, one part knowing that I should say something that got me to say anything at all. I had nothing to say, so I spoke from the heart.
¡°I¡ I can¡¯t say anything that will help. Nothing that can make you feel any better. Not right now. But I¡¯m here if you need a hand, or a shoulder. Just ask, even if it¡¯s simple, even if it¡¯s so simple it makes you feel like it would be a waste of time, I¡¯ll be here for it.¡±
And so, I sat there and waited for her to cry herself out, even though it made my nose tingle, and she didn¡¯t shed a single tear. I waited and waited until she cried herself out, until she had no sadness left, and she was numb to the world.
I waited for her to take her hands off her face and get up or roll over, and she did, and when she did, I had a finger there for her to lean on.
She didn¡¯t take it, but I wouldn¡¯t force that on her either, for all that, she looked like she was a piece of porcelain that could shatter from a stiff spring breeze.
And that¡¯s how it went.
The world outside was in spring, full of life and memories of the renewing late spring sun.
While inside, raindrops kept falling on our heads.
Chapter 56 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 28
I stayed there with her for as long as it took for her to get her bearings. I waited nearby in case she decided to rely on me, but I didn¡¯t push it on her.
I could remember what it was like for some people trying to push something on me, those who would try to get me to do something as if I was incapable of doing it on my own. As if instead of a person in pain, I was an incapable thing.
It wasn¡¯t that it was somehow impossible to do, but more so the feeling that it just didn¡¯t matter. That feeling had pushed down the feeling of me doing things, and getting pushed around just upset me. Giving her a line where she could reach out to me if and or when she desired to was all I felt like I could give her.
We were friendly but not proper friends, and I had made her feel betrayed by sending her away instead of letting her possibly die beside me. I didn¡¯t know if Selly saw me as a friend, but I was willing to act the part regardless because I wanted to be her friend, even though I didn¡¯t know if I deserved it. And I would be there for my friend when she needed it, even if she didn¡¯t feel the same way anymore.
She was unsteady on her feet, but she got up and stayed up.
She had none of the signs of a person who was crying: no red eyes, no tears, no breathing, and none of the smells I normally associated with it, but I could see the context and knew she had been crying like sprites cried.
The only sign, the only thing I could envision as something of a tell, was her antenna, which dropped as if it carried the weight of her feelings like weights tied to them with string. They were limp, instead of at attention up, resting downwards towards her chest like strands of hair.
I hadn¡¯t thought about the black on white, as if the armour-like plates on her were more like clothes she could just change. As if what amounted to her skin was more dress or accessory that could be changed for a new trend, and not a permanent part of her body. They were black now, or at least dark grey now, instead of her normal white like the fluff between the armour.
She would have had to dye it unless sprites could miraculously change the colour of their chitin from sadness alone.
¡°I should have realized something was off¡¡± I told her, ¡°I¡¯m sorry for bringing it up.¡±
¡°No¡¡± she managed to get out through a few gaspy huffs, ¡°You didn¡¯t know, you couldn¡¯t have¡¡±
I sneezed, turning away from her so I didn¡¯t spray her before turning back to face her. The crying had let out quite a lot of tingly stuff in the air.
¡°Maybe not,¡± I told her, ¡°But I¡¯m still sorry I brought it up. I¡¯m trying to do my best not to make Anna cry, trying to make no one cry because of me when I shouldn¡¯t, doesn¡¯t that seem like a big stretch? Maybe I should be aiming for that. And I mean what I said, you can ask me for help with anything, even if it¡¯s just drudge work.¡±
¡°Hah,¡± she said, a clipped breath that slipped beyond her tiny frontal mouth and to her bigger lower mouth. It was humorless and a bit closer from sad. ¡°Get off it. My life, long leg, is mine to move through. And don¡¯t go trying to think yours is the straw that brought me to my knees¡ The lives of others, their struggles and pain, are not your fault. Try and get it out of your head that my unsightly actions are related to your actions and not me letting off all my steam cussing you out¡ You twit.¡±
She said the last part with a fake energy. A fake pep that wrung hollow like a bell compared to how she had used it before. And with it, an attempt to put on a face, a slight lift of her antenna and a straightening of her posture. She managed to get her breath back, at least.
¡°Selliban¡ You don¡¯t have to put on a face unless you want to¡ for some reason. And none of that noble stuff, either. I think I can speak for both Anna and myself when I say that neither of us would expect it from you,¡± I told her, ¡°And there is nothing unsightly about mourning,¡±
Expectations were a weight, a drag. They could give structure in the right environment if they were used for that purpose, a kind of guide when you felt hopeless could do a lot of good. It could also stop you from reaching out, from trying to do something if it wasn¡¯t ¡®right¡¯ or ¡®socially unacceptable.¡¯
Toxic sociality or something. It was the exact kind of thing that had doubtless led to the weird bit where a man can marry multiple women and the loophole where me and Anna could end up a legal couple, but not men.
Just thinking about it brought to mind just how pissed the clergy must have been. The church of marriage must be pissed about that.
I let that idea pass me by, it wouldn¡¯t get me anywhere to start thinking about that silliness, and instead, I focused back on the conversation, back on letting Selly make the choice on whether or not she would keep the mask or leave it.
The mask dropped, and she drooped back down.
¡°Aye¡ Aye. That¡¯s fine by me, I shall abide by this. I suppose I ought to get to granting you you¡¯re title¡ And then getting some rest,¡± she said, letting off a weary sigh, ¡°I would rather have some time to myself than stay here talking for much longer if that would be alright with you.¡±
¡°More than fine, we can get this over with. We can do this tonight, or tomorrow even, I can wait. I don¡¯t know what it takes to get a title, but we don¡¯t have to go through anything¡ fancy. We can go our separate ways tonight, nothing needs to keep us talking until when you feel up to it,¡± I told her.
¡°I¡¯m good,¡± she said, huffy and defensive, ¡°I¡¯m good to keep this going for now, even if it is only for a little. And you don¡¯t have to be soft on me, I can¡¯t stand it.¡±
Damn it. Am I being soft? I am¡ Damn it, damn it, you stupid idiot. Just treat her like normal, don¡¯t keep¡ Damn it. Okay¡ Ok, be normal. I can treat her normally. I¡¯m projecting, too, I need to stop doing that, she¡¯s not me, she doesn¡¯t need the same things.
Come on, Saphine, use your head. Just play it by ear instead of trying to accommodate her every need all at once, that just comes across the same way as being pushy. She¡¯s a confrontational person, being all soft is just weird for her.
So I did, I let the feeling of wanting to help her slip out of my mind and tried to move closer to how we were talking before, closer to normal.
¡°Okay,¡± I told her, ¡°So what does all of this title stuff entail? I don¡¯t know what a title does or even how to get one, even though I have one, which I know is weird, but there were complications. I assume, being a [Lady] and all, you know what those do, right?¡±
She looked at me with the face of someone who wasn¡¯t paid enough to deal with something had. It was all in the eyes, the squint of them.
She reached a hand up to her head and got to rubbing what I assumed were her temples.
¡°You have a¡ You have a title, and you have no idea what it does?¡±
I opened my mouth to explain, but she cut me off.
¡°No. No. Don¡¯t explain, let me. It will save both of us time. A title¡ is a title. It is a thing that people call you. When the right people see you, they will understand who you are and what your title is, and often a little about that. I don¡¯t know what your title is, but a [Tall Friend] is a friend of Sprites, sprites you meet will know that you¡¯re a friend and not some random person. They will know that you have done a great deed for my kin and queen and treat you accordingly, so long as you don¡¯t forsake my kind.¡±
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She was rather peeved at my lack of understanding. The obvious part was obvious, but I didn¡¯t know what it did beyond being a thing people called you.
¡°OK, okay. Don¡¯t go getting all huffy about it. So you give me this, and sprites will know I helped you out, got it. I wonder what my other title does¡ Anyways, how do we do this?¡±
She lifted her sword and spoke, her words having a weight to them as she spoke them. ¡°Saphine. By the power invested in me by my queen, I name you a [Tall Friend], for you to have for so long as you abide by and uphold your friendship with my kind, uphold peace with kin, and swear to honour my kin as if they were your own. Do you swear to do this and accept this title as a gift from my people for your valiant aid in saving my queen from a fate worse than death?¡±
Each word, each sound, and each breath she spoke carried a tangible weight as they reached me. They were no louder than her normal speech, not backed by skill or spell, but they felt louder, they felt like they should be magical.
I could feel a feeling, one that I had remembered from something recently, a feeling that things lined up inside me. A feeling like when I had been casting my first spell, only with all the pieces given to me, ready to take whatever form they were destined to take.
I felt at it in the weird way that I had with that skill, only for it to have no feedback beyond a very simple missing piece.
I could say yes, or I could say no.
I was an oddity.
I had one title, but it was one that I had no choice in. It had been thrust upon me, just like my new race, just like the new skills I had from it.
A part, a tiny wee little thing in the back of my head, clicked at that thought, spinning off into a new realization.
Once upon a time, I had very little choice at all.
Before I had died, I had no choice in how I worked or what I did. I had no active choice in what my classes or skills were, Sophy would just read through my dreams and pick, bit by bit, my choices for me, finding what she believed was my best fit, with no ability for me to plan around it.
The only thing I was able to do was try and guide it based on what little I did in person, like hitting rocks to get [Sense Stone].
That had changed only recently, the first time had probably been becoming a mage, a thing I had to actively try and get. The first time I made a choice over what I was going to be, actively chose that I was going to be a mage, and I had not given up on it, I could have, could have just told Anna no thanks, I don¡¯t want to try and be a mage and fucked off with magic powers and that probably would have been fine.
Knowing her, it would have probably pissed her off, but she would probably not have come after me with a vengeance, hells bent on destroying my life or something.
That choice had led to my choice to court Anna, the choice to stay in her bed and moved our relationship along so far.
This choice was now one of many choices, but it was one that was simple. The simplicity of it, the simplicity of a yes or no, seemed for all its lack of depth, and quite possibly what it would bring to me, woke up just how much agency in my own life I now had.
I could choose.
I could decide to say no to Selly, no to being a [Tall Friend], and face the consequences. The idea that I could just say no was somewhat intoxicating.
It was one of those moments where suddenly you got perspective on your own life, like you were viewing it as someone else. A change in perspective where the world and how you saw it changed, and something hit home just how it changed and made a whole lot of stuff just kind of making sense.
It was always over the smallest, stupidest things that those happened. The really silly stuff, like asking a dumb question.
You made changes every day, small ones, but I had started changing, started making bigger ones. And now I saw that I had made a bunch of them automatically, just moving forward, but I didn¡¯t need to. I was the master of my own future.
That was all.
For all its stupid simplicity, that was important, at least to me.
¡°Yes,¡± I said, and the whole thing clicked together.
It brought with it no immediate change, no skills, no spells, nothing.
¡°That¡¯s it,¡± Selly said as if I hadn¡¯t just spaced out for a second while I had an epiphany. ¡°I do believe that¡¯s all for today¡ Would you mind showing me to my bed? I could use a bit of rest, it¡¯s been a long day.¡±
I did, getting up and walking towards the door that led up into the attic, Selly fanning out her wings and buzzing over to follow me. I opened it and made my way up to my old room.
It was as I left it, but I had made sure to bring my stuff out and leave it in the kind of closet space at the base of the ladder.
¡°Here¡¯s your room. There''s a chamber pot over there. I don¡¯t get how sprites do¡ That.¡± I told her, gesturing to make my point. ¡°But it¡¯s there in case you can use it. And here¡¯s the bed¡ Which is way too big for you¡ I can-¡± I started, only for her to cut me off.
¡°You can leave it as is¡ I can make myself at home.¡±
There was something terribly sad about that, so I ignored her and walked over to the bed.
¡°Come on,¡± I waved to her, ¡°I¡¯ll tuck you in, even if I have to swat you out of the air. Come on, I don¡¯t have all night, I want to go snuggle up to Anna.¡±
¡°You can¡¯t be serious? You¡¯re going to tuck me in? You?¡±
I didn¡¯t know if I was going to be sticking my neck out here. I didn¡¯t know if this was going to explode in my face or what, but I was willing to try.
¡°You¡¯re my friend, Selliban. Even if you don¡¯t let me use your nickname on the pain of probably getting stabbed in the eye, even if you feel betrayed because I sent you away, I still feel like you¡¯re my friend. The least I can do is help you get comfortable in a bed meant for people who measure their height in feet rather than inches,¡± I told her calmly, turning to face her wholly. ¡°You¡¯re a guest, you¡¯re a friend, and you owe a life debt to a woman I might be in love with, which means we might know each other for the rest of our lives. It¡¯s the least I can do to tuck you in so you can be comfortable. So¡ Get your dainty winged ass over here, so I can. Tuck you! Into this bed!¡± I told her, dragging it out and making my point with forceful gestures.
I put so much energy into it that a floorboard creaked underfoot.
She paused at my words and, like a chastened child or like someone who felt vulnerable, came over anxiously and buzzed on down onto the bed.
She tucked her wings in, folding her arms to hold herself, and looked up to me.
¡°You¡¯re an odd one, you know that? You¡¯re all over the place sometimes, thoughtless one moment, thoughtful another. You¡¯re willing to put you¡¯re life on the line and fight without any proper practice, and jump into things alone that you never should, and then suddenly have a plan and everything works out. I can¡¯t tell what you¡¯re deal is. I won¡¯t lie, but a part of me wants to not trust you. It hurt that you didn¡¯t trust me enough to even bring me along. Even though it was the best option, it hurt, knowing that you wouldn¡¯t do me the honour of bringing my queen home. And you knew it would hurt me and did it anyway.¡± She said before looking at me expectantly. ¡°Why?¡±
It was a fragile thing. A fragile question.
It had the feeling of a tenuous important point.
Why indeed?
¡°If you want a simple answer, I don¡¯t know that I can give you one,¡± I told her, reaching my hand to rub my neck. ¡°One answer, I suppose, might be that I wanted all of you out. You could have helped me with your skills, but you had no weapon, and none of the others were able to fight either. Maybe it was because you¡¯re tiny, and it felt like you¡¯re more fragile than I am.¡± I told her, gesturing for a moment with my free hand before both came back down to rest at my sides.
¡°Heck,¡± I continued, ¡°Maybe it¡¯s because I like to think a bit romantically sometimes and want everyone to get out alive. Some kind of happily ever after¡ Honestly, it was probably a bit of all of those if I were to carefully look at what was going through my head¡¡± I told her, feeling out as best as I could remember, as best as I could pick apart for a while until I got to the baggy part.
And despite my sigh, I kept going regardless of how it sounded.
¡°But whatever amount of those it was, it was also that I can get hurt, and get better. I¡¯m expendable, no matter how you cut it, if I can die to save someone, I feel like I should because I can, and I can get away with it, and because if someone died because of me because I failed to stop it when I could, it would probably haunt me¡ Or it should. The last time I saw people die was the end of the world, or the end of mine, anyway, and everyone died... and I did nothing. I don¡¯t want that again, not when I have even an ounce of ability to stop it. Does¡ that answer your question?¡± I asked her, making sure to focus back on her.
I looked at her, and I felt like I had been talking for an hour instead of for less than a minute. And I waited for her answer, assuming she decided to give me one now instead of just staring at me.
It was a long moment, but she eventually said, ¡°If you were half as genuine, I would tell you to stop trying to be friendly, but even if I did, I doubt you would listen. Go on then, tuck me in. Just don¡¯t make it weird, ok? None of that gross love bird stuff with me.¡± and got down on her back.
I took the bed sheet and went and covered her, adjusting it when she made a complaint before letting go of the sheet and pulling away from the bed.
¡°You don¡¯t have to worry about that, not interested,¡± I told her.
I made to move away from the bed, and she called out, her voice unsure, as if she didn¡¯t know if she was about to stick her neck out or not.
¡°What? No bedtime stories?¡±
It was the first joke she had told since she had cried, but it felt like a question.
¡°A bedtime story? I don¡¯t know, that¡¯s kind of lewd¡ I mean, it might lead to handholding,¡± I hedged.
She didn¡¯t laugh, but when I looked over at her, I could see the smile on her face.
¡°Have a good night, Selly, I¡¯ll see you tomorrow,¡± I told her, before I padded my way on down and got to cleaning up the last of the food.
Chapter 57 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 29
I left Selly, not quite closing the door to the loft so she could leave under her own power in the morning. Well leave the room without leaving the house, she could slip out through the window if she needed to, but that would just be the worst.
The conversation was still fresh. Selly¡¯s pain, was still fresh, and despite me not knowing her mom, both of those were sore spots.
Both of those brought me down. Gave me a funk that I tried to work out while I cleaned up, taking the rest that I could and feeding the rest to the garden, a bit of egg and some tomato sauce that would go bad by the morning got tossed into the garden, mixed into the soil so it could be degraded, and returned to the soil.
I didn¡¯t know if the plants cared, but I hope they liked it.
I headed back inside and stopped, an idea trickling around in my head. And I let it tick over while I washed the cookware.
I could go to bed, just, head on over to Anna and cuddle up with her and take a break.
It had been a long day, and I had covered a lot of ground, or at least it felt like I had. If I looked at it like a normal day, it was probably a normal amount of ground, but for my new life, it was a lot of ground.
I could just walk over to Anna¡¯s room, it was right there, like fifteen feet tops from me, and go to bed, snuggle up to Anna and have a nice time going to bed.
Or, I could keep reading, and work on my magic a little bit.
On paper, I lost snuggle time with Anna, time to decompress, and time in a comfy bed for some basic knowledge. It was an ehh trade at best, or at least it would be if it weren¡¯t for my knowledge and skill at magic being so poor.
I was levelling fast, far too fast, stupidly fast. That meant I was getting skills out of the wazoo, which would be nice if not for the fact that I was lagging behind in the ability to use them and understand how they worked.
Levelling at a normal rate and getting like a level or three every year for any given class means you have a long time to get acquainted with your abilities in a very passive manner. You got to understand how they worked inside and out, you got to the point where you could get away with not saying them out loud, doing them in your sleep.
You got to the point where you could understand the skill so well you knew it better than you knew yourself.
While I would end up practicing with them, slowly gaining a better understanding of those skills, I didn¡¯t feel like doing it right now, in the middle of the night. But I was willing to read now.
From what I could understand, a spell was similar to a skill. As a matter of fact, the fact that you could get them as skills was more than enough to make me say they were the same thing.
Sophy had already told me that Skills shaped mana, there was very little difference that I could understand or appreciate besides the fact that a skill was a kind of perfected spell.
It required no knowledge of mana, no skills to manipulate mana, no nothing, just two levels in a class and bang, skill.
But a mage should be able to make up that difference, as hard as it was, a canny mage could do it if they understood it well enough. And in a way, they could do that without a specific amount of levels, for as many spells as they could get their hands on.
But you needed that understanding to cast spells, you needed it both to learn and definitely to create new spells. And you needed more to make those better spells, then you need practice to cast them better.
You needed to put in time to make them better, and time to learn, and time to put in time to do those things.
And the levels I was getting didn¡¯t leave me with enough time for everything, I just didn¡¯t.
My class alone showed that.
I was a [Journeyman Mage], but I didn¡¯t have that level of information, or that level of competence. I was nowhere close to it. I couldn¡¯t even answer one of her questions off the bat, nonetheless, all five. And I couldn¡¯t because I hadn¡¯t put in the time that I should have been able to if I levelled normally.
And that wouldn¡¯t change, not if I put in the same level of effort I was now.
I cast [Status], pulling out a tiny amount of mana compared to my total supply to cast and started running the numbers.
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Name: Saphine
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Race: Kobold Psychopomp
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Age: 2813
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Titles and Information
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Stats and Growth
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Innate Skills and Spells
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Titles: [Saint of Death], [Tall Friend]
Level: 20
Proficiency: 2
Hit points: 96/96
Mana: 2371/2400
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Build: 52 Dexterous +2|+1
Speed: 5
Senses: 37 Accuity +1|+1
Durability: 96 Spirit +3|+2
Mind: 40 Wis +3|+1
Social: 40 Int +3|+1
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[Natural Senses], [Child of the Aurora], [Saint of Death], [Marked by the Long Road] [True Immortality], [Magi], [Death Magic Affinity], [Tenebral Bane].
[Cantrip], [Status], [Analyze], [Inspect].
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Classes
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Class Skills
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Class spells
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[Grave Digger] Level 28
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[Tool handling Proficiency], [Rapid action], [Toil], [Sense stones], [Displace dirt], [Sense Composition], [Durable tools], [Timeless construct], [Aura of Soil], [Last Rites], [Grave Magic Affinity], [Sanctify], [Tool Expertise], [Magical Tools].
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[Verdant Nexus] Level 28
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[Green Thumb], [Planters Delight], [Aid Yield], [Revitalize Land], [Aura of Renewal], [Guide Plant], [Verdant Touch], [Wild Growth], [Verdant Sense], [Wellspring of Renewal], [Greater Verdant Touch], [Gaze of the Coming Spring], [Renewing Presence], [Renewing Conduit].
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[Journeyman Mage] Level 13
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[Wisdom Proficiency], [Apprentice of Annabeth Mynes], [Crude Foci Carver], [Magical Tool Proficiency], [Proficient Magi], [Death Magic Proficiency].
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
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[Woodsman] Level 9
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[Long Strider], [Makeshift Weapons Proficiency], [True Strike], [Woodsman¡¯s Stride].
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If I counted every skill I had for casting magic, all of my proficiency, auras and whatnot, I had just about ten if I lumped in skills that I had taken from levels and only levels.
Ten skills, or twenty class levels worth of skills.
That was roughly a quarter of my class levels. A huge investment in skills to help me cast spells.
And I only had four of them.
That was, at least right now, five class levels per spell.
Even if I discounted it, because I could also use those skills to help with my other skills I would be hard-pressed to give it three levels per spell, at a discount.
If you considered those spells as the same value as a skill, that was eight levels worth of skills, or between 2.5 to 1.5 levels in skills to spells.
That was a year of skills for each spell, at least for a normal person.
For a nominal mage, that number should be lower. It should be the reverse, it should be the number of spells for every skill instead of the other way around, but it wasn¡¯t because I had been leveling so fast. I was going to keep learning spells, but by the time I did, how many more skills would I have? Would I suddenly get five more levels and have it remain the same? Would I get more and have even fewer spells per skill?
I needed to get that ratio the other way around.
I needed to put in the effort to do it.
So, I finished cleaning, picked up my book, and made my way to the study. The environment suited the work, I didn¡¯t know if that mattered, but I hope it did.
It was dark, obviously. The moon let off a lot of light, or it would when it got itself all the way up. Instead, it left the study in a dim contrast that would get better if I opened the windows but did not fully light a page.
So I needed a light.
I picked up a candle, and made my way out into the main room, and went over to the hearth, and stopped.
Fire¡
The fire was air¡ and heat.
I already could light the candle¡ Or I should be able to.
It was such a simple thing. Of course, I should be able to light candles. Lighting a candle was like¡ magical baby work.
It was the kind of thing Anna could do without thinking about it.
So, I should be able to do it with a little effort.
And there was an example right in front of me.
I hunkered down with a piddly candle and got to work.
First, I let my senses open to mana instead of filtering it out like background haze, letting myself see the environment and mana in it. I let myself acclimatize and take in the stupidly complex environment around me. It was like opening your eyes when you were bleary after waking up, everything coming together, first as a kind of haze, then as different things, then as shapes and objects and detail and on and on.
It gave me a twinging feeling for a moment, like a migraine, as I took it in, but I could deal with the detail.
I took in the air around me, the ever-present air, and the moisture and dust, and the grain of the wood and earthy stone around the fireplace.
Then, I looked into the fire of the hearth and observed it.
It was waning ever so slightly, not enough wood, I guess, which I could solve later when I left.
I watched and saw the fire as one thing, a cohesive whole, as solid as the stone around it.
But I knew that fire was made of air and heat. I knew it wasn¡¯t one thing, it was made of mana, and that mana was made of a mixture of two kinds of mana, so I looked harder, and picked out the red, energetic fire mana, and tried to see into it.
In the fire was more fire, and then more fire. I kept looking deeper, as deep as I could, but I couldn¡¯t see a difference in the material. The amount I saw only decreased. What I saw as one was just so many more of the same, just smaller.
I reached out to the fire with [Cantrip], and like the day before, I started futzing around with it. And when I got done with that and found that there was no difference, I instead focused on the air and the heat the fire gave off. And compared them to the air around the fire, the stuff that wasn¡¯t going up the chimney. Then I took in the air as it was pulled into the fire.
The fire pulls in air and produces air, and heat and more fire. But what am I missing?
The heat feels the same, decreasing a bit as it travels out through the air¡ The air does feel different from the inside and the stuff going up through the chimney, and if I ignore the smoke, it¡¯s¡ still different.
So the fire produces fire and heat and uses some¡ part of the air mana to do it? Ok, so how can I use any of that to light a candle?
The answer was I couldn¡¯t. I had missed the important components.
Could I just brute force it? Just take the air around the candle and pack heat in until it lights? I don¡¯t see why I can¡¯t, but that feels¡ unsatisfactory. I want to know how to do it, not just know I can do it. That¡¯s what I do normally, just brute force everything.
I want to do it smarter for once.
But it is probably about adding heat to air¡ So I just need to find out how much heat I need to pack with the air to make fire. Probably.
So, I turned my attention to the greatest clue for how much heat I needed, namely the air around me.
It was carrying unbound heat through the room, so it only stood to reason that if I looked closely, right up against the flame, the heat it let off should be just a little less than that I would need to have a fire, so if I copied that...
I tried it, checking closely, before doing my best to pluck at the heat in the air, only instead of pulling it out of something like a cup, I was pulling it toward a specific point.
It was harder than I figured it would be because the closer it got, the more it wanted to expand and spread out.
It was incredibly frustrating. It was such a simple action but also hard. It was like trying to thread a needle, one of those tiny metal ones with the iddy biddy eyelets. The thread just didn¡¯t want to go in.
I took all that frustration and just used it to help my focus, just focusing it down on the act of lighting a fire. The heat, resist as it might, did what I wanted, slowly, forcing it down to a spot.
And it didn¡¯t start a fire, it didn¡¯t light the candle.
A part of me wanted to throw the candle like a fucking animal, but I didn¡¯t let the frustration get to me. Instead, I turned towards the fire and double-checked the edge, comparing it to my attempt. It was the same. As far as I could tell, it was the exact same.
So, I increased the heat a little more, pressing more into the same space.
A tiny flicker of red mana formed, flashing for a moment before it changed back, splitting into an itty bitty whisp of air and heat.
A spark, and where there were sparks, there was fire. My spirits soared, all the annoyance from the time I spent, and the sadness I felt from Selly, and the soreness of sitting on the floorboards was suddenly forgotten.
And for a moment, it was replaced by the pure feeling of excitement.
I moved it onto the tip of the candle and got more, pulling more heat in to mimic the same amount I had, but across the tip of the candle. One tiny spark of fire, mana, did not a fire make. I needed a proper spark to light a candle.
So I built a critical mass of heat and air around the tip of a candle, cupping my hand around the candle, my fingers moving in a pinching motion.
Come on then, stop teasing me, light damn you.
I was right there, just like when I hucked the shard of earth, where my hands moved and made a kind of automatic movement, a kind of mini spell shape.
The air and heat sheathed around the tip, and I pressed my fingers.
The mana pressed down into one another, pressing into the wick of the candle, amongst the braids of plant fiber and the charred bit that resembled earth more than a plant, and the mana sparked red.
Whisps of smoke rode off the candle wick, and some of the mana was taken towards the plant, the material of the wick, and I countered it by pulling in a bit more, sparking more as some of the fire dwindled out.
And then, some of the mana in the wick became fire, and it started spreading. Fire Became more fire.
And second, by second, the glow of it came off the candle; first, just smoke, then as a slight glow, then like embers, then a slight glow as the fire matched its namesake.
And just like that, I lit my first candle.
I checked my [Status] again and found that I had over half an hour or so; I had somehow burned some 300 points of mana figuring it out, but honestly? It was worth every second.
Instead of just brute forcing it, I now knew more, instead of just being able to light a fire, I now understood what it meant when it said components.
It wasn¡¯t just looking closer and closer to find a singular point of air mana and heat mana; they kind of¡ merged into one, but they could come apart, fire was like a transition where air and heat merged and became air and heat again. It was more like¡ I didn¡¯t know what. Adding them to a stew? You put the carrots and potatoes in, and then you got the stew and took the carrots and potatoes out, but that was reductive.
I didn¡¯t know the best way to describe it, I just didn¡¯t have a reference point that made sense and didn¡¯t somehow distance it from the truth.
Truth be told, I didn¡¯t know if there was something that mimicked it that I could point to and just say, ¡®like that,¡¯ some kind of minuscule blobby thing that clicked together.
I had to wonder, how far could you take it? How far could you split it? Fire to air and heat, air to its components, to their components and so on, until you had some kind of indivisible thing.
Did you even get something indivisible? Or was it mana all the way down? Like the story kindly told us where the boy found that the world was on the back of a turtle, and it was turtles all the way down.
¡°Red-headed stepchild indeed¡ Damn, but that is a good line. Well, no more putting it off, I suppose, now it¡¯s time to get back to the book,¡±
I cradled the candle in my hand like it would go out and suddenly end all my hard work in dissatisfaction. And headed into the study with a sense of satisfaction to round the day out.
The triumph was almost enough to make me forget the terror of yesterday, the paranoia of today, the longing to just go to bed, and the fact that Selly was in pain.
Chapter 58 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 30
I crept forward into the study with my candle, opening the door as quietly as I could, and made my way into the room.
I checked around and found the rest of the lighting, transferring the flame to light the room enough for me to read by before replacing the candle where it belonged.
I sat down in the comfy chair for Anna¡¯s desk and lay the book down, making a little room. Anna had been writing letters by the look of it. She had a quill still in the ink, and I quickly closed it after emptying the pen. It had the look of fancy ink, not just the cheap kind, and there were a few pieces of parchment ready to write on, and it drying out would be a waste.
I made an attempt to safely stack the things I could to not mess up and knock something over, while also not disordering Anna¡¯s desk.
Once I got that over with, I placed the book on the desk and went to read, but I decided to bring the slate over as well and put Anna¡¯s questions on it.
Under the types of mana, I put down the four Elements: Fire, Water, Air and Earth, with space to list out the details I needed; then I wrote the other four sections I needed to answer, with the corresponding mana types.
Then, for the shits of it, I added the colour because why not? It could prove important or just nifty. I had to flip through and found that none of the arcane ones had a colour but a pattern, so I left them out. Then I filled out Fire and Air with a quirk.
It read:
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The Elements
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Fire
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Water
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Air
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Earth
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Formed from two base mana types.
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Fastest Element.
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The Natural
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Plant
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Beasts
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Heat
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Growth
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The Celestial
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Sun
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Moon
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Stars
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Holy
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The Arcane
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Conjuration
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Evocation
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Enchantment
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Quagmire
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I couldn¡¯t remember a quirk for water, so I decided to quickly flip to water and give it a read again.
Water is one of the three most commonly available elements. Its middle-of-the-road range leaves it as an all-around generally fantastic pick, even if one only picks it up to learn spells like [Conjure Water], which, while confusingly named, is not Conjuration, but simple water concentration.
Water, while it can be used for combat, is most commonly used for things such as agriculture or as general utility. In the desert? Water to quench your thirst. Drowning? Make a bubble so you have room to breathe. Still drowning because there wasn''t air around? Well, you could pick up the mixed spell [Airate] to suck air from the water. This, too, is not conjuration, which led to the discovery of how fish breath was made by the [Druid of Tides] in the year 1250 of the modern era.
Look at that, a little nugget of History to go along with your magical studies.
I went ahead and filled in, water has air in it for a water quirk and moved on again to earth. Earth was incredibly boring, as much as Earth could be, anyway. You could use it for almost anything on land, it included the highest number of known mana types for its components and could be used to make buildings and whatnot.
I was all for soil; Kobolds were all about soil and taking care of the land and all that good stuff, but it was a bit of a snooze. It was straightforward, like water.
I noted that a section further down mentioned specific component mana types that produced enchantment mana and formed a kind of ¡®mana gem,¡¯ which was interesting, though I didn¡¯t know all that much about them, and the book didn¡¯t go into detail about the gems in question.
I was about to discount them when an errant twitch of memory reminded me of something.
Mana had to move.
Wait¡ How can mana stick in one place? Wouldn¡¯t that cause it to turn into dark magic? It would get all stuffed up and then stop being a mana gem and turn into a focus point of dark magic.
The book doesn¡¯t mention that, but I bet it would if the gems were a problem¡ Which implies that the gems are okay, and they somehow don¡¯t do that, which would be quite an interesting thing¡ Way more interesting than metal magic.
¡I wonder if Grave magic is somehow similar¡ Locking Death magic inside a grave to stop the body from rising as an undead.
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Into the quirk it went, and I was a quarter of the way done. The book was an easy read, even for me. At some points, the writer would just spring out of nowhere with a mace and just hit you with a fact, like with water magic.
He did this again for plant magic when, while talking about how plant magic created most of the mana in existence, slipped in:
The high amount of mana they produce implies that plants are alive in an appreciable way, they produce more mana by volume than even a human does, it¡¯s just that grass is much smaller than a human. Many druids believe that plants, while not intelligent in a matter that is appreciable next to something like an animal, nonetheless us, form a kind of collective being. This being is called a Genus Loci, and they are the source druids connect to, which makes them different from the likes of a green cleric or plant magi.
Did you step on the grass? Ever? Have you ever cut any foliage? It knows who you are and where you sleep. How often do you wear clothes?
Anyway, Sweet dreams.
His unhinged vibe leaked from the pages of his book, the totality of which I could only assume fell short of the true extent of his vibe. He passed it into the book, and it was both endearing at times, and at others, it was more like he was actively trying to crawl into your head.
I would give him this, it certainly got my attention, grabbing my mind as it began to slip into passively reading. He also got at least one part wrong.
The land, no matter what you called it, didn¡¯t seem to care if you killed one plant or even a bunch of plants. That and it extended way further than he seemed to give it credit. The land was more than just plants, for all that, it seemed to use whisker grass and the eye trees to feel and see the world around it. It was also somewhat extended to the ground, mountains, sky, and animals. Is there a disaster coming? Chances were the animals would want to leave. It told them to run away.
¡°I¡¯m reading this book that says you¡¯re just plants. Can you believe that?¡± I thought towards the land.
The Genus Loci, whatever that meant, responded with something along the lines of ¡°Am. Am. Cloud plants, and plant plants, and ground plants, and water plants,¡± Which was a bit of a strange way to answer.
It came more in feeling, distanced from concepts, and somewhat mixed in its message.
It came off as me misunderstanding the lands answer, though the idea of wrestling the right answer out of it right now felt like it would be more of a pain than it was worth. Instead, I filed it away in the back of my mind and got back to reading.
Then, I stopped and thought about something else that tickled my memory.
Mana moved, and the movement made more mana, that¡¯s how mana worked. But life was important for mana to grow.
Anna had told me that mana was inside of us, and we moved it far faster than something like a flowing river. Anna¡¯s grove was a kind of focus point for a leyline. Anna¡¯s grove grew plants like there was no tomorrow, and why It grew stupidly fast seemed obvious.
Plants took in the mana, made more mana and then the mana would seep back into the leyline. They were getting a constant stream of new, highly energetic mana, and unlike me, plants never stopped growing.
Each of those parts clicked together inside of my head, and suddenly, I realized why life was so important for growing mana.
It had been explained that it was because it moved a lot; mana changed a bunch inside of the body, so it only made sense that we would make more mana.
But was that true for grass? For trees?
They were taking in a bunch of mana and spit out less than me, sure, but if they also made more mana overall, then that movement inside of a person or animal made less sense.
But plants were alive.
I felt a bit like a crazy person as it clicked together, but it made so much sense.
Life grew mana because of Life mana. Life mana excited mana and made it grow more.
It was so simple. It was so stupidly simple that I felt like I could have put it together faster by hitting myself over the head with a frying pan.
Was that idea backwards? If life mana was what made more mana, and plants made more mana, then Humans, and humanoids by the sound of it, then is it more likely that people are just¡ Less effective at making mana because it changes so much? Or is it something like how we move, and plants don¡¯t? god-osh darn it. I wish I had an answer to that, its going to keep me away all darn night.
Keeping me up all night was right. The feeling of the idea going off in my head hit me like ten cups of kindly¡¯s tea. It perked me right the hell up, and I was suddenly incredibly aware that I had been slipping into the quiet embrace of lethargy, and it was only helped along by my slip-up at almost reaching out to the gods.
I felt the sudden need to pace like I was a kid again, and I couldn¡¯t sit still. I no longer needed sleep, I needed answers, and they were answers that I couldn¡¯t get because no one knew a whole lot about Life mana.
Anna certainly didn¡¯t, I didn¡¯t know all that much about it either.
I got up and paced around for a bit. Walking in an ellipse in anna¡¯s study, as quietly as I could. By the time I had walked off a bit of the energy, enough that there was no twinging in my muscles, it had been long enough the candle had burned down significantly. The long intermission had served to give it a small distance from the need to know, letting my mind go wild over the fact that it was life mana instead of some trick of our bodies. I had tread over the idea a few hundred times, over its nooks and crevices. I had tread over the idea for so long that I had practically worn a hole in Anna¡¯s floor.
Ideas like, does life exist to make more mana, and does mana kill people by draining the life from them aside, the distance let me get my metaphorical fingers back on the reigns of my own mind. Let me bring myself back and away from a possibly terrifying truth.
If I wanted to have a panic, a proper existential panic, I would have to do it on my own time.
I mean, this was my own time, but I was in the middle of something important.
Something far more important than something silly, like a possibly horrifying reason for life to exist.
I would just need to keep it in the back of my head and forget about it. That was easy enough; just forget about it, and it couldn¡¯t hurt me. It certainly wasn¡¯t going to fester in the back of my mind, swelling in the dark like an infection, slowly but surely metastasizing until the disease it caused started to leak through. It wouldn¡¯t grow in the dark recesses of my mind like a mushroom until it made me buckle at the worst possible time.
Certainly not.
I stopped pacing and sat back down at Anna¡¯s desk, flipping through the book, past the natural mana and the celestial and arcane mana types, right to Occult magic.
Occult magic.
Occult magics were not a simple task to categorize, apparently. The book and its ever-energetic author were somewhat lost on how to best represent them. He had never used any of the occult magics, but he knew a few people who had.
He had apparently reached out and done interviews with them, talking about things like life and death magic, soul magic, and dark magics like necromancy, and each had been cryptic, all on their own merit. Apparently, the type of person that ignored the idea of the taboo and approached them as normal were often quite cryptic, outcast, and sometimes just straight-up scary. Each and every one of them gave lacklustre answers to questions that I wanted to know.
Magealin wrote a quick note that caught my eye, and I read it in a not quite fuge state. Tense and anxious, like I was reading something that would get me in trouble.
It should be noted that while Occult magic and Occultism seem like they would be one and the same, that is not the case. Nor is it the case that a Cultist and Occultist are the same thing, though they often share something similar. A Cultist is a member of a cult, surprise, surprise, which means that they come in groups, often of a religious or pseudo-religious persuasion. Some cultists are no threat, not the evil cultists you would think about, but things like the secretive topmost ranks of a church, like the Cult of Life. Others worship beings like Demons or Angels. Some worse things. They gain power through the connection between themselves and the being, like a cleric or warlock does, though they''re not mages and don''t have the same freedom to work magic.
The difference between the two is simple. Cults often keep hidden secrets, Occultists seek hidden secrets.
As a Magician, my class was once the work of several generations of Occultists, each dutifully working to figure out neich ways that magic works, unearthing secrets that eventually lead to the rediscovery of the Magician class.
One part magical researcher, one part explorer, one part secret keeper, and just a pinch of magic with no oversight from a being like a cultist.
So don¡¯t go burning them at the steak, ok? You never know if they¡¯re going to be the ones to discover or rediscover something very important.
The book had more on cultists, and I supposed Occultists, than it did on the secrets of life and death magic.
When I got to that section, I found that life magic is predominantly performed by Life clerics, and according to Magealin. They were incredibly cryptic, apparently almost as much as a genuine necromancer. They kept their cards close to the chest, not giving Magealin anything but the basics. Life mana is not like other kinds of mana. Life Mana didn¡¯t change it¡¯s type, except to Death Mana, and was generated by living things.
Apparently, Healing was quite a hard task, and it took a majority of the section. With just life mana, it could be quite hard to heal with because an excess of life mana, in the words of the book, caused problems.
Excess life mana, Magealin wrote, causes rapid growth of the tissue of living beings, but an extended amount of life mana used like this has the capability to cause abnormal tumorous growths that can kill the person being healed. The less experienced the mage, or more likely cleric, the more likely they are to cause these tumours, which do not go away and often cause issues after treatment.
Instead, healing is often performed by mixing life mana with other mana types, such as Hearth for normal healing, or paired with Growth for guided regeneration of tissues without tumours. Pairing life mana with other mana types is quite hard, which is why it¡¯s often done using holy magic instead of the hard way by a normal mage.
It should also be noted that life mana, through processes that have been kept hidden, is able to bring a recently deceased person back from the dead, though the cleric in question refused to elaborate.
The bastard.
I skipped death for now. Instead, I got up and walked over to an empty spot on the floor and lay down on it, the bare wood of the floor a firm presence at my back. I breathed in, calming, and let out a groan to myself because I now had more questions and no answers.
I had to actively hold myself back from my horrible need to screech, a noise that would, no doubt, wake up Anna and Selly.
I rubbed my closed eyes with the palms of my hands as I forced myself not to pound my head in frustration into the floorboards.
It was getting on into the night, but I didn¡¯t stop lying on the floor for what felt like a few bergillion years, which was how long it took to get my mind under control.
At least I had gotten some work in. I had gotten some answers, even if they weren¡¯t what I wanted, and I had gotten a whole lot more questions. I got back up, and instead of getting back to reading. I packed it up for the night.
I went around and snuffed out the candles, suffocating them with [Cantrip], which was easier than lighting them. All I had to do was pull air mana away from the fire, and it snuffed out. I made my way out of the room, closing the door lightly and tossed some more wood into the hearth before I tiptoed my way to bed.
Anna was sprawled out like she was possessed by the infamous snuggle demon, and the demon demanded blankets. All the sheets on the bed were baled up in front of her or pulled around her like a nest.
I disentangled the sheets, setting them on the bed again, but only after a short tug-of-war with Anna.
I slipped into bed, tucking Anna up into me, positioning myself around her how she liked, curled around her like she was sitting on my lap. I tucked us in and wrapped one arm around Anna¡¯s belly and another under her in an attempt to keep her in one position.
I closed my eyes¡
And like a blink, I woke up to bird song and Anna trying to get me to let go of her.
Chapter 59 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 31
The birds were singing. There was early morning light. And Anna was insistently trying to get me to let go of her.
I was confused, the dreamless sleep, the sudden wakefulness, the sudden transition from lying down to sleep to opening my eyes, leaving my mind to tumble.
¡°Saphine,¡± Anna called to me, her hand tapping the hand that held her belly.
She sounded not frightened or scared but more entertained. She was almost giggly like she was stifling a laugh.
My ears flicked, kicked of my a slight itching across my head. I mumbled something stupid like, ¡°mhum?¡± As my brain slowly started turning on because, despite the feeling that I had not slept, that I had blinked through time, I certainly had slept.
¡°Ah, finally awake. Saphine, I don¡¯t know how to tell you this, but I intended to get out of bed today.¡±
I responded with all the grace my head meat was able to, ¡°Wha. Whu hahen hue?¡± I asked.
I could feel Anna laugh as well as I could hear it as her body convulsed to make the tittering sound.
¡°Sa- ha. Saphine, you¡¯re stopping me. I know I said I wouldn¡¯t mind getting woken up with kisses, but you¡¯re holding my shoulder.¡±
I¡¯m not holding her shoulder. I only have an arm over her¡
My mind, a bit slow didn¡¯t get it.
I yawned, my mouth stretching wide, or wider to the point where my jaw felt clicky. My tongue extended, feeling the woven fabric of her dress.
I blinked my eyes and focused as the yawn passed and my mouth returned to pressing down lightly on Anna¡¯s shoulder.
I froze, my eyes dilating as I looked towards Anna, her head turned to face me, starting almost smugly at me. She looked strangely satisfied.
I vary slowly, very carefully, opened my mouth wide, and pulled it away from her shoulder, my eyes never breaking from hers.
Anna¡¯s face was slowly but surely loosing her composure. She looked like she wanted to start laughing uncontrollably, the way she was pressing her lips together and the crinkle at the corner of her eyes. But she didn¡¯t, which at least saved me the horrible fate of embarrassment.
¡°Sorry,¡± I said unsurely, ¡°I don¡¯t know why I was doing that.¡±
¡°No need to be embarrassed. It might not have been kisses, but it was certainly something. I suppose you could say I match your sense of taste?¡±
It took me about three seconds to run that line through my head, first feeling even more embarrassed, then it lessened, then it took a totally different direction, and I groaned as the pun soaked in.
Anna¡¯s face never wavered, it actually got sharper. Vulpine and predatory.
It was strangely hot, but if I knew Anna at all, indulging her would just lead to an unending tide of puns and jokes. It would be a stretch to say that I wanted that, but at the same time¡ it made her look happy. And if I could trade a little painless misery for taking Anna''s puns, I would because her being happy made me happy.
So I groaned and watched her face, so full of joy at my minor suffering.
But just because I wouldn¡¯t try and get her to stop didn¡¯t mean I was just going to ignore the convenient weak point.
I leaned on my skill [True Strike], and as I did, the world around us fell away, the more I focused on her, the more it fell away, and as it did, more about her was revealed. To be more precise, the more about her weak points.
Her neck was an easy go, the back of her neck was wide open, but I could get around the side. I could go for the obvious weak point of her mouth, but I think she was expecting that. I had a sense that it was a weak point that had been left intentionally weak. A trap.
I couldn¡¯t fall for it, I would be giving her exactly what she wanted.
Well, I would be giving her what she probably wanted anyway, but I was going to do it on my terms. If I couldn¡¯t surprise her, then what was the point?
There was the feeling of behind her knee, the weak point from yesterday, but that was a bit of an awkward place to kiss. It kind of sent a different message.
I couldn¡¯t sense many proper weak points on her, surprisingly, or at least no weak points that I would use for kissing.
[True Strike] didn¡¯t care about the context, so the weak points the skill suggested I capitalize on were more for combat than kissing, I wasn¡¯t exactly going to go for her eyes, for example, which my skill informed me, were incredibly vulnerable.
Could I get off a surprise?
Not with kisses, I couldn¡¯t. She was expecting it. A sneak attack would play right into her hand. I needed to flip the script.
I slipped my hand around to behind her knee, to her weak point.
¡°What are you-¡± she started saying, face changing before she let out a squeak.
I pulled away, letting her wiggle and fall on her back, before sliding in on top of her, letting my head rest on her chest like a pillow.
¡°I¡¯m still sleepy, what can you bribe me with to release you?¡± I asked her, turning my head to meet her eyes.
She was blushing like mad, and that brought a grin to my face, and I had the teeth to pull off the rest of the foxy look that she had given me. She could have blushed and been serious and just asked, but instead of giving up on the bit, she gulped and gave it a think.
I, for my part, sat back, so to speak. Anna, while thinking, reached out and ruffled my head, my ears flattening out with her hand between them, my eyes narrowed instinctively, and I let out an accidental hum of pleasure.
A part of me wanted to give a grin, but it was time to be serious. Incredibly serious in the most serious of ways, and not at all a false seriousness.
Would I do that to be playful? Me? I was a saint.
The intrusive pun aside, I let her think, for all the lack of beard, she looked like a [Sage]. Then She looked me dead in the eye, a sudden resolve in her eyes.
¡°I levelled again,¡± she said carefully, ¡°I have a cool new skill that I can show you.¡±
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She was coy about it, like she was holding back a smile, a smug aura radiated around her.
¡°This mollifies me, remove your hand from my head when you wish to leave this bed,¡± I told her, doing my best not to sigh at the feeling of her literally scratching an itch while keeping up the bit.
¡°Well, if you want me to¡¡± she told me, lifting her hand from my head.
It was a bit depressing to say, but I did enjoy it. Letting it go on, however, was not in the cards, it was time to start the day. I lifted myself up and awkwardly rolled off of her and the bed. I didn¡¯t land perfectly, but it was solid enough I managed to stay on my feet at the very least.
I offered my hand to Anna as I steadied my feet, ¡°May I?¡±
Anna was looking at her hand and, instead of taking my hand, and asked, ¡°Are you shedding?¡±
I blinked but looked at her hand, which had red bits of hair clinking to it. Only a bit, but it made sense.
My scalp was tingly.
It was time for my summer coat, so to speak.
¡°I guess it¡¯s summer? Or my body thinks it¡¯s summer. It¡¯s just letting the small hairs go. It will be a bit messy, I¡¯ll have to brush it out,¡± I told her awkwardly, ruffling the back of my head and, in the process, knocking a few hairs loose.
¡°It''s no issue,¡± Anna told me nonchalantly, ¡°I just wanted to make sure you weren¡¯t sick or something. I¡¯ll brush your hair if you¡¯ll brush mine?¡± She offered.
I smiled and gave a quick nod, ¡°Sure. I¡¯d like that a lot. So are you going to take my hand? Or should I scoop you up?¡±
Her blush turned into more of a general flush, not flustered, but more of a healthy glow.
¡°I do have legs, even if they wibbly,¡± she said, swinging herself carefully out of bed and standing with a minor wobble before finding her feet.
Anna moved to change her clothes, so I made my way out to give her privacy and got into my now-repaired dress before making my way up the ladder to check on Selly. I gave the tunic a look. It was rough and looked uncomfortable, even if I couldn¡¯t bring myself to get rid of it.
She was still tucked in, still resting, and I let her get it. It would be one thing if she was having a nightmare, where waking her up might help her, but a dream might help her. There was something about dreams that helped you unwind a little. It helped relieve some of the tension of it.
I checked her, tucked in the sheet, a set of hands holding the lip, while another was left uncovered and lay next to her sword. She looked peaceful, in a way, like a finely made porcelain doll. The mouth she spoke from was closed, with her bigger mouth slightly a jar.
She seemed at peace now, for all that, there was something that spoke of a lack of peace in the way she slept. Something about how she looked like she was ready to pull herself out and to arms, maybe. so I left her after making sure the windows were shut. Letting a bird in would do the opposite of giving her a place where she felt safe. I imagined waking up from a griffin breaking into our room, and it got me shivering.
I got back down the ladder and out into the main chamber in time for Anna to open her door.
She had a brush in hand, held like she was holding a knife, ready to roll into battle. I blinked down at the brush and back up at her. Her face was resolute, impassive. A warden ready to tell you your sentence was the gallows.
¡°Come, your time has come,¡± in a perfectly serious face.
Her tone bit into the melancholy of Selly, though I didn¡¯t laugh, it at least made me smile a bit.
She pouted as I made my way in, sitting down on the edge of the bed, and Anna pulled herself on behind me.
I was taller than her, so she guided me back a bit, and I lay on her, but that was just too awkward. I puzzled it out for a few moments and then moved to lie down, using her lap like a pillow but facing away from her so she could get at my hair.
¡°It¡¯s quite long now. There is a lot of hair here. You haven¡¯t gotten it cut since you got here,¡± she told me quietly.
She was right, I wasn¡¯t. I hadn¡¯t gotten it cut since my mom died, and it was wilder and longer than I was used to before I met her, all the more for the extra months I had spent with Anna on top of that.
¡°Neither have you,¡± I pointed out.
She started brushing my hair, the bristles tingling my scalp as they caught and pulled the loose little hairs that gave me my hair its thickness and poof. They would fall out on their own, like anyone else¡¯s hair. I just had more, and they came loose, depending on the season.
Winter sheds were the worst, by far, for clutter. It wasn¡¯t even close. It got thick, and it got thick everywhere I had hair. On a plus, it kept me warm, even with lighter clothes, trapping heat where you lost it easily.
But it had to come out, it was warm now, summer skys only a week away, for all that, it had been low on rain, with any hope the rain would come with the heat from the lake.
¡°No, I suppose I haven¡¯t. Gosh, but it¡¯s felt like a blur since you got here. I seem to have lost track of time. I should cut it. Don¡¯t get me wrong, I like having long hair, but it¡¯s a bit long, even by my standards. Would you like me to cut your hair? Or would you rather leave it long?¡±
It felt good to lose the hair, Anna dragged it through a few times before pulling the hair from the bristles and continuing. The itching eased as the bristles scratched, the hair came out, and it almost dragged my mind away from answering her.
I had been neglecting my grooming, and Anna ran into a tangle.
¡°I don¡¯t know. Does it- Ah, ah, ah,¡± she got it out with a little wiggle, giving me a sigh of relief, ¡°Does it look good long? I¡¯ve never really thought about it as much more than hair, not so much how it makes me look and more does it get in the way?¡±
Anna hummed, moving closer to the back of my head, and I learned to let her get closer, turning my head and leaning in when she scratched persistent itchy bits.
¡°Hmm. I don¡¯t know what it would look like longer, does it just grow longer, or does it also grow out? Your hair kind of grows down your neck. It¡¯s not quite the same, but it¡¯s kind of like how men get if they don¡¯t get it shaved, just way more. I don¡¯t know enough to guess how it would look if you just let it grow,¡± she said.
My face was practically pressed into her tights to let her get to the back, but I managed.
¡°It grows both ways, out and down. It doesn¡¯t grow forever, I don¡¯t think, It only grows so far, about¡ here, at least in winter, it¡¯s about as wide as it¡¯s going to get.¡± I told her, bending my arm behind my head and tracing the line where baby hairs left a barely noticeable pattern down the ruff of my neck, around and up to a shoulder, and then around to meet the hair at the edge of my face.
¡°It¡¯s more of a mane than a human, you guys get to just have hair on the top of your head.¡±
¡°Mhmm,¡± she replied thoughtfully, ¡°turn towards me so I can get the other side, ok?¡±
I did as she removed the brush, plucking the hair out of the brush and making a tiny pile. It wasn¡¯t all that much, truth be told, but it was a spring coat¡ Or I supposed a fall coat, though they were about the same.
I faced her and let her work on my hair as she thought.
¡°I suppose I should ask if it¡¯s hot in summer because, if I¡¯m being honest, I could see it looking good either way. You could go long but cut it back up from your neck, closer to your ears than your shoulders. Or long down your neck but short. Or, honestly, any combination of the two, or just let it be. With a bit of styling, it could look great any way you cut it, but I imagine that would be rather warm in the Summer, especially with all the humidity.¡±
It could be very warm in summer, but the worst of it was the humidity, which would make a rat¡¯s nest of my hair.
¡°Shorter than, or higher up my neck, or both. But you didn¡¯t answer me. How short should I cut it, do you think? I don¡¯t really know how good or bad it would look, you know?¡±
¡°So you don¡¯t want my opinion so much as you want to know how I would think about it?¡± she asked coyly.
¡°Yes? Yes. You are the only person whose opinion of how I look matters, I guess. It¡¯s not like I care about the length of my hair all that much, as long as it¡¯s not, like, gone, and I don¡¯t exactly stare at myself, you know?¡±
She tittered, slowing her brushing for a moment as her hand trembled.
¡°You bald is something that would freak me out just as much, I think. I have no idea what that would look like with your ears.¡±
She stopped and hummed and seemed to think before trailing a hand down to a point just about an inch or so above my shoulders.
¡°About there if you want to cut your hair short, I think. Much less, and your hair is bound to look more man than mane. And that¡¯s all I¡¯m going to say on the matter. I don¡¯t know how to shave, and trying the first time on your hair is bound to result in me cutting you and messing up, unfortunately, so your best bet is a barber of some kind.¡±
I did my best to remember the length as she finished brushing my hair.
It was a literal weight off my shoulders as I raised my head.
I was almost overtaken by the urge to whip my head back and forth, but I didn¡¯t want to do that. Instead, I got my hands moving and gathered up my hair, tossed it out the window, and got to brushing Anna¡¯s hair.
There was a lot of it, and it took almost as long as mine did, but I did it skillfully, literally using my skills like I would with any other tool. There was a difference between before my levels and after, the extra proficiency giving me a greater ability to brush out her smooth sheet of hair.
I tried to get under her flower crown, but Anna tutted and didn¡¯t remove it. It had to be magic, the way it stayed still as her hair moved under it. I was willing to bet a life that I could turn her upside down and shake, and it would stay on.
I finished, clearing the bristles of the long hairs and said, ¡°There we go, all cleaned up. No more bedhead.¡±
¡°Good, then we can start our day.¡±
Chapter 60 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 32
We sat down at the table, the morning mist still present with a look out the window. We were just about finishing cooking breakfast, and I had retrieved Selly from her bed sandwich. The three of us were at, or on the table, and I went around pouring a thing of tea for each of us.
Selly had to forgo a cup, but I gave her an extra spoon so she could skim some tea like a massive ladle. I suppose if she was going to stay with us, we could buy her a thimble when that was sorted. But right now, she looked like she was still asleep.
Two of her hands were all droopy, but she somehow still managed to yawn and start filling her mouth with a half portion with the speed and voracity that was still unholy.
Averting my eyes from the demonic sprite massacring the meal, my mind turned to the outside and the mist. It was important not only because, at some point, I would need to get rid of it but also because I was going to head out with Anna in a few days, and I would need to somehow stop myself from getting dragged off into the morning fog on our trip. I had to wonder if the summer sun would wipe it away earlier and earlier every day or if it would linger, held in the air by whatever dark power fueled it.
My mind stopped, the wheels spinning in the air for a moment as it changed its direction. My mind is following a path I didn¡¯t think of before.
Was there something to that?
It couldn¡¯t come into the grove, but assuming it could, assuming the grove didn¡¯t repel it, could it come in?
If it used stagnant dark magic, maybe it wasn¡¯t fog at all, it might be, but it probably wasn¡¯t water mana, it was probably some kind of dark magic. Right? Undead and dark magic was shaping up to be the valley¡¯s greatest problem.
If it was something magical, then the fog probably couldn¡¯t get into the grove even if it wanted to because the ridiculously high concentration of energetic mana in here would shred it like a lumber mill. And if it was vulnerable to that, it might be an indicator that the light mana from the sun was the primary cause of its retreating, not the sun burning off the fog, but the mana weakening it, driving it away into whatever dark place it hid during the day, or it stood around until the spell broke down and ¡®retreated.¡¯
It might just be a spell of some sort, some kind of automatic ongoing magical torment shtick.
¡°Anna,¡± I started asking her while I finished sucking down the last bit of food in my mouth, ¡°is light mana good at disrupting dark magic?¡±
Anna, unable to read my mind and currently sipping on her tea, her eyes half closed in a kind of tired [Sage] look, didn¡¯t even turn to face me when she answered.
¡°Light opposes and overpowers dark, so yes, it does. It is kind of in the name,¡± she told me tiredly and a little grumpy.
She was focused on the tea, sipping it down little by little.
¡°I mean like, necromancy dark magic, not like moon magic, dark magic. I wish there was a way to say that like a skill, it would be so much easier.¡±
Turning to Anna, she had the look of someone who wanted to facepalm.
¡°I hate the stupid wording.¡± She said sourly, ¡°It is just¡ eugh. Every time I think about Tenebre, or Tenebra, or whatever. It''s too serious, and it makes it sound important, and the butchered imperial wording is just¡ eugh.¡±
I didn¡¯t get what she meant by butchered imperial, but I could understand the sentiment.
¡°It does sound kind of dumb,¡± I told her sympathetically, ¡°We can always call dark magic like moon magic and dark magic, dark magic.¡±
She groaned a little.
¡°I mean¡ Yes, we can, it makes sense, but I also just hate it. The word for it is butchered from another language, and the real translation was just darkness. I could see it being some teenage angst thing, and it makes me want to die of secondhand embarrassment just thinking about it.¡±
I looked at her in incomprehension, then as her look of minor embarrassment started to turn to something else, I picked up on what had been left unsaid.
I didn¡¯t tease her about it, I just smiled.
And her look of embarrassment turned into something more awkward.
My smile turned predatory, and she got flustered, but before she could stammer something, I booped her nose.
As cute as Anna was, I was having a brain thing going on, and if I changed what I was focused on, I was going to forget it. So, in an effort to stay on topic, I decided not to tease her about whatever she did as a teenager to make herself so embarrassed and bring her back around to the question at hand.
¡°Anna, no getting caught up on that right now. Ok? We can go over our teenage angst later and revel in each other''s mutual agony. Do you know if light mana messes up dark magic? Because I¡¯ve been thinking about the fog and wondering why it retreats after the sun rises, and all I can think over is because it might be the light ripping up the stagnant dark magic with how energetic it is.¡±
Anna caught off guard and no doubt expecting me to mess with her, took a few moments blinking tiredly before her eyes opened as the idea filtered into her head. Then, as it got in, I watched her face as she used her brilliant mind to pull it apart and use what she knew to puzzle it out.
Her face took on that faraway look as she took a sip of her tea, the idea bouncing around inside of her head like a chunk of rubber.
I paid attention, barely taking my eyes off of her to make sure I wasn¡¯t going to stab my fork into the side of my mouth accidentally.
It was mostly just ok. We had some spices now, just a few, but none of them went with egg all that well. It was basically salt because I wasn¡¯t about to commit a crime against cuisine and put something like mint on eggs.
Some things were unforgivable.
Focus, damn it¡ No thinking about mint eggs, focus on Anna, and not just how cute her face is when she thinks.
It did make her look cute, cute and hot.
I didn¡¯t know what to feel about the way that made me feel or what it said about me that I found Anna''s maturity exciting, but I let her puzzle out something while I let myself feel weirdly fluttery about almost nothing. Maybe she was right, maybe I liked older women, or maybe it was just Anna, either way, it was strange to think about.
¡°I think so,¡± she said ponderously, which helpfully returned my mind from the gutter as her face returned to its normal cute demeanour. ¡°It stands to reason that if the undead body works like other undead, it would be animated by dark magic. If that is the case, it would stand to reason that enough energetic mana could disrupt it. I never thought about it that way¡ that¡¯s probably why magic is the go-to for ghosts in the first place; a sword has mana in it, but it¡¯s not highly energetic... I would never have thought about that. Good job, apprentice. Was there anything else you were thinking about?¡± she asked.
I nodded, fork still in my mouth. I seriously doubted that Anna could have put that together, but I accepted the praise and quickly swallowed the egg in my mouth before I answered, ¡°I was thinking it might be a spell, maybe something that¡¯s being triggered from somewhere like a trap or something. Any thoughts on that?¡±
The idea went into her head, the great gears of her mind churned, and she said much faster and much more certainly, ¡°No, I don¡¯t think it is. If it was a spell, it wouldn¡¯t be able to react on its own. It could have been released by a spell, and a spell for the fog that leads you astray could be workable, but it seems to possess a sentience that would indicate it is not a spell,¡± she said, getting a bit of egg and slapping it into her mouth.
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On the plus side, the tea was kicking in, and the questions were getting her head spinning up. But with that upside came the downside that for all that I had possibly puzzled out something that could be useful, it wasn¡¯t going to help me right now, and I couldn¡¯t see it helping me on our trip down south either.
I couldn¡¯t sense it from here, held at bay by the grove-like water pounding futilely against the seawall of a dock. So I decided to ask Anna one last thing.
¡°Anna, can you sense the fog out there? Is there any dark mojo going on? Bad Vibes? Magical shurecanery?¡± I asked her.
¡°Chicanery, Ch-cane-ery,¡± she helpfully corrected me, ¡°And¡¡±
She stuck a second forkful of food in her mouth and let the ideas bounce around her head a moment before she looked up at me dumbly. Fork in her mouth, her face a rictus of embarrassment.
¡°What is it? Is it bad out there?¡± I asked her, more than a bit confused at just what she was expressing.
She swallowed down her eggs quickly to reply, ¡°No¡ No, I just realized that I was an idiot. I¡¯ve never properly checked the fog because I¡¯m an idiot. Hold on, just let me check the fog properly...¡±
I stared at her. Selly, sleepy and not particularly interested in the conversation at hand, stared at her.
We both stared at Anna. She was my friend, my mentor in magic, and the woman I was courting. A brilliant woman, a beautiful woman, and a woman that I believed the best in.
And she was apparently quite the silly dumbass.
I sighed while she stared around, mouth closed with her tongue in her cheek, staring at sights I both had and hadn¡¯t seen yet.
I imagined the grove and all its splendour, the grass running out to the edge of the dome before being replaced with a wall of fog, water mana held in the air jostled by the phantom wind of magic in the cooler morning air, pockets of dark magic swirling like noxious fumes through it, giving the fog a direction. Dark spindles of vile magical taint crawled through the air, feeding on stagnancy and sowing taint as it did.
For all that, I couldn¡¯t feel far enough, not nearly enough to properly sense any dark thing outside beyond the grove through the walls, I could tell by the way that Anna moved her head that she could see something that was not material but magical.
¡°It¡¯s spread out like a cloud, but there is a blob where I suppose it is. I think it¡¯s¡ tethered. I don¡¯t know how to say this, but there¡¯s, like, a band of dark magic back to somewhere¡ northeast of here¡ I think it''s bound somehow,¡± she said ponderously, relaying her words as she found them.
¡°Like a dog on a leash? I¡¯m not sure if that¡¯s better or worse than if it could move. If it could move, that means it was free to do what it wants, wherever it wants to, but it being tied somewhere probably means it¡¯s a¡ what the word?¡± I asked her, trying to figure out the word for when something had a place like Annas but nefarious.
¡°A lair?¡± She asked.
¡°Yes, a lair. That sounds like the right word. Just like the other monster, only if it''s bound there, it''s not going to be half-cooked,¡± I told her, thinking it over.
What was over that way during my time? There was a waterway that way, it was where I went to get the stuff for Anna. It couldn¡¯t be Moarn itself, there was little in the way of stagnancy, the plants grew too well, and there was no icky feeling. I didn¡¯t see the ground that way properly, but there was a swath of different trees¡ What? about halfway between here and the heath? With the water, it could be a peat bog or something that might do it.
South and downhill, but not straight to the river¡
It clicked into my head as a kind of intrusive memory filtered through my head, daintily landing on my head. It was a proverb of sorts, one anyone old enough not to remember sewers would say right after grumbling about how good we had it.
Water rolled downhill, but so did shit. And the sewers didn¡¯t empty into the river, it was a protected water source. The answer that city planning had come up with was simple: let it drain south into a refuse store that was somehow magicked to filter the detritus out and let the clean water run free.
The magically separated gunk was a common fertilizer. I had been near it enough to remember the oddly scentless carts of disgusting gunk moving around on roads.
¡°I think,¡± I said, grimacing at the idea of wandering through a refuse pit, fighting an intangible undead and its minions. ¡°I know where the lair might be. And I don¡¯t think it would be advisable right now to fight it.¡±
She looked at me, and I turned to catch it. Her question went unsaid, but her look told me she expected an answer. I just shook my head and said, ¡°Sewage,¡± and that got my point across well enough, Anna grimaced at it.
We stopped eating for a moment. Selly, bless her, didn¡¯t care, either not understanding the conversation or not caring.
We fidgeted with our food, mostly eaten but not finished and didn¡¯t take a bite.
Anna started talking first.
¡°I think you¡¯re partially correct. About the spell part, that is. I can feel the magic in the tether coming towards us, I think the undead is being¡ animated, for a lack of better phrasing, using a spell of some kind. It''s also¡ wrong?¡± she told me as she grimaced and squinted through a wall.
I looked questioningly at her, but she was focused on the wall, so I spoke up and said, ¡°What do you mean by wrong?¡±
Anna turned to look at me, and I could see her refocus on the here and now, her eyes momentarily dilated wide as she had just come out of a dark room.
¡°Sorry, let me rephrase, it''s sloppy, the binding, the way everything moves¡ it''s like how you cast a spell inefficiently and then get better as you pay attention to it. It¡¯s just even more inefficient. It''s like someone brute forcing an effect. All power, no fitness. I don¡¯t think there¡¯s anyone casting it, so it has to be some kind of ongoing spell.¡± She told me, gesturing with her hands and making a kind of odd expression.
¡°I don¡¯t know what principals it works on, whatever necromantic mumbo jumbo it uses, but I think that¡¯s helpful,¡± she continued, pointing at me, ¡°If it''s anything like working magic, normally, it has a limited range because the further it gets, the sloppier and weaker the spell will get because there isn¡¯t a person to adjust it. It also means that if we can get in and end the spell, the undead will starve before falling apart.¡±
I took in her words, processed them and slotted them into a kind of barely fabricated plan. Pieces of information snapped together with the help of what little I knew and gut feeling. I was thinking of how I would measure up to it when the word we entered my mind, and my head stuttered to a stop.
It said something about Anna that she seemed to take to us more than I did and that she had been thinking about it that way the entire time.
And it definitely said something about me that I hadn¡¯t thought about it that way.
It scared me in a very real and visceral way. Not only because she could get hurt or because I somehow had the delusion that I was stronger than Anna beyond maybe how hard I could physically hit someone. It wasn¡¯t because she was dainty, and I wanted to protect her, or even that it would carve me up if she died because I couldn¡¯t trade myself.
It scared me because I knew deep down that I would have to break my promise and get hurt. It hurt because that would hurt her, and I was ok with hurting her feelings like that to make sure she didn¡¯t die.
I had been following my moral compass so far, and I had felt the need not to harm others, not to kill people, and beyond that, I felt the need to not let people die. If I could take their place and get back up, not doing so would weigh on me because I would have killed them through inaction.
And that had been before I had killed. Now, I had a horrible dread at the idea that I had felt nothing when they had died, not because I wanted to feel bad about killing Gremlins, but because I had the creeping nightmare of a feeling that I wouldn¡¯t care if people died either.
And that, more than the idea of killing a person beyond self-defence, more than the phantom of guilt I felt at the idea of letting people callously die when I could help them, made me feel the horrible gnawing pain of fear more like a thousand knives in my gut than queasiness.
I tried not to let the word ¡®we¡¯ conjure images of Anna dying, her broken body laying on the ground, and me feeling nothing at it, like it was just Anna-shaped meat, only feeling the absence of her after the fact.
I did my best to choke down the feel, to kill it, but it was already an intangible ghost that would haunt me. I had cried when Skip and Kindly had left, but was that because they were already dead? Was my lack of care because some part of me was callous, and I just felt nothing because the right people had died?
I answered her after that horrible, halting moment. My voice sounded too hollow to my ear, ¡°Will the opposite be true? Will it get stronger the closer we get?¡± I could see a hint of confusion in Anna''s face at the sound of my voice, her face flickering, twitching quickly through several emotions.
She knew I had thought about something, I could feel how tight my face felt, my unsuccessful attempt to hide my emotions registering to Anna as who knows what.
She reached out, placed a hand on my shoulder, and did something that both reassured me and drove the fear further down into my gut.
¡°I seem to have gotten ahead of myself. That would indeed be the case. I suppose it would be rather hard to fight an undead that can attack from any direction, requires magic to fight, and can mind control you. That is a lot for both of us. We can think about that after we get back from the trip down south, ok?¡± she told me, pulling me towards her for a hug.
I leaned in, wrapping my arm back around her in return, and soaked in the comfort of being next to the person I had come to care about the most. I let her warmth pull me back to the moment and out of the whirling nightmare of my own mind.
The morning had been a bit bleak but warm, Anna putting forth the effort to get closer to me twice, and the intimacy wasn¡¯t lost on me.
It took a minute, but I eventually got back to the point where when I spoke I didn¡¯t sound like I was currently choking.
¡°I suppose I should get back to studying to answer your questions? And you still need to show me something cool,¡± I told her, lightly probing.
It still rang hollow, but I supposed it was just going to be one of those days. Maybe reading about mana and getting even more questions for every answer I found, and my accompanying pique would be able to drag me out of my funk.
I leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
¡°Thanks. I needed that¡ Want to read with me while we wait for the fog to pass?¡± I asked her.
She turned to stare at me while I could hear Selly make a nearly silent gaging noise.
¡°I would like that a lot. Just give me a bit; you¡¯re very comfortable, and it would be a shame to leave breakfast uneaten, it¡¯s the most important meal of the day, after all.¡±
So we finished our breakfast and moved over to reading in the study. And I hoped, silently, that today would be a good day despite the on-and-off start.
Chapter 61 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 33
We spent some time just sitting around, holding onto one another while we read in Anna¡¯s study. Selly stayed in the kitchen, claiming that we were being ¡®gross,¡¯ and, ¡®icky,¡¯ but I was almost sure that it was more that she wasn¡¯t finished eating, and could use some time alone.
So we sat around and read our books, Anna¡¯s book on some kind of guidebook to governance, and me the book on mana types. I was getting a bit confused as to why beast magic was so wacky, but Anna told me to go back and read the pretext on the natural mana types.
Plant and Beast mana was odd compared to the elements that had come before it. It was looser, more nebulous. Magelin blamed this on the immediate change in the number of component mana types. Fire, for instance, had two, and earth had components that became components. Air mana was the closest, but it had only a dozen or so at its most complex.
Plants had more components than every element together, and beasts had more. Magelin knew they didn¡¯t know all of them but suggested that they had at least 20% of them for sure.
The complexity made them more nebulous because there were so many more things they could do individually.
A mana type, he wrote, is still all of its component mana types, just all at once. Elements as I¡¯m sure you have noticed, dear readers, have plenty of ways they can be used outside of ¡®kill that guy over there,¡¯ and that is even more the case for the natural elements. Each of them has broad application, each has more utility, far from a big city, each has so many uses that it is easy to see why they are called ¡®natural,¡¯ even if they have just as much a place in a city as outside of one.
¡°That¡ Makes a lot more sense,¡± I said to myself.
The fire had quite a few different properties, but plants were so much wider and less focused because they had a much more broad base.
¡°Did the part you were supposed to read make the part you read make sense?¡± She said, a tone of a little disappointment in her voice.
¡°Yes. I didn¡¯t read it properly last night, I got caught up on something else. I think I had a what¡¯s it called¡ Insight? A sudden understanding about plants last night.¡±
Anna turned her head to look over at me while she sat in my lap, a look of intrigue on her face.
¡°You were too busy having an epiphany to do proper research?¡±
¡°Mhm, Mhm.¡± I told her, nodding with a growing smile. ¡°Life mana, it grows so fast because of Life mana, not because it¡¯s moving around and changing inside us. A tree grows and grows forever; there¡¯s no way it can do that, and make sure the mana inside it doesn¡¯t become stagnant unless life and death mana are involved. And life mana makes all the mana around it more energetic. The movement thing is probably still involved, but the life mana multiplies it.¡±
I saw the idea shunt into her head, just like earlier, taking it in and digesting it.
¡°That¡¡± she said, ¡°Is a rather sensible leap. Gods, maybe I should re-read that book if it¡¯s giving you information like that.¡±
I shook my head, ¡°I figured it out on my own, the part that kicked it off was the part that mentioned plants making more mana than us. I used a little the other day when I got hurt, charged up some plants, so they were full of it, and packed my wounds with it.¡±
Her look became a little pointed like I had just admitted to stealing her cookies, but it took me a moment to realize why.
¡°It might have been a bit of a long time since I read that book, but I specifically remember that there were downsides to stuffing yourself with life mana. It¡¯s not good for you. Do not do that. Avoid doing it haphazardly in the future,¡± she told me in the same serious manner someone would reserve for discussion on treason.
¡°I read the part where you can get long-lasting damage. I don¡¯t intend to do it like that. If I can, I would greatly prefer not having to do that ever. I only did it because¡ well, you saw how much blood I had on me¡¡± I told her, meeting her eyes.
She moved one hand around to wag her finger at me, only backwards, the motion a waggle up instead of down.
¡°Damn straight,¡± she scolded, serious and chiding, ¡°No apprentice of mine will experiment with destructive and possibly lethal magic inefficiently and without training. If you want to learn how to use life magic, I will do my part and learn it so I can help.¡±
She said the entirety of that very seriously, with a very serious face. My instinct told me, however, that seriousness was only on her mind at the beginning, so I put myself in her shoes for a moment.
She had been both testing me and hoping that I would take her up on the offer so we could share something, just the two of us. Life magic was rare, it was occult, taboo. Having power over life or death was the type of thing that had a social weight to it. A [Priest] in service to the god of Life was one thing, they were a servant to a god.
A mage futzing around with magic all on their own was another. Gods lent a whole lot of weight to a person¡¯s reputation. But Anna didn¡¯t care about that, she just wanted to spend some time with me and make sure I wasn¡¯t doing something that would get me hurt.
¡°I would love that,¡± I told her seriously in return, ¡°Once I figure my current stuff out, we can do a bit of that. There might be something that can help with that, but I won¡¯t make any promises on that.¡±
She stared at me like I was an open book. Reading me in a way that I couldn¡¯t pick up on. She picked me apart in a way that was very her. She still looked beautiful, beautiful and rather attractive with her seriousness, but I did my best not to let that show.
¡°Good,¡± she said, the tension of her face fading to normal, beauty softening to cute, her soft features shining through her minor but sharper features once again.
¡°Did I pass?¡± I asked, a small smile turning the corners of my lips up, a thin strip of heat in my cheeks that no doubt left me blushing.
Anna blushed a little in turn and leaned it slowly.
¡°I would say it was a bit below a pass. If you would like some extra credit, though, I wouldn¡¯t be against that.¡±
My grin turned up further at the corners, and I exposed a small slip of my teeth.
¡°As an eager student, I wouldn¡¯t mind a little extra credit,¡± I told her.
She closed her eyes, and we kissed, closing in on each other, hands holding books and each other. We spent a long time like that, just holding each other warm and close and kissing. We kissed so long and deep that strands of saliva twin between our mouths whenever we broke for air, only for us to fall into each other again.
The books got put down, and it got more intense for a while until the both of us were practically panting, our bodies flushed with things that I felt were better left for after marriage.
Anna looked like she desperately wanted to do something, and I didn¡¯t know if I had the force of mind to deny it. Because despite my urge to wait till marriage, she was a very attractive woman, and we were very close, and we kissed, and my heart was going so fast that I could hear it in my ear.
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My face felt hot, my body felt hot. Her body felt hot against me. My instincts were screeching in the back of my head like a kid having a temper tantrum, but I held myself back from doing the one thing that felt right.
Because I knew it wasn¡¯t right for me.
Anna sat there, too, staring into my eyes, but neither of us made a move for it. Anna respected my boundaries, and I was thankful for it. It wasn¡¯t that I didn¡¯t want to, and much more so that I was a little afraid of it. I didn¡¯t know if I could handle that, and Anna respected it.
And in a moment we shared that lasted forever, and in a second, she saw in my eyes that she knew I knew. She could have pushed, and I would have probably snapped like a fucking twig, but it meant a lot that she hadn¡¯t done it, despite what my senses told me about her wanting that.
I had let her set the pace a lot, and here I was in the same situation, and she had let me set the pace in turn. She knew I was uncomfortable going past this point and didn¡¯t. The fact that she was aware and didn¡¯t push me right now made me feel an immense amount of gratitude.
There was no need for a thank you, but I said, ¡°Thank you,¡± anyway.
She sighed, and a touch of the blush faded from her face while she caught her breath.
¡°You¡¯re welcome,¡± she said softly, ¡°I¡¯ll add your enthusiasm to the, ahem, final mark.¡±
There was a twinkle of embarrassment in her voice that made me want to tease her, but for once, I held back. And instead, I thought through my words, trying to tell her at least something.
¡°That¡¯s good to hear, I would hate to fall short of your expectations,¡± I told her, a smile spreading across my face, ¡°Especially because we dropped our books. Now we have to find our pages again.¡±
Her face still flustered, took on a heartened expression, then blinked, and opened her mouth, and turned back to look down at her book.
For my part, I reached down, wiggling my fingers and managed to grasp the book with an extension of a nail, carefully getting it up and into my hand while Anna reached for her book while also not breaking contact.
I brought it up and caught Anna casting a spell, a small quick one that kicked off mana down, and with a thump, the book back up, no words required.
Of all the things in the world to use magic on, it was still a surprise that Anna used it for simple tasks like picking up a book.
I will never understand what she sees in me besides me being another woman, I guess. I suppose I can pin my luck on women like us being few and far between if every other maiden was interested. Or maybe it¡¯s more that women like us have the means, security or a way to drive people off and not get married.
It is sad to see that the times have changed, just another turn of the wheel.
It felt disheartening that they had changed against people like us, but they had changed against so many others before already. It was just the way the world worked.
Once upon a time, clergy could marry between faiths, then they couldn¡¯t, then marriage found a way because he got his due, one way or another, even if it went tit for tat.
Once upon a time, Kobolds were free, and the Valley was ours, and then it wasn¡¯t, and then we died.
The wheel of life didn¡¯t care if it helped or harmed; it just spun, for good or ill; I knew that already. I just had to cross my fingers and hope it spun weal, instead of woe.
No¡ No, that¡¯s not right either. I¡¯m stuck thinking like old me.
I have a choice; I can make choices. I can affect what direction it turns, so long as I try. Leaving things to fate is being a beggar instead of a chooser, and I¡¯m a chooser now. If I see a problem, I can do something about it.
The wheel can be spun, the course can be changed. I just need to pay attention.
That thought bounced around inside of my head, sticking in and stopping the gears of my passive mind from turning, and with it a lot of my mentality suddenly stopped along with it. Some of my thoughts started to rearrange a bit because it was a worthy thing, and doing so would make me feel worthy of Anna''s attention.
It was one of the only things that hadn¡¯t changed all that much. I still felt unworthy.
Maybe that is some of my baggage, one of the things I need to put down. The need to feel worthy. And yet, it doesn¡¯t feel like something I can put down, either. I just don¡¯t bring enough to the table to feel that I am. I just feel like I¡¯m somehow stealing something from her, like a parasite.
But maybe¡ If I can¡¯t get rid of it¡ All I can do is try and live up to the feeling, try and live up to all the good she has brought into my life, and pay it forward. Use what I have been given, use my ability to choose, and choose to use what is now mine to do good.
Anna turned back to face me and caught something on my face. But while I could tell that she wanted to, she didn¡¯t ask me what it was, she just leaned back into me and opened her book.
I took that as a sign that Anna was okay with me not opening up and letting out all of my neurosis at once like an alchemical bomb. And I got back to reading instead.
Beast magic was the widest by far. Literally, anything relating to animals? Beast magic. Do you want to call a murder of crows to rip and tear an opponent? Beast magic. Do you want a familiar or a bonded animal like a witch? Beast magic. You could even do stuff that was distanced from animals, spearing an enemy from afar with an amber lance with animal-level intelligence.
I put down the widest mana type for its unique bit and got off beast magic.
Heat, as it turned out, was the opposite of the rest of the natural elements. It didn¡¯t have a ton of component mana. Heat was so prevalent that it was believed to be a fundamental mana type, the lowest possible on the pyramid. Everything besides the arcane mana types had heat in them or something with heat in it. Water, air, earth, fire, and plants each had heat. It did one thing, and that one thing was incredibly important.
Magelin also said that it was likely the reason why druids were metal averse, avoiding it where they could because a druid fighting another druid with a suit of armour on would be a rather short fight.
I put that down. And moved on to growth.
Growth was a weird one. It was present in living things and non-living things, but it was apparently the only temporary mana type. Something about existence was anathema to its continued existence.
Notably, according to Magelin, growth mana was continuously produced in a very select set of things, and those were mostly Slimes, Gelatins, Oozes, Rustites, and creatures of that nature, which never stopped growing from birth to the moment they were destroyed; they never stopped growing.
They were theorized to be connected to some form of primordial ancestor, though the lack of known intelligent slimy people implies the ancestor was likely not intelligent.
That was kind of cool, so down it went on the cheat sheet.
By the time I was done going through the natural section, I had most of the base mana types down, and I was about a quarter of the way through the book.
¡°I don¡¯t know if I should be afraid that the book is only a quarter done or not, even though I¡¯m like halfway through,¡± I told Anna.
¡°A quarter of the book is an appendix, so lucky you¡¯re more like halfway through.¡±
I stared out the window to think that the second half was twice as long as the first half when I was met with the end of my reading time. The sun was starting to burn off the mist by the time I finished reading it, so sadly, I got up, and got to finishing my chores.
I went all out, moving as fast as I could to get them done, pots nearly slipping out of my hands and barrel refilled to keep up with three mouths.
By the time I got back in, Anna and Selly were avidly trying to communicate, and both of them, frustrated from a failure to do just that, were being annoyed at the table.
I interceded, sorting out that Anna still didn¡¯t feel right accepting the dept but would let her stay until she gave a yes or no, and Selly, exasperated that my ¡®lovey [Druid] was hanging her out to dry.¡¯ I gave her an unimpressed look and checked if Anna wanted to do anything before I did a few last-minute tasks, like writing the new things down, thinking hard in the direction of the slate board, and thinking about the questions, and my thoughts, and the things that rustled in my head, and the million things it felt like I was doing before we headed south for however long we were going to be gone.
Four days, including today.
But after about ten minutes of aimless busywork, stalking around the rooms like I had somewhere to be, only to pace back and do something else, I got myself together and away from the questions and my thoughts.
I made to leave but stopped before I got to the door.
I turned to Selly, being sulky and lonely and sad. Well, sulky for Selly was still animated, but it had a sulky vibe.
¡°Say, Selliban, you want to head into town and see the sights? Get out and stretch your wings or whatever?¡± I called out to her.
She didn¡¯t seem to catch it for a second, and I was about to call out to her again when her wings slid out from her back like a ladybug and, after a moment of stretching and buzzing, took off toward me.
¡°I¡¯ll take anything but being cooped up in here with nothing to do. Aye, might as well, but I¡¯m hiding in your hair to stay away from the birds outside,¡± she told me, zipping over before standing on my head, burrowing into my thinner hair and griping and complaining about how it wasn¡¯t as comfortable.
¡°I¡¯ll be back in a few hours,¡± I called over to Anna, who was heading into the front room, where she was probably going to spend some time painting.
She waved over at me with a wiggle of her fingers and got an agreeing tone out before she continued into the front room, and left me and Selly to go our own way.
I had some stuff to do to prepare for our outing later today, like get Strause to hand over where I can find that shop and get some flowers, probably¡ And maybe other stuff that I hadn¡¯t thought about.
The things that I was too dumb to think about were so long that I could say I knew nothing about romance, and it would be accurate if you rounded down. Maybe Selly could help, tucked away in my hair.
Or maybe she would just complain to me about tall people and birds the whole time.
Either way, it would be better than being alone.
Chapter 62 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 34
Me and Selly wandered out of the cabin and through the now bird-populated grove. I didn¡¯t know why the birds had decided to stay or why Anna had presumably invited them in, but Selly fucking hated them.
She hissed like a screaming cat or some strange species of rodent when a bird came up, waving her sowing needle sword from a tuft next to my ear at it like it was some kind of magical bane that would turn the creatures. A Silvered bullet from a sling or steak to a werewolf or some other magical nonsense, waving it like a shield against the tiny songbird that passed by.
Funny enough, it had no chance to land, my long legs carrying me past its arc too quickly for it to land on me. Birds were, overall, a strange breed of animal. They were incredibly primitive, some were less so, but songbirds and the like were almost universally the kind of bird that would land on a tall person, not realizing they were not, in fact, a tree.
This one missed me as it dove, moving oddly through the air before slamming face-first into the dirt like the silly little thing it was before trying to catch me for a reason I couldn¡¯t guess and didn¡¯t want to know and did not intend to draw out because Selly¡¯s hissing was incredibly freaking loud when she was right next to my ears.
Avoiding the bird, I headed out of the grove, the chill of the morning air warming from the summer sun.
¡°Selly, please don¡¯t screech shrilly in my ear; I understand that you hate birds, I get it, but please¡ In the name of everything good in this fading world, don¡¯t take it out on my ears and break my hearing because you have a grudge against them,¡± I whined at her, unable to clap my ears down without trapping her under my ear.
¡°You have to establish dominance; they''re like flying lizards birds! You have to show ''em who''s who, or they¡¯ll never take you seriously,¡± she shouted into my ears.
¡°Gah fuck stop that, stop, or I¡¯ll toss you out from under the ear. And stop waving that around. I swear if you stab me, I might get violent, and I¡¯m trying very hard not to be snippy on account of your situation, I don¡¯t want to hit you while you¡¯re down, but please don¡¯t push me, yeh? I don¡¯t care if birds are the lizards of the sky or if they¡¯re just birds. Don¡¯t take it out on me because I like spending time with you.¡±
¡°Birds are beasts of the sky and dreck used by the wild ones, and as the new bearer of the quill, tis my duty as the head of my clan to hate birds beyond the hatred of any of my kin,¡± she said in a more reasonable tone, ¡°but aye. I will keep it down while you hold me safe against them. I forget how big yer ears are, sorry.¡±
She added ¡®sorry,¡¯ and said it like it the admittance of wrongdoing took something from her.
I would give it to her, when she admitted wrongdoing, she was serious about it.
¡°Thank you,¡± I told her, my footfalls, with skills behind them, carrying me smoothly out of the wood and into the grass towards the sprawl of Moarn¡¯s wall-less castle town and towards the still unnerving alleys I had been stalked and attacked in.
I had a growing distaste for it, though I knew I needed to keep coming back to town. Despite what I wanted to do, I couldn¡¯t stay secluded in Anna''s cabin; I just couldn¡¯t. I had always needed contact with people, without it, I felt restless, and Sophy was correct that the more connection I had, the better I felt. Yesterday had been the best day in a long time; even if it was limited to when I could bring myself to go to town, I would come to meet the people I knew.
¡°What is so important about the quill? It looks like porcelain, but it''s just a normal thing, right?¡± I asked her, cupping my ear down to better hear her against the rush of air I left in my wake.
¡°You¡¯re a mage, you tell me. It¡¯s a family heirloom passed from the eldest to the eldest¡ And now it''s mine.¡±
I, as always, was an unbelievable dumbass. I turned my magical sight to the blade''s tiny, distinct shape.
The blade holds mana, everything does¡ and¡
Why is the mana in that toothpick so weird? Beast magic? Its¡ Potent... Like over-steeped tea, it''s like the quill is still alive somehow.
My train of thought juddered to a halt, the odd little magic toothpick unlike anything I had ever seen. Or, I supposed, anything I had ever seen as a mage because I had a feeling I knew what it was.
And that was only because I had [Crude Foci Carver].
It resonated with some unseen aspect of the blade as if whatever made the blade potent was tangentially related. A step-sibling of carving foci, just on a sword.
It was some kind of magical weapon.
I had no idea what it did, but it was a genuine magical object like the sword currently sitting in the closet back in Annas Grove or the status stone I had used in the sunken church.
Maybe it¡¯s more like a bane than I thought¡ Gods, I wish I knew what it did. That seems so cool. I can''t even see any carved lines or anything; it''s just smooth.
¡°Fuck me sideways¡ That,¡± I told her, ¡°I do believe, is a genuine, honest to God''s magical weapon, I think. I have no idea what it does, but it''s tied to beast magic.¡±
¡°Are you sure? Because there were like three qualifiers for that sentence. Honestly, you have to work on this wishy-washy bit you do. If you think it¡¯s magical, just say, ¡®I think it¡¯s magical,¡¯ not this, ¡®I do believe it might possibly, maybe theoretically, could be some sort of thing that could do something, maybe.¡¯ Honestly, kinsman, it¡¯s a bit embarrassing.¡±
Ouch¡ is it that bad?
¡°And if you¡¯re thinking, ¡®is it that bad,¡¯ it is. Just because you¡¯re all intellect, doesn¡¯t mean you need to talk like you barely think know what you know. You silly git.¡±
I sucked a bit of air in through my teeth and almost opened my mouth to say ¡®sorry¡¯ when I got control of my mouth and stopped it in its tracks. Instead, I attempted to project confidence, picking up my posture a little while my feet pounded the wet ground under my sandals and tried to talk like I was smart enough to understand literally anything about her magical toothpick.
¡°It¡¯s a magical item, like the sword in the closet, though, that works using dark magic. I¡¯ll be honest, I have no idea what it does.¡±
¡°You need to deal with that sword, by the way,¡± she said pointedly, ¡°It gives off a major league bad vibe to it. It made it hard to sleep.¡±
How the hell do I deal with it? It¡¯s a sword, what the hell do I do with it? Does Anna know? Surely, she noticed that there was a dark magic-empowered sword in her grove, but she didn¡¯t mention it.
Am I supposed to fix it?
¡
Yeah, I¡¯m probably supposed to fix it. It''s my mess, and I can figure out how to clean it up. Maybe Anna wants to make a project of it, but I should be the one to make that move on initiating that. I suppose we can do that after we get the books tomorrow.
I slowed down as I came up to the old road and gave a little hop over the ditch that lay next to it, footsteps clattering on the poorly maintained cobbles.
¡°That¡¯s the spirit¡ Now, what the hell are we doing?¡± she said with a thin, barely felt exuberance that I could see through like glass.
¡°Well, about that¡¡±
***
We made our way through the city to the cleanest, fanciest den of depravity and withdrew money after being hassled by the man behind the desk and withdrawing funds from my account.
The unnaturally clean building, its perfect wood boards, doorknob, and utterly unnerving everything disturbed me in a way I couldn¡¯t put into words. It was utterly unlike any other building I had been in, before or after my long sleep, and something about how it was more advanced than the other buildings and less advanced than I expected.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Selly was ready to complain by the time I left, but I made my way quickly through the streets to the marketplace, looking over my shoulder enough for Selly to pull the reason out of me, which got her looking behind me and me looking forward.
We didn¡¯t find it, whatever it was, the cat that wasn¡¯t a cat did not make an appearance, which left both of us tense because we didn¡¯t know if it was us missing the cat or if it just wasn¡¯t there.
We made it there on the main roads, avoiding alleys, and made our way through the bustle of the morning crowd.
There were a lot of empty stalls in the market, mostly the ones that belonged to the same company that the merchant from yesterday did. There were a few of them open, but they knew me by sight and watched me wearily and with quite a lot of spite.
I ignored them and made my way to Gunther.
Beatrice, still as harried as yesterday, if not more so, looked like she hadn¡¯t slept a moment.
She had a dead look to her, the kind one gets when they are so tired they no longer feel sleepy, just tired, like their mind had run a marathon. I had only gotten that way once. It was the type of thing that came to people with desks, not people with shovels, but it was a look Skipseo got from time to time whenever Kindly didn¡¯t put him to bed.
The paperwork had piled, but piled in the crisp and orderly way that said, ¡®done,¡¯ instead of, ¡®please kill me,¡¯ so I decided to tread lightly around her because she had the kind of tired look that went well with temporary madness and the last thing I wanted was for her to find something about the situation funny enough to snap over it.
¡°Hello, Beatrice, I have returned to pick up some of Gunther''s slack. Is she in?¡± I asked her softly.
She looked up at me, and the look in her eyes was a few steps from inanimate. She had the eyes of a dead person, but when she spoke, she had the same tone to her voice that she had yesterday.
¡°Gunther is in, but it is too early for her to do any work. Feel free to head into her office.¡±
I hesitated but opened my mouth and talked to her.
¡°Gods, you look terrible. Have you been working all night while Gunther goofs off or something?¡±
¡°I can sleep when I¡¯m dead,¡± she told me seriously, ¡°right now I need to finish this stuff up, get this crunched so it''s useful.¡±
¡°If you don¡¯t sleep, you might end up getting your wish; you look like you''re most of the way there already.¡±
She let out a dark laugh, a hissing chuckle that would fit in with black cats and a coven of witches.
It was spooky coming out of her face, which was all too normal to produce a noise like that. She had too few warts and no cat to pet and chimed in.
¡°She,¡± Selly chimed in, ¡°appears to be a few bees short of a hive.¡±
Beatrice looked up from the desk and around before settling her eyes on my head.
¡°What was that?¡±
I straightened, but Selly chimed in before I could.
¡°I¡¯m the voice in your head, the little voice the sleep keeps away. And I¡¯m telling you to sleep.¡±
She said it in a funny voice, presumably more for me than the receptionist, who couldn¡¯t understand her. I swat at my head, which didn¡¯t even rustle my hair, but got Selly to cut it out.
¡°None of that, as funny as it is. She can¡¯t understand you, it¡¯s not fair to talk behind her back like that.¡±
¡°Well, now I know it''s not in my head; what the hell is that? What¡¯s talking¡ is it in your hair? What the-¡±
¡°It''s fine. It''s just Selly the Sprite. Gunther¡¯s already met her. She¡¯s hiding in my hair because she''s afraid of birds. Selly, show yourself instead of being a joker.¡±
Selly stood up.
The look on her face was priceless; she stared at my head and watched as Selly stood up. Selly standing up in my hair was like a person standing up in a field of red grain. She was short enough that standing straight upright, she was still halfway submerged in my veritable mane of hair.
The sight of such a tiny person hiding in my hair like a bandit in the brush stupefied her into silence.
¡°I think you might be right,¡± she said, ¡°I think I am dying.¡±
She stood from her chair and just walked away, shouting back, ¡°I¡¯m¡ just going to go to sleep now,¡± and then she just left.
¡°Holy crud, Selly, you broke her. She just gave up. How did you do it?¡±
¡°Don¡¯t look at me, I just stood up,¡± she said indignantly.
¡°Well, I suppose I know whom I need to go to if I need to shatter someone''s fucking mind.¡±
She kicked my ear in complaint, which didn¡¯t hurt but got my ear to twitch, ¡°I did nothing; don¡¯t go pointing, waving, or gesturing at me, or I¡¯ll bite your bloody hand.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll do whatever I want; I am free and have free will.¡±
¡°You¡¯re free to get bitten on the hand then. Think about it carefully because I have a small mouth, and it''s very sharp,¡± she told me, her tone acidic enough to etch metal and sickly sweet at the same time.
It was a tone used when you expected someone to immediately test you, but I wasn¡¯t stupid enough to try it.
Point taken. Just because I can doesn¡¯t mean I should. You reap what you sow, play stupid games, and win stupid prizes.
I left the front of the lobby and made the short stint to Gunther''s office, the familiar door a mere few treads of my long-legged stride and knocked on the door. I waited a few moments, expecting an answer, but got none. I knocked on the door again, expecting her voice to chime to ¡®come in¡¯ or say something grumpy about the time, but I got no reply, no response. There was in fact, no noise coming from the room.
I opened the door slowly before looking inside and was greeted with the sight of the same room as yesterday. The same, with the exception of the stack of papers beyond, the burnt-down candles, and the oil lamp, a metal construct with some form of glass flute. It was beyond fancy for the otherwise starkly barren interior. It was something out of my time, like the doorknob of the merchant house that turned and opened or the printed text, instead of the handwritten form of a more common book, transcribed by someone in a workhouse with skill-based precision.
It was the screw that gave it away for all three, a common component of each that most of my surroundings lacked. It required relative precision, skilled craftsmen, and detailed work. I had no doubt they had screws but in a door handle? In a lamp? They required small screws, small metal screws. A printing press was easier to make than a tiny screw. It was an odd enough thing to me that they were so uncommon as to stand out as just another odd quirk of life here.
Similar but different, just in a million tiny ways.
I suppose it makes sense; things changing over time are hard to spot day by day; you can see the weirdness, the change from another angle over time. I¡¯m just living in that angle. If I had lived through all the changes, everything would make sense.
I just didn¡¯t, and now I have to reconcile my world, or the image of my world, with the world as it is.
¡°Selly, do you have a good memory?¡± I asked her.
¡°Sure, not perfect, but my head is on the right way round. I¡¯ve got a fine memory; why?¡± she asked, confused about my angle and unaware of my train of thought.
¡°I think I¡¯m a bit too close to my issues. I keep getting caught up in stuff and going from one thing to the next. I need someone to check my rapidly worsening inability to focus on things that aren¡¯t immediately the issue so I can fix stuff,¡± I told her, looking for Gunther in her office.
As it turned out, another standout oddity of the day was that there was a suspicious lack of Gunther in Gunther¡¯s office. I looked around from the doorway but couldn¡¯t see or hear her. If it weren¡¯t for Gunther¡¯s smell and Beatrice''s affirmation that Gunther was in her office, I wouldn¡¯t have known. The smell in the corridor was about the same in intensity as that of the room. It was noise.
¡°So, hold on. You want me to be your what? Your checklist? Why don¡¯t you ask your silly [Druid], she seems to have her head on her shoulders, or, better yet, write it down?¡±
I came up with my reasons, compiling them and reducing them to their base pieces as I stepped past the threshold and looked behind the door. I felt bad for doing it, but I decided to add in an appeal to her ego to nudge her.
¡°I can lose parchment, and if I¡¯m not thinking about it, I¡¯ll forget to get the parchment or forget to write it down¡ And I don¡¯t want to burden Anna. She¡¯s smart, brilliant even, but she has a world of things in her head, and she¡¯s also forgetful. No offence, but you don¡¯t seem like the same type. You seem more practical. And hey, if you remind me, I can write it down, and then I can get myself in order all on my own, you know, if you can''t handle all the reminders.¡±
Gunther wasn¡¯t behind the door, so while I heard Selly humming in thought, tapping her foot on my head, I called out, "Gunther? Gunther! Where the hell is she? Did she crawl out a window?¡±
I got no reply, but to edge out that possibility, I made my way to the wall with the slit windows and sniffed, but she hadn¡¯t crawled up a wall unless she somehow got rid of her scent before she did.
Is she hiding?
I imagined Gunther curled up in a ball in some unseen corner of the room, under a floorboard, or holding herself up in the corner of the room like a spider. I looked up slowly, which got Selly to give a brief cuss, but I found no Gunther on the ceiling or in a corner, straining her tiny stick arms in a corner to hide.
Honestly, I don¡¯t know what I was expecting there. She''s a [Merchant], not a [Assassin]. There was very little room to hide in¡ The only real thing is the desk. Is she¡ Under the desk?
Letting my feet take me slowly towards the desk in a stalk, I broke the pause of the conversation.
¡°So, Selly, what do you say?¡±
¡°You¡¯re a dope is what I say. What would drive you to look at the ceiling? Were inside, it¡¯s just wood.¡±
I sighed and clarified, ¡°I mean, reminding me, are you up to the task?¡±
¡°Oh, sure, yeh,¡± she said coyly, ¡°But what in it for me? Why should I act as your go-to checklist? I¡¯m a noble [Lady]. Why would I be reduced to a checklist.¡±
I didn¡¯t have a good reason, but I spoke faster than I thought, spitting out a reason without any reason.
¡°Because we¡¯re buddies, I¡¯m translating for you and can help teach you the language?¡± I tried.
She hummed for a moment before giving a simple, ¡°Yeh, Ide say that¡¯s worth it.¡±
I stalked up to within a few feet of the desk and swirled around to behind the desk.
Gunther was curled up behind the foot space of the desk. She was curled up around a pillow in a nest of blankets. She was serene and angelic as she was, dressed in a nightgown, her fair hair a halo around her head. Compared to her normal expression, she looked like a totally different person, more along the lines of how I had first seen her, a baby elf.
¡°Your first job is to remind me to ask Anna if she has a history book, and if she doesn¡¯t, to get a history book,¡± I instructed.
My voice dropped in pitch while my plan started a death spin, though Selly didn¡¯t bother.
¡°Sure, sure.¡± She told me, ¡°So, wise leader, are you going to wake up the elf? Or leave? Because I¡¯m not going to interrupt that.¡±
¡°I¡¯m sure it¡¯ll be ok as long as it¡¯s for business. Probably¡ Maybe¡ I¡¯m floundering again, I¡¯m just going to do it and damn the consequences.¡±
I poked her with my foot, and her eyes snapped open far too wide, her face shifting immediately to her normal sour look. She opened her mouth, and in a screech that was more at home on a wild animal, she tried to bite my leg.
Chapter 63 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 35
Gunther¡¯s head lurched forward from her nest, the unearthly screech from her open mouth cutting off as her head dove forward, her pointed canines flashing in the light, more like a naked blade than teeth.
My foot moved quickly out from where I had poked her as I pivoted out of bite distance. The screech made the hair across my body prickle up in goosebumps and sent my nerves racing. My body readied for a fight that I knew would not happen, muscles bunching up to swing with a weapon I didn¡¯t have.
Lucky me, I didn¡¯t because it would have been a far harder experience to abort if I did have it because the whole situation, for a brief moment, scoured my self-control and brought the fighting instinct to the surface. Before me was not Gunther but another animal that was not in the mood to play or simply letting its displeasure be known but a hostile entity of unthinking fury and hunger that wished to sate itself upon me for rousing it from its slumber.
And then I got control over it and mastered myself, finishing the movement of my legs and bringing my arms down and out of a strike to rest before me. I pushed the chair back as I did, letting out a scrape of wood on wood, which riled her, and she pulled back her head and scrambled with the blankets in an animalistic flail that did very little to free her.
¡°Hey, Hey! Gunther, it¡¯s me! Saphine! I¡¯m here to work, I¡¯m on business!¡±
There was a flicker behind her too-wide eyes as she flailed, and she seemed to take in the situation, my voice, unhostile and familiar, bringing down the knee-jerk reaction to a more reasonable confusion in her face.
¡°Uhh?¡± she gargled groggily, ¡°Wha, whats¡¯ why are you here? I¡¯m sleeping. Shoo.¡±
And then she pulled herself back into the ball of her nest, and like a brat who wanted to go back to bed or someone who just didn¡¯t care to get up, she closed her eyes and pretended to go back to sleep.
I stared down at her in utter fucking disbelief.
¡°Selly, can you believe the audacity? OI! Get up. You don¡¯t get to try and bite me and just brush it off. It¡¯s practically mid-day, and I have a limited window of time to work for you,¡± I shouted down at her.
¡°Go away¡ Sleeping,¡± she groused.
Brat it was.
¡°Fine¡ Fine¡ I¡¯ll go away. But only if you acknowledge that I have come in for work. I¡¯m more than willing to give you your sleep, assuming you are willing to give me three gold in credit for no work¡ Otherwise¡ I suppose I¡¯ll just have to keep bugging you, and I¡¯ll start the time now and collect my four hours of time bugging you, I suppose.¡±
Her eyes opened, like before, but instead of being filled with the animal''s need to protect herself, it was the kind of gaze that was followed by ¡®over my dead body.¡¯ Unlike the birth of her prior reaction, presumably born from some animal instinct or a few too many close encounters of the deadly kind, the kind that gets a person to sleep under their desk. it was born out of her will to pinch every copper coin.
It was the gaze of a [Merchant] that heard the word ¡®free¡¯ and was overcome with a sudden urge to decide today was the day for violence. It was disturbed and unstable; the idea that I would get three gold for basically free was more powerful a motivator than the siren call of sleep.
It was also much more in line with what I expected from good old Gunther, so the second I saw it reassured me that she wouldn¡¯t remain sleeping.
¡°Wake up [Caravan Master]. You can have late breakfast or early lunchfast or whatever, but I need to get this out of the way so I can go sooner rather than later.¡±
¡°What has you in a tizzy? Honestly, kids these days, waking people up while they¡¯re sleeping.¡±
She said it with a grumble, annoyance and clear distaste for my lack of accommodation. For my part, I just stared down at her, hands coming to rest on my hips. I could feel Selly standing tall on my head, using her four arms to presumably also act displeased with the wood elf.
¡°I will pick you up and carry you like a bag. You can''t hurt me, no matter how hard you bite,¡± I half-lie, wanting to push Gunther into crawling out of her cocoon.
¡°That¡¯s a partial truth, but the fact that you are willing to do it is reason enough for me to hate you¡ Leave the room, give me a minute. I need to get dressed.¡±
I gave her a pointed look, but I also gave her a shallow nod and moved to the side, backing away and towards the door while she begrudgingly crawled out, nightgown rumpled, her hair flowing around her head and past her, ears like a sheet of golden silk.
And then I closed the door, the hinges and frame holding it shut while I waited for her, or him, or them to get out. There was a great rustling for the better part of a minute before a set of shooed footsteps taped towards the door, and Gunther dressed in masculine attire just like yesterday.
¡°Can I ask why you dress like¡ You know,¡± I asked, ¡°because I don¡¯t know how to address you, and it¡¯s kind of fucking with my head.¡±
She looked at me crossly but then got a terrible grin and answered, ¡°You can ask all you want, but I¡¯m not answering. Go ahead and stew in your confusion; it sustains me, and now I know the exact way to get under your skin like a bad rash.¡±
I looked at her and was caught between two answers. I thought it over for a minute, but I didn¡¯t think I could pull off another taunt on charging her for breakfast now that she was up and more aware.
¡°Why are you like this? You know what, I doubt you¡¯re going to give me a good answer. I¡¯m just going to call you whatever I feel like until it wears you down, and you tell me.¡±
She looked at me, smug, like I was playing into her hand, but I couldn¡¯t tell if she was being serious or if she was just being a little shit.
¡°I don¡¯t care what you call me, and no one else will either. I don¡¯t need pronouns for people to know who the one and only Gunther is, and that¡¯s all I need¡ Now I¡¯m going to go get breakfast, lets walk and talk.¡±
And I sighed but followed along after the short little chaos elf as she dragged me along for her very late breakfast.
***
I was tortured over an extended period as Gunther dragged me around, showing off how no matter what I called her, it didn¡¯t disrupt anything while eating street food.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The strangest thing about Gunther was that everyone knew Gunther and had a decent opinion about Gunther. When they realized what I was doing, they played along with Gunther; when I offered to pay, they refused to out Gunther, and when I used a random manner of address, they played along with it.
She had fucked around with me the entire time.
We were at the stall of a Beastkin woman who was selling a broth soup that smelled quite nice, a pot behind the stall kept warm over a small stone hearth that billowed smoke into the open sky. I couldn¡¯t quite tell what kind she was, but her style was impeccable. She had this thing with finely styled and shaped fur and a pleated sheet of cloth covering her like most of the furrier Beastkin seemed to prefer, but it was fine cloth.
She was one of the first women I had seen, and she had charm. Not as much charm as Anna, but Anna was my type so that was practically a given. She did have style over her, though, because it was incredibly fine cloth. It made me want to learn how to wear the same style just so I could try to pull it off.
I was about to pull my class, ¡®Hey, why does Gunther dress like a man,¡¯ or ¡®What¡¯s Gunther''s deal?¡¯ when the fact that she had obviously had her fur cut reminded me to ask a minorly important question.
¡°Say, I hope it¡¯s not rude to ask¡ But do Beastkin have [Barbers]? Because I was looking to cut my hair back, and it¡¯s a bit hard to do without someone who knows their way around a razor, and my hair is more like your hair than human hair.¡±
She looked at me, her muzzle opening, not expecting me to ask that over something food or Gunther-related. Gunther was also confused for a moment.
Selly, being Selly, said, ¡°I could cut your hair. I¡¯ve never done it before, but imagine getting your hair cut by a magic sword.¡±
¡°Your sword is like a sewing needle. I don¡¯t even think there''s an edge on that blade of yours, so I doubt that you could. Thanks for offering, but I¡¯m willing to find a [Barber] over you cutting my hair without skills to back you up.¡±
I could see her pant a little bit as she held her mouth open before giving a nod of her head.
¡°The kin do have [Barbers], though we don¡¯t often shave¡ Just to make sure I understand you correctly. Do you want to have your hair shaved? What odd kin you must descend from.¡±
She shook her head as if she was trying to imagine me bald.
¡°Not all of my hair, just the back of my neck,¡± I told her, turning to show my nape and levelling my hand at about the point I wanted it. ¡°And I¡¯m not of the kin cousin.¡±
She hummed, a deep, resonant noise, like the growl of a wolf, and that gave away that she was some form of canid.
¡°That makes much more sense. And I knew you were not, but in perfect honesty¡ shameful as it is to say¡ I just don¡¯t know what you are, cousin,¡± she admitted a bit awkwardly.
She drooped a little while she said it, a genuine look of disappointment and shame on her otherwise well-trimmed face. I felt suddenly like I had kicked a puppy.
¡°Good job,¡± Selly chimed in, ¡°You¡¯ve impugned her honour.¡±
¡°Shush you,¡± I hissed up at her before I focused back on the woman before me and thought.
Goblins had been all about resilience, all about their people''s past. They were a little different, but that was still a classic goblin response. It was not a matter of honour, as Selly believed, but of a perceived failure, a lack of understanding of her history. But it wasn¡¯t her fault she didn¡¯t know. And a bit of my fault because I hadn¡¯t realized something.
She was young, she had to be, probably at least a year or so younger than I was, maybe more.
It was hard enough to be young and have expectations on your shoulders. If they were anything like Goblins, there was a huge amount of it.
¡°A word from the wise. There is no shame in admitting that you don¡¯t know better, especially considering my kind is gone. Short of one of your elders, a [Historian], a very zealous Goblin, or being one of the Librarians faithful, you''re unlikely to have ever heard of a Kobold,¡± I told her.
It was the standard opening for Kobold Goblin relations. Nothing was wrong, appeal to the elderly and pillars of the community, then inform. Kobolds had malleable minds; we just rolled with the punches and changed.
Goblins, though, and presumably Beastkin, were all resilient and hard-headed. Unless you slipped something in past their natural mental resilience, they would just lock up and stonewall the hell out anything you said, even if it was just reassuring them.
It worked like a charm; she perked up, and that was worth it, even though thinking about it was growing sore. I had been numb, but the more it came up, the more it felt like I was picking at a wound.
I pushed it back into the corner, back into the dark, and tried not to think about it. With any hope, it would go from scab to scar.
Gunther spoke up then, rescuing me from the great weight of the conversation.
¡°Thank you for the food, Selencia. Do give your parents my best,¡± she said calm but upbeat tone.
It was a careful tone, it was practically engineered to be respectful and sounded like either a skill or a lot of Charisma.
¡°Of course, Gunther¡ Oh, and miss, my recommendation for a barber would be Ciliart.¡±
I thanked her, and Gunther and I left the shop, soup in hand for each of us, with Gunther promising to return the bowls later.
I felt a little bad about the soup; she had given it to us for free, and I wasn¡¯t even hungry. I ate it anyway, taking a sip from the soup like the bowl was a great cup. The soup was good, not thick or thin, and savoury. Just the broth was an easy seven out of ten, and I could only imagine how much better it would be if it had meat or filler to add to it.
After we had gotten out of earshot, I lowered my bowl and got to business. I could tell that whatever manic energy Gunther had was mellowed out after getting a bit of revenge on me and conversing with the shop owners. She had now reached a mellow, almost noble demeanour.
¡°So, are we going to be doing more of the same today? Because if we are going to spend four hours doing stuff I really do need to get started soon. I don¡¯t want to rush you, but I have somewhere else to be later.¡± I told her honestly.
Gunther took a deep drink of the bowl before lowering it and taking a deep breath.
¡°Okay then, I¡¯ve got some more numbers to crunch. You¡¯ll get your due, don¡¯t you worry away a single hair on your head. I¡¯m always good on my deals¡ Always.¡±
I nodded, shaking Selly, who had continued to ride my head like I was a beast of burden. She could be pressed into a shot glass, she wasn¡¯t heavy, and I cared little for any idea or pretense of vanity or indignity.
Selly still complained, but she also flew over and dunked her head in my soup.
¡°I do have a hiccup in the plan,¡± Gunther told me calmly, ¡°I sent some of my [Wardens] and [Rangers] to scout the land were to move over, and I¡¯m going to need one more day to get things ready, I¡¯m going to have to come to get the wagons over the terrain, and I can''t come tomorrow anymore.¡±
I sighed, my ear pricking at [Ranger] for a moment, but she wasn¡¯t having any of it, and she didn¡¯t elaborate on it.
¡°There are complications with the other companies right now. This is not me backing out, I just need one more day to line up the resources to get everything in order. I¡¯m sure you can spend some more quality time with that [Druid] of yours. And before you ask, I¡¯m not raising the price, and I¡¯ll even throw in me guiding you to where to go to meet Ciliart.¡±
I didn¡¯t let her probe get to me and instead thought over what she was giving as recompense, and I decided to push for one more thing. It wasn¡¯t a lot, and I was fairly sure she would just tell me if she knew, but it was a very Gunther thing to get things via a trade.
¡°I also need to meet Strause. I have to get something, and he knows where to get it,¡± I told her.
She humphed, ¡°That¡¯s easy; he always hangs out at the same place. He already told you where to find him, but I suppose you probably don¡¯t remember it, given the drinking, but I can give you directions.¡±
¡°Then were all good¡ Now I just have to explain to a [Druid] why we''re going to be staying home tomorrow,¡± I told her.
¡°That¡¯s on you Foxzilla, she¡¯s your [Druid], not mine. I take care of mine, not yours,¡± she said unpassionately.
I thought over her words and realized something.
¡°How did you know her name, you never asked for it. And how do you know where some random [Barber] works? There''s no way you just know that. Do you have a skill for that or something, some spooky [Caravan Master] skill that lets you know their names and locations?¡±
¡°What do you mean? Of course, it''s not a skill. I just know all of their names, and more than just that. I know their names and their stories, their hopes and dreams. I am their leader, their [Caravan Master]. I have seen many of them grow up, and I know all of them. Compared to any of them, I am ancient and immutable, and all of them are my people, more than any creed, clan or kin. They are mine, and I take care of my own.¡±
Chapter 64 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 36
It was somehow hard to reconcile the money-hungry, greedy little Elflet with the information that she knew the name of a random girl working at her parent''s stalls.
Somewhere in my head, I expected the two things to be exclusive, but they hadn¡¯t been. They had never been.
It had been an illusion of my own mind that those two things were mutually exclusive; it was, in fact, two things that went together hand in hand in their own way. Sure, you could use indentured labour and not need to care about them at all, but these were presumably free people. They could leave at any time.
I felt it said more about me that I believed she didn¡¯t care that much about her people. It said something about how I thought that people who wanted money lacked the empathy to care, and something about my situation, or the state of the world I was raised in that relied so heavily on the abuse of those who produced value, that I imagined her as about on part with that level of detachment.
¡°You know, Gunther,¡± I told her, ¡°I think I owe you an apology. I thought you were one thing, and that was a very rude thing to think. You have my sincerest apology that I thought so little of you.¡±
Something in the way I said it, or perhaps my timing, or some other obtuse in and out of a conversation I was too uncultured to understand with my bottom-of-the-barrel charisma, got her to look at me like I had just told her some horribly off-topic remark of a grotesque nature.
¡°Just what do you think of me that¡¯s so bad you feel the need to apologize? I don¡¯t know if I should feel insulted or not, and that¡¯s not something I generally care for. What¡¯s going on in that fuzzy little head of yours?¡±
Selly kicked my head and muttered about remembering honour, but I tuned her out and paid attention to Gunther.
¡°You know my shtick; I¡¯m from a long, long time ago. And back then, there were still money grubbers. But money-grubbing people didn¡¯t care about their people. They just cared about how much money they brought in. Your form of money-grubbing isn¡¯t like that. It''s still money-grubbing, but you care about the people that get you money and the people in your employ, and that¡¯s a world of difference.¡±
¡°Oh. Is that it?¡± she said, no longer worried about my apology. ¡°Things change, kid. It''s fine to be out of date, it happens¡ Just don¡¯t overthink it, and accept things as you go. That¡¯s how I do it. I think I¡¯m wearing clothes older than half the people in the marketplace, it''s out of style by, like, two generations? One and a half? Something there, and it doesn¡¯t matter. I realized that like thirty years ago, and I just keep it to fuck with people who know. Just recognize the change and live with it.¡±
She said it with her pointy, too-wide smile that gave her a very chaotic Goblin look. Part predatory, part smug, and one hundred percent what I would expect with Gunther. It was very in line with that first look she gave me over the table.
It was a bit annoying and reassuring in equal measure that I had given her a heartfelt apology, only for her to almost laugh it off. And as nice as that was, it was a little annoying.
So, I looked down at her and said, ¡°Well, I¡¯m glad to know being outdated isn¡¯t bad. You look like a Goblin right now, no offence.¡±
It was a little offensive to her, and she slapped back with something about Goblins being, but I started to fall into a back-and-forth with her, where she would jab, and I would jab back while we made our way to her office and got to work.
And it was fine.
Gunther was fine with jabs and japes. If anything, she was weirder with open honesty than messing with messing with one another.
The work went suspiciously fast, but by the end of two hours, we had whittled down the pile on her desk, combining them until there was a short list of values about a quarter of an inch tall, and Selly could walk up them like stairs, and we were out of work.
It felt too fast for all that Selly tried to converse with the both of us to pass the time. Gunther used some form of severely misused skill combination to talk with her, and I just talked to her tersely while I got my mind to perform the boring, repetitive calculations that I hated so much. It was too fast and too simple for math, which, for some reason, I expected to return to tortuousness.
Gunther got up from her chair, scooting it back, before she stood and stretched, her arm reaching up to chin level. My head decided it was an important thing to pay attention to that the semi-hostile [Merchant] could choke me, but I focused on standing up and stretching my legs instead of giving that information any weight.
Besides, she didn¡¯t strike me as the strong type; as hard as peeking at her magically in any quantitative way, qualitatively, she seemed to be less strong than dexterous. It was some form of balancing thing, like when types merged. It was like¡ mixing paint. You could make yellow from green and red, but the balance of the green and red made different yellows.
I wonder if that¡¯s why Anna does painting and dye work, some kind of magical practice. It¡¯s a weird thought, but knowing how much Anna likes magic, I wouldn¡¯t put it past her. And I wonder what would happen if I piled way more heat in with the air mana when I make fire, would that make... super fire? Fire becomes blue-white when it gets hot, would it just turn blue? What¡¯s the limit on that?
Maybe I¡¯m yipping up the wrong tree here. I¡¯m probably going to end up going down death magic street instead of fireball road. Still¡ I think I¡¯m on to something there, maybe I¡¯ll ask Anna¡ Or just try it all on my own. It''s not like I can¡¯t find a use for fire just because I become a death mage.
It was funny. How such tiny things could lead to a train of thought like that.
¡°So we''re good? Were square for the deal? You¡¯re not going to turn around to ask me to pay you more for working less? Because I¡¯ll be brutally honest, if I walk away and you come looking for the coin, I¡¯m going to be mightily pissed.¡±
¡°Don¡¯t¡ Ugh¡ Get your tail in a twist,¡± she said, with a moan of satisfaction as she stretched, while there were a few quiet clicking pops from her back. ¡°But yes, don¡¯t worry, your pointy little ears. You did a little more than you bargained for and worked less. It all works out; if this is everything, then that¡¯s everything¡ And besides, this is going to make me way more money than a gold coin.¡±
She let out a little cackle as she said it, grinning off into thin air. I imagined what she saw in her mind¡¯s eye, a rain of gold coins pattering down on her until she could swim through them like a lake.
¡°Well, I wish you the best. It''s just nonsense numbers to me, but if you think all of that means something, I suppose it''s your madness, not mine. Here, let me get you the four gold I owe you, then I can head on my way.¡±
She turned to me, the sound of my jingling my coin pouch drawing her eye from the far distance where she drowned in glimmering gold to the present, and she looked at me confused before recognizing that I was holding coins in her direction and planning to leave.
Selly flew up and over to me, her wings buzzing lightly before she landed and kicked me in the head lightly.
¡°You¡¯re forgetting to get your haircut and where to find the strange man, you silly git.¡± She reminded me.
I managed to stop myself from nodding, a quick save for her convenience.
¡°You right, thank you, Selly,¡± I told her before turning to Gunther, ¡°Almost forgot, I need to know where to find Strause and where to get my hair cut. You know the [Barber] by name, so I assume you know where he cuts hair? Could you give me some directions?¡±
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Her hand had started reaching out to mine, as if the gold drew her hand to it by magic, as if I were Fontaine¡¯s demon, holding power and wealth out to her to tempt her to vice and inevitable destruction.
¡°Huh,¡± she said, looking up at me like a deer in lamplight.
¡°Strause and the [Barber], can you give me directions or not? Because I need to get some stuff done. I won¡¯t ask you to bring me there because we¡¯re both busy people, but if you know where to find them, and you would be so kind as to tell me, I would like to know.¡±
Her mouth gabbed open and closed a few times, wordlessly as her fingers vibrated in mid-air like she was having a fit. She looked at the picture-perfect description of a person having a stroke for a moment before she found her words and started talking.
¡°For Strause, you need to make your way to the wall; then you walk south around the noble''s district to the last major road before the church district. It¡¯s a two-story tavern of sorts; the sign is a mug with the symbol of hospitality on it and a feather on top of the mug rim. But I can lead you to Ciliart, I promised to do at least that much.¡±
¡°Are you sure? I was assuming it was a busy day, I would hate to be a bother,¡± I told her, but she quickly waved me off.
¡°Bah, tomorrow is busy, today is legwork. I won¡¯t stay, but I can lead you there. Come on then,¡± she told me, quickly readying her coat before quickly moving towards the door.
I loped after her, following out of the building and back towards the cart where we had gotten the bowls and down a few narrow streets over through a throng of stalls and to a small stall with the green banner of the West Winds. It was an approximation of a storefront but topped with a slant of rugged fabric held up by four rough buttons and a set of wooden poles to let the heat out.
¡°This is the place. And thank you for your business,¡± Gunther told me.
I looked down and saw her holding the four pieces of gold in her hand like some great artifact of old. Like what I expected, but not the way I expected, it was an adequate way to describe her. So greedy, but not beyond hope, not beyond decency.
She backed up, placing the gold in her coat, and waved, ¡°Pleasure doing business,¡± and like that, she was gone into the crowd. Her short legs carried her deceptively quickly and cleanly through the throng, and out of eyeshot, then out of earshot, and into the wide world of the markets.
¡°She''s an odd one, ain''t she?¡± Selly mused, ¡°I can¡¯t rightly tell what you tall folks deal is, but hers is somewhere between you hard and the fake one.¡±
¡°His name is Strause, and he¡¯s Anna¡¯s brother.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t rightly care if he¡¯s Titania¡¯s brother; he¡¯s a strange breed of person, and I don¡¯t trust him as far as I could lift¡¯em. You can never trust a person with a fake smile who talks like a Thesbian,¡± she commented.
¡°Don¡¯t you mean a [Thespian]? A [Performer]?¡± I asked her, unsure because of her accent and the way she didn¡¯t use the class.
¡°Nay. I mean, like you, if you decided to put down the shovel, use your head, and take up a late career as a [Playwright] yeh daft woman, you.¡±
I blinked for a few moments, then, unwilling to rise to her jabs, walked in, shooing her off my head.
¡°I use my head plenty; if you don¡¯t like it, you can sit on my shoulder you... I don¡¯t have a pun, but I dislike your comment greatly, and I am disappointed,¡± I told her while I pulled the front curtain aside and looked in.
Inside the abode was an old fashioned, half-back rocking chair, with some padded cloth with a step stool sitting in place of anyone atop it. Over to the side, there was a furnace with a pot of boiling water and several rags and, a medic bench off to the side, a series of boxes on shelves that held small wooden and metal gadgets that had a torturous look so beyond reason that it reserved them for old, brutal [Barbers] tools, the type that pulled arrows out.
And amidst it all, an old cat man with the same-coloured coat as the girl from earlier, a kind of wheat and brown coat of short but thick fur. He, for there was no doubt it was a he, was dressed in human clothes and sat drinking beer on a stool next to three small casks, one listed ¡®water,¡¯ another ¡®High+,¡¯ and the last with a symbol of the church of life, it''s two eclipsed rings starkly burned into the bright white wood.
He looked over at me, and it was not like the girl. The man had more cats in him than the girl had a dog, and I could see it in his amber, cat-slit eyes. He opened his mouth and spoke in a deep, flowing rumble like a purr.
¡°Welcome to my shop, funny little nieces¡¡± he said, his c¡¯s & s¡¯s long, ¡°Can I assume, between you and your tinny friend, one of you is here for a shave and a haircut?¡±
There was a musical nature to the phrase, and I let slip ¡°two bits¡± before I could think.
We held each other¡¯s gaze for a moment before I was overcome with a sudden, near-irrepressible urge to walk out like I was playing a joke and never come back.
The old cat crackled a hissy laugh as he got up, tail flowing behind him as he put down the mug on his stool and waved me in.
¡°I¡¯m not so cheap as two bits, I¡¯m afraid. Come, come. My name is Ciliart Swiftfur. Be welcome in my shop¡ sit. How may I help you today, miss?¡±
I stepped onto the smooth wood panel floor, the part of my sandals softer than the closing of the curtain. I felt Selly land on my shoulder. ¡°Hello, Mr. Swiftfur, my name is Saphine. Just Saphine, no last name,¡± I told him as I moved over to the seat that he had prepared and sat down.
It caught me for a loop, however, when Selly introduced herself, and I went to introduce her and realized that I had never changed dialect.
¡°Welcome, Saphine. Swiftfur is my clan, you need not be a stranger, simply call me Ciliart. And Selliban, if I may be so bold?¡±
¡°You may, good sir,¡± she said far too magnanimous obviously tickled pink by the fact that there was someone else to talk to.
¡°Thank you,¡± he said, working in a gracious bow as he moved over to the shelf and grabbed what I would expect for a haircut or a shave. Something about him spoke of smooth confidence. I could see it in his gate and movement, the way he picked up the curved fine-edged blade of a razor and spun it in his hand as if he were used to pick up something else, another fine blade.
There was no hostility, but I could imagine him being some form of [Fighter].
He stopped as he picked up everything and turned to me.
¡°How may I help you this fine day? Shave? Haircut? Thinning?¡±
¡°Just a haircut and a shave,¡± I told him, and he nodded, walking over towards the back of the chair.
¡°I can do that. Three silver for a simple shave, five for a haircut, eight altogether,¡± he said.
I reached into my pouch and pulled out eight silver. It was a fair price. I had someone¡¯s recommendation, and he was obviously experienced. If he had half the experience I expected him to, it would be worth it easily. Metal didn¡¯t come cheap, and metal blades fine enough to be used as razors, I bet, were beyond costly.
¡°Eight silver is fine with me, so long as you don¡¯t make me bald,¡± I told him.
¡°I would never. A good [Barber] knows what to cut and what not to cut. Measure twice, cut once, no? Half up front, and if you hate your hair, you can leave with the other half,¡± he said smoothly next to me.
I gave him all eight, and while he raised his brow, he took it and slipped the coins into a pocket, and we got to cutting my hair. He asked, and I told him about how short Anna had suggested, and he got to work.
He didn¡¯t speak a single skill, but I could feel mana moving, wafting around him like a shroud of smoke.
And I waited until he got through my hair, first shaving my hair, the blade gliding through my mane and against my skin, revealing my neck to the warm air, then trimming it down, shortening the hair on my head.
I looked down at Selly, who had gotten off of my shoulder and out from underhand, sat on my lap and reached out with a finger. As the hair I had let grow out of control during my mourning fell to the floor, flicked off and away by skills. Every stroke lightening my head, bit by bit.
As stupid as it felt to me, cutting it helped a little. Hair was strangely important, letting it get long and unkempt could make you feel unkempt. Maybe it was how close it was to my head, the feeling of it on my neck and around my ears, or how it hung into my vision if I didn¡¯t move it. But whatever factor it was, cutting my hair was like cutting away a bit of that weight and stress.
Selly was active and vocal, and I could tell it was more like last night than our trip. She had a public face, but she was pointy and sharp and had been snappier. I wondered if Selly had something like that, cutting away the fluff. She had painted herself black in mourning, but I barely had the guts to ask, it didn¡¯t feel like something you just asked someone, but it was absolutely not something I would ask around a stranger.
And then he pulled back and pulled out a little silver-backed mirror and let me see myself.
¡°What do you think?¡± He asked.
I barely recognized myself from the last time I had seen myself reflected in the cave, ash covered in the dim light of the cave. My eyes were the only thing that reminded me of the change, reflecting back at me, twin candle flames fluctuating in an ethereal breeze, tiny sparks of gold light puttering off like a popping fire.
I looked almost like I had before everything went wrong. Cleaner, younger, and like I had never lost my mother, died and come back. Gone, except for the eyes I hated so much.
Something about it made me want to tear up and got my eyes tingling, but I blinked the tears back and agreed with him. And he pulled the mirror back and returned his things to the shelf.
Selly buzzed off my lap as I stood up, and got up and onto my head before complaining, ¡°I can barely hide up here.¡±
¡°Then stand on my shoulder, the birds won¡¯t try to get you either place, not when I¡¯m here,¡± I told her flatly, not feeling like banter.
¡°Your shoulder¡¯s not cushy, your head is like a bed, though there¡¯re less short fluffy hairs now. I suppose we¡¯re off now yeh? You remember how to get to the tavern?¡± She asked empty cheer in her voice.
¡°Yeah, thank you for the cut Ciliart. New hair looks great.¡±
¡°Have a good day, young niece¡ Don¡¯t be a stranger,¡± he told me, getting back to his drink.
I left the stall, and felt the threat of tears recede.
They would be back. Like everything recently, I couldn¡¯t keep it buried forever. I didn¡¯t have the skill to get over or rid of it. All I could do was wait for it to rear up as my scars wept in the dark of my mind next to my instinct.
Announcement
I come to you fine fellows with a fantastic feature, both older and wiser by a year and a day respectively.
It was the funny day, where the funny number went up and I have an idea to celebrate.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I''m going to posting some more art over on the discord over the next few days, as well as putting up a Q&A where you guys can ask about stuff.
I know its not much of an announcement, its rather light compared to most of the time I write one of these, but I hope I get to see a few of you over there.
Chapter 65 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 37
I could feel the wind on my neck as we took the not-quite-quick walk to the inner walls, visible from everywhere in and outside of the city, above all, the buildings peeked over. You could make out the crumbly ancient wall looming over the city like the eyesore it was.
All thought, eyesore or not, it was a useful landmark for making your way through the city. It was the only notable landmark, in fact, but that was beside the point.
My neck and head, despite the low weight of hair in general, it felt ten times lighter than it had before I had gotten a mild trim. It wasn¡¯t a tangible weight, not compared to the heft of a shovel or a bucket of water, but an intangible lightening. An emotional weight.
The same could not be said for the feeling of the air against my neck.
For all that I had a connection to the land, the grit and earth beneath my feet, I also had a connection to the sky, and the air, and my natural senses that so easily gave me feedback were suddenly causing me annoyance as my neck was opened to it for the first time in a long time.
I knew it would go away with time, fading into the background in the same way the feel of the air against my arms and face did, but man, was it annoying. It felt like my neck was tumbling around constantly. What filtered through my skill was like an invisible rumble of churning water, only that water was now billowing around the nape of my neck like a ship on a river.
The fact that I could sense it continuously brought it to my attention, and with my attention came my other senses, and with that came my sense for mana, which mirrored it, but in light and colour instead of the outlines and ripples of my natural senses.
Thankfully, I couldn¡¯t stay stuck in my head forever. A quick jaunt down one of the high streets and around the curve of the wall before I headed down the last road before the temple district. I could see the alien places of worship as I passed, their foreign gods unnerving me enough to wince but not slowing my stride in the least.
I did not like that place, and that tore me up inside.
Whenever I had gone to church, I had felt like it was a place where I belonged, a place where I had a community. However, considering that the church I had gone to was currently underground and everyone that made that community community was also dead.
Maybe I could have that again, just walk in and find a church to pray in, or maybe it was a bit too hopeful an idea that I could have walked into some church and been welcomed like one of them.
But for now, I had neither the nerve nor the feeling that it would work out. For now, I didn¡¯t feel like I belonged there. Somewhat ironically, becoming a Saint had put me on a path where a wedge had formed between me and prayer.
if I ever had the nerve to actively enter the district and set aside my fear of these new gods, would it be a minor bit of heresy to pray to other gods? Become one of their faithful and turn my back on Death? Did I need to pray to Death at all, or was it more of a voluntary thing?
I was thinking myself in circles, unready even now on what I was supposed to do beyond sending people to the afterlife.
¡°I suppose she was right¡ Maybe I do need community,¡± I said reflexively.
¡°What are you going on about now?¡± Selly asked, holding onto my short hair like the reins of a horse as I turned away from the distant churches and down the road, slowing down and carefully looking for a tavern or in with the right sign.
¡°It¡¯s just something someone told me, they told me I have a need for community,¡± I murmured.
She snorted derisively, ¡°Everyone does you dumb arse. Honestly. What have you philosophizing about your needs so thoroughly that you mumbled it out loud?¡±
I puckered in a wince as I thought about it.
My whole shtick would be a lot to unpack on Selly, and I wasn¡¯t sure I wanted to bring it up, and I wasn¡¯t sure it was the type of thing to unpack on anyone, let alone someone new.
¡°I don¡¯t know that it would make sense to tell you. It¡¯s a bit of a long story, and I don¡¯t know where to start. Hells, I don¡¯t even understand enough to fully explain myself because it just brings up more questions I don¡¯t have any answers to,¡± I told her, thinking on the related topic of gods and their apparent ability to get replaced, die, or otherwise change over time so drastically that they might as well be a different being.
¡°What on earth is so complicated about community that you are incapable of explaining it? It''s basic stuff, Saphine, not a political clusterfuck of epic proportions! Its not hard, just use your big head, and move your mouth, and spit it out, instead of letting it get stuck in the hollow between your ears!¡± she complained.
I winced at her volume and words. My emotions, lurking beneath the recent wound, welled and receded like the pounding of a tide, and with my oldest companion, I walled up, away from them, and indulged in a bit of self-shit talking.
¡°Hey, volume down, you know me by now. I¡¯m not good with words or using my head. I¡¯m just not good at being smart. I¡¯m a grunt, I¡¯m good at grunt work. I do not think I do,¡± I told her wanly.
Selly didn¡¯t answer for a moment, but I could practically feel the impatience as she muttered, ¡°One day, I¡¯m going to cave your stupid head in and find cobwebs and all that sand you make me pound in there and tidy up before I bury you.¡±
I had no idea what she meant by that, but I decided to do what I was good at and ignore the things I often didn¡¯t get.
I was good at that. If nothing else, it was the greatest mental feat I could do. I could shed details off my smooth brain, like water off a duck¡¯s back.
We walked in silence from there, a bubble of awkwardness in the relatively crowded sea of the street, packed with a flow of the young and old, people and carts and the smell of everything in between.
I noted a lack of gutters and a need for maintenance in the silence, and the idea of maybe asking Anna''s brother about it drifted through my head. Assuming I remembered the fleeting thought, it might shed some light on this backward city. It would do a lot of good to keep the streets clean, there was no way people didn¡¯t get sick, and considering it was a simple thing to just make a drainage gutter, I was a bit surprised the street wasn¡¯t dirtier or in worse shape than it was.
It didn¡¯t take long to find the sign I was looking for.
There was no name on the front, like most of the commoner establishment, it was more in the sign than any text, a common enough thing that I was suspecting that there was a serious issue with literacy. Another thing I filed away for later.
I walked up, and found the latch and entered into a moment straight out of fiction.
Upon entering, I was struck by the feel of the place. There was a feel for places like public houses, especially those that showed off the mark of hospitality. Hospitality was one of the good ones, and Hearth was too, and the patron and protecter of guest and host right and the patron of hearths and [Firekeepers] went together hand in hand to make a place feel like it was home. This place had both, and I could feel the memorable tangle of some minor blessing in the large common room common for those who practiced what the gods preached.
The room itself was all old, rugged half logs, stone pony walls, timber beams overhead, and round tables. It wasn¡¯t packed, but there were people with mugs, and I could smell the familiar smell of bread and some kind of short drink mixed between the food and familiarity. And then, the hefty door caught a breeze and swung shut just loud enough to draw attention.
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All at once, the murmur of the people hushed.
I caught quite a few eyes, and the atmosphere dropped a few notches as the patrons saw me and there was a sudden bit of tension that grew in the crowd. My instinct picked up small whiffs of fear and suspicion, and while I was surprised that this hadn¡¯t happened sooner and more surprised that no one had reached for their belts, I was surprised enough that I froze, remembering a time, not all that long ago that I stared into the eyes of someone and got killed for it.
I could see some of them with the heat haze of mana that told me there were passive skills going off, though I didn¡¯t know the what and why of them.
¡°Say something, you silly git,¡± my passenger whispered.
¡°Uh, sorry,¡± I called, awkward, clear, and with my best, ¡®I¡¯m not undead, please don¡¯t stone me voice,¡¯ but I could still see it in their eyes, the calculation running through their head.
I swear to any gods that can hear me if I get jumped in an inn, I will visit Death personally and get obliterated when I do her the major slight of breaking my foot off in her ass.
I looked up at the bar and saw the older, homely woman behind the counter, looking at me not with fear but confusion, a telltale rippling of what I was sure was an active skill of some kind going off, and it was enough for me to be a bit worried when she opened her mouth.
¡°Hello there, stranger. Don¡¯t worry about the door, it''s common enough. And don¡¯t let these lot or their stares put you off. You¡¯re welcome here so long as you don¡¯t start trouble.¡±
She said it with practice and weight as she accepted me as her guest. Her words caused a few of the patrons to turn to her, and some others shrug and get back to their food or drink. Quite a lot of the tension, suddenly and unexpectedly let go.
I took a careful step, and nothing exploded, so I started to carefully walk towards the counter to meet the hostess. On the second step, a door banged open, and I tensed for a moment, along with half of the crowd, as we all turned to look at the noise. But what walked out was a familiar face. She walked out and drew a second round of glances from the rest of the room before getting a round of acknowledgements, and even more of the tension bled out of the room.
It was Joan, and something about the familiarity of her face and the smile on it let me let go of the tension I didn¡¯t know I was carrying in my shoulders and neck. I continued on through the tables as the room started to return to normal.
I got close enough to hear murmuring on her helping out for a bit and I came up to the bar, only for her to leave and start making rounds. I watched her go and felt a moment of being lost, but the [Barwoman] called me over, and I pulled myself from flatfoot and focused back on the moment.
¡°Hello, young missis, welcome to the Copper Pot. Don¡¯t be a stranger, pull up a stool,¡± she told me, waving me over with a quick gesture that got me to pull up a seat.
¡°I¡¯m sorry for the door, really, it caught a bit of wind, I didn¡¯t mean for it to slam like that, um, missus¡¡± I told her, pausing before trying to remember Joan''s last name.
Fortunately for me, the missus in question answered me before I addressed her by the wrong last name.
¡°Oh dear, how rude of me. My name is Katherine Miller, though everyone just calls me Kathy. The door was no problem; it''s rugged enough, and I¡¯m sorry about the rude welcome; we don¡¯t get many people with¡ well, eyes like that in these parts. What can I get for you? Drink? Some food? I¡¯m sorry to say we don¡¯t have any rooms available, but if you need a bed, I know another place that keeps their sheets clean¡¡±
She had a gift for gabbing, and she seemed very polite. It took me off-road, getting the whole thing at once, which she got out with the kind of rote speech that came with a lifetime of practice and a boatload of charisma, hitting me like a brick to my lacking social grace.
I fumbled, and Joan called out from a table over, ¡°Saphine¡¯s here for food, ma. She lives with Strause''s sister.¡±
Thank you, Joan¡ You beautiful, magnificent, psychic, mindreading woman you.
¡°That¡¯s me,¡± I told her, ¡°Saphine, that is... Thanks for the offer, but I don¡¯t need a room or anything, I¡¯m just here for some food. I¡¯m heading for a picnic, and Strause brought some food yesterday that knocked everyone¡¯s socks off. I was also here for Strause, but he doesn¡¯t seem to be here, so I¡¯ll just have to settle for great food.¡±
And she got me talking with a little help from Joan, slowly easing me into talking with her mom. Joan wrapped up at some point after the talking had returned, and the atmosphere got better. Katherine, or Kathy, had one hell of a set of lungs on her and she called back to her husband after I put in my order with her, and Joan had come to sit beside me.
Similar to the other night, she held her hand out into the open air. I couldn¡¯t see, hear, smell or sense anything there, but I was willing to bet that there was, and I couldn¡¯t sense it.
Whatever it was, it didn¡¯t trigger anything I could sense, not even with my soul senses. Joan had no plumes of mana coming off of her, and she had very little in her body. Almost all of it was in patches along her skin, and that was it. It was like she had a baby¡¯s worth of mana in the body of a fully grown woman; it was as if she repelled it, and I could sense through her.
I filed it away as something weird about her and probably Strause and got to casually conversing with her.
Apparently, Strause was out ¡®Clause wrangling,¡¯ and I had just missed him. Selly greeted her, and she spoke around the gap as well as she could, though it was sketchy at best.
She stopped smiling when her mom went into the back, and it was like I had blinked without blinking. one moment, she was smiling, and the next moment, she was rather neutral, just like at dinner. Her face changed so quickly that it caught me off guard, and with the loss of the smile, she also started talking business.
¡°So, you wanted to talk to Strause? I can tell you want to ask a few things, but I¡¯m guessing there¡¯s something specific?¡±
¡°I¡ I, uh¡¡± I responded stupidly while I tried to dig through my memory for what I was going for.
¡°It''s about my people, I bet,¡± Selly said confidently and with a note that I couldn¡¯t place but sounded bad.
¡°Okay-,¡± ¡°Yes, tha-¡± we said at the same time to her social nudge. We both stopped to not cut the other one off.
¡°You first,¡± she told me.
¡°I know Strause has contacts with the guard, but I was betting he could also tell Clause about the Gremlins and maybe get a patrol out. I never really made any steps to tell anyone about the possible threat or about the Sprite village. I figure they pay taxes for protection, so Strause would know who to tell about it,¡± I explained, ¡°I don¡¯t know much of anything about Gremlins, but there was a Monster and what I believe are two lairs nearby, so I figured I should tell someone¡ And I mean¡ I don¡¯t have a good record with the guard¡¡± I told her.
The memory of the [Guard Captain] slamming the table multiple times for intimidation while I could barely string together three words in broken common came to mind.
I would rather not go through that again.
I don¡¯t know what I was expecting, but the first thing out of her mouth wasn¡¯t a response to the multiple lairs or a possible threat, but a faint furrowing of her brow and a simple ¡°They pay taxes?¡±
Selly sighed, ¡°Aye. Weve paid tax in honey and fine thread year on year for generations. A queen of old struck a deal with the lord for protection from tall threats, and they¡¯ve failed to hold up their end of the bargain.¡±
¡°Honey?¡± she asked, ¡°That is just so¡ Do you keep bees?¡± she asked.
¡°Aye, for food and companionship. They are social creatures and loyal companions if you mark them young. I remember mine, died a few years ago¡ Damn birds.¡±
She said bird in the same way Gunther had said ¡®twig.¡¯ As if birds were a slur instead of what they were, and neither of us had a reply to her for a good long moment, and while I parsed it faster and could have spoken up, this was between her and Selly, and I was purely a translator at this point.
¡°I don¡¯t know what you said, but wow¡ Okay, then¡ Well, I¡¯ll make sure to tell Strause, so he can worry Clause¡ But I would recommend not expecting much. Not while [Baron] Mynes has the army out on campaign. He might be able to send a group of [Hunters] past, but I doubt they can do all that much, they don¡¯t patrol, they mostly fight Beasts, and sometimes a pack of kin will kill a Monster on this side of the river,¡± she told Selly, who grumbled fumingly.
Joan, placatingly for her, continued.
¡°The [Lords] are gathering soon¡ If they don¡¯t push it back again, so the [Huntsmaster] and [Huntsmistress] will be around, and they could do it, but they''re basically [Nobles], no way they would¡ Unless it''s strong, and even then, it would be for the Monster, not the Gremlins, and not for the Sprites. But they will probably be bringing a few packs with them. I¡¯ll pass it along, just¡ temper your expectations. Everything is spread thin right now.¡±
Selly was pissy, but it just meant I would check it out every day. It wasn¡¯t so far away... Or it wasn¡¯t until I left for the south.
¡°So¡¡± I asked, ¡°There''s a war on?¡±
¡°Hmm? No, not a war, the [Baron] is out securing funds again, it happens every few years, just some conflict between some [Nobles] over land, I think, happens all the time.¡±
¡°Same difference,¡± I told her, ¡°Thank you for being willing to bring the information to Strause. I can hold it down for a few days, but only for a few days,¡± I told her.
¡°I¡¯ll do my best to pass on the severity,¡± she told me, ¡°Though why only a few days?¡±
¡°Anna has something planned, and she invited me down south. She¡¯s been keeping it a surprise, but whatever it is must be somewhat important.¡±
Joan, cool and unflinching, said, ¡°Cute,¡± before asking Selly, ¡°So is it a honeymoon, or are they eloping?¡±
¡°My money is on didn¡¯t ask, don¡¯t care. But considering they¡¯re not married, they''re probably eloping,¡± she said sourly.
¡°Scandalous,¡± she said, though I couldn¡¯t tell how much she understood of Selly''s reviled statement.
¡°I¡¯m right here¡ And we''re not at that point yet,¡± I told her.
¡°You sleep in her bed, and she smells of you. You two close enough, you just can¡¯t bring yourself to admit you love her,¡± she said, disdain heavy and cynical.
¡°That¡¯s just not right,¡± Joan said, a look of concentration on her face, ¡°If you love her, you need to tell her it¡¯s not right to play with someone¡¯s heart like that.¡±
Great. Just what I needed. I was outnumbered.
Chapter 66 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 38
I was getting a lot of attention from two women of varying capability, and it was not particularly fun, the fact that that the least of it was because it was hostile intent. A more important one, though not the most, was because I kept accidentally looking at Joan because I was flustered and then looking down and then back up.
The greatest curse of being attracted to women¡ Not wanting to be a creep but also being able to admire their bust.
Gahh. Stop it! Instinct, you hear me! Cut it out! No looking at other women! Anna is more than enough for me.
My instinct, responsible for all of my nebulous thoughts, did not ¡®cut it out,¡¯ and it made me feel terribly weird at the situation, and all the more because I was fairly sure accidentally ogling a person who might be able to read my mind, while also being angry at me for not telling Anna the words I love you.
It was not a good look, for sure. But I had some reasons for not telling Anna I loved her, and they came with many an edge. The sharpest of which was that
¡°Listen, I don¡¯t want to get into it, alright? Especially not in a tavern. The last thing I would want is it getting out,¡± I hush whispered to her.
¡°I have a skill for it,¡± Joan told me, ¡°you could shout about wanting to have a night of hot, passionate lovemaking with her, and no one would notice.¡±
I could feel my cheeks flush as her words conjured an image in my mind that I found indecent and titillating that I shook away quickly. As I did, Joan pointedly watched my face.
¡°Well, you¡¯re certainly interested in her if your face is anything to judge by, though I have to wonder why you¡¯re so adverse to love. What, is she supposed to be a dirty little secret? You¡¯re fine with the benefits, but you don¡¯t want to settle down and live publicly with her? Are you ashamed? Or are you just having some fun, getting ready to gallivant off into the sunset and break her heart?¡±
In a bit of panic, I started to look around but pulled myself back. I trusted her, if not much, and took her at her word that no one would notice.
¡°I¡¯m not-¡± I sputtered before thinking better of saying anything at all. ¡°I owe you no explanation.¡±
I practically hissed it. I couldn¡¯t tell if she was just angry if she was using some kind of mental trick to piss me off intentionally if it was plain old manipulation, or all three, but she was cutting deep into the festering wound of emotion.
It was a tumour of festering sickness, and it had been growing for a long fucking time. It was in fact, something I had always lived with.
My father, whoever he had been, was never around. He had left when my mother got pregnant, running away from responsibility before my mother had so much as a bump. I had never seen him with my eyes.
I had, at one point, when I was tenacious and contrary and a teenager, argued in a quiet room with my mother about him. The back and forth was overall unproductive, just me resisting the tyranny of people older than I was. Among the hurtful back and forth, I had questioned why she had even brought me into the world if everything sucked so much.
It had been a rare thing to see my mother truly sad, and it was all the worse for me to remember it. But I could remember her eyes when she told me it was because she had been in love with him.
Every day after that, I had been afraid of it. Of the idea of being in love with someone. Because when you loved someone, you let them in, and losing someone that close hurt more if they left. Worse was the accusation that, like my father before me, I wanted to take advantage of Anna. Without her knowing, she had mirrored me on the other side of my fear of love.
I clamped down on it, grasping the outrage reared from the old open scar, like the practiced fingers of a [Surgeon], and pinched and stitched the wound closed again before mentally slapping a bandage over it to hold in the black, toxic bile. With my other hand, I reached out and held my frustration and anger.
I had developed something of a tendency to yell at those who didn¡¯t deserve it, and it wasn¡¯t something I wanted to do. So, with hard-fought control, I lowered that below the surface. Choking it down and into the muck of my mind where it could drown for all I cared.
It was not the time and absolutely not the place for anger. Not in a tavern with a mark of hospitality and not when her mother had invited me in. No matter how uncharitable her comment was towards me and my intentions. She didn¡¯t mean to hurt me, though I had the feeling that she was poking me intentionally, it sounded more like she was trying to get me to defend my honour and open up, not cut me out of malice.
So, I started trying to move the conversation along and away from it, but Joan, quick and aware, slunk back into the topic at hand and gave some of her intentions.
¡°You right in that your relationship is none of my business,¡± she said placatingly, ¡°if that is what you have with her. But you¡¯re turbulent, and I¡¯m... close with Strause. As a friend, I would be remiss if I didn¡¯t look out for her well-being.¡±
She said friend like it was a poison pill, and while it was impossible to tell with her face as blank as it was, even I could tell with my non-existent charisma that there was something there.
I wanted to tell her to kindly fuck off, but she had also strummed a bit of my curiosity. Her phrasing of turbulent was interesting, and her friendship with Strause had me interested.
I had no real idea what she meant, but considering they had freaky deeky powers that were beyond my comprehension, some magic that was not based in mana like Sophy had explained soul magic.
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¡°What''s with the sourness and love talk?¡± I asked her, ¡°It doesn¡¯t seem¡ I don¡¯t know, like you? Does that make any sense? So spill, what''s the deal?¡±
She blinks her blank face at me a few times owlishly. A stare of incomprehension paired with calculation and thought, all without so much as a twitch of her face, a blush, or a change in her eyes.
Reading her was like trying to read a smooth granite wall, much like trying to read Strause. A skill they no doubt shared in one way or another.
¡°I owe you no explanation,¡± she said, the hint of a well-curated smirk as she threw my words back at me.
We locked eyes for a few long moments, a flicker of my flame reflected in her eye as she stared me down. Her blank mouth was a line, held in check by will and skill in equal measure.
It was my move. She had managed to get me to want to talk to the horrible, manipulative woman.
I went to open my mouth when her mother came back in from the kitchen with an honest-to-goodness basket of food.
There was a flicker in Joan''s eye, and immediately after, her mother, whose eyes were skating over me like I was a pond in winter, found me.
She smiled, and I smiled back, sans teeth.
I didn¡¯t have time to get sidetracked and spend an hour trying to dig into her. I had somewhere to be.
I worked out the payment and got the food under my arm, and said my goodbye, and then I left the tavern and Joan behind without getting to the gossip with her. She had wanted to, but I would need to save it for another day.
Me and Selly, headed out with a gift basket.
Joan''s mom, which was now her name in my head despite her name being Katharine, had given me a gift basket.
For free.
I know it was free because I tried to pay for it, but she didn¡¯t let me.
I would come back. If you cut out the first part, where my presence alone almost got people to freak out, the atmosphere was almost as cozy as home.
It sucked that Strause wasn¡¯t there, but I trusted Joan enough to not be worried.
¡°I wonder what her deal is,¡± I said to myself, unable to puzzle out Joan''s deal.
Selly humphed, ¡°It¡¯s the same deal as you, no doubt. The both of you are sick in the head.¡±
¡°Wait,¡± I said, translating from Selly to a normal person, ¡°you think she¡¯s in love?¡±
¡°Not in love, I don¡¯t have a problem with love,¡± Selly said tiredly, ¡°I have a problem with the sickness you all get when you fall in love. You get all ich about it. I¡¯m no [Healer], but I know it when I see it.¡±
I picked that apart, not even caring enough to contradict her words. I didn¡¯t know if I loved Anna, so I didn¡¯t say I did.
That was all, nothing else there. I definitely wasn¡¯t worried about love.
¡°So¡ you¡¯re saying that she¡¯s having relationship issues?¡± I asked her, trying to focus on the conversation.
¡°I¡¯m saying that all of you have issues, and relationships are the root cause.¡±
I wonder who it was.
The only person I could think of was¡
¡°Do you think she might be¡ you know¡ with Strause?¡±
¡°Eh¡ Maybe? It makes sense if they are, they''re both the same kind of weird. Same with you and you¡¯re [Druid].¡±
She said it without derision for once.
I think I¡¯m getting through to her over Anna. Now, she only thinks we¡¯re weird instead of freaks.
¡°Anna¡¯s not that weird, she¡¯s perfectly normal.¡±
Selly almost laughed, and while short, it at least gave me the hope that the brash but happy Selly was still in there.
¡°Oh boy. If you think she¡¯s normal, you have a beam loose in there, the both of you do. She¡¯s a [Druid] who lives in the forest all alone, with a history as a [Noble] woman, you¡¯re a commoner and don¡¯t seem to care about nobility one bit. She¡¯s teaching you to be a mage, and you think about hitting people with a shovel. She probably doesn¡¯t give a rat''s ass about holy junk, and you¡¯re a bloody [Saint]. And the both of you are lovey-dovey out the ass while simultaneously being worried about pushing each other away. You contrast each other in the weirdest ways.¡±
My foot almost caught on a cobble, and I bumped into a random person on accident as she spoke, but I caught myself and made a turn, almost spilling my precious cargo. I got onto a clearer road and managed to pick up the pace on my way out of the city.
I didn¡¯t respond to her; instead, I just thought about it for a bit.
Are we weird? Anna was a noble¡ Or I guess she still is. Is it weird that we get along?
Were we worried about the same thing? Are we worried about being left? I know I am¡ But is she?
My memory reminded me of her asking me about her crying, and started doing what it did best, connecting the dots as my mind whirred. I crunched it over in my mind, thinking about it only to hit a dead end and started to examine it from another direction.
Was that one of the things that kept her interested? That I that I didn¡¯t want to see her go, and instead hold her close?
Was she aware of me being afraid of her leaving?
What should I do if that¡¯s correct, and Anna is worried about me leaving? Should I let it affect me?
I had no answers to any of them; each of them rattled around in my head, bouncing over and over without any way to catch them. I had no idea what to do with it, no idea what to think, feel, or believe.
My inability to do something as simple as understanding the situation I was in made me want to bang my head in the hope that it would somehow fix what was broken. A bit of percussive maintenance on myself.
I, of course, couldn¡¯t do that, but it ate at me nonetheless.
Then I remembered I wasn¡¯t alone.
I thought over it carefully, thinking of what to say, but I have never been good at thinking, so I acted instead.
¡°Selly¡ Do you honestly think Anna is afraid of pushing me away?¡±
I asked it quietly as if my thoughts would shatter like a vase if I raised my voice.
She just made a noise of agreement, not even speaking, as if worse would be a waste of time on something so basic as to not need words.
¡°What should I do about that?¡± I asked.
Selly, for once, didn¡¯t immediately answer, rolling the idea around in her head.
¡°Sometimes,¡± she said thoughtfully, ¡°it''s not about what you should do; it is about what you can do. You can¡¯t change how she feels or how you feel. All you can do is keep them in mind. I am no mind reader. I can¡¯t tell you for certain if she is afraid you¡¯ll leave her, but if you want her to feel better, if she is, if you want to act on it, you should keep it in mind and apply it as you go. It''s not like you can swoop in and change it, but if I had to do something about it, it would be to keep it in mind and ask her.¡±
She said it with sincerity and thoughtfulness. It was touching that she did, considering her normal distaste for anything romantic or non-platonic. I took her words to heart, and the ideas began to lose their energy and began to pack themselves away, tucking themselves in to bed.
Her words brought a lightness to my situation, and it was nice to feel that relief because even if it was for a moment, it was like the world made sense again.
¡°Thank you for the words of wisdom,¡± I told her before taking a deep breath.
¡°It is not a problem,¡± she told me quietly, ¡°I know it probably flew over your head or perhaps crashed into it like a wall, but you are kin and friend. If you want to talk, all you need do is ask¡ Now, let''s get out of this smelly cesspit and back to your¡ er¡ lady friend so you can go on your date.¡±
It was touching; she only gaged a little bit when she said date. She had the spirit¡ or I supposed she didn¡¯t have the spirit, but she was on the right track to not vomit when someone said romance.
Chapter 67 Sprites, Spring, Spells and Storms Part 39
We were quick to leave the city proper, getting onto the grass and off of the conversation of love and my fears and insecurities. Instead, we talked a little about something a little more at my pace, a little more practical.
We talked about hitting people with shovels.
¡°Listen¡ Listen. All I¡¯m saying is that you¡¯re not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, if you get my meaning. As good as a shovel is, it can¡¯t outshine a weapon.¡±
She had a point, and it was a point I knew and understood. I just didn¡¯t care.
¡°And I¡¯m telling you, I don¡¯t know how to use a weapon properly, so I¡¯m using a skill to make my shovel count as a weapon, and skills to make me better with tools, and skills to pile on skills and so on. I get what you¡¯re getting at Selly, really I do, but I am starting to get some good synergy¡¯s going.¡±
She chortled sharp enough to substitute human cheese, tittering to herself like there was a joke only she understood.
¡°You have skills, alright¡ Hahaah! You and you¡¯re Anna both. You both talk about skills but never show them off. Are you sure you even know what your skills do?¡±
I squinted, trying to put her words together in my head. She was alluding to something, but it was momentarily out of reach, leaving me tongue-tied as I tried to puzzle it out.
Not showing off my skills? Both me and Anna? What is she going on about? I use my skills all the time. I¡¯m using one right now! Gah, I wish I could wipe the smugness out of her without making her depressed.
We never show off skills¡ We never show off¡
I couldn¡¯t for the life of me put it together.
¡°You know, for someone that¡¯s supposedly real smart, all you''re being is a real smart ass. What are you yapping about?¡± I asked her, unable to keep the hint of annoyance that Selly seemed to feed off out of my voice.
¡°Oh¡ I don¡¯t know. You seem to have everything in hand. What was it you said? You have skills to pile on skills?¡± she said, a bit of ridicule in her voice.
Selly was many things, but a bully who pointlessly belittled others was not one of those things. She had a heart under all that black armour and white fluff, big enough to keep a mammoth up, and I had a feeling this was one of those times.
Knowing that and feeling it was too different things, however, because what I was feeling was more along the lines of swatting the mosquito rather than sitting down and listening to her.
I decided to go one way, my mouth another, and I ended up spitting out, ¡°If you¡¯re just going to lead me on, you¡¯re not half the Selly I know you can be.¡±
She spluttered, aghast at my nerve¡ or perhaps at the fact that I went straight for her pride, which necessitated she defend it.
I waited while she hit me with all the force of a mouse tackling me.
¡°I will warn yee, dishonouring another dishonour¡¯s yourself, and as a [Tall Friend], it would be remiss if you were to do so. It would reflect poorly on my queen and clan. Do not do it so lightly. That said, it should be obvious. You don¡¯t show it. You use you¡¯re skills like you would a hammer. Just another tool in your toolbox. You need to start treating your skills like any other weapon. Anyone can do amazing things, but you have to work on them¡ Train them as you do with your drilling and magic. It''s all well and good to use them, but practice makes perfect, and neither of you practice with them; you just use them.¡±
¡°Their skills, they''re supposed to be used,¡± I told her simply.
¡°Aye you daft fanny, and the [Swordsman] that practices a skill so many times he can do it without speaking beats the one that doesn¡¯t. When was the last time you did something new with an old skill? The last time you took a skill and pushed it a little?¡±
I thought about that for a moment, spinning it through the gears of my mind. It wasn¡¯t a common occurrence that I just practiced it.
¡°Uhhh¡ Back when I pushed mana into my skills the other day when we were fighting Gremlins.¡± I told her. ¡°I had never pushed mana into a skill, and it opens up new possibilities.¡±
¡°Ahhh. Wrong,¡± Selly said, ¡°That¡¯s magic nonsense. It¡¯s a twinkle-fingers way to use mana. I can¡¯t, and a [Swordsman] can¡¯t, so it''s magic. Other than that, what was the last time? Think¡ when did you push a skill? What was the last time you did it?¡±
I wanted to argue, but I decided to go along with it. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I could use some active skills because I had a ton of familiarity with them. I had used them so much that they were second nature, and I knew them inside and out.
When was the last time I did that? Just futzed about with a skill?
My mind spun out and out, my memory, a rat''s nest of twine and straw and twigs loosened, and the little fox in my head started sorting it like a secretary. Embarrassing moments next to important ones, next to the smell of Anna. I flexed my fingers¡ and stopped as the fox sniped a memory and presented it to me.
I had gotten my claws to count as a tool.
Gods above, it must have been months ago, way back after I had met Anna, and she had gone to talk with her mother, and I had just frolicked with her towards the city, hand in hand, while that was still a new thing. Before, I had become a mage and gotten ganked by the [Hunters].
I remembered my hand and her hand, and I had a sudden urge to hug her instead of holding a basket.
¡°Months ago,¡± I told her, ¡°I¡ I got my claws to count as a tool, like a knife.¡±
There was a warmer tone in her voice for a moment, that was very her. Not the her that was with me now, but the her that had told me to use my head. The her that stood behind the mask and scar of life.
¡°That¡¯s more like it. While it''s probably common with clawed people, it¡¯s still a good flex. You have to work on some of that with you¡¯re drills and magic. Flexing your skills is important, and it''s good for growth.¡±
It was, and in a weird roundabout way, I knew it was because a skill doing something it wasn¡¯t used to would probably wear down faster, which would make the experience faster. And unlike when I sucked up a bajillion souls every other week, it was scalable and didn¡¯t make me feel all soft. Working with mana and skills would both give me passive experience, and passive levels. Both together would probably give a good amount every week.
There was only one problem with it: one glaring weakness. I couldn¡¯t think of how to do it. Flexing a skill like that was one of those things that came to you, not that you found, a thing where a bunch of small things clicked together.
¡°But what do I do to get that flex? It can¡¯t be just using them. I had to make a mental leap for the claws thing; I can¡¯t just pull that out from under my non-existent hat every day.¡±
She sighed, and her weight shifted. I could see, as I turned my head to see her on my shoulder, she shook her head in the corner of my eye.
¡°It''s not about that. You can only do it if you know a skill, inside and out. A breakthrough isn¡¯t an everyday occurrence. It''s something you think about at the moment that gives you the idea to do something with it. But if you train your skills, it''s more likely. If you have an idea for a skill pop into your big empty head and you are practicing, you¡¯re more likely to try it. If you have an idea and you know how your skill works, you can work with them. If you know your skills well enough if you train them. But you''re not. I know it¡¯s tedious, but you and your Anna haven¡¯t even used your newest skills. She told you she would show you her new skill, but if it was me, I would have used the skill a half a hundred times by now. You probably have new skills, but have you even used them yet, even once?¡±
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I hadn¡¯t I had gotten a bunch of new skills and not used them. Not so much as a single use for some of them, while others were passive and always on. I hadn¡¯t used a good chunk of them.
¡°Isn¡¯t it a little wasteful to use them? I mean, they tire me out, so it¡¯s not like I can use them forever¡ And I have stuff to do,¡± I told her defensively.
She wasn¡¯t having it, though. She was smart enough to know that my being defensive was just being defensive automatically and not an active defence of myself.
¡°Tut tut. It¡¯s training; when would it not be a little draining? And as for you doing stuff, you could have been training while you did that math, or walking or doing almost anything. Theres no way all of you¡¯re skills are about hitting people with shovels. Try futzing with them now. It''s not about spending tons of time with them, just playing around with them every day.¡±
I thought about it but couldn¡¯t think of what to try. I was so used to just using a skill as a tool that my mind warred with itself to figure out what I should do. What skill to try?
I kept bouncing between them, trying to pick one, only to think of using a different one, then another.
I hadn¡¯t picked by the time we were getting back, Selly egging me on to just try one out like it was a hair ornament. We came up and entered the grove with a basket of food, and through an open window, I saw Anna painting.
It looked picturesque, a tiny slice you would see in a painting.
I could feel a smile spread across my face as I took her in.
We were going to go and spend the day in the woods.
¡°Hey, Selly, are you going to join us? Into the woods on our picnic, that is. I haven¡¯t told Anna yet, but I¡¯m going to bring her to that grove, the one with the Nameless in it.¡±
She sighed, taking a step back to take in the side of my face.
¡°Are you going to be ich about it? No, don¡¯t tell me, of course you will, you dope. Are you going to be lovey? Kiss one another? Hand-holding is fine, but I draw the line after cuddles and kisses.¡±
She looked like the very idea of kissing was some terrible breach of conduct, both scandalous and a thing of disgust, and that beyond that lay something beyond the pale, unmentionable in its own way.
The unmentionable was beyond my ability, and no flush was what it was. And the things it conjured in my mind were a great embarrassment, not because they were bad, but because I didn¡¯t want to look at Anna that way, and all they did was feed my mind and instinct a reason to stare at her.
If Anna wanted, that would be one thing I could stare all day and admire, but as it stood, it just made me more aware of whenever I inadvertently stared at her. The golden rule held sway over me, and I didn¡¯t like it when people stared at me, so I didn¡¯t want to leer at her.
Good people were hard to come by at the best of times, and I really didn¡¯t want to fuck that up on top of me being a dud pick to court. I didn¡¯t want Anna to regret saying yes.
I shook myself from my thoughts, the smile gone, and responded, ¡°No, nothing like that, it¡¯s a picnic, not a rendezvous. I don¡¯t plan on having sex with Anna in the forest.¡±
¡°Good,¡± Selly said, ¡°Then I¡¯ll come, but I¡¯m not going to spend it with you, give you a little alone time or whatever. I¡¯ll spend it with the Nameless, I wouldn¡¯t want to rain on your time.¡±
¡°Nonsense, I enjoy the time I¡¯ve had with you so far,¡± I told her.
¡°Sure. Well, go on then, no waiting, go-getter.¡±
I nodded, trying to pump myself up, and didn¡¯t dally; I walked straight up to the window with a swagger I didn¡¯t feel and leaned onto the sill. The noise drew her eye from the easel and the fruit she was painting.
¡°You¡¯re back,¡± she said owlishly, blinking too much, the light behind me casting a light shadow over her and the apple. ¡°You¡¯re back, and you cut your hair.¡±
¡°Eup, I¡¯m back. What do you think? Is it any good?¡± I asked her
¡°It¡¯s quite fetching,¡± she said a bit bashfully, her words sending a bit of warmth to her cheeks.
We just looked at one another for a moment, but before it could lapse into an embarrassed silence, I told her, ¡°I bring good food and a mode of transportation to the place I wanted to show you whenever you¡¯re ready.¡±
It broke whatever fragile thing was held in the air between us, and she looked at the painting and sighed, muttering, ¡°I¡¯ll finish you one day,¡± before speaking up to me, ¡°I need to use the pot; I¡¯ll be out in a minute.¡±
I watched her go and waited two minutes for her to come out, but she did, and she came out with a thinking face.
I walked over to her and held my arms out, but she raised a finger and said, ¡°Hold on, I need to talk to Selly for a moment. Selly, can you come with me? I need to talk to you for a moment.¡±
Selly buzzed her little wings, and I was left outside for another half a dozen minutes. I passed it mindlessly, lying down on the grass. Then, do some push-ups, and then half a dozen became a dozen, and I stopped doing pushups. I thought it over and decided that considering the gremlins were around there, I might as well go armed, and I got the spade and tied it to me. Continuing to think it over, ready to head out, I got to thinking about carving foci, and I realized that I could carve the shovel.
The handle was wood, it was, as my absentee tutor would say, a stick, just like a staff.
I could carve the shovel, and then I would have not only a magical weapon but a magical foci whenever I had the shovel.
I didn¡¯t even know what a foci did, but I felt that that would be a good thing. A magic weapon that was a focus sounded good, if nothing else.
It was such a simple thing, such a basic thing, that it hadn¡¯t occurred to me yet. And I congratulated myself just after the door opened.
¡°Holy shit. Am I a genius or what?¡±
¡°What are you going on about¡ And why do you have a shovel?¡±
I looked up at her and grinned, quickly explaining that I could make the shovel a foci, which was also a weapon while I held it and a magical weapon.
Anna, for her part, raised her eyebrows.
¡°When did you get a magical weapon proficiency?¡±
¡°It¡¯s a magical tool proficiency¡ or well [Magical tools], and [Magical Tool Proficiency]. It''s not a straight-up magical weapon proficiency, but for me, it¡¯s just as good for me.¡±
Anna, for her part, looked at me, then grew thoughtful. Nodding along, tapping her cheek as she held her chin.
¡°That would certainly be something. Maybe you could go for some kind of magical fighting class? A [Spellblade] perhaps, or more like a [Bladesinger]? No, you couldn¡¯t be a [Bladesinger]. That¡¯s elvish. I wouldn¡¯t even know how to help you get that¡¡±
I walked up to her hand on one hip, ¡°I can get my guide to help me, I¡¯m sure she knows. Don¡¯t go worrying about it, today is not a worrying time, it¡¯s a date time. Come on, it¡¯s time to pay up so we can go,¡± I told her with a grin.
Anna puffed up her cheeks a little, then blushed, ¡°What exactly are you implying? What are you expecting as payment?¡±
I walked up real close and leaned in, close enough to kiss and watched as she blushed. I leaned into the shoulder opposite Selly so I didn¡¯t bump her, right up next to her ear, and I heard her take a breath.
¡°I was thinking¡¡± I told her as sensually as I could, ¡°That you show me that skill you were talking about,¡± and then I stepped back and watched as her face shot through several different emotions.
It started as confusion and flushed cheeks that told me she was expecting something like a kiss and ended with disbelief.
¡°I ought to slap you,¡± she said crossly, ¡°getting my hopes up like that¡ I don¡¯t want to do it right now. And it would be embarrassing, I¡¯m not going to do it.¡±
I watched her face and gave her a look.
¡°I¡¯m not! I¡¯ll walk right back in there now and finish my painting. I¡¯ll do it,¡± she threatened.
I didn¡¯t buy it and held my ground, changing the look to be a little more exaggerated, a little more goofy to cut some of the tension.
¡°If this place isn¡¯t worth it, I¡¯m going to make you sleep with Selly,¡± she told me, drooping a little as she caved, ¡°and if I hear a laugh out of you, I¡¯m going to bash you over the head. I will.¡±
¡°I won''t¡¡± I told her, ¡°Come on then, you seemed excited. Show me.¡±
She looked at me seriously, then asked, ¡°Would you still like me if I was a mouse?¡±
I didn¡¯t understand what she meant, but I nodded.
¡°I would still like you if you were a mouse¡ I could make you a little mouse bed and mouse house. Maybe get you some nabours, though I would have to be careful, or you might just pick one of them instead of me,¡± I told her almost immediately.
She palmed her face, but she knew that I was being serious and nodded, quickly shooing Selly from her shoulder.
She looked at me again and said, ¡°You¡¯re going to have to carry me like this, I can¡¯t change it for an hour.¡±
I was going to be honest with myself that I had no clue what she was going on about, but I was a little excited.
She took a deep breath as Selly hopped in the basket, kicking up her feet on a sandwich while Anna said, [Wild Shape], and in a moment, so fast you would miss it, she disappeared.
It was instantaneous; one second, she was there, and like an untaken blink, she had been replaced by a floating mouse that let out a squeak as it fell.
Prey, my instinct whispered, our prey, our mouse, catch her before she flees. The thought raced through my mind and raised the hair on the back of my neck.
I didn¡¯t rush her; instead, I walked up and quickly gripped her delicately. She wriggled uncomfortably, and I quickly placed her in the basket before I raised it to eye level.
Anna didn¡¯t act like a mouse, there was no timidity or skittishness.
I reached down and petted her trunk, and she squeaked a little.
¡°You¡¯re incredibly cute as a mouse, you know?¡±
She squirmed out from under my finger and turned to look up at me, head turned slightly and said in a perfectly normal voice, ¡°I¡¯m not a pet, and I¡¯m not for petting.¡±
I took her in and had to actively stop myself from laughing. Selly laughed her ass off, and I quickly started moving to our destination. Anna could see it in my face while I started asking her about where her clothes went, how it worked to try and draw her attention, and the ire it held to something her speed, namely explaining cool magic stuff.
And then we were off, me carrying a mouse and a sprite in an open basket, with Selly laughing her ass off like the little stinker she was, and Anna talking like normal about the indignity of not being able to transform back and bringing me to task over not finishing my test already so she can teach me more.
Chapter 68
It was an endless slog to the grove; the woodland paths that came after the road were a never-ending twist and twined along the trunks of the old trees. The ground was moist without the late spring sun to wick away the early morning fog, as were the grasses and herbs and whatnot.
Anna complained as I did my best not to laugh or act demeaningly, which was, in my defence, very hard. She was very adorable as a mouse, and I found it hard not to pat her, tickle her, and watch her boggle at me while she attempted to tell me that she didn¡¯t like it at all or squeaked in defiance.
Her actions gave away the truth, even if it was one that she would not admit to. I could tell just from watching her that she enjoyed the attention; I could see it in the movement of her tail and the squeaks my instinct fed to me as joy.
It was a simple joy, just her being acknowledged in a way that brought her a simple pleasure. She enjoyed the attention, even if she didn¡¯t like it on a human level.
It only made her cuter; in that adorable way, tiny things could be adorable.
The simple nature of it didn¡¯t last the entire trip. As she hopped out of the basket, she complained about the entire trip being bumpy. She hurled herself out of it in a squeak and, upon doing so, in a flicker, turned back into her human form.
Just as it had come, it had gone in an instant, with no flash of light or ceremony, just there one moment and gone the next so quickly it felt like blinking. One moment, there was mouse Anna, then Human Anna. She was still wearing her clothes and everything. She landed on all fours and, for a moment, looked back at me, her eyes held wide like a mouse, only for her to blush as she caught herself and stood up straight, brushing invisible dirt from herself.
I moved to scoop her up, but she refused my approach.
¡°I can walk, Saphine; I don¡¯t want to get hauled around like luggage.¡±
She sounded a little embarrassed, but it seemed to be about something else, and I could understand the embarrassment. That was the Anna special. She did it all the time when she got affection, but there was something else there that I couldn¡¯t read for my life.
My instinct did not understand it either, so it was no simple animal thing. It was not of beasts but of man, and it was not something I was familiar with spotting. It wasn¡¯t shame or her being upset or anything I had seen.
Instead of picking her up, I walked over to her and offered her my hand, and slowly she took it. She gave me a wiggle that looked like a good wiggle, but I couldn¡¯t understand the look.
We walked, her holding close to me while we walked. Selly took a nap while we trod calmly through the woods, and without her attention, we got to hold one another''s hands properly for a while. She stroked my hand gently until the pressure grew familiar. I, too, stroked her hand with my thumb in return; we didn¡¯t compete; we didn¡¯t flirt; we just took in the moment next to each other, the calm of the forest a nice balm.
I felt like an idiot for feeling the way I did at such a simple thing, but it was nice.
I was glad we were on the right side of the grove. The ground here, while damp, did not hold the baleful dark magic taint that existed in the forest beyond. Whatever magic the focus points like Groves did as nodes of the ley lines that ran underfoot beyond my fledgling senses, it was enough to hold it back.
Anna began to notice something as we got closer, a look of confusion and puzzlement overtaking her face. She looked at me, and I could see a question on her lips and the corner of her eyes, only for her to hold it in and save the secret.
She became excited as we got closer, paying attention to what I assumed to be the mana, and as we got closer, the excitement grew until we reached the mouth of the clearing, dense wood that had but a few entrances and exits.
¡°Close your eyes,¡± I whispered to her.
She bit her lip but took a deep breath and closed her eyes, gripping onto me tightly, her head laid against my arm.
I gave her a quick walk into the grove, and I felt as if she felt the feeling of the place, the weight of it, in the same way I could feel her grove.
¡°Give it a look,¡± I whispered down to her.
She opened her eyes, and over the course of a few moments, she was rendered speechless. Her face took it in. Awe and, familiarity, and wonder spread on her face like a child on the winter solstice, unwrapping presents with the glee only one pure of heart could have.
It was much as I had last seen it, but the effect it had was still fresh, new enough for a second round of wonder on my part.
The grove was just as enchanting, just as magical as prior, with its woodland critters and otherworldly light. The eye trees loomed around, giants that blocked out enough light to give it a mood lighting, while the grass bristled with the attention of nature, its blades peeking out to tickle toes and hide the smallest of woodland critters, mice and more.
It was the picturesque sight of a magical woodland, and at its heart lay the familiar nameless who lay with a court of animals next to them while others lay inside.
I could see a hare hop out the back of the belly plating of one, a small line of bunnies behind her as they made for feasting on the mana-rich grasses.
I returned to looking at Anna¡¯s surprised shock, the wonder of childhood left behind in her echoing in her eyes, and I leaned over and gave her a peck on the head, not speaking a word, as if my speech would break the magic over the moment, and bring her back to reality.
I snuck my hand into the basket to pull out a cloth for us to lay down on. I bumped Selly, but she must have been out cold because she didn¡¯t even budge. Holding the basket in the crook of my arm and the cloth in the same hand, I waited for Anna to come back down from her gaping, and once I did, I got her to pick out a spot to set up.
I tossed open the blanket and sat down, opening up the basket to take out some of the food.
Anna sat down, and then lay back, hands crossing over her stomach, staring up at the canopy, rays of light drifting through and down onto us.
¡°So, what do you think? I would say it''s suitable astounding for a picnic.¡±
¡°It¡¯s¡ It¡¯s beautiful¡¡± she said, still astounded by the glade.
I fetched a sandwich and passed it into her hands, her fingers moving to grasp first the sandwich, then the hand that proffered it to her. I followed the pull of her arm until she had pulled me all the way over to her, then to her lap, where she got me to rest my head.
Her legs were soft beneath my head, and I kept my eyes up instead of taking in Anna''s body from an angle of her lap. Her dress wrinkled below my head, and her hand came down to my hair, her fingers running through stands and about the base of my ears; the short hair and the feeling of newness let me relax in her lap, the food forgotten.
¡°Thank you, Saphine¡ It¡¯s beautiful. Thank you for bringing me here,¡± she said softly. ¡°I didn¡¯t know what to expect, but this is far and above what I thought. So much so that I feel I should apologize. I was a bit dismissive earlier, and I was prickly about it on the way here, and I¡¯m sorry for that.¡±
She had an openness in her voice and about her that made her feel chastened to me.
¡°That¡¯s ok, Anna. I kept it from you, and everyone needs some alone time. I¡¯ve been leaning into your time, and you were finally getting some only for me to whisk you away,¡± I told her then as an afterthought to not be rude about it, ¡°and I accept your apology.¡±
As far as I was concerned, Anna was entitled to want to stay and paint; her being a bit dismissive was no big deal to me. Everyone was entitled to some alone time, even if they were close. The fact is I had been taking all of hers up with myself.
¡°What did I ever do to deserve you?¡± she asked after she let out a chuckle that was not so much humour as pained, like a dying soldier laughing at their mortal wound.
The audacity of her words was like a blow to my head and left me dazed and confused.
¡°You always excuse me my shortcomings, always turning the other cheek¡ If I didn¡¯t know you better, I would think you were demeaning me, but you¡¯re not. You just hear something and say that it makes perfect sense and accept it.¡± she said, adding to my confusion, ¡°I won¡¯t lie; it drives me a little mad how you can just see and accept something. I don¡¯t know how you do it. It¡¯s like everything makes sense, even if you don¡¯t understand it at all.¡±
¡°I¡¯m¡ Sorry?¡± I said, confused enough that I said it as a question instead of as a statement.
That got her to smile, a real smile. I could tell by the way it lit up her face. Blessedly, she put a finger to my lips to stop me from saying something dumb.
¡°None of that, Saphine. You get me to do stuff¡ you lead, you act, and you take care of me and my needs. But I¡¯m the one who takes care of you and your needs¡ including getting you to open up and, as I am becoming aware of quite quickly, your tendency to curl back up. Is that something you would agree with?¡± she asked.
I had the feeling that she meant me to move my head in agreement or denial, but I said, ¡°Yes?¡± a question that even muffled made me want to smash my forehead with my palm.
¡°Good. You don¡¯t need to curl back up then, no need to close yourself off or apologize to me for who you are, ok,¡± she told me, cupping my cheek.
I nodded, not chastened but certainly close to it.
She sat up at my agreement, making her chest move in a way that drew my eye and made me blush like a dolt.
Don¡¯t notice, don¡¯t-
She noticed.
¡°Well, look at that. Were you staring at my womanly assets? Well, at least I know you''re still interested in that, even if you have your hangups¡ Now then, I¡¯ve noticed you¡¯re tenser, more than you usually are. What has you in a tissy?¡± she asked, removing her finger from my lips.
There were so many things, too many things that I could tell her.
I could start with the hair, or the cat, or the monster. I could remark on my fears about bringing her into fights, or my hangups, or a bit about her assets and my internal struggle. I had a million things my stupid mouth could spew out like a sewage pipe from every fold of my mind.
But I held them back; instead, I asked her tenuously, ¡°What do you see in me? Why me? You could probably achieve better¡ even if it''s hard to find someone else. So why settle for me?¡±
She looked at me, reading the lines of my face, and a flush, not of embarrassment but a flush nonetheless, spread across her cheeks.
¡°Where to even start?¡± she asked herself, ¡°You are attractive; you are taller than me and have big, strong arms to hold me. You¡¯re a bit exotic with your ears and eyes and nose; for some, that might be enough¡ But you make me feel safe and secure; you make me feel understood, too. You always seem to know how to take care of my needs, including the ones I didn¡¯t even know I had. You are safe, and that¡¯s worth a thousand promises¡ And that¡¯s why I¡¯m attracted to you, purely physically and emotionally attached. But then there''s why I like you, and¡ And why I think I love you too. All bound together. It''s hard to pick one reason.¡±
She said it, and I shuddered a little as an instinctive sliver of fear bit into the back of my mind. My instinct reared up, raising its head and nipping at it, and my feelings began to descend into anarchy, my mind warring with itself. My instinctive fear of love warred with how I cared about Anna.
Anna reached out and lay her hands on my cheeks, looking me in the eye. I could hide nothing from her where I lay in her lap, the vulnerability of the position breaking down the barrier of thick skin. I had to hold out the world and hold in my pain. It was carefully kept and maintained, but it was weak, and Anna leaning down to kiss me was all it took to punch through it like a great [Knights] lance. To reveal the boiling mass of pain to the light.
I could feel tears in the corners of my eyes while Anna''s lips were pressed to mine for a few moments, and then she drew back and stared into my eyes and saw something in them.
¡°I¡¡± I tried to say, ¡°I can¡¯t say I get it,¡± I told her before she could ask me what was wrong...
She did not shy away, she did not ask me what was wrong, she just nodded, accepting it.
¡°Then let''s talk about it if you¡¯re up for that. I¡¯ve leaned on you, and I would have it so that you lean on me. That¡¯s how a relationship works¡ You were holding back your instincts, and now you are free to show them. I want to know you... All of you, even whatever is eating you up inside. You¡¯re obviously feeling something, so let me take some of that weight, ok?¡±
I opened my mouth to answer, but I couldn¡¯t bring the words out. They all sounded terrible in my head.
What was I going to say? I don¡¯t love you? I don¡¯t know if I love you. Would I insult her sense of taste if I dumped on myself? If I skipped that, what would I say? I¡¯m afraid you don¡¯t love me and want things from me? That wasn¡¯t Anna, and I knew it. None of them were right, and none of them were wrong, but each was a heavy load of things I didn¡¯t know if I could plant on Anna.
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The big thing that held me from saying those words felt like lead weights around my heart. I didn¡¯t even know if, at the moment, I could say love without bursting into tears because of the tumultuous tempest of my mind.
But if I couldn¡¯t say that, what would I say? What could I say?
I opened my mouth like a fish, and my mouth moved, pushed by my instinct to tell her something, and my mind fished out an answer to the conversation at hand.
¡°I can¡¯t say I get it¡ what you see in me. You talk about it like I¡¯m great, but I just can¡¯t see it. I¡¯m not all that good, I guess. I¡¯ve never¡ It just makes me think I¡¯m going to disappoint you¡¡± I told her, managing to hold in the worst of my tears, ¡°And I don¡¯t like the idea of leading you on with things that you think are worth liking about me when I¡¯m a waste of time.¡±
Anna looked at me then, looked at me, and she saw something, I could see she saw something. It was not with a skill nor feat of magic; she did not see in me something that worried her but saw something. It was the kind of look when you solved a puzzle, connecting the dots.
She gained a look of calculation in her eyes before I could see a sliver of resolve flash in her.
¡°And what about you, makes you think you would be a waste of my time?¡± she asked.
It hurt to think about myself, hurt to think about all my terrible features she was somehow unaware of. It worried me. It worried me greatly that she would know of my worst and turn away from me, leave me.
But I had felt that way about my instinct hadn¡¯t I? Felt that it was dangerous and disgraceful? And she accepted it, welcomed it.
¡°She did,¡± my instinct pushed at me, explaining something complex and yet limited. I had no doubt I had missed the full extent of its thoughts as it continued. It did not speak in words but confused animalistic metaphor and image, but I could understand it somewhat. ¡°Speak your words, tear them from yourself, and show her them in the light of day. She has never turned her back on us,¡± it thought.
¡°I¡¯m¡ I¡¯m not all that great at all that much.¡± I said, feeling like opening a floodgate, ¡°I can shovel or tend a plant, but I can¡¯t do much beyond that. I have no family and nothing to my name to fall back on. I¡¯m not smart; I have never been; I can barely do my math, read and write, and I have a terrible memory. I¡¯m fidgety and can barely sit still long enough to carry a conversation, and I¡¯m so bad at that that it might be a blessing in disguise. I¡¯m not good with much, and I don¡¯t have many useful skills... Hells, I¡¯m not even all that good at cooking or cleaning. I¡¯ve never succeeded in anything I¡¯ve tried to do. I¡¯m just a useless idiot with a shovel who has never amounted to anything and probably never will, and I don¡¯t think it¡¯s the shovel you want. I¡¯m not the kind of girl you can bring home and not get nagged about bringing me, I can¡¯t even help you with saving the valley¡ I don¡¯t know how. I¡¯m a waste of breath most of the time, and it kills me inside knowing that someone as useless as me is allowed to leech off of you. I¡¯m not even all that good-looking, I¡¯m not tall for a deer fox, I¡¯m a runt-¡±
Anna flicked my ear, the suddenness of it so jarring that it cut me off, instinctually shutting my mouth. I winced, knowing I had been blabbing, drawing it out while Anna held me. I focused back on the situation, back on Anna, and took her in. Her displeasure was notable, and it hurt. She looked at me, brows furrowed like I was a problem now.
¡°Saphine¡ do you¡ Do you hate yourself?¡± she asked me, her voice not matching her face.
I could feel the tears start up while she got it in one.
¡°It¡¯s hard not to¡¡± I told her, sniffing as I watched her take me in, ¡°When you¡¯re just smart enough to know you¡¯re a waste of space,¡±
¡°Well¡¡± she told me simply, ¡°I¡¯m sorry to say that you are an idiot¡ a blind, def, stupid girl. You are one of the dumbest people I know. The fact that you can¡¯t see with all your wisdom that you are so uncharitable is astounding,¡± she told me.
Her words hurt, hurt like a punch to the gut, a solid blow that would wind me if they were anything but words. And yet they hurt in a way that I could agree with; the part of me that believed she needed to know and understand my worthlessness agreed¡ until she called me uncharitable.
¡°Wha-¡± I tried to say, only for her to shush me and wipe away my tear-blurred eyes.
¡°It''s my time to talk; you¡¯ve said your piece, so now it''s time to say mine.¡± She told me, ¡°Saphine, you are a simpleton, a truly unbelievable dumbass if you think any of those things are true or bother me. Do you think I care where you come from? Because I don¡¯t. I don¡¯t care that we can¡¯t rely on you having a rich family or a family at all. I don¡¯t rely on mine, and I haven¡¯t for a decade. I will be your family if you will be mine. I don¡¯t care that you have a bad memory or fidget or have problems holding conversations or that you think so little of yourself that you would turn to self-slander. I think the world of you, and I will not stand for it and fight you on every point, die on every hill until you see it,¡± She told me.
She threw up her hands, working herself up to boiling, ¡°I like your food! And you clean just fine, what were you expecting, the ability to cook the best food? To take care of the home? You''re not a [Cook] or a [Maid]. The idea that you might not have useful skills is utter horseshit. Your skills are no better or worse than anyone else''s, and if you mean to say you have no ability to do things beyond them, that is also horseshit. Only a truly idiotic person could have watched you for months on end, watch you while you learn magic from scratch, without years of tutoring, and see your ability as anything less than exemplary!¡± she shouted before leaning down to me, tears rolling down my cheeks.
She wiped my eyes clean a second time while I watched her, utterly confused. My heart hurt, but not in a bad way, my stomach felt like I had swallowed a butterfly, multiplying inside of me. Her face leaned down in close enough to kiss, and she said, ¡°You''re not just an idiot. You''re my idiot. And I¡¯m not going to stop loving you because you feel you''re useless or don¡¯t know how to solve a problem that¡¯s been brewing for centuries, I will love you until you learn to love yourself.¡±
I sniffed, the tears annoying me, blurring her face. ¡°I don¡¯t¡ I don¡¯t know if I¡¯m worthy of it,¡± I told her.
She takes it in and¡ laughs, pulling me up out of her lap to hold me from behind. I can feel the flutter of her lungs through my back as she presses herself around me, legs locking around my front. Her arms reach around, and she takes my hands in hers, her smaller fingers wrapping around my own.
¡°Worthy has nothing to do with love, Saphine. Love just is. I don¡¯t care about if you¡¯re worthy¡ I care about you, and I¡¯m going to keep caring about you,¡± she told me, kissing the back of my head.
My head span, self-loathing and hatred of myself tried to spark back to life, searching for anything that they could catch. Squirming until it grabbed ahold of my great fear.
¡°I don¡¯t know what love is¡ It scares me. What if I don¡¯t love you? What if I take and take and am never ready?¡± I asked her, ¡°What if I¡¯m just like my dad or worse?¡±
She laughed again, not unkindly and snuggled me, resting her head on the back of my shoulder, her hands guiding mine as she hugged me from behind, holding me still from behind as if she could hold me back from running.
¡°If you don¡¯t love me, you don¡¯t love me, but you certainly seem to care for me, and that¡¯s all I need. I don¡¯t need you to know if you love me. You don¡¯t know you love something, it is not a fact. It is not a formula you can observe and check with. Love is a feeling, and if you feel it, you feel it, and if you don¡¯t, you don¡¯t. As it stands now, the only thing you don¡¯t take care of that I need is something that I can take care of myself, and you would have to work up the nerve to do that. As for your father, you would have to both literally and metaphorically have a hefty pair of balls to seduce and lie to me, put a baby in my belly, and still have enough to run away. I¡¯m not saying I don¡¯t think you have enough courage to get in my small clothes. I just doubt you have the equipment for the rest of it.¡±
Her words made me flush with warmth while simultaneously choking the life out of my fear. My loathing grasped at Anna''s desires, and I said, ¡°I can¡¯t give you a kid. I know you want one, but I can¡¯t give you that.¡±
Anna leaned back, pulling me back with her until we lay on the ground, our arms still wrapped around my waist, her legs locked with mine as she quietly said, ¡°We can adopt. I would love a kid of my own, but I don¡¯t need to have one. I¡¯ve seen my mother give birth, and I could do without it, for all the joy of watching a baby open its eyes for the first time would bring me.¡±
¡°Your parents would never agree to us being married or having a life together,¡± I told her.
¡°My parents have no right to tell me how to spend my life, who to live with, or who or how to love.¡±
The word still sent shivers through me, cold spikes of dread next to fluttering. I started to tire of the crying, tire of the cold fear; my body sagged, and Anna rolled me over on the cloth until we were on our sides. I curled in on myself, and Anna spoke first, cupped around me.
¡°What has you like this? In so much pain? What kicked this off?¡± She asked, burrowing into me sure as a knife, straight to the heart of the matter.
¡°I stopped taking care of myself when my mom died¡¡± I told her, sniffing again, ¡°I haven''t cut my hair since¡ since she died,¡± I told her, tears running over the bridge of my nose.
She untangled herself, moving with all the liquid grace she must have used to tangle with me while asleep, and tugged at me. I rolled over and into her chest, and she held me there in the same way I had done for her.
¡°I¡¯m sorry for your loss, Saphine; if she was anything like you, she must have been one hell of a woman.¡±
She held me there, against her chest, and I cried as her heartbeat in my ears, and my nose picked up my scent on her until my heart started to calm, and the self-loathing puttered out. Anna murmured to me throughout, humming in a calm tone and brushing her fingers through my hair and along my ears. Relaxing me.
By the time I was done, I was tuckered out.
I started to drift out, Anna whispering, ¡°There there, Saphy¡ There there¡ Sleep tight.¡±
***
I woke up with my back in the dark water of my soul, having fallen asleep after crying into Anna.
Despite my prior state, I felt comparatively normal. I had literally cried myself to sleep holding Anna, but through it, I had burned out the worst of the feelings. Strangely, instead of being hollowed by it, I felt¡ Full. Whole, or more whole, and content in a way I had never felt before, as if I had been filled back up after I spilled my guts to her, carefully packed back in, with a little extra to spare.
My heart tingled, a phantom feeling.
I sat up, ignoring the aurora of light above me, and looked around. I didn¡¯t want to level up, and I didn¡¯t want to stand around; I wanted to get back to Anna.
Sophy was there, far larger than I expected her to be, with wiggly hands on her hips. She looked six months pregnant.
¡°Why are you¡ No, don¡¯t tell me; I don¡¯t want to know why you have a baby bump. I need to wake up! I¡¯m on a date!¡±
¡°I know; I¡¯ve been vicariously watching you for entertainment while I digest this Anamid,¡± she told me, waddling over.
¡°What happened?¡± I asked her, staring at the bump.
¡°Hmm? You fell asleep after crying your eyes out. You¡¯ve been out for ten minutes. Selly woke up, and she¡¯s talking with Anna; they¡¯re going to give you a few more minutes before they start eating.¡±
¡°I meant with the¡ the¡ Anamid? Are you going to have a baby?¡±
She raised her eyebrows, which was probably incredibly hard for someone with no eyebrows, and said, ¡°No, it''s an Anamid, it''s basically a bunch of skills and classes in a condensed form, looped like a rope. We share them with each other, remember the thing with the guy I was talking about? He left this behind.¡±
Okay¡ I should not have asked.
¡°Shure¡ so uh¡ congratulations? How do I wake up?¡±
¡°You wake up by not backsliding, learning to love yourself and most importantly, going back down into the essence.¡±
I looked down into my essence, giving it a little hop, and looked back up at her.
¡°Try diving into it headfirst; it''s not solid; it''s your soul. I¡¯m just going to go, by the way. It''s obvious you don¡¯t want to level up.¡±
She turned and walked out, there one moment and gone the next, like she had walked beyond a curtain.
I looked down at the dark and shrugged before diving headfirst into the dark. I splat headfirst into the liquid like a normal floor.
I muttered darkly to myself, and I hoped I would get out before they ate everything.
***
I did not get out before they started eating, but they had left some for me. Something I noted about waking up was that it was like I had restarted. I didn¡¯t feel like I knew I should, with my puffy eyes. I felt weirdly fresh.
After stretching, I went over to Anna, slipped in behind her, and said, ¡°Thank you¡± while hugging her from behind.
Selly waved, shooting off towards the Nameless.
She leaned forward, and I did so with her, my chest pressed to the back of her neck while she retrieved a sandwich with a tiny wooden toothpick holding it together.
¡°Sandwich?¡± She asked before following it up with, ¡°By the way, if you keep pressing yourself up to me like that, I might get a little cross with you.¡±
I felt warm while I grabbed the sandwich, and I was glad she couldn¡¯t see it; freshness aside, I had bawled my eyes out to her; my pride, what little I had, was a bit bruised.
¡°So¡¡± she asked, letting go of the morsel, ¡°are you feeling better?¡±
¡°I¡ I am, actually. I can¡¯t believe I fell asleep, though,¡± I told her.
¡°That¡¯s good to hear, a good cry is one that leaves you feeling better. I would hate to have pushed you into admitting all of that, only for you to feel like garbage after.¡±
I felt a hint of mirth. Of course, Anna would have a metric on what a good or bad cry was.
I paused and felt the need to lean into her, but I resisted it; all that would do was push her over. Instead, I put the sandwich down and wrapped my arms around her.
¡°Thanks¡ For that,¡± I told her.
¡°Nothing to it, partner,¡± she said, ¡°I know you''re not just going to stop hating yourself¡ so do you want to swap what you hate about yourself? If you think that would help, that is.¡±
I hadn¡¯t. There was a ball of self-loathing still sitting in my chest, a cancer that would remain with me until I changed. But it was lighter.
It felt like my shoulders were lighter, having shown it as if by bringing it up, I had left a weight behind. I felt closer to her, like the thick skin had kept me distant, the difference between touching up against one another skin to skin and hands pressing against a pane of glass.
¡°I¡ I don¡¯t feel like that would be productive, no. But thank you for being willing to listen. About what I said¡ About not knowing if I love you¡¡± I said.
¡°It¡¯s fine, Saphine,¡± she told me, reaching her hand down to lie on my thigh, ¡°Love is a feeling, and I¡¯m willing to spend as long as I need next to you for you to find out if you love me.¡±
¡°But¡ But you want to¡ You know,¡± told her.
She sighed, ¡°Yes, Saphine. It¡¯s part of being Human that I would like to get into your undergarments, but it¡¯s not like I¡¯m beholden to you to take care of my urges. You haven¡¯t even noticed when I do it.¡±
I could feel my face heat so much Anna could probably feel it.
¡°I¡ How do you¡ you know,¡± I asked her.
I could see her ears flushing, and her fingers fidgeted on my thigh.
¡°I¡ Well, the top drawer of my dresser has a magical staff in it, if you know what I mean.¡±
I hadn¡¯t even known. I hadn¡¯t even smelled it on her. She had to have known that, though; she had bought soap with a nice smell when all her old soap had a strong, overpowering fragrance.
Holy cow, she¡¯s been doing a whole lot of stuff for a long time. That was¡ Gods, months ago, she changed soap.
In the midst of my lewd epiphany over Anna and her magic wand, me and her awkwardly and with a sudden awareness of ourselves, both wiggled in embarrassment over our proximity.
¡°You know you don¡¯t have to¡ hide your scent,¡± I told her before immediately wanting to curl into a ball and die of embarrassment.
I could feel Anna radiate heat, but to my horror, she managed to squeak out, ¡°I¡ I¡¯ll take it under advisement.¡±
Dear god of romance, please kill me and end my suffering. I thought. I got no reply, but I did get the feeling that I had been heard, which just made everything worse.
I let out a chuckle.
¡°Oh no, I just sent a prayer to the god of romance,¡± I told her.
¡°You what? How? I didn¡¯t even know there was a god for that,¡± Anna asked, turning her red face to look at me.
¡°I don¡¯t know, it just does. I think it¡¯s because I¡¯m a [Saint of Death], and I didn¡¯t know they existed either,¡± I told her.
I held her gaze for a moment, and the conversation lulled as we remembered that we were both still embarrassed.
¡°Shall we eat?¡± Anna suggested.
¡°Let''s,¡± I told her too quickly. I shied back, letting go of Anna and moved to sit next to her before picking up my sandwich.
We stayed in the clearing for another hour, eating, making small talk, big talk and holding one another. There was a draw I felt to her, a magnetism that, while not missing, had been strengthened throughout our time here. I felt physically drawn to her, as if my place in the universe was right next to her, an arm around her.
It was my instinct, I knew. She had claimed me as hers, just as I had claimed her as mine. I didn¡¯t think Anna understood what she had done, but I was too afraid to bring it up. It was something lovers did, and love was still scary, even if lessened by Anna''s confrontation.
Her scent, all over me from when she held me as I cried into her, soothed me when I was next to her because it soothed my instinct. It acted as a balance, something that kept me grounded.
I was a little worried by it, my instinct wanting to stand next to her like a faithful hound, but I ultimately was in control of myself.
It had been a good day. I had shed some of the pain¡ Even if it wasn¡¯t gone, it had been lessened, excised in part through my talk with Anna and part through the balance of a mate accepting me as hers.
It was good that I ended the day on a good note because after making the winding trek back, there was the smell of smoke in the air as we made our way down the old road and back to the edge of the tree line. A faint orange light was visible through the trees, even in the recent set, not quite dark night. We came out of the tree line on the old road and stopped, staring in horror as we saw New Moarn on fire.
Chapter 69
The day had been going so well¡ or mostly well. It had been going mostly well.
Me and Anna had a long, and somewhat relaxing picnic, at least once you got me breaking down out of the way.
And me falling asleep.
And the short embarrassing bit after that.
So we had about twenty minutes of ehh picnic that resulted in something I would call good, and the rest of it was relaxing.
I had fed Anna a tiny sandwich with cucumber and some kind of cheese less than an hour ago, and we had realized how late it was getting and had headed back.
And now we stood at the mouth of the forest, on the old road, and watched as the city burned.
I watched the flame and smoke and found myself looking as if drawn by instinct to the air, searching the barely lit sky for a dark object. For a terrible moment, I was there again, a few months and a few thousand years ago, on the roof of the building I had slept in for all my life while a dark shape, visible only in outline, rained death upon the valley.
But there was no dark spot in the sky, and there was no death from above. This was not the same.
Wooden structures, especially in cities, would often burn up, especially without firebreaks or inner walls. New-moarn didn¡¯t even have outer walls, let alone inner walls and almost everything was wood with stone footing. All it took was a little bit of fire in the wrong place, and the relative dryness of the spring would turn it into a firestorm.
I watched it, watched astounded at the fire, at the death and destruction it would reap, and felt distanced from it. The part of my mind that remembered fires before the great fire, the last one. That reminded me of hauling water where mages couldn¡¯t reach fast enough, the heat as people ferried buckets and axes, collapsed buildings, and wet homes to reach the people inside. The part that remember the shouts of [Fire Wardens] remembered what it was like to be called to action, sat back and waited.
I hadn¡¯t been called to help, so there was nothing I could do.
It lasted only a moment before my thinking mind caught up to the knee-jerk reaction, and I felt the sink of all I knew now, how everyone that fell would leave their souls behind, about how there was no afterlife without my intervention. Without me, people would dive into burning buildings, choking on smoke, dive through fire and be lit aflame or charred to a crisp.
And I was immune to it. I could walk it off. I could walk into a burning building, scoop up others and carry them out with my body, smoking, boiling my blood and cooking me alive, and nothing poor would come of it. The only thing I needed to do was carry a wet cloth to protect the people I would carry.
There was something I could do to save lives and, furthermore, to save souls that gave me a need to act.
All I would need to do is betray my promise to Anna.
This brought me back to the moment, as my mind came up with an order of how to do the most good.
Because the best did not lie with me but with my companion, whom I would inevitably betray tonight. It lay in Anna, who held real magical power. Who could call a storm on accident, with a bit of mana and a conversation with the powers that be, powers that called her friend.
She was probably better for this than a cleric because of what I knew about the coming weather. There was bound to be a storm soon, which would only make it more potent. And so I turned to her and spoke up.
¡°Anna, can you call a storm?¡± I asked her quickly, my words sounding unnecessarily clipped even to me.
¡°I¡ I¡¡± she said with obvious confusion in her voice, having either not put together my thoughts or not yet taken in the situation.
¡°Anna, can you call a storm?¡± I asked her, carefully taking hold of her shoulder and positioning myself between the flame and her to get her to focus on me. I forced as well as I could calm in my voice. I tried to speak calmly, to not get her to freeze.
Anna seemed to snap out of it then, focusing back on me and the moment and not whatever was running through her eyes.
¡°I¡ I can call a storm¡ but not as I am now. I will need preparation for a fire, preparation, and for something this big, positioning.¡±
¡°What about like last time? You called down a storm when you rescued me,¡± I pointed out, not distrusting her, but asking to make sure I could help.
Every fuck up here was people dying, people who could otherwise be alive. If I fucked up by getting in Annas way, or Anna was overestimating what she needed to do, people would die for it.
¡°Last time was a spring shower; it was only a brief downpour and nothing more. It cleared up in under an hour. That amount of rain won¡¯t cut it. I need far more to even think about putting out a building. Saphine, I¡¯m not talking about calling down a spring shower, but a proper torrential downpour here. I can try to work miracles all I want; they won¡¯t amount to anything, not without preparation, and we need a bloody miracle to put it ooout-¡±
I didn¡¯t even let her finish, scooping her up into my arms like she was a sack and starting to run like a mad woman toward the grove. Not stopping when she swatted me in annoyance, or when she shouted, and only barely halting in my footsteps when she shouted, ¡°I need to know where to go; you can grab my staff and make it back without me.¡±
I nearly stumbled when she mentioned a staff, the item calling to mind the one she had mentioned using to alleviate her urges. I managed to stay on my feet and not tumble with her, but it was a close call.
¡°Selly can check, I don¡¯t know about your staff, unless you''re making a joke about the one in the back of your top drawer,¡±
¡°I can do what?¡± Selly asked loudly in confusion while Anna shouted in some embarrassment and horror, ¡°Not that one,¡± each nearly shouting into one of my ears.
I could feel my heart beating and annoyance burbling, thoughtless thoughts roiling through my head before being quashed under the tooth and maw of knowing better than to voice pointless anger.
¡°Selly first, Anna second,¡± I told them, ¡°Selly, you can fly¡ And we can not! The only way for us to know where Anna will need to cast her spell is to climb a tall bloody tree and waste time getting back. If Anna says she needs to know where the fire is, we need to know, and you¡¯re the best one for the job.¡±
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¡°Yeh, I know I can fly, as can Annas bloody birds, which would delight in nipping me from the air as fast as I can say, ¡®unprotected in the air.¡¯ I could also be useful in getting you there faster.¡±
¡°Anna, could you get a bird to check for you,¡± I asked her. Selly might be terse right now, but she was being straight with me, I could be sure about it.
¡°Not at night with a fire that big, if it was dawn maybe, but not dusk, not for all the worms in the world,¡± she told me.
Well, that nixed that quickly.
¡°Selly¡ we need you to fly,¡± I told her, looking down at her tiny form on my shoulder.
She hesitated, flinching before looking at the sky, eyes darting as if to check the wide open sky above new-mourn already choking in smoke as the sun began to set over the mountains behind us, the light replaced by the flicker of firelight.
I could see her, hesitant and fearful in a way that I rarely saw in her. It took her a few moments of silence to open her tiny forward mouth.
¡°I could refuse you,¡± she told me quietly.
¡°You could. I can¡¯t force you to do anything, but if you don¡¯t, we¡¯re going to have to find that out on our own,¡± I told her.
The rest didn¡¯t need to be said to Selly.
She was smart enough to know that people¡¯s lives were on the line, that people were going to die, and more would die the longer this went on. Selly could tell that, she knew that, and the sprites had always been a group that had more honour in their hearts than sense.
¡°What changed?¡± She asked simply, ¡°What''s the difference? You stopped me before and sent me away. What changed is that you¡¯re willing to risk me getting snipped from the air?¡±
I didn¡¯t want to think, I wanted to move, I wanted to act, but I answered her regardless.
¡°I don¡¯t want people to die. You were more likely to die down there, and it would have been for one life. No offence, Selly, but there¡¯s a city full of people down there. The fact that I don¡¯t want you to get hurt doesn¡¯t matter. You can say no, but if I tried to stop you, I would be grandstanding on corpses; it would go against everything I want to be as a person to stop you from saving more lives than you put on the line.¡±
I expected her to make a comment on honour, on how I was willing to throw away what I had done because there were more people on the line, but she didn¡¯t.
She looked up at me, and said only, ¡°So long as you don¡¯t stray from that, you will destroy yourself,¡± and fluttered quickly up into the air until she was a speck against the light of the city. And just like that, she was gone.
She left as we were nearing the edge again, crossing across the clearing to the location that I knew would bring us up to Annas Grove, up into the friendly, somewhat sharp feeling sensation of nature''s attention.
It was a great departure from what it had felt like earlier, pointed disapproval, though it wasn¡¯t pointed at me or Anna, it was focused on something else.
I rushed up the last bit of hill, inside the clearing proper, and over to the porch, letting Anna down before quickly swinging the door open. I was about to zip in when I pulled back. I didn¡¯t know where her staff was or what else she might need.
So I did the second best thing, I got out of her hair.
¡°Here we are, how long do you need, and can I help?¡±
¡°Now you ask,¡± she huffed, though in a way that told me that she was more annoyed at my actions than disapproving or angry with them.
¡°I¡¯m sorry for putting you second,¡± I tell her, leaning in to rest my head on hers, ¡°but Selly is Selly. She¡¯s huffier, puffier, and will get you one of the things you need.¡±
¡°I¡¯m well aware, Saphine,¡± she told me.
¡°Your unending generosity matches only your beauty,¡± I continued, knowing that I probably should have led with that, but it was too late.
¡°Flattery will get you everywhere,¡± Anna told me dryly, ¡°I¡¯ll need four minutes; you can''t help; try breathing instead, your not doing enough of that, and I could feel your heart trying to explode out of your chest.¡±
It couldn¡¯t be all that bad. I mean, my heart was beating quickly, sure, but it wasn¡¯t that bad. I checked my breath, deepening my shallow breathing and checking my pulse while Anna got to doing whatever she was doing.
It was going fast, really fast. Slowly paying attention, I could hear my heart thundering in my chest like I was about to die.
What the hell is going on with my heart? What the hell is going on with me?
Having come to a stop, I suddenly felt out of breath and leaned against the doorframe. I watched Anna scurry into the study, I paid attention to the here and now, stood still against the doorframe and took deep breaths.
I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on after calming down a bit, trying to figure out if it was my instinct or some strange part of my mind when Anna walked up with a sack and shook me.
¡°What''s wrong?¡± I asked her, my attention slipping onto her, the feeling like waking up even though I had not fallen asleep.
¡°The staff slid out of reach,¡± she told me, ¡°I¡ Uh¡ Can¡¯t reach it.¡±
She looked at me like I must have when I was a child, telling my mom I¡¯d, ¡®thred up,¡¯ a semi-blank-eyed stare with no remaining expression, though hers was tinged with a little worry.
¡°So you need someone with muscles to hoist your staff? Got it,¡± I told her, walking in while Anna nearly choked on her own spit.
I quickly got to the door and looked in at the unassuming cabinet, walking over and looking behind it to see a stick.
It was an old thing, old wood with swirling, curly sigildry like the lines beneath the bark of an old tree across its whole length. My [Crude Foci Carver] skill shouting that this was similar to what I could make, just a few thousand times more impressive.
I tried reaching in, but my arm was too short. Cursing my arms, I grabbed the cabinet and pushed it, wiggling it in a see-saw motion until there was enough room to reach in and grab it.
It was a long length of some pale wood, sun-bleached by ages. Whatever it was, it was older than Anna, older than her mother or grandparent. It was hardwood, and that was about as much as I could tell. It was an old, hefty stick.
I was a bit dissatisfied with the lack of cool gemstones or anything overtly magical, but I took it out carefully, and as I made my way back to Anna, I cast [Inspect], weaving the simple spell into existence before letting the ball of light it produced spin out into the staff, a blue pane of magic popping into existence before me.
Guardian Greencallers Staff
Description: A staff wielded by the guardian green mage of New-Moarn, inscribed to aid in the calling of storms and the enrichment of land.
Carved by the [Cleric of Nature] Simerland after the first great fire of 375. The staff has five inscriptions to aid in calling storms to put out fires and water fields, as well as to improve soil for crops.
Inscriptions:
[Storm Caller]: A passive inscription. While the Staff is empowered, naturally corrects and improves the efficiency of casting storm spells by 25%
[Call Storm]: An inscribed spell. While the staff is empowered, allows the spellcaster to cast the spell [Call Storm] through the staff.
[Touch of Life]: A passive inscription. While the Staff is empowered, naturally corrects and improves the efficiency of casting life-based spells by 25%
[Renew Soil]: An inscribed spell. While the staff is empowered, allows the spellcaster to cast the spell [Renew Soil] through the staff.
[Grand Earthing]: While one end of the staff is placed against the ground and the staff is empowered, the inscription naturally protects the spellcaster against miscasting spells. The effects of a backlash are diminished by catching 50% of the mana of a miscast spell and harmlessly shunting it into the earth before it can return to the caster.
I wanted to whistle, but instead, I reached Anna and passed it over to her. I almost forgot that I had a shovel, but it clinked against me and I remembered its presence on my back.
Two spells, two skill-like spells to boost them and an inscription to stop the backlash of casting a powerful spell.
I suppose I know how Anna does the fertility treatments. If she has to do a ritual to cast one of these, I suppose she needs to do that for calling a storm, too. I suppose it¡¯s a good thing that one of these is bouncing around. A staff literally made to fight a fire is a good thing, though I have to wonder where the deal with the guardian part fits in. It sounds like¡ a title.
Did Anna have a title I didn¡¯t know about? It was a cool title if so.
I wonder why she never brought it up.
More attentive this time, though not by much I asked Anna after focusing back on the conversation, ¡°Are you ready to go?¡±
She looked more worried. Had I missed something?
¡°That¡¯s what I asked you,¡± Anna pointed out, ¡°Saphine¡ Are you ok?¡±
Was I ok? I felt off, but I didn¡¯t know what the deal with it was. It had set in after we had come into the clearing and seen the blaze.
¡°I¡ I think so?¡±
¡°You think so? Do not know so? Saphine, what is going on with you?¡±
¡°I¡ Well, I would love to tell you¡ But I have no idea; I¡¯m kind of just in and out. Maybe I¡¯m tired, or maybe it¡¯s something new, I don¡¯t know.¡±
She stared at me in horror and took my hand, keeping her digits firmly over mine. Her hand kept me there as we left the cabin and made our way quickly back through the stand of trees and out into the clearing to find Selly, and I did my best to stay in the moment, as my heart picked up again.
Chapter 70
We wandered out, out past the grove, past the trees, past the tree line and the leave piles I could only hope did not catch and out into the grass, the flame continued to burn, and countless pounds of ash hurtled up into the sky, where they would come crashing back down to earth. I practically merged with Anna. I was so close, drawn by the magnetic pull I felt with her while the fire kicked up my heartbeat.
I did my best to bring it back down, to breathe, but my senses were acute enough that the smoke in the air, thin as it sat, was horribly overpowering. I stopped breathing through my nose, breathing only through my lungs, but it didn¡¯t help much going from smell to taste.
Now we just have to figure out where Selly is. She''s probably around here, just up. I¡¯m surprised she¡¯s not back down here already.
¡°Where¡¯s Selly? We were in there for a few minutes, where is¡¡± Anna asked, mirroring my own thoughts. She paused to look up to the sky, only to stop moving or talking, her mouth opening slightly.
I looked up too and saw in the sky, lit by firelight, a small bird hurling down towards us, with a sharp, shrill, familiar scream accompanying it.
I made to catch it, but I missed, and it hurtled down into the ground, bounced once, and rolled while Selly, blade in the back of its head, hung on shouting at the top of her lungs, white fuzz slick with the vital red blood of the bird.
It rolled to a stop on its belly, one wing splayed in a dramatic display, and she pulled her blade free with a foot against the bird''s head. Flicking the beast''s blood from the white porcelain blade, she put one hand on her knee and looked up at us.
¡°I fucking told you so, kinsman; I told you I would get jumped by ''em, big stupid beasts.¡± She said it and kicked the neck of the bird for emphasis. It was then my eyes noted a few more dark shapes on the ground, a small flock of dead birds.
I noted that one wing was clipped ever so slightly, ending not with a round end but a sharp, jagged line, which made a harsh whizzing whistle noise as it buzzed like the crack of a tiny whip.
¡°Are those the birds that live in the grove? Were you killing my birds?¡± Anna asked, shocked.
¡°I don¡¯t know if they''re yours, but does it matter? Twas not done from malice, don¡¯t get me wrong, these beasts were seeking my end and I don¡¯t take kindly to them on a good day. But they¡¯re just beasts, it¡¯s not a great loss, there¡¯s always more of em.¡±
¡°There, birds. Not even big birds, that¡¯s¡ I think that¡¯s a Chickadee¡ and that¡¯s a Bluejay! These are songbirds! They were just little birds¡ Not birds of prey!¡±
Anna seemed terribly torn up about it, but I had noticed that most of the birds, while songbirds, didn¡¯t seem to be present. They had still been in the grove¡ at least most of them were¡ probably.
I hadn¡¯t exactly checked, but I knew there were more than ten of them, so I figured that most of them were safe.
¡°Aye? I get what you''re getting at. Seems a bit funny¡ I suppose I thought they sounded rather musical when they were trying to rip me limb from bloody limb while we duel in the air like beasts of ancient myth! Make sure you yell it, Saphine! And¡ are you spacing out? By Titania¡¯s tremendous tush, you are. Snap out of it! FOCUS!¡±
She shouted, waving at me while I counted the number of birds and was trying to remember if I had seen them before. I hadn¡¯t even recognized that I had relayed to Anna what Selly had said until I got to the part where she was yelling and didn¡¯t do it, which seemed to annoy her a little.
¡°Sorry,¡± I told Selly, ¡°I must be tired, I¡¯m just spacing out a little.¡±
Selly Buzzed up to me, right close, within an inch of my eye. I could see the minute tufts of hair and the slick curve of red holding to them like drops of dew on a blade of grass.
¡°You¡¯re wigging out, eh? You are not spacing; you''re seriously rattled. Just like the other day, you were a bit spacey then, too. When did you start getting the shakes?¡±
I craned my neck back as she got a bit of blood in my eye, but I didn¡¯t understand what she was talking about. I wasn¡¯t shaking, and I didn¡¯t think this was anything like yesterday.
¡°I¡¯m not shaking, and this isn¡¯t anything like yesterday. I¡¯m just tired.¡±
¡°If you say so¡ Oh, almost got sidetracked there. The fire that was the point of this¡ How do I say this? It''s everywhere, the fire is all around, not focused at one point.¡±
The news hit and began to percolate. Trying to imagine a city in the shape of Moarn, not a regular shape, no circle or rectangle, but a blobby stretching form with the walls in its center.
The fire was not focused, not on the side closest to us, but all over the city.
That was not normal, even without firewalls, mages or whatnot. That was not how fire worked. It started and spread. It could jump, but that required effort, with an increase in effort commensurate to the distance.
To be all over would require¡
It would require intent. Intent fire was not capable of, for fire to be spread like that would require intent and effort from others.
¡°Is¡ Is it going from the outside in? Or is it in clumps? What do you mean by everywhere,¡± I asked.
¡°Some clumps, but it''s spaced out¡ It was closer to the outside than the inside. Lots of movement, too. There might have been some fighting, but it was hard to tell¡ Do you think that it wasn¡¯t a bunch of upstanding someone''s tippin'' over their cooking pots? Because that¡¯s what it looked like now that I think about it.¡±
¡°I wouldn¡¯t put it past life to do something horrible. That¡¯s just the hand that comes¡ More often than not,¡± I told her.
¡°You, too, are talking too much,¡± Anna complained, ¡°Where are we going? Because of the bird murderer, and you are starting to get conspiratorial.¡±
¡°I am no murderer!¡± She shouted at Anna before returning to me, ¡°But yeh, there might be something fishier than a monger with no sales at dusk going on.¡±
I didn¡¯t translate her comment, but thought.
I would need to keep it in mind, but the fire and fighting were not what I pondered. The only thing I needed to think over was whether or not I would tell Anna.
It was not one of the things I would normally think about; hiding something from her would normally be a detriment. But if we were going to the center of town for the storm, Anna would be safe behind the only two sets of walls in all of new-moarn. Safe from whatever horrible strife was happening.
And if I went out, she would think I was going to help fight the fire, not rush into saving people from other people, or monsters, or whatever was going on.
I had the feeling that she would not want me to do that alone.
She had told me she wanted to come along with me next time to make sure I didn¡¯t get hurt too badly, to make sure I didn¡¯t come back soaked with my own blood, but she needed to do something to help, and I didn¡¯t know where she would go mentally if I told her. She was smart enough to put it together, to take possible fighting, and dilute that into me, leaving once she was secure and safe behind some walls.
She would know the second I left that I was breaking a promise.
I was damned if I told her when I left her behind, and then it came to the other half.
If I didn¡¯t tell her, and we were attacked, she would be unprepared, and I would have lied to her for my own personal gain. I would have abused her openness with me to protect myself from my own actions.
And that was the thing that fought within me because I couldn¡¯t let her get hurt like that.
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I opened my mouth and knew that no matter what I chose, I was damned in some way. I was damned, but I could choose, and I wouldn¡¯t choose a convenient lie over the truth, even if it would raise her anger.
¡°Ok¡ Anna, Selly says it''s all spread out around the edges. I assume that means we need to get you to the center of town?¡±
She nodded, looking over the tiny birds with a melancholic look. I hope they weren¡¯t hers, but I also couldn¡¯t hold it against Selly even if they were. Her hatred of birds had been consistent, and I was at least starting to see why, considering her size compared to them. It would be like a person getting dive-bombed by a cart drawn by a bison.
¡°If it''s all around and not in one place, it would be best to head to the center of town. I would love to see the look on Carl''s face when I walk up and call up the storm of the year right on his doorstep. Maybe then he will understand the problem if I could stop a city-wide fire alone, but can''t solve the problems of our time¡¡±
¡°Understand the problem?¡± I asked.
¡°Nothing, sorry, I got lost in thought,¡± she told me, turning to focus back on the situation at hand. ¡°So we''re going to the city center, is that all?¡±
¡°No¡ there''s what looks like fighting in the streets. So we¡¯re going to need to pay attention to everything first of all, if could be normal civil unrest, but fire all around the outside of the city is suspicious.¡±
¡°Sabotage?¡± she asked.
¡°Unless it¡¯s a yearly occurrence to light your house on fire, but only on the edge of the city, then it''s more likely than not.¡±
¡°Darn it. I¡¯ll need to call it in fast then, or whoever is responsible can just keep lighting fires.¡±
¡°Can you still do that?¡± I asked her, not to demean, but to temper my expectations.
¡°Who do you think I am?¡± she said cockily, ¡°I haven¡¯t gotten much of an opportunity to go all out, so I might as well do it now, no?¡±
I smiled at her. I didn¡¯t know if it was bravado or truth, but I would put my trust in her either way.
¡°Come on then. Do you want me to carry you in, or do you want to walk-¡± I asked.
¡°Walk!¡± Anna said almost fast enough to cut me off, ¡°I want to use my legs to walk today; I¡¯ve been deprived of walking for long enough that I¡¯m bound to put on weight, so let''s get going.¡±
¡°Okay then,¡± I told her with a nod, ¡°Selly, can you show us the best way you remember to the city center?¡±
¡°Aye, Aye, I¡¯ll lead you there¡ But I¡¯m doing it on your shoulder. If another bird fights me, I¡¯m bound to get my antenna sniped by Anna there.¡±
¡°Sure thing,¡± I told her before taking Anna''s hand and heading back into the city.
We paced through the grass, circuitously moving around the city''s outskirts, my eyes drawn to the dancing flames as I spotted them. I heard noises that were probably just crackling pops of rapidly drying timbers, losing whatever water was in them before they popped and cracked and crumbed, but to me, they were cries for help.
There was a terrible weight in the air, a horrible weight that accompanied the smoke. I could feel a call of sorts from the fires as I spaced out between Selly, guiding us towards a way into the city. I couldn¡¯t tell what it was.
Was it something mundane or magical? Simply my mind or something born from mana?
My mind wandered as I did, tied only to the world outside by Anna''s hand in mine and Selly calling out.
My heart beat like a drunk in my chest as I reached out into the world with my sensory skills, trying to make sense of my gut feeling, and did not find a simple answer.
The world washed into light as my [Magi] skill fed me the mana, the wood and earth and fire and ash and air and heat of everything in my senses screeching harshly in my ear as they moved and coiled and changed. Life and death played their roles too, as whatever life was left in buildings combusted, feeding the fire and turned to death and thrown to the sky on grey-black ash.
I was feeling the world die what little death it could have. The ash and fire pinged me through [Gaze of the Coming Spring] enough that I didn¡¯t turn it on. I had never even used it, and I had the feeling by how it sang that it would be a sight that would confuse and bewilder me.
Then there was the other death, that which lived in people and not plants. I could feel ripples from within the city, as [Marked by the Long Road] told me about others who were waiting in the dark of death. Crying out in the dark, confused but not alone, and it sent shivers through my bones.
¡°In here, it was the best place I remember seeing, but we need to take a detour east to avoid the worst of the fire,¡± Selly told me.
I relayed it to Anna and reflexively rubbed my sore eyes. I hadn¡¯t even blinked as we moved, and the smoke stung, but I looked at them as they came away wet. I had teared up a bit and winced as I reached up and rubbed both eyes with my palms.
¡°I got smoke in my eyes,¡± I lied.
¡°Aye, and you¡¯ll have more in them before we''re done,¡± Selly told me.
¡°It''s not so bad,¡± Anna said, unaware of my tears, in the fading light of twilight and the harsh shadows of fire. ¡°I thought it would be worse.¡±
I rubbed my eyes for a bit until my palms brought me back to the present, then I pulled my shovel off my back, and we crept forward.
For all that there were signs of burning close by, the street was really normal. There were even people making their way out of the city, jostling one another to get out, panic-driving them forward with packs of animals carrying belongings with them.
I had no time to wish them the best, instead acting as a bulwark against the tide as we made our way down the side street full of people first inwards, then eastwards onto a main road a few hundred feet down the side street we had entered, cutting east as we drew closer.
Down the street had been blocked by rubble, buildings having been pulled down to block the road, but towards our destination, there was more pandemonium. People in armour held a four-way intersection, ripping down houses and pulling rubble into the streets as makeshift barricades. People pushed through while guards stood waiting for something.
I pushed through the torrent of people. Anna behind me, my shovel outstretched like a wall toward them around me until we drew close enough to overhear shouted orders, and the space opened up.
They were indeed constructing barricades. Barricades and blockages like the one on the main street. Hacking down the supports of buildings with pole axes while other guards stood, waiting with truncheons, short swords and small personal metal shields. Far from my first thoughts, they looked disorderly with the different weapons, one thread of discontinuity between them that made the situation feel off.
¡°Why are they sealing streets instead of fighting the fire? What the hell are they doing?¡± I asked.
¡°I have no idea, but I¡¯m not going to wait to find out,¡± Anna told me, stepping out from behind me and shouting at the closest guard, ¡°Whatever do you think you''re doing.¡±
She spoke it with a tone that she didn¡¯t normally use, a tone that spoke of nobility and privilege. It was a question that was not a question.
The guard ignored her, so she walked up, staff in one hand, and bopped the man casually on the shoulder.
He turned, and she repeated, ¡°Whatever do you think you¡¯re doing [Guard]. You''re blocking a road.¡±
He looked at her and took in the tone and the staff and looked down at her wearily.
¡°I¡ I¡ we¡¯re blocking the road?¡±
¡°Yes, yes¡ I can see that, but why are you blocking the road?¡±
The young human man looked surprisingly stressed. He looked around quickly at the fleeing civilians and the other guards who saw him and pretended he didn¡¯t exist. He turned back to her and said, ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯m supposed to say that¡ Uh¡ lady mage?¡±
¡°Lady Mynes,¡± she said, ¡°Daughter of the [Barron] and sister of both Clause and Strause Mynes, one of whom you are no doubt working for as a [Guard] of this city. I am the only mage in the city and am currently on my way to put out the fire, so I¡¯m a bit short on time. So I ask again, [Guard]. Why, are you, blocking, this, road. Quickly!¡±
She asked, punctuating every word ever so slightly in a way that made me uncomfortable. It reminded me of those who led me around, ordering Kobolds and belittling anyone who stood out as an example.
It was very unlike Anna, but it was effective, no matter how much I disliked it.
Watching him, you could see the moment when his resolve snaped like a splintering beam of a house.
¡°Umm, they undead Lady Mynes. We¡¯re barricading them in; if it were just the numbers, we could hold them, but with the fire, and the monsters and the irregular ones, we can¡¯t, so we''re blocking them in so we can pick off their leaders.¡±
¡°Fuck,¡± I said in tandem with Selly, speaking instinctively in our native tongue.
The noise drew the eye of the guard, who went from petrified to full-blown panic as he saw me.
¡°Uh¡ Undea-¡± the guard started, only for Anna to slap a hand over his mouth.
I breathed a sudden breath of relief as Anna clapped a hand over his mouth and said, ¡°Do not address a [Saint of Death] in that manner,¡± she scolded him.
I did not want to add ¡®pincushion by guards¡¯ to today''s list of things that happened. It didn¡¯t help calm him, but he shut his mouth.
Anna turned to me and said, ¡°We really need to get you a robe or something. You know, one that makes people think mage or clergy so they stop freaking out.¡±
I didn¡¯t really know if she expected a response, but my smart mouth managed to get out, ¡°I think if I dressed like a mage, they would start shouting [Necromancer] instead.¡±
¡°A white one then, a white robe. We could add some holy symbols to it and make it a statement. We could make you look like the [Pontifex of Life], hat and all. I doubt the church of Death has one.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t think the goddess of life would like me flying her colours when I¡¯m her sister¡¯s Saint.¡±
Anna waved it off, ¡°Their sisters, they would be fine, I¡¯m sure.¡±
I thought of a few [Paladins] taking an issue with it and how little they would care, but I didn¡¯t complain. Anna wasn¡¯t going for serious; she was going for banter, and it had the odd side effect of calming both me and the [Guard] down.
¡°[Guard], escort me to your commander. I want a word with them,¡± she told him, not even turning to face the young man.
¡°You want my commander or the captain? Uh, Lady Mynes,¡± he asked, bowing a little as he finished.
¡°The captain, I think this changes things somewhat. I need to ask something of them.¡±
¡°Of course, I shall bring him to you, Lady Mynes,¡± he said quickly, positively scuttling away into the crowd.
We waited, Anna posturing herself like some kind of noble bird and me twitching and thinking and fearing. My mind was going a million miles a minute, the smell of smoke and the sound of nothing happening making me concerned about all the fire going on just a few hundred feet away.
Anna took my hand again just as I was spacing out, and I nearly flinched out of it.
She didn¡¯t speak a word, she simply held my hand until the guard pushed back through the crowd with a familiar face.
An older man with beady eyes, the only guard I knew, had struck me as a rat of a human being with his mug and desk slapping. An old rat who had found his place, with his salt and pepper hair and desk. He was now dressed for violence instead of desk work, with a mace at his hip, a gleaming shield, and a breastplate that looked a size too small for him.
¡°Captain Gurtz? Funny seeing you here.¡±
Chapter 71
I shut up and let Anna deal with Captain Gurtz, the man giving me a glare that I did my best not to flinch at. His look summoned the sound of a slammed desk.
¡°Captain Gurtz, good to see you again,¡± Anna told him sweetly.
¡°Mynes.¡±
¡°What''s wrong, captain? You sound like you don¡¯t want to see me.¡±
¡°Last time I saw you, you and your little undead here had just struck a man with lightning and caused tens of gold in property damage,¡± he told her crossly, ¡°Forgive me for not being excited to see you.¡±
¡°You seem to be better than me when it comes to property damage, captain, and in this case, I¡¯m here to do something far more important for Moarn than strike a hunter team with lightning.¡±
The man grew weary of her then, staring at her as if she were to unleash something upon him that he just didn¡¯t have the time, not stamina or will to deal with.
¡°Out with it, woman, I have no time for beating around the bush, time is of the essence. Why did you wish to see me?¡±
¡°I wished to see you, to know the most appropriate way to get to the center of the city. I¡¯m here to call rain and put out the fire, but in order to do that successfully, I need to be in the right place. Is there anything between here and there?¡±
He made a noise that could have been a chuckle, but so tinged with disbelief was it that it sounded more like a cry for help a babe might make.
¡°Pandemonium is between here and the center, Miss Mage. We¡¯re currently opening up the main road, but outside of any given four-way, there¡¯s no way to tell. They¡¯re everywhere.¡±
¡°The undead, I know, the [Guard] told me.¡±
¡°The undead, the normal ones, are the least of it, there are little monsters with them, too sick-looking goblin things.¡±
¡°Gremlins,¡± I told him, weighing in for the first time, not knowing for sure, but knowing enough to guess, ¡°They¡¯re Gremlins. Not Goblins.¡±
¡°Whatever¡¡± he said uncaringly, ¡°The point is that the city is crawling with them both, and everywhere has them unless you know they¡¯re not there. We¡¯re going street by street, fortifying the roads that lead off of them so we can continue opening the roads up,¡± he explained.
I didn¡¯t get why they had to do that, but Anna seemed to understand, so I kept quiet and let her do her work while I struggled with the urge to move.
¡°So you can¡¯t vouch for the road, and you can¡¯t send anyone with us either, I take it. Fine, we¡¯ll have to move on our own.¡±
¡°You will unless you have time to wait for us to put up some barricades,¡± he told her tersely.
¡°I can spend some mana to do that, so long as you can give me some [Guards] as an escort after it.¡±
That caught his obvious wavering attention. The idea that Anna could put up walls for them instead of needing to bring down buildings intrigued him.
¡°How quickly can you get them up, and how much control over them do you have?¡± he asked.
¡°I can choose how high and thick for walls, same for ramps. I can¡¯t add details, but I can make them quickly and link them for some slapdash defensive structures. Give the wall a ramp, and you can walk up it and fight on it.¡±
¡°As long as you can set them up with a hole for people to get through, that will be fine. Can you set up a door of some kind? Maybe a moat with a drawbridge?¡± he asked disbelievingly.
¡°Sure, I¡¯ll set you up with a castle and a few hundred bars of gold, too, while I¡¯m at it.¡± She said sarcastically, ¡°No, I can¡¯t give you a drawbridge, but I can give you a hole with a few mounds to funnel through.¡±
¡°Good enough. Star-¡± he started talking, only for a flood of people to come through the closest open roads. Shouting amongst both the [Guards] and the civilians alike, drawing his attention from talking to listening.
¡°Start there,¡± he finished, quickly making his way to the closest group of guards before shouting, ¡°Breach! [Guards] form up.¡±
I hefted my shovel and stepped back up to Anna, ¡°Looks like you need to work quickly. I¡¯ll keep whatever comes through back from you and step up if they need help. Let''s get to it.¡±
She nodded and moved up behind me as we waited to let the people through. None of them paid me much attention, and as terrible as it was, I felt relieved that they had no time to pay me any mind.
They pushed, kicked and nearly trampled one another in their panic and confusion, woken from early bed or roused late by the clamour of fire. Carrying whatever they could on their backs. Most of them were women and children.
Where did the men go? Off to carry buckets?
I hoped I didn¡¯t find them.
I did find them, though luckily, it was at the end of the line, a few [Guards] accompanying them. They carried wounded, but we couldn¡¯t exactly tend to their wounds.
A man cried out in pain, a limp leg bent in the wrong direction, bounced as another man hefted him, not quite able to lift him off the ground.
I ignored them as best as I could, facing the street while the guards broke off from the group to tell the other guards something.
As the group made its way past, Anna moved up, and I flanked her.
¡°Clear the road!¡± Anna shouted, to no avail. Her words were sucked into the night and buried in the din of voices muttering and talking.
¡°Do you want me to?¡± I leaned over to ask her, only for her to raise her voice and cast a spell.
The mana in the ground beneath me was gripped almost instantly, Anna''s skill at mana so potent that it felt like she held the world in the palm of her hand. The [Guards] felt the earth move and got out of the way with shouts of incredulity. The air shimmered with multiple spells, one after another.
¡°[Earthen Wall], [Earthen Ramp], [Pillar of Earth], [Pillar of Earth], [Pillar of Earth]!¡± Anna shouted.
She shouted, and the land itself moved. The paving stones shifted and buckled like the skin on the nape of some great living thing. For a moment, I watched the humans see the power of nature, though they quickly forgot that and grew mesmerized by the spectacle. The dark of the hard-packed earth was brought to light for the first time in a very long time as a rocky wall sprouted from the earth, thick enough to stand two men atop it side to side. A ramp surfaced, slamming into the wall in a knee-rattling display of power, and off to the side, three pillars, thick as tree trunks, popped out of the ground like a spring-loaded toy.
It happened in about a second.
It took me several to cast the most basic of spells, and I was once again shown just how much better Anna was at this than I was. A Mage, not just a mage.
Her words earlier were pulled through my head, rewound over and over to try and make sense of her comment on my ability as a mage, but I couldn¡¯t see it.
The pillars crumpled a bit under the heavier brickwork of the roads, leaving a chest-high mound of dirt that could allow passage and work as a choke point.
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Anna turned to face into the crowd of armed men and [Guard Captain] Gurtz.
¡°Fast enough for you, Captain?¡±
The man, to what little credit I would give him, took it in for a moment, then sped up, rapidly issuing orders.
¡°Bows, Crossbows, up on that wall! Shields over there¡ Pikes behind them! [Form Up!]¡±
I looked around, confused, at Crossbows because I hadn¡¯t seen any, but sure enough, two men with clubs unslung two small crossbows. Freeing up a small boxy quiver and moving towards the walls.
A man with a comically sad-looking bow followed them up. It looked like it was made for a child to hunt squirrels in the dead of winter. I didn¡¯t know how well those would work on undead, but power to them, I supposed.
The oldest of them among them seemed to take point.
I turned to Anna.
¡°Are we staying¡ or are we pushing on?¡± I asked Anna, turning to face her while she leaned on her staff like a wizened woman of lore.
¡°We can certainly help, it won¡¯t do to take his troops for our defence when the enemy closes. I¡¯ll go up the wall and gauge the issue; we can leave when the undead thin out. Shouldn¡¯t take too long.¡±
I nodded to her and walked up the wall with her, the smooth incline of the ramp rivalling anything I could do by hand alone.
The unnatural paving stones, on the other hand, were uneven enough that I almost triped forward into Anna.
It bought me enough time to see a straggler limping towards us as I crested the slap-dash rampart. The [Guards] lined up as he limped forward, hand still holding a crimson-crusted blade.
One of the men in the line called out, ¡°Garrette? Is that you?¡±
It wasn¡¯t Garrette. Or it wasn¡¯t anymore.
I could feel it as he stepped just close enough to properly make out the mana composition of the man. Anna was already aware, simply holding back her mana in case of catastrophe.
The man stepped forward as the corpse walked towards us, its body, divested of life, radiated darkness, flecked with a second black of death mana that pitted it like rust on a blade, eating away as much as it could before it inevitably succumbed to the plumb of empty darkness that moved it.
It was a zombie, though not one the likes of which I had seen. This one was far darker.
¡°Step back,¡± I called out to him, my body tensing as I reached out to it to try and discern more, much as one would squint to see something tiny.
The man turned and opened his mouth as he found my face. He was oblivious and obviously about to call something back to me as the corpse lurched towards him. It moved as if drawn by a terrible, invisible undercurrent. A rushing tide unseen by anyone, not even Anna or I.
One of the crossbowmen, likely sensing something was wrong, raised his crossbow to take a shot, but the corpse slammed into the guard, its head raised to show eyes marked by ephemeral flame, right before its maw opened.
Moved as if by raw force, its maw hung wide, dark magic hurling itself up into the jaw as it slammed its mouth through the lacklustre defence¡¯s of his clothes and what little armour he had.
I felt it likely that it wouldn¡¯t have mattered. The violence of it would likely be magical, enough to bore through un-magicked lesser metals. The teeth seemed to¡ extend, thin and sharp spear tips of dark magic, invisible to the naked eye, punched through skin and muscle before bursting, the magic held in its jaw forcing its way into the poor man''s body.
The man began to thrash, instant un-honed, but could not shake it as it tried to grapple with him. He punched out, elbow going wide, twisting into the path of the older crossbowman¡¯s shot.
The others drew back, first in incomprehension, then in a jolt of fear.
My body moved before my brain did, my senses snapping out sharply, [Marked by the long Road] reaching out through the immaterial fabric souls rested upon out towards the undead, through the dark of its body and inside.
It was hidden well, more like looking through a crack than when one sat free on the ground, but I could feel it. The soul was just right of the heart, about an inch from the back somewhere in the ribs.
My feet touched the ground, and I moved towards the man while he flailed and screamed. I planted my feet and thrust, curving up just above the man''s shoulder. My skill-reinforced shovel hit its teeth and bit in slowly.
I changed my grip as the blade of the shovel slowed and doubled down, putting my back into it as I tried to force the shovel through to the jaw.
The dark magic in its body was toughening it; instead of the consistency of the flesh, it was more like a tough clay-like putty. I wiggled the shovel up and down, quickly levering it to let me dig the tip in deeper. It also let me get all the way past the teeth, each of them breaking off at the root.
The man pulled away from it, his shoulder freed from the maw of the undead. He didn¡¯t get far, only a few feet before he fell to his knees, but it broke the flow of dark mana.
My ear twitched, picking up a noise, still distant but closing second by second. The clattering of mismatched footsteps.
I pushed the body back, tipping it over before pulling my shovel back, lining it up and thrusting down into the body towards the soul, seeking whatever foul artifice was inside the body that could be used to tie a soul to a corpse.
Pressed down first with only a little weight but then with increasing weight as the blade met the ribs. With a tiny bit of awareness, I put my foot on the base of the blade and used the flange, pressing my body weight against the bone.
The magical edge chewed its way down. To help it out, I tried to push some mana into the skill, and with little effort, I felt it take hold, mana flooding out of my body, down the shaft, and into the blade. The edge bit into the bone and chewed through it.
I gave it a little hop, and it sunk through the bone and into the meat.
The men behind me caught up with what was going on, several shouting. One of the men behind me, up near Anna, gave a shout. I ignored them, focusing on the feedback of the blade, trying to find something to shatter amongst the hardened meat within.
I felt Anna grip the mana in the air as she cast something, the noise of the approaching footsteps closer every second. It was a nightmare by the sound of it, but my focus paid off. The blade met something that was not bone, and I gave it another hop. It did not sound like the snap of a jade slip, but the crack of something like crystal, but the difference did not matter to me at the moment.
I quickly pulled my blade out and thrust my hand into the chest of the still writhing corpse, the arm gripping my leg and felt the soul find my finger.
He did not cry. He did not talk to me at all.
His final thoughts were, ¡°Oh¡ I was dead after all¡¡± before he passed from this world, pulled through me, and into the beyond.
A crossbow bolt slammed into the zombie¡¯s left arm, glinting with mana, it pierced the cobbles, pinning it there.
There were no more flames in the body''s eyes. They were simply lifeless, so it was time to go.
My focus shifted back, and I felt the pain of the hold the zombie had on me. Its fingers, much like the teeth had sharpened, punched through the skin and flooded my calf with void black mana.
Having lived through having dark tenebral magic inside of me before, I didn¡¯t expect it to hurt as much as it did. It stung like fire, the mana naturally present in my calf draining as the dark soaked the energy in.
I gripped my shovel, pulling it in, then lifting it up and around to hack at the arm that held me. I brought it down from above my head, fueling my skills with mana to ensure a clean hit, I cleaved through the thin skin and chewed through the meat beneath, breaking bone with one hit.
[Rapid Action], blessedly, freed me from its grasp, or at least from the rest of the body.
The hand held true, but I could move back, and I did so, quickly hefting my shovel into one hand. I reached down to free myself manually of the cold dead hand while I did so.
I turned quickly and saw the wall of blades pulling their fallen comrade in, kicking and screaming as the higher quantity of dark magic burned through him like poison. I couldn¡¯t properly see inside him, but I could now understand why he screamed.
I also turned to see how close the approaching footsteps were and was shocked to see them closing.
A wall of skeletons and zombies moved in disharmony. Only one or two in twenty had the glow of a soul, but they were legion. Most were zombies. Most were men.
And they were about 50 feet away, coming from an alleyway, smoke drifting above and behind them.
I didn¡¯t recognize them, but I recognized an issue.
I turned around and gazed at the wall, both of swords and of compact earth.
The man had been dragged back, and with how close the undead were, they had formed ranks. The wall, on the other hand, wasn¡¯t pointing weapons at me, and I was tall enough that I could jump up onto it.
I quickly made my way over, chucked my shovel up onto the battlement, and jumped, grabbing the ledge with my hands, and quickly pulled myself up.
I rolled onto my back, and took a deep breath, eyes closed.
I opened them to a worried Anna. Who was gazing at my left leg, no doubt at the blood which was probably ruining my clothes.
I rolled over, hitting my head on the shovel, cussed, and got up with it, one hand on my head.
¡°Gah¡ Don¡¯t worry about me, it¡¯s not that bad. My head hurts more than my leg,¡± I told Anna.
¡°You''re still bleeding,¡± she told me tersely, ¡°you could get an infection.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t think I can get an infection¡ Or rather, it wouldn¡¯t do anything, but I¡¯ll get it covered when I can, just to make sure.¡±
¡°And clean it,¡± Anna said in a tone that was a suggestion so loaded with, ¡®you will do it,¡¯ that I nodded automatically.
¡°Mmhm. Hot water and a bit of unguent, then wrap it,¡± I told her.
She looked at me confused but nodded and moved her vision back to the horde. She looked around before looking at one in specific, muttering, ¡°[Shotput],¡± which dragged a hunk of earth up before spinning it off into the crowd. It slammed into a glowing-eyed undead, pulverizing its gut and pelvis into so much worthless paste.
¡°Aim for the heart if you can,¡± I told her, ¡°That¡¯s where the souls seem to be located.¡±
¡°That won¡¯t disable them, Saphine. I can¡¯t waste too much mana, so the best thing I can do is disable them.¡±
¡°If you disable them, they¡¯ll stay animate and can be recovered if we don¡¯t destroy them all.¡±
I watched her think on it as she found her next target, ¡°True, but that¡¯s long term. In the short term, those ones are more dangerous. The guard can take care of them after¡ Assuming there aren¡¯t too many, but if there were enough to outright overrun the city, even as is, I would be running for the hills. This feels like something else.¡±
¡°A raid,¡± Selly said thoughtfully.
I didn¡¯t need to say it out loud. Anna was probably thinking the same thing, or she would be shortly.
I had never seen an undead horde; nonetheless a city-killing horde. The valley had been well and truly controlled territory, and normally, they would only pop up in ones and twos every so often. A natural undead. What kind of size would a raid even be? It couldn¡¯t be too many¡ Right?
Chapter 72
I felt kind of pathetic standing there, Anna tossing out rock after rock, each slamming true into the ensouled undead I had taken ten to twenty seconds to kill. She could kill them in under a second, from range, with perfect precision without getting dirty.
At least she wasn¡¯t getting bit or grabbed. I could hear the other guy freaking out, someone was tying him up to stop him from flailing from the sound of it, and I wasn¡¯t quite enjoying my time with the burn either.
And I got a small intake, the other guy got it full blast.
¡°Anna, is poison a kind of mana?¡± I asked her.
¡°No, not that I know of anyway. Poisons are a- [Shotput] broad. It¡¯s not a single thing. You don¡¯t buy poison; you buy a type of poison. So there¡¯s no single material and no single mana type. There are poisonous mana types, but no poison, the same way there¡¯s water or fire.¡±
I looked over at her and asked, ¡°Why do you know about buying poison?¡±
She looked at me and, in an all too serious tone, said, ¡°I know nothing about buying poison.¡±
If I didn¡¯t know better, that would be what I would call menace. On Anna, I felt she would be more cross than liable to break my knees, but I made a mental note to remember not to press her in a way that could result in poisoning. I doubt she would hurt me, but there was way more you could do with poison than kill someone.
And by a mental note, I meant telling Selly, ¡°Remind me not to anger Anna to avoid poison.¡±
¡°Aye,¡± she said stoically, ¡°will do.¡±
I didn¡¯t think she would poison me; she wasn¡¯t that kind of person, and it wasn¡¯t like it would hurt me in the long run, I guessed, but still. I did not want to be poisoned if it was anything like this.
¡°Whatever it did, it feels like poison. I can genuinely say I would probably be screaming too if I were him,¡± I told Anna.
¡°Pain is expected. I¡¯m glad he isn¡¯t turning right here and now, and someone¡¯s tying him up just in case he does. Nasty stuff zombies, and that¡¯s no lesser zombie either.¡±
Wait.
Wait, what does she mean?
Turning? Like¡ spinning around?
I felt like I suddenly knew less than nothing, and that wasn¡¯t a good feeling piled upon my uselessness and general lack of value. I was¡ A meat shield.
Anna was handling herself just fine up here on the wall despite my fears of her getting hurt.
That wared with the feeling of my heart slamming in my chest and my knowledge that Anna couldn¡¯t hold in melee, and it was losing ground.
I felt useless here.
I couldn¡¯t insert myself into the wall of fighting men, who were standing their ground admirably, pining back the wall, only letting a few in at a time so the clubs and swords could do their thing. The ranged fighters up on the wall with me, including Anna, took choice shots at the rhythmic wave of troops.
There were no priority targets, no Gremlin [Cultists] showed themselves, and the old [Crossbowman] and his support could not take their toll in truth.
It had seemed more exciting when I had been down there, but I had no place.
I could see the fire licking above the rooftops in the distance as it burned in towards us, the air getting hotter, slowly cooking us.
The old leader with the crossbow spoke up as I started to blank out.
¡°We need more ammunition. Tall vacant girl with the shovel, go and [Secure Munitions] for us, will you?¡± the older man asked.
I could feel the skill shift something around, informing me of where some bolts and arrows were left in a pack stashed back near the route further into the city.
I sighed.
I could have said no. The man had no power over me. But I did feel somewhat thankful for his intercession in the fight. The undead was still pined out in the horde, its legs broken from the wave of other undead.
There weren¡¯t many other things I could do anyway.
I sighed and whispered to Anna, ¡°I¡¯ll be right back. Make sure the guards don¡¯t break their necks.
With a bit of what I confusingly took as excitement, Anna said, ¡°No problem, I have the wall. Nothing will get past me.¡±
It was both cute and also strange.
I didn¡¯t know how to interpret that in the moment, with all the other things having seeped back into my head as the rush faded, leaving only the burn of black magic in my leg and the spot on my head where I whacked it on my spade.
I pitter-pattered down the ramp, coming to the now-bound form of the man.
He didn¡¯t seem so good. The shield of mana that blocked me from seeing within could not hide his colouring. He was dimming.
It was kind of like how you could see the skin of a fruit, but something ephemeral told you it was rotten inside.
I felt drawn to him, that dying man, and took a moment to try and comfort him. The old fart had enough bolts left for me to take my time. A man had left him tied uncomfortably and with a gag, still young enough to maybe be a bachelor, but maybe being married. He was not much to describe. Most people were.
Like so many others, he was normal. He had brown hair, brown eyes, and sun-kissed skin from days in the sun.
¡°Sorry about your friend,¡± I told him.
He could not respond to me, but I made sure to get in his line of sight so his unfocused eyes could at least see me. The least I could do for the man.
The wound on his shoulder was swollen, and reddened flesh could be seen through the holes in his shirt.
There was a leak of the dark mana, fizzing out of the wound like fog, black as clouds at night.
¡°I can¡¯t do a lot, but you should know¡ He¡¯s off enjoying the afterlife instead of being stuck in his body. I don¡¯t know if I can do anything for you, but if you pass, I¡¯ll send you off¡ Okay? This place is no place for you to linger.¡±
I was about to step up and away when a thought crossed my mind, drifting through my head like a ghost.
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The man was dying.
His body was being torn apart from the inside.
And most importantly, he was Dying, capital D.
Instead of standing and fetching a few bolts and a small quiver of what felt like twiggy sad sad-looking arrows, I intentionally activated [Gaze of the Coming Spring].
It was a hunch, but I figured it was a good one.
I had been able to feel the death in the air, the fire burning what life remained in the wood, and the rats and any other creature alive and full of life mana.
And [Verdant Nexus] was all about life but also about bringing forth new life.
Most of my skills worked on plants¡ but [Gaze of the Coming Spring] had no limit on plants, I could feel that.
The skill brought forward intentionally sent the world into terrible potency. The skill transformed the world around me into greyscale, the world transforming as all around me, life and death mana, present as a bloom of light and shadow. It was all-encompassing, with nothing escaping the effect. Every stone, plank and person was affected.
I imagined that watching it would give some insight into how life gets its bits on, but that¡¯s not what I was doing.
I was only focused on the one person anyway.
The [Guard] was full of life. His limbs and head, at least, were lit by a white glow that lit him from within. Without the other mana in his skin and muscles lit up with mana, the light could be seen much more freely, like the light of a lantern through a window, while the wall would block it but for a crack here or there to let it out.
And at the front of a spreading bloom of nothing was a shadowed lip of death mana.
¡°I don¡¯t know if I can help you,¡± I told the man, ¡°but I will try¡ if you want me to.¡±
He was tied up, gagged, and in far too much pain to properly consent, but I reached my hand over to his, my fingers slipping into his hand, looking for a sign that he was there and agreeing.
Minutely, his hand griped in a way that told me it wasn¡¯t from pain but conscious effort.
I didn¡¯t dally. I reached in magically and flexed my death magic skills, affinity and proficiency, alongside [Tenebral Bane], reaching out to the death mana inside him.
It was like pressing my fingers through the sand. It was not my mana nor the free mana of the world around me, but his mana, and it reacted as like it. I had to press, wiggling my metaphorical grip into him to the mana inside him.
The moment I connected to it, I felt it would not fight me like the rest of him, my affinity for it making the death within him more mine than his. My proficiency flexed as I began to do to him as I had done to myself back in the forest. I took the death mana and pushed back against the looming dark of his insides.
Instead of like me, where it was dispersed, in him, it was concentrated. Instead of whirling it around within him, unsure if that could cause more harm than good, I pressed the dark spot with the mana.
It was like popping a pimple from inside the skin instead of from atop it. The pressure was even along the entirety of his stained body. It did not move, though it did eat it up somewhat.
I couldn¡¯t push hard enough to get rid of all of it at once, and I was not strong enough to pop the pimple, but I pressed in any way.
His body did not bounce back behind it, and I cursed myself for not having a skill to heal the man directly. I had no clue if I could do it at all. I had healed myself, but I had also not known better.
It might be fine for me, but would I kill the man if I just flooded him with life mana? Did the lack of life mana near his organs outweigh that? I wasn¡¯t a [Healer]. I had no idea if I would leave him better off.
Though I doubt he cared if he lived or died at the moment, that was from pain, not from negligence. He would feel a whole lot more judging if he lived or if it just saved him from the pain, only to find out he was a dead man because I couldn¡¯t heal the void that was empty of life. I could only imagine a body rotting from within and decided that it would still be better than the pain he felt.
I could only put my hopes in his stats and hope that there was another way for him to recover, even if it was only enough to save his life.
¡°Sorry if this hurts,¡± I told him as I continued to knead the sore.
He whimpered but otherwise seemed to be fine. It wasn¡¯t reassuring, but I didn¡¯t need any of that.
Okay, maybe I needed a little of that, but It wasn¡¯t required, the world didn¡¯t care about my fears.
I felt my mana drain rapidly as I pressed a little harder, each moment of pressing into him burning mana just to reach inside. Mana burned to get inside, to grip the other mana, to press and knead.
I felt about halfway empty, and the proficiency and affinity I had no doubt helped me lower the cost.
It was easier than lighting a candle, which was both astounding and a little sad.
I pressed harder, really squeezing the dark and managed to press it back closer to the wound on his shoulder, a spray of dark quickly staining then disappearing into thin air.
It made me want to gag a little, but I sucked down a bit of smokey hot air, and the feeling of wanting to gag was blissfully replaced with the sting of smoke.
As the darkness receded, the amount of death mana also receded, much of it burning up to break the darkness up at its edges. However, as the darkness was pushed out, it began to win the tug-of-war. There was more death mana than the Tenebral mana.
I gave it one more press, at the cost of an inordinate amount of mana. It felt like running a mile in a minute but for mana. There was no burn of muscles, just an ebb as the mana left, followed by an increasing emptiness.
The press caused the dark mana to leak like gaseous pus from the wound before the dark within crumbled, breaking apart and dissolving.
Quickly, I let go of the death mana, letting it spread back out across the ruined area of his torso before I pulled out of him.
I breathed a sigh of relief and let my skill drop.
The man still moaned, still in pain, though he might have regained a little colour.
¡°Get yourself looked over if you can,¡± I told him before backing up to my feet.
I felt¡ I didn¡¯t know how I felt.
I was a bit torn over it, but I had no better way of doing it.
I could only hope that that made the difference.
I had something like one-third of my mana, maybe a little bit more than that.
I headed over to the ammunition. I had spent only spend maybe a minute on the man and would soon be missed. I didn¡¯t run, there wasn¡¯t any real reason to, not with how it was going, a slow grind of turning zombies and skeletons in to a mess while I couldn¡¯t contribute much at all.
If they were suddenly in need of help, shouting would come first. Shouting and then fighting for their lives, and all of that would be loud.
I made my way there, picking up the pack of ammunition and slinging it onto my back instead of carrying it with one hand. I was about to move back and deliver the pack when I heard a tiny noise.
It was faint, not distant, but simply small and hushed.
My ears swivelled, trying to find where it came from, but I couldn¡¯t. Perhaps it was a skill, or just that I wasn¡¯t on my A-game tonight, but I couldn¡¯t narrow it down from not being in the open area of the crossing behind me.
Carefully, I snuck my way. Forward, my feet were only touching clear stone to avoid the possibility of tripping.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, either in response to some unseen force or unknown presence, though I couldn¡¯t tell if there was anything there.
I¡¯m just losing it. First, I¡¯m spacing out, and now I¡¯m jumping at a random noise. Gods, what is wrong with me?
I sighed, the situation was obviously getting to me. I heard no more noise, the hairs on the back of my neck stopped standing.
It had been nothing. I turned and took one step before I heard it again.
All the hairs on my neck stood up again, and I spun, my stance widening as I took in the road again. It was almost the exact same noise, just a little closer.
Once was random, but twice? Twice was not a random chance.
I readied my shovel and began to intentionally sneak as best a girl over six feet tall could on an open street. I let my instinct guide my feet and posture to hunt down the noise.
The soles of my shoes lightly scuffed across the ground. My ears continued to swivel, checking for any noise my 27 points of senses could pick up.
Whatever it was, it was quiet, quiet and small.
I moved out of the ripped structures and out into the street, further and further from the others. I heard a scuff, and I griped my shovel as tightly as I could, the wood grain pressing into the skin of my hands.
I calmed my breathing, slowing it as best as I could.
The noise was coming from around the corner of an alleyway. An alleyway that led off in the direction of the undead assaulting the barricade. I got up to the side of the wall, leaning against it and peeked around into the alley.
Down the Alley was a short figure that, for a moment, I took to be maybe a child wearing a patchy cloak. The figure was hunched over and holding something.
There was indeed a cloak, but it was patchy with sick, scabby skin and fur beneath it.
The short figure was not a child, or not a human one anyway.
A Gremlin stood down the alley, hunched over, and I wasn¡¯t about to let it do whatever it was here to do, not based on its get-up.
[Long Strider] and [woodsman¡¯s Stride] guided my steps and [True Strike] my shovel. I hefted my shovel as I started running, bringing it down as I closed down the alley like a vengeful ghost. I reached the Gremlin [Cultist] before the shovel even got down to him.
My steps startled him, and he turned, his gross face turning to face me, surprise and hate lighting his bestial face.
My spade bit into his neck, cleaving through flesh and bone and flesh and in one clean swoop, the head rolled from the body, clattering to the ground before the body even registered.
The body fell as I pulled my shovel back, a clink of metal hit the cobbles, and a bauble rolled out. A familiar orb.
Chapter 73
The smoke in the air barely hid the stench of gremlin blood, its horrible ichor like so much rot. Despite my speed of killing the creature, I couldn¡¯t help but feel paranoid at the possibility that there were more of them.
My ears flicked, trying to trace footsteps, but to no avail. Either there were no more this way, or they were better at hiding than I was seeking.
I never was much of a [Hunter], but I decided that it was not what I should focus on.
I didn¡¯t focus on the far off cry of voices either, though they were Human, I didn¡¯t fear for them, they sounded more a cry of rejoice then fear.
I instead found my focus falling on the focus itself.
Or should I say foci?
Foe Ki?
Was it even a focus if it was more of a magic item? Some kind of control thing? Did it matter? I knew what it was, but regardless of its name, it didn¡¯t bode well for the current situation.
The metal scrap ball, rusted and pitted as if aged for a decade without so much as a buff, rolled audibly along the paving stones of the alley like the others I had seen before. It wore etched in metal, strange runic lines.
Though I knew not how to use it and not what the inscribed squiggles and harsh, jagged lines meant, I knew it was used to control the undead. I quickly scooped it up and began my retreat, my movement skills aiding in my expeditious movements toward the line of men and the closed square of civility. Without the need for soft footsteps, I made my way as if I were chased by a demon to the open square.
Making my way back and up the wall, I juggled the pack off and at the foot of the [Crossbowman], who grunted a ¡°Thank you¡± that sounded more like, ¡®took you long enough.¡¯
Anna gripped the air again, and I waited for the shot to land. The stone she hurled out slammed through not one but three skeletons, many of which seemed in some level of disarray.
¡°Anna, did the undead just almost spontaneously get a little dumber?¡± I asked her, a little canny knowing peeking through my voice.
She turned to look at me quizzically, one delicate eyebrow raising to my question.
¡°They do appear to be more disorganized, yes. Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that you have done something?¡±
I vibrated, a bit of nerve that I did my best to bury as I replied, ¡°Because I found a [Cultist] while I was getting the arrows. He had one of these. As far as I know, they use them to control the undead.¡±
I showed her the iron ball, hefting it up in my hand. I noticed a weight that felt slightly too heavy in a way I could not quantify. I stared at it for a moment, tracing its lines with my eyes as my senses felt at it, but I felt nothing off. No dark power passed from the ball to the air nor my hand, and so I let it be.
¡°You stumbled upon a [Cultist]¡ While you were retrieving arrows?¡± she asked, not disbelieving me so much as believing she was missing the middle bit.
¡°I heard a noise,¡± I told her, ¡°but that¡¯s not the important bit. The important bit is that there are Gremlins controlling the undead. They¡¯re being guided.¡±
I could see her mind slam down upon the idea immediately, spinning up. The idea was placed in the grinder of her mind and quickly worn down to fine, sifted and sorted.
Bits lined up that I could not see, lines drawn in her mind I could not follow.
She nodded.
¡°We could end this quickly if we brought down those [Cultists]. Move on with an escort further in toward the wall.¡±
I nodded, though it was not what I was thinking, it was true.
¡°Yes, though more importantly, I believe something is wrong here.¡±
Anna¡¯s mind jittered to a stop so suddenly I could see it as she focused, her pupils focusing back to me instead of in the distance.
¡°Oh? I don¡¯t see anything amiss. Do tell,¡± she asked.
¡°Why would a team of Gremlins usher a wave of undead into one side of us when were mowing them down like wheat? They¡¯re not the sharpest tools in the shed, don¡¯t get me wrong¡ But they had a tendency to work in teams and surrounding targets to bring them down. When I fought them, I went for their [Archers], and their warriors came in behind me trying to pin me between them.¡±
Anna thought it over, but she didn¡¯t speak up before another voice did.
¡°Something about this is fishy,¡± The old man spoke up, ¡°Pardon my intrusion, Lady Mage, but the lass has a good sense if she¡¯s picking up something being wrong. My skill has been telling me that there¡¯s been something going on the whole fight.¡±
She turned to him, then back to me, before she rushed down into the square. I turned to follow her, flooding down the ramp and dropping the ball on the stones with a metallic thump.
Taking the shovel in two hands, I came up next to her as she reached the other end of the square and began to cast, the earth shifting below my feet as Anna''s magic seemed to both exhale into the shape she wove before her and some into the ground where more mana in kind followed it up and into wall and ramp.
¡°Are you going to wall everything off?¡± I asked her quite dumbly.
¡°Yes, yes, I will wall off everything. I will not sit by and discount your verdict. Go get your ball, Saphine; I will need it in a moment. When I¡¯m done, I¡¯m going to try to find other objects like it. Shoo. I don¡¯t need you hovering. I¡¯m no damsel. I will be just fine for but a few moments. Fetch the ball.¡±
She spoke it with enough force that it came across that she might be dissatisfied with my guarding. Awkwardly, I rushed back over to fetch the iron ball.
Our suddenness didn¡¯t go unseen. Some of the [Guards] that could not properly fit in the choke and the [Guard Captain] had noticed our flight from the wall and were muttering amongst themselves as to what we strange women folk were doing.
I picked up the iron ball and, in a moment of thought, said toward the closest [Guard] that wasn¡¯t hogtied, ¡°You might want to get ready for a surprise attack. The horde is being guided,¡± and rushed off without slowing for them to respond.
I did not stay to explain; instead, I rapidly delivered the ball to Anna.
¡°Singular ball, ready to be pondered,¡± I told her as she raised one last wall.
She looked at me before saying, ¡°I¡¯m not going to ponder a ball¡ You''re thinking about Orbs. You ponder orbs, not balls.¡±
Was that right? I thought it was crystal balls.
¡°I¡¯m sure someone''s out there pondering crystal balls instead of crystal orbs,¡± I told her thoughtlessly.
Anna looked at me, and I stopped to look back. She just kept looking at me as if I had something on my face. I rubbed my face to feel for whatever might have been there, but there was nothing. While she stared at me, I got to finally thinking about what had just come out of my mouth and almost choked on my own spit.
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She smiled. Just a little. However, I couldn¡¯t enjoy it with the blaze in my cheeks. It was a silly thing to get embarrassed about, but it struck unreasonably deep.
¡°I¡¯ll show you pondering orbs¡¡± I muttered more to myself than to her like a child. Then I realized what I had said and again wanted to mentally decouple from my body and curl into a ball or possibly hurl myself off a cliff.
Anna, of course heard me, and she too flushed a little, though being the better of the two flustered mages in reach, she focused on the poorly forged oversized ball bearing.
She began to feel the¡
She held the¡
She pondered the damn ball.
I couldn¡¯t tell what she was doing, but the feeling of her presence in the air was overwhelming.
I could feel nature gaze upon her, its awareness like a mountain, a monumental force without even intending it. An ineffable thing staring down at itself to see a flea.
I could feel nature give the equivalent of a ¡®Hmm¡¯ as its gaze fell on us and narrowed upon the object of the hour. The gaze then lifted, its pressure fading as the world around it checked its great pelt for more fleas holding more small metal balls of similar make.
¡°Thank the gods their [Cultists] because there¡¯s no way a mage would miss that.¡±
¡°You can feel it because you can feel it. The mana is minimal, you could tell if you knew what you were looking for, but it could just as easily be a fart.¡±
I couldn¡¯t understand how someone couldn¡¯t feel that. It was so overt that I would imagine that anyone could feel it, and yet no one seemed to notice nature normally.
I hoped the [Cultists] didn¡¯t feel the land itself glaring at them; it would be incredibly awkward to try and hunt them down after they felt the presence of the land on which they stood glaring at them like that.
I waited, looking at Anna, unsure of what was going to happen.
It wasn¡¯t every day that I talked with nature anymore. I didn¡¯t just casually talk to my oldest friend, and I had never asked it to do anything like this.
Or had I?
I supposed I kind of had when I had asked to find the lake¡ Or anything else like that.
I just wouldn¡¯t have necessarily noticed the presence of it as I did so, it had never been examining me.
There had been presence before, but not like that, it just meant that it hadn¡¯t been focused so heavily upon me.
And it hadn¡¯t tipped off anyone before.
I decided to believe in my old friend. If you couldn¡¯t trust a literal force of nature, who could you trust?
Anna stared off into the distance, mouth open in a way that somehow managed to be both unbelievably cute and made me want to do things I probably shouldn¡¯t do in public.
Kissing a noblewoman in the mouth would probably get a whole lot of bad shit kicked up around us. Technically, it was not illegal for us to marry, and being technically not illegal didn¡¯t generally make for a cocktail of acceptance, no matter how you cut it.
I did lean in right in front of her face, close enough to kiss, nose to nose with her, and when she came back to herself, she blinked and pulled back.
¡°Gah¡ Could you not?¡± She asked with a blush.
¡°I just thought you should know you were making a face,¡± I told her quietly.
She looked at me confused, then shook herself.
¡°There are two that way and two approaching from that way,¡± she told me, pointing once towards the wall of undead and once towards the opposite direction.
I paid close attention to the way her hands pointed and did my best to memorize them, then I nodded.
¡°Do you mind if I head out and you hold down the fort here?¡± I asked her.
She looked a bit cross for a moment, but she thought about it for a moment and sighed.
¡°Go for it. You''re faster than I am by far. And while these spells are rather low cost, I¡¯m not made of mana. You delt with them before¡ Just¡ Just don¡¯t come back covered in gore. Please? For my peace of mind if nothing else.¡±
She was obviously not enthused. I could tell she wanted to come with me, I just didn¡¯t know how to bring her.
I nodded, and quietly said, ¡°I¡¯ll be back quickly,¡± before making my way off towards a building that was between me and my targets.
¡°That¡¯s supposed to be my line,¡± she said to me.
I made my way over to the buildings and, as best as I could, made my way through them. In through windows and doors, through the cramped homes and out through doors or other windows into other alleys.
At one point I had to go up a floor to drop out of a window.
Each step brought me towards the flame, towards the less distant fire by the moment.
The smoke stung my nose and eyes more and more, the part of my head that made me want to check out becoming worse as I did so. I would have to find out what was wrong with me later because there was something wrong with me.
I kept myself focused on the task at hand, my heart beating faster, the world growing hotter, and my breaths feeling more and more shallow by the moment.
But I made it, breaking into a side street after peeking my head out, my ears picked up the noise of two bickering Gremlins, just distant, down the street.
They managed to look away at the same time, a miracle if I had ever seen one.
That''s probably a dumb way to look at it, considering I have, in a way, experienced a Miracle. Coming back from the dead isn¡¯t something you do every day. And there''s all the harvests; they got blessings too¡
I focused back on the current task as I noticed myself get lost in my own head again.
I pulled myself out of the window and into the street like some manor of Kobold spider, refusing to let the spade touch the ground to not make more noise, it was quite awkward to get through with only three limbs from a window for a person the better part of two feet shorter than I was, but I managed it.
My sandals clapped as quietly as I could make them, and I began to make my way toward them.
I¡¯ll need to take out one, then the other. Can I get that by using [Long Strider] to close the distance? Or Will it just alert them? I fought three Gremlins the other day, and one of them got a nasty cut. And that had been from ambush¡
I decided to play it safe and not risk the speed here. Focused as they were on their bickering and the orbs, they were distracted enough not to notice me.
Not until I got just close enough for their enhanced senses to pick me up some fifteen feet away.
They turned, surprise evident in them as they quickly drew their knives.
Taking as deep a breath as I could, I steeled myself to the idea of getting into a tussle and quickly closed the distance, taking my spade in two hands and slamming down, rapidly bringing it into the first Gremlins scull.
There was a crack of breaking bone¡ and then the Gremlin just¡ Dropped.
I didn¡¯t even need to use [Rapid Action].
The Gremlin just¡ died.
I didn¡¯t freeze at it, and as the body dropped, I did end up using my skill to rapidly bring the shovel down again, only onto its neighbour, who also died in one hit.
It felt¡ a little wrong.
Like I was in an illusion, and they would stab me any second, breaking the illusion to reveal they were alive and fine.
But it didn¡¯t break.
I looked at my blade, fresh blood along the edge.
Their souls sat on the ground, hissing and spitting in their strange language.
I scooped them up, no problem, pulling them into and through myself.
When did it get so easy? The other day, I was fighting for my life against these guys¡ and now I¡¯m just¡ not?
The other one wasn¡¯t much of a fight either, but¡ was it always that easy?
Maybe it was the conditions?
I couldn¡¯t tell. I could only tell it didn¡¯t feel right.
I hadn¡¯t gotten statistically stronger, I didn¡¯t think. I was still level 20. My new classes still weighed it down, and yet, it just was?
Maybe it was the increased proficiency? Or the magical blade? The heads were cut somewhat instead of being bashed in along a line.
I was getting stuck in my head again; it was best not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
I hadn¡¯t seen many of those around¡ Or like any.
I hoped they were fine, wherever they were.
I sighed and started back, only to come up with an idea.
Why go through houses¡ when I could go over?
***
Running on the tops of roofs was not as easy as I thought it would be, and yet¡ It was also very fun.
My skill [Woodsman''s Stride] was good at keeping my feet from tripping over themselves, but it was also good at keeping my feet on the slanted surface of the roofs.
It was also far faster to take the direct route back along the roofs.
The buildings were close together, with almost no space between any of them, which let me hop over them with ease.
It took me all of two minutes to run back casually along the roof.
As I did so, I could see the horde.
They shambled in uniform only so far as they all shambled in a confused jumble vaguely towards the [Guards].
I could see on the other side of the square more civilians streaming in, with beleaguered and hurt [Guardsmen] following them through the choke. Several guards with long poleaxes stood, waiting to fill the breach with a wall of spikes.
Anna stood, arguing with Gurtz, and I made my way over to hop down when I thought about something else that might be fun.
The next cultists were on the other side of the square¡ Why not try to get there on the rooftops?
I backed up, and sucked in air, hyping myself up before I put my whole body and [Long Strider] and ran towards the other side of the main street.
I kicked off and flew through the air.
Civilians pointed at me, jumping, hurtling across the gap.
I made it across, slamming chest first into the edge of the roof with a bone-rattling thud that knocked the wind out of me.
I scrabbled, my one free arm flying out, nails extended, the other trying to hook on the roof tiles further up. I just barely managed to stop my fall and pull myself up. The fun of it driven from my quite quickly.
It took me a moment before I could stand again, rubbing my chest where I would no doubt find a few bruised ribs tomorrow.
Was it worth it?
Objectively, probably not.
But it was also very fun to run on rooftops.
Even if sometimes I hurt myself in my own idiocy.
At least I could get to the other [Cultists] faster up here.
Chapter 74
Showing off, as it turned out, was a hard thing to do. Selly Cackled on my shoulder as I scrambled up the rooftop. Among the people moving below, I could hear a few chuckles.
Anna, I know, had seen it and was no doubt wondering what had possessed me to jump that gap, and as I got my footing, I too wondered what idiotic thing had done that.
I knew well why I did it, obviously. I had done it because I thought it would be fun. I suppose I should have known it wasn¡¯t a fun day.
You know. Because the city was still on fire and people were dying and it wasn''t appropriate. But I had done it anyway. Scratched out a few moments of fun, running on rooftops like a character in a book, a sneaky [Rogue].
And as I started to reprimand myself, Selly said, ¡°Gods. I wish I could have seen that from afar. Your face must have been priceless,¡± and then she laughed.
I got my balance under me and started moving off toward where Anna had pointed toward and seethed a little.
¡°You don¡¯t have to mock. I know it was stupid but-¡±
¡°But nothing,¡± she said, cutting me off, ¡°You showed off. Good on you. You even seemed to have a little fun running around and that¡¯s all the better.¡±
I frowned at her words as I kept my wits, staring at the tiles, checking for cracks in the rooftops.
¡°It¡¯s not the time for fun, not now,¡± I told her.
¡°Tonight is not a good night, nor one that¡¯s fun, true. But do not conflate the two. You are not the night, as it is not you. If you can¡¯t have a little fun, seek no exhilaration in the things you do; what you are doing isn¡¯t what you''re supposed to be doing. Good seeks good, and bad follows bad. Your accident has not made the day any worse than it is, but I bet those chuckling [Guards] didn¡¯t mind it, and hey, a few chuckles are good for the spirit. If you let the day dictate how you go about it, you¡¯re a plant, not a person. Don¡¯t let it control you, or those that caused the bad have gotten one over on yeh, and doing good for yourself can be good for others, too. Bad and Bad, Good and GOood-¡±
She spouted it right up until I jumped. So entrenched was she in what she preached she had come to stand and not hold on and almost felt off. I could hear her buzz with her harsh whistling wing as she hurled herself into my shoulder, tiny insectile fingers griping on for dear life.
¡°You seem to like the sound of your own voice tonight,¡± I told her, landing the short jump across a short gap with a short bend of the knee.
¡°Aye,¡± she huffed, ¡°And I see the corner of your mouth tipping up, so my words of wisdom are better for the both of us.¡±
I was not smiling.
Not one bit.
Ok, maybe I was a little, but that was because Selly couldn¡¯t keep her mouth shut if she had something to say, and it nearly bit her on her fuzzy insectile ass.
¡°So what? Ignore the horror and keep smiling? Enjoy the nightmare around us? I don¡¯t get it,¡± I sighed.
¡°If you do something you enjoy, even when it¡¯s a living nightmare around you, don¡¯t let it get you down that you feel good. Take that good, and pay it back to those who need it instead of beating yourself up over it. How¡¯s that? Concise enough for you?¡± She asked.
¡°Yeh, I could parse it,¡± I told her, ¡°Though I don¡¯t know that I can do it.¡±
¡°Then the life you¡¯re running towards will shatter you over its knee. Hope and pray your lady friend can stitch you up again when you''re broken.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not running towards anything,¡± I told her, a lie, even as it came from my mouth.
I was running towards more than trouble. I was running towards the servants of a monster, a monster who in and of itself was a servant of a greater evil. It had spoken of it¡¯s mistress.
And I had promised Anna I would help see the valley saved.
And I would run on forward, into the black of the night, into holes and crevices forgotten by everything but the servants of monsters to keep my promises if I could.
And I would see things worse than this.
Worse and worse.
And Selly was right. That if this was simply the first step down into the dark, the rest of the stairs would eventually break me. They would shatter me as I came, tumbling down them like a blind idiot.
The only question would be if I would tear Anna down with me if I kept doing things as I did now.
And I couldn¡¯t accept that.
My mind burbled, and I kept my mouth shut, not looking at Selly as she looked at me in disbelief. I could feel it, like a Selly-sized headbutt against my cheek.
I kept my mouth shut and continued on.
We passed the undead soon into relative silence, A horde of a hundred or so bodies, most not fresh and yet with far too many fresh, shambling in a semi-orderly fashion toward the barricade.
If I had a spell, one I could throw, I would have, but I didn¡¯t. And so I moved on, feeling all the more a coward for it.
I moved slower, eying side streets and alleys and the dark places and thought as I did my work.
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As afraid of love as I was, I could see the idea of it. I could see the things I did, and the way that I treated Anna, and I could see where I was going, and I couldn¡¯t stand how my failing could hurt her.
She had said she loved me, and I might just love her, and if it was anything like how I felt about her, she would trail behind me into hell. And that was without how she wanted to do good, without her agile yet focused mind trying to achieve an ages old goal.
And if I fell before her, she would tumble down after me.
If she was going to tumble after me, I would need to not tumble in the first place. And if Selly was right, and I was growing more certain that she was. Keeping myself down was going to hurt her.
Damned to hurt her, if I didn¡¯t, and damning my morals if I didn¡¯t I found myself peeking into an alleyway behind the lines of undead, down at two figures with hooded head.
They were guarded by one very unfortunate grunt with a long grungy knife.
I dropped on him.
Once again, it wasn¡¯t a contest to kill them. I dropped upon the knife-wielding Gremlin and crushed it beneath the edge of my spade before lifting it up and with a few steps forward into the furthest [Cultist], rapid action repeating it back toward the second.
I scooped them up, and I felt them writhe as I did, but they couldn¡¯t contest me.
And then I was off, back and around and by a few hard-to-finish movements, up onto the buildings. I stowed my spade and made my way back.
¡°Selly,¡± I started, ¡°I¡¯m not crazy that they seem easy. Too easy, even, to kill compared to before¡ right?¡±
Selly answered quickly, ¡°Ehh¡ Yes? But only because you¡¯re getting better at killing them. You¡¯re not running at them; you''re ambushing them in small numbers while they try to move their forces. You¡¯re fighting on your terms instead of theirs. You¡¯re also killing them faster. A little of both then, I think; they¡¯re easier to kill, and you''re better at it when you¡¯re not fighting six of them at a time.¡±
I felt a little relief at that that I wasn¡¯t missing something. Relief and a tiny bit of pride. I was doing better.
I didn¡¯t know how much better, but an improvement was an improvement. I did my best to not strangle it, as hard as that was. I needed to try not to be crushed and excited at it.
I made my way back to Anna, carefully slipping down onto the closest barricade wall and telling the [Guards] there, ¡°They should be here soon; they¡¯re nice and disorderly now,¡± before strutting down the ramp and catching the very end of an argument.
Gurtz strutted away, annoyed, while Anna stood, red-cheeked and indignant.
¡°What''s wrong? Did he back out of your deal?¡±
Anna did a tiny, almost hop as I took her by surprise, playing it off as she turned to face me.
¡°Oh. You¡¯re back. That was rather quick,¡± she said, letting out the remainder of a long-held breath.
¡°Sorry I spooked you. So what was that about? Are we heading out on our own?¡±
She shook her head and took a breath, lifting herself up as she did until her posture was as straight as a polished slab of granite.
¡°No¡ No we¡¯re getting our small team of people¡ But half of them are the bowmen¡ and one of them is the deadweight.¡±
¡°Like¡ a body?¡± I asked her, unsure if she meant they were a dead person or if they were useless.
¡°No¡ He¡¯s not dead¡ Yet. But he can¡¯t walk on his own,¡± she sighed.
The works clicked through my head, back to the man I had saved, forcing the blackout with death magic.
He was still over there, I could see one man with a truncheon holding him up as he limped toward us. The old man with the two younger [Archers] moving toward us.
We had helped them, for six people of what was now far more than one group.
I sighed, ¡°Well¡ At least this place will be secure?¡± I told her.
¡°At least it will be secure,¡± Anna Sighed, ¡°Though if we don¡¯t send that man to the temple of Life he¡¯ll be a corpse soon enough, and we¡¯ll be the one in trouble.¡±
¡°Oh?¡± I wordlessly asked.
¡°He got bit, which means he¡¯s full of dark magic. If you look closely, you can see the¡ Where did it go?¡±
¡°I pushed it out of him before I killed the first [Cultist],¡± I told her.
She looked at me, like how I expected most people to look at me, sans the fear. Gazing at me as if I had just admitted to being an [Archmage] in disguise.
I watched her face go through the process of actually comprehending what I said, then through the process of trying to understand what the hell I meant. She seemed to take a detour as she blankly stared for a moment. Then, she opened her mouth and lost the tension in her shoulders.
¡°Oh, thank the gods,¡± she said with a relieved sigh.
¡°Yeah, thank them,¡± I told her, not wanting to say god out loud.
She, of course, took that the wrong way, quickly speaking up with, ¡°And thank you. Sorry, I didn¡¯t mean to devalue... I did not expect you to be able to do something about that. What was it?¡±
Leave it to Anna to both try to make up for a perceived faux pas, while also being curious. I couldn¡¯t tell if it was true curiosity or trying to segue away from the topic, but I answered her regardless.
¡°Death magic. It¡¯s good against that kind of stuff. You can kind of use it to annihilate dark magic if you have enough flat out, I didn¡¯t have a whole lot of mana to manipulate it, but I managed to kind of squish it out.¡± I told her.
I found myself drifting toward her, and for the sake of keeping up her appearance, I stopped myself from making contact.
And then I ignored it.
It was a strange feeling to do it, but I leaned it close and asked, ¡°How are you holding up?¡±
Anna, still not getting what I was talking about and still flustered, said, ¡°I have enough mana in me to still do some work.¡±
I put an arm on her shoulder, jarring her from the confusion and getting her to focus. I could feel, despite the prior sigh, her shoulder still held tension and gave her a little squeeze of reassurance.
¡°I don¡¯t mean mana, Anna¡ I mean how are you holding up? Are you good?¡± I asked her, putting an emphasis on you.
¡°I¡ I¡¯m more tired from arguing with the captain than anything else. Not great, but not bad either. I¡¯ll be fine,¡± she said, laying her hand on mine for a moment.
Her hands were warm and a little clammy. Wet from either exertion or the warmth of the city. I could feel her hold my hand for a moment before she let go, and with the retreat of her hand, we pulled apart, turning as one to face the encroaching menfolk.
I could hear, with finely tuned ears, a comment about women. I could see the old man scowl at the only unencumbered, non-ranged combatant. Who refused to help the wounded man.
He was sweaty and peckish and looked like he might die on the spot, but he was indeed still alive. Barely able to get his legs to carry his weight, the man had an unfocused sight that drifted before lingering on me.
Not in a lecherous way but in a confused haze.
¡°How fast can you move with him like that?¡± Anna asked the man carrying the wounded, one shoulder beneath his wounded one, holding his unresponsive arm atop his shoulder, gripping it with his other hand.
¡°Not all that fast, um, lady mage,¡± he said respectfully.
¡°You,¡± Anna said, ¡°You will aid him, were moving toward the wall, we can have him sent to the temple of light when we pass the edge of the district.¡±
She pointed at the man who made the comment about women, and I couldn¡¯t help but smirk as he started to protest.
¡°I¡¯m not touching him, he¡¯s liable to turn and bite us,¡±
¡°No, he won¡¯t,¡± I told him, ¡°[Saints] honour on it. I¡¯ve worked on that already,¡± I told him, talking with false strength behind it.
The man looked at me with distrust, wincing as he met my gaze, but Anna spoke up, keeping pressure on him.
¡°You will do it, or I will turn you right back around and tell your captain why his cowardly [Guardsman] is held by the scruff of his neck by a fist of brick at the earth,¡± Anna said coldly, her voice having no hint of argument.
He looked between the two of us, then to the others, and maybe it was the old man''s glare, the bowman next to him not even looking toward him, or the look of bitterness on the man carrying the wounded, but he shut his smart mouth and got an arm under the wounded man, who moaned in pain as he was jostled.
The man was hefted up on their shoulders. Anna nodded.
¡°Good choice, now then¡ Off we go to save the city. Took long enough.¡±
Chapter 75
We left the walls of the intersection and made our way up the road. Our next location was not as hospitable and well-defended as our prior one. It was, in fact, being overrun.
We had three people who could do a little more than jack all with their bows, two people who could defend themselves if they lay down, the one who couldn¡¯t protect themselves, and me and Anna.
I could hear ahead of us the sound of combat, and I got myself ready to fight, taking back out my shovel and griping the grain of the wood haft, finding the proper point to hold it. I focused on my ears, and could hear a shift as people looked at me, unknowing of what had happened, and what we were walking towards.
¡°Look alive,¡± I told them, ¡°Because the dead are up ahead, and they¡¯re fighting.¡±
¡°More fighting?¡± The whining guard asked.
¡°Shush,¡± the old man responded.
I could just hear Anna make a noise of some sort, but it was so low I wasn¡¯t sure she meant to.
We picked up speed, our feet tapping the stone with increasing frequency until the humans could hear it, too, and started speeding up more and more.
The feeling of waiting as we moved made me want to speed off, but I wasn¡¯t going to separate from Anna. I would stick near her while she was unsafe; as much as I doubted I could stop something that could flatten Anna, I could buy her the time to fight back.
A pothole in front of a cart that could slow the advance of almost anything we were likely to fight¡ Probably.
I didn¡¯t know if it was the just the Gremlins, or if the big bad [Necromancer] mistress their leader had spoken on was kicking around. I didn¡¯t think that would be the case, but it was a possibility that once thought of, I couldn¡¯t stop thinking about.
But I waited and walked and waited some more, the noises coming clearer, until as we came around a bend in the road, it came into view.
It was the exact kind of carnage I had thought up when I imagined what the gremlins were doing. Pressed on all sides, the guards fought in a ring of flashing weapons and shouted breath, and within a group of what looked like stranded and grubby people, caught fleeing the fire and smoke by the undead.
Around them, pressing into pikes and blades and clubs were the broken, old and fresh, bone and sinew. Walls of moving corpses, piloted by the stagnant and compressed magic pitch, invisibly writhing within them for escape. And tucked here or there, amongst the freshly dead, a dozen gremlins, half their number cultists.
I could hear the [Archers] get ready, and after a moment of observation, I did too.
I got ready, set, and rushed forward.
Our little group was a short distance from the sight, but we were close enough that I could get there quickly. Behind me, I could hear the clack of the crossbow as the old man fired, the bolt tearing through the air a foot beside me as I ran forward.
My long, lanky legs ate the ground as the bolt passed me by and hurtled into the neck of one of the gremlins, its body tensing at the impact before its legs gave way beneath its form.
It wasn¡¯t one of the cultists, just a guard, and I shouted back, ¡°The ones with the hoods, get the ones with the hoods!¡± before I focused on the horde and ran spade first into the cleared area and a second later, the body of an undead.
The shovel passed through it like it was an illusion; the blade simply passed through, but there was a moment of resistance as it caught bone, and the magic in the blade hewed through the tough and the marrow and out the other side.
It did so several times as I brought the blade down, top to bottom, right to left and an extra moment as its body began to bleed dark into the air like smoke.
None of them reacted.
It was a little unsatisfying, the puppet not reacting, but I moved on fast enough. I had a limited window before the undead would be ordered by the cultists to turn upon me, and I needed to make it so that I could.
I moved forward, and two more fell, their bodies still moving as they attempted to push into the crowd. Then another, and another.
In a matter of a moment that lasted forever and a second, I ended up hewing my way through the undead like a scythe through the grain, the act comparably effortless.
And then three of them pivoted mid-movement and the mob began to turn toward me. I could hear ahead of me, through the body, the shouts of guards as the undead pressed on them unevenly. No doubt a ploy to get them to break ranks, the undead would be wheeled into the hole, and the civilians and guards alike would be stabbed in the back.
And then I had no time to pay attention to the guards, or the civilians or the gremlins because I was fighting for my life.
They pressed up and around me, quick as a river, and started to claw, slap, and bite toward me.
Luckily, I knew to avoid bites, assuming the blank-eyed undead were anything to worry about, but the scratches cut through, and the slaps and slams of meat and bone, while devoid of weapons, still hurt like a bitch.
They were also close now, which was less than fun and forced me to hold closer to the head of my shovel, choking up the neck until I basically held the base of the metal clutched in one hand while the but of it slapped out, as a blind man with a distinct hatred of knees might with a cane.
I wasn¡¯t sure if it helped me fend them off, but it was honestly the least of my worries.
I hacked down with the blade of my shovel, the curved edge, magically reinforced and clear, cut like it was sharp despite the constant cleavage of bone that aught to chip it, [Durable Tools], made the edge ever sharp, and for a brief moment, as I caught my breath, the undead but moments from me, I pondered the idea of sharpening the blade.
If I could cleave through them like a hot razor through butter, imagine what a sharpened blade could do. What could I do if I really gave it a razor''s edge? How would it cut?
I pressed them, and they pressed back, and so we went, me cleaving through one of the undead, and they, in their numbers, clawed back into me with the furry of the dark magic inside of them, fueling every movement.
They clawed into my clothes whenever I let them get close, and I ignored them as best as I could, hacking them back before trying to move back out of the wall toward my group, but they wouldn¡¯t let me pass. They had, in part, flowed around me and contained me in a crowd of bodies.
I had gotten myself trapped inside the small horde. I couldn¡¯t avoid getting attacked if I turned to get out, and I didn¡¯t think I could get out in one piece if I tried to force my way out of the horde.
All I could do was try and make sure to draw as many of the enemies to me as I could, so that¡¯s exactly what I did. I put my back into cutting down the undead as they pressed in closer and closer pushing them back, only to loose ground as they came in closer.
The reek of the undead as I cut them down grew bad enough to water my eyes as their bodies fell and began to stack up around me, and I was forced to move to not be buried by their corpses, only to nearly trip.
I pressed my skills with mana and quickly righted myself, using the but of my shovel to help right me, and stop my fall and find my footing.
I felt one of the undead get a good slice in, cutting through cloth and drawing a line of fire across my skin that was deep enough to make me shout, unlike the finer cuts and scrapes they had previously gotten.
I brought my shovel back up the second my feet found the ground proper, and the hand came off, falling from my back, and I got back to culling.
Swing after swing after swing, I could feel my arms begin to tire, the burn of muscles doing work slowing my blade. I began to sweat like a hog as I grew warm, blade and haft just heavy enough for exertion. I could feel the sweat sting my eye as I continued to cut and hew and cleave through the undead.
It wouldn¡¯t be enough, I wouldn¡¯t be enough, not to clear them all. It took far too long to turn and cut and turn and cleave, and I was probably going to get mobbed.
I was surrounded by them, getting progressively coated in rot and gore, bleeding and sweating my ass off and getting intermittently clobbered.
It should have been horrible¡ so why did I feel a smile on my face? Why did I feel like shouting like Selly was on my shoulder? Bellowing a war cry?
Why did I like it when I should be horrified?
¡°Bring me closer; I want to hit them with my sword,¡± Selly cried.
¡°How about you use your skills to help me instead,¡± I shouted back.
Selly made a terribly gleeful sound and shouted, ¡°[Hold the Line] and [Bring em¡¯ down]! [Stand your Ground]! [Awareness Abounds]!¡±
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I could feel the skills echo out into the night like a war horn, reinvigorating me, both numbing my aches and refreshing me. I could feel the wound on my back stop bleeding, and the will to fight returned to me; the idea that I would lose chased from the corners of my mind while the feeling of single-minded focus widened from just keeping them back.
I could feel far off, Anna casting something, and the flagging [guards] in the middle of it all give a cheer. The clarity was so great I could feel my body sucking ambient mana in through my lungs and the heat rolling off of my skin as it escaped me.
I turned with more vigour and began to push them back, my blade finding the best places to strike. [True Strike] found little purchase on the chaff, but even so, [Bring em¡¯ down] seemed to aid me in a similar manner, only in the best way to fight them, instead of their weak points.
Anna spoke, ¡°[Barrage of Stone],¡± and as her spell went off and tore into the crowd next to me, a barrage of paving stones blew through a crowd near me into shattered rot, a way out if I could make my way there quickly.
I took it, moving as I turned to fend the undead off to bring me toward the gap.
I could hear the two guards fighting near me, the voice of the complaining guard, complaining unmistakable in the din for anyone else.
I let out a shout of thanks to Selly that sounded more like a war cry than a thank you and made my way through the undead, blade-hitting meat; I carved my way clear of the fresh slice of hell I had gotten caught in.
I stepped, foot by foot, out of the surrounding horde until I was clear, and then I moved, reuniting with the guards, circling around the horde until I was a few feet away and turned to be in line with them.
I saw a bolt wiz by in the corner of my vision and could see the moment a [Cultist] died as the undead suddenly began to seem confused. Their movements, undirected and counterintuitive.
I worked to catch my breath and calm my beating heart as the undead stumbled toward us, and we cut them down.
Compared to my more vigorous and less effective fighting on my own, the two guards and I made light work of the undead; their unfocused movements, along with Anna''s attack, had thinned more out than I had destroyed in a matter of moments, and it showed. They spread instead of pressing, and there were fewer of them by the second.
As we pressed into the undead, cleaving and clobbering them, one zombie came up to us and made to move in against the guard furthest from me, and while he worked efficiently, clobbering it with his cudgel, it was about the time he hit it, only for it to not work that I caught the light in its eyes.
It clawed at him, the mana in its body extending out to make contact, to force its way from the undead, and I, as best as I could, quickly reached over with my shovel and pushed it back. Its body staggered awkwardly, not as a human would, but as a human body was forced to as if it were a human doll.
I failed to stop the clawing but mitigated it fast enough to stop him from getting an overwhelming amount; both guards let out a shout, one from pain as the dark mana started to burn his extended arm and the other from how I had reached across them.
Quickly, I pulled the shovel back, letting myself spin around before rotating behind the guards and to the ensouled undead.
As the undead regained its footing, shifting unnaturally to move against the shouting guard, I planted my feet and swung down with all the force I could muster.
Once again, I ripped into magically enhanced flesh and felt resistance on bone, but managed to hook the flange after passing barely through the collar bone.
¡°Leave these ones for me. Keep fighting if you can,¡± I shouted before forcing the zombie to the ground, shoving it sideways so its feet came out from under it. I planted a foot on it and pulled the shovel out.
I checked for where the thickest mana was, seeking the jade soul binder and placed it just below the heart. I struck two hands, thrusting the blade down as It grabbed at my leg, piercing flesh.
I could see the flesh at the collarbone twine and saw as it slowly began to regenerate. I felt a wave of sudden need flash through me, a desperation to see this thing dead as fast as possible. I did not want to be stuck killing this thing over and over again.
Viciously, I slammed it as many times as I could, breaking the bone over the spot before it gave way. My leg burning, I slammed the spade down. [True Strike] activated as I did, and I could hear the jade shatter.
Scooping the soul within up, I reached out, nearly touching the blood in the scoop and pulling the soul that sat on my blade in and over to the afterlife.
Then, I brought the blade down on it and broke the body, the arms and legs, and left it broken.
Anna let off another shot, and it tore through the enemy, even though another ensouled undead. I looked at what she had done, and down at myself, I felt subpar. Anna must have destroyed more undead in this fight than all the guards and me combined, and she had done it with two spells.
¡°I really have to get to figuring out those answers so Anna will teach me new spells,¡± I muttered.
¡°A little jealous, perhaps?¡± Selly asked tauntingly.
¡°No, perhaps about it. I wish I could do that,¡± I told her.
¡°Well, perhaps until then, you should pay attention. We¡¯re almost done here besides,¡±
I let the moment of jealousy pass and got back to cleaning up the undead. I could see a few of the gremlins skitter away as we pushed in, many of the cultists dead, with bolts clear into vitals. One of them had a twiggy-looking arrow sticking out of its eye, and I fought off the urge to give the bowman I knew it belonged to a look.
As the undead numbers cleared, they became easier to deal with. I was able to leave the guards to clean up while I ran and cleared the more important targets, namely the two remaining ensouled undead and one [Cultist] who was trying to animate a dead body while playing dead.
I broke the ensouled fast enough, keeping my distance; they flailed at me but failed to wound, and with few to aid them and no urgency, they were nowhere near enough. After that, I offed a few normal zombies and the one skeleton that guarded the [Cultist]. The guards overcame the remaining undead quickly.
I made my way back to Anna, who caught sight of me and seemed to worry for a moment before she decided that I was probably fine. She gaged a little as I came closer, and I avoided touching her to not ruin her nice clothes, but she said little as we moved into the square.
In the middle of the clearing, stacked bodies ringed the checkpoint¡¯s haggard defenders, who had kicked their way free and began to take positions at the entrances or clear the stragglers.
In the middle of them, shouting orders at the guards and periodically talking to a normal person, was a butcher who looked like he had just slaughtered a dozen animals, cleaver in hand, and Strause, his characteristic grin strained, sword in hand, the edge wet with use.
I gave him a nod as his eyes scanned over me, aware of my presence, which he no doubt was before they moved to Anna.
He waved casually at her like he had not just survived being nearly enshrined in the broken bodies of the dead and moved to talk with her while the [Butcher] remained and commanded the guards.
¡°Hello, Sister dearest, aren¡¯t I glad to see you. You and yours have helped me a great deal here,¡± he said, a note of pain in his voice.
¡°I need to speak to you, Strause¡ Assuming you¡¯re the one in command here.¡±
He gave a little ¡®Ah¡¯ and nodded.
Anna spoke to the rest of us, ¡°Take a few minutes of rest and catch your breath,¡± she said, somewhat pointedly to me, ¡°Help move the bodies if you feel up to it, and the two of you, fetch the wounded, move him over to the wounded over there.¡±
The guards left, and I stayed, waiting for Anna to shoo me away.
¡°You too, Saphine, Go on. I know you feel like you need to stand with me, but there are things in need of doing; I¡¯ll be fine with Strause.¡±
I looked at her carefully and then Strause, but neither gave anything away. Anna shooed again, and I backed up, turned, and promptly forgot what I was doing.
I was¡ I was going to¡
I was going to help. Right. There were souls loose on the ground and a few wounded who felt like they had been bitten. There were things to get done before we moved on.
I felt a twinge of something I felt I was forgetting, but I couldn¡¯t figure out what it was I was forgetting. While annoying, I kept it in mind, like a word on the tip of my tongue. I had the feeling it would come to me soon enough.
I walked away from where I had been standing, probably staring off into space again, and collected the souls of the fallen, scooping them up and pulling them through me. The Gremlins hissed but had no power to stop me, and those freed, while pained, relished the idea of getting the hell out of there. Each I could understand was spooked by what they had been through, not asking anything of me, and I thanked my lucky stars. I didn¡¯t have to reassure them of something I didn¡¯t think I could do.
More troubling were the wounded. Three were bitten and had been tied up, and I could tell just from looking that one was beyond saving. His body was failing. Too much death magic in him to do anything but end his suffering, and I didn¡¯t think I could bring myself to do that. I didn¡¯t want to know if I would feel something over killing him or not.
Coward I was, I focused on the other two. One was easily savable, and the other I felt would deplete me.
I thought about it and didn¡¯t know what to do.
If I saved one, I damned the other, and if I stayed my hand, I damned the both of them.
What can I do? Can they recover if I only push out most of it? Considering how it would keep tainting the rest of his mana, I doubt it. I only wish I could do both of them. I bet a real mage could do both, they could cast a spell to do it, instead of wasting a load of mana manipulating it manually¡
I wish I had a spell like that.
Wait¡
An idea caught in my mind.
There was a spell to light candles, and using it to do so cost almost nothing. I had spent hundreds of points worth of mana to cast the spell manually, but a dozen or so normally.
If my futzing around and figuring out how to do it had cost something like a thousand mana, a spell for doing it would have cost several hundred of it.
If I had a spell to do it, I could save both.
All I needed was a spell.
And while I didn¡¯t know one, I had learned how to cast a spell before.
If I wanted to save both, I would need that spell.
All I needed to do was shape it, right?
I took the gag out of the guard''s mouth, and he whimpered, struggling to free his hands. I cut him free, and he curled as best as he could, reaching up to clutch at his head.
The guard looked like he had seen a ghost, as poor a description as that was becoming. He might not have seen a ghost, but there were enough undead around that there didn¡¯t need to be a fucking spectre floating in front of them to be haunted.
And yet he wasn¡¯t reacting to them, the dead around us; he was clutching his head, palms cupping his ears as he tried to press his knees into his chest.
I was going to ask him for permission to cast a spell on him, but before I could, he let out a sobbing cry that almost overshadowed the whisper that came out after it.
¡°Screamers.¡±
It was a strange turn of phrase, one that meant nothing to me and that the man said in a way that spoke of genuine fear so palpable it came across in his words.
No one else seemed to hear him, and I certainly couldn¡¯t hear any form of screaming; it was the din of setting up to hold the intersection and a few guards finishing off a corpse here or there, punctuated by the use of skills, shouted out in the bright of the night.
Nothing had changed.
I focused, ears swivelling, and I couldn¡¯t hear a thing out of place.
Then I focused on my other senses, and then, and only then, I could hear them too, though the sound wasn¡¯t in my ears, but in my chest, so minute that I wouldn¡¯t have noticed if he hadn¡¯t called it out loud. It was so distant from us, it was like picking out the scuff of a boot in the market, slowly getting louder as whatever it was came closer.
The sensation was like pins and needles, like an arm that had fallen asleep, only inside of me, deep down.
And then I understood what he meant by screamers because I had fought them before in the dark of a crypt.
They weren¡¯t all that scary, though. I couldn¡¯t imagine why he was so afraid of the ensouled skeletons I had fought. They were undead, but they were weak, they¡¯re only ability the same effect that they were currently doing. I understood as, one by one, a handful of people began to clutch at themselves, confused, holding heads and chests.
It was no big deal for me, but it was for them.
It hadn''t occurred to me what the attack had been that made my insides tingle so deep it could not be a physical part of my body. It was a soul-deep pain, and my soul was made of tougher stuff.
The humans were not, however, and so they began to fall as the tingling increased and the screamers approached.
We had let a few gremlins getaway, and they were bringing reinforcements.
Chapter 76
The enemy was still distant yet, so I got my priorities in order first.
And by priorities, I mean I took in the situation and spotted Anna.
The moment I spotted her next to her brother, who was face first, writhing on the ground, the thing on the tip of my tongue came to mind, and I immediately went to Anna, who was beginning to clutch at her chest in pain. I held her head in my hands and gave her a nice big hug, lifting her up and moving her as far from the incoming undead as I could.
I gave the idea of running away with Anna for a moment, but only a moment. If the undead killed everyone here, I didn¡¯t believe I could forgive myself. I didn¡¯t believe Anna would accept it either, not if I could save them.
It didn¡¯t do much; I knew it wouldn¡¯t, but I deposited her on the ground in the opposite corner, kneeling down to lay her against the wall.
¡°Just hold on Anna, I¡¯m going to deal with this as fast as possible, ok? Just hold in there as best as you can.¡±
I could see her eye me, tears growing in the corners of her eyes, as she seemed to mouth, ¡®What,¡¯ but couldn¡¯t bring herself to the next as she flinched.
¡°Hang in there, ok?¡± I asked quietly.
She opened her mouth, and I could hear, just audible, ¡°Oh-Kay,¡± and I took to the things I would need to do, but only after gently depositing Selly, who looked like she was fighting some manner of rodent, on Anna¡¯s chest where she wouldn¡¯t roll.
It was crude, but there was only so much I could do for her.
Every moment the guards began to drop, the only one that could properly stand was the Butcher, who managed to hold himself up, teeth grit, neck pulsing as his heart pounded.
I ran past him and said, ¡°When you can move, check on the clown.¡± Ignoring the only man screaming like a daemon held him in torture, I made my way to the barricade. If it were a less serious moment, I might have stepped on his foot for using his skills on me; I was growing to hate it, but now was not the time.
The guards by the checkpoint closest to the incoming undead were wincing; whatever the numb, soul-deep pain did, it hit some harder than others, and the guards were no exception; their bodies slumped over like sacks of grain.
I grabbed ahold of them and, one by one, dragged them away from the rubble they had intended to use as a choke point.
I left them to writhe and moved to the choke, looking down the road.
Nothing.
¡°Ok¡ So I have time to think¡ Good.¡±
Now¡ What to think about.
What was I going to do? Sit here and let them come? Let them cut through with numbers and gobble up the incapacitated people within?
I couldn¡¯t guarantee they wouldn¡¯t, not with the cultists alive.
It was really all about the cultists.
The undead seemed to come with cultists or, rather, the other way around. Each cultist seemed to increase the amount of undead. I couldn¡¯t be sure of the number, but it was sizeable for each one, and each extra just meant that many more undead.
So the question wasn¡¯t how many reinforcements were there, but how many [Cultists] came with them.
After all¡ without the cultists, the undead would file towards me in ones and twos, lining up for me like I was here to give them milk and biscuits, not shuffle past and rend the life from the others.
That was a plan of the living, not the un-dead, whose corpses worked on dark mana, not the verminous intellect of the fallen creatures.
So how could I find out how many were coming? I got up on the roof and made my way along the street until I could see the force.
I had seen what six [Cultists] worth of undead looked like, and what two [Cultists] worth looked like, and I would say that there might be three [Cultists] worth.
The only question was whether there were three or four, and so I slunk past the dead.
Amongst them were two familiar skeletons, dressed in old robes, flames in their eye sockets. They were dead on the same as the ones I had fought down in the crypt.
Or they were at a glance, and at a second, there was a slight difference between them. One wasn¡¯t the right colour.
It was hard to tell in the light, but it wasn¡¯t the right colour of white. It was not bleached by ages but seemingly fresher and yellowed. I had no idea what that meant, but I noted it and moved on.
I skulked quickly over rooftops, scuttling over the scutes of houses and seeking the shadowed forms so easily hidden among the buildings until I came across the form of one small creature hiding near the rear of the undead.
I took a few seconds to ready myself, taking deep breaths before I dropped down, not striking the figure, but readying a swing for when it turned to face me.
It did so promptly, kindly turning its hideous, scabby face to me and snarled, quickly reaching for its dagger.
I didn¡¯t give it the fucking chance. Putting my back into it, I reinforced my strike and cleaved through it in two rapid strikes, one cleaving into its ribs before the second slammed down through the shoulder, ribs and spine, cleaving the thing in two.
It also got one good swing at me as I did, its arm shooing out, blade aimed at my neck.
Quickly, I interposed the haft of the spade between the blade and myself like a very thin shield. The blade contacted the haft, and I spun the shovel, knocking it away while pulling the blade up.
Then I kicked the Gremlin, sending its haves slapping to the ground in two great heaps of meat and foul ichorous blood.
Now, I had to find the others before the undead found the-
The iron ball thunked into the ground, drawing my eye, and I found myself staring at it.
A new idea spun into my mind, and I carefully picked it up before skulking on my way back to the roofs.
As I did, I gave it a once over.
After all, I did have [Magical Tools], a skill that made my tools magic, which worked with my [Tool Proficiency]¡¯s. Why not give a few moments to trying to hijack the undead?
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I could do a lot of work with that, cluttering the undead with my undead to get the skeletons taken care of.
So, I tried to affect the ponderous orb, tried to affect it with my skills.
I got a little traction and could tell if I spent some time with it, I could attempt to control them, but I had no idea how much time it would take. Looking at the orb, I hurled the worthless prop out into the street, away from the undead and the other cultists who could possibly use it.
I kept sweeping the crowd of undead for the small forms of the Gremlins right up until they got in the line of sight of the barricade and moved in to wait for them.
Step two was hold them for a bit.
It was the kind of iffy part of the plan that would have gone better if I had found the rest of the [Cultists].
So I stood to wait, and they graciously came. The first stepped up, and I struck it down, then the next and the next. If the gremlins found it suspicious, they didn¡¯t act on it, only trying to get a few undead past me, which I quickly cleaved, smashing their bodies back into the gap.
I could tell from the pressure of the scream that the skeletons were closing in on me, and so I waited for the right moment to spring my impromptu trap.
Waiting until I could feel their forms move into sensory range, the noose tightened, and I reached into the earth, slamming my spade between the paving stones and, with a magical shove, shifting the earth beneath the rubble. The piled rubble first swayed, and I dumped even more into the earth, feeling as my precious mana emptied into the earth, but it worked, and the unsteady rubble fell upon and amid the stacked undead and the still animate alike.
Body¡¯s had this awful tendency when struck with a ton of loose debris to get trapped under and amid it, after all, so why not use it on the undead. I stared at the rubble, and I couldn¡¯t help myself when the corner of my mouth turned up in a tiny grin.
The horde was pushed up against the other side of it, nearly unpassable and cornered. If they were people, they would turn and perhaps flee, but they were not people; they were magical constructs, some kind of spell in a dead body, and so they would continue to press into it, leaving the [Cultists] on the back lines exposed.
I scaled up the pile, using the spade as an aide to rapidly climb up before hooking it on the tiles of the rooftops and pulling myself up.
Moving past the undead, skeletons included, I moved to find the [Cultists], only to spot a tiny form staring down the road toward the barricade.
¡°Perfect,¡± I muttered before I slid down the roof and into the road.
I landed my legs taking the strain and getting rather fed up with it protested but they would damn well keep working and shut up.
The robed figure turned to me in shock, dropping the orb before hastily reaching for its wicked blade; I cleaved through its wrist, not letting it get so far as the last one and into its flesh.
I was stopped from dealing a finishing blow by its two unseen allies behind me as they jumped me, teeth and blades and nails penetrating flesh that slammed into me from behind.
I stumbled, dropping the shovel atop the wounded vermin while blades cut into me, parting cloth and drawing lines of razor-sharp pain along my sides.
I shook, trying to throw them off, but only for their claws to sting my back and sides, digging in. They shouted in their harsh chitters, more like animal laughs than spoken words, and I was hit by the knowledge that I didn¡¯t know how to deal with this.
I didn¡¯t know how to deal with two animalistic tiny forms tearing at me¡ But I knew something that I did know how to deal with it, and it lived in my head rent-free.
My instinct, snarling from inside of me, did, and pausing for a moment in an instinctive panic, I pushed through my hesitation and let it run free.
It took me, and I hurled myself onto my back, slamming the forms upon the cobbles before lithely spinning onto all fours. One came free on the cobbles, only to be slammed as I rushed across the street and slammed myself into it.
The second let out a shrill cry, its voice cracking in pain and fell only to find my claws tearing into it, into its eyes and neck and face. My mouth shot forward, and my teeth clamped upon its neck, and I felt it tear and pop as I crushed its windpipe.
My ears flicked, and my vision fell upon the rising form of the gremlin. My hair began to stand on end as I let out a snarling chirp-bark that was both inhuman and not mistakeable for a dog of any breed that had ever walked the world.
It stared at me and saw the warning signs of a predator, an animal warning it. I saw only prey.
It turned to run, and I pounced on it, slamming it face-first into the ground. Its bleeding spurred me on as I tore into it, mauling it for all I could, reducing a vaguely humanoid form to so much minced meat; over twenty seconds, I converted it into a mass of meat so mangled and bloody it was visually as unappealing as it tasted.
My body panted, short and quick breaths as my heart beat in my ears.
I heard another noise and turned to see another small form.
I could feel my muscles clench, but I drew myself short as I stared into human eyes or human adjacent eyes.
My instinct faded, and I stared very awkwardly at a tiny furry wolfish Beastkin who returned my stare with big eyes, shivering and pained.
She was tucked behind where the gremlins had been and dirty.
I looked towards the undead, who began to disperse, and I shooed her.
¡°Go on now, hide in a house; I¡¯ll call you out when it''s safe,¡± I told her low and quiet.
She simply shivered.
And then I realized that she wasn¡¯t shaking from just looking at me and chided myself for my stupidity.
I stood and slapped my head, moving to grab my shovel before lifting the crying girl and safely depositing her into a house where she might not be mauled, and closed the door.
Steps one and two were done, albeit out of order; next was step three; it was time to wack the bones into powder, or more specifically, the jade slips in the bones.
There were only two of them, the new and the old. My body wanted to just give in at this point and fall asleep, so I wasn¡¯t going to deal with all of it, just enough to take out the screaming, and without the jade, they were just bone and black magic.
I felt toward them, finding the familiar confluence of the jade in the elder skeleton ribs near where a heart would be, and for the younger, it lay in its pelvis, of all places.
I found my feet and moved toward them, pressing toward the prickling pins and needles of their screams; the closer I got, the more it started to sting, and then the prickling began to hurt a little.
They moved and pulled like marionettes toward me, their inhuman gate expected because, unlike with the new zombies, I had fought this kind of undead before, and they didn¡¯t surprise me.
I waited, waited for the first to enter my range, and hooked it with the flange of my spade, hurling it into the ground before quickly pulling the spade back and around into the second elder skeleton.
Quickly, I began to break through the ribs, batting a zombie away before delivering a set of strikes straight at its ribs, snapping the bone but not freeing the ribs enough to reach in.
The second skeleton reached around and grabbed onto my ankle, bone creaking as its grip tightened on my ankle.
Acting quickly, I pushed the elder back and turned on the ankle-biter, slamming the tip of the blade down at the arm.
It broke, but it kept griping, even as it bled dark magic into the air from the stump.
I turned, lining my blade to the ball joint of the legs and struck, separating each from the pelvis, [Rapid Action] pulling them off with the effort of shucking an ear of maize before I started working on the spine.
Expecting the skeletons to start regenerating, I ignored the undead moving toward me, letting them grab and claw at me in exchange for separating the pelvis, but the young skeleton didn¡¯t regenerate. Its eyes winked out, and it just kept moving like a normal skeleton.
The bone even kept griping my leg, though its grip did loosen.
I scooped it up and tossed it back and away from the undead before I pulled away from the undead that shambled toward me.
The skeleton moved faster than I did, and it managed to claw me across the arm, loosening my grip, but I got my distance and hastily raised my weapon.
Breaking away from its fellows and scrambling towards me, its ribs flexing like writhing tendrils as it tried to close the distance between us, I did my best not to let it. Jabbing and backstepping away from it as it kept pushing through my strikes, pushing me back.
I didn¡¯t let my eyes close, looking for an opening, until I landed a strike that broke the ribs wide, and I planted my feet, letting it ram into my spade, its own body weight impaling it from rib to vertebrae, snaping the jade slip and halting its momentum.
Pulling myself out and free, I backed off as it flailed, freeing the soul as I ran I kicked the pelvis up, its ephemeral scream still rending the air until I silenced it, breaking the pelvis clear in half mid-air, catching the soul and freeing the jabbering reck from this particular form of hell.
The night went blissfully silent, except for the cries of the living and the not-quite silence of the dead behind me.
Breaking the still gripping hand around my ankle before it broke me, I made my way to the house, scooped up the confused crying fur baby who desperately tried to get away from me and started making my way back to the square, around the side streets until I made it back to the main road.
The [Butcher] of all people had remained standing and was now checking on Strause, who was still letting out stressful cries of agony.
I ignored it all, making my way to Anna, who was deeply breathing like she was still recovering from the fight of her life.
She looked up at me blearily, and I passed her the child before promptly passing the fuck out, my eyes closing before my legs could even finish falling out from under me.
Chapter 77
I was lost in the darkness of a dreamless sleep, not so dissimilar to my soul. I was at peace, it was very nice. I was so relaxed that I didn¡¯t even care to pay attention. My aches and everything the violently bad pins and needles had done begain to slip away in sleep.
I felt so empty, but it was a good empty.
It was just me with time to catch my breath in a dream.
And then, with a noise that sounded like a curtain, and Sophy shouted, ¡°We both know you¡¯re not here to level up, so get. You¡¯re not safe out there, so Wake up, Idiot.¡±
She spoke in that voice that was not so much words as pure soul-shaking authority, and like a vampire in an ancient crypt, my eyes cracked open, bleary and confused. I was being shaken and shouted awake by both Anna and Selly, one normally, the other leaning against my nose like a wall, kicking me with her heel.
¡°Huh?¡± I said with a yawn that stretched the question out.
¡°Wake up, you gore slicked-¡± ¡°-Saphine, what¡¯s wrong with-¡± ¡°-I¡¯ll stab you with m-¡± ¡°-I swear I¡¯ll cry if you-¡± ¡°-Beat your ass if you-¡± ¡°-Why does this blood reek-¡± ¡°-Blood in your teeth-¡±
¡°What fresh hell is this?¡± I said, confused at the reaction, lifting myself up with my arms.
I was confused, drowsy, and a little sore, and I felt like I was an 80-year-old with grit in my mouth. First was the Anna, who I scooted up against, which immediately got her to stop shaking me.
I wasn¡¯t sure if our magnetic feeling was both ways, but it sure felt like it was.
¡°Why are you always coming back to me covered in blood?¡± She asked, shaken. I could tell she was still shaky; from the attack or from the blood I kept getting myself covered in, I couldn¡¯t tell.
¡°I really need to learn a spell to clean myself, don¡¯t I?¡± I asked her.
¡°That¡¯s a massive waste of mana when you can just wash yourself,¡± she said, bonking her head into mine.
¡°Yeh, but it would make moments like this way less gross,¡± I told her, pressing my head back into hers.
¡°That¡¯s all good and nice and all, but tell me, A, why were you unaffected, and b, why is there blood In your teeth?¡± Selly practicaly shouted.
She was still only a few inches tall, so it wasn¡¯t loud, but she was furious.
¡°It was a spiritual attack,¡± I told her, ¡°And apparently, my soul is made of stronger stuff.¡±
¡°Birdshit,¡± Selly said, and I ignored them; she was shaken as well, though not as much as the others.
¡°And the second was¡ Well, I lost my cool attacking the Gremlin [Cultists]¡¡±
¡°And you mauled them?¡± She asked, confused.
¡°Yes,¡± I told her. I lacked a better phrasing than mauled, besides maybe hunted, which was not better, ¡°One of them got on my back, so I let my instinct out.¡±
¡°Hells, I can¡¯t say they didn¡¯t deserve it¡ What''s with the kid?¡±
¡°They were doing something. I have no clue what for sure, but I got her out,¡± I told her.
Something seemed to dawn on Anna then, and she turned toward the loudest of those among us. I looked backward, craning my neck, and saw Strause curling in on himself.
Anna hopped up, and I followed, drawn to her, catching Selly in my hand.
Smoothly, we covered the short ground, the little furball following Anna from a distance.
Strause was in the fetal position, clutching at himself, choking on breath.
Anna genuinely looked torn about him as she looked him over. Selly seemed totally uncaring, mostly mumbling something to herself that I didn¡¯t care to pay attention to. I was trying to figure out why Strause was still in so much pain.
I felt a bit icky, kind of like a numb limb; Selly was more so, she still felt it and was now extra pissy. Anna was twitchy, and most of the guards were recovering. The [Butcher] next to him seemed the best out of everyone but me; and he was the only one I didn¡¯t think had folded.
¡°Srause, come on, take a few breaths¡ Why are you here? You never answered my question,¡± She told him, reaching out to lay a hand on his shivering form.
It seemed a little cold of Anna, but I didn¡¯t really know what their deal was.
¡°Yeah, got cut off¡ There''s a monster between here and the wall if you go straight there¡ The [Hunters], the good ones, will be able to drive it off, but for now, they are holding a third of the city, so only the weaklings can keep it pinned down. You¡¯re going to need to cut through the temple district and cut back.¡±
She listened to her brother as he got it in him to sit up, all of us pulling back a bit to not crowd him.
¡°Say, why did that hit you so hard?¡± I asked him.
¡°Why didn¡¯t it hit you hard?¡± he asked, raising a brow.
¡°Because my soul is made of material beyond mortal make,¡± I told him, ¡°But your Human, I can¡¯t help but see a weird pattern where the rest of the normal Humans were wounded but fine, and the four of us,¡± I told him pointing between the three people whos name started with S, and the big [Butcher], who I had forgotten the name of and desperately didn¡¯t want to insult by asking for it again.
¡°Well, why is she weird?¡± he asked, pointing at Selly.
¡°Because she¡¯s a Sprite,¡± ¡°probably has enough Spirit to best ten men,¡± me and the [Butcher] said at about the same time.
We turned to him, and he raised his hands.
¡°I¡¯m the highest level here, that¡¯s probably the deal... Still¡¡±
Still, there was no way Strause was that low a level. The literal child next to us was less ripped up than Strause.
Anna softened as we talked, asking, ¡°Will you be alright, Strause?¡±
Strause took a deep breath, seemed to put on his fake face again, and he said something like, ¡°I¡¯ll be fine-¡± before Anna slapped him.
¡°Don¡¯t you dare lie to me, little brother. I¡¯m an adult, not some toddler suckling her mother''s teat. Save me the bullshit, I want the truth.¡±
Cupping his cheek, Strause dropped the mask, his face growing into a rictus of pain.
All of us, every single one of us was in utter disbelief. I had never seen Anna so much as raise her hand to hit a fly, and here she was, slapping her brother hard enough to get him to drop his mask.
And we just kept staring, even Strause was staring.
¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that, tell me. Tell. Me,¡± she enunciated at him.
He spoke very quietly, ¡°I will¡ Eventually¡ It¡¯s just too loud right now.¡±
He was¡ chastened, so very fragile sounding. It was as if, for a moment, he resembled his mana. A shell that was hollow on the inside, as if you could push through him, and he would shatter like glass.
Anna nodded her head.
¡°I can¡¯t say I understand¡ But I will take your advice Strause. If you came out here to send me toward the temples, I¡¯ll go to the temples,¡± She said her voice turning soft again, ¡°and don¡¯t go back into your shell either¡ Little brother.¡±
There was something exchanged there, hidden in those words that I didn¡¯t know I would ever get.
Then, she stood up with a quick, ¡°Sorry for slapping you, Strause,¡± and started to order her meagre people with her.
Strause huffed to himself, more in the moment, ¡°No, you¡¯re not,¡± before raising his voice and telling Anna, ¡°The temple of Life has people healing; bring the wounded with you.¡±
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He stood, dusting himself off, trying to look like he hadn¡¯t just screamed his lungs out over.
Anna, hearing that, or already thinking it, turned to the [Butcher] after letting off a volley of shouts and asked, ¡°Who can you spare? I don¡¯t think we can move the wounded on our own.¡±
¡°With the undead pushed back? I think we can lose eight but only two pikes; the rest will need to be clubs or swords. I won¡¯t ask why you need them, I think I know.¡±
She raised her eyebrows, and I looked back and forth, not getting it. To my great relief, Anna didn¡¯t seem to understand either.
He pointed at Anna¡¯s staff before tapping his head.
We didn¡¯t understand that either, but the Crossbowman grunted in approval, which set off a grunting competition between him and the butcher that only ended when we left them to do whatever it was that they did.
Men folk could get like that sometimes. I had once been told that there was a language of grunts that women couldn¡¯t understand, but I didn¡¯t take it seriously. It was, after all, told to me by Kindly, and Skip objected until Kindly pointed out how women could talk about things without mentioning them with a story about other stuff.
I didn¡¯t know what he was talking about, and I didn¡¯t know what these two were talking about either, so I let it go.
Instead, I moved up to the bitten and the wounded.
The one that was too far gone was gone now. His body writhed against the tight cordage.
I could feel his soul pressed down below his body.
I speared his heart and flipped him over, away from his wounded comrades and reached down to pick up the soul¡ And it bit me.
Cussing, I pulled back and scowled at it, then I scooped it up with my shovel.
Then I did it again after I dropped it once, but I got the hang of it from there.
They were still dying, and I hadn¡¯t been able to save one of them. The less injured of them was now almost as bad as the now-dead man was, and I had used more mana. I didn¡¯t even think I had enough to help him as I did.
So, as the soldiers got the bodies moving, I turned inward and followed along after the wounded man.
If I could not heal him with mana alone, I would heal him with a spell. I just didn¡¯t know a spell to help him.
Or did I?
What was a spell? Magic, perhaps, was a bit too wiggly an explanation. A spell was more like a skill that you got without levelling. A custom manipulation of mana efficiently, as opposed to manhandling it like I could. Like one of those Anima bits that Sophy had talked about.
So, how did I use mana manipulation to make a spell?
It''s also not so difficult, surely? I probably did something similar once when I created the [Magi] skill.
I didn¡¯t know how it had worked, but if a spell was like a skill, and I had made a skill, surely, I could make a spell. I had learned several of them already.
Surely.
I just¡ Didn¡¯t know how yet.
It made me want to pull out my hair, short as it was now that I had cut it. Pulling my ears, I furiously thought, staring at the man as I watched him slowly die.
I turned on [Gaze of the Coming Spring] and watched the man in greyscale, thinking about the way that I had squeezed the dark out of him like the last drop of water from a skin on a warm, sweaty day.
Could I feel it out? I had been manipulating mana the first time, I had just felt out the pieces, focusing on the manipulation and the methods of casting. I started doing that, only for nothing to happen. You could just learn a spell by casting it for the first time. It was not all that difficult.
SO WHY WAS THIS NOT THE SAME!
Good gods above, why was this different?
¡°Ughh, what is wrong with this?¡± I murmured darkly.
¡°What''s wrong with what?¡± Anna asked from beside me.
I nearly shit myself, my tension getting the better of me. I turned to her as I hoped, Anna and Selly on her shoulder, looking wide at my antics. I felt a terrible wave of embarrassment run through me as I quickly said, ¡°Nothing.¡±
Anna looked at me and said, ¡°Nothing wrong with anything, or what is wrong with nothing?¡±
I didn¡¯t understand what she was on about, so I just said, ¡°Uhh¡ Nothing?¡±
She was not satisfied with my answer and waved her hand in a circular motion, a come here if I had ever seen it.
I leaned in, and Anna, quick as a whip, lightly flicked my nose, causing me to lean back.
¡°None of that, out with it, Saphine,¡± She told me seriously.
¡°You¡¯re acting funny,¡± I told her, and before she could argue in response, I jumped in, giving it to her as my student tithe. I began to explain what I had done, but my thoughts quickly began to run up against the walls of what I knew about magic, very little, and what I didn¡¯t know, which was a whole lot more than what I did.
I was trying to explain my thoughts on making a spell to do it when Anna pressed a finger against my mouth, once again causing me to lean back reflexively to get her finger off my nose.
After my neck was almost bent back as far as I could go, Anna pulled her finger off. I kept my eyes trained on the finger, making sure she wasn¡¯t about to return it to my nose.
¡°Saphine, when you learned the spells you learned, what were you shaping? The effect, or the spell?¡±
¡°The spell?¡± I told her, confused.
¡°And what were you just focusing on?¡±
¡°The spell?¡± I told her, more confused than before.
She looked at me like I was, perhaps just a little dense and reiterated, ¡°You were messing with the mana, Saphine; the point of a spell is to do that for you. There is also the fact that you might not be shaping it right.¡±
¡°But how does that¡ Oh¡¡±
That made more sense. If I was focusing on the mana, I was focusing on the wrong thing, I wasn¡¯t focusing on the spell.
What the hell was a spell anyway? A shape? Was that all it was? Some kind of magical tool that did one job?
I didn¡¯t have time to think about the nature of a spell.
Taking Anna¡¯s advice, I turned back toward the man and began to focus on the pattern I made as I moved the mana, minute twitches and swivels of my hand guided by [Magi]. I burned through mana as I adjusted my movements to improve them, making first one, then dozens of tiny improvements until, in the air, a kind of looping pattern began to form.
Once I had gotten it, I stopped manipulating the mana, stopped expending tons of mana to just practice and started moving the pattern until I could feel it vibrating in me and I arranged it.
It was almost ready.
¡°I think I¡¯ve got it,¡± I told her, focusing so closely I almost tripped.
¡°Good now feed it the right mana,¡± she said.
The¡ The right mana?
¡°Anna, what are you talking about?¡± I whispered to her.
¡°Most of the spells you¡¯ve cast are not mana type dependent. But you can¡¯t cast a fireball with only your mana, you have to feed the spell the right kind of mana,¡± she told me. ¡°You use your mana to fill the spell, but if there¡¯s none of the right kind of mana in its shape, it''s wasted. It will just reach the normal mana out and do nothing. Fire ball becomes a fart in the wind as it tries to compress thin air.¡±
Oh¡ Oh shit.
¡°Can I use the mana inside of him?¡± I asked her, only for her to give me a strange look.
¡°You shouldn¡¯t be able to reach into someone in the first place. As fascinating as that is, Saphine, I don¡¯t think you should, even if you could. We need mana inside of us.¡±
¡°We¡¯ll shit,¡± I told her.
We stared at each other awkwardly. Both of us realized that neither of us had a casual source of death mana just on hand, like a spare coin in a purse.
Think Saphine, Think. How can I get some death mana? Can I get it from myself?
I checked myself, finding a whole lot of nothing dark inside of me other than where the bite and clawing had wrecked me. Quite the opposite of what it sounded like, as a [Saint of Death], I had almost no death mana in me. In fact, I couldn¡¯t spot any, even in the wound, which, while darkened, was already slowly fixing itself, using up life mana, only to be fed with more life mana.
I looked at Anna, but I couldn¡¯t use her, even if she wanted me to, so I looked around for Death Mana and found basically none.
Most of the death mana was just dispersed. All the light and dark spots spread into one another. The only real points where any death at all existed were in the wood of the nearby buildings, and even that was minimal, much of the wood alive with termites or mold.
Could I pull enough? Could I do it with my mana? I didn¡¯t think so.
I was floating in the hundreds range already, I didn¡¯t think I had the ability to just pull the mana for the spell, even if I could do it properly.
So where would I get the mana?
Something about it made no sense to me that a [Saint of Death] would have so much life mana when we got death magic.
Wasn¡¯t it obvious? My mind told me. Life feeds Death, as Death feeds Life.
I tried to parse my strategy thoughts, trying to find out why that made any sense at all. And then it did.
I had lots of life mana. Life mana became Death mana. I had a source of death mana that would renew again and again. My entire body could be used to make it.
¡°Oh my gods,¡± I whispered, ¡°I think I got it.¡±
Now¡ How did I do it? Where did I spend that mana? I needed to pull the energy off of the life mana in my body. I couldn¡¯t even die if I used all the life mana in my body up. I would just come back.
Could I just¡ Use it to heal me?
I tried bumping the mana around my muscles, and they felt a little better, but it didn¡¯t do anything. All it did was give me energy. Adding life mana to my body right at a big wound had only done so much before, and I felt like it did very little to actually heal the bites as I tried those. I just didn¡¯t have enough in me to heal it with any speed, and if I dumped all of it into my body, I would start to get growths, apparently. Tumors had been mentioned as one of the side effects of pure life mana.
So where could I dump it without causing myself to turn into one great big tumorous growth?
Then I looked at my emptying mana pool and realized I had plenty of stuff I could pour the mana in; after all, I had poured death mana into it before while I had been seriously hurt and had it in spades.
Reaching inside and hoping I wasn¡¯t about to waste a whole hell of a lot of mana, I pulled the life mana around my guts toward my mana reserves and held them there.
At first, it did nothing, but then, slowly, the energy seeped through and began to rub off on the reserves. It began to transfer its energy, and the mana within began to increase like it did when I pulled the death mana in, growing. Blooming.
It wasn¡¯t a lot, and as it did suck the life from me, my gut began to have a queasy pain, as if I had gotten an ulcer. It got worse as I continued, my breath hitching as the death mana gnawed at me, a patch of light life mana ebbing to dark.
It wasn¡¯t a great conversion; it raised it by only a fraction, but it did it, bringing me up enough that I felt solid in casting.
Making sure to line everything up, I pulled the mana up from inside of me, filling the loop that shaped into a flowery pattern, and I felt the tug of the spell, seeking mana to project. I pulled the dead mana from my gut, up, up to the spell where it was sucked in along the petals.
It lurched, folding out and pressed into him, flooding his body with extra death mana that wrapped around and squeezed.
The black pool within him met black death mana and annihilated the stagnant mana, enfolding it and shrinking violently until it formed a bud of sorts. And then, it popped, flooding in a jet out of the man''s body, out of his shoulder as visible black ichor that reeked of foul muck.
Even as it landed on the cobbles, it began to warp the paving stones, warping and whipping around until it slithered into the ground beneath, one end quickly budding before blooming into a droopy black flower with an iridescent shine. Its roots, full of dark magic, shunted into the ground, spreading it until it lightened, the dark magic gone, returned to the natural state of things.
There were a few shouts as the reeking muck startled the [Guards]. My guts were in agony, the entire area very thoroughly dead, and I didn¡¯t care all that much about that either. I was focused on the new spell I had spoken as I cast it.
[Deathly Bloom].
And then I ran out of the high, and my mana, and I collapsed again.
Interlude: [Guidance] 3
I woke up in the black of my soul, with the ebbing colour of the aurora above me. It was comforting. Oddly so, considering I blacked out after making a magical death flower, fueling a spell by literally killing a part of myself.
¡°Man, it''s going to suck waking up. My guts are going to be revolting the second I wake up. They will not like being dead.¡±
¡°You don¡¯t say?¡± Sophy called out, her words distant.
¡°Hello Sophy¡ Wherever you are.¡±
¡°Hello, Saphine. You know, you have me doing a lot of work lately. If I were a bit conceited, I might think that you were trying to get close to me, fainting all the time to get me to come over. Doing things you shouldn¡¯t have done faster than you should have. You know your levelling rate is absurd¡ Right? Mortal Spirit or not, you''re becoming a nightmare at an absurd rate; I would be worried about denaturing your anima if you weren¡¯t ludicrously resilient.¡±
¡°Show thyself, wench,¡± I murmured, unconcerned by the aurora above me, watching its curls and waves.
¡°I¡¯m coming, I¡¯m coming,¡± she said closer this time.
A curtain of sorts pulled back in the corner of my vision and out came Sophy. She clapped, slowly. She looked¡ Different.
¡°Did you get taller?¡± I asked her.
¡°I go bigger, yes. I¡¯m digesting the anamid, all that anima needs to go somewhere, you know? You get rid of your food, I don¡¯t. Its all valuable. Sure some of it just gets used up, but the rest of it is very useful.¡±
She was still girthy, though it had lowered a little bit. She was still more like 12 months instead of 12 weeks, but it was a bit smaller. And I could tell from where I lay that she was not only taller but denser. The wiggly bits of her body were more wiggly, and there were more of them, like a densely embossed art piece.
¡°It gives you skills or whatever, right?¡±
Sophy came out clapping, her form slightly denser and taller, her stomach slightly smaller.
¡°Look at you, remembering stuff. I have some new skills and classes, and I think it will be fairly good for you in the long term. I have this new one you can get, but you need to have a few skills you can¡¯t get yet.¡±
I looked at her, pulling my gaze away from the beauty of the light.
¡°You know I didn¡¯t come here for levelling, right?¡±
¡°I know, but if you''re going to get me to put in all this hard work in my current state, you should indulge me a little. It''s polite, you know?¡± She said poutily.
¡°I thought you said you weren¡¯t pregnant?¡±
¡°I¡¯m not! But you seem not to realize just how much I¡¯m growing right now. You''re so focused that you don¡¯t seem to understand that anima gets a bit soft when you level too much at once. Do you know when your skills feel distant and weak? Yeah. Imagine that, but your entire body. I¡¯m holding myself together, but waddling around is kind of a pain.¡±
I took a deep breath before nodding and got up. The ground had been peaceful, but Sophy was a good egg; keeping her waiting by being an ass when I might wake up any moment now would be a waste of both of our time.
¡°OK then. So what are you going to suggest, oh guide?¡±
¡°No need to be fancy or polite,¡± she mirthfully chuckled, ¡°I¡¯m just making sure you tear your soul in half and making sure you have a plan for all this anima you''re going to generate. First of all, you''re almost out of your slump; as it stands, you could gain a level right now. And I don¡¯t mean a class level, I mean you could go to 21 and be halfway through to 22.¡±
I blinked at her, my spectral form and all my wiggly bits within stopping as I took that in.
¡°Wait¡ seriously? You said I gained levels, but I didn¡¯t expect them to be class levels, how?¡±
She looked at me, her non-face severely cast her in a way I didn¡¯t think I could stand to weather.
¡°I don¡¯t know, little miss. I figured out how to cast a second-level spell all on my own; pray to tell, how did you gain two levels from that? Oh, and let''s not forget the nighttime candle lighting and following your teacher''s instructions. That, together along with general practice and skill use, got you five levels of [Journeyman Mage]. You got almost one level in both your level 28 classes and three levels of [Woodsman] from hiking around with Anna¡ Good on you, by the way; nice spot for you to finally open up a little.¡±
I cringed at the last bit, but she at least seemed genuine.
¡°That seems like not a whole lot of stuff for the levels,¡± I pointed out before my mind caught up with my tongue. ¡°The souls, that always boosts me up across the board.¡±
¡°Yep, that makes up about a third of the experience¡ Honestly, it''s mostly them that¡¯s got you skyrocketing¡ I¡¯m sidetracking myself. What is your plan for those classes? For [Woodsman], you were ok with going to [Forester]; are you still good with that?¡±
¡°Well, yes. Unless you suddenly have an even better option, I still need everything it can give me. It''s got good utility, survival if I¡¯m caught in the woods, mobility, and fighting stuff with a shovel. It''s got it all.¡±
¡°Cool, Cool. When you decide to upgrade to [Forester], you can pick whatever skill you want. Now¡ Your magic class isn¡¯t getting upgraded right now, but can I assume you''re going for death magic? Or I suppose a class like [Death Mage].¡±
I thought about it, taking to pacing back and forth.
I gained a decent amount of skills in death magic from being a psychopomp, and the upsides of death magic would help fight against the plight of the valley. It was too good to pass over and shred dark magic, and as I got stronger, it would only get better.
But it competed with my fighting.
Would I continue to fight or to become a mage?
¡°Can I just bounce my thoughts off you?¡± I asked Sophy.
¡°Sure. What else is a [Guide] for if not to help guide you?¡± She said, with what I felt was a smile.
I took a deep breath before I started thinking aloud, glimpsing up to the aurora, as if the experience up there could give me guidance on my predicament.
¡°I fight, and now I cast magic. But casting magic requires me to not be fighting, and fighting means I cant cast magic. I feel like I belong in the fight. Anna wants to fight with me, which means she needs someone to keep people off of her, someone to get in front of and let her cast. And not only that but if anyone else comes to fight with us, for whatever braindead reason they might have, fighting is also so often a death wish. Or it is, for everyone but me. I can trade that, and despite what anyone else may say, I feel that¡¯s important. It''s important that I stop others from dying when, for me, it''s just a little pain. It''s like pulling someone out from under a cart in exchange for a scuffed knee.¡±
She listened to me talk, one hand resting on her bulge like every pregnant woman I had ever seen had and one tapping where her mouth would be if she had one.
¡°Despite not wanting you to die intentionally, I can understand that. I suppose. You feel like you need to. I should say that I don¡¯t understand it like you do, we''re not the same; spirits like me and mortals don¡¯t feel and think the same way, for obvious reasons.¡±
She said it before gesturing to herself in all her spaghetti glory. Then she continued, ¡°I would even go so far as suggesting you just focus on yourself. I don¡¯t care if a few mayfly mortals die, but I can, I think, say that I can understand that you have the ability, and so you feel obliged to use it. It¡¯s the same for our guides; we enjoy doing this, but we feel obligated to do it, too. It¡¯s a part of what we are.¡±
Stolen novel; please report.
I looked at her and then said, ¡°Exactly. That.¡± I tried to snap and managed to get it despite my fingers not being flesh. ¡°I feel that. But if I do it¡ No matter what magic I take, it will end up supplementary to my fighting. I don¡¯t want it to be that way, though. I don¡¯t want magic to be something I sprinkle in. It''s magic. It¡¯s the dream of every kid everywhere. So far, my new life has been a fairy tale, living with Anna, learning magic¡ Less so with the stumbling into evil monsters, but those are often in there too. And I don¡¯t want to just¡ Let it go. I wish¡ I wish I could do both. Even though that sounds childish.¡±
The look she took on was so stoic in feeling. It would have given Strause a run for his money, but I stopped and looked at her, staring at the wiggly squiggles of her face. And then I remembered what she had spoken of. A good class for me, one I couldn¡¯t take yet.
¡°You''re about to tell me about that anamid and how you have a class that does both¡ Aren''t you?¡±
I could see the wiggles from what looked like a goopy smile.
¡°Sophy¡¡±
She started to laugh, a joyous belly laugh and put one arm on my shoulder.
¡°You should see your face¡ Priceless.¡±
¡°Sophy¡¡±
¡°Don¡¯t get your essence in a twist. There are plenty of ways to fight and cast magic at the same time, but they often come with a downside. [Blade Dancers] or [Blade Singers] cast magic and fight, but they cast magic by the fine swings and motions of blade and foot and small motions. [Spell Blades] save up spells in a weapon and need a lot of skills and good gear. Runes could work, too, but they need decades of study and crafting experience. But for you? I have found one that fits well.¡±
She drew it out into a pause.
I sighed, ¡°Tell me about the class. You goon, before I start poking your belly.¡±
¡°The other [Guide] I found spent a while in the southern archipelago, where they have a type of warrior mage called [Magus]. They use weapons like staves, channelling the magic inside of themselves while shaping external spells with aura skills. Their style lacks good range, but if you need to hit someone outside your aura, let''s be honest, you probably don¡¯t need to hold a weapon at the same time.¡±
I put one hand on her sounder, mirroring her. The feeling of it was even weirder than I thought it would be.
¡°You could have just told me that.¡±
She stared right back and answered, ¡°I could have, but it''s both more fun and a sign that you should start thinking for yourself,¡± with no change in tone.
I lightly headbutted her, her form kind of squishing around my head.
¡°Saphine, please stop; that¡¯s inappropriate to push yourself inside of me,¡± she said casually, which got me to gag and pull back.
¡°Please tell me you are messing with me,¡± I asked her.
¡°Yes and no, it would be inappropriate if you got inside me, but you didn¡¯t, you just squished me a little. Try not to do that, the last thing either of us wants is to swap anima; we might not be compatible.¡±
I decided I did not want to know what that meant. The squishiness of Sophy made my skin shiver enough as it was, and I decided to get as far away from this topic as possible.
¡°So¡ I can level up now, can I not get all of them at the same time?¡±
¡°Why only¡ Oh, it¡¯s probably because it¡¯s hellish out there, isn¡¯t it? Kind of a shit place to have limp skills, yeah¡ Hmm, yes, I can get you a specific number of levels; if that¡¯s what you want, can I assume you just want one in each to avoid that? It would still give you two skills, mind you, but before you choose that, you would need to decide on if you want to become a [Magus] now. The choices you need to become a magus are later, but you would need to pick up [Death Magi] now before your skills go up to Unusual and you start getting good skills.¡±
I snorted, ¡°My skills right now are good too.¡±
Sophy not answering made me think about some of my newer skills. Gods, I had too many already. It was starting to tire me out trying to remember them all.
¡°Ok, well¡ You haven¡¯t shown yourself as wrong yet. I¡¯ll take one in each, and take [Death Magi]¡ I¡¯ll need an option for [Woodsman¡¯s] last skill, but I¡¯ll trust you on [Death Magi] and [Magus].¡±
¡°You won¡¯t be disappointed, were talking about making all your death magic better here. Including that fucking second-level spell¡ By the way, don¡¯t do that again when you wake up. You¡¯ll just pass out again.¡±
We stood there for a moment awkwardly. Neither of us is answering, waiting for some kind of let''s get the level up on comment.
¡°So are you-¡±
She decided to cut me off again. Because, of course, she did; that was just how she worked, quickly shoving a screen in front of my face.
|
Class: [Woodsman]
|
Levels Gained: 1
|
Skills Gained: 1
|
Skill Quality: Common
|
|
Top Three Picks:
|
[Bundle]
Passive.
Grants greater ease of carrying things, reduces jostling, and prevents bundled goods from spilling or coming loose.
It also reduces the strain of carrying heavy objects.
|
[Soft Steps]
Passive.
Your footfalls are softer, leaving less behind to be tracked by and making less noise when walking.
|
[Reactive Strike]
Active.
Immediately attain a weapon and swing for an enemy when they launch a surprise attack.
|
¡°Can I use [Bundle] on Anna?¡± I asked her.
I liked carrying Anna, even if she hated it. I liked it so much, so I would enjoy at least making it so whenever I did it, it was a little nicer for her. And bonus, I could bundle up stuff and carry them without worry.
She didn¡¯t reply, which I took as a yes, and quickly started speaking in that familiar way that felt more like her saying a skill than any mortal word.
[Journeyman Mage] has gained a level, and is now level 14!
[Journeyman Mage] has gained the skill [Death Magi]
[Woodsman] has gained a level, and is now level 10!
[Woodsman] has gained the skill [Bundle]
Congratulations, your class [Woodsman] has evolved into [Forester]
The power in her words sent me sprawling but she quickly drew up the strands of the skills, then the cube. Carving them adeptly with her too-long fingers like potter clay, delicately changing them from hunks of glowing anima into the toothy twine of skills and the delicate sculpture of classes. She slotted them into me, tying them to my existing skills, leaving me shuttering.
But it was done sooner than I expected.
And then I kind of waited there for the dream to end.
And when it didn¡¯t, I sat up.
¡°So¡ When am I going to wake up?¡±
She looked down at me and then shrugged.
¡°No clue. You¡¯re out cold. You exhausted too much of your mana. Like all of it. You used all of it all at once. Your current level is more than good for a spell of first level, but you barely had enough for one second-level spell, and that was because you boosted your reserve with life mana.¡±
I blinked at her.
¡°Wait¡ Wait, so I¡¯m stuck here¡ For how long?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know. It will take a few hours, I guess. Last I saw, you were being brought to the temple district. They could probably do something. It depends on what kind of mana is in the surroundings. If you have an affinity for any of it, you¡¯ll gain more mana, so if they dump you in a corpse pile, I guess you¡¯ll be fine in about twenty minutes¡ That or they give you a blessing or something.¡±
I cringed at the idea, my phantom lips tight and pained.
¡°I would rather not wake up in a pile of corpses.¡±
¡°I can check for you if you want. I don¡¯t know how to show you, but I can watch your body for you,¡± Sophy told me, chipper and sounding refreshed.
¡°How do you do that?¡± I asked her.
¡°I just kind of float around after you on the spiritual plane. Peeking out like staring through a window.¡± She explained casually.
¡°That sounds¡ Remarkably like stalking.¡±
¡°It¡¯s a form of entertainment,¡± she argued.
¡°That doesn¡¯t make it not creepy, though.¡±
¡°It¡¯s not creepy¡ I¡¯m always watching. Most of us are. It helps us keep track of you. And adjust our methods of guidance¡ I just happen to be able to talk to you.¡±
¡°That still does not make it any less creepy. You''re telling me that you are watching me all the time¡ Even when I sleep?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t watch you while you sleep,¡± she scoffed, which gave me some relief that was immediately crushed when she continued, ¡°I watch you dream. That¡¯s how we contact you¡ Remember? We check in when you level.¡±
I stared at her in horror, unable to tell if she was messing with me or not. It was hard to do without eyebrows or eyes¡ or any facial features.
¡°Please. Please¡ Tell me you''re messing with me,¡± I begged her.
¡°Saphine, I have been with you since you were in the womb. I watched your conception and gave your mother skills to help with a clean birth. I have seen all of your life. There is nothing strange about watching you. I feel I have gone over this¡ Multiple times. If you want to, think of me like Selly floating around near you all the time,¡± indignance in her words.
¡°Yeah¡ But Selly won¡¯t watch me cuddle Anna. Or watch me as a kind of entertainment.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t particularly care about you cuddling people. I find your methods of wooing her entertaining, specifically because I can talk to you, but only for its conversational value. I find your use of skills far more interesting, and then I can talk to you. I¡¯ve begun to optimize for you, not just giving you what you want but giving you the best skills. Most of the time, guidance is more... Hands off. I can¡¯t ask them or tell them anything. If I could¡ Well, I can¡¯t, even if it kills me inside.¡±
There was a degree of¡ exasperated annoyance, her desperate need to guide, fighting her inability to do her job.
¡°That is simultaneously a little touching and still creepy. I suppose¡ I¡¯m glad you''re satisfied with our friendship?¡±
¡°Oh, none of that. I don¡¯t¡ Uh. You know what I¡¯m going to check. One moment,¡± she said before slipping out just like she came.
¡°Uhh, Sophy¡ Can you hear me?¡±
¡°Yes, yes. I can still hear you¡ Oh, that¡¯s¡ Well, you kept the shovel, I guess. They have a priest trying to deal with you. He seems to be whipping out a prayer to heal you, though I doubt that will do anything¡ Oh, and there is another trying to¡ Oh yeh, that will wake you up.¡±
¡°Are you sure?¡± I asked her.
¡°Oh, yeh. Well, I¡¯ll talk to you later. Try to not knock yourself out again!¡±
¡°Are you kidding me? We''re not done talk-¡±
I woke up, two priests and one worried Anna leaning over me, huddled around my shovel, which was held horizontally by one locked arm.
I also felt terrible, so at least I knew it was real.
Chapter 78
I woke up with three faces leaning over me and one arm, straight and stiff as a board, stuck straight up in the air, my shovel held level in my hand. It was an odd sight, though the faces of the three above me were more important.
Upon waking, it took two of the three, both [Priests], about 7 seconds to start arguing about whose blessing did what.
¡°She obviously woke because Life has brought her back from the brink, the poor¡ Em, woman,¡± One dressed in the white robes of the clergy of Life told the other.
The second, dressed in different robes in light greens that made him look a little¡ suggestive, proclaimed, ¡°I couldn¡¯t disagree more. She was obviously tired. My boon is known to help people''s virility, which includes stamina,¡± he said, obviously up his own ass about it.
It was uncomfortable to be below all three of them, staring up at a green codpiece, but just as uncomfortable was staring up at Anna, the third of the trio, both of us separated by the position of everything. She stared down at me, face upside down in my vision.
¡°Will you two stop arguing over who woke me up,¡± I asked them, ¡°I have places to be¡ Also, I was just tired, not dead. My life wasn¡¯t in jeopardy.¡±
I gave them about a second before I sat up, my head spinning slightly and my belly aching right around where I pulled out all the life mana. I checked and was surprised at the amount of life there. I had gotten it all out, sucked the whole area dry, and yet it had still started to fill back up from the edge.
I also felt strangely refreshed, considering I had fainted.
I checked myself over, trying to spot any sign that either blessing had worked, but found nothing. There was no magic I would call divine floating around inside of me. The two things didn¡¯t add up, but I was willing to bet that I had been helped along somehow.
¡°Oh, still tender. Did you guys do something? Because I feel better, but I also can¡¯t see anything.¡±
The green priest shrugged, and the life priest said, ¡°The gods work in mysterious ways.¡±
¡°What kind of nonsense is that?¡± I chided, ¡°Did you bless me or not? I assume you did; I should have divine mana or something¡ Shouldn¡¯t I?¡± I asked, leaning back to look at Anna.
Anna looked down at me and got a look. It wasn¡¯t quite disgust because she was trying not to look disgusted, but she was certainly pained.
¡°Saphine¡ You really need to finish reading that book; Divine magic is¡ Complicated¡ You need to finish it and have a bath. Now I wish I had learned [Clean] or [Cleanse],¡± she said.
¡°Why¡¯s that?¡± I said without thinking before remembering I was still coated in gore, especially around my face, where I had torn gremlins apart like they were bladders of foul blood.
¡°Is that not her blood?¡± The life [Priest] asked.
¡°No, it¡¯s the blood of my enemy¡¯s,¡± I told him, ¡°Gremlins¡ Zombies¡ Taxmen, you know just the bad guy¡¯s.¡±
They stared at me before the green one said, ¡°I would say I¡¯m not so bad,¡± as if he was a little offended.
¡°Who are you?¡± I asked him, ¡°Because you''re not of any faith, I remember.¡±
¡°I¡¯m a [Priest of Fertility]?¡± He said cockily, ¡°You know, the single most important one?¡±
I looked at him, then his codpiece. I suppose it fits a male god of fertility, but did it have to look vaguely like a [Jester]?
¡°I preferred the old one¡ Still, thanks for the boost, Fertility,¡± I told him, letting out a quick prayer in my mind for Fertility and Life.
I got a feeling of acknowledgement, though one was dismissive and the other neutral and distant.
My arm was still level in my sitting position, and I held onto my spade, so it wasn¡¯t a very good prayer, in my opinion, but I was going to assume the dismissive one was Fertility. Something about that god rubbed me the wrong way.
I thought about my weirdly held arm, and after focusing for a moment, I felt my skill in action. Manipulating my skill I got it to actually move properly. My arm fell to pins and needles as I did, but I managed to lay it on my lap as my fingers prickled uncomfortably.
It was odd how my skill could do that, but I supposed handling a tool was handling a tool, and If I needed to keep it level, it would continue even if I was unconscious.
¡°If I may? What happened?¡± Anna asked from above and behind me.
I turned, though I stopped before I turned all the way to avoid showing off my gory face.
¡°I exhausted myself, but I got some levels out of it, so I figured it¡¯s worth it,¡± I told her, avoiding specificity.
¡°Did you get anything good?¡± She asked.
¡°Yeah, I got something that lets me carry stuff better, more comfortably,¡± I told her.
She sputtered a little at that.
Letting her recover for a moment, I turned to the only priest I felt I could get along with her and asked, ¡°If I may [Priest], is there any chance you have somewhere I could deposit a mortal soul? I can¡¯t keep carrying around¡ Whoever this was, but I can¡¯t send him to the afterlife at the moment¡ Perhaps somewhere on holy ground?¡± I asked them with near-perfect casualty.
They stopped and looked down at me, and I could see them as they registered and comprehended my ask.
Anna, too, looked as though she was getting used to me at this point and more so looked around, trying to figure out where it might be.
¡°Uh,¡± they bumbled at once.
¡°Well? Maybe I could slip into the temple of Life? Or maybe like a pot? I don¡¯t know if that would hold it, but it might if it''s thick enough and you leave it on the ground,¡± I told them seriously. ¡°I would hate to lose track of him.¡±
¡°Him?¡± The [Priest] of Fertility asked.
¡°In life, at least. You know how it is¡ They work in mysterious ways and all that,¡± I told him backhandedly.
They took a few steps back, and I got to a knee as they did, standing up until I dwarfed them; standing a foot above them, my shovel lifted level the entire way up. They stared at me, looking up at my imposing height, my candle flames dancing in the black of their eyes.
They looked afraid, and not just spooked, but like whole ass afraid. I could understand being spooky, but they were staring up at me like I had just crawled out from under their beds.
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I looked back and forth between the two fully grown men and asked, ¡°What? I¡¯m one of Death''s people. Life here keeps people breathing, and we handle everything else. It¡¯s not that hard to wrap your head around. I can¡¯t send him over yet, but the people currently trying to end your way of life are [Necromancers] that use the souls of the dead. I couldn¡¯t very well leave him somewhere he could get nabbed up, could I?¡± I asked them, gesturing to the shovel where the screeching mad soul whirled around in the scoop of the shovel.
They looked at the shovel as if it carried some great sin and backed up farther. They were transfixed, bewitched by the knowledge that I held a soul, a person, in my shovel.
¡°I hate to break up whatever spiritual turmoil you two are currently experiencing, but any chance I could get that pot, it¡¯s a matter of forever here, and I have somewhere to be,¡± I told him, gesturing vaguely in toward the distance, unsure of where I was. ¡°As a [Saint], I would appreciate your help, [Priest of Life], please, if you need help, seek someone of your faith¡ And I suppose if you want to help, you could maybe find me somewhere to wipe my face. It''s rather unsanitary,¡± I told them, ending with the [Priest of Fertility].
Honestly, I only asked him because I wanted to be rid of the two of them and didn¡¯t want to be near him. He looked like a clown with a fake dong and acted like his faith was the best, ok? I was biased, but he was weird.
They scuttled, and I waited until they were on their way before I gently lay the soul down and planted my shovel. I took a steadying breath.
While I had hidden it, standing had winded me, my vision going spotty for a moment. I took in the scene around me.
It was properly dark, stars peeking out slightly as the clouds passed. To my right was the looming shape of the wall that I could pick up in the light of the nearly full moon, though it was drowned out by the looming shadows of the distant, omnipresent, shifting light. The air was strangely clear of smoke, either due to the shifting of the air or divine providence; I had no clue. What wasn¡¯t missing was the heat. The air was hot and tasty as if I were standing next to a fireplace.
It was a wounded camp, by the look of it. Several people who were hurt were laid down on makeshift rolls to keep them off the ground. They were a sorry sight. If I had to guess, there were at least a hundred people here. Some were civilians, either hurt while they tried to escape or from standing up for themselves.
I could see several people that had been bitten. [Gaze of the Coming Spring] showed me the ebb of life and death in their bodies.
I stood as straight as I could, trying to stretch out my back and limber up, only for my belly to shift in a way that made it scream. I contracted back in on myself, cussing lightly while the spade took my weight, letting out a few light-sucking breaths of pain.
¡°Are you sure you are okay, Saphine?¡± Anna asked, though most of the worry was gone.
¡°I could certainly be better, but I think I also figured something out. I know you don¡¯t like seeing me getting hurt, but this is more of a scraped knee kind of situation¡¡± I told her, not quite looking at her.
In the corner of my eye, I could see her looking at me.
¡°You know, Saphine, you can look at me. I¡¯m not going to swoon over blood¡ Even if it is a lot,¡± she said with a little gesture, a kind of wave toward me.
I turned to face her, pivoting toward her with the shovel.
¡°There, now¡ What did you learn? What¡¯s the scrape over?¡± She asked conspiratorially.
¡°I figured out I¡¯m going to become some kind of death mage. I picked up [Death Magi]. I think I happen to be uniquely suited for it¡¡± I felt that Anna would dislike my thoughts on the next bit, so I decided to soften it.
¡°I thought,¡± I started, ¡°That it was weird that as a [Saint of Death], as a Psychopomp, that I got [Death Magic Affinity] and [Tenebral Bane], but no way to use death magic. I didn¡¯t get [Magi] from it, and I didn¡¯t get some kind of spell¡ You mentioned that spells of a specific nature required mana of that type, but at the same time, I had no reservoir of Death mana, no place to pull it from¡ But I do,¡± I told her hesitantly.
She looked at me, and her brilliant mind did its magic, the lights behind her eyes blooming as she figured it out.
¡°You used your own body as a reservoir for death magic¡ That¡¯s¡ That¡¯s¡ Well, I want to say idiotic, insanely stupid, and broaching on suicidal¡ So please tell me I¡¯m wrong,¡± She asked.
¡°Somewhat. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s a me thing¡ Or if it¡¯s a property of my skills or what¡ But I have a lot of life mana. I also can¡¯t truly die. I think that it was intentional... I can draw from myself and heal from it over and over again, and if I make a mistake, I can just¡ Come back. It doesn''t mean I want to, but it makes sense to me,¡± I told her.
¡°And Death magic is good at destroying the undead¡ I hate that it doesn''t make sense¡ Just¡ Don¡¯t use it irresponsibly. Alright?¡±
¡°I would say a bellyache in exchange for learning a second-level spell is worth it,¡± I told her.
Anna whistled.
¡°Second level¡ That¡¯s¡ Yeah, okay, that makes more sense. You probably exhausted yourself. I didn¡¯t even realize you could do that, but I guess with enough skills, casting a spell that costs 2000 mana base would knock you unconscious. No wonder you dropped like a rock.¡±
I didn¡¯t expect it to be that high of a mana cost.
¡°I genuinely did not know it was that high¡ That¡¯s, like all of my mana.¡± I told her.
¡°Yes, but as you¡¯ve pointed out, you have skills. Proficiency, affinity, and multiple magi skills will do that and help cut down on bigger spells by making it easier to cast them,¡± She said frankly.
I nodded, paying attention to the sound of feet clapping on the ground. An [Acolyte], not quite a [Priest], and not quite an [Initiate]. She hefted some kind of clay pot or vase, taller than it was wide.
It looked and felt like, for all intents and purposes, a simple vase, and as far as I could tell, the only other mana was small amounts of water.
¡°Is that a flower pot?¡± Anna asked.
¡°I do believe it is,¡± I told her back.
¡°I- I have a vessel for you to¡ Up¡ Deposit the¡ The thing you need to deposit,¡± She said, minding her words.
I looked at her, and then sighing, I hefted up the soul with the shovel and carefully let it drop. It fell through.
I stare at it for a moment before thinking and reaching into me.
¡°Hold on, let me try something,¡± I told her.
If I was going to be a [Death Magi], no matter what stripe, I should try to use death mana. Taking a little, I pulled it out of me, burning a small amount of life from my body and expelling it death mana. Then I moved it over to the vase and tried to make grave mana, one of my other affinities that was good at burying people.
If it could stop an undead from being raised, could it hold a soul?
After a few more infusions of death mana, when my skill told me it was proper grave mana, I scooped the soul up and repeated it.
It slapped into the clay vessel and stayed.
¡°Very useful to know,¡± I muttered.
¡°Grave mana?¡± Anna asked from beside me.
I gave a grunt of agreement, which got me a little slap that I pretended to hurt more than it did, which was not at all.
The confused [Acolyte] sat there like a rat, and I quickly told her, ¡°You can go; go place it in your temple, and I¡¯ll be back for it later.¡±
I didn¡¯t tell her; I had no idea how to deal with it. I could only leave it at home to scream until I stopped noticing it, like the other soul. It was an odd thing to get used to; it just seemed to fade over time, like an itchy sweater.
They scurried away, too, and I got Anna to lead me back to the slowly growing platoon of guards. They were being handed a small bit of buttered bread and a tiny bowl of stew by the church of Hospitality and Hearth. They didn¡¯t have enough bowls for all of them; some had cups. They fed the wounded and the fighters the same.
You could always count on the two of them to help out when people were hurting, it was just what they did.
What they also did was make people not want to leave and get them to suck down their watery stew and buttered bread instead of savouring the food. It was a fight in and of itself. After everything was said and done, it only took six minutes; they were six minutes of the city burning.
To me, it felt too long, but at least they seemed to have more of a pep in their step.
Grouping up, we were heading out when, frazzled and red-faced, the [Priest of Fertility] came back to me with a bucket and a cloth.
He looked harried as he waddled up and dropped the bucket, huffing and puffing.
He looked up at me and said, very succinctly, ¡°Never mention your views on my church that you mentioned to me¡ Ever. Here, clean your face before you catch something.¡±
I looked at him confused, and not knowing what he meant, asked, ¡°The bit about how my preferred-¡±
¡°That one, yes. Don¡¯t go talking about that. It¡¯s bad enough to know that, but it is far, far worse to say it aloud. Don¡¯t do that.¡±
He spoke in a panic that spoke of mortal fear so potent it sent shivers up my spine. I blinked, first at him and then at Anna, who looked just as confused. The whole group was confused.
Leaning in, he whispered, ¡°No one is to know of them; whatever they were, they are not that anymore. Never spread the knowledge of their existence.¡±
His tone was pleading and disturbing in equal measure. The weight he put into his words was serious and dead cold.
I did not know why he said it like that, but what was left unsaid was, ¡®There will be consequences if you do.¡¯ The method of consequences was also unsaid, but I decided I didn¡¯t want to find out.
¡°I¡¯ll take your advice, but only if I¡¯m owed an explanation on why I can¡¯t talk about stuff. I¡¯m not going to listen to you if it¡¯s an issue of your church,¡± I told him evenly, doing my best to not let him unnerve me.
He looked like he wanted to vibrate out of his skin before he hissed, ¡°Fine.¡± And stalked away.
I watched him stalk off before hooking my shovel under the handle and carrying the bucket with me as we headed out toward the center of the city.
Chapter 79
We left the temples and shrines behind, me hefting around a bucket, hanging on to a shovel to wipe my face, and the rest of the men grousing that they couldn¡¯t have more food to fill their bellies. We marched out and down toward the high wall in the city''s center, its form cast in light and shadow.
It would have been well off if the city had a wall, but they had never made a new one.
Anna walked over after I got the worst of the gristle out of my mouth and had gotten some of the blood off my face.
¡°Saphine, what was that all about? The whole holy ground bit?¡± She asked.
I looked at her and gave a simple shrug.
¡°I don¡¯t think it will do anything if that¡¯s what you''re thinking. But the whole thing was more of a can I put this somewhere less likely to be taken kind of deal. The soul was screamy, like the one I brought home accidentally. I couldn¡¯t deal with that one,¡± I told her.
Anna got it almost immediately. It had been days before I had gotten used to the screaming soul back home, and even after I had started acclimatizing, it had lurked over me for quite some time. She gave a little acknowledgement of the torturous noise I endured, and she had no clue of a little silent ¡®ah¡¯ movement of her mouth.
We continued our walk in silence, taking in the terrible night as the guards, more lively, lifted their spirits. We walked in silence until we talked at the same time, unanimously.
¡°So what was the [Priest]-¡± ¡°Do you have any idea what the [Priest]-¡±
We asked it in unison, our words starting at the same time and ending close to it, me accidentally talking over her for longer, a sorry breach of good manners that Anna cared nothing for, but that mattered to me. Just another sorry showing.
¡°So you don¡¯t know what he was talking about either?¡± Anna asked.
¡°Not particularly,¡± I told her, ¡°I don¡¯t know if I¡¯ve ever mentioned it before¡ but the temple district freaks me out something fierce; the gods, or some of them, are¡ Weird,¡± I told her, considering the priest''s wishes.
¡°I can¡¯t recall. I¡¯m not going to lie; gods are something I pay little attention to¡ By the trees, that sounds terrible; I¡¯m not saying I ignore you, but I¡¯ve never been one for gods¡ It just feels like deferring something important to an external force¡¡±
I nodded, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I don¡¯t talk about it much because it''s weird. Also, that¡¯s both eye-nomic-¡±
¡°Ironic,¡± she corrected softly.
¡°Ironic, thank you. It¡¯s Ironic for a druid, but I suppose it¡¯s more like you can guide a greater whole for a noble, like a king at court,¡± I told her.
¡°What do you mean for a noble? Anyone can guide their community, which guides a noble, which guides the empire,¡± she said, reminding me that I kept using the wrong form of hereditary leader, ¡°Everyone is part of a nation; that¡¯s what keeps us united. And for lay nobility, those just landed, there¡¯s not much difference in what a person can and can¡¯t control.¡±
¡°A commoner doesn¡¯t own their farm or crops; they can¡¯t even control if they put food on their table. For a commoner, putting their faith in the divine is simple: they need their crops not to fail, they need roads to bring them to market, they need to fish or hunt to put meat on the table, they struggle and want reassurance that when they trip life won¡¯t leave them to die. And you can become a [Priest] and join the clergy. You can¡¯t just become a noble,¡± I told her.
She looked at me and rolled it around in her head but didn¡¯t seem fully convinced, not that she didn¡¯t trust me on it, but that she couldn¡¯t see it that way.
It was very human of her, very un-Kobold. We just accepted things as they were, as I did with her explanation. It was simple: if something didn¡¯t make sense, that was a me issue. Everything always made sense; if it was, it was. I didn¡¯t get it.
¡°I can¡¯t see it; there is always a way, as dreadfully optimistic as that is,¡± she told me.
¡°There is, usually, and that way for most is religion. A church holds more sway than a [Dirt Farmer]. Anyway, the point is that religion played a big part in my life; I could spot dozens of gods'' symbols and pick up on plenty of quotes¡ And the gods I worshiped were very different than those I had seen¡ The epithets, too.¡± I told her.
She seemed to remember something then, snapping her fingers and saying, ¡°The fertility thing. Now I remember¡ That is a very different thing¡ I see¡ I wonder why that matters¡ Maybe I should have paid more attention to my teacher; he might have known,¡± she said, drawing off to watch the staff in her hand. Its old wood and meaning seemed to weigh on her.
We both rolled it over in our heads, her and me, trying to reconfigure what tiny things we knew about the world and finding where the blanks we knew connected. How much of what we knew was a heat haze we took for water, and where was the unseen dip in the road?
I knew not what Anna thought, but my mind was drawn to the dark altar. Horrifying runes were carved into the once-temple, buried in time. I saw the fallen gremlins and their reverence for a dark figure and felt a chill creep over my shoulders like a cowl.
If fallen people, why not fallen gods? If buried, things were better left where they were, trapped in the forever tomb of the earth like graves of what was.
I got a nagging feeling, a grind against the axel of my ever-rolling mind. If people didn¡¯t like a god¡ Would they worship what once was? Would they turn to dark idols?
If gods fell, like gremlins fell, what would they cause with their followers? Out with the new and back to the old? A return to a tradition that is far more brutal? My existential knowledge¡ What could it bring? What if the fertility of yesteryear was changed? Something far, far darker now than what she had been. What if mortals, who lived like mayflies and saw gods as implacable, unchanging things, didn¡¯t have enough time to see the shift? Like the slow erosion of the valley, weathered by forces that held no understanding of time and measured life in spectrums of eternal life.
If the crops failed, if the church of Fertility could not aid in the needed bounty, and the valley learned of something older that watched over people in a time of plenty¡ If people began to worship them, gave their souls to them, gave their lives, sweat, and faith to them, and they had become something far darker¡ What would come of that?
¡°I just can¡¯t quite see it,¡± Anna said, unaware of my existential nightmare.
¡°I think I might, but I think I need to talk to a [Priest] about it¡ A good one,¡± I told her.
She looked at me and saw something in my candleflame eyes.
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¡°I won¡¯t mention it with company then,¡± she said softly, like I was a scruffy, jumpy animal, ¡°if it''s bad enough to make your hair stand on end, it¡¯s something better left alone, as sad as that makes me.¡±
We fell into silence, and I continued to wipe myself down. The only noise was the guards complaining and berating one another. Thanks to my newest skill, the bucket stayed firmly on the end of my shovel despite my movement.
The guards were murmuring about the raid when the old man spoke up, cutting them off and drawing my attention from the crustiness of my hair.
¡°This is the only raid you¡¯ve seen,¡± he griped at the mouthy guard.
It was a short statement that caught my attention, but it did. His skill-backed words brought a natural lull in the talk that turned our eye to him.
¡°This isn¡¯t my first raid, old man. Goblins tried to raid the granary what? Two years ago? There were those [Bandits] five years ago, too; they tried to hit the [Merchants],¡± he mockingly reminded, ¡°You losing your memory?¡±
¡°Ten low-level [Bandits] and twenty-five Goblins isn¡¯t a raid. It¡¯s a scuffle. It¡¯s not even a riot¡ªa public nuisance. Look around you, boy. Do you feel the heat on your skin? Do you smell the cooking meat? Those are the people and the lives of those people, turning to cinder. We''ll be lucky if a quarter of the guard isn¡¯t gone in smoke when this ends. Even luckier if the granary isn¡¯t ash and we''re already lucky, this isn¡¯t rising, or we would be deadmen walking.¡±
He said it with finality and authority. He was a resident old man, well trained by age in the art of knowing more than the rest.
¡°What are they like?¡± I asked him, ¡°A rising, that is. I haven¡¯t seen one.¡±
¡°It¡¯s like a living nightmare where the dead don¡¯t stay dead. The last big one, the proper city killing one, was in Sootburg 50 years ago. When it kicked off, every corpse tore its way out of the ground, they don¡¯t even die; they keep going. Two months swallowed twenty thousand, and half the city was deserted,¡± he told me.
¡°I¡¯ve never heard of Sootburg,¡± I told him, ¡°Where is that?¡±
¡°The place is an unpaved, fallow, unused layover, the only thing that makes it better than living in the woods is its wall because, unlike our city, it had enough money and forethought to put one up. Used to be the best place to get goods from the guild, and merchants would empty their wagons there.¡±
His words had an edge of saddened pain, a sense that there were things he hadn¡¯t and wouldn¡¯t mention. His gruffness was a scar of experience that he would not pick at, worn on his chest.
¡°Sounds like a nightmare,¡± I told him.
¡°Sounds bad, but they aren¡¯t so strong,¡± One of the guards said.
¡°Not so bad if they¡¯re aimless, were they? The ones from Sootburg, I mean,¡± another one said.
I ignored the scoffing of the boisterous dickhead, and paid attention, whipping myself clean before I found Selly in my hair and started on my ears instead.
¡°They aren¡¯t guided; there were no [Cultists] like here. But that¡¯s what makes them dangerous. That¡¯s to her,¡± he said, gesturing back toward me, ¡°Who has done more for the city than any of you, b¡¯sides the Lady Mage. Give undead numbers or guidance and they become deadly. She took out the head, and the numbers weren¡¯t there to be a threat. Give them enough and the bones start to pile up¡ Oh, and when it gets like that, they poison you too, like the zombies that got your friends. Everything that dies comes back; everything that¡¯s dead doesn¡¯t stop. A starving dog or rat could cause the city to fall, and the world becomes a paranoid mess while everyone starves inside their walls, or is drowned in bones and rotting meat. Then comes the aftermath¡ Famine, plague, and civil war. It makes everyone''s lives suck. Everything rots, rats start to eat cats¡ Take my word on it, or don¡¯t. If the city gets hit, do yourself a favor, and flee.¡±
Several of the guards seemed to stop, and several seemed to think on it, take it in. Some dismissed him. But there was always one person who thought they were invisible. The guards were young, not teens, but not much older than I was.
¡°A few or a few hundred makes no difference to me,¡± the problem child said boisterously, ¡°Give me some armor, and they can''t fight; they would just slam themselves on good old steel.¡±
¡°What makes them want to fight like that anyway? Seems stupid to me; why wouldn¡¯t they use a weapon?¡± Another asked, spurred on by the mouthy guard.
¡°They¡¯re not intelligent¡ Well, the ones without souls aren¡¯t, but the other ones are a little smarter. I think they¡¯re spreading black magic in them or something,¡± I told him.
I must have come across as confused or lacking insight because he decided to speak up again.
¡°Oh yeah? You sound real knowledgeable. Old man, why do they attack people, you know, the biting and clawing and stuff?¡± He called over to the old man.
¡°No clue,¡± the old man groused, ¡°The old codger died before he could figure it out. Maybe they¡¯re angry, restless. Maybe you should focus on the fighting up ahead instead of pondering why an animate corpse would want to kill you.¡±
¡°Which old codger?¡± He asked, ¡°Is there like an older you out there? Or are you talking in the third person all of a sudden?¡±
¡°Ask the lady mage; he was her teacher¡ Or the Saint that gave you the closest answer he ever came up with,¡± He huffed out, an edge of finality in his voice.
They turned to us and stared a little before they decided that they didn¡¯t want to pry. I turned to her and caught her confused by his words.
I didn¡¯t need to ask her what she was thinking because I could see her face or enough of it. Anna wore a look of confusion, one of not knowing what he was talking about.
I guess sometimes, you find out more about some people after they passed away than when you knew them.
She didn¡¯t look torn up about it, so I decided to leave it. I wouldn¡¯t get Anna to spill her guts in front of anyone; it would make her less noble and more girl and undermine her image.
¡°Hey, Selly, how are you doing?¡± I asked her.
She scuttled from my hair, crawling up to my ear, ¡°I¡¯m Fine¡ The smoke is clearer, but it''s getting a bit too hot for me. I wouldn¡¯t want to fly right now, too much updraft¡ So I¡¯m just going to stay in your hair¡ It¡¯s cooler in here.¡±
¡°Seems like it shouldn¡¯t be that way,¡± I told her, ¡°It¡¯s like a blanket. If anything, it should be warmer. Also I¡¯m trying to clean there, move over.¡±
¡°Is¡¯not, only as warm as you in here. Top hairs are warmer,¡± she murmured shuffling over to the wet patch of short hair I had gotten to.
I suppose it was getting rather warm, and I could feel the air moving up, pulling in the heat before exiting the top. It was like the whole city was a campfire.
I resumed getting the gore off my face and out of my hair without bugging Selly.
I got most of it out by the time the water was stained red, and I ditched the bucket and cloth. The water was soothing and cool, but it was getting rather icky. I did my best to not dry my face on my clothes, not that it would do much.
I had ruined two sets of my limited clothes. I needed to get a few more of them; thank god I was getting some tomorrow¡ Or the next day, I couldn¡¯t quite remember.
¡°Selly, you were there; when was Gunther getting me my new clothes?¡±
¡°The ones you are supposed to wear on top of underclothes?¡± She asked.
¡°Yes?¡± I asked.
¡°Tomorrow, but considering you need new underclothes¡ Maybe you should focus on that, you silly Hussy¡¡± Selly said tiredly, the joke ringing flat.
Wasn¡¯t that the truth? You always needed something more?
I got my shovel ready as the noises picked up, a howling noise of fighting and shouting. That came closer as we walked but stopped getting closer, and then as we walked tensely, it remained distant. We were walking away, but the noise was less muffled.
It remained that way until
We came out at the next checkpoint, which had nearly thirty guards and looked like it was one set of stone walls away from a garrisoned fort.
The man in charge of the checkpoint, a stone''s throw away from the gate, was a man I had seen only once; his face glanced through a window, talking to Anna.
Here he stood, a bit of soot on his face, like tasteful makeup, short brown hair and green eyes, a nose and jaw that looked like they would suit a marble bust, with a light, tasteful stubble layer of stubble. He looked like Prince Charming, standing there in his light metal armour and longsword, composed and unruffled, as if this whole thing was just another day¡¯s chores.
His choice of colour under it was a bit odd, but it carried a notable emblem that had remained unchanged for longer than I had lived and slept: a tangle of grape vines and a depiction of mines. Woven along with it were little figures, Kobold''s plucking berries stitched in bright yellow thread.
They spotted us coming and let us through quickly; Anna moved up toward the front of our column, and we moved to meet her distant older brother.
¡°Anna, why does your brother look like he¡¯s about to hold the line against the undead?¡± I whispered to her.
¡°I don¡¯t rightly know why, he knows how to hold a sword but he shouldn¡¯t be out here,¡± she hissed back.
We looked at him as he spotted us and strode over every spot the noble lord, a [Baron]¡¯s son.
¡°Fantastic, Annabeth, it''s good to see you in this most troublesome hour,¡± he told her before taking me in, his mouth holding open maybe a second too long, his gaze scrutinizing.
Anna, uncaring, snapped her fingers to draw his attention back to her.
¡°Clause, what are you doing gallivanting about like you¡¯re a [Knight]?¡±
¡°I thought that would be obvious; I¡¯m planning to halt the monster here.¡±
Chapter 80
We stared at Clause.
Everyone did, but Anna and I did, especially because his words made absolutely zero sense, and it made us both want to shake him.
I didn¡¯t know the guy, and Anna didn¡¯t seem very close to him, but her was his brother, which mattered to Anna, and the result of him standing in front of a powerful monster would, in turn, affect me through Anna and not just because I would need to be there to comfort her after he died.
Someone had to send the dumbasses of the world to the afterlife, and so far, telling people about it had just freaked them out, like the [Priests] and probably the Hunters, and the poor guard who had been out of his mind in pain too¡ In fact, most of the people here were probably fucked up because of me a little bit, considering the monster was only alive because I ran away after it got back up.
Another failure to save people. Another cause of death.
Maybe all of us were cursed, and maybe Death herself was too, though if she were, she was a monster to share it.
Unaware of my thanatological internal monologue, Anna walked up to Clause and shook him in our place, her soft little hands doing her best to shake her larger older brother.
Her tiny form was not visibly strong, and she was light and dexterous¡ªnot a chonker like me. Height and arm length also had a big impact on her, and the art of shovelling had taught me early about the immense power of leverage and long arms.
Clause was apparently not built like a brick shithouse either because he shook a little despite the plate armour, but he was at least strong enough not to move his feet. He was also apparently charismatic as hell because he managed to look totally unchastened by his sister doing her best to shake him out of his shoes while not quite shouting.
¡°Are you a moron! You might have a class, but you''re not a warrior, you idiot. You¡¯re the future [Baron]! What moronic idea got you thinking that it was a good idea to fight a capital M Monster?¡±
¡°Unhand me! Get- Get off, will you? Don¡¯t make me use a skill on you,¡± he threatened dispassionately, ¡°You¡¯re making a scene.¡±
Anna did not let go, so with a very light mutter, he grabbed her hands and lightly pulled her off of him, whispering, ¡°[Keep Your Distance].¡±
Everyone but me and he took a step back, and I could see her eye twitch as she followed the command. It just passed me by, a strange feeling, like the command wasn''t appropriate for me, letting me keep my feet placed. No one even seemed to bat an eye¡ well, except for Anna, and on my head, an annoyed noise from Selly as she shuffled back a bit.
¡°That trick won¡¯t work on a monster, Clause; you will know they¡¯re not subject to your authority.¡±
Huh¡ I suppose that makes sense. I guess I¡¯m not really one of his people. I¡¯m not even a subject of the¡ Empire. Gosh, that¡¯s weird. I wonder what makes a person subject to it. Is it just birth? Would I be one if I were normal? It can¡¯t be because I¡¯m a mage. Anna stepped back¡
I almost groaned another question I had no answer to right now. I could ask, but It was starting to get annoying. The more I levelled, the more my mind found questions it wanted answers to. My growing intellect and wisdom drove me into holes instead of making me smart, neither any good for finding answers as a barely educated dirt digger.
All of us kept watching the two as they continued to make more noise at one another, Clause trying to explain while Anna continued to push him down like she was stuffing him in a jar.
¡°I¡¯m simply here to hold the-¡±
¡°Hold the only fire brigade up while the city burns and you have a whole precinct following you like puppies? The civilians are fleeing, and the guards are here instead of retaking the city so we can get a brigade formed?¡± Anna chastised to no avail.
¡°I suspended them due to the nature of the fire and the presence of hostilities. Suspending them will save-¡±
¡°I have no doubt it will save lives! But why are they here? The Monster is covered. We have [Hunters] for that!¡±
¡°The Hunters Have retaken a sixth of the city as of my last update. I imagine now it will be more like a third. Freeing the guard to help clear streets and make fire breaks. We are taking ground. The fire is too big for a brigade anyway, not that you''re unaware of that, considering you¡¯re here,¡± he told her pointedly.
¡°They¡¯re best suited for this!¡±
¡°They¡¯re best suited to clearing things beneath them! Their numbers are focused on where they can make the greatest impact.¡±
¡°And you''re somehow best suited to fight a Monster? To hold a sword like you¡¯re an [Knight] in shining armour?¡± Anna asked dubiously.
¡°I am,¡± he said confidently. ¡°I am the anvil. Strause is the hammer. With his forces and the [Hunters] harrying it, he can push it back into me, then our forces can take to rapidly clearing the city more effectively with the main street open, Annabeth.¡±
She shook her head, and I winced at his calm. I remembered Strause Shrieking as if he were being tortured in the square, and I tried to imagine him standing, nonetheless, taking his forces and pushing back against a monster, or god forbid, the monster I thought was haunting the street.
¡°The city burns, and you talk formally. Your plan won''t work. Strause was encircled; he had enough to hold against a handful of undead, but his numbers were limited. Oh, and he¡¯s hurt, not that you seem to mind all that much.¡±
¡°He was attacked?¡± Clause asked, ¡°Strause got hurt? I¡¯m sure he¡¯s fine, though the troops¡ I¡¯ll need to change my plan.¡±
Anna looked apoplectic; she looked like she wanted to hit him over the head; holding herself back from having a fit, she muttered, ¡°Our. Little. Brother.¡± Each word was punctuated with a hiss so low that it was hard to hear the passive noise of others and the distant noise of mass destruction.
¡°Enough, stop being hysterical; if he¡¯s wounded, he would seek help if he needed it. Go. This is no place for you, especially not if you''re going to let your emotions rule you. You have something to see to, and I have something to do, and there¡¯s no place for nagging,¡± he told her flatly.
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We looked at Clause, and then one another, and the world needed no words for us to share the conversation we had in that one stare. Her brother was being a dumb ass; he was thinking with his dick and felt like he needed to show off for some reason.
His insult aside, Anna obviously had something of a weak spot for her brother, for what reason beyond blood, I couldn¡¯t guess. I was all for it; let him get slammed around, getting burnt while touching the stove to instill a sense of not being an idiot.
¡°I¡¯ll be coming back for you,¡± she told Clause offhandedly, ¡°Do survive your idiocy so your wife can nurse you back to health,¡± she told him.
There was a pause as a very, very hard-to-notice look of confusion was in his eyes.
¡°I- What? I don¡¯t-¡± he tried to get out only.
¡°And you never will,¡± she chastised, scoring a point against her idiot brother.
I nodded to her; it was a good score, and she appreciated that I appreciated it.
I shrugged, ¡°Then we go to put out the fire, I guess,¡± I told her, ¡°I suppose we could always get those guards; they¡¯re like level 70; they could take a monster easily.¡±
¡°No, we can¡¯t,¡± they said at the same time, ¡°I refuse; they will guard no further than the gate,¡± met me in a wall of veto from both of them.
I blinked at them, looking back and forth. I looked at Anna with the, ¡®Why not,¡¯ to which she just shook her head.
¡°I don¡¯t need their help to fight a measly monster. They will continue to guard as they are supposed to, inside the wall.¡± Clause told me.
I ignored him because his sister was worth my time and told her, ¡°I¡¯m more use out here than helping you; I¡¯ll come out and make sure he lives,¡± I told her.
¡°I do not appreciate-¡± He started.
¡°I suppose¡ But only after I get it over with can I use your reserve if you have any left ?¡± she asked me, speaking over him.
¡°As the future-¡± he tried again.
¡°Sure, I¡¯ll-¡±
¡°I will not let you help me, I don¡¯t need the help of a random untrained woman with a shovel,¡± he spoke over me.
¡°And I won¡¯t. I¡¯ll let you lose your limbs and be a man and all that; I know how you lot get. I¡¯ll just make sure you don¡¯t die to the monster. Especially if it¡¯s the one I fought before, I want a rematch; you would think impaling its skull to sternum would kill something, but it just shrugged it off.¡±
Anna looked at me and pointed, asking, ¡°Is that what happened to my shovel?¡±
¡°Yes,¡± I told her, ¡°But I brought back a bonus shovel. I apologize for the loss of the tool, I¡¯ll pay you back in spades.¡±
All of us looked at me, though for me it was mostly at my shoes because I couldn¡¯t bear to meet her eyes. I didn¡¯t even mean to make a joke, but I was too far gone to save it, so I didn¡¯t.
¡°Why was I not told about this? There was a monster this side of the river? I should be told immediately, why was I not informed?¡± Clause asked, blessedly breaking the tension.
¡°Probably because you live in a mansion with lethal guardians.¡± I informed Strause, ¡°its probably going through the chain of command. Come on Anna, us emotional women folk are unwanted despite our recent achievements, let¡¯s go save the city.¡±
Clause stopped, taking me in, before turning and simply gesturing, his men moving to him, filing through our looser troops.
Anna turned to the old man, who watched impassively and asked him, ¡°Who do you think is best to guard this junction? Clause will need everyone he can get, so we¡¯ll hold this intersection.¡±
He grunted, pointed at the ground, and said, ¡°[Guard] this intersection,¡± before nodding as a handful of guards naturally started moving.
¡°Well¡ That was easy,¡± I said.
He let out a grunt before simply saying, ¡°Lady mage, it''s half a degree hotter.¡±
We jumped to it, spurred by the words, we perked up and started moving, urging the guards forth with a ¡°[March].¡±
We turned and got to it, quickly making our way down the road as it curved around the wall, quickly spotting the gate and the pile of bodies in front of it.
There were knives, arrows, and three gremlin bodies bisected, with a suspicious greatsword embedded in a wall behind them, standing at attention, the Mynes family guards with their fancy armour and weapons. Neither was the one guard I knew, but the weapon usage did have an undeniable similarity to the master of weapons.
Everything was a stick, throw stick, spiny stick, really big sharp stick¡ All the same.
If this was him, it would have given him some credence. Even if it was ridiculous at the moment, it obviously did something for him, considering he got to the point where the big sword in the wall that looked like it weighed more than me, like a giant axe was hucked in from the gate. And it was from the gate, non of them had a normal wound, all of them ranged.
They lined up side by side at the focal point of a macabre semi-circle focused where the two guards, more than enough to deal with the monster, let alone some gremlins, on their own.
Anna waltzed on up with the rest of us at her back and got a polite, ¡°Lady Mynes,¡± and was let in.
We were not.
¡°Halt, only nobility may enter at the current time,¡± one of them said.
Anna made to argue, but I just sighed, telling her, ¡°I can¡¯t push past them unless you want to carry my body around with you. I¡¯ll go watch over your brother¡ I don¡¯t suppose either of you want to go help Clause?¡±
¡°No, he can handle himself,¡± they said in unison, though they sounded more like they thought it was a chore.
She huffed, but I gave her the best smile that I could, which made it less citrus, more apple, and to try and take a bit more out, I fell behind the other guards and blew her a lighthearted kiss, which she got with a light blush and waved me off.
And so we departed, her sweet and momentarily sour, and me to her idiotic brother; I left both her and the guards behind in the care of the old archer.
***
I left Saphine behind, my cheeks flushing in what I could only describe as silliness. It was a little blown kiss, but god, she knew how to make me smile, and she had weaponized it to make me less tart at the stupid command Clause had no doubt given them.
The guard rarely, if ever, left the compound, only seeing outside when they were off duty, truly off duty. They were trained on decades of civil conflict and monster suppression. It was in their nature to enjoy fighting, but seeing level 70s let loose around level 20s? It was like watching two blurry mountains slam into one another.
I walked down the path to my ancestral home alone, with a total lack of any friendly faces. The inner area was nearly deserted as always, only a select few manors had anyone home at all.
It was a short jaunt to the center point of the city, down the road and over to the inner wall and to the place where I had grown up. The courtyard was a swarm of activity, the rest of the guards ready to spread out from it if the walls got attacked, all along the wall there were lookouts. It was kind of funny.
The only people they were protecting were the staff and mother; the rest of us were all out. It was like having a personal guard of 30 level 70¡¯s. It was the kind of guard a [Duke] might have. Even the emperor himself only had 100 guards above that, and they guarded a city-sized palace.
I looked up and found the roof, which would be the best place to cast it, open to the elements and high up.
I made my way inside the hall empty, and the lamps wound down for the night. I made my way up the main stairs and bumped into the lady of the house. I bumped into her literally, neither of us watching where we were going, and as I did, I stepped back from her.
She took me in before I even realized who it was and moved with me, pulling me into an awkward hug. It was awkward for me anyway.
¡°Oh, thank goodness, you¡¯re alright,¡± were words I never thought my mother would say about me.
¡°Mother, I¡¯m in the middle of something,¡± I told her, trying to get out of the hug only for my mother to hold me tighter.
To appease her and end the hug as quickly as possible, I gave her a gentle pat on the back while she talked mostly to herself.
Who was this woman? Because she was not the woman I knew. My mother would not be relieved when I came home; she would not hug me and be worried for me.
She was a stranger.
Placing my hands on her shoulders, I pulled myself back, only to catch tears in her eyes.
¡°Mother, I need to do something up on the roof. I understand you''re worried, but I need to-¡±
¡°I know, I know you¡¯re here to help¡ I¡¯m just glad you¡¯re alright too,¡± she told me.
Blissfully, she loosened her grip and let me pull myself back; my staff held out awkwardly until she let go, her calm slowly returning while she took out a handkerchief and whipped her eyes.
¡°I¡¯ll come with you to the roof. I am a [Mage] now, and while I don¡¯t know much about magic, I might be able to help you out,¡± Mother suggested, another departure from her much more dictatorial decisions.
¡°I would suggest, if you do, you bring a coat or something for the rain.¡±
Chapter 81
I headed back towards Clause because Anna¡¯s idiot older brother getting killed would hurt her, and despite thinking he was an idiot, I couldn¡¯t fault him for wanting to act. The guards were cut from her service by the expedient act of not being able to follow her. Cut loose and left to drift, the old man whose name I didn¡¯t know quickly got them moving off to help somewhere else.
I had no authority over them, and no matter how much I wanted to bring them with me, there were things far more important than following me around. He knew what he was doing; I was sure of that; he was too old not to know.
And it was old, not old. Age had nothing to do with it.
If I were being honest, after the last fight, the escort had become a little superfluous. It was good while we needed it; we would have probably lost Straus¡¯s checkpoint if we didn¡¯t have it, but all they did after was carry the wounded.
Best they leave, there were other people to save, other intersections to hold, they weren¡¯t beholden to help Clause if he wanted to valorously charge a monster with his men.
I was, however, exposed as if I were running away from a [Longbowmen] on flat land. I knew what I was going into, or if I didn¡¯t, I knew better than most people, regardless of whether it was the monster I knew or not.
If it were, though, if my guess was correct, what would I do? I didn¡¯t know how to kill something like me; it was probably some flavour of immortal. Sure, I could try to send it on its merry way to hell, but I had no clue if that would work or if I could get the soul out of that magic leash that had returned it to its body.
That was serious soul magic, the gods knew I hadn¡¯t the fucking faintest idea how it worked, and despite my hotline to them, I doubted I could just call them up to ask.
And that was if I could kill it. I was stronger now, and I had skills that could help me kill it, but unless I could somehow destroy its body through its regeneration, I was shit out of luck.
What I could try and do was pin it down until reinforcements arrived.
Assuming He needed help.
¡
Oh, who am I kidding? He¡¯ll need it eventually. It can cast magic and shatter stone with its bare hands, he stands no chance.
What to do? What do I know worked? It was defensive about its mistress, and it hated me for one thing. If I needed to help Clause, I could taunt it some more and watch as it came for me.
I also know some of its capabilities, and I know it¡¯s definitely still stronger than me by far.
Though¡
It also doesn¡¯t know much about me. I killed it, but it was more of a reckless suicide charge with my holding my ground and letting it impale itself. It let me focus on other things to trick me.
It could sense me, though, so it would know I¡¯m coming¡
I hmmed aloud, thinking to myself as a kind of vague plan came to mind. It was less concrete than a blurry child¡¯s shadow puppet but it was plan shaped.
I would run up, make sure Clause wasn¡¯t going to get whacked, and keep my distance and get the monster to split its focus between the guard and me. Me and I could pound away at one another as much as we wanted; I could stop it from easily casting and keep the number of casualties down. If it came to it, we could pin it down until it begged for death, we destroyed its body beyond salvation, or I caught his soul and managed to whisk it away.
It was a very ¡®hit it till it dies'' plan, but I was just that kind of gal, no matter how smart Anna said I was.
What could I do to make that a little better?
Death magic, perhaps? I had a reservoir I could tap into; even if I had little proper reserve mana, I could maybe use it offensively. Perhaps I could enhance my skills. I imbued them with mana to enhance them; I should be able to do it with death mana. If I pushed it into one of my shovel skills, I might be able to lace the shovel with death magic, giving me a kind of discount death magic shovel.
Doing it was relatively safe and low cost compared to casting a spell outright and would have the effect of laying a smackdown on the target of my bane skill.
I started feeling it out as I made my way down the street to the guard we left behind, who were dutifully standing around, doing their best to stand around and look everywhere at once while also ready to fight.
If it was as simple as pushing it into the shovel, it would be easier, perhaps, but it resisted the death mana. It had its own structure, and while my skills moved mana into it, it was¡ separated, like the vascular tissue of a plant, separated from the pith by thin, omnipresent pipes. Pushing death mana into the shovel would change the shovel like I had created grave magic by pushing death mana into a pot; it was less like the graceful weave of the skill and more like folding dye into glass or clay, a semi-permanent transformation.
So I tried infusing it into a skill. Sophy had told me a [Magus] cast spells inside of themselves, which was not what I had been taught, so far it was all outside of my body. All external spells, nothing internal. Anna¡¯s drawings, way, way back. Before I could talk right, she had shown spells being cast from inside, or through a staff.
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I knew it could be done, so I should be able to kind of futz around with the mana inside of me, and if I could do that, it seemed reasonable that I could push the mana into the skill with a bit of effort.
The entire idea seemed odd to me, more like a skill anyway, though I was starting to lose track of where one started and the other began. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed dumb to distinguish between them.
Could the answer to the question of what a spell was that simple? A spell is a skill of a different nature. It seemed like a very poor answer, so I told Selly, ¡°Selly, can you remind me to think over the difference between a spell and skill?¡± and got a mumbled agreement as she muttered about heat and how it sucked.
I tried it, tried to take the skills that gave me a better grip and feel for death mana and put them to work while I coasted over the paving stones on long legs, the feeling like pressing around in my mouth with my tongue, feeling at teeth.
The mana in my body responded, and I generated a flicker of death mana, stealing away some life and boosting my reserve by a smidge before trying to take it and pull it into my soul to use as mana.
My new skill, [Death Magi] informed me I was doing it wrong. Like holding a shovel wrong, my proficiency and affinity gave me the tactile feeling of it being the wrong way¡ Like I was trying to roll a joint out of place, extending an arm beyond its range of movement.
Which was a pain.
I tried to figure out how it was wrong, but I felt that the difference was simple. Before I had just pushed my mana into it, this was¡ More like pulling. I was moving it wrong.
¡°Well shoot,¡± I told myself in a sour pout.
¡°Swhats wrong?¡± Selly complained.
¡°I was trying to get mana into my skills like I did before, but using death magic, and it doesn¡¯t work right¡ I¡¯ll have to figure it out on my own somehow.¡±
¡°You could ask a friend?¡± She asked, confused, ¡°Wherest tha¡ Where¡¯s the [Druid]?¡±
¡°She¡¯s casting her spell, we''re going back to Clause to fight,¡± I told her slowly, worried for her.
¡°Mmmm¡ You brought me¡ Good,¡± she stated simply, like she was half asleep, and I had just told her I was about to make breakfast.
I probably shouldn¡¯t, and not just because it could get her hurt. She was seriously out.
I kept trying to shunt the death mana into a skill, any skill, but it was more like I needed to cast a spell of a sort to get it to move right, feed it not just the death mana but my reserve as well. It wasn¡¯t a spell, but I felt like it was close. I couldn¡¯t get it in like I was doing now, but I could get past that by making a half-assed spell inside of myself.
I tried it, trying to push it in with my mana, cupping it to the tiny mote of death mana, and pressing it deep into myself.
It took focus, serious, stop moving and paying attention to my insides focus. I could tell it would work before I needed to stop, but I didn¡¯t complete it, letting go of the hard to hold movement.
I would be vulnerable, but I could do it; I could press death mana into my shovel, or the skills that ran through my shovel; I just needed to work around it.
Taking a hot breath with a tang of smoke, I turned myself back to the task at hand. Getting to the monster. Reaching the checkpoint, I started paying attention to myself before I walked into a [Guard] like a total tool, in and out in a quick jog.
I let myself take in the sound, let myself be as present as I could be, taking in the world around me, and trying to guess my range from the fighting.
The [Guards] cast me a quick glance while I passed, but they didn¡¯t ask where Anna or their buddies were. They made the guess, and stood out of my way, my lack of blood presumably tipping them off to a lack of fighting.
It was a terrible indicator, but it was an accurate one. I had a bad habit of getting coated in gore like I was a loadstone in a bin of iron dust.
Thinking about how I could get an extra edge done, I started rolling it into the plan, the great shadow puppet ploy¡ But there wasn¡¯t one approach I could think of that was the right way to take the fight. I couldn¡¯t tell how the fight was going; I could just tell there was a ring of metal up ahead, along Clause''s path.
I sped up, pushing my long legs to eat up the curved road, hurling myself toward the sound of fighting, inching closer with every breath, every twinge of pain, every beat of my heart in my ear.
You better not be dead, Clause, or I¡¯m going to be very cross with you. That¡¯s bound to make Anna cry, and I will ring that out of you before you cross over.
As I neared, I spotted the signs of a fight. The broken body of what I assumed was a [Hunter], his body literally buried in the shattered road. It is soulless meat in the shape of what might have been a person, a t shape that stretched along the ovular imprint of destruction.
The soul was gone, likely taken, and so I moved on.
Up high, visible by the shifting shadows and trails of pich, was the form of a person up on a rooftop, holding a bow, panting. They had an empty quiver.
Several more sights like that paved the way toward the fighting. The [Hunters] who had fought here were mostly alive, but none seemed to be in good condition. Clause¡¯s intervention either saved them or, soon enough, caught the creature before it could slink off into the night.
In one case, a hand cart was embedded halfway through a wall. Its bottom was carved out of a wheel shape in stone, and its top blasted a similar shape into the wood above the foot of the building. It just sat there, off the ground, except where it rested in the middle.
I deaminated a few damaged zombies and raised my guard, their bodies showing signs of bites, but once again, no souls.
A few [Hunters] shadowed me from the roofs, bringing with them an encompassing dread, though they luckily didn¡¯t shoot me.
And then I came into sight of the fight, a cyclone of power slowly whipping into shape above the creature, a line of guards, Clause in the front, his glimmering armour showing himself. They pressed into an unseen enemy, no doubt undead.
It was the same one knew; its horrible, grotesque body towered over the people around him, the closest one in height. Clause was still visually dwarfed by the towering monster.
It was casting a spell, and I could feel it building. It had taken quite some time for it to cast before, and if it was anything like last time, it would be quite the lethal attack.
And they were clueless, the figure simply standing there, its method of casting obscured by the fight.
I pushed in, empowering my steps just slightly to close the gap, pushing into a full-tilt sprint, my feet clinging to the ground foot after foot as I leaned into the turn.
I came out close, going into a straight away, getting ready for the biggest show-off in my life.
¡°Selly. Hold on!¡± I shouted.
Closing in, I got close to the backs of the [Guards], a few of them, the ones in the back of the line, turning to check the noise, and I sprung.
I hurtled myself through the air, throwing as much power as I could into my legs, my shovel helping me to gain height as I burned my forward momentum.
I spring up, up, and over the line of guards, over Clause''s head, over the line of ghastly undead, a few too big to be zombies, and into the line of sight of the monster.
¡°Sup, you ugly, unloved dog. Guess who¡¯s back!¡±
Time for the trash talk to begin.
Chapter 82
My ploy worked in my favour; the monster gravitated to me so quickly that the guards might as well not exist. That would hopefully give them time to dwindle the undead and give the mixed poles a chance to pin down the humanoid cavalry that was the ungodly gremlin thing¡ If it was a gremlin. It was hard to tell.
It was mostly the same, a horrid mutinous ogre that seemed like it spat in the face of the gods and their graces, just with extra ick and hairless features that might imply it was once one of its lesser kin.
I suppose they didn¡¯t eat their veggies¡ Which I hadn¡¯t really seen in their camp now that I thought about it, it was mostly meat and random stuff.
It drew its eyes like rot drew flies fast enough to make its neck crack and pop as it tracked me through the air. Its casting did not halt. Instead, it seemed to speed the process, like it flexed its muscles.
It started turning to face me as well, palpable furry emanating from it toward me.
¡°Profligate!¡± He shouted, a wall of bile coming off the figure as it began to force a spell to completion.
Its focus was both good for the unawares [Guards] and Anna''s idiot brother, who would have been hit with a spell, and bad for me because I was unable to move.
I was in the air, and unfortunately, I could not fly nor change where I would land.
Based on the rate it completed, I would have only two seconds to land and move out of range, and I needed to use that conservatively.
Preparing myself, and trying to glean anything I could from the spell, I found that I was going to land on my neck, and I was going to be hit by a spell¡ And that was about all.
I had no clue what it would do, it was just black magic to me, kind of hard to tell it apart when you couldn¡¯t see what kind of mana it was¡ Assuming there was even a difference to begin with.
Reaching out as best as I could, I extended my arms to try and roll on my hands in a cartwheel.
My arm touched the stone, and I started to turn, my legs speeding on while my arm slowed my top half, and I rotated. Then, as with many feats I achieved, I managed to fuck it all up.
My hand lost traction, and I slipped. My hand cupped Selly as I slipped, my shovel flying back along with me as I rolled painfully before I ate stone with the side of my head a few times, followed by seconds when I slammed my hip into the beam of the closest building, the shovel luckily clattering next to me.
The pain sucked, but not as bad as ¡°[Path of Wrath],¡± would have if it had hit me.
The spell in question snapped away from the monster, its horrible power glowing etheric in my sight, the energy collapsing into a five-foot line that screamed forth from it. The light chilled the air, sapping my strength as I shivered, my breath fogging, and slagging the paving stones. Everything in the five-foot line was fucking ruined, with a thin bead down the center of the path that was just molten rock that smoked, letting off a smell that made my eye water and sting.
And that was ten feet in front of me, right where I would have been if I hadn¡¯t slipped like a moron.
That was two spells I knew, and there was still dark magic hovering in the air around it.
¡°Wow, I slipped, and you still missed me? Your mistress must have failed to teach you aim¡ Or is she just shit at it?¡± I asked him, ¡°Because missing someone with a spell that wide is almost as impressive as missing the one you threw at me in an enclosed room.¡±
It released a screech and started toward me like a landslide-made flesh, the cloud of potential spells left behind. Getting to my feet and retrieving the shovel, I decided between trying to let him impale himself and not getting smashed bodily into a wall with a passenger.
I waited for him to get up to speed and hoped forward and to the side, getting spun as it tried to smash into me, the force of its passing like a ship, buffeting me. He charged through the line of cold and frost formed on him in his passing, a visible swath cut in it as he moved.
I regained my footing, spun, and realized I would be in a bad spot if I stayed.
Quickly I moved, threading through his path, the air chilling me, but more refreshing than anything where he passed.
I heard Selly sigh as she cooled down.
¡°Oh¡ That hits the spot,¡± she said, a yawn on her weird two-part mouth.
¡°You awake? Time to fight for our lives, sleepy head! Hop off so I can get hit without killing you.¡± I told her unsubtly.
¡°Huh? Were¡ Oh. Oh man I was out of it, Yeh, yeah ok. I¡¯ll help out where I can, you won¡¯t be disappointed in bringing me! Uh, oh hells. [Take to the Sky]!¡±
She was confused, I realized, almost like she had woken from a dreamy sleep. The heat must have gotten to her. I was warmer now, but I could imagine it being far worse with how tiny she was.
With her words she took to the air, zipping straight up with her skill before she started to buzz, her clipped wing hissy as she fought the air current that dragged he up.
She seemed to flip around before zipping off toward the Humans, leaving me be.
I¡ I did not expect that.
Shit.
I turned back to the mound of rotting meat that was the monster and found it pulling itself out of a wall, meat falling away only to knit together again. Monstrous regeneration met with less than mundane damage.
Well¡ I guess I was only intending to play keep away. Annas brother¡ Er. Clause intended to fight it but didn¡¯t want help because he was being a man.
I was just here to ensure he didn¡¯t get swatted with a spell¡ And to give him time to get here through the undead.
I still didn¡¯t think I could stop it on my own.
I had a good ten seconds to act, so what to do?
My eyes fell on the cloud left behind and moved toward the caustic cloud of potential spellwork. If I couldn¡¯t fight him straight up, I could certainly try and fuck with him until the rest got here.
Neither of us could flat-out kill each other, which made collateral damage more important; he just didn¡¯t know it yet.
As I made my way, the beast pulled himself free, screeching, ¡°I smell your fear [Saint]! You weakling. Your words, EEyyah, mean nothing in the face of my love! My dark missstress. She will see your ambitions crushed beneath the weight of her, he- Eeyal.¡±
I didn¡¯t have that many ambitions and I doubted he knew what they were, but playing into his complex, I shouted back, ¡°Doubt it? If your little miss is cut from the same cloth as you, she¡¯s a bottom feeder. One who picks on the week because she can!¡±
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As I shouted, I reached the cloud, a feeling of nausea holding around me and started doing the only thing I was actively getting better at, randomly poking stuff magically until it exploded, worked, or did nothing.
[Tenebral Bane] licked its lips, magical senses telling me the mana in the air was there but also tick. I reached out with my magical shovel and started waving it through the shrouding gaseous tumour like it was a fart cloud.
And the fart cloud moved.
Not much, but it sure as hell moved more than I could have hoped for. There was a resistance, not physical but magical, as if the air was full of sugary taffy. It was familiar, and yet so very unfamiliar.
I had never used a shovel like a wooden spoon to magically mix mana, but I had used a shovel to haul muck. It was like that, but facing up instead of down and with magic instead of muscle.
It was also slow, and the Monster was no fool. For every moment I spent dispersing the magical cloud, it gave the monster time to recover and make it¡¯s way over to me.
Clause shouted, ¡°[My Blade Never Dulls!]¡± and a few of the guards shouted other skills in a similar vein, like, ¡®[My arm never Tired],¡¯ or, ¡®[Endless Vigor].¡¯ One shouted in a matter so high pitch it sounded like a woman, ¡°[Backstep]!¡±
Amongst them, a tiny voice shouted from above, ¡°[Not One Step Back], [Cull the Horde], [Bring them Down!].¡±
Her words washed over all of us, my body feeling suddenly sturdy, my feet holding strong. It also brought my focus back on the monster as it stomped through the blooming curtain of cool air that fought the heat of the air. Its presence was uncaring about the draft.
I could see the mana in the air as it lightened, and figured out how it could both melt and cool. The air was low on heat mana, it had shunted it into the attack, striping the mana outside of the path. Clever.
The monster took a stance like a charge, and I dropped down into a stance to try and let it impale itself, my vision looking for a point to let a true strike land. It shifted around, some points ringing weaker before being shoved around as its body mended some unseen point.
Its intent fell upon me, but I held firm, the feeling not new. It was the sensation of knowing an enemy stood in front of me, that it was a being cast in dread, inhuman. A being of violence. It felt not unimportant, but less important.
It moved, and I started scrabbling for the magic I would need to enhance my weapon, trying to mould the magic inside me like shifting clay, following my intuition. I sucked the life from myself, tugging it to cascade into my reserves, the life empowering my reserve and granting me death mana, the feeling stinging as I pushed it through my body.
It committed to a charge and I leveled my weapon, braced myself and focused on not giving away what I was doing, focusing so hard on my internal world that everything faded away.
My sight, hearing and sense of touch became distant as I focused single mindedly upon the one and only thing that mattered at the moment, getting my skill to accept the death magic.
It was surprisingly like moulding clay; my internal mana could be moved so much more freely than the stuff outside of me. I didn¡¯t even know if it cost mana, it certainly didn¡¯t feel like it cost any.
It was just that there was stuff in the way, like my body. It was a bit tricky, but I certainly preferred my insides not being rearranged, so I worked with it and pulled the mana around and down inside of myself toward a central point. Just like before, my eyes nearly closed, just barely open, stinging and watering with the effort it took just to keep them open.
A tiny piece of me I didn¡¯t know existed, a hidden muscle, flexed and pulled the mana into me, and my skill kicked it out and into my spade beyond the point the monster could swerve. The feeling of the release made me woozy from the sudden loss of it, but my body kept me up as I sucked in a breath.
It had taken ten seconds, perhaps, but the second twelve was marked by the impact of the monster connecting chest first with the same object that now carried a bane-infused, death mana-enhanced improvised magical weapon.
It swung at me just before it crashed, feeling the edge of the blade huming with death mana, seeking to unmake dark constructs. I couldn¡¯t tell if it was me or the way it ate the cloud around me, but it was enough to make the monster pay attention, that was for sure.
The arm it threw out missed me enough to make my short hair woosh as it passed, and my blade met cloth, then flesh, then bone.
The monster impaled itself on the iron of the shovel, my feet planted with Selly¡¯s skill resisted as it pierced the fabric and wrapped the figure effortlessly before the magic of the blade slid through the meat.
There was a lot of meat and fat, and unlike its lesser kin, its flesh still resisted; enough mana or skills were present to slow its passage, but my feet held firm.
The moment it hit bone, the skill snapped, unable to keep me from being pushed back. Selly¡¯s skill was unable to defy the world.
The bone resisted, the blade slowly etching its way into the outer layer as the force of the charge carried me back, my feet slipping on cobbles as I tried to hold my balance, tried to push into the strike.
Behind me was a wall of wooden buildings, and I decided that I would rather not be broken on it. Sucking in a breath, I pressed down with my foot and pushed it down into the cobbles. Pressing into the monster, I used my whole body, pushing until I could practically feel the bottoms of my feet sanding themselves down. Heaving with all the strength in my body, muscles screaming, body flexing itself as ridged as it could, and the force of the monster I pressed against, my feet shattered the cheap paving stones.
The blade shattered the bone with enough energy. Meat came out the other side while my ankles nearly shattered, the toes of my feet breaking off as they dipped into the stone.
We both screamed, agony in both of our voices while the magic of the weapon made its best impression of a million tiny [Swordsmen] inside of the monster''s body as it started to catch up with me, its body still moving.
The right half of its torso warmed as it expanded, ballooning before exploding in a red, meaty pop that sent the monster careening over me and into the wall as I fell backward and slammed my thick head into the pavers behind me.
A spiderweb of bright white light met me as my eyes snapped shut.
And yet¡ It was good.
Not the pain but the feeling of triumph. The feeling of succeeding in wounding the thing, even if it would just come back. I had no doubt that with time, it would just knit back together, but that was meaningless. I had hurt it, and that sent a thrill through me as I bit back tears, hissing in pain, rolling, clutching my head, barely gotmy feet screaming as I aggravated the stubs of where my toes had been.
It was so good of a feeling that it managed to blot out the pain for a moment, but only for a moment.
The shrieking made my ears ring, and it took me a moment to realize that it was the monster. It cried so loud it broke a pain of glass somewhere and my arms that clutched my head helped press my ears down.
Everything ran together for a terrible length of time, blurring as I sucked breaths down and the monster screamed, and everything was too loud. Twenty seconds and a million years later, I managed to get on all fours, my arms and legs weak and my eyes full of tears.
I tried to stand and flopped, tried again and managed to barely get my torso up as I balanced on my knees.
I looked over to the guards who were depleting the confused undead, a few arrows whizzing down from the rooftops, tearing into a few small figures I hadn¡¯t remembered seeing. A million miles and four feet away, the Monster, a gaping wound, leaked Ichor as it thrashed its way upright.
Sucking down breaths, I tried to get to my feet, tried to stand on shaking legs for a few seconds before I fell back down, the pain in my feet redoubling while my head started to throb.
For a moment, I felt like everything was standing still, totally fine, then I doubled over and hurled, voiding the picnic on the cobbles like a drunkard as I lost control of my body. Back arching, I teared up as I sucked in breaths.
The ground shook a little and I didn¡¯t look, the whole world shifting around before I looked up.
Up and into the air, I got slammed bodily into the air and toward the wall, my ribs creaking as they flexed.
Oh¡ The monster had kicked me.
I watched as the world seemed to slow, my head flapping as my ribs finally snapped. The damage began to mount as my body died, the use of death magic letting it cascade far more quickly than it should have otherwise.
I could see the guards cut down the last of the undead, Clause cutting one of them in half, which was quite hard without magic. I wonder how he did that, perhaps a skill to make the blade sharper than it could be normally.
As my head lulled I saw the pikes forming up to coral the wounded monster which was slamming the ground where I had been, forming some kind of spell.
Maybe I would get up before-
My entire spine compressed my skull, impacting the stone of the inner city before I died so quickly I couldn¡¯t even feel it.
I fell painlessly into the fabric that separated the land of the living from the lands beyond. It cupped me as I fell, tumbling down and down and down as it held on, stretching to hold me tightly.
It was somewhat peaceful compared to the recent pain. There was more like stubbing my toe, sudden, then over, fast as a snap, then my body stopped hurting. Unfortunately for me, I didn¡¯t have the skill prepared, and it showed.
Normally, I might have come back faster, but this time, I fell deeply into the dark, and it soothed me.
I felt, for a moment, that it would last forever, the world fading away as the soothing feeling of death enveloped me. Nothing mattered. The pain was over.
And then, the world reached its end, and I stopped falling, a moment of weightlessness before I was thrown back into my screaming, popping body.
Chapter 83
Getting hurled bodily into a wall was a less-than-peaceful way to go. For all that, I died almost instantly; coming back from that particular death, my body partially shattered, my head embedded in my torso like a piton, my toes missing, my poor shoes, my brand new sandals, all of it was quite a nightmare to fix.
Gods above, it was almost as bad as the damage to my clothes. Anna¡¯s gift of clothing, hands down, the most expensive casualty of my fight, was a mess, too.
The funny part about coming back, however, despite the pain caused by my body being disfigured beyond belief, was that once it started to actually fix itself, it started to feel quite agreeable.
My toes tingled and tickled as they popped out of my ruined flesh like suckering vines. I regained awareness blind, ears and head ringing, and it lasted all of a few moments before blissfully ending. My spine flexed before pushing, the disks grinding before letting out nice little pops.
It was the worst kind of good thing, the kind you had absolutely no way to enjoy.
Like always I felt great, absolutely fantastic, considering being thrown head first into a solid stone wall should make me feel quite poorly, but it was very bad timing to have it happen.
The sudden lack of pain was almost euphoric, the suck of fresh¡ Well, not fresh, but hot, somewhat sooty breath as my eyes snapped open blissfully.
Blissful for the moment, it took me to start orienting myself.
The carnage around me brought me down rather quickly, as the sight of dead people tended to do.
One of the buildings had collapsed, which was quite the feat. Though I supposed that for the monster, that was just an everyday occurrence, what was more worrisome was the mounds of dust that piled around some of the polearms and in the forms of uniforms. There were also bodies, whole and in bits; some bodies were haphazardly hurled around the area, while others were red spots slammed into the paving stones.
All in all, I could see what had to be at least ten bodies.
Quite a few of them were the poles, the best weapon to pin the monster down with.
Wasn¡¯t that just dandy? It had taken out, selectively, the weapon that could, in theory, pin it down long enough for us to win.
It was almost like it had a mind of its own and wasn¡¯t waiting for us to kill it like it was from a storybook for children.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
The feeling of disappointment was short-lived, overtaken by the much more important feeling of fear because I had come here to stop one idiot from dying and released a dear friend into the wild of the fight.
If the disintegrated guards were anything to go by, Selly could be dust right now, or god knows what. She could have fainted again, sleeping forever, so small that I couldn¡¯t find her before she suffocated.
I sat up, head spinning, heart beating like I was sprinting. My body forced itself to my feet, my hands moving like I had my shovel, which had gotten ejected from my body and lay at my feet, where I slammed my tiny toe into it.
Holding back a shout that would have been drowned out by the screeching of the monster and the shout of the [Guard], I did my best to spot the two idiots out of the rapidly moving crowd.
I found Clause fast enough; he was moving in and out of range of the monster, well within killing range of its one arm, his plate giving him away. Selly was downright impossible, though; her tiny form, now black, was too hard to find, my poor eyes unable to pick up on a flash of white less than an inch across from dozens of feet away.
Instead, I focused on my ears, on the shouts that were far deeper than the sound of a buzzing wing. Or at least, one not as distinctive as a clipped one. I found it, just on the edge of my hearing, and I breathed a sigh of relief because the flapping meant she was alive, even if I couldn¡¯t see her.
My poor heart slowed by half the moment I realized both of them were alive. And then it sped back up to, ¡®oh gods I need to get back in that fight,¡¯ speed and hissing, I kicked the shovel up, almost fumbled it, let it hit me in the ribs instead of my face as it swung up like I stepped on a rake, grabbed the end.
Sighing at the lack of sandals, I tip-taped my way back toward the fight, my toes tensing on the cobbles.
In my time fighting the creature, it had not used a skill by calling it out loud, but in its haste, it did so now, the remaining [Guards] keeping it on its toes. Despite being outnumbered, however, and by a dozen to one at that, it was doing too good of a job keeping them off of it.
It spoke in hissing shrieks, its skills coming out as hateful curses from its horrid maw. The only reason I could understand them at all was that it was a skill.
It cried out skills the likes of which I hadn¡¯t heard before, skills like [Insurmountable], [Monstrous Blow] and [Aura of Malice], clashed with the skills of line holders, fighters and the not-so-young [Lord]. They clashed, and the monster was winning.
It was a stunning sight but in all the wrong ways.
I moved to close the gap while Clause closed on the monster again and spotted the monster turn to him, a visible grin cracking across the beast''s face in a rictus.
It lifted its one arm, and I hurled myself in, pushing past the guards, winding between them where I could, past one of the only poles that was doing its best to pin the thing down on its own and into a range of the monster.
It brought its arm up, intending no doubt to use a skill, and without thinking, I shoved Clause to the side, pointing my blade up while the beast shouted, ¡°[Sundering Blow].¡±
I raised my blade and sidestepped the blow, its slow telegraphed movement giving ample time for both the monster to realize who I was and for Clause to recover and turn to face me, his face impassive but with a minor look of bewilderment in his eyes.
It seemed neither had expected me to just walk off getting slammed into a wall and while both started to make noises, I focused on the fight at hand.
I was out of death mana; it had disappeared on my return, though the life mana in my body had toped back up. The problem was, however¡ I didn¡¯t have enough time to imbue a blow right now, not while I had a moment of surprise.
The arm, as it came down, made an obvious point to attack, but I didn¡¯t think without a blow like before, it would do enough damage to make a difference.
So I didn¡¯t go for the arm, and I didn¡¯t go for the death mana. I went to enhance my skills normally by flexing them.
Head, side, or leg.
I went for legs because the bigger they were, the harder they fell, and his legs would just make that more apparent.
I placed my feet and let [True Strike] find a point down on the leg close to the ankle before partially swinging but mostly thrusting down at my target. The blow hit, my blade having enough force to cut bone deep before I pulled back up to shield myself.
And it came up not a moment too late, the monster waving its arm at me reflexively. The haft took it, the errant thought still strong enough to force a protest from my legs as they skid a foot across the ground, bumping into a random [Guard] with a shield.
The monster, having recognized me first, let out a horrid hissing screech that warbled into a hissed ¡°Apostate!¡±
The word held a terrible weight, the beast tunnel visioning on me again, its presence turning into a thing of hate and wrath.
It was a terrible feeling that rolled off of it like an aura.
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Hells, maybe that was what it was, an [Aura of Hate] or [Monstrous Aura]. Considering how the hulking figure felt to look at. Or maybe it was something more mundane, simply its horrid form and monstrous presence, or the magic in it, pulsing like a poison as it spoke.
It didn¡¯t matter. Not right now.
Maybe not ever.
Clause capitalized on the moment of confusion, cleaving into the corded muscle of its upper arm with the edge of his blade. It must have been a fine blade indeed to cut as it did, guided entirely by human muscle.
Grit and muscle managed to cut a good slice in the creature''s arm before he dropped down slightly and thrust the blade up toward the creature''s head, the blade cutting through across one of the people''s eyes and the forehead, little black orblets like the eyes of a spider also cut before making a swift motion across the scull freeing the blade and letting a curtain of blood flow free down its face.
Three strikes so fast it came before I even finished hearing the creature speak, its voice still on, ¡®state.¡¯
Strangely, I could understand what it was, even without words. It was a warrior equivalent to my [Rapid Action], three strikes all blurring together. Something like [Tripple Strike] or [Threefold Strike]. It was a good idea.
So I stole it.
As the monster turned to face Clause, I let out a [Rapid Action], going once again for the leg, missing my prior mark, by landing two hits close enough that it would be hard for the monster to use its leg, even as it started to heal. An inconvenient wound.
It took a halting, shuttering step back, giving the remaining poles a chance to lower their points and protect their fellows.
Or protect them against everything but a spell.
It was far from casting a spell as it was now, but I had no idea how it had killed the other halberdiers.
I could have speculated to myself, but I had an inside source that was more than willing to help, one that was right next to me.
I was not talking about Clause, though the two were certainly related because standing on his shoulder, like a valiant [Crusader] or a very strange mascot, was Selly, her wings buzzing up a storm for no reason in particular.
¡°Selly, good to see you. Did he hit the halberds with a spell or a skill?¡±
¡°Twas not a skill, but something fast. A queer spell for sure, almost none of that waving you do,¡± she told me, her voice seemingly pitched just right to reach my ears.
Now, that was a useful skill in a fight, especially for someone so small.
¡°Are you still trying to kill it, Clause?¡± I asked him.
¡°Justice demands no less! Beast. Monster. In the name of my father, [Baron] Mynes, I seek your head. MEN! [Press the Attack], and [Execute] this offensive creature!¡±
A weight settled in the wake of his words, a pressure pressing down on the creature, marking it for everyone in the valley to know its place was at the end of a sword. The command passed me, but I followed it regardless; I wanted this thing dead just as much as he did.
Selly, deciding that it was time to give us a kick in the pants, added, ¡°[Harry] its retreat! [Get Em!],¡± before cackling like some manner of demented rodent, sword levelled at the monster like she meant to do battle.
The monster backed up, and the pressure of the declaration and the weight of our skills made it reconsider its place in the pecking order.
Four arrows thunked into its neck and shoulder and marked the starting point for an attack, the sound louder than a horn. We charged like a stampede towards it, a shout of fury, that drowned out its shrieking.
It ducked down, the halberds slicing its hunch as its arm flashed out; a whisper of mana that told me skill-enhanced muscle was on display, though it wasn¡¯t coming for me.
It slammed into a shield-wearing man a few feet to my left, who was unceremoniously hurled into four others with the force of a catapult stone, a cry of pain ringing from them while four or five of us punished the half-blind monster, its face bubbling as it regrew into a far more tumours visage. It had the horrid look of roots and nodules, bits of flesh and sinew swelling like tubers into a grotesque mockery of my own purposeful regrowth.
It turned toward my half, its eyes not full of fear but unrepentant hate and disgust, as if we were sickly rodents crawling with maggots.
It pulled out from the pikes, turning and falling into a hunched three-arm charge away to gain distance, its turn flicking ichor on us that stung but not enough for us to stop our pursuit.
We funnelled after it, only for it to wheel back; the turn caught several of the guard''s feet as they lost their balance for a moment on the melted paving stones. If I were normal, I would have thought it was fleeing. It wasn¡¯t. It was making a rush back toward the dark magic that still lingered like a miasma in the air.
¡°It¡¯s trying to cast a spell!¡± I shouted, alerting the mundane men of the unseen threat, giving chase as those lagging behind started to turn.
Clause turned quite well, his legs letting him pivot back toward the beast as it slowed.
We ran like hell was on our heels, the lordling readying his blade for a strike and me readying myself to hew. I reached within and prepared some death mana.
If I could put myself in his blind spot and Clause held its attention, it could work.
¡°Selly, can you drag its attention?¡± I shouted over to her, our words covert despite the near shout it took to carry them.
¡°Oh, I think I can,¡± She shouted back, which got Clause to wince.
We rushed in, and I split from Clause, who ran up and did as [Swordsmen] did best, slice things until they were composed of thin strips. I didn¡¯t; I came up in the mending blindspot, hoping it focused on Clause.
Waiting for Clause to run into the monster, whose one arm was raised to the black smog already getting to shaping, the mass moving, I circled, preparing myself for the impending strike.
It was shaping the spell with its one hand, so it had to go. Without the spells, it was just a misshapen, well muscled Gremlin.
I took the death mana floating in my body and began to focus it down, mimicking the feeling I had before, and while doing so, stepping forward, closer to lunging range.
Sweating, eyes twitching, I readied myself, bringing myself to the edge of releasing the spell and waited for [True Strike] to show an opening.
I couldn¡¯t understand what was happening as I did it, sacrificing every iota of attention to ensure I could release the spell thing I was casting at the right time. Hearing fell away as did everything else, even my sight did, my attention turned inward left my vision unfocused.
The thing moved and revealed its hand a moment later, and I struck, forcing myself forward, my shovel singing through the air as the spell snapped out and up its half.
My blade bit into the thing''s hand, the spell it was shaping, judging like a serpent.
Clause was down on the other side, the metal breastplate bent in. Selly was hovering next to him. There was a great deal of shouting that snapped back into the background, the [Guard] shouting something, and the Monster and I looked at one another.
The spell shuttered again, and we looked up at the magic.
I had impaled its hand, the tip of my shovel neatly pressed through its bone and out the other side.
The hand that was shaping a spell.
The spell that was using all of the dark mana that was floating above us.
The spell that I was disrupting.
The disrupted spell with a lot of power behind it.
The kind that exploded last time I did that.
¡°Oh dear-¡± ¡°Kill you Apost-¡±
The world exploded; the dispersed magic was less contained than last, still enough to knock me back and on my rear, but not enough to kill or concuss me. The silver linings were important.
It took a bit to recover from the flash and bang, my ears screaming with tinnitus and my eyes flashing with smudgy shapes, but they came back as I blinked away the stars and saw the monster.
It was mobile and moving back toward Clause, burns on his skin, body twitching from what I could only assume was a truly horrible backfire.
I could only hope it was because I did not want the thing to start its way over to Clause, who was on the ground, not dead but certainly in pain from what I had to assume was getting hit real good while I was focused on casting my spell.
My shovel in hand, I wobbled my way in towards him and took my vigil over the wounded man. He was sucking in breaths, his breathing short, but he was breathing, which meant he would probably live.
The monster tilted its head unnaturally, craning its neck to stare at me like the horrific bird it sounded like.
¡°Eyah- Apostate. Guarding a profaned Human lord. Disgusting,¡± it hissed.
¡°You''re disgusting; you''re giving me gangrene just looking at you,¡± I told it.
¡°Going to kill you, apostate. Your existence disrespects my master and the one. Whatever false god you serve, I shall smite you regardless, as I will also do with the retched human refuse and that mongrel lord,¡± it said, cold words, the longest it had ever properly spoken.
¡°I serve no one, and I¡¯m not going to let something like you do anything to anyone; your time here is over,¡± I told it, ¡°I took your arm and hand, and I¡¯m going to take far more than that before I send you to one of the hells when I take your head.¡±
I spoke as calmly as I could, doing my best not to show weakness, I stood my ground, even though I didn¡¯t think I could fight it. The guards were moving in, but it had been maybe twenty seconds. If the thing moved in, it could probably ignore me.
It was certainly strong enough.
It paced to the side, its body moving in a limp that I didn¡¯t trust. I had hurt it, and it had moved on three limbs instead of two, but it¡¯s healing was quite potent. I took it as a faint, something to get me to move and stood my ground and kept my guard up. I kept my eyes wide, waiting for any sign of movement.
And my wide eyes were the only reason I could spot it early enough to not jump out of my skin.
A shape moved in the corner of my eye, a slinking shape, and reflexively my eyes tracked it.
It was a cat.
It was the cat.
The gargantuan cat that had stalked me.
The monster took my look as an attempt to distract it, continuing its pointless stalk while the cat began to stalk along behind it. It was playful and unconcerned.
The guards spotted it and slowed down, and the [Hunters], who had gotten an extra arrow in the thing at some point, did not fire.
They were all looking, no doubt, and the gargantuan feline.
It walked up behind the thing as it came a little closer, opened its jaw, and broke its wounded leg at the ankle, its jaw-shattering bone with such a force it was audible across the entire clearing.
The whole world seemed to explode at that, the monster jumping away, the cat let it, the guard jumped on its weekness and chased it trying to pin it with their numbers.
The world stopped focusing on the cat, which slipped back toward where it came from. The whole world looked away, except me.
It turned back in the way that felines often would, meeting my eyes.
And then it smiled.
Not like a cat, but like a human, its mouth formed a horrifying grin. It looked monstrous all on its own, though it wasn¡¯t. It lacked the palpable malice of one, which only made it all the worse.
Then it slipped back into the alleys, and it was gone.
And thank every god it was.
It had opened its jaw like a snake, and I wanted no part in whatever that creature was.
Chapter 84
The Monster was fleeing. It was a sight, one of the sights of all time.
It was also incredibly uncharacteristic of the monster.
If I had shattered its ankle, it would have been angry, but the cat, the fucking cat! Had somehow made it flee in fear like the four fucking horsemen were on its heels.
It charged through the line of guards like they were waving sticks at it, the halberds piercing and tearing, carving deep gashes as they bowed. Then they snapped, wood shattering some feet from the head, leaving the business ends of the weapon stuck in the creature.
The thing, frothing at the mouth, tore through everything in front of it, running on its four legs, broken ankle be damned.
Notably, the ankle was not healing; it remained misshapen, like a gall, but that and its arm were the only things that seemed to refuse to regrow. The rest of its body shifted, pulsing and regrowing, pulsing over and over with the beating of its heart, but the arm did not grow back, it seemed to writhe, presumably against unseen death magic. Neither did the ankle, which only got fatter, swelling like a bruise.
And it just ran. Fleeing. Its leg slammed into the ground as it shrieked in agony, its other leg getting better but still hurt, drag thumping over and over. Its arms smashed the ground as it bowled through the [Guard], smashed through the corner of a building and dashed off into the hot night.
And then it was gone, and so was the cat; its horrible, un-catly smile burned into my memory as I had stared into the sun.
It made my spine shudder and my skin itch.
We had ¡®won¡¯ though, in a way.
But we had also lost.
We had driven it off and given it a blow it would not soon forget; we had both stopped its advance and destroyed its undead.
But we had also not killed it. We had not found out what its goal was, assuming it had one beyond wanton destruction, and we had taken casualties. So many.
Dozens dead, the future [Lord] wounded, possibly dying, and next to nothing to show for it.
Oh and I didn¡¯t know who was alive.
Wait¡ Where is Selly?
My heart nearly exploded, fear hitting my system so hard that I almost lost my footing as a sudden feeling of sobriety hit me over the head like a club. I almost felt my knees give out as I looked around at the carnage, and I cursed in Quilish, head turning back and forth.
I could see Clause and the [Guard], but I couldn¡¯t see Selly. She had been on Clause''s shoulder before he had been hit so hard that his plate had deformed.
¡°Selly? SELLY!¡± I called out in a panic, ¡°Fuck, fuck-fuck¡ Where are!-¡±
But I was cut off by a slight noise, a tiny, Sprite sized ¡°Calm your tits,¡± as Selly climbed out from under Clause''s neck, much to the chagrin of Clause, who moaned.
¡°Ohh¡ Please avoid doing that,¡± he moaned, his face scrunched in pain.
Selly, aware of his words but aware of the extent of the damage, patted him on the top of his shoulder before leaning up to face me.
The relief made me stop breathing for a moment, and my heart too. I had come to care for the little stinker I called a friend, and seeing her die before my eyes might be a bit too much of a loss for me to handle, even if I couldn¡¯t feel anything.
¡°Scared the shit out of me,¡± I told her as I got ahold of my breath again.
¡°I levelled! If you could believe it, I haven¡¯t done that in a bit,¡± she said, a pair of hands on her knees.
¡°Good for you, now¡ There¡¯s someone else that needs talking about,¡± I said, switching between Quilish and Common.
¡°Oh? Finally going to mention me, eh? Thought you were going to keep avoiding the subject,¡± he said, coming off as impassive despite his demeanor.
It was definitely a skill, the wincing and moans of pain aside, he should not have that kind of natural control over his speech as he was¡ Not unless he had stupidly high charisma and spirit stats, and that would mean levels, which would mean he should be stronger. Stronger he was not; it was the exact reason why he was on his ass.
¡°How are you doing¡ Er¡ Young Master Mynes? How do I even,¡± I said, falling into a murmur as I looked over his situation.
¡°Less than well,¡± he said passively, ¡°More importantly, you intruded, even after I told Anna not to get involved.¡±
I looked at him, right in his eyes, which were a bit moist, as he blinked away the pain of having a metal plate turning his ribs into rubs, and I chuffed. I cared very little for his idiocy. He had turned men and women with families into dust, fit for only an urn. People wouldn¡¯t even get their dust because it was mixed together. And after getting a near-lethal wound while bleeding out on the cobbles with no aid in sight, he was going to question my involvement.
¡°That¡¯s the route you want to go down in this? You almost died. I told Anna I wouldn¡¯t let you die. Or did you think you could win? Considering the moment I got knocked down, you got more than a third of your men turned to ash. I doubt it.¡± I told him.
¡°We were doing fine until you showed up, then he started throwing around skills,¡± he said, ¡°You ignored my direct order not to come, came anyway, jumped into the fight, pissed it off, got knocked out for a few minutes, then got me injured!¡± he told me, his voice raising until it cut out, replaced by a wracking wet cough.
Shoot. Was I gone for that long? Go-er-sshh, that¡¯s a long time.
It made sense, though.
The ash piles weren¡¯t in the same line. It made a twisted kind of sense that I had been out for longer than anticipated. Whatever had hit them must have been spaced out. And that would imply a strange shape or multiple castings. I hadn¡¯t checked how much black magic I had used my [Tenebral Bane] on, but I could only take his word on it now.
More than a minute? I was falling for a long time, true, but that¡¯s still one of the longest I can think of. Not that I¡¯ve died too much¡ No, wait, I totally have¡ I can¡¯t believe I¡¯m starting to think about dying like using a skill. Hells that¡¯s not a good mindset to be in.
I turned my thoughts away from the somewhat disturbing thought that would need to get that plate off of him and let his ribs breathe¡ assuming it wasn¡¯t punching a hole in something important.
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I forgot what Skipseo said about getting stabbed. Was it take it out? So you could fill it in with stuff? Or leave it in? Crap. I can¡¯t remember. I remember packing a cut I got with healing balm once, but I don¡¯t have any on me¡ I can''t even tell what''s being stabbed into him. Assuming he¡¯s being stabbed at all. I smell blood, so something is bleeding somewhere.
Kneeling down, I placed my shovel down behind me and before he could start chewing me out, I started looking for buckles. Assuming I could take it off without moving him, I would. It stood to reason that it would probably be for the best.
¡°Yeah, well, a few things. When I got there, he was casting a spell, so you had that right from the start. And as for not listening to you, only listen to Anna and my conscience.¡±
¡°Ignoring my order could be considered a crime,¡± he wheezed.
¡°I¡¯ll make sure Annas knows you are more concerned about following a list in a dusty book and placing your ego above your well-being. I hear you have a mom, so I have no doubt she¡¯ll make your ears ring while you''re in bed recovering.¡± I told him snarkily, unable to care about the pecking order at the given moment.
¡°You w-¡± he started, cut off by a cough, ¡°You wouldn¡¯t tell her. The fact you call her my ¡®mom¡¯ tells me you don¡¯t know my Mother.¡±
He said the word like Anna had, with a capital M, like she was a thing of her own. I snorted at him, unamused, while I moved bits of fabric that were tucked up around the leather bits.
¡°Maybe, but you know how us women folk get. We always gossip, especially about young men doing stupid stuff. I tell Anna, Anna tells your mom, your mom tells you, and you never hear the end of it,¡± I told him. He seemed like the type to think women just gossiped all day so that would hit home.
He didn¡¯t reply, though Selly chortled, and I told her, ¡°Don¡¯t you go laughing; you got chewed out by your mom last week.¡±
Selly stopped laughing and spluttered, but the talking helped me focus and the noise she made amused me, mellowed me out a bit. It helped me focus on the now, not the everything around me.
The conversation petered out while I went to undo the breastplate and stopped.
We would need to bring him to be healed. Would it be best to pick him up on a stretcher? If so, the breastplate could act like a cast.
Damn, but I wish I had better knowledge of this.
Gritting my teeth and thinking it over gave Clause enough time to find his voice.
¡°Why did the beast run? Everything after it hit me is a bit¡ skewed.¡±
¡°You got hit; I stabbed its hand, broke its spell, gave it a wicked backlash and dispelled the magic¡ Er. Explosively, and then had a standoff with it. A cat bit its ankle, and it ran off.¡± I told him.
He didn¡¯t speak for a moment, but when he did, he wheezed, ¡°A cat?¡±
¡°A cat,¡± I told him. ¡°To be fair, it was the size of a mountain lion. It shattered the thing''s ankle in one bite.¡±
¡°That¡¯s not a cat,¡± he told me.
¡°Not a normal cat for sure. I don¡¯t know what fresh hell it came out of, but if that thing wasn¡¯t a demon I don¡¯t know what it is.¡± I told him.
¡°Fantastic. Demonic cats. I¡¯ll make sure to add that to the docket. Perhaps we can feed it our mice so it doesn¡¯t eat my people or livestock,¡± he murmured darkly.
¡°Yep, it nearly followed me home to Anna¡ Not that it could get inside the Grove. Though I can¡¯t well tell why it ran. It was in a right panic though.¡± I told him, figuring he might know more.
¡°A fear effect, perhaps? Did the wound heal? It resisted most of what hit it. Some kind of resistance skill or magic protected it.¡±
¡°It didn¡¯t. Why?¡±
¡°It just makes the possible threat of that thing even worse. A possible demonic cat with fear skills and magical teeth. That will haunt my desk for days.¡±
He sighed the last part as if desk work were his bane, a terrible burden.
I could understand not wanting to sit at a desk all day, but it really wasn¡¯t that much work, surely. Even my and Gunther''s work took three people a few days, and that was by doing math, divining the future with cursed mathematical methods I remember hating in a search for the market prices of the future.
¡°Yeh? It sucks for you, I guess. Truly, you are burdened with a terrible life. The wrist pain must be terrible,¡± I bickered.
¡°I would beg your forgiveness, but I care little for it,¡± he said in just such a way that it took me a few seconds to long to realize it was a joke.
A joke!
¡°Funny,¡± I told him, ¡°Now stop that, I¡¯m trying to figure out if I should take the plate off or keep it on while we move you on a stretcher.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t need a stretcher. Pull it off before it breaks my ribs,¡± he complained.
¡°If we take it off and carry you to the temples, you could bleed out while we carry you,¡± I told him.
¡°And if you raise my chest, you¡¯ll shatter my ribs. You might as well save me the pain and give me the Coup de grace now. And before you start using that head of yours to plan anything, you don¡¯t need to take me to the temples, just to my home. Just get someone else to lean on and take me down the st- street.¡± He said with a cough that he spat out, the spittle stained dark with blood.
Yeah¡ That is not good.
¡°We don¡¯t have time to get you someone else; you can lean on me,¡± I told him.
¡°I was implying two people, one for each arm.¡± He complained, ¡°Now get this thing off me; time is of the essence.¡±
I gave him a look and thought about it despite his words, but he was rudely interrupted by a voice beside me.
¡°May I be of assistance?¡± He asked.
The proximity and the suddenness caused my heart to kick violently in my chest and ruined what calm I had while I focused on Clause.
The voice and the lack of focus, coupled with a pending heart attack and the recent violence, made me jump and strike at my secret, unannounced visitor.
He nimbly¡ Or less than nimbly, stumbled-lurched back as if he knew it was coming.
And, of course, he knew it was coming. Because he could tell the moment violence jumped into my head.
Strause, the sneaky secret man, had a fake face that was just too tight in the eyes and mouth to be mistaken for his normal grin.
¡°Fucking Hells, man!¡± I said, placing a curled hand to my chest, nails pulling back into my fingers. ¡°Don¡¯t do that! Gods above, man, you are lucky I wasn¡¯t holding a weapon.¡±
¡°Nothing lucky about it,¡± he said, ¡°Besides, we need to help my dearest brother,¡± Strause started.
¡°Only Brother,¡± Clause corrected.
¡°Dearest eldest sibling,¡± Strause continued, ¡°Back home. Don¡¯t worry; we have ways to patch him back up.¡±
¡°And you came here while hurt to do that? Just like that?¡± I asked him.
¡°I¡¯m the only one that can get around unseen,¡± he said, a tinge of smug getting through. ¡°And besides¡ I can get you past the guards. You could go help Anna do her thingy.¡±
That was a tempting proposal. But more tempting was making sure her brother didn¡¯t die on my watch, so I got to unbuckling. I didn¡¯t know what they had, but knowing the nobility, it could be something like a personal [Healer] of some kind on retainer for when they stubbed their toes. But if they said they could get help there and died because they were morons all on their own, I would be disappointed in both of them.
¡°If you''re just covering for your ego, I¡¯m going to carry you around in a jar after you die so Anna can tell you just how disappointed she is every day.¡±
¡°That is¡ Unnecessarily cruel,¡± Strause told me.
¡°So is letting your ego separate you from your loved ones. You play loose with the least qualified emissary of a god to ever walk this valley, and I¡¯ll keep you around.¡±
I was lying; I didn¡¯t want to do that, it would just hurt those aggrieved, and I bet Strause could feel that, but Clause sure as hell didn¡¯t, and he was the ego in question.
¡°You¡¯re the only one of those I know of,¡± Clause snapped, ¡°Now get me out of this before I die of old age.¡±
I did, Strause helping with his nimble, dainty man fingers, which was a weird thought, but it fit. He looked like he used ointment, which was more than Anna''s, and her hands were soft already.
I dragged my thoughts away from Anna''s soft fingers and towards my own, pulling open buckles before we pulled his helmet and chest plate off of him.
It was a mess of blood and sweat, with points where the plate buckling nocked free the back of the plate and pressed it through the padding under his plate. His chain was broken, and the links pulled apart and flat, sitting atop his belly.
The strike had hit his plate, pressed the links flat against his chest, which broke them, and then caused the plate to fragment through half an inch of finely stitched cloth and into his chest. Removing the plate would have done little to stop the bleeding, at least. I was more surprised his ribs had not been pressed clean into his lungs.
¡°How are you going to heal this?¡± I asked.
¡°Healing potions do wonders, as long as you get the metal out¡ And set the bones.¡± Strause said before standing and quickly going to get the [Guards] moving.
A few of them were standing guard around their young [Lord], while others were on the lookout for threats, while others still were mourning the fallen.
I tried not to think about how little I felt phased by it, unsure if it was the task before me, the part of me that was changed, or some broken part of me.
Even turning my mind from it, I could feel the death waiting nearby. I could feel it in my bones as they began to decay, and it made me twitch. All the life in them muting as their body began to understand they were already dead and fought desperately against the inevitable.
We hefted Clause up, his demeanour breaking for a moment as he cussed viciously, and I called over to Selly, who buzzed up on my shoulder.
We hefted him back down the street while the beleaguered guard collected the bodies and ash and made the last checkpoint for a clear path out of the city.
We had won, and lost, and now it was time to make sure we didn¡¯t loose even more.
Chapter 85
What a time to be alive. Or dead? Or not quite dead? Or not quite alive?
Whichever one of them I was, what a time to be it.
The city was on fire, the balm of hot air and ash being dragged up into the air, driving people from their homes into streets packed with undead and monsters. People fled to the countryside, the guards were holding narrow corridors open, and the city¡¯s noble scion had been wounded.
He had been wounded and cared so little for it that he decided the best use of his possibly limited time left in this world was to complain about how poorly we were helping him along.
¡°You know, for a [Noble], you¡¯re a real whiner,¡± I grumbled.
¡°It¡¯s not my fault the two of you have the coherency of a herd of untethered oxen,¡± he griped, ¡°And you''re sweating like one-two.¡±
¡°You have cold sweats, too,¡± I hissed, panting as we walked, Strause and I taking more than our fair share of his body weight.
Keeping a man as upright as we could was a hard thing to do. It would have been easier to lay him flat on a plank, but he had been willing to take a bit of pain to get there faster, but here we were, him whinging as we walked down the street. Then there was the problem of lifting him because to keep a man straight while upright, you needed to lift the bastard in question. I could lift him. I was taller than him. Strause was not, and there the problem lay.
The shorter man was doing his darndest, the sketchy look on his face never wavering, not even as beads of sweat flowed into his eyes, but his face couldn¡¯t make up for his thinner frame and shorter stature. A giant personality was not a giant where it mattered, for a strong personality, did not a strong shoulder make.
¡°You''re rather hefty,¡± Strause said in a tone that betrayed his effort, ¡°It''s those long days in your office, I think. You need to get out more.¡±
Clause started indignantly, but I quickly followed, ¡°He is deceptively heavy. I imagine even without his remaining armour¡ Certainly doesn¡¯t help that he¡¯s dead weight.¡±
¡°This weight isn¡¯t dead yet. And I assure you, the effort of lifting me is half the armor¡¯s fault,¡± Clause muttered tiredly with a hissing wheeze. ¡°Though the other half is the expected exertion of lifting a man of my stature.¡±
¡°Well endowed, that¡¯s my brother,¡± Strause said cheerfully, his words bringing a smile to my face and a flush to his brother''s.
¡°I- Oh, would you two stop that? I could do without the two of you acting like¡ Like¡¡± He said, grasping for words.
¡°Like [Plebes]?¡± I offered.
¡°Yes,¡± he finished, apparently no more to say on the matter.
¡°Well,¡± I told him contemplatively, ¡°We could always leave you. We could go on our way, let you down one last time, as it were.¡±
¡°Ehh,¡± Strause said, ¡°I don¡¯t know that I could. I think my hand is stuck to his armor. It¡¯s quite warm despite all the lubrication we¡¯ve added.¡±
He said it in line with the joke my suggestion was, but he looked to me and seemed to will me to not keep doing it. I couldn¡¯t tell why he gave me that look, but he did, and when it came to reading the situation, I trusted the guy who could read the room. And the street. And. Well, he could read a lot more than the room was the point, and if he could do that, there was no doubt a reason for it, even if I couldn¡¯t.
¡°You could always carry him,¡± I told Strause, ¡°Raise him up, all on his own. I wouldn¡¯t mind letting my arms rest a moment.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll make sure to tell my sister about your devotion to the cause,¡± he told me, hitting my weak spot.
¡°Would the two of you speak properly and stop talking about me like I¡¯m not here?¡± Clause asked, clearly annoyed.
¡°No!¡± the two of us said, united in our grief of dragging Clause and unwilling to tell him anything.
Clause, as a [Noble] might, spluttered indignantly as if the very idea of no was an affront to his sensibility and honour. He spluttered with dignity, which was something I didn¡¯t think was possible, splutters were not a dignified thing, but he managed to get it across.
And that was how it went. Despite our quibbling, sweating, general displeasure, and pain, we got on our way. Step by step, cobble by cobble, and rasping hot breath by rasping hot breath, we made our way down the street.
It wasn¡¯t even a long street, which was the sad part, but it took us forever. His weight was a massive drag, but the moisture, spurred by Anna¡¯s storm and the fire and heat, made the armour slippery, and Strause couldn¡¯t just heft his brother with his arm. Clause could walk, and he did, but the weight of standing hurt him fiercely. Despite his pain, he kept walking, his feet barely touching the floor or holding any weight, but it made the difference between exertion and pain, so it was worth it. Honestly, if Clause didn¡¯t have his feet on the ground, I didn¡¯t think we could do it, not with Strause.
Hells, if Clause and I were lifting him, I bet we could do it without a problem. You could fit one and a half of him inside his brother and probably still fit some more in, it was obvious one of them had gotten all the veggies, and it wasn''t Strause.
But despite the constant annoyance, and Strauses effeminate arms, we managed.
We reached the previous guard post, which had a few civilians with them; their faces turned to take us in, did a double take, and turned back before letting out a shout, but we did our best to not get held up by them.
Then, with a few of them escorting Clause, we began our way towards the inner gate, dragging Clause''s bleeding body before his house guard, who impassively took a gander at the two of us.
¡°Do I need his woundedness here to let me drag him in, or are we good to enter?¡± I asked the one closest to us.
I could see him slowly raise one eyebrow, taking in the situation at hand before his buddy snapped his fingers, gesturing toward Clause''s chest.
¡°What caused this then?¡± he asked, drawing the eye of my guard, who impassively took a curious gander before letting out a whistle.
¡°That looks like it¡¯ll put hair on your chest, that¡¯s for sure. Can¡¯t tell what it was, but it''s certainly not a normal blunt weapon,¡± he said to his companion.
¡°I can see that,¡± he said, cuffing his companion''s arm before asking Clause, ¡°Can she enter, my lord? Either of us could carry you if you¡¯re so inclined.¡±
¡°She¡¯s¡ fine. Let us in before I bleed out on your boots, gentlemen,¡± Clause told them before sliding into a wet cough.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
¡°Ribs and lungs,¡± the other one said thoughtfully as if his liege lord''s condition was a puzzle.
¡°Very well, my lord,¡± the other said, stepping to the side to let us pass quickly, followed by the second.
We passed them, but behind us, I heard one of them say, ¡°Didn¡¯t he leave with a chest plate?¡± One of them asked.
¡°Yes¡ Oh!¡±
¡°Oh? ¡ OH!¡±
The two of them quieted down as we left, having come to some conclusion that did not matter to us.
Clause''s cough was getting worse, as was the wound, his blood drip, drip, dripping onto the path, speeding as the clothes reached their capacity to hold it and formed droplets across the hem of his cloth.
He was less lippy now, less lippy but fading, and despite the weak link not being me, I still put in extra effort and came to a stupid realization.
¡°Strouse hands off, I¡¯ll take him from here,¡± I told him, reaching around to heft him up by the armpits and activating [Bundle] to carry him.
He stopped dripping blood, and as I hefted, he remained in the same upright position.
I didn¡¯t trust that my skill was somehow saving his life, not for a moment, but it stopped the blood from leaving his body.
I packed that away in case I needed to carry water in a cloth sack or cover up a murder, perhaps.
¡°You¡¯ve been able to do that the entire time?¡± He asked.
¡°Fuck off, now¡¯s not the time,¡± I hissed, my arms already tired.
I stepped, letting [Toil] keep me going now that it was me carrying stuff and not a person.
Half walking, half waddling, I carried Clause faster on my own, sucking in breaths.
Up the path and to the moat, we crossed to the city''s second gate and did a second song and dance routine with a second set of guards. They were on high alert. Guards manned the walls, looking out and up, out and down, and just plain out. They no doubt saw us coming, but those at the gate didn¡¯t comment.
Strause got ahead of me, greasing the wheels to get us in as Clause blearily maintained his consciousness, and we finally got into the courtyard. The moment we did, I carried Clause like a rag doll in front of several of his sworn defenders while Strause fled through into the manor house.
I held him there, unsure of where to go or what to do with a human-sized bruise. A bruise that was also likely bleeding internally and whose lungs were apparently filling with fluid from blunt force trauma.
At least that explained the wet cough.
The guards, who, last I had seen, were playing card games all day, were ready for a gate to one of the hells to tear open. They were not laid about casually but dressed in varying well-fit armours, hands placed where they could draw blades or poles leant against themselves, and the courtyard was more of a rallying yard. Moving to one of the tables that now held a weapon rack stocked with half a dozen different arms, arrows and lengths of the bow, I waddled up to the emptiest rack, shimmied it over, and put down Clause with a sigh of relief.
I sat my ass down on the lawn and lay flat, sucking in breaths, the jostle causing Selly, who had begun to wilt again, to complain against her treatment, but I was too out of breath to complain back.
It was cooler here, the heat blocked by the two sets of walls and the river of a moat that flowed around the bailey. While I breathed, my senses relaxed, my focus spreading from the effort of hefting Clause.
Letting myself relax as much as I could, I took in the sky above.
Or the lack of sky above because the smoke billowed in toward us, and up, blotting out the sky.
I also felt a tingle as I felt out, recognizing a similar flow of mana. It pulled in as the hot air raked across the city before billowing up and in. It felt counterintuitively like a warm summer breeze crossed with a warm winter heart, balmy in both a good and bad way. It felt warm, like being immersed in a warm tub of water, the kind where you come out feeling like you transmuted a pound of dirt, dust and grime for the sensation of clean, but it was also the feeling of holding a metal pot or kettle by the handle, a hot buzz felt through the tips of your fingers in just the right way to feel uncomfortable.
There was also a moist buzz in it that brought to mind the smell of wet earth, though I couldn¡¯t tell if that was right.
The man was being drawn in, drawn across the walls, drawing heat and what I had to assume was air mana. It was being drawn into, or rather drawn toward, the rooftop where it eddied and twirled, buffed away by a small cyclone of power.
The inner twirl slowed as it moved toward the center; some fraction of the mana spat skyward far faster than it would be otherwise, streaking up and out of my range of perceptibility like falling stars in miniature, just going up instead of down.
It took me a moment to realize that whatever was going on was Anna¡¯s doing. Feeling toward the gathering power, there was a complex weave of power that I couldn¡¯t even try to parse.
It was like a complex diagram that circled around a central point on the rooftop, and it did not function as I knew magic to function. The pattern was fueled by Anna, from the feel of it, as was the draw, but much of the spell was slowly filling the cyclone.
¡°Land, how far along is the storm?¡± I asked it, my mind reaching out to my familiar, friendly Genus Loci.
The land let out dribbling noises, an image of clouds condensing overhead. Ash lay heavy with a film of warm water, bleeding heat before whispering into the foggy steam that flowed into itself, drawn into fine strings and fluffing up like wool.
Notably, it did not answer in broken words first. It also didn¡¯t answer my question; it just bombarded me with senses. I repeated my question a few more times before it realized I was asking for words, not images.
¡°The sky is sticky,¡± it answered finally, a tempest worth of fury, distilled and bottled into the few words like the finest bunkroom moonshine, volatile and decidedly gleeful.
Taking a moment, I parsed what I felt from it and found myself slightly confused.
¡°You want it to rain, don¡¯t you?¡± I asked it, ¡°Why? Normally, you wouldn¡¯t care about a fire.¡±
¡°Not my wildfire,¡± it thought at me, images of dry undergrowth burning out to make way for more new growth, breaking its thoughts with the meaningless fire. It explained in the only way it could how it was started, not naturally, but by beings that had attacked a friend and one of her [Druids], how they had caused harm to the land and sickened her.
There was glee in the idea, a feeling like the land was licking her fingers before snuffing this tiny candle in spite of sending a shiver down my spine and making my hair stand on end.
Brush my hair with my fingers, carefully tickling my scalp with my nails and pulling Selly to my front as I regained my breath, my muscles slowing their ache. Belatedly, I realized my hair had gained faster than it should and managed a sigh that I would need to get it cut again.
At least this time, I know a [Barber], and I probably won¡¯t cry like a baby.
With all hope, I would only need to get it cut after we got back from Anna''s southern trip.
¡°Makes sense. Thank you for helping Anna,¡± I told her.
The land gave a feeling I could only imagine as a toothy grin before pulling back. I sucked in a big relaxing breath, ignoring the bustle in favour of watching the aetheric winds of my magical sight, drawn in, buffeted out and in and out and in toward the spell, flecks shooting into the black of the sky along with a swirl of slow wind that suggested how the sky should move.
I guess it helped that the person wielding it was a [Druid]. The amount of mana it called was orders of magnitude more than either I or I could possibly bring to bear, but because Anna was a [Druid], she could offload something like this to the land, and it could handle the heavy lifting.
My focus cast wide noted an outlier, and my focus was pulled to it. The magic bobbed around within the manor, coming closer and closer. It was being carried by a person who stood next to a hollow man.
Intrigued, I flicked my eyes toward Clause and checked on him, checking with my new [Gaze of the Coming Spring], and found blooms of death mana in him. They grew slowly, inching over his body in a slow ebb, his body fighting his wounds, trying to hold the line.
Strause was coming back; good timing. He would either be malformed by the injury or die from it without proper treatment.
I sighed and told Selly, ¡°I¡¯m going to get up now, but I¡¯ll lay you down on a table. So you can relax, ok?¡±
She murmured something about tables being hard, and I reached down and plucked some short grass and clover and stood, laying them down on a table before laying Selly down, her head on red clover, the tiny red flower-like a pillow.
She mumbled but relaxed when she realized she was lying on bedding.
I turned in time to spot Strause and an older man. He was dressed well, but he was no servant. He had a likeness of [Scribe] but one of a higher station.
A visiting lay noble perhaps, or an uncle, though he bore little resemblance to either of the men.
I paid less attention to him than I probably should, however. My eyes were not drawn to him but to what he held in his hands.
He carried, clasped in both hands, a bottle that glowed with magic in both hands. It was mesmerizing because it was not just glowing to my magical senses but to my mundane eyes.
Carefully, I let my curiosity get the better of me. My hand moving through the air, I quietly spoke, "[Inspect]", and my eyes nearly boggled out of my head as I realized why Clause had been so insistent at returning here.
He was going to do as the rich so often did when faced with an issue where a lesser remedy would do. He was going to throw money at it.
Or, more accurately, a Healing Potion, and not a cheap one.
Chapter 86
I was seeing things, clearly. I wasn¡¯t all here right now and had been blanking out all night and I had to be misunderstanding. I had to be because I was seeing what had to be a healing potion being offered to Clause instead of a [Healer] or a balm or whatnot.
His condition was bad, but surely not the healing potion bad.
Surely.
But reality did not care about my disbelief; it did not listen to my thoughts; it listened to the cold, hard rules it functioned on and no other. Reality always has one because Clause was about to do what only the rich could; he was about to buy life, distilled into a bottle.
To understand the disbelief, you had to understand just enough about alchemy to fall into the trap of knowing enough to know you know nothing. My mother had worked for an alchemist, but she had mostly done the most basic of work, the kind that anyone, in theory, could. I had with Anna back when I brewed her a medicinal tea.
Sure, a [Alchemist] could make it better, extract a better effect, but anyone could boil leaves.
You could take mundane or even magical ingredients and make teas, ointments, balms oils and the like, take whatever component inside a thing makes them beneficial and remove it, store it and use it when needed.
They all had a downside: teas were good, but they needed to be prepared fresh, and most magical ingredients didn¡¯t take well to dry like mundane tea. Ointments and balms were topical, apply direct to wound, as was a salve.
But to get better than a hastened recovery? To truly heal? You needed more.
Distilling could be used to form a tincture, a highly concentrated essential oil in a medicinal solvent. It was the basis of a healing potion. A magical healing herb turned from plant to oil to a shot glass. But that would only do so much. What if you magically concentrated the oil? What if you reached the maximum concentration? What if you added more powerful herbs?
It could be made in many ways, sure, but even the cheapest swill healing potion was beyond expensive. An ounce of essential oil could take multiple plants, a concentrated tincture tens of times that. A healing potion? A healing potion was the work of a dedicated high-level [Alchemist], using volumes of raw material in the gold coin range using distilling, skills, and gods knew what.
I had seen something akin to the swill of healing potions, a potion that you should be ashamed of making on purpose, and it was 200 gold pieces.
A healing potion, even a cheap one, was liquid life. And Clause was about to drink one that was very obviously not swill.
The bottle held more than just life mana; it was more likely regeneration. Life and Growth, with what looked like small amounts of Earth, Beast, Plant, and the Arcane, only knew what else. And that was just what the bottle held. It was obviously a crystal glass of some kind, but it seemed to glow under my magical sight almost as much as the liquid within.
It moved along what I could only call lines that seemed etched into the crystal in an effect I could tell was renewal, the crystal itself holding bizarre mana that felt like the earth, but it was to earth as steel was to raw iron ore, a mana that held the potency of the liquid held within, allowing no leakage.
The top was not cork but glass, seemingly flush with the fluted neck to form a perfect seal.
The hunched scholarly man carried it toward Clause and numbly called out to the guards that stood around, but I was too carried away with the gestures of a spell.
The quick motions of [Inspect] coalesced, and I cast it forth toward the bottle, a little speck of light.
Magical mild potency, Healing Potion, Condition: Preserved
Description:
A magical liquid used to heal wounds contains Regeneration, Earthblood, Wild, mana, held in an enchanted crystal bottle. A mild-grade healing potion can forcibly regenerate mild wounds without issue, nurture and mend the body after healing, set bones, clear mundane and lesser poisons, toxins and venoms, and clear the body of many diseases.
Can not set major breakages, regenerate limbs, or clear the body of physical blockage or shrapnel, rot, or decayed tissue.
Regeneration mana is a merger of life and growth mana, granting the aid of both life and growth mana in the growth of a living medium and converting mana into the medium to mend breakages without protuberances.
Earthblood mana is a merger of life and earth mana, taking on the living nature of life mana and the nurturing nature of earth mana, can draw healing power from the earth or bring life to earth to further boost the life that relies on it. Can be used as a source of renewal for soil, and can be used to help mend bone.
Wild mana is a mixture of plant and beast magic, mixing the properties of both to clear a body of toxins via plant mana, give a plant greater motility or enhance tissue. Common in sentient plants or magical beasts.
Enchantment mana is an arcane mana that can help hold magic in a given place or on an object without causing flow issues. Enchantment mana creates magical gemstones where a given mana confluences. Enchantment mana is theorized to make mana act more solid than fluid.
Dear gods above, it was even more substantial than I thought it would be.
The guards noticed the spell, but they didn¡¯t react; lucky me, checking the potion was not enough.
¡°Dearest me, I¡¯m glad you called for me, Strause,¡± the stumped-over man told him, ¡°One moment, my lord,¡± he said quickly, marching over to Clause.
He was going to pour it when I quickly spoke up, ¡°Wait, wait. He has fluid in his lounges that the potion won¡¯t fix. You¡¯re going to need to take care of that, and there might be metal in him from the chest plate,¡± I told him.
There was nothing to do about it. If he was going to burn a fortune in gold on a potion instead of going for healing ointment, he might as well not drown, need more attention, or get an infection from a pit of metal stuck in him.
He turned to me, his features unruffled by my words; he tilted his head, taking me in.
¡°Indeed?¡± he asked, talking more to himself than to me, who he quickly dismissed, ¡°Well, no matter. Come on then, lets [Clean you Up], [Dust you Off], and do [Spit that Out].¡±
He said it with the tone of a man who disliked messes, dust and people putting things in their mouths, but while the skills sounded quite silly from the dignified man with a funny accent, the crazier part was that they worked.
The blood came off, simply wicked away with the gesture of his hand; two crumbly bits of metal seemed to fall off Clouse from the holes in his now clean armour and, in a bit of a gross turn, like a cat spitting up a hairball Clouse spat out a puck of red about the size of a coin purse. It did not look like it should be able to leave his mouth, and the visual was wretched, but Clouse looked relieved, sucking down a breath.
In a hitching voice, Couse said softly, ¡°Thank you, [Steward] Mangal. I feel far better already-¡±
There was a joking tone, though the [Steward], which made far more sense than a random cousin, simply tisked, his mood not softening at all.
He walked up, pulled the glass stopper from the neck so smoothly it made no noise and cut Clouse off by pressing the neck of the bottle in his mouth and tilting his head up like it was a lever.
The glowing liquid clashed through Clouse, who sputtered as the liquid life drained down his throat smoothly.
The bottle was quickly pulled from his mouth, the bottle seeming to empty rapidly. Clouse let out a cough after hastily swallowing it.
Then and only then did the severe man say, ¡°Nonsense, young master Clouse. Flattery will get you nowhere with me.¡±
Strause shuttered next to him, taking his distance from the [Steward] before whispering to me, ¡°We used to call him mangle.¡±
¡°It fits,¡± I whispered back.
¡°And it is rude to talk about others,¡± the [Steward] chided.
Strause and I both blanched, but while we waited for Clause to mend, I asked, ¡°I thought Moarn couldn¡¯t afford walls. How can it afford healing potions?¡±
¡°We save a few golds each year from our personal budget and buy one every so often. Or did you expect us to beggar ourselves?¡±
It took me a moment to realize that I had in part, forgotten the catch when it came to nobility. They were always in it for themselves first.
¡°How very noble of you,¡± I told him.
¡°I¡¯m sorry to disappoint your idea on the nature of our income, but no one alive had anything to do with it, that one is from when our Father was my age if I have it right.¡±
That.
That made more sense, though it only changed the calculus a little. It still meant that they could have budgeted a wall or some earthen works.
¡°Generally, every so often means every few years, not once in a lifetime,¡± I told him.
¡°And it is not a sin to care for your own children more than a wall,¡± he said.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I couldn¡¯t resist the idea; it was touching even, at least from the family angle, taking care of your own and all that. Though you would think they could have looked more at ointment or some tinctures, solving their long term problems seemed to be the Mynes family''s greatest weakness with how often they kicked the can down the road. Hells, getting a wall
It also disappointed me that Anna would probably make ten times the lord Clause would, but Strause, the mind reader he was, said, ¡°She¡¯s too free-spirited, that sister of mine. Free-spirited and left with the strange proclivities left to mages, the kind that would only chafe if she were obligated as a noble is.¡±
He was hiding it, being tongue-in-cheek about it, but he knew. I started to think on it but he continued, ¡°I have nothing against her, mind you. Everyone deserves something they hold dear, and that¡¯s not for us to decide, to each their own,¡± he told me giving me a strange look that didn¡¯t fit his face for a moment, like he was trying to stare through me at something.
He brightened then, obviously fake, his sweat beading in the corners of his eyes, ¡°And besides, could you imagine her sitting at a desk worrying all day? It¡¯s bound to take a decade or two off Clause''s life, and he¡¯s a big strong, not anxious at all man, who does manly things, like getting his ribs clubbed in fighting monsters,¡± he said, turning to face toward Clause before saying, ¡°Isn¡¯t that right brother?¡±
Clause, for his part, looked like he had been hit over the head and, in a daze, asked, ¡°Sure? What are you on about?¡±
¡°See, perfectly fine in the head that one. Now, if you want to go see Anna, its best to ask him now before he passes out,¡± Strause whispered before speaking up, pronouncing, ¡°I was just saying I was going to head out. Damsels to save, you know how it is.¡±
I didn¡¯t know what he meant, but he did look out of it. Apparently, healing was a taxing process.
Strause stalked off, and then, as if I knew what I was doing, I walked up to him.
¡°How are you feeling, Clause?¡± I asked him, much to the disapproving face of the [Steward].
¡°Weird,¡± he mumbled, not quite looking at me.
He had a ten-yard stare that could rival a vegetable, but I gave him a pat on the shoulder and asked, ¡°Can I go find Anna, maybe give her a little help? She should be up on the roof.¡±
Not seeming to comprehend, he nodded his assent, and I turned to meet the [Steward].
¡°It¡¯s good to meet you, [Steward] Mangall. I¡¯m lady Annabeth¡¯s student, Saphine,¡± I told him, introducing myself with a little bow, in my best attempt at getting in his good graces.
I knew I didn¡¯t quite get his name right, I could tell because he corrected me, ¡°Indeed, I am [Steward] Mangal. It is good to meet you miss Saphine. Do you, perchance have any more things to ask of my young lord, or any other tidbits as to how I should treat him?¡±
He had a tone that told me he was not impressed, but not wanting to show vulnerability to him; I pulled out something I had heard my mother say.
¡°He should drink plenty of water for the next few days,¡± I told him, not sure if that would help at all, but sure it wouldn¡¯t do anything bad. It was drinking water; water was good for you, it wasn¡¯t alchemy.
Clause looked half passed out and half manic, and the [Steward] seemed to slide into range to catch him without so much as a brushing his sleeve. I made a lankly-legged getaway. Quickly grabbing my shovel on reflex, I scuttled from the Mangler and toward the front door.
I half expected someone to stop me, for one of the big bad level 70s to stop me, but they didn¡¯t, and I got to skip my way into the front hall, where I stopped, took a deep breath and let the weight of the situation hit me.
The fire, the fighting, the undead, the dead people who were trying to live their lives, the guards, the death, my breath hitching as I thought through it.
The sooner I was done here, the better.
I wanted to let Anna do her thing and then smuggle her off to the grove and cuddle and worry about my own stupid stuff for a while. Life was never that simple, but I wanted nothing more than to shut it out for a few hours so I could breathe.
In a stupor, I walked deeper into the house, doing my best to find my way around tracking dirt on the rug. I walked through the halls like a moron until I bumped into one of the staff who confusingly pointed toward the front hall after composing themselves.
Feeling like a moron, I tracked dirt back over to the front staring at my feet, while I made my way back to the front and the nearby staircase that could bring up and stopped.
I was staring at a bit of rug. It was a nice rug, but on it was a familiar crest. It was different than the one I remembered, though it was similar. The ones that had been on Clause had been too tiny to make out in detail, but here they were larger, so one could admire that the Mynes were rich enough that you could walk on a detailed piece of art that would take forever to clean.
They were large enough to make out the forms.
The old one had many different forms, different Kobolds picking grapes on trellised rows, with a lower section that stood for the mines that had given them their name. But this one only had two different forms. Little mice and a tall, lanky kind, with little points that came from the top of their head.
Mice and Deerfoxes.
It was a stupid thing to focus on, but there it was. A little bit of history, of my history, emblazoned on a crest that had lasted over two thousand years.
Ayme, the little half-mouse, and me, the woman who had led her to her callous father. A piece of history.
A part of me wanted to stop and point and proclaim to someone, ¡®Look, there I am.¡¯ But another bigger part of me saw it, and the floor came out from under it.
I teared up, not in a sob, but in a calm that slowly melted, rubbing into me until an emotional charge that had been building the whole night exploded through me, making my lungs falter and my heart scream. I did my best to breathe as I cried quietly, leaning on the shovel, breath hitching while all I could think to myself was that it was a dumb reason to cry.
Crying over a dinky little Dearfox on a dinky family crest. I rubbed my eyes with my gritty hands, which only made it worse, but breathing made it easier and slowly let me slow down my tears until my stinging eyes stopped.
I must have made a strange sight, but no one was there to awkwardly pretend not to notice.
Eyes not dry, I made my way toward the stairs because rich people loved having multiple floors, and from there, with a few questions to confused and afraid staff, I made my way to an open wall panel that hid a short ladder that led to an open hatch I got up on the roof.
None of the staff mentioned my red eyes. I suppose the little flames were distracting, and for once, I felt grateful for them because someone noticing might make me curl up and die in embarrassment.
Hauling my way up to the roof with my shovel, I took in the sight.
There was a big ass magic circle up on the roof, Anna holding the staff in the center, her body moving, eyes open as she pushed magical power around.
A bead of sweat rolled down her face, the gathering heat on the roof far and above warmer than the courtyard below.
There was someone else, a taller woman, who had none of the timidity of the servants and none of the soft mousiness Anna had. But what she lacked in a mouse, she made up for in other features. She had a look that spoke of a close resemblance to Anna.
A woman on the roof, one who looked like Anna. This one was more straightforward, at least.
This was their Mother, and it was Mother, not mother. They always emphasized it like it was a title. For all the talk, she seemed a normal person, a proper lady for sure, but a normal woman. She was observing, carefully watching Anna move and cast.
Anna noticed me, and despite holding a gargantuan set of spell lines and holding enough power in one place to make me nervous to look at, she spoke.
¡°Hello, Saphine. Good to see you. Great timing. Any chance you have a thousand points of mana floating around?¡±
¡°Good to see you too, Anna. I can¡¯t say I do; I barely have enough mana to cast anything. Your brother decided to fight a magic-casting monster, and I used up quite a bit fighting it.¡±
She looked at me properly then, and a look of calculating worry edged her words as she said, ¡°You¡¯re a mess. Are your eyes puffy?¡±
¡°I got ash in them while protecting your brother. He is quite the handful, you know,¡± I lied before giving the lady nearby a shallow bow.
She didn¡¯t speak back, looking more curious at our chat. There was a familiar look in her eyes as she watched us that reminded me of when Anna chewed over a problem, though the look was not half as pleasant.
Trying to keep my mind off of it, I focused on Anna and only Anna.
¡°Do you need a thousand points of mana to cast it?¡± I asked her.
¡°No. No. It just means I need to finagle it a bit,¡± she said hesitantly, a crooked smile on her face.
I looked at her and asked, ¡°Anna, what does that thousand points of mana do?¡±
¡°It¡¯s part of a lightning charm. I¡¯m cutting down on parts of the spell to speed it up,¡± she told me.
¡°That sounds suspiciously dangerous,¡± I told her, walking over towards her and stopping at the edge of the circle.
¡°You can¡¯t be the only one taking risks. We need a storm, but we don¡¯t need lightning; most of these parts aren¡¯t needed¡ Well, I think.¡±
¡°Anna¡¡± I said hesitantly.
¡°Oh, don¡¯t. You''re willing to get smashed around; I can damn well play a little loose with this spell. It¡¯s hard but not that hard, and I can¡¯t mess up a portion of the spell if I don¡¯t use it. It¡¯s the least I can do.¡± She said, determination in her voice if a tentative determination.
¡°Can I?¡± I asked, gesturing toward the circle.
¡°You may, if you feel like it,¡± she said.
I did feel like it; I entered.
I walked up next to her, staring up at the clouds and whistling.
It was definitely close-ish, probably. Little flecks of light seemed to flicker, and I asked, ¡°Anna, how close are you?¡±
¡°Without the extra stuff?¡± she asked, ¡°Probably a minute or two. I¡¯ll be dead tired, but I¡¯m willing to force it. Why?¡±
¡°Well, it was just¡ You said you removed the lightning charm bit, but there''s lightning gathering up there.¡± I pointed out, something about the situation tickling me the wrong way.
¡°Of course, lightning is natural in a storm. And it¡¯s going to be a big one.¡±
¡°It¡¯s going to be a pain to go on the second outing,¡± I told her, ¡°I was hoping to bring you there.¡±
¡°We could always stay next to a warm fire,¡± she pointed out, ¡°It could be nice.¡±
¡°I hired Gunther to help me cart out a [Loremasters] Library, but if we can¡¯t, that will be a real shit way to lose out on all those rare books.¡±
She choked a little at the idea; it was the perfect lure for a curious [Druid].
Was that my first time telling her? I can¡¯t even remember.
She stuttered, lots of ¡°but,¡± ¡°Wait,¡± and a little, ¡°Huh?¡± but most of all, it was a confused noise.
I smiled a little. If I had told her, then she hadn¡¯t remembered it.
At least we¡¯re on the same page. Maybe she has a skill for keeping goods dry? Skipseo demanded I keep them safe¡
There was another flicker of lightning above; this time, it shot across the sky in a small sheet of lightning, and the crack of it drew my eye up, a frown crossing my face.
That was more lightning than I had expected.
¡°Are you sure the lightning is off?¡± I asked her again.
¡°Yes, Yes. I¡¯m just about ready, then we can get off this roof and away from the scary lightning,¡± she said jokingly.
She started pulling, hefting the staff up the growing power around us, the cyclone of mana, shrank on us, the power sending a prickle of static up my arm.
My fingers twitched.
Something was wrong.
¡°Anna¡¡± I started, only for her to ignore me, her eyes closed, a look of concentration on her face as she moved, wafting strands of mana puffing off of her as she used a skill.
Lightning flashed up above, and once again, my mind turned to the lightning.
I rolled it around in my head, doing my best to puzzle out what about the situation felt so wrong, and it kept coming back to lightning.
After all, the staff was for putting out fires; I had read as much from it; it was the storm caller, not the lightning caller.
Why would a staff meant to call storms have the ability to call lightning? That would be like equipping a bucket brigade with halberds, they already needed both hands.
A storm made lightning, even without Anna powering it.
Lightning not being the purpose of the staff.
Lightning charm for not calling lightning that took up a bunch of mana, enough for a tier two spell. Not enough to call lightning, surely¡ But¡ Enough to ward against non-magical lightning?
I put together a few things as I sat there in dawning horror, staring up at the sky, the lighting beginning to flash. The gathering energy that would let the magic kick off a big ass storm, bigger than the clouds above that were making enough lightning to arc from one to another, but not enough to jump down to us... Yet.
We were about to stick a whole ass storm straight above our heads, more than enough lightning to strike down, down a path of least resistance.
The prickling on my neck redoubled.
The Cyclone closed, and I asked, ¡°Anna, where was that lightning thingy?¡±
She didn¡¯t respond, even as I began to burn my life mana, pumping up my reserves. From dwindled hundreds, it began to bloom as I fed it life mana and seeded my body with death mana.
¡°Anna! Where was that lightning bit?¡±
¡°Not now, I¡¯m about to cast, it''s too late to alter the spell-¡±
The spell closed in, passing over us like a curtain as it began from the staff, expanding up and out.
The sky boomed with lightning.
Anna thrust the staff up in the air, calling out the spell, and my hair stood on end.
I shoved my mana into my spade and thrust it up above her on instinct just after the mana was cast free.
Just in time to catch a bolt of searing hot lightning on the spade. Or most of it.
Chapter 87
I lied. Well, I lied a little bit.
Catching something often implies some kind of control. It could be substituted for block or followed by a parry or something else.
Maybe it was possible to block lightning flat out, but I certainly couldn¡¯t do that. It was more like I caught a snake in a cup¡ªa very angry, very dangerous noodle of fire and light that was all too eager to slip from the scoop and lash out in primitive violence.
The sky screamed, the land and the crack of lightning, both because, on the one hand, it had not been intended, not for Anna, and not for me, but on the other, the world was not so easily changed.
The land itself acted more like it had accidentally kicked a pet like a wince quickly followed by, ¡®Oh no! Are you alright buddy?¡¯ but ten times more anxious, jumpier even. It knew a lightning bolt could kill, and it was worried.
The lightning bolt wasn¡¯t. It was pure elemental nature, set off not in spite but because a storm was compressing directly above us. The lightning did not care, it simply was.
And I had ''Caught'' it.
If I were a stronger Saphine, the lightning could have simply shot down the wood of the shovel and through me, no fuss, no problem. I could have just said a pithy one-liner and walked it off.
If I were a more composed and faster fighter, one with skill and knowledge, I could have perhaps spun the shovel, letting the charge seek ground by discharging it into the stone of the veritable castle I stood on.
If I were a greater mage, I would have realized that mana was just energy, and my skills that reinforced my shovel were like a raging river, and the lightning a boat coming upstream. It fought but found no purchase.
If I were versed in lightning, I could have known that it always took the easiest path, not just a path to the ground.
And if I were perceptive or wise enough, I would be able to know that the way it had happened, was a pending disaster.
As it was, I knew it was a disaster, but not what kind, I was too busy staring at it, the light of the thing burning sun spots into my eyes like I was a moth. Confused and bewildered at why it was sitting there like a coiled snake.
My shovel left me insulated, even if I was unaware of it, the lightning uncontrollable and un-contained. I could not simply shrug it off, nor with the panicked motion of my upward thrust was I thinking about how to ground it, and I didn¡¯t know where it would go.
But if I was wise as I should have been, I would know. Of course, I would. It was obvious, if only in hindsight. The moment I had time to think, it would pop into my head.
I was insulated by my magically charged stick and protected by the distance, by how hard it was to ground on me, but Anna wasn¡¯t.
Anna had just pushed the spell out of the staff and now held it up, right below the shovel, the spell stick was empty. Empty and conductive.
Mana was energy¡ªnonphysical energy, but energy all the same. Energy moved without thought, guided only by the laws of nature.
It coiled on the scoop, writhing as it slammed home, spinning in a ball. It sparked there, sending strings off through the air as it discharged a fraction of its energy, and for all that, it was nearly inconsequential; it was a terrifying sight. The smell of rarified air reached me while it blazed, spitting off the end in bright skittering tendrils and inched around the metal.
I could feel a sensation like static, like when your hair stood on end. Then, in a terrible moment I could not stop, it quested out from the back of the shovel, the energy coating the whole of the blade, back and forth, and the tendril of hot death licked up against the staff. And then it rooted.
I pushed against myself; my instinct screaming in the back of my mind, howling all on its lonesome. Trying to lash out at the world but unable, and me frozen like a deer in the light of a lamp.
I hadn¡¯t been fast enough to stop the bolt from reaching Anna, not even close.
But I could still do something to make up for it.
I had seen the lightning move, and I knew what it would do next. It would tease through her body, seeking to ground through her staff, down her arm and down through her chest.
Lightning was a scary thing. When you got electrocuted, you didn''t really flinch, you just locked up. I could see it in the flinch of her right arm that it was traveling down the left, down through her breast and lung and heart.
It would stop it as it passed, and she would die.
Or it would. But it wasn¡¯t there yet. It was still questing, and where there was opportunity, there was opportunity to change what would be.
I pushed myself, my mind screaming, my instinct screaming, me screaming, Anna screaming, Anna''s mother, who was watching us, let out a shout, and I moved.
I crouched, bringing my shoulder in line with Anna''s armpit, and shoved her. I crashed into her as fast as I could, my whole body weight, jostling her with the check as I caught her under the arm and lifted her bodily into the air. Off the roof, away from the material the charge desperately wished for.
The lightning quested, teasing, and then reached her armpit before sneaking its way down and into my shoulder.
I found a better path to ground through, it needed to take a detour. From my shoulder the questing charge found my heart instead.
Much of my body was spontaneously dying or dead from the charging of my reserve I had done in panic; the tissue unreceptive to lightning shepherded it to a far more receptive juncture where my burning veins and tingling nerves connected together.
And burn it did, the serpent grounding through my shovel, through the staff, through Annas arm, through me and into the stone beneath me, and all the while it burned.
It was, as far as pain went, probably the single worst unique kind of pain I had felt, even if the impending death was less so.
It tore its way in a burning line down through me and left me burnt, charred and hollow.
And strangely, at first, I didn¡¯t even notice it.
The lightning grounded with terrible fury and light and shouting from the living, the land and the sky and then, silent.
Well, Silent but for the shouting.
I was stung terribly. Anna fell through the air and, dazed, landed with a cry. Anna''s mother was shouting almost immediately, though, to who I couldn¡¯t tell.
I tried to ask something, but I couldn¡¯t quite tell what, considering my tongue seemed to move on its own, my voice coming out like an unintelligible groaning bark. My instinct, perhaps, was tired of being chained in the back of my empty head.
And then my head felt all the more empty as I began to stumble backwards, tipping ass over ear as my body gave way, numb beneath me.
Numb was good, as far as deaths go. It wasn¡¯t as good as in your sleep, but also way better than iron spikes. The pain of the strike was on the level, like burning to death might be inside one''s own body, but it was only for a moment as it killed my nerves.
I could see Anna thrashing, holding her arm, her mother trying to presumably either strangle her or hold her steady so she didn¡¯t bite off her own tongue. I could feel and hear my inhuman noises of fear, but they felt blissfully distant.
In a horrible way, in that way that staring into one''s death can bring a bright, cheerful upside, I was somewhat relieved that Anna was shouting and in pain.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Her being in pain meant that she was clearly less hurt than I was, and the struggle showed she had plenty of life left in her.
Silver linings.
I felt my body fading to the sound and light of a dozen bolts of lightning sounding off, pounding down on gods only knew what, though with the glee the land had, it had to be monsters.
I regained enough control over my mouth that when Anna looked my way, catching a glimpse I was able to mutter, ¡°Sorry,¡± a few times to make sure that it got through in the short period between Anna spotting me and her mother placing a hand between us to hid my death from her eyes.
It was probably not the right thing to say, but I was sorry for body-checking her.
I was not sorry for taking the blow, however, and I had a feeling that would be more important because I had broken my promise right in front of her. I had gotten myself killed intentionally.
But no matter how intentionally I had done it, I would have done it again in a heartbeat. I would do it ten thousand times, and I would break ten thousand promises to make sure she lived. I felt no early trepidation nor shame for breaking it, only guilt that she had to see it.
I watched as Anna was helped up and away. I watched until I faded into the depths, the eternal sleep.
I woke a short time later from my eternal sleep because nothing was sacred, not even death, and found rather quickly I was being carried by some of the house staff, who were in for quite a shock that the corpse they were carrying off the roof and down through the twisting corridors was, in fact, a living breathing thing again.
They did, in fact, scream, shout, and panic. One of them wet himself a little while I was dropped, the staff cowering as if I was a grim creature that had come for their souls.
And you know what? I couldn¡¯t exactly fail them on that, considering the state of things tonight, it would be just like Life to cast an ensouled undead onto their shoulders.
I sat up and noticed first my lack of a shovel. It was a dumb thing to notice first, but I did. It had been my constant the whole night.
¡°What happened to my shovel?¡± I muttered, blinking as if to clear the non-existent crust from my eye. The people freaking out did not respond in a meaningful way, so I hopped up and raised my voice, hoping to cut through the din.
¡°Cease your screaming. Gods above, you¡¯re bound to wake the dead,¡± I told them, my ears lowering to keep the noise out as best as I could.
My words got them to shut their mouths; some part of themselves recognized that I wasn¡¯t an undead as I spoke, though they were still cowering like I was a living nightmare. If I had to guess, it was a mix of nerves, the fear of mortality, and vulnerability, and at least part of that was lifted just by me acting like I was normal and hadn''t just been resurrected.
I looked between the frightened people and tried to figure out a way to get them to stop their cowering. With my immaculate people skills and unrivalled Charisma, I turned to the least afraid-looking woman who was shuddering like a leaf in the wind and decided to ask her.
¡°Hello, Miss,¡± I started, ¡°My name is Saphine. While I¡¯m sorry for the fright, I need to get back to Anna-ebeth,¡± I told her, catching myself at the last moment.
She was Anna to me, but here in the heart of her family estate, she was a noblewoman, acting that close might just be taken as an insult.
¡°I, um, yes,¡± she started, only to catch herself, ¡°um, no actually.¡±
I blinked at her, my head tilting slightly as if I didn¡¯t quite hear her, but I realized that if I were in her shoes, I wouldn¡¯t tell someone where Anna was either. I was a random person. No known connection.
¡°I¡¯m apprenticed to her,¡± I explained, ¡°I need to make sure she¡¯s ok.¡±
She nodded, and I sighed in relief until she said, ¡°And I¡¯m sure she is being tended to, but I can¡¯t very well tell you.¡±
I stared at her, opened my mouth, closed it, opened it, and instead of talking to her, realized that I didn¡¯t have to.
If she wouldn¡¯t tell me where Anna was, I could simply find her. Familiar with her scent, I sniffed, caught what I thought was Anna, and simply started walking.
She called out to me, but I didn¡¯t particularly care. I zipped down the hall and away.
I was a bit shaken, but I knew she was hurt, and both me and my instinct, the we that was me, needed to see her. The whole of me, needed to check on her. I also needed to hold her, and make sure she was ok and make sure she wouldn''t roll out of her bed into some kind of vertical head stand. She needed to be held, and comforted, and cared for and I was going to be there for it, even if the staff wasn''t going to help.
I stumbled into other servants, but they, too, refused. Some servants, not shocked by my eyes and focused far more on my desire to reach Anna, tried to stop me, and I had to get a little faster, skirting past them. I started avoiding staff and got turned around in the far to large house as I avoided them.
I didn¡¯t know how long I was out for, but it had been a short enough. Less than an hour, but definitely not a few moments. By the time I made it to Annas door, however, there were a few staff who as best as I could tell, were guarding the place.
My own actions probably did not help, though based on just how intrusive the staff had been at keeping me away, it was entirely probable someone above them was trying to stop me. Perhaps Mangal, or her mother.
Unfortunately, they couldn''t stop me, because I had a disregard for my own wellbeing that encouraged I ignore them.
The staff by her door were not guards. I was willing to bet they lacked strength skills and were probably not strong enough to stop me with stats alone. Most of them seemed to be more dexterous than anything else. I thought about it for a moment and realized that I only knew that because of Anna. It was a new idea for me, but I was more than willing to bet on Anna being right.
Taking that into account, I didn¡¯t even fight them; I just pushed through. I hurled myself to the door; surprised, some got out of the way; a six-foot woman with flaming eyes hurtling toward you could do that, but not all of them. Those remaining clung to me, shouting me down, trying to keep me out, but I pushed in, grasping the latch, and the door jittered. It was a fancy metal latch for a fancy house. I turned it, just like the one at the merchants guild and pushed the damn thing open.
It swung in, and I was met with the palatial room Anna had thrown away.
I was slightly agog at it, not just the size but also at the furnishing. The bed alone had a storybook quality to it, a four-poster bed coming up unto a kind of top bit with what looked like a curtain that could be pulled around. It had a kind of soft look you just couldn¡¯t get from a normal bed, the kind that was accomplished with feathers or Tuffle fluff for something.
Turning to face me on said bed, Anna, who was clearly still in pain, and her Mother, whose name still eluded me, was doing her best to keep her situated in place. I spotted her arm, wrapped in some kind of poultice, but only for a moment.
I looked at the situation and couldn¡¯t help but be somewhat angry.
They had wasted a fortune on healing Clause when he got hurt, but Anna saved the city and got some herbs? I couldn¡¯t stop a scowl, which only got worse when the lady with no name scowled through her shock and pointed at me before speaking with a voice like a cannon ¡°[Begone from my Sight],¡± and the door slammed in my face.
The skill''s effects were instantaneous and as unyielding as a mountain. The door that I had pushed opened shut before I could even say a word. I tried, in vain, to open it for about five minutes, jiggling the latch, thumping the door about, raging against the immutable wall that the door had become but it was, indeed, an immutable skill. The staff, upon realizing that I could do nothing, dispersed. I was no longer a threat, a scary intruder, or whatever I had been; I was just a madwoman shaking the door handle like it would magically open, just some girl making a fuss.
I didn¡¯t stop, of course; I politely pounded, called out and generally made myself a nuisance. I made myself such a nuisance that the [Steward] Mangal, the Mangler himself, the Man with a Gall for a heart, who had gotten an extra cover, a mantle of fur on his shoulders came to stare tersely at me personally. He, in a way that told me he cared very little for my actions, told me to kindly fuck off and leave the door be before he threw me from the grounds, by force if need be.
I was, on a good day, a fairly reasonable person. I should have accepted this. This was not a good day; it was not even a good time or place; it had been at one point, but it sure as hell wasn¡¯t one now. For all I felt in good health, I was irritable, alarmed, and tense, and my instinct was shouting at me to get in there to take care of her.
I barely even listened. He had found a way to make me actually livid.
Each word he spoke made my instinct want to bear my teeth and do things members of polite society did not do to other members of polite society. It cried to reject law, and return to the rules of nature, to take a big stick and knock him over the head like an ancient ancestor might have. Anna was hurt. I should have been there, but no matter what I said, he would not let me.
Under threat of being escorted off the grounds, and my lack of care, Mangal took a different approach. I was told that I could see Anna tomorrow and that he would even grant me a place to rest in the servants'' quarters. Keeping my mouth shut, I followed.
He led me down to a room, I sat myself down, and he left.
I stayed there for another quarter hour before I came back, and this time, one of the guards got there first, dragging me away before confining me to the room.
This is where a normal person, or I suppose just a normal human, someone who did not feel the inexorable pull of a bond, would cut their losses, shut up, and rest. Perhaps, they would have some form of emotional fit that left them tired and cold. I was not tired, I did not need sleep, but I needed to check on Anna.
I was not a normal person. I was built differently. I was built inhumanly.
I snuck out through a tiny window I should not have fit through, its shutter slapping down behind me. Outside I slipped around from the servant quarters and over to the main house wall from the outbuilding and got to climbing. The house wall was old and weathered, its cracks and blemishes giving great places to hold onto, my nails carefully helping to grip. I climbed my way up in the rain and then across the roof before making my way down.
I had assumed I would be spotted, but no one called out, and there were no, ¡®Hey, get down from there¡¯s. I scuttled down the wall, and when I reached the right place, I made my way over to a window.
Blissfully, it was unlocked and open to let in some fresh air, and I pulled myself in.
Anna was not alone, which was a bit awkward; I had taken some time to slip back in, so I had imagined she might be.
Her mother was still there; the wrappings were being adjusted, partially still on and she was laying on a bed in some light underwear, with one sleeve cut, what looked like a [Nursemaid] tending to her arm. The unblemished staff lay discarded to the side.
It was not small clothes or undergarments, just light, thin clothes that helped wick sweat and protect the proper clothes on top, but it was a state of undress, nonetheless, even if it was basically just bed clothes.
We all looked at one another before the pointing, and the shouting began.
Chapter 88
It turns out that slipping into a mildly lit room in the middle of a storm, soaked in water after an attack on the city, shone the limelight on my actions. And like in any theatre, the limelight emphasized things you wouldn''t think they would.
Like how perhaps I was not a monster or an undead, or some ghoul that wanted to maul the living. That led to quite a freight indeed, at least for the poor [Maid].
I had barely slipped into the room before people started shouting in a cacophonous assortment of three voices. I dropped on the lustrously oiled floor and stepped over to a faded rug so my dripping didn¡¯t ruin the finish, but even that set everyone more off.
I suppose invading someone''s room was uncouth in noble society, considering how frightened they were, but I didn''t care much at the moment.
The [Maid], who had never seen me before and was in the middle of tending to Anna''s arm, was very much not ready for me to fling myself into the room, soaking wet, dirty, coated with blood, which ran like it was fresh, with my eyes glowing like I was a monster out of her childhood nightmares.
She, to put it kindly, freaked the fuck out, letting out a cry and moving back from Anna, her hands pulling into her chest like she was going to clutch a holy symbol and recite a hymn.
That stung a bit and brought a toothy wince from me as my ears moved, which apparently made it worse.
Anna and her Mother also shouted, though Anna regained composure, her shout short in the way that would be followed by a ¡®you startled me.¡¯ Her Mother sounded more like she was trying to alert others, her voice less shrill and more shouting, an effeminate, maidenly bellow.
Note to self: when invading a noble woman¡¯s room at night, avoid flashing one''s teeth at the [Maids] when you look like the living dead.
Second note to self: Learn to dodge because she wasn¡¯t going for a holy symbol; she was going for a dagger, and getting hit by the handle and groaning did not help either.
Letting out a hiss of pain, I snapped out an ¡°Ow, watch where you''re throwing stuff.¡±
¡°Dear Gods, it talks,¡± she cried.
¡°She does seem to have a habit of that, and interrupting,¡± Anna¡¯s Mother said before muttering more to herself, ¡°It¡¯s always the window it fails on,¡± and letting out a tisk of disapproval.
Anna, who¡¯s fist was clutching at her own heart with her un-bandaged arm, proclaimed, ¡°By the trees,¡± followed by a, ¡°Nearly stopped my heart,¡± followed by a, ¡°You¡¯re going to be the death of me,¡± with little sips of breath between each.
¡°Everyone needs some spice in their life, I suppose,¡± Anna¡¯s Mother, who I did not know the name of but probably should, said calmly. ¡°Though your spice could use some work. Home invasion, rudeness, and wet dog smell are somewhat bitter flavors.¡±
Flavour? Spice? Rudeness? What on earth is she talking about?
Not wanting to fumble myself like a limp noodle and also not wanting to look like the spineless buffoon I was, I decided to take a jab back. It wasn¡¯t a great idea to piss off Annas'' Mother, not if I intended to stay around Anna, but I was confused, stressed from the night, and I was worried about and guilty for what had happened to Anna. I was short of the ability to care about her wordplay or chiding. She was not my mom.
¡°While I do have a history of entering homes through windows and smell like a wet fox, those come with bonuses. I¡¯m a bit short on some niceties, but I always have the decency to be straightforward and introduce myself for one. Hello, my name is Saphine. I also saved each of your children¡¯s lives once tonight, that¡¯s a good second. For a third, I make sure the people around me are ok,¡± I told her, gesturing to Anna.
Anna flushed, but I ignored that. Her mother and I were fighting at the moment, and as she would point out, it would be rude to ignore her. Rude, and stupid.
¡°Oh? You¡¯re her apprentice? I knew you were a stray, but I didn¡¯t expect how accurate that would be. My name is Arabelle Bethania Von Mynes. Though since you seem to have an issue pronouncing big words and enjoy spending time with My daughter so greatly, you feel entitled to her personal quarters, disregarding her state of Dress,¡± she said, emphasizing My and Dress with a gesture to Anna, and a raising of a thin bedsheet to cover her fully if lightly clothed body. ¡°You may call me [Lady] Arabelle.¡±
Anna, her face taking on a deeper flush, mumbled, ¡°Mother,¡± but so quietly it was hard to hear.
I looked at her momentarily, my mind whirling through her words.
Did she know? Did she know about me and Anna? What did she mean about closeness? Was the comment about her state of dress about her wearing a dress, about being clothed, a jab at me for breaking in, or a comment about our ¡®closeness.¡¯ It was hard to tell. The woman, the [Lady], was saying more than she was saying, layering her words. Undoubtedly, she had far more charisma than I thought I could handle at the moment. I could feel it.
I had started an argument with her and entered it like every other fight I had gotten into: Half baked, zero information on what I was fighting, unarmed or armoured and short of enough skill or skills to make an impact.
Think Saphine, think. Is she letting me know she knows, or is this something else? Is she trying to get me to slip up and tell her something?
I could see why the siblings called her Mother, and not mom. She was intense as if she were sitting on a throne instead of next to Anna¡¯s bed in a chair. I could imagine it leaving an impression on most people, but I was not like most people. Instead of feeling less than, I just felt pissed off. It didn¡¯t help that Ann- Arabelle reminded me of Anna the longer I stood near her. Discounting her green eyes and brown hair, she had some of Anna in the rest of her. They shared shapes, eyes, and cheeks, and some more than that: the shape of her head, the hair, and the way they held themselves.
She also talked like Anna, or I suppose Anna talked like her, at least when she was annoyed. She was paying close attention, and I could tell that because her eyes were slightly narrow. I could see her, literally see, with my own two eyes as she thought because she thought like Anna, too. But unlike Anna, whose soft features made it feel like she was paying attention to you, like you were the only one in the room, her eyes had none of the softness. Instead, in the place of that soft mouse lay a cat who watched you, scrutinizing and dissecting you like you were the mouse. She must have married in, it wouldn¡¯t surprise me. She looked like she was the type that would catch a man, not the other way around. Taking time to think and feeling the rain spitting through the window, I made to shut the shutters, leaning over to the window. I caught sight of Clause face down in the courtyard. I checked quickly, but Selly was gone from her nap location, even though it was hard to see, the beding was empty.
Perhaps she was picking a fight with the Mynes family¡¯s [guards], given it was cooling down quite quickly. I bet she would be all energized. Thank gods for Clause. He could deal with her. And he could be a scape goat to stay out of saying whatever she was trying to get me to say.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
¡°Speaking of taking care of people, your eldest is passed out, face down in the courtyard right now. Must have been the healing potion. I suppose regenerating blood, fixing his organs and setting a ribcage can take a lot out of a guy,¡± I said to no one in particular.
It was a bit crass and absolutely a low blow, but she pissed me off.
Anna muttered, ¡°Saphine.¡±
Her mind whirred behind her eyes. Her face gave away nothing, totally blissful as if I had told her a quaint little story.
¡°Oh? I thought you somehow saved him just earlier. Was it your potion?¡± she asked, waving at the fearful [Maid], who quickly walked to the door like she was escaping.
¡°No, but he would have been a dead man if I didn¡¯t step in and drag him back. Did you know he got it in his head to go fight and managed to be hit so hard it shattered his breastplate? Kind of crazy.¡± I asked her.
¡°Oh? I suppose you think I should thank you for aiding your fellow man? How noble of you.¡± She said, a tone of mocking in her voice.
¡°Well, I can¡¯t take all the credit, Anna suggested I follow after him. It¡¯s her who deserves that praise. She¡¯s the hero of the day. Though I suppose saving your fellow man must be rather literal, with Anna being so low in priority despite saving thousands. The man gets a healing potion, and she gets a salve for her arm,¡± I told her acidly.
She glared then; it was a minor thing, but there was nothing else it could be.
She opened her mouth, presumably to give me the verbal equivalent of a blow to my head, but the other stationary member of the room spoke up.
Anna, face red, shouted, ¡°Will the both of you shut up?¡±
We, and I do me we, both turned to her as if we had been slapped and the [Maid], moving faster than humanly possible, excused herself. I hadn¡¯t noticed Anna¡¯s red face because I had figured she was embarrassed.
I had been wrong. Anna was not embarrassed about me doing my best to argue myself into a hole with her mother or being argued over; she was angry at it.
Genuinely angry, and not from being annoyed at the situation either. I had seen her in pain and discomort before, and she had been a bit more snappy, up from non-existent and patient beyond belief to pre mourning Selly. This was not a pained Anna, nor an uncomfortable or inconvenienced Anna, or even all of those combined. This was just flat-out angry Anna. And she was angry, at us. At me and her mother.
Her genuine anger stunned me. It genuinely stunned me. I had stepped somewhere I hadn''t stepped before, and just realized I shouldn''t have because the ice had cracked underfoot.
Anna had raised her voice, and so, I stopped, as did her mother.
She started with her, which made everything worse because I knew my turn was coming.
¡°Mother, you have no right to punch down and pick fights with her. She is my apprentice. MINE! And so help me if you say one more demeaning thing about her the next time one of you is in trouble, I will not help. I would sooner put this whole fucking valley out of its collective misery, which considering everything is this family''s fault, would be a fucking favor,¡± she told her.
Then she turned to me, and I felt a pit open in my stomach as I fell into the frozen lake.
¡°Now, as for you¡ Where do I even begin? Don¡¯t use me against my family? Don¡¯t use me as an excuse to see me? We¡¯re in someone else''s home, and you decided to break into a room because I existed there? Are you out of your fucking mind? What happened to the you that asked for a boon of hospitality? Because I know she didn¡¯t disappear! So where is she right now?¡± she asked.
¡°I- I-¡± I tried to start, only for her to cut me off.
¡°Don¡¯t! Just don¡¯t. That¡¯s that out of the way, so next up, you¡¯ve picked a fight against my mother and broken into my room, both are colossally stupid, but you did it to check on me. You immediately assumed that it was her, but did it even cross your mind for a moment¡ For one second. That she was acting on my wishes? That I may have asked her to keep you out?¡± She asked, bewildered.
I blinked.
¡°It¡¡± It hadn¡¯t. It hadn¡¯t occurred to me, but she hadn¡¯t told me if she had asked it. I felt, for a terrible moment, that if I asked it, it would lead me down a far, far worse road. I didn¡¯t want to push that way.
¡°Did you? Did you ask her to¡¡± I said, despite my terrible feelings on the question.
¡°I did. And you pushed on through anyway. And before you say anything, remember that we are not in private.¡± She told me, turning to glare, eyes so bright with fury that I half expected her to fire beams from them.
¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that, Annabeth. I¡¯m your mo-¡± Arabelle tried only for Anna to practically hiss at her.
¡°Don¡¯t give me that. You have things you wouldn¡¯t tell anyone, as does everyone. This is not private, not with you. I haven¡¯t forgotten what you did, and I haven''t forgotten what you''re like. I have not forgiven you,¡± she spat, every word a picked scab, a weeping wound.
There were no tears, not from Anna, though I was losing it on my front. If a person''s mind was a room where you watched the world from a window, I had a hyperactive fox freaking out, tearing up furniture and pissing in the corner. It did so because Anna was showing dominance and displeasure, and it was built to hunt prey and die of smallpox, not to take an emotionally charged complex social conversation. It knew that its mate was hurt, and the mate was angry at it and wanted nothing to do with it, and it couldn¡¯t understand why. To it, breaking into a den to save your injured mate was the kind of thing that lets you keep the mate, not something that got the mate angry at you. The social stuff beyond the four f¡¯s was all me, and I was failing at it just as much as it was, just with less animal screaming.
Splitting my focus to try and get it to shut up while paying attention to Anna was hard enough. Adding in talking was harder still. Harder still was Anna turning back towards me with a look that spoke of betrayal.
¡°I understand that you think your helping me. I do. But if you think I¡¯m so incapable, that I can¡¯t even take care of myself, I would prefer you just tell me honestly,¡± she said. "Don''t look down on me like this."
I stopped, staring at her, blinking in confusion.
What the fuck is she talking about?
¡°Anna, I can promi-¡± I tried to tell her.
¡°Don¡¯t! Don¡¯t promise me things. Less than an hour ago you got yourself killed. We both know what a promise is worth right now,¡± she said.
That.
That made my face flush in embarrassment, confusion, and not a small amount of lividity.
Despite understanding where she came from, this one-sided conversating was starting to fray my nerves, and her stating things during it really pissed me off. Deep, deep down, it made me a little angry. Anna had proclaimed me an oath breaker without me even being able to push back. I had promised not to get myself hurt and to scare Anna, but as far as I cared, Anna needed to be alive for that to mean a single goddamned thing, and oaths had just as much to do with intent as they did the word of them.
I wanted to open my big fat mouth and say something. I really, really did. But I also recognized that a part of me wanted to spit something self-destructive, something to gain immediate vindication. That part of me wanted nothing more than to say something stupid, something that was just vitriol, something that would hurt her and myself.
It was a meaningless thing.
I licked my mental fingers and snuffed it.
I bit my tongue. I spoke, but not out of pointless anger, and took a little responsibility.
This could be very bad, I could keep pushing, and yelling, and she could yell back, or it could only feel bad, and be short enough to not be a disaster, and I would rather it hurt like hell, but be clean instead of making it worse. Both of us could do it, but Anna hadn''t, so I would.
¡°You know, Anna, some of what you¡¯ve said is true. I can¡¯t say that breaking into your room was the best move, but I can¡¯t say I wouldn¡¯t do it again. So, right back at you. If you want me to not make sure you¡¯re ok, tell me. Because I¡¯m not going to leave you be if you don¡¯t tell me to, not when the opposite could be disastrous. As for not geting myslef killed? Well, if letting you get yourself killed is the price, I would break that promise in a moment. If you want me to do that, you can go pound sand, Annabeth Mynes.¡±
I turned towards the door and walking away.
¡°Saphine-¡± Anna started, only for me to make a gesture.
¡°No. You wanted space, I¡¯ll respect your wishes. Neither of us are thinking straight, so I''ll the bigger person. You can have your space. I¡¯ll fuck off and pretend your alright, and you can pretend that whatever you think I¡¯m thinking is what I¡¯m thinking. Good night, Annabeth,¡± and I left without saying another word.
I left, heading to my room before asking the guard outside my door to please leave.
It took four seconds after I got into the room for the all-encompassing need to scream to overcome me. I screamed and shouted and let it all out before hurling myself onto the bed and closing my eyes.
I didn¡¯t feel the need to sleep, but I let myself fall into unconsciousness anyway because I couldn¡¯t take any more of today.
Then I woke up, my back to the black pool and sighed, gritting my teeth as I held back a scream because I couldn¡¯t escape it, not even in my dreams.
Interlude: [Guidance] 4
I woke up to the swirling aurora above me, its ebbing lights flowing above me like a sea of starlight. Its beauty, its undeniable majesty, removed none of the terribleness of the evening''s events.
¡°Hello there,¡± Sophy called out cheerfully, ¡°How are you this dark and stormy night? Ready to finally get rid of all this strain on the soul?¡± she asked, presumably gesturing up at the light.
¡°The night is terrible, and I just want to curl up and stop existing. I would say die, but that¡¯s a meaningless idea at this point,¡± I moaned.
She snorted, but I couldn¡¯t even bring myself to get annoyed.
I had fucked it up. We had been going well; we had had a conversation. I had aired my heart and fears, and she had accepted them and comforted me. And then, a scant few hours later, we walked back, and it all exploded. It felt like I had been pulled away from her.
¡°Saphine, don¡¯t be such a whiner,¡± she called out to me.
¡°I¡¯m not. It''s over, and honestly, I would prefer dying to the lightning than this,¡± I whined.
¡°The only thing over is your honeymoon period, you moron. It was an argument and, honestly, a rather soft one by literally any metric. That¡¯s normal. The only thing it means is that you don¡¯t parrot one another. Congratulations, you are individuals with different views!¡± she complained, ¡°The only things that even crossed any line were a few of the low blows. Hell, she even told her mother to fuck off because she was yours. You hear that fur brain? She was literally claiming you as her¡¯s!¡±
I let my head flop to the side, turning towards her voice.
If it was still there, the bump was so small as to be unnoticeable. Instead, she stood tall and built. She had a kind of androgynous but mature form. Before, she had been shorter, somewhat human-sized, though on the shorter side. Now, she would come up to my height.
I wondered if that was intentional. If she had wanted to look at me, eye to eye?
Speaking of eyes, her squiggles were denser, the shapes taking on a measure of definition compared to her featureless form. Braided strands of squiggles acted like lines to break up the chaos, like ink on a sketch. If before she was noodles, now she was a block of noodles, so dense that there were no holes in her surface.
She was turning into a real girl.
It was weird, especially when the characteristics were so different, like her fingers or how she had no anatomy or clothes like a doll.
Because of that, I could actually make out a kind of scowl on her face.
A part of me wanted to ask her why she was trying to pep me up. Why she seemed to care? She had already explained she didn¡¯t really get it and didn¡¯t particularly care about the details of living as a being of flesh, with our emotions and meatiness.
¡°The low blows?¡± I asked her.
¡°She called you out for most of them, using her against her mother was a low blow, and also rude, but also the last line¡ Though I admit, it was a good last line. I can¡¯t tell if you¡¯re the worst possible pairing or made for one another¡ Ridiculous, you know that? Utterly ridiculous,¡± she continued complaining.
¡°Uh¡ Sorry?¡± I tried.
¡°Oh, shut it, you,¡± she huffed before sighing. ¡°Honestly. Get up. Stop wallowing in your pointless, baseless misery. Find your backbone. Gods, you have one little argument, and the whole world is ending with you.¡±
¡°I¡¯ve never had much of a backbone,¡± I agreed.
¡°That¡¯s not- ¡± she started before rubbing her head. ¡°I don¡¯t even have a brain, and you''re giving me a headache with this defeatist drivel. Get up, you disgraceful loser baby; we need to give you your levels before you wear down your soul. You have nine class levels, three skills and a choice to make.¡±
That was more than I had last time, but then again, I had been close to getting one in each of my main classes. On top of saving Anna, presumably saving my mentor was worth at least one level.
I looked at her and just wanted it to be over, though her words made me want to wince and gave me a fleeting seed of hope.
Maybe I wasn¡¯t hopeless.
More than that, I knew she would keep pestering me and would necessarily stop me from the blissful, nonexistent sleep provided to me.
I sighed, defeated, and asked, ¡°Choice first.¡±
She nodded, her gaze intent on me as she asked, ¡°If you could jump past [Journeyman Death Mage], the equivalent of a journeyman, to [Practicing Death Magus], would you?¡±
It was a weird question. A weird and specific question.
¡°Sophy, can I do that?¡± I asked her, ¡°Because when you get weird and specific, it generally means you''re trying to lead me on.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t try and- No. I¡¯m not leading you on¡¡± she told me before continuing quietly, ¡°I just need your opinion on if you want to do it, even if it¡¯s a bad idea.¡±
I looked at her, and then the thought of it bloomed into my head.
If [Death Mage] was a weaker class, and I could skip it, jump right ahead to [Death Magus]¡ It was the kind of power boost that would help me fight.
I had been closer to the monster''s level of power this time, mostly because of my skills and less in stats, but I had been closer. If I could jump ahead in power something like fifteen levels at level 20?
¡°Good gods, I could fight that thing with power like that. Skills two ranks higher? Is that right? Does it skip ranks?¡± I asked her, my metaphorical mouth metaphorically salivating at the potential for that kind of power.
What could I even do with that? Could I have blocked the lightning bolt? Could I have saved more people? Would it be right to even turn down something that could lead to so much good?
¡°This.¡± She said, pointing at me, ¡°Is exactly the problem with offering this. Do you understand the differences between General and Specific skills? There''s a similar difference between complex and basic advancement.¡±
¡°General is weak but broad, specific is more powerful but narrow?¡± I asked her.
¡°Yes, good. You have a framework for it. You need to understand that a specific skill can be about as powerful as the next tier¡¯s general skills.¡±
¡°Why would that even matter?¡± I asked her, ¡°I could get¡ Fine? Fine skills. By the tide, that would be insane. Unusual skills with a power level of fine skill? I could annihilate that fucking thing with skills like that. I could¡ I could¡¡± I said, my mind spinning.
¡°You could permanently weaken your growth and end up 15 levels ahead but ten times weaker at that level,¡± Sophy explained.
I turned at the word ¡®weaker¡¯ and focused, my awe falling away as I stared at her. Her words made no sense. Fifteen effective levels were 15 effective levels in my book.
¡°Explain; I think that would be a good idea. Because if it''s not that bad, I¡¯m going to take it, hands down.¡± I told her seriously.
She sighed, muttering, ¡°It¡¯s always like this, isn¡¯t it?¡± before speaking up. ¡°A basic advancement is a nice, stable form of growth; it forcibly ties a class to another class via a skill, like splicing a rope. When you¡ There''s got to be a better word for it¡ Let''s see¡¡± she said before muttering, ¡°Western? ¡ Yes, that would work.¡± I watched her carefully as she explained, ¡°When you gain too many levels, you experience a strain,¡± she said, gesturing at me, ¡°You know that well enough; you¡¯ve experienced it half a dozen times at this point. That is the anima being soft and unsupported; your skills are¡ Shaken. In the West, that is called having a shaky foundation, like for a house. Skills of a given level of power strain your soul, both when you first acquire them and when you use them. That foundation firms back up quickly; it only takes a day or two to firm up for you, but that¡¯s because you''re only firming up A. One class, and B. Because you have enough skills to stabilize that class given your level of power.¡± She said.
She glided toward me, her movement wraithlike in the witchlight of the aurora, her feet barely making ripples on the surface of the inky sea of my essence beneath me.
She reached me and gestured for me to sit up, and I obliged her weakly, my arms falling behind me to prop me up lazily. Nodding in thanks, she reached her hand into me and tugged, pulling two skills, their complex folds shifting.
They resisted as if they were held in place by an invisible wire, but she coaxed them out and held them before me for my perusal.
One was rather simple; it was [Tool handling Proficiency], a skill so basic and general it was omnipresent in my life shaped like a hand clamped around a shaft; next to it was [Guide plant], a less used but still recognizable skill its folds almost shaped into a hollow in the middle, its void shaped like half a dozen recognizable, and dozens more unrecognized plants.
¡°Look very closely; you should be able to see them if you strain your eyes right,¡± she said, two fingers thumbing at something invisible.
No, not invisible, just fine. So fine as to be impossibly hard to spot. They were fine as spider silk, finer, even. It was so fine as to be the next best thing to invisible, but with her thumbing, the dark background, and the backlight of the sky, I could just see them as they moved.
¡°What are those?¡± I asked her.
¡°Those are your foundation. They¡¯re the reason why your skills firm up so quickly, and they act like connective tissue for your soul. It''s an anima cytoskeleton. They hold your skills together and distribute the load of their use. They connect with other skills, which is what lets you use multiple in conjunction. Do you notice the difference between the two?¡± she asked.
I looked closely, the gentile movement of her hands letting me just spot them now that I knew what I was looking for.
¡°One has more strands than the other?¡± I asked.
¡°Yes. Good. Those threads are how you can envision your foundation. A general skill connects with more skills. They can be used by more skills, and they can, in turn, distribute the impact of using them. A specific skill is more specific; it doesn¡¯t connect to as many, or rather, as many immediately as a general one; it''s more vicarious, a strand connected to a strand, and on and on. All of your skills, or almost all, connect to each other like this.¡± She said, triumph in her voice.
¡°That¡¯s all well and good, but how-¡± I started to ask.
¡°Think woman. If more powerful skills are more strenuous and would thus require more of these filaments to remain stable, and a higher level general skill, one that is more stable, it¡¯s the equivalent in power and strain as a specific skill of a level lower¡ What happens when you get a specific skill that powerful? Go on, guess for yourself.¡± She hissed out.
I looked at the strands. I imagined the strain of getting five levels and how soft the entire class was. Suppose that was the strain of one or two skills of a comparable level¡ skills that, once stable, took an unbelievable amount of effort to weaken. A specific skill took less than a general skill, a level above that, and a level above that.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
¡°It would¡ It would ruin my ability to use the skills?¡± I asked.
¡°Yes. It would. Each tier is about an order of magnitude stronger. Same with spells of a higher tier. Just using it would shake your foundation. And it wouldn¡¯t just affect one class''s skills.¡±
It wouldn¡¯t if basic advancement was one class via one skill. Advanced was more than that. "It would probably need to connect to multiple classes and multiple skills." I told her.
¡°Yes, exactly. These little filaments can be strained to the breaking point if you try hard enough, but the main connections that connect class to class would be strained beyond that. The filament would tear, placing more force on those, and those would fray and snap. You could just lose the ability to use a set number of skills, you could denature the anima and need direct aid from me to restore them, you could destroy the connections, undoing them, and thus, weakening anything you build upon those unstable skills in the future¡ Or you could loose them entirely. They could simply be destroyed.¡± She said straightforwardly.
It was¡ It was like a cursed bargain. Power at a price. A deal with a demon¡ Or¡
¡°It would be like a literary deal with the dark one,¡± I said quietly.
¡°Yes,¡± she said, with none of the tone one would associate with such a serious topic, ¡°This is exactly the kind of deal one would make with the dark one or its servants. Power now, but power and stability. The dark one wants monsters, they want weapons. So they give power and provide stability to use them but at the cost of servitude, reverence, and their own future. Honestly, they¡¯re like you, just¡ wrong.¡±
¡°They¡¯re nothing like me,¡± I hissed.
¡°Poor phrasing, they¡¯re like a [Saint]. You have a skill so powerful it would flat-out destroy your soul by just using it without your tie to a god. Not just, oops, the skill is gone, but literally, shredding your essence into dust, kind of destroying it. Using [True Immortality] without that connection would unmake you. The difference is that Death provided it in a way that wouldn¡¯t destroy you or your foundation. She takes the strain, and she provides the power for it to work. It''s one of the only skills that isn¡¯t connected to anything, and if you eventually do connect it, it would be at a point where you can take it.¡± she explained in a calming voice.
I could scarcely imagine.
An army of improvised murderous [Saints].
It made a part of me throb with hatred. The idea of someone like me being even remotely similar anathema tied a knot in my heart.
¡°It seems you understand why I was reticent to give you this. Even if it''s for the wrong reason, I should note that not every complex advancement is like that. Going from a journeyman to a full mage is similar, but it''s one step up, and it¡¯s a stable pattern. That one was worked out by a meticulous and benign god, not a¡ well, The Monster.¡±
¡°No,¡± I said resolutely, ¡°Absolutely not,¡± I told her.
¡°To the complex advancement?¡± she asked to clarify, ¡°Because if you''re just going to disagree with my comparisons, we¡¯ll be here all night.¡±
¡°No to the complex advancement. I¡¯ll take just the normal one.¡± I agreed.
She let go of my skills, which pulled back into me with an unexpected snap that made me move instinctively but without an associated impact.
¡°Fantastic, that''s out of the way," she said, and not without some relief, "we have a few levels and two skills, one unusual, one uncommon. I¡¯ll let you pick so we can get them all out of the way back to back. It would probably make it easier on you.¡± She said chipperly.
¡°Ok,¡± I sighed, ¡°Give it to me.¡±
|
Class:
[Journeyman Mage]
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Levels Gained: 2
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Skills Gained: 2
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Skill Quality: Uncommon
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Top Three Picks:
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[Decay Resistance]
Passive.
Resist the deleterious side effects of death mana inside your body.
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[Aura of Death]
Passive.
Bolsters and accumulates death mana around the target, creating a passive shroud in the presence of death mana.
Extends effective reach, allowing for manipulation of death mana within the Aura.
Effect radius scales with proficiency bonus (pb/2)
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[Death Dart]
Spell.
Death Magic.
Form death mana into an agile dart before hurling it at an opponent in a line.
Upon impact, Death mana will decay active magical workings in a small blast around it.
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Top Three Picks:
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[Aura of Decay]
Passive.
Projects an aura around the target that collects death magic. Decays life mana into death mana around the target.
Effect radius scales with proficiency bonus (pb/2)
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[Imbue]
Passive.
Allows the wielder to imbue an implement, such as a magical tool or stave, with a mana type.
It can be used to fuel mana affinity-specific spells.
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[Empower]
Spell.
Death Magic.
Allows the spellcaster to empower an object with mana for one minute.
During this time, the object holds the mana before it is harmlessly expelled into the environment.
Any mana affinity can be utilized.
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Class:
[Forester]
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Levels Gained: 2
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Skills Gained: 1
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Skill Quality: Uncommon
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Top Three Picks:
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[Brushwalker]
Passive.
Walk through brush with greater ease. Skill pushes away brush, and while clearing, brush scatters debris away from you.
Increases the effectiveness of tools while clearing brush.
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[Pursuit]
Passive.
Gain improved speed and surefootedness while pursuing a target.
This increases the effects of perception and acuity while pursuing obscured or hidden targets.
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[Felling Blow]
Active.
Let out a strike to feel a target; power scales with strength and perception.
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That was certainly a pickle.
At least I knew why two of the skills were always passive now; the passive skills were often more general, which would help me build a solid foundation.
It was a clever thing that, a good practice on average giving two passives to every active.
I looked at the mage skills. The resistance skill could let me drain myself more; the auras were¡ Well, probably a must-pick, but damn, did that hurt, and the melee skills were¡ Well not complicated, but it just sucked, was all; I couldn¡¯t take both, and the Auras and both sets intrigued me. I discarded [Death Dart] right off the bat, along with the resistance skill. If I could cast a spell a tier about it, I could learn to cast it, just like its piers.
¡°Ok, so I¡¯m seeing a few things that are suspiciously similar, but one is a spell, and the other is a passive skill. What''s the deal with [Imbue] and [Empower]?¡± I asked her.
¡°One is a skill, and the other is a spell,¡± she said mockingly, ¡°Empower takes time to cast and will scale based on spell stuff, but it has a limited time. It''s only uncommon, so you can''t push too much mana in without some serious magical control, but with your stuff, it is also cheap, dirt cheap. It''s similar to Dart, with about 140 mana once you''re used to it. Imbue is a skill that activates whenever you want but drains more mana and needs to be used continuously. The upside is that you can flush it with tones of the stuff. Both are based on what you did during your last fight. One is a prolonged cheap version that can make your magical attacks have death mana in them, and the other could blow the limb off that monster again while you run around free as a bird. You will need one of those now or a stronger one while you¡¯re a [Journeyman Death Mage].¡±
Empower would be a rather useful spell, and it was a spell, but if I couldn¡¯t push much mana into it, I couldn¡¯t land big blows. It would lock me into fighting for longer; it would mean I needed to land more hits.
With [Imbue], I could still land more hits on other things, but I could also use it to absolutely wreck house on a big enemy like the Beast I had fought more than once.
I could take one now, or I could take a different one later¡ Actually. Would one later be better? [Aura of Decay] gave me a feeling similar to [Aura of Renewal], only backwards; it did that, but with life mana, if I could take both aura skills and get a better striking skill later¡
¡°What are the later skills like?¡± I asked her.
¡°More competitive. I have a really good combo lined up for your level 20, it''s complex, but a complex skill, far and above easier on you than a class, but think about it. You¡¯ll get something like six skills. And each will be better than [Imbue] with the reliability of [Empower], wrapped up in a single skill.¡±
She said it as a warning, but all I heard was [Imbue] and [Empower] wrapped up in a single skill, and that made my choice clear.
As for the [Forester], skills¡
Well.
Maybe I was getting some choice skills in my other classes, but the way they felt was just¡ So weak.
[Brushwalker] was just a throwaway. Any skill that could be replaced with practice and a knife was not worth the slot. [Felling Blow] could be useful; it could probably synergize with my attacks and [Rapid Action] to make my strikes that much more lethal, but I could also spot hidden threats and track down that monster if I ever ran into him again with [Pursuit].
I sighed. It was a sad thing that I had chosen the path of fighting, and not the path of hunting down my prey like the rat he was.
¡°I¡¯ll take the two aura skills and [Felling Blow],¡± I told Sophy.
She nodded.
¡°Alrighty then. Are you ready to level up? You are a great big whiner,¡± she asked.
I opened my mouth to respond, but she knew I would do that. She seemed to enjoy teasing me by cutting me off with my mouth open.
¡°[Journeyman Mage] has gained a level and is now level 15!
[Journeyman Mage] has gained a level and is now level 16!
[Journeyman Mage] has gained the skill [Aura of Death].
[Journeyman Mage] has gained a level and is now level 17!
[Journeyman Mage] has gained a level and is now level 18!
[Journeyman Mage] has gained the skill [Aura of Decay].
[Journeyman Mage] has gained a level and is now level 19!
[Grave Digger] has gained a level and is now level 29!
[Verdant Nexus] has gained a level and is now level 29!
[Forester] has gained a level and is now level 11!
[Forester] has gained a level and is now level 12!
[Forester] has gained the skill [Felling Blow]
Congratulations, you are now level 22!¡±
I fell backwards as the aurora above me collapsed into my soul, then essence, and did my best to roll with it. I hated how much it affected me, but it wasn¡¯t as bad as it could have been.
Sophy was faster than last time; her fingers nimbly pulled lengths of Anima from the essence, pinching and shaping them, skills unfolding like wiggly animals that wanted a home, and they found it.
She reached into me, my feeling numb and unaware of it as she connected skills up.
And then it was done, and I could breathe a sigh of relief.
¡°How¡¯s that feel?¡± She asked.
¡°Not great,¡± I told her honestly.
¡°Then stop levelling up so much; it''s not like I want to take time out of my busy day to come to help you, you know,¡± she said, a lie so obvious even my clueless ass could pick up on it.
¡°Yeah, right. You just want more time to watch me blow up my love life and break a promise.¡± I told her while the slight excitement of levels passed me.
She snorted.
¡°I think you''re misremembering in your old age furbrain. That¡¯s common for fleshy''s like you, so I¡¯ll remind you. You promised not to make her cry and to be better. So far as I could say, she was afraid, sure, and she probably cried, but if taking a bolt of lightning is not being ''better by her side'', I, quite frankly, don¡¯t know what is. As a rule, you know I don¡¯t like you getting yourself killed, but with how happy she makes you and the nature of what happened, I would honestly approve of that death.¡±
I rocked back, her words giving me a kind of whiplash I wouldn''t have expected.
¡°But you always get on my case? What about self-love or whatever?¡± I asked.
¡°Your action is bound to cause some grief in the short term, but you showed backbone and protected something special to you, even at the cost of that grief; I would say that''s a good step in the right direction. It wasn''t you getting yourself killed for a principal or out of neglect, but for something that has markedly improved yourself. Take a look at yourself once and a while and just how far you''ve come from the girl that was fine with her death because she didn''t want to live, protecting that, is self-love, just don''t actually demean her by treating her like a hollow egg.¡±
Sophy looked smug, but I just couldn¡¯t see it.
It was somewhat absurd to me.
¡°Are you ignoring-¡± I started.
¡°None of that, Saphine. My time is short, so I¡¯ll give you a little nugget of wisdom. When people say a bunch of things back to back, the earlier the thing, the more important. Think over what she said early on to you that seemed out of place, and think about it. Now. I¡¯m a very busy Guide, and many people are levelling tonight; I need to head off, and you need some sleep. Think on it a bit, and push for reconciliation when you get a chance; I doubt Anna wants to call it quits.¡±
And with that, the world seemed to fall away from me before I could get a word edge-wise, and I fell into the ink.
***
I watched Saphine tumble into dreamland and rubbed my temples or the closest bits to them.
I didn¡¯t exactly have a head, just a head-shaped ball of highly complex Anima that gave me a familiar profile, but such was life as a sentient anima phage.
¡°I swear that girl is going to somehow give me an aneurysm one day. I hope she works out her shit before I keel over from something impossible,¡± I murmured to myself.
It was a habit; probably a bad one, but you could only spend so much time alone and around the mortals before they rubbed off on you. In all honesty, I was starting to go native, but I didn¡¯t want to admit it to myself. I had even taken on a closer form to them. The me of years long past would have gaged if that was a thing I had done back then.
Drawing in the presence of Saphines rich essence like a mortal did breath, I pulled back the curtain of her soul and glided out onto the outside world, quickly wrapping the spiritual plane''s boundary around me like a blanket to keep the mana out. I didn¡¯t want to ruin all my hard work so easily, especially not with how long it would take to fix it the hard way.
Honestly, proper souls were such a cheat.
I skated out in time to see Saphine wake up as a bolt of lightning struck in the distance and woke her up. She scrambled around as she woke, cussing in confusion, and I couldn¡¯t help but chuckle to myself. So much for her getting sleep.
She couldn¡¯t tell it, even as close as I was, she just didn¡¯t have the stats to sense me, even with her funky skill. Regardless I kept my distance as she had a little roll around, as her dumb ideas of failure that tormented her faught with the little seed of hope I had planted.
¡°I sure hope they work it out¡ Now¡ Where is my next visit? Let''s see¡ There she is,¡± I murmured to myself.
I glided off, safe in my little pore. They were close.
After all, my next stop was Anna.
I got there in time for her mother to rejoin her.
Readying myself for the confrontation, I reached into myself, puling out my rations for a snack and watched the show.
Interlude: Perspective 1
I sat back in my bed and lay there like the useless pile of refuse I felt like and was. I was lying in a bed I hadn¡¯t rested in for over a decade, yet it was all too familiar to me. It was a little girl''s bed, though more in its colour than its length, that fit me just fine.
My bandaged left arm was limp, pining me to the bed with weight like a thousand anvils, the feeling of it like a shackle made of failures and poor decisions.
My mother had come in, but I just continued to stare ahead, wishing for oblivion to swallow me whole.
I had saved the day. Saved the city and all those who were still in it. I had done it.
I managed to get to the city''s center before it burned down, even saving people in the process. I had helped Strause, opened an escape path, pushed back the tide, and called forth a deluge to snuff the fire. I had gotten injured to the temples where they could be tended to and carried on to the main gate, and in clearing the route, I had helped people escape. I had sent Saphine out to protect my brother, saving his life, if at a cost. I had figured out how to quicken the spell inscribed in the staff, carving off probably twenty to thirty minutes of casting time that would have claimed thousands who were trapped between unsafe streets filled with marauding monsters, undead, and a wall of fire that would have cremated everyone in hiding beneath a wall of smoke and a wave of heat, pulling the very air to the center like a candle flame.
I had bypassed all the intended mechanisms of protection without thought or care and covered the parched city in torrential rain, letting nature take its toll on its hated enemy and snuffing the fire. And I had done it in a way that would have sacrificed myself.
It had been unintentional, just part of my rush to power the storm. The only reason it had been that fast was my ability to cast it quickly. Most of the cost had been provided by nature, not by me¡ And I still needed to ritual cast the spell.
I would have run out on my own. It was far more costly than I had expected. Then again, it was a spell worth somewhere between 200000 and 2000000 points for a full-cast spell. Based on experience, I expected to put maybe 10,000 points of mana into it. The rest had been one part of the medium, that being the sky actively wanting to rain and nature making up the difference.
I had backlashed and exhausted myself, and I had expected that for messing around with the spell, but I hadn¡¯t expected to nearly kill myself.
I also hadn¡¯t expected for Saphine to save me at the expense of her life.
¡°You look quite miserable,¡± my Mother told me.
¡°I¡¯ve been struck by lightning, and I can¡¯t manipulate my mana or use any of my skills,¡± I told her, ¡°I would say that¡¯s a good reason to be miserable,¡± I protested.
¡°You could stop sidestepping the question, Annabeth¡ Or should I call you Anna?¡± She asked me.
I cringed at that, the reflexive action giving away more than I wanted. My family shortened my name to Beth. Saphine was the one who called me Anna, and she was a sore spot right now. A fresh wound of my own making to match my arm.
¡°Don¡¯t. I would prefer you didn¡¯t,¡± I told her.
I couldn¡¯t meet her gaze. She was far too good at reading them, both charismatic and perceptive enough to read the calm faces of the nobility at court. Compared to them, I might as well be an open book written in bold. I could feel her watching me for a moment, her eyes like lances pressing into me, pinning me in place like a bug.
It was, in fact, the thing I hated most about her. It was a terrible thing, hating your own family. A young nobleman might have a feud, but that was hate and ambition, I held none of the ambition. I did not hate my mother like that; I just hated her a little, and it was, to me, the kind of hate that cut both ways. I didn¡¯t want to hate my mother, or father, or brothers. I just couldn¡¯t like them most of the time, because of what they had done, continued to do, and would do in the future.
It was hard to not hate my mother. She had contributed to a situation that had gotten me kicked out and removed from circles where I could have done more for the valley. Even now, I was trying to break into it by gaining land, land that I could have simply gotten years ago if I had had the connections to do it. And she always scrutinized us hawkishly, trying to read our minds the hard way. I think I could say for all of us how she made us feel uncomfortable just by being near her.
It was as far from what I imagined a mother should feel like as was possible.
Even as a grown woman, my mother put a streak of fear through me, put the fear of being known and disapproved of that was buried in me, deep and hard as a diamond and twice as exploitable.
My mother sighed and pulled her chair close enough to reach me.
¡°I do wish you would let me into your life Annabeth,¡± She said, a mixed emotion to her voice, ¡°I don¡¯t like how little you trust me.¡±
¡°It''s not just about trust, Mother. I feel like I can¡¯t say anything around you without you somehow pulling me apart,¡± I told her. ¡°You are so used to doing it; you just are that way. I can feel you staring at me, dissecting me like a rat. It''s not even that I don¡¯t trust you. It''s that I can¡¯t so much as tell you something without you intuiting twenty things I don¡¯t feel comfortable sharing with you.¡±
¡°I¡¯m very sorry you feel that way, daughter mine.¡± She told me.
I doubted she was sorry for her actions; she did them far too frequently for that. I didn¡¯t say so, though. Her words and my refusal to voice my thoughts left a silence between us, a wide, empty one. A barren field of salted earth.
¡°Well¡ I remember Strause mentioning you had an interesting guest, but she was certainly¡ More than I expected. Quite talkative for someone who couldn''t do so a few months ago.¡± My mother said, picking up the conversation.
¡°She certainly is,¡± I sighed.
¡°You seem¡ Close?¡± She asked in a way that was intended to lead me on.
¡°She is indeed my apprentice,¡± I confirmed without confirming anything.
¡°Indeed¡ The last time she came up, she couldn¡¯t speak common; she¡¯s come quite some way since then, by the sounds of it, even if she has an¡ Accent. I can see you''ve been hard at work,¡± She said, a simple statement of fact.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
¡°Indeed, she couldn''t speak common, but she could speak an archaic tongue of it; luckily, the difference is in spelling and pronunciation, so she¡¯s been talking for a while,¡± I told her. I played it straight, as straight as I could, to give as little away as possible.
¡°Fascinating,¡± she said, not seeming to care about the idea of a long-dead language.
Ah.
It was a game of platitudes.
My least favourite kind of exchange.
¡°Indeed, though she picked it up quite quickly, but that¡¯s my student for you,¡± I told her passively, resting my tired eyes.
¡°Well, she certainly had a quick tongue,¡± she said.
That almost got me there and then. It was one of the kinds of statements that could be a whole bunch of things, and I couldn¡¯t tell if that was pointed or not. Was that her telling me I hadn¡¯t taught her manners? Was it an insult? A platitude? For all I knew, it was a sex thing, which would be quite horrifying. The last thing I wanted was for my mother to know we were close enough to share a bed. It shook me a little. I felt cornered by it, and yet, also like I had nothing solid to put my back to. A part of me wished Saphine were here, sat next to me, and that shook me even worse than my mother did.
I was tired, I was hurt, I was frightened and horrified, and I was in the presence of someone that put me on edge, and I had pushed my only friend away. I sat here in a room with a familial stranger, and an evening that would live in my nightmares, the nights events would remain as shadows in my eyes for the rest of my life. It was a good thing that my eyes were closed because I had the urge to cry a little.
¡°Annabeth? Please don''t shut me out. What''s wrong? Did I say something wrong? Is it your arm?¡± she asked, reaching over and laying a hand on my shoulder.
She spoke in a calming voice, a voice to soothe, and one that she had never used with me. Her calm did little but infuriate me. Here she was, suddenly caring about me after a life of treating me like a pawn. It made me want to scream.
¡°Why do you even care?¡± I asked her, my voice hoarse, ¡°The Mother I remember wouldn¡¯t have cared. Who are you, and what did you do with her?¡±
¡°Calm down, Annabeth, you¡¯ll-¡± She tried, as could be expected. The problem was I was tired of her pretending to care, and the ball of negative emotion in me turned into a burst of anger.
¡°Or what? Will I hurt myself? We¡¯re past that point, Mother,¡± I said angrily. ¡°I¡¯ve gotten myself struck by lightning and survived a spiritual mauling! I not only nearly killed myself tonight, I''ve killed someone in the process! I should be fucking dead! I should be a lifeless corpse, and I would have made one tonight if my apprentice hadn''t been there, and taking my fuck up for me. I should be hurt. More hurt than I am now!¡±
¡°And you will be! If you keep moving. Think about your arm!¡± she told me, chiding but otherwise unaffected by my shouting.
If I were in a reasonable state, perhaps her calm words might bring me to see things her way, but as it was, it made me want to spit the worst kind of words I could. It made me want to hurt her in the only way I could think to.
¡°Oh? Think about what? This useless thing? It''s as good as dead. I¡¯ll never use it properly again. I can¡¯t even move the damn thing. Thanks for all the help, but its wasted. I understand, you can''t seem to understand what that means for me. I can see that you took the idea of being a mage seriously. Now, if you have nothing better to do than sit here and act like¡ Like you care about me beyond being a pawn for you to move around or to get a scoop out of, I would prefer to be left alone!¡± I spat.
My words left my mouth in a hateful bombardment. Each word drawn without thought, and used without reason. They were untargeted in direction, but chosen based purely by how much I felt they would hurt her, every ounce of my mistrust and recent experience guiding the process.
I spat them forth and the room became silent as they dragged through it.
¡°That¡¯s very uncharitable, Daughter mine,¡± she said.
She said it in a voice that told me, ¡®and this is the end of the conversation,¡¯ but it wasn¡¯t. She could have left then and there, excused herself, but she didn¡¯t.
Instead, she sat there as I stewed on her continued placement next to me. We sat there alone together.
¡°I¡¯m not going to leave, though. I¡¯m not going to neglect you. I¡ I understand that¡¯s how you feel about me, that I was neglectful, that I wasn¡¯t there, and that I used you. Looking back at it, I can understand how you could feel that way. I can¡¯t say it''s unreasonable, even if it hurts.¡± She said, a slight amount of trepidation in her voice. "I did what I felt was best, then, I pushed you away. Everything I have built has come to naught."
That wasn¡¯t what I wanted to hear, nor what I wanted her to do. I wanted her to leave, I wanted her to act the way I remembered she would act, I wanted her to prove my expectations of her so I could give up and pretend like she was the Mother of my childhood, the Mother that would agree and encouraged my Father to turn me out because I was turned down in one her her powerplays.
I wanted her to be the towering figure of childhood that I remembered. The one that always moved things to fit her desires. The woman who treated people like troops, moving them across an invisible board for whatever purpose she wanted. The woman who could look at a child, her own child, and sacrifice them for whatever she wanted.
And here she was, a decade later, older and quieter. I looked at her, frustrated tears in my eyes, and really looked at her. She wasn''t that Mother. She was just a 48-year-old woman with brown hair and green eyes, well dressed and tired. A woman who had been younger than me when she had me, seventeen or eighteen when she had Clause, twenty or so when she had me. By the time I was sixteen, she was older than I was now, watching a younger me, pushing me out into the world only for me to scorn it.
It wasn¡¯t like I had made my inclinations public. Hells, most people would get matched with someone and spend the rest of their miserable lives with someone they could barely tolerate. My parents had matched me with a pig, but a rich one, a life of relative luxury. Her look knocked the anger out of me and, with it, the everything that had kept me up. I slumped and started to cry properly, choking back tears as best as I could, and my mother slipped up onto the edge of my bed and did her best to comfort me.
At least something hadn¡¯t changed today; I still cried ugly and hard, sounding like a dying animal and snoting up every surface I came in contact with.
I blubbered to her about my arm, about my mistake, about the dead, the carnage, the whole of the stresses and tension. I blabbed about how my arm would ruin my spell casting, about Saphine, though blessedly not our maybe relationship and about my internal torment, and more on her death.
I had chased Saphine away for doubting my ability to take care of myself, for doubting my competence, but how could I be angry at her, when she was right? I had killed the woman I loved with my lifelong passion before wounding myself in a way that had ruined my ability to use it. I would be half the mage I was but a few hours ago, and now I had no idea what to do. Who would I be without my magical prowess? How would I be useful without my one use? Why would she continue to take care of me, when I couldn''t even take care of her?
***
Aww. Look at them, getting over their emotional baggage and bonding over hardships.
¡°Maybe something good will happen. Maybe it¡¯s a good combo for a level 30 [Mother] with skills for children and sensitivity to emotion,¡± I mumbled to myself.
Either way, it would be a bit difficult for Anna to fall asleep at the moment. It would tire her out eventually, but it would be a while for that. I might be a bit cold, but I couldn¡¯t understand crying. It was a weird mortal thing; spirits had no tears. I sighed and considered what to do to pass the time. I could check somewhere else, but it would be boring. Most of the crazy stuff was centered on Saphine.
¡°Speaking of mortal spirits¡¡± I muttered to myself, staring off into the distance at the shape of the mana-less forms of the two.
Who would have thunk it, three mortal spirits, one immortal and two sensitive to the forces of anathema in one place? What a time to be animate.
I would say alive, but I wasn¡¯t, not classically; that would be gross.
I couldn¡¯t shape anima that worked with primordium, that was very much a different kind of spirit¡ But I could watch it. Perhaps I would get a scoop, but it would be a little wait if I did. Strause would take a bit to find his counter part. Primordium worked on emotion, and we had a hard time getting a hang on spotting it, but from the look of it, his friend Joahana or whatever was warding away stuff.
I gave them some space and turned to the manner. I noticed two souls that should never be in the same room, one a man and one a little sprite, and decided to sneak over there first.
¡°Let¡¯s check on the brother and the friend,¡± I murmured to myself, ¡°Now that I¡¯m sure this will work out well¡ Assuming they talk to one another instead of killing each other.¡±
Interlude: Perspective 2
It was a dark and stormy night, which was so clich¨¦, but for the night outside, it was an understatement.
The rain was coming down like a curtain, the clouds blocking out the sky and stars to the point where it was like the sun was coming up when the clouds parted.
It was, in a word, dreadful and, in two or more, fucking miserable.
And out in the rain, the citizens of my land, wet and afraid as the [Guards] and [Hunters] did their work and pushed away the invaders, survived, and here I was, inside, next to a fire.
I was still wet and dirty, a bath being drawn for me by a small host of servants, who were, in turn, also sopping wet from drawing water.
I wanted many things¡ There were too many things if I were honest, but they boiled down to two major things at the moment, and neither of them was what was happening right now.
I wanted my people safe, tucked inside where they couldn¡¯t be further harmed now that the fires had passed.
And I wanted to be left alone to sulk a little because I had just fucked up in a way I could never forgive.
Neither could be true, of course, but for two very different reasons.
I could not make my people safe because of a lack of manpower; I could not tuck them away, for they would be needed soon, and I could not protect them in the future because of a lack of funds and skills. I couldn¡¯t even grant the weary a dry place to rest¡ Not tonight.
For one, my subjects were out of the city; it had been the right call at the wrong time, but the fires had been too big to form bucket brigades and too widespread to just axe off and let burn. Coupled with the instigators running about, and it would be like ordering the men of New Moarn to their death.
So they fled, evacuating the men behind women and children to save as many lives as possible. That left them out in the cold, and many families were broken apart, but the vulnerable were mostly saved.
It left me both triumphant at my plan succeeding and also pained. I had likely gotten two thousand people killed tonight because of it. I probably saved twice that number, if not more, but that didn¡¯t wash the blood from my pen strokes, my fingers stained with the ink of my fellow man.
It was a poisoned pill, a double-edged blade; it cut the more significant threat but also bloodied my hand.
The second was that they were unsafe and vulnerable. Fundamentally, the [Baron of Moarn], my ever-wise [Lord] Father, had been summoned to raise an army and had stripped the valley of its armed men to curry favor with the [Emperor].
I had only a garrison. A small one at that, and while the men were protecting here, I had also sent them out to check on the towns and villages east of here that could be struck.
Even with their best, I needed ten times their number to hold my territory, and that was an issue.
If I had but a handful of fortifications, watchtowers and the like, I could be assured that my people would be safe. Men could be mobilized to act as outriders against the newly found menace, and the remaining could hold chokes against a superior number of foes.
But I didn¡¯t have walls.
I didn¡¯t even have gates.
And I couldn¡¯t stop this tragedy from happening again.
I had a few handfuls of belly button lint and a soaking wet, malnourished populace with about two resident [Stonemasons], no [Quarriers] and one headache of a [Druid].
Just one of those things made me drink, but all three gave me a mild fit of apoplexy.
Or perhaps that was my cold, numb body¡ Or my second issue.
I had been, to put it mildly, bundled inside like a sack of potatoes because I had passed out.
I had been riding high after the healing potion. It granted me a near-indescribable kind of vigor, as if I were a child all over again, with the energy to run everywhere and the spirit to say anything. It was all of that and so more.
It eased aches I didn¡¯t know I had, granted me a kind of clarity as it pushed the clouds from my mind, and let me take in the world as if I had just had the best sleep of my life.
It had done that because it had literally healed my entire body. Every strain my body had undergone had been touched up. Every lost ounce of blood, every buildup of fascia and scar, every deposit of toxin, every subpart and fold of my mind, had been mended.
And then it had run its course, leaving me to pick up the authentic physical tab of mending a body like that. I had gone from striding around to face down in the dirt right before the start of a storm.
And I had been brought in with an unwanted guest in the collar of my shirt.
An unwanted guest that wouldn¡¯t stop chattering at me in a nigh incomprehensible dialect, only parseable due to [Noble Tongue].
She, for I was sure that only a woman could hold so much ire in such a small form. She had used that ire to verbally torment me for about ten minutes straight, her high-pitched voice giving me a migraine as her little insectile wings buzzed harshly as a hornet, her black chiton plate giving her a knightly appearance, more than a bug, the fuzz of her form almost like fur trim.
She would look the part of a fearsome knight indeed if she were more than a handspan tall.
A part of me wanted nothing more than to toss her out, but considering she had helped during my pathetic excuse for a fight earlier, I had let her stay in my presence,
At first, she had complained quite verbosely on the state of things, though that was before she had gotten it in her head to complain at me, which had brought me to slip up and her to realize I could¡ in a matter of speaking, understand her.
Which had gotten her to bug me for seven minutes of unending torment as I pretended I couldn¡¯t understand the insect thing.
I finally broke and asked her to please leave me be, but the resulting three minutes were so agonizing I regretted it more than getting my chest smashed in.
At least I could take a healing potion for blunt-force trauma.
She nattered and nattered and nattered, finishing the tirade with, ¡°And after all of that, what do you have to say, you imbecile!¡±
¡°I¡¯m wondering why I let an irascible creature like you remain in my presence,¡± I told her, my skills letting me hold a neutral demeanor despite wanting nothing more than to massage my temples.
¡°Because you are in charge of this territory, and as a tax-paying noble, I have a right to air my grievances with you. Twas part of the pact our people forged,¡± she sniped.
¡°I doubt that very much; last I checked, I don¡¯t have¡ whatever you are on the census, less so than listed as taxed, and just because you¡¯re a noble does not mean you get to chew me out. You must be landed nobility, and last I checked, you hold no land.¡± I told her, trying to appeal to her reason via law.
I should have known it wouldn¡¯t work; she was a woman, and I had never been good with women.
She stared at me for a moment, her tiny face that was more like a sculpted helm face plate, held in an open mouth shock before she said, ¡°I ought to stab you for such an insult,¡± her voice quiet rage. ¡°We Sprites have paid your tax every year. My queen has seen to it! We have paid for generations for our plot and defence, and you dare to question such a thing? I have never met such a feckless creature as you. You¡¯ve not even half the spine of your spineless sister and twice the carelessness of your brother!¡±
I tightened my teeth and spat, ¡°Your irreverence becomes you. Speak, I¡¯ll be on them again, and I¡¯ll squash you like the insect you are. You have no right to speak I¡¯ll of them.¡±
¡°Perhaps not your brother, but I¡¯ve more right to speak on you¡¯re sister than you do. I serve both her and her bumpkin, you-¡± She started before I slapped out at her.
It was like swatting a fly, though, unlike a fly, she had skills, and with a muttered, ¡°[Aerial Dash],¡± she flew free.
And then, she flew up to my face and kicked me in the nose.
¡°Agh,¡± I said, not expecting it. I flinched from it, more from the sudden percussion than from pain.
¡°Don¡¯t you swat at me again, you perturbed whelp,¡± she said, her voice a promise of ten times her weight in barely constrained violence. ¡°You do yourself a second disservice in the same night. Try to get it out of your head that you understand your sister so you don¡¯t do yourself a third.¡±
¡°Oh,¡± I said, my face flushing through my skill, eyes crossed at the little black-and-white form of the sprite thing. ¡°Do tell, where I¡¯ve done myself a disservice tonight? Was it in my poorly picked fight? In my plans? Do tell where I¡¯ve failed myself.¡±
I could have asked about Annabeth, but that wouldn¡¯t go anywhere. Anna was simple when it came to secrets, and I honestly doubt she had much interest.
¡°Ye, have failed yourself by lacking the spirit to seek help. You pretended to be something that ye aren¡¯t, and others paid your price. Your place is in an office, not a battlefield, no matter your skill with the blade.¡±
¡°I had plenty of aid from my guards,¡± I shot back at the tiny armored form.
¡°Aye, and what did that give you? A few bodies to add to the pile. Instead of accepting your sister''s help or keeping it contained until backup came, you rushed in to seek worthless glory and got them killed. Twas a fucking shame to get those men killed, and twice as worse because the weapon that killed em¡¯ was pride, instead of honour.¡±
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Her words were vicious, brutal and unkind. But that was because they were the truth and nothing but the truth.
It was the truth, and it hurt to hear because it was the truth. The truth didn¡¯t care about my best intentions, facts did not care about my feelings, and the brutal calculus of life was always cruel and terrible in equal measure.
There were no correct answers, only wrong ones, but that didn¡¯t mean each answer was equally valid.
¡°It must be elementary for you to spout that; who are you to judge me? Where are your stakes? Where are your mistakes?¡± I not quite shouted at her, my heart beat speeding, blood flushing my face a shade of pink in a warm bloom of embarrassment, and my ears a rageful hot red.
¡°Oh, it is. I made a similar mistake myself not so long ago. Lucky you, you didn¡¯t get your family killed in your idiocy.¡±
She said it like she had instead said, ¡®Lucky you didn¡¯t break an egg.¡¯ It was the most heartless thing I had ever heard¡ªthe most inhuman, but also not.
Because it was obvious to me that I wasn¡¯t meant like that.
People were all too quick to judge a person, but I knew well that it was the lesser person not to put themselves in the others'' boots before judging them on something as light as a word.
Especially something as heavy as that, because she hadn¡¯t said, ¡®I don¡¯t care that I got my family killed,¡¯ but, ¡®consider yourself lucky.¡¯ That spoke volumes on its own.
Maybe I was trying to read her the wrong way, but she was surprisingly straightforward; she had been chewing me out on mistakes but not blustering nor making mountains out of molehills. There was no guile, no guise of being better than, no punching down.
She had said what she meant instead of doing what I was used to with most; there was no false pretense, and there was no guard. It was like a [Man at Arms] wielding only a sword, walking around a killing field without armor, flamboyantly shouting, ¡®Come at me then.¡¯
She was that but dressed in black. Dressed for mourning. Detached from the warmth of any internal kindness,
I looked at her, licking my dry lips as I looked through her. I let myself ponder for a moment what she had said. I evaluated her words, not as I would pry to get me to do something, but as I would a piece of genuine advice.
It was hard to accept.
Anna always wanted me to do something, as did my Mother and Father. Strause always had something up his sleeve, even if it was for my own good, it was manipulation, and manipulation was what I was used to.
Gunther¡
Well, Gunther was always in it for themself; he was upfront about it. When you wanted to know why he wanted you to do something, it was always, ¡®What about this gives Gunther money?¡¯ It was less manipulative; he was telling you something that would help you and him at the same time without needing to say the second part.
That was about it, though.
It was Gunther and only Gunther.
That struck me as terribly sad, having one person I felt I could have an open conversation with, but the person was a [Merchant] who was more interested in evaluating goods and services over the general conversation.
¡°Perhaps¡¡± I said, my voice conflicted.
¡°Perhaps what, ye daft¡ª¡± she said, but I had bigger lungs, so I could talk over her.
¡°Perhaps I should not throw you out with the rubbish,¡± I said, my skills helping me say it in a way that sounded less conflicted, but for the sigh of breath I let out at the end of it. Focusing on her tiny form, I decided I needed a second approach. ¡°I am sorry for your loss. You said you were a noble? I¡ I¡¯ve let my circumstances cloud my manners- Acho.¡±
I spasmed as I sneezed, turning my head away from the small form. My nose had started to tingle, like when the plants were in bloom.
I sniffed but managed to say, ¡°Someone seems to be talking about me.¡± Before taking a moment to recover before, I inhaled and apologized. ¡°My apologies, Lady. I¡¯ve been both rude and dismissive from the start of this, and I¡¯ve stuck my boot in my mouth. May I¡ Start this conversation over?¡±
She stared at me, unspeaking as my nose kept tingling. She just stared, and it kind of freaked me out.
I sighed, ¡°I understand if I¡¯ve insulted you. If you won¡¯t pardon me, I can understand that. I will endeavor to make up for this¡ and I won¡¯t hold your actions against me during your time of mourning. Um, lady...¡± I told her, petering out.
I had run into a snag of my own making.
I had shouted at, swatted at, and argued with someone who I didn¡¯t even know the name of.
I figured that I would fail at the most basic of pleasantries and cause grief with a noble I had never met but would no doubt continue to see everywhere after today. Thus, I would have destroyed their first impression of me, spoiling any and all further relations with them for the rest of my life and making an enemy that I would never be able to get away from and would never let me live it down.
That was exactly why I didn¡¯t like talking to people.
I got a common enough feeling, the feeling of queasy anxiety; though it was so familiar, I was able to simply let my skill deal with it. The flip flop of my heart, the spike of fear, the situation one that had played out ten thousand times in my head, running over it again and again, every day, until the track was well worn as a road and the cart ruts were twice as deep.
My stomach gurgled, the only noise besides the buzzing of her wings as she pulled away from me. Her eyes were dark as pitch and unsettling as she stared at me.
She twitched, and I figured she would cry or sob or something, but she just twitched.
She twitched and twitched until she had a full-out conniption, her arms shaking in little jerks and spits. She let out a tiny high-pitched noise, so high I could just hear it before her face came open, hinging up like a helmet for a moment.
The inhale came in and out came, not a shout, not a cry, not even a little sob.
She said, ¡°You can take your pity and shove it. I¡¯m not a little girl, you bow-legged-chattering-foulmouthed-inbred-cultureless-leech. I came here to get your answer to your family¡¯s failure to provide my people with our due service on what little remains of my honour. I don¡¯t want your pity, and I certainly don¡¯t want you to ¡®make it up to me,¡¯ this isn¡¯t about me.¡±
Her anger wasn¡¯t unexpected either; she had been angry at me plenty, but her reason for the anger was.
The shock of it was enough to be knocked around, my mind thrown off a metaphorical cliff. Selflessness born out of a feeling of failure.
I said, without skill or thought, ¡°It''s manners and propriety, not pity. Instead of cracking an axle, you should just tell me. It¡¯s not like you have any features on your face to read.¡±
It was a stupid thing to say, but the idea that my apology had been over her state instead of my fuck up was just that jarring to me.
This was not in the simulations; it was off the reservation. No, not just off the reservation. This path had led up a hill, and I had fallen into a ditch, down the hill, and then into a convenient crevice in the road of my expectations.
It occurred to me that I had never considered haughty or spirited bug women in the equation. It wasn¡¯t like I could have, but it had just occurred to me that I hadn¡¯t. Really, I should have expected this.
I needed to add inch-high bug women to my simulations now.
I was drawn from my thoughts by her calling back, though less hostile, ¡°Oi, are you paying attention?¡±
She had given a normal series of words.
¡°I can do this,¡± I thought, ¡°Surely I can converse like a functional human being for a few seconds.¡±
Silently, I pulled on an old crutch, a skill that got more use than I would ever want it to get. It was a skill that should have been a waste but had never failed me.
[Find Words]
And oh boy, did I find them.
¡°I was just thinking that I don¡¯t actually remember your people in any reports. You said you were Sprites? I also don¡¯t know your name, though it would be rude to ask before I gave my own. My name is Clause Mynes, Son and heir of the baron of Moarn, future Baron, and his current regent while he is off on campaign. May I know your name, lady Sprite?¡±
Gods above it was just too good. It always worked like a charm.
Perfect for when you had your foot in your mouth¡ or, in my case, when your heart stopped.
It was my greatest and only ace in the hole.
¡°Indeed, you finally seem to have your head on straight. Good to see from my bondsmans brother isn¡¯t a stain on her honour,¡± she told me, ¡°My name is Selliban Citritan Titania, but you may call me Selliban.¡±
We went from there.
Selliban frequently mentioned honor and of how little she had, her words making me self-conscious about my failing. After all, If someone acting selflessly for her people was honor-less, how bad was I? Regardless of the answer, she managed to not tear me down with her constant comparisons to quite a vibrant amount of things. we talked and slowly resolved many questions while the bath heated up in the next room.
For one, the reason for the lack of census data was because of the fluctuation of their population. They died frequently from ¡®honour¡¯ in the line of duty. As funny sounding as her pronunciation, it was obvious that they just picked fights they couldn¡¯t win and got themselves killed. It was a miracle that they still existed, but there was no real reason to get a head count if the colony just kept changing on a weekly basis.
Second, why were there no recorded taxes from them? They didn¡¯t pay in coins. They didn¡¯t have any. They lived in some kind of fanciful family feudalist colony, where everyone just kind of shared what they needed, and their people gave specific goods each year to us, namely honey and fine thread.
I had never wondered why we always had honey and the fine thread for embellishments. We had simply had them.
At least that family mystery was solved.
She even debriefed me before she left, though she demanded I aid her people for the answer, and I obliged.
I resolved to add her village to the map, and I would need to visit to ask questions of them. Before taking a hop in the tub, leaving my wet clothes to the servants.
It was good or slightly better in the bath, and not only because the warmth of the water helped soothe me.
For one, I had a stop gap solution to protection in the sprites, who were small and zippy and could in theory aid in scouting, letting me place forces where they could do the most good. I couldn¡¯t defend their village without walls, but I could offer them residence, perhaps, until the issue had passed.
It went on the mental cork board, along with ¡®wall?¡¯ And ¡®Ask Annabeth about magic walls,¡¯ and many other things, so many so that they started to blot one another out.
That left me time to fall asleep in my bed, but with my mind spinning, I sat there, unable to. Replaying the days events.
I had acted on fear and pride when I had attacked the monster. Fear, for I feared the creature, and pride because I had pushed myself to face that fear.
That pride had left me wounded and vulnerable and many of my men dead.
And I would level from it; I was sure of it.
I would benefit from trading my [Guards] lives away.
Who would I be without them? Without my position? I was so dependent on others that I could barely level without them.
Who would I be if I wasn¡¯t the son of a [Baron]? Who was I despite that?
Who was the Clause of now, without it?
Those thoughts haunted me, keeping me awake long into the stormy night, until I passed into dreams from post bath exhaustion.
***
I watched the funny little man as he and Selly bickered and realized they would be here for a while.
As fun, as it would be to watch them be strangers to one another until Clause fell asleep, I decided that I would have enough time to give a little runover to the other people that made a difference in Saphine''s life.
It was good to see him still using that skill; it was a good pick.
I headed off to Gunther and watched her for a bit, too, but she was incredibly boring. I mean, she always knew what she wanted; she always had herself together, blah, blah, blah.
Taking care of her was easy, and I had needed it after I had taken a sojurn from Moarn to the coast after the whole depopulation thing... I had even managed to find my way there and pick up some skills before it had been destroyed.
And where had she gone? But back to the very place I had called my old haunt.
Maybe if she got her shit together and finally made a move romantically, she would get less boring¡ Or maybe she would just make him boring too.
At least it would spice it up a little, I bet Arabelle would love that.
¡°Heh, yeah right¡ Would be funny as hell¡¯s to watch, though,¡± I mumbled to myself, pulling out another handful of anima snack.
She seemed to be steaming mad, at least, which was a slight difference from her normal passivity. She had lost some goods, though because of her location, it was far less than most of the other caravans. Once she figured that out, she would no doubt get gleeful.
Mostly now, she was losing her shit over keeping grain dry so it didn¡¯t go to seed. She waved at people in her costume, flexing her skills that altered attention and her appearance to help hide the more prominent features she had that separated her from the male folk.
Her worker''s oiled canvas, rubbing in thick creams to proof it against the torrential downpour. hurling them over bags that were ready for tomorrows markets.
All said, it was a clever little tactic she had going on. Dressing like a man to confuse humans even more than other wood elves did. It was a matter of the human experience to confuse other groups of people up, and it only got worse when you started adding extra bits. Wood elves were famously androgynous to the human eye. Using that she had gotten dozens of levels from the coin that trick had brought in.
I tried to recall why the grain going to seed would be bad, but all I could figure was she didn¡¯t like ale or whatever. It''s not like you couldn¡¯t use it.
Well, for whatever reason, I bobbed around.
There was that kid Saphine saved, who reunited with her pack. That had been a good save, that might make things more interesting, but than again, anyone close to Saphine got interesting to me because it was Saphine.
It was still hard to puzzle out that she, of all the Kobolds, had made it to [Sainthood].
Mortal spirits were always interesting to pay attention to.
Speaking of mortal spirits¡
I knew that I shouldn¡¯t move in on the other two. Their kind of spiritual guide could get a little territorial, after all, but at the same time¡ I was terribly interested.
I snuck down, tucking myself nearby as Strause met up with Joan, and I spied on the two other Mortal Spirits.
Interlude: Perspective 3
I left the noble district with all its protective stone and all that good stuff. Clause was fine¡ Now, Anna was doing her thing, and everything was fine.
Very fine.
Well¡ Everything except the situation.
One might call that less than very fine. Perhaps terrible even, assuming they were so out of touch with reality as to be clinically insane. I could, of course, tell just how bad it was, and that was probably an understatement by a few orders of magnitude, even for the clinically insane. How could I tell? It was deafening. It was loud and negative, all the worse since I became aware of what I had to assume was my soul being flayed by a fucking skeleton.
Gods, but that alone was bad enough; it had been a shredding pain that had left me in the state to just lay down and cackle like a madman, at least until it had stopped, which left me with ash in my mouth, and empty heart and a hyper-aware.
It was too much.
So off I went to get some more because if it was too much for me, it was absolutely too much for Joan, and I needed to make sure she was okay... Physically ok, anyway. She was not okay with the situation, and I could feel that. Joan was a soft person, which was not a bad thing. Everyone needed someone who liked hugs and had a big heart, and that was Joan. She wasn''t used to the unbridled emotions of others like I was, and now she was stuck in a living nightmare, so I intended to help her. I liked Joan; her being in pain left me in pain, especially because she so often was a beacon of joy, a bright, nurturing light, and I needed a little of that right now.
She was in the mercantile district, with the caravansary and the market, her presence emanating emotional distress as I went through the streets in a quest to find and shelter her.
The city left me raw, especially in my hyper-sensitive state, where every wafting emotion, mostly fear, pain and desperation, felt overwhelming, so overwhelming I couldn¡¯t let my mental guard down. Even with that mental wall, I could feel it like a legion of [Stonemasons] desperately chiselling through it, a constant tick, tick, tick of tiny hammers desperately carving without end. It made my heart beat so hard it physically hurt. The sensation was to use a simple simile, like suffering a migraine, heart attack, panic attack, and aneurism simultaneously while in a room of screaming banshees. Each twitch winge and flair was fueled by the emotions of others that floated around like clouds of poisonous gas.
Said banks of volatile gas hugged the ground, rolling over the pavers, invisible to all. In places, they merged, and where I found those loci, I dispersed them with prejudice, reaching out to disperse them and, in doing so, getting them on me, letting them in.
My skill was instrumental in avoiding the worst of the city so I could make my way quickly to my desired destination. It was, in fact, so helpful that most of my journey was spent dispelling pools of negativity. Meeps were made from raw emotion, from primordium, and sook those with the same energy. Joan was joyful and had positive emotions most of the time, and she surrounded herself with said meets, but there was no joy here, and these meeps posed a danger.
And that was before you considered that the average person couldn¡¯t stop them from rooting on them or prevent infestation. Meeps could do lots of good, encouraging their emotions like joy or hope, but they could stop an ordinary person from being able to process their feelings nor recover from them if, say, a depression meep rooted in them while they grieved.
If it went on long enough, or enough meeps rooted, they could become infested, and that was even worse. You couldn¡¯t save an infested person. They were just like that¡ Forever. They became like Joan or I, sensitive to the unseen maelstrom of primordium but ravenous, more meep than man. I sometimes wondered what primordium must be: condensed emotional energy, unlike mana, which was¡ well, I don¡¯t know. If mana was natural, primordium was the opposite of that.
If thinking beings produced it, and thinking beings were natural, why was primordium different than mana? Stranger still was how mutually exclusive they were. I had but a shell around me to hid my emptiness. Whatever mana was, it was unimportant to me. Far from the lifeblood that gave people power, it gave me nothing, if anything it made me weaker. Twice, I stopped to pull out rooted meeps; whatever a fear meep made, it wouldn¡¯t happen on my watch. Clearing them, however, was blessedly simple. All I had to do was walk up to my targets and thrust my hand into the meeps'' heads before gripping them with my pointer finger and thumb, giving a tug, and plucking them off before casting their shattering form back into raw primordium.
They broke into dust, sublimating into less primordium than it would have taken to make them. That was the good news about these things; at least you could eliminate them with time and effort. The bad news? By the time I had made it to Joan, I had cleared thirty spawning pools, smashed a half dozen volatile meeps, and de-rooted two people.
All on a short jaunt from the center of the city to the merchant quarter.
It took me a while once I got there to find my friend, wandering back and forth before I spotted Joan. Or rather, I spotted the lack of her, a space left suspiciously blank. She was using the same trick I did to keep others from spotting me, with the added trick of warding away primordium with a bubble. It left a hole in my senses that was hard to remember when I stopped thinking on it, but it didn''t work perfectly when you knew about it.
Her meeps were also standing next to an empty area, their large head and doll-sized bodies like little knights as they formed a vigil, guarding their far larger mistress. To give away exactly where she was.
I gave them each a little pat and closed my eyes, following my sense of where she was. My legs shuffled forward until I was close enough to reach out with a hand and break the effect. I groped around until I found her head, her hair drifting through my fingers as I centered myself, slowing my breathing as I reached back and found it again. I reached out around me and found the primordium in the air as it wove around her, held by tethers to the figure of a girl. I lightly brushed the tendrils that touched me aside.
Then I opened my eyes, and Joan was there.
Joan was slumped, hands pressed to her temples, her face pressed toward her knees, huddling with her knees to her chest like she was cold. She looked miserable, but it was Joan, the real Joan, and nothing but the real Joan. She was curled tightly, sniffling, elbows into her gut tightly like she was trying to press her arms into her chest, short sucking breaths intermixed with the sniffles as she hyperventilated quietly.
Her hair was a mess, but I didn¡¯t pull back my hand; I was arguably more of a mess, so instead of getting her dirtier, I just sat down next to her and let her know I was there for her in the same way I knew she was here for me. At the same time, I became a quivering mess for a bit, letting the two of us deal with the overload of negativity while I shielded us from the constant haze. Joan was far above the more capable one when it came to skill and ability, but being a metaphorical hulking brute with a club and enough skill to use it had its perks.
Everyone needed a good cry every once in a while. In our case, it was a nice refreshing minute before it started to rain, and a bunch of crazy shit popped off around the family estate. Joan couldn¡¯t feel it, but I didn¡¯t care, so we sat there regardless of the rain, me covering her as best as I could without a cloak.
The rain cooled our skin but quite quickly became overwhelming, going from a spit to rain to a torrent, soaking into our clothes and pulling grime from our hair. But we let it wash away all manner of grit and heat until we were actually cold, Joan shivering and leaning into me in a way I would say I didn¡¯t like, even if it was a lie.
We waited in silence. You needed a few words when it was all emotion, and your emotions were on display, but Joan broke the silence first.
¡°Thanks,¡± Joan said.
¡°No problem, I¡¯ll always be here, or so long as you want me to be here,¡± I told her.
¡°Well, I suppose you make a good shoulder,¡± she said before she let out a sniffle.
¡°A good shoulder?¡± I asked, taken aback. ¡°Surely, I¡¯m more than that¡ A great shoulder, at the very least, if I do say so myself, I make a half-decent cloak, too.¡±
¡°Good cloaks would keep the rain out,¡± she said, looking down at herself, ¡°and I¡¯m soaked¡ You make a bad rain cloak¡ Though that¡¯s not the metric I would use to judge you. Where did this rain come from?¡± she asked, sniffling again, licking her dry lips which led me to lick my dry lips.
The shock would play hell on buildings with how fast the temperature had changed. No doubt a handful of [Carpenters] would make a killing on anything bigger than a nail that needed tapping down¡ Especially because so many buildings had been destroyed.
¡°Anna, I think. Something big just happened back home,¡± I told her, feeling out toward the estate and feeling confusion, pain, fear and overwhelming euphoria. A strange combo, to be sure. ¡°I think Clause is high right now.¡±
She sighed, murmuring, ¡°So you¡¯re going to be off again? You¡¯ve come and saved me, and now Clause needs help.¡±
¡°No.¡± I told her, ¡°No. I don¡¯t want any more chores for today; I believe I¡¯ll stay with you.¡±
¡°Better than chores, am I?¡± Joan asked, though in a way that told me, ¡®comparing me to chores? Am I such a bore?¡¯
¡°Far better. I enjoy spending time with you. I¡¯ve given Clause his time, but I won¡¯t trade my time with you for Clause, not even for his hairline.¡± I told her my words, reassuring her.
¡°There''s nothing wrong with your hair, Strause, besides how dirty it is,¡± she told me as grit flowed off my hair and onto her smock, which got her looking down at the grime.
I tilted my head away from her and took a few futile swipes to brush some of the wet lampblack and ash from my hair.
¡°Oh¡ come on, Joan, I could log a tree with it,¡± I told her, making a chopping motion with my hand. I managed to catch a little glimmer of a smile, some joy shining through the swirl of pain like the shimmer of a gem shining in the rough before I made to stand and told her, ¡°Now, let¡¯s get you out of the rain before you catch your death.¡±
¡°It would be a shame to die tonight,¡± she agreed, her voice more controlled now, ¡°a poor time to die all around, honestly. Everyone¡¯s going to need a mass grave. With all this rain, they won¡¯t be able to cut enough timber. Fires won¡¯t get hot enough.¡±
She said it dryly, almost in a way that could pass as a joke, but it was hiding the unsaid, ¡®I¡¯d hate to be a burden on my family.¡¯
¡°Oh¡ We both know you can¡¯t bury that many people; we don¡¯t have [Gravediggers] for that¡ Actually, we do have one¡ She is going to be so busy. Though that¡¯s beside the point because you¡¯re far too alive to be dead,¡± I told her with a light side hug.
¡°She is, isn¡¯t she? Poor girl.¡± She commented, ¡°Thankfully, I am still far too alive to be dead and take up her time, which would be a shame. I don¡¯t think I would look as good dead,¡± she said with the same tone as I had, mirroring me, ¡°Though at the moment I don¡¯t think I¡¯m looking much better.¡±
¡°I have to agree,¡± I told her, standing up with her, ¡°I think you¡¯re far more fun and fetching alive. Why, I do say, you moving right now is quite attractive compared to the alternative,¡± I told her, knocking her head with mine.
¡°I¡¯m glad you think so. I think life looks quite fetching on you, too,¡± she said, to which I ignored the extra context.
I was a bit cagy about where it led because it was a place where I could misuse my power, and while I was ok with being looked down upon, I wasn¡¯t with using power. She gave me a look because she knew how I felt about that, and I gave her a look because I knew that she knew and knew how she felt about how I felt because nothing could truly be hidden between us.
Like the many times we argued about it without speaking or directly making eye contact, she gave me a minor hit to the ribs, which hit me in my bruised rib.
¡°Ow,¡± I said, ¡°You hit my bruise, and now it''s going to bruise. That¡¯s a double bruise.¡±
¡°I would kiss it better, but you¡¯re allergic to cooties, so it would do more harm than good.¡± She told me dryly. Much of the turmoil I could feel from her was buried in favor of an annoyed spark amongst the myriad emotions that raced through her.
¡°Never found a [Alchemist] who could make a cure for cooties,¡± I told her, ¡°What if I gave you boy cooties? Yuck.¡±
The topic was getting a bit childish, but we didn¡¯t even need to use words, so we could talk about things however we wanted to. We once talked about this in the context of different dogs, mundane house items like candles, and even in half-baked ¡®nu-uh and yah-uh¡¯s¡¯ like we were eight.
Mentioning cooties like we were nine was, by contrast, a mature way of discussing us for us.
¡°What if I want boy cooties?¡± She asked, ¡°You¡¯re ignoring that you¡¯re afraid of giving exactly what I want.¡±
¡°Boy cooties are for boys,¡± I told her, much to her disgruntlement.
Joan, disgruntled as she was, let me take the lead while hiding under my arm, and the both of us, wet to the bone by pounding rain, shuffled off toward a gathering where we might find something to warm our bones. Stumbling around, we found ourselves coming up to an inn that favored [Merchants] that was still open.
Joan was insistent that we get out of the rain, we might as well get warm.
We probably would have gotten weird looks, but I was still shielding us; we walked past crowds unseen. We were recovering, standing next to each other, hearts as one. It was easy to fall into what we had between us, our unseen similarities drew us to one another.
The [Caravan Guards] had clearly outdone themselves to protect their goods, and I could only imagine them scrambling to keep goods out of the rain. I paid for a night and got us into our room because I was rich, and Joan was cold, with her mocking my chivalry all the while. I had tried to get two, but Joan had gotten her word in first. A fireplace lit the room, and we basked in its calm warmth for a few moments.
We got a few chairs pulled over, and I got us some towels to dry off. Then, we rested next to the fire in a state of undress towels thrown over us like cloaks while we shivered.
¡°So¡¡± Joan asked, ¡°What have you been doing besides getting yourself in trouble anyway.¡±
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I sighed before thinking it over to give her what she really wanted.
¡°I got my soul skinned by an undead while holding a checkpoint and got lugged around like furniture before dragging my brother home like it was a rowdy night instead of him being half dead,¡± I told her as succinctly as I could. ¡°What did you get up to?¡± I asked back.
¡°Oh? I¡¯m glad you seem to be alright. I was knitting doilies and being a gods-fearing young woman. The usual,¡± she said, sighing and adjusting herself.
¡°Oh? The usual?¡± I asked her.
¡°Yeah. Helping out in any way I can¡¡± she said, a silent, ¡®so not much of any good, I¡¯m afraid...¡¯ left between the lines as she muttered, ¡°might as well have stayed home and knit myself a new blanket.¡±
¡°I¡¯m sure you did your best. Doing our best is all we can do,¡± I told her, gesturing to myself self-depreciatively. An attempt at lightening her self-depreciation because we were in this clusterfuck called life together, and if she was going to talk herself into a pit, I would too until she pulled the both of us out.
¡°Oh, I did a great job. I managed to have a complete meltdown and cut everyone out... Everyone! My family forgot I existed¡ They still probably do. They just walked away, confused, like they had left food on the stove. I don¡¯t even know if they¡¯re alive.¡± She told me, her skill in muting her face, but not the sniff.
I took her head in my hand, pulling it into my shoulder while stroking her hair.
I set my senses, searching for the familiar feelings of her family. I had been near enough to them to get a sense of them, an insight that let me narrow down on them.
¡°They are. Your pops was hurt I think, but it''s more likely a stubbed toe than anything bad.¡± I told her, wincing as I felt something I didn¡¯t want to as I reached out through the world, since extending out from me, ¡°Though I do have some less pressing bad news... Or good, possibly. Mostly bad for you... and probably me.¡±
Sucking in breaths, relief and release in equal measure, she managed to choke out, ¡°What now? What could possibly make today any worse?¡±
¡°I¡¯m fairly sure you¡¯re going to be an aunt,¡± I told her, a bit of disgust in my voice as I did my best to avoid the cloud of lust around one of her sisters and the man with her.
Very gross. Thank you, gods, I hate it.
¡°Great.¡± She said, knowing full well that it would set off a whole load of problems. ¡°Can you go get me a mug?¡±
¡°There¡¯s a bucket right there if you need to hurl that badly,¡± I told her, to which she pushed out of my shoulder and pushed a finger into my forehead.
I leaned back because that¡¯s what I did. When she pushed, I let her because I had enough issues with having absolute power over people, and Joan was my way of indulging in a controlled lack of that power.
¡°I meant to get a drink,¡± she told me, ¡°I could use one.¡±
¡°Food?¡± I asked.
¡°Not hungry,¡± she told me.
¡°I suppose I could go for a drink too,¡± I told her, ¡°I¡¯ll go get us a pitcher,¡± and in saying that, slipping up from my seat and heading out into the lobby to fetch a pitcher and mugs for two along with some food because when you had the option, you brought food anyway.
Why women did that, I had no idea; not even my powers of literally reading their surface thoughts could shake it loose, but I had enough of Joan eating my food, and she was hungry, and it was two silver for the lot anyway, so I quite frankly didn¡¯t give a damn.
I spent the time reaching out toward home, trying to figure out what the hell was going on over there by feel. It was undoubtedly a complicated set of emotions that I could only hope would pass but knew wouldn¡¯t. Confusing nightmare.
¡°Gods save me from idiots in love and idiots out of it,¡± I muttered before picking up our food and drink and carefully bringing it back on a tray. The confused server was unsure of what I was talking about, but the tray was in my hand before he figured he should say anything and let me be.
Entering the room, Joan was still seated, a towel up and over her head, blanket around her body, the firelight casting her in contrast. I placed the tray on the bed and handed her a mug before dragging an end table over to our seats.
¡°You got a lot of food,¡± she said, pointing to the plate.
¡°Yep. I¡¯m a growing boy, and I need my food. Didn¡¯t think the servings would be so big, so you can steal some from me if you¡¯re hungry,¡± I told her.
¡°I¡¯m not,¡± she lied, taking a spoon for the stew. ¡°Those are big bowls, though, so I suppose I can help.¡±
¡°Yeah, they came with the drink¡ Let me get some for you,¡± I said, sitting back down and filling our cups.
She hummed knowingly. She could tell I was lying, but she would still take my food because, of course, she was hungry. She appreciated it, and I appreciated that she wasn¡¯t stealing my food. Money well spent.
I gave her a look of, ¡®Sure you¡¯re not,¡¯ and she returned it with a look of her own that said, ¡®I¡¯m not going to admit to shit,¡¯ that didn¡¯t end even when she raised her mug and continued to give me the stare.
I returned it, giving my best stare, and neither of us wanted to back down first. We were both wide-eyed and stared into one another''s eyes, even when we went to drink, tilting our heads to pour our drink into our mouths without breaking eye contact because we were morons.
We did it until Joan spilled a little drink on herself, and I looked down and spotted what Joan had wanted me to see, which got me sighing.
Joan was smart. Joan was clever. Joan had dressed herself down while I was out and played me into looking at her chest, which was covered by only a wet white smock.
¡°Joan¡ Why are you wearing only your smock?¡± I asked her, doing my best not to spot the pronounced shapes beneath the wet, transparent white fabric.
¡°I was just making sure you actually liked women,¡± she told me. You do, right?¡± She asked just as much about her chest as the question she had asked.
¡°Yes,¡± I told her, putting down my mug and rubbing my eyes, ¡°My blood is red, and I¡¯m interested in women. They¡¯re very nice, Joan, but I¡¯m not going to lose myself in a moment of lust because of a sneak peek of your chest like a teenager. What''s going on with this? What''s gotten you pushing again? Is it your sister?¡± I asked her.
It was a tale as old as¡ Well, as old as three years ago when she had gotten her class and I had noticed it, and she had developed a crush on the bigger, older me. It had been a teenage crush, then a less teenage crush, and now it was something that stood between us as she continued to mature.
¡°Strause, my parents have been trying to match me with someone for three years.¡± She told me seriously, ¡°The second they find out they have a grandchild on the way, they¡¯re going to get worse. I just don¡¯t want to end up hitched to a random chump with no prospects who can¡¯t understand me. I would prefer being with you over whoever my parents could rope into ¡®taking care of me.¡¯¡±
¡°And you thought that you would try intriguing me with your chest? Ouch, Joan.¡± I told her.
¡°Well, someone has to make the first move, and it certainly wasn¡¯t going to be you. I know you¡¯re interested, I know you¡¯re not going to make the first move, and I¡¯m starting to run out of patience with your hangups, which are the only thing stopping this from happening.¡± She said, a finger flicking back and forth between us. ¡°You need to either stop leading me on or get over your weird power hangups. So are you interested, or are you not?¡±
She was going for the jugular on that one, giving me an ultimatum, but it was also going too quickly.
¡°Joan, I don¡¯t think it''s appropriate for me to-¡± I started, only for her to cut me off, terse but evenly.
¡°It''s not appropriate for you to lead people on. That¡¯s not appropriate, Strause. Don¡¯t play with me, and don¡¯t talk about how you¡¯re a big, strong older nobleman, and how you have a higher level and blah blah blah. Gods, coming from anyone else, each of those things is a humble brag. Do I need to be able to pin you to a bed before you decide that you''re not holding power over me? You¡¯re so tied up in not overusing it that you¡¯re afraid of using it at all.¡±
¡°Would you rather I be the kind of noble that abuses his power?¡± I asked her pointedly.
¡°That¡¯s beside the point, Strause,¡± she said, standing up and placing her hands on my shoulders, ¡°You¡¯re trying to live by a set of morals where you think you can do no harm, but you need to be able to do harm. You¡¯ve tied yourself into a knot. You¡¯re afraid.¡±
I didn¡¯t really have an easy way out of this because she had hit the nail on the head.
¡°I enjoy spending my time with you, Joan. I do. I let you set the pace¡ I don¡¯t want to push you past a line I can¡¯t see. I don¡¯t want to live in a world where I¡¯ve misused my power. If that makes me a cowardly man, then I¡¯m indeed a craven¡¡±
Leaning in, she looked me dead in my eyes, the blanket falling away, arms wrapping around my neck. Close enough to feel her breath, nose to nose. Close enough to kiss. Our wet clothes hide nothing, every curve on display.
I held tightly to my control, to my thoughts to keep my head.
¡°So? Let me set the pace. Pay attention to me. You¡¯re good enough at it to read me. Let loose; let me be your break. I need to know if you¡¯re going to let me in, and I need to know now. No dodging, no changing the topic. Are you interested in me? Are you interested in this?¡± She asked.
I opened my mouth and found that I couldn¡¯t find my voice.
What would I say? I was interested in it, and I didn¡¯t want to abuse my power over her, a power she was willing to control? How? I was taller, stronger, of noble lineage, had more levels and was teaching her... Even if it was more of a time we would hang out with one another. I was more powerful than her in literally any way you could measure it, and she seemed not to care; she thought she could control that. I could shatter her mind, I could tangle her into a toy, or isolate her, or take advantage of her and her family or worse, and she seemed to not care.
I wouldn¡¯t lie to her; I was interested. Joan was an easy seven on a bad day; she was a seven while covered in grime and wet. Sitting on me, it was hard enough to keep my mind the right way around. I enjoyed talking with her, and the idea of sharing my life with her. She was attractive, she liked me, and I liked her. We understood one another, and she was right about why I was hesitant.
I could see the tension she hid, feel it in her arms, and feel the tension she tried to hide in her emotions. I could tell that if I decided to put my morals above her, that would be that, and we would drift apart, and rightly so. In her shoes, what would I do? Sit around for a boy to decide to man up, assuming he ever did?
So tell her and break my moral compass¡ Or rebuff her¡ Which would also break something far more meaningful to me.
Who would I be without my morals?
No¡ That wasn¡¯t the right question. Was this even against my morals?
She was asking if I was interested in her, and as far as I cared, telling her the truth wasn¡¯t particularly immoral. I just couldn¡¯t do many other things that could be associated with exerting power over her. If she was willing to let me run loose, tell me when to reel it in, and when to stop being uptight, there wasn¡¯t anything wrong with that¡ Surely.
¡°I am,¡± I told her, reaching out and placing a hand on her hip, her wet smock cool but warming underhand. ¡°I¡¯m interested. Joan, you''re attractive, you¡¯re funny, and you have wit. You¡¯re fun to be around, and I enjoy being next to you, rain or shine. I would love to just let my morals drop, but I¡¯m worried that I¡¯ll end up doing wrong by you. If you¡¯re going to be my brakes, I need you to be my brakes¡ I need you to be a peer¡ I just don¡¯t know how.¡±
Joan, tense little Joan, lit up¡ªnot her face, not her body language, but her¡ªthe real her that we could feel, a light hope growing in her as I spoke¡ªhope, joy, and a bit of conspiracy.
It was like a light, one that could light up everything around her. She curled her head down to my neck, contracting herself onto me and slipping into my lap, guided there by a kind of pull that I could feel deep within me.
Soul deep. A drag of me to her, her to me. Our differences draw us together.
¡°Good. It''s about time you tell me. It¡¯s felt like you¡¯ve been stringing me along for long enough¡ I understand you have reservations, more so about what we can do than about the little things.¡± She whispered to me, ¡°So¡ I have come up with a simple plan to help with that.¡±
Letting my hands slip around her waist and doing my best to keep Strause Jr. from waking up, I told her, ¡°I¡ How? What''s your plan, Joan.¡±
I kind of slipped my head over her shoulder, our heights being level while she lay in my lap. I didn¡¯t know what to do with my head, though; I kind of just extended my neck over her shoulder like I was hugging her, which was a novel sensation... Mostly in the proximity of our lower halves.
¡°It¡¯s quite novel, I think,¡± she told me teasing me, though physically.
¡°Oh? This is quite novel already, what with an attractive woman sitting in my lap, whispering her plans in my ear like a seductress. Do spill the tea,¡± I told her, projecting my uncertainty.
¡°It''s simple, really. I doubt a noble like you, with your plots and schemes and spys-¡± she said.
¡°I don¡¯t have spy¡¯s,¡± I mumbled.
She ignored me, chuckling, ¡°I know why you visit ladies of the night, and it isn¡¯t for back rubs or sex¡ Now, luckily, the plan is simple. I¡¯m going to level. I¡¯m going to go out and level like a madwoman. I¡¯m going to become more powerful than you, so much so that you won¡¯t be able to lay a finger on me. If you¡¯re not powerful enough to control me, you have no reason to worry about abusing it.¡±
¡°That¡¯s all good, but how exactly are you going to out-level me? Do you have a war brewing? A spell that makes you level? Oh, gods, don¡¯t tell me you figured out how to summon a demon or something. I like my partners with a soul, you know.¡± I told her.
She snorted, ¡°I¡¯m not going to sell my soul to the dark one, Strause. Though the divine is part of it¡¡±
I pulled back, confused by her words. Her words spoke of one thing, but my feeling of conspiracy had grown.
¡°What? Are you off to a nunnery? Do we have those?¡± I asked her.
She chuckled next to my ear, her voice driving me mad with confusion. It made us want to look her in the eye as if that would somehow elucidate to me what she was doing. I found my hands cinched her waist, holding her close and possessively.
¡°Calm yourself,¡± she murmured into my ear, ¡°I¡¯m not going to become a [Nun]. Could you even believe that? No, gods, no. I¡¯m going to follow a certain servant of the divine. Haven¡¯t you noticed yet? She¡¯s grown, Strause. She becomes more¡ Tangible? More real? More important, by the day. By the day! Can you believe that? So has your sister and that little Sprite thing. Everyone around her levels like I can¡¯t believe. So¡ I¡¯m going to hang up my towel, and [Barmaid] get up with my parents, and go stand next to her and suck some of that madness up.¡±
¡°That¡¯s¡¡± I started, unable to find a good word for that weirdly specific kind of idea.
¡°I understand there¡¯s no guarantee, but I¡¯m willing to try it for a bit and see where it takes me¡ Now, there¡¯s something I need to bring to your attention.¡± She told me seriously.
¡°More serious than a hair-brained scheme to siphon levels from my sisters¡ Roommate?¡± I asked her, trying to say anything that wasn¡¯t rude.
¡°Nice save,¡± she told me, ¡°Though I don¡¯t know why you care so much about what to call her. You could call them lovers, after all.¡±
I snorted. My sister? Yeah right. ¡°They cuddle at best,¡± I told her.
¡°True enough.¡± She admitted, ¡°That point aside, I think we need to have a good long think about what we do next.¡±
¡°What we do next?¡± I asked.
¡°It¡¯s been a long night. We¡¯re tired and stressed and wet. I need to blow off a little steam, Strause, and I can tell we could both use this. This little fire won¡¯t dry us off anytime soon¡ And we have the room for the night, so how about we test this out?¡±
There it was.
I sighed, ¡°Joan¡¡±
¡°We need to know if we''re compatible, Strause¡ And besides, you want it just as much as I do,¡± she said moodily, pressing herself down on my lap. ¡°I want to finally get it over with. Don¡¯t make me beg Strause. That would be such a disappointment after you finally started to man up.¡±
I knew she was poking at me with her man comments, but I also knew she knew it would be pointless, which made it a roundabout compliment.
¡°Oh? And somehow, giving in to all your demands would make me more of a man?¡± I asked her.
¡°Well¡ Yes?¡± she said, trying to play it off, ¡°I mean¡ I¡¯m yours so long as you¡¯re mine. So if you were to stake your claim while I¡¯m on my back, that would be very manly.¡±
¡°Ah yes¡¡± I told her, ¡°The masculine urge to treat women like property, like a parcel of land or a lounging chair.¡±
¡°Now, now¡ I¡¯m not suggesting that you treat me like a lounge chair¡ More like a bed or a pillow. I want you to put me down flat and lay on top of me and wrestle with me until we''re both sweaty and I¡¯m covered in you.¡± She told me, voice sensual in a way that bypassed me and went straight down my spine.
I was starting to get worried. That was very out of context for Joan, very off.
¡°Joan, what exactly are you asking me to do in this case?¡± I asked her, ¡°And be specific. There are some lines I just won¡¯t cross, not even for you.¡±
¡°Well, if I need to be so vulgar as to say it¡ I want you to pin me down on that bed and make me shout so loud the other guests complain. I want you to-¡±
Joan told me what she wanted, and while I deliberated, it was a quick deliberation. Morals aside, I had a naked woman on my lap. What was a man to do?
Who was I without my morals? A danger, but a danger with a relationship, and that wasn''t a bad thing. My morals needed to be flexible, or I would be moral and alone, and people weren''t meant to be alone. Morals were made by people, and people changed.
My morals were all about me, but this wasn''t about me; it was about us. You couldn''t spell moral without Or, it wasn''t a yes/no kind of deal... You also couldn''t spell moral without oral, which would get a chuckle from Joan after I had rehearsed it.
So, I altered my morals to include Joan, and I gave her what she wanted, because morals wouldn''t make me happy, even if they made me feel safe.
***
¡°Holy cow,¡± I said to myself, watching as, for once, one of the Mynes siblings got laid.
¡°My goodness, it''s like watching a baby bird fly from the nest¡ Well, that¡¯s one sibling down. I wish Anna and Saphine had half that straightforwardness¡ Or Clause¡ Goodness gracious.¡± I said to myself
I watched, amazed that one of them had finally had enough guts to just get laid. Then it kind of went weird, and I started focusing more on their souls as they did weird stuff, and then it got very boring, and all that was left was the act of meat on meat, and I lost interest.
¡°Well¡ Time to go before their little friend comes on over and decides I look tasty¡¡± I murmured, shuttering at the thought.
I really didn¡¯t like those guys. As far as spirits went, they were just far too broad to be predictable. Honestly? Three hundred sixty-five types? Far too many; you never knew what you were going to get when it came to an Archon; they could be kind and benevolent or a raging murder monster; even the young ones that walked around unaware were freaky.
And so, tip-toeing away from my peeping position, I made my way around to my sleeping charges, slipping in and out of dreams and making my daily bread.
Anna got several class levels, as did Clause, Strause and Joan if their version of a guide coming meant anything. The world whispered into sleep as people began to huddle or return to burnt-out buildings. Some left, their lives over, spinning out into the dark to become [Bandits], while others pulled together. Some wept alone, others let out their grief together, some slunk through the dark, the [Guards] spread too thin to stop [Thieves], but most did not because tonight was a night to mourn the departed.
For tomorrow, there would be work. The bodies needed collecting, wood needed cutting, fires needed stoking, cloaks needed oiling, and money didn¡¯t care that your family died. Money had no heart.
And alone in her room, Saphine freaked out over what she would do tomorrow.
Chapter 89
I awoke from my levelling at the sound of lightning, rolling off my bed in fright and hitting my head on the ground. Returning from the flinch and moaning as I curled up, I couldn¡¯t help but just want to curl in and in and in and in until I compressed myself into a ball of skin and hair as hard as rock.
¡°Why can¡¯t I just escape this nightmare for one god¡¯s damned minute? At least if I had a nightmare, I wouldn¡¯t remember most of it,¡± I thought to myself, hissing as I held my head.
Why couldn¡¯t I just sleep? And why wasn¡¯t I tired enough to pull myself back onto the lonely mattress of the servant''s quarters?
I was in a state of both wakefulness and emotion, the stresses of the day and evening draining me.
It was a shitty kind of feeling, which was made worse by a now-blooming pain in my head, the emotional flux of my quasi-relationship, the clarity brought to me by waking from a level up and the rush of my new stats, as meagre as they may be. I was running around and around in my head, my consciousness my worst enemy.
All the things I needed to do and all the things I wanted to do knocked around inside my mental room while my instinct ran around, making noises like it was fucking dying and knocking them off shelves. My thoughts growing apocalyptic as they collided.
And circling around all my new, fresh hells was one old one. I had seen a city burn before, but I had been numb to it. I hadn¡¯t cared as much as I should have then. I had figured I wanted to die anyway, and a faster ride, all expenses paid, was as good as I could have hoped for.
And here I was, a scant few months later, stressing over a much less destructive fire, and yet it felt far worse because I wasn¡¯t numb, not in the same way. I was numb because I knew it could be worse, and it wasn¡¯t, and so because of that, it was somehow better than expected. There was my instinct, too, adding to the stress of it because it didn¡¯t want to die, and I had let it down the last time I had the chance when it lay dormant in me.
Catching a breath, I had never lost, I pulled my arms away from my head. Forcing myself, I uncurled, uncomfortably letting myself lay flat against my own better wishes, staring at a baren unfamiliar ceiling and let my mind run.
Then, Instead of pushing things into their places to try and drag some kind of order to my mind, I let it go wild and feral.
I let them run rampant through my mind; I let them play out my worst prospects. I let them turn into an all-encompassing monster in my mind, and I stared into that darkness, into my worst future.
I closed my eyes and worked to calm my breath. I stared at each mental part as each desperate thing stitched itself together into a nightmare to overshadow life. Each part working itself into a portion of my future woe.
I let it grow and grow until it blocked out the light and drowned my mental world in sorrow, and I kept watching it as it shambled like an approximation of what life could be, until even my instinct curled up with me in a corner huddling in the dark barking against what it could barely understand. I let it go, until it revealed itself as what my feelings were, feelings, they were not real, they were based on what was real, and projected the worst possible future.
They projected what could be if everything were at its worst, and I did nothing to stop it. They projected a fake future that projected a fake darkness from it.
And so, I reached into it, into its stitching, into its fakest parts, and pulled.
I saw the stitching, I saw the hole, and I closed it. I pulled it until its stitching came apart, breaking it down into its miniscule irrelevancy¡¯s, then that into its constituent parts, and then further. I took the initiative from it, not pushing but cutting. I carved my issues into type and then into components, separated wheat and chaff, and sorted them out into bundles that I could do something about. I broke them down until each grain could be picked apart.
I acknowledged them and then left them so I could work through them, separating them from myself so I could better view them, like I was shopping in a market, over here, anxiety, over here, hopes and dreams.
I pulled my instinct in, lifting it by the scruff as it protested and let it squirm where it couldn¡¯t continue to influence me. I sorted everything out and opened my eyes because I needed to think, and I needed to plan, and I needed to get my shit together.
Taking a great big breath I let my tension leave me and got to work.
Anna things first.
Sophy had told me that I probably was fine, and I felt like I was so far up shit creek that I was vertical. She felt I hadn¡¯t blown it, and so, I reached in and sifted through my thoughts, finding the desperate feelings and tossing them out, and leaving in our reactions, our words and replaying that in my mind.
Anna and I had talked past one another. We were talking with each other but from two very different mindsets. Both of us reached a point, then passed one another, like two ships in the night.
The hard part was trying to figure out where she was coming from, where she might be now, and how to repair that break, or I suppose, more accurately, how to bridge that gap. I couldn¡¯t undo our talk, after all, but I could bridge that gap.
I racked my head about that for quite a while, going over it again and again, but I was unable to find the missing piece I needed to understand where she was coming from.
She was coming from a specific angle I could not bend my mind to. Somehow, the calculation of Failing to cast a spell, getting hurt, and the way I interacted with her mother and then with her did not lead to a clear answer.
Leaning on my instinct, metaphorically, I let it sniff the pieces to see if it could spot a missing portion. It sniffed around, but it only came back with an idea of weakness, a read not of solid words but of her body language.
I tried running myself along each rail, from angry with me leaning on her during the argument to failing to catch the lightning bolt to disregarding her wishes to be left alone. I even added in how someone feeling weak might factor into all of them, but I couldn¡¯t read it.
At least once I figured that out, I realized that I knew I did not know. After sifting out the details, I placed that bushel on a metaphorical counter and left it. I could feel Anna in the morning.
Perhaps all that was needed to figure it out was to ask her, just a simple talk, or perhaps I would need to win her over, but if Sophy was right¡ªand I was willing to bet she was¡ªthere was a chance.
I placed next to it, in a place of importance, the kernel of wisdom that Sophy had given me about how people would make a big point early and set it aside for what I would do tomorrow.
Not in the people sense, but in the me sense.
I sifted through the fifty gorgilion million things I felt and organized the smashed stuff into piles.
The things I needed to do were surprisingly short. I wouldn¡¯t have to do much, but I would need to go back to the cottage, make sure it was clear, and close up behind me after doing chores. I would need to check in with Gunther to make sure we could get covers for the books; they would be worthless if they were destroyed from water damage. I would also need to get a cloak or something to keep the rain out, and I would need to do it quickly. I could bet that Gunther would be able to hook me up with one of her people to do it, too. I also needed to walk through the forms I had been shown. I had ample testing today, and they had almost immediately fallen apart. Though, if I had to put a finger on it, I was probably better than I had been before; even swinging, I had the forethought to grip my shovel better and aim better.
I needed to integrate that somehow, but I had no partner for that.
Next came things I was planning on doing but didn¡¯t literally need to do, mostly magic, though also figuring out my skills and, as Selly would say, ¡®showing off.¡¯
I needed to finish my stuff already. I had done it piecemeal, reading a little here, thinking a little there, and I needed to stop kicking the can and get it done. I needed to figure out my answers and give them to Anna. I could get a slate or some dry paper and a quill, and I could write down the culmination of all my thoughts.
I needed to get my desperate ideas out of my head and refine them down to what made sense. Inside my head, they were far too mutable, ebbing as I thought on them like wet clay underhand. No matter how hard I turned them around, I couldn¡¯t get them to sit still for long enough to crystallize into a final form, so I needed a solid place to put my fluid ideas, pile up all my thoughts in one place and fire them.
With those done, I could focus on practicing with both my magic and my skills.
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And I needed to really use my skills. Both my new and old ones. I needed to give the new ones a test run, learn their ins and outs and put them through their paces. I needed to know not just how they worked but how they moved like I knew how to move an arm. Selly had called it showing off, but I could read between the lines enough to know when she said, ¡®show off,¡¯ she meant, ¡®go hog wild until you run flat into a wall.¡¯
She thought I needed to cut loose, and knowing her, probably in more ways than one. She probably thought I was a bit too normal. If I were to estimate it, a normal person would probably not yell at a [Baroness] who could probably order me to be killed for failing to show her deference.
Old me would have shown deference if for no other reason than to be practical, but then again, old me wasn¡¯t an unkillable representative of a god.
¡°I suppose¡ Now that I think of it¡ I should make sure to check my ego. At least I didn¡¯t do it publicly¡ So long as I don¡¯t let myself spiral into a totally obnoxious asshole, and I don¡¯t make a habit of doing it publicly, she will probably consider me annoying but otherwise beneath notice.¡±
I sat there with a new fear and quickly sorted it out and put it into its pile, bringing my momentarily wandering mind back into focus.
Last was the most nebulous things I probably needed to pay attention to, at least in the short term.
Then, there were the things I needed to try and figure out.
There was now another screamer, for one. Another tormented soul. [Saints] were supposed to do things for their god, and while I didn¡¯t know what I was supposed to do for sure because Death was a bitch who wouldn¡¯t even respond to my prayers to give me a checklist, I had figured I was supposed to send souls over to the other side.
The problem with learning how to do that the hard way was that I had no gods damned idea how to deal with them.
Hells there was one in the living room.
It had screamed and screamed until it was background noise.
I had no idea how to deal with them, but I did know I could stick them in a pot, so I could at least do that until I figured out how to give them their afterlife because I would keep trying until I could.
I had been separated from my loved ones for some time, their loss an ache whenever my mind stumbled upon something they would have done, and that was when I knew they were still there, out in the wider cosmos, living their afterlives.
I couldn¡¯t begin to imagine what it would be like for their relatives, both here and there, if they had to live an eternity without them.
The idea was so bleak that it was something that I couldn¡¯t believe, not even in a world as wide and terrible as this one could be. There was always a way, even if the only answer was I needed to subject myself to the torture of having my soul scraped out, I would eventually do it; only a truly Monstrous being deserved otherwise.
They were in pain, and I need to figure out a way to take that pain away, if I could, both to send them on their way and because no one should be in that much pain for eternity.
And that was just one thing.
What was my deal was another, and it was one that I didn¡¯t want to figure out but would probably need to.
Sophy had thrown around terms like Mortal Spirit, Foundation, Anima, Etcetera. She had stuck me with a dearth of information, without any adjoining bits, like putting up the load-bearing beams of a house, without any walls, floors, or ceilings.
Forget the foundation I was missing; I was missing simple comprehension of how to stick a roof on it. Forget updating it later, I was missing the basics required to walk around inside it in the short term.
¡°I should really get Sophy to write this stuff down somehow, or maybe we could do something with a skill to comprehend it; she somehow knows all of this, and she¡¯s made of skills,¡± I thought to myself.
I wanted to ask Selly to remember that, but she wasn¡¯t here, and it wasn¡¯t like she could come into my soul to remind me.
I brought myself back to the things at hand and worked through them, thinking out how I was going to do the things I wanted to do. I planned how to best do my daily tasks. First, I could go to Gunther rather than home, then back here after I fixed myself up an answer, then I could get on with stuff... stuff, in this case, being talking to Anna.
There was a lot of empty space in that, but I could do that.
I wiggled my instinct to try and understand its thoughts, but it gave little care to me running around doing silly things like learning magic. Why would it care? It wasn¡¯t related to Anna; the only part it could even understand was me trying to stay dry.
Words meant nothing, nor did communing with ¡®the short one,¡¯ on matters of, ¡®den material,¡¯ or siting down to look at words. It did think it was worth doing it, but only because it understood that, ¡®our mouse mate,¡¯ wanted us to do it.
I gave it a pat on the head and placed it down in the room and kindly told it to stop being a total bitch about this, while I fixed up my mind.
Metaphorically, of course.
It was more like I was laying on my back, my eyes shut in concentration, doing literally nothing but breathing and thinking while my mind conjured random ideas through the power of imagination, but it worked out.
Opening my eyes my back to the cold ground, I stared into the dark at the wood ceiling, the only light coming from beneath the door, then down to the better lit stone foot that kept the timber off the wet ground, and the bed and thought on sleeping.
I got up and into bed and curled up to sleep.
I found none.
***
After what must have been a few hours, I decided that I wasn¡¯t going to fall asleep. I just wasn¡¯t sleepy. Despite being mentally tired, I just wasn¡¯t getting that kick to sleep. Coupled with the whining of my instinct that we were missing the vital component of sleep, someone to cuddle with left me wanting to just get out of bed for the entire duration of laying down.
It was honestly annoying.
Annoying enough to get me out of bed in the middle of the night, unsure of what I should do.
Night wasn¡¯t for doing things, it was for sleeping.
Sleeping was fun, relaxing, and helped me end this terrible day and decompress. Sleeping helped distance yourself from the previous day, and without it, I felt strangely stretched. It was still yesterday, but also today.
I felt like I should be sleeping but also getting my day on its way.
Stuck between these two states, I confusedly walked through my magic practice, running through the basics of casting, making, and manipulating a spell that I had first walked through while getting the [Magi] skill to begin with.
After playing around with that, I found a lamp in the corner and lit the damn thing to look for anything vaguely shaped like a shovel.
There was a singular broom, and I used it.
Its weight was wrong, the feel was wrong, everything about it was wrong, and it dragged through the air in a way that slowed me as I moved the unfamiliar haft in hand, but by the gods, I used it despite being cramped in the room.
I smashed up the broom quite a few times, but it was luckily reinforced, my skill considering a broom a tool.
But after that, I was still left in the dark of night, the storm blotting out any and all starlight outside, the tap, tap, taping of the rain like a bony finger.
The tap, tap, taping went on so long that after passing around for what had to be half a glass, I almost missed the similar, though metallic, taping on the door.
Turning to the door, I called out, ¡°I¡¯m decent,¡± and waited.
One of the estate''s guards carefully opened the door like he was peeking into the room while I might not be decent and had perhaps heard a noise that concerned him.
He stared at me, my pitter-patter of feet halting while I stared back at him.
¡°Uhh¡ Can I ask you to stop that?¡± He asked, slightly confused.
Confused, I asked, clarifying, ¡°My pacing?¡±
I would have protested if that was the case, but he quickly shook his head.
¡°No, not the pacing, the skill you¡¯re using, the one that¡¯s getting me through the wall.¡± He said as if that was a skill I was using.
¡°I¡¯m not using a skill to hurt you?¡± I halfheartedly told him, my confusion mounting.
He shrugged in response, clearly believing it had to be me. ¡°It has to be you. It''s reaching through a wall, but it''s centered on you. So, I¡¯ll ask again, stop using a skill to slowly hurt me; I¡¯ve been putting up with it for four glasses now, and it''s been making my body ache like when I was drunk under the table back as a [Soldier]. Pull in you¡¯re auras, that¡¯s the best guess I have.¡±
¡°I only have a few auras,¡± I told him, ¡°And none of them hurt¡¡±
I stopped, and the time plus the fact that I did, in fact, have harmful auras. Two brand new harmful ones, one that killed people, and one that bolstered the other and dragged the death mana from him and into the aura, making a shroud of death mana, which was presumably harmful.
¡°Oh¡ Oh, shoot, sorry about that. I picked up two of them when I levelled up.¡± I told the far stronger guard who I had been killing for several hours and was ¡®hurt,¡¯ instead of ¡®severely wounded and dying,¡¯ which split the difference between level and the skills effect.
¡°Good for you,¡± he said, clearly caring greatly for my achievement, ¡°So you can deal with it. Rein it in. Your skills are bound to hurt someone.¡±
¡°Yeah, that would be great for me right now. Killing a villager via my auras right after a tragedy. That would give me quite the thing to stew over, and the people that stoned me quite the vindication, the fucking pricks.¡± I thought to myself.
¡°Hehe¡ Yeah, I would hate to have [Aura of Decay] and [Aura of Death] kill someone¡ I¡ Just one problem¡ How do I do that?¡± I asked him.
He looked at me and, as if struck by a sudden headache, squinted.
¡°By the Righteous fucking Blade¡¯s tits woman. You have two lethal auras and can¡¯t retract them? Can you turn the off?¡± He said, the oath unfamiliar to my ear.
¡°I can probably pull it in; I just don¡¯t know how,¡± I told him.
He looked at me like I was a particularly dim child, gesturing vaguely at me.
¡°I¡¯m not a bloody [Paladin], lady. Figure it out, or I¡¯ll come back in here and knock you flat. I¡¯ll be back in a quarter hour,¡± he said grumpily, leaving me with a clunk of the door that spoke of finality.
¡°Well, shit¡¡± I thought to myself, ¡°Land, how do you pull in an aura?¡± I asked it, checking if it could give me a hint.
It gave me a gurgling noise like it was gargling salt water.
¡°Very elucidating,¡± I told it, ¡°thank you.¡±
¡°Very good,¡± it said, its voice a damp patter of water, a roiling feeling to it that was more cloud than open sky.
And so, following my friends very intellectually stimulating idea, and my ability to push mana into the aura to expand it, I tried sucking the mana out of it.
At first, it was easy; I pulled it in by about a quarter, then the ¡®sucking¡¯ became harder. I managed to pull it in close enough over the quarter hour the guard gave me to not get knocked unconscious, but it took my about a glass to get it into half, and until the mornings light to bring it in close enough that I would need to be touching someone to pass along the effect.
To be fair, it was hard. It was like sucking in a pond for each aura, and I had reached in and done the same for my other auras including my [Wellspring of Renewal] which despite its name, functioned like an aura.
I also noticed that my [Aura of Renewal] and [Aura of Decay] mirrored one another in a way so uncanny they were like mirrors. Their effects were nearly identical to the point where they were interfering with one another.
It probably didn¡¯t help that all of my auras were sucked in close enough to be buzzing, each aura wanting to fold out like I was sucking in my gut.
It also didn¡¯t help that I got a second knock while I was lost in sucking in my auras, the disturbance almost shocking me out of my control.
¡°I¡¯m still decent,¡± I called out to the guard, ¡°I¡¯m not exactly going to strip naked in the middle of training.¡±
The door clicked open at my comment, and the guard nodded less awkwardly this time.
¡°The young lord has called for you,¡± he told me, ¡°You¡¯ll need to head in to see him.¡±
Chapter 90
Doing my best to keep myself on track with this unexpected diversion, I rearranged what I would need to do while walking through the soaking rain. My guide, the [Guard], didn¡¯t seem to care, the metal plate taping as the rain came down in sheets just to roll off his armour.
It was early, still overwhelmingly dark and dreary, as the sky, now thankfully sans lightning, continued to weep openly, but there was a kind of light barely present that told me it was closing in on dawn. It also told me, if I was right, that it was going to remain dark and dreary all day.
Hopefully the rain would start to slow, even if it was probably going to rain all day, and perhaps into tomorrow.
It was late for storms like this, by my reckoning, though with how much water is in the valley, I could see this being more common in summer, then in spring.
A bit of rain got in my eye as I looked up and I turned my head back down with a his, the rain mixing with the sweat still clinging to my skin, bringing my eyes to watering as they stung.
Hopefully, that wouldn¡¯t be a portent of my meeting.
I followed along with my ears as the man clanked, scrubbing at my eyes as he let me sedately around to a side door, instead of the main hall, where there was a mat to let his armour drip, and for my soaking wet form to not ruin the wood finishing and make the house damp and dank with mildew.
He stopped, which led to me bumping into him like a comedy skit, him turning as I looked up at him in the lamp light.
In a play this was where the knight in shining armour reached down and gently helped the damsel to her feet, apologizing to show off how gallant and kind hearted the man was.
¡°Are you daft?¡± He asked instead.
¡°I¡¯ve got sweat in my eye,¡± I told him, ¡°didn¡¯t expect you to stop cold like that.¡±
I stood, and gallant as a knight in shining armour truly was, he stepped back to let me stand.
He tisked as he watched me get up, but not in disapproval but in a way that said, ¡®yeah, fair enough.¡¯ After all, just because he was probably a level 80 [Super Swordsman Supreme] didn¡¯t mean he didn¡¯t get a bit of salt in his eye when he trained; it just meant he would grit through it.
He reached over to a rack and pulled out a length of cloth for me to wipe down with, and I did, gleefully getting the water out of my hair and wicking the wet from as much of me as I could.
I was still soaked through, but at least I wasn¡¯t dripping, and that was enough for the guard.
¡°Leave the towel here,¡± he said, ¡°and follow me.¡±
I obliged the guard, tucking the towel on the rack next to some cloaks, a pan there to catch the wet. I gave my feet one final scuff to get any grit off before I followed along through the hallways and into the home proper, up. First to second, we scaled up a floor and then over to a doorway.
Passing us came servants, each dressed in their best, though not finery, scuttling around indoors to get the house ready for the day. One obviously swept, another behind them moped, while others dusted. They worked their morning away to make sure the house would always be in top shape, and they did so with none of the confusion and scrabble of last night.
They were dressed better than I was, given my clothes were a mess. Good on them.
A tiny part in the back of my head seemed to balk at the realization that I was going to have a meeting with a noble half-dressed. The greater half, the one that just didn¡¯t care, figured it would be fine. Last night, I had his blood on me, and that wasn¡¯t the kind of situation that let you look at someone and judge them by the cut of their clothes.
And if he could, he was an asshole anyway, even if he was an important one.
We came to a door, and the guard stopped before knocking lightly.
¡°Speak of the man, and he shall appear,¡± I thought, ¡°Though I suppose it''s not much of a coincidence.¡±
¡°Come in,¡± Clause¡¯s voice called from inside, quiet and tired.
He opened the door and then, unconcerned, gestured me inside.
The room was, as far as rooms went, rather normal. It was an office and clearly one that had seen better days.
It was disorderly, covered in sheaves of documents, maps, and books, both mundane and reference, and generally looked like a mortar shell and gone off in a library. It was very obviously controlled chaos.
Further, I had always heard you can tell a lot about a person based on the state of their desk. I had never had one, but Annas was mostly clean, a bit of stuff left out and around that she would probably get to using. Skipseo¡¯s back when I had seen it regularly had almost always been clean, neatly organized, and thought out, with a rhyme and reason of his own as to where he placed it, halfway between ease and practicality.
Clauses desk looked like a bomb went off on it, not once, but regularly. A pounding of shells raining continuously down into the earthen works of a fortress besieged. You could practically see the beleaguered defenders holding on for dear life while the onslaught of work cut off its supply lines and watched them starve.
Clause was not at the desk, nor even near it, nor by the nook where I supposed he might read. He was pacing, wearing a hole through the floor. Stranger still, he was dressed not in finery but in a robe that looked like it belonged next to a bath, not in an office.
I shut the door behind me, watching him pace. It broke what little tension the meeting should have had. Normally, one would place themselves carefully, making it look like you were to be talked down to.
Hearing the door close, he turned, robe spinning around as he did, before stopping to look at me.
Taken off guard by the look of everything, my mind ran face first into a pothole, fumbling through it, but not fast enough for me to get a word in, not that a word would necessarily be any better, in this case.
He had a look that was very obviously fake, considering his prior disposition.
¡°Ah. I was expecting you,¡± he said cryptically.
¡°You did call for me, yes,¡± I told him, confused as to what the hell was going on in his head.
That seemed to not be what he was expecting me to say because now it was his turn to mentally hit a pothole.
¡°You¡ You did call for me¡ Correct?¡± I asked him before finishing, ¡°Lord Mynes.¡±
My finishing of the sentence seeming to spur him back into reality, bringing him back to action he nodded.
¡°Indeed. I¡¯ve asked you here today to discuss a few matters. Namely, recompense for your actions last night.¡± He said.
Oh.
Oh!
That made more sense. This was an official meeting, but I had automatically assumed the worst.
¡°I see,¡± I said, breathing a sign of relief. ¡°You had me thinking this was going to be worse.¡±
¡°Well,¡± he hedged, ¡°let''s get things started before we decide if it¡¯s a net positive or negative. Would you like the good news or the bad news first?¡±
That¡ Was not something I was ready for.
¡°Generally its customary to start with the bad news,¡± I said, ¡°Though if this is about be being compensated, I don¡¯t need it. Quite frankly, if you settled on something, or you won¡¯t be able to do so soon, that¡¯s ok. I did it to help Anna and because it¡¯s what anyone who could, should do.¡±
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¡°That¡¯s not the bad news.¡± He said frankly, ¡°The bad news is about your conduct last night¡ Ultimately, you not only shouted at my mother but also publicly wronged me. Mother has made her point clear to me that she doesn¡¯t care about satisfaction over a private matter, though I do recommend you find some way to settle that privately, woman to woman, as it were.¡± He said, though his tone sounded more like he was recommending I sacrifice myself to a bloodthirsty daemon rather than a noblewoman.
¡°And you?¡± I asked him, aware that there were two parts to this and that he had mitigated the issue before he hit home.
¡°And while I¡¯m grateful you help me in my¡ Time of need, let us say, and most of your refusals can be chalked up to you being my sister''s apprentice, which would place any issue on her; your disregard for me in a public setting is an issue. Much of what gives nobles their status is that they are afforded respect. You are a mage, legally anyway, and you are apprenticed to my sister, and thus, much of what you did can be chalked up to her looking out for me, even if it¡¯s a hard sell¡ But your disregard for that respect, and thus, the tarnishing of my status to the common folk, could cause issue¡ Especially considering we are going to have a rough time after last night''s attack. I need to somehow right that.¡±
That¡ That was more in line with what I expected.
When it rained, it poured.
It was however, frustrating. Immensely so. I went and said something in the moment, while saving his life, and he had to check over his shoulder for the optics of it.
¡°I see,¡± I said, ¡°And you¡¯re going to make an example of me to make sure you¡¯re secure. I can¡¯t say I didn¡¯t see that coming. So. Why are you even telling me this? Are you intending to tell me so I understand while you drag me out of here?¡± I asked him.
¡°Calm yourself,¡± he said, making a warding gesture at me. ¡°Nothing of the sort. It would be quite tone-deaf to do so. Such would only make the situation worse, your treatment could be pivotal both personally and politically.¡± He said before letting out a deep wearying sigh.
He looked at me, and there was a weight in his eyes, a bone deep exhaustion that hung around them that made the shadows beneath his eyes all the deeper. His shoulders slouched slightly in a way that only a man at his wits end could pull off.
¡°May I be frank, Saphine?¡± he asked rhetorically, ¡°There are quite a few factors here. My sister seems to care about you and could make my life a living hell if I decide to punish you, and punishing her would be all the worse. You¡¯ve probably been seen protecting or saving the lives of well over a hundred people and the temples seem to be wary of you while also seeing you as one of theirs. The Hunters saw you fighting a monster with a shovel, which has impressed and bewildered them, and your status as the agent of a noble would have the lords of the valley in a tizzy if I decided to make a ruling against you, and for some reason the people I trust speak well of you! That¡¯s not even including how I would even do so. You''re not one of my people, but you''re not sworn to another lord either; you¡¯re a mage, but only an apprentice, and yet you''re also a [Saint] of all things. Quite frankly, I don¡¯t want to touch this situation with a ten-foot pole, but I must. And so I need to demand something of you, and you need to accept it, and it can''t be too heavy-handed nor too light.¡±
By the end of his speech, he was red in the face from lack of breath, waving slightly, his movements muted. He was near apoplectic, his words frustrated, and it took me a second to connect his words with why they mattered.
Back¡ Way back, Anna had explained the situation with the valleys rulership. There were five groups that held sway in the valley. The Temple, the Hunters guild, The Guild or the one for the [Craftsmen], the land lords, and the Mynes. And I had managed to get on probably all of their maps, and the common folks, all in one night.
I was a lit fuse that could seriously screw up Clause''s life.
¡°I see¡¡± I said as I felt the sudden weight of the attention fall on me.
¡°I somehow doubt you do,¡± Clause, likely unintentionally, insulted. ¡°But to say less, I can¡¯t exactly tar and feather you if I don¡¯t want to have the remaining wall of the valley causing me a great deal of headaches. Hells, I can¡¯t even leave much of the law''s greater punishments against you. What am I going to do? Sentence you to death? You had your head smashed into your ribcage before being catapulted into the wall with bone-breaking force; I doubt beheading you would do anything at all, and it would get me politically crucified!¡± he said, frustration boiling up before it extinguished itself.
¡°Yeah¡¡± I said, a bit lost, ¡°I don¡¯t think anything you could do would put me down. God granted immortality hits different.¡±
¡°Oh, don¡¯t go rubbing salt in my wound.¡± He huffed, all pretense of lordliness gone, ¡°So, I need you to do something publicly as a punishment, and there¡¯s only one thing I can think of at the moment¡ Well, two, but I¡¯m trying to get something else¡¯s for that.¡±
¡°What do you intend for my undeserved punishment, oh lord of lords whom I swear no fealty to,¡± I asked him.
¡°I intend for you to help bury the dead,¡± he said, ¡°We have no classes that tend to the dead, and we need to get rid of them. Normally, the dead are burned¡ But there isn¡¯t enough dry wood, nor could we cut more in this rain, so we need to deal with them before they rise. That is your punishment. I¡¯ll need you to help bury them safely.¡±
That was¡
It was morbid. I would have to bury those I could not save, though that wasn¡¯t the intended punishment. It was the labour that was punishment, and yet it was also the labour that would give me experience.
¡°That¡¯s a bit rich. It¡¯s one of my classes, actually. I¡¯m a [Grave Digger],¡± I told him.
He looked at me, his face going deadpan before he walked over to a cabinet and retrieved a dark glass bottle, biting the cork open and pouring himself a glass of wine. Before scooting over to his desk, daintily placing the glass and bottle down and drooping into his hands.
¡°Of fucking course you are,¡± he choked, ¡°of course. Well then, do you have anything else I need? Perhaps you¡¯re the long-lost daughter of a king, sitting on the small fortune he left behind?¡±
He asked it sarcastically.
I felt a spontaneous urge to poke him. To extract from the man with everything what little common satisfaction I could, but I held my tongue. Strause had told me last night, that Clause was rather stressed, continuously. If what I was looking at was anything to go by, that was probably an understatement.
It was, seemingly, the collective burden of the Mynes siblings. Anna often thought about the future and prosperity. Clause on the here and now, how to chart a course and deal with the day-to-day. Strause was¡ Well, who fucking knew, honestly, but I didn¡¯t think he was the kind that shirked responsibility; no matter how he presented himself, he seemed to care too much about others, even if he played it off.
I could kick him while he was down¡ or, I could instead, help and console the future lord, and perhaps brother in law while he was down. Anna had been very ix-nay on showing others, but I could bet helping him out would give a future relationship with Anna some more acceptance.
Assuming I didn¡¯t use my two left feet to step all over Annas in this dance, that could mean a lot.
¡°No, I¡¯m a commoner. The only thing left for me is the dirt under my nails,¡± I told him, walking my way over to the cabinet and fetching myself a glass before returning to his desk. Laying the glass down on the desk in question and lifting the paperwork off before moving an extra chair over, I made way for me to sit down across him, laying the stuff next to his desk.
I gave his wine a sniff and found it edible, so I poured a glass.
He looked over at me, staring in confusion.
¡°Let''s go over where they¡¯re going. Pave that out. I can help keep them down, but the best plan would be to set up a resting place with the correct features. Somewhere, Dark magic would have a hard time gathering.¡± I said, thinking over where I would place a graveyard and the place¡¯s traits. ¡°A hill would work, somewhere with drainage, assuming it''s loose¡ Not too rocky. Somewhere with tree cover could help keep the pit dry enough to dig and support the soil, too, and stop the dead from being unearthed. Do you have a map in here that can help with that?¡±
He shook his head.
¡°I can get that later; I won¡¯t keep you long.¡± He said before taking out a slate and scribing the points down, ¡°That¡¯s a good call, probably. We¡¯ll need more than one person to dig, and those are the best conditions to dig in¡ I¡¯ll call for you later if you want to leave.¡±
I shook my head, taking a sip from the fancy glass and letting myself taste it for the first time in months.
¡°You¡¯ve forgotten to give me the good. I need an upside to this punishment, that¡¯s going to cut into my time. As is, I have a few full days ahead of me, so whats the good side.¡±
He looked at me and said, ¡°For your service, by law and with the power invested in me by my father, the [Baron of Moarn], I name you a peer of the land. In so naming you such, Moarn grants a small parcel of land as a freehold or as a manorial estate for the duration of your life without vassalage. You may decide upon an area that is yet unclaimed or one without a legal landlord with an estimated cost at the time of selection equal to a reasonable ransom of those of the [Baron¡¯s] family you saved, in part or in full, the lives of which were Clause, Strause, and Annabeth Mynes. As such, you may select a parcel equating to or less than 800 gold pieces.¡±
He said it in a way that spoke to a great pain in admitting that.
I, for my part, nearly dropped my fucking glass.
We sat there for longer than we should be, across from one another, silent as death and twice as grim.
¡°Before you ask, the Mynes family had a rough 600 years, about 200 years after the second founding.¡± Clause said, taking a sip from his glass.
¡°That is not what I was going to ask.¡± I told him, ¡°But also, what the hells.¡±
¡°Don¡¯t ask me. The lords of the time wanted less competition, so they offed some of the Mynes family. The Lord of Moarn at the time decided to give those who saved them a parcel of land that would annoy the very lords and put them in jeopardy. It''s not my fault they signed it into law without considering that a quasi-immortal, non-elven woman would do it or without accounting for changes in currency. It''s not even limited to people attacking us; that¡¯s how half of the Beastkin in the valley first earned land over in the east.¡± He told me.
¡°Yeah, I bet that doesn¡¯t come up much. Rather rare population in these parts. I was more confused about, well, the whole damn thing. Can you write that down like I was a particularly stupid child? I¡¯m new to this whole thing, and I didn¡¯t catch it all well enough to parse it.¡± I told him.
He sighed and, over the next quarter hour, explained the gift of land in detail while we sipped on our drinks. He broke down everything I needed to know, every detail. I knew that Anna had been worth 300, Strause 250 and 2500 for Clause. I was awarded the full amount for saving Anna and parts of the price for aiding in the saving of Clause and Strause. I was told what exactly I was in for; I had to stop Clause from explaining taxes when he started explaining why I might want to get less land. By the time we finished, I was done with my first glass and him his second glass, and with an aside to get him to let me back in, I left for Gunther so I could get some clothes.
Walking down and out, I couldn¡¯t help but feel a kind of validation and accomplishment. I had gotten acknowledgement for something I had done even though that hadn¡¯t been part of it. I had also gotten a slap on the wrist, but I had gotten acknowledgement, and at the end of our conversation, that was what stayed with me.
Besides, I would have helped bury the dead anyway.
Chapter 91
I got everything sorted out as I left, informing the guards that I was supposed to come back so when I did, I didn¡¯t get decapitated. As interesting as that might be in a morbid way, after all, there were quite a few questions it would answer, and as far as showing off went, walking off a decapitation with either a head or extra torso to show off would be up there in how to do it, but it wasn¡¯t something I wanted to show off.
Not only would it be gross, and the result of being negligent in the extreme¡ But it wasn¡¯t the pace or time for something like that, no matter how you cut it. What would someone think watching me carry around my head? This wasn¡¯t a carnival; it was a rainy hell.
Speaking of rainy hell, the world was that. The runoff was just shy of an inch at its highest, though there were some gutters that helped, carry it; the only way to make it better would be to have storm drains. I spent as little time as was possible under the darkened sky as it continued to weep a torrent, making my way out once I had gotten my shit straight with an uncaring guard and made my way down the road and out of the inner city.
I avoided the pools that formed around low spots and spent as much time as possible in the shadow of the rain the buildings cast.
By the time I got to the district, I could see just how badly the entire city had been hit with my own eyes. Buildings burnt to a crisp, with people numbly sorting through the ruin, seeking anything they could retrieve. Some searched for clothes or heirlooms. Some searched for bodies. People were already checking for the cracked bones of their loved ones.
People, some not many, stumbled through the wreckage and down streets in confused husks.
It was bad, and you could tell how bad it was by the dress of the person. There was a kind of look a place got when there was a lot of death. People often wore black or dark clothes, and some people had other ones, but in human cities, you flew human colours. I had seen it once: a levy had been called, the able-bodied men had been called up, and then many just hadn¡¯t come back home again. The whole city went dark overnight; their clothes stayed that way for weeks. Humans showing humans sympathy.
It was much like that now. Some were in darker tones under a cape while they looked in mourning, but it wasn¡¯t bad enough that they couldn¡¯t go about their days. Then there were those who went unseen, locked in grief, hidden away, but they had enough to overcome the adversity in their way. Those out and about without dark clothes¡ Those were a wretched sight. They likely didn¡¯t even have the clothes to show it. Amongst them were the stumblers. They looked drunk, many a person holding the look of a man passed out, but not.
They simply couldn¡¯t get back up. They had given up.
A few had died of exposure, their souls I swept up where I could, each a belligerent, confused mess. They went to their afterlife, a wreck.
It was enough to keep me straight after the confusion of my prior conversation.
The destruction where I was moving was muted and contained. People were going through and clearing bodies here. Guards making barricades and firebreaks along the main road had caused the destruction more. Down the streets, toward the edge, the damage would be.
Notably, though, the damage caused by the fighting dwindled even more as I approached the caravans.
There was also a presence of [Caravan Guards], their irregular equipment and dress different from one another and the regular people. While not armoured like a knight, they were visibly armed, even covered in a cloak for the downpour.
Hard stares and heavy hands, weapons meant to keep enemies and arms in reach. Each was trained with more than one weapon and carried them openly. Oiled cloth stretched above; stalls moved to maximize the coverage. There were a dozen types of guard, guarding a dozen caravans worth of merchants, and the one with the biggest sticks wore green.
They dressed lightly, easily covered from a lack of odd shape, with multi-part outerwear. It was a strange kind of wear, held over very little armour, but then again, how could you pull a set of armour over a foot of fur? The mana in the cloth was interesting, though I couldn¡¯t put a finger on why, and I didn¡¯t feel like staring.
They were Beastkin. Almost unanimously. They had a uniformity that was both odd and not odd in that they almost had the exact same weapons, but they were so very strange in the choice and not odd in that they had good picks.
Where some guards would carry a crossbow and a sword or a halberd with a good bord, they had very light weapons: a longbow and several short weapons, a small shield, a long belt knife, survival tools like a hatchet and a small knife, and a leather wrap bound around the hand and made to add to a punch and a short, agile blade. They were built to harass an opponent, not to fight fair and square.
They were more than just [Caravan Guards]; that was obvious; they were more like that crossed with a [Hunter]. Whatever they were, they were not meant for picking off [Bandits], that¡¯s for sure.
I accidentally met some of their eyes for long enough that they paid attention to me specifically, but when they did, when they took me in with their thousand-yard killer stare, they saw something and gave me a brisk nod.
Guthers''s talk of the quality matching the Guards rang back to me, about how my gear would match the Human guards, and I could see why she would make the distinction. There were fewer of them, and they were more the common [Foot Soldier] type of the other [Caravan Guards] than the strange Beastkin.
Though, I certainly wouldn¡¯t scoff at some clothes that didn¡¯t cost an arm and a leg to mend. I was wearing a dress, for crying out loud. Even if it wasn¡¯t a fancy one but more of a simple fetching gown, it was still an undersized bedsheet in comparison.
Pushing down the urge to check them with [Inspect], I decided to simply avoid getting flustered and keep dry while I made my way to Gunthers'' place.
Quickly letting my legs eat up ground, I slid from cover to cover, doing my best not to drip on goods, making my way through to the main building for her caravan.
As I did, I spotted one and only one building with fire damage, the bodies of what had to have been undead and Gremlins ready to be carted off.
Suspiciously, I found no soul on them, but to the east, some ways I did, as if they had been sliding downhill, slowly but surely being whisked away by non-existent rain. They were spluttering to my senses, the mana of the environment scouring the protective film of experience that gave them their flame-like visage. I plucked up the souls, though one was too far gone, leaving me to pour it into a pot that I quickly slapped some mana into so it would hold the soul safely.
It was an odd sight, surely, but it was unattended. Finders keepers were the law of the land out here, and the cause was worth possibly pissing a random merchant off.
Taking the poor thing underarm in its sealed pot and the souls of the others sent to their final destination, I finished my trek to my target of choice.
Gunthers'' lobby had a big wet spot in the middle. A maid tirelessly dried the floorboards beyond where a makeshift mat had been set up to dry shoes.
I had no shoes, and the maid took one look at me and looked like she was biting back a scowl. A passible servant''s face barely clawed its way across her, like she had to drag it kicking and screaming.
¡°I, uh. I don¡¯t suppose you have a spare so I can keep the mess here?¡± I asked her.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
¡°I¡¯ll make sure to get that for you. May I ask about your business, miss?¡± She said in passible cheer, ¡®Please leave before you ruin my day any further.¡¯
That was a bit of a read on my part, but I had to try. The woman looked pale and tired. I noted Beatrice''s absence. Tuning into the only other person in the room, I answered, ¡°Hello. My name is Saphine. I¡¯m here to meet with Gunther for an order, but I can see Beatrice is out. Is there any chance you¡¯re her second counterpart?¡±
¡°Indeed¡ Honestly, you get sick for a few days, and the whole world changes,¡± She sighed. ¡°My name is Bellatrix. [Caravan Master] Gunther is in her office, though you will stay until you¡¯re unlikely to rot the floorboards. I¡¯ll be back with a cloth. Don¡¯t shake yourself dry in the meantime, or I''ll clip your ears.¡±
¡°I¡¡± How the hell was this woman a [Receptionist]? ¡°Yes, eh, I will,¡± I told her.
She didn¡¯t care to wait for me to agree; she simply demanded it and waltzed off like she was carrying thirty pounds of steel armour and could break floorboards by will alone.
Perhaps she could, if she was strong enough, but why a [Receptionist] would have that kind of strength only confused me. Perhaps it was a secondary class. Perhaps she was some kind of [Labourer]¡ or a [Warrior Scribe] or something.
Either way, I wasn¡¯t going to piss her off, it would be crossing a line. One where I dripped on her floor and got Gunther, and she pissed off at me. According to Sophy, I was supposed to make friends, not enemies, and I wasn¡¯t going to slip and slide over this. I could be on speaking terms with two [Receptionists]. That would be a 100% improvement.
She came back waving the cloth before hucking it over to me, the ball carrying an inordinate amount of force.
¡°Ow,¡± I said reflexively.
¡°Don¡¯t be a baby. I can tell you were fighting by how ripped up your clothes are. Even if the rain washed you clean, a little towel won¡¯t hurt you any, " she told me crossly before getting back to whipping up.
¡°The hells is your deal, miss? If you don¡¯t mind me asking. I can understand needing to wipe up after morons, but you¡¯re as cross as a [Aristocrats] family tree,¡± I told her, getting on with whipping myself down.
¡°Oh, you wouldn¡¯t believe me if I told you,¡± She said.
I looked out from under the towel and stared at her, unimpressed. ¡°Just spill it already. Don¡¯t give me that incomprehensible nonsense. Believe you me, I can believe in a lot.¡±
¡°Hells. Sure. Why not. It''s Beatrice; you notice she¡¯s not here?¡± She asked; the obviousness of her statement got me to huff.
¡°I can see that. Are you going to spit out why, or are you going to give me a riddle? Out with it!¡± I told her.
¡°She was out last night. Visiting a paramour, of all things. What a shit sense of timing.¡± She said, a note of something I did not like in her voice.
¡°Are you telling me¡ That Beatrice when out last night¡ And she¡¯s?¡± I asked, hoping that it wasn¡¯t what I was thinking.
I didn¡¯t know her well, but that would just be the fucking way it went, wouldn¡¯t it? I would need to go shepherd her over to the afterlife.
¡°Yeah. She went out and got jumped. The cow. She went and twisted an ankle, and now she¡¯s piled me with her work¡ Of all the stupid things,¡± she said with a huff of indignance.
¡°Oh, thank the gods. You had me going there, thinking the worst!¡± I told her, letting out a sigh of relief.
She had only gone out and twisted her ankle.
¡°What? Oh. I wouldn¡¯t talk ill of her if she was dead. Who do you take me for?¡± She asked, slightly taken aback at my train of thought.
¡°The kind that says things in a way that makes people think the worst. Or are you unaware of what happened to the rest of the city last night? Gods above woman, you¡¯re bound to give someone a heart attack after a night like that.¡± I told her.
¡°You¡¯re the one that jumped to conclusions. Don¡¯t blame me for an overactive imagination. Honestly, thinking that I¡¯de talk about a dead woman like that. The nerve. Finish drying your feet so you can get out of my hair, you half-naked thing!¡± She said sourly, turning to get the rest of the spill off the floor before heading into the back.
I did, patting myself down, my thinnish clothes.
I wasn¡¯t naked, the dumbass.
At least she didn¡¯t seem like an asshole, even if she was rough enough around the edges to file down a sword.
Folding up the sheet, I stepped off onto the wood floor, perched the towel atop Bellatrix¡¯s chair, knocked on Gunthers'' door, and then showed myself in. I went around to the desk, crouched down, and poked her while she lay in her nest.
She awoke hissing in a feral way that made her sharp-toothed, pointy-eared form look remarkably like a threatened possum or raccoon.
¡°Gunther, are you allergic to sleeping in a bed? You little goon of a [Merchant],¡± I told her.
I could practically hear the heart in her chest pounding, with my ears facing straight forward. It was the kind of reaction you only got from a very bad wake-up or a series of them. She was barely lucid, but she was also zoned out, a kind of unresponsiveness to her.
I didn¡¯t poke her, instead letting her come back to herself. She figured out her mouth early on in that process, shouting, ¡°Hells¡ How long was I out? What time is it?¡±
¡°How should I know? It¡¯s early, so I¡¯m guessing you weren¡¯t out long.¡± I told her.
¡°Check my desk; there are markings.¡± She said, ¡°And stop standing around like a horse. Back off so I can get up.¡±
I did so, letting her crawl up, bed head and all, while I checked the desk. There was indeed an hour glass, though it was a larger one. The glass obviously held more than an hour of sand. Lines marked the glass, banding around the edge.
The rim of the pile lined up halfway between the one and the two.
¡°It looks like an hour and a half? Or less. Over an hour, though, assuming you didn¡¯t wake up to reset it,¡± I told her.
¡°I didn¡¯t, and it took me a bit to get to sleep in the first place. I suppose it''s better than nothing, however.¡± She said, though only half to me, as she got up and stretched out, arm crossed above her head as she stretched backward to pop her back in her night gown.
Looking down at the pipsqueak.
Letting out a tired little sigh, she turned to look up at me. Her messy blond locks, with a slight tint of green, made her look like a four-foot fantasy prince.
¡°This is just too weird sometimes,¡± I told her before looking away, ¡°Get dressed, you shameless little tree goblin.¡±
¡°Shame is for lesser people,¡± she said smugly. I¡¯m far above that and your limp insult. You woke me up, so let''s talk.¡±
¡°Listen, I want and need to talk to you about stuff, but you¡¯ve got to get dressed. Don¡¯t make this weird. I can understand that you¡¯re a wood elf or whatever, but you look too childish for this to be anything but creepy.¡± I told her.
She sighed, muttering, ¡°I¡¯m more dressed than you are, twig leg. You¡¯re going to have to get used to wood elves eventually. We don¡¯t get to be tall and have colour in our hair till middle age. You¡¯re reliance on the visual outs you as the only child here; if you so fixated on how weird it feels to talk to me, think about how weird it is to talk to someone a fraction of my age, with the same fraction of my experience.¡±
She made sense, but she also walked over to a cabinet and pulled out some extra clothes, pulling them on and thankfully making herself a little more decent.
¡°Thank you, oh ancient crone. Though I¡¯ve not come for your ages of experience, I¡¯ve come to pick up the clothes and make sure everything with the caravan is going to go well. We¡¯ll need covers to stop the books from getting wet. I won¡¯t go forward with it if it''s just going to destroy them,¡± I told her.
¡°I¡¯m not a crone yet, though I do have all the upsides, with none of the downsides. My experience lets me know what we¡¯ll need to excavate those books. I have that covered, even if it means I need to bring some more people. That¡¯s all covered. As are your clothes. Might as well get my cloak out if you¡¯re that impatient. Go and pick them up.¡± She said, returning to the cupboard to retrieve a hooded cloak.
It was an unfitted length of cloth like the Beastkin''s, a square-patterned cloth. Deftly, she wrapped it around her, wearing the cloth like a cloak and holding it to her with a length of similar cloth.
The cloth was very minorly magical, though it was a kind I hadn¡¯t seen before, some mix of Beast and plant mana that flowed, wavering across the fabric like a ripple across a pond. It wasn¡¯t a spell so much as some kind of passive magical effect.
¡°Is that enchanted? The mana in it is active¡¡± I asked her.
¡°No, it''s from a beast they raise east of the river. Some kind of weird carnivorous sheep. They eat monsters, apparently, so the clan raises them to deal with pests like a guard dog. I have no clue what it does, but it''s good stuff. It''s ceremonial, so they won¡¯t let me sell it at a price that anyone would buy.¡± She said.
¡°What kind of¡ A guard dog? What¡¯s your go-to answer? That sounds like a monster. A monster-eating monster.¡±
¡°Ehh,¡± Gunther said with a shrug, ¡°Whatever.¡±
¡°Sure, let''s go,¡± I said with a sigh before heading to the door. Dressed in her ¡®ceremonial¡¯ cloak. We got most of the way to the door before Gunther asked, ¡°Where¡¯s your cloak? And your shoes?¡±
¡°My sandals exploded, and I don¡¯t have one. Though I wouldn¡¯t mind getting one, I don¡¯t have a coin on me,¡± I told her.
She looked me in the eye, squinting like she was trying to stare me in the soul and figure out if I was lying before she sighed sharply.
¡°Of course you did. Hold on. Bellatrix, can I borrow your cloak for a glass?¡± Gunther called back to the front desk.
¡°Sure, I¡¯m not using it,¡± She called back, not even looking up.
¡°Go on then,¡± she said to me, ¡°Take that one over there, on the rack,¡± she continued, pointing over to the side of the door.
The rack hadn¡¯t been here before, but obviously, Bellatrix didn¡¯t want to do more work than she needed to. It had a mat under it to catch rain.
Reaching out for the only cloak, I took it, wrapped it over my shoulders, and pulled up the hood. It only got down to my mid-thigh, and I needed to tuck my ears down for the hood to cover my head, but it would keep most of me dry and warm me up.
¡°Thank you Gunther, Bellatrix. I¡¯ll make sure the cloak gets back to you in one piece,¡± I told her.
¡°If it doesn¡¯t, I¡¯ll charge you for it,¡± she said, not looking up from her work.
¡°Good, I¡¯ll lead the way,¡± Gunther called, opening the door, nob twisting before we headed out into the cold, wet morning.
Chapter 92
We headed out of the caravan''s main headquarters, rain pounding down on us, though blissfully, the cloaks caught most of it.
My feet were wet, but the rest of me was dry¡ Or dryer, and that was far and above what I could have asked for, given the circumstances.
Gunther guided me to the promised land, that place of great things. She brought me to my clothes.
Gods, but I needed some normal clothes.
I loved my current clothes. They were a great gift, but I got into too many fights for them to continue being my everyday wear¡ And they probably shouldn¡¯t be my everyday wear regardless because they were nice clothes.
The nice stuff stayed nice because you didn¡¯t wear it daily and made sure to take care of it. Taking care of them would have already cost me quite a lot; fixing them for daily use was more than I thought I could deal with.
The [Tailor] was a good man, but he was also an expensive man, and I wasn¡¯t about to waste money when I could get cheap everyday clothes and fix them up for a few coppers or buy a new one.
After all, I didn¡¯t need a dress in a fight¡ That would just be dumb.
Far more sensible were the padded coats and the simple and practical working tunic and pants.
I did get a strange look. But that strange look was followed by a, ¡°Oh dear, we gave you the wrong thing, their more a blouse than a smock,¡± when the [Seamstress] put word to her look.
¡°They are somewhat short,¡± I agreed, ¡°Though that would probably help me.¡±
¡°But they¡¯re short, dear,¡± she told me, ¡°Oh dear. We made the jackets¡ Oh dear. We¡¯re so used to making the jackets for the boys we just made them all for men. Oh, bother.¡±
Gunther and I were practical people, and we both found ourselves confused for a moment.
¡°What''s the problem? They¡¯re as desired. They¡¯re fine enough to work; they look like they¡¯ll fit nicely. They¡¯re even big enough for her.¡± She said, looking them over.
¡°Yeah, they¡¯ll do nicely. They¡¯re even better than I thought they would be. Gunther made them sound like they were going to be a step up from a hemp bag, but they are quite nice. They don¡¯t even look scratchy,¡± I told her.
The woman looked at us like we were a group of unruly [Barbarians].
¡°No care for clothes amongst the both of you. We made her mens clothes? For men?¡± she said as if that mattered.
¡°That doesn¡¯t seem like an issue to me,¡± I told her. I understand that the underwear is short, but besides that, there is not much difference, and a longer smock might get in the way.¡±
¡°Oh¡ It¡¯s a Human thing,¡± Gunther said, ¡°A social thing.¡±
¡°Ohh. What would the deal with a mens cut of clothing be?¡± I asked her.
¡°You would look, loose, miss,¡± she told me, and then when I didn¡¯t understand, ¡°Like a harlot. Pants are one thing; most working women wear them even if they are iffy in more civil lands¡ But with a blouse like that, you¡¯ll look like a loose girl. We¡¯d need to give you a skirt to cover you up.¡±
She sounded partly affronted and partly saddened by not making the right clothes.
I thought they were great as is. A skirt was nice; you could swish them, and they looked nice for cheap. You could wear one and drop the pants for some extra freedom, but they wouldn¡¯t keep the bugs or dirt off your legs and could get stuck on stuff. These were work first. Wearing a skirt would not do. I could take them, but then I would add them on while resting¡ which was when I would wear a dress.
¡°I wouldn¡¯t turn down more clothes, good miss¡ But I can¡¯t see a reason to buy more, and I couldn¡¯t ask for them when I¡¯m not paying.¡± I told her, trying to back up from it, which only made her seem more affronted.
While she seemed to be rather disappointed, Gunther and I leaned in and gave one another a look.
¡°Just take the clothes. They¡¯re in a bundle, so you can keep the wet off them. They¡¯re yours; they¡¯re paid for,¡± she told me.
I made a noise of agreement and turned back to the good, if picky lady as she murmured about how her work would make it harder for me to find a husband, which was highly ironic, and told her, ¡°How¡¯s about I try them on first so we can see them, and if they¡¯re too indecent, I can order some skirts through Gunther.¡±
¡°Well¡ I suppose that would make sense. Sorry for holding you up, dear. Go on back to that room there and try them out, " she said apologetically, gesturing back into the shop.
I followed her advice and tried on the clothes.
The belts were nice, the pants were loose enough not to chafe, and the shorter top only came down to my rear so I could tuck it in. The tunic was good, and getting two layers was extra nice. The blouse and the tunic were similar, though the tunic was longer. They obviously went together. The tunic was rougher outerwear, while the blouse was more flaxen to stop it from chafing.
They were of a different style than I was used to. The ones I was used to were more like blouses, general outerwear like light jackets that would come down to the wrist, while this only had sleeves coming down to above the elbow, with the blouse going to the wrist.
I got my head around them quick enough. Putting on some dry clothes felt refreshing and downright heavenly. The only thing I could have asked for above what I got was a mantle with a hood, but that was what cloaks were for.
They were neutral in colour, with nothing eye-catching, mostly lighter earthen tones, but that was what dye was for.
I relished in the warming cloth and got the padded jacket on.
It was quilted cloth, maybe a third of an inch in depth, that I could close up in front of. It was heavy as far as clothes went and more restrictive than I thought it would be, though you could move in it regularly with some effort.
I decided to leave it on so I could get used to it, so I pulled the cloak on with it. Bundling up my wet clothes, I tied them to my belt behind me, and I walked out. I took the, ¡®Oh no, you look so improper. Where are my pearls?¡¯ and Gunther and I got on our way to the cobbler.
We retrieved my boots and got a second set of sandals, though the [Cobbler] was confused by my need to get a second pair and at my bare feet.
The boots were lined, and I dried off my feet and got into them without issue as the Beastkin man tried to figure out the situation.
Having acquired my stuff, Gunther stopped to find food and break her fast. She also took me along with her, even though I couldn¡¯t buy food at the moment.
We made our way to a little stand with some finger food and talked.
¡°So, you don¡¯t have some basic stuff you¡¯ll need. A cloak for one, but is there anything I can interest you in?¡± She asked.
¡°Wondering if you can nickel and gouge me? You can buy stuff for me and charge me later at a higher price?¡± I asked her suspiciously.
She looked up at me, feigned shock written largely on her face.
¡°Me? Upcharge you? Why ever would I do that?¡± She asked.
I looked at her dead in the eye, as unmoved and stoic as Death herself.
¡°Sheesh, [Merchants] aren¡¯t that bad¡ Now a [Money Lender], they¡¯re that bad, but I¡¯m a [Merchant] and a [Caravan Master], what people think about me is important, it''s what opens doors¡ Speaking of, sorry about Miriam. She¡¯s very good at what she does, but she''s from the western plains¡ They¡¯re far more¡ Restrictive there. Harsher.¡±
¡°I see your sidestep and accept that you¡¯re not as bad as a [Money Lender]. I don¡¯t know that we could be friendly acquaintances if you were. We can talk about what I need in a bit, once you¡¯re done eating, lets just talk for now. So Miriam, the [seamstress], she¡¯s from the west? More civilized lands? She¡¯s far from home,¡± I told her.
¡°Nah. You should know that home is where the hearth is, not where you got spat out into the world. You can decide where your home is, even if it burns bridges,¡± Gunther said.
¡°I know. I heard a lot of sermons when I was a kid, and I know that well. Still uprooting your whole life? And I can¡¯t imagine it''s an easy life living in a caravan,¡± I told her.
¡°Life on the road is, but many of my people aren¡¯t full-time. We do require certain [Merchants] and craftsmen, but we don¡¯t force them to be around all the time, and it comes with some nice loopholes. Miriam Joined the Company when she ran away with a man and became a [Seamstress] to pay her way. They have a family home back at the companys main house in the empire, six children, and she comes out once every few years with her husband to keep her dues paid and get some good money. This leg is only a few months normally, though I have a feeling it''s going to be longer this time around,¡± she said with the certainty of rote knowledge.
¡°Ran off and got a happily ever after? Why run off if the West has greener grasses?¡± I asked her, having a feeling the reason was probably obvious.
Gunther chuckled, understanding I doubted it. ¡°Because they are not greener¡ That and the grass is always greener somewhere else. People have simpler lives in the west, the confederated states over there are at constant odds with one another and with the empire. They¡¯re fractious, and built on the bones of a far more nomadic and tribal society, people who work the land are seen as universally disposable. They have few rights, and eek out meager lives. And yet the constant dick-measuring often comes in the form of showing off. The way to a better life is by providing something cultural. They¡¯re rather stable for basic resources and have a surprising number of useful goods. Most of the [Serfs] there, while meagre, have a greater deal of culture. More fashion, more festivities, they keep their people happy enough to not rebel against their terrible leadership. The two states are opposites in that. The empire cares more about its institutions. You can have a happy life there and a good life here. You can find a place and escape your birth here and be told what you¡¯ll do there.¡±
¡°So social obligation, vs institutional obligation?¡± I asked.
¡°Good way to put it. Here, you can do something like¡ Defy a [Noble], and as long as you¡¯re too annoying to kill, you walk away with a slap on the wrist¡ Over there? The word of a [Warrior] could get you put to death, even if they''re from another territory.
That was particularly grim. But that sounded like Shambler kin to me. Born [Warriors]. The name said it all: born for war.
I didn¡¯t remark on them, however.
¡°So, it''s that widespread?¡± I asked her.
¡°Yeah.¡± She said, ¡°People talk, and mentioning a blazing eyed woman backtalking the lords son is a topic that goes far, fast. And that¡¯s before you factor in the [Hunters], who were there, and many of them are Beastkin. Nothing spreads further than family gossip, especially about a person who had an incident just a few months ago. Thanks for keeping him alive; by the way, I owe you one for that.¡±
¡°How much?¡± I asked her, a bit more worried about how many people were thinking about me.
She turned to me, her casual nature belying the improbability of her giving anything.
¡°How about free food? Have you eaten?¡± She asked.
¡°No,¡± I told her, ¡°Though I¡¯m not very peckish at the moment.¡±
She shrugged, ¡°You¡¯ll need some food eventually, probably just running on fumes. You can¡¯t have a good morning without good meal. Come on then, I¡¯ll show you a good place.¡±
She was annoying, but I followed her. I did need to ask about a cloak and a shovel. I had ideas for a good combat shovel, but it was the kind of thing I didn¡¯t see a normal [Smith] understanding.
¡°So, how are you settling in? You seem to have found a place for yourself.¡± Gunther told me.
¡°I think I have¡ Though its less about finding a place, and more a person.¡± I told her.
¡°Yeah,¡± she said, though less knowingly and more contemplatively. ¡°So long as you have a something. Home is where the hearth is, or where the heart is. Either or but you need one.¡±
¡°That¡¯s the second time you¡¯ve brought up sermons,¡± I told her. I didn¡¯t take you for someone who paid attention to Hearth or anyone shy of Averice.¡±
She snorted at that. ¡°You won¡¯t find me worshiping Averice. That¡¯s a fool''s god, though I do have some preferences. Just because I don¡¯t have a home doesn¡¯t mean I don¡¯t have a place or want a heart of my own one day. Though¡ You never answered.¡±
I sighed. I had been avoiding that.
¡°My home is here now, even if it¡¯s a bit shaky at the moment. I¡¯m floundering, but I¡¯ll settle down eventually. It¡¯s a different place, you know? Even though it¡¯s the same one, just¡ A long way away from where I came from. Just distant by time, instead of proximity from one another. Does that answer you?¡± I told her.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
She nodded, ¡°That¡¯s good. I have a good feeling about you; having you wander off to the four corners of the world would be a shame.¡±
I shook my head at that. ¡°I still can¡¯t imagine you going to a sermon on a caravan.¡±
¡°That¡¯s the funny part,¡± she said with a chuckle, ¡°You don¡¯t! You have to keep going where you stop. So you just do your best wandering pilgrim impression and drop by for some quick altar time, and off you go. It¡¯s kind of fun; sometimes, you only have about half an hour to drop by when everything¡¯s said and done. You know who¡¯s going to have random bad luck for a bit, or you don¡¯t, and you try to figure it out.¡± She said, a bit of glee telling me enough about it to be a bit iffy.
¡°Ahh¡ The glee of knowing others suffer.¡± I said, sarcasm in my voice while I stared down at the short elf.
¡°MMmm. Suffering,¡± she said, though in a way that told me it was overstated even if it was real. I couldn¡¯t say that I didn¡¯t expect the [Merchant] to enjoy others being laid low, but it did increase my sense of unease.
She was both old and young and seemed to look at those younger than her running into a bit of misfortune as kids being kids. She seemed to rest somewhere between a semi-benevolent, semi-vindicated old woman and a brat. She did have her upsides, at least. Upsides like knowing every member of her troupe, which continued to redeem her in my eyes.
She didn¡¯t just keep them around for entertainment; that was just a benefit, I guessed.
Following along after her tiny legs, we made our way past stalls and into her caravan''s back areas until there were fewer people selling and more places for sleeping.
I was starting to think there was something wrong until she walked up to a door, hopping up to a handle that was obviously meant for those that were taller than four feet.
I looked down at her as she stretched to reach the door handle and simply opened it for her. My hand brushed hers away as I took the handle and pressed down a little lever to open the door.
The room beyond was comparably bright, lit by several lamps and with a light plaster inside; the only standouts inside were the plush seating.
Gunther waltzed into the room, and I followed in after her. I found that this was not what I was expecting from Gunther, who was supposed to be getting me breakfast. The room wasn¡¯t empty, but it was absolutely not a stall. It wasn¡¯t a shop of any kind I had seen. It was, instead, a gathering place.
A gathering place filled with older Beastkin.
I stood there, taking in the group. In the back, out of sight, were the sounds of kids quietly listening to a voice in what I could only assume was them being taught. To the side was a kitchen area, with the clink and pop of cooking, and around the room, in what I could only call a den, were numerous men and women talking in a kind of low hum of casual conversation.
And they were wearing the same kind of clothes as Gunther.
Standing there like a moron, I kind of just looked around as Gunther walked up to the sitting elders and introduced herself to the crowd of strangers like she was one of them, and I stood there like I had my thumb up my ass. As I took in the room, I saw many new faces, but among them I spotted one familiar face, that of a smug catkin. Ciliart Swiftfur sat there, lounging on a pillow.
¡°At least there¡¯s one friendly face¡ I guess.¡± I thought to myself.
I took off my wet cloak and placed it off to the side on a knob where it wouldn¡¯t drip all over the rest of the room. I kind of wandered around the edge, back and forth between Ciliart and Gunther, just trying to stay out of the way. While I did, I looked back and forth, hoping one of them would notice me and tell me where in the hells I was supposed to go. I did my best to get noticed while also doing my best not to bump into those who were standing around the sitting elders.
Gunther, having dragged me here without telling me what to do, went either unaware of my confusion or uncaring of it, instead talking to quite a few shaggy old lupines and a handful of faded felines and ignoring me entirely. I ended up gravitating away from Gunther and toward Ciliart.
He had at least spotted me; even if he wasn¡¯t calling me over, he at least knew I was there.
And so I waited, waited for something to happen, waited for Gunther to explain what the hell was going on, waited for the gathering to make any gods damned sense.
Waiting was hard, especially with my tight schedule, but I was glad that I did.
I had to wait for half a glass, which felt like a second thousand-year nap, but it came with a rustling as young Beastkin children started to file out of the back, lining up across near the kitchen.
Each got a nice little bowl of food and quickly inhaled it, wandering up to their parents. The noise of the room intensified as the young and the old spoke briefly before many of the standing folks escorted the children from the room and out into the street, little lengths of cloth that the Beastkin favoured folded over head like cloaks.
As they thinned, many of the older folks waved them on their way, continuing to talk amongst themselves. This freed up Cilliart, who waved me over.
Awkward as could be, I squirmed over to Cilliart, who welcomed me with a roguish smile and a, ¡°What did I say about being a stranger, young Saphine?¡± in his Quilish rumble.
¡°The place had a ceremonial feeling; I figured it was best to stay on the side instead of stepping on a whole lot of toes¡ Or paws?¡± I told him.
¡°Either, or.¡± He said casually, ¡°Besides, you were brought here by a trusted friend; you had every right to stand around wherever you desired, introduce yourself and generally mingle. You didn¡¯t need to stand to the side like a child. Come, come.¡±
He beckoned me over, quickly saying to those next to him, ¡°This young niece is Saphine. She¡¯s been helping Gunther with¡¡±
Quickly introducing me to several of the others around him, he drew me into conversation with those around him. They talked, and I talked, and despite the fact that we were two different people and that I was an outsider, while they were obviously some kind of elders, they talked like normal people, welcoming me with the simple effort of talking to me.
Through sheer openness and unguarded words, they got me talking. We talked about what was going on, Selly, and even Ciliart¡¯s work, which got the others talking about how my hair had started to grow back in.
Ciliart was a bit shocked, questioningly asking, ¡°How in the name of all the gods and their Angels did you manage to grow your hair out? That shouldn¡¯t even be possible with my skills¡ Not for a few weeks. It¡¯s grown out a half inch. What sorcery is this?¡±
I sighed at that, but unwilling to unload my entire history and every issue, I only told him, ¡°The kind that I can¡¯t control.¡±
One of the others, who was a kind of slim dogkin, mocked, ¡°Don¡¯t go blaming the girl. You were obviously skimping on your skills.¡±
Another turned to me and asked, ¡°How¡¯ed he charge you?¡±
¡°Eight silver for a haircut and a shave?¡± I told the thin-faced cat.
¡°Ciliart, you dog,¡± the catkin scolded.
¡°Dogs are more honest.¡± The other said. ¡°For that price, you ought to be using your skills properly. Did you even say them aloud?¡± The slim dog berated.
¡°I did¡ I don¡¯t even need to speak them aloud for anyone lower than me, and aloud is twice mine.¡± He placated before turning to me. ¡°Come, come. I¡¯ll clean it up for you, free of charge. I can¡¯t go letting people think I cheat my customers.¡± He said, feeling out a pouch-like fold of cloth.
¡°I¡ Uh¡¡± I started, taken aback by the speed and conviction he was going for¡ That and the dagger he pulled out, but that was balanced with the other two.
¡°Put that back in your pocket, Ciliart Swiftfur,¡± an older voice called out, the solid tones of his voice turning out heads.
Approaching us was a wolf so old I would take any age shy of one hundred as underselling him. He was so old that he walked over with a cane and the aid of a young couple to help him shamble over to us, Gunther in tow, radiating an aura of smugness so palpable I scrunched my face before I even saw her face.
The two aids had a familiar look, but the man''s age and Gunther''s company next to him were more than enough to draw my attention from them for the moment.
¡°Elder Longfur? I need to fix up her hair. This niece''s hair has grown where it shouldn¡¯t. Who would I be if I didn¡¯t see to it that my work stuck?¡± Ciliart asked, though he managed to say it with deference.
¡°You can fix her hair later¡ There is something far more pressing she¡¯s needed for.¡± The old wolf said, his eyes so droopy it was hard to tell if he had them open or not.
He had the look of an old hound, the kind that would lay by a fireplace for days at a time from rheumatism and only look up when someone called over to them to check if they had kicked the bucket. He looked as if every motion was a challenge, and Ciliart quieted to let him talk unimpeded.
The old man stared off into the distance before his aids needed to turn him to face me, the old dog letting out a ¡°Thank you¡± that no one could tell who it was directed toward before he continued, ¡°Hello, young cousin¡ Gunther here has told me about you, and I feel I need to meet you in person... Her details are as blurry as you are. Even so, if half of what she¡¯s said is true, I find myself in your debt.¡±
Everyone looked at him, each stuck in some variety of confusion, bewildered or stunned by the words of the elder. Everyone but Gunther had apparently talked me up for some reason.
¡°I¡¯m sorry to say, Elder Longfur, that I don¡¯t know why. Gunther brought me here to get me breakfast, not to be congratulated. I don¡¯t know that I¡¯ve done something of that kind of merit.¡± I told him, my head whirling away at the question of what Gunther was planning.
¡°I suspect you have. Though, perhaps it was a small thing among last night''s events¡¡± He said before turning to the couple holding him and asking them quietly, ¡°Would you bring the pup over?¡±
The lady holding him let go, quickly making her way over to the kitchen, quickly returning with a young Beastkin that I knew. Or that I had met, at least.
It was the young Beastkin girl I had saved last night.
She stared up at me with big eyes and a confused look, one that I shared with her.
The Elder turned toward her, calm and collected, and asked, ¡°Is this the woman that helped you?¡± And everything from there collapsed in on itself.
I walked through it in a daze. I was thanked for saving her in front of dozens of people for something I hadn¡¯t even thought about. It added to a burgeoning feeling in my chest that I had done good, and yet it added a speck that added to a counter feeling that I had done it unintentionally. Stacked with Clause thanking me for saving three people, being thanked for saving a child made it feel¡ strange. It made it feel unearned.
Worse, I knew that Goblins could go overboard for the sake of tradition. It was one thing to save Clause, who was comparably rich as a sinner, to reward me with unused land. But a comparable reward? For a child? Who wouldn¡¯t save a child? I could think of a dozen reasons not to save Clause, but a kid was a kid. You would need to be a real asshole not to.
It took me far too long to speak up after he had started thanking me, cutting off his heartfelt thanks with a quiet, ¡°I don¡¯t think I deserve praise for this¡¡±
That made the old man slow, his head turning like he hadn¡¯t quite heard me right. Gunther looked like I had stepped on her foot.
¡°Why wouldn¡¯t you deserve praise? You saved a life.¡± He said quietly.
¡°I did, but I don¡¯t think that¡¯s something that deserves praise. I save her, but that¡¯s not outstanding; it¡¯s the bare minimum. I didn¡¯t even mean to save her; I just happened upon her,¡± I told him.
Something I could only call recognition dawned on the old dog, a kind of simple backward motion that came with an unwillingness to move too much, coupled with a deep understanding.
¡°I see,¡± he said slowly, ¡°You think that happenstance lowers the value of your actions.¡±
¡°Yes? I suppose? It''s hard to take praise for something when it¡¯s the bare minimum of decency, and it was only by happenstance that I was there instead of anyone else.¡± I admitted with a frailty to my words that I couldn¡¯t take away.
¡°I believe I understand,¡± he said thoughtfully, the tone bringing a fade from the tension in my chest.
I didn¡¯t have the words to say it, but I was glad to not be thanked for it. Being thanked by Clause was one thing; being thanked by this man was another. Hopefully they could take whatever they would have rewarded me with, and save it away for a rainy day¡ Or a cold hungry one.
I sighed in relief and then stopped as he continued, ¡°And I¡¯m afraid I have to disagree. I understand you seem to have an issue with accepting it, but I don¡¯t rightly care about that. Your intentions, nor what is right, nor wrong, matter here, young one. What matters is that you did it. Just because it is the right thing to do doesn¡¯t mean that everyone would or could do it, and from what it sounds like¡ You¡¯re one of the only ones that could. It isn¡¯t bravery intent or the nobility of one''s heart that is the measure of one''s actions¡ It is the action. Right or wrong, bravery or nobility means nothing without acting upon it. Your actions, regardless of what you think of them, have saved this child, and as her great-grandfather, I don¡¯t care that you feel my gratitude is undeserved; I am grateful regardless. Because of you, she has a future where she would have none without you.¡±
I sat there feeling like an even greater fraud than before. Damn, Beastkin and their weirdly strict sense of what to do. They wouldn¡¯t care that you feel like a fraud; they would take your feelings face first and not care. The only way to get it over with was to accept what they said or throw a fit and make them hate your guts. They couldn¡¯t accept anything else but the way they knew. And I couldn¡¯t throw a fit over this, even if it made me feel a little green behind the gills to accept the idea that saving a child was worthy of praise in front of a crowd of people. The only thing I could do was accept it.
¡°I understand, elder. Thank you for your gratitude.¡± I told him, feeling I knew what was going to happen next but disliking it.
¡°Thank you for accepting it, young cousin. But where is well-placed gratitude without a well-placed reward?¡± he asked, as the queasy feeling in my gut gained a twist as he reached into his robe and pulled out two folded lengths of cloth, the same cloth that matched everyone else''s.
He handed the cloth to me, and I took it. The strange mana of the fabric skating against my senses like a smooth shimmering wall.
¡°What is it? What does it mean?¡± I asked him.
¡°It¡¯s a cloak¡ or two of them, and it means you¡¯re trusted, at least among our clans. Where you wear that cloak, the Longfur and Swiftfur clans will know you as a friend.¡± He said calmly.
That was a release of the knife-wrenching twist. As far as unrealistic rewards for things went, two cloaks, even ludicrous magical ones, were nowhere near the boon I had been worried about.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Gunther was staring at me like I was an alien creature that had crashed into the middle of the room and pulled myself from the husk of a shooting star, but everyone else seemed satisfied that I had accepted the gift despite my prior hesitance.
I was a little glad I wasn¡¯t with Selly. She would have probably kicked me in the head for not accepting it flat out because it was rude, but I would have done it regardless.
¡°Thank you for what you¡¯ve given us, friend Saphine; it will not be forgotten¡ now, let''s have a sit-down. Gunther, if you would show her how to wear the cloak, I need to rest my old bones.¡± Elder Longfur asked.
¡°Of course,¡± she said, ¡°I taught you; I can teach her. Take a rest now, young man.¡±
Nodding in thanks, he shuffled over to a nice, comfy-looking cushion before collapsing as he had died on the spot; the young pup looked around before hurrying over to her parents and keeping close.
I turned to Gunther, cloth in hand, and stared down at her.
She looked up at me and, in a tone that could only be chastising, said, ¡°You¡¯re bad with compliments. I get it, but you need to seriously learn to take one before you piss off the wrong Beastkin.¡±
¡°I was more worried that I would get more. I feel dirty for accepting any reward for that at all,¡± I told her.
¡°Ah, yes. Getting rewarded for literally saving a child, how terrible.¡± She said, ¡°Now, over here, I need to teach you how to pleat these because there''s a trick to it.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not saying it''s terrible¡ I¡¯m just saying that I think I should be rewarded for going above and beyond what should be done. It''s like being rewarded for not stabbing people or being rewarded for not stealing someone¡¯s goods, even though you could. Could you imagine rewarding me for not stealing from you? That¡¯s what it feels like.¡± I told her, trying to explain it in a way she might understand.
She looked at me like I had just taken a leak in her office.
¡°Just don¡¯t, Saphine. Don¡¯t try to make your personal malfunctions relatable; your mind is twisted so far from reasonable that you are unable to accept good things when they come your way. Now, you start with the big one, the one on the bottom there and you¡¡± Gunther told me, and I quickly followed along.
From pleating the cloth to how it folded over a shoulder to how it could be folded for pockets. Then came the second length, which hung over me like a mantel. She walked me through folding the cloth, wrapping it around myself, and pinning it down with a short leather cord and a stylized ball as a button.
By the time I was done, I had covered the cloth armour in a weird wrap. I could imagine it being rather nice, especially when I got out of the extra layers; it was like wearing a blanket, and inside, the cloth was warm enough, but both together made me slightly uncomfortable. I could see myself wearing them during the winter and get through the worst of the chill.
¡°And there you go,¡± she said, ¡°You can fold it a few more ways, but that¡¯s the way you¡¯re supposed to fold it.¡±
¡°It''s nice¡¡± I said, leaving, ¡®Too nice¡¯ unsaid.
¡°Yep, it¡¯s the only cloak you¡¯ll ever need. I¡¯ve had mine for a long time. And hey, now you don¡¯t need to buy one. And we can go get some food.¡± She said.
I could feel my gut twist at the idea, and I told her, ¡°I¡¯m still not hungry.¡±
Pouting at me, she huffed, ¡°How am I going to repay you then?¡±
¡°By actually paying for something?¡± I asked, ¡°The food here looks like it''s free, and I¡¯m not just ehh, I¡¯m seriously not hungry... Like at all. I don¡¯t¡ Wait, I think I do know.¡± I told her.
¡°Oh? I got you a friendship and a free cloak, and you''re going to hold me to pay for something?¡± She asked.
¡°Fine¡ I¡¯ll pay, but I have a good idea, and you have the connections to get it done. How¡¯s that for your share?¡± I asked her.
That was how we found ourselves at a very confused [Blacksmith], looking for a custom tool. That was where I paid for a brand-new, very strange shovel.
Chapter 93
The two of us, Gunther and I, sat in front of a Smiths shop as the poor hound confusingly mauled one of his ready-made shovel heads while a second person carved the haft to my specifications. They would be excellent if they worked out how I figured they should.
¡°You know¡ I don¡¯t think I really thought this out.¡± I told the pointy-eared, pointy-mouthed, carnivorous [Merchant] while we stood under the eaves of the converted smithy.
¡°Like¡ Like you don¡¯t know what you¡¯ve ordered?¡± Gunther asked.
¡°No. No, I know it will work, but I wasn¡¯t planning to get it the day I ordered it. I wasn¡¯t ready to just¡ Sit around?¡± I told her.
¡°Most of the time,¡± she said in a tone too wise for her, ¡°you''re waiting on other people to do stuff, assuming you''re not all-knowing and all-capable, anyway.¡±
¡°I¡¯m well aware.¡± I told her, ¡°Hurry up and wait is not new to me¡ I just wasn¡¯t expecting to find someone who could do it right out of the gate... or one with shovels lying around.¡±
¡°Well, to be fair, normally, you would be going through a guild [Toolsmith]. You would have been right for then, but for a caravan, craft goods are better than raw resources if you can keep your stock up. Most of Hector''s job is keeping our stock up. We can even sell lower than local guild smiths dependent on the markets¡¡± she said, a slight glint in her eye.
I couldn¡¯t tell if it was a tear or malice, but either was probably the same in meaning.
After all, there was no way Gunther would cry tears of joy at anything but others'' misfortune.
¡°You know, I would think most caravans would have a good relationship with the guild. The whole point of guilds is to control for quality, at least for the consumer,¡± I told her.
¡°Perhaps at their founding they were, but the guild isn¡¯t a city thing; it¡¯s an institution,¡± she argued. ¡°The Guild of Artisans and Craftsmen is a monolith that strangles all competition and drives up prices. The only places you can find cheap goods are small villages and caravans like mine where we can get [Merchants] like Hector.¡±
I scrutinized the pocket-sized creature. My gut told me [Merchants] were the great evil. They had a lot of money and a lot less morals when it came to spending. They could buy out necessities and sell them back at twice the price, stuff like that.
They were also the kind of people to overstate stuff.
¡°If the guild is so bad, why is it even around? They can¡¯t be pumping up prices too much. I mean, if it''s an institution, it can be gotten rid of. I have the feeling it''s not as bad as you¡¯re making it out to be.¡± I told her, squinting at the woman.
¡°It''s totally as bad as I make it out to be. In cities, the guild has a stranglehold on every artisan and craftsman. If you want to make goods, you need to be in the right sub-guild. Nails and rivets? You better be part of the Metal Fasteners guild. Do you want to sell a knife? Get stripped of your goods and forced to pay reparations. If you don¡¯t sign on, you technically get off, but the guild knows you are not in the guild. Have fun being unable to buy bread, clothes, nails or tools for less than ten times the price while every smith in the city is paid to lower their goods below your prices, so you go broke. It''s insidious¡ And they make so much money.¡± She said.
There it was.
¡°Sounds terrible, but it also sounds like you''re more annoyed at the guild''s success compared to being a [Merchant]. It sounds like a lot of bad stuff, and that makes me dislike the guild. Call it paranoia, but I think you¡¯re trying to get me on your side.¡± I told her.
If it was as bad as she put it, it would be all downsides. No one would want to be part of the guild, the weight of it, the weight of the institutions own self-hatred, would see its doom.
¡°Of course, I¡¯m peeved at the success of the Guild,¡± she said, ¡°I want to return to the good old days when [Merchants] got more money. I also don¡¯t think a different group of people, one backed by the state, are any better at it.¡±
¡°Well, thanks for the explanation, even if the only thing I can take from it is the reason why the [Dressmaker] that made my dresses couldn¡¯t do any other work,¡± I told her. ¡°Besides, do they maintain the quality of goods?¡±
That had seemed to stifle her greed. ¡°They do, but-¡± she started, only for me to cut her off.
¡°Then that¡¯s all well and good,¡± I told her, ¡°But I¡¯m not exactly the person to gripe with. I have no stake. As much as I can listen to you rant, it¡¯s not exactly a topic I can contribute toward.¡±
She listened and, with a huff, mumbled, ¡°I suppose you¡¯re right. They just ruffle me.¡±
¡°I can tell,¡± I told her, ¡°They¡¯re talking up more space in your disproportionately large head than my magic questions.¡±
¡°Ehh?¡± she asked, confused. ¡°What kind of magical question in the hell has you in a tizzy?¡±
I sighed.
¡°I don¡¯t think I can even wrap up my understanding in a way that makes sense,¡± I told her, not wanting to get into it, even though I kind of wanted to.
She snorted, ¡°Half of understanding is the ability to explain things. If you can¡¯t explain yourself, you don¡¯t know what you¡¯re doing. Try me.¡±
¡°Well¡¡± I started immediately, ¡°One of the questions is, what is a spell? It should be rather simple, but I know some stuff a normal person shouldn¡¯t. The fact is, a spell and a skill are basically identical¡ Not even; basically, I can¡¯t find a distinguishing thing except a difference in medium. I can¡¯t figure out if the difference is what makes a spell, a spell, or if there is no difference, and spells and skills are the same thing. Worse, they display separately on [Status], and you can get spells when you level, and that these spells were supposedly handed down to mages by a god¡¡±
It came out as an unending flow of disgorged thoughts draining from the bunghole of my head, each spraying forth from my mouth in an unaltered, unmanaged, unstructured ramble. I bumbled out my issue and then the complications, not keeping them separate but one after another in an unorganized, spontaneous list. After about a minute of listing off random spontaneous details that probably didn¡¯t cause an issue, I stopped, finally empty enough to think about Gunther, who, no doubt, didn¡¯t care enough to deal with me at the moment.
It took a few moments of quiet before Gunther spoke up and broke the silence, but she did, and she did it briskly.
¡°Wow. Tell me how you really feel,¡± she said, which got a groan out of me.
¡°Sorry, I need to figure it out, or I should have already, I guess. Its just eating at me.¡± I told her.
¡°Well, I suppose different sorts have different hold-ups. Sounds like you needed it, even if it sounds to me like a bunch of samey nonsense with more nonsensible hangups, but hey, what do I know? I¡¯m not a mage.¡± She said.
¡°Maybe I did,¡± I sighed, ¡°Though what do you mean samey?¡±
¡°Samey, you know, not a big difference? It seems to me you¡¯re looking too closely at the details and not at the bigger picture. Details are details. A nail is generally metal, but if you sell some kind of magical wooden nail, you would still sell it as a nail. The material doesn¡¯t matter if you use it the same way if you get me.¡±
¡°There are wooden nails; they¡¯re called dowels, and you don¡¯t use them the same way,¡± I told her, though that wasn¡¯t what I was thinking about.
I wasn¡¯t thinking about it because I was thinking about what she had said. Her words were unrelated. Nothing magical about them. She hadn¡¯t used a skill or worked some kind of [Merchant] magic, and yet, her words stirred something in my head. A hole. An empty spot where many lines connected, but none came to a point.
And as I thought on it, the hole snapped shut.
¡°Dowels aren¡¯t the same at all. You need to¡ Hey! Hey!!¡± she said, quickly speaking up and snapping her fingers. I snapped back to reality as the little wood elf stood on tip-toe.
¡°Sorry,¡± I said, spacy and thoughtful.
¡°Did you pass out? Gods woman, whats going on in your head?¡± She asked me.
¡°Not a lot?¡± I answered with a question.
¡°That¡¯s not an answer, but fair enough, you airhead,¡± she muttered.
We stopped talking for a moment, the patter of rain and the tink-tink thunk of the hammer coming through the wall. The simple noise and light of the forge giving us all the light we could have asked for, and yet there was not enough to illuminate the shadow I cast over the tiny Gunther as I shuffled up to her.
I stared down quietly, not speaking a single word.
Gunther, for her part, stared up, unconcerned and unflappable as I loomed.
¡°You can be a real bitch, you know that?¡± I told her.
¡°Yeah, but that¡¯s why I¡¯m the best. Besides, you¡¯re not without your faults, you great big lumbering ape of a [Saint],¡± Gunther said smugly, staring me down like she was twice her height.
I sighed.
¡°You have no shame, I¡¯m glad I don¡¯t need to worry about you weighing in on my love life¡ Not like you seem to have any experience. Lets go inside.¡± I told her.
¡°I would love to, but I doupt you need help, what with your excellent manners. Now, Lady¡¯s first.¡± She said, gesturing to the door.
¡°I would love to; go on then, reach the handle. I''m no lady.¡± I taunted.
¡°I was talking about myself. Do keep up,¡± she said, giving me a grin with far too much tooth.
We could keep going back and forth on this. Gunther was taunting me, trying to drag me down to her level, and beat me with experience.
Knowing this, with all the wisdom of my people, I decided that I was primed to fight in the mud, and took the bait. After all, it was low-hanging fruit; why would it exist if not to be plucked?
Because no matter who or what you were, Gunther could get under your skin like a tick, move in, and never leave like a squatter.
¡°Oh? I thought you were a young lad? Or perhaps a doll. It''s hard to tell, with that childish body and pilgrim vomit get up of yours. If you keep fence sitting like that, you¡¯re going to end up with splinters up your ass.¡±
¡°I am forever young,¡± she said in a sing-song, ¡°My body is pure as fresh snow, and my magnificent wood elven ass wants those splinters like you wouldn¡¯t believe. They¡¯re a comfort during those long, rough nights where I know I¡¯m the only one of us that can get some wood in them.¡±
¡°Ew.¡± I told her, ¡°You need to get laid, which is even grosser now that I think about it, because someone would need to figure out what''s in your pants.¡±
¡°I understand my hidden inventory leaves you uncomfortable from its sheer girth, you are young and na?ve, such is the way of things,¡± She told me.
¡°I¡¯m not interested in your wares beyond what it can give me,¡± I told her with an emphatic gag.
¡°Okay whore,¡± she said passively.
It was so casual it took twenty moments of parsing it for my head to actually translate it. Even then, it wasn''t a word I knew.
I was fairly sure I got it though.
Kind of hard to mess that up. Dirty words were surprisingly straight forward.
We stared at one another. I had buried myself and I knew that, but I still wanted to dig in my heels. The only thing stopping me was Gunther knew where to hit to make me gag, she knew I saw her as less mature than she was and was willing to bet that the idea of her and sex together was gross. Using her looks was part of her mo, and she was good enough to use that, while also leading me on.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
¡°You know, you got me there. I can see why your single,¡± I told her conceding the spar with one last smear and opening the door.
¡°Ouch, tell me how you really feel,¡± she said before walking in.
I followed in after her to the dusty interior.
The shop was lit by both the glow of a forge, and by candles in a lamp, curved reflective surfaces bathing the interior in their full light. Clustered around were all the tools of the trade you could ask for, hanging on hooks next to the forge, the remainder of the space taken up by a few benches, seating, and boxed goods that would normally be on display, but were sheltered from the elements to save them the rust.
Off to the side, in a separate room, I could hear the rattle of the [Carver], doorway blocked not by wood, which would impede passage, but by a heavy curtain to stop sparks.
Looking at the warm metal, we watched the [Blacksmith] as he put the finishing touches on the blade.
It had been a shovel, one with pointed ovular scoop. Nothing fancy, but then again, I wasn¡¯t a fancy girl.
The problem, I had found, was that they were curved. Unlike a primitive shovel, a metal one often came with a curved blade to help it support the weight of lifting, and to hold more, like a bowl, instead of a plate. That also meant that it was very hard to get it to cut, the metal blade worked against the flesh, the edge wanted to curve, which limited its power.
This one, was flat.
Which was a very silly sounding thing, it was, after all, minimally different, but it was better at doing exactly what it needed to. Give it a sharpen and it became a kind of flat half-halberd with decent thrusting and slashing.
And bonus, I could still use it as a shovel, though it was less useful for that purpose.
The second part was the haft, which was less like a shovel haft and more like a long stave, slightly wider, over one and a half times longer in reach, and, notably, made of a wood that was good for carving staves. Notably, according to [Crude Foci Carver], simple staves were often made from specific woods, with better staves being made from magical trees. This staff was made of lilac wood from lilac woods the homeland of the Goblins. It wasn¡¯t magical, not properly, but it was minorly magical, which should help it when I carved the staff.
As for what I would carve¡ I hadn¡¯t ironed that out, but I had a few ideas that my skill fed me, though, it would be minor at best.
Still a minor magical tool? That would be huge. I could put a weak spell in it, or make it improve casting one, or a few other things, but I would need to sit down and dive into the skill while I was carving. I wouldn¡¯t know what I could end up with unless I had the blank staff in front of me, in my hands, and the time to puzzle over it.
We waited in the room as the [Blacksmith] quickly heated up the spade head to shades of red, before the heat bloomed from it, the air letting out a noise like boiling water as it plummeted from red down to unheated metal the heat shunted into the air, cascading up around him. Both the heat of the spade, and the mana he used gave his fur a look of heat haze, a shimmer that seemed to visible ripple to the unaided eye. It was skill work for sure; I could tell by the warble of the smith''s mana as it radiated out of him, it had an all to perfect look. In curling energy, It was both incredibly symmetrical as the mana inside of him tore free and bounced to the shovel, then came free, pulling heat from the metal. He had quenched it in midair.
It was, quite frankly, a remarkable thing to look at. The reverse of lighting a candle on a grand scale. What would that be as a spell? How much mana would it take if it were imperfect?
Looking up from the shovel, but not at us, he shouted, ¡°John!¡±
¡°Yes, boss?¡± A catkin asked, slipping out from behind the curtain.
¡°Are you done cleaning up the haft?¡± He asked him.
¡°Sure thing, boss, I¡¯ll bring it out for you.¡± He said before turning to us and saying, ¡°Hello [Caravan Master] Gunther. The shovel should be ready in a few minutes.¡±
¡°Thank you for your quick work, young John Swiftfur. Go on then; scamper; don¡¯t let me hold you up.¡± She told him half-heartedly.
He nodded and dipped back into the room, leaving us alone with the smith.
The smith looked up at us, panting at the heat of the forge, mouth forced into a doggy grin and spoke, ¡°So, you wanted this flat and the haft and head held together without any kind of fixing? No nails or a pin or the like?¡± he asked.
¡°Without anything permanent, I need to be able to take the haft out later. I understand that could be a bit of an issue, but I need to be able to detach it. Sorry for the strange hang-up on the order,¡± I told him.
He shrugged, ¡°I wouldn¡¯t say it''s an issue, even if it is a queer ask. Lucky me, I can do it. You¡¯ll need to take a pin to pull them apart, but a solid wood pin ought to do it.¡±
Placing the metal disk down, the man lifted his shaggy body up, shuffling over to the bench and grasping around before returning to his seat and taking a small mallet off the hooks. Young John Swiftfur carried out the long haft, the length of dark wood long as he was tall.
Quickly, it was hustled over to the larger man as he took the head and hammer in one hand to receive the blank staff. He took it, lifting it in one hand, the fur over his arms hiding the signs of a high-strength stat. He quickly took the haft and pressed the haft into the collar around the base of the head, giving it a good press fit before laying it upon the anvil, head vertical and asked, ¡°John, come over here and hold it down for me, would you.¡±
John did, holding the long length still while the smith muttered. The elder, presumably his master, placed a small rod of black wood against the collar and held the mallet ready.
¡°Over, back. The other way, John. Yep, a little further¡ There, hold it there,¡± he said quietly, a level of focus extending from him as a whorl of mana before he took a deep breath and spoke, ¡°[One Tap] [Smooth Set] [Reversible Fastener] [Power Strike].¡±
He moved in a smooth motion, the mallet falling on the pin with an inexorable movement, like that of a mountain, and drove the wooden pin through the metal collar twice in one strike of his mallet before sitting up straight.
¡°Nifty skill,¡± I told him, ¡°Also niche as hell, the luck I knew Gunther to find someone with a skill for making a permanent fastener removable.¡±
¡°Ay. It¡¯s a skill that most wouldn¡¯t have¡ Well, unless they make things like metal door hinges. Anyway, that¡¯s all it needed on my end, though; if you need some help with something else odd, feel free to drop by again,¡± he said with a puff of mana that I could tell altered my opinion.
Something like [Repeat Customer], perhaps.
¡°Nice try on your skill there,¡± I told him, ¡°Though I might just do that. How hard is that pin stuck? I don¡¯t want to break the damn thing and come running back to you because, no offence to your work, but I¡¯m not made of money.¡±
I was made, in a way, but I also didn¡¯t want to spend absurd sums of silver on repairing tools over and over because I was a dolt who broke them.
¡°No clue what you¡¯re talking about, good miss, though that¡¯s a damn shame to hear,¡± he said wolfishly, ¡°But suppose a good word from you might do me good business besides if you would be willing to help an old dog out? To answer you, you don¡¯t need to worry about wrecking the pin. It''s Ancient Craigwood, sub-200 strength you can¡¯t even cut it without a magical axe. Just get a pin or a dowel and give it a good thump with a hammer,¡± the ¡®old¡¯ smith told me with a gestured whack.
¡°Sounds expensive for the quote, but hey, if it fits the cost, I have nothing against it, may I?¡± I asked him, gesturing to the spade, a bit of glee sending a tingle down my arm and up my neck.
¡°Sure thing,¡± he told me, lifting the long shovel, ¡°John, go turn some lights over here so our fine customer can see our work.¡±
I walked over to give the final piece a good look as John swiftly moved to the closest lamp and brought it closer to show me the detail.
It had a nice steelhead, with an edge flat and sharp enough to shave if the slight glint was anything to go by. There had been some loss in material around the edges, too, giving it more of a spade look, still curved to the point but slightly smaller and more rectangular, like a proper trenching spade. I could spot the dark wood pin, a deep greyish-red that blended in well with the metal, but for its lack of shimmer, I could have overlooked it as a blemish. The unoiled lilac wood, while light in colour and bland at a glance, had little stringy lines of light purple that spoke of the mystical tree¡¯s light. I could bet that when I was done, it would look quite nice with a bit of oil to make the grain stand out.
¡°This looks wonderful. What oil do you think I should use out of curiosity? I could use any oil, but that doesn¡¯t make it the best,¡± I asked him.
¡°It''s not the oil-¡± They both said before the young Swiftfur caught himself and quieted. Master Longfur stopped, too, before giving his junior an encouraging, ¡°Speak up, apprentice. Give your thoughts.¡±
The chastened Swiftfur hesitated but took the encouragement with a twitch of the tail and a flick of the ear. ¡°Well, most oils will make wood look mostly the same; the difference is in the oil''s color. Unless you''re using a strange oil, the real question isn¡¯t what oil would look better but what stain would make it look best. If you¡¯re just looking to finish it, seed oil like flax or resin mix will do. Wax is a bit rarer unless you know a beekeeper around here, but it finishes fast.¡±
He had a tone of authority but not of experience. It was a textbook tone, as I might sound if I was telling someone about a type of mana or something to the same effect. The idea lit a fire under me as I thought it, I should be going to check on the cabin right now, but it also told me what this was. The older man was observing his student, carefully making sure he knew what he was talking about so he would be prepared.
I turned to the master and did my part by asking, ¡°Would wax be a good seal, and could I stain it after?¡±
¡°I think that would do good work, especially if you were planning on staining it later and want to keep it from weathering,¡± he told me with a slightly approving tone, ¡°you would have to either heat it or sand it, but wax would be good for that because it doesn¡¯t go as deep as oil. I wouldn¡¯t comment on the stain because you''re strange and no doubt have an idea if you were asking about finishes. Good work, young Swiftfur; now, go and clean up your shavings and bring them here to keep the flame.¡±
The young man looked astounded; it was a look I couldn¡¯t place, but I could see pride in it. Pride and then a look of determination as he quickly placed the lamp back and slunk off.
We both watched him go before I turned to the smith and told him, ¡°I wish I could say my apprenticeship gave me a look like that,¡± I told him.
¡°Sounds like you don¡¯t have a great master,¡± he told me, less a knock against Anna and more a bit of pride in himself.
¡°I don¡¯t have a normal master; she''s more like a friend.¡± I told him, ¡°I guess it makes sense because I¡¯m a bit too old, but I wish there was a little of that in my life.¡±
He let out a hmm like a kettle drum, full of rumbly belting and knowing exactly what my deal was. ¡°That comes with age. It''s easier to impress the young; the younger, the more impressionable. We have great power over shaping their lives, so using that power, wielded with respect for their future, is part of a master-apprentice relationship. As an adult, a master might still be impressive and might still wield power over you, but they are less of a master because you are less impressionable, less malleable.¡±
¡°Yeah¡¡± I told him to file something away for later, ¡°Wet clay is more malleable, so that power does more work, but when it dries up, that power is less impressive.¡±
¡°Got it in one,¡± he told me, ¡°you also know less, so knowing means more¡ I bet he¡¯ll be more agreeable for a week, maybe less from the downpour, Swiftfur do hate the rain, but still, a few days longer. Thank you for picking up on that, strange clan friend.¡±
¡°Afraid of a revolt from the young man?¡± I asked.
¡°You know how the young get; the boy barely has a class. I¡¯m sure you remember what it was like waiting for your next level, the next skill; he can barely stand still and he''s all twitchy¡ Now, I hate to cut this short or be rude, especially to an honored friend, but do take that absurd ¡®shovel,¡¯ and hop out of my hair. I have work to do, even on a rainy day. I got to get an order ready for a few hours from now, and I can¡¯t be a good host and fix sixty shovels at the same time.¡± He told me, in a no-nonsense way, born out of pragmatism.
¡°I will, I think I know who those shovels are for, and they¡¯re needed.¡± I told him, which got an eyebrow, but not much else.
¡°Not to talk down to you, but you would have to be a right moron to not figure it out given last night''s... ruinous conclusion. Now out before you start growing moss and cool the forge.¡± He said lightheartedly.
I retrieved my shovel and [Inspected] it and my cloak while we left the smithy, because it was mine, and I damn well felt like it and didn¡¯t feel disappointed in the few silver it took to get it.
Uncommon, Modified Spade Staff, Condition: Pristine
Description:
A mundane but modified steel shovel head affixed to a blank staff made from Lilac wood by a removable pin of scrap Craigwood, and modified to have sharp edges despite its nature as a tool used for digging, and for magic.
The Lilac woods are the mystical woods of the Goblin people, best known for their namesake glowing flowers, magical fruit, songlike chime, and their shared hatred of Human kind. Its said that the wood is indeed, one large tree, with each root connecting back to the heart of the forest. It is said that wherever Goblins go they carry a sprout, bringing the Lilac woods with them to mark a new colony.
Lilac woods are known to carry a magical poison in their sap, that collects in their pristine buds, before being transformed into a seedless fruit known to have life extending property¡¯s.
The Ancient Craigwoods that lay on the western coast of the continent of beasts are a notable magical tree said to be among the tallest in the world. Accordingly, when felled, a mature tree creates a great deal of Craigwood, much of which is only minorly magical, with the heartwood being capable of grand earth magics, and outermost rings being simply hard. This leaves much of the scrap wood both too hard for low level carpentry, but also plentiful enough for those with the tools or strength to work it.
Minorly Magical, Slayer goat wool cloak, Condition: Pristine.
Description:
A traditional Beastkin cloak, woven from the wool of a slayer goat. Worn in two pieces, it is common for Beastkin to be granted one piece once they prove themselves as an adult, with men gaining the lower, and women the upper, with the other being given to those of status, or that otherwise prove themselves to their clan, symbolizing a transcendence of both age and social roll.
Rarely given to those outside a clan, non Beastkin who don the cloth are seen as family and known as friend because it may only be acquired through a deed great enough to satisfy their elders.
This cloak was granted by Elder Mathias Longfur to Saphine for saving his great-grandchild from peril when no one else could, despite both great peril, and a lack of reward.
The Beastkin are an anthropomorphic Quilinoid species that often resemble large predatory animals, similar to how a Beast resembles its lesser kin. It is said, long ago, the First Beastkin turned his back on his own people, forsaking them, for which they cursed him and his family to scatter into the wind, forever changed to show they were not but wild animals.
Slayer goats are both a horrifying and perplexing Beast, both because visually they have more in common with both a wolf and a sheep then a goat and are carnivorous. Originating from highlands of the rocky eastern coast, slayer goats have a known taste for the flesh of Monsters which they prefer over anything else, often seeking them out in packs. Their coats are said to both protect them and hide their nature, their minorly magical fleece keeping them warm and dry, while also being harder to cut, and minorly mending, traits that are preserved even after being shorn.
Slayer goats are known to pretend to be regular sheep, enticing prey in with an easy meal, and are believed to be at least intelligent enough to understand and adapt this hunting strategy, while also being desperate enough for Monster meat that some goats will starve themselves if none is presented, which grants them their name, as it shares this trait with those of [Slayer] type classes who are known to crave and be addicted to the energy present in their target of choice.
That was both enlightening and disturbing, but stopping in the doorway staring at the cloak I was wearing was not the place to take that information in, especially because Gunther would be liable to kick me in the ass, so I made my way out into the rain where I could ponder this knowledge on my own time. And just like that, our time together ended.
I walked back with her, dropped off a cloak after mucking around with trying to get it dry like Anna, partially succeeded, decided to wring it out instead, and said my goodbyes to Gunther, who apparently had another meeting to attend to.
And despite my distaste for the little munchkin and her ineffable ego, I found myself not hating it, even if she did annoy the hell¡¯s out of me.
And so, I quickly set out for home, warm and dry with a cloak and clothes, new shovel in hand, and extra stuff bundled behind me. Off to finish up a loose end, and make sure we hadn¡¯t been robbed, because if anything could set me back even further than I already was, it would be trying to patch the gap after telling Anna her livelihood had been ruined.
Chapter 94
Out in the dark of the overcast morning, through the rain and wet and loosened terrain, I trotted through. The earth sucked at my feet; the ground was unable to rid itself of the excess water. Instead, it ran off along the top while it turned to slurry beneath the short grass around New Moarn. I couldn¡¯t see the river from here, the one I had ridden the raft down on, but I could only imagine it swelling from the runoff.
At least the soil hadn¡¯t been bone dry; that would have been prime mudslide conditions.
Powering through the mud while it did its best to weigh me down, I made my way to the tree line and found a whole lot of trees.
You would think it would be easy to find, even if I couldn¡¯t see it; I should be able to feel it, seek it out with magical senses even if my eyes failed me, but even magical senses seemed to rely on my senses stat. I had never wanted to raise my senses since they were already keener than a Humans, so I had never gone for increases, but here they were, drowned out by the storm. Skills didn¡¯t care that I had sharper senses; they were skills.
It was embarrassing to fumble around at the edge of the tree line, but it only took me a few minutes of walking to find it and get out of the curtain of rain. The path was well sheltered from above, rain rolling off into the leaf litter that eagerly absorbed the remaining, leaving the forest floor blessedly un-mucky compared to the field.
It was from there, a quick jaunt up to the grove.
The grove was a surprise; the rain ran off, tracing over an invisible bubble-like dome of magic. It was layered, like a bud, each pulling off extra water until all that was left was a drizzle¡ªenough to water her plants but not much else.
It wasn¡¯t even hard to get in. The ¡®front,¡¯ for lack of a better word, had a lip of sorts above it, creating a kind of transparent doorway and letting the water roll off to either side.
I stepped through, the familiar welcoming pressure of nature coming close enough to feel on my skin, a welcoming hug from an old friend.
And old and slightly guilty friend.
¡°Sorry, sorry,¡± It projected, a sensation of thunder coming through in an apology comprised of blunt force.
¡°I accept your apology,¡± I told it, ¡°It wasn¡¯t intentional, not for us anyway. We called on you, not the other way around.¡±
It shifted around for a moment, all watery and liquid before it sent both a positive and a negative, accompanying it with, ¡°Yesss. But harm.¡±
Its words were accompanied by images¡ªwounded animals, burnt or broken. Foxes are limping, coyotes with lame legs, birds with broken wings hunkered down in their nests and on the ground, and rodents are dragging themselves across the ground. A cavalcade of wounded wildlife, each life horrific in its suffering.
It made me grit my teeth in a wince. A gentile touch was not something the genus loci understood.
¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± I told it.
¡°Our Druid is hurt,¡± it said, the ideas not so much an argument but more a statement of things. It was more like gravity telling me down was down and less like it confessing to doing harm.
I knew Anna was hurt, but the way it said it made my skin itch. Between the visions of the animals and the emphasis on hurt, they were ominous. She was hurt, but not seriously. She had been moving and talking. She was injured but on the mend.
¡°Give her something nice,¡± I told it, ¡°A gift. Something to help fix her up or a nice set of flowers. Something to lighten her mood or keep her focused on something else.¡±
It, of course, didn¡¯t understand that.
The idea of a gift was foreign to the land. The closest thing it could understand was probably food. Animals gave one another food as gifts unless you were a bird, then it was random nicknacks.
Perhaps it would give her something shiny, like a glass bead.
I didn¡¯t know, but the point of a gift was not only the gift itself but the intent and thought behind it.
Also, could you imagine? That would be one hell of a story. ¡®Yeah, the collective intellect of the natural world was sorry it hit me with lighting, so it gave me this glass bead as a get-well-soon gift.¡¯
It didn¡¯t understand the concept of a gift, and it seemed to try to wrap its weird magical head around that while I got my instinct to stop being worried over Anna again. It kept crying its freakishly loud shrieks and forced me to pick it up and cradle it before it started to calm the hell down.
Do you know how hard it is to hold something that squirms that much? It''s hard. Worse yet, it was all in my head, so I had to catch it with mental muscles, not actual muscles.
Anyway, I checked on the grove with a freaked-out hold on the animal within and the land confused.
It was wet but not drowned out. The soil sucked up everything that fell on it, and most was good with the world¡ At least for the plants. The birds hid in the trees as the cool morning shaped their heat, and the foxes¡ Well, the foxes weren¡¯t outside. They were huddled near the fire, making funny little fox noises at one another while their cub wandered around, being curious.
¡°Hey,¡± I called out to them, getting their attention.
They looked confused like they didn¡¯t know what they were in the middle of doing, the little one included.
¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that, you little stinker. Get, get! I can¡¯t have you pissing everywhere and eating all our food. Get!¡± I told them, voice raised to sound big and significant.
They were unmoved because they were clever little shits, and so I stepped up and called their bluff, quickly shooting forward and grabbing them.
It was far easier to grab a real fox¡ªeven two real foxes¡ªbut then, the hard part was keeping a firm enough hold over them while they tried to thrash their way out of it, and try that, they did.
They did not like being picked up, and while they knew instinctively that I couldn¡¯t hurt them and didn¡¯t maul my hands, that didn¡¯t mean they didn¡¯t spin like a greased gear in a windmill while screaming like a hog. They freaked out, their smooth fur rubbing fast enough to give me a minor rope burn, but I carried them to the door before laying them on the porch while they made sure one another was, indeed, still alive.
What a miracle.
I returned and picked up the food scraps they had managed to get into and delivered them to them while they yipped inside, calling to their pup. Their pup, for her part, was very obviously busy sniffing everything and only called back.
I snapped my fingers to get her attention and then led her outside with the lure of half-eaten meat before giving her a nibble and distributing the loot among the foxes who made angry noises at me for taking them out of the lovely, warm den.
I returned and checked for their notable musk. You couldn¡¯t get the damn stuff out of whatever it got into, but luckily, the other doors were closed, and they couldn¡¯t climb, leaving only the living area¡ And the bedroom.
Walking in, I found the room in disarray; everything felt like it had been moved. It was a mess, but a manmade mess. I spent time putting things back in order, moving the dresser, and straightening things out.
I also took a pillow that smelled like a fox and brought it outside to them. It wasn¡¯t hard to find; it reeked more than the chamber pots.
It took a short time and some basic effort to clean up the cabin and quickly thin out the grass. Far harder was drying it out enough to offer to the foxes as bedding to keep them warm and dry, which made them dislike me less when I showed up at the mouth of their den under the deck and proffered the grass.
Anna could have just pulled the water out, but it took me at least half a glass to remove the excess water and slightly firm it up. It was subpar, but the foxes accepted it, along with the pillow, which they shredded for its feathers and dragged down to line their den.
I watched as the tiny fox kit played with a feather and left her to her fun. She was safe here.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Then, with the cottage cleaned up as well as I could without a dedicated cleaner, I headed into the study and did as I should.
I studied.
I didn¡¯t just read but skipped through, trying to memorize enough bits to fill out the board; then, in a moment of realization, I took a loose sheet of paper and started copying bits. Not every grit, many lines were Magelin adding to the detail to break it up in his characteristic way. Instead, I took short snippets that were important. If I could make a copy like that, I could carry it with me.
It was, quite possibly, the simplest thing I could have done, but something I had stupidly not done because I was a moron.
Note-taking was so basic that it should have been my first go-to, but once I started, each bit became easier.
Doing that also allowed me to pick important bits, which allowed me to fill out the diagram faster.
I scribed, fingers getting ink on them as I pressed too hard with the quill, ink mixing with the powder from the slate pen as I focused and did my due diligence. Ink stained harshly; even after wiping it up, a stain remained on my skin in a discoloured blotch.
The elements and the Natural came easily, though I added Life and Death to the list as well. The new mana types were different and strange. They were less real; for all that they existed, they were less everpresent. Water was water, the air was air, the heat was hot, and the beast was wild and semi-intelligent. They were connected to things you could touch.
The Celestial elements were¡ Less touch, more sight only.
Solar or sun mana was light, was light, but there were dozens of ways you could use it because the light from the sun was a kind of special light. Lunar mana wasn¡¯t related to the moon, but night, darkness mana, except that some uses of moon mana required the moon to be out and about. Stars were beyond confusing, more about divining than anything else. It also didn¡¯t need to be about light, but simply ¡®heavenly light,¡¯ and included auroras, which was something I absolutely wrote down.
Holy was¡ Holy was just bullshit.
Comparing Holy to the other Celestial mana types was just stupid because it was more like arcane mana than any of its category.
¡®Holy mana,¡¯ Magelin wrote, ¡®is total horseshit. Now, calm down; if you''re a [Cleric], don¡¯t let that little bit of heresy get your small clothes in a twist. You, no doubt, will come to understand it better than the rest of us. This section is less for you and more for us normal mages. Holy mana is a mystery, wrapped in a cruel riddle, and none of you will ever give us a straight answer. When I asked my interviewee about the deal with holy mana, I was given a speech I would like to give you verbatim, young student, because it is the best you will ever get.
¡°Holy mana is that greatest of mana types, granted to us by our gods; it is omni-capable, so long as you work to stay in their good graces and seek to do their great work on this mortal coil. If you wish to wield it or know its greater depths, you must give yourself over to them in an act of faith.¡±
That¡¯s right, students. As you can clearly see, that very descriptive explanation clears everything up.
Now, you know I won¡¯t leave you hanging; what does that mean? Well, I don¡¯t know, but while I don¡¯t know what that means, I can tell you how holy mana seems to work from long years of watching.
Holy mana is granted by any deity, god or not, in return for things like prayer. Yes, even a shadowy demonic one. It seems to function for [Clerics], similar to how many other patron mages function, such as [Druids] or [Warlocks], where a [Cleric] can grant their patron mana, and the patron will return it, with interest, and provide specific mana types and guidance on spells, with the bonus ability to pray for it instead.
There also don¡¯t seem to be kinds of Holy mana, which is very confusing because each god also appears to grant different Holy manas, with each [Cleric] confirming that their mana is holy mana. [Arcane Clerics] even use it to create whatever mana type they wish. It can be assumed, then, that somehow holy mana takes on whatever form a god or their servant needs. That would mean that holy mana is typeless. A kind of mimic mana.
That dear reader would explain why [Clerics] can do tricky things very easily. Do you need a limb regenerated? Well, you could figure out how to do it the hard way, botch it and kill yourself, or you could just ask a [Bishop of Life] to give you a quick [Regenerate], and they aren¡¯t even necessarily mages.
The downside, dear reader? Nothing is free in this world; gods grant mana specific to their function. A [Bishop of Life] could regenerate your arm but couldn¡¯t hurl a [Fireball] because that is not in Life¡¯s purview. You also don¡¯t necessarily get what you want when you want it. A Mage controls their power, a [Cleric] controls their personal power, but you can¡¯t force a deity to do what you want. Sometimes, instead of [Regenerate], you get [Mend]. If you don¡¯t warrant their power, you don¡¯t get it.
Why, then, is this fickle mana in Celestial? Why, ask a [Cleric]. We can¡¯t use the damn stuff; it was them that placed it where it is, not I. The tight-lipped bastards wouldn¡¯t even tell me the why. If you disagree with it, go fight your local [Priest].¡¯
I thought about it, I really did, but instead, I noted it down, along with its ¡®golden¡¯ colour. If it made less sense, that I wouldn''t sit here tearing out my hair over it, I could figure that out later, I only needed to understand it enough to repeat it to Anna.
Surprisingly, the most confusing were the Arcane manas because they were so weird. They were similar to heat, where people thought they were fundamental mana, a kind of indivisible magical type. But they were also not normal. They could be found in material, but they weren¡¯t that material.
I flipped through, not even taking notes because I feared I would get them catastrophically wrong, until I stumbled across the section, one of dozens, that focused on Quagmire, which was one of the four I needed.
Quagmire was, as it sounded muddy.
Very literally.
It was a mana type that was discovered from mud magic and was responsible for the altered properties of its two components, Earth and Water mana. It was a mana type that merged others together.
Following his instructions, I went and found some mud, which was easy enough. I sat down just a ways away so I didn¡¯t ruin my clothes, and I closed my eyes to try to take in the world around me using just mana senses.
A curtain of Air and water mana whirling around me in a distracting haze. Plants around, above and below me, and the earth, my solid foundation, I let myself focus and blot out everything but the water and the earth beneath me.
I watched in my mind''s eye as water rolled off the surface of the earth, but also seeped into it, flowing through miniature underground streams and down. The ground here, though, was full; it could not accommodate more water; it was at capacity. The water, with nowhere to go, was forced to merge with the earth, and both mana types pressed together, yet they were unable to change one another to their mana type.
Then, they clicked together, each building to create a new mana type before merging, water mana and earth mana incorporated into a kind of emulsion, and that tiny experience made it clear to me what Arcane mana was.
It was mana as a process instead of mana as a material.
With that in mind, I made notes on how it acted and what it did to other mana.
There were dozens of Arcane mana types, each a separate process, but the ones that were important to me were Conjuration, Evocation, Enchantment and Quagmire, and they were easy enough to wrap my head around once I had cleared that up.
Conjuration? It conjured stuff, turning mana into material.
Evocation? Made a regular material ¡®magical,¡¯ in the way that an ¡®enchanted¡¯ blade was magical, while a regular blade only had mana in it.
Enchantment was how you took mana and kept it from going bad, locking it into shape. It was responsible for magical gems and every enchanted item ever.
As I wrote that down it occurred to me why these types were the ones that I needed to know.
¡°When a young apprentice like me thinks of magic, they think of big flashy spells and magical items,¡± I thought, ¡°How do you make a magic sword? How do you conjure a fireball? How do you make a fire to light a candle?¡±
They were the answers to some of the most fundamental questions an apprentice might ask. They were the textbook definition of, ¡®Go read it in a book and stop bothering me.¡¯
That made me laugh. I didn¡¯t know if that was the intention, but even if it wasn¡¯t, it was a brilliant idea.
You made a magic sword by imbuing it with evocation mana and then trapping it with enchantment mana. You could take fire mana and conjure a great big ball of fire; you light a candle by merging heat and air, creating fire mana.
I couldn¡¯t tell if that was genius or not. I lit a candle and watched as the heat and air snapped together into the fire.
It was the same process as making mud. Only lighting a candle also conjured the flame.
I spotted in the arcane section, two more tidbits. Renewal and Decay, which told me to basically go read Life and Death in the Occult section, and do that I did, brushing up on life mana again. Life was present in all living things and encouraged stuff to live, renewing and preserving life. Death was¡ well, a bit more esoteric.
Death Mana wasn¡¯t about killing but the concept of ending. It encouraged Decay, which took mana and converted it to death mana, breaking it down. A being died because it built up in its body until more of its body was dead than alive, and it converted its strength and constitution. Decaying them into just inanimate meat. It also explained why it was so damn good at destroying undead.
The undead had no life in them, no guard against it, and, as a bonus, they were animated by compressed mana. As it broke that mana, it also decayed its surroundings, breaking down the compression and turning whatever it was into looser mana that could decay into more Death mana faster.
It built on itself. If I could bring enough death mana to bare I could crack nearly anything, the issue was just in quantity and how I did it.
Life and death were a kind of cycle. Each needed the other to grow. Death mana needed life mana to create more mana, and for that mana to lose its energy and ¡®die,¡¯ life mana needed death mana to break down mana from complex things and exist to be renewed into life mana.
¡°Those clever bastards,¡± I muttered to myself as I pulled myself back from the board, the light from outside that managed to spill in through the shuttered windows catching me in the eye.
I had been doing it the long way, trying to fit myself into the text instead of fitting the text to me. I studied there until it got noticeably brighter outside, brightening from a low-hanging grey to a dim grey that you could at least see further than ten feet in.
It was probably a half-hour past noon.
I was late, probably. It was damn hard to tell with the ever-present grey of the overcast sky, but I was willing to bet I needed to get back so I could ¡®work off my crimes.¡¯
I would probably not have time to talk to Anna before I needed to go out and dig today, but we had a plan for tomorrow, so I would talk to her tonight if she would see me.
I hoped she would.
In the meantime, I would think that if there was one thing physical labour was good for, it was freeing up the mind.
With everything quiet and restored to its pre-fire station state, my extra clothes returned to the closet. I was about to leave and lock up for what little amount of locking there was when I stopped and, in a moment of premonition, walked back into the main room.
I couldn¡¯t place what I felt was wrong until I realized it was just the quiet.
Stupid fox senses telling me the house being quiet was something to think about, that I was missing something.
It wasn¡¯t until later that it would become significant that our forgotten house guest was quiet as a mouse.
Chapter 95
Heading back to Clause was a short enough gauntlet, the cloak keeping the worst off my clothes. I had slipped out of the padded cloth because of the heat, but the tunic was nice enough under the cloak while remaining breathable. I had also slipped a pouch on my belt to hold the slip of paper, a few coins, and a few lengths of rope to hold the shovel. The length was awkward, but it would help keep my hands clear if I needed to, especially with the jar.
Locking up wasn¡¯t much of a problem, but I made sure to give the foxes a pointed look, and they gave me a pointed yip of displeasure for ending their mischief before heading out into the unending storm.
It was slightly brighter as I made my way back to the cobbles and rubble of the outer edge of the city. From there, it was easy enough to make my way down the street to the center of the city.
There were corpse carts and souls around, and I sent them to meet their maker, at least those I could. For those I couldn¡¯t, into the jar they went.
By the time I reached the city center, it was full.
I passed through an open square, corpse carts gathering up, covers keeping them out of the rain while they were sorted. A few were ferried out of a covered center before being moved to different smaller carts.
There were mourning figures paying for timber and urns to be traditionally cremated. The urns were simple clay, but the timber was exceptionally pricey if the silvers were anything to go by.
My heart went out to them, but more concerning than a month''s pay for timber were the souls attached to the bodies. Souls held to the body, lingering before they were released to wander; the number of souls I had picked up was concerning, but the number remaining was more concerning. Those I had were those of destroyed bodies, those cremated by the fire.
More concerning still, I had gotten a feel for how many souls were around me and how many I had picked up, and now, looking at the carts, how many were bound to bodies¡ And the numbers didn¡¯t line up.
There were missing souls. So many missing souls.
I wanted to help them but couldn¡¯t even do that much.
There were just too many of them to take all at once; I would have to jar the rest of them and take them on slowly. It could take me weeks to get enough studying it to not cripple myself mage-wise.
I counted each cart and guestimated the number of souls per jar. I would need to mix the mana in each. Anna could help, probably, but she was recovering, and there weren¡¯t exactly many death-adjacent gods I knew about to help out, and only so many she could do, even if she was up for it.
I could probably do enough to get through it, even if it would exhaust me.
With my numbers, I made it to the wall, past the guards, down the street, and managed to not get beheaded as I got into the Mynes residence.
I did get a peeved look from a familiar steel-covered guard, but that was it.
I shook myself off and cleaned my boots, one shedding far easier than the other, before making my way up to Clause''s office study.
The room was easy to find, and not because of my memory or sense of direction, but because it was filled with muted but still very loud voices.
A lot of voices.
I gave a light knock before deciding that there was no way I could be heard and simply made my way in.
The room, despite its reasonable size, was quite packed. Anna, Strause, Clause, Joan, Gunther, two people I didn¡¯t know, one a [Priest], the other some kind of commoner, the mangler and Arabelle.
It was loud and choked from the voices and packed enough to be hot from the bodies alone. The clause was still drinking, if the glass on his desk and the red on his cheeks was anything to go by, and I couldn¡¯t fault him for it as he sat there in the middle of the shitstorm. Much of his composure was lost from sheer exasperation.
It was like walking into an invisible wall; you walked up, bounced into it, and pulled back, confused as to what had happened.
Anna and Gunther were shouting down Clause about caravans, Strause was complaining about a militia and chiming in with Joan about work and what I took as a curfew, the [Priest] was talking about last rights and how burying the dead was wrong, the commoner was talking about a shortage of men, Arabelle and Gunther were slandering one another, and Mangall was studiously frowning whenever Clause reached for the glass, and otherwise being so reserved that the room was quieter and colder for it.
I blinked as I opened the door fully, unable to orient myself in the confusing mess of seemingly unrelated things, each with the same source. I closed the door to keep this confined to the room. My timing was poor. Very poor.
Clause, listening to the spray of anger, heard the door close behind me and looked up, his head turned toward me mechanically, his face carrying a look that came about three seconds away from taking his own life, crossed with me shaving off three seconds.
His look got heads turning toward me, half confused, two shocked, and the rest seemed expectant.
I supposed it was hard to get past two mind readers, Gunther and Clause¡¯s minding retainer.
Despite this, the room gained a stillness, and Clause eagerly breached the gap.
¡°Thank the Gods,¡± he said, his face softening as he realized it was me. We can finally start getting one headache off my chest.¡±
His voice took on a quality of both expected relief and thankfulness that I was not accustomed to. Generally, being the mangey dirt woman I was got me overlooked, and becoming a [Saint] that was visually similar to a reanimated corpse certainly hadn¡¯t gotten me much beyond dread, but Clause looked like I was his one saving grace in the world.
It kind of creeped me out; if I were to be totally honest, adoration of that sort was not comforting in the least.
It made me tense in a way I immediately tried to undo with a quick, ¡°I could solve all you¡¯re problems, but I doubt you could head to the heavens without getting me stabbed to death by everyone here at least once.¡±
It was a joke, a bit of gallows humour.
Clause seemed to be in the right state of mind for that because he grimaced and looked at the positively vibrating crowd and answered, ¡°You wish; I don¡¯t think I could die at the moment even if we did our best. Four to one are not odds I would appreciate armed; Mangall could stop us on his own¡ Now, quickly, I need to get this sorted to start getting things off my plate. [Priest] Thatcher, [Groundbreaker] Foss, I will entertain you last now that the last of your group has arrived, and I would appreciate your patience,¡± he said quickly, gesturing and giving name to the two unknown members of the Clause smashing posse.
They looked to want to start up again, but then they got too confused looking at me and my very large shovel and took Clauses, ¡®appreciate¡¯ as it was intended and shuffled to the side quietly.
¡°First off,¡± Clause continued, ¡°Gunther, Annabeth, I understand you both have tips planned soon to head south. The restrictions on travel will continue until the city is safe enough to send outriders to patrol; everything beyond the edge of the woods is off-limits unless approved by me, my Mother, or Mangall. Gunther. I understand you are unenthused by these restrictions because of your protection, but I will be more than willing to compensate by hiring caravan guards. Annabeth, you are both a Mage and a Noble, but neither put you above my ruling while in a state of emergency. If you need to head south, help me. I could use a Mages skills at the moment. If either of you leaves, I¡¯ll find you, now Gunther, stop slandering my Mother, and Mother, please stop returning fire; if I hear either of you call the other some manner of slander, I¡¯ll be forced to expel you from the remainder of the conversation.¡±Stolen novel; please report.
Gunther and Arabelle turned to each other with a reserved foul look that could strip paint, but despite that, they calmed down, Gunther thinking about the money her words would cost her, and Arabelle on something I couldn¡¯t understand.
Anna was both peaked and tired. Her face was red like a coal, and I could understand why. She had been planning to go south with me and had been planning something. Having that overturned was a bit of a blow for me because I had been a bit excited to go south with her but for Anna? All of her plans had been put on hold overnight.
It would give her more time to recover if nothing else, even if I couldn¡¯t say I liked the reason for it.
It also affected me, adding a little more to my plate, but I could bet that I could get Clause to think about it with some help from Gunther.
¡°Am I next?¡± Strause asked, ¡°Because I think your decision on pressganging a militia and pushing out a curfew enforced by said militia against their fellows is bound to cause strife without decent protection.¡±
¡°It might, but I need men. I need men, time¡ A wall, a whole lot of things, but manpower comes first. We need to move material and provide protection. The streets are calm now, but it will pick back up in as little as a week. To move that material, the best way is through empty streets, and the best way to protect them unless you can pull a wall out of your ass is a militia posted around the city, and fewer people to protect at night. You and your¡ Whoever you are won¡¯t change that reality because the city¡¯s nightlife is going to suffer for a period. If you want your¡ Entertainment. You¡¯ll have to finish by nightfall. You¡¯ll be getting some seasoned [Guards] to lighten the load, but I¡¯ll need to get the Captains moving.¡± He dictated.
¡°She¡¯s not a [Prostitute] Clause, she¡¯s a taverner,¡± he said pointedly. ¡°I¡¯ll ask you to apologize.¡±
Clause raised an eyebrow at the request, but he didn¡¯t seem to want to waste time and quickly followed with, ¡°Very well. I¡¯m very sorry for besmirching your character, Miss Taverner. It''s rather hard to keep track of, considering the company he keeps. While I¡¯m sure this will eat into your family¡¯s profit, I imagine any free beds you could offer might make up the difference while we get to rebuild.¡±
¡°That¡¯s an Inn, you ass,¡± Strause said.
¡°And a new sign will be very profitable,¡± Clause said, brushing aside his bothers tone with a clap. ¡°Now, anyone else? Anything before I get to the most pressing concern in the wake of this travesty? No? No one wants to go before the burial? Good! Well, then come forward, you three.¡±
Clause beckoned us over, his motion loose from wine. He pulled up a map and rolled it across the table.
The three of us came to look, the [Groundbreaker] and I more so than the [Priest], but he still leaned a little to regard the map.
It was the area immediately around Moarn. The likes of which might be used to plan out construction in and around a city, as opposed to judging distance or showing geography.
¡°[Groundbreaker] Foss, Saphine here is a [Gravedigger] and has recently gotten herself into a position where using her talents will save her a whole lot of trouble. She will be helping your men dig. She¡¯s also a [Saint] and has told me she can keep a grave sanctified, which saves us from needing to cut down a forest and drain all our oil for cremation. The three of you will need to work out much together, but for now, we need to solve where the hole goes before we need to figure out where the bodies go.¡± Clause said, looking up at us with a, ¡®I swear to god if one of you countermands me, I will destroy you.¡¯ ¡°According to scouting and the Hunters Guild, along with your recommendations on details, there are five sites we can dig. Reports put us at needing two sites, but the two of you will need to figure out which sites are best,¡± he told the two of us.
Me and Foss both took a close look at the map, along with the indicated points, each with a number escalating from one up to five.
The two closest were in the forest, four and five, one across the river bank at the edge of the woods, which looked like it could work was three, and two of them were to the east, sparsely sheltered but near a road that would aid in digging one and two.
¡°These would be best on a clear day and need little clearing. I¡¯ve seen them myself, but my Lord, they will be a mess in this rain. We would need to set up cover soon to stop the entire area from becoming mudpits. This one would need clearing, but it could work. Maybe a half day work, but there are no other good ones. These two are heavily forested, and it would take hours just to clear them. If I understand you correctly, you want the bodies ready to be buried by nightfall, but I can only see one of these sites doing it.¡± Foss told Clause.
¡°I agree with these two,¡± I told Clause, pointing at the open ones, ¡°They might be well-drained hills, but everything is turning to mud out there. The whole damn clearing is three inches of muck right now. Anyone digging there would be liable to snap their neck¡ However, I think these ones are for the best. Suppose you can get a trail and a team of [Woodcutters] to help us. There are some clearings near here. Why are they so high in number?¡±
¡°They are closer, yes, but there are other things to consider. The remaining points are near highway posts along the old road. They could be used to keep watch on them to ensure nothing tampers with the graves; your skill aside, we can¡¯t take chances. They¡¯re also next to roads, meaning we can cart everything around nicely. These two might be closest, but they would require clearing, even with a natural one nearby, and they would require patrolling. Getting the hunters guild involved would necessitate payment, and that would be in perpetuity.¡± He replied.
I looked closer at the woods. Clause¡¯s decision made sense, but something about it nagged at me, and it took me a few seconds to figure it out.
The two sites were near an unmarked feature that could change that.
¡°The map is missing something. There''s a village here,¡± I told him.
¡°I can assure you there isn¡¯t one,¡± Clause said.
¡°It¡¯s the Sprites village, adding in the clearings which are about here, and here, the Sprites could watch them, meaning no Hunters and no Guards. I don¡¯t know what the balance would look like¡ If Selly was here¡¡± I told him, dragging it out in thought.
Clause made to look up, but Selly spoke up before he could point her out.
¡°Like hell, you¡¯re going to foist off that on us,¡± Selly piped out as I found her on the top shelf behind me, sitting back and kicking her legs as they dangled. ¡°You have any idea how deadly that trip would be for the average Sprite? There''s no way the Queen would accept that, not after the tall folk''s negligence, and definitely not without something in it for us.¡±
That caused a pause, except for me and Clause.
¡°Hmm¡ I would be willing to entertain something, but I can¡¯t think of what to give them,¡± Clause said, brow furrowing.
¡°Land,¡± I told him. ¡°Their colony is limited; if you let them expand, maybe set up a dozen colonies that would not only make it easier for them to check the graves but also make them safer overall. They have a limited population; more of them would be able to keep threats at bay. Selly, if you had ten times, you¡¯re number tell me you wouldn¡¯t be safer out there.¡±
Selly let out a little sound of outrage, unable to answer me with a no without lying her tiny chitinous ass off.
¡°I could do that, land for scouting that area of forest.¡± Clause said quickly. A little too quickly, if I were being honest, but if it got the Sprites some extra safety, then I didn¡¯t care much about whatever was going on inside Clause''s head. ¡°With that land, they might even be able to trade. We could even supply help to get them on their feet and build for some goods. They make a fine thread and good honey; I¡¯m sure Gunther would love to get her hands on some of that.¡±
¡°Clause, you can¡¯t be seriously thinking about granting land for some simple guard detail,¡± Arabelle spoke up from behind us. ¡°You can do so when you are Moarns [Baron], but trading land is not something you should do lightly. Think this through,¡± she said seriously.
¡°To be fair, Mother,¡± Anna spoke up, ¡°Their entire colony could fit in my cabin. For patrolling the woods, there would be only a few cabins in the area, and it''s far enough away that it would be impractical to build anything. There aren¡¯t even trails out there.¡±
¡°There would also be quite the market elsewhere in the valley for fine goods. Honey would make a killing if there was enough of it,¡± Gunther said.
¡°Of course, you would agree if there was money in it for you, you greedy harlot,¡± Arabelle told her.
¡°Someone has to keep their eyes on the prize. Otherwise, you might steal that, too,¡± Gunther told her.
¡°Fantastic, I¡¯ll write up a deal to bring to them,¡± Clause said, wisely not taking a side in whatever the hell that was, ¡°Selliban, would you be able to bring the request to your Queen? Is this something she would be willing to entertain?¡±
Selly sighed, her whole body seeming to deflate slightly. ¡°A grant of land and an expansion would be favourable to her. It would need to be brought to court¡ but I could see her agreeing after a review of the terms; the colony has been set in its size for a long time¡ But I can¡¯t deliver it; I can¡¯t go back.¡±
¡°I can do it,¡± I told her, ¡°I¡¯ll be going out that way if we set up the graves, I could drop it off with her¡ Just make sure the message is correctly sized; it wouldn¡¯t be very great to haul around a full-sized piece of parchment.¡±
¡°Well, then¡ Foss, what do you say? Do you think these sites could work given a team of [Woodcutters]?¡±
¡°I suppose it could if that would be best, my Lord,¡± Foss answered him.
¡°Then these are our sites; let us finish with our details, and then you¡¯ll need to finish off your preparation.¡± Clause said before letting out a sigh, ¡°Let''s get these bodies in the ground before they get back up. That would only serve to make this tragedy far worse that it already is.¡±
Chapter 96
We were dismissed so Clause could get through a second round of being verbally tarred and feathered while Thatcher, Foss and I got to talking with ourselves. Thatcher was an uptight [Priest], but he was focused on doing his job, and that was what mattered here. He wasn¡¯t just being an asshole about how we were worshiping, but making sure the dead were treated with dignity. Foss was a [Foreman], and not a bad one either, a leader in short, as opposed to a shouter.
We planned. A holy man, A dirty man, and a woman who was both at the same time.
¡°We¡¯ve not gotten a final number on how much were going to need to dig, but I figure its no higher than 6000¡ Gods that¡¯s a big number,¡± Thatcher said.
¡°That¡¯s bloody terrible; how many holes are we even going to need? I can¡¯t even figure out how big that¡¯ll be,¡± Foss said.
¡°About three cubic feet for each? They¡¯ll be laying flat, but that¡¯s about right,¡± I told him as [Last Rites] whispered the answer into the back of my mind.
¡°Isn¡¯t that nifty? A human body is about three cubic feet when placed side by side. Thank the gods I knew that; how could I ever have lived without that?¡± I thought to myself darkly.
¡°Fuck me,¡± Foss murmured, ¡°Pardon my language, but that¡¯s¡ I can bloody count that high. [Calculate Dimensions],¡± he said, his face scrunching as he did the math.
Eighteen thousand cubic feet. And that was without the six feet we needed above them to keep animals out. Add six feet on top of it, and it would be more like forty-five thousand cubic feet.
¡°If you think that¡¯s bad, try giving them all their [Last Rites], or figuring out who they are. We can barely tell who they are, and we have [Scribes] going through the names and faces of everyone not coming to mass.¡± Thatcher told us.
¡°I don¡¯t think I can sanctify a mass grave very easily,¡± I told Foss, ¡°I¡¯ve done a grave before, but we''re going to need to do it in more than two chunks. We need the six feet on top, so even something as deep as ten feet that would be something like twenty yards on a side. That¡¯s probably too big. But I think I can do eight or so on a side. If not, we would just need to leave dividers.¡±
¡°That has to be more than double,¡± he said, words soft and short, ¡°How fast can you dig one out?¡±
¡°An eight-yard square? Without magic, I could probably get a foot of that done in an hour; with magic, I could get that done in a few seconds, but the problem was mana. I didn¡¯t know how much mana a cubic foot of earth took to move¡ Though that was using a skill, so likely not much compared to working normal magic,¡± I thought to myself.
¡°I could probably get a four by eight done in moments, but I don¡¯t know how much mana it would take to dig the whole thing,¡± I told him before quickly adding, ¡°Barely an apprentice, but I can use my skills to loosen up the soil as well, that should help the rest of your team dig faster, especially in the rain.¡±
His eyes widened slightly, bushy eyebrows parting to show pale blue eyes as I mentioned mana, shoulders tightening slightly but relaxing as I added just how trained I was.
¡°Good to hear it, lady mage. A spell would certainly help out. I¡¯m sorry to have cast doubt on your skill,¡± he said apologetically.
¡°No worries, though it''s not a spell, just a skill, though I can certainly use mana to empower it. I¡¯ll do my best to carry more than my weight, though speaking of mana¡ [Priest] Thatcher, are their blessed urns? Something [Consecrated] or [Sanctified]? Because we''re going to need two urns similar to this one for every cart. I can¡¯t use those on urns, but I can imbue them with grave magic. If any of the [Priests] you know can help with that, it would be wonderful; if not, then I¡¯ll have to save mana for those.¡±
¡°You¡¯re not holding an urn; you¡¯re holding a pot. I could get you burial urns, though they¡¯re in short supply; most of them are likely going to be used in what few cremations we can perform¡¡± He said, his voice clear and chastising, though leading into a thoughtful pause. ¡°If it''s not a burial urn, why would a skill meant to protect a grave protect a normal pot? Have you tried to use it with a pot specifically made to hold mortal remains?¡±
¡°They¡¯re both clay pots; the skill should cover both if it covers one,¡± I told him.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
¡°The skill, especially if it is new. The skill [Sanctify] targets a valid earthen container intended to hold mortal remains; the container''s intended purpose affects the outcome. An urn and a grave are both earthen containers intended to hold mortal remains; a pot is simply an earthen container,¡± he told me judgmentally.
¡°Practice has been hard to get in,¡± I told him, ¡°I don¡¯t exactly burry people on the daily.¡±
¡°The skill should explain as much to you; it''s explained by simply hearing the skill out loud. It is fundamental to its very idea; how could you not understand it?¡± He asked, doubtful tone enough to put me in a defensive mood.
¡°I¡¯ve used it twice; I¡¯m not exactly an old hand at this, [Priest] Thatcher. If you can get me a burial urn, I can try it; the skill costs me nearly nothing; if I can flex the skill, I can flex it; if I can¡¯t, I¡¯ll need two per part either way. I¡¯m not saying they would be preferable; I¡¯m telling you I need them. If not from you, I will go to Clause,¡± I told him.
¡°Urns? I can¡¯t say I understand why Lady Mage,¡± Foss said, though not judgmentally.
¡°I would tell you, but it has a habit of freaking people out, more than my eyes, anyway,¡± I told him.
¡°Your eyes are marked by divinity,¡± Thatcher said.
¡°They are quite intimidating if you don¡¯t mind me saying so, lady mage,¡± Foss said.
¡°I don¡¯t mind,¡± I told Foss, ¡°I think they''re horrid myself; I scared the hell out of a kid yesterday. As for you, what God?¡± I asked Thatcher.
¡°I don¡¯t recognize it, but I know a stigma when I see it. They are a mark of divinity; to treat them as any less, regardless of your status, is blasphemous,¡± Thatcher lectured, the pots obviously going to the wayside.
¡°I didn¡¯t choose this, [Priest]. This was forced on me, and while it''s given me a chance for a second lease on life, it''s also gotten me stoned to death by a mob. If I¡¯m a bloody divine emissary, I¡¯m beholden to the rules of one god; don¡¯t push your feelings off on me. I need pots- Urns. I need urns because Death won¡¯t do her job, and I can¡¯t fill her shoes right now. That¡¯s my job, ok? Doing my best to do God''s work. I would say that gives me blasphemy rights because it¡¯s quite hard,¡± I told him, doing my best to keep my tone civil.
¡°She must be testing you. Strange that I¡¯ve never heard of her,¡± Thatcher said.
¡°The only thing she''s testing is my patience, and she''s doing it right now, through you. You are ever a faithful servant. It isn¡¯t time to talk about that, so keep it to yourself or go ask a [Priest of Life] about their goddess''s renegade sister. Now! Can you get me those urns? I just need the one to test. If not, I need to go talk to Clause,¡± I told him, turning to point over at Clause who was over in the corner next to Strause.
¡°Strause, is this some kind of joke? Getting me to stare into your trousers?¡± Clause asked his younger brother.
¡°No, I just need to know if you can see it,¡± Strause said.
¡°I can see it, Strause. It¡¯s very funny,¡± Clause told his brother.
¡°It¡¯s glowing!¡± Strause said.
¡°There is nothing luminescent about it, Strause, now if-¡± Clause told him.
¡°That is some seriously strange timing,¡± I said.
¡°I can¡¯t say you''re wrong about that,¡± Foss said, ¡°I can¡¯t say I was expecting much of today. Shy of Lady Mynes, they act very¡¡±
¡°Normally? Like they¡¯re not snakes that want to impress their status on you like a brand? Yeah, that''s what I¡¯ve seen.¡± I told him in return.
¡°The youngest continues his never-ending chain of impropriety,¡± Thatcher said.
¡°He¡¯s not so bad,¡± I told him.
¡°Stop getting me to try and look at your-¡± Clause said before we started to break off.
I couldn¡¯t bring myself to talk to Anna. I tried to, but then I worked myself up, only to catch her staring at me while I looked over. She flinched slightly, hand going to her arm, and it halted my advance.
I could feel my words die in my throat, my chest constricting, and my courage did not stay.
I decided she wouldn¡¯t want to talk in the open; I could check on her tonight.
I certainly didn¡¯t decide on that because
Instead, I caught up with Gunther and had a quick conversation with her. I had a plan to get our trip to pass by Clause with approval. Who wouldn¡¯t want access to ancient theoretical knowledge? Perhaps the library held spell books or texts on walls and architecture. Hells, if he wanted to send some extra guards or get some favours by inviting [Priests] along, who would I be to deny them? So long as I could retrieve the books and keep them safe, that was all that mattered.
Gunther''s face went from sour to sickly sweet. Money in her eyes and her smile like that of a cat, smug. I didn¡¯t ask what was between her and Arabell. I didn¡¯t want to know more than I wanted to keep Gunther in the right mood to bring Clause over to our side of thinking.
Then it was off; team mass grave got going, Foss split from us to get his team together, and Thatcher retrieved an urn for me to test with.
The urn felt wrong to cast on, but I managed to barely get it to work correctly. It was weaker than the one I had on me, but it would be serviceable.
I could make these without using my reserve and spend them instead on speeding our progress with the dig.
I made sure to pass the full jar to Thatcher, and got him to bring it to the Church of life with one from last night where it would be safe.
Thatcher didn¡¯t seem to understand the significance of the jars, but the blank jars were being produced in bulk today. Hundreds of them an hour, vs a hundred an hour that the priests could bless. We would need a lot, for when the bodies started coming.
Foss and I met up, and I headed off to check the first site. There was a lot of dirt to dig, a Sprite Queen to talk to, and a letter from Clause to deliver to her.
It was going to be a long day.
Chapter 97
Work started when I ran ahead and scouted out the position. A brief description that came second or third-hand narrowed it down well enough. X area around here with y feature. Elevated clearings were scattered around, but the largest was easy to find.
To make it easier for the [Woodsmen] and [Diggers] that would be coming out to cut a road and dig I notched marks as I went, making sure to take the land into consideration.
It was a lot of work we had before us, so I did some of the early work. Some basic set up to help out, things like get the grass out of the way and circle the hill with a few drains to divert water once we were done, drawing on [Timeless Construct]. I also flexed the soil loosening it up, encouraging the water to flow through it and out into the forest.
The sod I tossed to the side of the would-be path, almost half of the earth would need to be removed; some of that could be used to widen and level the path.
Once I did a bit of prep I jotted past the village marking trees to the next side and prepared it as well, a quick ten minute walk made into five by my skill enhanced stride.
Then, it was off to the tiny folk.
I could remember their village well. A fairie ring of mushrooms marked the edge like a border on a map, its circumference small enough to cross in only a few steps. Mushroom-caped houses, hedged huts of wildflowers and mounds built up into a tiny village.
They were built both up and presumably down into the ground.
There were industrious Sprites farming small growths, flowers and the like, collecting dew and harvesting buds. They wore only functional garbs, woven from silken thread to keep the water off themselves and their delicate white fluff and four wings.
Approaching with light steps to not set the ground shaking I came to the edge and sat myself down drawing enough attention that the little folk were looking at me.
I didn¡¯t know the exact way I should have approached this, or how to get an audience, but the Sprites were a decent enough people, they didn¡¯t stand on ceremony or what not.
¡°I am Saphine, [Tall Friend]. I carry with me something I need to bring to your queen and seek an audience.¡± I told the watching Sprites.
¡°Oh. Thank the ancestors.¡± One of the tiny folk called out in relief.
¡°OI! You! Go get the Queen, you lazy git.¡± Another said.
¡°You get the Queen. You¡¯ve been waggling around doing a whole lot of nothing.¡± Another called back.
¡°Shut it! Can¡¯t you-¡± ¡°Will you lot all-¡± ¡°Bloody lout-¡± ¡°You¡¯re a-¡± ¡°Surely-¡± ¡°Where-¡± ¡°Can I-¡± ¡°Ruckus-¡± ¡°Break your shins-¡± ¡°Deck you one-¡± ¡°Philly can-¡± a dozen voices started to call out.
Not just the sprites in the field but those in the houses. They came out from inside, tucked beneath the eves and bickered amongst each other, loud despite their size, though not as loud as Selly. They were smaller, shorter than her, however, perhaps by as much as an inch.
They were a loud group, for sure, the funny little things. They were also just getting louder to speak over one another, drawing more attention.
Confused child sprites walked outside with tiny bumble bees, holding them like pets, confused by the shouting but not overly worried, a tiny fear that fell into calm quickly as the sight of people arguing resolved itself into a simple civil disturbance.
It was a funny sight; the little ones were quite cute; holding a bumble bee that was as big as their head made them look like a mother holding a child, just that the child was as large as a wolf pup, and she had four arms. They had a massive face plate that was full-sized compared to their diminutive form, which stood as more fluff than carapace.
They were awfully cute, with their big heads and tiny hands.
They were also like me, staring at the shouting about shouting until it drew taller sprites toward the commotion, tall knightly sprites like Selly, white chitin looking like armour on their forms, tufts of fur spurting out from the joints of the armour. They walked with a blade on their hips, a spear of glinting metal, a cloak of woven fibres dyed expertly in what I could only guess was her house¡¯s colours a sky blue, escorting a shorter Sprite of a scholarly persuasion.
¡°Shut it!¡± the knight shouted into the crowd, her voice covering the rest of the crowd with the authority of her command.
The closest Sprite turned and bowed with deference, ¡°Sorry for the commotion, Lady Azure; this one is a [Tall Friend] here to speak to the Queen on behalf of the tall folk.¡±
The Sprites in attendance grumbled in the affirmative, and the Azure Sprite, her movement measured, walked toward me, parting the crowd of her shorter kin without answering.
¡°[Tall Friend], if you speak true, then welcome to the lands of our newly returned Queen,¡± she said, her voice cool as a pond, her form dropping a hair in a small bow.
¡°I do. My name is Saphine, a [Tall Friend], and I carry word from the current Mynes. There''s been an incident, and the young [Lord] Mynes has drafted a proposal for your Queen,¡± I told her.
¡°They have much to answer for,¡± the scholar provided, ¡°They¡¯ve let us soak in dark hours more often than naught.¡±
They seemed an irate sprite to me, their demeanour not making sense until I remembered that there were sprites whose entire job it was to remember their grudges.
¡°This may indeed be true¡ Why should we hear out this strange Mynes fellow? If they have their sins unanswered for? Why do you bring this before us, friend of my people?¡± she said, her words dismissive.
I¡ I hadn¡¯t expected that. I had kind of expected that the queen might come out, and I could explain everything, and we would all have a moment of understanding so I could get back to the team.
¡°Because he¡¯s trying to make up for failing you? It¡¯s a grant of land for¡ You know what? It would be easier if I could just tell her. There are a whole bunch of details around it. Context, you know?¡± I told her, not wanting to go over everything I needed to more than once because I doubted I could get it right twice.
The [Grudge Bearer] huffed in disbelief, though the Azure Sprite did not react, her unflinching frigid demeanour giving her all the reaction of a statue.
She was like a bizarro mirror world of Selly.
There was no fire in her, not a spark.
¡°Ey. A grant of land in tithe for a grudge of yesteryear? So close on the heels of our hour of need? I have half a mind to turn you away.¡± She said.
¡°Can you?¡± I asked her, ¡°It¡¯s important, and this is just an initial offer. It¡¯s the kind of thing the queen should probably look at.¡±
¡°I am the hand that holds the page, the eye that reads her missives. I am the quill that scribes and the wind beneath her wing. I can and will turn you away if I am unsatisfied as her highnesses word, her eyes and tongue,¡± the cold Sprite told me without a shred of budge.
¡°I have more than my word alone that the queen would want to accept it. Selliban believed she might,¡± I told her, trying to sidestep explaining the entire deal.
¡°Selliban¡ Selliban of Clan Citrtan¡ Heir to the clan, even in exile¡ I see; I shall render that to my Queen along with the missive.¡± She said in an agreement.
¡°Clans. Right. Not houses but clans. Strange to hear she¡¯s the heir even in exile or that she really is exiled,¡± I thought to myself.
Normally, exile was bye-bye for good, but her word still seemed to hold weight. I carefully extracted the small parchment from my pouch, the roll as long and thick as my finger, and she took it carefully, slipping it beneath her cloak like a length of timber.
Without so much as a single ¡®goodbye,¡¯ she turned and fluttered off toward the center of the gathered buildings, a cluster of multiple large mushroom caps, their wide brims forming a multi-layered palace.
Sprites were funny things sometimes. An edible palace¡ Probably edible, anyway.
I looked down at the gathering, the folk looking back up at me, a scowling sprite huffing as she stomped back to the center.
¡°Sorry for bothering you guys so much,¡± I told the crowd.
¡°Were you the tall folk who saved our Queen?¡± one of the children asked me, cradling a bee like a stuffed animal. Is it buzzing in time with her little back-and-forth sway?
¡°Yeh, I did. Me and Selly both,¡± I told her, ¡°She got nabbed by a Monster and dragged away into its dungeon. He was a nasty thing. I couldn¡¯t kill him, not even with magic; he just healed too fast,¡± I told her.
¡°Wow, t¡¯hat sounds scary¡ How did you beat him?¡± she asked.
I went to answer, but a taller sprite spoke up, ¡°Now, Lidya, don¡¯t bother the tall friend. Thank you, kind friend, but you don¡¯t need to indulge her none.¡±
¡°It''s not a problem, mam. I could entertain them for a few minutes. I¡¯m comfy enough as is in my cloak, and I need to wait here besides, though I¡¯m sorry to tell you, it¡¯s not much of a story either,¡± I told her, then the younger Sprite.
The younger Sprite, the tallest among the young, with several tiny forms that started peeking out from the buildings, granting her their innumerable power, pointed at me like I was a guiding light.
¡°See. She¡¯s ok with it. Can I, please? I could look after the other younglings. Make sure none of em eat a clod or get soaked. It¡¯s all boring out here.¡± Lidya told her.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
¡°There¡¯s no room for all of ''em, not under the eaves, and you know how they get when it¡¯s raining,¡± a second tall sprite chimed in.
¡°What? Mah, you too?¡± the sprite asked.
¡°I could let them sit on my lap; it''s bigger than a castle here,¡± I told her. ¡°My cloak could keep out the rain.¡±
¡°And she¡¯s got a cloak,¡± the little Lidya pointed out.
The older sprites were a bit hesitant at trying to push them off on me, even if it was only for a little longer than a moment.
¡°I really don¡¯t mind; it¡¯s only for a while. Perhaps it will settle them, give them some excitement to focus on so they stay out of your hair?¡± I told them.
At that, the good-hearted folk caved, looking around at their kids and realizing that letting the little ones have some story time where they remained dry and no one died was the lesser evil between it and the idea of telling them that they couldn¡¯t.
The sprites called out their young with a sigh, and a host of tiny fuzzy forms, smaller than the bumble bee, some small enough to ride on their backs, started coming out from their homes.
Getting them into my cloak went from a way to let me spend my time to a genuinely hard feat. There were a lot of them.
I had no idea how the humble homes fit a legion of this size, but regardless, they came, buzzing, climbing, or carried under my cloak until my lap was covered in its totality by the tiny forms of Sprites.
¡°I am going to have to tweak the truth on this one¡¡± I thought to myself. ¡°I don¡¯t want to wind up giving a poor story and being drowned in a tide of disappointed children.¡±
¡°So, where was I,¡± I asked them to buy me some time to think.
¡°The beginning,¡± Lidya told me.
¡°Oh boy,¡± I sighed quietly before giving a retelling¡ Or a somewhat dramatized retelling.
***
I ran out of stories to tell the little ones before I got any word on the request. Even drawing it out with the skill of all of my Charisma, dramatic pauses, internal monologue, exaggeration, and the story itself were not enough to buy me time.
At least I had a few other stories to tell them. I told them the origin myth about the Kirin and how each of our cousin races sprung from their flesh. That one got some reaction out of the little ones, who went from thinking it was dumb that people came from horns or muscles to thinking that the heart was the best and it was a perfectly reasonable proposition.
¡°Must have had small hearts,¡± Lidya said from the middle of the crowd.
¡°Do we have a heart?¡± A smaller one asked.
¡°How do you even tell? You would have to see it,¡± another told them.
The younger children were blissfully silent, grouped up, their antennae waggling. I did my best not to stick my nose too close; sneezing on them would be like throwing them into a tempest.
¡°Maybe the first sprites were just really big? I mean, the queen is bigger than you; maybe the first queens were bigger than she is,¡± I told Lidya. While the shorter kids were arguing about the possibility of having or lacking a heart and what that meant.
¡°Who knows? Either they had tiny hearts, the old [Queen Mothers] were big, or your story is just a story. Crazy idea, but I don¡¯t personally buy it.¡± Lidya told me, petting the bee in her lap while watching the young in her care.
One of the children, the small nonverbal ones, got up from the group and wiggled its antenna when it got to Lidya, who waggled her antenna back.
¡°No!¡± she told the little form with a sudden force, ¡°No, you may not do t¡¯hat. No one is going to check if we have hearts the hard way! You silly little things.¡±
The little form seemed to pout, as did the rest of the congregation of similarly tiny sprites.
¡°I¡¯m not going to let you crack each other open to check. No. T¡¯hat¡¯s my final answer. If you try, I¡¯ll get your mothers,¡± Lidya warned them, which sent the tiny ones together again in a huff.
¡°Silly little things,¡± I told her.
¡°Little monsters more like it,¡± she confided, ¡°It''s like they have no understanding of what t¡¯hat would do; then again, perhaps they don¡¯t.¡±
¡°I could try another story? Distract them, maybe. I¡¯m somewhat surprised that I¡¯ve not received a reply, if not from the Queen, from that cold Lady,¡± I told her, a slight shiver running down my spine at the memory of the dead woman.
¡°She¡¯s got you quaking in your boots? I¡¯ve got three mums who want the most of me, and they couldn¡¯t put chills on me like they could. A frosty lot the Azure, but they¡¯re great flyers. I would certainly prefer the other clans for conversation if I had the opportunity¡¡± She told me with a sigh.
¡°Three moms seems like a lot of expectations,¡± I told her, ¡°and one of those is the Queen if memory serves.¡±
¡°Ay. A distant mother, but to be fair, she¡¯s all our mothers can¡¯t wean us all equal. We¡¯re all sisters, or half-sisters, at any rate. It just feels wrong to call the women t¡¯hat raised you as ¡®sister,¡¯¡± she told me.
¡°She must have weaned the Azure ones with something chill then,¡± I told her, which got a chuckle from Lidya.
It didn¡¯t get a chuckle from the woman who had trodden all the way here, silent as the morning chill and twice as cold. Or the Queen who was next to her. I had been paying attention to the children and their murmuring and not to dainty little footsteps from dainty little feet.
¡°Nothing of the sort,¡± the Queen told us, her voice causing me to sit straight up, ears standing to attention like a hound.
¡°A ha ha. Ahh. Hello. Sorry about that; I didn¡¯t hear your approach, you¡¯re majesty.¡± I told her, the little sprites, drawn to the edge of my cloak, each climbing atop the other to peek out from the dry confine of my cloak only to be taped by water.
It was like watching a bucket splash a man, each of the tiny ones giving a little ¡°A¡± of disgruntlement but looking out any way to get a look at their towering mother.
I held a hand out to shadow them from the rain.
The Queen turned to her stoic party of one, who held an umbrella above her despite the silken cloak she wore, a beautiful silken cloak that looked like a white doily, with the transparent bits a yellow and green so fine it might have been spun from gold and leaf.
¡°There, there, Brook,¡± she told her like a doting mother, ¡°don¡¯t let their words sway you.¡±
¡°I am not so easily swayed,¡± she told her, ¡°Tis but a ripple.¡±
The little ones made further noises of amusement, and the Queen waved at them, which drew further attention.
¡°Hmm,¡± I coughed, ¡°You¡¯re looking well, your majesty. Can I assume you¡¯ve recovered from your ordeal?¡±
¡°I have, noble [Tall Friend]. Now that I have returned and we have returned our fallen warriors to the earth, the colony can begin to recover,¡± she told me, though in a way that told me other things were not so recovered.
¡°I am both glad and saddened to hear that. It seems the entire region is grieving. I am sorry for your loss. I would offer my services as a [Gravedigger], but you¡¯ve already buried them,¡± I told her.
¡°They are buried, their rites given, their deeds recorded. Each loss is felt. I am sorry to hear that the land of the tall witnesses a pain like our own. That is why you have brought this to me, yes? This missive from the young Lord Mynes?¡± She asked me, quickly getting to the point of the matter.
She was busy, no doubt; she had a lot on her plate, so I got to explaining.
¡°Indeed. The same monster that stole you led a raid on the nearby city last night. There are many dead. Humans burn their dead here, but there are too many dead to burn, and all the wood will be poor kindling. I convinced him to select two nearby spots to dig because I knew you could watch over them to make sure they remained untampered. I also know you wouldn¡¯t do it right after all of this, not without concessions for their failure to protect you and yours. The idea I asked Selly about was granting you more land so you can expand. You made a deal for some land a long time ago, but it¡¯s not enough. The idea was to let you get enough Sprites so you would never be entirely reliant on them. Clause also seemed to think highly of the thread and honey. He was thinking about buying some, and I have no doubt you could get a lot of material for anything that requires fine work on account of your size.¡±
¡°I see.¡± She said thoughtfully.
There was a lot of feeling in that ¡®I see,¡¯ but not necessarily any agreement. She was unsure. I had pushed the idea, but I might have pushed a little too hard.
Maybe give it a wiggle? Give the idea a rocking. It was a trade of sorts, there was back and forth. I just had to know what to say. I did not know what to say, but I could always try.
¡°I understand if you¡¯re hesitant to take the deal. If you don¡¯t think those concessions are reasonable for the task, I think Clause might be willing to offer more, assuming you think what is being asked is something you could agree to; it¡¯s up to negotiation if you feel like that for the best. I can¡¯t stay for long, but I could carry a note back,¡± I told her.
I didn¡¯t want to push her on it. She was friendly, and while I thought this was the best-case scenario for them, I wasn¡¯t going to stick my nose out for Clause to strong-arm them somehow. I had more loyalty to them than to Clause, for starters.
¡°I would like time to think further on this. I believe the idea is not without merit. However, I feel about it. Thank you for thinking about our future; I am glad you continue to think of us; I couldn¡¯t have chosen a better [Tall Friend],¡± the [Queen] told me.
¡°What''s a little endling to do but to think about her cousins?¡± I asked her, ¡°Besides, if I¡¯m going to give advice, I should give the best advice I can. For the graves, that¡¯s you guys, for what you should be given in trade, land. If you want time to think it over, but you¡¯re ok with the premise, I could tell Clause later, and you could send someone to the estate with counter. The graves are being dug today; he can¡¯t exactly wait you out; just¡ be reasonable? Give the poor guy some slack. He might be a Mynes, but he¡¯s dealing with the entire valley exploding while his fathers out on campaign.¡± I told her.
¡°So he is not truly the [Lord]?¡± the Queen asked a question that was obviously pointed for what I could only assume was my benefit.
¡°He¡¯s the interim and future [Lord]. His word is his fathers. Even if his father comes back and puts the deal in the dirt, he¡¯ll honour it when he starts his reign. I think he actually wants to work with you now that he knows you exist, and that¡¯s without the prospect of backing out of it in front of his family. If nothing else, I would make sure it goes through,¡± I told her, being open but reassuring.
¡°You believe him to be of reasonable character then?¡± she asked.
¡°This morning,¡± I started, ¡°he admitted to me that I had broken a law that could see me publicly punished while also being in the position to be granted land. Instead of taking the land and punishing me, he convinced me to help dig a hole as punishment. I¡¯m a [Gravedigger], I would have done it anyway. He didn¡¯t care because the only thing that mattered was that the rules mattered and things didn¡¯t slip further into the pit. He cares what people think of him, and he cares about the valley not exploding even more than it has. While a little stubborn, he can at least see the bigger picture if you draw it out for him. I don¡¯t think he¡¯s without faults, but he¡¯s not the kind of Lord I would be rooting to lynch.¡±
¡°Do you think about lynching the nobility often,¡± the cool sprite asked me.
¡°Recently? Not really, but before¡ Well. Before, there was enough bad blood for them to happen. Nobles sometimes forget that a few swords won¡¯t save them when people are angry enough to die if it means the noble dies with them. There was a riot before everything ended; I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if there''s an icebox buried out there with his freshly preserved corpse in a block of ice inside it,¡± I told her, a terrible sliver of glee at the idea.
I could picture it like a scene of a play: on stage right, an explorer finds an ancient magical item and opens it only to find a shocked noble frozen inside.
Fucking Quintus.
¡°Brook dear, I¡¯ll need you to run a missive to this Lord tomorrow. Do get some sleep,¡± the Queen told her.
¡°I¡¯m fine. I could fly there now if-¡± Brook the cold started.
¡°Not another word, young lady. Off to bed with you. I will be safe. Young Lidya, can you come down here and hold this for her? She insists I not get rained on,¡± the Queen asked.
Lidya panicked for a moment but quickly hopped down; pet held in two arms as she fluttered over and took up the parasol, grasping it in two hands, its size more unwieldy with her smaller form.
Brook left without another word, not even a word of agreement.
¡°She should not have cast doubt or asked that from you,¡± she told me as the cold sprite left earshot, ¡°It is not becoming of one of mine to do so. I am sorry for her doing so.¡±
¡°It¡¯s no problem,¡± I told her.
Her reply came quickly, though not sharply. ¡°It is not a matter of your feelings toward the topic, I¡¯m afraid, so much as it is a matter of decorum. I will not have her cast shade your way. There in lays division. I would, however, ask that you do not judge her by her demeanour in future. The Azure flight are trained to make themselves empty and cold, but they are not so different from others like young Selliban.¡±
I picked up something there, something unsaid. A mother standing up for her child, one politely asking for me to not bad mouth them.
¡°I¡¯ll try to keep that in mine. I didn¡¯t mean offence exactly, but I understand malice isn¡¯t required where thoughtlessness will serve,¡± I told her.
¡°Good. I will not hold you long. I have others to talk to. Give my best to Selliban; she is missed,¡± the Queen told me before calling out, ¡°Come out, little ones. Our [Tall Friend] must leave, and Lidya needs to walk me back. Return to your mothers.¡±
The little forms dispersed, a complicated look on the Queen''s face as the little ones left, many of them watching her as they did so.
It was a look I couldn¡¯t place, not even with the walk back to the graves. It stuck with me anyway, though I didn¡¯t have a lot of time to think on it. It was a look a mother might know, but I was not a mother.
Chapter 98
The day moved on; the sprites had been talked to, so there was only one thing left.
The team got to the first grave site quickly enough. A team of [Foresters] left behind to cut a path toward the site. I was a little hopeful I could get a look at their work, perhaps pick something up by watching someone with the same class, but they would take time to cut the trees and remove trunks.
I was greeted by the [Forman] when I arrived but quickly found myself working. I had laid the groundwork for them, and done some heavy lifting, but we had tons of earth to move.
They set up a cloth above us to catch the rain from hitting the soil, preventing more of the earth from turning to mud. The earth I had uncovered had turned mucky and needed to be tossed aside, with moist soil beneath it. I loosened the soil again, letting it bead and run from the hillside, out of side and mind.
To move that much earth, we piled it out the side, setting ramps of earth that were left compact as we dug a new pore in the face of the earth, ten feet deep. Each hole could be a root cellar, but they would hold only goods fitting a grave, and even then, they would be lacking.
It was toil to move that much earth; skills turned from quick fixes to necessity. A normal man could not move that much earth; one bolstered by skills had a hard time as it was. Ground was broken beneath the blade of spades, shucked along before being tossed free, then away, each along the line relying heavily on skills to bolster their body, to move more earth.
It was both demanding and freeing; the mind was left to wander as the body burned in the effort.
You could lose yourself in it, let it eat away your time, or you could let it wander.
My mind wandered frequently; a simple stray movement would send me skittering away. I had never found something so focused as I did simple physical labour. The repetition weighed down my body and let me simply think.
Usually, it was along the line of, ¡®fuck there''s a rock,¡¯ today, it was on a set of questions. I could more easily sort things out like this. While I acted single-mindedly, I could let my mind wander the breadth of something without spontaneity dragging me around, unlike when I sat immobile, where my mind flitted between things too quickly to have a good thing.
I could have a good, deep think, basically.
To pass Annas test, I needed to answer five simple answers. What are the normal mana types, and one simple fact about them? I had the answers in my pocket, and I ran down the list as I remembered them. I was fairly sure I knew enough about them to remember them properly.
What was a spell? Tricky, but tricky in a way that I made it tricky, and one that I had help puzzling out. The question was complicated because a skill was so similar to a spell. You got skills from levelling up, but you could also get spells. You could learn a spell, but presumably, you could create the effect of a skill via a spell.
One was woven by mana passing through a shaped braid of knotted anima, and one was woven by mana passing through a shaped pattern of mana. They were, in almost every way, the exact same thing.
As Gunther pointed out, the only difference was in the name. It was expectation; the only difference between them was that they were artificial, a fabrication of the mind.
If you were to split hairs, they were different, a spade vs a shovel, but even I would look at them and call a spade a spade if it didn¡¯t matter. Dirt was sand and silt and clay, but you called it dirt all the same.
So, they were the same. The only thing the question needed clarification on, was what part of the formula was the spell. Was the spell the effect? Was it the fire ball, or the pattern that created the fireball, or was it both.
If a skill was the same as a spell, and someone used a skill to do something, the only answer could be the shaping of it. Spellcraft, the craft of making spells, the craft of shaping man. Spell casting was the act of casting a spell, of hurling shaped mana.
What was the next spell she was going to teach me, what was the reason everyone wasn¡¯t a mage, and what were the recognized types of casting? Those were wonky.
What was a type of spell casting? There were external and internal. Anna had shown me the first day when she had shown me different kinds of mages. There were too many types of mages, however, and that wasn¡¯t the question.
The question had been types of casting, not types of mage.
If it was any method of casting a spell, I would have shaped mana internally as the big unknown. The way the soul was viewed made me think that internal spellcasting had nothing to do with it. There was a similarity in how it was talked about to that of external, just somehow shaped inside a person''s body. If that held true and casting via a soul was also casting a spell. That meant that there was external, internal, and spiritual casting.
There were also complications to that. Anna was a [Druid] after all.
[Druids], [Clerics], [Warlocks], [Cultists], Monsters, and Saints, each was notable for their connection to a higher being. They could lean on them to grant them different things, but spells were shaped mana. If a God could shape mana, it could shape a spell, and these could obviously work for each of the prior kinds. My soul had a skill shaped and powered by a goddess, and it worked through mana somehow.
[Cultists] worked rituals, and I had seen them doing so. Those, too, were a method of casting a spell. Anna worked ritual magic, slowly storing up mana through a prolonged casting.
Could you shape a ritual with your body? Inside it? With your soul? I had no fucking idea.
How could I even tell?
Was levelling up a ritual of sorts?
If you could shape it there, then surely there must be some method of casting it there, too. I couldn''t see a reason for the opposite to be true.
I could not think of another method of casting. External, Internal, and Spiritual, three times three was nine. External, External with aid and External ritual, Internal, internal with aid and internal ritual, spiritual, spiritual with aid, and spiritual ritual. Nine types.
I had no idea if that was right, but if a spell could be cast from three general places with three methods than that was all the ones I could determine.
The last two were troubling.
What was the next spell, and what was the reason not everyone could be a mage?
There was no way I could get the answer from a mage on what the next spell would be, and mages would not write it down in a book. Mages did not share the details of being a mage in that way. Even Magelins guide to Mana only talked about mana and what mana can do, not how to work it or how being a mage works. Mages limited who could be a mage, foisting the responsibility of teaching new mages to mages, each one tracing back like a great big family tree to the first mage.
If every mage passed down the methods of the first mage, or even by the sage that taught him, a visage of the God of the Arcane, then there was no possible way that the answer lay outside.
How would an orphan learn what spell he would be taught? There weren¡¯t even any other mages. There were no magical books. There was only the word of his teacher and whatever the first mage could puzzle out on his own.
Anna hadn¡¯t told me an order of spells that was in line with that, but she also hinted that I should be able to figure it out.
Why?
¡°I wish I could remember that,¡± I thought out loud.
¡°Wish you could remember what?¡± A woman digging next to me asked.
Her voice brought me from my deep, near-meditative thoughts. Her voice was out of place, not least because the crew had been all men last I checked. Most women wouldn¡¯t choose to spend all their time digging a ditch, not because they couldn¡¯t but because it was drudge work. The most out-of-place thing was that it was a familiar woman¡¯s voice.
I stopped digging, my hands perching on the end of the long spade, the blade sliding through the ground to bring it down to chest height. Taking a moment to breathe and place the voice, I turned to look down at the woman who was working beside me.
Joan, the woman with the familiar voice, was shovelling. It was genuinely so out of place that I thought I was mistaking myself.
Joan was shovelling dirt.
She didn¡¯t have any skills for it; there was no fluctuation of mana, not that I could tell very well, considering she was empty to my senses. She was just a normal girl shovelling normal amounts of dirt at a normal pace. She wasn¡¯t quite wheezing, but it was obviously hard work for the slip of a girl. She wasn¡¯t unused to work, but she was a [Barmaid]; heavy lifting was a few pounds, for a few minutes at a time, not prolonged exertion.
¡°Joan?¡± I asked her stupidly.
¡°Yeah? What''s up?¡± she said, breath obviously short.
¡°Joan?¡± I asked her a second time, more confused and with added stupidity.
¡°Still me,¡± she told me, hefting up a good scoop and tossing it down the line.
¡°You¡ Have rather immaculate form,¡± I told her, my mind not quite able to puzzle out what to say given her rather sudden appearance.
¡°Sorry, I¡¯m taken,¡± she told me, her voice unchanged.
¡°I mean with,¡± I told her, unsure of what she meant, adding to my words with a gesture at her.
¡°What can I say? I know my way around some wood,¡± she huffed in disappointment.
¡°Your legs, you''re lifting with your legs,¡± I told her.
¡°You''re no fun,¡± she told me.
¡°Maybe?¡± I asked her, ¡°Why are you using a garden spade? No wait why are you here?¡±
¡°Because it''s from my family garden? and I want to help, so I''m here?¡± She asked me as if I were particularly slow. To be fair, I was at the moment. She did not fit in here.
¡°You¡¯re supposed to step on those,¡± I told her, pointing to the flanges on the short shovel, ¡°but you should be using a longer handle. You''re not going to get much done with that.¡±
¡°This is the only one I can get my hands on,¡± she shrugged, ¡°it''s too short to do this well, though. You''re right about that.¡±
I sighed and stopped her, passing the shovel over to her. It was about time I started using a little mana to speed this up and I didn''t need to dig for that. We were limited on hole diggers, and we had a lot of holes to dig; letting her do work instead of blowing her back was a no-brainer.
¡°Oh? Thanks, but I shouldn¡¯t be accepting just anyone''s wood,¡± she told me before whispering, ¡°I wouldn¡¯t want people thinking I¡¯m a loose girl.¡±
I picked up that note, and snorted to myself.
¡°Wow, there are some wheels turning in there. Finally,¡± she said.
¡°My wood is¡ Shit, I can¡¯t think of a good one. Stupid Charisma,¡± I murmured.
¡°Well, I guess if you don¡¯t kiss and tell, I could find it in me to accept your tool,¡± she said, rubbing it in. I sighed, but Joan just took it as a challenge.
¡°Your tool is so much bigger than I¡¯m used to. Are you sure it will fit? It''s so long,¡± she said, a little sway of hips making enough of a point.
¡°Your hips and innuendo can¡¯t corrupt me succubus. I¡¯m a Gods fearing Kobold woman and can¡¯t be swayed by a pretty face and intentionally suggestive tone,¡± I told her.
¡°Yeah. You could say you¡¯re a [Saint],¡± She smirked as I took the tiny shovel and set its blade, earthing it to use my skills and mana to start shifting distant earth toward the ramp.
¡°I¡¯ll repeat, what are you even doing here?¡± I asked pointedly.
¡°I¡¯m helping. Strause and I wear many hats. I¡¯m moonlighting. Digging holes is my passion,¡± she told me insincerely.
¡°Moonlight? What does moonlight have to do with holes?¡± I asked her.
¡°I¡ My goodness, you aren¡¯t messing with me,¡± She said as the tide of dirt inched toward the corner where dirt was removed, inching forward like a dirt slime.
I was stuck between confusion and annoyance but picked neither for the sake of not sounding rude, and because I didn¡¯t care enough to keep letting her distract me.
¡°You know what, I don¡¯t care. Nice seeing you, Joan. How are you doing?¡± I asked her.
¡°I¡¯m doing alright. My dad broke a toe, but he¡¯s alright, and I¡¯m moving up in the world, living my life, you know?¡± She told me.
¡°Sure. Good you hear nothing bad happened to someone,¡± I told her, not really feeling it even as I told her.
¡°Thanks. I figured I didn¡¯t have anything to cry about, so I should help out. So, what were you hoping to remember? You were all deep in thought; I thought you were ignoring me; I was right next to you for at least a quarter glass; I hummed a little tune and everything.¡± She told me.
¡°Nothing important,¡± I told her, deciding not to dump on her like I had on Gunther. Gunther was a captive audience; I shouldn¡¯t have dumped random issues on her to begin with.
¡°Oh, yeah. It sounds like nothing important, for sure. You can tell because you suddenly murmured to yourself in the middle of deep contemplation. Nothing important ever comes from voicing one''s deepest thoughts,¡± she mocked with a huff as she hefted a shovelload.
¡°It''s just a murmur. I forgot why Anna thought I could figure something out,¡± I told her dismissively.
¡°She thought you could figure it out on your own? Maybe if you figure out her train of thought, you can figure it out,¡± she suggested.
¡°Yeah, right,¡± I told her. I can barely organize my thoughts while sitting still. Trying to figure out Anna''s reasoning is like trying to divine the myriad epithets,¡± I told her.
¡°I can¡¯t tell if you''re speaking highly of her or saying she makes no sense. No wonder you¡¯re all wound up,¡± She told me.
¡°She¡¯s a one-of-a-kind. She¡¯s on a different level, and I can¡¯t understand her well enough to know why she feels how she does right now. Nonetheless, figuring out why she thought I could figure out something weeks ago,¡± I told her.
¡°Well, I could give you a bit of help with both if you want. I¡¯m not good with magic, obviously, but hanging around with Strause has given me an uncanny amount of insight into how people feel,¡± she told me.
I looked at her discerningly. She was suspiciously unsuspicious, given my experience with mind readers, which had been Strause. He was the kind of guy that would give you an ominous one-liner before fucking off.
¡°Not to be rude, but why are you trying to help me?¡± I asked her.
¡°Well¡ How do I say this¡ You and Annabeth are a thing, yeah? And me and Strause are a thing. If we make it all the way, we''re going to be sisters-in-law. I can¡¯t say that Annabeth or you are rare, but you¡¯re not common, and you¡¯re kind of sweet together,¡± she told me.
¡°You and Strause?¡± I asked her, ¡°Since when?¡±
¡°Since last night. I finally broke him in. Chiseled away all his hangups,¡± she told me.
¡°You broke him in¡ Last night. And now I¡¯m your future sister-in-law?¡± I asked her, still not seeing it.
It felt off, even if I couldn¡¯t put my finger on anything beyond a weak reason to help me, and that was troubling, given my current company and her capabilities.
¡°Yes,¡± she said quickly.
I squinted at her as I continued to move the earth, but she didn¡¯t change her expression under my scrutiny.
¡°You know what?¡± I asked her.
¡°No?¡± She asked.
¡°I do not have enough mental fortitude to care if you¡¯re hiding something,¡± I told her, ¡°Give me your wisdom.¡±
She did. She got me to walk through my issues and generally jabbered to me about her stuff. It was a time waster for sure, but I had gotten one side of the hole down to ten feet and was being bottlenecked by the guy shovelling dirt out of the hole.
I was surprised at the cost; slowly moving it cost very little, maybe 20 points for maybe 125 cubic feet of earth. That still meant I was only going to get 12500 cubic feet done without playing around with my life mana, but it was something.
She engaged in random small talk, teasing out details, though most of them were for new things, trying to piece together what Anna might have been feeling, trying to succeed where I failed earlier. It ate into some of my quiet time, but she kept up with the shovelling and was, at the very least, interesting to talk to.
I hadn¡¯t heard her talk much when I had met her, and I was starting to think that was a bit of a blessing. Not because she was annoying but because she had a mouth on her that could go the distance.
Strause was going to have his hands full, for sure.
¡°So anyway, he was holding back because he was a big dumb idiot.¡± Before making a Strause impression, ¡°But I¡¯m bigger and stronger; what if I used my big arms to hold you down and give you what you¡¯ve been asking for, multiple times, for several years? Like hello? Yes? I was starting to think he was a bit funny in the head.¡±
¡°That does sound kind of funny for a guy, but I can at least understand the point where he¡¯s coming from. You two are good on one another, but what if he was a real bung sucker?¡± I pointed out as we finished up the current hole.
¡°If he was, as you put it, a bung sucker. Nice choice, by the way; he wouldn¡¯t care. That¡¯s the issue with it. If you lacked basic human decency, you wouldn¡¯t limit yourself. A Monster doesn¡¯t care to restrain itself.¡±This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
In that, she had a point. A monster thought only of itself, or at least, that was something that was a well-known thought.
The idea of the recent super regenerating, soul-chained gremlin ogre thing and its ¡®mistress¡¯ was so wrong. It was just freakish. Monsters were heartless; the creature itself was heartless, but it seemed to have a twisted sense of devotion and reverence, a twisted love toward its leader.
That wasn¡¯t our topic; the thought only caught me for a moment.
¡°I suppose you¡¯re right, aren¡¯t you¡ Well, except for wanting to be with Strause. I can¡¯t say I understand you there,¡± I told her, the idea of what we were talking about and that I agreed with still in my head.
I was unable to shake that my first take on it had been right somehow, but she was also right. It was a tangled knot that I needed to trace around. Being weary of abusing power was a good thing. Power corrupts, and it turns less-than-stellar people into both monsters and Monsters.
¡°Ehh, I mean, I can understand where you¡¯re coming from. A soft girl could be nice, but I prefer a bigger partner, and six-foot muscle women are both rare and not soft. It also wouldn¡¯t get my parents off my back. Strause is the best I¡¯m going to get, and I¡¯m more than satisfied.¡±
I could see that. Most of the time, the best you could get out of a marriage was a skilled [Craftsman] or a [Merchant]. Strause was the son of a [Lord]; even as a second son, he would have a decent life. A commoner stumbling into the arms of a noble was basically the quintessential fairy tale moment. That was a good marriage prospect if I had ever heard it, though, despite her words, there was obviously something more there.
¡°Well, I¡¯m glad for your future. Is that why you were there earlier? In Clause''s study, I mean.¡± I asked her.
¡°No, we both heard what he was planning and decided to voice our opinions on the matter. That and Strause needed to ask about our new¡ Well, I suppose that doesn¡¯t matter. I won¡¯t say I¡¯m vexed, but I¡¯m not happy with it,¡± She told me.
¡°I can understand that. Clause seems to be decent, however. He¡¯s trying to solve an issue with a resource shortage. I don¡¯t know if he¡¯s doing the best, but I think he¡¯s doing his best. Enough of the men. I don¡¯t want to think about them too much. We¡¯re doing grim work here, not drinking tea.¡± I complained.
¡°No fun at all. If we don¡¯t lighten the mood when everything is shit, who will? If we let the terror take hold, we¡¯ll never move past it. Bad things have a way of eating away at you; you have to lift your head and see that tomorrow could be better,¡± she pointed out.
¡°True. But not so soon. Today is about those not here to see that tomorrow,¡± I pointed out.
She nodded at that, seeming to think about it. An agreement to my words said through thoughtful silence. She wasn¡¯t cowed by it or shamed but simply thoughtful. She kind of pushed dirt around helpfully as the next hole started.
We had gotten through our hole faster than the others, but there were many holes to dig. I couldn¡¯t [Sanctify] an infinite space. It might have been easier if we could have just one big grave.
I started to think to myself again and started playing with the ideas I needed to figure out.
¡°I think I can figure out some things about your problem question, but there are a few things you need to fill in for yourself.¡± She started, ¡°If she thought you would get it easier compared to her, then the answer lies in your differences. You both have the information somehow, but when she did it, she lacked a reason to think about it.¡±
¡°Well, obviously.¡± I told her, ¡°But that could be anything.¡±
¡°Ab-ap-ap. None of that yet. It¡¯s also something she knows. It can¡¯t be just anything. She wouldn¡¯t make a comment like that if she didn¡¯t know you knew it. She doesn¡¯t sound like she makes calm bets she doesn¡¯t think will come true, so she probably knows you probably know the answer right now. She knew you knew the answer, and she knew you probably knew it already because of some difference between you,¡± she pointed out.
I stopped my digging, the short spade pressing into the ground so I could turn to her.
¡°So instead of everything, it''s every difference between us that she knows about? Like what?¡± I asked her.
¡°Don¡¯t look at me when the answers are in your head. I can¡¯t read your mind; I just feel stuff,¡± she told me.
¡°Great,¡± I told her, my fingers moving to rub my temples.
¡°Hey, don¡¯t blame me for that. If it seems obvious, you should have already been thinking about it. If you weren¡¯t thinking about it, then it wasn¡¯t obvious. It¡¯s not my fault that you can''t wrack your head for details. That¡¯s a you issue, buddy, not a me issue,¡± she told me.
Her voice told me she was unperturbed by my annoyance, though considering how cheeky she was, I could have felt that via a letter and lost only the look.
¡°Life is never easy, is it?¡± I asked her, not expecting an answer.
¡°Life is the great game. What''s the point of it being easy?¡± She answered, ¡°Or that¡¯s what I would say if I was huffing my own farts. Listen, I get being huffy because it¡¯s a puzzle, but like, just go on, give a little prayer or whatever, and get to thinking.¡±
Prayer. Right.
¡°I haven¡¯t prayed properly in a while,¡± I sighed, ¡°Not that I even know how to do it anymore. Everything¡¯s so different.¡±
¡°You could just go to mass? It¡¯s not that hard to learn how to pray, you know,¡± Joan pointed out. ¡°I don¡¯t go frequently because my little guys don¡¯t like it, but I pray plenty.¡±
¡°Little guys? No, wait, I don¡¯t think I want to know. It¡¯ll just make thinking harder¡¡± I sighed. Distractions would just make puzzling myself out and getting down to those big thoughts harder. ¡°I don¡¯t know if you remember a few months ago, Joan, but Strause was there, so maybe you heard about me being tormented by a mob? I mean, maybe I would go if Anna cared for going; she could keep me in my seat, but I¡¯ve been avoiding that main square in front of the temple of Life like it''s haunted¡¡±
¡°Maybe that¡¯s it right there. Anna thinks you can puzzle it out through divine communion. A test of your Spirit,¡± she shrugged, ¡°I got no clue.¡±
¡°This was a rip-off. I want my money back.¡± I complained.
¡°Have it back,¡± She told me with a smirk, passing my extra-long spade back to me, ¡°my arms are starting to hurt too much. I need a water break anyway.¡±
I frowned at her, squinting at her. What was she thinking in that funny little mind-reader head of hers? I took the shovel and passed her back her own, only for her not to take it. She instead walked over to the edge, shambled up the shallow dirt edge, and lay herself down with a big sigh.
I could only shake my head and get back to work. I didn¡¯t have time to complain. Instead, I spent my time letting my mana regenerate some more. It wouldn¡¯t be much, but every bit would help. For now, some muscle would do just fine.
Besides, it would help keep me sharp.
It took me far too long to get back into it.
¡°What the hells is she even talking about? I can¡¯t for the life of me think of a damn single thing. Nothing of import, anyway,¡± I thought to myself.
It was a spiral, circling the point without finding where I started. I couldn¡¯t quite make it back around to where I needed to go, no matter how I poked at it, which only made it worse because that meant that I didn¡¯t know Anna as well as I thought I did.
Was it hidden in something Anna thought I knew? We weren¡¯t on a level with one another; that was for certain. I didn¡¯t know what was going through Anna''s head while she had talked to me last night; who could say if I understood her at all? Maybe Anna just thought I knew it, and she had simply misunderstood me. If I didn¡¯t, and Anna was wrong, then not only was I not any closer than I was when she had given me the questions, but I was actively wasting time devoting time to it.
I put that to the side with all the grace of someone smashing a vase.
Back to the less worked question: why isn¡¯t everyone a mage?
If skills were the same as spells, technically, everyone would be a mage. It also would explain why everyone could even be a mage in the first place; everyone could be a mage because everyone performed magic every day; it was built into everyone. But that wasn¡¯t what a mage was. A mage wasn¡¯t just a spellcaster. A mage learned how to cast spells. You could only acquire a skill or spell once every two levels; a mage could get far more spells.
Learned spells were like imperfect skills; whether due to the medium, simple error or an inability to properly weave a spell, they were less efficient, less powerful, and less versatile.
They didn¡¯t grow naturally, like a skill flexing to account for new things; they didn¡¯t necessarily become more powerful by pushing more mana in; they didn¡¯t grow with the caster, and they definitely didn¡¯t become more efficient with use. They did, however, have ways of doing each. You could learn to ritual cast, making a spell with more power requirements possible to cast. You learned how to refine a spell, clean it up to make it more efficient, and you could figure out a way to make a more efficient spell with more power.
You could do all of that, and you could do it independent of level by figuring it out.
A mage learned spells; it was a kind of trade. A [Carpenter] learned carpentry and woodcraft. A [Blacksmith] metal craft and a mage learned magic, magecraft, or as I had thought about it, spellcraft.
Each ¡®cast¡¯ spells, but each learned different skills for their trade.
I looked at these crafts and compared them.
Craftsmen had a guild of sorts, a big one, as Gunther had explained. It was a kind of super guild, but it formed the same basic idea as what I understood from my time. [Craftsmen] would make a guild, which let them self-regulate a city''s market, stop people from undermining each other, and protect them and the consumer. If you needed something done, once upon a time, you could go to a young [Craftsman] to get cheaper work or a [Guild Craftsman] for quality work. It was a kind of certification, a badge that said, ¡®I know what I¡¯m doing, I make quality goods.¡¯ That was changed, but the premise remained similar enough to work with.
Did mages have a comparable system?
As far as I understood it, yes. Anna talked about registering me as a mage and about a collage of sorts. A magic boys club, pointy hats and all, but what was its purpose?
Necromancy was, as I understood it, illegal. You could not perform Necromancy, but as far as I could tell, people still did. Hells, I had run into a not people that were more than willing to defile corpses. That made me think it wasn¡¯t particularly enforcement-based. If it was, the valley would be chock full to the gills with amped-up mages ready to scalp [Necromancers] for pocket change. The black cloak will get you ten gold; line up over here for a single file line, please, and thank you.
No, I was, however, being tested for something that did ring a bell. I was a Journeyman. I was learning a trade, so there was some level of accreditation involved. If I was a random guy and I convinced people I worked magic without it, how would you check? Not everyone could sense magic. Perhaps you could go check with some sort of record keeper and get a list of mages. If Anna was working on signing me up as her apprentice, come journeyman, then they kept tabs on mages, even if it was just them adding to an archive. Mage craft was passed down from teacher to student, and you could trace it back down the family tree to the first mage.
So, a level of familiarity was required, but why? If you got a bad guild, you got bad products, but mages did not have the same issue. If you had a crap mage, they were a crap mage, but a bad mage was more of an issue to themselves. Short of casting magic in a town square like a madman, the most damage they could do was to themselves, and only the rich would be able to hire a proper mage to grant them stuff, and most of those things would be done by a [Magical Craftsman], who likely fell under the guild.
It couldn¡¯t be to regulate the level of competence; I was nearly sure of it.
One trick of it probably came in the form of why I wasn¡¯t being judged on my competency in casting a spell. A [Craftsmen] needed competency in their work, but I needed to answer specific questions.
If the Arcane god taught the first mage, and the first mage forced everyone to learn this stuff as he did, then it must somehow be in line with the god''s teachings. The god of the Arcane was the god of magic and arcane things. He was a god of hidden stuff, a god that was all about peeling up the floorboards of the world and discovering all the interesting stuff that lay beneath.
If the god taught a man, the god wanted them to know it and teach it to others.
A+B=C. God wants people to know this + god demands you teach it this way = God thinks teaching this way will make more people know it.
That made more sense, but upon revision, it was missing something.
Why did he demand it to be taught one-on-one if he wanted to spread it? What did the menor-student relationship have to do with it?
But then again, there were a few things that it held in parallel to [Craftsmen].
If a [Craftsman] knew a technique, he could pass it on personally, whether that be father to son or master to student. Small breakthroughs were lucrative; they piled on to one another.
Then there was something I had read a while ago, and re-read only today, and they clicked together rather explosively as my mind took the puzzle pieces and dry fit each one together.
Magelin had mentioned that he was a [Magician], a funny kind of mage and that once upon a time, a [Occultist] had figured out how to work magic like that, had pieced together lost methods to rediscover something that had been lost.
The question was revised. Why had the Arcane god taught the first mage like this? Why did the Arcane god need to teach the first mage this at all?
The first mage, by all accounts, was Human. Now, I wasn¡¯t a scholar, but I had a vague idea of the order of a few events. There once were great beasts like the Kirin and dragons and titans. Then there were their offspring, like Kobolds and then came the humans from somewhere south.
If the first image was human, then the great beasts must have lacked magic, which made no sense because that made absolutely no fucking sense.
Dragons. Giant flying reptile things that had so much magical power they could breathe fire, and Kirin, creatures who could supposedly prance around in the open air. Beings are so potent and so steeped in power that upon their death, they create new life from their shattered bodies.
They didn¡¯t have magic? Not one of them figured out how to doodle in the air?
My ass they didn¡¯t. The Kirin could probably shit magic if they wanted to, and they had two notable magical offspring, the long-dead Sibyl and the now-departed elves. How on earth could the first mage be human if there were mages before humans? There were no doubt ways a human could have learned magic.
Unless they had been lost.
Many things could be lost. I understood that well. Moran had been reduced to ash right before a 2000-year dark age, and New Moarn was primitive in comparison. Anna kept her door closed with a length of leather cord and locked it at night with a bar like it was a freaking castle gate. They had lost the simple latch you could find on a cottage gate. Nonetheless, a genuine lock made by a [Locksmith], and the damn thing hadn¡¯t caught on yet; it was a luxury I had only spotted a few times in the front of merchant¡¯s places.
[Merchants], a people who travelled the lands, were the only bloody people short of nobles who could get them.
But magic? Magic was still going. Of all the things lost, magic was not.
The only reason then could be that passing from teacher to student preserved it better, that one powerful mentor with one student was better at protecting the process of handing down that knowledge.
This process was done to pass down foundational knowledge, to keep it safe, to keep it alive.
That was something I could see a god doing.
So a mage was taught this way to hand down knowledge; that was part of it, surely. Something to do with the passing down of knowledge being important. You couldn¡¯t do it hap hazard, so people had to do it carefully.
Did that work? Magecraft was slow to pass down, so you couldn¡¯t give it to everyone; it spread slowly.
That was certainly an answer, but it felt like an incomplete one. That was part of what I could see, but the rest remained veiled. It was one reason for an end result, but even that one wasn¡¯t the full extent. If a mage taught only two students, there would still be more mage. It was exponential growth. 2^n.
Anna was the only mage I knew of, and there were no doubt more in the valley, but not enough. If there was only one mage in the valley after it had been incinerated, and it took 20 years to teach a mage and for them to, in turn, teach another, that would still be more than 2^100. I couldn¡¯t even count that high. That was a big ass number. Two times, two one hundred times.
So, I was back to the start.
Mages learn spellcraft; why wouldn¡¯t you want to teach that many people how to make a spell?
Mages could learn more than one spell; they could gain a damn lot of them. A cabal of mages could probably save Moarn ten times over right now. If everyone was a mage, Moarn would have no issues; what would be wrong with that? What were the downsides I wasn¡¯t seeing?
I took a long moment to simply let my head spin around at the halfway point of the hole. Joan had long since come back to digging, her short shovel and sweaty face close by as I let mine turn toward her.
¡°Joan, if you need to take a break, you should take a break,¡± I told her pointedly.
She was starting to flag even with her break. The difference between [Toil] and those without it. I could keep going until not even a skill could keep me up, my body exhausted from mana deprivation.
¡°I¡¯ve been,¡± she huffed, ¡°Trying to keep pace with you¡ You, uh, just keep going.¡±
¡°And that is admirable, but you are not made for this. Besides, I, uh, want to pass a question by you,¡± I told her awkwardly.
Her eyebrows raised droopily, breath quick as she looked at me, upturned eyebrows and slight gape of her mouth a clear visage of confusion, her head no doubt taking more than a second to start spinning, the idea of me asking for help something she wasn¡¯t expecting. I had made a less-than-stellar conversational partner.
Fantastic.
I would need to fix myself up with a charisma class at some point, if for nothing else, than to better pick my words and tone.
¡°I¡ I think I could do that. Give you a second opinion, that is, assuming I can give it while I sit down,¡± she told me.
¡°I was just telling you to do that. Why would I demand you stand when I just told you to sit down and rest?¡± I asked her.
¡°I was asking more because I think I need help? I was lifting with my legs, but now they''re all stiff. I could use a hand. I get it¡¯s a little awkward, but-¡± she told me, quickly starting to explain herself and the situation and the name of her family dog and why the sun revolved around the earth.
I, for my part, seated my shovel with a firm tap, quickly loosened the top half of my new cloak from the bottom, and seated her shovel. I draped the wool over her and smoothly scooped her before walking her to the side where she could sit down.
She was surprisingly heavy; then again, I didn¡¯t have extensive experience carrying human women, just Anna.
As I walked her over to the side, I thought about Anna and found the tangled ball of feeling inside of me. I was carrying Joan, but I wanted to be carrying Anna. I wasn¡¯t carrying Anna, I wasn¡¯t next to her, and the mangey fox in my head was yipping and yowling about how it wanted to smell her because it was impatient.
Joan was not her, and so it didn¡¯t like experiencing something familiar with her because she was strange.
Joan did not remain silent at my turmoil, first letting out a short ¡°Oh¡± of surprise before a quiet, ¡°I¡¯m sorry for the inconvenience.¡±
¡°It¡¯s not a problem, Joan, I don¡¯t mind,¡± I told her.
¡°You certainly seem to care if the way you¡¯re feeling is anything to go by,¡± She mumbled tiredly.
I looked at her, confused, before putting one plus one together to get two.
¡°Joan, you''re picking up on my instinct, not on me,¡± I told her. ¡°It''s conflicted because you¡¯re not Anna. Ignore it; it¡¯s not very smart.¡±
¡°That¡ That makes more sense. It''s like there''s two of you in there; you¡¯re very loud,¡± She said.
I placed her down the cloak, keeping her off the cold ground, with the edge able to wrap around her like a blanket.
¡°You might want to wrap yourself up,¡± I told her, ¡°You¡¯re warm now because you¡¯ve been moving, but the second that¡¯s gone, you¡¯re going to be cold as Fimbul¡¯s tits in all this rain.¡±
She did so without complaint or agreement. Instead, she wrapped herself up while I covered myself back up to keep the cold out. Both halves of the cloak could be a full cloak; there was just a style to it when it was folded.
¡°This is surprisingly warm. Now, where were you?¡± She asked.
¡°I was looking to ask you a question. I¡¯ve been thinking, trying to figure out the answer to a question. Why isn¡¯t everyone a mage? I¡¯ve thought it through, but I¡¯m not seeing the whole picture. The way it works has nothing to do with it; mages have passed down spellcraft like any other trade, and they exist to do it; there could be more mages than there are people mathematically. There''s something else to it. If everyone, or I suppose almost everyone, present company excluded, then what would be the downside? Everyone being a mage sounds like it could solve a lot of issues.¡± I told her, setting a little groundwork, but ultimately.
¡°Me excluded?¡± She asked, tone obviously curious.
¡°Well, based on my understanding of magic, it''s mana-based. I guess I don¡¯t know, but as I know it, you and probably Strause are the only people I¡¯ve met that wouldn¡¯t be mage capable. Maybe you can be a mage, just of a different kind, but I have no clue,¡± I told her, unable to feel the emptiness that rested inside the confines of her form.
There was a moment of thought on her face, but she put the information in her back pocket and focused on my question.
¡°Well, I don¡¯t know about mages, but I can tell you a story that Strause told me once, its what had him in a tissy about power. When he was a lad, as he put it, he went to the capital with his father. While seeing the sights, a mage came up to him, observing him, one that no one gave mind to. He decided that Strause had no mana, and he was going to take him away to study him. That mage was a mind mage; he did something not dissimilar to what Strause can do now: muddle and twist the minds of others. He dragged Strause off in broad daylight. No one, not even his father, was the wiser, and he decided to do something. I don¡¯t know what. It was presumably some kind of mind fuckery. Strause killed him, met him mind to mind, and simply killed him, leaving him a living but inanimate husk. The world would be full of people like that. Most people are alright, but no one is a [Saint]¡ Company excluded. Power can twist people into monsters; even alright people will get swept up in a mob.¡±
She told it to me without great detail; her words did not carry the entire story, but they were a summary. The point, however, was pointed enough for me to spot its gleam, its edge sharp enough to glide through the fat.
¡°So power is bad. But you can¡¯t judge that. A bad apple is enough to spoil the bunch, but the rest of the apples aren¡¯t inanimate,¡± I pointed out, a counterthrust of my own.
¡°Maybe not, but maybe the point is just to not let bad apples in. Necromancy is illegal, and so is mind magic, but there are always [Necromancers] and [Mind Diddlers],¡± she pointed out before smirking at the class. ¡°Nice. Anyway, power is bad. Give power to those you trust. That could be one bit, but there¡¯s something else I can think about. Who would make the food? Sure, some people would enjoy farming with magic, but most people would not. There wouldn¡¯t be enough people. Who would bake the bread? Who would do the tedium life requires? If everyone is going to starve, then you need to force more people to farm, but everyone is a mage. Could you imagine two [Archmages] having a disagreement about which one of them is going to be consigned to the mines to get ore? It¡¯s not a recipe to a stable world, but one of constant upheaval.¡±
I listened to her second point and held back a scoff.
¡°I can imagine worse than that, though point taken,¡± I told her.
There was a funny truth about it, and yet there was also a hollow untruth to it. There would not be a collapse of function, not as such. Some people liked plants; they can grow crops faster than a farmer. Hell, that was something you could use Necromancy to do. You could raise a host to harvest grain; you just need to make sure the source of caustic black mana doesn¡¯t kill your crop.
You could have a society. Joan had forgotten the most important issue, Level. The visual of two [Archmanges] reducing one another to tar stains aside, the only thing two [Archmages] would be fighting over would be which of their Juniors they would be teaching important roles over or who violated who¡¯s territory. They would be something akin to nobility.
There was something else that her words brought to mind, however.
People liked power, and the wider you spread it, the thinner it got. A mage was a very stable job, a mage was a powerful class, a mage was a clever person, and the likelihood of them undermining themselves was less present.
Why dilute your own job market?
Why wasn¡¯t everyone a mage? While a mage was supposed to teach others, those teachers were only human. They were people who fell into the same issue: sharing power reduced their own.
That felt like a complete answer to me. Extra possible answers aside, people not spreading the craft to keep their power and stop bad eggs felt like a complete enough answer to give.
¡°I think¡ I think I have an answer. Thank you Joan. Stay warm, we still have to finish the second site. I¡¯ll make sure you get back. Just drink some water, maybe eat, if you brought some food,¡± I told her, genuine in my thanks.
¡°There are two sites?¡± she asked with a sigh, ¡°I¡ I should have brought food and water.¡±
¡°Yes, you probably should have,¡± I told her, the fact that I had done the same thing not escaping me. Then again, I had skills. I still wasn¡¯t even peckish, nonetheless thirsty.
¡°I suppose I could always catch some water in the cloak, but I think I¡¯ll take your advice and take a break before my arms fall off,¡± I told her.
I left her to that and finished up with the hole.
Four for five, all I was left with was the last question, but no matter how I spun it, no matter what direction I took it, the answer didn¡¯t materialize, and the question didn¡¯t unravel.
It was a hole of its own, an empty spot, the answer within, invisible and untouchable, dug for me from my own ignorance.
I was missing the obvious, there was a missing key that I could not find the glimmer of. It took me all the way to the end of the day, all the way to the second site, to give up for the day. I couldn¡¯t figure it out, no matter how much mana I dumped, or how deeply I thought, or how much my arms burned.
Maybe Joan was right. I should get to praying for the answer because, at this rate, I wasn¡¯t going to. Defeat sour in my mouth, I picked up Joan and made my goodbyes, each of us exhausted. The opportunity to observe and learn from the [Woodsmen] is gone like smoke, and physical and spiritual exhaustion is draining me dry of effort.
But they were ready for tomorrow. They would be ready for the fallen.
Chapter 99
¡°You know, I understand you told me you would get me back home, safe and sound, but I wasn¡¯t expecting you to literally make sure I got back home by yourself,¡± Joan told me.
¡°It was either this or the carriages, and they couldn¡¯t make sure you got where you were going safely,¡± I mumbled, then more tersely, ¡°And you don¡¯t need to remain in my arm if you''re uncomfortable. Either stop wiggling or hop off.¡±
¡°All right, all right,¡± she sighed, settling into my one arm, my other keeping everything secure to my side because I had not planned on bringing two shovels back, nor had I planned on carrying someone, but here I was, carrying a woman and two shovels anyway.
Despite my tired arms, I held on with all the remaining strength, or more likely all of my spirit; it wasn¡¯t muscle that kept my arms lifting now that toil was over, but a contempt for giving up made manifest in every blunt movement.
I could tell upon closer inspection that I wasn¡¯t using strength mana, which further clarified what I was doing. I was so spent that I was burning into my durability. Only my spirit was taking the brunt of it.
I could tell I was going to be absolutely shredded tomorrow, shy of offing myself or some kind of weird interaction with life mana. I wasn¡¯t aware that my body was kind of fucked.
Turns out, when you use your muscles too much, you hurt yourself, just very minutely. I could tell this because I could see the death mana in my muscles. I don¡¯t know why that was so strange to me, but it was. After all, that was how you built muscle; how did parts of you dying make you stronger?
I let my weary mind puzzle that one out as I shambled. One foot slapped down in front of the other as I kept my eyes forward and my ears as perked as I could make them as I kept going. Just like when I had first walked up into Anna''s cottage all those months ago, when you just let your mind wander, it was easier to keep walking, my mother''s secret trick coming in handy for carrying a woman home... Only Joan wasn¡¯t the right woman.
Joan poked my nose, and I let out a phlegmy, ¡°Gah¡ª" before looking down at her. My eyes drooped into a squint.
¡°You were zoning out again,¡± she told me as if somehow that made sense.
¡°I was doing it intentionally; that was the point,¡± I confirmed.
¡°But it makes it hard to hold a conversation, and we still need to talk about your lady friend¡ Come on, pay a little attention so I can figure this out. I need gossip, I need dirt, and I need you to spill the tea!¡± She complained.
¡°Didn¡¯t I do that already?¡± I asked her. What else could you ask for? Anna and I aren¡¯t the gossip type, and there is no tea.¡±
She looked at me like I was a moron, her look of patience like I was a particularly slow person.
¡°I know you think that, honey, but there¡¯s something you can spill,¡± she said sweetly. All you need to do is let me poke around and ask questions, and I¡¯ll help you for the low, low price of delivering me to Strause and letting yourself in with the promise of food.¡±
I looked at her with utter bewilderment. Confusion was written so large upon my forehead that you could see it from the battlements of the Mynes estate, even in the cool shade as the shadows grew longer, the thin light fading from an unseen sunset.
¡°You know, I think I can see part of the problem already,¡± Joan told me, ¡°So little imagination.¡±
¡°I resent that,¡± I told her.
¡°Go on, what''s the joke, smarty pants? What''s the joke?¡± She asked, poking me in the chest.
¡°I¡¡± I didn¡¯t know what the joke was, and for all that I could tell, there was something to it; I couldn¡¯t rally the other half of myself to help, assuming it could understand it. ¡°I don¡¯t care,¡± I answered.
¡°I¡¯m the food! Dummy. I want him to gobble me up!¡± She told me.
I gaged, unable to stop myself. I did not like the image of Joan getting ¡®eaten.¡¯ Even as stunted linguistically as I was, the idea of Strause and his widow''s peak gnawing away gave me the ick.
¡°Oh, you don¡¯t like that? Well, too bad. You¡¯re not getting any, and I am. Suck it up,¡± She told me, ¡°If you were well-fed, I doubt this thing between you and Anna would be as bad.¡±
¡°Joan, you have to be aware that I don¡¯t care for¡ Meat? I don¡¯t want to know about that, and not just because of your looks or the meat in question. It''s private,¡± I told her, my willingness to carry her back waning.
I carried her regardless. Because it would be rude to drop her in the wet leaves, but it was close.
¡°Listen, I get it, I do. You¡¯re all squeamish about it, perfectly normal, especially for a non-human. Perfectly typical, even. We get our stereotype of laying everything with a pulse for a reason, but Anna is a human, too, Saphine. Judging by the fact that you¡¯re even together in whatever manner you can call together, she didn¡¯t just pick you because of your winning personality, at least not at first. As a fence sitter, I can see it; I really can. If I was as lonely as she was and you waltzed into my lap, the first thing I would be asking myself was how to lock you down and get you into my bed. You''re basically just a funny-looking Human anyway, minus the whole crazy eyes and funny nose; I guess that¡¯s just Annabeth''s thing.¡±
I didn¡¯t even know what to say about that. That made me want to back away and blush. I didn¡¯t exactly say anything, so much as make a weird chitter of confused embarrassment. I didn¡¯t know how the hell to even react to that.
Yeah, you¡¯re embarrassed by the squeak, but also, your girlfriend was probably plotting on how to get you in her bed; I know because I know I would also be up for that if I wasn¡¯t slowing someone¡¯s knob already. Also said probably girlfriend is a bit of a freak.
It was, in a way, less metaphorical than you would expect, like getting clobbered over the head; it dazed the hell out of me and made my head hurt.
Hells, to top it all off, she had admitted that she thought I had good looks after I had said she had looks. If I wasn¡¯t assured that she wanted to ¡®get eaten¡¯ by Strause, I sure as hell would have interpreted it as her hitting on me. It was dangerously close to some kind of cliche forbidden romance shlock.
She looked at me, her big eyes taking in my every expression, her face hanging close to my own as she tucker herself further into my breast. I sat there, unsure. Heartbeat like the pounding of hooves. The rain had tucked us away, secreted under the branches of a greatwood, just the two of us; the cool twilight air left only each other to warm ourselves. Hidden as we were, our blooming draw could not be stopped by the prying eyes of those we had promised ourselves to.
That kind of shit, you know? It both made the tiny part of me that couldn¡¯t help looking at a cute girl panic between curling up into a ball and running for the hills, and the rest of me wanted to bludgeon that other part with a rock.
¡°Heh,¡± Joan said with a shit-eating grin, ¡°You¡¯re weak to compliments. Also, you look so embarrassed. I could get used to that.¡±
That tugged me right into a new line of thought: embarrassed outrage.
¡°You¡¯re playing with me. You. You evil cow,¡± I claimed hoarsely.
¡°I won¡¯t lie, I was poking you, but I¡¯m being serious. You¡¯re not even trying to deny the compliments? You know what, I think I have a bit of insight already,¡± she told me conspiratorially.
¡°You''re jerking me around, playing with me, and you expect me to spill my guts and embarrass myself for something I don¡¯t even trust you have?¡± I asked her, unable to deny her claim without lying my ass off.
¡°How¡¯s about this, I trade you what I figured out, and you accept my deal? I would say that sounds fair, and besides, if you don¡¯t think I¡¯ve done my part, you would only be spilling the tea, not carrying me to Strause. How¡¯s about it?¡± She asked, clearly thinking the deal was a great idea.
The staccato beat of my heart did not slow as Joan misunderstood my meaning. I was not embarrassed about literally tossing her on Strause with a slightly dirty line, so long as I could get out of there.
¡°Joan, the issue is my giving you information. We were barely acquaintances. I can¡¯t read you. I can pick up a few things, but those seem obvious, too obvious compared to you normally. How can I trust you when I can¡¯t even tell if you¡¯re just using me for gossip that could make everything worse?¡± I told her tersely, enough so that her face took a strained look.
¡°You¡¯re so tense and serious, so tense that you¡¯re taking this all the wrong way,¡± she sighed, deflating slightly. ¡°Do you understand what I¡¯m doing here?¡±
¡°Annoying me?¡± I stated more than asked.
¡°Establishing rapport. You¡¯re so quick to bring up our acquaintanceship, but not how I¡¯m trying to carry a conversation or, help you out, or generally better our relationship. It¡¯s like trying to break the ice, but it¡¯s just ice all the way down.¡± She complained, her social nicety slipping slightly, the edge of frustration peeking through the mask before she sighed heavily. ¡°You''re so bent out of shape; you¡¯ve taken a compliment and spun it into me playing with you. I¡¯m too tired to spin much of anything, let alone a fucking web of deceit.¡±
Her words were out of her mouth with a tone that should be accompanied by her shaking me, but she was barely able to walk straight, let alone shake me. She tired herself out as she vented.
Her words also pointed in the opposite direction of my thinking and pointed out that we were both tired. Was she trying to manipulate me, or was I misinterpreting her words?
I had one edge, and only one edge. Wisdom alone would not cut the knot, but an additional observer could, and so I turned inward, used my wisdom, and teased out my instinct like I was trying to lead it by the nose.
My instinct did not like Joan. She was a strange woman, and being close to a strange woman was bad, mostly because she wasn¡¯t Anna, who my instinct seemed to like more than I did. It didn¡¯t like the fat that I was carrying Joan, either, because that¡¯s where Anna went, and it didn¡¯t like my arms being multifunctional.
It didn¡¯t understand, however, why I was upset. The worst it could say was that she smelled weird, and while I had to agree there, Joan did smell weird for a Human. She didn¡¯t smell like any of the known emotions I could smell. There was nothing there that indicated the emotions of a lie, no desperation, no fear, no hidden issues.
I was tensed, showing signs of agitation, and tired. She had set me off by talking about things I hadn¡¯t wanted to talk about, which had mixed together with the rest and latched onto distrust.
I clamped down on my emotions, analyzed them, and put them to the side as best I could.
¡°If you¡¯re going to drop me, just do it. Stop dragging this out,¡± Joan griped, though there was a dejected nature in her tone.
¡°If I can¡¯t tell if she¡¯s yanking me around and using me or genuinely trying to help me. But I shouldn¡¯t treat someone like they¡¯re wronging me unless they actually do. It¡¯s not right to treat her poorly because I¡¯m prickly right now.¡± I thought to myself.
My instinct gnawed at my leg.
¡®No,¡¯ my instinct told me, not in words, but in ideas, ¡®not Anna, no forgive.¡¯ But that was all I needed to choose.
¡°I¡¯m not going to drop you, Joan. I¡ I¡¯m in the wrong here. You offered to help me, and I¡¯m being a bitch about it. I¡¯m sorry. I just don¡¯t like being poked,¡± I told her.
¡°Well¡ Good. Thank you for recognizing you were being a bit of a bunghole. Gods, but you have a hard head,¡± she said with a sigh.
I kept moving, not speaking up, but letting the tension ease. Large cool breaths of wet air calmed me down so I didn¡¯t say something stupid. I brought my heart in line, the cool a balm to my warm skin. The tent of my cloak atop my head, perched upon my flattened ears, picked up the pitter patter.
I wasn¡¯t moving quickly, a twenty minute walk back along the tree line gave us plenty of time to calm down.
¡°I think¡ I think I don¡¯t mind delivering you.¡± I told her with unintended tersely, ¡°I would understand if you don¡¯t want to extend the deal to me, given I was a massive bitch about it, but if you do, I would be willing to at least bring you to Strause either way.¡±
She looked up at me, reading me like a book with none of the extra reach I required to read myself.
¡°It¡¯s not a problem. I think I can understand, upon a little reflection, that you are touchy about things people just aren¡¯t normally touchy over. If you are willing to give me my price, I will still help you out with a few things,¡± she told me, though the way she said it made me think she was slightly hesitant.
¡°Good job, me,¡± I thought to myself, ¡°Now you¡¯ve made her feel like she needs to step on eggshells around me. Great work.¡± Though what I said was, ¡°I would very much like that. Thank you.¡±
¡°Stop thanking me, and I¡¯m not doing much.¡± She said, ¡°Though a few of the things I¡¯ve recognized are more issues in general, so I¡¯m not sure how they might help you out.¡±
¡°Fire away, it''s not like I¡¯m in a position where I can half-ass this, and I don¡¯t know what I¡¯m doing. Any wisdom, even that which seems pointless to you, could be useful to me.¡± I told her, not even trying to play off my own depreciation.
¡°The self-persecution aside, I¡¯m guessing the two of you don¡¯t exactly give each other compliments?¡± She asked.
¡°Anna compliments me,¡± I told her. Sure, it wasn¡¯t every single day, but she gave them. They made me feel funky, but they also made my day most of the time.
¡°But you don¡¯t give her many? I¡¯m only pointing it out because I noticed you don¡¯t exactly take compliments well. They¡¯re a weak point. Is that fair?¡± She said, her words phrased into a question to avoid annoying me.
¡°I¡ I guess? What''s the point there?¡± I asked her, not getting what she was trying to indicate; the dots were not connecting.
¡°If you don¡¯t get them, you don¡¯t give them. That¡¯s not a recent thing, I bet. It¡¯s honestly rather normal, just for lads instead of ladies. I bet those you get stand out to you, but you also don¡¯t give many, which you should be doing more of, considering you seem to be obsessed with your soft little girlfriend.¡± She told me, her face turning deadpan in a way that spoke volumes without a single word being spoken.
¡°I feel like you¡¯re insinuating something that I wouldn¡¯t like,¡± I told her.
¡°That¡¯s because I am,¡± she told me, ¡°You clearly¡ Like her, so you should make sure she knows you like her. Praise her; make sure she knows how you like her, not just her looks but the rest of her, too.¡±
The word like clarified it. The last time we talked, she insisted on love. Its very idea made my skin crawl in fear.
¡°You should probably work on that too,¡± she told me, ¡°Calm thine bosom and pin thither thy courage. Man up, basically.¡±
I could barely understand her cadence, her tone passing into barely comprehendible tone and primordial words.
¡°Thanks. I really needed someone besides myself to call me a coward¡ And a man, apparently.¡± I told her, a shred of edge blooming in my chest, though I caught it early before it could poison my thoughts.
¡°You certainly have the arms for it,¡± she told me, ¡°Though I should probably keep going, give me some of your domestic life. How did you two bumble into each other''s lives.¡±
¡°I stumbled into her garden covered in grave ash,¡± I told her, ¡°and we¡¯ve been falling into one another since¡ We,¡± I started before holding back some of the details. We spend a great deal of time next to one another alone out there. We eat together, we finish chores together, she teaches me magic, and we talk, mostly.¡±
¡°Sounds scenic,¡± she told me, and I nearly agreed until she asked, ¡°And how do you fight?¡±Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Without thought or any falsehood, I said, ¡°With a shovel. I use a shovel, and I didn¡¯t get to see Anna fight much, but she used magic. That should be obvious.¡±
She looked at me and reached her arm up, struggling against its own weight, her hand shaking.
¡°Fight in the social sense, you great big bimbo. Ow. Shit. Ohh, my arms hurt.¡± she hissed, her arm falling back down into the bundle.
¡°Fucking eh woman. We don¡¯t fight. We just talk. Now, keep your arms down.¡± I told her.
¡°Moron,¡± she said, ¡°Now stop that; I can see your face. Everyone fights; that¡¯s like the quintessential thing about relationships besides bedroom time. The only way you''re not fighting over small stuff is that you¡¯re not open to one another. Neither of you is adapting to the other, only their presence. You¡¯re both walking the walk, but you don¡¯t talk the talk.¡±
¡°That makes absolutely no sense,¡± I told her with a squint, not at her words but at her actions as I tried to tell if she had just suffered a bit of a conniption or if she was trying to cuff me and simply failed to do so.
¡°Oh yeah? So you and your girlfriend have never come to a crossroads, and one of you decided one thing and then another thing. That¡¯s fight territory, and the only way you don¡¯t fight there is constantly sucking up to one another to avoid it because you''re both worried about the stability of you two.¡± She told me.
¡°So me and Anna not getting into fights constantly is a bad thing?¡± I asked her, clearly not buying it.
¡°No, but now you''re less than agreeable, and you don¡¯t understand one another enough to get one another. It''s not the fight that matters; it''s mutual honesty. Getting to know one another means getting to know the parts that disagree with the other. Not arguing at all seems like a symptom of that, at least to me. You jumped into this way too fast and idealistically, like you got all of your relationship advice from the kind of storybooks with big pictures.¡±
She told it to me without malice or intentional unkindness, but it was unkind, if only because it was close enough to the truth, regardless of my opinions and feelings.
There was a hesitance between us at times; we talked about our inner thoughts most frequently at night, as if the gloom of the dark could hide us from each other. Like the darkness was freedom instead of a shroud that allowed us to ignore the other without judgment.
If we wanted to be a good couple we would need to be able to face each other. Face to face in the light, instead of hiding our dirt like a sin we couldn¡¯t bear to show one another.
Like we had yesterday before everything went up in smoke.
¡°I¡ I think there¡¯s some sense in that,¡± I told her, ¡°But I needed to know about how to make it right, not how to go forward. We¡¯re putting the cart before the mules here.¡±
¡°Then tell me how it happened. What kicked this off?¡± she told me tiredly.
So, I told her.
¡°Let''s see, we made our way into the city because Anna could snuff out the fire. I sent her ahead and saved Clause. We dragged him back, Strause and me, and then I found Anna. She finished calling the storm, and it struck her with lightning. I traded my life for hers, and when I came too, she was¡ Afraid? Shaken, I think that works best. I put my foot in my mouth by breaking into her room, for sure, but that just made her angry; the worry is what I don¡¯t understand.¡±
I found myself unable to look her in the eye as I finished, staring up into the gloom of the thinning trees. It was getting dark enough that it was hard too see properly, my pitch black magical eyes no better for seeing in the dark than they were amber, with the admittance that I could use them like a dim candle.
¡°So¡ Let me get this right. You stopped Anna from killing herself?¡± She asked, her tone disbelieving me.
¡°Yep,¡± I told her. ¡°She almost got herself killed, yeah,¡± I told her, briefly looking down at her to try and read her. Her response was too short, suspiciously so.
¡°And is that normal? Anna casting magic like that? Because it doesn¡¯t sound like her. Explain that a little more.¡±
The way she said it was obviously leading, her picking for information like a [Miner] for precious stones, but I had agreed to that.
¡°It''s not like her. As best as I can understand it, the spell to cast a storm wasn¡¯t Annas but bound to the staff. It was probably too complex to cast, too costly. She mentioned that she would need time to get it out, like a long time, so she was ritual casting it, building up magical power and drawing on her Druid powers to get the Land to help her, and it still took her over half a glass to build up the storm. She skipped some steps. The spell had bits for lightning; Anna figured she didn¡¯t need lightning, just the rain, but they weren¡¯t for calling it.¡± I told her, piecing the bits together as best as I could.
I didn¡¯t know what Anna had done for sure, but she had found a way to shorten the casting, and that was the crux. The right heart, just in a less than perfect body.
¡°So they were for protecting against it,¡± she said politely.
¡°Bingo. The whole storm was directly above her. I won¡¯t claim I understand how lightning works for sure, but imagine a thunderstorm directly above your head. Path of least resistance, but the highest point wasn¡¯t a tree; it was her staff,¡± I told her.
¡°So she made a mistake for the sake of others, gotcha. So why is this an unknown at all? I can see a big thing you¡¯ve totally missed.¡± She told me.
¡°Oh?¡± I asked, ¡°I can¡¯t see the issue. What''s wrong?¡±
She looked at me like I was a vapid moron, a look I didn¡¯t like the look of because if it was that obvious, it was bad.
¡°She hit you with lightning?¡± She asked in a way so rhetorical it was a tangible force.
¡°She killed me, actually,¡± I told her.
¡°That is even worse. What the hells?¡± She asked.
¡°I get better. I can¡¯t be killed forever; I just get back up. That¡¯s why I throw myself into stuff so freely. It¡¯s not courage, that¡¯s for sure,¡± I told her.
¡°And Anna is ok with you gods; this is weird, killing yourself?¡± She asked.
That caught me. She had found a sticking point. I hadn¡¯t expected that, but I should have.
¡°I¡ Um¡ No. No, she doesn¡¯t like it,¡± I told her as we exited the tree line, beelining for the gloom of the shadowed New Moarn, the field sloping beneath my feet.
¡°So she murdered you, and you''re questioning why she was afraid? Why was she weary? Pardon my language, but are you a bit fucking retarded? To her, she just murdered someone she loves. It doesn¡¯t matter that she knows you can come back. Emotions aren¡¯t logical; they simply are. She doesn¡¯t like it when you kill yourself, and you got yourself killed by her on a fuck up,¡± She told me, not with a great bellow, but with the smooth brutal blows of a [Craftsman].
¡°I. I don¡¯t. I know that would be scary, but-¡± I started, only for her to cut me off, actual annoyance in her voice as she started ripping into me.
¡°But fucking nothing, you donkey. She probably watched the light leave your eyes by her hand. No wonder she''s shaken. She killed you with something she no doubt takes great pride in. She killed you with her passion. She tainted her love, both of them, like staining a precious sketch with ink. How fucking callous are you? Because you are either a social Trog or a calloused bitch. Imagine for a second you killing Anna with that precious shovel of yours. Even if she just got back up, you killed her.¡±
That.
That closed the hole.
My world snapped into focus as I replayed the conversation but as Anna. She had killed me with her own passions, true, but she had also been caught lacking. Then in comes the very woman she liked, with whom she shared her passion.
Do you think I¡¯m so incapable?
She wasn¡¯t just ripped up about me; she was ripped up about her own magic. People were stuck in their own minds, and each of us was a prisoner. Alone and shaken, she had only her own racing mind to guide what others might think of her, and she had killed me with ineptitude. So when I skated in, she thought I thought she couldn¡¯t even take care of herself; her own feeling of ineptitude reflected back at me.
And then I had shut her down before there could be any sharing, further isolating her. She wouldn¡¯t even have anyone else to talk to. She didn¡¯t get along with her family.
¡°Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! How- Shit,¡± I cursed, the sucking earth beneath me nearly tripping me.
¡°There it is. You¡¯re just a socially inept moron. Good. If you were a cold-hearted bitch I would have to part ways.¡± she said.
¡°Good? This is horrible!¡± I shouted.
¡°And you can now fix it! You great big, unassuming oaf. And you better. I¡¯m a firm believer in a maidens joy, and you''re currently not helping with one of them¡ By the gods. You need to work on communication. Clean the cobwebs from the dusty corners of your head,¡± she told me, still clearly confused.
¡°If I had any, I would have done that! Ughh. I should have thought for a minute. Stupid, stupid, stupid-¡±
¡°Stop that. You''re shaking me. If you''re going to do anything, just beat yourself up. Know when you¡¯ve made a mistake, sure, but use that to spur yourself forward. You can¡¯t undo what''s already happened, but the future is clay in your hand,¡± she told me.
¡°That¡¯s easy for you to say; you don¡¯t know what your foot tastes like,¡± I told her.
¡°And it''s easy for you to say it''s easy. Don¡¯t forget, even if you¡¯re a dumbass, you¡¯re a maiden too. I expect you to be happy. So don¡¯t forget to work on the two of you when you bounce back. Learn to comfort her how she likes it, compliment her, understand and tend to her needs, and partner stuff, but also make sure she''s a good partner. A fight once in a while is worthwhile. Also, for the love of everything, get in touch with your inner girl. It would be a shame for you to never know the simple pleasures in life. Wear a clean dress once in a while, let yourself be emotional, I can feel you bottling up shit, and that just makes you miserable that kind of shit.¡±
I looked at her; she looked serious. Passionate, even. She had me in the first half but lost me in the second.
¡°What kind of answer is that? Wear a dress? Who do you think you are?¡± I asked her.
¡°Someone who thinks you would look good showing off a little leg,¡± she told me, the swing recognizable. She had started light, swung into a more comfortable phrasing, and now she was fighting herself to go back to how we had started.
¡°You haven¡¯t seen my legs. You weirdo.¡± I told her that I did not like this side of Joan. It felt wrong.
¡°Wearing a dress shouldn¡¯t be done for others, but to make you feel beautiful. It¡¯s a waste otherwise,¡± She told me. ¡°besides, whatever you look like is probably Annas'' type; showing a little leg might be worth it to get her thinking about you.¡±
I looked at her and weighed my words for a moment before deciding there wasn¡¯t a point in holding back.
¡°Joan, we don¡¯t have that kind of relationship at the moment. I¡¯m not going to tease Anna when I¡¯m the one who''s not ready for that,¡± I told her, checking my words as I got a foot on the road and headed into town.
As I did I decided to speed up. Not that Joan wasn¡¯t good company, but I needed to get around to putting souls in jars.
I also didn¡¯t want to spill everything to Joan, because she had a way to get me talking. Stupid me.
¡°Well¡ Then you should be,¡± She said as if we were talking about me planning a flower pot and not me tying the knot.
¡°No diving into my personal issues. I barely know what love is, let alone what the right time to do that stuff is.¡± I told her with a grimace.
¡°If this is about the wait until marriage, that¡¯s not an issue. They say that knowing the young will indulge anyway. It¡¯s to get people to marry when they realize they have a baby in them; that¡¯s why so many faiths say it. It¡¯s a great big premature panic catch for when a girl wakes up and realizes she hasn¡¯t had her time of the month; they need to lock down the guy and make sure the kid has a good life,¡± she told me.
¡°Cool theory, but as a bastard myself, it¡¯s a little different,¡± I told her, ¡°Even if its not about having a kid, which I honestly don¡¯t know if I could deal with anyway, it¡¯s a warning that whims of passion hurt those around you.¡±
¡°There is a difference between passion and love, though it''s true enough,¡± she told me.
¡°Maybe for a Human. It¡¯s a bit different for Kobolds, not like you would know. We form mating bonds, courtesy of my passenger, who hates your guts. You meet the right person, and bang, now you¡¯re tied to them. Forever. My mom was like that, even though my dad ran off. I think it¡¯s the same for Anna, though it''s hard to tell.¡± I told her, carefully pivoting around how I was bonded to her already and that if Anna had it, she was bonded to me.
She had chosen me. Joan didn¡¯t seem to understand the severity of why I was acting the way I was because she didn¡¯t have a second entity in the back of her head with the comprehension of a literal wild animal.
¡°Hmm. I wonder if that¡¯s what did it?¡± she asked herself quietly. ¡°Did other species bond?¡±
¡°Not that I know of. The Mynes are part Mouse so its possible Anna might end up bonding. Why something weird happen? Time for you to spill the tea.¡± I told her, grateful for the distraction.
She had done it again, dragging me from my thoughts on Anna.
¡°Well were a thing now, but something happened last night¡ Well, when Strause mentioned to Clause earlier he needed to show him something, he wasn¡¯t messing with him, we were trying to figure out if the rest of you can see it. When we¡ Spent the night with one another, we ended up getting a kind of. Well its hard to say,¡± she said, obviously embarrassed.
Of all the things I had seen Joan do, being embarrassed was not one of them.
This was a woman that was willing to talk about others doing the deed, or how she felt someone was attractive straight to their face like she had courage in spades, but she was now rendered to speechless stupefaction.
¡°Are you stuttering?¡± I asked her.
¡°No. I just don¡¯t know how to explain the issue¡ We have tattoos and not ink ones. Elaborate magical looking tattoos¡¡± she said.
Thinking back on it, Strause had gotten Clause to look at¡
¡°You have a magic tattoo on your¡¡± I went to ask before gesturing down with my head.
¡°No. Not there. Gods, that would be ever weirder. Just over my belly. It''s kind of freaking the both of us out, but no one can even see it,¡± she said, her face falling into a forced neutrality, similar to the first time I had met her.
A skill to hide her embarrassment.
¡°I see. First time having something funky happen to your body?¡± I asked her, eyebrows raised to show off my magic peepers.
¡°It''s not the same as that. It''s just¡¡± she said, not quite having the words for it.
¡°You have a glowing womb tattoo and I have black eyes that show off my soul, same difference,¡± I told her.
¡°It''s not. I mean, it is, but it''s not weird!¡± she said.
¡°Getting matching tattoos with your lover? It''s kind of weird.¡± I teased.
¡°Nooo.¡± She whined. ¡°It just happened when we¡ Well, you can figure that out.¡±
¡°Is it like a freaky mind reader skill?¡± I asked her.
¡°No? Maybe? I don¡¯t know.¡± She told me, ¡°I can¡¯t exactly go check my status. They just don¡¯t work right on us.¡±
I thought about that for a moment.
And then my mind started to turn and I asked, ¡°I could try something, if you¡¯re ok with that.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know. Is it invasive?¡± she asked.
¡°It¡¯s a spell that tells you about the target. Perhaps that could shed some light on the issue,¡± I told her.
¡°I suppose if you¡¯re not peeping where you¡¯re not asked for, and you give me the information¡ I wouldn¡¯t be averse to it,¡± she said, though there was hesitancy. ¡°Just don¡¯t be surprised if it''s garbled nonsense.¡±
I took her words and stopped, laying the spades to the side to free one hand and begin to trace a spell. It was cheap, it was fast, and it wasn¡¯t [Status].
[Inspect] was getting better and better the more I used it because it was just so darn useful. I finished the spell form and cast the small speck down at the woman in my arms.
Level -- Human, Condition: Exhausted
Description: Joan Taverner, Human Pr!mord!a! $%##@, [Pr??!????m????o(??d??i????@????!?? ??$????%??##??@????] Level $%, Barmaid Level 19.
Humans are the most widely found species in all the faded lands, with great adaptability and fecundity. They are best known for building expansive nations and bringing relative order as they seek stability and eak out their normally meagre existences. This Humans soul is marked by primordium, the essence of the beyond. Primordium does not mix with mana and is formed from the emotions of beings with essence emanating into the world before dissipating.
[Pr????????i??????m??o??????r????????d????i??????a??????l?????? ??????$??%??#????#??????@????] &??$????????(??????????????!????$????&??????????@?? ?????? ^???????? ??!??????????$??????!???????? @??)????????&????$)??!?????? ??????????(??@????%????????&??@??????$?????????? ???? !??????(??????????@??????????^????!???? %??????)????????^?? ????@????????(????!?????????? ^????????$???????????? ??????&????^????@??(?? $??#??????????????%)??????@????????%?????????? ?? @????(????????#????????^????%??????(@??#?????????? ^??????????%???? ??????!??(????????%??????!????@????????(????????^????$???? ????(??????????!@????????^????%(???????? @??#??????^??????%????????(??????@??????????^?????? ??!??)??????????????@????^????$????????(??!??????@??????????^?? ????????(%??????????!????@????????^??%??????????(??????????^????#??????(??????????$???? ????????^??????)?????????? ??%????(!??????(??????????????#?? ????&??????%?? ^?????? ??????&??????????(???????? ????+????????????+???????????????????+?)????????!????????????&?????????? ??????????????$?????? ??????&??!??(?????? #????&^????????%????????????!???? ??????????(????????&@????$ ^#????(??(???????? ??????%?? ¡±????¡±????????¡±¡±¡±???? ??????¡±??¡±?????? ??¡±??????¡±???????? ??????¡±???? ¡±??????¡±????!??*??%??????(????????#????????!????????)%???????? ????????&(?? ??????)?????? $??????@??!????????(??????????!??????????#????????*????????%????)?????? ?????? ??????????#????(?????????? ??????@???? ????&??????%????????????) ??}??????}??????????{??(!????????@??????????????$???????? ????^????)!????@????????(???????? ????????????^????%????????#??!??|?????? ??????????#??%??????????!??????????!??)????#??????????(?????????? ??%??^??#????)????!????????(??^????$????*?????? ????????&??!??????#??????%??^??????)??????????#????&????????????????(???? ??$?????????? ?????????????????@??????*??????%????????&??!??#????????(???? ??*??????????^??????&??????????~????????????????????????? ??????~??????&??~?????????????*??&~????????????(??????????*????&???????? #????(??????*????????%??????&??????(????????@???????????????? ???? ??????????&???? ??????????% ??????&????@??#??????^????&????????!????+??)??*&??????????@???????? ???????? ??????????%????#???????? ??(????????????????!???????????????????????? ????%??^??&???????? ??????????$????????????#??????????(???????? ??????!??????????^????????%????&??????~???? ??????+(?? ????&??????????!????????????????(??*??????????&??????????~??????????????? %??!??????(????????????????#??????&??????$??@?? ????????????@???????? !????????(????&??????????????(????????*????!??????????#??????&?????????? ??%??????????????(????*??^?????????? ??????!???????????????&????????#?????????? ??????????(??????$????????*??????????????#????????E???????? ????(?? ????????*??????@??????#??&???? ????????!????????@????)?????? ??????????&????w??
A [Barmaid] is the general backbone of any worthwhile establishment, bar or tavern, wading tables, fetching drinks and tending to the needs of their clientele. [Barmaids] are well-rounded generalists with a great deal of variance in their class, even for their rarity.
Even looking at the garbled text made my head hurt, a sudden sharp pain blooming in my mind, causing me to flinch away. As I broke, looking at the gibberish, I felt the pressure cease.
¡°Sheesh. You¡¯re bleeding,¡± Joan told me.
Checking myself, I felt a warm rivulet running from my nose, and quickly whipped it away; momentarily lost, I picked up the gear and continued walking, trying to parse the information I had read.
All of the garbled text was¡ meaningless. Even the ones that mentioned classes and skills. It was the only time that had ever happened to me. Whenever someone speaks a class or skill, you can just understand it. Everyone could understand it. It was clear and immediately understandable. This was not the case; it was literally beyond my comprehension, the idea of it so volatile to me that it wounded my mind just by hearing it.
¡°I don¡¯t know how to tell you this, Joan, but can you even read this? Don¡¯t do it out loud, please,¡± I told her.
¡°It''s backwards, but most of it makes little sense to begin with. What could you glimpse?¡± she asked.
¡°It says your soul is touched by primordium, it comes from beyond, wherever that is, and it is produced by beings with a soul¡ The level stuff is wack, but as far as I could understand, you have a weird soul, basically.¡± I told her the visual of the spell disappearing.
¡°What¡¯s that got to do with anything?¡± she asked.
¡°Well, a [Status] spell checks your mana, and I guess your soul, maybe if the information is garbled, is somehow unable to read it¡ Or it can, but the information is nightmare nonsense, gah, that hurts.¡± I told her, wincing as the pang of it caused my eye to twitch in memory. I couldn¡¯t even hold my head.
¡°That¡¯s¡ Should I even know that?¡± She asked.
¡°Doesn¡¯t matter, I don¡¯t think. Oh yeah, you have a subrace. You¡¯re a kind of Human, in case you couldn¡¯t tell.¡± I told her.
¡°Good. Ok. I will tell Strause about that. He¡¯s been trying to figure out what our deal is for quite a while. Thank you, Saphine.¡±
¡°No problem, Joan. Just¡ Don¡¯t ever let me do that again,¡± I told her.
¡°I¡¯ll keep it in mind. We''re almost there; just keep putting one foot forward, that¡¯s it. That¡¯s it.¡± She said soothingly.
I did so, letting my mind fix itself up, dust itself off, and get back up, frequently blinking as I got past the first gate, the [Guards] there armed and vigilant, and down the empty street leading to the Mynes estate.
I got in just fine, Joan got in as a ¡®delivery,¡¯ and I did deliver her. Pawning her off on Strause who was seemingly relaxing on a couch.
I let myself in but quickly fled when Strause said, ¡°That¡¯s not food,¡± and Joan replied with, ¡°Eat me.¡±
I scampered and got on with my evening.
Someone would have to trench the soil of the field, or there would be landslides. Then again, the rivers would already start rising. There were a lot of things that needed to be done and not a lot of hands or know-how. There had been all of one [Foreman], after all. Someone needed to give the road a ditch.
I would talk to Clause about it. I¡¯m sure he would be willing to help out, especially because I was cheap. I wasn¡¯t particularly tired anyway, not in the way it mattered. I still needed time to think over my questions.
I also needed to get to putting souls in pots because tomorrow was important.
But first, I needed a bath.
Priorities.
Chapter 100
Getting a bath was far, far harder, both when it was rainy and when there were people around who cared about propriety. So, I ended up with a small tub of warm water, a very tiny sliver of bland soap, and a towel to clean myself in my room.
It was quite spacious as rooms went, though its size chafed. I had managed to graze in a greener pasture, but the dead grass just didn¡¯t please me like it would have.
Despite what I might have worried about, the mattress did not call for me.
I cycled my auras, pushing a tiny amount of mana into each. The problem with that, of course, was that I was restraining them. I battled between feeding mana to try and get a stronger effect and pulling mana out of it, effectively limiting the casting for its range.
It was¡ Incredibly off-putting. I was contracting and extending the muscle at the same time. Worse yet, it wasn¡¯t even a physical sensation, adding a layer of abstraction I couldn¡¯t place close to the true feeling, even with a metaphor.
The issue, as far as I could guess at it, was that the skill wasn¡¯t flexible, not yet, anyway.
Skills could flex, but until then, they were rather rigid.
A passive skill passively drew mana in and, by my working theory, shaped the mana into a continuous spell. Pulling back on it restricted the mana going through it, but that meant that every single facet of the spell was also lessened, not just the range.
Presumably, one individual knot or fold governed one thing, and so I could, in theory, limit the range while leaving the rest of the aspects of it at full or even empowered levels. But I was holding a hammer, and everything was a nail. For now, it was like trying to move a muscle while holding a singular strand in the opposite direction, a feat of skill I could not obtain.
It didn¡¯t mean I didn¡¯t try it, though.
I tried it really hard.
But a hammer did not substitute a chisel, no matter how well you swung it, and I ended up simply failing.
I would need to increase the radius of my death magic auras in order to increase its effect.
Which led me to now.
I was bathing, my muscles aching, and death mana forming in my body as the muscles died. Warm water ran down my skin, leaving a cold chill from the cold, wet air outside.
But the funny thing about death and life mana was that they fed into one another.
The mana in my muscles had depleted slightly, and I had an idea of how to stop it from aching, at least, without finding a birch tree to skin. After all, my living tissue died, and my body slowly renewed it; some seemed to leave me as sweat or through other means of disposal, but much of it was kept, somehow renewed in my body from muscle to muscle.
If I could, say, speed up the process, shouldn¡¯t I?
Made sense to me.
The issue was, as with all hair-brained schemes and plans, and with mine especially, as the greatest of hairy brains, the details. The auras, in this case, because they were both finicky due to my¡ flexibility issue and because, as it turned out, they were far better at working on grass than on the dense living flesh on my body.
There was simply less material to work with, less dense, and less mana-rich.
Like a cart rolling down a hill, a body had great momentum, just less a physical thing and more of a magical thing.
It had an ebbing quality, like ripples on a lake; it was a back and forth; there was only so much I could do with just the beneficial [Aura of Renewal]. Nothing that my [Wellspring of Renewal] could conjure. [Renewing Presence] did bupkiss.
I needed to use my hostile auras, or none of my renewing skills, not even [Renewing Conduit] could aid me.
I was a locus of renewal, a conduit, a focal point that made everything around me renew, but there was a maximum amount it could renew when there was nothing to feed it.
Death fed life, life fed death, and around and around it went like the wheel on a cart, always more.
I couldn¡¯t just brute force it.
So I cleaned myself, the water growing cold as I got the greatest of the grime and oil and sweat off of me, wet soap, whipping it away until the bucket was full of grime. My arms were sore as I did my best to try and flex my auras, pulling in my renewal, letting my limited death and decay speed the collapse of my broken muscles, their ache my own, and then letting my auras turn into new life.
It was a slow, dreadfully slow process. Perhaps I could do it quickly in the future, but for now, it would get me ready to go again a few hours faster.
As I finished, doing my best to dry my gangly body and slip back into a cooled set of fresh-ish clothes, I had to put up with the ache. There was no rest, not right now.
Even in the dark of night, I needed to do work.
I also needed to speak to Clause. Someone had to drain the landscape to stop it from turning into a mire and causing land slides. The trees would help; they would help a lot, but they could only do so much before they drowned, as crazy as that sounded.
And I had a few things to do about it. First, I wanted to ask around for Gunther to see if she was still here.
I did so, slipping my way over to the Mynes family bodyguards and asking, but they didn¡¯t know.
Without knowing where Gunther was and with a curfew in effect, I needed the ability to roam, so I needed to get Clause to agree to what I needed to do, get Gunther, and propose what needed to be done.
So, I knocked on Clause¡¯s study, a thin light creeping beneath the door of the otherwise silent room.
¡°Enter,¡± he called out, haggard and clearly short on care.
I did so. On the corner of his desk, a small series of plates and a bowl that once held food were visible. Crumbs and the silt that so often fell out of the broth were the only signs of a meal, and it was probably more plate than meal.
¡°You look terrible. I¡¯m here to report that the graves have been dug. Though I¡¯m also here to talk on a few things,¡± I told him.
He seemed to sigh, a great exhalation, though it did not lean toward relief or exasperation. It was relatively obvious this was going to go sideways, so I decided to invite myself in. I quickly laid my shovel next to the door, its immense length fitting in the room with its high ceilings before I sat myself down at his desk for a face-to-face conversation.
¡°That is good news. Such a rare commodity today. Good news,¡± he said.
¡°Don¡¯t think so fast. The rain is a growing issue,¡± I told him.
He looked at me pensively. Surely, he knew some of it, but I figured it should be said anyway, in case my specific eclectic knowledge was actually useful. His silence said, go on.
¡°The soil has reached capacity, turned to mud, and is starting to be more water than soil. It can¡¯t drain fast enough. Areas that form natural basins need ditches by roadsides and draining. If they don¡¯t get them, there will be landslides, and even with the forest holding it together, it will become unstable.¡± I told him.
He hung his head slightly in contemplation. Thinking it over.
He did not tell me if he understood what I was saying or much of anything; instead, he thought there momentarily.
¡°The storm is slowing slowly¡¡± He posited.
¡°Not fast enough; it''s damn close to a swamp on the field. The rivers will start to swell if they haven¡¯t already, and that will slow their drainage even more. The city is probably fine, but the rest of it is bad.¡± I told him.
¡°Fantastic. We have such a supply of capable hands,¡± he said, a twitch of his eye telling me he was still quite flummoxed.
¡°It''s not that bad. But it would stop the construction of a wall,¡± I told him. ¡°Think of it as an investment in keeping the wall you want stable.¡±
¡°We don¡¯t even know how to construct a proper wall. No one has done it properly in generations,¡± he told me. A proper wall isn¡¯t just a mound of earth.¡±
I looked at him before realizing that he probably didn¡¯t know what my deal was.
¡°I¡¯m well aware. Moarn¡¯s walls once swelled high and mighty. Even the walls around your castle are ancient,¡± I told him. ¡°Though, I have some hint of where there might be information on building and maintaining walls. It should contain plenty of knowledge to cover the things you need to know.¡±
He looked at me like I was a boastful moron. I didn¡¯t expect that he would believe me. I was some weird commoner girl, a [Saint], sure, but I was just some random woman.
How could I, in all of my infinite wisdom, know of Moarn and its walls, that historic monument?Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
¡°Oh? And you would just happen to have this? Perhaps in your belt pouch? I¡¯ve heard better excuses to curry favour if that¡¯s what you''re going for.¡± He told me.
¡°I forgot to mention something earlier. You asked if I had an inheritance, but I do. I just don¡¯t think of it as mine, even if it is. I know the location of a [Lore Masters] library entrusted to my keeping after the death of one [Lore Master] Skipseo. If there''s anywhere in this valley that would have detailed instructions on anything you need, it would be there,¡± I told him.
¡°And you just casually forgot this?¡± He asked.
He clearly wasn¡¯t buying it, and I didn¡¯t blame him. Behold behind this door your salvation; let me dangle it in front of you. It sounded like the setup for a scam.
¡°I did. If you want someone to confirm it, we were planning to go collect the library tomorrow. Gunther was supposed to try to get your approval for it, but I figured I should mention it. It could be a useful trip if you¡¯ve decided to ok it,¡± I told him.
¡°And?¡± He asked.
¡°And what?¡± I asked him, confused.
¡°And what do you want in exchange for it?¡± he asked, obviously not believing it was going to come out of the good of my heart.
¡°Well, for one, you would need to approve it,¡± I told him, ¡°Obviously. I don¡¯t know. I can work it out later. If people need the information, I can get it. We can work that out later; I¡¯m sure Gunther wouldn¡¯t mind mediating that for me.¡± I told him.
¡°So you expect me to trust that you are doing this out of the goodness of your heart?¡± he asked me skeptically.
¡°Not necessarily, but think about it like this. That library is mine. I currently can¡¯t get my stuff because of your travel ban. If you think about it, the allowance is the cost. Is that more reasonable?¡± I asked him.
It was clear I wasn¡¯t coming across the way I was aiming to. He figured I was more canny a negotiator than I actually was. He figured I was more canny at a whole lot of things by the sound of it.
I was not more canny, not in the way he was thinking, at least.
I mean, if you want me to figure out something using only prior experience, I could do that, but I wasn¡¯t a [Lord]. I wasn¡¯t a political animal, I didn¡¯t bide time, I didn¡¯t seek power over others, I only wanted to gain the power to talk to the girl I liked, and I wasn¡¯t getting that here. Charisma was my dump stat; I could intuit the shit out of something, but only if I had experienced something like it.
Clever like a fox.
¡°I didn¡¯t agree to Gunthers proposal, not yet. I said I would get back to him in the morning,¡± he told me, brow furrowing in thought.
He was trying to read me, piece together my plans and thoughts, and find my empty head, only to think I was more competent than I was. It was a bit disheartening compared to this morning.
¡°It must have been a particularly bad day to go from having a drink with me to thinking I¡¯m some kind of political creature ready to nip at his heels,¡± I thought to myself. ¡°After talking with one another.¡±
It was kind of annoying if I was being honest. But at the same time, there wasn¡¯t much I could do. I could try to play hardball, but all that would do is bury me by putting distance between us.
You couldn¡¯t get someone to trust you by giving them a bruise, and that was what hardball was¡ Not that I could figure out the best way to do it.
¡°I suppose you could give me the answer. Or I could go send her here. She is the one that needs to know. There¡¯s more I have to do out there tonight anyway. You could go get a meal going and have a conversation if you want,¡± I told him.
¡°Not during the night. There''s a curfew,¡± He told me, clearly thinking.
¡°Unfortunately, I need to attend to the dead. I need to sanctify some urns so the dead don¡¯t end up returning. The dead need to be seen too before they¡¯re buried tomorrow, and if that means I get in trouble, I¡¯ll still do it. It¡¯s more important than me,¡± I told him.
And it was. Especially if I was going tomorrow, and I decided that I was, even if I was going solo, I would go and make sure everything was in order, especially with all the water. It has lasted this long, but I should make sure it''s fine.
¡°Openly disregarding that you just told me to my face that you won¡¯t listen to my ruling, what on earth could possibly make you think it''s worth that? The dead are handled. You don¡¯t need to involve yourself, [Saint] or not.¡± He told me.
¡°Their souls are in jeopardy. Many are missing already, stolen for more undead. As one of Deaths [Saints], I can send them over, safe and sound.¡± I told him.
He looked at me before reaching his hands up to rub his face.
¡°You know what. I don¡¯t want to know. Just do it. I¡¯m giving you free rein to walk around at night. If you think something is important, you''re free to do it for now. Just keep me informed if it''s important.¡± He told me with a sigh before. Then he looked at me, his weary eyes visible through his hands, ¡°How did your conversation with the sprites go?¡±
That was nice. Keeping him in the loop would be annoying, but mostly because I would get sidetracked and end up spending twice the time I intended to update him.
Thankfully, I had handed off one of the tasks already. Perhaps Selly would be willing to help.
¡
Oh, who was I kidding? That would just make her mad.
¡°It went well enough. The Queen wanted some time to think it over, so make sure your guards are ready for a tiny figure to fly on over. I think she wants to talk about the details.¡± I told him.
¡°That was¡ Somewhat expected, I suppose.¡± he nodded. I¡¯ll inform them not to swat down any messengers. Did the dig go well? Is anything out of place? Did you dig up an ancient artifact, or perhaps something else that will destroy my sanity?¡± he asked.
¡°The holes are dug and ready to be filled. Nothing but wet earth came out. The path should be well cut. I¡¯m not sure how well I cut through the forest on my way best,¡± I told him, ¡°Is that something that happened today?¡±
He seemed to relax slightly at that.
¡°No, but with how the day was going, I would not doubt it. Ok. So the sites are dug; I need to drain the field¡ Somehow. The Sprites will be in touch, and you want me to ok an expedition to go north to bring back a trove of immensely important information. Is that all?¡±
He asked it, listing off the subjects one by one, and it occurred to me that it was quite a list.
¡°I wouldn¡¯t call it an expedition.¡± I told him, ¡°It should only take a day. It¡¯s not like we''re going north for a week, just a few hours, maybe four by cart. It took me three hours to get back last time, and I was carrying a hearthstone on my back; that one was heavier than Annabeth.¡±
I managed to catch myself before I said Anna, but I had already admitted to carrying her. A split second of worry wormed its way into my heart.
Luckily, he was oblivious.
¡°Not so bad. At least we¡¯ll know if something goes wrong faster,¡± he said with a sigh that I mirrored.
¡°So, should I go get Gunther so you can talk about whatever you need to talk about? I¡¯m not good with details,¡± I asked him, hoping to get on my way before I said something else.
Oblivious or not, if the wrong thing came out of my big fat mouth, it could bite Anna on the ass, apparently. I never knew when my head would draw a connection between two things, and I would say something stupid.
¡®Oh yes, this fabric is so fine, as smooth as Anna. Oh dear, did I say that out loud?¡¯ was very much a possibility if I didn¡¯t watch myself.
¡°I wish I had time to speak with him, but hammering out a deal with Gunther would eat into my time,¡± he told me, his weariness clear. ¡°Gods above, but I wish I had a Gunther to help me with this. I need to find a capable wife somehow or an aid.¡±
I looked at him and thought about something.
¡°You know, Gunther is all about money. If you need a Gunther, why not offer them a tempting trade? Gunther has helpers, but they are busy¡ But I bet the two of you could probably help each other out quite a bit.¡± I told him secretively, a conspiracy in my voice.
He looked at me and told me quite patronizingly, ¡°I can¡¯t marry Gunther.¡± The idea clearly did not fly. Anna apparently fell far from the family tree.
¡°I¡¯m not suggesting that. I¡¯m suggesting you woo Gunther, sure, but not marry them.¡± I told him. I had a scheme. A plan. It was a probably ok plan.
I was terrible at talking. I could yap but not gab. I couldn¡¯t give him good pointers on how to talk to Gunther or how to convince her with words, but I could give him a plan.
¡°I¡¯m not going to muck around with someone¡¯s love life, you dolt. You¡¯re more alike than I think you know, just in different stations, with different high points. You¡¯ve had a snack and called it dinner, and I bet Gunther did, too. I can go get Gunther and send them here to finish negotiations. Finish up that, but do it over dinner. Break out some drinks, talk business, find a pain point, and just play it cool. Make Gunther your aid by reducing the work sh-they need to do. You can lighten Gunther''s load faster than they can, and that frees them up for you,¡± I told him.
He looked at me and scoffed.
¡°As if I hadn¡¯t thought about that. I can¡¯t,¡± He told me.
I looked at him, face unchanged. He clearly hadn¡¯t thought about it.
¡°Why not?¡± I asked him.
¡°Well¡ Because I can¡¯t?¡± he said, though his phrasing made it more of a question.
¡°You¡¯re being a bit slow on the uptake here. I get it. You¡¯re used to things working the way they always do. Blind spots like that are a classic human issue, but run them through your head a few more times. Because as far as I can see, you absolutely can. Clause, you¡¯re a nobleman. I get you don¡¯t get it, but most rules don¡¯t apply to you. You can do basically anything. So, why can¡¯t you?¡± I told him my question, not a question at all.
¡°Well¡ He¡¯s not an [Aid]¡ And he doesn¡¯t work for me. Besides, I can¡¯t give Gunther everything he asks for.¡± He said, a growing tone to his voice that came to sound like a lame mule, hobbling on despite the obvious answer that it should be put out to pasture.
¡°Doesn¡¯t matter,¡± I told him, lifting my fingers as I answered, ¡°Also, it doesn¡¯t matter for this, and it doesn¡¯t matter!¡± I said it to him with a little less finesse than I desired. Worried at possibly annoying more than helping, I began to gesticulate at the forest of paper and pasture of parchment, the ink sea of ink and mountain of slate, and the mountain of effort that mired the room. ¡°You don¡¯t need to be a [Aid] to aid; you¡¯re not giving Gunther family secrets, you just do, well, this mess, and Gunther¡¯s a [Merchant], it¡¯s a trade, you don¡¯t just agree to the starting price, that¡¯s how you get gouged.¡±
He watched my moronic flailing, taken aback by my brilliant oration and persuasive majesty. But despite my flailing, despite my shit charisma, and tone-deaf delivery, it worked.
It worked.
I could see it in his eyes as my blunt words hammered home the idea, bypassing the need for a silver tongue because I spoke a simple truth. I knew they had already worked together a bit, so why not get a little closer?
I could practically see it as my pounding broke the wall in his head. The moment it smashed a breach, the idea invaded, pressing in.
Much like his mother and sister, he got a look as he thought. It had a glacial movement, where Anna had a brilliance behind her eyes and her mother a terrible alignment of intent and will; he was the gaze like a colossus; it moved slowly, but not dimly, its intent a sign of its great and terrible power.
For all that, his simple ¡°Huh¡± Was a vastly simpler answer. It was, however, followed by a ¡°I don¡¯t actually know what food Gunther likes.¡±
That would be an issue, possibly. But I had eaten with her a few times.
¡°Stew or soup, probably with some extra finger foods,¡± I told him.
¡°Finger food?¡± he asked.
¡°Anything you don¡¯t use silverware for. Skewers, prepared bread, that sort of thing,¡± I told him, ¡°You know¡ The kind you can buy on the street?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t ¡®know,¡¯ actually. Sounds like peasant charcuterie,¡± he told me.
¡°Char-what-who-he?¡± I asked.
¡°Charcuterie. A platter of prepared meat, bread, cheese and whatnot. It¡¯s a plain thing. They have fields, pastures and forests, and that¡¯s about it, so there a lot of meat, cheese and bread,¡± he told me thoughtfully before murmuring, ¡°Commoner culture can be a funny thing.¡±
He had the right idea, even if he was swinging at thin air with that one.
¡°Sure. I told him, so, are you on board? Should I send them over?¡± I asked him.
¡°You know what¡ I think you should,¡± he told me, a look of confidence coming over him.
¡°Fantastic. Go clean yourself up and whatnot. I¡¯ll go get Gunther. How long should I wait?¡± I asked, wanting to get the hell out of here.
¡°Around a glass, so to be ready, for sure,¡± he told me.
¡°Okay, than,¡± I told him, standing up to leave. I¡¯ll get my stuff ready and then go tell Gunther you wanted to see them. They¡¯ll be here in around a glass.¡±
He did not thank me, but it was thankless work. I collected my shovel by the door and got going.
I got to Gunther in less than a quarter glass, matching my ass straight through the door, past her receptionist with a, ¡°Excuse me, I¡¯m about to save you so much effort,¡± and gave Gunther¡¯s door a brisk shave and a haircut before throwing it wide.
The gloom I was met with was suffocating, lamp light illuminating the darkened room. Wrapped up in it all, surprised and sudden, sat Gunther.
She looked up at me, her face locking my legs in place and setting the hair on the back of my head on end as she hissed at me.
She looked like a harried animal, backed into a corner and ready to fight for her life.
I did not have a plan for this. This was not how I expected to find her.
And so I, in my infinite wisdom, asked, ¡°How would you like a date with Clause?¡±
Chapter 101
The incredibly tense Gunther was angry until she registered what I had said. When she did, she became even more irate. Dinner with Cluse made her tense but silent.
I stared to panic slightly as she stared at me, eyes too wide, not in surprise, but as if to intentionally intimidate me.
I could see her eyes, slightly bloodshot, contrasting her bright green eyes, the pupils dilated like she was ready to pounce on me, and I was in the doorway.
¡°Excuse me?¡± she asked.
Bashful and now realizing that Gunther was clearly not in her right mind, I drew back, if not physically, in spirit.
¡°Well¡ I just¡ Well, I just¡ I got home to probably say yes to our outing¡ But I told him you would talk it over?¡± I asked, though the increasing look on her face made me continue. ¡°I also told him to help you out, though, and I told him you would handle any requests for information from the library! Think of the money, Gunther! Think about that! And the help you could get from Clause!¡±
She stared at me, unmoved except for her eyebrow, which was beginning to twitch violently.
Maybe I shouldn¡¯t have done this. This was, in retrospect, a bad idea. Her eyes held a quality like she was analyzing the best way to dispose of my body.
¡°I can¡¯t say that you put me in the hole¡ But you called this a date? Is that right? [Spill]!¡± She told me.
Her skill shot out of her mouth as fast as the crack of a whip. A sudden feeling overcame me. I could have tried fighting it; it was not subtle after all, being both spoken out loud and very obvious in its effect as I spontaneously wanted to spill my guts.
And I did; I didn¡¯t even try. I was trying to explain it all anyway.
She glared at me as I spilled my guts, observing me as I spilled my guts out, telling her the entire deal.
I was surprisingly good at conveying answers when under skill. It was like I had points in charisma.
It was honestly somewhat refreshing; I found my sudden glibness enjoyable. It was probably the only compelling skill I had ever felt like that. I did resent it somewhat, but I was going to cut Gunther a break, considering how she looked at the moment.
¡°¡ And then I finished getting him to entreat you for help and stuff, so I got on my way here,¡± I told her, the effect coming to an end as I finished spilling it.
I felt myself lose all the glibness and clarity in my words, and it saddened me somewhat.
It was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the easiest time talking I had in recent memory.
I resolved, at that moment, that I was going to make my next class something with a charisma bonus. Not because I had all the ability of a misanthropic cave-dwelling cretin or because I wanted people to like me more, but because of just how easy it was to find my words, especially in another language. I wasn¡¯t quite a good talker in my native tongue either, but the five stages I needed to go through to speak compared to just being able to speak was just that fantastic.
¡°And?¡± Gunther asked.
¡°That¡¯s it,¡± I told her with a sigh, the weight of conversation already returned, a moment under a fleeting sun.
Gunther sighed.
¡°You know what. I¡¯m slightly chuffed, Saphine,¡± she told me.
¡°Oh? I get it if you¡¯re not looking for extra stuff. I figured you would either agree or tell him to take it up with me. It¡¯s not like I can force you,¡± I told her, sorry if I had caused her more headache.
¡°Not you¡ Well, not entirely you. You¡¯ve just gotten my hopes up, mostly.¡± She told me.
That spun my head right around, taking me into the depths of confusion that I could not comprehend. After all, doing things with social knock-on effects was something akin to advanced magic fuckery to me.
The fact that I somehow got Gunther¡¯s hopes up was insane to me.
Was one of the things I had said simply not as good as she had hoped? I would have thought that Gunther would have loved to have a lord willing to pull strings for her. Hell, she was probably going to make a killing as the middleman between Clause and me.
¡°How?¡± I asked her.
¡°You called it a date. You got my hopes up, is all.¡± She told me, her voice tired. I figured he might have finally picked up on everything.¡±
I looked at her, confused, but replied, ¡°I have no idea what you¡¯re talking about.¡±
¡°I¡¯ve been trying to ingratiate myself with him for over a decade,¡± she told me, ¡°He sees me as a worthwhile ally, but I wished to be more.¡±
More? More how?
¡°Gunther¡ Are you aware that Clause is not a creature of subtlety? I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re more is, but if you¡¯re being subtle, you¡¯re probably going to lose it,¡± I told her.
¡°That¡¯s amusing coming from you,¡± she told me.
¡°Not as much as Clause being Arabelle''s son. She freaks me out a little.¡± I told her.
Gunther scowled at the name. However, she didn¡¯t explain why she hated it. There was a look I could only call admirable hatred. Something like rivalry.
¡°I won¡¯t speak on her; our grievances are our own¡ But I do wish she had rubbed off on him more than she did. I suppose like father like son.¡± She said, rubbing her temples.
I looked at her, still not quite understanding where this was going. I was less oblivious, probably, but it was above my head.
¡°Have you ever thought about being less subtle? Or being subtle in a way that gets you closer to what you want? I can¡¯t tell what you¡¯re looking for, and I¡¯ve figured out more about you than he probably has.¡± I told her.
Gunther looked at me like one did a particularly problematic child, giving a terrible suggestion. But with a breath, she sagged from that to agreement.
¡°It''s because you¡¯re not Human. They look at us and see that we are not human but predict others based on human conceptions. You could tell what was in my pants easily enough, but they couldn¡¯t tell the difference. They see tiny humans, furry humans, green humans, etc.¡± She told me.
¡°Green humans?¡± I asked her.
¡°Not important.¡± She told me, ¡°I¡¯m trying to tell you subtlety is different between groups. Did you know that they can barely tell if you¡¯re flirting with them as a stranger?¡±
¡°I can barely tell if someone is flirting with me,¡± I told her.
¡°That¡¯s because you¡¯re a moron.¡± She said, not taking my point for even a moment.
That kind of hurt, but then again, she wasn¡¯t wrong.
¡°Ouch,¡± I told her. ¡°Still, you¡¯re the thoughtful one. I¡¯m just suggesting that you should be more obvious about what you want. I can¡¯t tell, so he certainly can¡¯t tell. You know what he¡¯s going to do, so make sure to play it straighter with him to get what you want.¡±
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She looked at me and taught me a moron; clear as day, she believed that I should have known what was going on.
¡°What, exactly, do you think I am complaining about, if you need to guess?¡± she asked.
¡°I don¡¯t know. Some kind of trust thing?¡± I asked.
I looked at her, and she looked at me, and then, very slowly, she began to laugh a short cackling laugh.
¡°It¡¯s not that funny,¡± I told her.
¡°HA! Hahaha! You- You think I- Hahaha! Moron! Get out! I¡¯ll go. We can talk about the rest when we get the books! He, He, Hahaha!¡± She said, the look on her face falling somewhere between genuine humour and some kind of fit.
I decided then that I didn¡¯t want to know what she was thinking or talking about. There was too much of Gunther, which I didn¡¯t know. She was old at that moment, like elves. In the way where, they remembered a joke from a hundred years ago and just got it, and that was a very, very uncomfortable feeling to look at.
¡°Oh- Okay then. I¡¯ll¡ I¡¯ll be on my way. Lots of¡ Stuff to do, he, hehe.¡± I told her, backing out of the room, one footstep at a time.
The second I was out, I closed the door, smothering the maniacal laughter, leaving it where it belonged.
I could still hear it, so I retreated to the desk, apologized for any interruption, got a scowl, and fled off into the night a few moments later.
Luckily, they couldn¡¯t catch me. The upside of having legs almost as long as Gunther was tall was that I could move around fast.
And I did get my moving done with admirable speed. Running my long-legged ass all the way to the square that was starting to get.
The roads were empty and cold. Burnt-down buildings were left behind only phantom husks; their stone feet were left behind where they once stood, and blackened char dust lined their bases.
Much of the burnt buildings that were still up this morning had been pulled down, and the beams that had been burnt were no doubt being stockpiled for fuel.
The only thing left in stock for burnt wood was to replace coal.
At least a number of homes would be warm in the winter¡ However, keeping the rest of the city out of the cold would be Clause¡¯s problem.
It wasn¡¯t like they lacked trees around here. Perhaps they could dry the timber with the char if they didn¡¯t have the skills. He had options.
Me, on the other hand¡ Well, I did, too, but not real options.
When I got to the square, a number of burners lit the edges, each contained in a tent not too dissimilar to an open-wall workhouse. Stacks of bodies were in carts, their forms covered in shrouds of tough fabric.
The moments of taking it in showed me just how grimy it was. The water is padding down into the figures, leaving a horrid muck beneath the shrouded forms of the fallen.
I approached the closest person who looked like they were in charge of something: a scribe huddled under a tent flap. He wrote on a ledger, copying words off scraps onto a large ream of parchment.
I tapped on his shoulder, his robes swaying slightly as the repeating motion of his quill stilled in a jerking motion. Drops of ink dripped free before he spun his head toward me, face going white.
¡°Uh, hi?¡± I said.
He screamed loudly and with all the shrill quality of a teenage girl before falling over unconscious. The sudden scream and the noise of his body thumping forward onto the table drew the attention of half a dozen other people, each of whom, in shock and sudden panic, let out shouts, screams and general noises of panic, driven by the characteristic human panic.
There was also one male Beastkin who, in a panic driven by the shouts, turned, fur rising, before he took me in, dressed in my robes, and made a canine noise of confusion.
Two men drew short blades, one woman drew a walking stick free, and another revealed a rock standing from a body and hafted it at me. Her arm was weak, and it thudded all of a yard from her feet.
¡°Undead! Un-¡± ¡°Revenant!¡± ¡°One got up!¡± ¡°Kill it-¡± they shouted, words wheeling in on one another.
¡°Whow! Hold-¡± I started to say, my words drowned out by the shouts of alarm and cut off by the tossing of a second stone. Why these people had stones at all concerned and confused me, driving a spike of panic in me that went above whatever they were doing.
One of the men with swords, naked, blade-free, ran at me, forcing my shovel to come up from next to me to fend him off. He was no [Guard] or [Man-at-Arms], movements open and unprotected.
He swung at me, the short blade coming for my flesh with a shout to drive back a monster from the dark¡ Only for him to come up short when I took one long step back and fraught the flat of the shovel across the side of his head, the metallic Thong of the spade comical as he dropped the sword, stumbling back before falling on his ass flat and silent.
The rest of them took that in, taking the shovel. Those without arms became hesitant, and those with, namely the other man with a sword, eyed me up.
I eyed them up. The frightened woman who threw the rock began to pray; the man stepped back and forth, and the beast kin held back a second man, who took it as him holding him back.
It came to a head when the man with the sword called out, ¡°Begone spirit! Leave your body and return to your slumber!¡±
I looked at him and realized what was going on here, at least in part.
¡°I¡¯m not a fucking ghost, you moron. I¡¯m here to help with the dead! I¡¯m not one of them. Now, what have you been doing with them?¡± I told him, punctuating my words with a smack of my shovel against the paving stones.
¡°I will not be fooled, spirit! I will not be fooled! You have killed a man tonight but no other! I will stop you and put your body to rest!¡± He called out.
I looked at the man, then looked down at the man I had hit, who was clearly not dead and asked, ¡°Are you blind? He¡¯s still rolling around? Are you a bit slow? Look, can one of you explain slowly to this guy what being dead is? You, the kin, could you? Because this guy is very much alive.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not talking about him! You killed [Scribe] Daniels!¡± he shouted.
¡°Uhh,¡± the second man groaned before I kicked him in the leg.
¡°Keep quiet down there,¡± I hissed quietly down at the moron, ¡°Listen. If the [Scribe] is dead, why does he have a heartbeat? Just shake the guy? He¡¯s not dead, that¡¯s for sure; he probably just shat himself into unconsciousness. Gave him a scare is all. Didn¡¯t even mean to, honestly.¡±
They stared at me, and a lot of them did.
¡°You expect us,¡± the second rock-wielding woman asked, ¡°To take the word of a spirit that came out of the darkness and killed the [Scribe] before attacking Jeff?¡±
¡°Well¡ To be fair, he attacked me first,¡± I told her.
¡°You hit my husband over the head with a shovel,¡± She countered.
¡°And he tried to kill me. Your stupid husband, doing something stupid, is not my concern, lady; now put that rock down before I figure out what you¡¯re doing with it...¡± I told her, thinking for a second before I continued, ¡°Because I¡¯m starting to think you¡¯re desecrating bodies, and that¡¯s not going to fucking fly sweat heart. You guys need to start fucking talking before I match my ass over to a [Priest] and get them riding heard on your ass so hard you start thinking you¡¯re a donkey.¡±
They looked at me, and the second dumb ass with a sword was weighing what I had to say and finding it wanting. Luckily for me, the Beastkin wasn¡¯t a hopeless moron, and after holding the human next to him back, he quickly stalked over to the [Scribe], ears flattening as I mentioned desecration.
¡°He has a heartbeat¡ One moment,¡± he said, voice falling into what I felt was characteristic of Beastkin, rumbly like a big dog.
Wolf-adjacent vocals aside. He woke the man, shaking him before slipping something beneath his nose.
It woke him with a start. The [Scribe] quickly shot up in shock, his body rising swiftly as if woken from a dream into the land of the living.
¡°Wah¡ Oh. I must have fallen asleep¡ I had the strangest dream. Somewhat embarrassing, but I had a dream that I was jumped by a¡ What are you¡ Oh, dear heavens!¡± He said.
¡°Hello, Mr. [Scribe]. Why are you desecrating the dead? That¡¯s not supposed to happen, a big no-no even.¡± I asked him.
The praying woman looked up at the man and stopped praying. Looking up, teary eyes cleared slightly from confused panic to far less confused panic. She asked, so clearly that it stood out, ¡°You¡¯re not one of the restless dead?¡±
¡°Are there a lot of those?¡± I asked in reply.
It certainly didn¡¯t look like there were; none of the bodies looked like they were ready to get back up, and there was not enough stagnant mana in them to get them moving.
¡°Only constant ghosts. It¡¯s been eerie all night.¡± She said shakily.
¡°It¡¯s still eerie; there¡¯s a walking corpse complaining about us stopping the dead from haunting us!¡± the second man shouted.
¡°She doesn¡¯t seem like a ghost to me,¡± the man on the ground said before coughing and groaning a second. ¡°Ow.¡±
¡°Dear, are you alright?¡± the rock wielder asked.
¡°He¡¯s fine¡ Or he will be. I did hit him over the head with a shovel¡ Kind of surprised he¡¯s not more hurt, honestly.¡± I told her, murmuring the second half. ¡°You bounced back quickly.¡±
¡°That¡¯s my husband, always bouncing back, fell down as well as a kid he did,¡± she said.
I looked at him and asked, ¡°Is his name Tim?¡±
¡°Tommy Carpenter,¡± He said.
I sighed in relief. Thank the gods, it was starting to wear thin.
¡°Ok, then¡ Good to know. Now, I came here to help out, but I feel I need to ask¡ What in the hells are you lot doing?¡±
They looked a little ashamed at my questioning, looking around at what was going on and whatever they had been doing, and realized they might have been doing something questionable.
Of all the people, it was the Beastkin man who spoke up, unwavering in his beliefs and actions, and said, ¡°There have been ghosts around all night, so we¡¯ve been placing stones in their mouths so they won¡¯t get up after their buried and return to haunt the living as revenants.¡±
¡°What kind of superstitious nonsense is this?¡± I thought to myself before asking, ¡°So¡ You don¡¯t want them to come back¡ So you¡¯re desecrating their bodies¡ To get them to not come back to their bodies? What got that idea in you¡¯re head?¡±
They looked between themselves, and while they were a little shy about answering, they didn¡¯t seem to see the issue here.
¡°How else are we to keep the ghosts from returning? They¡¯ve been making themselves a nuisance all night,¡± the Beastkin man told me.
I looked at the hesitant lot, at the [Scribe], at the jumpy people willing to desecrate the dead, at the mass of dead.
Perhaps there was something going on besides just superstition.
Chapter 102
Superstition. Sometimes they were just nonsense, sometimes they were sensible, and sometimes they were warnings. You could give a superstition to a kid and they could figure it out quickly enough. But when everyone gave their kids a superstition it could transcend a simple warning.
This wasn¡¯t a case of stay away from the river, there are ghosts that drown kids, the kind you tell to kids to warn the young away from falling in and drowning, no, this was a living fear.
There was a seriousness among them that made each believe that what they were doing was not only necessary, but that they could stop the bad, by doing something right now.
That was tricky, and not in the way I could figure out either because it was all about talking them through it and trying to talk people out of superstition, which was not what I was going to be good at.
I would need to try to anyway.
¡°I need you a lot to start explaining right now, or I¡¯m going to start getting unreasonable. Why are you doing it? What''s going on here that¡¯s made you lot do something? Are there ghosts? Are they getting back up?¡± I asked them, doing my best to keep my voice clear and my tone neutral.
¡°Well, we have to-¡± one of them started, but I cut them off.
¡°Details. I need details,¡± I hissed. ¡°I need to know what you think about these things that have happened, like here, today. How are there ghosts? You said ghosts; what are you talking about?¡±
I couldn¡¯t do much at the moment, but if I could figure the problem out, peel back the skin and find the muscle, I could cut this out. If I could triage the problem, I could get this all over with. Wack it over the head, and off we went to let the dead rest in their pots until I got give them their ever after.
¡°Strange occurrences,¡± one of the men said.
¡°Voices in the dark,¡± a woman said.
¡°Three guards wandering off into the dark,¡± Tommy Carpenter said, still mostly down for the count.
¡°Hells. Was that so hard? I needed to know that stuff; that¡¯s the good stuff. Thank you.¡± I told them.
These were the answers I so desperately needed. Good gods, it was like pulling teeth with these lots. You would think I would be threatening them with murder over how damn skittish they were being.
The Beastkin looked at me funnily but gave no voice to whatever he felt like saying.
¡°So¡ Multiple [Guards] have gone missing? Are the others aware of this? Can I assume you¡¯ve gone looking?¡± I asked them.
¡°Are you mad? Go off into the dark? Where the [Guards] went missing? I wouldn¡¯t leave the light of the square if you paid me,¡± the second-armed man told me.
This gave me something to think about.
¡°Ok, so there were actual [Guards], ones that were now missing. Presumably, they were either fine or something bad was going on¡ They think it''s because of ghosts, but the only spirits around are the ones that need to get put in pots. I couldn¡¯t sense anything else.¡± I thought to myself.
What to do though? What could I get done with that? I could run off into the darkness and hope I came across whatever was going on, I could run off to other guards¡
I couldn¡¯t wait on Strause, unfortunately, which left me needing to do it on my own.
Or I could run over one area, find a second group with [Guards], and get them moving on this.
This was where they were collecting the dead, and this square was thought with the dead; there would be more people guarding here than a handful of [Guards].
I seriously needed to get an aid or something.
¡°Where is Selly when you need her,¡± I thought to myself, the thought better of it a few moments later.
She would definitely not care for that, couldn¡¯t speak common yet, and would probably just kick me.
¡°Do you think you lot could hold on a few minutes? I could go get a few [Guards] to keep you company or a [Priest] or two and then go deal with whatever it is,¡± I asked, open-ended, not addressed to one of them but to the group as a whole.
They looked amongst them, three civilians, two and a half fighting men and seemed to come to the conclusion almost unanimously.
¡°Yes,¡± they chorused, with a deviation of, ¡°I don¡¯t see why not¡± or ¡°If you could,¡± from a pair.
I sighed but nodded, quickly picking up Carpenter, who groaned but managed to stay up with some effort.
¡°Ok, then. I¡¯ll get on that, but first things first¡ You, the [Scribe], I need to talk to you.¡± I told him, quickly leaving the flagging man to take care of himself.
He did not like that one little bit. Backstepping, as I closed on him, his head forced to tilt up to stare me in the face.
¡°Wow, hey. I don¡¯t have anything for you,¡± he said waving his hands in a, ¡®no, not me, please leave me alone,¡¯ but I couldn¡¯t speak hand, so it couldn¡¯t stop me.
It probably helped that running away wasn¡¯t an option for him and that he couldn¡¯t walk backward faster than I could stroll toward him.
¡°Could you quit backing up?¡± I asked him.
¡°Could you stop being so damn intense?¡± he asked wearily, ¡°You rustle my jimmies something fierce.¡±
¡°How about you get ahold of your jimmies, whatever those are, and start talking bucko. There should be a bunch of urns around here. Are they here? Because if they¡¯re not, I need to go get them here.¡± I told him as I got within throttling distance, staring down at the shorter man as he watched on, hair raising slightly as a wave of goosebumps took him.
¡°It would be a whole lot easier if you weren¡¯t looming over me,¡± he said, throwing up the sign of Purity, a simple cross of the fingers in a little X shape.
I stared at him, not impressed, at him acting like a fool. I wasn¡¯t this intimidating; he was just being a coward, taking the piss, or both at the same time.
I tried to read him, but all I found was an intimidated man.
The scent didn¡¯t give me much more than my poor social skills, and my instinct gave me nothing but a confused huff as I held it in my mind, the two of us staring out the windows of my eyes at the pathetic man as he trembled.
¡®Leave the rat alone,¡¯ it suggested with its huffing.
¡°But he knows if they¡¯re here. He has to know,¡± I told it.
It sneezed.
This meant nothing; my instinct had spoken, and it was unconvinced.
¡°Talk, little man. Are there a load of urns here or not? It''s not a hard question for you and your¡ Jimmies to answer,¡± I told him. ¡°They¡¯re either here, or they¡¯re not here. And if you¡¯re the one recording things, you would be the one who knows¡ So are they here?¡±
¡°I¡¯m just here to record names,¡± he told me, fear sweat coming through the damp evening air and petrichor.
Cowardice then. Definitely cowardice.
I sighed, but then I brought myself back quickly.
Was it wrong to expect everyone to be as on top of everything as Gunther? Some people were just built to be normal people.
I clicked my tongue and turned from him, ¡°That wasn¡¯t so hard. Now, if you¡¯ll excuse me, I¡¯m going to go kick a [Priest¡¯s] ass.¡±
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¡°Um¡ What?¡± he asked, though I didn¡¯t answer him. I was too busy envisioning how I was going to shatter a man''s ass with my foot while I left him behind.
***
I didn¡¯t get to kick his ass.
I found some guards and almost needed to fight them when I approached. I was a bit surprised, but at least it wasn¡¯t unfamiliar, not after the prior checkpoint.
These guy¡¯s, at least, didn¡¯t think I was a ghost, they just saw me walking around in the dark. I told them about the issue over with the bodies, and at least one of them went to find more free [Guards].
There were twelve of them there, but eight of them weren¡¯t [Guards]; they were just guarding.
I didn¡¯t much care, having gotten out of it without needing to wack anyone over it. But the pattern was repeating itself when the same thing happened again a few streets over.
The [Guards], managed to keep the lot in line for the most part, but this group was five strong, but with more than twenty five it was only so effective and I had to wack two with my shovel before one of them recognized me.
This group thought it was ghosts, too.
I was starting to get creeped out, only getting more so when I got to the old man, and he informed me that they had sent the pots, and they should be there.
When a nearby guard suggested it was ghosts, I had to stop myself from kicking his ass.
¡°This is getting old,¡± I told the [Priest].
¡°Indeed,¡± he said, ¡°After a day like yesterday, the undead are on everyone''s minds. The shadows move, and instead of a [Rogue], it¡¯s a ghost. No doubt that¡¯s what this is. Hooligans running amok¡ Then again¡ With so many lost maybe there is something out there.¡±
Despite the words of wisdom, the [Priest] seemed to mean it. It unnerved me just a little.
¡°Is it common for ghosts to come about?¡± I asked him, ¡°The group over with the bodies was scared of ghosts and revenants. They were placing stones in their mouths. Is that normal, because where I¡¯m from that would be considered a crime.¡±
¡°A rock is known to stop revenants. Assuming you can deal with it, we won¡¯t need to deal with it, but that¡¯s one of the reasons we burn our dead, beyond preventing a rising anyway. Revenants can be quite a hassle.¡± He told me with a weary sigh.
¡°That¡¯s all well and good, but why would a rock help, and why would you stoop that far?¡± I asked him. ¡°Why do all of you people talk about stuff like everything makes perfect sense? Revenant is bad, so defiling the body is good? I need answers man. Bow make stick go far won¡¯t fly when I¡¯m the one that needs to make the bow.¡±
We looked up at me, eyes opening in clear annoyance, but he turned the other cheek.
¡°If I must, I can give you the talk. When there is corruption, the soulless dead rise, and ghosts haunt the witching hour. Having a ghost around can be scary, but it''s often not that big of a deal¡ But ghosts have something similar to a rising; the more of them there are, the higher the chances one gets into a body.¡±
The explanation didn¡¯t need to go beyond that.
A ghost could get into a body.
If a soul hopped into a corpse, and that corpse could become animate.
¡°Naturally occurring ensouled undead,¡± I told him.
¡°Indeed. Intelligent, magical zombies. Honestly, I¡¯m surprised someone worried over revenants wouldn¡¯t have attacked you¡ They didn¡¯t, did they?¡± He asked.
¡°One of the guards guys, one of the new ones, tried, and I knocked him on his ass. He should be fine; I managed to talk to them.¡± I told him, thinking about it.
It made everything clear. The more I knew, the more I understood, and the more I understood, the more I understood. If you could stop a semi-intelligent undead from puppeteering a dead body by sticking a rock in its mouth, it would be no wonder they collectively decided it was reasonable when letting it happen was worse.
It also explained why the people who decided to stop a revenant would run at me. Maybe they could talk. I had an accent and spoke roughly, I used a lot of simple words, I looked like an ensouled undead, and I had an intelligence that was reserved for people. If that was revenant-like, it made sense.
I didn¡¯t just have the looks that could make a kid cry; I was literally a walking-talking ghost story you told to children. There were probably stories where something that acted like me walked out of the dark, eyes ablaze.
¡°What a nightmare¡¡± I sighed, ¡°I really look like a revenant? I mean, I had assumed I was scary or that I reminded people of the undead¡ But a¡¡±
¡°It''s more than just the looks or the way you talk. There are plenty of reasons people may be weary of you. You have a bit of each cautionary tale to you. A strange creature that looks Human but isn¡¯t, eyes like an undead, driven like a revenant, never seems to die like a [Necromancer]¡ You have a bit of all of it, unfortunately.¡±
¡°Thanks,¡± I told him, the lack of thanks clear in both tone and face.
I could certainly use that. It was great for my lacking sense of self-esteem that I was actually something that would make children cry, as I had joked.
¡°Cheer up,¡± He told me, clearly not meaning to kick me while I was down. ¡°You might scare people¡ But they are telling stories about you, too. Did you know that? Are they telling stories about a revenant that spares or saves the lives of good, honest people? You might scare them for now, but your story is just starting out. Right now, you¡¯re a revenant¡ But tomorrow, you could be a whole lot more.¡±
That was clearly supposed to encourage; it just made it worse.
Not only were people telling tales and all the good and bad that came with it, but I was also being directly compared to a scary story.
¡°Great, I can make children afraid of me, fail to live up to my own stories, intimidate people with my greater-than-life tales and never live up to any of it¡ Great.¡± I told him.
¡°It''s not that big yet. You stalk through the dark, finding things that hide in the dark. You carry a shovel to return the dead to their rest and punish monsters,¡± he told me.
¡°I carry a shovel because all my life I was only good at digging ditches, and now I¡¯m some kind of¡ What? A vengeful spirit that hunts evil by moonlight? I can¡¯t even fight a Monster one on one. I managed to save one kid from three gremlins and a handful of skeletons. Now, people are going to think I can magically walk out of a shadow and save them.¡±
I couldn¡¯t be free of my appearance; I couldn¡¯t be free of expectation; I couldn¡¯t be free of other people¡¯s preconceived notions and fears, and so much more.
¡°I wouldn¡¯t worry about that too much. Most people won¡¯t expect that of you. I can see your worries and their cause plainly, but the stories are just stories. No one ever lives up to their stories, and only the unreasonable or young expect that¡± he told me.
¡°Well,¡± I told him, a grim chuckle in my throat, ¡°When I get persecuted again, I can¡¯t wait to say I told you so. I¡¯m starting to think about becoming a [Hermit] because anything else leaves me open to getting tormented by the very stories you think aren¡¯t so bad.¡±
I expected him to act like plenty of others would. I expected the same, ¡®It¡¯s not that bad,¡¯ he had already given me. Everyone seemed to be willing to give advice, but none of it seemed to help.
Instead, he seemed to get to speak and then not, his words stopping before he even opened his mouth. He did open his mouth, but only after a few moments of thought.
¡°I see I am not, as it were, walking a mile in your shoes. I can¡¯t say I can understand your struggle¡ But if you can do what you think you can do, you may have just helped everyone affected by this tragedy. Improve your story, spread it far and wide and let it be your shield. I don¡¯t mind doing my part in helping spread it to the ears of others. Who knows, maybe you¡¯ll find yourself spawning a cult.¡±
¡°You say that like a cult isn¡¯t something I would get stoned for,¡± I told him.
¡°Of all the [Saints] on record, many of them form a cult. The divine have their own aids, but a [Saint] doesn¡¯t need a church; they need helpers, people who cover their day-to-day needs. You have things to do; haggling with a [Baker] isn¡¯t on that list.¡± He told me, ¡°Just¡ Make sure they don¡¯t wear black? That would be very unfortunate.¡±
It would be.
¡°I don¡¯t want to be deified, I don¡¯t think. That might just be worse than the rest of this nightmare,¡± I sighed.
He shrugged. ¡°Such is the way of being a [Saint]. You have no control over the thoughts of others, only how you interact with them. A formal cult is the best way to deal with it; when the alternative is letting them act in your name in whatever way they see fit, interaction is important. Think of a cult as a society. The bad kind exists, formed around shady figures, but the Gods have cults too.¡±
Great.
Fantastic.
¡°Super. I¡¯m sure that I can explain that to a guard when they stumble in on us. Oh me? I have a cult, don¡¯t you know? Nah, not like a bad one, one of the good ones, you know, like the gods have. Why, yes, am I comparing myself to a God? Why are you taking out your manacles?¡± I told him with a sigh.
¡°There you go. Now you''re joking. Much better. Now¡ If you¡¯re done lamenting your every happening, I do have things to attend to? You have your fresh urns; go find them. The [Scribe] on duty should have a log of everything.¡± He told me, shoeing me away with a wiggling of his fingers before he turned and stalked off.
Huh.
Wait a minute.
I sighed. That sly dog had gotten me talking so he could leave in a way that would make it rude to stop him from leaving him be. That rat bastard. I now had more on my plate, and I wasted my time.
Fantastic.
I felt a moment of peak at that. And I had a sudden urge to punch something, but I contained that urge. It would solve nothing and waste more time.
Instead, I took my feelings and put them together. ¡°If I start a cult, I¡¯ll dress in black all I want. Because why not? If it''s mine, I get to set the dress code. I¡¯m tired of feeling like I¡¯m stepping on eggshells because I have to moderate myself for a bunch of idiots. So fuck it. Why should I care? I¡¯m fighting uphill already. I don¡¯t need to do what I¡¯m doing for them, and I don¡¯t need to step on eggshells,¡± I said to no one in particular.
The [Priest] was right about a few things; I couldn¡¯t control what others thought. I could spend all my time spinning a story, and maybe that would work, but quite frankly, I wasn¡¯t much of a [Storyteller]. So fuck it. If I could either stay hunched to take the blows and not stand out or stand tall and put myself above others, I would stand tall. Besides Anna, I didn''t much care what people thought, I just didn''t want their ire. I didn''t care if I was loved or feared, I wasn''t a ruler playing the long game.
If I let the average Human to drag me down to their level, I wouldn¡¯t get anything done. My goal didn''t truly have anything to do with them. I wanted to save the valley. If the Humans who ruined it didn''t like how I did it, that was none of my concern. It was more of a bonus that it kept people alive.
It''s not like when I traded my life for others I got anything positive out of risking myself. The only time I had gotten something was from being strong enough to have not died at all.
"I don''t need to do it for them. I¡¯ll do it for myself, and if they don¡¯t like it, they can go pound sand," I murmured.
There had to come a point where you had to stand up for your beliefs, or yourself, or another. There came a point where either you let the world act on you or acted on the world, and if this wasn¡¯t a good enough time to stand up and put on my big girl clothes, then it would be too late to do it. So I walked back out into the dark like I was ready to break the world''s kneecaps. I had to find those urns, and Gods help me if someone had taken them because I was just about ready to kick the snot out of them.
The Gods, apparently, had a funny sense of humour because the stars aligned on my revelation. The urns weren¡¯t magically there when I got back. Someone had stolen my urns, and I got to blow off some steam.
Chapter 103
Returning to the sender took no time at all, and checking for a literal ton of pots took even less time.
That meant that someone had messed up because those were my pots, and I was no longer trying to be diplomatic. I had a long evening ahead of me and a whole lot of ground to cover, and I needed to get going now.
The guards were no help, obviously. They didn¡¯t know about the pots, they were fresh, and most of them were normal people with an inflated sense of duty that I had met along the way. The number of actual [Guards] among them was nearly nonexistent.
When I mentioned the loss, they suggested: That I should get the sender to send a new shipment because I didn¡¯t have an invoice, That this was clearly an ill omen and that I should mind my own business, and that I should go help tend to tasks more fitting my station.
That last one was not what was said, and it made my state of peak even worse.
Part of that was just a further reinforcement that I was somewhat right¡ But it was also because a part of me wished that they were better than they were, and the disappointment sat well next to my increasingly impulsive anger.
I stomped off and started thinking.
There had to be something here that pointed to them existing. There had to be even just one pot, even just broken pottery. A spot that was suspiciously dry or the lingering smell of someone that should not be.
The only thing I found were the smells of those that were already there. The weariness of the men and women that had been holding the fort, the pointless pride and aggression among the citizen soldiers. The stench of bodies starting to go, the rain and the fear stark among all the others as the [Scribe] watched me, periodically.
The more I marched around and around, the more my instinct started to rile me. Guards, wenches, corpses, [Scribe], guards, wenches, corpses, [Scribe]. Around it went, slowing before going the opposite way, my feet tapping on the cobbles.
Then, the reason for it began to dawn on me.
The [Scribe] was afraid.
He was the only one who reeked of fear sweat.
I slowed, coming to a stand still, trying to piece together why my instinct had changed its mind¡ And then, it occurred to me why.
The [Priest] had told me, that the [Scribe] was supposed to take care of logging everything. The [Scribe] said he was supposed to only note down the names of the dead.
I had spooked him sure, but had he been truly afraid before I had mentioned the pots?
I was staring off into space, before my head turned slowly toward the [Scribe]. Like a Balista orienting on a formation of troops.
He looked at me, waving guiltily.
The rest of my body oriented, my movements predatory and he stopped waving. He started panicking a little too late, because I was already running at him.
He was lying, that¡¯s why he was afraid of me. I knew there was something going on, no one else was aware, but I could add these clues up.
Moving like a bat out of hell, I sprinted toward him, taking my spade and a thin draw of mana to bury the spade between the paving stones. I slammed forward onto the desk, the solid wood frame creaking beneath the force of my assault.
¡°Please leave me alone,¡± the [Scribe] squeaked, his logbook to his chest with one hand, the other on the desk as he caught his breath.
¡°Give me that book, or I¡¯m going to make you sing like a [Choir Boy]. Where are the pots!¡± I shouted across the desk at the weasel.
¡°Would the two of you stop that racket? Ma¡¯am, stop harrying the [Scribe].¡± A newly arrived [Guard] called toward me from behind.
¡°Keep out of this, ankle bitter. This [Scribe] is in charge of logging everything,¡± I shouted. ¡°There are missing goods, and he¡¯s not only lied about that, but also about his job,¡± I shouted back at him. ¡°I¡¯ve caught him in a lie about that, and unlike everyone here, he¡¯s actually afraid of me. If anyone here is dirty, its him.
The more I mentioned it, the closer to panic he became and the more sure I was that he was crooked.
Someone behind me called up to me, but I was too busy. I was quite a bit taller than most people, and with it, I frequently found myself either looming or slouching like I was trying not to blot out the light. Now, I loomed, my form raised and back straight but for the bend as I leaned over the tiny figure.
¡°I have no idea what your- Gurk.¡± He said, his words cut off when I reached over the table and picked him up by the armpits.
Lifting him up and over the table like a cat as he fussed, shouting wordless noises, I asked him, ¡°Where are my pots, pen pusher? Start talking, or I¡¯m going to start shaking you. They were delivered, I have [Priest] Thatcher''s word on it.¡±
¡°Ma¡¯am! Put the [Scribe] down; you''re interfering with his duties! Were in a state of emergency.¡± The voice from behind shouted.
Turning to face him, I tucked the [Scribe] beneath one arm like a bundle of laundry as he panicked, though not vocally. He was squirming and breathing heavily like a trapped rat, but he was fine.
¡°We''re going to be in a worse state if those urns aren¡¯t found, Guardsman. I was given an allowance by Lord Clause, so I could explicitly prevent the spirits of the restless dead, and this buffoon has now placed all of you in danger. Either you can start helping me, or you can stay out of the way,¡± I told him, my words forcefully and edged, a mace as opposed to a fine blade. I was willing to be diplomatic, but just barely.
My current opinion of most people was somewhere between barely sentient and pack-bonding animals, and the way the guards were piled together like a pack of wild dogs was not helping their case. It was a shame, the real [Guards] I had met yesterday were actually decent.
As if to make his case for ignoring humanity in its entirety for me, the guard valiantly charged on with a ¡°Likely story.¡±
Gods above watch over me in this time of trial and give me the patience to not beat half a dozen men for being exceptionally thick in the head.
¡°I¡¯m starting to see what Strause meant about forming a militia,¡± I said, my disappointment immeasurable and my evening ruined. ¡°You guys are just¡ Not thinking with your heads, are you?¡±
¡°What is that supposed to mean?¡± The pack leader asked.
¡°It means that unless one of you is actually a [Guard], I¡¯m going to do what I think I need to,¡± I told him.
¡°You can¡¯t do that; we¡¯re still guards,¡± a second one said as if to rile the rest of them up.
¡°If you were guards, you would be guarding the square, not standing in a posse,¡± I told him before turning to look down at the form of the [Scribe] beneath my arm. ¡°Now, let''s go look through your log book together and read all the funny things inside and out loud.¡±
¡°Please don¡¯t,¡± the [Scribe] said, but I had already turned around to the table and flipped the book.
¡°Bunch of names¡ Bunch of names¡ Let''s see¡ Oh, here''s some stuff. Man, these numbers are all over the place; let''s see what''s with this one right here. You get to call for guards, but you knowingly asked for only four of them? For the entire square? Fascinating¡ And here''s a bit written in about there being a dozen people working on organizing the dead¡ But there are more people here than just helping. Who are all these people?¡± I asked aloud.
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¡°They went home early! It¡¯s been a long day!¡± He said hoarsely.
¡°Funny, it says right here that they were only here for two hours? What was delivered¡ Oh, that¡¯s a whole lot more than my pots, though there are some urns in here¡ Oh, would you look at that? There was a collection of grave goods. An itemized list of the dead''s belongings¡ Funny, I don¡¯t see those goods anywhere,¡± I told him. Looking up from the book to observe the square.
Those gathered looked around the square, at least the workers did. Bless them; they had at least some sense.
¡°Everything is accounted for,¡± the [Scribe] said.
¡°Likely story,¡± I told him, echoing the words from the guard. Half of them were still thinking over what I had been talking about. But there was still a cadre of knuckle draggers that were unmoved.
He had support, but I bet I could get him to cave if I pulled it out from under him.
¡°Well¡ I suppose if you''re unwilling to tell me where these goods disappeared, I¡¯ll just have to drag you off to see a [Guard Captain]. They¡¯ll sort you out. I mean¡ You¡¯ll be ruined, but that¡¯s a price I am willing to pay. What do you say guards? Do you guys know where the nearest [Guard Captain] is?¡± I asked them, picking up the book.
That both chastened the guards and made the [Scribe] panic.
The rest of the militiamen seemed to panic slightly at the idea of bringing up a [Guard Captain].
¡°I¡¯m sure that isn¡¯t needed,¡± the [Scribe] said.
¡°Well, you¡¯ve misplaced a vital resource. They were here, but there was no destination, so someone clearly made a mistake,¡± I told him.
¡°Uhh¡ Whoops?¡± he asked.
¡°Whoops?¡± I asked back, ¡°What does Whoops mean?¡±
¡°I mean¡ I remember now that you¡¯ve jogged my memories¡ I¡¯m sure we can come to a reasonable compromise?¡± He said, looking up at me.
I smiled, for that was the best way to do this, before saying, ¡°No¡± drawing out the ¡®o¡¯. It was, the most fun I had for quite some time, and so saccharine that just saying it made my teeth ache. ¡°You''re going to tell me what I want to know, and then I¡¯m going to leave you with these nice, kind people behind me. The other option is I¡¯m going to hop up onto the rooftops and start searching. I¡¯m not very good at that yet, though, so I¡¯ll admit, I¡¯ll probably drop you multiple times. Once I¡¯m done, then I¡¯ll show you to Clause Mynes personally, and assuming the Mynes family guard doesn¡¯t cut your head off because you''re unwelcome, you can explain to him why you aided a bunch of criminals.¡±
I told him it was like I was telling him I was going to bring him out for brunch and then get him an hour with a strapping lady with a red light outside her room. The look on his face as I did it, made the entire thing worth it, as terrible as that would sound outloud.
He looked at me like he just got kicked in the nuts and asked for rent at the same time, a contortion of panic where there was clear doubt on how much of that was serious. My grinning probably didn¡¯t help.
But than again, a grin was not enough to undercut my image. If I was a bedtime story, a warning of a credible threat than a smile would only unnerve him. And while I looked into his eyes, seeing all the confusion, my grin must have been a terrible thing indeed, and it only grew wider once he started to react to it.
¡°So¡ What do you have to say?¡± I asked him.
Because at that point, the only thing that mattered was his answer.
***
He folded. He folded so quickly that it gave me ten kinds of whiplash¡ which was surprising.
Normally talking took up so much more time, but just walking in and acting confidently had somehow stunned the entire crowd into just¡ Going along with it.
It was like I had mind control powers based purely on ego.
I had even had a little fun by just acting like my shit didn¡¯t stink. It made me feel drunk with power, but all good things needed to come to an end, and for me, that was handing him over to the guards, who still didn¡¯t believe me but started to act the part from pure peer pressure and crawling up to the rooftops.
Why the rooftops? I had, after all, done this once before and gotten winded when I encountered the eaves of a rooftop stomach first.
Well¡ It wasn¡¯t a smart idea, but as it went a little like, ¡®But I can¡¯t just walk off, or I¡¯ll look like a liar,¡¯ to which I countered by thinking, ¡®I mean¡ Why not the rooftops?¡¯
It turns out that being drunk on anything has a way of making something seem way smarter than it really is.
It wasn¡¯t all that hard, though, once I got the hang of it.
The [Scribe] gave me a general area to head toward, and I got going, moving across the poorly planned housing like a janky road paved with roof tiles. They were very janky, though, and the windy nature of the buildings got me there just faster than going on the ground, and even then, it was only because there were patrols, roadblocks and a few areas that were covered in rubble.
I had seen the [Hunters] on the rooftops the other day, and I had to wonder if there was a skill for this or something because it seemed a strange way to traverse a city, even if it worked.
It was, if nothing else, a little fun, which was good enough for me. Perhaps Selly was right, and I needed to ¡®Show off,¡¯ or more accurately, just mess around a little. I mean¡ I was running on top of houses instead of around them; it was, if nothing else, novel.
It was also good for one more, ever so slightly important thing.
I could see further.
And that made finding the stooges and their cart.
All I had to do was cross over the rooftops until I found a cart moving in the night; the tap of my footsteps drowned out by the rain on the tiles as I watched them roll down the shadowy street, wood wheels thunking on the uneven paving stones.
I could jump down, but I wanted to make sure the rest of the goods were there; the urns were visible their bulk covered by oiled cloth to keep their insides dry, but the possessions weren¡¯t. If they weren¡¯t there, I¡¯ll would need to find where the rest of it went.
The people themselves struck me, however, not as thieves.
They were wearing dark clothes, but not [Thief] clothes. I hadn¡¯t seen many of them, but presumably, they wouldn¡¯t favour baggy black cloaks.
No, these lots struck me as [Cultists], though their size meant they were not Gremlins, at least. I couldn¡¯t be sure, but the thought just made me not want to stop them.
After all, where there was one, there would be more, and the three down there, the two normal human ones and the giant frame of the third walking next to the wagon, would be my ticket to finding whatever hole they were hiding in, and excising it before something else came to rip up the lives of those I actually cared about as few and far between as they may be.
I didn¡¯t care if there was a chance that they were one of the ¡®good ones¡¯ when the other chance was they were gathering some kind of component to summon a demon or something.
I followed along making sure to not be spotted as I made my way across the wet tile as I tried to listen in on the three as they talked, their voices drowned out by the rail and thump of wheels as they made their way slowly back to their hide away.
What wasn¡¯t drowned out was the tones, most of them anyway. Of the three, two were men and one a woman. They talked normally, their voices not hushed like they were hiding, and when they came upon a small checkpoint, they didn¡¯t shout as they got let through.
They were acting¡ Normal, which threw me further as I stalked them across the rooftops.
How deep did this go? Were they in with the [Guards]? Were they allowed out as part of another duty, and were they just using that as a cover? Were they not cultish enough? It certainly struck me that way, but maybe I was wrong. Was it just because they were faceless to me, their hoods pulled far over their faces? Were these weirdos secretly a pillar of the community?
I mean¡ They had to have dyed those cloaks black, there was no way they got those from someone else; there was no way they would come in that colour or fit. They looked like they were dyed with iron char and they didn¡¯t even fit as mourning robes or even a normal cloak.
This confused and annoyed me, but I didn¡¯t jump the gun; I stuck to my plan, waited and let them come to a stop after pulling into an alley, waited for them to enter, and as they closed the door behind them, I made my way down the building the hard way.
I dangled over the side perilously with the closest fall and fell, my body cussing me out to the sound of, ¡®Oof ouch, my bones,¡¯ as I flinched my way back around the building and started trying to figure out what was going on here.
The goods were still in the cart, so I checked there first.
I found only a few goods that weren¡¯t urns, the surprisingly small vessels stacked densely in the cart, though a little simple math told me that there weren¡¯t enough vessels, assuming there were thousands of souls out there, even if I could fit three or four into one of these smaller urns, I would need two thousand of them, and this was maybe one and a half, some three-quarters of the number I needed.
Checking the jars closer led to me finding goods inside the urns. Each was lain out like they were personalized, a weird trick perhaps, or perhaps these three had ulterior motives.
I was, after all, looking to use these for holding souls. If you could set up a bunch of families with urns, you could safely harvest the souls inside, pluck them out. The last set of cultists had proven that through some sort of blasphemous magic they could collect the souls in a well and have them produce energy. Why not harvest them from urns? Tip out the souls into a well and presto, no one was the wiser and you had helped them.
It was certainly a little devious but less monstrous approach.
The rest of the cart was less than helpful, the mule pulling it was wet and very disappointed looking but I gave the poor lad a scritch behind the ears and he and me were solid.
Very important, should I decide to ride off into the sunset with the urns, but while I could do it right now, I should make sure that there wasn¡¯t some kind of nightmare scenario about to unfold.
And with that, I gave the mule one last scritch, pulled a blanket over him after plucking it from a pack behind the cart seat and stalked around the building.
It had a red lantern outside the front, and that was all I needed to know.
There weren¡¯t even signs telling you what it was, but a red light was a red light.
How to approach this? Head on? From behind? Perhaps some chin waggling would occur, but otherwise, I had a feeling this was going to be rough and troublesome no matter how I approached it, and leave me with an ich after I was done.
¡°Land¡ Don¡¯t tell Anna where I am right now¡ Ok?¡± I asked it, my thought sent over cool, moist air.
It gurgled a confused, warbling sound like a dozen birds chirping in unison, but I took that as agreement¡ I could only hope it was, anyway, because I had a feeling Anna would kill me if she found out.
I entered the brothel.