Taking a bath I had a realization, I don’t sweat.
I’m still weirded out. I held that heavy ball for hours and not a single drop of sweat. I have no idea how my body regulates heat. Goodbye smelly sweat, I won’t mourn your loss.
It turns out the metal things Prina gave me are nail caps. They perfectly cover them and don’t slide off no matter how hard I shake my hands. What’s keeping them on and preventing them from being cut up is most likely the tiny red characters inscribed inside them, I can feel my manalite being sapped away by them very slowly. I’m finally able to touch things without having to worry about accidentally dicing them up.
I was worried the blessing would interfere with them on my right hand but they hold just fine. I fiddle with them for a bit before discovering that I can cut the flow of energy to take them off. Now that I used mana just once, I can sense my crystal and manalite very clearly inside me. If I had to guess, the advanced mana sense I got is probably helping a lot, the thing cost fifty thousand karma after all. The crystal is right in the middle of my thorax, nestled between the vertebral column and the aorta I think. It’s about the size of a golf ball, like the one on Veneron’s staff, but instead of being spherical like that one, or looking like a misshapen rock like the ones in my bag, the shape is more like that of a cut up amethyst cluster, like a lump of smaller cubic gems.
I don’t know how big the coins Eviniel was referring to are but I doubt they’d be smaller than that. The good news is I can probably sustain some interesting magic already with a crystal that big, way better than starting with a grain of sand sized one. The bad news is I probably don’t have the option to change affinity ever. The affinity of growth I have isn’t exactly the most obvious thing to make use of even if I have a few ideas on what it may be able to do. It’s a ‘greater’ affinity even, whatever that means.
Pondering on my magic, I’m still naked and dripping. There’s a towel near the barrel, another piece of good news.
Examining the clothes on the bed, there’s a lot of things here. A piece of male underwear with a hole in it, surely for the tail, a shirt, a long sleeved jacket, short pants that stop just below my knees with a pair of suspenders, very long black socks, and a pair of gray leather shoes. I also find a round piece of elastic string… Oh for my hair!
The outfit is pretty nice, all black, though the color is lightly washed out, it’s very simple and practical, I can see why that would be used for fencing. On the back is an emblem representing two crossed swords covered in lightning, am I really allowed to wear this?
Overall it fits me relatively well, aside from a bit of free room in the chest area. The wool cape Veneron gave me doesn’t fit in my bag so I put it back on top.
I move around a bit to get used to it all. There’s a line of red characters on the inside of the jacket that I didn’t see before. I’m surprised it didn’t activate by itself like the nail caps so I tentatively send a touch of energy towards it. The jacket trembles for a second then stops.
Let’s try again. This time I send a lot more, a continuous flow of energy. The jacket vibrates, slightly, then stronger and stronger, and all at once, it suddenly tightens on me, and stops reacting at all.
Calling it a perfect fit now would be downplaying it, it feels like a skinsuit created to snuggly embrace my body. I get why she decided to have me wear this now, it’s a lot less of a hassle to find the right size when the clothes just resize themselves for you. I must look quite dashing right now. But there’s no mirror in the room.
I meet Prina some time later in the corridor while I’m coming back from the toilet.
“I see you’re done, go take your sack and follow.”
Does she always speak so coldly? Well, I’m a bit of a freeloader right now, not the best first impression.
She leads me back down to the first floor, it’s quite late and all the people previously in the building have left, it will be night soon. After going through the large main hall, we stop in front of a steel door at the end of a small side corridor. The door is shut and surrounded by multiple layers of glowing red characters.
“We are waiting for the Guild Master. She should be here soon.”
The girl looks like she could be fifteen but I’m starting to understand that I probably shouldn’t use Earth’s standards to judge people’s age.
“While we wait, could you give me a quick run down on people’s species if you don’t mind? I’ve only ever met Eisures until now and High Priest Veneron said he was a Valtar I think, but I have no clues about you or the others I saw in here during the day. I am really lacking in common knowledge. Ahah.” I scratch my nape as if to hide my awkwardness, which doesn’t work at all, and almost let out a yelp. Yeah, forgot there were scales there.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“The people of Krel are mostly Valtars and Eisures. Valtars were the original inhabitants, they still run most of the shops and official businesses, you know what they look like already, they’re sadly rather short lived. I’m a Venpar, we have wings, horns and strong legs, you won’t see many of us, as most are centuries old nomadic hermits.” Centuries old? That sure explains her looks, they must age very slowly.
“Besides that the city hosts some small groups of Stonefolk refugees, the name should speak for itself, and some odd families of Ceneks here and there, they have furry ears and tails, one more joint in their legs, and are strongly allergic to meat. There’s a lot more species outside the city but it’s unlikely you encounter many of them here.” So she can talk quite well after all, although her descriptions are very terse.
“You two look like you’re getting along well.” A dark shadow looms over us both. It’s Eviniel, she’s so tall she’s blocking all the light.
“Let’s do this quickly so we can go eat, oh, you’re paying for the food, small guy.” I don’t have a say in this it seems. I just hope my mana crystals are enough for us three, guess I owe them at least this.
“Sure, tall lady.”
She goes forward to open the door, me and Prina have to stick to the walls to let her through, the corridor is rather narrow. She touches the door and the rune lines stop glowing on by one, soon enough the door opens by itself. We all enter a fully steel walled room, lit up by a single small glowing golden orb stuck in the ceiling. So this thing is the identity stone…
It’s more than the name makes it out to be, forget a stone, this is a full on mechanical contraption. The thing is about two meters on all sides and takes up a third of the room, there are many visible gears and lines of runes. There is definitely a ‘stone’ part, one of the two panels on the front, it’s made of tightly packed small squares of different stones and metals, altogether being the size of a hand. The other panel is larger, like an old computer screen, and on it are six completely flat red lines.
“What are all those magic red lines made of anyway?” I mumble but the intent is clearly for them to hear it.
Eviniel is already turning dials and pushing buttons on the ‘Identity Stone’ but she still turns her face towards me. “Those are rune lines, they’re mana treated copper wires imbued with spells. Copper is quite expensive because of this, so you can guess why this room is so well secured with this thing in here. Put your hand on the stone.”
I place my hand on the small panel. Prina is helping operate the machine on its other side.
“Now send some energy in the stone panel, don’t be shy, just let out a lot. You need to make sure every small square on there gets some or the reading won’t be complete.”
I send some manalite directly towards the panel with my left hand, after about thirty seconds of a slow stream I’m signaled to stop. It’s fortunate because I’m starting to be lightheaded from the crystal consumption, I really wasted a lot on the osmium ball earlier if just this much more has me feeling bad.
“Looks like you’re already registered, we’re going to learn a lot more about your past!”
Both girls gather in front of the second panel.
The red lines on the panel slowly bend themselves into new shapes, wow, this is all my data isn’t it! TOO BAD I STILL CAN’T FUCKING READ!
They’re both reading for a second before Prina looks at my face and I think she understands what’s happening. She starts reading out loud. Thank you, you’re a lifesaver, really.
“Arren Sapin, Eisure Male, Born forty-eighth of the fading tide, 6852. That would make you twenty years old, today’s date is the fifty third of the rising tide 6872.” I really need to learn to read and get my hands on some common knowledge children books, or get someone to answer all my questions for a while, there’s too much I don’t know.
“Ascetic follower of the goddess of sculptors, no known domicile or relations.” They both look at me with surprise. What, don’t ask me, I don’t know anything.
“The goddess of sculptors? The one with a temple in the Ashvales? Don’t see that often.”
Miss guild master sure knows a lot of things. And this whole thing answers why I’m already registered. I have a wild guess about who that goddess of sculptors might be, just a hunch really, a smidgen of a tiniest fleck of an idea.
“No criminal records.” Yeah that’s a given, I wasn’t even here.
“Greater affinity of growth. Cubic cluster type crystal at the fourth level. Manalite purity 99.8%”
“Purity is fine, cluster crystals are unusual and fourth level is what you’d expect of a trained mage your age. Cubic formations are common. I’ve seen affinity of growth before, it’s a time type affinity. Never heard of greater affinity of growth though, Prina?”
“Greater affinities are rare enough as it is, never heard of this one either.”
“We all have greater affinities here so it doesn’t feel that special. Must be like ours, just more added flexibility.” She crosses her arms. “You don’t usually tell people your affinity, just so you know. But since you already half guessed I can tell you mine, the whole city already knows I deal in lightning anyway. I have a greater affinity of charges. Lets me do all kinds of things with electricity and magnetism.” She demonstrates by lifting a single finger and creating an electric arc between it and the ceiling. Her purple eyes barely glimmer in the process, that’s the first time I’ve seen them light up at all.
“Prina’s is a bit more subtle, maybe if you study her enough you might be able to guess too.” She’s failing real hard to hide her smirk. I think I’ve been spotted admiring the maid dressed girl’s back. What can I say, I like my fit girls, the years on the ship have been quite lonely. The Venpar girl in question didn’t show any reaction. I don’t think I’ve seen her expression change a single time except when she read about the goddess of sculptors.
And this guild master is very, very observant, better remember that.