The daily training schedule is rigorous. I have the servants wake me twenty minutes before sunrise to climb on top of the sloped tiled roof to study magic, focusing on learning animal talk. I dabble with the power shot version of missile guidance and lightning bolt, but I doubt I’ll learn them in time. I would also try for remote sensing, but basic isn’t very useful and field is even less likely to be achieved than the others.
After spending about an hour learning magic on the roof I go down and spend an hour training swords with Alan. It’s exhausting, so afterwards I take my breakfast in the bath while studying spells and reading on anatomy and herbalism, which Alan knows the least about of my selected subjects.
Unfortunately, he only lets me stay two hours in the tub before forcing me out to spend three hours studying law followed by an hour of etiquette and another hour-long swording session. Then I spend another hour studying in the tub while eating lunch followed by two hours of being taught math and history each. Then another hour of swording, and it’s about sunset so I head back to the roof to study magic. Once done I take another bath while studying and fall asleep in the tub. I wake a few hours later and force myself out of the relaxing bath and into the cloud-like bed where I sleep until the servants wake me for sunrise.
I find it extremely satisfying. I spent the last three years wishing I had more time to study and now I have it. I get the sense that Alan expected me to complain, but I don’t see why. The schedule might be strict, but I typically get about 9 hours of sleep each day and he does his best to make the lessons pleasant. Perhaps his other noble pupils tended to… ‘Other noble pupils’, how odd that I took to thinking of myself as a noble so quickly.
Rather than in a stuffy room the lessons take place in a nice garden while being served refreshments by the servants. I find it very conducive to my focus and suggest we move the tub out there, but Alan rejects that on the grounds that some of the neighbours can see down into it. I get the sense he thinks I should have thought of that. I suggest we just erect a canopy over it if that’s an issue, but he still doesn’t think it’s a good idea.
I itch less than I expected. Not at all while studying in the bath, and only a little while studying in the garden. I do find myself scratching while swording– the desire to offer Alan increasing with every smug showboating– and I wake with bloody streaks on my skin each morning, but otherwise keeping busy seems to help.
Five days of this goes by before my clothes are ready. Alan goes over the details and how they invoked the promised ‘neutral with a hint of masculine’. I don’t really see it, but I trust he knows what he’s talking about. They are nice though, smooth silk and loose, but not so loose as to impede movement. The tops are tunics with intricate multicoloured fractal patterns that buttons in the front with an asymmetric flap.
Everything of course has pockets, which are popular in recent noble styles. So much in fact that some nobles have taken to having fake display pockets, a trend I cannot fathom.
It’s strange, when I got my clothes in Fluemberg I was struck by how I never thought I would own clothes as good as them, but now, despite having much nicer clothes, I’m much less affected. Maybe it's because I didn’t buy them myself with coin that I had earned? But no, I do feel good from being given the gift, as I did with Lindrid. Do I just not like the style? They are slightly less practical than my previous outfits, but not much, besides there is something to be said for the increased comfort.
Maybe it’s just that the impact from going from peasant clothes to decent ones is greater than the impact of going from decent to lavish.
We change houses to Alan’s ‘main town house’ which is about four times as large with a similar increase in the number of servants. I do get introduced to the ones who are assigned to me, but I have trouble remembering their names and faces. There are three of them, but I accidently acquire a fourth when I mistake another for one of the three and start having them do tasks. It’s a little embarrassing, but I pretend it was intentional.
Forgetting them is a bad habit, I know. I should be a lot more paranoid, but it’s their manner that makes it so hard to keep track of them. Like their entire beings are telling me they’re beneath me and not worth notice. I suspect they train to achieve that exact effect.
“You should explore the city some, now that you’re not posing as my secret lover. I’ll squeeze a few hours into the schedule.” Alan says during dinner on the day of the move. “I’ll take a half hour off math and history each, any more will have to come out of your tub time.”
I groan at the thought of reducing tub time, as the one here is even nicer– capable of maintaining near boiling temperatures even if it can’t reach them on its own. Alan says it can’t be healthy for me, even if I don’t get burned because of the belt, but quiets when I remind him it helps my itching.
“All right, I guess there was something I was meaning to do.” I say.
“Have you finalized your exam schedule yet?”
“Maybe. Depends on if you think I’ll be ready for the unarmoured sword test.”
“I don’t see how we have a choice, since it would be weird if you didn’t, given your ‘family’ history. Don’t worry though, you’ll just need to win once in a double elimination tournament to get positive points, which should be doable. You might not be the best with sword technique, but you have more actual combat experience than most of them should and you’re learning fast.”
I nod. “The only question then is if I should partake in the general no holds barred tournament, since I can use weapons I’m more used to.”
“It’s not really no holds barred, since you can’t use your own magic or any ranged weapons. But whether you should do it depends on how much coin you have to spend on gear. That one lets you use any level of magic gear you have, so it’ll be hard to compete against squires in magic full plate.”
“…I have about 80,000 raem.”
“Ah, I didn’t expect that. Did Tanyth give you that as some last-ditch expenditure?”
“About half, the rest I earned on the way here.”
He looks perplexed. “What did you do to earn that much while travelling?”
“I killed pirates.”
“…Of course you did. Anyways, I have shares in a shop that sells magic items, arms and armour mostly, I’ll set up an appointment for you and we can decide the last details after that. Though I would probably recommend not trying for the second tournament, since you’d have to spend about all your coin to really compete in it with your strength, and they’ll penalize your points for having excessive gear anyways. But there are other tests that it’ll be useful for.”
“I don’t suppose you can manage a discount for me at the shop, since we are supposed to be family after all?”
He laughs. “You’ll get a ‘fair’ price, meaning they won’t try to squeeze as much coin out of you as possible like they do with every other customer, which is as much of a discount as you’re going to get.”
“All right, thanks. As for the rest of my tests, do they let you use spells on the archery ones?”
“What, like just blow all the targets up with a cascade orb? No, that wouldn’t be archery.” He laughs.
I shake my head. “I don’t mean something that directly damages the target. I know a spell that guides projectiles I shoot with extreme accuracy.”
“Hmm, you’d have to petition the exam committee to see if that’s allowed. The magic archery test would probably be fine since that’s the point of it, but the mundane one might not be, or they might assign a point penalty. I’ll go and ask tomorrow, and we can postpone getting your gear until we hear back.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Thanks.” I say, then finish eating, my attention moving to the book I brought to the table.
The next day I go for a walk around the neighbourhood. I hear rumours about Malsas. It’s been more than two weeks since all official communications from it has stopped. Particularly troubling since Malsas contained one of the empire’s four communication nexuses– a very large and stationary magic item that allows the wielders to communicate with other such nexuses from any distance once set up.
It's not the only method of magically communicating over distances, but it allows the greatest density of information, since multiple people can use it at once and other methods are rather slow, tedious and limited– though they tend to have the advantage in mobility and cost.
So, all communications having suddenly stopped from a city that had a communication nexus means that either the nexus was destroyed before a message could be sent, or that something is somehow blocking the messages. Either option is troubling (for the empire) as the destruction would mean the loss of a major asset that would take years to replace, or, worse, something previously thought as an immutable means of transmission has been revealed capable of being cut off without physical destruction. If the latter then the fear is that a method that can block might be further refined to alter and spread misinformation, thus making what was once a major key of imperial bureaucracy almost unusable.
It would be a greater blow to the empire than the whole three years of Caethlian resistance.
Rumours of course abound from people who claim to be friends with mages who have private communication links into the city, but their explanations are either inherently absurd, or in contradiction with each other.
One person claims that the problem had nothing to do with the nexus and was the result of a city-wide gag order to stop a story embarrassing to the imperial family from getting out– absurd as that would just draw attention to it. Other people claim that the nexus was destroyed by Caethlian rebels, others that the same rebels found a way to stop the communication without destruction.
The latter I find unlikely, since if we had a way to disrupt an array for so long, we wouldn’t have used it but leveraged it for political gain. Either trade it to a foreign power or threaten to in order to gain some concrete autonomy.
That we had a long-range operation to destroy the empire’s closest array is more plausible, as the damage to the empire would be immense. We certainly destroyed the array they tried to build in Caethlon several times, which was supposedly very costly to them.
Not helping things is the silence from the imperial authorities. They claim to be investigating the matter and will make an announcement shortly. In the meantime though, everyone is rife with speculation. It almost feels like people will be disappointed when an answer comes and would rather just continue to talk about the unknown.
I also hear Fluemberg mentioned a few times in passing, though there doesn’t seem to be nearly as much interest. It seems there was an uprising that took over the town after all. “The last throes of the rebellion” as the rumours call it. They only held out a few days before surrendering to the forces the empire sent to recapture it. I don’t hear anything about Lindrid, but I also don’t hear anything about anyone else being put in charge, so as far as I know he could have still succeeded.
Not particularly interested in rumours without confirmation, I focus on the task I went out for– finding a stray cat. I’ve finally learned basic animal communication and intend to use it to leverage a boon and maybe gain a pet.
I roam the alleys searching for a likely target. I come across a couple lone beggars that cause my skin to itch from their vulnerability, but I push past, focusing on my goal and intentionally heightening my sense of fear from not having a good disposal method. Though I think my long relaxing baths are the cornerstone of my present self-control, or at least they help take the edge off.
I even handle an attempted mugging with intimidation rather than violence. I feel like someone would be proud, but I have no idea who– certainly not Timos.
It takes about ten minutes to divine a suitable individual, a flat faced long haired black and white striped thing with a grumpy expression. It hisses at me and projects fear and hunger through the spell. I project calm and friendliness as I make the sign of the cat god who has not deigned to reveal its name to humans– crouching down and reaching out to it.
The emotion from the spell instantly changes from fear to playfulness. I realize my mistake too late as it tackles my outstretched arm and sinks its claws and teeth into the skin, holding on with its whole body as I instinctively retract.
The little shit– it knows I can’t fight back right now without being cursed and is taking the opportunity to do what it wants with me. It’s not really attacking– the claws and teeth do draw blood as it clings to my arm with its full body, but nothing deep. The desire isn’t to cause harm but to feel pleasure.
I sigh, being stuck in this position, and gently roll it over onto the ground, letting it scratch me with painful impunity as I insert my other hand between us and start rubbing its belly. A sense of pleasure flashes through the link as it seems to uncontrollably and repeatedly kick against my arm with its back legs– resulting in more shallow scratches.
I move my hand petting and scratching all over its body, wherever the sensation of pleasure from the link leads me. Eventually it gets tired of shredding my arm (and shirt, fortunately I wore an old one as I wouldn’t want to return with Alan’s gift in tatters) and plops onto the ground with a cute wide eyed wide mouth expression.
I take this as a cue to pull out the prepared fish parcel which it eagerly devours as I continue to pet it– feeling delight as my fingers run through its long soft fur. Once it’s done it starts purring and rubbing up against my leg and lays onto my lap as I sit against the alley wall. I pull out a comb and gently rake it over to remove its shedding under hair, causing its purring to intensify.
Once done I get it to follow me back to the town house where I try to convey that it should come in, but a flat refusal comes through the link. So, I fall to my backup and try to convey that it should come back here for more food, but that’s a tricky concept to convey in a strictly emotional link.
I’ll tell the servants not to chase away any cats that come, and to tell me when they do. If it doesn’t show back up, I’ll just divine it down again. I intend to collect client cats to feed and take care of until the cat god who does not deign does deign to grant me their boon again. Ideally, I’ll find another wounded cat to heal, but conveying the intent to feed any cats that I find should be enough of a bargain for it.
This might result in a lot of hassle for me, but it’ll be worth it for the boon. Since, in addition to its innate benefits, the communication spell seems to be associated with the cat god, so I’ll learn the more advanced versions faster while under its boon.
Any animal deity should have sufficed to help learn the spell, but I picked cats for two reasons. Admittedly one of those reasons was just because I wanted to pet them, but the boon is also very good.
The first benefit is a very high boost to perception relative to other boons, though not a general boost unlike with most gods. The highest boosts are with smell and night vision, the latter turning a dark night into twilight. Hearing is also greatly boosted, and the sense of touch is altered to dimly extend around me an inch or two. It’s especially sensitive to temperature and airflow. Likewise, it comes with a high boost to coordination and reflexes, and a moderate boost to leg strength with the intent of aiding jumping and running. The night vision and leg strength will even partially stack with a general strength or vision boost since they’re specialized benefits.
I also intend to form a contract with the god of birds who also hasn’t shared its name with humans but doesn’t use words like ‘deigned’ to talk about it. In addition to the inherent utility that communicating with birds once I get the next version of the spell will bring, the boon is also very good, though it only has two benefits. The first is simply an extreme boost to vision, especially at distance.
The more coveted aspect though is effective mass reduction. It’s only 5% at basic, but even that can be a significant speed boost. It is slightly less effective for me since I’m already so light, and it is a percentage reduction unlike with most boons which are a set amount. But it should still be useful, especially if I reach a higher level contract.
Only two other deities offer similar boons, and emulating it requires advanced magic, though for some reason doing it on objects is much easier. Also, weight reduction is easier, but that is much less useful.
Mass reduction is a highly coveted boost by knights, though not all of them since some actually try to be more massive to become as immovable as possible.
It’s somewhat ironic then that knights tend to find forming contracts with the said deities difficult, or at least much more so than mages. The bird god is easiest as anyone could do so in theory, but it seldom grants its favour with mages who can cast similar spells to mine finding it the easiest. The other two deities are simply aloof and have a particular aversion to martial activity. Some knights figure out how to reduce their mass on their own, but it is a very advanced power.
Alan asks me about my shredded arm when I go to lessons, to which I explain my intent and encounter with the cat.
“Wait there, I have some ointment.” He says, hurrying out and coming back with a vial.
I smile at the hurry, not mentioning that I have a number of my own herbs that would serve the task.
“I don’t see what the bother is. I have enhanced healing, the scratches will be gone by the end of the day.” I say as he applies the ointment.
“No reason to be reckless, there might be an infection that could overwhelm it, besides it will help prevent scarring.”
I shake my head. “I don’t scar, it’s a side benefit of my god’s healing.” He looks at me askance causing me to explain in a whisper since he left the silencer elsewhere. “It would be silly for my god to let us scar, given how often we cut ourselves.”
“…Right, well it will help with the pain anyways.”
I shrug. “It’s fine, I’ve learned to ignore pain at this level a long time ago.”
He scowls and snaps. “Well, you shouldn’t have!”
I stare at him, slightly startled and struggling to find his meaning. “… I still have an awareness of the pain, ignoring it doesn’t diminish its diagnostic utility.”
“That’s not…” He trails off and stares at me before sharply looking away.
I’m baffled by this behaviour but put it out of my mind for the lessons.