The following morning, Saul remembered to feed his tattoo, so his cantrip practice after warm ups and sparring included firing mirror bolts at his mother to work on his aim. He also tried to make the surface of her eyes reflective with Mirror, but had yet to manage it. He had no success with Fracture either. When he and his mom were excused, he went to one of the open air training fields on the grounds to get some one on one practice with someone other than one of his sisters. Sparring with his father or mother was essentially pointless, like trying to fight a stabby shadow or aggressive brick wall respectively.
Jon, the steward, met him close to noon and Saul told him what icon and fragments to prepare, and which icon he wanted them used on. Then he surprised the man.
“I want to add this as well,” Saul said, pulling a four inch long black wedge out of his pouch, “have him use it with the death icon like usual. And I need you, or whoever conducts the awakenings, to make sure that he knows the significance of me giving it to him.”
“Of course, my lord,” Jon replied, taking the fragment with a slight bow, “and would you like to be notified once he has awakened the abilities?”
“Yes, I’ll keep my time at the library short today.”
At the Temple of Knowledge, he was met by a priest when leaving the Scholar’s Chapel, who brought him to speak with one of the senior priests, Verrat.
“Good afternoon, Lord Saul,” Verrat said as Saul was ushered into the man’s small office, “and happy belated birthday.”
“Your worship,” Saul bowed to the man, who hadn’t risen from his desk, “you wanted to see me?”
“Yes, yes, I was rather hoping you might have reconsidered my offer, but I take it from your request yesterday that you have larger ambitions than joining our humble church.”
“I wouldn’t say that, Father,” Saul replied awkwardly, “I have responsibilities to my family that I can’t put aside, but the Scholar is very important to me.”
“Mirror, element, and a simple icon,” the Priest read from a page on his desk, “responsibilities indeed.” Seeing the look Saul gave him, he waved a hand, “your request and any political implications are obviously kept in the Scholar’s confidence. Now, why don’t you take a seat.”
Saul nodded warily and sat in the hard wooden chair in front of the desk.
“So, I have all of the information that you requested, and a bit more besides,” Verrat said, tapping the page, “I am disappointed that you still refuse to join us, but you have been among our more devout worshippers for your entire adult life. Thus, I will bestow some small knowledge from above that will help you.”
“I am honored, your worship,” Saul said uncertainly.
“Indeed. The idol produced by the combination of mirror and element is fey or faerie, known to two other combinations, element with identity and element with space. The pairing that you are looking at is the most common by far, as you likely guessed.”
Saul blinked. Element was rare, very rare, but space was found so infrequently it was more legend than icon. And he had never heard of identity. That element was crucial to all three of these fey idol combinations did make sense, given what Sister Young had mentioned about lesser faeries yesterday.
“As for fey themselves,” the Priest continued, “they are often anthropoid and moderately intelligent, usually have an elemental attunement, and rarely attack unprovoked. There is one faerie powerful enough to guide soul formation that we know of, in a mid-to-low region of the adjacent elven territory.”
He slid a map across the desk. Their current location, Enchre, was a small dot on the lower middle of the map. The relevant faerie’s location was circled a few hundred miles northwest.
“Thank you, this is just what I needed,” Saul said, still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“That isn’t quite where you need to go,” Verrat clarified, “the faerie known as Kish apparently tends to move its home around. Marked there is the nearest elven town that it seems to stay near. Now, this is the part you didn’t know; you shouldn’t use the icons before you take the trip. The idol of your soul can direct the awakening of your soul to a degree as you use fragments, yes, but it will be much more effective if it can also help direct the initial formation.”
“Really? I’ve never heard that. I suppose that is what the angels and saints do.”
“Correct. While our library has some information about non-divine idols, there aren’t many with the resources and inclination to pursue that route and expand our records. Feel free to add it to your own record so that the information can be more widely circulated here in time.”
“I’ll be sure to, thank you very much.”
“That is all, you may go,” the Priest said abruptly, shooing Saul out of the office.
Saul stood in the hall for a moment, nonplussed. Priest Verrat’s attitude toward him had been oddly inconsistent with previous encounters. He returned to the stairway and continued down to the library, checking about further information on the area he needed to travel to and requesting a copy of the relevant portion be made.
He took a few scrolls from the relevant shelf, grabbed a translated elven novel that caught his eye, and went to his reading nook. He found Uncle Nathan sitting there, his outfit noticeably garish despite the light being off. When Saul turned it on, the man’s coat made him squint. It technically resembled the family colors, with offensively lime green and hot pink accented with white gold.
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“Hello Uncle. You’re in my seat.”
“Salutations, dear nephew,” Nathan said with a literally glittering smile, “is it really your seat if I got here first?”
“Yes, I reserve it each week and make an appropriate donation.”
“Indeed, Lord Saul Ficial reserved it, I see no reason for them to take issue.”
“Because they understand the concept of two different people sharing a name?” Saul said with a smirk back, “what are you doing here in your travel clothes anyway?”
“Getting bullied by children, apparently,” his Uncle moaned, leaning back in the chair and running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, “first an entire class of orphans laugh at me when I walk by, now you!”
“Headed out of the city for a while?” Saul guessed.
“Yes. I tried to convince Joel to let me accompany you on your journey, for security reasons of course, but he shot me down. Rather emphatically. He seemed grumpier than usual. I’m taking a brief trip to Elicaster and will be back before you leave, but I thought I’d say goodbye and build some anticipation.”
“What do you mean?” Saul asked suspiciously.
“Well, I’ll be picking something up just for you while I’m there, to provide some of that security I mentioned. I’m not telling you what though. Anyway, give me a hug and I’m off!”
Uncle Nathan shot up from the seat, hugged Saul, and was halfway across the library in a blink and a half, leaving behind several glowing afterimages. This was a function of his straightforwardly named Afterimage ability, not his actual speed, which was still nothing to scoff at. Saul found this second abrupt departure much less rude than the first, before the afterimage in the chair flipped him off with a wink just as it faded away. Rolling his eyes, he sat down to read.
Returning to the estate mid-afternoon, Saul went to the Silas Building to see his father. The Viscount was receiving someone, so he waited in a sunroom on the third floor, looking out over the trees of the estate. The unbroken grayish-maroon stone of the Lazarus Building jutted out of the trees to the left, as did a few other towers further afield on other nearby estates. The tallest was the seemingly squat, thick tower of House Enchre that had six sides instead of four.
Soon, Joel was available and Saul gave him the copied portion of the map.
“This is much closer than we had expected,” his father commented, examining the map, “Still, elven roads tend to go around natural formations, so it will be at least a few weeks each way.”
“Uncle Nathanial said that he wanted to go with me,” Saul said, “will the shorter trip make that possible?”
“No, still too long.” Joel denied, absently looking out a window, “It’ll be one of your cousins. Do you have any you’d prefer?”
That was a pool of a few dozen people, most of whom Saul didn’t remember the names of. He tried to sort by power sets he knew of.
“I don’t remember his name,” Saul admitted, “second cousin maybe? Fighter generalist with healing and speed.”
“…Toby,” his father said after a moment to think, “that will be fine, I’ll have him informed. Now, tell me what else you’ll need to prepare.”
“I’ll need to familiarize myself with his capabilities, as well as those of my new peon, and get the two of them comfortable working together. My bodyguard’s handful of abilities should be fairly defensive, so I think they’ll pair well.”
“Son,” Joel said, slightly exasperated, “if there is any detail of the trip that I implicitly trust you to thoroughly prepare, it is learning more about their powers. What else do you need to physically prepare?”
“Transportation, supplies, and shelter?” Saul said, then continued when his father gave him a glare, “I’ll have an earthen horse and secure carriage prepared, since I’ll be bringing my entire vault’s worth of icons and fragments to tailor my abilities. Supply wise, I need to know how many storage bags we will have. And what about artifacts for defense and shelter?”
“Ok, fair enough. I’ll make some lists of what’s available to you and you put together a plan. It will be a few days yet, so there’s time for you to figure it out.”
“Thank you. Speaking of available, I went ahead and gave one of my death fragments to the peon and had Jon explain the value of it. Do you think that was too hasty?”
“From a loyalty perspective? Probably,” his father said, “but he needs Undying, and the initial four fragments you chose wouldn’t have given it. You shouldn’t have let your interest in seeing new powers get in the way of practical necessity. What are you even expecting with that tree fragment?”
“I didn’t know what fish and tree would give, and it was his idea, so I thought going along with it would be good.”
“The abilities of your core staff aren’t for experimentation. They should be carefully selected to fill your needs effectively. Are you planning to give him any more fragments?”
“I’d been thinking about giving him a cloud fragment or something,” Saul muttered, “to get something water related, maybe.”
“And how would that help his role as a defense-focused bodyguard?”
Saul said nothing.
“He is your only personal servant, for the moment at least,” Joel continued, “that makes him your most core staff. Even if you don’t have explicit plans to fully awaken him, you should plan out his abilities as though you will. That is why I have overridden some of your choices.”
“What? No, Dad, come on,” Saul protested, “ok, maybe the tree fragment wasn’t the best idea, but the rest were chosen for a reason!”
“I believe you, but a reason doesn’t necessarily mean the right reason. I didn’t change the two fish, I trust you not to mess up his combination and his perception ability, even if they seem like odd choices. I replaced the tree and fire fragments, however. Even if you had a specific goal for the fire fragment, it would have likely been offensive, which isn’t what you need.”
“Replaced them with what?”
“See if you can figure that out when you go over his abilities soon,” his father answered with a smile, “think of it as a challenge. If you do decide to give him any more fragments, you are to discuss them with your mother or me.”
“Yes, father.”
Shortly thereafter, Saul went down to the small library on the second floor, informing a servant that he could be found there. Instead of reading, he sat in a glider on the covered balcony outside the library and tried to relax in the cool breeze of the overcast evening.