Day 31
—
Name: Phoenix
Journey Tier
Attributes: 0 points
Strength: 7, Constitution: 14, Coordination: 13, Mentality: 23, Will: 17.3, Charisma: 18, Luck: 13
Boons Available: 1
Boons: Arcane Adept, Perfect Memory, Prodigal Learning, Enhanced Decision Loop, Hero Soul, Enchanted Heart.
Flaws: Poor Grip Strength, Chemical Susceptibility.
Other: Contractual Commitment (Hero Soul)
Heroic Soul Power Stored 0 (1 used)
Magic: Air, Death, Earth, Fire, Magic, Spirit, The Lie.
Techniques: Conjure, Dismiss, Draw, Manipulation, Meld
Spells: Conjure Breath, Conjure Flame, Conjure Light, Death Ward, Dismiss Spirit Magic, Draw Breath, Draw Flame, Illusory Earth, Illusory Fire, Lance of Heat, Spark Bolt (Delayed), Spirit Ward, Ward versus The Lie
Skills: Ritual (Worship Arachnae) 30%. Carousing 12%, Etiquette 24%, Fists and Feet 23%, Meditate 53%, Persuasion 25%, Read and Write Empyrean 65%, Read and Write Language Tul’Lian 75%, Small Unit Tactics 23%, Speak Empyrean 13%, Speak Language Tul’Lian 75%, Stealth 8%, Survival 30%
Arcane Skills: Magical Theory 60%, Intensity 60%, Duration 56%, Range 50%, Area 45%, Passivity 60%, Magical Shape 37%, Magical Artistry 34%, Spiritual Combat 29%
Luck Uses: 1
Hit Points: 15
Magic Pool 28
Bound Spirits: 1 of 4
Bound Crystals: 0 of 1
Inscriptions Available
Height: 178 cm. Weight: 68.5 kg
Exhaustion I (effects offset by high willpower), Starvation I (effects offset by high constitution)
—
Phoenix sat inside an enclosure of Illusory Earth, just on the other side of the crest of the ridge. Past the ridge was a town, presumably the Empire town that he had been searching for for the last four days. He had survived an assault by orc war maidens and a hobgoblin Witch to reach here, but he wasn’t ready yet to skip blithely into town, all smiles and hope and rainbows. His enclosure was camouflaged to look like the surrounding shrubs and grass, so even a fairly concerted search using just vision would likely miss him. That was one of the clever uses of his Illusory Fire that he could add on top of the Illusory Earth. It couldn’t adapt fast enough to be of any use while he moved, but stationary like this made for a pretty good hunting blind.
The town, well, glorified village might be a better term, was a perfect circle of white stone walls, one side making a tangent with the river, the rest surrounded by four similarly perfect circles of grain. Past those fields, two more circles that were along the river, upstream an orchard of apples it looked like, and downstream some kind of industry. The rest of the area past the fields looked like lumber forests- tall straight trees all growing in regimented rows and columns, with clear paths for hauling them out and towards the village.
He had spent some time observing the interior of the walls from his vantage. The center of the circle was a large tower, which looked nearly identical to the defense tower he had found back in the ruined city of Melite’s domain, only upright and sparkling clean. Surrounding its base was a domed building, made of stained glass and some kind of shining metal. A courtyard or parade ground surrounded that, with four roads each leading to one of the gates that penetrated the walls, as well as the docks that stretched into the river.
On the side facing him, two large hollow rectangular buildings, each four stories tall, took up an entire ‘block’. He presumed that they were some kind of group living quarters, as there were wells, fires, and a constant motion of people on the interior balconies that faced inwards. Smaller buildings then stretched along two of the roads, the ones leading to the orchards. These stood alone or in small groups, maybe houses for the richer folk or business of various kinds. The third road, leading directly away from the river, was much less occupied. Some construction was visible, so Phoenix speculated that this was available space for population growth.
Along the inside edges of the walls, small clumps of what looked like long haired goats or possibly sheep sheltered, along with chickens and even an area for cows. Pigs made an enclosure on the downriver side of the place, near the industrial area. Phoenix figured industrial, but he couldn’t really tell at this distance. His working theory was that it was a lumber town, growing and harvesting the tall hardwood trees and then shipping them down river to a city or the capital. Based on a very rough estimate from what he could see, less than one thousand people lived and worked there.
No one seemed to approach the city by ground, there were no roads that left the immediate environs of the city itself, no sprawling rural area of farms and farmers. Everything was bunched up inside those walls. His working theory was that all the farmers and lumberjacks would march out at dawn, do farmer and lumberjack things over the course of the day, and then march back inside the walls at dusk. This was a city that was expecting to be attacked regularly. As small as the village was, it would be easy for anyone to know he was a stranger, they probably knew each other all by sight if not by name. Plus, he was a guy, and that was apparently rare. All in all, it didn’t bode well for just tramping down there and throwing himself at the tender mercies of the authorities.
His stomach growled, reminding him that he had run out of food the day before. He strongly suspected any game was hunted to extinction in a wide swath around the village. He could see fishing boats on the river, using nets to harvest whatever fish were there, but Phoenix didn’t think he had much of a chance himself. If he wanted to hunt, he was going to have to leave the immediate area, probably for a good distance. Otherwise, if he wanted to eat, he needed to get inside the walls in a friendly way.
This brought him back to his Illusory Fire. One of the things he had been putting off all this time was trying to resonate with the Fire rune as a whole, to combine his understanding of flame, heat, light, and so on into one unified whole. As he understood it, resonating with the rune entirely would enhance his spells into higher forms, something that was only available now that he was Journey tier. Tiana had not gotten around to teaching him a safe or easy way to do that, so he was stuck trying to figure it out himself.
The memory of Tiana put an icicle through his heart, and he gritted his teeth. The last he had known of her, she had been fighting with a hag called Wicked Tselyth, and he did not know of her fate. He had to assume she could take care of herself, that she had made it safely to the Free Elves, somewhere far to the north of here. Maybe, once he was inside the walls, he could arrange a message to her to let her know he had made it safe, and if he was lucky she might send a similar message to him in return.
Focus, Phoenix, focus. We need to get inside.
His hope was that by resonating the full Fire rune, his Illusory Fire spell would upgrade to a version that could operate while he was moving. This seemed plausible based on the details he could glean from his old books and from a brief conversation on the topic he had with Tiana. Now getting a holistic understanding of Fire was fortunately not something he needed to sacrifice for. Fortunate, because he was up against his maximum limit of runes he could sacrifice for already, and fortunate, because he didn’t have the crystals that Tiana had used to help guide him to resonating with new runes without frying his brain. No, this was strictly a mental exercise, of seeing the connections between each facet of the rune and resolving them into a whole, and thereby seeing new facets that he had missed. Not to brag, but when it came to entirely mental effort, he was extremely well suited. Thus, he had hope.
He closed up his little hunting blind of Illusory Earth and Fire, and set it to run for the next several hours without his concentration. This made the Illusory Earth relatively fragile compared to the defensive walls he had been using it for during his battle with orcs, but it didn’t need to withstand blows, just keep the sun off him and act as a surface for the Illusory Fire. He set up a Conjure Air in the center, which brought clean, cool air in magically, and then let it expel from the sides of his structure, creating an air conditioning effect that nicely cooled down his hut. While the beginnings of his adventures in this world had been mostly highlighted by cold, as time had passed the days had gotten steadily warmer, and now the early afternoon was uncomfortable to just be sitting in without shade and a breeze. And he didn’t want any distractions.
Once he was properly set up, he set to his task. As before, this was initially just a review of everything he knew about the Fire Rune.
—
Fire: Light, heat, flame, mentality, perception, purity.
—
Now, he had a few of those attributes formed into spells. Flame, from his Conjure Fire, light from Conjure Light, and heat from Lance of Heat.. That left mentality, perception, and purity. Mentality, well, he was extremely specialized in mentality. Could he derive a spell that enhanced his mentality? Seemed logical that it was possible… one thing he noticed in all of this was that each of these applications used the same two Runes, just in a different way. Conjure, and Fire. For this, he felt the racing of the wildfire across a plain of dry grass, but it was the speed of his thoughts instead. This racing thoughts, this mental heat, he overlaid over his own considerable intellect, letting the idea float through his skull and merge with his brain. Honestly, he was surprised he hadn’t thought of this before.
—
Name: Phoenix
Journey Tier
Attributes: 0 points
Strength: 7, Constitution: 14, Coordination: 13, Mentality: 26 (23), Will: 17.3, Charisma: 18, Luck: 13
Spells: Enhance Mentality
Magic Pool: 16 (28) [respiration, 6.7 hours remaining]
Enhance Mentality III
—
It was quite a rush, feeling his mentality expand by three points all at once. A very noticeable clarity to his thoughts overcame him. He could certainly get very used to this, assuming he could find room in his Passivity queue to maintain it.
Then there was perception. From all his peering, squint eyed, at the antlike forms of the people in the city, he knew what he wanted out of this. Better vision. The optic nerve was practically an extension of the brain, light was a fundamental part of Fire, it just made sense to him. With his new found mentality backing him up, creating a lens like effect that he could overlay, like those complicated glasses that the optometrists used, was nearly instantaneous.
—
Spells: Enhance Sight
Magic Pool: 12 (28) [respiration, 8.9 hours remaining]
Enhance Sight II
—
Extraordinarily pleased with himself, Phoenix now had nearly all the pieces of the puzzle. He didn’t even need purity as a spell, he could see now how all the various aspects interlocked, how each one tied to the other in ways both obvious and profound, fundamental and esoteric. For him, it was literally an Aha! moment, and there was no going back. Conjure Flame and Conjure Light merged into one spell, Conjure Fire. Lance of Heat upgraded itself to Sun Lance. Draw Flame became Draw Fire. Enhance Mentality and Enhance Sight merged, becoming Fire of Mentality. And Illusory Fire became The Lying Fire.
—
Magic: FIRE GLYPH
Spells: Conjure Fire, Draw Fire, Fire of Mentality, Sun Lance, The Lying Fire
Fire of Mentality III, The Lying Fire I
—
Chortling to himself and eager to take this new found power for a spin, he opened his hut up and crawled back to the lip of the ridgeline. Like an excellent pair of binoculars, Phoenix found he could zoom in such that the people inside the city went from tiny black dots to what you might see on the other side of a football stadium. Still hard to make out details like faces, but he could tell clothing and relative heights and general outlines of shapes.
The clothing interested him first, as he didn’t want to stand out just by wearing something too weird. The people as a whole were dressed in what looked like linen, well made and in a variety of colors. Reds, greens, whites, and browns predominated, with white being the most common base color and the others used as accessories or accents. They seemed to favor a kind of sleeveless tunic, like Tiana had worn, but lighter and extending all the way to the knees. A pair of pants was under that, loose fit, and either sandals or leather slip on shoes. Some of the taller, stronger looking people wore boots up to their knees instead, perhaps laborers or the like.
He turned his attention to the gates, where he could see two guards standing outside. They were dressed in a variant of the scale armor he had seen the orc women wear, although cut differently. They had some kind of leather sleeves and leather pants, and an open helm made out of a golden metal. Bronze maybe? Do they not work steel here? For arms, they each had what looked like a long spear, a crossbow, and a shield roughly half their height in size. The mixture of technologies was a little confusing to Phoenix. Bronze scale, but a crossbow for each of them, which in his world was anachronistic, but clearly things were a little different here.
Looking out at the farmers in the fields and orchard closest to him, he saw more of the same, linen work clothes with added gloves and hats. The hair cuts seemed short, for the most part, but for these closer people he could make out in more detail. The thing that stuck out most was that they were all women, at least as far as he could see. Frowning, he went back and looked at the two apartment complexes. Scanning through the balconies and the interior court, he made the second curious discovery- not a single child. No children running around and playing, no parents watching over little ones or feeding babies. Just women talking to each other and going about their day.
Is this what Arachnae meant by extinction in a generation? How are they supposed to last without kids?
He didn’t have a good sense of history of how many kids there should be. His modern sensibility expected something like a fifth of the population to be kids, so in a village this size he would have expected maybe one or two hundred. Which would be hard to miss. File under ‘future Phoenix problems’ as he had no idea what was at the root of such a completely lopsided demographic.
He was a little closer to his goal of getting inside however. Now, he had an idea of the clothing style and general appearance of people, he directed his attention to The Lying Fire.
—
The Lying Fire: Fire, The Lie, Manipulate, Meld; Ranged, Sourced, Active Manipulation;
Magic Pool Cost 4 plus Intensity, Range, Area, Duration;
Skills: Magical Shape 37%, Magical Artistry 34%.
Subspells: Camouflage, Disguise, Paint.
—
He took his time and experimented with what he could do with this new spell. He was hampered by his lack of a mirror, but he did the best he could with a pool of water he gathered with his Illusory Earth. Wearing his silk underwear, he was able to craft an image over his body that more or less looked like the outfits the farmers were wearing. Now came the hard part. He could change his appearance, to some level of accuracy based on his crude water mirror and his own equally crude ideas of what people looked like. But he couldn’t change his voice. Distinctly male, lower register than even the orc women he had heard. Not some bass rumble like some guys, but tenor for sure. There was just no getting around that. Still, he wanted to at least make it to the gates without being mobbed or something, so he opted for an older appearance, lots of wrinkles and tanned skin. He hoped with just a little acting, he could pass off as a lifetime smoker or something.
That all accomplished, he dismissed his Illusory Earth, packaged all his belongings into his (much lighter, now that it lacked any food) backpack box, and marched down to the fields. Once he reached the roadway leading to the gate, the going was quite easy, the road made of rough white stone slabs with some kind of mortar between them. Not even cracked from the freezing and thawing process he was sure was a major feature around these parts, which he put down to magic, although he wasn’t sure what kind of magic.The fields made little pie cuts in each of the circles, with the furrows arcing gentle curves all the way to a center roundabout. In the middle of that was a building that resembled the one in the center of town that he had seen from a distance. Circular, with a glass dome ceiling and a single road leading from it to the main road that he was on. Some kind of repository maybe? Grain silo? He would have to ask when he got the chance.
As he approached the gate, he got a better look at the guards. Both were dressed in that scaled bronze armor, similar to but lighter than the armor that the orc women had been wearing, with pot helms sporting lobster-like tails down their necks for added protection. The crossbows were fascinating, sporting what was clearly a magazine of bolts on top and a lever to both arm the windlass and load a bolt at the same time. The points of the bolts were similarly made of bronze. So there was an even more anachronistic oddity, mechanically complex self-loading crossbows, but no iron or steel to be seen. Phoenix honestly didn’t know what to make of it all.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Once he was about one hundred meters away, one of the guards ducked inside briefly, and was followed back out by what was clearly an officer or sergeant type. Same armor, but with tassels on the hauberk and feathers in the helmet to mark her out from the other two. Nobody was pointing a weapon at him, but the first guard had her spear and shield to hand, while the second had taken a few steps to the side and was prominently holding her crossbow, pointed at the ground.
Well, I made it to the gate, but I don’t think I am fooling anyone here…
The officer type walked out to meet Phoenix half way, with one guard in tow. “The goddesses blessing on you. I don’t believe I recognize you as one of the farmers or laborers. Would you be so kind as to give me your name?”
Phoenix stopped and put on a smile, hoping this wasn’t going to rapidly devolve. “Hello, Lieutenant, I am very sorry to disturb you. My name is Fena, and I am a lost wanderer who has had the great fortune to have found your lovely town.” He put a wizened croak in his voice, a little like what he remembered Wicked Tselyth sounded like, a kind of exaggerated old woman accent from somewhere like Britain.
The officer withdrew a piece of parchment from a scroll case at her waist, and devoted some time to reading from it. “Uh huh. Fena. Lost are you? Well, you know protocol, we have to take you directly to the church for examination. That won’t be a problem, I assume?”
Phoenix suspected he really had no choice, but that was true already. So he nodded, the smile still plastered on his face. “Of course, I understand completely. If you would just point me in the right direction… I don’t believe I caught your name.”
“Sergeant Isabel. This is Soldier Hella. Just come this way…” Isabel was firm but polite, gesturing for Phoenix to walk into the gate.
Phoenix walked as directed, looking about with curiosity as they crossed the threshold into the town proper. Hella took up a spot about two paces behind Phoenix, conveniently just close enough to impale him with a spear if he decided to get up to mischief. Isabel meanwhile walked at his side, setting a rapid pace which Phoenix did his best to match. He tried to get a sense of what these women were like, via sidelong glances whilst he was gazing about at all the other interesting sights.
Isabel was a bit taller than he was, still shy of two meters however. Her arms and legs were uncovered as she forwent the leather pants and sleeves. She was rippling with muscles, like an almost parody of a warrior physique, and Phoenix wondered if this was the result of focusing on a physical manifestation of one of the magic methodologies. It would make a certain amount of sense, and he idly wondered what Tier she had reached. Did they pick ranks based on how advanced your tier was, or did leadership and tactical ability come into it? Or, just as likely historically in his world, some kind of wealthy class that could afford a commission. Isabel herself seemed like someone who wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, so to speak. Tan skin, calloused hands, a bevy of scars on her limbs, even a pretty tattoo of some Glyph he didn’t recognize on her shoulder.
“Nice tattoo, what is it?” he asked, just to make conversation.
Isabel gave him an odd look, but Phoenix didn’t care, he was already way too weird to be mistaken as a local at this point. “This is the Glyph of Community, and this is the Glyph of Truth. My truth is I live to serve.” She replied to him eventually. After a few moments, when she didn’t elaborate further, Phoenix decided that idle conversation wasn’t on the table.
Instead, he focused on the people passing by and the buildings as they went along. This street was awash in stalls and business that seemed to cater to the needs of farmers, laborers, and foresters of all stripes. Food stalls, of course, with a variety of delicious (to his gurgling, very empty stomach) smelling food stuff. What looked like pastries with meat or fruit fillings, grilled kabobs, fresh apples, breads, and so forth. Beer or ale of some kind was already poured into mugs where a farmer would put a coin down and quaff, returning the mug and moving aside to let the next customer repeat the display. Past the food stalls, they got into more upscale services. Massages, clothing and shoes, bath houses with a wild set of advertisements that he wished he could look over more closely, even what looked like a medical clinic. Very eclectic mix but if this was the main thoroughfare for the working class, it made a certain amount of sense.
Traffic was light, presumably most people were out working still, and he noticed a distinct lack of any animal power. No horses or oxen pulling wagons or being ridden. Instead, people filled those roles, some of the women taller even than Isabel and Hella, pulling a fully loaded wagon without apparent effort down the street. The streets themselves were very clean, no open sewers or refuse lying about. He could see grates on the side of the road which probably led to storm drains, which suggested plumbing and sewer works. He wondered if they just dumped it into the river downstream of the town.
And of course, that same extremely bizarre lack of men or children. Everyone was a woman, from late teens to what looked like late forties. All looked healthy and well fed, everyone he could see had all their teeth, healthy looking hair shorn short, mostly unblemished skin. No apparent marks from disease, and only a few scars here and there. Tattoos seemed common, Glyph combinations like Isabel had or fanciful (he assumed!) animals of various types, sometimes flowers or other plants.
Two more soldiers ran past them, and Isabel saluted as they passed. They were going at what he would call a full sprint, but clearly wasn’t stressing their endurance any as he watched them hold that pace without effort. Nobody seemed alarmed by their passage, so that must just be a way from getting between point A and point B for them.
After about twenty minutes of brisk walking, they arrived in the center of the town and the large glass domed structure with the tower in the center. Isabel opened the door for Phoenix, and then followed him inside. The front room here was a sharpened oval shape, like a canoe but broader, with one wall being the exterior circular wall and then an interior semi-circle making the other side. A web work of triangular supports crawled up the exterior wall and merged with the lattice that held the stained glass roof together. With the sun shining through, a rainbow of color bathed the floor. The center of the canoe shape held low couches and tables scattered about like a waiting room or bar, while the two points were blocked off by a taller counter top.
Phoenix was led to the northern point, where a young woman dressed in what he identified as priestly attire sat. She was wearing the recognizable cowl that Sabiya had been dressed in, this one in silver metallic threads rather than the golden ones his cowl had. When they approached, she set aside a book she had been reading and smiled at Isabel.
“Good afternoon, Sergeant Isabel. What can I do for you?”
“Good afternoon, Acolyte Panna. A stranger from the east gate needs examination in accordance with protocol. Is one of the paladins available?” Isabel was all business, but the acolyte was smiling and relaxed.
“Of course Sergeant, let me go see who is on duty.” Panna got up from her chair and went through a cleverly hidden door behind her, concealed to look like just a part of the wall. Phoenix amused himself by placing a bet on how long his ‘deception’ was going to hold up here. He settled for ten minutes. Most of that time would be spent waiting here for the paladin to show up.
After no more than two or three minutes, Panna returned with who he assumed was the paladin. Tall, easily over two meters, and built out like the soldiers, with broad shoulders and robust limbs. Her face was feminine however, fine boned but not delicate, and her hair was blonde and a little longer than he had seen the others wear their hair, a kind of pixie cut with a slight ridge along the center. Her eyes were piercing green, and while he would never dare to say it to her like this, rather large and dewy with generous lashes. Her skin was more freckles than tan, and otherwise pale, with generous lips. No hint of makeup, which Phoenix had yet to see anyone wear, she still projected a sense of strength and beauty altogether a step above everyone else. In a way she reminded him of Tiana, a steadfast sense of self that differed only in that this person was much younger looking than Tiana. She was dressed in a light tunic and pants, much the same in cut as the farmers but of higher quality make and material. She did not appear to be armed.
Isabel saluted again, and Phoenix sensed Hella stiffen up. “Lady Celeste, an honor. I didn’t know you took duty rotations.”
“Well I have to spend my hours somehow while I am here Sergeant. This is our guest?” Celeste replied, her voice a warm soprano.
“Yes Lady. Fena was the name she gave, wandered in from the east road. Tower 3 reports she appeared over the east ridge sometime after noon, but didn’t see her come in earlier than that. Does match the timing for when we lost track of that anomaly along the river, within an hour or two.” Isabel reported this all without changing expression as Phoenix worked to master his own surprise.
Well so much for ten minutes of deception. I didn’t even make it to the gate!
While he was wrestling with his shock, Celeste was watching him.
“Well, you seem harmless enough. Thank you sergeant, soldier. I’ll take over from here, you can return to your posts.” She smiled then, and motioned Phoenix to come around the counter.
Isabel and Hella both saluted once more, then turned smartly and left the building. Or the temple? Phoenix had to assume it was religious in some way given the personnel. He made his way around and took the door that was still open, then waited as Celeste nodded to Panna and closed it behind them. They were in a small hallway with three doors in it, and Celeste took the right hand door, leading him to an oddly shaped room up against the exterior wall of the temple. Several tables with chairs around them filled the place, and she motioned for him to take a seat.
All it is lacking is a lamp to shine in my face for the interrogation to feel complete!
Unprompted, he took a seat at the table closest to the door, setting his backpack down next to him on the floor. Celeste took a chair opposite him without objection. There he sat, waiting for the interrogation to begin, trying to conceal his nervousness.
“The magic is quite good, although your artistry needs work.” Celeste started off with.
“Ah! Yeah, sorry I just didn’t want to stick out too much, it wasn’t a serious attempt to deceive my way in or anything.” Phoenix replied.
“Would you care to show me what you really look like?” Celeste offered.
“Um, well, how cool are you folks with strangers anyway? I gather things are a bit harsh, living out here, but if you give me a chance to explain why I am here I think it will make sense in the end.” Phoenix both his hands palm up on the table, to try to impress with his openness.
“‘A bit harsh’. Well, you are definitely not from the Empire, that is clear. I can’t place your accent, but you don’t sound like a Free Elf. And even with you trying your best to sound like a hag, you don’t really sound like a hag. Besides, if you had been a hag, you would have burst into flame setting foot inside the temple. So it is a bit of a puzzle, I’ll be honest. Sergeant Isabel thinks you are a demon infiltrator, but if you are, you are the cockiest demon infiltrator I’ve ever seen or heard of. Or the dumbest. I would be able to sense that however, so I know you are not a demon. Would you care to explain?” Celeste was still all smiles, but Phoenix was starting to sweat now, the implications starting to sink in.
“I am a worshiper of Arachnae, and she guided me here as part of some plan for me that she has. I was briefly with the Witch Einar Tiana, north of here. Actually, Tiana went to the Free Elves, if you could somehow get a message out to them, I am sure she could corroborate my story easily enough. Besides, she would probably want to know I am alive.” Phoenix rushed to get the details out before Celeste started taking more drastic action.
“Tiana? Really? That does change things. Are you her latest apprentice?” Celeste sat forward, looking interested now.
“We didn’t have enough time to establish a relationship like that before I had to flee here.” Phoenix said, unable to keep the sadness out of his voice.
Celeste nodded “Why don’t you start from the beginning and tell me what has happened to you.”
So Phoenix retold most of his tale, starting with meeting Melite and Annilith and going through his fight with the hobgoblin Witch Vuiloa and the orc war maidens. He skipped over exactly how he had ended up in the temple of Arachnae, simply saying he had a magical accident. Celeste restricted herself to various sympathetic or wondering noises throughout, not interrupting the flow of his narrative. After he was done, Celeste nodded to him.
“Ok, well easy enough to get a message to the Elves, although unless Tiana made it to them they may choose to ignore it. Hopefully not the case. Until then, I ask that you wear a collar and do not leave the walls of the town. The collar will let the temple track you around town, and not leaving the walls is just sensible safety precautions. Should only be a day or so, if the Elves are going to reply at all.”
Surreptitiously holding his quite angry tummy, Phoenix looked about. “Is there a place I can work to earn some cash? I need to get a meal and a place to stay, even if it is just a plot of grass I can set up camp on.”
“Oh, we can do better than a plot of grass I think. Tell you what, my shift is nearly over anyway, I’ll take you out to an early dinner and show you around the place. We can talk about what you can do and where you can fit in for the time being. I will just check out with the Priestess, in the meantime you should alter yourself to be a bit younger looking, no one looks that old around here and you will definitely stick out. Hang tight, I’ll be right back.” Celeste got up and exited the room, and Phoenix permitted himself a little hope.
Standing, he wandered over to a conveniently placed mirror on the wall, happy to get a look at himself for once. What he saw was… embarrassing. He looked much like a wax copy of an old lady might look, good enough to be mistaken for real at a distance but up close quite off putting and obvious.
Well it was my first try, after all. What did I expect?
He spent the next couple minutes smoothing out his skin and adjusting the tone so it looked less unreal. He settled for an androgynous version of his actual face, which was a pretty minimal change all things considered, a little off the jawline, a little extra hair length. In all, he looked cute, in a younger boyish way. With so little changes to his appearance, he could expend most of his Magic Points on duration, and then set it and forget it. This would let it last even if he lost consciousness or went to sleep. As long as he kept his voice light… Well no one was fooled that his voice was his real voice, but no one seemed to have put together that he was a man hiding as a woman, so he would accept that for the time being.
Celeste returned a few minutes after he was done, and handed him a metal collar. It was covered in Glyphs, most not familiar to him, except for the Magic Glyph. It had an obvious lock and key, and he opened and closed it around his throat experimentally.
Do I really want to latch this thing around me?
“So, this is just a tracker right?” He asked, eyeing it nervously.
Celeste took it from his hands and held it up, pointing out the Glyphs. “Motion, Distance, and Person Glyphs. It’s something we use to track people who break our laws, so you might get some funny looks, but most everyone knows someone who has had to wear one, so no one is going to kick you out of their store or harass you over it. It’s a precaution, only.”
Celeste then clicked it around his throat, gently, and handed him the key. He could feel the magic in it as it molded itself around his neck, not too tight. He felt the latch, then sighed again.
I really have no choice do I. He locked it, and handed the key back to Celeste.
“There, safe and snug. It will adjust to keep from choking you accidentally. Nice work on the touch up with your skin, huge improvement there.”
“Thanks.” Phoenix lightly tugged at the collar, then decided it was best to just try and ignore it and let it fade into the background of his consciousness as quickly as possible. Celeste led him out to the street, but took a left and went towards the northern road instead. While they walked, she talked a little about the history of the town.
“We are pretty new, a little less than a decade old, and still really getting set up. Don’t even have a proper name yet, according to the Empire’s bureaucracy, but folks around here have been calling us Last Stop. On account of us being the farthest post on this branch of the Ionicee river. Here, let’s try some of this beef brisket pie. They just got some spices delivered and I hear it’s amazing.”
Phoenix was quite ready to eat pretty much anything not actively poisonous, and the meat pie smelled heavenly. Celeste bought two, paying for them with little copper coins about the size of her thumbnail. Trying not to dig in like a starving wolf, he moderated his intake while asking questions.
“So, obviously, I am not from around here. What is the money called?” He started out with something relatively innocuous.
“Oh, you got your copper chits, everyone just calls them chits, and then bronze scales, because they look like the scales on the guards armor. Silver tablets but you won't see a whole lot of those. Crafts folk will use them when buying supplies or selling their handiwork. Then gold shields, which only really get used by merchants buying and selling bulk goods up and down the river. That is if they aren’t using banking notes instead. Old noble families might trade in platinum plots, and believe me everyone has heard the joke about nobles and their plots.” She laughed and poked his shoulder at that, although he was a little confused by the ‘joke’.
“Anyway, you see the chits are used day to day, one gets you a nice meal like this, or a less nice meal and a mug of ale to go with it. Ten chits to the scale, and it’s ten each all the way up, makes it nice and orderly don’t you think? Day labor gets paid three scales a week, and you make a decent enough living doing that, three meals a day, pay for a shared apartment with two or three other Apprentice or Journey Tier, a little left over for a massage or a new coat or the like, if you are frugal. Most girls just blow it on booze of course.” Celeste paused to eye Phoenix up and down critically.
“No offense, but you don’t look like the physical type.” She allowed, after a rather frank and obvious evaluation.
Phoenix just nodded along. “Yes, definitely on the magical side of things. I can do math, read and write reasonably well, but anything else is going to be very ad hoc, magically speaking.”
“Mmhmm, yeah sorcerer right?” Celeste guessed.
“Uh, yeah actually. How did you know?” Phoenix was curious about her reasoning.
“Eh, you weren’t divine, I would be able to tell. And despite learning under Tiana, when you started spouting off on math and reading and writing, well you weren’t spiritualist. Mystic, well, if you were mystic you wouldn’t be disguising yourself like that. Narrows it down doesn’t it?” Celeste emphasized each point with a tap on the table.
“Well, you are in luck, sorcerers are right rare. We have just the one, Magus Yvonne, and she might have some extra work for a talented Journey Tier. Better than trying to haul things without the benefit of a physical Tier to back you up, that’s for sure. You can spend the night tonight in the temple. The common room there is usually for river folk who gambled or drank their pay away and can’t afford a place while the barge gets loaded, but it's decent enough and totally empty this time of year. Temple serves breakfast too, so that is sorted for you free of charge.” Celeste took a moment to return to her food. Phoenix, having finished his a bit ago (so much for eating slowly!) decided on a slightly riskier question.
“Is there a local temple to Arachnae in town? I’d like to pay my respects.”
“Arachnae? She doesn’t really have enough Priestesses to run temples in all the little towns like this. There will be a shrine to her in the temple to Lia, although it doesn’t have an attendant that I am aware of. To be fair, I am pretty newly arrived myself, just a couple days ago. You are free to wander around now, as long as you stay inside the walls as I said.” Celeste stood up and waved at him. “I am headed out, got some things to do. Stay out of trouble ok?”
Phoenix, for his part, looked mournfully at the empty dish in front of him, and decided to just head to the temple. It had been a very long day, and going to bed early sounded rather appealing at this point. Plus, he wanted to visit the shrine. Paying his respects was more than just a pro forma exercise, after all.
From the food stall, Celeste explained she needed to see to some tasks, and Phoenix headed back to the temple. Panna was still working, so he asked her about the accommodations that Celeste had mentioned, as well as where the Arachnae shrine could be found. Panna was only too happy to show him around, it seemed her job was reasonably boring unless someone got injured in an accident. It turned out, she was the on-call healer for the town, a job that rotated daily through the seven Journey Tier Acolytes of Lia here at the temple.
This seven day rotation brought out talk about dates and months and years, and he learned that they kept a lunar calendar, thirteen months of 28 days each, although no leap years or other ways to adjust to orbital mechanics. Was the orbital period really that precisely lined up? Or divine shenanigans at work? Panna thought the latter was the case, as the seasons remained in their particular months and did not drift. He did find out that he was near the beginning of the summer season, the third day of the fourth month, the spring season having finished a few days ago. The first harvest would be coming in shortly, in the next week or so, and then planting, so it was a busy time of year.
Panna led him first to the communal sleeping quarters, a large open room, like most of the rooms in the temple, filled with cozy beds each given one lockable set of drawers in a table next to it, plus a stool to sit on. The beds themselves were akin to a full sized bed, with four posts holding up a cloth roof and a set of curtains that closed them off to provide privacy. No one else was presently in residence, so Phoenix took a bed farthest from the entrance in a corner (thinking it might be quieter and more private), and locked his backpack box in the drawers. Thus freed, he followed Panna to the shrine of Arachnae.
Here he found the familiar statue of Arachnae, medallion in hand and arm outstretched, only… smaller. A stone altar, barely wider than he was, sat at her feet, and the dried remains of some long dead flowers sat upon it. Not only did it look unattended, it looked like no one had even glanced at it for months if not years. Panna at least had the good grace to be embarrassed by the state it was in.
“I can bring you a water bucket and some soap, if you would like?” she offered.
“Yeah, that would be wonderful, thank you.” Phoenix was a bit torn by all of this, but in the end no one else was going to take care of the shrine so he might as well. Maybe it would earn him a few brownie points with Arachnae when they talked next. Maybe it was just a good deed for the day. So he spent the rest of the late afternoon cleaning the shrine- sweeping, cleaning out the dried flowers, wiping down the statue and the altar, scrubbing clean the crystal offering bowl and cleaning out the candle stubs from the candelabras. Phoenix didn’t have anything to place in the bowl or the candelabras yet, a goal for when he had some money, but he did stop at the end and practice his Worship ritual. His intent wasn’t to actually communicate, just… connect. Maybe let Arachnae know he had succeeded at his goals early and that she should guide him on to the next.
—
Magic Pool: 8 (28) [respiration, 11.2 hours remaining]
—
A great surge of his Magic Pool points emptied out of him and into the offering bowl, leaving a glowing golden pool of mist inside it. Open mouthed in wonder, he watched the bowl slowly empty into the altar over the course of a few minutes. Twenty points all at once! He knew that if you fully emptied your Magic Pool, you would fall unconscious from the strain, so perhaps that was why only full Priestesses could manage the shrine? No one else had a Magic Pool large enough? Well, it was definitely a drain on him, but easily and quickly recovered, so he resolved to practice once a day.
After that, he moved to his chosen bed. Phoenix set up an invisible fence of Illusory Earth around his bed that would last through the night- the purpose wasn’t to really stop a concerted attack, more to alert him if someone destroyed it and wake him up. He spent some hours practicing his passageway maintenance, something he had fallen behind on during the mad dash to this place, and then at last fell into his nightly trance until the morning.