Chapter 12

“What does he do?” Gaius pointed to the man sitting off to the side behind the counter. While most of the people he observed had a weak aura, the man had a vibrant roaring color of silver that was properly contained within his body.

“Mm. He doesn’t seem busy, why don’t you ask him?” Duncan said. He was no longer stunned by his son’s ability to detect strong auras.

Gaius and Gen, both filled with curiosity at this wonderful place approached the man behind the counter. Seeing the two earnest gazes of the boys’ eyes, the man put his book down and approached them.

“How may I help you two youngsters,” the man’s deep voice boomed.

Gaius was shaken by the man’s deep voice and finally asked, “Sir, I was merely curious as this is my first time within the city, but what is it that you do?”

The man looked at the boy for a while, he considered his response until he finally spoke, “What do you mean? I’m a scribe like everyone else here.”

The other workers, upon hearing the man’s comment couldn’t help but smile and shake their heads—Duncan and Tulia smiled too.

Confused but undeterred, Gaius pressed on, “You’re different from them. You’re much stronger than the other scribes.”

The man’s eyebrows raised at the boy’s comment, “Oh? And how would you know how strong I am?”

Gaius opened his mouth and was about to say something until he decided against it. “I probably shouldn’t let him know I can see his aura,” he thought to himself. He opened his mouth again with a reply and suddenly closed it again.

Seeing the boy’s antics made the man smile and he relented, “Either way. You are right, I am a bit different, but I’m also a scribe of the Merchant’s Guild. I am a word-binder. I condense the Aspect of the Letters.”

“Wow,” though the boys had no clue what that meant, it was still fascinating to discover a new Aspect. “What do you do with the Aspect of Letters?” Gen asked by the side.

Looking at the other boy the man smiled and replied, “Hmm, the newest practitioner can usually record the voices of others onto parchment. It’s useful for carrying out official decrees or something of the sort. If they’re good enough with it, they usually record singers and bards and are able to sell their songs to people all over the kingdom—quite the lucrative business. If you’re stronger like me,” the man beamed, “then you can create soul-binding contracts.”

“What’s that?” Gaius asked with his interest piqued.

“Well, a normal contract is only binding on word of promise. If that promise is broken then a person may seek recompense through the Alirian kingdom. But a soul-binding contract is different. Depending on the clause, the person that breaks their promise can be subject to anything like: being forced to dance in the street, slavery, or even death. And I can make these bindings by condensing letters of power onto parchment and through the Alirian seal.”

“Wow,” was the only word the boys could let out. “You could die from breaking a promise?!” Gaius thought to himself, “that is powerful.”

Thanking the man for his time, Gaius and Gen left the counter in a daze. The man was quite interested in how the young man was able to gauge his strength, “Perhaps I need to lose some weight. Scaring these youngsters won’t be good for business,” the man thought to himself.

Gaius and his family walked away from the counters at the side of the building and into the center. There Gaius spotted an island-counter with a sign above. “Hmm. It looks like some type of lens. Maybe it has something to do with looking at something?” he thought to himself.

“What does that lens mean?” Gen asked his parents.

“It’s a magnifying glass,” Tulia answered. “This is an appraiser’s counter. They look at any item you bring in and help you identify their value. If they cannot, then they usually tell you which other counter to visit.”

“Oh, that’s boring” Gen thought to himself.

“They help you identify things and direct you to other counters if they don’t know,” Gaius repeated in his mind. He suddenly approached the counter. His family surprised by his abrupt direction, followed him curiously.

“Excuse me sir,” Gaius said as he approached the counter.

“Uh, yes. How may I help you,” he replied as he eyed the boy’s parents behind him.

“Do you provide information on subjects, or at least direct me to where I might be able to find it?” Gaius asked quickly.

“Though our main role is to appraise, we can provide a bit of information. But if we cannot, then you should go to the information broker. They actually deal with information of any kind, if they don’t have it, no one does,” the man said.

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“Oh, well do you have any information regarding to antimages?” Gaius asked innocently.

The man’s eyes widen in shock, “Ah, a bunch of country bumpkins. No wonder,” the man thought to himself. “Ah, actually. It is very taboo to talk about . . .  them. All information about them are prohibited. So I would not look further into it, if I were you. You can be thrown into prison,” the man warned.

Tulia and Duncan were stunned by the revelation, “no wonder I know so little. I suppose it was by design,” they both thought along the same lines. “Thank you for your warning, we will refrain from asking in the future,” Tulia said while pushing Gaius along.

“Mom, why can’t we ask about ant . . .?” Gaius was interrupted by his mother’s whisper.

“Do not speak of it. We’ll wait until we meet your uncle. Trust me okay?” she said sternly.

Gaius nodded while they continued on their sight-seeing tour. Along the same side of the wall as the scribe’s counter was another group of workers.

Above them hung a sign, there were eight dots split in half with a horizontal line—4 dots above the line and 4 dots below. At the center of these 8 dots and the bisecting line was an empty circle. Like a clock without 12, 3, 6, and 9 labeled, and where the hour and minute hands read 9:15 or 3:45. At the center of this diagram was an empty circle—not even the bisecting line cutting through it. Curious at this sign, Gaius asked, “What does this sign mean?”

Duncan responded, “This is the sign of the runeweavers.” And without even pausing to ask his parents, Gaius continued to the counter to find an idle worker.

“Excuse me Miss. I am curious at the kinds of services you offer,” Gaius politely asked.

Looking at the polite young man in front of her the lady behind the counter smiled and professionally responded, “As a runeweaver, our services have many applications and a wide range. We can create runes to strengthen weapons and armor, and we may also create runic formations that can condense auras and form many things like: a water sigil that fills a well, a fire sigil to warm homes in the winter, or a wind sigil to keep sails full. But those are difficult runes to weave, most of our work within the city is more domestic, like creating sigils to keep floors clean, sigils to purify water, and the like.”

Gaius asked with great enthusiasm, “How long does it take to become a proficient runeweaver?”

Seeing the boy’s genuine interest the lady said, “Well, if you wanted to learn a specific sigil, it would probably take one or two years to learn how to control the aura to write one. But the bulk of the time learning runeweaving is actually learning the individual runes. To date, the Runeweavers Guild has discovered about 210,000 different runes. Complete mastery over these runes will take decades, but it will equip you with the tools necessary to create any sigil you can think of.”

“By the Father!” Gaius cursed inwardly. “210,000 different runes to memorize? Is that even possible?” he thought. Looking at the lady with newfound respect he asked, “Why do you need to learn so many different types? Wouldn’t it be easier to just learn sigils?”

The lady wearily smiled as if hearing this question asked a hundred times a day, “Most believe that learning the sigils themselves is enough to be a runeweaver, but a true weaver would learn as many runes as possible, because combining different runes together will have drastically different results. Say for example, there’s a water sigil that can purify water. If you remove one rune and replace it with another, it can instead do nothing or perhaps start a fire.”

“Ah, that’s amazing,” Gaius said to the lady. Without wanting to take any more of the lady’s time and with most of his curiosity sated, Gaius said, “Thank you for your time,” and left the counter.

Upon entering the building the family of four had been moving clockwise, apart from visiting the appraiser at the center, the family now found themselves at the back of the building. Above the counter at the back was an obvious sign, an anvil. Gaius and Gen thought along the same line, “A smith! I wonder how much better their weapons and armors are.” Without waiting for their parents or even asking what the workers did, the two boys ran up to the counter to get a good look at the merchandise on the shelves. They ran through the crowd of customers until they reached the counter and just gawked.

Seeing the two boys barge their way in, the front customer angrily yelled, “Hey kid, best leave if you ain’t buying nothing.”

Though most of the workers at the counters were polite and courteous, this one did not refute or reprimand the customer’s demand. The smithing counters were their busiest spot all year long. The two boys were not dispirited as they were rebuffed, but they did hang farthest back from the crowd of customers while still staring at the armaments as they saw them.

“They have everything!” Gaius whispered lowly for his brother to hear as they were both in awe.

“Yeah! Look at that sword, it has a golden hilt with a red gemstone.” Gen said.

“Wow, see that armor on the 3rd shelf? What animal do you think they made that from? It has so many spikes!” Gaius commented.

“By the Father,” the two boys whispered, “Look at that axe,” they both said upon looking at the same thing. Hanging from mounts nailed into the wall was an axe 2 meters in length, with its double-bladed sides making up about 1.25 meters.

“Hey, hey! No swearing,” Tulia reprimanded as she heard their hushed words.

“Who can swing that?” Gen asked in wonder.

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to find out,” replied Gaius.

“Whoa! How do you wield that?” Gen asked pointed to an exotic weapon he’s never seen before.

“I don’t know. It looks just like a chain with a ball at the end and a sickle at the other. That seems cumbersome to use in a fight,” Gaius said while his brother nodded in agreement.

“Oh! Over there, what’s that?” Gen pointed for his brother to see.

“Oh, that looks like a blow dart, but it’s a lot bigger than the one I trained in,” Gaius told his brother.

“How do you use it? What does it do?” Gen inquired.

“It does as it sounds, you place your mouth on one end and use your lungs to blow darts through it. It’s pretty cool,” Gaius said.

“How many weapons did mom and dad teach you?” Gen asked a question he had always wondered about after seeing him spar against their mother.

“Well, it wasn’t real training. They just taught me the basics to a few of them, to see if I resonated with the weapon to condense an Aspect. But it was around 8 or 9. I eventually gave up because none of the weapons helped me condense an Aspect,” Gaius said as he thought back to his year of training.

“How were you so fast and agile when you sparred against mom?” Gen asked another question he always had.

“It’s her aura. I see it like an ocean, sometimes it drowns me and other times it recedes back. I know you probably see her aura like grains of sand floating around. But if you watch it closely enough, you can tell when she attacks, defends, or feints. But don’t focus on it too intently or else you won’t be able to react properly. It gets easier the more you practice condensing your aura I think,” Gaius said.