Small change as someone pointed out to me that DeMorte is already the male gender, but not the male sex – I do not really care, but he is supposed to be trained in such medical knowledge and would likely recognize the difference. That said, while I am quite happy to include that in the rewrite, it seems a bit annoying to go back and correct that kind of thing in very chapter.
Feel free to message me about any mistakes that you are aware of, as I will be going through all of the chapters anyway. Even if you just say something like: “chapter 14: near the end” it will help me out ^^
One last thing: I am not sure if I wrote this into the story yet, but wards and magical devices can manipulate the mana around them because, like runes, they have preset patterns and ‘programming’ that allows someone to manipulate the engraved magic without occurring any major caloric cost. Spells involve active manipulation, which has a high cost. (This leads to a conflict regarding armor that DeMorte will more or less explaining shortly.)
One last thing before the chapter start: a few important things were set up in this chapter, but it is kinda hard to spot so I will apologize in advance for the extra world-building that this chapter seems to be about :(
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter regardless and thank you everyone for 200+ followers!!!
Chapter 28: A Bit of Theater
“Eclipse, you cannot be serious boy.” The old priest looked at me with shock, horror, and a bit of disgust.
You are lucky that killing priests is considered an especially heinous act old man, I thought to myself, or even the Guilt might not keep you safe. Outside of the confines of my own mind though, I kept a sad face and a fairly even tone. “I regret that I am very serious Senior Brother Tilt.”
Brother Tilt looked away and took a deep breath, obviously trying to gather his thoughts. Tilt was a member of the church of Tophon, god of light, truth, justice, and according to some, humanity itself. His rank of ‘Brother’ was one of the most common ranks within the various churches’ ranking systems, but the fact that he was a ‘Senior Brother’ and the Tophonist representative for the kingdom made him a very, very, knowledgeable man, as evidenced by the wonderful map on the opposing side of the room.
It was the most complete map that I had seen in either of my lives, showing not just the surrounding area, but the areas beyond the kingdom’s borders. Although the map was out of date in some areas, marking Entrials as a small village, it still showed what was apparently called the “Last forest” – at least part of which was, of course, the area fenced in by fear runes to the north of Entrials.
This was not exactly new information for me, but it did show me something very important: the wooded area that I was familiar with was a small part of a large forested area that covered the center of the continent. Apparently, people tended towards two groups when it came to settlement, the first said that there was safety in numbers and perpetuated the fear of the dark forests that were said to cover most of the world during the times of the Elves, which they said even reached into what was now the sea.
Before we had started talking in earnest, Brother Tilt had been kind enough to explain that this group had all but crawled out onto the eastern continent over the past few millennia, giving this kingdom, and the others on this particular continent, a rather distinctive outlook on the world. Specifically, they were rather terrified and reluctant to push too far into the old forested areas and saw the outlying villages and the people born there as things to be distrusted.
Ironically though, that very distrust was why Brother Tilt had agreed to talk to me in private. When I had arrived at the church and told them I was seeking spiritual guidance after my visit to the northern forest, the less senior brothers had been at odds on whether to throw me out of the spot of try to perform a spiritual cleansing of some sort. Senior Brother Tilt, who had been born in what they called ‘The Holy City,’ had apparently been raised to find this type of reaction as superstitious nonsense and redirected me to his personal office.
I had been tempted to make an emergency exit at this point, however Brother Tilt’s intentions seemed completely platonic and he did not give any signs of abusing his power for any perverse intentions. The door remained unwarded, he had not offered me any strong alcohol, and he sat while giving me generous personal space.
It was around that point where I got sidetracked by the map and found myself split between looking at the Brother and trying to blatantly memorize the map. There were only 2 dozen or so major kingdoms on our continent, with our own being one of only a handful that was landlocked, and I wanted to memorize as much as possible before I left the office. Still, I had another purpose and the old priest called my attention back to it soon enough.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, this particular church had a fetish for the ‘truth’ and their priests were rather well known for having offshoots of overly zealous groups that would call for various things – like the ‘great leveling truth’ which was infamous in a kingdom on the western edge of our continent for calling for the removal of all noble titles.
I tried to use this tendency to my own advantage by telling him that I had traveled from the ‘last forest’ where a girl I had been fond of had been assaulted. I told him of how the perpetrators had been caught, but had been ‘punished by the gods’ before anyone could actually sentence them. I also threw in some lines that Nathan had taught me about ‘the light of truth cutting through the shadows of lies’ to impress the priest.
After I explained all of this to him, acting up my part to the hilt, we finally got around to the meat of the situation where I introduced him, as gently as possible, to the idea of a transgender individual. I did so in the most obtuse manner I could though, referring to the concept as a feeling that my body, my sex, was a lie and that I was confused as to how to let the ‘truth’ stand out.
It was not going well though, as the old priest was now trying to keep his head and refrain from shouting at me. Instead, he started lecturing me that he was sure that Conbra would not have placed me in the wrong body while assuring me that I was quite male and that was the end of that. When I revealed the fact that I was born female it really seemed to bend his mind.
After some time had passed and I confirmed that he would not be helping me locate an individual to change my sex, I evacuated as smoothly as possible. The churches in the capital, all 12 of them were represented although about half of them shared one large building, all had powerful wards that assured me of their power. Even if they were smaller than the ones in the walls or that disturbing castle.
Seriously, who would need wards that powerful? Was there a civil war where the nobles threw open the gates and the king needed another location to fall back to? Or did the humans here inherit that tendency from the Elves.
As I left in silence, I realized that there was one thing I never asked him about: how did he know what an ellipse was? Well, more accurately, the curse he used referred to an ominous shadow that blocked out the light giving sun, but that sounded a lot like an eclipse to me. The problem was that I only knew of the word from Anton’s English language, as neither this world, nor my previous one, had one of these ‘moon’ things.
It sparked an idea that I should go and talk to the Histones again as they were rather conspicuous in the city for a very simple reason. They ran a public library. A stoning PUBLIC library, where most anyone could walk in and just ask for their help to find a book and read it!
That was so… off, even if it was not the first time I had heard of such an idea – both from Anton and in my previous world – it still struck me as odd. This world did not have the easiest script either as its writing seemed to lean itself to a system reminiscent of the runes themselves. Although it would be possible to create various woodblock carvings of the runes, the grammar of the system was driven more by position, with longer sentences and books being near code cyphers when it came to reading them. As a result, this world had a few problems printing books at any decent rate of production.
Part of me was tempted to start introducing the block like characters of the English language, but the grammar and rules governing the language itself was almost beyond me when I had a perfect memory and I really did not want to be responsible for that particular container of buzdags getting lose.
Stepping back out onto the public streets I began the taxing process of slipping between other people as fast as I could. Thankfully, a small child running around in the streets, dodging between other people attracted very little attention. Unfortunately the attention that I did attract was not good as, unlike I originally expected, people did not seem to be fond of runes here.
I had yet to make sense of why, but the people here tried to keep one hand on their purses instead of simply having an anti-theft rune stitched into it. As a result, small groups of children, or sometimes even individuals such myself, were almost a guaranteed sign of pickpockets or purse snatchers nearby, although they were only sometimes connected.
I had 3 attempts to snatch my coin purse already, one of which was by some guard that said I stole the purse itself, which had resulted in 3 very confused individuals who found that my purse was rather hard to remove. In the case of the guard, I had to run away yelling at him to get his own purse, but the other 2 found themselves with a cracked rib or two for their troubles.
I ran towards the public library, a rather tall building that was almost as heavily warded as the walls themselves. It was an interesting place and completely owned and run by the histones, with a theater next to it where occasionally mass plays would be put on to educate and entertain anyone who wanted to come.
In the past 6 days since I arrived, I had discovered that the Histones were more important and useful than I originally understood. While I recognized the power of being the unofficial arbiters on what was accepted as history, what I did not realize was that the Histones also acted as deal negotiators and information experts in all sorts of other things, including details of both public and private trades and arrangements. There was even a few know instances of traitors and invaders going to the histones in order to tell them the details of their plans because of a standing promise to only relay compromising details after a certain amount of time had passed.
If any insanity could be called beautiful though, it was the goals and dreams of the histones: To record as much of history as possible and ensure its preservation for the dissemination of information to the future generations.
Crazy stoning graveborns that they were, I actually found their eagerness to help both endearing and terrifying. On one hand, they had a goal that had led them to fighting off entire kingdoms in the past, all for the singular purpose of being able to teach others at some future point. That said, if those people thought a secret needed to be preserved, you might never know the massive amount of trouble that they cause your descendants.
On a more day to day basis though, the Histones had helped me by explaining where all the major city facilities were, where each temple or shine was located, where some of the cheaper inns were, and even how the waste disposal system worked, simply because I asked. Although they could not tell me where the mage I sought was, nor who the best – private – information brokers were. Anyone known to the Histones would likely be too public for my request…
Although Bella did have a point when she asked why I was even trying to keep the request private. My response and reasoning was simple: the last thing either of us wanted was a connection back to Nathan and the rest of the family, especially when the Nalks started moving and playing their ‘game’ in earnest.
Was it possible that any actions that I took would get back to them anyway? Yes, but I was not going to facilitate any damage by association with me. My wife suffered enough in my previous life for me to learn that lesson… even if I found it an interesting tactic against the paranoid or hypervigilant.
Arriving at the public library – a concept that I might never get used to – I found a lovely bit of trouble awaiting me. Out on the front steps was a group of rather loud individuals, all of which were clearly – well, clearly to me – wearing iron armor under their clothes. They appeared to all be men, but the fact that their faces were hidden made it quite difficult to be positive.
Now if there were 3 clear signs that someone was going to cause a scene it was the presence of full iron armor, hidden faces, and the reluctance to enter a warded building. No one who wanted to cause trouble would do it near a warded building as even non-mages could hang you upside down if you ticked them off inside their wards. One of the few things that I respected the SRMs for was their tendency to have each and every guild building, especially the bars, warded to avoid trouble.
The full iron suits were also a good indicator of trouble. If someone directed stun or itch spells your way, the iron would negate the majority of spells better than it would stop an arrow. It would help someone survive a blast or 2 of direct magic, but more importantly, it guaranteed that any escalation would be severe as a few fireball creation spells tied into the wards would boil the iron covered men.
In a war such men would either be considered sacrificial pawns or elite soldiers based on what they had on underneath: magically protected clothes that would keep them safe from even melting iron or basic padding to help deflect blows. I was betting that this lot was no group of specialists though.
Now the question became, who was paying or threatening them into causing such a scene? I honestly could not care less, but it would be hard to get into the library without getting past this loud bunch.
Of course, they would likely not want to move either and given the lack of guard presence, it was safe to say that someone with money wanted to cause this scene for one reason or another.
I ducked to the side of the road and begged a piece of fruit from a passing woman. She gave it to me, paused, and promptly took the idea and ran with it, suddenly starting to sell her basket of food to some people in surrounding crowd as they stopped to watch the group of strange men hurl insults and rude comments at a rather board looking Histone Minder. (The Histone system of ranks was as annoying as it was self-explanatory as their hierarchy was extremely loose outside the upper-most level)
I also took the opportunity to look around and see if I could spot whoever had started this annoyance. To my surprise it was ridiculously easy as I saw someone looking uncomfortable in a cloak, clearly trying to hold in his annoyance or anger at being delayed. I would not have noticed him if not for the cloak though, not only was it drawn tightly around him, it weigh especially heavy on his shoulder, causing him to alternate between slouching slightly and forcing himself to stand straight. It likely had some iron worked into it, perhaps with some silencing runes or something on the inside.
He was obviously a mage who was uncomfortable in this crowd, yet could not afford to be seen traveling to his destination, or he would have taken a carriage. In short, he was a good target, which let me look around and spot who was only half paying attention to the scene in front of us and keeping an eye on the cloaked person.
It took me a bit, but I found him, an average looking man that was hanging back just far enough to watch both the idiots and the cloak at the same time, quickly shooting glances at his target before looking back at the commotion, which seemed to be nearing its end.
In fact, just after I found the man who likely caused all of this annoyance, the distraction seemed to draw itself to a close. Theater and misdirection was once my bread and butter, so this was slightly embarrassing to watch, but that might have been the point, to see if the idiot in the cloak would notice.
Shaking my head to myself, I finished the last of my fruit, even eating the seeds, and hit the cloaked fool with a brief flash of killing intent as I stepped out of his line of sight. If that person did not figure out that he was a perfect target for murder after that, he did not deserve to walk the streets at all.
I mean really, unless he had his mana constantly running through some mithril armor underneath that cloak, someone could easily stab him in the crowd and walk away before anyone noticed. I knew from personal experience.
As the crowd started to disperse with the end of the show I made my way up the few steps that lead to the library. The steps were lightly carved with water repellent runes so I had asked one of the Histones here and apparently all of their libraries were built like this, regardless of whether or not they were in an area that flooded. They were all also built at least a meter above the average road level, with fire suppression wards, earthshaking countermeasures, and even a reinforced roof that could bounce a small boulder’s worth of iron off the roof without much more than cosmetic damage.
I nodded to the Histone Minder, who was still keeping an eye on the retreating actors, and I was starting to walk past him when the screaming started. I turned, expecting to find the cloaked figure bleeding out on the ground, but I saw the average looking man instead, kneeling as blood spread from a vicious gash to his side, below the ribs. What really surprised me though was that he was already in a fit of convulsions that quickly stopped as he fell over dead.
It happened so fast that I almost applauded in spite of myself. Honestly, I had not considered the fact that I had the power to save the man, so choosing not to act might have caused the Guilt to come visit me, but thankfully he died too quickly for it to matter. I wondered if the cloaked figure had the poisoned blade on him or if he had used the man’s own blade to kill him.
Either way, I looked around and found the cloaked figure scanning the crowd from where I had been standing earlier, back when I sent my brief flash of killing intent. I smiled to myself briefly as I admitted to myself that it was impressive he could even identify the direction that of where I had been from such a brief flash of energy. It was even more impressive to be given what I suspected his cloak’s composition to be. Still, I chose to ignore him though as, whoever the cloaked figure was, it was not important to me at the moment.
I turned back to the Minder, who had clearly figured out that the bad acting job was just smoke to distract everyone else for a little while. “The whole world is nothing else if not a stage for people to act the fool,” he muttered before sighing and glancing at me. “Anything in particular you are looking for today Set? More poetry to shamelessly spout for the ladies?” The last part was said with a sly grin.
“Bah, you said that last bit as if you were not copiously taking notes while I was helping out your friend.” I gave him a more subdued grin showing only a bit of my prideful cloak.
“It is part of my job to take notes you know.”
“Notes, yes, flowery dictation on how the girl’s eyes sparkled and her face so gradually became more flushed as her ears were slowly taken on a ride of-”
The Minder stepped to the side and ushered me inside, cutting me off with a hiss of admonishment, he was quite the romantic and liked to write pages upon pages worth of detailed, often exaggerated, prose about anything even remotely suggestive of romantic interaction or intrigue. I had read some over his shoulder and criticized the lack of completion in his writing as he took 2 paragraphs to write what amounted to ‘he recited the girl some poetry and she enjoyed it greatly.’
I briefly stole his writing and noted that they were all completely platonic too! I told him off a little after that for using his access to large amounts of paper for such drivel. He had been quite offended until I started reciting some poetry from my previous world. Even the Histone, he had immediately latched on to the language and asked for a translation. Naturally, I was not familiar with much of the cleaner poetry in my previous life and I howled at his red face as he dutifully wrote down every word.
That had been the first day I arrived and told everyone that I was a messenger boy of the poetic sort. Since then I had earned my lodging with a few edited poems that I barrowed from my previous world. (Leo was stuck dreaming of copyright lawyers because of this.) I had also teased the library Minder about his writing as much as possible and despite the fact that I still did not know his name, we had become friends of a sort.
His ‘friendship’ had helped me locate more traditional, but equally shameless, poetry as well as getting some quiet help in finding out facts and knowledge that I never knew before. Although, I suddenly felt the lack of a public map section.
Once we were inside and I finished my usual gawking at the floor after floor of books above us, I actually asked that question too. “Incidentally, why do you not have a map section? I was dealing with someone today and their map was amazing.”
The Minder grimaced, “Maps can be qualified under a military asset, especially if we have some detailed ones of the Kingdom on hand. It would be far too easy for someone to copy our work in preparation for an invasion of any type or scale. As such, all of our maps or written records of military worth are stored separately and usually sealed away from the public’s eyes, under advisement from both the King and the Grand Master.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Ah.” I nodded, but only partly understood, I had built my little Kingdom up from the ground in a natural fortress, so there were plenty of things that I simply did not understand when it came to ruling one. If someone wanted to use your maps, let them, all you had to do was make a few key edits and leave out things like ‘this forest is a natural swamp further in’ to make any invaders think that they actually knew where they were going.
Moving on though: “Another thing, what is an Eclipse?”
The Minder jumped a bit when I asked that question, which surprised me, if the priest let a hint to something important slip because he used it in a curse I might have to change my face again. Before the Minder could answer though, a deep voice answered from the entrance behind me.
“Why would a child be interested in that prophecy?” The cloaked figure from before had just walked into the library. The deep voice of its was clearly male and likely fake given the fact that the figure was so completely covered.
“What prophecy?” I did not have to fake confusion here as I had no idea what the figure was talking about. “I just heard it from a Tophon brother and was curious.”
After a moment the cloaked figure gave a brief laugh. “You must have really aggravated someone, brat.” The figure’s cloak suddenly stared bulging and it seemed to reached out in an attempt touch me and I stepped back instinctively out of reach, despite the fact that its hand had not left the inside of the cloak.
That cloak seems spellbound to completely hide its wearer, I thought to myself, no matter how foolish they may be. “What is this prophecy anyway and what is an Eclipse?” I asked, only letting my curiosity show as I wondered why exactly the Minder here had reacted so badly.
The cloak retracted what I imagined was its hand and spoke as if board. “Curiosity can be a sin if you overindulge it brat, but I will give you the short answer: A few hundred cycles ago several highly regarded religious figures and Kings received a vision from the gods that a great stone would come and herald a time of great change by blocking out the sun like the Elven stone of old was said to.” I looked directly at the figure’s hood while it spoke, confirming that its identity was hidden by magic, as its face was completely covered by shadows. “It is impolite to stare brat.”
It is impolite and foolish to call me a brat, I thought vindictively. Of course, since I was an actor who needed to play up his role, I decided to see how foolish this one was. “That cannot be your real voice.”
“Oh and how would you know my real voice, brat?”
“I would not, but you hide everything else so it would be rather silly if your voice was real.”
“Well, brat, since you are clearly enjoying trying to figure out who I am, did you figure out anything else?”
“Sure, you are obviously the Mysterious Lady Valorous.” The Minder went into a coughing fit when I said that. I just gave my biggest grin, showing off the fact that one of my few remaining child’s teeth had been removed the other day to make me look younger.
“Who?”
“She is someone who-” I began.
“That is quite enough Set, if you go to the far end of shelve 4 you will find a book titled the study of the Elven Cycle which will answer your questions about an eclipse more thoroughly.” The Minder cut me off and gave me a serious glare.
I somewhat ruined it by adding “you were already thinking about it,” before I ran off towards the sections he mentioned. It was so fun to be known for having a slightly dirt mind, especially when it let me suggest that strangers were like the people in my… unique poetry.
Lady Valorous, for example, who was a (supposedly) fictional lower class women who charmed most of the aristocracy in a particular city by refusing to talk about her past in anything other than vague hints. She also hid everything below her collar in a modified outfit that looked like a cloak with sleeves, which led to gloved hands. What no one except the odd servant knew, however, was that the Lady Valorous never wore anything underneath her odd garb.
It was a rather rude tale that Osiris and I used to tell all the time in conjuncture with copious amounts of alcohol to get information out of whoever we were talking to at the time. Naturally, the Minder had been obligated to record it as his a derivative of his duty as a Histone, so he was trying to avoid any more trouble in the day.
Putting the cloaked fool aside in my mind, I found the book he referenced easily enough and started reading.
To sum up about 100 pages of religiously fervent hatred and supposition, of which I ended up skipping large sections, this planet used to have a moon. A moon which disappeared over 3000 cycles ago near the end of the Enslavement. It was allegedly a green thing that served as the Elven final resting place or final respite, depending on which part of the book I was skimming.
After it disappeared the whole world started to go through centuries of cycles at a time where the phases would disappear and eventually reverse entirely: leaving periods where it was significantly warmer all cycle long, for cycle after cycle before the seasons slowly started reasserting themselves, in reverse of what they previously were. The fire phase became cold and the water phase became hot. In the end this was called the Elven cycle and it affected the world for around 300 cycles at a time before it stated to reverse.
According to the book this was the result of unholy Elven curses that had been cast in the death spasms of their demon-gods after humanity and the 12 had overthrown them. The time of the greatest danger therefore, would come when an eclipse like ancient times blocked out the sun’s light and summoned a time of great evil. After all, clearly the Elven demon-gods would only have blocked out the light giver itself in the past to perform the greatest of evil rites and rituals.
Ignoring the author’s supposition and guesses though it did explain one thing that I had been wondering about for a while now, the wildlife. There had been so many different animals and species in my previous world that I only assumed that the lack of variety, even in the woods that made up the ‘last forest’ was due to the inherent fear or hatred of nature that people here had. If some climate change was added on top of that then I doubted that any non-migratory species would have an easy time surviving… Though those weird fling snake things inside the fear runes gave my thoughts pause as I closed the book.
After I carefully replaced the book in its previous spot, I made sure to thank the Minder for his help before I left. I noticed that the cloaked one was nowhere to be seen as I did so, but I paid it very little attention beyond that. It was already nearing sundown by now and I wanted to deal with a shopkeeper who had a business arrangement with me that should profit us both.
It hardly took me any time to get to my destination since the streets in the city dramatically quieted down after the daily rush to get home in the evening. Naturally, I avoided this rush period as no one actually seemed to be rushing anywhere. The store that I was looking was easy to find even during the crowded rush period it stood out. Although I was one of the few people who knew why it stood out to everyone.
It had originally caught my attention because of the brightly colored sign on top of it, which created a nice enough contrast, with its bright golden symbol on a cool green backdrop, that you could spot it even in the dim twilight. That alone gathered attention, but it was the subtle runes that had been carved around the edge of the store symbol that really caught my attention.
Runes to generate heat, cool something off, or make something more durable were easy enough for me to understand memorizing. They took quite a bit of time to study, but were worth it if you could remember them when you needed them. That said, it would take a runic master to use runes in a combination that would not only attract your attention subtly, but also make sure that you would normally never notice them.
Misdirection I could do, but I was no master of runes and the bare thought of trying to fight one of those again made me shiver. Those who could use a handful of runes correctly could misdirect armies, but masters could over their bodies in runic scars or tattoos to dangerous effect. Ovals below, I still did not know exactly how that fight went, only that I ended up burning the rune covered corpse afterwards, after my body had cannibalized itself to the point where it took me from fall till late winter to recover.
Whether by a twist of fate, or just bad luck, Bella had been watching my mind and saw the affects that the subtle runes had before pointing them out to me. Even with the clarity runes carved into my bone armor underneath my robe to counter such a thing, they had still affected me. When I asked around, I learned that it was illegal for anyone to use runes to affect their customers. However, while using runes to attract attention was frowned upon, it was not illegal.
I investigated the shop and asked the owner who carved his runes, causing him to get a little confused as apparently they had even made him forget that they were there. In any case, once I convinced him that I was not about to go around announcing their presence, the owner and I got along fairly well. He had even told me about an interesting new magical device that he had promised to let me test out in exchange for me telling him about its limitations – since I told him I was familiar with magic curtesy of my brother – which was a fairly good deal.
As I arrived though, there were a few unfriendly people at the shop, trying to cause trouble, however the power of the shop’s wards made sure that they were instantly rendered unconscious.
“Ah, Set, good timing, would you mind helping me with this lot before uncle Dioxin gets here?”
“Happy to help.” I responded.
* * *
Inside the Royal Castle
“You are dismissed to your duties Lady Rapier.” Administrator Woolsey stated coolly.
The Lady Rapier gave the quickest acknowledgment she could before turning and almost storming out of the room.
Woolsey shook his head quietly, he already had too many temperamental people to deal with as it was without having to worry about one of the royal magicians suddenly trying to beg off her orders. She had been supposed to leave almost a week ago, but had suddenly tried to dodge the mission.
The last thing I need is more people making my job harder than it has been lately. Especially now that those idiots have finally organized into a sensible opposition instead of trying to assassinate my distant relatives again. Woolsey refused to sigh though and continued his work. Thankfully he had managed to put at least a few competent individuals in charge of the most important positions, therefore his job was mostly just him signing off on a few papers with the Royal Seal and trying to avoid the temptation to pour himself a glass of wine before his work was done.
He really should have known that something would happen.
The door flung open and only a ward made it stop short of slamming into the wall before a short man stomped in. “They did it again!”
Again, Woolsey refused to sigh and simply looked up at the fuming Monty. “Monty, where have you been these days?”
“You know where I was! Down at the Adventure’s Guild, shopping apparently, as they told me that I was being too picky about an alchemy ingredient! Honestly, do they not realized how absurd that very notion is?! Alchemy is far to precise not to be picky! If I used the ingredients they gave me I would kill half the castle with the resulting gas!”
Knowing the short alchemist was exaggerating, barely, Woolsey kept speaking in a calm tone. “Oh? What exactly did you buy?”
“Pistoleus Enginoritor” Monty said, helping himself to something in a flask of his.
That flask better not be filled with your own version of alcohol Monty, I swear that stuff will kill a normal person far faster than most poisons you come up with. “I am unfamiliar with that ingredient, how do you cook it?”
Monty threw a look of disgust Woolsey’s way, despite going alone with the usual joke. “You do not cook it!”
“Well, I cannot say that eating it raw sounds like a good idea.”
Monty rolled his eye dramatically and gestured with his flask. “You know that eating my ingredients would be a bad idea, cooked or raw!”
“Yes well what do you want me to do about it Monty? You know that, like your ingredients, it does not matter if you complain to me as I only have so much influence over the Adventurer’s Guild. Glorified mercenaries or not, no one can tell them what to do, they are simply too powerful for that, though they seem to be rather eager to remind us of that fact in recent cycles... No, it might even go back to when I managed to secure our borders.
“Yes, well,” Monty spoke hesitantly, which was never a good sign, “I was hoping that you might hire someone… else to retrieve the proper ingredient, as the Adventurer’s Guild seems to think that the one they are retrieving are the correct ones.” Monty snorted. “As if I did not specify the even spotted blue and purple mushrooms from the 29th floor of the dungeon! Alchemy is extremely precise Woolsey and if I want to complete the potion I need that ingredient.”
Woolsey nodded slowly, both understanding the problem and lack of an obvious solution. Lady Rapier was one of the few people who he might have trusted with ensuring the retrieval of something like this, but she and almost all of the Royal Magician’s Corps were out trying to find a hint of how one of their own vanished without a trace. The few that remained were regarded as the minimal amount required to protect the King and his family.
“We have two options as far as I can see, we can go to an independent and try to make sure that the Adventurer’s Guild either does not connect it to us or we can wait for the next Earth phase, when some of the royal mages will be able to personally see to it.” The potion that Monty was trying to make was important, but they had time so it could wait… if Monty had the patience.
The door, which had closed itself automatically, was flung open again, this time by Woolsey’s single biggest headache in the kingdom. This time, Woolsey did sigh as he stood up and gave a bow to the King’s 3rd daughter, her royal lady, Amelia. “Hello Wooly, Monly, can either of you explain who the ‘Mysterious Lady Valorous’ is?” She plopped herself down on a chair to the side and lounged in the most undignified way possible.
As always, her guard, George, took position behind her, seemingly invisible in comparison to the loud and obnoxious young teenager. Had there been anyone else here she might have tried to appear dignified, but that was too much effort for just the two of them. While Monty was eccentric enough that not even the King actually expected him to observe correct social protocol, the King’s daughter was different and just liked to mess with others.
The fact that she was as beautiful and as she was an annoyance did not help Woolsey as the girl tended to use those looks to torment young noble men.
12 marriage suggestions from both her father and I, but all of the would be suitors ran away as fast they could when they understood her personality – an act that I cannot even blame them for. Woolsey felt his eye twitch oh so slightly. He could run the entire realm from this room, but even the gods could no control this teen.
Monty responded to her first. “Where in the blue-souled places have you been little girl? I did not even think the servants know that name yet.”
“I heard it from some cheeky brat. Why?”
“Hah! Cheeky indeed, I take it you were out in the cloak of yours?”
Woolsey directed a glare at Amelia. She was not supposed to leave the inner grounds.
She shrugged off Woolsey’s glare and looked only at Monty, waiting for him to explain.
Trying to keep from laughing, he obliged, “She is was some common girl who, according to the story, charmed people by only showing them her face and hiding everything else underneath her cloak. Of course, since this is the type of tale told in cheap bars, she was naked the whole time and only the servants noticed!” At that point Monty lost control and started laughing hysterically.
Amelia however, just looked thoughtful.
“Do not even think about it Amelia.” Woolsey said, trying to keep the pleading out of his tone. Knowing her, she would both show up to some party naked and find some way to brush past him to ensure that he would know about it.
“Think about what?” The fake innocence in that voice curled Woolsey’s toes and he was silently thankful that he was too old for her interests. After she was gone, the wine would come out. “Which reminds me,” Amelia sat straight and smoothed out her latest outfit – another expense to account for – before looking Woolsey in the eye, “we need to talk.”
Great, her being serious is even worse than her normal self. Woolsey turned to the still giggling Monty. “I think that our business is concluded, Royal Alchemist, if you want to wait for the Corp to be free to assist, feel free. If you feel that waiting would be too troublesome I would suggest that you call upon the merchant named Dioxin – with your own funds of course – he should be back in city already and will likely stay until the end of the next Earth phase at the least.”
Monty stiffened and sniffed. “No need to be so formal Administrator, we all like you better when you stop being so stingy.” He took another swig of his flask and left without another word.
Taking a deep breath, Woolsey turned back to address whatever latest problem Amelia had managed to bring to his doorstep.
“I was on my way to the Histone’s library to reference a specific book of their and found a truly embarrassing bit of theater going on when I got there. To make it more insulting, as it was ending someone had the nerve to try and stab me.” She sniffed. “Which reminds me, that cloak is incredibly impractical for fighting in, I had to leave it all to George.”
Woolsey took that in and tried to keep a straight face. “George, if you saw and were shadowing her, how was it that she got off the grounds in the first place?”
George stopped using whatever shadow magic he preferred to let his face show. Thank the gods he only enjoys the company of men. Woolsey silently acknowledged, Amelia had eagerly taken him for her personal guard for his looks, tall, muscular body, and winning smile, just as planned, but had been unable to return him when she realized that their tastes in men were similar.
“Apologies Administrator, she sent me to retrieve a book and from our own library and when I got back she was gone. I tracked her down afterwards and was ordered to be quiet, so I instead decided to just protect her while she was out.”
Another reason to be thankful for the company he keeps, Amelia has him running around enough as it is without sex complicating things. “So someone actually tried to kill her?”
“Regretfully sir, I did manage to kill him with ease though.” Amelia gave a mock cry, as if she was shocked that he had to confirm her story.
Woolsey rubbed his temples and tried to decide what the odds were that Amelia had hired the assassin herself to stir up trouble. In her enchanted cloak no one would know for sure who she was unless she had been deliberately targeted.
“Easy for me that was,” George announced, no doubt eager to go into details of his glorious struggle, before Woolsey cut him off.
“George, you took an arrow to the knee and did not care. Elves man, you lost an arm and called it a flesh wound! Do not try and exaggerate or downplay this.”
George visibly deflated. “There was one assassin, who I killed when he tried to move in on her Royal Ladyship, he was carrying a poisoned dagger that killed him quite quickly. Though her Ladyship insists that there was someone else, despite the lack of any magical presence beyond her Ladyship.”
Which meant she imagined it, was lying about it, or someone was enough of an expert in hiding their presence to avoid one of their best guards…
The wine would have to wait until later then, Woolsey indulged himself in another sigh.
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Heh god of fire, Hoh goddess of water, Conbra the goddess of life, Tophon the god of light… should I stop that trend or keep going? Cookie for the first person to post the explanation to the names.
Hope I got my physics right, the moon mentioned in this world was not as big as Luna herself, but the absence of an anchor has led to some minor tilt wandering… though I am not sure if a 300 year pattern like I described is feasible so… “it is fiction” defense?
Regardless, thank you for reading,
B_S.