Sorted all his alchemy creations from the basic healing potions to the phantom ink across his whole workstation leaving just barely enough room for his equipment. All the containers and vials easily added up to several gold coins worth or merchandise that for the time being he had no way to sell. The explanation given by Master Calvus was he wasn’t selling enough in his store alone to justify buying it.
So for a while instead of practicing alchemy Arthur instead chose to practice other types of magic. He barely knew anything of restoration magic so he went to the next magic he had the least experience in, aeromancy.
He conjured a ball from the surrounding air and compressed it while also making it spin. The idea was to try to make the ball of air as dense and erratic as possible while keeping control over it. It was one of the ways Faylin Arthur’s elven aeromancy teacher taught her students.
Soon Arthur managed to compress the ball until it could easily fit into the palm of his hand. While it looked easy it was not, sweat could be seen dripping down Arthur’s face as he held the ball of compressed air together fighting against the air's natural desire to spread out.
Eventually Arthur could no longer hold the shape and the air quickly expanded pushing Arthur back and off the chair he was sitting onto the floor. Arthur layed there for a moment thinking about what had been happening in his life.
He felt quite bored and a bit lost, he was very skilled in alchemy but he couldn’t sell any of his creations because Master Calvus would not be able to sell them fast enough and he was the only person he could legally sell them to until his apprenticeship ended.
‘I need to get out and clear my mind. Perhaps I will look into that alchemist club in the mages guild after. They might have a way for me to get rid of my excess alchemical creations.’
And so Arthur quickly made his way out of the Elder Nymph and down the streets of the southern district to clear his mind. One of the major differences in the southern district since the attack was the abundance of burnt down buildings and the few new construction projects rebuilding some.
While the attack did devastate the economy and kill many people it did bring some new construction jobs to the area as many people bought up the dirt cheap land to expand. One of the more notable construction projects was for a new store that took up the space of three previous buildings. It was being built by a company called Goldwalk that had for the longest time had only been expanding outside of the capital.
Arthur watched the construction works do their jobs for a short time before he continued on his walk. Eventually he passed the general store that was run by Vitellia. Since the attack she had been receiving less and less customers and Arthur’s purchases alone were not enough to keep her business afloat so she eventually closed down and sold the building to someone else.
Looking at the building made Arthur a bit sad, he liked chatting with Vitellia every few days when he returned to buy more food and spices. Now he would need to look elsewhere and odds were that he wouldn’t find another small store like hers as many other small businesses have been going under after the attack. Only the most in demand and best organized small businesses managed to stay open.
Towards the center of the district was a large mass grave for all the victims of the attack that could be identified after. Which after the many different ways they might die from burning alive to blunt force trauma could leave them unidentifiable.
All those that could not be identified were cremated and had their ashes placed into the mass grave. It gave a small sense of comfort to those who lost a loved one but could not identify them.
Arthur did not remain there for long, the sight of those grieving filling his heart with sadness even weeks after what happened.
Eventually he found a bench a few blocks down from the district center where he took a seat and just looked around. He took note of all the people who up until the attack were happy for their lives making a turn for the better. Now they looked quite scared and worried, not even under the previous captain did anything like that happen, and he was well known for his corruption even after he deserted.
“Do you mind if I take a seat here?” A familiar voice came from the left of where he sat.
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It was Calavia holding two burritos in her left hand. “Oh yeah, I don’t mind.” Arthur smiled, Calavia was a good friend and he had been preoccupied for some time leaving little left to spend with her.
Calavia took a seat next to Arthur and handed him one of the burritos while taking a bite out of her own. “So what have you been up to?” Calavia asked through a mouthful of food.
“Mostly just learning alchemy under Master Clavus and taking a few mercenary jobs from Captain Tasius.”
“That's good. How has your apprenticeship been going? What all can you make?” Calavia asked while almost a quarter way done her burrito.
“I know how to make some pretty useful stuff including fire seeds, phantom ink, basic healing potions, numbing poison, antidots, and a few other things. Only problem is I make it all too fast for Master Clavus to sell fast enough, so for now i don’t really have much to do.”
Arthur took a small bite from his burrito savoring the taste of rice, chicken, and what he thought was a fish sauce. “What about you? What have you gotten up to?”
“Mostly just studying and attending class while working as a healer on the side to cover my living expenses. I haven't been back to the mercenaries guild for months now, so I expect to be demoted by now.” Calavia was now on her last few bites of her burrito.
“You are a part of the mercenaries guild? Is that part of the reason you were rewarded by the crown?” Arthur turned to look at her while she attempted to look away.
“It was part of the reason, but it wasn’t exactly a good experience for me. Almost half of those that I was working with on that job ended up dead from these magic powered automated defences. Those of us that were left reported to the guild about the situation and we remained there until the military arrived.”
Calavia remained silent for almost a minute before continuing. “I don’t even know what we ended up finding down there and I never want to, that's why when the crown offered us a large sum of money to keep quiet I was the first to accept it.”
The surrounding area went quiet as Calavia finished her explanation. But after a short live silence Arthur spoke up. “Are all jobs with the mercenaries guild like that, unknown risk and possibly high reward? Because if they are, I don't think I will end up joining.”
“No no, most have a fairly accurate danger rating, but sometimes when you are assigned to cut down a small rogue tribe of goblins you stumble upon an ancient fortress fueled by divine magic.”
“Divine magic? What is that?” ‘This is the first time I have heard of any divine magic. Does it have something to do with the gods?’
“You don’t know about divine magic? Did you live under a rock your whole life?” Calavai momentarily forgot about the trauma she suffered upon hearing Arthur’s silly sounding question.
“Well the first thing I remember comes from several floors below the surface in an old dwarven city, so technically yes.”
“Right, I think you told me that before.”
“I have, but I have found that most people don’t remember everything like I do, so don’t worry about it.”
“Anyways, divine magic is magic that comes from gods. It can be wielded by humans, elves, dwarves, animal people, and in some rare cases depending on the god, goblins. The type of magic they can use is dependent upon the god they receive it from. So for example a god of justice can give magic allowing his or her followers to detect lies.”
“Can mages also detect lies or is that specific to these divine magic users?”
“Those who use divine magic are called priests, and yes we can, but it’s a lot harder for us because we need to research the spell and magic type. And even then there are variables to that, a priest can cast the spells provided to them easier and more effectively than mages can. But that comes at a cost, anything outside their god's sphere of influence is untouchable unless their god somehow expands it.”
With Arthur giving her his full attention she continued.
“Long ago before arcane magic became popular, mages use that, the old gods that existed then were far more powerful than they are today and had far larger spheres of influence. So divine magic had far less restraints on its use than nowadays and was the most common form of magic. But then something happened and they all disappeared along with their magic, new god’s did eventually show up but by then the damage was done. The discovery of arcane magic had started to become widespread and the most common form of magic.”
“But if the ancient fortress you accidentally discover was powered by divine magic from a god that is missing, how is it still operational?”
“It is likely to belong to a god that is either still alive or one of the current gods. Either way I am never going back there, they had those defenses for a reason and I have no intention of finding out why.”
Calavia with a small weight off her chest happily finished up her burrito. Arthur on the other hand was very curious about this ancient fortress. ‘She isn’t going to talk about this anymore, I will need to ask someone else who was there about what happened if I want to learn more. But the only way I could find that out is by asking her.’
‘For now I will just keep note of this, but if she opens up to me in the future I should ask any questions I have. The most important would be the location of this fortress.’
And so the duo finished up their burritos and only spoke of pleasant things for the rest of their conversation while catching up. Arthur also promised to visit Calavia at the guild more will all the free time he now has.