She burst through the walls of Xol’s small world without regard to how much it would take him to fix it, her connection to Harlan burned and something had gone wrong.
She couldn’t see the threads within this place but she knew that Harlan should’ve come out just fine, yet now his fate was held by a string.
She screamed with fury as she saw Kleon.
She thought of forcing the lich to burn the history he so treasured to punish the man, he had spent so much time reading that he believed himself belonging to a nation that fell, one not even of this world.
He was one of the few men foolish enough to actually do something so insane as stand against her plans for one of his ‘heroic tests of character.’
She sundered the fire mana that made up the flames and they unmade themselves.
Then a fraction of a second later Xol appeared with a look of horror on his face, both of them saw Harlan in this state and Kleon standing over him trying desperately to block a series of explosions that threatened to blow up the entire cave and they both knew who was at fault.
She would need to speak with the boy about his innate desire for self sacrifice before he actually killed himself.
There was that other talk she still needed to have as well.
Harlan dreamt of a woman in a ballroom, it was one of the few times he ever had a dream instead of a nightmare, he had seen her once before, but now he could see her face and yet he didn’t know her, her voice spoke in a silence he couldn’t understand.
Harlan awoke once more, the sedatives were less effective than expected.
Amber was sitting next to him, Sepul was there checking his vitals.
“What happened?”
Harlan showed him his pitiful fight with the man, the part with the woman in the ballroom shook Sepul, he knew something about it, probably one of the secrets The Dark Mother didn’t want him to hear, so he just dropped it, he still felt drained.
“How long has it been?”
“20 hours, Amber hasn’t left your side as you can see, I finally sedated her when I realized she wasn’t able to sleep due to worry. As soon as Redhead and The Unseen woke up they went to the hut and found all of you had blacked out.”
Harlan tried to stand, he needed to see everyone.
“Calm down, I need to ask, how did you return to the cabin?”
Sepul’s eyes shined for a moment.
“The headmaster is ready to speak with you. Do you feel able to?”
“Let’s get this over with, I need to talk to Adina, she is probably still very upset.”
There was a reaction, though subtle, from Sepul, Harlan didn’t know how to take it.
He was instantly teleported directly to the headmasters office, he could see that this is where that stained glass art he had seen on the first day led into.
“Firstly. I must apologize, had we known that she had plans for you, we would’ve never let you go on that trip. We can only offer our deepest apologies and let you have days off to handle the stress he surely put you under, we can also set you up with therapists and counselors which we have also done for the rest of your group.”
“Where is Adina, is she alright?”
“Miss Adina is resting now, she came out of her stupor when you nearly killed that doctor but she is still shaken. Would you like to see her when we are done here?”
“I want to see her now, but I’ll answer your questions first.”
He completely ignored the part about the doctor, he didn’t remember it and he didn’t care.
Harlan directly showed him what he saw from his point of view, it was faster than words and he wanted to leave.
The headmaster looked ready to cast fireball into his own mouth, he looked through his desk to find the advice his predecessor some 400 years ago left when dealing with a possible champion to The Darkness.
“Did you know she wants you as a champion?”
“I am not sure that she was ever really clear, but I know that she was at least thinking about it.”
He deeply sighed.
“As I said before, had we known that you caught her eye we would’ve never sent you there. The lich normally looks over people who are selected as champion candidates, tests them for morals mostly, the power will come from the gods so he doesn’t care about that as much. Since you are still standing here I am going to say that you passed, and that will be noted on your secret file, it should save you some headache in the future. Honestly, he didn’t need to do any of what he did, he could’ve never seen you once and known if you passed or failed. Whatever spells he cast on you while you were sleeping surely told him more than anything you actually did.”
The headmaster would rather Harlan believe that the lich was the one testing him, he was a known figure for most students by the time they reached the 4th year, the other man however, was not, and that might lead to more questions he didn’t want to get into.
“Is there anything else I should know?”
“Not really, I don’t actually have the authority to interfere with your training as a champion by telling you what to expect. But I do have one question, he mentioned teaching you to shift yourself, from the offer it sounded like something he thought was very important to you, why was this?“
“I want to fix the false undead who don’t like what they are, Are we done?”
Hirum would’ve liked to rebuke the boy for his attitude, but he felt the same way.
Harlan was sent in front of the counselor's room, he knocked on the door and was told to come in.
Adina didn’t say a word, she just sat on the couch next to Harlan and gripped onto him.
The counselor was Mary, she just watched them, asking if they wanted any tea while they were relaxing.
Eventually Adina spoke her fears about her being cursed, what it meant that they were friends, and that she would leave them all alone now.
Harlan refused every argument she had for why she should suffer away from her friends because of something that she doesn’t even know is real or not.
After an hour she simply broke down in tears and rested her head in his lap until she went to sleep.
“I shouldn’t let her do that, it would be considered against the morality guidelines Reino has in place for its students. How long have you two been together?”
“We are just friends.”
“Well, we can see how long that lasts, please don’t take advantage of her, and don’t let her try to get you to take advantage of her. She is hurting, and I don’t think she got support from anyone in Reino for her loneliness.”
“I know, I will do everything I can do to protect her.”
“You remind me of my husband, strong and sturdy face, just don’t neglect yourself for others. If you ever need to lighten that load on your mind, just come to me.”
Harlan felt calmer just being around her, he spoke a little with Mary small talk really, she mentioned that she cast aside her Golden name as was common with those who willingly outcast themselves.
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He asked how to avoid giving off the wrong signals, he had no interest in a relationship beyond being friends.
He explained that he actually had training in putting off all kinds of wrong signals to get a rise out of people, Mary was less than impressed by this, but she explained some things to avoid, the best thing she said was to just be clear and outright from the start about what he wanted, which had said he had already done with Zella and Isha.
Eventually Adina woke up and was red faced realizing where she had rested her head until Harlan had a talk about how he felt towards her.
She seemed a little upset, but she understood.
As they stepped out together a few people saw them and started whispering, Harlan could hear them even from a distance and grabbed ahold of one boys shoulders and just squeezed until the boy broke free from his grip and ran.
They walked together to breakfast, Amber and her friend group were sitting together in his usual spot, Zella and the twins were still on their camping trip, 1st and 3rd years left at the same time.
Ximena went to the rest of them when she saw Harlan.
“Harlan, what happened, why are you together with Adina? What was that that attacked us?”
“Hey, he just got here, give him some space. Actually, who even are you?” Amber was feeling rather protective at the moment.
“It’s fine, Ximena is a friend of mine from the camping trip. And I am fine, I am not getting into details.”
“I’m sorry I ran, I just…”
“Don’t worry about it, you gave us an escape route.”
“What happened? Wait, no, I am sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“He toyed with me, he completely overpowered me, nothing could’ve changed, don’t blame yourself, I lost my arm again from his spear.”
“Again? You should train with me, I can show you how to protect yourself better.”
“Thank you for the offer Bojana. But nothing would’ve changed what happened.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, how did you lose it the first time.”
“Well, that starts with me trying to make…”
He felt afraid and angry at everything, so he put on the face of himself to calm the nerves of those around him.
The rest of their conversation was friendly, Harlan spoke of the things he had made, the times they went wrong.
After too much of that Amber switched the conversation to her first year camping experience.
She tried to do what Harlan did but she still just a normal 13 year old girl who couldn’t wrestle a direwolf or tan hides, when it started to snow on the 4th day her team of Her, Tau, Adelwolf, and Ibery, had to huddle up close to Bojana to stay warm for the rest of the night.
They had food and fire and were told they actually placed among the top 10 groups, but considering that almost every student was a noble, she wasn’t sure how impressive it really was.
Harlan mentioned that it started snowing on their second day and it didn’t take long for the rest of them to explain that the difficulty changed depending on how well a team was doing.
Even people the next table other quieted down to hear Harlan talk about what he had done, they could believe that he killed 8 wolves, but the 3 direwolves was a stretch too far until an Ibexian tried to arm wrestle him and lost. Harlan nearly broke his arm really, he barely held back at the last second.
People had heard that he was fighting beastkin in melee classes, but they didn’t realize was actually winning against them.
Then came questions about his weight, nobody believed him when he said 230, he was barely 5’5 and looked like he should weigh 130 soaking wet, then a girl cast a spell to weigh him and confirmed it.
Harlan wondered why in the world he was getting so much attention, it had slipped out that he fought against the lich for minutes to save his friends, a Golden, a Reinoan, and a noble whose father tried to kill him, it made him look like a selfless hero instead of ‘that weird Fomorian kid.’
The headmaster also decided to hide the incident where he nearly killed the doctor that first found them before Sepul replaced him.
Had they not already been in the medical wing his broken neck would’ve been fatal.
After lunch it was a free period for them, there weren’t any first year classes going for the rest of the week so they had 3 days, the camp ended on a weekend to give the students more time to unwind and think about what they learned.
The first year teachers all wanted to talk with him, but the only one who he followed up with was his healing teacher.
“Good afternoon Miss Hellon.”
“Why me?”
“I couldn’t heal my arm, maybe I wouldn’t have felt the need to do what I did if I could’ve used both my arms.”
“I can’t teach you that, not yet. You would still need to learn as everyone does. I coul-”
Harlan was overcome with anger, he barely stopped himself from lashing out, instead he simply walked away.
“I want you to understand something before you go, I am only as harsh as I am because every student who comes into my class has the weight of lives on their shoulders and I want them to take it seriously.
You are a model student but I don’t want any of my students to get an ego and crack under the pressure when they fail.”
“You aren’t the first one that has given a warning about egos here, It’s fine.”
Harlan made his way towards Mary’s office several times, each time Lugh had to push him back to going.
He hated that he got so riled up, that he crumbled under pressure, he didn’t fully understand how well he had held up already all things considered.
Finally he knocked on her door and she said to come in.
“I was expecting you back, vanilla tea?”
Harlan recognized the kettle, it was his design but not one he made.
“Where did you get that?”
“The village of Tole, I believe it is in Blackstone county. I had to send a courier to get it for me since they don’t take long distance orders, but I thought it sounded like a nice thing to have around.”
“So Balor already has that set up.”
They made small talk for a short time about what else was likely to be sold, Harlan felt it was time to leave, he felt better already.
“I can’t force you to talk about it, but I want you to at least rest here.”
“I don’t want to waste your time, surely others will want to talk to you.”
“Nope, I have a clear schedule for the entire day. I’ll be working overtime when the children come back from camp though. Please, sit and let’s keep talking.”
He sat back down and she moved from her desk to another chair closer to him.
“I know that it can be very hard to be hurt like you were, to be afraid of losing others like that. Do you have a history of feeling powerless?”
Something about her put him at ease, which then just made him uneasy.
It upset him to talk about it, but he started at the the werewolf, then his thoughts trailed off, he didn’t want to talk about the facility, he was pretty sure he wasn’t even allowed to.
She listened to what he didn’t say more than what he did.
“Would you be willing to talk about when you were taken away from your family by Ragne?”
“I am grateful for the opportunities that I got to be trained under the royal's watchful eyes.”
His tone was neutral and lifeless.
“If you don’t want to talk about it then that is fine. But can I ask you to trust me?”
“No, you can’t. I don’t even know you.”
“How about I share one of my secrets with you, would you be willing to tell me then?”
He disliked that she seemed to be trying too hard to get him to talk.
“I think she wants to help, why don’t you just talk to her?”
“Because if the king already thinks I am some kind of threat that Sepul needs to keep his eye on then I can’t let how I feel out. I don’t know how much the disconnect between Ragne and the academy is but if Reino has been pushing them around for centuries and Ragne is now the new strongest nation then what is stopping them from doing the same? Pulling my file and seeing what I said. Don’t think that they wouldn’t do it.”
He was pulled from his argument with Lugh by Mary’s hand touching his.
“Would it hel-”
Harlan jerked his hand away from her and moved to the other side of the coach.
“Don’t start on that motherly crap, I’ve had enough of people like you for a lifetime.”
“My apologies, would you like to talk about why you feel that way? How is your relationship with your mother?”
“It is fine and I am leaving.”
Harlan ran into Ximena on the way back to his room and she asked to talk with him.
----------------------------------------
Balor finally had his item testing system up and running, villagers could look through a catalog and ask to test objects from a golem that could clean floors to more of the hotplates and kettles Harlan had designed.
It brought people to Tole and the cost was low enough that even a simple man could try them out.
It wasn’t yet profitable, but Balor wanted to get deals for bulk orders of materials that his own blacksmith golems could work into simple items for him to soulsmith.
If he was right then by the end of the year Tole should be making more than enough to justify expansions and eventually he could get these items into the homes of normal people on a permanent basis for a reasonable cost.
Every night when someone cooked their meal on a hotplate without needing to chop wood and start a fire, or drank a hot cup of tea out in the woods, they would know it was Balor Fomoria who had done it.
The biggest issue he had with the system so far was people trying to steal the items they were supposed to test, all he did was just a blacklist of these people, he could’ve added protections to make them stop working after the allotted time or a set number of uses but it considered it a reasonable price to pay compared to if he got something wrong and a product shut down when someone really needed it.