General Amara Patrioc fidgeted the stylus in her hand as she tried to pretend she was actually interested in General Whiteside’s low staffing problem. If she was stationed in a small fort in the frozen north she would leave her post to delve the nearby dungeons as often as possible. She would complete her geas and leave the same as the delinquents seemed to do. Delving dungeons counted against the geas placed on every conscript and standing guard in a ten person fort did not. It wasn’t like there was anything to defend against up there.

The problem was that he needed replacements at a higher rate than the Council of Generals had scheduled, despite the regular additional disciplinary assignments. A brief search of the historical minutes record of the Council of Generals, soon after she’d first heard his plea had immediately found that the problem was perpetual.

It was also always discussed in every council meeting for the entire twenty minutes General Whiteside was allotted the floor. He hadn’t said anything new for eighteen of his twenty minutes and the last two didn’t seem promising.

Amara leaned forward and jotted down: “Remind me why I thought this would be more interesting than Ducal Council.”

The words appeared momentarily under her magical stylus and then disappeared off the paired sheet in her book of paired sheets. The book and the sheets had been a gift from her father when he abdicated the duchy in her favor. She had given a similar set to Gertrude, her granddaughter almost a year ago for the same milestone.

Eidolon answered with a single word: “Behave.”

She tapped it to clear the page.

He’d had his sheet from her set almost as long as she had. Dukes of the Patrioc line did not marry. They did not take on political alliances. They took consorts from a pool of loyal families living in the duchy. Usually the consorts also held important positions in the government of the duchy, but not always.

Eidolon had begun as her riding companion. Now he was the only one of her ducal consorts still in her personal retinue, taking a role as the Major who enforced the General’s orders and had her ear. She would marry him if he didn’t deflect the suggestion every time she brought it up.

The rest of the paired pages in her book now had different names written at the tops and that was sad when she thought about it.

General Whiteside rambled to a halt and blinked around the room as if expecting some response.

Given that his command was deliberately filled with misfits, problems, injured soldiers, and recovered deserters from other positions, his complaints merely boiled down to that his command was working exactly as the other generals intended. The north was the punishment detail and the rest and recovery detail on purpose.

General Sanderlin eventually looked up. “The General of the North has graced us with the state of his command. General of the NorthWest?”

Amara flipped a few pages in her paired notebook while General Yanvee shuffled her papers and started deliberately wasting her twenty minutes. This was familiar too.

She stopped on the page labeled Wind Mage Darren. She sucked on her bottom lip a moment and started writing. She’d intended to give this instruction in person, but her Conclave Liaison had been nowhere in sight when she went looking for him. She had portaled from Carrie’s tower to her command post only to have to portal back to the capitol for this weekly meeting before she found him.

“Liaison Darren, I need you to have your patrols bring in some Grindymare bodies. Set some appropriate bounty, but don’t make it too high. Have the dismantlers clean the bones and re-articulate them for anatomical display.”

There was a brief delay punctuated by rustling papers and a few small noises of impatience from the older generals.

Darren‘s spindly script started and stopped. “Are you… That’s… Yes, sir.”

Amara almost broke her own sense of protocol to smile in council. Nobody had told Darren that crossing things out did not erase the marks from her page. Apparently he was not a fan of these orders.

Before she could turn the page he added: “Grindylows too?”

She sent back: “Sure, might as well save time.” Then she added the symbol that meant she was no longer attending the page.

She glanced up at General Yanvee who met her eye briefly. Amusement seemed to roll right off the half elven general. Amara did not sigh.

She turned to another page, the one for her personal librarian in the Imperial System of Libraries.

“Marta, I need you to send Carrie everything you can find on Grindylows and Grindymares. In particular, every drawing or depiction of a Grindymare possible. You did an amazing job with the goblin/hobgoblin task. Thank you.”

She did not expect Marta to respond, she rarely did within a day, so she flipped back to Eidolon’s page. He hadn’t written anything else.

She missed him even though she saw him every night. While she was Duke Patrioc he was constantly at her elbow as aide, bodyguard and consort.

Finally, with only a small amount of her time remaining, Oralia Yanvee cleared her throat.

“Our Allies to the Northwest are pleased with the level of cooperation and support we currently exchange. The draft and supplies from their lands this year has been slightly higher than average compared with the past ten years. No change needed.”

General Yanvee was more diplomat than warrior. Her great-great-grandfather was the Elven King and she spent most of her time in his court as a sort of military ambassador. She swept up all her papers and notes. She folded her hands. “I cede the remainder of my time.” She did have over a minute left, after all.

General Sanderlin smiled painfully, almost more of a grimace. “Thank you General of the North West. That concludes our status updates. Are there any motions to be brought forward?”

Whiteside, Morris and Pearlwig all raised their hands. Whiteside did not get a second. Morris and Pearlwig seconded each other and both got their requests for support approved.

Their regions were the active war zones with opposing armies and thinking generals. Even with the goblin war Amara’s front was basically a monster hunt. The war zone generals had long since colluded to make a mutually beneficial plan for the empire’s martial resources to bring to council every month.

----------------------------------------

“You’re too young for the draft.”

A young mage in a cream colored robe said to the men ahead of Eugenia in line. Her voice was tinged with extreme fatigue, as if she’d been saying that line nonstop for months not days.

“If the war drags on the Conclave and the Army will both be recruiting, but the Emperor is very specific in his instructions. Everyone over 62 and nobody under 61 will be getting a free potion, made by the Imperial Potion Service. Go home or I’ll mark you ineligible for recruitment.”

The clutch of five able bodied, barely grey haired men dispersed immediately, leaving Eugenia the closest to the mage. She’d been in line for over a bell. Bobert had pushed her here in the cart, but didn’t leave her a stool or even the cart.

“Huh. At least you’re old enough.” The mage scoffed. She touched a wand to Eugenia’s forehead. “That mark will persist for a few days. Go towards the temple doors and someone will help you find the line.”

“I hope the physicians are prepared for the reality of marching us anywhere.” Eugenia said, stomping her cane. “I barely got this far.”

“Don’t worry about it.” The mage smiled, showing off her perfect teeth. “This isn’t the first time the Empire has had a draft.”

The truth was the draft was perpetually rolling around the empire, one of the biggest lies told to the citizenry. Few people knew that truth, but this mage was one of them. The Empire was never not at war. They hadn’t even conquered their entire continent yet.

Eugenia inched her way towards the temple, keeping her eyes on her own feet. At some point the main square had been paved flat, but many of the stones had shifted over the centuries.

She had just entered the shadow of the temple’s tall roof when another young person spoke to her, actually touched her arm.

“Infirm and over 80 this way, Mother.” The young man said respectfully.

Eugenia considered telling him off. She wasn’t infirm yet, by Solara! But she was 81 or 82. She couldn’t quite remember. So she let herself be led to a line of benches that had been placed along the side of the temple, well away from the entrance stairs and headed into one of the many army tents erected in the vicinity.

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Eugenia sat gratefully and leaned on her cane to ease her back.

“Can you see this mark the mage put on my head?” The woman next to her asked querulously.

“I assume it’s our ages.” Eugenia didn’t bother to look. “It’s been a while since my eyes saw letters as more than a blurry smudge.”

“Let me see yours.”

Eugenia finally turned her head towards the other woman.

“You’re 83? I would have thought you were older.” The woman scoffed. “I barely qualified, 62 last month, but the Army will fix a lame leg, so this isn’t all bad.”

“I’d settle for less pain.” Eugenia flexed her arthritic hands over the handle of her cane.

“I’m surprised so many people have lived this long.” The chatty woman prattled on, boasting about her grandchildren and the house she was leaving. Eugenia tuned her out. After a long, long time, mostly marked by the shadows moving across the nearby buildings, the line finally moved.

“Everyone up, follow the line. Everyone up.” The young soldiers chivvied and occasionally prodded the draftees into the tent.

Eugenia was startled, but not unhappy to see an actual active portal in the opposite end of the tent. There were a lot more benches inside, and the smell of old people still lingered.

She followed the line through the portal and into another tent. She looked around. This tent was bigger than the whole temple. There were cots instead of benches. Row after row of straw mattresses on rough wooden bed frames, each already filled with an old person.

“This way, keep moving, first available bed.” A young woman was saying in a tone that implied she’d gotten tired of saying it.

Eugenia followed the line of doddering old women to the first empty row of beds. She sat on the first available one she came to. The ropes sagged and creaked alarmingly, but she didn’t fall in. Nobody told her to do anything else, so she just sat there.

Eventually movement in the enormous room drew her attention. A big white thing was being moved slowly through the room. The closer it got, the more she could see. The big white thing was, in fact, two white things, two privacy screens on wheels that were playing leapfrog with the cots. There were three people moving the screens while a fourth person wheeled a large brown box into the screen that was already set up. It was reasonably efficient.

When the screens arrived, the old woman on each cot was sitting on the bed. When the screens moved, she was flat on her back and yet another person picked up the pile of clothes and whatever she left behind, rolling a bin of discarded laundry to the next bed.

Some of the patients glowed. That would be the alchemy working.

Once Eugenia noticed the process it was only a few hours until they got to her cot. She already knew roughly what to expect, although she hadn’t been able to hear anything through the privacy barrier, even when it came to the cot directly beside her own.

“Right then.” The woman steering the door to the screen around Eugenia said. “Simple enough process, take off all clothes and jewelry, even your drawers. You won’t fit your old clothes and you’ll be issued new. Anything you want back goes in here.” She held up a small drawstring bag. “You’ll get it back after the first week or two of training.” She left the bag. “Then settle in the bed, on your back, with the sheet pulled up.”

Eugenia waited until the screen was closed. Then she stood and removed everything she was wearing. She had left her rings and pendant with Cecily. Not that any of them were enchanted, not even a strength bonus. She used to have a strength bonus ring, but she gave it to… She couldn’t remember which grandchild she’d given it to. How peculiar. One of the three who went off adventuring to be sure.

She hadn’t even taken any money, although she also didn’t tell Cecily where she’d hidden it. Maybe she’d be back someday.

She left her old lady clothes on the floor with her slippers. She hadn’t bothered with her shoes. The laces were impossible for her knobby fingers, even though she could still reach her feet. Hubert had liked her limber and she’d never stopped the stretching she’d learned when she was an actress and dancer.

Cecily didn’t like to be reminded that her mother had trod the boards before marriage. She didn’t seem to think dancing for the tavern was as bad, although that was considered even more lascivious when Eugenia was young.

Eugenia had made the mistake of apprenticing her youngest child, the flower of her brood, to the house of a merchant whose daughter went to the same very exclusive, very expensive school where Eugenia sent all her children.

The man gave the impression of good breeding, and boasted freely that both of his parents had been servants in the household of the Great Lord who had given him his own start with the estate steward.

Unfortunately, there is a large divide between the untitled ‘Great Lords’ of the world and the scions of actual great houses Eugenia had cavorted with in her youth on the stage.

Cecily had impeccable manners. She could easily do the books at the tavern and half the businesses in the street. The girl had also internalized the prejudices and foibles of the gentry. The landed little lords of their little manors who aped the fashions of the capital and the titled while always a few seasons behind and a few concepts off.

The daughters of the gentry dreamed of marrying up. They read the sermons of the middle class and assumed that was what impressed the immortals. The daughters of the immortals took their class elixirs and focused on the training of their tutors. They went on wild hunts and came back with the trophies.

Once upon a time Eugenia had followed along in a magic bubble, watching and calling out sightings of beasts for her noble friends. Once upon a very long time ago.

But mortals in the retinues of immortals don’t last forever. Her star had risen swiftly and fallen even faster.

She levered her legs onto the bed and arranged the sheet. She cackled quietly as she remembered the last time she had waited for a man in this state. It had been years, but not as many as her children would like to believe. Her life had not ended when her husband died, even though she had taken the potion to stop her flow and prevent pregnancy.

The physician looked young, despite the shock of grey at his temples. He wheeled the chest into her little makeshift room. He eyed her emaciated form for a brief moment and then picked up a clipboard.

“Name? You don’t have to give your own name, but it will be permanent, linked to your body magically. That’s mostly to prevent you from getting more alchemy than your future training and service allow.”

“Genia.” She gave her childhood nickname.

He looked up. “Surname, patronymic or whatever second name? It’s clerical.”

“Peerless.” She said after a long pause. She wasn’t afraid of her family not being able to find her. She knew where they were. She had used Genia the Peerless Wonder as her stage name the few times she’d had top billing.

He made a surprised little harrumph sound but wrote it down. “Are you willing to fight?”

“Is not fighting an option?”

He grinned. “Of course. We need two people in logistics and support for every soldier in the field. The fighters get better medicine though. Let me check what you qualify for and let you make an informed decision.” He set the clipboard down and picked up a grey box with an attached wand. He waved the wand, on its long wire, over her entire body and peered at the box as he went.

“No fewer than three poorly healed breaks to the femur and pelvis, Healing Pills?”

“Four breaks. The best Healing Pills we could afford, a whole gold each time.”

He scoffed. “Yeah. Didn’t think to ask the Conclave?”

“My children decided on my behalf.” Genia looked away from him.

“Right. There’s also a long history of minor injuries, possibly a high movement job?”

“I was a dancer.”

“That would do it. Has anyone ever told you that you’re a superior candidate for an Eye Opening Elixir?”

She paused. Why was it hard to admit it? “My great uncle was an Earth Mage. He told my mother when I was a child, but she was very against it. So… then I never had the money to pay for the elixir and there’s still a high chance I would die from it.”

He huffed. “Three out of five for children, but the odds get better and better the older you get. That’s why the draft age is 62. The odds of success take a jump from one death in four to one death in twenty at age 62, and that’s without another change catalyst taken at the same time. So. You’ll still be strong either way, but the Longevity Serum nobody dies from and you will look young and beautiful. The Eye Opening Elixir is reserved for those both willing to fight and likely to get a good class. I also have a supply of catalysts. The fighters will have even more alchemical support during training and service. The non fighters are drafted for a term of ten years or shorter, depending on the length of the conflict. If it takes less than ten years to rout the goblins and clear the mountains and border you’d be done when the army is done. You may be transported to another war front. After training is concluded, Fighters serve up to 500 battle days. Those include nights camped on the march during the campaign but not nights in a base camp unless you marched or fought that day. If the war ends before your battle days are fought you will serve your remaining days in one or more of the Imperial Dungeons, fighting monsters and farming the resources needed to keep our troops strong and young. Oh, and days in the infirmary count as battle days.”

“I will fight.” Genia said. She had thought she would prefer to be a cook or something, but the Eye Opening Elixir was her one big regret in life.

“Keep in mind, most people who take the elixir and get a class do not end up as mages. Every class we have comes from the same elixir made the same way.”

“Not a problem.” She grinned. “My hope has always been Acrobat.”

“That’s an advanced evolution of Fencer, Blade Dancer or something like that. If you’re ready, this is a Divine Dewdrop Physique Rebuilding Pill. It will rebuild every muscle, bone, organ and sinew in your body to a healthy human standard but will not make you younger. It’s an epic frequency drop in one of the Imperial Dungeons. It’s also one of the things on the list that substitute for the entire tax on exiting. You can’t sell them except to the Emperor’s Factor, but you can give them to loved ones. I used to run that dungeon back when I was a combat medic.”

“The pill is safe?”

“Better than safe, it’s the catalyst I was talking about before. I have never lost a patient to an Eye Opening Elixir who first swallowed one of these. Ready to begin?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You have to swallow it dry and then I’ll monitor you until it starts working.” He placed the pill in her mouth and held the wand over her face and then throat. “Perfect. Now for this.” He turned back to his rolling cabinet and opened a drawer that contained thousands of elixirs in a space that should barely hold four. He pulled out an Elixir flask. He held it up to her lips and slowly poured in every drop.

“When you wake you will be strong but not young. On average a classed person ages in reverse, year for year, until they look about thirty.” The words were a soothing promise.

The last thing he did, just before he left her was touch a different wand to her forehead. She was already asleep.

The mark the Life Mage had placed on her forehead disappeared and her service number from the form he was filling out was placed there invisibly in its stead. Much more visible was the geas mark on the back of her right hand, 500, for the days of her service. Even with a 280 day year, festivals not included, that 500 days would on average take four or five years to work off. At least it wouldn’t go up.

The physician tucked the sheet over her shoulders, neatly under her chin. As he did he saw the edge of his own service mark on the back of his own hand. Only 32 days left and this one counted.

He smiled at the peaceful looking old woman and rolled his cabinet to the next cot.

----------------------------------------

Carrie wrote a letter to the Conclave Adventurers Society, asking them to post a bounty on live grindylows for research purposes. She sent them a sheet of paper which happened to contain not a letter but an indecipherable sheet of scribbles and crossed out sections.