Ves’ra returned to the enchanter’s guild early in the next morning for the next two weeks, getting a few gruff pointers by Estrum before being left to her own devices. By the end of those she was able to enchant a cube of wood in nine out of ten tries and managed to half the time each enchantment took.
She used some of that knowledge to create an object that did the job of cooling the building for her, she just had to inject energy and it would suck the energy in her surroundings, transmitting it above the building. The first one already broke down and had to be replaced, but it still added nearly half an hour she could use other activities to her days.
She had tried herself at enchanting metals - but she’d soon noticed she wasn't able to use metal, her elemental energy was extremely damaging to all metals she tried. She noticed all inhabitants of the city were gloomy, and she managed to find out after some asking around once she finally noticed something was going on.
The people she asked painted a grim picture, apparently the man she killed to protect her village was a spy of the neighboring kingdom of Yufacan. She had exposed their invasion plans by killing him, activating a failsafe that was meant to burn all evidence. That obviously didn't work, but doom was on the horizon anyways, the other nation was much larger and hated the free cities and all they represented - it seemed the adventurers she met would have attacked her if they came from there. In the end it didn't matter to her - she wanted to see a lot more than just the free cities, though she still hoped to learn how to create a crystal sphere before she left - waging war wasn't really feasible for now, the world was too big to move the armies needed to conquer even one of the cities in the three months that weren't winter or summer.
There was something strange with master Estrum too - he had yet to cast the strange tracking spell on her, something she believed he should have done by now, but the man seemed more distracted by the day, barely even bothering to pretend to work and staring into space instead.
Humans were strange.
Today was the last day before she’d be allowed to take the basic exam, allowing her to accept novice contracts for enchanting. She was allowed to use spheres containing other’s powers too, so she could start researching what she would enchant her armor with after that. She’d just have to visit the dwarf soon, to know what materials he wanted to use for her armor.
As she walked into her teachers office she knew something was wrong, his entire air had changed. His previous scholarly but gruff air had transformed into that of the powerful mage he was. He exchanged his robes for silken trousers and shirt as well as expensive looking shoes.
“Follow me.” He commanded, his previous friendliness a thing of the past.
“Why?” She asked, reluctant to follow someone capable of that level of transformation.
“Because I said so. If you want me to teach you you will follow me!” He said, forcefully.
“I'm sure I can find all I need in the library.” She resisted, turning around to leave his room.
“I didn't leave you a choice young woman! You will follow me this instant if you know what’s good for you at all.”
“No.” The door slammed shut in front of her, held in place by telekinesis.
“That was an order. Not a request. The guild leaders want to see you and I have to get you there. By ANY means necessary.”
“What would they want from me? I'm just an evolved kobold and have nothing to do with any of that. You must mistake me for someone else.”
Estrum didn't reply and gave her the written order instead - there was no mistaking it, that was her. She didn't like it, but she doubted she could fight her way out of the city if its leaders wanted to see her. She could do something though, Ves'ra told Arvog to leave the city, protecting him from the heat with a quick spell, tethering it to his control. He could use the heat stored in the spell to attack anything with an intense wave of heat.
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“I will come with you, but strongly protest about your treatment.” She said with a scathing voice.
“Duly noted, not let's not dally any longer.” He said with a dry voice, ushering her out of the room. They were intercepted by a guard, someone really wanted to see her. Estrum lead them through the building at a fast pace, to a pair of unassuming stairs that only led upwards. Upwards? If they were going to see the guild leaders shouldn't they move down and towards the castle? She would just have to see.
Arvog reminded her she was not alone as he notified her he successfully managed to leave the city, causing relief to spread through her - he was safe.
As they reached the top of the room Ves'ra only saw a small room radiating an insane amount of energy, all concentrated on a circle in the middle. She looked as Estrum stepped in the room center and motioned her to join him. She eyed the enchantment dubiously, giving it a few seconds to do something before joining him.
He extended a tendril of energy into one of the many runes - what were those even for - before both of them vanished. Ves'ra looked around in confusion, they were in a different room. Calling it room was doing that auditorium they were in now a disservice, the room brimmed with so much magic she wasn't even sure if she’d manage to create a spell at all.
A raised dais ran through the room. On it she could see seven sitting people with lots of others swarming around them. Estrum directed her to a small chair in the middle and had her sit down, moving to stand behind her shoulders afterwards. A loud clap sounded throughout the hall and suddenly the wooden chair grew around her, constricting her movements and disrupting all energy flow in her arms and legs.
Ves'ra look around and raised the scales atop her eyes, she did not expect that. She wasn't worried, her situation didn't really worsen, so this had to be a so called ‘powerplay’, something one of the elves she met told her about - she told her humans really liked these.
“Are you Ves'ra, kobold storm mage?” A booming voice asked. Couldn't they tone that down, her ear-holes were worse than human ears, but that hurt.
“Yes.” She answered.
“Do you know why you are here?” The voice boomed.
“I have no clue.”
“How about I tell you a story.” It boomed.
“Please not, my ears are hurting as is. You should really tone that down, it can't be healthy to speak like that.” She said. She wouldn't play their game after they had Estrum ruin her day. As the voice took time to answer, and she could see the seven people discuss something, protected by a magic barrier she sat there, relaxing now that her ear had time to recover.
“I apologize for my colleague's eagerness, but the last days have been stressful for all of us.” A new, female voice bloomed, this one at a much more manageable level.
“Why did you want to speak with me? I'm just a normal kobold.” She asked.
“Oh, you're anything but. You are quite the exceptional young lady. Killing and binding a wyvern, killing an elder lynx and evolving all in less than two years of life. Not to mention managing to finish your first enchantment in less then one day.” The woman elaborated.
“I still don't see what your point is.” She said. The woman coughed before she continued.
“Sorry about that, anyways, we would like to ask you about something that happened roughly a month and a half ago, just before you left the city.”
“You want to ask me about your friends?” She asked, still angry at the treatment.
“Our friends?” The woman asked, taken aback.
“Your friends, you know, people like you that like to koboldnap innocent kobolds against their will. I won't tell you anything about my village!” She said, anger now clear in her mind.
“What do you think of us, what would we want with your village?”
“I have no clue, but everyone asks about them once I tell them of home.”
“We don't care about a random kobold village, there are more important things at stake. We want to know about these ‘kidnappers’. You already answered what they wanted from you, but what did you do to them?”
“I removed the threat to my village.”
“What about the mages guild’s employee? Did you kill him too?”
“Yes, he was the reason they kidnapped me.”
“What did you do after that?” The woman asked.
“I went for his boss, he said he knew about my village, so he had to go.”
“Please tell us what you did.”
So she did, retelling the whole story from the moment she noticed the elf following her, omitting anything related to her village. She was quite relieved, they didn't want to know anything important - not that she’d be able to help them with finding her village, the world was just too large to find a small kobold village.
Before the people could ask her more questions she continued. “Can I go now, I think I’ll leave your shitty city as fast as possible, if that’s how you treat innocent people.”
“No, you will stay here. You are a criminal and still need to be judged for the murder of all the people that died in the fire. You could have just asked any guard for help.” The booming voice interjected.
Ves'ra couldn't help but snort, the only kills that could reasonably be called murder were on Arvog’s parent, the man in the basement and the elder lynx. She would leave here as soon as possible! Luckily she already told Arvog to leave the city.