Chapter 31 Working for the Maven.
To enjoy peace you have to enjoy menial tasks.
You have to enjoy the simplicity in life in order to fully live it!
Lokamesh, Father of Mortal Kind.
“Ma’am, these meatballs are the best thing I’ve ever tasted! Can you teach me how to cook?”
It’s evening, I sit in the old woman’s kitchen enjoying her amazing cooking. The kitchen is quite small. A counter with a sink and a simple magical device that summons water. A large oven with a stove above it, a cupboard filled with various spices, and an eerie pink candle fire casting out odd shadows on the wall.
“Kikikiki… I’m glad you like my cooking chicky, you shall be eating a lot of it.”
“I meant it. Can you teach me how to cook?”
“You’re free to use my kitchen chicky. Learn by doing, best way to learn,” she replies, putting another plate of meatballs on the table. “Here, have another one for your compliments kikiki…”
“Thanks… You’re a mage right? Or you use magic?”
“Yeessss…” She doesn't turn from the pile of dirty dishes in her washbasin.
I wonder how did she get so many dirty dishes... “Can you teach me some magic?”
“You shall have to earn it yes? Or buy it. For the price of fifty gems I shall teach you for an hour. I shall sell you a cantrip book for the same price. You won’t find a better deal~”
Ughh… that’s a quarter of my money, no way! ”Fine, if I ever acquire more gems, I’ll consider it.”
“Kikikiki…”
“Can you teach me how to speak Sinteo?”
She scrubs a wooden plate violently in her talons. “Teach me! Teach me! Teach me! Bah! Do I look like an academy to you child? Maybe you think you’re still in that gem tower of yours where everyone is willing to teach you. Come, I shall show you what you’ll be working on tomorrow.”
{27} Tonisha (June) the 2nd
“As I told you yesterday. I want my cauldron squeaky clean within an hour yes?”
I look at the cauldron feeling a little lost. This abomination of a cauldron is way larger than any container I've ever seen. It’s about two and a half meters tall, maybe three. Way taller than me anyway. The hag uses a wooden staircase to reach it.
The cauldron is connected to a metallic machination of cogs and wheels. And currently, this enormous pot is laying on its side like a wide cave mouth. A large smelly cave mouth filled with gooey substances and green slime.
“Here are your work clothes!” She shoves a set of a dirty apron and an even dirtier suit against my chest. “And put on that mask before you go in, yes?”
"A mask?"
The old woman cackles and leaves me alone in her cellar.
I grit my teeth. Put on the clothes. Cover my mouth and nose with the cloth mask, and crawl into the cauldron with a wet rag in hand.
Scrubbing the metallic surface is an exhausting work, especially since that hag woke me up at six after midnight to do it. That was our deal, but I feel cheated. When she originally said I’d have to clean her cauldron, I didn’t expect one so large. And once I got into the cellar, I was too busy entertaining the thought of her betrayal and the state of my hand to think about how large this cauldron actually is.
Time crawls slowly. I hear my own breaths against the cloth mask. My back and arms are sore from the work, and I’m covered in sweat. I didn’t even finish half of it, how am I supposed to do this every day?
I have no way of getting out of this deal… think about something else… I should distract myself… like meditation… breathe like meditation… imagine like meditation… imagine that I’m away… back at Nurio with Wulf…
Time disappears. Just one more green gel to pull off, just one more burnt sticky substance to scrub, but I’m not here. I’m back at Nurio. I’m a full mage with power and influence. I found Ariena and brought her home. Before I know it, I can see the coppery surface of the cauldron beneath the muck.
Now I notice there are drainage pipes at the bottom of the cauldron, and they’re clogged with this green slimy substance. It takes a little while longer for me to fully finish, before I manage to crawl out of the cauldron. As if on a cue, the hag shows up.
“Well done, chicky. It’s squeaky clean. Now get out of there, I’ve got a breakfast for you in the kitchen kikikiki…”
I crawl out. “I think I’d prefer a bath first.”
“Then draw one, yes?” The hag pulls a lever, and with a mechanical sound of cogs, the cave-like cauldron faces upward. The hag climbs the wooden stairs. “Nimuwal” A jet of water splashes out of her hand, filling up the cauldron.
I drag a metallic bathtub from the nearby wall. “Mind filling it for me?”
“Bah! Get your own magic water. Out of here, chicky! Let me mix my potions in peace.”
Yeah… she’s not going to be very helpful other than food… Sourly, I drag the bathtub up to the kitchen and fill it up from the magical device that spills water. I should really open my water mana pool, would be nice if I could conjure water… I’ll start working on my water mana pool tonight, I'll spend some gems on it… do I really want to spend gems on meditations? Wouldn't it better to save them for now? I have five years here, plenty of time to open all of my pools...
What about the crown-knot? I’m out of the tower now… so I can draw mana from the surrounding. Maybe I should work on that first, given my high affinity for it… I have no way of learning water spells anyway…
True… crown-knot pool first. Then water mana pool…
After a meal and a cold bath, the hag calls me down to the cellar again. Now the cauldron is letting out fumes, I can hear the bubbling liquid inside it even if I can’t see it from below the lid of the gigantic pot.
“Here’s a list of people and addresses chicky, and here is your delivery.” She hands me a long list on a parchment, and points at a wooden box loaded with small metallic bottles.
“How would I know which potion to give to who?”
“It’s all the same potion yes? Aresoal it’s called, it translates for glitter in Toml’a. One gem of mana from any element shall open up the lid for each bottle. Only after they’ve paid you ten gold peas, you are to open a glitter bottle. You are to hand a single bottle for each person they are intended for, and not a minute before that. No one is allowed to the content of these bottles other than the people on the list.” Her voice is stern, and the wrinkly frown tells me bad things will happen should the content of these metallic flasks fall into the wrong hands, or mouth.
“You know I don’t speak much Sinteo yet, how am I supposed to…”
“You’ll manage. Now off you go!” She waves her hand in a shooing motion.
Great… I guess I’m hiring Sharla again…
*
I enjoy seeing Sharla again. We tour the city together as she teaches me how to speak Sinteo. I have a lot to learn in this new language, and I am eager for it. I know I’ll need this language in order to survive.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Sulifar, not sol'ifer. Oh, this is the first address.” Sharla points at the nearby building. “It says the fourth floor.”
I look at the crumbling building. The first three floors are made out of stone, but the upper two are made out of wood, clearly built a long time after the first three floors.
We climb the narrow stairs to the fourth floor and knock on the door.
A woman in her thirties opens the door. She has a messy dark hair and bloodshot eyes. “Ki?”
“Navina Balar?” I ask, reading her name from the Sinteo foreign runes on my parchment. Sharla lets me talk to her myself because I’ll never get around this language without practice.
“Nevina Beler!” The woman corrects me angrily. Her bloodshot eyes dart to the box of potions on the floor. “Shemol ditram? Afliu no mida aresoal?”
“Shamol. Aresoal. Art’a.”
“Art’a… su sema art’a! bolsa mee! Nu pakka balit kussa!”
“Art’a”
“Art’a art’a bolsa mee koldova?! Kussa bali jiat!”
“Latsa”
She snatches the metallic flask from my hands and gulps the potion like it’s the long-lost elixir of life. I guess the hag is selling some sort of addictive substance… why am I not surprised.
The door slams in my face.
“So… what was she saying?” I ask Sharla as we head down.
“To go fuck yourself,” Sharla snickers.
“Figures… Can you tell me what each word meant? Actually forget it, I really don’t care about curse words right now. I’d rather learn to make a conversation first. Lead me to the next address.”
It feels like this day will never end. We have fifty bottles and fifty addresses.
There are four types of clients:
The first type is like the first woman. I call them ‘the addicts’. They are so happy to receive their drink their eyes light up when they see me. They claim they couldn’t wait for the ‘glitter’ any longer, and curse me for wanting gold, or for being late.
The second type which I call ‘the cold ones’. Pretend I am not even there. They act all cold, buy the drink, and slam their door in my face.
The third type is the worse by far. They are the ‘perverts’. They invite me and Sharla to have some ‘fun’ with them after they take their drink. The worst is a woman who even attempts to touch Sharla in a sexual manner—causing me to push her away with my magic right after I unseal the potion for her.
The fourth type are the people without money. The ‘beggars’. They beg or threaten me to open the bottles. One orc even threatens me with his axe drawn, and only the ‘Grounding' cantrip knocks his face into the ground and scares him away.
The city is massive, sometimes it takes an hour to reach the next address on the list, and other times it's mere minutes. I leave the route planning to Sharla. According to her: crossing the city from one end to the other on foot should take three to four days, and all of these addresses are relatively close to one another.
At last. After a long day of running around this metropolis of a city, I have a few hours for myself which I dedicate to meditation. I begin working on my crown knot mana pool with the meditation method I remember from back when I was still at the tower.
Since it's already evening, and I have to wake up early the next morning, my meditation hours are limited to one or two hours. I wish I could meditate in my sleep but sadly that isn't an option.
Weirdly enough, despite not using my magical gems, my progress doesn't slow down in the slightest. If anything, it's even faster than before. Probably due to my high affinity with the crown-knot mana pool.
*
{27} Tonisha (June) the 30th
In less than a month I form my crown-knot mana pool. It’s extremely fast, considering I could only meditate for two or three hours a day compared to the tower where I’ve meditated for six to seven hours each day.
Now I can draw mana from everything around me at a passive slow rate.
After testing in my room, I figure out I can draw about one gem of mana per five minutes.
The replenishment rate is slightly disappointing. I expected more given my high affinity with this pool, but I can't change the way it works. At least I no longer need to sleep in order to replenish my mana. From today onward my mana will replenish on its own, although slowly.
There’s something else I’ve received after forming this mana pool. I can sense mana now. It’s as if a new sense has been granted to me. It’s not like sight or hearing, active at all times. It’s more like smell, something I’d notice if it was too strong, but otherwise I’d have to focus on it.
With focus, I can now feel this formless liquid or gas everywhere. Mostly inside my body, mainly in my forehead. My gravity mana pool is like a tiny lake filled with sheer power.
I lay back in bed enjoying the new sensations. I need to get some sleep. I’ll celebrate tomorrow…
But I can’t sleep. The new sense is too alive, too stimulating. It keeps me awake. I can’t relax. I toss and turn as I keep feeling and reaching for the mana in my head and all around me. It’s like a combination of a second sense of touch and smell. Touch and smell that are focused on mana. And I touch it directly with my brain, not my hands.
I toss and turn. Sleeping is near impossible. Even without this weird new sense, the heat of summer in my small room is unbearable. Even only with my small clothes on, I’m still covered in sweat. The air is humid, and opening a window only makes it worse, not better.
After a long while, I somehow manage to drift off to the land of dreams.
The heat of this summer wakes me up. Dazed and drenched in sweat, I stumble down the stairs on my way to the kitchen for some fresh water.
I tense up as the door to the shop opens and the bell rings. I move silently, oddly self-aware of how little I’m wearing. It doesn’t matter how much I’m wearing… if I get in trouble it’s my magic that matters, not my clothes… if anything a man would be distracted while I can cast spells… I peek behind the corner, and I am taken aback by what I see.
The old woman who walks into the shop feels like a beacon of pure mana, a raging sun of swirling power. Wait… can I feel mana in other people now too? How is she so powerful? I wish I could see master Rushmia now so I could compare… no… this hag is definitely stronger than Rushmia… this power… I feel like it’ll burn me if I get too close…
Relax… nothing has changed… other than this new sense…
Wait… what is she holding? The hag is carrying a golden mask of a bull. Each eye has intricate onyx gems circling it. The nose has a large ring made out of ruby, and each of the horn tips reflects the purplish light of an amethyst. She’s sitting on that council of masks?! She’s one of the city rulers isn’t she?! This is bad… Will people target her for this? Will people target me in order to get to her? I thought she was a simple crime lord…
Relax… with her kind of power I doubt people will have an easy time killing her…
It doesn’t matter how much power she has! People can kill her in her sleep! I’ve killed two mages already, if you catch them unaware there’s nothing they can do about it! They can kill me in my sleep too… they just have to sneak in here and…
Relax… stop panicking! She survived long enough to reach such an age, I doubt she’s in any danger… and her politics are none of my business… I’m here to fulfill the deal I made with her and work my five years. After that, I’ll be gone…
I follow her upstairs with a drumming heart. She enters the decorated door she told me to never enter. I catch a glimpse of a staircase going up and down before she closes the door behind her. I also hear a weird grunt and catch a whiff of an odd smell.
Don’t open that door… I promised her I wouldn’t go in there… that’s her private quarters… Control that damn curiosity and go back to bed damn it!
Maybe I should check what’s inside… but even if I do, I have to plan this well. I can’t randomly walk in there…
I’ll monitor the hag. See when she leaves. See for how long she leaves… and then… then I might check it out…
No… too risky, not worth it!
We’ll see…
I gulp and head back to bed for another sleepless night.
*
The next day I go outside, trying to look for where in the building these stairs would lead to. The stairs going down might be leading underground, but the ones going up should lead to the building above. Except, I can enter the building above, it’s a normal apartment building that isn’t connected to the shop.
The mystery haunts me, but I promised I won’t open that door. If I do that, it’ll have to be done without getting caught…
*~*~*
Power level: 2nd stage apprentice.
Mana pools status:
Crown-knot: Affinity 10: formed: 1 gem replenished per five minutes.
Neck-Bridge: Affinity 6: formed: max amount of gems drained per day: 66
Abdomen-storage: Affinity 5:
Air: Affinity 4: formed: 18 gems
Fire: Affinity 2: formed: 9 gems
Light: Affinity 3:
Water: Affinity 6:
Earth: Affinity 1:
Wood: Affinity 2:
Gravity: Affinity 9: formed: 41 gems
Cantrip known:
Air: Shavi’s Breeze, Shavi’s Sword.
Fire: Nuriss’ Flame.
Gravity: Lumina’s Kinetic Burst. Tukado’s Repulse. Tukado’s Lesser Shield. Imari’s Minor Telekinesis. Leo’s Pull. Leo’s Grounding. Alino’s Light body. Alino’s Heavy body.
Focus capability: 9 patterns
Social status: A clerk at the maven of mysteries.
Wealth: 211 gems. 1884 gold coins, 4 silvers, 27 coppers.
Items:
Two simple healing potions.
Two potions with unknown effects.
An enchanted belt with eight pouches, the enchantment keep the pouches’ content fresh.
Various spell materials.
Companions:
Injuries and scars: Back, lightning scar.