A black haze coalesced and shifted, slowly transforming to a vague humanoid shape. What should have been its head slowly turned and looked towards the company of people that were arguing next to it, but they, seemingly undisturbed by it, didn’t even acknowledged its existence.
The group of fifteen humans all wielded some form of weapon or another. Most of them carried spears, but there were some with axes and pickaxes, and two of them had more proper weapons, wielding bows and having sheathed short swords on their belts. They kept probing the corpses of three goblins with their spears while cautiously looking around, but that didn’t stop their chatter at all.
After the haze took a hasty look around, it turned and started listening to them.
“Dear gods… what happened here?”
“Are we sure that those were the goblins Andy saw?”
“They should be, my boy told me that he sent him searching for purple dragon around here.”
“Nah, it’s certain that it’s this group. You can clearly see the tracks of the boy here when he started running away.”
“Yeah, there’s a gathering knife and a sack thrown over this bush as well.”
“I find it hard to believe that he got so scared by some dead ones…”
“It’s not only the goblins… the grass has completely withered.”
“The trees as well, everything around here seems to have withered away…”
“Shit…”
“That could explain why the boy was such a mess.”
“What mess?”
“Didn’t you hear? He was bleeding from his eyes and ears and was coughing blood.”
“Damn… someone must have really cursed that family. First his disease, now this.”
“Probably whoever did this got the kid caught up in a magic blast of sorts.”
“It could have been a monster…”
“If it was a monster the kid would have screamed about it, not about the goblins. It had to be a human.”
“A monster would have probably eaten the corpses as well. I agree, probably a rampaging mage or something.”
“So… what now?”
“Can you track the goblins to their den?”
“I could try, but what are you suggesting? Just us going to a full den of them?”
“Yeah… there’s no way there are only three of those things.”
“Yeah, those things breed like rats. If they started moving as groups already, there surely is a big den somewhere close by.”
“The elder should go to the lord to ask him to send either soldiers or mercenaries, meanwhile no one enters the forest.”
“I’ll have the rest of the hunters set up militia patrols as well until someone comes to take care of the den.”
As the villagers returned, some of them split off to go towards the village elder’s house, others left and went for their homes, the hunters left arguing about how to set up the patrols, and the few remaining left for the tavern to get a drink. Yet, no one gave notice towards the shadowy figure that was walking amongst them.
It simply looked around, almost like surveying the whole village, as it turned and walked towards a home at the edge of it.
It passed through the front door and headed straight towards the small room that a commotion could be heard from.
A boy was resting on the bed, his eyes bandaged with a cloth from which a heavy herbal scent drifted and filled the whole room. A young woman was sitting on a chair, sobbing uncontrollably, while an elderly woman was talking with a domineering tone towards a man that his eyes seemed unfocused.
“You listen to me Goran. I told you that there’s simply no other way.”
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“Even if we take the chance Neven and baptize him right away, it’s a week travel to the city…”
“I’ll do the baptism.”
“You?! But you’re not a priestess…”
“Listen here boy. I told you that I can do it, so I can. Now, choose: death, or a chance to survive?”
“I…”
“Of course we’ll do it, I’m not watching my little baby die. Goran, go get the elder and the teacher as witnesses. We own to at least give my boy the minimal of courtesies.” The young woman’s voice, full of determination, interrupted the two.
As two more people entered the room, the arguing back and forth only intensified, but the haze had long time lost interest in their voices, preferring to instead having his gaze flicker between the boy and the elderly woman. When the commotion died, he took a step back, and waited.
The elderly woman stood still at the foot of the bed, while the family and witnesses took their place right behind her. Her solemn voice echoed with dignity as she started chanting.
“We are gathered here to present a young soul to the world. We ask of the world to take notice of this soul, belonging to the one named Andarius Fereven. May his paths be endless and unmeasurable.”
Her voice grew silent but her lips never stopped moving. Her eyes flashed white as runes started appearing above the chest of the boy. As more and more runes started gathering, they formed a perfect circle, and the circle itself looked like a glyph of its own, but she kept chanting. More and more runes started forming, and concurrent circles of them soon covered the whole boy. Like they were alive, the runes kept moving and shifting, until they formed a great circle, around two meters in diameter that surrounded the boy.
Neven stopped chanting and let a sigh escape her lips as she regained her composure and started speaking again. Her voice, as if her age was a lie, clear as spring water.
“We are gathered here to present a young soul to the world. We ask of the world to take notice of this soul, belonging to the one named Andarius Fereven. May his paths be endless and unmeasurable.”
“I see a young human. His strength is average but his coordination is good. His comprehension is both average and good. His mana is low and his control is weak. May his path be long enough to grow all of his attributes to heights never reached before.”
“The paths are as immeasurable as the stars in the night sky, and all of them exist in all of us, but our journey must begin from a single point.”
“One of the paths shines brighter in the one named Andarius Fereven. I see that one as the path of a magical artisan. Next to it, wide as well but not as much, is the path of the artisan. The path of a farmer is thin and the path of a merchant average. The path of a scholar is average and the path of an entertainer thin. The path of the soldier is thin, while the path of a scout slightly wide. The path of a mage is thin, as is the path of a priest… I see no unique, doubled, or merged, paths.”
“Human named Andarius Fereven, you have heard your aptitudes as I saw them, but know that the choice is yours, the path is yours and yours alone. Even if you decide later on to start anew, you can, although I warn you that it’s difficult and challenging to do so. So, knowing this, what’s the path you choose to start your journey in this world?”
Silence reigned heavy in the room as all eyes focused on the unconscious boy. A second later, Neven’s clear voice started again.
“I acknowledge Andarius Fereven’s wish to become a magical artisan and ask from the world to do the same.”
Suddenly, the runes floating around the boy went into frenzy, moving and spinning around in ever increasing speeds until they abruptly compacted and entered his body. Like an invisible gust of wind, even the least magical talented in the room could feel the surrounding mana rushing in towards the boy like water trying to fill an endless hole. A few seconds later, as the torrent of mana stopped, and the only sound that could be heard was the slight, wheezing, breath of the youth.
The heavy silence was interrupted by the shouts of one of the men in the back.
“WHAT?! Are you insane woman?”
Neven slowly turned her head and looked at the shouting man with a questioning gaze.
“Why did you name him a magical artisan with his terrible mana and control? Those are the cornerstones for any kind of them! You said he had good aptitude for artisan as well! He could have made a fine blacksmith or carpenter instead of…”
“He would have died long before he even became a blacksmith or a carpenter, let alone a fine one.”
“What?”
“What what? Sometimes I wonder what you teach in that school of yours! What does an artisan rely upon?”
“Well, coordination, which he even had a good aptitude for, and then strength and comprehension. All perfectly fine for him to follow!”
“And what does strength, coordination, and comprehension does for the mana rampaging inside him?”
“Eh?”
“Have you forgotten why we even bothered with a baptism this early? The jobs reshape us. We needed a job with great reliance on mana in order to change his body to one that can hold more mana. He was lucky he even had the aptitude for a magical artisan, else I would have named him a mage. Better being a crappy alchemist rather than a dead blacksmith. Now, all of you leave, I need to check to see if the whole gamble worked before I go rest.”
With that, the elderly man that hasn’t yet spoke slowly moved towards the door. When he reached it, he slowly turned towards the group.
“Goran, Olein, I’ll pray for a speedy recovery, but you’ll have to excuse me now since I have to go write some letters to the lord to deal with the whole goblin issue. Devon, come, let the family with their child, Neven did the best she could, more than any one of us could hope to achieve. Neven… I expect you tomorrow in my home for some tea, and to explain to me how not only you did a baptism but a reading as well, but thank you nevertheless for trying to save the little one.”
And with that, only the family and Neven were left in the house. Neven raised her hand, interrupting Goran who was about to speak.
“Go in the main room, as I said, I need to check if we succeeded, and I’ll join you shortly to talk more about Andy and his future.”
Alone, she turned towards the boy and sighed. As she began to chant again, the black haze that so far had stood quietly suddenly shifted around. As her eyes darted towards it, the colour drained from Neven’s face and she instantly fell on her knees.
“My Lord…”