The morning came fast, the rays of light shining through the windows some hours after Elijah had started his work. By that point, he had been doing very little. The magic core inside of him had been emptied, the paste had been used up, and the two foreigners were in their respective beds, still unconscious but now breathing deeply. Even if some bruises persisted through his efforts, the internal damage had been dealt with enough to secure their futures. They would live.
Not that they’d awoken by that point, both still deep in sleep. Elijah personally thought that best, since it allowed him to rest his eyes for a few minutes before starting his morning. The standard drinks for customers were brewed and bottled, some minor amount of cleaning around the shop area was done, and the door previously locked was opened up to allow any person to enter without trouble.
That wasn’t to say that anybody did walk inside the second the shop opened. Most who visited to buy herbs and concoctions would usually first appear some three hours later. A desire to get other tasks handled beforehand maybe, though Elijah suspected many just preferred to sleep for another handful of hours to avoid the morning bustle in the streets.
No matter what the reason was, it allowed him to sit behind the counter without anybody to require his attention. And with the two strangers still unconscious upstairs, he was finally able to inspect some rather strange trinkets that had been acquired.
Before Aleksi had kicked out Tom, the giant had emptied the homeless man’s pockets of anything that had been looted. Most of it was nothing interesting. Metallic keys with a rather unique structure, some expensive-looking tissues, an old pocket knife, and, finally, two of those metallic disks that he’d seen Tom fiddling with back in the alley.
Now that he was holding one of them in his hand, though, he doubted it was truly metal. The device was too light, and the glass on one side heavily implied there was something else inside. Something properly fitted, since it didn’t rattle when shaken.
Artificer’s creation, most definitely, but with what purpose?
With his newly regained senses, he could detect no traces of magic inside the actual contraption. The buttons on the sides did nothing either. No compartments were revealed, nothing was shot out, and yet Elijah bet there was something he was missing. Both of the foreigners had carried a device. Different versions, with a difference in width, height, and thickness, sure, but the primary designs were close enough that he could assume the functions to be the same.
Laying down the smaller device and picking up the other, Elijah prodded at the edges. Here, the glass had fractured heavily on one of the corners, blunt trauma breaking the fragile contraption. He hoped it didn’t ruin whatever purpose it had.
“Fewer buttons on the sides yet one below the glass,” he commented aloud, before pressing the button on the front side. Nothing happened for a second until the glass briefly flashed in an array of lights before returning to its previous black state. “Interesting…”
Repeating the button pressing didn’t give the same results sadly, though he could feel as the other side of the device began to heat up. A curious fact that almost made him bring out tools to disassemble the device before he heard the bell atop the front door ring.
“You there Elijah?” a young woman’s voice half-shouted into the shop, stepping inside a second after Elijah had hidden the two devices from sight. “Ah, there you are! Is it so hard to give me a reply?”
“The youth are normally supposed to wish the elderly a good morning before anything else, Grace,” Elijah replied, standing from his seat to allow the incoming hug. “How has your mother been doing?”
“She’s been doing more than fine, with the new pain relievers you got her," Grace said, intending to explain further before she narrowed her eyes and quieted down. The little mage that Elijah had known since the day she was born, the girl known for always filling a room with talk, was quiet. An abnormality. It took no real thought to realize why. “You’re… a mage?”
And here I thought you would’ve noticed before getting to the counter.
“Is it that obvious?” Elijah answered to deepen the idea of how he was new to the magical world. Grace might not have cared to take note of his question, however, with how the young woman had a splitting grin on her face. He had seen that before. “Please don’t start freak—”
The over-positive girl he’d known for nearly two decades freaked out, going in for a second hug while jumping up and down. Elijah tried and failed to quiet her down, giving up after the first ten seconds and just letting Grace tire herself out. She was happy. More than happy. Ecstatic beyond common decency.
And why wouldn’t she be? The very thing that made her able to potentially grow past her social class had just been bestowed on Elijah as well.
“I just— Really, this shouldn’t be possible, but you’re… yeah, there’s no doubt at all! You’re a beacon, Elijah! A green, kinda-fluid beacon of magical light!” Grace exclaimed, blinking a few times to get tears out of her eyes. “How did it happen? When did it happen?”
Here we go.
“Yesterday night,” Elijah replied, recounting the story he and Aleksi had brainstormed the night before. While they weren’t planning to be open about his ‘new’ awakening, having a consistent story wasn’t a bad idea in the slightest. “I was in the dungeon like always, gathering the herbs I needed for the regular deliveries when I began to feel… more. Like the plants had some threads that connected them to the world, ones that I could interact with. I just thought I was too tired at first, but when I went home and started working with the herbs, I managed to properly connect to one of the flowers and my mind felt like it… expanded.”
A practiced speech, the pauses believable and the experience copied near-perfectly from what Grace had described back when she first began to use her gifts intentionally as a child. Elijah would’ve used his own, yet that required him to be able to remember that moment, something that he couldn’t do.
“It was the same for me!” Grace responded, eyes wide as she scrambled to get out her small notepad and scribble down what he’d said. Elijah eyed the pages and pen briefly, noting the expensive materials. A gift from the Academy? “It’s still strange that you only awakened now, though. The standard age for that is six to eight years old. I remember reading extreme cases of people first awakening at ten and eleven, but… how old are you again, Elijah?”
He raised an eyebrow at the lack of politeness, but there was no shame on the young woman’s face. Youth these days were truly something.
“71,” Elijah finally answered. If it was accurate or not, he couldn’t say. His younger days weren’t too linear, so keeping up with the years hadn’t been too high a priority. For the sake of having an age, however, he’d just taken Aleksi’s as his own. They were born around the same era, so it worked well enough. “Please don’t tell anybody about this, Grace.”
The pen halted mid-letter, blue eyes flying up to meet his own. The confusion was clear.
“What?” she said. “Why? This is incredible.”
“If this had happened some sixty years ago, maybe, but I’m a little too old to take up the magical arts now,” Elijah calmly responded, an understanding smile reaching his lips as he watched the sound mage deflate a little. The implications had started to dawn on her. “We both remember your starting days when you were practicing the birdcalls. You pushed yourself a little too much, and I had to help a bed-ridden six-year-old for a week to help you recover. What do you think will happen if somebody my age tries to repeat your training?”
“... A wave of sickness at best,” Grace replied. ‘At best’ was the important part of that sentence. Elijah had helped her through her first year of study at the academy, and they’d both read the results of harsh magical experimentations. There was a reason that training was heavily advised to only be done under supervision. “I understand. I suppose that also means you won’t register with the academy?”
“I prefer avoiding having my name on too many lists, thank you,” he said, getting a mild chuckle out of the wind mage. “But, that will be a necessity if you go out and tell others. The neighbors might call themselves discreet, but I believe it would take a single afternoon for everybody to reach my doorstep with the request to see my new gifts.”
“A whole afternoon? My, Elijah, you think so little of my mom’s establishment?” Grace accused, her eyes harsh for a moment before she broke out in laughter. He replied in kind, mild chuckles leaving him. “But… since I’m doing so much work not telling my mom about this, would you mind… showing your ‘new gifts?’”
No shame at all.
If that was the cost of her silence, though, Elijah was more than happy to pay it. Grabbing one of the lavender seeds behind the counter, he went through the standard planting procedures before finally calling upon one of the few abilities he’d honed in his younger days.
Channeling of [Accelerate Growth] has been activated! Current cost: 8MP/sec
It took a few seconds to properly connect, but the System alerted him of his success once it happened. The drain on magical reserves wasn’t too substantial, but Elijah knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it up for too long. Even if he technically had the energy inside him, calling upon it after draining himself repeatedly not so many hours ago wouldn’t do him any favors.
Yet the result that came from using his magical abilities wasn’t to scoff at. The planted seed had emerged within two seconds, the stalk lengthening under his watch. The shell came off a second after, the thin plant gaining an emerging bud on top.
“Amazing,” Grace murmured, eyes wide while she watched the process unfold, a smile plastered onto her face once the purple petals finally appeared and spread out to show off a beautiful flower. The entire duration for the result was about twelve seconds, easily taking a quarter of Elijah’s total reserves while making his skin lighten a few shades. “Oh, shit, Elijah! Are you alright?”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Swearing isn’t something somebody your age should do,” Elijah got out before letting his lungs focus on getting air into his bloodstream. He was leaning on the counter a little more than usual, needing the extra grounding to stay upright.
“You swear more than me, though,” Grace countered, relief washing over her as he began to recover from his little display.
“I’m old. I’m allowed to swear as much as I want.”
“Well, that’s stupid,” she commented. There was some double-checking done to make sure Elijah was actually fine and well, which he assured her he was but she was the 'expert.' He’d spent a little more mana than intended, yet this wasn’t enough to truly strain him. “That you’re able to do something like this is incredible, though. Makes me feel a little bad about my whistling.”
“You can do much more than just whistle,” Elijah promised her. She was a wind mage. The System had made that clear on her Status from the very beginning. Grace was simply… not yet accustomed to using her gifts in the traditional ways, some strange mental mishaps pushing her into the narrow niche of sonic manipulations. “Sound is a very powerful tool. Weren’t you able to create music out of nothing but metal blocks last month?”
If you used the same concept on a person, you would be lethal in combat.
“I’m barely able to do it for more than an hour at a time, and I’m not close to accurate enough to write my thesis on it,” Grace countered, the mention of the latter topic seeming to deflate the younger woman even further. “I do need to get going soon if I don’t want to be late. We need the same order as last time.”
“Of course.”
Going into the laboratory and grabbing the prepared bag of finished products, Elijah ventured back out into the shop and handed it to Grace. Six silver coins were given to him in return, the wind mage not even looking inside to inspect the contents. A sign of trust around these parts.
“I’ll be back when I get the time,” Grace said, turning around to head out once more. “I know you don’t want to pressure yourself too much with this gift, Elijah, but don’t you feel curious about what you can do now?”
She wanted what she thought was best for him.
“I do,” Elijah confirmed. “And I will be trying to incorporate it into my daily life. I just won’t try anything intense.”
“Wouldn’t want you doing anything else,” she said, agreeing with the decision wholeheartedly. “See you later!”
“Goodbye, Grace.”
And with that, the bell fastened to the front door chimed once again, as it was opened up to allow the mage to leave with the bag in hand. Just as she’d done every single week for the past many years.
Elijah considered the chances of her returning within the next seven days. If Grace had the free time to do as she liked, he wouldn’t have doubted her appearing later that day or tomorrow, but her new position as a Mage’s apprentice meant that free hours were a rarity.
Maybe when the weekend rolls around? Even the Royal Mages need a break every now and then.
And it would allow him to ask her about any possible issues popping up at the academy. Elijah was growing curious about whether or not they would try to cover up the death of one of the mages. While there were many of them nowadays, the sudden disappearance of a trained magician should’ve started some amount of rumors. Certainly enough for an apprentice to catch wind of it.
“She’s in danger now, isn’t she?” Elijah asked the empty air, his mind working through the possible outcomes of their situation. If he and Aleksi were caught hiding the two foreigners, anybody attached would likely come under fire as well. “Don’t think about it.”
It was an order he had trouble obeying.
Elijah needed a distraction. Not a hard task, when you owned a forever dirty shop, though he set that aside for later to instead feel at his magical core. The magical residue from the herbs was very effective at regenerating his internal energy, to the point where he felt secure in forcing out a thread of green mana from his fingertip.
It danced in the air, swaying to an unseen wind while searching for anything to connect itself to. Elijah silently looked upon the small tendril, letting his hand move the slightest amount to accommodate the thread’s searching. As more and more seconds passed, the swaying became much more focused. More honed in, the tip of the thread pointing directly towards the purple flower on the counter.
A reaction due to similarity. The thread sought to connect with its brother yet it was too weak to reach the other.
Elijah adjusted the digit further, cutting away the remaining distance to let the string attach itself to the flower’s petals. An instant pressure came through in the back of his mind, an itch of whispering intent and thoughts. Nothing cohesive, certainly nothing that he could decipher into human concepts, but it was proof of the connection of life within the small flower.
Channeling of [Plant Bond] has been activated! Current cost: 5MP/sec
He cut off the connection when his magical core was close to empty not long after. His stamina with the magical arts was still so low. Elijah knew he would have kept it up for tens of minutes at a time in his prime, but his touch had become so unrefined through the years.
If his abilities were to be put to use effectively, he would need to hone his skills once again.
Putting the plant to the side for now, Elijah spent the next few hours sorting through the store inventory. Prices were adjusted, the counts for different items were updated, and he noted down what he would need to stock up on during his next visit to the dungeon. A few customers even came in during this time, buying various salves, recreational pills, and a single package of rodent killer. Elijah didn’t have much left of the latter, having to note the herbs required to make more down as being needed on his next trip as well.
Aleksi needs to come with no matter what now.
Writing down the last updates in the inventory book, the bell on the shop’s door chimed once again. Eyes were lifted from the pages seconds later when the standard greetings weren’t heard from whoever had decided to enter.
That either meant they were thieves hoping to steal some minor item and leg it, that they thought themselves above Elijah or… that it was a certain tired guard who would likely prefer to collapse on the floor and sleep for a few hours.
Four heavy steps were heard, moving a body into his line of sight and revealing the truth.
“Olivia,” Elijah greeted, noting the dark bags under the head guard’s eyes. For somebody so young, she could seem so old. “You look worse than usual. How long have you been awake?”
“Something above 30 hours, I’m guessing,” came the reply. Her voice was hoarse, and the coughs that came after made it clear she'd been shouting orders all day and night. “No rest for the understaffed, as you know.”
“Of course,” Elijah said with only half as much sarcasm as he felt the need for. Now wasn’t the time to be hostile. “I have to say sorry preemptively for making your day worse.”
Narrowed eyes stared his way. Tired, half-angry eyes that just couldn’t handle hearing anything about more setbacks today but had to regardless.
“Just say it outright next time, Elijah,” Olivia half-requested half-ordered.
Very well.
“I don’t have the next batch ready,” Elijah answered as bluntly as she wanted him to be. Eyes narrowed further. “I won’t have it ready until I get the chance to procure the necessary herbs from the dungeon.”
“You were in the dungeon for 3 hours yesterday night procuring everything you’d need,” the head-guard fired back instantly. “My guards wrote in their reports you’d filled up your bag like usual. Were you robbed?”
“Not by another person, no,” he replied smoothly, inserting some frustration into his voice. “I… messed up during the final stages. Boiled away the water for too long, and the product got burnt to the point of being useless. Five hours of work wasted because I was careless and fell asleep on my feet.”
Using the angle of overworking oneself. It had immediate effects, the frown softening and a sigh escaping Olivia Blackwell.
“Fine,” she finally said. “Just… just don’t let it happen again, okay? I’m pushing against what’s allowed, letting you go in there at night.”
“I know.”
They’d had the agreement for close to two decades now, from the very first month that she’d gotten her role as head guard of the Dungeon entrance. A prestigious position that came with a very limited budget which didn’t allow for anything advanced in the way of medicinal treatment. With the number of injuries that came from stopping the smaller monsters from escaping into the city, Olivia had been in dire need of something to remedy her lack of care for her men.
And here Elijah had arrived, having proposed the idea during the captain’s shopping in his store. He’d have access to the dungeon below during the closed hours if in exchange he used some of the gathered herbs to brew whatever concoctions she and her underlings required to stay in good health.
It hadn’t been a difficult choice to make.
“Is there no chance to use the stuff you burnt at all?” Olivia asked, the guard’s hands going through the satchel on her side. What was she looking for? “With how things are looking, we might need it soon more than ever.”
“If you tried to use the burnt product, you’d be chained to a toilet for the next week. No, you can’t use it. If you need the next batch quickly, I'd need to enter the dungeon tonight again and gather new herbs,” Elijah explained, eyes focused on the paper roll brought out from Olivia’s satchel seconds later. “What is that?”
“Our most recent headache,” came the reply, paper crackling as it was fully unfurled and turned towards Elijah. The drawings on it made him pale a little. “There was a murder in the slums yesterday night. We haven’t been told who were killed and how, but we somehow have rather detailed illustrations of how they look.”
The mystery deepened further.
“How… peculiar,” Elijah got out, trying to keep his tone the same as before. Though he did falter slightly, the head of the guards didn’t seem to take notice.
“Weird as fuck is what it is,” Olivia corrected, looking at the poster with scorn. Elijah was able to read the text below the two detailed drawings of the faces. The bounty on them was 40 gold coins, a small fortune for the people in this area. “We were saddled with hundreds of these damned papers at night and given the order to have them all posted on the walls of every building in the city. I had to get everybody currently on leave out in uniform to make it happen.”
An irregular order, one likely made out of desperation. And if such an order could even be sent out, it meant that the ones who knew about the murder and why it happened were very high-ranking in the city. The thought disturbed Elijah.
“And here I thought the commands from above were usually well-reasoned and explained,” he commented. The grunt of agreement from Olivia told him everything he needed to know.
“Since this is technically an order from the commander, we’re allowed to skip asking for permission, but would you mind if I put this out on your shop window?” Olivia asked. “We still need a dozen more posters in this area to fill up the quota.”
“Feel free to do as you need,” Elijah said, getting a thanks in reply as the guard taped it to the window so it could be read to those passing by outside.
Another question almost reached his lips, but a thud interrupted him. A mild rain of dust came from the ceiling a moment later, showing the source to be from the second floor.
They’re awake.
Not good.
“Huh. Sounds like Aleksi’s hungover again,” Olivia commented, sharp ears picking up the sound as well. “I’ll leave that mess to you. I’m already behind schedule as it is.”
“Of course, you will,” Elijah replied, only half-focused on the guard as he planned out his method of entry. “I’ll see you tonight at the dungeon.”
“If I’m not dead from exhaustion by then, sure.”
The bell on the door jingled as it was opened and closed once more, letting Elijah lock it and close down the shop early, before venturing up the stairs to see how much of a mess this was turning out to be.