Elijah promised himself that he would go to sleep at a normal time that night. He wasn’t sure he even needed to make that promise, his body already warning him it might just shut down before the sun was anywhere near the horizon. Tiredness couldn’t begin to explain what he was feeling, his third yawn of the last fifteen minutes inviting him to sleep for another hour, but it couldn’t be done. Not now.
They’d arrived back later than intended, thanks to Jack’s injuries and Aleksi’s use of elixir. It had forced them to wait another hour inside the Dungeon, an hour in which they weren’t attacked but still felt a toll. Adrenaline had surged and fallen, and their bodies had wished for rest yet there was none to be had.
During that time, when nothing could be done but wait, Elijah had passed the minutes by taking out various plants from the floor. Nothing that he usually harvested, since they had either very specific or no medicinal properties at all, but something to try out when he had the option of having a look or instead waiting around and staring into the empty air.
There was some initial experimentation with one plant that could spew out a green poisonous gas, but a small accident with Dawn attempting to eat it caused Elijah to move away from the herb. Instead, he focused on another plant, this one informally known as the ‘Bright Screamer.’ The official name was Radiant Wailweed, but that didn’t make it clear how little anybody liked the herb. Upon being crushed, brushed against, or if the wind was just a little too powerful, the herb would emit an incredibly bright white light, along with a high-pitched wail that lasted for two seconds yet could make a person feel deaf for five minutes. It was an interaction when the liquids inside touched the open air, which made them convert to some useless gas when exposed, with the light and noise as a by-product. Terribly mundane but enhanced with the Mana that the herb collected during its lifespan.
Elijah despised it, yet that hour of free time had made him harvest much of the herb. A small bag, in fact, which he’d removed seeds from for future use before starting out the processing when morning arrived.
It was less for the possible usage that he was doing this and more for the challenge. The near-instant reaction to air meant that a successful extraction was very difficult with the tools at his disposal. Possible, yes, but requiring a bit more time than what it usually took. An hour to be precise, and for so little to show for it at the end.
“Two hours of leaning over a table for that small vial?” Jack said, sitting at the other table while Elijah held the finished product. It was a deceivingly orange color, seeming so harmless as it swirled around inside the vial. If the cork hadn’t sat perfectly on, they would both be clutching their ears while blinded by the light. “Kinda dangerous holding it like that, you know?”
“As opposed to the mess you’re leaving on the table?” Elijah countered, getting a sheepish smile in response as Jack wiped off the worst of the gunpowder. “Clean that up when you’re done fooling around. It won’t be pretty if some of that gets close to a burner.”
“Sure, sure,” the man said, getting back to his current work. The current task that Jack had settled on was figuring out the intricacies of cartridges and making a standard form for them. This meant a process of constant adjustment, trying out a certain form with a very malleable material, spending some minutes on transforming it into a heat-tolerant metal, measuring and taking note of the imperfections, and then repeating the entire process with a better idea of how to get the proper shape.
So much work for something so expensive in usage. Elijah wouldn’t deny that the single-shot prototype from the day before hadn’t shown off the potential of the tool. To be able to shoot a hole through a monster or person that had the width of a thumb at the minimum was not a small feat. Especially not when it could be done without getting into close range. And, yes, the current problem of having one shot before needing three minutes to reload was a problem, but the new design that Jack was brewing up would apparently fix that issue nicely. The only requirement for that design to be viable was, as one would guess, a standardized cartridge size.
‘The arrow is all the way up now,’ Dawn commented, making Elijah look over at the duck and the clock she sat next to. As stated, the minute hand had reached the very top, signaling the start of the new hour and the fact that he was to stand ready at the castle in some thirty minutes. ‘Are we leaving?’
‘Sadly, yes,’ Elijah replied, downing his cup of tea before grabbing the duck and moving towards the door. “Best of luck with your attempts. Don’t break anything at the smithy.”
Jack made no promises about avoiding such a thing, and neither did Elijah expect it. Just moving past it, he went into the basement, wishing Sasha and Aleksi a fair day before leaving for the castle.
As the giant would be meeting in the smithy a little later than usual, and since the usage of the elixir had allowed him to feel a little more energized in the morning, he had accepted Sasha’s proposal of sparring in the basement where the ground was a little softer. Nothing serious in terms of blows, both fighting fair and without too much force behind blows to avoid needing healing or activating remnants of elixir.
Elijah had nothing against it personally, since he didn’t have to participate, and trusted them both not to sustain any serious injury that would require his assistance to fix. While both were reckless at times, this was a topic where they both were knowledgeable. If they didn’t want something to happen, nothing would.
The journey to the castle was fairly uneventful. Sneers still came his way as he went through the districts, the guards still approached him, but giving them his name and showing off his emblem made them hurriedly apologize before letting him through. After that, there were no problems at all.
Servants greeted him in the halls. Just a nod or a small wave, no words spoken and no pace broken, but Elijah was happy for it regardless. It meant a lot to him.
“Good morning to you both,” he greeted his two assistants as he ventured inside the laboratory, receiving murmured greetings back. Both were highly focused, Mary cutting precise chunks out of a spiked fruit of sorts, while Oscar was spending his time bringing various herbs to a low boil. It seemed they had run out of a cream to treat oil burns yesterday night when several of the cooks had been unlucky while in the kitchen. Nobody could’ve seen such a thing coming, but what could they do? “What’s this?”
“Documents for you to sign off on,” Mary said, pausing in her work to walk over and go through them with him. “For the past two nights, there’s been reports sent in from the Dungeon Entrance that you’ve been going inside. The first one was ignored as a possible mistake, but two nights in a row made them think you were being impersonated somehow. They want you to fill out details about who would have copied your emblem without your notice.”
“Oh, that’s not the case at all,” Elijah assured his assistant, making her look at him confused. “I’m the one who ventured into the Dungeon on both nights. There’s nobody who has stolen my identity just yet.”
“You?” Mary repeated, unable to believe it despite his nodding. She picked up the document again. “This says you entered close to midnight and left as late as four in the morning! If this is true, you’ve barely had the chance to sleep.”
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“I did have to put in more Phoenix Fire in my tea these past two mornings to get by,” he confessed, which just cemented the fact that it had been him both nights. Mary looked somewhere between impressed and horrified, spending a moment trying to find words before giving up and returning to her work. “Please send these back to whoever brought them here, when you have the time.”
He was promised as much, though it would take a while before such anything could happen. In the meanwhile, Elijah was granted the chance to take care of patients arriving. Only five for the day, luckily, though each took quite a while more to get through than the day before. Deep cuts from trying to grab a falling knife, a broken leg from stumbling down the stairs, an infected wound that had ‘suddenly gone bad’ despite needing several days to get like this, a rather severe pollen allergy, and, finally, helping somebody deal with pregnancy symptoms.
“From what I can see, you are… seven months along?” Elijah said, the servant nodding at his words. She looked more than a little uncomfortable in her clothing, the refitted outfit not working with the stomach. Even when done gracefully and with tact, nothing was hiding how far along she was. “The types of medicine you can be given are rather limited, to reduce the chance of possible complications, but I can see you’ve got several prescriptions out already. Have there been any issues with these?”
“Not as much as there could be,” the servant replied, rattling off the known symptoms one by one. Foot pain was made worse by her working hours, nausea from her body not wanting to eat properly, her back making her feel twenty years older, and enough heartburn to make her start worrying. “Reynold gave me something for all of it, but it’s starting to become too much regardless. The pain is increasing, I’m having trouble standing for too long, and I can’t fulfill my duties anymore. I need help.”
…
“Are you still working as you would normally?” Elijah questioned, opening up her file once again. Looking through the notes, he was surprised to find that nothing had ever been said about reducing hours.
“Yes,” she confirmed quickly. “I am the head maid for the communal wing. With our lack of luck this year, I’ve been without a direct underling, which means I have had nobody to replace me as things have become more serious.”
No easy way to shift over to less stress.
“I’m sorry to say, but that won’t do at all,” he apologized, already noting down the various changes needed in her file. This would require that he sent along a few messages to various administrators, something he knew he could technically do yet had never tried it. “While you consider your role in this castle more important than your health, I don’t hold the same opinion. Your body will not thank you if you keep operating at this level of stress, and I fear it might have worse consequences than you can imagine.”
Was it possible for some to keep working despite pregnancy? Most definitely, Elijah remembered how Grace’s mom had been at her Inn serving beer at the very same hour he was rushed over there. Some had an easier time than others, and it was usually because of factors that couldn’t be controlled.
“You were only meant to go on leave in six weeks, but I’m limiting your hours to fifteen each week until that point,” Elijah said, finding a notepad and scribbling down a few orders on it before handing it to the servant. “Give this to your direct superior. They’ll find somebody to take over your duties. And, please, wait here for a second while I find something to help with the current pains.”
Two minutes later, with an order to rest and relax, along with having a small bag worth of various ointments, pills, and a few tea bags that improved the quality of sleep, the servant left the room and hurried down the hall. It would cost the castle a little extra to put her on leave for full pay, but Elijah cared little about that.
They can pay me a monthly stipend equaling ten workers’ wages when I finish my time here. They can afford to pay somebody a little extra to get somebody on board quickly.
“That was handled rather well of you, if I do say so myself.”
Elijah looked up from the kettle he was putting on, seeing the old voice match the face of a certain old man.
“Alin,” he greeted, getting a nod in return. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Are you in need of help with something?”
“Ah, no, these old bones are doing just fine,” the Earth Mage assured him, though he didn’t refuse to sit and have a cup of tea while they talked. The assistants brought the man a cup before either could even blink. “I came here to thank you for what you did yesterday and heard your talk with the young woman just before. Very commendable of you.”
“Thanks, but I believe whoever balances the books in the castle might think otherwise,” Elijah replied, getting a laugh out of the other man for his efforts.
“With the wealth we attain from the Dungeon, a few hundred golds to give a family some relief is a cost to be ignored,” Alin said, having similar thoughts about what was truly important in life. Accountants would truly despise them. “But, again, I heard of what you accomplished yesterday, and I want to thank you for it.”
“Oh?” he said. “I take it that means the medicine one of my assistants gave him this morning helped perfectly?”
“Mason was already up and walking before your lovely assistants had the chance to give them,” the Earth Mage corrected with an amused smile. “Gave one of the maids a heart attack in the early morning, when she entered to clean and found our dear King standing by the windows to watch the sunrise. That scream of hers caused quite the uproar, though the news of him laughing at her misfortune only made it more popular gossip.”
The king standing by the window, laughing at a frightened maid… From an outside perspective, it could’ve been seen as the actions of a cruel man, but Elijah knew otherwise. King Mason had suffered for many years, chained to his bed day and night without end, so hearing of him rising from his bed without assistance meant the world to the people here. Elijah personally cursed the man for not following his orders to stay in bed and wait for his assistants to help him up, but at least it hadn’t gone too badly.
“Laughing and walking around is a good thing, I suppose,” Elijah commented, forgetting the small act of rebellion. “Did you get the invitation for this afternoon, by the way? Though I advised against it, and still do, Mason wishes for us to drink some absinthe together.”
“Oh, I heard,” Alin promised him. “A servant nearly broke down my door to deliver the news this morning. Looked white as snow when he went through it all. I don’t think he enjoyed my laughter when I was told about the meeting.”
The Earth Mage chuckled at his own words, shaking his head before taking a sip from the tea.
“But, again, I can’t say how much I’m grateful for having this happen,” Alin continued when Elijah didn’t offer comments to his words. “Though I have not told many, I’ve been scared of the possibility of Mason never leaving that bed of his ever again. To have him stand, to have him retain his sense of humor, it is… It brings me great joy to see the return of an old friend. So, if you ever have any troubles, know that I am indebted to you.”
Oh, no, he was not accepting this kind of obligation.
“Before you become too grateful, you must remember I was put into this position to help the King,” Elijah reminded the Earth Mage, yet they didn’t look convinced in the slightest. “I am already being compensated a great deal for my work. There is no need for you to promise me your future favor.”
“There is no need, maybe, but I wish to do it regardless,” Alin replied, not accepting his attempted refusals no matter what Elijah said or did. The Earth Mage did not relent from his promise, uncaring whether the Healer wanted a favor or not. In the mind of the walking legend, Elijah deserved it and so he would have it. “If you truly wish, you can ask something small of me and we can call it even.”
“... In this context, what would ‘something small’ mean?”
“A small hill of gold and gems? Maybe the title of duke? One of the old dukes did sleep in half a year ago, and we have been trying to find a worthy replacement for him.”
“I refuse.”
“Of course you do,” Alin said with a lack of surprise as he finished his tea. “Now, I believe we must hurry along. Afternoon is upon us, and the King has ordered lunch for us both.”
Oh?
Making sure his assistants were fine without his presence, which he was assured wasn’t a problem in the slightest, Elijah followed Alin through the castle.