Chapter: 15

Captain Adrian chewed on his dried meat silently, doing his best to ignore the insatiable itching that came from his missing leg.

After using the mana healing technique that Len and Rick had taught them they’d been recovering from their injuries quickly. Sped up how fast they could move as well.

They’d pushed hard, Rick and Len had been worried, fearing for Len’s family.

Each of the men had been given a second chance even with their injuries.

They learned a few things from healing themselves. The more they focused their mana on healing one thing, the faster it recovered. Adrian had focused it on his leg.

He’d formed a child’s limb which was elongating and adding muscle tone as it grew.

Another thing they learned, healing was hungry work. He had everyone on double rations of food and water, eating and drinking on the march.

They reached the edge of a dell as lightning bolts from odd raining clouds appeared. Adrian frowned as the clouds were consumed fully by raining.

Adrian pulled out a pair of looking glasses and focused on the distance. There were farmers working in the fields. Some were in black patches. People moved over to them.

More of the clouds appeared and the lightning.

“That’s not normal,” Gibson said.

“Haven’t seen clouds like that, nor silent lightning,” Adrian agreed. “Lets pick up the pace!”

They continued down into the dell, wearing the Isendia family’s armor as they towed their carts.

Rick and Len greeted them on the mud road, people were out among the fields harvesting.

“You made good time Adrian,” Rick said, Len a half step behind him. Lightning descended sporadically behind the farmhouses beyond them. The two of them acting as if nothing was abnormal.

“Thank you sir.” Adrian said, fighting down his questions.

“Unload any ammunition you have and have a group bury it, bullet facing down three meters deep fifty meters from the fields,” Rick pointed in the direction he wanted it.

“That will corrode the rounds,” Adrian kept his voice low so others wouldn’t hear.”

“They’ll be of more harm than use. Len you think you could enchant their guns?”

“Not if we want to hit the dungeon tomorrow. I got enough things to work on,” Len said.

“Rifles are going to pretty useless then. Your group trained with shields?”

“Some have, its not normal training,” Adrian said.

“We’re going to be moving through tunnels. I want front and overhead shields,” Rick said.

“Yes sir. We don’t have shields though.”

“I’m working on that,” Len said.

“We’ve got skill-up stations round back of the farm,” Rick said. “Once you’ve done that then you can join in with those out in the fields and speed up the harvest. I’m going to head off and help build the gear at the dungeon entrance, Len can you take them ‘round back?”

“Sure, get those rounds sent off before we keep going, they’re literally packing grenades on their hips,” Len said.

Rick departed for the woods.

“Mackie!” Adrian called out. The man jogged over. Adrian turned his rifle around and pressed the magazine release, catching the rounds that fell out.

“Sarge?” Mackie reached him and Adrian handed him his rounds before working his action to get the round in his chamber.

“Take three men, secure all the ammunition, take it over there,” Adrian pointed where Rick had.

“All of it?”

“Yes and point the bullets down into the ground.” Adrian un snapped the holders on his belt that contained ammunition and passed it to Mackie who cupped his hands to hold it all.

“Okay,” The man nodded, confused. He headed back to the rest of the unit picking out people and collecting ammunition.

Len waited for it to be all collected. “Head through the field, stay away from the forest.”

The four troops walked across the field with their ammunition boxes and shovels.

“Lets go make you stronger.”

Len walked at a sedate pace to the farm, through a gate that was open and into a courtyard where all the light was coming from.

He continued on lightning dropping from the heavens. Groans of pain filled the courtyard beyond, the light disappearing as curses flowed.

Adrian smelled burnt food and wood as he looked around. There were a group of farmers cooking, one man jumped away from his stew, lightning crashing into him and driving him into the ground.

Adrian blinked away the light as he watched two men sign a contract, one tossing a stick to the other as the other threw a gold coin.

Twin blasts of lighting crashed into them, followed by two more. Adrian watched a man fell a tree and get blasted into the ground for it.

Another whimpered as he saw something only he could see and lightning struck him.

What the fuck is going on?

“Skilling up will give you a lot of extra experience. It’ll speed up your natural healing a lot,” Len waved him to follow as he retrieved the gold coin from one man who was smoking slightly.

Len patted him on the shoulder and he started to get up. “Still have cooking to go Rod.”

“Yes Len.” The man’s voice sounded almost pleading.

Adrian grit his teeth and moved over to where people were writing on paper, checking it against another piece of paper with something written on it already.

“We’ve got carpentry, lumberjack, cooking, scribe, trading, masonry, farming in the field. Then you’re all going to be heading out to gully and fields to hunt. Want you to kill creatures with a bladed weapon, blunt weapon, something thrown if you can, and after all that then you’re allowed to get one round each and use it to kill birds. Then I want you to clean up your kills for a butcher skill.”

The rest of the unit walked into the confusing mayhem.

“Put the carts along the back fence there, then break down by squad and go talk to the teacher at each station,” Len raised his voice.

“And this will make us stronger.”

“Should heal you all within the day.” Len said.

Adrian took a measure of the man. Another silent bolt hit another farmer. He moved over to the contract station and sat on a stump, he put down his crutch and picked up a piece of paper and pencil.

He read the contract and started copying it out.

“Lennard,” A woman came out holding a blanket with a pattern sowed into it.

“Oh hey mom, that the first one?” Len grabbed an edge of the blanket and studied it. “Looks good, what did you get in enchanting and sowing?”

Adrian looked up, studying the woman to try and understand Len more. Lennard?

“Novice in enchanting but expert in sowing.” She smiled.

Len’s face split into a smile.

“You lot certainly gave me enough pants and shirts to fix,” Len’s mother shook her head but clear pride in her smile.

“Would you be okay setting up a skill station sowing more of the blankets? I know they’ll be really useful,” Len asked.

“Of course, with winter coming in these will be a life saver and we can spread out more of the blankets between people, people were already going cold last night. Though we don’t have enough for everyone.”

“Check in with Edwin, I think his group are breaking down the supplies,” Len pointed to the unit’s carts. “Get their blankets. Also be good to see what they have in the way of supplies and what we might need.”

“Edwin you said?”

“Yup.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“I’ll have a talk with him, don’t work too hard now.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“And forget what I said totally once you’re actually working.” She put the blanket around his shoulders.

“Mom.”

“Wear this at least, its cold out here and you’re working on all those shields. Don’t need you getting cold and distracted,” She pulled it around him, satisfied that it covered him.

“Thank you,” Len said.

Adrian lowered his head and smiled, working on his contract. Len went over to a stack of wooden shields covered in crystal, people dropping more off, while his mother headed for the unit’s carts.

The contract wasn’t simple and there was a lot of detail involved. Adrian had to check it several times before he finished.

“You done with yours?” A young man asked him as he checked the contract for a third time.

“I hope so,” Adrian said.

“You up to trade?” The young man held up a stick with a grin, he looked familiar.

“Where’s the coin?” Adrian looked around.

“Len!” The man said.

Len looked up from a shield he was carving into. “What?”

“Gold coin!”

Len nodded and took it out, throwing it out. “There you are Des.” He was already going back to what he was carving.

He was the last stage of a process to build shields.

“You know Len?” Adrian asked as they exchanged contracts.

“Could say that,” Des grit his teeth and began signing, Adrian did the same.

===

Skill: Scribe

===

Level: Journeyman

===

===

Skill: Trading

===

Level: Apprentice

===

He couldn’t see anything else as the lightning bolt appeared above him, making him flinch as he blinked, trying to see. Pain flared throughout his body, tearing through him, information flooded his mind.

The world fell away as he blinked against the aftereffects, he’d fallen off of his stump chair at some point.

Adrian pushed himself up, it hurt, but it was the kind of hurt that promised progress. He moved slowly thankfully as he found he had a lot more strength in his limbs than before.

A hand pushed his hair out of his face, he traced back the hand to his shoulder. Adrian shivered and nearly fell back on the ground.

“Shit, damn.” He looked at the hand and arm, it was still small but it was there! Adrian looked at his foot sticking out of his pant leg. “Hah, hell.”

Emotion swelled in him as he moved his toes, putting his foot into the dirt and mud, he stood up. Still lopsided, but he was very nearly there.

He stood up fully as Des picked himself up. “Lumberjack next?”

“Will this happen each time?” Adrian asked.

“Experience and enlightenment blowing up in your skull? Yeah, yeah that happens with each one.” Des said.

Adrian picked up his crutch and used it more like a walking stick following Des who was waiting for him.

“So how do you know Len?”

“He’s my brother,” Des said.

Adrian looked from the smoking Des to Len who had finished with one shield and grabbed another.

Ah there’s the similarity.

He and Des moved through stations carving stone into ‘sound transmission devices that allowed them to hear one another over great distances adding masonry and enchantment to their skills. They sowed geometric patterns drawn into blankets that kept a constant temperature afterwards, cooked and went through the skill up stations.

Adrian followed Des out to the forest to their last skill-up chain.

A tree fell, experience compressed and enlightenment followed.

“You cut down a tree before?” A man asked, handing them both axes.

“Yeah,” Adrian said.

“Good, well make sure the area is clear before you start cutting and toss the axe soon as that tree starts coming down. Cut off the branches and haul it back to the barns. Make sure to return your axes.”

“Will do Regis,” Des said.

Regis grunted and they walked into the forest. Adrian picked out a tree, checked there wasn’t anyone in the path he wanted to fall it. He circulated mana, healing up his limbs.

He was able to brace himself, cutting out a chunk on one side of the tree in the direction he wanted it to fall, shifting to the other he cut deeper.

“Timber!” Des yelled as his tree started making cracking noises. It came down in a rush of branches into the open area that had been cleared.

His skill-up arrived.

Adrian kept cutting with his one handed swing till his started making snapping noises.

“Timber!” He threw the axe to the side and crouched down, skill-up hit him as the tree crashed into the ground.

He ran mana through his body, healing the remaining pain away and walked off in search of his axe.

They de-limbed the trees, boys gathering up the branches in piles.

Des helped haul Adrian’s tree back to the barn. They planked the tree gaining a carpenter skill-up under Len’s father. The extra planks and wood were used to extend carts, tripling their bed length.

The wheels were spaced out down the new length and carved with enchantments that looked like the heat-regulating enchantments they’d sown into the blankets they wore.

They learned a spell to fuse the planks together which gave them a novice in spellcasting. The information was all new to Adrian, giving him a better understanding of mana and how to cast spells. Planks fused they added bands and handles to turn them into shields, giving them a builder skill-up.

Then it went on to be covered in powdered crystal, they used their fusing spell but adhering the crystal to one another and the shield, creating a hardened layer.

Those were handed off to Len who had chisels carving enchantments into the back of the shields held aloft with mana.

Adrian’s limbs were finally all the same size and healthy.

“Just need to do the farming and fighting skill increases,” Des sighed.

“There’s always more to be done in the army,” Adrian said.

Des nodded along, looking wistful, he’d pried information from Adrian on the training he’d gone through and his job. There was a genuine interest there, the man had a good disposition and was built strong.

A little training and he’d be a fine addition. Adrian looked out to the fields, they’d been rapidly thinned under farmer’s scythes. One farmer cut out at the crops, felling a dozen meters ahead of him.

Carts followed behind, women and children talking to one another as they reached out their hands to the crops. They jumped into their hands as they threshed them into the cart’s bed.

Adrian frowned, they’d easily adapted to using magic. He reached out his hand and drew the water in the air towards it. Nothing happened. Then just like when he had fused the wood he supplied the idea with his idea. He felt a strain, the strength of his will upon the mana as water appeared in mid-air—a trick he’d seen Len use to fill up his canteen as he worked.

Adrian drank from the water. There was no taste to it. “Clean.”

“Hmm?” Des said.

Adrian dismissed the spell and kept moving. “Water is one of the heaviest and constant supplies you need on the battlefield, being able to draw it from the very air. It will reshape warfare.”

Des looked confused.

“Strength of arms and numbers are sure to weigh the battle in your favor, but if you don’t have supplies to get to the battle in the first place you lose automatically,” Adrian said.

“Len told me that in a fight between people with mana its not about using the strongest spell, its about using the least mana intensive spell to win. Said to use the natural advantages. It was a cloudier day and he said how it would be easier to draw water from the air because there was more water in it. Like how it is easier to form a spell with heat as a component if you have a spark nearby.”

“That’s very useful,” Adrian said.

“He also said the most imaginative mage is the one that wins,” Des said.

Adrian watched the people moving through the fields, blades of air extending the scythes length, or spinning off through the fields.

***

Len was sitting on one of the compound walls, looking at the fields beyond when his father found him.

“Have you decided?” Len asked, pulling his thoughts from just how to shape the wind blade cutting spell into a technique to clear the crops in the fields.

“It is not something easily figured out,” his father said.

“The options are rather limited,” Len said.

His father let out a deep breath and leaned against the wall Len sat atop.

“I know how people change when they leave home. Few come back and those that do are never quite the same people that left. Though there’s something you’re not telling me, Len.”

Len snorted and looked up into the sky weaving a spell together with the wind.

The world’s noises fell away, startling his father.

“In my last life, you all died.”

“Len?”

“I went off to the city, thought that I was doing it to chase dreams of trains and steam engines and boilers. The apex of technology. I was young, I didn’t see how you and mother were pushing for me to go somewhere safer. Des and those that laid out traps were running into more beasts who were getting wilder and bolder everyday. Warwick wasn’t going to send us any help. The dream you hadn’t been able to chase, you pushed me to chase mine and get me safe.”

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat. You love engines and all of those wonderful things. Jed is happy to do tasks and chase any girl willing to be in the vicinity of him. Des is a strong lad, he likes the forest, learning the way of traps, took up the sling and has been working on his skill with the bow. I’d push him to become a hunter, a woodsman or huntsman for the nobles. You though, when you were eight do you remember the steam engine you made out of clay, a bucket and a mop?”

“Mom was less than happy that I’d broken her mop and bucket to make it.” Len smiled.

“We had to berate you for breaking something that you didn’t ask for permission. Though at the same time you showed your ingenuity and we used that steam engine to pump water. Then there was the water piping to the roof cistern, then the pumps to push the water from the dell into our neighbors’ fields,” Edward chuckled. “There was no keeping you on this farm.”

“Thank you, dad.” His father’s shoulder’s rubbed against the wall.

“It’s what father’s do.”

“How many little conversations people don’t have because they don’t think its important or they’ll ask it later when they’ve run out of time to do so.” Len shook his head.

“Now what’s all this you’re saying about in your last life?” His father asked.

“Father,” Len turned and looked into his eyes. “What if I was to tell you that I lived beyond a hundred and fifty. That I was one of the strongest people on the planet and hailed as the grandmaster of enchantments?”

“That’s not possible.”

“There are a lot of things that don’t seem possible but they are. Spiders made from crystal or foxes melded with it?”

Edward frowned.

“I’m not just saying that we can go to Goran, I’m saying that everyone can go to Goran, everyone in the Rolling Dell that wants to. Though anyone that stays will be at the mercy of the beasts out here.”

“Which are only going to get stronger and if what you say is true, they’re going to start spawning out of that dungeon and we’ll be right back in the same position.” He looked out at the fields. “We have lived on this land for four generations.”

“Do you want us all to die on it because we’ve worked it? Lord Warwick takes the profits. If we go to Goran we’re going to build a network of track and trains the size and scale you’ve never seen before.”

“I gave that up a long time ago for this farm,” Edward said.

“I got to chase my dream, you can too,” Len said. “Sometimes you don’t want to do something because it looks too good to be true and there’s no way it can be real. Though what if it is real?”

“You’re twisting words.”

“To mean the same thing. There is going to be plenty of jobs and there will be money for everyone. With my help, I can open everyone’s mana gates, increase everyone’s cultivation and the strength of their bodies. You will be safe, you will be strong and provided for.”

“I don’t want you to have to provide for me,” Edward said.

“Why not?”

“I want you to pursue your dreams, not give up on them for mine.”

“What if my dream is for you all to live?”

Edward opened his mouth and closed it.

“I have lived a long life, Father, five times longer than the life you have lived. I have crossed seas, broken mountains. Challenged and fought people that you would consider a god. I had Rick with me, but you all weren’t there.” Len raised his eyes to the fields. “Being back here, it feels so foreign, I had my memories, but they’d faded into feelings and snippets of images. I don’t know how to interact with you all. For you its been six months, for me its been much longer. I care for you all, but I don’t really know you as you are. I haven’t seen you for so long. I buried you long ago in my memories, but here you are.”

Len turned his tear filled eyes on his father. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

His father’s face morphed, his resistance falling away. He reached out and gripped Len’s leg. “Its been hard on you hasn’t it?”

Len let out a laughter filled with the bitterness of a life filled with survival. “At times.”

“The best way to learn about people is to meet them. Come on, the fields can wait. Its time you met your family—again.”

Len’s mind created a hundred excuses, his dignity fighting him. He quashed both, why try to look proud and dignified when he got another chance.

He dropped off of the wall, to be pulled into a hug. “You’re home now son.”

Len dragged his father into a hug, the losses of his last life peeling back as he shed some of the armor he’d created around his soul to protect himself.

They released, Edward patting his back and they turned towards their home. “So, trains and tracks you said?”

“A network that would let you reach every city on the continent,” Len said.

Edward’s feet stumbled for a second.

Len laughed. “Sure you don’t want to be a part of it?”

“Let’s ask your mother first,” Edward grinned.