Chapter 17 - Uncle Ares and the Biggest Load
There was no choice at all.
Palinus had only ever vaguely considered his future. The only vision he had was to leave the capital, and this was a fast ticket out. He would join the Auxilia and put up with wherever they decided to send him.
It was only as he ran up the stairs two at a time that he practically started to consider what entering the Rift Trials might mean.
All the children of Erulea knew of the Rift Trials; they were a prestigious test for the newly formed talent of the Empire. It was the fast track for entrance to the legion or at the very least an opportunity for power.
It was also extremely dangerous.
There were stories of teenagers fighting against enormously powerful creeps of all types and most dangerous of all the monsters of the two legged green bearded variety - Methelwhenese Slayers, Deep-Forest Stalkers and powerful Archdruids.
He pushed the fear of a distant and unknown future from his mind and focused on the positive. He would be leaving the Capital… and he would be leaving today.
As he rushed out of the temple he could see his friends laughing and joking with the soldiers, but before he could join them he was stopped by the last person he wanted to be seen with in front of the soldiers. His mother.
With superhuman speed she grabbed him as he tried to run past her and gathered him into a hug. Kissing him on the cheek.
“Aaawwww,” he heard Rufian call from ahead, calling attention to Palinus’s predicament.
Palinus blushed fiercely as he tried to squirm out of her grip, but she was too strong.
“My boy.” She said planting another kiss on his cheek and ignoring his protests. “I am so proud of you… and I won’t get to see you for such a long time.”
A tear dripped down her cheek and Palinus stopped struggling sensing that she might be showing genuine emotion for once in his life.
“Mother…” he felt a warm drop on his face, which he quickly brushed away.
“Be good.” she said as she swept him up in a final hug.
He didn’t resist and he lingered a moment, trying to find the words which wouldn’t come.
“I will come back,” he said, as he waved goodbye and fled.
Palinus wasn’t sure he meant the words.
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“You’re such a mama’s boy, Palinus” Rufian teased, “You’ll probably run back before we’ve made it out the gates.”
“If I could run to Appalina’s bosom, I most certainly would.” Marius said, thrusting his hips sleazily.
“Ew, that’s weird, it's my mother.” Palinus said
“Mother or not, she is the finest woman on the 7th hill.” Marius replied.
“Aye,” Rufian agreed and punched Bruchts on the shoulder.
“Sorry Pal… she is a very attractive woman.” Bruchts admitted.
Starting to regret his decision, Palinus tuned out the banter as they walked.
“Where are we going?” He asked as he noticed they had split off from the other soldiers and were not heading towards the gates or the barracks.
“To meet my Uncle Ares and pick up the weapons!” said Rufian excitedly.
As he said it they turned the corner and came to his uncle's shop. The odd structure looked like a miniature fortification with essentia carved stone walls dotted with singe marks around the doors and windows that made the place seem like it had either been attacked frequently or been blown up from the inside multiple times.
Over the door a sign read:
Ares’s Armoury
Weapons, Artifice and Expertise
They walked into the armoury and Palinus was amazed by the racks of weapons of all sorts. The room was packed to the brim with floor to ceiling displays of mundane weapons near the entrance and as they moved further in they started to see glass cases of rift born weapons that glowed a kaleidoscope of colours.
“You need something?”
A gruff voice startled Palinus from over his shoulder as he was staring at a case that held several beautiful wands.
“Buco!” Rufian warmly greeted the man who looked like he was seven feet tall but had never seen the sun.
“Oh Rufian, good to see you boy.” Buco’s accent was hard to pick, and Palinus assumed he must be from very far away.”You must be here to see Ares! Come this way.”
They walked through the shop and out a small door into a workshop which was filled with bits and pieces of half fixed, mostly broken or partially constructed weapons. Palinus was starting to get the picture that Uncle Ares might be a bit scatterbrained.
“Buco!? Can you come help me with th- oh Rufian!” Uncle Ares walked around a corner fiddling with a length of leather. He shared a strong resemblance to Rufian with a wide frame and hairy arms. His face was covered with a cloth and massive goggles, with only his prominent nose poking out. “I didn’t expect you back so soon. You brought your friends!”
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“We are headed out for Prima Disciplina!” Rufian said cheerily.
Ares grimaced momentarily and looked sadly at Rufian as he shot a meaningful glance at Marius, who nodded in confirmation. He patted his nephew on the shoulder and smiled widely at Palinus and Bruchts.
“It’s good you are going with him, it will be much easier together.” Ares said, clapping his hands together. “You will need your weapons then.”
As he led them through a maze of stuff they found themselves in front of several strong boxes. He pulled one down from a shelf, showing amazing strength throwing the iron box around like it weighed nothing. Once down he retrieved an enormous bunch of hundreds of keys. Palinus was amazed when he flicked the ring and a key shot to his fingers, and even more amazed when it was the right one to open the box.
Ares turned to Palinus and pulled his goggles off to give him a wink. The other boys rolled their eyes and laughed at his showmanship.
“This is a fine sword Bruchts, I have knocked up a scabbard for it.” Ares passed him the sword and wrapped the leather he was carrying over his shoulder around the teenager showing him how to make the blade sit in the leather sheath and fitting the leather comfortably over his hips.
“As for this, it is fine for a newbie… but you’ll be needing a better weapon or focus once you figure out what your preferences are.” Ares threw the wand at Palinus. “Come, let’s have some lunch before you get stuck with the Auxilia’s awful rations.”
“We have time before you are expected at camp.” Marius agreed and they wound their way through the shop to a shaded balcony.
They sat with an amphora of wine and a platter of olives, bread and cheeses.
“Tell us about your first rift!” Ares asked excitedly.
The boys recapped their experience, with Marius and Ares laughing and teasing good naturedly them as they spoke.
“Their composition was flawed. They clearly had some experience but they underestimated you. With a melee focused team like that they were either going to destroy you in the first fight, or they were never going to be able to compete,” Ares explained the weakness of the Silvanian team. ”You see that is why you need to have varied ranges to have an effective team composition. The ranged damage dealers provide a zone of control which prohibits enemies from entering without taking hits but melee attackers will generally do more damage.”
“Damn right we do, Pal’s wand hits like a wet noodle” Rufian laughed at Palinus.
“Even so, multiple hits to the same target will inflict stacking combination damage.” Ares was practically vibrating as he explained. “The rift theorists all agree that low tier rifts are dominated by the teams that can stack sequential attacks, either by using range, movement, or control… Ideally all three. The combination damage will stack up quickly if it is allowed to.”
“So Pal’s noodles will eventually fill a pot,” Rufian said again with a contemplative expression. “Maybe I should take the wand till we get my calculii since I do more damage with it.”
“Shut your butt Rufi,” Palinus said in frustration, he thought they had settled this yesterday.
“Well it might be quite easy to settle who it suits better. Let's see who can shoot the bigger load.”
They all laughed at the crude joke. Ares beckoned the boys to the back stairs and picked up a box on their way.
Behind the shop there was a small yard with a large gate open to the lane behind the shop. Various pieces of rubbish lay piled around the yard with chunks missing and singe marks.
“I don’t have a proper Fluctuscope set up, you’d have to get permission to use one of those and it isn’t worth it for… that,” Ares gestured dismissively at the wand Palinus was holding. “But i’ll show you how to test the stick’s attunement.”
They took turns firing the wand and Ares took measurements at the impact site and watched them fire the wand through a little tube that let him swap lenses out similar to the massive tube that Censor Caelus had shot at them but a fraction of the size with much fewer lenses.
He explained how their stats affected the shots as they shot a dozen times each and swapped. Then shot several more bolts at Ares’s direction. He asked them their attunement and stats and dragged them back in his workshop as he scribbled directly onto a table with a piece of charcoal and pulled out several incomprehensible charts as he lectured them excitedly.
“It’s quite an interesting find, this wand! Not what it looks like at all! It is as pure red as I can test. No detectable green or blue. It’s extremely rare to have that level of-.”
“But uncle,” Rufian cut off Ares’s lecture, “Who is it better suited to?”
“That is a complicated question to answer. It is more powerful in Rufian’s hands as he has a more similar Red attunement. But it would work more efficiently in Palinus’s hand because he has a closer Green and Blue attunement to the wand.” Ares said before he started to ramp up into lecture mode, “The non-uniform colour theorists keep pointing to the non-linear connection between shades as a gap in our understanding of essentia. But I can’t help but find that the practice of taking simple measurements like this shows that there is clearly some sort of connection in the delta of attunements, even if it isn’t exactly linear. Which points to a defined relationship between the essentia…”
Ares caught a glare from his nephew. “Ah... I’ve gone a bit over the top there. I’ll just keep it simple: The wand shoots faster and does more reliable damage for Palinus.”
“Hmpfh, I was never going to take it from you anyway.” Rufian said with a sour expression that belied his assurance.
“Your attunement was never going to be best suited to a ranged weapon.” Ares said thoughtfully. “Though there was an Enhancer / Wandslinger that I knew down south that made it work-”
“What do you know about the Rift Trials?” Palinus cut in trying to divert Ares from another lecture.
“Oh? You think you are getting invited to the trials?” Marius cut in.
“Censor Caelus said we could make a team for the trials.” Palinus said.
Marius and Ares laughed at him.
“He would say that… the Censors take a great deal of pride in their student’s performance in the rift trials. He no doubt thinks he has shaped you and will claim your laurels if you make it to the trials.” Ares explained. “But you aren’t special and the future is guaranteed, the Censor can recommend your team but you need to be amongst the best conscripts in the training legion to make it to the trials.”
“The forever camp is stacked with kids from the 2nd hill, soldiers' sons… They’ve been training from birth so you might as well accept you aren’t going to make it to the trials.” Marius stated bluntly.
Finishing the amphora of wine he had carried down from lunch Marius let out a loud blech.
“Alright, let's get going!” He said.
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The walk through the city was uneventful. They walked and bantered as they went but as they passed the city gates Marius pulled them aside on the road.
“Now you have passed through the gate you have officially entered service.” He said with a serious expression. “If you run, you will be declared a deserter and you will be punished. If you do not comply with a direction from a superior, you will be declared insubordinate and you will be punished. Is that understood?”
The boys were taken aback. Marius was never serious, even when he ran their drills at the gymnasium.
“Does that mean you are our superior?” Rufian asked cheekily.
“Yes.” He responded flatly.
“Tha-” Rufian was cut off.
“I asked you all a question. The answer should be ‘Yes, Decurio’” Marius’s voice was sharp.
“Yes, Decurio.” The boys responded. They were used to drill instruction through the Gymnasium, and with the gesture to move the boys lined up and started marching single file.
In front of Palinus he could see Rufian and Bruchts shooting a puzzled expression at Marius. They couldn’t understand the change in the man and they were starting to worry.
What had they gotten themselves into?