I yawned, resting my chin in my palm.

I was sitting at the front desk of Van’s butcher shop, right next to the woman I had met all those weeks ago. Rachel, her name was. It was still early in the morning and when I had gotten there, Van had met me at the front desk with an apologetic expression. Apparently, Bleddyn was dealing with a larger than normal order today and it would be some time before he could teach me, if he even had time. I’d offered to help, but Van had told me that Bleddyn had preemptively turned me down. The order was for the manor, and it needed to be done perfectly. My ‘cuts’ were still too amateurish to risk ruining the meat, and potentially coming down on both Van and Bleddyn.

I’d stuck around anyway, deciding to help out Rachel at the front desk instead. I’d taken up plenty of Bleddyn’s, and thus the shop’s, time over the last few weeks that I didn’t mind giving back to it some.

It had been pretty chill so far. There had been few customers so far considering the still early hour, and conversation between Rachel and I was sparse. Mostly, I had been daydreaming and thinking about lessons with Grey. Since we had decided to go forward with the plan ‘unleash hell on Addersfield’, we’d shifted tracks from what we had been doing. Almost all of my time was spent in Grey’s room either learning Abjuration theory or experimenting with Enchanting through Aetherial Melding.

Abjuration was…interesting, I suppose. It was the first school of formalized Magecraft I was learning, even though I couldn’t practice it yet. Apparently, that was because you needed to be able to generate your own mana in order to do so, and I couldn’t yet. I had managed to pry out the reason from Grey, and according to him, level one hundred was the breakpoint there. At that level, you did…something that I couldn’t get him to describe to me, and from that, you gained the ability to take in raw Aether and transform it into Mana or Ki. Depending on whether or not you decided to become a Mage or a Cultivator.

Sometimes, it was pretty damn tiring how cagey that man could be.

I’d been pretty surprised at just how close to science actual Magecraft was, but then again, I shouldn’t have been. Back in my old world, science itself was just a process, and here Magecraft was definitely just a complicated series of processes on how to shape mana. I’d spent most of my time learning terms like ‘sympathetic resonances’, ‘mana layering’, and ‘intentional thought forms’. Grey was insistent that all of this studying was essential to understanding how a Ward Breaker was constructed. At least he wasn’t a bad teacher. He’d have to be a good one, considering how hed had become the head of the largest school on Vereden.

On the other hand, we’d discovered that Enchanting through a meld was very…fluid, I guess you could say. When we had first started to practice with it, I had seen Grey grow almost jealous of Aetherial Melding for the first time. For me, Enchanting through a meld was a very free-form, very loosely defined kind of thing. Through practice, I’d found that I could sort of nudge and direct the required Aether into the enchanting forms needed with my senses and layer them onto an object.

Apparently, that wasn’t how orthodox Enchanting functioned at all.

Grey told me that ninety-nine percent of Enchanting involved carving runes into the object that you wanted to be enchanted. He had taken an old Enchantment Disc apart in order to show me. Sure enough, underneath the shell of the disc I had seen a complicated arrangement of extremely tiny characters carved into both halves of the iron disc. According to Grey, many, many years ago, people had been ‘gifted’ a strange and expansive set of characters by the old and mostly dead Gods. From what Grey told me, there were hundreds of these runes and it was possible to combine them to create unique ones. These characters had a strange effect on ambient Aether, drawing it in until it produced a mystical reaction. The way that Grey described it to me, the effect of a runic string was determined by the sequence of runes that were used in an unbroken, flowing arrangement. He equated it to almost being a form of poetry, but I think he was just waxing poetic himself.

It wasn’t like that for me, obviously. I just directed the Aether manually and layered it on the object to be enchanted. It was exhausting, by far the most exhausting individual Profession I had experimented with through Aetherial Melding, but it was incredibly convenient compared to traditional Enchanting. But it wasn’t without its drawbacks, to Grey’s poorly concealed relief. We’d discovered that my melded enchants were pretty temporary, only lasting a few hours at best. Traditional enchants were far longer lasting because they were anchored to the physical existence of the runes. Without them, my enchants began to degrade almost immediately. Maybe in the future, I could figure out a way to anchor my meld enchants better, but that would likely come with more skill. Grey had actually begun to teach me the traditional way of enchanting. It might end up being the only Profession I learned conventionally. For now, I still wasn’t able to able to make a Ward Breaker.

I was getting close, though. Turns out, if you devote nearly all of your time to learning to make one thing and one thing only, you started to understand it.

I was broken out of my daydreaming by Rachel shifting on her stool next to me. Looking up, I saw someone walking past the window towards the front door of the shop. A customer, then. Moments later, a clean-shaven dwarf dressed in the uniform of the manor servants strode into the shop. My spirits fell at the sight of him. Despite being a servant, I could tell this guy was one of the arrogant ones, just by the look on his face. I was proven right by the sneer he developed at the sight of Rachel and me behind the counter.

“Slaves!” He barked at us. “Where is your master? I refuse to deal with one of your kind.”

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This was far from the first dismissive customer I had encountered in the brief time I’d been here. I bet Rachel had to deal with this all the time. She had told me to let her handle this kind of situation before, so I just lowered my head.

“Apologies, master,” Rachel said in a deferential tone, bowing slightly over the desk in her chair. “Master Vandimar is currently occupied in his office and has instructed me to watch the shop in his stead.” She was talking clearer than I normally heard from her, considering her usual accent.

The arrogant dwarf’s sneer deepened. “Perhaps you misheard me, cattle. I refuse to deal with one of your kind, and I don’t care if that glorified merchant is busy counting coppers. Fetch him. Now.” He said, menacingly.

Not looking up, Rachel leaned her head near to mine. “Go get Van, will ye? I don’t think this ‘un will take no fer an answer.” She whispered to me.

Nodding shallowly, I slowly slid off of my stool and walked around the desk. Sidling around the manor servant, and making sure to keep my posture as deferential as possible, I made my way to the staircase leading to the second floor. As I ascended the stairs, I was keenly aware of the servant’s eyes drilling into my back.

Once I was out of sight, I let out a short sigh of relief. It never got any easier, being around most dwarves in town. Most weren’t as bad as that guy, but some got pretty close. I’d had some close calls with people like him, just on the short walk into town some days. Shaking it off, I made my way to Van’s office and opened the door. Inside, it was smaller than you would expect it to be. Much smaller than Ely’s, anyway. The only things inside were two rickety bookcases, a large wooden desk, a couple of chairs, and a cot in the corner. From what Rachel told me, Van spent most of his time up here. He even spent most nights in here.

My entrance caused Van to raise his head from the parchments he was inspecting and blink bleary eyes at me. “Nathan? Whatever brings you up here?”

“There’s a guy from the manor raising a stink downstairs,” I answered, jerking a thumb over my shoulder behind me. “Doesn’t want to talk to Rachel, and ‘demands’ you come down instead.”

My words caused Van to let out an audible groan and begin massaging his forehead. “Impatient fool. I told him the order wouldn’t be ready till midday.” He sighed. “No doubt the privileged idiot is going to insist on hovering over our shoulders until it’s done, now. He’ll just slow the whole thing down.” Looking up at me, Van gave a tired smile. “Inform the gentle dwarf that I’ll be down momentarily. In the meantime, you should probably head home today Nathan. Bleddyn is unlikely to have the time or energy for your usual session.”

I shrugged, unbothered. “Yeah, I was getting that impression.” Honestly, the only reason I was still coming to these sessions was because of Bleddyn. Once we’d finalized a plan on how to escape, it had become obvious that Fleshcrafting lessons weren’t going to help much. However, I had agreed to get trained by Bleddyn, and I didn’t want to cause him an honor issue by suddenly refusing. Frankly, he’d become a bit of a friend, too. I didn’t mind hanging out with him for the brief time we had every week. “I’ll see you later, Van,” I said, turning around to leave.

Van gave a short, distracted farewell as I closed the door to his office. Taking a deep breath, I walked back down the stairs, making sure to adopt a deferential posture again. Once I had reached the shop floor, I bowed slightly to the visibly impatient servant. “Master Vandimar will be down shortly, master. He begs your forgiveness for the delay.”

“He will not receive it.” The servant growled self-importantly.

I bowed again, before walking around him, making sure to read lightly. You never knew what could set off these types. Once I’d made it back around the desk, I bent down to whisper in Rachel’s ear. “I’m off. Bleddyn’s not likely to have time for me, today. See you later, yeah?”

Rachel flicked her eyes in my direction and gave me a small, almost imperceptible nod. “Thanks fer keepin’ me company this morn’. Twas nice.”

I gave her a small smile, thankful that my face was hidden from the servant. Straightening up, I walked back around the desk and began to carefully make my way to the door. Once I had reached it, I was stopped before I could open it.

“Wait!” The servant barked behind me. I froze. “Face me, slave.”

Slowly turning around, I made sure to bow again. “How may I serve, master?”

Through my eyelashes, I could see the servant narrow his eyes at me in suspicion. “Who are you, cattle? Who do you belong to? Vandimar Bellucci only possesses two slaves, the butcher and the woman.”

I could feel myself break out into a cold sweat. How the fuck did he know that? “This one is nobody important, master,” I said, bowing deeper. “This one belongs to Lord Azarus of House Savoy. My master sometimes lends me to Master Vandimar when he has no use for me, that day. As it is, master Vandimar has no use for me either, and I’ve thus been dismissed.”

“Is that so.” I heard the servant say, suspicion thick in his tone. “I thought I recognized you, chattel. You’re the one who survived Lord Magnus’s last hunt, aren’t you? How…fortunate for you.”

I didn’t like the sinister way he said that at all.

“Run along now, fool. I’m sure you’ll have plenty to prepare for, later.” He said with a chortle, malice thick in his voice. I saw the servant turn around and dismiss me in my peripheral vision, and took the chance to escape, almost rushing through the door. Nearly running through town, I started making my way back to Azarus’s house, sweating the whole time.

Fuck, what did he mean by that? Was Magnus cooking up some more evil, petty-minded shit? I made it back to the house and informed Grey and Azarus about my encounter with the servant. They didn’t seem as alarmed as I was but took it seriously anyway. I was promptly given a variety of items to hide away on my person. Among them was a new dagger Azarus had made for me recently. Other than that, the only thing we could do we wait around to see if anything was going to happen.

I don’t think any of us were really surprised when a large squad of guards showed up at the house around midday. They demanded Azarus turn me over and rebuffed him when he insisted on accompanying me. I think everyone involved saw Azarus visibly weigh his odds against the squad and come up short.

To be fair, it was probably the largest gathering of Addersfield guards I had seen up to that point. Guess they hadn’t forgotten their tussle with him a few weeks ago.

The guards hauled me along the back to the back of the manor, and into the clearing behind it. I couldn’t say I was all that surprised when I found Magnus sitting in that same gazebo from last time.

“And here it is,” Magnus said, sweeping his arm in a grandiose manner. He gave me a soulless, sinister smile. “The star of the hour.”

Here we go again.