“Well, there you have it. With such a glowing statement of qualification from Ester, who are we to disagree? Am I right or am I right, Martin?” Fenian gave the elder a pointed look. While he did, Meti and Theo rushed over to Tahir.
Elder Martin stroked his beard, looking between Fenian and Tahir. “Yes of course. We cannot deny his qualifications. I simply ask that you have someone keep an eye on him.” With a glance into the group around him, he huffed and started to head back toward the building. “I don’t believe my council is needed further for your mentorship. I shall take my leave for now.”
Tahir breathed heavily, looking up at the sound of Theo and Meti’s approach. “How did I do?” He asked between breaths, and felt the cool scales Winged Serpent settle around his shoulders.
“Very well, for what it was.” Meti answered. “We’ll have to find a way to thank Ester later. I can’t quite tell if she caught on to what was happening, but at the very least she had the decency to end this farce of a trial on a good note for you.”
“Yeah, you looked really cool out there though!. Especially when you blocked that first hit. Are you feeling okay?” Theo asked.
“I’m fine, just tired. That was just very intense.” After a moment to catch his breath, he stood, and looked down at his reflection in his sword. “Still, even if this was the best possible outcome, and I know there was no real way I could have won…I can’t help but feel just a little unsatisfied.” He felt the forked tongue of the Winged Serpent flick in his ear, and he couldn’t tell if the spirit did so to encourage him or remind him that it was still there. “You were amazing, thank you.” With a feeling of contentment coming from the spirit, Tahir let his bond unravel, and the spirit disappeared.
“Well, with all of that nonsense of the way, I believe we can get on with our current business. Dear Ester will be helping us with the expedition, but not in a mentorship capacity - which leaves our mentors here to pick two of you each. Though I think I speak for all of them when I say that young Tahir would be a wonderful pick for any one of them.” Fenian spoke, and the mithral members nodded in agreement. “So much that I feel that we might want to reverse things and have you pick your mentor, what say you?”
Tahir’s eyes widened as he looked between his sponsor and prospective mentors. He didn’t expect to have to pick. “Er, I’d prefer a mentor that used both aura and mana if possible, since that’s what I do.” He said. If he had to pick, he’d prefer an aura user over a mage, given Meti and Theo needed more guidance on aura than he did.
The two Osni mentors looked between each other, and didn’t step forward. The other one, with the long ponytail raised a hand. “I might be able to help you out there in that case. I only use aura, but it’s in a pretty special way. Having seen your style, I got a feeling I’d best be suited to mentoring you. ‘Least compared to Talibah and Tsekani.” He pointed to the other two mentors behind him with his thumb.
“He’s right about that, I think.” The Osni man, Tsekani, spoke up. “I’m a pure magic user for the most part, and Talibah only uses the basic aura applications, albeit at a ridiculously high degree.” He affirmed, and Talibah scoffed in response.
“Yep, they’re on the money. I won’t be able to help you with any magic.” She replied, then glanced over to the remaining five. “I’ll take you two.” She pointed out the beastfolk, and the androgynous person wearing a cloak.
Tsekani shrugged. “Unfortunately I’m rather restricted to magic users, so my choices are narrowed quite a bit. I’ll have to go with you two.” He pointed out the Iskarai man and the woman in black. With that, the gold ranks moved at various speeds to greet their newly appointed mentor, leaving the technically unpicked blond to make his way to where Tahir and company stood.
“I suppose I’m with you lot. Though it’s already starting to look a bit crowded.” He said, as their mentor began to approach. “Not that I’m complaining, I happen to use aura in a somewhat unique way too, so I won’t be saying no to whatever knowledge he wants to give me.”
“Right, just so you folks know my name, it’s Murabi Nariba. Pleasure to make your acquaintance and I’m sure I’ll be seeing a lot of you later.” Murabi, their newly appointed mentor, said as he arrived to the crowd, which seemed to prompt the blond to remember something.
“Right, can’t forget my manners. Name’s Hasio. Hasio Liberalis. I usually work alone, so this’ll be a bit of a new experience for me.” He held out a hand to shake, and Tahir shook it with a smile.
“Same here until a couple of weeks ago, though that was from me not really having a stable party than anything else.”
Before they could start a conversation in earnest, Fenian spoke up. “With your groups established, I’ll leave most of you to get acquainted for the time being. Your mentors know the particulars, but should you have any further questions you can direct them my way, I’ll have an office space here in the coming days, but I do plan to leave soon.” He glanced over toward Tahir’s group. “Young Tahir, might I trouble you for a private conversation. Given this entire operation concerns ruins, I’d like to ask you some questions about the one you’ve visited.”
“Of course. Mind if I bring my party along? They’ll be able to give more insight than just me alone.”
“The more the merrier. Come along, we’ll head back to the room where we were before.” Fenian started off back toward the Redcloud’s building. After talking about it with Theo, the group told Hasio and Murabi to meet them at Callipho’s shop to talk about their future plans, and more details of the sponsorship. With that taken care of, they followed Fenian’s path back to the room from earlier, but kept their distance to keep the inquisitive elf out of earshot.
“So, how much are we gonna tell him?” Theo asked.
“Everything, I think.” Tahir answered her. “If more people are going to be heading into ruins like that, they should know what they’re up against. We got incredibly lucky, but I don’t know if an Erinyes is going to show up every time someone opens one of those doors.” Someone who could use advanced and epic magic, like the lich, immediately became a threat for Mithral Redclouds like Ester to deal with. They couldn’t assume they’d find a lich in every ruin, but knowing at least some of them held threats of that caliber might cause the Redclouds behind the sponsorship to reconsider how they format it.
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“I agree, we need to be transparent about what we experienced. I also believe Fenian at least is not affiliated with the collective, and will hopefully be able to block any further attempts at disrupting you.” Meti added.
“Right. I’m still processing the fact that they tried to kick me out of the sponsorship.” His mind went through the many ways that could have gone wrong. If he hadn’t written about his use of spirit magic in his application to qualify for gold, and if Ester hadn’t been there. Even if he’d stayed in, he might have come out of the situation with some serious injuries.
They caught up to Fenian quickly and made their way back into the room, with the elf heading over to sit in the large chair he sat in previously. The trio filled in as Fenian pulled some papers out of a pocket in the inside of his coat and flipped through them, and sat at the closest table to the large chair. Tahir cleared his throat after getting settled. “So, sir Olamaris-”
“Now now, feel free to refer to me as Fenian.” He cut Tahir off. “The elders refer to me as ‘sir Olamaris’ out of seniority more than anything else. I don’t want the assumption of any more authority than my capacity as a sponsor.”
“Alright then, Fenian.” Tahir corrected himself, then looked between Meti and Theo. “Where do we begin?”
###
“Looking back, you three are quite lucky to be alive, aren’t you?” In the middle of their recounting, Fenian grabbed a pencil and clipboard to start taking a copious amount of notes. They told him just about everything, from opening the ruin’s doors, to meeting Neveroth, to heading down the three floors of the ruin with her and fighting what they found within. Without telling him all the loot they found, they let Fenian know that they took a significant amount.
To their relief, he didn’t seem to care. “I had a feeling there was more to the ruin when I read your secondary report. Caged hellhounds, golems made entirely of bones, and ‘the evidence of a fight between powerful beings in the final room’ had me curious, but to think you’d been part of that fight the entire time.” He leaned back into his chair, and shifted his legs. Not quite crossing them but having one of his heels resting on his other knee. “My thanks for sharing. I’ll be sure to forward this to other circles working on making teams for the ruins. I imagine based on that outburst earlier, you’ve hid this information to hide yourselves from the collective?”
“That would be right, sorry about all of that.” Of all the ways to get back at him for ruins, Tahir didn’t think they’d try to disqualify him from the sponsorship after he’d already been selected.
“Oh no, it should be me apologizing. I had an inkling of what was going on. Martin himself insisted on being a part of this meeting and the preliminary discussions of this operation as a whole, but I imagine he’ll be stepping back since he’s failed to significantly hinder you.” He shrugged. “I did plan to put a stop to it if it became so obvious what his intentions were, but he surely didn’t expect Ester to get involved. Saying nothing about your performance itself. Stellar work.”
“In any case, I haven’t interacted with them all that much, but this isn’t the first time the collective and the Redclouds have clashed this way. It should resolve itself in time, but do come to me if they continue to hinder you before you leave Balrech. Since problems for you will inevitably spiral into problems for the rest of your group, I think they’ll hold off on any more shenanigans for the time being.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Tahir breathed a sigh of relief, and leaned back into his chair.
“Don’t mention it. The Redclouds wouldn’t have lasted this long if they didn’t take care of their own. Now, I believe I’ve come away with what I wanted to know. Do you have any questions for me?”
“Well, actually,” Tahir had a couple, and he looked back to his companions before asking his first. “If we’re going to a ruin in your city - to Isanthyr, does that mean we’ll be gaining entry?”
“On a preliminary basis. It might be possible to gain future access outside the bounds of this ruin, but for now you’ll be allowed in under your capacity as a Redcloud, and we’ll distribute visas for you before you leave.”
“In that case, would it be possible to prepare a couple more for my group? They’re not affiliated and I don’t see them joining up any time soon.”
“Done.” Fenian said, barely a second after Tahir finished speaking. “Call it payment for your detailed reports, and as a bit of an apology from me for going through with that trial. I’ll trust you and your party will handle yourselves appropriately, but keep in mind your companions actions will reflect upon you personally.”
“Understood.” Tahir nodded. He didn’t worry too much about Meti and Theo. “For my second question. Is spirit magic popular in Isanthyr? Do you think they’d let me use their leyline crossing to summon another spirit, given the opportunity?”
“Oh?” Fenian looked at Tahir as if observing him for the first time. “I’m afraid they only allow a trusted few to access their leyline, and foreigners usually aren’t among them. That explains a couple of things, though. Have you had no formal instruction on the art?” Fenian asked.
Tahir shook his head. “Everything I learned was from essays and research notes in the library. Which really only taught me the rituals to summon the spirits. Metilia here says that there wasn’t much in the way of practical information from the collective’s archives, either.”
“I’m not surprised. Many of the mages here are obsessed with immortality, or at least become so as they get older. Spirit magic, and spirit summoning especially, risking possession like it does would steer them as far away from the study as possible. It’s a soul corrupting event, in the way that spirits do, and the last thing an immortal seeking mage wants to have is to have their soul damaged.” Fenian explained. Tahir swallowed hard, and the elf smiled in response.
“To answer your other question, spirit magic isn’t ‘popular,’ per say, but I wager more people are aware of the practice than here in Esharia. This might be a good opportunity for you to learn some things, I suppose. In fact, here-” On a blank sheet of parchment, Fenian wrote something down, then stood to walk over and hand it to Tahir. Reading it, it looked to be a name and an address. “I happen to know someone who studies that particular type of magic. If you happen to make it to Isanthyr before I do, feel free to visit and tell her I sent you.”
“That’s amazing. Thank you.” Tahir stashed the paper away, that was far more than he expected to get out of asking the question.
“Of course, it’s no trouble really. We’ll call it further compensation for making you go through that trial. I’m just glad Ester had the mind to not make it embarrassing for you. I’d be remiss if I didn’t want to make sure all of the Redclouds I’m sponsoring are fully prepared for the ordeals that await them. Especially given your report, you should endeavor to make sure you’re as ready as you can be.” With that, Fenian walked back to his chair and sat down. “Now, I’ll have to think about how I want to present this to my peers. You’re free to go along, we’ll be in touch, young Tahir and company.”
They gave their goodbyes and left. While Tahir and Meti were calm, Theo was barely able to contain her excitement about gaining access to the elven city.