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Murphy’s Magic Emporium, Cromswerth
11:04 AM, Tuesday, May 14th
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“Wait, how soon is soon?” Arlo asked, becoming slightly weary as he took another sip from the bottle that he had been given.
“Oh-” Murphy said before looking at his watch, “actually he’s running late, he said he would drop by at 11, must have been held up at the gates or something due to the outbreak.”
“Wait, so you mean one of those masters of mystery is going to turn up any moment now?” Bill asked enthusiastically, you could have assumed he had a sparkle in his eye from how excited he seemed. Emily letting out a reserved chuckle at how much of a goof Bill was being.
“Well that was the plan at least, he texted me half an hour ago saying that he just got to the outside of the town, and I don’t need to tell you about the outbreak that was happening,” Murphy said with wry laughter, “But yes, he should be here in the next few minutes.”
“So err… is there anything we need to bear in mind for when they get here?” Arlo asked, not knowing the etiquette for these kinds of things. Other than the fact that awakened were put on pedestals being people with powers that others could only dream of, regular people, for the most part, didn’t really interact with them as much if at all. As well as the fact that this was Murphy’s friend.
Seeing Arlo starting to overthink a little Murphy laughed a bit, “Nah, but we do like to have a bit of banter, but I’ll tell him to go light in the magic department, just in case.”
“Oh, alright,” said Arlo with a soft smile, seeming to be the first time he seemed alright since the outbreak.
“Anyway’s, how ya feeling now that now that you have some mana back in ya?” Murphy asked, circling back around to the initial topic of concern.
“Actually, feeling better, it kinda feels like my body is moving through fog or something, I mean my body feels back to normal, but something still kinda seems a little off,” Arlo admitted.
“Yeah, that’s just the mana potion, it’ll go away when your core takes ownership of it, but until then it’s not going to do ya any harm,” Murphy explained.
“Ah, alright then,” Arlo said to himself, letting out a deep breath.
“So why don’t you guys wait here a bit and I’ll get on with a few things while we wait for my friend to arrive, alright?” Murphy suggested, which got a nod from Arlo and the others. Murphy only having enough time to go into the side room from before, Arlo only having the time to get a few more sips in before they heard a bell ringing and the sound of the front door opening. Hearing the bell Murphy came out of the side room before putting a few boxes he had grabbed on one of the workstations, heading out to the front Arlo could see a smile start to appear on his face.
“Well if it isn’t the master of flatulence himself?” Murphy said joyfully, “Anyway you're late, does it really take you that long to break wind?”
“Hey, I said to stop calling me that, besides, it was you I was constantly covering up for,” the new customer teased, letting out a bit of laughter. Presumably with how familiar they were acting, this was the friend Murphy was talking about, “So how’s this little emporium of yours doing nowadays?”
“Doing good, doing good. I’ve been getting steady business at least,” Murphy said with a wry laugh.
“That’s great, means you shouldn’t mind chucking in a few free things here and there,” this new customer replied.
“Do you want to come round back, I’ve got a few people waiting in the back that I’m taking care of,” Murphy suggested.
“Sure, but isn’t the point of having an ‘out back’ is that you don't take customers back there?” He questioned. Following him to the back Murphy came through first and continued to walk back to the side room that he was in before. Walking in after him was a tall thin-looking man, with black windswept hair and unusually grey eyes, his lose but securely fitting robes and wooden staff that he was holding definitely set him apart from regular people.
Looking in their direction he spoke up, “So hey murph, what’s up with these kids?”
Turning to face the man Murph replied, “These just some kids that needed help after that rift outbreak that held you up earlier,” He explained before turning to Arlo and the others, “ and this is the master of flatulence, the friend I was saying about, me and zack here go way back.”
“Why do you keep introducing me like that?” Zack lamented, before turning to address the others in the room, “Hi, I’m Zackary, but yeah, you can just call me Zack.”
“I call you that because that’s the nickname the group gave you,” Murphy joked.
“You mean that you gave me?” Zack replied.
“Same difference,” Murphy replied with a chuckle before going into the side room once again.
Putting his thoughts to the side Zack turned back to the group sitting against the wall, “So what brings you guys here then?” Zack asked with a bit of curiosity.
“Well, it's a bit of a story overall but he saw us walking past and invited us in,” Arlo replied looking up at him.
Seeing the bottle in Arlo’s hand and seemingly being able to sense it’s contents Zack asked, “Well it can’t be that simple, he wouldn’t just hand you a diluted mana potion for no reason. Hey Murph, did one of these kids recently awaken and was finally able to do something stupid with their mana?”
“Yes and not really,” Murphy replied from the side room, everyone able to hear as he was clearly moving stuff around and taking things in and out of boxes, “you’re looking at the newest awakened in Cromswerth, and he apparently awakened something rare as well.”
“Congrats man,” Zack said, taking a step towards Arlo before ruffling his hair a bit. Upon Zack touching Arlo he could feel an immense amount of that pressure in just the small part of Zack's hand that was making contact will him, “You’ve been to the Ministry of the Awakened already, well someone’s eager, aren’t they? What did you awaken? If you would indulge me.”
Hearing mention of the Ministry the look on Arlo’s face quickly soured, “Yeah, about that, we haven’t exactly went to them yet, or been tested.”
“You’ve been awakened long enough to be able to do something silly with your mana and the Ministry haven’t come to register you yet? Usually they get around to that within a day, tops. And how do you know what your affinity is without being assessed?” Zack questioned, things seeming to not exactly be adding up.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Ok, can you please stop calling what he did silly or stupid,” Emily said in an outburst,” he saved us from multiple packs of firehounds less than an hour ago!”
Hearing this the room went silent, Zack looked at Emily, processing what she had just said before turning to Arlo and seeming to reconsider his initial impression of him. Murphy on the other hand immediately put down whatever he was holding before sticking his head out the side room, “He what?”
“Yeah, and that thing I did you can only do if you have a certain affinity, so it’s kinda easy to venture a guess,” Arlo muttered.
“After you said you only awakened less than an hour ago I thought you somehow just managed to get through your supply, but managed to beat multiple packs of firehounds, what the hell did you do?” Murphy said in shock.
“Saved from, only saved us all from,” Arlo interjected.
“Wait, Wait. Hold up, are we just going to skip over the fact here that some kid awakened less than an hour ago and managed to save himself and 2 others from firehounds that the guards at the wall said came from an enhanced level rift by using his mana, something well, well above his level?” Zack said in exasperation
“As I said, life and death, and I wanted a very specific thing, really really hard,” Arlo spoke up plainly.
“To the point of sever mana depletion,” Murphy added.
“And spending the next half hour passed out because of it,” Emily added.
“And it was really cool, after at least,” Bill added, feeling a bit left out in this bid to keep adding details, causing everyone to turn to him, “what, one moment you have a firehound pouncing at you in a burning building, and then then next thing you know you're not going to die anymore, I would say that that was pretty cool.”
“But yeah, you kinda see what I meant earlier when you asked why we seemed so concerned about stuff,” Arlo said, turning to face Murphy, “And if that mana depletion thing causes me to not be able to meet expectations that would be worse than people finding out what I awakened.”
“Yeah, I think I’m getting you now, and I see why you would be worried about it,” Murphy empathised, “Anyway Zack, let me finish getting you all the stuff you wanted and we can talk a bit more after.”
“Sure thing,” Zack said before turning back to Arlo, “So all this is something you're worried about?”He said, probing softly.
“I mean yeah, how could I not, when others find out what I can do I’m going to have every organisation under the sun trying to get me to join them, and I don’t exactly have faith that they will all act in good faith,” Arlo explained, starting to panic a bit again as he reminded himself of the implications.
“Well someone thinks highly of himself,” Zack teased.
“To be fair he isn’t wrong though,” Emily chipped in.
“Wanted nothing to do with that power squabble, he called it, before awakening with that exact thing,” Bill added, half teasingly and half to back up his point.
“But yeah, I’ve always had people taking advantage of me growing up, I don’t want to fall into a position where I’ll be taken advantage of no mater what I do, so we want to come up with something to try and mitigate that before it becomes too much of a problem,” Arlo explained, a hint of desperation coming through in his voice, “I mean all I ever wanted was to be able to get out and explore, is that too much to ask?”
“Sounds like you when you were his age,” Murphy said to Zack, having come out of the side room, a few boxes in hand that he put next to the others he got out earlier.
“Yeah, that certainly sounds like a dilemma doesn’t it,” Zack said before pausing for a moment,” And yeah, I totally get you, when I awakened I skipped the whole academy thing for that reason, went out and joined the awakened community that I’ve been a part of for almost 20 odd years now, although it took me a while to find a group to travel with, never regretted it since.”
“So you’ve been a part of one of those secret mage groups for almost two decades now, man you must have some awesome stories to tell !” Bill said with some great enthusiasm.
Zack gave a small laugh, “Man, so many stories, from shadow wolves to trolls to sentient trees to beings made of pure mana, I think we also fought a dragon once, a drake was it? wasn’t that right Murph?”
“Yeah, that was one hell of a scare to have a Major level rift open up in camp like that,” Murphy replied, remembering the experience.
“Man that must have been a fright,” Bill said, trying to get his mind around what that could have been like.
“That joining a group of awakened, how did you come to that?” Arlo asked
“Joining a group of awakened, I just didn’t want to be pinned down anywhere, I wanted to be able to go with the wind and enjoy the sky like it was my own. And after I gained the ability that could make my dream a reality I took it, I used everything that I could to pursue it and that lead me to being in the wilderness, trying to learn as fast as possible, that’s when I was attacked by some huge ass bears. Luckily a group of passing awakened came and saved me at the time, without them I don’t think I would be alive here today. And then a Member of that group, Smithy, showed me the ropes and eventually I was able to all the cool stuff he could do when we first met,” Zack went on, describing his reasons for doing what he did, “You know, you really do remind me a lot of myself when I was younger, and let me guess, if you don’t find a way to get around this problem of yours, you're going to do something stupid and try and make your way on your own, aren’t you?”
“Well I wouldn’t exactly call it something stupid but yeah, the thing that I awakened people will really want to take advantage of, and I really don’t want that for myself, or my friends and family,” Arlo admitted, not really having a plan yet but he knew he would end up doing something along those lines.
“Man, you really have to make this hard on me don’t you?” Zack asked, probably rhetorically, “I can’t just sit back and let you make the same mistakes I made out of desire out of desperation. Look man, why don’t you join us, at least till the next settlement, to know if this is really something you want for yourself? Living in an awakened community inherently comes with the danger of not being in a place that’s heavily defended, but at least it’s better than going at it on your own. I can’t just let someone go into danger without knowing they are likely to survive. So do you want to join our little group? I’m sure everyone there would be more than happy to help, but only if you want.”
Everyone stood there silently for a moment, Arlo speaking up, but only after a few moments, “Are you sure it would be ok if I did, I mean I literally just awakened about an hour ago?”
“Dude, stop trying to shoot yourself in the foot,” Zack said with a small chuckle, “I mean I’m sure there would be a few people that wouldn’t be super happy with it, but isn’t that true for anything,”
“Well, I guess you're right on that one,” Arlo said with a small chuckle.
“So what do you say, coming with?” Zack asked, trying to offer an olive branch to take from.
“Is there anything that I would have to do?” Arlo asked, that being the one thing weighing on his mind, as usually offers this good have a catch.
“Other than the best you can do at the time to improve, not really, but becoming self-reliant in a fight goes a long way to making people more at ease about you being there,” Zack elaborated.
“If that’s all then sure, it sounds a lot better than trying to wing everything,” Arlo responded, letting out a deep breath in relaxation, now not having to worry about being immediately found out by all the major organisations, he still knew it would happen at some point but at least then he would have more of a foothold that he could use to his advantage.
“Great then,” Zack said, his voice sounding noticeably more cheery than it had just been a moment ago, “So Murphy, got anything with an attention-diverting enchantment on it that we can use to smuggle the kid out of town? And what’s the best mana protection items you got for him, even if there are other people with wisp and condensed level cores there, it would be kinda cruel to suddenly expose him to enriched core level mages.”
“I should have those things in storage, although would you mind giving me some credits or beast cores in return so that I can at least recoup material costs,” Murphy asked.
“Sure,” Zack replied, “ Hey… Wait, I don’t actually think I got your name.”
“Yeah, mind waiting on that until out of town, so far I’ve remained pretty anonymous, don’t want any info lying about when the Ministry follows our mana trails here,” Arlo asked, wanting his information to be hidden for as long as possible.
“Ah, I get you, you really want to make them work for it, you know what, let me handle this with Murph, and you say goodbye to your friends then we can meet up with the group I came with and get out of here as soon as possible?” Zack asked, a bit of a smirk forming on his face, remembering when he was like this at my age. “But it does mean I’m gonna call you kid from now on.”
“You know what, worth it,” Arlo said plainly, eliciting small chuckles from both Zack and Murphy at how easily and quickly he agreed to it. Zack and Murphy going into a different room to get everything sorted.
“You sure about this?” Bill asked, “I mean I know it’s your dream to be able to get out and explore, but are you sure you want to leave everything behind, all your friends, family, us?”
“Yeah, we would really miss you, and what about your mum, and your sister, they would be distraught that you suddenly disappeared, for all they know you died in the outbreak,” Emily said, getting a bit teary-eyed at the potential departure of one of her longest-lasting friendships and only friends.
“It’s not like I’m going to leave forever, but until I become able to defend myself and others, then you or anyone else having information on if I'm alive or where I am can only hurt you and all the others I’m close to,” Arlo admitted, feeling some sadness well up inside him as well.
“Ok but you better come back with some really kick-ass stories to tell,” Bill said causing Emily who was already a bit teary-eyed, to lightly punch him in the arm.
“You’re not supposed to be encouraging him, you knucklehead,” she said starting to get a bit choked up.
Arlo seeing this went in and hugged her gently, “Don’t worry, when I return I won’t just have stories to tell, but I'll, also be able to show you,” he said with a soft smile.
“Just make sure to come back safe, ok?” Emily asked still a bit teary-eyed.
“I’ll do my best,” Arlo said before patting her back and letting go, “although I will need you guys to do something for me in the meantime.
“What?” Bill asked.
“I need you to pretend like I died in that outbreak to anyone who asks, and don’t provide much detail, just saying that I disappeared after, and with the firehounds and the building being an inferno you don’t know what ended up happening, and if anyone asks why you came in here to say you were traumatised or in shock or something,” Arlo explained, “ and to go home and say to my family how I disappeared, but that I should be fine, and to try not to worry too much, can you do that for me?” Arlo asked, getting a bit choked up himself.
Emily gave a teary nod as Bill answered, “Sure bud, of course we can do that for you,”
Seeing the state his two friends were in he went in and gave them both a hug at the same time, “I’m gonna miss you two you know?” to which he received two nods,
Letting go he looked over to see both Zack and Murphy looking at them, a small grin adorning both their faces.
“I don’t know how much he heard, but make sure to tell Murphy his part of the plan,” Arlo said looking at Emily and Bill.
Zack had a few boxes of stuff piled up ahead of him,
“So you ready to go, kid?” Zack asked, thinking he knew the answer.
“Sure, let’s go,” Arlo replied, waving to his friends as he walked over to Zack.