“Sorry.” Micheal said catching Vivian's mood and furiously trying to keep his own shaking legs from showing. The act was a little shameless even if she had gone along with it.
The effort of holding her up while giving her the business was a small challenge in itself too, but he was shaking as bad as Vivian if not for the same reason.
“Gotta throw a curve ball once and a while to mix things up.”
Vivian laughed.
“Curve ball?” She repeated, her tone making it into multiple questions.
She pushed herself up from the wall and very uncharacteristically stumbled over her own feet, her lovely green eyes going wide as she toppled into him. He caught her and held her up. She looked up at him at the tail end of catching her breath from their pairing.
“If you mean to keep my interest in these things beyond my cycle maybe doing crazy things like pinning up against a wall like you're some kind of mostly hairless ogre I would say it wasn't what I imagined, but it might just work.” She said laughing again as she righted herself and took a calming breath while looking down at her shaky knees with a certain embarrassed animosity. It was like she was willing them not to shake.
He led her over to the bed to sit with her there but not because his own legs were shaking and unsteady too, and looked out the window at the seeming wall of rain outside, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before. Actually one by one bright lights began to shine on the walls and with each one the rain and wind was pushed back by a growing orb of calm and dim light. This went on down the wall and the area slowly expanded. It didn't stop the rain and wind totally, it still seemed to rain and drizzle outside in the city, but the worst of the storm was being pushed back making odd calm patches wherever these shields were put up.
Micheal stood and came off the bed to look out the window toward the river. The docks were underwater, but he watched tiny figures gather in heavy cloaks around a small orb on a stand and saw lights shine from their hands. The orb began to glow with a bright light, and then went dim as the worst parts of the rain was pushed back and the orb joined a growing line.
“Must be the Mages Guild come up with a solution. We can probably blame the speed on having Jakcova in command in Three Bridge now.” Vivian said as leaned forward to look, but she threw her hands back and laid out on the bed sideways after a short moment.
“Maybe now we'll get a message through the communication orbs from Hans in Three Bridge. He's gotta be trying to figure out what is happening. I just don't see how we'll make it there to help. We may be in for a long and, maybe, a slightly hungry stay here.” Vivian said. She sounded weary and a little worried.
“That why we're fooling around right before dinner?” Micheal asked curiously.
She seemed to have taken to venting some of her stress out in bed recently but he certainly didn't mind. It was just a little extra cuddling there, and sometimes a heated look after coming from conversations with the other two guild captains, and sometimes her frustration just seemed to get eaten up by her primordial urges and a slightly wild Vivian would come after him when he was alone. Just the thought of how she looked sometimes while they were together, her hair laid out on the bed and over the pillows, and her eyes locked to his shining like hungry green gems that just wanted more and more of him to melt into her...--It was enough to make his blood go hot just thinking about it even after just having her. Something she said though tickled at his brain.
“You said Jakcova was in command here. He's Headmaster of the whole Mages Guild right, not just this one in Three Bridge?” He asked looking back at her.
She lifted her head and looked at him with a skeptical look, but then dropped her head back to the bed.
“Maybe he would be if he hadn't been on adventures for close to thirty years to get rid of his mark. It wasn't too long ago that he managed to get free of it to focus full time on teaching I guess. We didn't know exactly where he went, just that he retired from the guild to do something important. The 'Grand Master' is some old bearded guy who's been alive for a few hundred years now. -An adventurer who reached rainbow rank. He makes those robes Jakcova was wearing for the Headmasters as his sign of approval. He's got an old Frantish name. Gabbronson Felder von something. Tolber I think. Gabbronson Felder von Tolber. I think that's right. I should probably know that, but I've never dealt much in magic. Everyone should recognize his name if you talk about him though.”
Possibilities raced through Micheal's mind.
How many people were there now that could compare to Jakcova? And there were other characters. Characters that Jakcova's guidance and teaching would be very important to. Everything might be different. Everything could have changed from what he had originally planned. Characters could show up anywhere, and maybe be things that he hadn't planned. There had to be some sort of environment versus destiny sort of rule to what accounted to wild changes in reality.
Would all the characters he wrote as heroes be heroes any more? Would the villains be dealt with in the same ways? What had changed? What would happen to them–Or to their plotlines? Would their roles be filled by others he didn't know or name? A growing sense of panicked anxiety welled inside him as a foreboding sense of losing control struck him.
If Jakcova wasn't head of the Mages Guild in Talvanja how many other pieces had changed or been shifted? Where's, who's, and how's ran through his mind at a seemingly endless pace. There was no way he could map it out from what he had originally planned. Not unless he literally got out pins, rolls of strings, and started collecting newspaper articles or something and started covering the walls with the interconnecting lines, and even then he would need a network of informants.
Micheal’s brain started to fuzz with mental static and ache with the furious rapidity of his thoughts.
Suddenly Vivian's arms were around his middle and she was pressing herself lightly into his back. He'd been so focused that he hadn't heard her get up.
“Are you okay?” She asked softly into his shirt. “What's wrong? You look like you thought of something awful.”
“I did, but it's nothing I can really do anything about.” He answered.
“We should just focus on what we have to do at hand. Should we check with everyone? I'm sure once Leah notices it's not raining so bad under those shields she will want to go out shopping for armor with me.”
Vivian cuddled into his back affectionately.
“Do you need some extra money for that? I don't want you spending what you have on something that won't protect you properly.”
He touched her hands and hesitated before answering.
“I have a bit of money after the last contract we did.” He said.
It wasn't even half a gold crown, but it was more than some peasant farm workers saw in a year.
Micheal had learned adventuring was a lucrative job of necessity. Dealing with problems, monster infestations, and the like took money to do and prepare for; so adventurers would only take the contracts that paid well enough for them to keep doing them. If the contracts didn't pay enough they didn't get done or at least nowhere near on time. It was bad for some small villages, but local lords seemed to either sponsor or have some sort of approval system for contracts posted by people in the lands they owned.
In truth in the areas where it paid more it seemed the money got around to many people and the lords made back most if not more than money they paid out. The rest came in from reselling rare materials that adventurer's often offloaded from contracts and the natural state of their marks to bring things to them face down. It was an uneasy sort of balance between safety and danger. There were always more adventurer's either being born, or people who had otherwise lived normal lives woke to have gained a mark over night.
There was always danger, always need, and there needed to be someone to take the lead and motivate, provide, and prepare these adventurers. The constant state of danger made it so the very few nobles Micheal had met so far were fairly pleasant people. Of course his meetings with them had been mostly in passing or in idle conversation in the Adventurer's Guild building, but many of them seemed to see adventurers and the guilds especially as a type of contractor or other sort of maintenance crew necessary to their businesses and exploits.
They knew the job Adventurer's did was something they didn't want to do themselves, and that sometimes it took expensive armor and gear to get it done. And maybe it was to be expected of the nobles who would actually come into the adventurer's guild building, but they gave off a feeling of it being a duty they were undertaking, and seemed to have real pride in taking care of their people and workers.
It made him concerned however. It almost didn't make sense. There was a constant shift of monster population and new threats seemed to pop up everyday. Everything seemed so volatile, every rumor he heard of other towns before the storm was of this infestation, or that lurking monster, or the Order of Paladins of one God or another had raided this nest of evil or that. It was almost as if the entire country were in a constant state of war against the very land around it.
Of course in some ways it was. Large actions were often taken with adventurers as outriders and armies of regular men were used to fight the more overwhelming infestations or rise of some great monster or another as support staff or part of a blockage to cage the creature in. Siege engines were adapted to fight large monsters or pin them down; or to man walls and protect cities, towns, and villages were employing adventurers on a day to day basis in such numbers that seemed would or should effectively negate the protection they brought. Still it kept on however. There didn't seem to be an end and he had only been here a few weeks.
It was maddness, like the balance of nature was driven up into some strange hypercycle of life. Everything grew too fast and lived in too condensed areas. Even the little hunting he had done looked odd in retrospect like he and Vivian had stumbled into a tightly packed game reserve. There was too much food, too much forage, too many enemies all around. Like the gray wolves of North America in the earlier days of the United States something should have gotten wiped out, or enough of its population removed to need decades to recover.
If there was any balance eventually the invasive, bothersome, or even overly desirable species would be wiped out from over hunting, but in this world there always seemed to be more and more of each. Adventurers had lived this way and been this part of society for perhaps thousands of years. As far as some casual questions got him anyway no one seemed to know when the marks first began to appear and they told of stories happening in the hundreds of years before.
His head started to ache and his heart was pounding in his chest. Cold sweat started down his forehead and back as well, and the gray tingling sense of fear in his mind seemed to numb his fingers in spite of Vivian's close proximity.
Vivian pulled away from his back and went to her bag set against the wall. She pulled out a small leather pouch from inside that looked heavy, but made little sound as she popped open its flap of the tight buttons. He had never seen her take that pouch out before and it looked almost new as if it never left the bottom of her pack.
She fished out two small linen bags, their clinking drawing his thoughts and attention. She brought it over to him smiling. The pouch had several of the little bags inside set into what looked like a small folder. Each little bag was the size of a large coin almost the size of his palm, and indeed there was a circular object inside. She gave him the two of them and the gold sparkled inside as if they were fresh off the mint.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Two gold crowns?” Micheal asked, almost amazed. “Vee I can't take these. This is literally enough to buy a farm.”
“Or...” She said, closing his hands around them. “-Some armor that's not a broken hand me down. Sarraleah did over pay for what she had by almost half, but honestly for the work in the time frame she had it wasn't all that bad-- even if he had most of the work done already and pieced the armor together to fit her order. You get yourself something protective and comfortable. Try them on. Move in them. Swing your arms above your head and bend and crouch. Find something you think suits you and ask for adjustments if the fit is just a little off. Forgen will come if you ask him, but Leah should at least have insight enough to tell you what to avoid.” She said, poking him in the chest with a finger.
“Otherwise, find a weapon you like. Do the same with that one. Lift it, swing it, test the balance, and its edge. Sometimes in these out of the way clusters of towns you find teeming heaps of old magic items or weapons laying in the backs of shops because there's not enough Mages around to find them and break them down for other enchantments.”
Micheal nodded, holding the two palm sized coins in his hand.
“How do magic items and weapons work anyway?”
She looked at him a little amazed. She shook her head and grabbed her spear. She came to him with it. She held it out horizontally in both hands and ran her gaze down the length.
“Weapons can be forged as magical items, and those will often be expensive because they usually take materials taken from more traditional magic items to make. That's the same for wands and the like. Take Lindsey and Luna for example. Lindsey's single wand was carved by her own hands. It was literally just a piece of wood that was carved to look like a wand until she started to use it as one with her magic. She's had and used it for almost five years now, and that has almost certainly converted it completely to a magic item, but to use it takes a certain set of skills to use and has a wide range of effects based on how she used it as a focus for her magic.”
“That works in the same way as magic weapons. If a swordsman has attack spells or skills he uses with his sword as his focus in the attacks the blade will be converted over time as he expends mana through it. Mike's weapon for example lets him throw fire from it. Some well taken care of weapons, like my spear here, will even gain near indestructible properties and edges that never dull due to the constant care. It just takes a lot of time and care while marked to get that effect from what I've heard, but the items you carry will slowly gain properties just being wielded and carried by a marked Adventurer.” She explained.
“So magic items that are made or forged as magical are probably just as strong material wise, but much more limited in effect? Since Luna has like three wands I suppose she has limited options with each.” He asked.
She nodded, but held up one finger.
“With the addition that taking up a new made magic weapon or tool will be much easier to use than it would be to use one an adventurer made by carrying it. For example Luna can use magic, but isn't a sorceress like Lindsey, she's a bard. It would take her years of training to manage to use a wand like Lindsey's, but she can pick up and easily use a newly made wand that has prepared spells inside that just need a charge from her to activate.”
“That doesn't mean either is better or worse than the other inherently, but often the used items will be cheaper because they take time to grow accustomed to where as an item that was just made will work for anyone who picks it up until someone with a mark carries it for a time. The main difference is price. If you find a good old magical weapon some adventurer either died with or pawned off for something newer– then great you've likely saved some gold...” She stopped and stood close to him with her hand over the one of his that held the coins.
“-But if a more expensive one feels right and fits your tastes then go with that one. A thrusting polearm like spears, and pikes are good, but I could easily teach you to use a halberd or poleaxe or some sort of partizan. And get a short sword. A plain and sturdy steel one will work if you don't want to spend all of what I gave you, but at least look through the shops inventories of magical items for a main weapon. You can't beat an armored opponent very easily no matter how good I make you at hitting things with your big stick, and non-magical items and weapons break rather easily sometimes-- and will, especially with your strength.”
“Shouldn't you come along to make sure I get a weapon that fits?” He asked her.
She shook her head.
“You are manifesting an attack ability. A lot of the time you have to go by instinct to find what's going to work for your ability before it manifests. Try things you might not have thought of. Pick a few things at random in every shop and see if you feel anything. A good feeling or bad could tell you what you might have an inclination for. Just listen to how your body and mana react to the idea of using whatever thing is in your hands.”
She was leaning close as she spoke her spear still between them, and their hands were finding their way to touch and interlace on the shaft. With her face close and her eyes seeming to shine as she looked up in his eyes he was certainly aware of his body reacting to her, but then...wind? Like a memory of sitting on a branch of a tree in a high wind with the clouds rolling by above, and the scent of an old growth forest in his nose; Strong pine and cedar smells like being up north back home, and something more.
He looked down at the elegant green tinged white shaft in his hands and down its length to the hand and half long blade that almost seemed to grow from the end of its length like a steel flower bud instead of a traditionally fastened spear head. He ran his fingers down its smooth oval shaft. He could feel it. Almost like when he was maintaining his ward spell. Something was there, held at bay, and ready to be unleashed. The air in the room stirred to stir around the shaft began to slowly climb to a rush toward the spear point. He let the spear drop into Vivian's hands startled.
She stared at the spear in wonder and then up at him. A slow smile had spread across her face the whole while. She wiped a single tear from her eye that seemed to have gone rogue.
“What did you do just now?” She asked, still smiling and looking at her spear.
“For a moment it was like I was back home sitting in the branches of the great trees near the cliffs far in the western forests with my sisters. I..” She paused again and wiped both her watering eyes though the heavy emotions did nothing to the great big smile on her face, “-I haven't thought of that in years.”
“I'm not sure, but I felt it too. That and the fact that I might have been able to attack with it somehow if I hadn't let go. I'm not sure I knew enough about what I was doing to not attack with it.”
“Attack?” She seemed to think back and looked the spear over from the bare end of shaft back up to the tip.
“Yes. There was...” Vivian said mostly to herself and almost mumbling and the air in the room began to stir once again.
She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. The wind around the shaft stirred and the curtains on the bed began to stir. Across the room an open book on the table slowly began to turn its pages. She opened her eyes and though it was harder to see than it was to feel there was air rushing around the spear in her hands. The room was filled with the scent of a forest in bloom. Then it suddenly stopped and Vivian let out the most girlish sound he had ever heard her make.
It was a completely delighted and happy giggle.
“I never thought--” She cut off with an absolutely incandescent smile before starting again.
“Jakcova always said...” She trailed off again feeling the shaft of her spear in her hands.
Then as sudden and light as a gust of wind herself Vivian rushed to him and threw her hands, spear still hand, around him and laughed, snuggling herself into his chest and neck. She rubbed her face against his cheek and laughed and laughed. She was so delighted it had another effect on her beauty all on its own.
Micheal didn't know what to say or how to congratulate her. He still wasn't sure what he had done. Then she was taking him by the hand and leading him out of their room before he had the chance to more than put his arms around her. Leah and the two other girls had just gotten back and were sitting down at the table when they came out.
“The food will be brought up soon. Something's happening outside too. Looks like they are putting up shields against...” Pelanna said to them before she spotted the look on Vivian's face.
Mike and Lindsey were there too and looked to have remained where they were for some time. Mike looked breathless and Lindsey a little too innocent so maybe the couple had fallen into kissing before the girls came in and interrupted them. Lindsey did seem alert though. She cocked her head and looked at the spear in Vivian's hands. Then her eyes narrowed, a small smile spreading over her lips.
Only then once they were out of the room did Vivian let him go and take her spear in both hands once more. Lindsey, Pelanna, and Julia all gasped as the air in the room violently began to gather around the shaft of her weapon leading out over the bladed tip.
“A magical attack skill?” Lindsey asked excitedly. “How did you learn that, in there?” She asked, grinned, and then gave Micheal a bemused look.
Pelanna stood immediately and clapped her hands together before running over to hug Vivian. Julia gave Micheal almost the exact same look Lindsey had. Leah just stared in wonder as she sat at the table.
“What does it do?” Leah asked from where she sat.
Vivian shook her head, but kept the smile on.
“Nothing, just doing that. It's a charged ability though I'm pretty sure. I have to pour mana into it before it will fire.”
Lindsey's eyes went wide.
“You? Ranged magic?” She clapped and laughed. “Your Micheal is good for you isn't he?” She smiled at the both of them fondly, and then focused on Micheal.
“I knew you were talented, but who would have thought you could talk Vivian into trying a magical attack spell on you?” She said laughing now at his expense.
Vivian reached back and took Micheal's hand.
“It was nothing like that Lindsey. I was just explaining about magic items when I showed him my spear for an example. He found the ability somehow when I was telling him about feeling out the items he would be looking at while shopping today. I should have seen it myself. Jakcova must have been pulling his hair out feeling how close I was..” She explained to the others while pointedly staring Micheal down hard enough to remind him that he better not drop the good deal of money she had given him for that and quickly stowed the coins in his belt pouch.
Lindsey blinked.
“He found it?” She shook her head. “But you just used it. How could that be?”
Vivian blinked at what Lindsey said, still smiling, but then frowned as if considering before she turned a curious look upon Micheal.
Micheal looked up from closing his belt pouch. He would kill for some decent pockets, like real ones made into his pants. Once he had money he was going to find someone to make him a pair of jeans with proper pockets if it cost half what Vivian just gave him. Micheal looked between the four women who were currently staring at him. Leah was looking at the spear in Vivian's hands still and got up to go into the room she was sharing with Pelanna and Julia almost at a run.
Micheal watched her go and still the women stared at him. Helplessly he looked at Mike. Mike shrugged.
“Item crafting talent of some kind?” He suggested and the girls all seemed to take that into thought.
They all began talking at once as Leah came out of her shared room with her great big twin snake and dice headed hammer held against her chest with one hand. It was almost cute how terrifyingly strong she was. She came and held it out to Micheal with both hands offering him the grip.
“Do mine.” She said.
Micheal scratched his head nervously.
“I'm not sure I know exactly what I did Leah.”
“Try it.” Julia said, watching with an eager light in her eyes.
“It's almost the same situation. Both Leah and Vivian have weapons they've carried for a long time. You know Vivian better, but if you were able to feel out an attack for her maybe you can do the same for the world's most adorable knight.”
Leah blushed and looked back at her new friend quickly who shot her a huge friendly smile. Leah wiggled girlishly and a big smile grew on her face that she tried to hide. Micheal tried not to think of her hive going wild inside her and barely being held back, but he still knew it was happening.
-Although Leah was doing rather well. She had spent a few days with the party now and even slept with the two girls in their bed. He wasn't sure what to think about that, but the two certainly would have noticed if vampric blood worms were popping out of her in her sleep. Unless...unless they weren't around after they came out because Leah infected the girls with them. He forced down the terrifying thought and stepped closer to Leah to take her heavy hammer in his hands.
The thing's ornately designed swirled dual hafts were solid metal, it was balanced well enough besides that, but it must have weighed at least forty or fifty pounds. He found he had to summon more of his strength than he had used in some time to wield it properly. It was about two and a half feet long making it right about half the length of the little pink knight. He was sure he could break the table with it just by dropping it from a foot or so and knew why Leah came off the ground and staggered so hard when she swung it. Even if he was in full armor like her he might not have been a proper counter weight. He dismissed brief thoughts of how strong, and exactly how durable the sweet young woman before him actually was. Her bones had to be like carbon fiber had a baby with titanium and raised it on a diet of protein powder shakes and eggs to handle this thing like she did.
He forcibly cleared his scatterbrained mind once again and concentrated on the weapon in his hands. Even just doing that was easier than it had been before training with Lindsey. Using ward to defend himself required him to focus this way and he had to do it fast or take a watermelon sized orb of water to the face or chest. That training in particular had provided good incentive to learn quickly.
He took the pink wrapped handle in one hand and jostled the hammer in the other as he moved his hand down the heavy helical length of entwined snake bodies up to its head. It was scored here and there with old biting marks from blades or the like and the scale pattern on the snakes caught on his hand as well. It was an exquisitely detailed weapon otherwise.
The head showed the opposing pips from the snake's mouths on either end. It was a gratuitous piece of art that had been used in heavy fighting obviously enough, but it also had a quality similar to that of the ceramic door keys. It was steel, but not at the same time. It was a fighting weapon with something of spirit of its own, almost feeling warm and alive in his hands. All of its strikes were a great gamble. A hit could end a man in one blow or leave the wielder open for him to run them through or beat their head in with whatever he had. He concentrated further, finding a sort of rhythm in his thoughts.
The first sound in his mind was laughter. The sound of waves, and the clack of wooden mugs put together. Men cheered as dice were tossed and a man held his hopes dear at the last bit of coin he could safely gamble thinking of getting his little girl something for her birthday. Then there was pain. It left phantom pains on his body, and made his hands feel like they were running in blood all to the sound of crashing dice and the cries and screams of a young woman. The indistinct rush of pain and sound became clearer and clearer as he understood what he was seeing more and more, and then he felt it and the odd sensations faded.
What he saw could only have been some memory mixed with Leah's own fighting and that of her father who had once wielded the hammer as either a soldier or adventurer himself. Maybe if he hadn't known Leah's history the insight would have shocked him, but it came as no surprise. There was another gamble inside the weapon deep within the memory. He could almost feel the dice waiting to roll, but there was a trick to it.
“Umm...” He said. “Leah..uh no...Vivian try to poke me with the haft of your spear.”
Vivian cocked her head and took a few steps closer.
“What do you mean?” She asked, eyeing the excitedly bouncing and jangling Leah in front of him.
“Just...” He said, frowning still feeling out the mystical sensations hidden within the enchanted weapon. “Just try to poke me. It's hard to keep focus on it.”
She spun her spear and set a hand on Leah to keep her from bouncing and making so much noise, and then after twirling her spear into a reverse grip thrust out gently toward his middle.
Right as the spear touched him there was an incredible rush of sound and noise in his ears and his eyes spun around with a blur of sight and motion and the world seemed for a moment to tilt and crash about like a globe set loose on the back of a run away wagon. His feet hit something. Silverware clattered. Then, now completely disorientated, he toppled over and crashed into someone who was small, soft skinned, and made an odd little squeal as they went over with the chair and tangled together as they went to the floor. Instinct alone kept Micheal from dropping the heavy hammer on his feet, head, or on the person he was crashing into, but he got it aside and away once he figured out which way was up.