Chapter 1. Failure

Inch by precious inch, Jeremiah Thorn failed. With a diamond tipped needle, he painstakingly scratched a hairsbreadth trough into the surface of the metal plate. It needed to be perfect—perfect depth, perfect width, and perfectly in line with the spiderweb of swirling grooves he had already spent two weeks etching across the plate. The muscles in Jeremiah’s back, already tight with stress, began to throb with the omen of imminent cramps.

He put the needle down and stretched, willing his aching muscles to relax. It barely helped. Gus the toad sat perfectly still on the desk, sympathetically focusing as hard as he could.

“Just one more little notch buddy, and we’ll be all done,” Jeremiah whispered to his familiar. The final step was a minuscule rod of gold that needed to be placed across the line he had just carved, but it required its own tiny resting place. He chose a new needle from the leather case unrolled beside him. Dozens of diamond tipped steel instruments, imperceptibly but critically different from each other. He chose a size 000 rasp pick, steadied himself, and dragged it once across the line. He took his pair of tweezers and gently lifted the tiny golden rod and placed it across the whisper of a scratch he had just made. Too shallow. He scratched one more time, and placed the golden rod again. Still too shallow.

This should be easy, he thought. This is easy. Just a simple enchantment on a plate of metal. All he had to do was be perfect.

“Patience,” he reminded Gus. “Now is where we are patient. We go extra slow, one scratch at a time, just like we’ve been taught.”

He scratched, he placed. He scratched, he placed. Hundreds of times, maybe thousands, he repeated the action. He felt the rasp wearing away at his resolve faster than it wore away the metal. After an hour he felt a stabbing pain in the joints of his finger and stopped. Rubbing the ache away he inspected his work. The notch looked no deeper now than when he had started.

Enchanting was, without a doubt, an incredible pain in the ass. The act of precisely writing magic words, literally the physical symbols that were spoken when magic is cast, required exacting precision. Controlling the magic that flowed through the runes through slivers of material and modifying words only compounded the difficulty. His current enchantment would magically strengthen the material it was carved on if he touched a specific point.

If Contact, Strengthen.

“Okay, so maybe that was overdoing it. We are still going to be patient, Gus, this is not me being impatient. But we can probably step things up a little bit right?”

Gus did not comment.

Jeremiah stretched again, shaking out his wrists. The tiny room had seemed to close in on him in the past hour. Simple wooden walls were obscured by countless tools, piles of practice plates, and elaborate diagrams drawn in chalk. The nearly-identical tools were organized in a system so convoluted that anyone would believe it to be pure chaos. But Jeremiah understood it, at least in part. That worried him.

“Patience,” he repeated. “I am patient.”

He scratched, he placed. Too shallow. He scratched twice, he placed. Too deep. Jeremiah froze, staring at the fleck of gold that shifted side to side in its cradle.

“Okay,” was all he said, and placed down his tools. There was a not fully ignorable urge to destroy the room and everything in it. Gus let out a single angry croak.

Before he got to learn where his boiling frustration was taking him, he heard the slightest squeak of the door opening.

His teacher, Thurok, stood in the doorway. Small for an orc, and with gray rather than greenish skin, his distinctive orcish tusks were elaborately carved with runes. Thurok was scowling at the hinges of the door, the whisper squeak seemingly capturing his displeasure above all else.

“Thorn,” he said, but didn’t continue. Jeremiah waited as long as he could before giving a cough.

“Hmmm?” Thurok looked up like Jeremiah had just interrupted him, “Show your work.”

Jeremiah carried the square plate of metal across the room, the result of two weeks’ backbreaking effort, and held it out to Thurok like an offering. Thurok hardly glanced at it.

“Nonfunctional. Rushed and sloppy. Depth control is…barely improved. Focus remains terrible.”

“Yes sir,” said Jeremiah. After nearly a year of similar feedback, any sense of expectation or disappointment had long since burned away. The fact that he’d said Jeremiah had improved at all should have felt like winning a blue ribbon, but, awash in an ocean of the same criticisms, it left no impression. “Any advice on how to more accurately nest the conduits and nodes?”

“Yes,” said Thurok. “Do it better.”

Jeremiah nodded. This was very much in line with Thurok’s typical advice. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” he said. He didn’t look at his teacher or his work, but gazed somewhere beyond Thurok’s left elbow.

“Enchantment is as much an art form as it is a magical discipline,” Thurok said, not for the first time. “It requires absolute, singular focus. Passion is meaningless, inspiration is meaningless. Only precision matters. The sooner you understand this, the sooner you will improve beyond the simplest enchantments.”

“I understand, sir, it’s just…some precise specific guidance might help?” Jeremiah raised his gaze to Thurok’s shoulder.

Thurok recoiled at the request. “You want me to do it for you? You will learn nothing. You must trust the process. It is the process that granted me the skills I have, the skills that enchanted your compatriot Allison’s armor and countless other items wielded by great warriors and heroes.”

“So, no?” asked Jeremiah.

“You don’t want my help, your weakness wants my answers. I will give you neither and starve your weakness that much more. One day you will thank me,” Thurok began to leave.

“Anything else today, sir?” asked Jeremiah. In exchange for his tuition, he worked in Thurok’s enchanting workshop, helping with the menial tasks the orc considered him worthy of.

“File all receipts from today. Sharpen the picks and rasps. Sweep. Then, trace on paper ten times each the Strength rune, the Adhesion rune, the Decay rune, the If rune, the And rune, and the Delay rune. Once finished, you may depart.”

It was another three hours and after dark before Jeremiah left Thurok the Enchanter’s workshop. The shop took up the entire third floor of an expansive commercial building near the center of Dramir, the part of town that was composed of grandiose architecture and elaborate carved marble. Tonight, a late summer mist reduced the lantern lights to a soft glow.

Jeremiah enjoyed the cool water on his skin as he made his way towards the residential quarter. It was a refreshing after being in the stuffy workshop since before sunup. After swearing off necromancy, Jeremiah had once again found himself with no appreciable talents. Enchanting had seemed like a reasonable pursuit—he could create magic equipment for his party to take on more dangerous (and lucrative) challenges, and repair or even sell gear to supplement their income.

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However, it had turned out that his aptitude for enchanting was the opposite of talent. His ‘fractured but strong’ focus, which had made him such an attractive student to his necromancy teacher so long ago, was ill-suited to the intensely precise task of enchanting. When his attention and patience wavered, as they inevitably did, the rune would be ruined and Jeremiah’s status as a failure in Thurok’s eyes—and his own—would be even further cemented. It was a pattern that repeated itself week after week.

Why he continued in this thankless endeavor, even he wasn’t sure. Thurok allowed him to keep the small payment whenever he recharged an existing enchantment for a customer, but those jobs were rare. Perhaps the truth was that he simply did not know what else he could do. Experienced mages were few and far between, even more so the ones willing to take on a student. It was only Jeremiah’s reputation for magic in Dramir that had convinced Thurok to teach him, and surely that was all that kept the orc from expelling him now.

Jeremiah passed the remains of an accountancy office that had burned down last month—not all discontents had been deterred by Vivica’s defeat nearly a year ago. For a time, the immense loss of wealth among Dramir’s elite following the end of the seige had served to reduce the wealth disparity between the richest and poorest of the city. The cost of goods plummeted as the nobles’ need to eat overcame their business’s need for money. There was even some social mobility, as some enterprising peasants carved opportunities out of the destabilization.

However, the movement was short-lived. Within just a few changes of the season, money once again began flowing upwards, towards the pockets that were accustomed to it. In fact, the only change that seemed durable was the support for improvements in Dramir’s poorest neighborhoods, many of which were being spearheaded by Delilah under Bruno’s guidance. It seemed Vivica’s seige had alerted many nobles to the threat of the populace within their very city, and they were keen to appear benign and charitable, at least publicly.

As Jeremiah walked, the buildings shrunk from impressive monoliths to the familiar rows of terraced homes. He exchanged a few friendly nods, and there were even some smiles sprinkled in.

“How are you doing, Mr. Thorn?” asked a human man walking with his wife. His face was weather worn but pleasant.

“Doing fine, thank you,” said Jeremiah. He didn’t recognize this man, but his wife pushed her husband onward with only a curt nod.

It was a roll of the dice every evening. Often it was friendly nods or hellos, sometimes someone would call him the savior of the city, sometimes they’d just hiss, “Necromancer!” or epithets at him on their way by. Jeremiah was glad tonight was an easy one.

Home, finally home. Jeremiah pushed open the door and the familiar smells wrapped around him like a hug. The lingering scents of Delilah’s various experiments and the chemicals she used to clean them, which always gave Jeremiah a sensation of freshness; Allison’s blade oils, which were inevitably left in the living room despite Delilah’s protests, Bruno’s pipe smoke mixing with whatever stew was simmering on the stove to create a rich aroma that made Jeremiah want to sink into the nearest soft surface and exist in that moment forever.

Bruno was fully absorbed in a stack of papers at the kitchen table as Jeremiah dropped his bag near the foot of the stairs and threw himself onto the sofa. As he listened to the pops of the fire and the distant tinkling of Delilah working in her alchemy lab, that knot that had been threatening his shoulders finally began to loosen.

“Jay, can you tell me what this word is?” asked Bruno.

Jeremiah extended a hand without lifting his head. “Give.”

Bruno had recently taken charge of many of Delilah’s correspondences and minor bookkeeping. He still prowled the night, but something about the last year had sparked his curiosity into the vast and exciting world of paperwork. And ever since Jay’s resolution to the Vivica incident, there was more paperwork than ever.

It turned out losing most of the wealth of the nobility of Dramir below the bowels of the earth had earned them the ire of some very well-connected people. Searching for the treasure was now a crime, and even knowledge of the direction the undead had tunneled was a state secret, so many chose to express their displeasure through a never-ending stream of lawsuits against Jeremiah and his friends. Merely resisting the legal onslaught was draining the party’s resources faster than they could replace them.

Jeremiah squinted at the page Bruno handed him, angling it to read by the lantern light. “‘Acquiescence,’” he said, “it means—”

“No, I know what it means,” said Bruno, snatching the page back. “Just couldn't read it. This guy's handwriting is so sloppy.”

It looked fine to Jeremiah, but perhaps he was used to old writings at this point. It was easier than deciphering enchanting runes, at any rate.

“Where’s Allison?” asked Jeremiah.

“Coming around the corner now,” said Bruno.

Sure enough, Jeremiah heard Allison’s voice a few moments later. Even her normal speaking voice tended to fill whatever space she was in, so it wasn’t hard to make out what she was saying.

“Thank you very much for walking me to my door, Ophelia, I felt much safer,” said Allison from outside. “I want you to practice your stances for tomorrow, okay? First and second. You can keep the trainer, and I’ll see you…Ophelia, hun, do you need me to walk you home? Okay, it’s the last I can do.” Jeremiah could hear the smile in her voice.

Allison returned a few minutes later, hip checking the door open. Her arms were occupied with a variety of wooden training weapons, nicked, scarred, and pitted nearly to pieces. A suit of wooden lamellar armor, small enough to fit a child, was just as pocked with a thousand little lessons. She dropped the supplies in a heap by the door. “Okay, I’ve got about forty five minutes before my next student. Just enough time to sit for a minute.”

She plopped on the couch beside Jeremiah’s head, her limbs going limp and her eyes falling closed.

“How’s the latest warrior disciple?” asked Bruno, squinting at a new document.

Allison responded without opening her eyes. “Ophelia displays excellent grasp of foundational tenants and a dedication to practice. She has room to improve in authoritative action and decision making. A pleasure to teach.”

“At least it pays,” said Jeremiah. He reached up and squeezed Allison’s shoulder.

“I kind of…may be…discounting her tuition. Just a bit,” said Allison.

“Would you stop doing that?” Bruno barked. “We’re trying to make ends meet, Al. You and Jay are barely making a pittance combined.”

“Eh, my business is my business,” said Allison. She still didn’t open her eyes.

“Well, what are you pulling in lately?” Jeremiah asked Bruno.

“What I’m ‘pulling in’ is intercepting all the damn assassination attempts against us,” said Bruno.

“Oh no, assassins,” said Allison. “I’d love an assassination attempt.”

“Jay and Delilah wouldn’t, I can assure you,” said Bruno. “So, you’re welcome.”

“Are you looking for us to thank you for keeping us alive?” said Allison. Her eyes popped open, the audacity of the suggestion filling her weary veins with indignant fire. Her fingers curled into fists.

“Couldn't hurt,” said Bruno. He was still leaning over the papers, but had gone eerily still at Allison’s tone.

Jeremiah sat up and put a hand on Allison's fist, squeezing just gently enough to be felt. She exhaled, then her hand softened and opened. Then, in one smooth movement, she popped to her feet. “Come on Jay, let’s get some spear practice in!”

Jeremiah shook his head. “Promised Delilah I'd help in the lab.”

Allison collapsed into the sofa again as though time rewound itself. “You're always helping Delilah in the lab.”

“She always needs help in the lab,” said Jeremiah with a shrug.

“She didn't used to,” said Bruno. The tension had seeped out of his posture, now that the subject was ribbing Jeremiah.

“Well, she does now,” said Jeremiah. “She's so busy with lawsuit stuff, she barely has time to boil a pot of water.” Jeremiah peeled himself off the couch, his muscles protesting every movement. But a promise was a promise.