Pemos was a big city.
Which was not surprising, seeing how it was the capital of the kingdom.
Walls that Liam thought must’ve been around one hundred meters tall surrounded in safe, solid, stone, capable of repelling any and all enemies and keep the citizens inside safe and sound.
A place to keep the war away. Liam already liked it, and he hadn’t even entered.
“This place looks grand.”
“Bah, it’s all the walls. Inside it looks homey, nothing like the big ass castle cities people sometimes build on Eva where you rarely see sunlight. Just a lot of houses and inns and shops,” said Neville with a small smile on his face. Clearly, he was fond of the place.
Amarie nodded in agreement and dismounted, pulling her horse towards the main entrance gate by the reins. The [Guards] noticed her a few moments laters. They were two men in their thirties, their hair blonde and chestnut. Liam decided that, under all that armor, they were probably muscly.
They motioned the [Knight Commander] and her possé of [Knights] through without even controlling their documents, but the moment Liam reached the gate one of them blocked his way with a spear: “Who do you think you are? Go back in line right now, boy.”
Before Liam could say anything though, Amarie shouted back: “The boy’s with me, Cartus. Let him through.”
Immediately the man bowed and lowered his spear: “I’m extremely sorry, [Knight Commander]. Go on through.”
And they were in.
“Welcome to Pemos, Liam. You’ll like it here.”
----------------------------------------
Liam and Amarie were currently standing in front of a two story house made out of stone, a simple wooden door in front of them. There were no windows on the ground floor, while the first floor seemed to be more window than wall. It probably didn’t leave a lot of privacy for whoever lived there. Or chances to sleep during the day.
“Are you sure this is the place?” asked Liam.
“Sure is. Sigmund the [Mage Crafter], lives and works right here. Come on in,” she opened the door.
Since they’d arrived at the capital, the [Commander] hadn’t stopped smiling. Actually, her smile had only grown larger as they’d neared this place.
Liam walked in right behind Amarie… and stopped.
He was in trinket heaven.
They’d walked right into a room filled floor to ceiling with shelves, which were in turn filled with anything you could imagine: from simple wands to pieces of armor to clocks to… he couldn’t even begin to imagine how many things were hidden around among those shelves, both in the dark and illuminated corners.
It reminded him of the mysterious stores protagonists always found in fantasy stories, those where you could find what you needed if you just looked hard enough.
“Well, place hasn’t changed at all,” said Amarie, shaking her head in fake exasperation.
“And it sure as Airm won’t be changing anytime soon!” said a jovial voice from the back of the room, where a wooden counter was.
Liam stared as a lizardman walked towards them. His scales were light orange, which seemed a lot darker in the badly illuminated front room of the shop. His yellow eyes gleamed when light met them, black vertical pupils staring right into his soul. His ‘lips’ were retracted into what Liam believed was a smile, which showed off most if not all of his teeth. He was wearing a simple red shirt and trousers of the color of rusted blood.
“Dad, please, stop being creepy,” said Amarie.
And at that Liam’s brain did a complete one-eighty and tried to grapple with what the woman had just said.
The [Knight Commander] sighed and smiled slightly: this probably wasn’t the first time she’d seen someone react that way.
“Liam, this is my dad, Sigmund Slickscale. Dad, this is Liam Roy. He’s the boy I told you about.”
“Ah, he’s the one you took a fancy for?” asked the lizardkin, beaming like a star.
Amarie, to Liam utter surprise, actually blushed and began babbling: “What? Dad! I never said anything like that!”
“Calm down, Amarie, dear, I was just kidding. Although, now you’ve probably hurt the boy’s feelings.”
Yep, he was definitely her dad seeing how calm and exuberant he was acting. He was even joking.
Although, that wasn’t the main thing in the forefront of Liam’s mind. All that brainpower was occupied with trying to understand how Amarie could possibly be human when her dad clearly wasn’t.
And, seeing how much of a dumbass he could be sometimes, Liam did the one thing that probably anyone with more than two brain cells would keep to himself: “How… What?”
The lizardman looked back at him and laughed at his disbelieving face.
“How can she be my daughter? Gosh, I thought they taught this thing to humans, but it seems that I’ll have to do it myself: you see, when papa lizardman and mama human love each other very much, they -”
“Dad, what in the Olds’ names are you doing!” interrupted Amarie, her voice raising in pitch.
“Why, obviously, I’m explaining to him the birds and the bees. You know,” he made wide gestures with his hands, as if that could explain everything.
“I’m sorry sir, but I already know how that works,” said Liam, his voice low with embarrassment.
“What thing? Sex?”
Both Liam and Amarie became red as tomatoes.
“I’m just pulling your leg, no worries. Just don’t do the same with me: you’ll pull mine off,” he moved to stand on his left foot and, after a bit of struggling, removed his right leg. The moment he did the leg, which had looked very much alive and scaled, took on the form of a wood-and-metal prosthesis.
“Anyways,” he continued unperturbed, “I guess you’ve never seen my daughter with her armor off, or you would’ve seen that her arms have some scales here and there. Mostly, they’re on her chest though. Got the best from both races.”
“DAD!” screamed Amarie, who was clearly flustered.
“What? I see nothing to be ashamed of! Also, don’t you DAD me, I changed your diapers when you were a child.”
Amarie opened her mouth to answer, then closed it, a look of pure defeat on her face. She was a [Knight Commander] who won wars for her kingdom: she could see when a battle was lost.
“Your dad is so cliché,” whispered Liam in her ear.
“You can’t even begin to imagine how much he leans into it,” sighed Amarie.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Then she shrugged, smiled at him, and began talking: “Anyways, dad, Liam is going to be your apprentice from here on. And before you begin, it’s the [King]’s orders. You will train him.”
“Oh, don’t give me shit about orders and whatnot. I pay my taxes and respect the law, that’s how far the king can order me. I was here before he rose to power. And anyways, I was in need of a new apprentice,” he crossed his arms defiantly while also winking at Liam.
“Dare I ask what happened to the last one?”
“He exploded. Happens all the time,” deadpanned Sigmund.
“Don’t listen to him, he just left, probably. Like all the ones before him,” reassured him Amarie.
“What do you mean probably?” asked Liam, panic slowly beginning to mount.
“Well,” answered Sigmund in place of his daughter, “One actually exploded. Very unfortunate. Well, like all things around here.”
At Liam’s expression of pure horror, he slapped his back in the friendliest way possible: “Don’t worry, I started taking a lot more precautions since then. Now, tell me, what Level are you? You’re a [Mage Crafter], right?”
Liam nodded: “I am, well, Level 1.”
Sigmund smiled, then took a second look, asking: “I’m sorry, boy, probably something happened during the last experiment. I thought I heard you say you were Level 1.”
“No, you heard that right.”
Sigmund looked at him, then turned a little ring on his hand made out of what was probably iron with a little crystal of something on top: “Care to repeat that again?”
“Well, I am a Level 1 [Mage Crafter]. Is something wrong?”
Sigmund looked at his ring, where the gem was flashing green.
“You’re not pulling my leg.”
He shook his head, and suddenly his face had abandoned the carefree expression, pensiveness and bright eyed curiosity taking its place.
“You, boy, are impossible.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your Class, [Mage Crafter], is an evolved Class, obtained by fusing together any kind of [Mage] Class together with a
For some reason, as Sigmund said those words, Liam was sure he could hear the brackets and angle brackets.
“So, usually,” continued Sigmund, “People who get that Class are Level 30. At the very least Level 20. And you’re Level 1. You, my boy, are a statistical improbability.”
Liam chuckled: “Maybe it’s because of my other Class. I got it after surviving randomly appearing on a battlefield. It’s [Lucky Soldier], Level 3.”
And at that, Sigmund became focused again.
“Say that again?”
“Dad, stop it! You heard that well!”
“No, this time I seriously did not. Or rather, I think I heard it wrong. You said [Lucky Soldier]?”
“Erm… yes.”
Again, Sigmund looked at Liam, his eyes seemingly trying to pierce his soul from side to side. What was he doing?
“Answer me this, Amarie, dear: how many times were you and your group attacked on the road here? By monsters or bandits, I don’t care.”
Amarie opened her mouth to answer, then stopped as she realized something.
“Not once, dad. It was a… calm journey,” she stopped, then adding, “Well, we did meet the First Dealmaker, apparently, but she just traveled a bit with us and gave something to Liam here.”
Sigmund’s eyes sharpened: ”Ok, well, Dealmaker apart, do you see something off here? You traveled for days on the continent, carrying someone of interest to the king, and weren’t attacked once by anything? That sounds rather… lucky, am I right?”
Amarie nodded, while Liam looked at the two of them without understanding anything.
Sigmund turned towards him: “Boy, here’s the thing: your Class, [Lucky Soldier], hasn’t appeared anywhere in the world for thousands of years. Since the Goddess of Luck died, actually.
“Basically, boy, you are a walking statistical improbability that somehow manages to balance the statistically improbable misfortune of this continent.”
Silence fell on the room.
“Yes, that was a mouthful to say,” nodded Sigmund.
“Dad… are you sure?”
“No, I am never sure about anything, dear. It’s a theory, but at the moment it’s the best thing that comes to mind. Nobody is lucky on this continent.”
Then he turned back towards Liam: “As for you, you’re now officially my apprentice.”
He smiled toothily. “Welcome to Airm!”
----------------------------------------
“So, could you tell me why your shop is so dark?” asked Liam.
It was around nine in the evening if he had to guess. Sigmund had offered him the guest room in the house over his shop and prepared dinner. All the while, he hadn’t seen the shadow of his supposed human wife. Oh, sure, there were photos, or, as Sigmund called them, ‘mage pictures’, but other than that? Nothing.
“It’s my Class Liam. I am a [Secretive Merchant]. My Skills basically follow the concept of ‘If you found it, then it’s made for you’. There are secret and darkened spots all around the shop where my items sometimes end up because of a Skill of mine: [Inventory Reshuffle]. Used to be annoying as fuck until I just got the Skill [Real-Time Inventory Update].”
Liam smiled: “That sounds so cool.”
“Because it is. People who often come to my shop do so to see what interesting things they will find. Curiosity always helps to increase sales.”
Liam nodded: “Do you make everything you sell in this shop?”
Sigmund nodded: “Yes, I do. Becomes troublesome when I run out of stock of complex things, like the clocks, but everything in the shop is built by me, myself and I.”
“Are you specialized? There must be something you’re better at making.”
Sigmund smiled: “Already trying to steal my secrets boy?”
Immediately Liam took a (figurative) step back: “Nope! I’m just curious, is all.”
The lizardman laughed: “Nah, was just joking. I specialize in enchanting rings. Did you know, every single ring my daughter wears in battle was crafted by me.”
“Really? Even the [Greater Silence] one?”
“Especially that one.”
He looked around, as if to make sure that nobody was spying them, then conspiratorially leaned closer: “Actually, it’s not a [Greater Silence] spell in there. I’m not high Level enough for that. It’s actually a [Silence] Spell together with a localized [Mist Cloud] Spell.”
He narrowed his eyes, then said: “Actually, while we’re at it, let’s see how much you know. Tell me, what was that ring made of, since I assume you saw it.”
Liam thought back to the moment when Amarie had used the ring, and remembered the golden yellow look of the metal it was made of. He was also quite sure it wasn’t shining in any way in the morning sunlight, so it definitely couldn’t be gold.
“Pirite, I’d wager.”
Sigmund nodded, a satisfied smile on his face: “You’re right. Also known as Fool’s Gold, it’s the perfect material for imbuing a spell that has, as its main function, the idea of fooling people and making sure they don’t realize what’s really happening. As for the gem up there, I’ll answer for you: it was quartz. Very malleable, capable of becoming mostly anything. Only flaw it has is that it cannot hold powerful spells or it’ll break.”
Liam nodded along with the explanation. In the end, he said: “That sounds really… esoteric.”
“Ha! Sure as Airm it does. Let me tell you a secret, boy: there is little difference between a [Witch] and a [Mage Crafter]. Both Classes follow strange occult principles old as the world, using synergies to create beautiful or horrifying things. No one with our Classes will ever admit that, naturally. I just tend to lean more into it.”
He smiled, looking out of the window.
“I believe it’s time for you to go to bed, boy.”
Liam’s eyebrows shot towards his hairline: “What? Why? I’m not some child.”
“No, you’re not, but tomorrow your training will begin, and you’ll thank me for all the extra hours of sleep you’ll be getting, trust me. I am not a kind instructor. Or so my previous apprentices say, ha!”
Liam shivered. He did not want to go to sleep. Not when he knew what awaited him.
Sigmund seemed to notice, because he lifted himself from his comfortable chair and walked towards the closest piece of furniture, where he fished around for a while until he came back with a ring.
“This is what we call a [Ring of Confusion]. It inhibits the brain’s… something, not sure what. Doesn’t matter. It will make you feel like you’ve just drunk a few bottles of alcohol.and will block your ability to dream. Hopefully it will help with you Blood Skill and keep the nightmares at bay.”
He handed Liam the ring.
“Now go to sleep. And put the ring on only when you’re already in bed. Can’t have you breaking your skull against something now, can we?”
And with that, Liam went to bed.
That night, he didn’t dream.