Corin sat alone in his tent. The night was cold. His victory against other small mercenary groups had swelled his numbers. The newly arrived soldiers in The Venerable Razors trained, trying to get to the new base line. The bandit groups he crushed tended to be the hardest to train. The enhancement process helped create loyalty and increase the physical capabilities of the soldiers. It did not, however, prepare them for the life of a soldier. Morale was certainly an issue for the newer members. The camp followers certainly helped with keeping out their boredom. There was also the supply issue. He wouldn’t be able to maintain his company just by quashing bandits and smaller companies. He studied his own personal maps. He might have to capture an oasis settlement. It should provide entertainment and supplies. He would need to speak to someone.

“Send the leadership to the command tent,” He told a man outside the door to his tent.

Corin didn’t wait for a response as he made his way toward the tent. When he felt the courier for his message leave, Corin sped up his pace. It wouldn’t do if anyone managed to get there before him. It was a quick walk and just as he hoped, the tent was empty. It didn’t take long for everyone to come together. When everyone arrived, he started. He expressed his concerns and took suggestions for possible solutions. Corin wanted to preserve the illusion of choice. He didn’t want to test the limits of the loyalty that was bestowed from the enhancement process. He already had a solution in mind. They could probably take Nesu, the largest, but the death count on both sides would be too much. Fetahken was in the middle range. The fight would be difficult and bloody, but the location was secure. There was also Sedna, but that was too small to sustain a force of his number.

Corin lay out the the options, specifically to look for feedback. He stood back to let them discuss. Most avoided Nesu just due to it’s size and defenses, but there were a few that argued for it. The majority saw as Corin had and wanted to take Fetahken. There was a strange sense of battle lust that flowed through the command tent. A single voice argued for taking all three. It was Antaios. He had been from the first large group that had been subjugated. There were surprisingly a low number of deaths when they had clashed.

“It’s a simple plan,” Antaios started.

It was simple. Corin was pleased. Antaios started to talk the others in the tent over to his point of view. Corin nodded. He hadn’t even thought of taking all three cities. If they were able to pull this off Antaios would find himself in the higher ranks with ease.

—

Eric had arrived home late. Amie had been absorbed in her reading. She probably wouldn’t have noticed Eric talking to her if it weren’t for the food that he shoved into her face. She looked up in surprise.

“Oh, you’re back!” she exclaimed.

“I brought you this,” Eric said as he waved food around in her general direction

She carefully put away the red book into her tome. Now that she was free, she launched herself at the food. Eric was a little taller and it took a few attempts at snatching for the bread before she managed to grab it. She looked at it, puzzled. It was a little spongy and wasn’t hard like she had expected.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s a steamed bun I got on the other side of town. It’s filled with some meat and vegetables.”

She carefully pulled away some of the outer layer, revealing the meat and vegetable mix inside. After a few sniffs, Amie considered the food passable. She took one bite and chewed it carefully. The rest of the bun was gone after that. Eric laughed and handed her the second bun, which was also devoured.

“What have you been up to today?” Eric asked.

“I got my class shopping out of the way.” Amie said.

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“I thought you planned to laze around all day.”

Amie shrugged, “So how was your day?”

“Long. I’m exhausted.”

“Do you just want to go to bed?”

Eric nodded as he walked to the bedroom. He stripped his clothes and fell onto the bed. Amie readied for bed and then joined him. She hadn’t been tired, but it was nice to be by Eric. It didn’t take long for his breathing to relax. He had fallen asleep quick. Amie enjoyed the darkness and the heat from Eric, until she too fell asleep.

When the sun rose the next day, Eric was already dressed and eating food. Amie was going to spend the day in the comfortable chair. Something about the little red book she had found in the book store had drawn her attention. She had dreamed about mathematical formulas and spell formations. When Eric was about to leave, Amie gave him a kiss and he left. She curled up on the chair after drawing the book from her tome and started to read.

The concepts she had found in the book were advanced, but straight forward. The soul engraving techniques that she had learned from her father paled in comparison. She had read the book cover to cover many times over at this point. The portal spells listed in the book were odd. It was a possibility that the book was created at one of the other towers. The cover was in mostly pristine condition, but the writing inside seemed to show that the book was old. There had been a few mana manipulation methods that had been mentioned that also seemed to be superior to her own. She might have to test something.

She went into the kitchen and retrieved a box of ground salt. Using the book as a guide, she formed a loose formation by pouring the salt into ever increasing rings that would surround her body. She was a little nervous at first. The whole ritual was only supposed to take an hour and help her with her own mana senses. She was still fresh on the whole experience of her gem activation. She removed the necklace from her neck setting it beside the comfortable chair. After a little more thought, she also removed her clothes.

Amie felt a little foolish standing in the living room in the nude while holding a small red book. She triple checked her work and pushed errant lines of salt around until it matched the diagram. With a shrug, she lay in the middle. She closed her eyes and focused on a small wisp of mana that she held inside. If it hadn’t been for her father’s training, she wouldn’t have seen it. She pushed it along the lines of salt, feeling for the special kind of resistance that the substance had. When she felt her reserves start to bottom out, she twisted the mana. Just like the book described the mana had started to pull on ambient mana from the room. She was able to complete the formation drawn onto the floor with salt.

Nothing happened for a moment. Amie feared that nothing had happened at first and started to laugh at how ridiculous this was. It happened then. Colors exploded in her skull. There was a flash of pain and then she stopped feeling any connection to her body. She spent an eternity floating freely through the colors. Patterns formed and dissipated around her. Without feeling, all she could do was watch. Just like that she snapped back. The salt that had been used for forming the ritual circle had changed somehow. It glowed a light blue color and had formed larger crystals. She was able to scoop the crystals together and put them into one of the pages of the tome. Her red tome went back to it’s own page.

She moved mechanically, trying to come to terms with what she saw. It was an odd sensation, and what had been the pain? She made her way back to the chair and sat. Thirty minutes, she still sat. She had been staring at the wall without seeing. Her mind had been working overtime. A knock at her door pulled her out of her dazed state. The knocking grew more insistent.

“I’ll be right there,” she said while pulling on her clothes.

She opened the door. Three wizards push themselves into the apartment, pushing Amie back into the living room. They wore some sort of hardened armor. Colors swirled around their bodies. Amie tried to blink away what she saw.

“We’re here on behalf of tower security,” the lead man said.

He followed with a whole bunch of legal talk. Amie hadn’t been able to focus as she tried to understand what she was now seeing. The brief moment of clarity she had was gone.

One of the other wizards shouted out, “We have mana residue.”

“What did you do?” asked the third wizard.

Amie sat down on the ground. The world was spinning, and she felt that she had been seeing too much.

“She seems disoriented.”

“Ma’am, can you open the tome?”

Amie didn’t respond and closed her eyes. Some time passed and she could feel her body being lifted off the ground. When Amie was able to make sense of the world again, she was lying in a room. Faintly glowing runes and bands of metals were worked into the walls. The bed was comfortable. She was also wearing her clothes. Amie looked around. There was a sink and a toilet. Was this some kind of jail? She would have to get out of here. Could her master help? Mirabelle might be helpful. How long had she been out of it? Amie had too many questions that she could not answer. She sat on the edge of her bed. This was an awful situation.