The trip back was tedious to say the least. The ornery old man insisted on bringing his cart, and Will obliged to keep the man happy. But it did mean trying to drag the thing through sometimes dense forest without a road. Everyone was quite happy when the fortress came back in sight. Finally they let the man’s horses take it the rest of the way, and slumped down in the gatehouse. They weren’t really tired, well the adventurers weren't, but they were thoroughly annoyed. They drug the man all the way up to the castle, and gave him a room, but he chose to sleep in his cart. The horses were led away to join the two nice cart horses Will had brought back on his last raid.

It had gotten dark hours ago, and so Will retreated to his room. He wasn’t really tired, despite the exertion, most nights he slept out of habit these days, but now he spent some time drilling with his rapier. As he practiced, he planned. He should be able to get most of the men up and running with their own concepts within the next couple days. He would hand off the food to the women who were now managing the kitchens and get a report of how long that would last. He was hoping it would get him a good week. If so, it meant that he would have plenty of time to get the rest of the men their concepts, and even start in on the women and the children if they were interested. He wouldn’t take them on raids, but given the longevity provided by even the meanest concept, it would be cruel not to.

After that it would be back to raiding, and they would hopefully have enough men to intimidate people into handing over their stock. Fewer injuries, fewer killings. Better all around. It did mean that they would go from an unknown threat to a certain group of bandits, but they could deal with that. They would need to spread out wider after not too long. If they were known to have specific stomping grounds it would end up leading enemies right to them. It meant that they needed to establish satellite bases. That also meant that they needed more people.

Will wished he hadn’t needed to kill the guards from earlier. It would be nice having six more experienced individuals to help in raids. Still, beggars can’t be choosers. He would recruit better soon. Maybe he could take over another bandit operation. That might work out. Bandits were not known for their great skill, but they tended to have greater experience than your average commoner.

Will switched from practicing to meditation, and continued thinking. People would be setting up contracts with the guild before too long. Will had no desire to fight or kill adventurers. Not just for the risk, but for the fact that despite everything, the guild had been good to him. Will needed a way to deal with the adventurers that wouldn’t involve killing them, but keeping them from discovering their secrets at the same time. He didn’t have any ideas yet, but he would work on the problem.

For now, Will would work on getting the men up to snuff. Most bandit groups were portrayed as a group of stupid louts who got into any sort of debauchery whenever they got the chance. Will would not allow that. Their survival hinged on them being strong, intelligent, and ruthless. And while he worked on getting the men up to snuff, he would get himself up to snuff. He had a teacher now, which meant he would actually be able to use his class.

Will spent the rest of the night and into the next morning practicing his swordwork and meditating according to his concept’s guidance. He could already feel the boost as his mental and physical stats increasingly boosted each other. He could tell that there was a bit of a feedback loop, but that didn’t go very far as the boost was still small. Setting aside his training, he went to clean up and go to breakfast.

The old enchanter, Isaac, had been invited in to enjoy the surprisingly hearty meal. However he didn’t seem to enjoy it much, as he spent the entire time glaring at Will. Will struggled to ignore the man as he ate some legitimately good food for once. Despite the man’s apparent hostility, he never said a word until Will spoke to him.

“Isaac, Please meet me in my chambers at noon. Make sure you have everything you need to teach enchanting.” Isaac grimaced, but nodded.

“It will be done my lord.”

“And Emerys, are you able to continue helping to train the refugees? I plan to add another to the raid force today, and he will need the training.” Will asked.

“Why yes milord!” Emerys’ tone was light and mocking, but Will trusted that he would do it.

“The refugees are still amateurs, so any help that any of you can give would be greatly appreciated. Amalise, I understand that you cannot assist in the training, would you like to join us in our enchanting practice?”

Amalise shook her head.

“I appreciate the offer, but someone has to monitor the walls. I have some spellwork to do the job, but it has to be maintained.”

Will nodded and shoveled the last few bites of his breakfast into his mouth. After surrendering his plate to the kitchen managers, he went down to the courtyard before the main gate. There the newly minted cultivators were already practicing what they had learned the previous day. They all lined up hopefully as Will approached.

“Emerys will be here soon to help you. I need the men that have yet to gain a concept.” It turned out that they were right there, and Will chose the next best one and took him to the side. The other men watched them go with jealous gazes.

As Will predicted, it took most of the morning to heal the man’s spirit map and get him his concept, and Will left with a slight headache. Maybe he shouldn’t have skipped sleeping after all. That was made doubly certain when he made it to his living room to find the old man had already set up, and was glaring at him. Something was telling him he was in for a long day.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It took Will an hour to convince the man he wasn’t a total dunce and actually had some training. He of course scoffed at the inscription training Will had received claiming Will had none of the foundational knowledge he needed to have. He was of course right. Will hated to admit that. It meant he was forced to sit through hours and hours of scathing insults with a few nuggets of enchanting wisdom thrown in.

Eventually Will had had enough. Reaching out with his royal aura turned to the max, he wrapped a weight enchantment around the man, causing his chair to break, and the man to be sent to his knees. Will had to admit some small satisfaction from the action, but turned the enchantment off after just a second. He left the royal aura on however. The man was on his knees, and struggling to look at Will directly. There was fear in his face, but also a hatred and disgust just as powerful.

“If you have been to Aetherglow, why do you need me?” Isaac said through gritted teeth. His eyes watered as he looked at Will.

“That is because I have never been to Aetherglow, and I have no intention of ever going there.” Will said. “I just used an enchantment on you. It is rudimentary, crude, copied from a weapon that did much the same thing. But it was an enchantment. The enchantment was inscribed in seconds on my spirit, and took effect immediately thereafter. I even got a class related to my unique form of magic. Part of what you just experienced was my class allowing me to inscribe my aura and not just my spirit.”

“Class?” A look of despair came over the man’s face. “Are you a god too? Where is your divine aura, and why are you doing this? Gods are supposed to protect the people!”

“I am protecting people, just different ones.” Will said. “What you don’t seem to understand is that you are one of my people now, which means I protect you.”

Will released his royal aura, allowing Isaac to get to his feet. Wil dragged over another chair, kicking aside the broken mess of the old one. Isaac sat down, contemplating.

“You are just going to kill me as soon as I have taught you everything I know.” Isaac said.

“Why? I can tell from just our conversations that you are good at what you do, and I am in desperate need of talented individuals. You don’t need to fight, but if you can teach me, and enchant our weapons, that will be more than enough.”

“And when I am done with that?”

“We can talk again in three to four years.”

Isaac sat considering for a moment longer before he continued with the lesson, this time with far fewer insults. There were still insults. Isaac was a grouchy old man with little patience, but at least all the insults were about Will’s intelligence and nothing else.

They continued like that for several more hours before dinner came and they called it a night. Unfortunately, the old man had none of the books that one might use to teach a new enchanter, which really started to hinder them. Fortunately it turned out that the man was less a traveling enchanter as one who would take periodic trips to the surrounding villages. He had a shop in Stinsburough as well as an apprentice. Will had to coerce the information out of him, but it meant that Will had a source of both the necessary books as well as another enchanter. One who would not be overly missed.

He wouldn’t kidnap the boy, but he would make an offer he couldn’t refuse. The boy had a girlfriend, one he hoped to marry when the time was right. It turns out that the girl’s family had fallen on hard times right before the refugee crisis. The right offer could have them all living in the fortress. Since the apprentice couldn’t make money as an enchanter until his apprenticeship was complete, this may be his only hope to save the girl and her family. Will ate his dinner and opted for an early night.

The next morning he got up before dawn and grabbed a quick breakfast before heading out. He would need the whole day to do what he intended. He whistled to Koma, who came bounding over, pushing feelings of reproach for the neglect Will had been showing him. Will apologized, and Koma licked him, slimeing Will’s entire upper body.it took Will a minute to get himself cleaned off, but then he climbed aboard Koma and they ran off. They made it to the outskirts of Stinburough in only about three hours.

Will left Koma, guilty for using him as glorified transportation, and went into the city. Again, he left his white coat off, it was too easily recognized. He made it through security quickly, which was pretty easy when he could stuff everything into his inventory. And he made his way to a specific shop. He still didn’t know how he was going to go about this, deciding to simply wing it.

He went inside the shop. It was fairly well appointed, but all the decorations were commoner nice, not noble nice. There were display cases all around, but the items were made of iron, copper and pewter. Instead of gold and silver. Some of the gems seemed real, inlaid into enchanted bracelets or rings or even weapons. But other gems were obviously made of glass. It was all costume jewelry enchanted with practical effects. The weapons and tools on display were all highly utilitarian, but of good quality nonetheless. A young man came out from a door in the back.

“How can I help you sir? I can help you find what you need, but if you are in need of custom work it will be a week or two before my master can work on it.” He hesitated for a moment at that point. “Our goods are made for common folk, however, I am not sure that an adventurer such as yourself will find what they are looking for here.”

“I am not so sure about that, because what I need is an enchanter.” Will said.

“As I said before, my master won’t be able to take on custom work for a week or two.” The young man said.

“You are Isaac’s apprentice are you not?”

“Yes I am.”

“Then are you not also an enchanter?”

“Technically no. I am an enchanter’s apprentice. I still have several years to go before I can call myself an enchanter.”

“That is a pity, I had a lucrative job lined up for someone who could do simple enchanting. Nothing too hard, just some simple weapon and tool enchantments. I daresay it would have been enough to support an entire family.” Will saw the young man become suddenly hesitant. Not a single bit of guile in him.

“What if the family in question were not my family per se?” Will grinned. He had him!