The next few days of riding in the carriage were fairly silent. Helianna barely cried, but she didn’t want to talk. The observer tried to initiate conversation a few times, but the conversation would peter out as she barely paid attention. Eventually, he turned to her with a stern look on his face.
“I understand this is sad and may not be where you wanted your life to go, but it is what it is now and you can’t change that. However, we are going to be stuck together for over a month as we have to cross The Itasic Ocean. We’re almost to the port we’ll be leaving from which is where we’ll be departing from. I don’t want you to not be paying attention while we get ready and then get lost. If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine, even if it may be a bit awkward. However, I recommend you do talk to me or at least someone as moping for the month or two that we’re sailing will be miserable, not just for you but for the people around you.” Seeing her hurt face looking back at him, he sighed.
“I’m not trying to be mean and I know your life is getting upturned, but there’s a long voyage ahead of us. While it may be boring, that’s better than being miserable. Take advantage of it, and at the very least I suggest distracting yourself a bit by talking to me or the sailors.”
His monologue done, he turned back forward just in time to reach the edge of the town. Startled by his bluntness and his veracity, she tried to pay more attention to the town, which was beautifully lit by the setting sun. However, one of the first things she seriously noticed was the carriage. She had noticed it earlier, but was too focused on other things to think anything of it, but it was golem powered, making it incredibly expensive and explaining how they had arrived in only three days.
She had been fascinated by golems her whole life so she knew about them in theory, but she had never seen one. They were complex and difficult to make, making them only ever appear in big cities, and it still wasn’t a certainty. The golem controlling the carriage was likely the current golem travel standard, which is a solid meter long square of pure steel. Several cords extended from it towards the front of the carriage where a strange control panel sat. They only used unattuned magic to kickstart their runetech where sovereign magic then directed the golem and gravity magic the locomotion. The complexity of it was far above what was possible even ten years ago.
As she was marveling at the golem, the observer pressed his hand on a marked portion of the control panel and pushed unattuned mana through it. She watched as a visible pulse of gold magic traveled through the cord and upon hitting the golem, the pulse changed to purple as it surrounded the cube for a brief moment. The cube slowed, stopping the carriage. Once they were stopped, the observer pushed mana through another marked panel and she watched the small color show light up the cube again. This time, gravity was clearly set to normal as it stopped floating and fell to the floor. A massive thud reverberated through the air as it hit the ground, feeling as if it was rattling her bones.
In just moments, she saw another man rushing towards them from the docks. Seeing the dust cloud still surrounding them from when the golem hit the dirt, he approached the observer.
“What the hell was that?!” he demanded in Alaric. The observer grimaced and climbed down from the carriage.
“I apologize sir, but it seems a couple of the runes regarding our carriage’s landing cycle were disrupted in some way.”
“No shit.” The observer grimaced again.
“Fortunately, I will not be back for several months and will have no need of the carriage. If you could find someone who works these kinds of runes and hire them to fix it, I am more than willing to pay for both yours and his services to do so.” The man crossed his arms with his brows furrowed before responding.
“Two gold.” The observer struggled to keep his reaction hidden, stunned by the outrageous price. After a few moments, he managed to regain full control and raised an eyebrow.
“That’s an absurd amount and you know that.”
“It is. I agree. Tell that to the golem runesmiths. I understand you may be from the academy where you’ve got lots of this kind of shit around, but here, it’s rare. Honestly, I’m probably lowballing you and I should be asking for more, but I can tell you’re in a hurry and don’t need me fucking things up for your academy.” The observer took a moment to cool his rage before responding.
“Fine.” He opened the back of the carriage and rummaged around before coming out with a handful of bills. While the denominations were still named after the coins that were originally used, coins had fallen out of favor long ago due to their unwieldiness. Especially when it took a hundred of each denomination to get to the next. Carrying dozens or hundreds of coins just isn’t practical. Dropping them in the man’s outstretched hand, he turned to Helianna. “Let’s go.”
He then proceeded to lead her down the docks, throwing an angry glare at the man. The sight of their ship however, stopped Helianna in her tracks.
“You have a golem powered ship?!” she exclaimed, unintentionally switching back to wuuvish.
“Aye.” came a gruff voice from behind her in wuuvish. “That’s my ship, and I am the one that brought him and the rest of his gang to this accursed continent. Now what do ya want?”
“We need passage to Alaric,” responded the observer brusquely.
“Well I can’t do that, now can I? I gotta wait for the rest of the passengers.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but this is of greater importance. I have identified a null and therefore, her passage to The Academy is required as soon as possible.”
“Ain’t happening. I am hired to get as many as I can back and forth.”
“You will be paid for the extra trip, more than your standard rate if necessary.”
“I’m sorry, but that won’t be happening. I will do what I was hired to do.”
“Even for extra?” The captain shook his head. “Well, I’m sorry, but you will. While acting as Observer and identifying a null, I serve as an extension of the academy. While I will be the one paying you, you will be taking us back unless you wish to incite repercussions from The Academy. Are we clear?” The man’s already cross demeanor darkened before he nodded.
“Clear. Although you’ll need to wait for tomorrow at the earliest. We don’t have the supplies to leave now. Not exactly a good time either.”
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“That works.” The man shook his head bitterly and spit on the ground before walking away.
After that, the observer took Helianna to a tavern, where he booked them rooms for the night. He offered to show her around the port town despite it getting dark, but she refused, preferring to get a good rest before getting on a ship for the first time. Unfortunately, her body didn’t agree. Despite her best efforts, it took hours for her to fall asleep and morning came all too early. She was woken up before dawn, and between the darkness and blurriness of waking up, she barely registered anything by the time she was on the boat.
Her eyes were finally focusing properly by the time the sun was rising and the ship was departing, granting a beautiful view. Unfortunately, it was the last beautiful view for several days as she spent much of her time hurling any food she ate back out into the ocean. Fortunately, her seasickness lasted less than a week, but she could still have sworn she lost a good amount of weight during that time, not that she had much to lose.
It took her another week to be comfortable on the boat, where she approached the observer.
“So what’s your name? I don’t want to be just calling you observer the entire time we’re on this ship.”
“Asim.”
“Could you tell me about The Academy?”
“Sure.” He leaned against the railing and turned his head towards her, purposefully not speaking in wuuvish. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, what am I going to be doing?” she asked and he smiled as she also switched to Alaric. He shifted his weight before answering.
“Couldn’t tell you. I may be delivering you to them, but doesn’t mean I work for them or know what’s going on inside. Anything I can actually answer?”
“What’s their stance on the wars?” He lifted an eyebrow.
“Which ones?”
“The ones down south.”
“You mean the New Empodian Invasion? Well I’ll start off with one thing. Whatever you do, I suggest studying up. Alaric views Wulvinia as uneducated barbarians. I don’t know if you just don’t know much about the academy or you really are lacking in education, but I’d suggest making sure you can hold your own if you can. And also speak in Alaric. Now hold on a second, I’ll be right back.” He disappeared into his room, returning with a map that he spread out on a crate nearby.
“So how much do you know about the war?”
“Empodia is the attacker and nobody else is joining, but I don’t know why.”
“Well, not entirely. This has been going on for only about a year, but there’s a lot involved. Honestly way too much to go over right now but I can give you the basics.”
“That’s fine.”
“First off, calling it the New Empodian Invasion is a bit of a misnomer, not that they mind. Due to their conquering past, people almost immediately attributed it to Empodia and they haven’t disputed it even though they have a solid leg to stand on in their argument.
So they’re invading Okegora. I’m not sure how much you know about Okegoran history, but they’re a bit of a unique case. In my opinion, they’re more like conquerors than Empodia, they just do it a different way. About a hundred years ago, they were half the size they are now. However, they’ve shown a desire to centralize Alaric under one economy using their incredible golem working. Their golems actually contend with the academy’s, which put them in the spotlight.
They pick a country, I’m not sure by what qualifications, and decide they’re next. Somehow, they then perfectly copy whatever their main export is, using their golems to be more efficient. They then develop it to the same level, once again, we don’t know how. They then utilize their fame and greater transportation to then undercut the country with their trading partners, making faster efficient trades at a greatly reduced cost.
They then keep doing that, but don’t ask me about the details. I have no clue on any of the minutia on how it works. As they do that, they essentially start bankrupting an entire country. After a while, they then give an offer to the country to join their country to export what they want, but using Okegoran transportation. They need to readjust their currency and everything, but if they don’t, the country will get strangled.
Pretty much every country has agreed. Only one didn’t and declared war. That country was Alcasesh, but because they declared war, Okegora was technically the defender and simply subsumed the country in recompense. Yeah, bullshit, I know.” he interrupted himself after seeing Helianna’s shocked face. “You can probably guess what happened.” Helianna nodded and hesitantly responded.
“They tried to do it to Empodia?”
“Exactly. They got a bit cocky and figured they could do it with a massive powerhouse like them. Empodia immediately declared war. Of course, the only way to get to each other is through the Asken Sea or through Asessarim. Neither Aska, which controls much of the Askan Sea, nor Assessarim has agreed to join the war, and Assessarim won’t allow their troops through.
If Assessarim joins the war, a huge portion of it will happen on their land, but they’re also strong enough that if either country declares war on them, it will be the end of the war. And Assessarim is backing Aska, so they can’t attack Aska either. It’s not necessarily because of Assessarim’s military strength, but neither country will be able to take on both Asessarim and the other country.
There’s also all the western Alaric countries, who all want Okegora to stop so they don’t get economically conquered, but none of them have strong enough militaries to truly join the war. And then there’s the academy, stuck in the middle. To be frank, nobody is stupid enough to attack the academy. There have been many attempts to push the academy to help one or the other, often for the sake of humanity or because war crimes have been committed, but they’re almost always fabricated or exaggerated. The Academy rarely gets involved, and when they do, it’s impartial. At least that’s what they claim. Their only goal is to prevent and discourage war crimes, or keep the balance if an individual power gets too strong. And by that, I do not mean a nation. I mean individuals. That was probably a lot more information than you wanted, but it doesn’t hurt to have.”
“So, I have another question.” she muttered sheepishly. He raised an eyebrow before gesturing for her to continue. “Can tijatans actually fly or just glide? Everybody says something different.” His eyes widened and his ears went ram-rod straight, apparently a sign of surprise.
“You… what? Uh, no. We can’t fly. At least not most of us. Only highly trained warriors with insane amounts of muscle and training can gain altitude effectively. This is fairly basic information about us, I didn’t think your town was that small.”
“Well how are we supposed to know when none of your species are around.”
“What?” he exclaimed, before glancing around sheepishly and quieting down. “We are not a rare species. Maybe it’s just where you live.” He hummed in thought before continuing. “Alright, I’ll go over some basics with you. You at least have seen each of the four species and know what we all look like, right?” She nodded.
“So I’ll start with how common they are on the southern continent since that’s what started this. I’m sure you’re aware that humans are the majority. However, after that comes the tijatans such as yours truly and the davraki. The kinuze are a bit different. If you go by planetary population, they are second to humans. However, being the only species that can survive the intensive heat of the desert lands, their population is heavily situated around the equator. In the southern continent itself, I’d say they’re the least common, but I wouldn’t say they’re rare.”
“I know all that.” Helianna replied quietly. “Except for your species. We don’t see yours much.”
“Interesting, I wonder why.”
The conversation petered out and they separated. Helianna tried several times in the following days to initiate conversation with him, but quickly discovered that when he wasn’t ‘correcting her poor education’ or ‘departing his wisdom’, he was not very easy to talk to, downright stiff. She instead tried talking to the sailors, the few who existed on the ship. Turns out that when sails and oars weren’t necessarily, it takes a lot less crew to man a ship. They were a bit more interesting, but didn’t have much of a desire to talk to her, making conversation difficult as well, though still easier to talk to than Asim. That didn’t take much though.
Due to poor conversation partners and very little else to do, she found herself spending much of her time in her room practicing magic which was very valuable. She still didn’t know what she could do with her magic, partially because she was afraid of what her affinity might be. Gold was the color of the sovereign and she didn’t want to think about the consequences of a random foreigner in the ‘barbarian’ continent having sovereign magic. She couldn’t be certain though so she kept practicing.
By the time they reached their destination, she could reliably locate and circulate the mana within her body, which she believed was the first step. Books on magic weren’t exactly easy to require before coming of age and just learning that much had been difficult in the past few years. However, she still couldn’t figure out what to do with her magic. The only thing she’d managed to accomplish so far was making light, something that anybody with a non-crafting affinity could do. She was in the middle of another frustrating session of little progress when a knock came at her door. They had arrived.