Mateo was coming back from dinner with Felix. They were loud as they hit their own bunks, discussing some card game they were playing during the meal. “Where is the mage?” I asked.
“Still eating. She is down in the common room,” Mateo said. He then advised as I rolled painfully to my feet, “Do not get too close. Mages, even pretty ones, are look, but don’t touch, Eryk.”
“It’s cool. I just wanted to ask her some magic-related questions. You know, between mages,” I said with a knowing smile as I stiffly walked out of the room, wincing with each step.
The stairs were hard, and I almost fell. Fucking Konstantin had targeted my right hip flexor to teach me how to cripple an opponent. The muscle was all knotted, and I rubbed it to get it working when I reached the stairs’ bottom. The common room was mostly empty because it was late, and we had an early start. Renna was studying one of her books at a table by herself, and I sat across from her. She was young. Late teens, I would guess. She looked up at me, making eye contact, but did not speak.
“I wanted to ask some questions about the book you are reading. And here is your disc back. I got it to work, and it was as I expected,” I said, sliding the artifact across the table. She put it in her satchel.
“What questions do you have?” she closed the book and gave me her attention.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})“What is in the book? Does it detail the common spell forms you can make from each affinity?” I asked, knowing the title was about all twenty-one magic affinities.
“Yes, it does. Having the associated spellbook does greatly aid in the process.” She pulled out a thin spellbook that I did not catch the title of, “I am trying to learn one of the more difficult spell forms for the earth affinity. It is called hardened rock. Extremely useful in construction. Also paired with the High Mage’s earth-to-stone, it makes trapping burrowing creatures easy.” Renna explained.
“What about the other common spell forms? Like fire?” I asked, slowly getting to the information I wanted to know.
“It depends on your affinity strength. With my high affinity, I will probably be asked to form my fire into wave of flame or flaming meteor. Both are very difficult to learn,” Renna said with a tired voice. “I will not know until I am assigned to a High Mage specializing in fire.” I felt sorrow for her. Even though she was powerful, she did not control what she was learning.
“I am sure you will do it. You have the talent and affinity for it! I mean, you can fly!” I praised her. “What about healing? What are the typical spell forms for that sphere of magic?” I asked. Was I being too obvious with my interest? I needed to know, though. There was a risk of manifesting an ability much weaker than your affinity could manage, so I wanted to reach for the limit. Although, I didn’t know my affinity in healing magic, other than it was over 15.
She opened the book and paged to a specific page. I looked at the writing and was frustrated. I could read it, but my brain was still very slow in translating the script. I would have to puzzle out each word one at a time and then read the sentence like a first grade. Thankfully I had someone to read for me, “The are three tiers. The lowest tier has three options listed here. Mend bone, knit flesh, and diagnose. This lowest tier is for those with affinities under 20.”
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})She read for a while, then said, “The next range is for those with the affinity between 20 and 50. It has three possible aspirations for manifesting a spell form. A cure wounds that also affects organs and all flesh but does not do well with broken bones. A purify, which is weird. According to this, it can remove poison, disease, and even cleanse your bowels. The third one is calcify; it repairs and hardens bones. The highest tier is for affinities between 50 and 70. The first is a powerful heal. It heals everything, flesh, bone, and disease. The only other only ability is called rejuvenate. It turns back the aging clock slightly.”
She looked up from her book. “Not all spell forms are listed in here.” She turned over the book in her hands, “This is just what the mage college suggests as being the most useful.”
I nodded, “Sometimes it is fun to wonder what it would be like if I had high affinities for other magic spheres,” I explained my interest. I asked about celestial affinity next, listening intently as she read and explained. Then I went to my true goal, the affinity for convergence.
“Convergence? That is extremely rare. Not even sure if there is anything in here.” She flipped to the correct page. “The lowest tier is just helping recover aether from the environment. At ley line nexus, the mage essentially has infinite aether. As long as they don’t burn out their aether channels.”
“Anything for higher tiers, for a stronger higher affinity?” I tried to hold back my excitement.
“Uh, let me read. Give me a moment,” She was having fun and liked our interaction. I guess I was kind of flirting with her. “The mid-tier for convergence suggested here is some type of aether sight.” That is definitely not something I had gained. She continued, “Wow, the highest tier is called assimilation. It allows the mage to maximize their benefit for consuming essences. It makes absorbed essences ten times more effective—maybe even more! Now that would be useful!”
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})Yes, it would, I thought. Is that why the only essence I had absorbed had been so effective? I had gained four quickness and even raised my potential in quickness by one in three weeks after consuming the essence. But the lesser essence was only supposed to give a relative effect boost of one-twentieth of a point. Did this have to do with my affinity being so high at 74?
I asked about charm affinities next but was only half paying attention to Renna when she looked it up. After she reviewed them, we went to the room to get some sleep. I lay there thinking and heard her shifting all night in the bunk below me. I had given her the lower bunk to make it easier for her but regretted it as the entire bunk shook when she moved. She probably was not comfortable sleeping without a mattress. I took my heavy blanket and passed it to her below. She hesitated before taking it and getting comfortable.
It was cool but not cold. It was pitch black, and I removed one of the horse blankets from my dimensional storage. I lay there wide awake staring at the ceiling. I needed to get more essence. Mage Castille had an essence array—the artifact shield used to extract the essence from recently killed creatures. Her legionaries were rewarded for outstanding performance, so maybe I could get some. But I also needed an ability tablet to see my growth to test it out. Shit, if I didn’t know they could track me, I might desert. For now, I was trapped for five years of service. At least as long as all my debt was paid off, I would be free after that.
I fell asleep dreaming about my two unknown affinity ratings. How high were my healing and guardian affinities? They seemed too perfect for my career as a soldier. I needed to get access to a magic affinity tablet again. I also needed to practice reading to get familiar with the different characters. Reading like a seven-year-old, deciphering each word one at a time, was frustrating.
It felt like I had just closed my eyes when a hand slapped my bed, “Wake up, you two. Breakfast will be served shortly, and Castille likes to leave at dawn.” It was Mateo who was smiling brightly at my discomfort. “You should not take Lucien’s blankets for the horses, Eryk. He does not like that.”
I gingerly climbed down from the top bunk. Moving was painful. I packed my things and stumbled down the stairs after Felix and Mateo, sending the blanket to my space when I knew I was not being looked at. Renna was slightly slower than me. The common room was crowded, and everyone was packing saddle bags and forcing down food. I went to the meal table and got a large pocket pita again filled with meat and melty cheese. I was also given another sandwich wrapped in a waxy substance. I was told it was my mid-day meal.
I drank heavily from the water barrel and filled my canteen as well. Outside, the sky was just starting to break with pink hues. I quickly saddled Ginger and was one of the first ones ready to leave. Just as the large sun appeared in the distance, we moved out. I was directed to ride behind Castille and her two lieutenants, Adrian and Delmar. Renna increased her pace to ride next to me.
I talked to Renna about magic but focused my attention on her, asking her about her life before becoming a mage. With Mage Castille being in earshot, I did not want to give any hints of my specific interests.
Renna grew up in a small village. Her father was a sheep herder, and her mother made wool yarn. She described the long process from shearing to cleaning to sorting to carding to spinning. I pretended to be enthralled with her descriptions and asked in-depth questions about the process. A few hours later, we were at the base of the mountains, where the team indicated they noticed the griffons returning with a kill.
I asked, “If they are already returning with a kill, doesn’t that mean they are feeding their young?”
It was Konstantin who answered my question from the back, “No. Too early in the season. The mated pair take turns hunting while the other guards the clutch of eggs. Justin may be an idiot, but his pathfinder Marius is one of the best. They came early in the season. It should be another two months before they hatch.”
Castille nodded to Konstantin for the information and then addressed the company, “We are leaving the horses here.” A wave of groans came. I was also dreading the climb. “Lucien, Donte, and Benito will stay with the horses.” The horses would also have trouble in the steep climbs and make too much noise.
Donte and Benito nodded and dismounted. I was a little upset as I had been training to be a horse master, but I guess since I carried the company’s potions, I needed to be with the lead element. Mateo helped me pack my backpack for two days as we just wanted the essentials to keep the pack as light as possible. When we started the climb, I had trouble keeping up, not because I was out of shape but because I was so bruised.
Renna was in worse shape than me. She was sucking wind and slowing our ascent up the game trails. On difficult sections, she would use short bursts of her flight ability. It got everyone asking jokingly for a ride. Castille eventually had everyone end the comments as they were starting to border on lewdness.
When we reached a summit, Castille let us eat our lunch. I collapsed hard and devoured my meal. Renna sat with me, but we didn’t talk. We just ate. Orson, one of the scouts, pointed in the distance. A few miles away, a griffon was circling another peak further into the mountains. Damn, that looked so far away.
We descended into a narrow valley, and Orson found a maybe a month-old campsite. I asked him how he determined that. He showed me the fire pit, the decomposition of the shit in the woods, and the regrowth from where the adventurers cleared for space their camp.
We didn’t pause long before heading to the far side of the wooded valley. Konstantin was next to me, and I asked, “Why haven’t creatures attacked us?”
“Our party is too big. They are scattering before us. They are out there. Do not wander off alone,” he lectured me.
I nodded as the valley ended, and we started to make another ascent.
