Chapter 22 #2
Derell looked at Alsen the way a guard dog looks at a stranger entering the yard. Broad, bearded, clad in plate armor that had seen real use. “Mage,” he repeated, as if the word tasted sour. “I’ve never heard of you.”
“Nice to meet you,” Alsen said. “I am new to the area.”
Derell grunted. He leaned toward Arleria. “We still need to talk about the vase.”
“It’s not enchanted, as I have told you. Just like the rest of the treasure we recovered. The dungeon wasn’t worth the time.”
He grunted, clearly unhappy. “A waste of time. Took us two weeks, too.”
She turned back to Alsen, dismissing Derell with a fluidity that betrayed familiarity. He was her party member. “Apologies, where were we?”
“Right.” He pulled a chair from a nearby table and sat, uninvited.
The intuition told him it was fine, and with all the points he had just spent on charisma, he trusted the instinct.
“From what I’ve seen, mages typically learn their spells from existing templates, sharing them with their peers.
I have merely been unlucky in not meeting my peers. Until now.”
“That’s how the art is typically taught, yes.” She sat across from him. Derell remained seated next to her, crossing his arms, radiating disapproval. “The academies in Kassenrahl codified most of the standard spell frameworks centuries ago,” she said. “Long before the war.”
Alsen leaned forward. “If only there were magical academies in the mountains I grew up in.”
“There are three of them.” She tilted her head, the same assessing look from before. “Which I would expect every mage to know.”
“I grew up in the mountains.” The lie came out smoother than usual. Thank you, charisma. “In a very isolated area south of Ambervale.”
She formed a playful smile. “Are you really a mage, though?”
He pulled on his power. As if when he molded the power to cast the Lance of Annihilation, but rather than going through with the spell, he let the power radiate into space uncontrolled.
The air in the entire tavern quaked, becoming as thick as water. Everyone froze, their drinks stuck in their mugs and glasses. Quite a few people gasped with their mouths, unable to breathe the air of such magical intensity.
“I like to see myself as such,” Alsen said. He stopped the power emission. It cost a ton of power, and he also didn’t need to suffocate half of the inn. “Who knows, though?”
That earned him a broad smile from Arleria. A real one this time. “The academies have survived even the Dragon War. Most of the institutional knowledge is restricted, but exists even as a common folk tradition. Spell frameworks are mostly common knowledge among practitioners.”
“Where did you study?”
“In the Kassenrahl academy.” She leaned back. “I was a good student too, once, a long time ago. But I’ve caught the scent of adventure and never quite became the ritualist my mother always wanted me to be. So many years, and she still has yet to make peace with it.”
“I know that feeling.” He did. Intimately. “The path of the arcane tends to be awfully lonely. My parents never forgave me for not pursuing a career as a doctor.”
“A doctor?”
“Both my parents and siblings are. I am the middle child of three. Being the only one unwilling to study medicine made me the natural black sheep of the family.”
She tilted her head, still smiling. “What spells do you like to cast?”
“I focus on energy manipulation, primarily. That fills my repertoire with offensive spells.” He weighed how much to share.
The charisma nudged him toward honesty. A bold play, but honest. “And I also dabble in elemental conjuration, so I can summon rain or fly. It’s impractical to do both at the same time, though. ”
Arleria ran her hand through her hair, rearranging it. “I can imagine. That sounds awfully mana-consuming.”
A precise analysis. “Currently, a touch too high for sustained combat. I’m working on efficiency, but the fundamental structure of the spells resists optimization.”
“Because you built it from scratch.”
“Yes.”
“Framework mages don’t have that problem. The templates already have centuries of optimization baked in.” She crossed her legs. “But they also can’t do anything that the templates don’t allow. Quite the opposite problem, isn’t it?”
Alsen felt something warm in his chest that had nothing to do with the System.
This woman understood. Not in the way anyone else ever did.
Arleria understood because she lived in the same world of problems. “Exactly,” he said.
“The template is a prison for creativity. I’d rather find my own path of magic, even if it temporarily sacrifices efficiency. ”
“Most mages would disagree.”
“I am not most mages.”
She looked at him for a beat longer than conversational. “You’re quite opinionated.”
“I am right, as far as choosing my own path is concerned. Admittedly, that has made its fair share of people uncomfortable.”
That got the smile. Another real one. It transformed her face, softening the sharp edges into something warm and immediate. It lasted only a moment before she reined it back in, but he caught the full effect, and his heartbeat went somewhere it hadn’t been in a very long time.
“Arleria,” Derell said, his patience visibly fraying. “About the vase…”
Oh, buzz off. Alsen barely held himself from saying it.
“Is not enchanted, Derell. I’ve told you three times.”
“Malick won’t like it.”
“Malick can verify it himself. Oh, wait, he can’t, because I’m the only one in this group with the capability.” She rose from her chair, and the movement carried an implied aura of superiority, a typical trademark of magic wielders. “I apologize,” she said to Alsen. “My group requires maintenance.”
“May I walk with you?”
The question surprised her. He could tell because her composure cracked by a hair. She recovered fast. “We’re headed to the market to pawn the vase. It’s not going to be exciting.”
“I find vase disputes fascinating.”
She snorted. An actual snort, not a ladylike exhale. Alsen’s heart did something complicated. “Very well, then. Try to keep up.”
Derell looked at Alsen with an expression that communicated, very clearly, that he would prefer Alsen to be elsewhere. Ideally, at the bottom of a lake. Alsen ignored him with the serene confidence of a man whose charisma score was sixty-one points higher than yesterday.
They headed for the exit, walked out of the inn, and aimed for the market square.
They met the rest of Arleria’s group there. Two more men, a lanky archer named Kern, who seemed to communicate primarily through eyebrow movements, and a stocky man almost the size of Theron, called Malick, who carried a warhammer across his back like it weighed nothing.
“Who’s this?” Malick asked, looking Alsen up and down.
“A mage I met at the guild,” Arleria said. “He’s observing.”
“Observing what?”
Alsen smiled. “The exciting world of vase disputes.”
Malick and Kern exchanged a look. The look said plenty.
The vase merchant occupied a stall near the eastern edge of the market, a wiry man with oil-slicked hair and an expression of unshakable confidence. When he saw Arleria’s group approaching with the vase, his expression pivoted to the defensive. “Back to try to scam me with the mundane vase?”
“There’s nothing mundane about it,” Malick said, voice steady and confident. “We have brought a neutral mage to confirm it for your unskilled eyes.”
Oh. Alsen didn’t miss a beat, though he caught the playful glance from the corner of Arleria’s eye. He had to play along to have any chance with Arleria. “Indeed,” he said. “If you would allow me to demonstrate.”
“I’m all eyes and ears.” The merchant motioned towards the vase Derell carried.
Alsen swept the vase from Derell’s hands.
“See the pattern drawn into it. It might seem unassuming at first, but there is magic woven underneath it. Let me show you.” He ran his hand over the pattern, pushing magic into the vase.
It wasn’t going to do anything, but he funneled the mana into the entire vase.
That was going to fade in a few hours, but until then, it would appear magical. He rubbed the vase a bit.
“With the embedded pattern activated, which I have just done, the vase’s magic is unleashed. Feel it for yourself.” Alsen handed the statue to the merchant.
With narrowed eyes, the man took the vase. Examining it carefully. “I can indeed feel something now. What did you do to the vase, precisely?”
“I merely unlocked the enhancement. Any flowers placed into the vase will not wither or fade from their beauty in any way.”
He glanced up at him. “They told me it would keep the water in it fresh.”
“Which is how the flowers are stopped from withering,” Alsen countered. “An eternally fresh water will keep the flowers eternally alive without ever withering.”
The merchant eyed him. Alsen stood calmly in place. He let the confident silence do the talking. “Fine,” he surrendered. “I’ll pay you the promised price.”
Alsen stepped a touch aside. Arleria took his side, standing slightly closer than she had to. Malick and Derell handled the coins, getting what looked like fifty golden coins for the vase.
Meanwhile, Arleria leaned closer to him. “Do you have plans for the evening?”
“Not precisely,” he admitted. “Do you have something in mind?”
“I’ve got a reservation at Silver Antler. It’s quite a high-class place. I thought I would bring Derell with me, but I believe you would be more suitable to keep me company for the evening.”
His heart skipped a beat. “I will be honored to accompany you.”