by Zack Finley
"I'll have to scrutinize it more closely and compare it with some examples I have in my collection before being certain, but your armor has not been seen for nearly a century."
"This is consistent with what we know about it," Argon said. "While the armor is new to us, our patron has had it in a collection for some time."
"A group of 12 warriors on a holy quest visited Losan to commission our finest armor more than a century ago. Warriors commission armor all the time so little would be recalled about this if they hadn't specified oso armor," explained Orik. "There are at most three oso hides harvested in any year. Most years it varies between one and two. My father was among the armorers who laughed at their request.
"Demand for oso armor is very limited. It is too expensive for all but the wealthiest. For the few who can afford it, it just doesn't look like it is worth what it costs. There has been some debate within armorer circles whether it is even moral to keep making the armor due to the cost in lives. We just continue along at the current level; it limits the loss of life yet satisfies our national pride.
"Osos are smart and elusive. Losans with strong animal insight say osos love to hunt our hunters. We estimate at least two registered hunters are killed for every oso hide harvested. We don't know how many unregistered hunters die," said Orik.
"Nearly 100 years ago the 12 warriors asked where to find the osos. They traveled to one of the villages on the border of that region and walked into the wilderness. The men carried themselves like formidable warriors, so some of them were expected to survive. For a week bets were flying in the armorer and hunting communities on how many would return and whether the survivors would bring back even one oso hide.
"My father was impressed with the warriors' armor and weapons. He wasn't willing to bet on how many would die, but he thought they were stubborn enough they would return with at least one hide.
"They were all wrong. The warriors marched back into the village with 12 hides. Several were limping, and most had visible injuries. They presented their prizes to the armorer council and asked them to complete the armor as commissioned," said Orik. "I believe your armors are two of those 12 sets."
"Each set of armor was considered a masterpiece of enchanting and construction with every armorer vying to outdo the other. My father told me they knew these men intended to put the armor to hard use and no armorer wanted theirs to fail the test of battle."
It was a great story. It gave me an odd sense of pride to wear armor first worn by such worthy warriors. It didn't answer many questions about the specific enchantments, but I hoped Orik could help there.
"Our armor was honorably obtained," said Argon. "We do not know the fate of those brave warriors, but there are no signs their armor failed them."
Orik obviously had truth sense because he relaxed a tiny bit with her statement.
"We are trying to understand the nature of the enchantments. Taking armor into battle without understanding its qualities is problematic. We upgraded to this armor only after our last sets failed to protect us," said Argon.
"I will need more time than I have now," said Orik. "I will want to consult the texts from that time. I think you are wearing the armor my father made," pointing to me, "but yours is from another armorer family. The council will be very interested to know the armor has resurfaced."
"Perhaps you can convey our second request to the attention of the armorers' council," Argon asked. "We apologize if our approach has been clumsy, but our need is great. We have already fought many battles against slavers and pirates in the past week."
"I'll pass your request onto the council. I suspect if you agree to wear your armor to the meeting, they will fall all over themselves to see it. I doubt your request for an armorer will be honored. Losan guards its secrets fiercely.
"Thank you for coming to see me. I must give my shopkeeper a large bonus for saving my house from a major disgrace. I'll also tell my grandnephew he should consider a new career, perhaps in appliances," said Orik, gave us the slight bow typical of Jaloan mages.
The attendant escorted us back to the lobby and stayed with us until we teleported away.
◆◆◆
Chapter 10
Cleon reported some progress on removing the vegetation from our keep. The consultants were so taken with the property they agreed to recruit a team of foresters to collect seeds, move what could be moved and then remove vegetation which actually required it. Some of the trees were quite rare and were not native to the area.
The foresters had already convinced the trees on the road between the guild teleport location and the keep gate to move out of the way. They estimated it would require about a week for them to move that far.
They recommended we recruit our own foresters and farmers as soon as possible.
On the matter of a trusted mage ally in Losan, we were striking out. King Ruton was not interested in approaching Losan's King Arvich directly. King Arvich was of the same generation as King Rufix.
Inoa thought Arvich had insulted the Klee king during a border clash when the Klee King's Guard crossed the poorly marked border chasing a band of robbers. The Klee guard caught them, brought them to back to Kleva and executed them.
Losan complained about the border incursion and demanded Klee return the criminals. Since they had already been executed, Losan filed a protest. For weeks the two nations exchanged terse diplomatic correspondence. The two kings never spoke.
Now the Klee King's Guard killed or captured any criminals before they reached the border. Any who crossed the border were pursued and killed on the spot.
We’d be on our own in Losan.
While I was dealing with the main issue, Argon was being distracted by Findot.
Findot reported in from two other camps. The last camp voted to send a volunteer from each nearby village to scout them out. They were tasked to verify how badly the villages were hit and confirm there were no survivors.
Argon told Findot to advise the rest of the camps to consider this option, especially if it would help them make an informed choice.
Tobron checked in. He was pleased with the retirees gathering, but no one signed up on the spot. He was confident we'd get some takers because as a group they were dissatisfied with retirement.
We warned our partners we were ready to teleport to Kavil. We were only planning to assess the conditions and leave. Argon shared the 'port location with them, just in case. We had our emergency teleport set to the hospital lobby. We queued up a variety of combat spells including shield walls before teleporting.
Argon and I stood back-to-back, with the fingers of one hand entwined. I teleported us to Kavil.
We arrived in a shuttered temple. Vandals had trashed the place, though the damage was superficial. Someone had boarded up the broken windows and doorway. The temple wards were weak and barely perceivable.
We detected no immediate threat and opened our mind-reading apps. Argon looked for mages. I sampled the thoughts of the few people in the immediate area. What we learned confirmed the complete breakdown of law and order. For most around us, it was every individual or small group for themselves.
No one knew what had happened. One day everything seemed normal, and the next day something had happened to the king and those around him. No one believed it until the king's guard disappeared off the street corners.
While gangs of foreign raiders and thugs had left a few weeks before, the survivors were sure they'd be back. When the last ship was loaded with treasure and slaves at the ports, the raiders torched the dock section of Kavil. Those who hadn't fled the docks in time were incinerated. Most believed mage fire caused the port area destruction as in many places the stone itself had melted. There had been sporadic attempts to burn buildings in the city of Kavil, but these were more vandalism than serious arson. Some thought the mages hadn't wasted time attacking the city due to the many wards protecting individual buildings.
The raiders spent several days smashing and grabbing in the ci
ty before leaving on their ships. The common belief was they took everything of value. What the attackers couldn't carry they smashed, slashed, or burned.
The raiders talked openly about already having too many slaves. By the time they descended on Kavil they were only interested in young women or girls. They slaughtered anyone else they caught.
After the first few days, the raiders were too drunk to pose a serious organized threat to the main city. One morning those around us woke to a pall of smoke billowing from the port district and the raiders were gone.
Everyone within our mind-reading range now lived as furtive scavengers, breaking into empty dwellings and taking whatever they needed. Individuals and smaller groups were beginning to band together to defend what they had.
Argon could not spot any mages with our mind-reading app.
Argon and I agreed it was likely Ylee was in similar condition, but we had to know for sure.
We stood back to back in combat mode engulfed with Argon's full invisibility effect and teleported to Ylee. This temple had been vandalized. Its wards were no longer active. There were even fewer people in the area around us than we spotted in Kavil.
Those who remained were mostly groups of one to three. They were hardcore scavengers. Their natures were much darker, too. They reminded me of hyenas, opportunistic killers but mostly foragers. Most holed up in the daylight and roamed the surrounding area hunting for supplies at night.
The story of Ylee mirrored what we learned in Kavil. Whatever happened struck Ylee a few weeks before Kavil. Many around us had welcomed the disappearance of the king's guard; it made it easier to rob their neighbors. Ylee's criminal class owned the city for a month, as long as they stayed away from the docks
At first, the heaviest blows from the coup landed on the port. A series of lightning raids captured every ship in the harbor in one night.
A few of those around us had been crewmembers on some of the ships taken over by the raiders. They'd been ashore when pirates shanghaied their ships and enslaved the crews. They suspected the fate of the officers was even worse. They'd watched barges offload a mix of slaves and plunder onto most of the ships in the harbor while a swarm of carts and long haulers shifted much of the goods from the warehouses.
Only after the port warehouses had been emptied did the rampage in downtown Ylee begin in earnest. This forced residents to hide or flee to the suburbs. Taverns and high-end businesses were hit first, then the mayhem spread. A steady stream of drunken raiders, usually with one or two female slaves carrying sacks of loot traveled from downtown to the harbor for a week. A similar stream, without the slaves, staggered back to the city center to loot anew.
Fireworks at the docks indicated the end of the siege. By the time anyone around us got to the ports to look, the port area was a smoldering wreck. All the ships were gone.
Several around us lost stashes of loot they stole immediately after the king's guard disappeared. Most of their stashes burned in random acts of arson or were taken by other scavengers rather than the raiders. By now, most had realized luxury items only sold when people had enough to eat. Today’s main scavenging challenge was finding enough food to eat. Hunger was rampant.
After verifying the fate of Ylee and Kavil, we returned to our headquarters' suite in Klee. We shared our findings with our partners. Cleon promised to apprise King Ruton.
Argon and I agreed preventing Losan from descending into similar chaos had to be our top priority. The timing suggested the Losan assassins were already in place. We just didn't have the contacts needed to approach the king directly--especially without tipping off his traitor or the other plotters. We were confident the plotters would launch the coup prematurely if they suspected someone was trying to thwart them.
I also wanted to locate and destroy the raiders' main camp between Kavil and Ylee. Argon convinced me we'd need reinforcements before going there, after all, we'd nearly lost our lives going against the two raider mages we met in Augun. Assaulting their home base would be a lot more dangerous and require a lot more help.
◆◆◆
Chapter 11
Findot wrapped up her visits to the Augun camps. She told Argon all the camps had elected to send small groups to nearby villages and report back to the camps on their conditions. They also decided to send someone back to the closest city, Asme or Flom, and assess conditions there.
We alerted Olive about the latest from the camps. She was happy they were showing signs of moving forward. She said she would share this with Sgt. Bomes and Lt. Brik in her next communication.
Olive had great news. Xerib, her Augun mage commander had contacted her. She admitted she’d been in touch with him immediately after the coup struck. Xerib’s alert was sufficient to put Marko’s guard on alert and save his life. Xerib had also warned the Augun Mage Guild and Augun King's Guard mages before going to ground.
While Argon was disturbed Olive had successfully hidden this information from her original mental scan, she agreed it was great news for the country of Augun.
We knew from interrogating the Augun assassins they believed they had killed Xerib and his mage corps. We hoped they were as wrong about the corps as they were about Xerib.
Xerib was meeting now with King Rufix. Olive was hoping he had a way to recall the rest of the mage corps.
This could be a significant step forward for Augun. Xerib had stature in the mage community and might persuade others to come forward. I feared if the Augun mages sat on the sidelines rather than pitched in to rebuild their country, Lt. Valso's attitude about mages would prevail. The sheer fact the coup attempt was executed by mages was bad enough.
If the Augun mages remained holed up in imagined luxury while the rest of the country suffered they would not be welcomed home after the country was back on its feet. I had learned lesser issues than this had caused mage pogroms in the past.
Olive was relieved to hear we were still willing to help out in Augun until they were better staffed.
We went down to the front desk to pick up our formal wear. Argon 'ported it back to our apartment while I chatted with Jofi, who was manning the front desk.
She said the applications to join our new keep were starting to trickle in. She admitted one of the applicants was her twin. I told her the more family, the merrier, including retirees. She said she'd talk with her grandparents next.
We wished her well and left for the Klee market for some lunch and to stock up on perishable foodstuffs. There was a big crowd around the Toffad's Keep booth at the market; we didn't approach.
Tobron confirmed we had a batch of young recruits to interview in the morning. We were attracting a lot of attention in the pre-mating age group but so far, no mated individuals, pairs or retirees. We told him we'd help with the mages but to go ahead and hire all the mundanes he could keep busy. We'd definitely meet them before the end of their probationary period.
We had too many irons in the fire. I sent a request for a partner meeting in our headquarters meeting room either before or after the interviews with the mage recruits in the morning.
No one doubted the need for such coordination, the only issue was timing. The consensus was before the interviews would be best. That would allow Alba to make her morning rounds to check on her patients after the meeting.
Argon felt some of my frustration was due to my failure to understand the mental tools most mages took for granted. She showed me how she kept track of things mentally. This helped me finally understand how she could access information so quickly. While her visualization was uncomfortable for me, I saw how I could easily adapt it into mental memos, lists, folders and file cabinets in my mind. Maps, too.
Argon's method worked for her, but it seemed chaotic to me. She'd never heard of memos or folders because most mages didn't bother writing short-term issues down with pen and ink. They made a mental image of it and stored it in memory.
She told me larger organizations employed something similar to my memo, which summarized an in
cident, the action taken, or some other information they believed would benefit a wide-array of individuals. These were shared via com-card or mental link. These were valued because they could contain a lot of information but be shared in milliseconds of communication. This allowed the other mage or mages to review only the summary up front but have the backup information available at need.
Argon thought we were growing fast enough there were some benefits to adopting this type of communications protocol. Another topic for tomorrow's meeting.
No more stylus and paper for me. Especially since it was never at hand when it would be useful.
Argon suggested I store information from the books on magic I was reading as a constant reference companion.
I asked whether I could see her book collection and she moved it to the common partner area for all to share. She organized her observations by country and town. Since Tobron had borne the brunt of getting us up and running, she expected to work with him to put his knowledge base up in the shared area over the next few days.