Arcane Engineer

by Andrew O'Kelley

  An uneasy feeling flooded Abby’s body as she processed the words this man was saying. Nicodemus had known her parents or at least claimed to have known them. "How did you know them? She asked suspiciously, her voice tinged with a healthy edge of skepticism.

  Nicodemus laughed, an empty and hollow laugh that hinted at self-loathing and bitterness. "Of course I knew your parents, Marie was my daughter, and her husband, your fool of a father, was the bane of my existence. His ability to irritate and disappoint, I’m sure, was something he learned in turn from his own father."

  Abby hardened her jaw, avoiding the impulse to grind her teeth or attack the man outright. The more this Nicodemus spoke, the angrier she got. Resenting that he was making these outlandish claims and misrepresenting both her treasured Abuelo and the father she had lost as an infant.

  Seeing the look, Nicodemus frowned, raising an eyebrow. "Yes, your grandfather, the one that’s kept you hidden away from the world, hoping no one would figure out what you are. He’s a damn fool, and I’ll repeat it as many times as needed to get that point across. None of this would have ever happened had he just listened to me when I told him how things were going to work out."

  "I don’t believe any of this. This was a mistake; Abuelo must have made a mistake I don’t belong here. There's no way that I can work with you." Abby yelled as she turned to leave, getting ready to run out the door.

  Nicodemus followed behind her, grabbing her by the shoulder before she could leave. "That would be a mistake for you to leave. If he sent you my way, it’s a sign that going back would be dangerous for you. That man was always jealously protective of you. He would never have sent you my way unless he thought he had no other choice."

  "Let go of me," Abby demanded as her gauntlet starting to pulse with the purple energy of the Arcane. Preparing to dismantle the door in front of her and use the pieces to put distance between her and Nicodemus.

  "Fine, you want proof, you don’t believe me? Here's your proof since you don’t seem to care enough about yourself to realize how hard the future is about to get. You said you didn’t bother to read the sign that showed my shop was closed, right? Did you at least catch the name?" Nicodemus shouted, trying as he did to make a point he thought was critical.

  Abby didn’t want to have anything more to do with the man. She shrugged off his hand, starting the process of destroying the door as Nicodemus tried to prevent her from leaving.

  "Just look ok? Just look." He asked, his voice getting softer, pleading with her. Wanting her to see reason. Why is it so important to him. Nothing is going to change my mind.

  "I already saw it. You think you're clever, right? Having a store simply named supplies." Abby’s words were intentionally cutting, and though she wasn’t a cruel person or a mean one, the man had angered her. She just wanted to leave, even if she had nowhere and no idea of where to go.

  "Did you catch the full name, not just the last part that said supplies? Look again." Nicodemus asked, probing, guiding her.

  "Fine, I’ll look, and then you can stay out of my way, and let me be." She responded irately towards him as he nodded, moving away, letting her open the door and peak out. Abby glanced up, past the words reading supplies. The man was right; supplies were just part of the name.

  When she saw what it said, Abby’s heart dropped. Wondering why she had missed something so important. Nicodemus tried to gently guide her back into the store, away from prying and unfriendly eyes that might see something and raise concerns.

  The name of the store was "Ruthiare’s Supplies." The man was right. They were family. Of course, he had known her parents.

  "I didn’t mean to make you cry," Nicodemus said awkwardly, trying to diffuse the situation, uncertain how to respond to her emotions. "Believe what you want to believe, leave if you want to, but you don’t have to. You’ve got a place here. You can follow me to the back, and you can stay in your mom’s old room. I’ve tried to keep it like it was when she was just a girl."

  Nicodemus motioned with his head for Abby to follow him and turned walking away. He grabbed hold of the cloth curtain that separated the shop from the rest of the building and held it open. He turned away to see if Abby was following him. "Come on now, don’t just stand there. Follow me. We’ve got a lot to cover and not a lot of time to do it."

  Not yet moving, Abby asked him one question. "Is this where my mother grew up? Running this store with you?"

  "Ha, no." Laughed Nicodemus as he held the curtain, leaning against the wall, knowing Abby would follow. "She grew up here, but it wasn’t always a shop. This used to be the Adventurers Guild back when that was still a thing. Back before the Empire outlawed the practice. This is where your mother learned the basics of being an Arcane mage. You want to know more? Come along."

  "Yeah, I guess I do." Admitted Abby as she did a light jog to catch up with him and passed through the curtain. “So what does that make you to me?

  Nicodemus smiled, and with a word towards the Homunculus’s Abby had created, instructed them to lock up shop. “Kin for now. Family is more than just a blood bond. You’ll come to learn that in time. But first things first, let’s head to your mother’s room. It’s downstairs in the basement in the sparring quarters."

  Chapter 18: The Letter Unsealed

  The two of them passed through the cloth curtain. Abby recoiling at the sight of aged and sagging boxes filled with junk and memorabilia that lined a long hall. Seeing her cringe, Nicodemus offered up a weak excuse about meaning to sort through the stuff and give what he could away, but both of them knew he was lying. This was the sort of mess that stuck around until it was forced on someone else. How disgusting. Who lives like this?

  At the very end of the hall, there was an open door leading into a room littered with dirty laundry. Realizing Abby could see into his room, Nicodemus sprinted down the hall in embarrassment and shut the door. It was clear to Abby that he had no intention of giving her a tour of showing her around.

  So, he’s a pig. It could be worse, I guess. But I wonder if all of the rooms are like this? This is gross. While Nicodemus busy trying to hide the fact that he lived like a slob, Abby took the chance to look into the other room on the hall.

  With the door halfway ajar, Abby tried to push it open the rest of the way but came up against resistance. Not sure what it was, Abby pushed harder, trying to make enough room to give her the space needed. Wanting to slip her head past the doorway and have a peek inside before Nicodemus interrupted her. Abby’s curiosity was overtaking her proper senses.

  With a little bit of force and the throw of a shoulder into the door, Abby got the space she needed. Inside the room, Abby saw neat stacks of uniforms in a dusty room that was musty from age. Belts and boots on top of each of the arranged uniforms. It was an odd contrast to the general unkempt and messy state Abby had seen so far.

  "I know I should get back in there and either tidy it all up or get rid of them altogether." Said Nicodemus solemnly from behind her. "But I can’t bring myself to do it. I’ve kept those uniforms ready and waiting for a long time now. Brand new uniforms meant for my guys who went off to war and never came back. I’ve got a lot of mixed and complicated memories in this room. I’d prefer it if you just left it alone."

  Abby tried to look some more, but he gently grabbed her by the shoulder, Nicodemus politely, though firmly guided her away from the room. He pulled a key out of his pocket and shut the door behind them, locking it to keep it sealed. As Nicodemus put the key away, he pointed out a set of stairs in a small recess on the other side of the hall. One of the staircases leading upwards and the other going down.

  "Since your going to ask or try to find out anyway," Said Nicodemus, his voice straining as he broached a subject he had little interest in bringing up with her. "The upstairs is the old barracks area. I’d prefer you to stay out of there as well for the same reasons I already mentioned. It’s not a place to go prodding and poking around like some sort of explorer. I’ve left things as th
ey left them, and one day either they’ll come back for them, or the families will come to collect them. You might think it’s stupid, and I hope for your sake you never come to understand.” It’s a memorial. I don’t see how that’s hard to understand.

  "You mean the guys you were talking about, your guys who went off to war and didn’t come back? All their stuff is upstairs? Isn’t that kind of creepy?" Asked Abby, a bit weirded out the hoarding centered memorial.

  "Have a little respect for the dead and an old man’s wishes." Nicodemus snapped. Abby’s words struck a nerve with him. "You’d want the same thing if you died. Nobody deserves to be thrown away and forgotten. As long as I’m alive, I’ll remember them, even if no one else does.”

  Irritated and muttering to himself gruff words that Abby couldn’t quite make out, he led her down the stairs. The stairs themselves rickety and starting to bow with age. In sections, wet rot had set in, and chunks of wood broke off as Abby put pressure on the steps.

  "Hey Nicodemus, these stairs are in pretty bad shape. If I’m going to be staying here, can we get them repaired before somebody gets hurt? Like you or me?" Abby asked in a denigrating complaint. A complaint she felt fully justified in making, even as she learned to manage the steps by testing her footing on each step to make sure it would hold her.

  " Consider it training, girl. Better to break an ankle here if you don’t watch where your stepping, then break it somewhere else when danger is all around you." Responded Nicodemus blithely as he jumped the last step, landing at the edge of a sandpit.

  Abby followed behind, jumping the last step as he did. As she landed in the sand, she looked around with a feeling of aww. Seeing that, she was in the middle of a ringed pit with four evenly spaced pillars of smooth gray stone. On each pillar hung ornate braziers burning blue mage fire. This is unexpectedly impressive.

  "I’m glad you followed my lead on that last one." Said Nichodemus smiling as if it was an inside joke. "An old man like me needs to take a few precautions. It may not be much, but a young Engineer I once knew enchanted that last step with the essence of a mimic. It’s relatively harmless, so long as you don’t step on it."

  Abby looked at the man dumbfounded. "Why would you not mention that." She yelled, angry that he didn’t warn her about it.

  "Like I said," Nicodemus explained, his face hardening as he took on an almost wholly different demeanor. "It’s mostly harmless. When I was the Guild Master here, it was well known that none of my adventures died stupidly in dungeons. Complacency, ignorance, pride, none of that matters, and I can only think of one reason Porthos sent you to me, and that’s to train you, and theirs only one way I know how to do that."

  Abby didn’t know how to respond. The man before her was standing taller, more animated, something about him different than the slob she had assumed him to be a few minutes earlier. Is this what he must have been like before my mother died?

  "This floor and this floor alone is a safe place where we can freely use our power without fear of it getting out of hand or of being discovered. You said you had a sealed letter that you needed to give to me. This is the place to do it?" Stated Nicodemus as he held his hand out.

  Quickly Abby reached into the satchel slung over her back and handed it to Nicodemus. The sealed envelope glowed blue as soon as he touched it before the seal came off. "Interesting." He muttered. "This would have destroyed itself if anyone else had tried to open it."So Abuelo took precautions, what's so important that he needed to seal it

  Nicodemus unfolded the letter and began to read it aloud. "Nicodemus, It has been years since last we spoke, and I know you have long blamed me for your daughter's death. I have shared that guilt and the guilt of losing my own child. I would not have reached out to you if the situation was not dire. Abigal has been unable to bind herself to any of the elemental schools of magic. She has shown little to no talent in their manipulation."

  Nicodemus stopped reading for a second, chuckling. "Yeah, that sounds like the condescending Porthos I know." With a glance at Abby, he went back to reading.

  "I have tried as I can to hide this fact. Going as far as to call on favors owed to me and taking on the debt of favors to others to ensure she was counted among the graduates of the academy. My efforts were for not as someone else ordained she graduate. Though she, in her own right, did well in the testing. In a show, she bound herself to the school of the Arcane, but as you and I both know, the Arcane can only be bound within a dungeon. Other powers are also at work. The Emperor himself seems to have taken an interest in her and seems to have influenced the decision to pass her as well. I do not know why. Though it worries me.”

  Nicodemus looked up from the letter, seeing the shocked look on Abby’s face as the news started to sit in. "Go ahead and sit down. This is a lot for anyone to take in." What does it mean to be bound to a dungeon?

  "I have altered her graduation orders so that she is to search out the reasons for the rise of monsters in the west. The alternative was to send her East to fight the Orcs. I will not be able to do this again. I imagine by the time you read this letter, I will have been removed from my position, though it is more likely I will be in some prison or another. Do not try to find me. It will only endanger both of you. I need you to do what only you can do. Help her to understand and develop her power so that when they come for her, she will be ready."

  "Alright." Said Nicodemus putting the letter down, seeing Abby with her knees pulled up, crying softly to herself. "Hey, now, none of that, it’ll be fine. Put your stuff away in that room over there and get changed into the white sparring gear that should be hanging up. You’ll have time to cry later." Oh Abuelo, what have you done?

  Chapter 19: Things Left Behind

  Abby wiped the tears from her eyes and walked over to the door that Nicodemus had ushered her towards. A door that sat on the far side of the sparring arena. As she approached, she saw that centered on the door and at eye level was a bronzed nameplate covered in a layer of dust. She wiped it clean with the sleeve of her Engineers uniform, revealing the engraved initials of M. R.

  “This must have been my mother’s room,” Abby said to herself with a reverent whisper as she reached for the doorknob. Grabbing hold and turning it slightly, wondering what she would find on the other side as she walked into the darkened room. Anxious to see, faint stirrings in her own heart about the desire to know more about the woman who had birthed her. This is as good a place as any to find out more.

  In repose to her presence, a lamp on the wall filled with the soft glow of mage fire. The light fixture lit up the room in a warm ambiance of mixed orange with brown. The light was subtle and comforting. Abby smiled as she looked around the room that had belonged to her mother. It was smaller than she thought it would be. Smaller even than her own room back at the Mason’s Academy, though the layout was similar in scope to what she was used to. A faint smell attracted her attention, an undercurrent of lavender from a small dish of potpourri near the bed. That’s like my memory, it smells like her in here.

  To her left, Abby could see a standing wardrobe. A key lock around the handle, keeping whatever was inside safe and secured. I doubt the sparring outfit is in there. I can’t get in there anyways. Abby tried to reassure herself, even as her heart began to flutter with nerves.

  Abby did not want to fail in the first task that Nicodemus had assigned to her. Whether they had gotten off on rough footing or not, Abby wanted to prove herself to him. Prove that she was capable, even as self-doubt from the contents of the letter betrayed that confidence. As for the revelation that Nicodemus was family. She would be the judge of that, family was more than just a title. A title she was uncomfortable and unwilling to refer to the man as.

  Shaking the thoughts out of her head, Abby looked to the right of the door and saw a wooden desk that was cracked with age, a metal chair attached to the base that was heavy with rust. Next to the desk was a full-sized bed, still made as if it had been made yesterday. The bed covered by a goose
down quilt with the embroidered emblem of the defunct Adventurers Guild, the symbol of the crossed pen, and sword. The bed, perfectly made up in the tight military style of the Empire with sharp diagonal corners and a duvet cover over the pillows. Similar to the way she had made her own bed back at the Academy.

  Reaching down, Abby idly traced the tips of her fingers against the grain of the old wooden desk that had been her mothers. Wondering what she would think if she could see her daughter now. Wondering what she felt when she had sat at the chair and worked at the desk.

  "Ouch," Abby said as she rapidly withdrew her fingers from the frayed wood. Her skin throbbing in pain as she watched as a drop of blood fell to the floor. A single wooden splinter lodged into her fingertip.

  Laughing at herself for being careless, Abby pulled the splinter out from her fingertips with a promise to herself to be more careful in the future. As she did, her eyes centered on a picture covered in a layer of dust covered by a simple brown frame. Abby reached out and grabbed it, rapidly cleaning the dust off with her fingers.

  It was a photograph of a young woman and a young man together, smiling as the young woman had her arms draped over his shoulders, each staring at the other. Abby assumed the young woman at least to be her mother, and the man likely her father. The two of them appeared to be not much older than Abby was now. The way they were smiling together, these were two people in love. It was the first photo she had seen of her parents. Her mother was wearing the loose-fitting gold and blue uniform of the Adventurers Guild. Her father, wearing a long grey wool coat with a gold-colored tunic to denote his rank as a builder.