Ethria- the Pioneer
Page 18
“Hey Riggil, do you know why we haven’t stopped to eat lunch yet?”
Riggil turned to look at me, reins in hand. “Tol’geth thought it best to keep pushing on until sundown if my Tammi could hold out that long. I thought she’d have some trouble with doin it, but she’s lookin fresh. I think the fairy put a spell on her, really need to thank that purple ball of light. She’s lookin better then she’s looked in a while” Riggil turned back to watching the road.
Fair enough , I thought before reaching into the sack of hardtack and jerky that Tol’geth had stored there before we left the camp. I pulled out a couple of pieces of jerky, and a small biscuit of hardtack, and ate it slowly, allowing the water from my cantine to soften it in my mouth before I chewed each piece. No reason to risk breaking my teeth on this stuff.
As I ate, I let my gaze wander over everything. We had gotten past the thick crop of tree stumps that festooned the outer portion of the clearing, and instead where now surrounded by gentle, now fallow fields ready for the winter. My eyes eventually wandered to the elves and Ailsa and their silly game of what amounted to laser tag. It was a little colder then I would have liked, but with the sun overhead and the lack of trees blocking its warmth, it wasn’t unpleasantly so.
After I was finished eating, about an hour later, I hopped down off the cart, and went to where Ailsa and the children were still playing. “Maybe you all can teach me to play.” I called to them as I walked up. The two elves where practically giddy at the prospect of having another playmate, but Ailsa seemed a bit reserved about it. Well, as reserved as a fairy can be anyway. Biting, rude, inconsiderate? Yes. Reserved? Eh.
“No offense Rayid, but you don’t have the same mana manipulation training that we all do. At least not yet, you might hurt someone.” Ailsa said as the three of them paused their game and walked along parallel to the road and the cart with me. The field we were in was fallow and flat, so it was easy to keep up with the cart.
“Pleeeeeease” I asked holding my hands up together in front of me like she had done a few times, smiling wide. The children watched this interaction with what I thought was an odd amount of interest, but who knows, it might have been a perfectly normal amount of interest. I don’t, I’m not an elf.
Ailsa rolled her body, and most likely her eyes, at me buzzing her wings annoyedly. “Fine,” she said as the elven children cheered. “But don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. You’re just trying to get a lesson in mana manipulation out of me without being my apprentice.” Telli gasped as if to say “The Scandal!”, and Markel smirked knowingly.
“Well,” I hesitated “Yeah,” I admitted finally. “That and to have a little bit of fun. I’ve been sitting and reading for more than two days now. A bit of exercise and a game might do my soul good. A person can have more than one honest motive you know.” I said the last in a mock instructional tone. Telli nodded her agreement with me and Markel rolled his eyes. Maybe he’s a bit older, I’m sensing a definite pre-teen vibe from him. Or maybe she’s just a bit more naive and earnest.
“Okay, okay, you win,” Ailsa said. She spun around in a loop three times, on the third, she laughed delightedly before stopping right in front of me as I walked keeping an even distance so we didn’t crash into one another. “But Rayid is going to have to do a bit of studying first.” She said, as Telli pouted sadly, and Markel’s shoulders slumped and he huffed annoyance.
“Actually, it's probably good for all of us to take a break from play and do a bit of practice.” She pronounced, both children groaned this time. I have to admit, watching physically grown adults groan at the prospect of homework was amusing. It reminded me of college.
We went back to the cart, and all climbed aboard. It was cramped with three fully grown people, the arms and armor, and the swaying back and forth and jarring jolts as the cart bucked the grooves in the muddy road. Ailsa had us all sit down as best we could, close our eyes, and clear our minds. Once that was done, she told us to imagine sparks of light, flashing strobes, and wisps that fluttered through the air like confetti. How the fairy knew what confetti was I’d have to ask her later, but it somehow translated into an elvish analog well enough that the children understood.
When she told us to open our eyes but to continue to envision what we had thought of, I saw a beautiful sight. What I had envisioned, strobing confetti, flashing blue, pink, and purple streamers of light wicked around us. They intermixed with what the children had envisioned and brought to life. There was a large dragon about the size of a small dog, chasing after the streamers, that had a very Telli flavor to its playfulness and serious lack of fire and wrath. There were large acorn-shaped balls of light that flashed yellow, green, orange, and red in a rhythm I couldn’t quite parse out.
I looked at the bottom left of my vision where other things had appeared before and thought about the need to know just how much mana I was using. A blue bar, nearly full, appeared then, and when I looked directly at it, it showed the numbers 185/200. Riggil clapped and laughed, and his pony whinny as Telli’s dragon danced in front of it. I looked at the young elf meaningfully and she blushed, moving the dragon again to attack the ribbons of light.
Tol’geth watched the lights dance with little to no visual reaction. When his gaze turned to us there was mirth and amusement in his eyes. “A good spectacle.” He said before turning back to the show. The dragon had finally caught one of the ribbons of light, and tore it to shreds, creating a hundred ribbons which began to spin around and fall like rain as I gave them conscious commands for the first time. If I’m being honest, it looked a lot like what going to light speed in the original, ancient star wars movies looked like, white and yellow light streaks filling the air.
As we played this game, I tried more advanced constructs, deer that the dragon chased and played with, lions that ate Markel's acorns, one of which turned into a crocodile twice the lion's size and ate it to the delight of Tol’geth and Markel both. We made many other things, and as we did I began to get prompts.
“Congratulations! You have learned the skill, Mana Manipulation. Current skill rank, 1.”
“Congratulations! You have leveled up your skill, Mana Manipulation. Current skill rank, 2.”
“Congratulations! You have leveled up your skill, Mana Manipulation. Current skill rank, 3.”
...
“Congratulations! You have leveled up your skill, Mana Manipulation. Current skill rank, 7.”
I finally paid attention after the seventh prompt appeared, and as I read it I shouted “Yatta!” and shot my hands up into the air. My portion of the mummer's show ended abruptly, earning a disappointed ‘ah’ from dang near everyone. Including I swear, Tol’geth, though not verbally. His shoulders simply slumped with everyone else's.
“Why’d you stop” asked Telli sadly.
“Yeah, we were having fun!” Accused Markel. “My Dragon had just caught Telli’s. Look it has gotten away now.”
“Oh.. uh…” I began stupidly before Ailsa stepped in.
“He nearly ran out of mana.” I looked at my mana pool, and she was right. It read 12/200, and the blue bar was nearly gone. “You both know how dangerous that can be. You saw what happened to me after all.” Ailsa lectured. The two looked downcast, and nodded saying in unison “Yes, Faie Ailsa.”
While mana depletion to 0 itself was not dangerous, if you stopped exactly at the 0 mark, continuing to fund spells after that point meant that the spell would leech heat from your body at a dangerous and inefficient exchange rate. One that could easily and swiftly lead to issues like what Ailsa had experienced the day before. The process was called ‘mana-exhaustion’ and it was considered one of the most dangerous things about mana use.
I looked at the sun, and it was fastly falling in the sky. “How close are we to Cutters Hollow?” I asked.
“We should get there just after sundown. The guards might let us in if they are in a good mood, but if not then we’ll be sleeping outside the wall tonight.”
Riggil spoke up than “The bandits that attacked us were desperate folk, probably runaways from the Twins who grew up in the woods and found a few others like’em. They had to attack us, they were probably running out of food already. All the professional bandits that usually plague the road already left for their winter holdouts. We shouldn’t be bothered tonight, sept maybe by bears.”
What Riggil said was true, we arrived just after sundown, and the gates to the town where closed. The town must have mainly been living space, as I saw many mills and work sights left out in the open, outside the walls along the river. The wooden wall ended in two small guard towers where it met the river. The gatehouse was really just a single watchtower, and a two-door gate large enough for little more than two wagons, each slightly wider than Riggils cart, to pull through at the same time.
The guards where professional but firm, we would have to wait until morning before we could enter. “Gates closed for a reason, we can’t let just anybody in whenever we want.” The large, chain shirted and plate helmed man said as he leaned over the wall of the watchtower. “If the mayor found out I opened the gates after dark, sept in an emergency, I’d be in big trouble. Tolls and safety checks and the like will start up again at sunrise though, that's a promise. We aren't no lazy town guard here, no sir. We’ll be on time, you can count on that. Always are.”
The guard's name was Seventl, and though he was the night watch commander, meaning he was in charge of two other men outfitted exactly as he was, he couldn’t just let us in without a compelling reason like an injury, or if we were being chased by bandits. So we found a nice little brace of trees just outside the walls, not the hulking massive ones we had passed getting here, but pine trees, about twice as tall as a man, and we made camp between them and the walls, using them as a double windbreak.
We made a fire and sat together around it to keep the cold wind away. Ailsa and the children told stories for a few hours before Tol’geth of all people looked at me and asked “Could we have a story from your island? You’re people seem very strange, wizard, I would enjoy such a tale.” The children were of course enthusiastically supportive and Riggil just smiled at the idea.
“Alright,” I said as Ailsa shot me a worried look. I nodded to her that I knew what I was doing. “What story to tell? Well, what type of story do you want to hear?” I asked. “One of adventure? Misfortune? Danger? How about one of love, or tragedy?” I swept my arms over our small fire dramatically as I spoke. It was a move I had seen someone perform at the Timpanogos storytelling festival when I was little before it was shut down after a string of suicides tainted the event. The move sent sparks through the air and illuminated my face dramatically though It was rather hot. “A story of the Gods? Or how about a story of the common, everyday folk who showed uncommon bravery in the face of tyranny?”
Eventually, after the children all gave their enthusiastic preferences, Telli wanting a love story, and Markel wanting one about the bravery of warriors, and after hearing from Tol’geth and Riggil on their preferences, I decided on Star Wars. The original trilogy, not the sequels, or the prequels, or the alternative universe stuff that came out a few years ago.
I told them the plot to a New Hope, but instead of a space station, the Death Star was a powerful warship that could level a coastal town in a single volley from its great weapons. Instead of starfighters, the rebels used hang gliders and bombs, and instead of Alderaan being a planet, it was a peaceful coastal city that was shelled and burned into nothing but ash and cinders.
After the story, they pushed for more backstory, more explanations. Who were the Jedi? Where did the emperor come from? And why did people just let themselves be taken advantage of like that? The last question came from Tol’geth.
So I took my time explaining as much as I could, with some obvious changes to fit into this new world. The Jedi where powerful wizards and sorcerers that among my people are very rare, who used their power to work for peace in our little chain of islands. But they had been killed off years ago by the evil emperor when he had ascended his dark throne after a long and bitter war. He was a Sith! An evil counterpart to the Jedi who used necromantic magic to keep himself alive much longer then should have been possible. Darth Vader was a fallen Jedi who had joined the emperor to become his apprentice and another Sith Lord.
Eventually, the questions and my responses went into spoiler territory for the other movies, and I had to beg off to sleep promising to tell another entry in the saga of Luke Skywalker, another night. As I slept I dreamt of spells, flashing lights, and giggling fairies and children.
----
“Hail the camp!” came a voice from seemingly far away. I woke groggily and began by rubbing my face and eyes into wakefulness.
“Hail, who comes?” I heard Tol’geth respond, a promise of violence in his voice, but not openly hostile. For Tol’geth.
“The Sheriff of Cutters Hollow, and two deputies” responded the first voice, followed by the sound of feet walking over cold ground nearby.
I sat up and saw my barbarian friend interposing himself between the rest of the group and the three newcomers. They wore long brimmed hats woven from the ubiquitous tall grass, dried out and woven together with thick-looking bark along the top and edges. They wore brown cotton tunics, and wool trousers and each wore a short blade on their hip, still sheathed. In their hands all three held staves a few inches longer then each man was tall.
“How did your night among the pines fair, good travelers? Riggil? Is that you?” The sheriff asked, he was a few inches taller than the other two men, who both had their faces and arms covered in wraps to protect against sunburn and bugs.
“Ho,” said the old man as he pulled himself out of his bedroll. The morning was young yet, no real light having peaked over the horizon. “Returned from market selling the redwood branches, and I run into these folk. They saved me from a bandit attack from what looked like that group of runaways from the twins.”
The sheriff nodded solemnly. “How many people did you lose?” He asked sadly.
“None. We killed them all.” Tol’geth said menacingly. Though before you grew to know the man it is admittedly difficult to tell the difference between menacing, and virtually anything else.
“That is quite a feat,” The sheriff said sadly as he looked the barbarian up and down carefully. While that was happening I analyzed the Sheriff.
Name: Sheriff / Militia Captain Samuel Brodigan
Race: Human
Class: Sherif, Investigator
Level: 18
Height: 5’9
Skin Color: Brown
Hair: Brown
Age: 43
Heritage: Northern Tor, Wood Cutters
Affiliation: Cutters Hollow
Religion: Unknown, Skill Score too low
Alignment: Unknown, Skill Score Too Low
Disposition Towards You: Inquisitive, defensive
HP: Unknown, Skill Score Too Low
Defensive Characteristics: Unknown, Skill Score Too Low
I didn’t even get a general breakdown of his ability scores. I really need to get this skill up and working, I've only used it a handful of times . Before I could continue with that train of thought, the sheriff looked directly at me.
“It's rude to analyze a person without their permission while in town. That is behavior I would expect from children, not a grown man.” I felt his gaze harden. It wasn’t like simply being scrutinized by a person, I felt his, self, analyze me.
“You have been analyzed. Applicable skills too low, raise your skill levels higher to be able to tell who and how this is done, along with what information the analyzer has gained.”
So that's how that feels! I didn’t like it in the slightest, it felt like someone was touching me, feeling me without my permission. It was highly uncomfortabl
e.
“Please forgive him,” Ailsa said as she sped out of my bedroll and into the air between us. “He’s not from this part of Ethria. Where he comes from the Analyze ability does not exist as we have it here, they only have the skill. He probably didn’t even realize he was doing it.”
Bardigan seemed astonished at the sight of the fairy, before shaking himself back into the moment. “Right, well in that case guide, you should teach him about such things. That is your duty isn’t it?” Ailsa bobbed up and down in acknowledgment.
“I have only had two days with him. I have not yet covered every social norm you have here in Torish lands.” Bardigan bowed slightly this time.
“In that case, all is forgiven.” He turned his attention back to me. “Traveler, I will leave it to your guide to teach you the specifics, but know this. Here, in Tor, but particularly here in Cutters Hollow, actively analyzing a person with the ability is considered rude. If inside the city walls, it would have been a citable infraction.” I nodded my understanding and he turned back to Riggil.
“I came out here because the night guards said they saw your cart filled with weapons and armor. I take it that those are what remain from the bandits?” The sheriff asked pointing at the cart.
“Right Sherif! Riggil said as he pulled the blanket fully away and pulled up a small leather harness that was designed to go over a gambeson. The gambisons were bloody and cut cleanly in a few places, and wrapped in a different blanket. Riggil then pulled out one of the short swords and handed both of them to the lawman for inspection. “Five short swords, three long knives, and three spears. They’re not very high quality, but usable.”