“Who is this?” Kate asks, as she approaches us cautiously.
“Remember how Daren told us that his old master gave him his scar during a sparring session?” Hadrik says. “Well, this is the old master that he was talking about. His name is Nolderan, and he apparently came here to greet Daren, since he hasn’t seen him in a long time.”
“Pleased to meet you, my lady,” Nolderan says, as he takes a polite bow.
“Save your pleasantries,” Kate says. “Why don’t you say what you really mean? It’s not like I’m making any effort to suppress my magical aura at this point. If you are indeed Daren’s master, then you must also be the one who taught him to fight against banshees.”
“You must be thinking of Daren’s other master,” Nolderan says. “The white mage. We were both ex-sages, so I can see how you might make the confusion. I assure you that I have no qualms with any banshee. As long as you are trusted by these people, I see no reason why I should consider you my enemy.”
“She’s not a real banshee, just so you know,” Hadrik tells Nolderan. “She’s a woman mage.”
“Oh?” Nolderan says, while raising his eyebrows. “Now, that is certainly something that you don’t see every day.”
“How did you know that Daren would be here?” Kate asks him.
“I didn’t know that he’d be in this general area,” Nolderan says. “I just happened to be close enough to sense his aura, so I decided to come and say ‘Hello’.”
“You just ‘happened’ to be close enough?” Kate says. “So you were just wandering alone, by yourself, in the middle of the night?”
“Actually, my camp is not that far from here,” Nolderan says. “I volunteered to do some scouting of the surrounding areas, during my night shift, which is why I was doing a patrol around these parts. I do understand how this could look a little suspicious from your point of view, however.”
“Of course I’m suspicious of you,” Kate says. “We don’t even have any guarantee that you actually know Daren. What proof do you have that you are really one of his teachers, and not just some assassin, who was paid to kill him?”
“Well, if you want proof, then you can ask Daren himself,” Nolderan says. “He is heading our way right now.”
“Master Nolderan?” Daren says, shocked, as he approaches us. “Is that really you? You look so old!”
“The first time we meet in more than ten years, and this is what you tell me?” Nolderan says, with a grin, as he puts down his cards, and he gets up from the tree trunk, in order to greet his old pupil. “Maybe if you paid me a visit every once in a while, you wouldn’t have been so surprised at the sight of my gray hair.”
“I’m sorry…” Daren says. “It’s just that I’ve been so busy with—”
“With saving the world, yes, yes, I know,” Nolderan says. “You don’t need to take everything so seriously all the time, boy. I was only joking. I know all about your adventures. Now stop being such a killjoy, and come give your old teacher a hug!”
Nolderan then hugs Daren for a few seconds, while patting him hard on the back.
“I see that you’re still wearing that heavy plate armor of yours,” Nolderan says, as he releases Daren. “Don’t you get tired of walking around like this? What’s the use of all those fancy moves I taught you if you can’t even do half of them due to the weight of your armor?”
“I already told you,” Daren says. “The armor is the only reliable protection against physical damage that I have. I’m not throwing it away.”
“Who needs to have protection when you can just dodge your enemies’ attacks?” Nolderan says. “Do I really need to give you a third scar before you learn your lesson for good?”
“Ugh…” Daren says. “Let’s not start this discussion again. We only just got reunited after I don’t even know how many years. Should we not be celebrating, instead of having a fight?”
“You’re absolutely right, Daren!” Nolderan says. “Hold on, let me get another bottle of dwarven ale, so we can have a toast.”
“Dwarven ale?…” Daren says. “At this hour? You can’t be serious! What if we get attacked?”
“Of course you would say that…” Nolderan says. “Well, in that case, I’ll just clink these two bottles, and imagine that you’re also drinking with me. Cheers, Daren!”
He then clinks two dwarven ale bottles, like he said he would, and he takes a long sip from one of them.
“You’re all welcome to join me in this toast, of course, if you want,” Nolderan says, as he looks towards Hadrik, Kate and me. “It’s a celebration, after all!”
“Sure, I’ll join,” I say. “Give me the bottle.”
“Good, good,” Nolderan says, as he hands me the bottle that he didn’t drink from. “Anyone else?”
“Well, I’m already holding a dwarven ale bottle, so why not?” Hadrik says, as he joins us, and prepares for the toast.
“I’ll pass,” Kate says, simply.
“Let us toast, then!” Nolderan says, as he raises his bottle, while Hadrik and I do the same. “Cheers, my friends! Thank you all for keeping my old pupil safe, during this tournament. I know that he can be a little hard-headed at times, but he has a good heart.”
“Cheers!” Hadrik and I say, as we all clink our bottles together and start to drink.
As I put down the bottle, I suddenly realize that I may have went a little overboard with the drinking, considering that I also had to take a lot of sips of dwarven ale while I was playing cards with Hadrik. I can already feel my head spinning a little from all the alcohol. Hopefully, this drunken sensation will pass soon.
“What’s going on?” Flower asks, as she and Leila are both coming towards us, after having been woken up from the noise. “Are we having a visitor?”
“Yeah, this is Daren’s old enchanting master,” Hadrik says. “It’s the first time that they’re seeing each other in over ten years, so we’re holding a toast to celebrate their reunion.”
“Another female mage?…” Nolderan asks, as he senses the magic in Flower’s aura.
“Uh… sort of,” Hadrik says. “The girl is a mage, but there’s also a banshee that lives in the same body. Their names are Flower and Illuna. You can tell when the banshee is talking because the girl’s eyes will turn blue. It’s a little confusing at first, but you’ll get used to it soon enough.”
“Right, right…” Nolderan says.
“Pleased to meet you!” Flower says, smiling.
“And this over here is Leila,” Hadrik says. “She’s a lessathi.”
“A what?…” Nolderan asks.
“Uh…” Hadrik says. “I think the locals call them ‘the ancients’. Does that name sound familiar?”
“Oh, yes, yes…” Nolderan says. “The name does ring a bell. I think they were some old forgotten race that used to be very good at making magical devices.”
“Yes, exactly,” Hadrik says. “Leila is a descendant of that race.”
“Charmed,” Leila writes.
“Err…” Nolderan says, not exactly sure how to interpret the floating text in front of him.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Hadrik says. “Leila can’t talk. She can only communicate through writing.”
“Ah, so that’s what the blue text was about,” Nolderan says, as he then turns his gaze towards Leila. “I’m pleased to meet you as well.”
“Master… it’s not that I’m not glad to see you, but may I ask what you are doing here, in Varathia?” Daren says. “I thought that you were done competing in mage tournaments after… well, you know…”
“After I lost my sage title, you mean?” Nolderan says. “You can say it out loud, boy. It’s not like I’m going to sulk. It’s been fourteen years since then. I’ve moved on by now. Sure, I haven’t really been competing as much, since then, but this time it’s different. This Magium tournament has given me an opportunity of a lifetime, so I couldn’t just ignore it.”
“I’m sorry for interrupting,” Flower sa
ys, “but why didn’t you try to reclaim your sage title after you lost it if it meant so much to you? Don’t they hold a competition for it every year, in each of your continents?”
“Are you by any chance from Varathia, little girl?” Nolderan asks.
“Yes, I was born here,” Flower says. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, I suppose that would explain why you would ask such a question, then,” Nolderan says. “I’m guessing that you don’t really get a lot of information about the outside world on this isolated continent, do you?”
“We do get some news, but it’s not much…” Flower says. “Have the yearly sage competitions been cancelled in the last decade? Is that why you stopped competing in these tournaments?”
“Oh, no, they’re still holding the competitions,” Nolderan says. “It’s because of the person who took the title away from me that I’ve given up on the hope of winning the sage title ever again…”
“What do you mean?” Flower says.
“The current four sages are unlike any of the sages that have held the title in the last century,” Daren says. “They are in a league of their own. Usually, a sage would not hold a title for more than two or three years before being dethroned, but three of the four current sages have remained undefeated for more than a decade. Azarius, the Sage of the West has been a sage for more than thirty years. He is practically the face of the Western Continent at this point. You see his portrait drawn on newspapers almost every week. One would have expected him to grow weaker, with old age, but every year, he seems to get stronger, instead. I think that everyone is mostly seeing the yearly contests as a formality at this point, and they’re all assuming that Azarius will keep holding the title until he dies of old age.”
“I know that you really like Azarius, Daren, but you shouldn’t talk only about him,” Hadrik says. “The other three sages may not have held their titles as long as him, but I’d say that their feats are equally impressive. Talmak, the Sage of the North, is regarded as the strongest earth elementalist of our time. All of the adversaries that he’s had in the twelve years since he’s inherited his title have been nowhere near his level of power. The only one who actually gave him a run for his money was the previous sage, but he’s dead now, along with almost every other mage who dared to challenge Talmak to a fight, over the years. Then there’s Selgurd. The elf. Oh man, don’t even get me started on the elf…”
“Did he also keep his sage title for a long time?” Flower asks.
“No, but the sage before him did,” Hadrik says. “He was considered to be on par with the other three long reigning sages, and everyone thought that nobody would ever defeat him. And then comes this no-name elf out of nowhere, and he kills him just like that, in less than a minute. Nobody even knows how he did it. He just made an illusion, so nobody could see or hear what was happening in the arena, and when the illusion was over, the Sage of the East was lying on the floor, lifeless, causing the crowds go completely silent. This happened last year. An investigation has been started to figure out what exactly lead to the old sage’s death, but no evidence has been found as of yet. The elf would not say what spell he used, but the common consensus is that he most likely used a mind affecting spell of some kind.”
“There were no external wounds,” Daren says, “so if it really was a mind affecting spell, then it must have been one similar to the spell that the ogre shaman cast on us, in the fort, where you could get killed inside your own mind, if you weren’t careful. The spell researchers who analyzed the traces of the spell could not find a match for any known spell, however. Or so they claimed.”
“I don’t know if the organizers are trying to hide something or not,” Hadrik says, “but the fact of the matter is that the elf has somehow managed to seize the title of Sage of the East, and a lot of people are unhappy with this turn of events. I’m not really sure how he did it, but Selgurd did kill one of the strongest mages of our time, with minimal effort, so he will most certainly be a force to be reckoned with.”
“What about the Sage of the South?” Flower asks.
“The Sage of the South is the one I fought, fourteen years ago,” Nolderan says. “I stood no chance against him in the competition. Even to this day, he remains undefeated, and it never really looked like anyone has posed any serious threat to him since he took the title away from me. The man is a renowned dragon hunter that goes by the name of Drakesbane. I’m not sure what his real name is, but that’s what everyone calls him now, due to the large number of dragon heads that he has in his collection. Dragons are something of a legend these days, because they mostly stay hidden, and no longer attack villages, like they used to in the past, but Drakesbane goes to hunt them in their own territory as a sport. A lot of people like to pretend that the dragon heads he brings home belonged to wyverns instead, in order to keep believing that dragons do not exist, but I don’t think that anyone who’s actually seen one of those heads up close could fool themselves into believing such nonsense. There is a very clear difference between a wyvern’s head and a dragon’s head, and that difference would be obvious to anyone who is not being willfully ignorant.”
All of a sudden, we hear a few loud beeps coming from Leila’s pocket, and also from mine. We both take out our stat devices at the same time, and I see that I now have three extra points to invest in my stats. I suppose this was to be expected, judging by the large number of pinecone-collecting mages we’ve been encountering, lately.
I spend a few seconds, thinking about what points I should invest in my stats, but the truth of the matter is that I’ve practically already decided what stats I wanted to upgrade a while ago, after I saw how well Leila handled herself against that troll in the arena. Those martial art techniques that she was using during her fight were really impressive, and she confirmed to me afterwards that she was never able to do any of those moves before upgrading her combat technique stat. Combined with my reflexes and speed, those techniques are just what I need to compensate for my lack of battle experience, and to complement my agility-based fighting style.
After making sure that this is indeed what I want, I spend one of my points in my speed stat, in order to upgrade it to its maximum level of four, and then I use the two remaining points to level up my combat technique stat.
“Did you also get three points?” I ask Leila, once I’m done with my stat device.
“Yes, I put them all in my reflexes,” Leila writes, as we both put our stat devices back in our pockets.
“Were those… fortune teller trinkets?” Nolderan asks, confused.
“Indeed, they were,” I say.
“They’re not using them for fortune telling,” Daren says. “They’re using them to magically enhance their physical abilities. I know that it’s a little hard to believe, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes, so I can confirm that it’s true.”
“Interesting…” Nolderan says. “I always thought that those devices were nothing more than toys, but I guess that I was mistaken. How well do they work, exactly?”
“It depends on your actual physical condition,” Leila writes. “If you’re weaker, then you’re going to get less effect out of the stat devices.”
“I see…” Nolderan says.
“So… what have you been up to, these past few years?” Daren asks his old master. “I’ve heard rumors that you’ve started doing mercenary work, but I’m not sure if they were true or not.”
“Oh, they were true, alright,” Nolderan says. “Losing my sage title so soon after I’d earned it and in such a spectacular fashion wasn’t really very good for my business. People started to think that I was just some washed up old man, and they gradually began to look for other enchanting and martial arts masters. There’s no shortage of those in the Southern Continent, after all. So, when people stopped coming to me to teach them, I decided that my talents would be better used elsewhere. You see… when you’re doing mercenary work, nobody is going to care about your reputation. They just need you to get the j
ob done. It might not be the most ideal career, but it puts food on the table.”
“I’m so sorry…” Daren says. “I did not know that it’s been so rough for you in these past years. I should have at least left you a transceiver to keep in touch.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Nolderan says. “We all have our ups and downs. It’s the way of life. But like I said, at least this tournament has provided me with the opportunity to change my life for the better. That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it? To try and change our lives for the better?”
“Actually…” Daren says. “The reason why I came here is that—”
“Hey, not that I want to interrupt you or anything,” Arraka says, “but Illuna told me to let you all know when there are enemies trying to surround us, and it just so happens that this is exactly what’s happening right now, as I speak.”
“Is it monsters again?” Daren asks.
“Yeah, monsters,” Arraka says. “More than there were last time. They’re all suppressing their auras again, but I can recognize the orc and the two ogres that got away from us two days ago. They must have gone to get reinforcements. I don’t sense the two goblins that bailed them out last time anymore, so they must be a lot more confident in their chances of winning this time around. I’m counting at least fifteen warriors and five mages. Actually no, make that seventeen warriors. Five of them are ogres, including the two from before. Twelve of them are orcs, including their captain with the flaming battleaxes. The five mages are a mixture of orcs and ogres, but there are no more goblins this time.”
“Well, master,” Daren says. “I think this is the time for you to go. These monsters have come here to kill our group, specifically, so as long as you avoid them on your way back to your camp, they will most likely ignore you and focus on us. It’s sad that this reunion had to be so short, but as long as we’re both participating in this tournament, I’m sure that our paths will cross again. Assuming that we’ll survive this battle, that is…”
“What are you talking about, boy?” Nolderan says. “Do you think I’m just going to run away and let my favorite disciple get killed off by some monsters, mere minutes after we’ve been reunited once more?”
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