As we walked through the settlement, we ran into a few individuals who looked at us strangely. Otherwise though, Sava was able to direct me to the local royal constable’s office unimpeded.
“We’re here to turn this in for the reward.” Sava held up the death spellheart to the elf sitting behind the desk.
The elf looks as the death spellheart. “Of course. I’ll need to weigh it and then we can fill out the required paperwork.”
Then she pulled out a scale with two trays balanced on either side. On one tray she placed the spellheart while on the other she placed a few bronze weights. Once the trays balanced she nodded to herself and jotted something down on a piece of paper.
“In size. Not bad for a basic spellheart. Per the Queen’s decree, you’re qualified for twenty-three gold Queensmarks or an equivalent amount in spellstones in compensation.”
Sava let out a low whistle. I was impressed as well. I wasn’t entirely sure what a gold coin was worth in this world, but from Sava’s trade with Grotkins I gathered that her whole load of potions was worth about twelve silver coins. Assuming gold is worth more than silver, this reward was huge.
“Follow me.” The clerk said.
Sava and I did so, and she led us to a back room. “I need to tap into the reward money again. Somebody’s turning in a death aspect spellheart.” The clerk said to guardswoman stationed by a large, strong looking door.
The guardswoman nodded. “Sure. I’ll fetch the box for you.” She turned around and unlocked the door behind her.
Both the guards woman and the clerk were surprised to find someone already inside the small chamber. A tall, green-skinned well muscled lady was busily stuffing her pockets with every coin she could get her hands on. Around the room were several chests that had been smashed open, coins spilling out. Copper and most of the silver ones were left on the ground, but the green-skinned fellow had already picked the gold coins up.
“Intruder!” the clerk said in a hushed shout. “How could you let a thief by you!?” She accused the guards woman angrily.
“Thief... what are you talking about?” A puzzled, distant expression came over her eyes. “This is Princess Tivana. She stopped by today for a surprise inspection of our treasury?”
The clerk was flabbergasted. “Princess Tivana!? That’s an Orc! She’s green! And why would the princess suddenly decide to visit our tiny little town announced and inspect our tiny treasury!?”
The puzzled expression on the guardswoman’s face grew larger. Eventually, things snapped into place for her and she realized she’d made a terrible mistake. “You’re... You’re right. What was I thinking? We’ve got an intruder!”
Then the orc made her move. She pulled something out of her pocket. Something deep amber colored that glimmered strangely. It was slightly bigger than the necromantic spellheart I’d just given up. That one had interested me, but something about this spellheart just drew me in immediately. I wanted it. Like I’d never wanted anything else in my life. And I think that it wanted me as well.
It wasn’t just me whose interest had just been drawn. Everyone in the room was staring at the little yellow stone.
“I be not an orc.” The orc said slowly in broken speech. “I be elf princess. Pretty and much powerful. I take money, and this is good and right.”
What the hell?
I glanced at Sava and the clerk. They didn’t seem puzzled by the orc’s actions. Instead, they were nodding along as if the orc had just made the most logical argument in the world. The guard’s woman was already bowing in the orc’s direction.
Again, what the hell?
”You, strong elf, ” the orc said with a hint of apprehension in her voice. “Bow for princess, yes?”
Suddenly it clicks. “Oh! This is some sort of mind control!” But if that’s the case, why wasn’t it affecting me?
The orc’s eyes went wide. “No mind control! Me elf princess!”
I snorted in laughter. I’d been here a week and even I could tell this girl wasn’t a princess of anything. She wore what once might have been described as rags, before they’d been worn full of holes and fraying threads.
Her skin was a greenish gray color, and she had a pair of tusks sticking out ever so slightly from her lower jaw. Long black hair had been braided into three tails, and she was wearing leather armor that only partially covered her ample breasts.
She was hot, though differently than the elves. Where the elves mostly skewed to the petite side, this orc was buxom. Complete with flush red lips and an athletic round ass she would have been quite the knockout back home, barring the inhuman features.
“You know, I respect this.” I waved around the small chamber. “Robbing the local police station is a bold move. Normally people go for a bank or something. But in your case, it seems to be a profitable endeavor, though I can think of a few long-term scams you could do with mind magic that would work better than this.”
“No mind magic!” The orc insisted. “Me princess!”
“Unfortunately, you’re interfering with my plans for this place.” I cracked my knuckles. Punching that elf, a little while ago had shown me how much my body had improved, and I was eager to push those limits further.
The orc growled. It looks like she had given up on mind tricks. The orc pulled a rusty hammer from her hip and wielded it in the hand not holding the amber spellheart.
“Elves puny little girls. Yorik is a real tough orc woman. Yorik smash you puny elf.”
“You’re hot, but the incredible hulk routine is a bit of a turn off.” I said back to her.
I hadn’t gotten into a real fist fight since middle school, but I was ready for this. Every time I tested it, my body was able to push itself to heights beyond my wildest expectations. I’d sized up those gangsters in the back alley and found them lacking. Even against their third level of zeal accumulation lackey I’d knocked her flat on her ass in one blow with just the strength of my fists. This orc didn’t look so tough. I bet I could —
Wham!
The rusty hammer collided with my forearm, which I had just barely managed to raise in time to block the blow. Okay, so this ‘Yorik’ was fast.
The orc didn’t waste any time. The moment her first blow bounced off my arm she pivoted and sent another blow crashing towards my head.
I dodged to the side. The hammer continued downwards anyway, where it smashed a hole in the ground and tossed wood and tile up in a shower of debris.
“Assassin! Step away from the princess!” The guardswoman, still under the influence of the orc’s mind control, shouted at me while drawing her sword. The clerk started shimmying away as fast as possible.
Sava glanced between me and the orc, apparently deciding which side she was on. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned and tackled the guardswoman to the ground.
I found it comforting that Sava was so willing to commit treason on my behalf. I’d have to thank her when she was no longer under the influence of the magical mind-affecting illusion.
“I see how it is, Yorik. You don’t think you can beat me in a competition of pure strength, so you’ve got to use dirty tricks and magic!” I taunted as I caught a hammer blow to my shoulder blade. That was going to be sore tomorrow, but the fact that that blow didn’t cave in the whole left side of my body seemed to indicate that I hadn’t overestimated my abilities.
The orc hollered at me in response, her attacks slowly becoming more savage. “Yorik uses her strength! No dirty tricks!”
At the risk of soundy cocky, she wasn’t that tough. I was holding my own unarmed. My lack of foresight in not bringing a proper weapon had come to bite me again though, because if I had a good weapon this would already be over. Oh well, that would just make this more of a challenge.
I lowered my guard just a bit, presenting an opening right in the middle of my chest. The orc took the bait and struck a blow that sent me stumbling backwards a pace, but it was worth it. I clamped my hands around the head of her hammer and
tugged it closer to my chest.
The orc panicked when she realized that I had hold of her weapon. She seemed to have realized that she wouldn’t stand a chance against me without her hammer. She tugged desperately with both hands, but the head of the hammer was locked under my arm and not going anywhere.
Using one hand to deal with the hammer, my other hand was free. So, I gave her my best right hook. The blow knocked her to the ground, causing her to lose her grip on the weapon. Now entirely in my grasp, I flipped the hammer around, so I was holding it correctly. Rusty as it was it had a hefty feel to it. I felt like wielding this thing I could really do some damage. A bit inelegant for my tastes but a weapon was a weapon.
The orc didn‘t get up off the ground. Instead she lowered her head. She knew she’d been beaten.
“Yorik, was it?” The orc nodded in response. “I have a proposition for you.”
***
“Apologies citizens... it seems our reward chest is empty. We must have paid more in bounties than I thought.” The clerk blushed a bit. She was responsible for keeping track of these things after all.
Not that she had any need to be worried. She’d been nothing but polite to me, and I’m not the type to repay that by throwing her under the wagon. I touched the mind aspect spellheart in my pocket. This little thing worked wonders, though to get it to work I had to convey my instructions through Yorik. Apparently spellhearts are unusable by anyone else once they’re bound to someone.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll just come by in a few days.” I said with a cheery smile. And I was cheery. This had proven to be an excellent day. Sava glanced at me curiously as we left the constable’s office.
“You know... I would have thought you’d be a bit more upset about giving that spellheart up for nothing.” She said with a frown. I know she was upset about it.
I clapped her on the shoulder and gave her a wink. “I’ll fill you in latter.” Yorik had a trick to make everyone in the immediate vicinity forget up to a minute’s worth of information, provided that they were already under the influence of the mind-aspect spellheart. As a result, Sava and the two guards’ women remembered nothing of their short but eventful encounter with the orc thief. Just the way I wanted it.
I pulled the mind spellheart out of my pocket and inspected it again. I’d really love to have one of these of my own, but it seems it wasn’t meant to be. The first step is to get any spellheart working for me, no matter what aspect it is. To do that, I’d have to acquire numerous spellhearts and sift through them for one that worked for me. Luckily, I’d already seen to that.
Not fifteen minutes after we left town Yorik stepped out in front of us in the middle of the road.
“Orc bandit!” Sava hissed, immediately going for her bow and jumping in front of me.
I pushed her aside. “Not a bandit, Sava, just an honest woman holding up her side of the bargain. Where’s the bag?”
Yorik grumbled something under her breath while withdrawing a small leather coin purse. The contents of this purse were far more valuable to me than coins though. Inside jingled dozens of small spellhearts. Each one represented a potential path to magical power for me.
I pulled out the mind spellheart. “Good. Say, I could use a competent woman who is not afraid to get her hands dirty, orc or not. What do you say you stick around Yorik? I don’t have much now, but I can promise you I’m not the type to dream small.”
Yorik shook her head before I even finished speaking. “Just give Yorik her stone, strong elf. Take your stones.” Her eyes darted up to mine and quickly away. There was the same gruffness I’d sensed during our fight, but now there was also a tinge of respect in there. And more than a little fear.
I shrugged. “Fair enough.”
As interesting as the mind spellheart was, I had dozens of other types of spellhearts in this little pouch, all unbound and ready for me to try.
“How... who? What happened?” Sava demanded once Yorik had left.
I told her the story of how we’d run into Yorik in the middle of robbing the constable’s treasury in the middle of the day.
“Theo, that can’t be true.” She said when I finished.
I frowned. “That’s what I saw. You were pretty out of it. I don’t know why, but Yorik’s mind magic affected you and the guards women back there badly.”
“There’s no such thing as mind magic, Theo! No such thing as a “mind” spellheart. There’re the elements, fire, water, earth, and air. Those are the foundational elements. I’ve never heard of a combination of elements that made up something resembling mind zeal. Without a type of zeal, such a magic couldn’t exist."
My frown deepened. “I know what I saw Sava.” This new information suddenly made that orc, Yorik much more interesting. I wish I’d been able to convince her to stick around. She’d proven quite useful in dealing what otherwise would have been a very messy situation back at the constable’s office.
“Maybe you just think you saw something.” Sava leaned close to me, clinging to my arm. She’d seemed a lot closer to me after today. I guess danger really is the best attractant.
“Or maybe you just don’t remember, because every time somebody uses mind magic around you they wipe your memories.” I replied.
Sava chewed on that thought for a while, contemplating in silence.
“Anyway” I continued, dismissing the topic for the time being. “Look what I got.” I showed her the pouch of spellhearts that Yorik had so kindle transported for me.
“Not bad. These are all upper low grade or mid-grade spellhearts.”
My interface agreed with her upon consultation.
Fire aspect spellheart (mid-grade)
This spellheart can be cultivated to allow for the use of fire magics.
Earth aspect spellheart (mid-grade)
This spellheart can be cultivated to allow for the use of earth magics.
Lighting aspect spellheart (low-grade)
This spellheart is made from a combination of fire and water zeal and can be cultivated to allow for the use of lighting magics.
“I picked the biggest ones. I’ll have to thank the local law enforcement personnel for collecting them for me. I had Yorik haul them out for me in case the memory wipe wasn’t perfect, but it seems that precaution wasn’t necessary and I could have just pocketed them myself.”
***
Sava spent the rest of the walk back to her camp telling me the basics about how to utilize the power of a spellheart. We took turns alternating between pulling the empty cart and trying our luck with different spellhearts.
“Ha! I knew I had a good feeling about this one!” Sava said triumphantly holding a small blue spellheart. She had just finished conjuring a small drizzle of water with the spellheart in her hand.
“Impressive. The ability to conjure freshwater is always useful.” I nodded along. “Doesn’t look particularly lethal, but you have your nature spellheart for that.”
Sava shrugged. “I could, but I can already get drinkable tree sap from my nature spellheart, which is a high grade spellheart. Better to just merge it. Besides, I’d never be able to fully bond to it otherwise, since I’m already bound to my nature spellheart.”
Then Sava pulled out her green nature spellheart and held the blue water spellheart next to it. There was something like a battle of wills between the two cores. Both started to vibrate until the smaller water spellheart cracked. Instead of shattering into a thimble size pile of broken fragments, it liquified. The water blue liquid was sucked towards the nature core, seeping into it, tinging Sava’s nature spellheart a bit bluer in hue than it had been previously.
“You can combine spellhearts?” I said in surprise.
“Of course. It’s one of the fastest ways to make them bigger.”
“Wow. So, you can make spellhearts more powerful by mixing them together?”
Sava shook her head. “Only if the types match. And if they’re of a lower quality. A low tier water spellheart c
an be fed to a mid or high tier water spellheart. The only reason I’m able to feed my nature spellheart water spellhearts is because the nature aspect is actually a combination of water and earth. This is about as much water I can feed it without throwing the elements out of balance. I’ll need to either find an earth spellheart of equivalent size or spend time manually cultivating that aspect.
“Huh. So that’s why I didn’t see anybody wandering around with a dozen little spellhearts.”
“That’s right. One powerful spellheart is more useful than a hundred weak ones. Especially if you can develop a deep bond with one. In truth, just about every elf has a spellheart of some kind that they’re cultivating. It’s just for non-cultivators it’s not powerful enough to be worth mentioning. There’s another reason to stick with one spellheart though.”
“What’s that?” I asked curiously.
“Reaching the next stage of cultivation requires you to fuse the spellheart to your body. You have to become one with it. That’s not possible unless you’ve fully bonded with your spellheart. If you’re constantly switching between dozens of spellhearts you’ll never be able to fully bond any one of them.”
“I see.” It made sense. He who chases two hares shall catch neither and all that.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It wasn’t until I came across a nondescript brown colored spellheart that I finally managed something.
The moment I touched the earth aspect spellheart I felt a connection to it that was unlike any of the others. No wonder I’d never gotten the death spellheart to work. This connection existed on a level beyond the physical. I knew that even if this tiny brown crystal were dropped in the mud in the middle of the night I’d be able to locate it again without effort. Sava was impressed that I was able to bind it to such a degree after just touching it.
I cast the spell again. It was just like flipping a switch in my mind. Suddenly the spellheart a small wave of energy, which caused the dust and dirt to shake and twitch.
Zeal of the Mind and Flesh Page 14