Chapter 60: Vital Levity

Subject: Caim Location: Blightbane Guild - Arla's Forge

“You might like training almost as much as me, Caim… sparring with a Hexknight…” Alice commented, in a stunned daze.

Alice was the only one in the room without a clue as to what had just happened. She rushed over to Caim and put her hands on his arms, staring straight into his eyes.

“But you’re ok, right? You aren’t injured?”

He looked back at her, into those worried eyes, and surprise delayed his response.

“Alice-” Mille began.

“I know!” Alice interrupted.

Caim felt her hands waver for a moment, but she quickly stifled the sign of worry and glared in determination.

“He’s alive. You’re all alive. A lot of dangerous stuff happened today but the most important thing didn’t. You all didn’t die. I don’t know about this business with the Hexknight, but he didn’t seem to want to ‘judge’ any of us, did he?”

She was pretty sharp. For someone who hadn’t participated in any of the recent troubles, she could sum most of it up just by observing and, he assumed, having listened to the witnesses upstairs.

Alice knew what to be afraid of and she also knew that it was a waste of effort to be worried over something she couldn’t control. Hexknights were living wildfires. The best you could hope for was that you made it out of their path with your life intact.

“Everyone is fine, you’re absolutely right. And you know what we do now?”

Alice leaned back a little, with a hesitant expression that said she didn’t know what he was going to say.

“We do maintenance on our gear and go back into the festerfont,” he grinned.

She was stunned for a moment, but then her lips curled up in an eager smile.

“I’ve got a new spell,” he shared.

Raising his arm off to the side, he tried to summon a Shard of Legion. Nothing happened. Internally, he felt a reaction that was similar to when Scion was on its delay.

I must have exhausted my supply. It’s too much of a coincidence that I just so happened to stop at the last one. There must be other conditions.

Alice noticed his confusion and mild annoyance.

“You’re tired, I get it. Rest up before jumping back in.”

“Fine, I have other business to take care of anyway. But you better watch out.”

“Why?”

“I’m catching up to you. It won’t be long before I’m stronger than you. I’ll bet I even reach a higher rank than you.”

“Oh? You’re on!”

Mille and Marian walked over.

“What’s this about? Mille asked.

“This freshbane out of his league thinks he’s got the stuff to stand up to me. Gonna’ kick him back down on the dirt where he belongs when he tries.”

“You think?” Caim replied.

He drew out Flourish Catalyst’s source seed and pressed it to his body, directing a second beacon to target Alice. She looked down at the light tethers shimmering across her arms.

“My body feels a little different.”

“Give it more time. I’ll bet you’ve been pushing yourself as usual and you’re running a little tired. That will change. Consider it a gift to show you what you’re competing with. Get back out there with your party.”

“Caim-”

“Don’t worry. I know my spells can’t be detected now. You can just say a registered mage cast a long-lasting spell on you. Oh, but it will end once you’re farther than a certain radius from me. I can also deactivate it myself if I need it for something, so don’t worry.”

Alice noticed a cut on her forearm had healed and looked up at him, inquisitively.

“Yup, it also heals you. I’m amazing, aren’t I?” he joked.

With an expression of mock anger, Alice kicked a leg back and launched herself at him, tackling him to the ground. They rolled over one, twice, three times before coming to a stop. Laughing together, they stayed on the ground for a while before calming down and awkwardly separating.

“Sorry, I was just excited that you’re still the person I thought you were…”

That reminds me, I need to tell her about my plans at some point. She’s strong, kind, and I trust her. She is basically perfect for this role.

“Relax, I’m happy you’re still you too. Actually, I have something to tell you later, when we have the time.”

Alice tilted her head in confusion and mouthed something to herself that Caim couldn’t hear. Her cheeks were a little red. It was likely the combined strain of her job and exerting herself, coupled with the excitement. Flourish would take care of that, no problem.

When Caim looked over to the others, Marian seemed to have calmed down after seeing Alice’s ridiculous display. She still stuck close to Mille.

“What was that, Alice,” Mille questioned.

Alice laughed sheepishly.

“I gotta’ take care of my rival before he gets as strong as me. If I take him out now, it’ll make for an easy fight. There are no rules in battle.”

Mille rubbed her temples in annoyance, but her conduits betrayed her mild relief at the way everything turned out, finally hitting her.

Subject: Caim Location: Blightbane Guild - Arla's Forge

Caim walked up to Marian and bowed his head.

“I apologize for the trouble I’ve caused you and Mille.”

Marian’s lips separated, and she glanced over to Mille, who didn’t react.

“I read a book once,” he continued. “It was a history of another nation, told from the perspective of the survivors of a great war. It began a civil war in which the leader of that great nation fueled economic growth on the backs of her people.”

Caim looked away and began pacing as he recalled this historical account from his world. He mentally summarized all he had learned about this time, though he hadn’t seen it himself. In truth, the history he knew didn’t come from one source, but from many perspectives captured during that terrible time.

“She was losing the support of the public, and while her policies were revolutionary for her time, the corruption predated her time in power. One of her advisors who survived recounts a period of intense psychological instability and frustration. She didn’t have time to solve things the way she wanted, so she instead started something that quickly grew out of hand.”

Mille got the message. She knew that this was about the Hexknights words about faron.

“What did she say in the beginning, to convince her people to go along with this new act? Were there any witnesses?”

“She gave a speech before an enormous crowd, using advanced voice amplification magic that let her thoughts reach an extraordinary amount of people. She explained to these people that their poverty and unease wasn’t the result of her bad leadership, nor was it their faults. Their greed, envy, pride, and wrath wasn’t the culprit. Instead, she pointed the finger at a subpopulation of the nation, people without a voice and without any ability to defend themselves.”

“How does killing people save an ailing nation?” Marian asked.

“Her people wouldn’t agree to just up and kill others, not right away. First she forcibly relocated them to dangerous mines and other work camps where they would provide benefit to the nation and die off ‘naturally’. As workers died replenishing the government’s depleted coffers, the populace got a taste for their newfound prosperity.”

“They believed they earned what the collective sacrifice gave them? They didn’t feel guilty?”

“I don’t know how they felt, only how they acted. The nation’s leader told them that this was the life they had always deserved. She got credit for revealing to the people that they were the chosen stewards of the continent. The nation spread its borders and began to conquer new territories, always ensuring no conquered people were needlessly killed. More use could be extracted from a battered and broken foreign populace.”

“And so a tradition of using others was ingrained in a nation,” Mille commented.

“Can’t you argue that their faithless ways made them vulnerable to this kind of degeneracy?” Marian asked. “They were not Shaden, so they didn’t see the error of their ways.”

Marian hadn’t understood. Caim thought he saw a hint of sadness on Mille’s face.

“They weren’t Shaden, no, but they were human. Humans are susceptible to these impulses, and they always will be. Humans may be closer to the gods, but doesn’t that give them a greater responsibility to shelter those who’ve committed themselves to their shared cause?”

She didn’t respond, but Caim knew people who’d been living in Shroud would need more than a conversation like this to change their minds. Mille knew Caim didn’t really believe that last sentence, at least he hoped she knew.

A tear streaked down Marian’s face, and Mille quickly put her arm around her coworker and tried to help.

“We’ve had a difficult day today, haven’t we? I think we all need a break right now.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t live up to the Guild’s standards, Caim,” Marian said.

“No. I’m sorry for causing trouble after we’ve only just met. I do have a question, though. Are you Mille’s superior?”

Unexpectedly, Marian laughed at the question.

“Hehe, I suppose it would seem that way, yes. Mille doesn’t have many superiors left at this point…”

“What does that mean?”

“Here in the Guild, we value hard-working, talented people. I think that should explain it.

Marian gestured in the direction of a tunnel linking Arla’s Forge to the residential wing.

“On that subject, I've asked an employee to show you to your new living space so you can also rest. You needn’t start work for a while, but I believe I can use your insights to improve the Infoboards. In this way, I hope to prove my value to you. Our Branch of the Blightbane Guild of Shroud has a ways to go yet. We’ll cleanse this region.”

He nodded. Alice slapped Caim on the back and he jolted forward, glancing sideways at her boisterously cheery face.

“Here, Alice. Repayment for being there when I had nothing and giving me the opportunity to live this long.”

She was stunned, and didn’t want to accept the alde coin.

“If you take it, I’ll feel better. I was actually hoping you’d put it toward something for me.”

“Huh? What?”

“Ashera’s Attires sells cheaply enchanted bands. I was hoping you could find some black ones enchanted with defensive magic so we’d match. It’s stupid, but I thought it could be something like a pact to get stronger.”

She was too easy. Alice’s eyes lit up at the mention of a pact and she began to pound his back repeatedly. Between every sentence of hers, he was jostled forward by the surprising weight of one of her “light pats”.

“Yes yes, I’ll take this, but I don’t think I’ll be able to find anything like that thing on your neck there. You have good ideas, Caim. Maybe I’ll let you think you can catch up to me a little longer.”

“Let me? I know I’ll beat you. I’ll make you a bet… within a year, I’ll be able to take one of your punches, head-on, like it’s nothing.”

Alice burst into laughter.

“You, a mage, take my punch? I may not be one of those beefy frontline types, but I’m a lot stronger than I look. A year from today? What do I get if I make you yelp?”

“What do you want?”

Uh oh. Caim had no intention of winning this bet, he was just trying to hold on to Alice’s interest for a year. She was a nice person, and life would be easier with her around.

“I don’t know, dummy, you made this bet outta nowhere. I’ll pick later!” she yelled and ran off.

When he looked back to Marian, she and Mille were starting at each other with the same concerned expression. Mille, whose faron physiology meant she needed to try in order to express herself as a human would, seemed to think this was the time to put in the effort to let Marian know that she was thinking the same thing.

What aren’t they telling us?