Sebastian ended up spending most of the night reading. Owdel had eventually come down from the workshop, but they had already finished their meal, and Owdel’s presence put a bit of a damper on their conversation, so Sarah went to bed, while Sebastian went to the library. He stuck to his decision to avoid the subject of magic for the rest of the day at least, and instead of focusing on the books he had been so focused on, he opted to just browse until he spotted something interesting. He found himself buried in an Ancient book about anatomy until nearly dawn.

He yawned and stretched. I should probably go to bed before I end up sleeping all day tomorrow too. I wonder why I never read this one before, the level of detail is pretty incredible. I wonder how they learned all that stuff about how people are put together. He put the book to the side where he kept the ones he spent most of his time reading, it had given him a few ideas he wanted to explore eventually, and he intended to hold onto these books instead of sending them with the merchants. He quietly went upstairs and laid down, falling asleep in a surprisingly short amount of time.

He was relieved when he woke up without anything trying to drive him insane. He hadn’t ever thought that was something that he would be happy to experience before the last couple days, but it put him in a surprisingly good mood. He went downstairs in search of breakfast while trying to decide if he wanted to continue avoiding magic for another day or two. He was stopped by Owdel shouting from the library as he went down the stairs.

“Merchants have finished their business, boy, they will be here in a few hours to pack up the library and transport it to Clearlake. I suggest you grab whatever you think you will need for your work and put it in your room, no more than you are willing to carry out when we evacuate mind you! If you damage, or abandon my books because you tried to keep a few dozen of them behind you won’t have to be afraid of the Twisted anymore, I’ll kill you myself!”

Well he is in a spectacular mood today. Sebastian thought sarcastically before calling back to him, “Okay, I’ve just got a couple I want to keep handy, I’ll grab them in a bit!” He could understand Owdel’s irritation though. A lifelong scholar, forced to risk damage and loss to the library he has protected for nearly two decades now? Sebastian shuddered at the thought of having to make that kind of decision, choosing to risk his life was one thing, but his books?

The others must have been up for some time now, since there was a bowl of cold porridge left out for him. He shrugged and bolted it down, doing his best to ignore the lack of flavor. Once he had finished eating, he went back to the library and grabbed the few books he refused to go without. He would hate not having the rest here of course, but his guide, the physics book, and the newly discovered anatomy book he wanted to keep. Actually maybe something will happen and I’ll be able to realistically claim they were destroyed or lost, and I can just keep them forever.

Owdel was pacing, occasionally stopping to swear at the shelves and a growing stack of books that Sebastian was assuming were the ones he was unwilling to part with. He only glanced at Sebastian briefly as he passed him with his own stack of books, and then went back to his swearing and pacing. Sebastian made his escape, and decided that today would be a great day to visit Sam and see about getting some stuff made to enchant. That should take the whole day. If not, I’m sure my mom is okay with me dropping by for a visit.

He knew it was rather irresponsible to skip out on the whole library thing, but the less time he spent around Owdel while he was in such a bad mood the better. In general, he considered time spent away from Owdel time well spent anyways, him being in a bad mood just added to his desire to avoid the grumpy old mage. He started out for the smithy in a surprisingly cheerful mood, the transport of the library aside, he had had a good night last night, and didn’t wake up dying this morning, so as far as he was concerned life was looking up.

His cheerfulness lasted all of a few streets, before the stares started to get on his nerves. He had forgotten how much different he looked after spending the evening with Sarah, and then reading the rest of the night. Every person that saw him reasonably close up would stare at his face. So it looks like I get to spend the rest of my life wearing a hooded robe and gloves. Fantastic. He grumbled to himself irritably the rest of the way to the smithy.

Sam greeted him with a cheerful grin though, “Ho there Seb, I see you decided to try and improve your looks, personally I probably would have gone with something a tad less… exotic.” He let out a laugh, “So what can I do for you? Preferably something that doesn’t end with me carrying you to the tower for a three-day nap if you don’t mind.” He was still grinning, and his easygoing manner took the sting out of his teasing.

Sebastian grinned back, “Just wanted to see about having a few things made to work on, and I needed to get out of the tower for a bit.” He started to browse around through the shop, looking at things that he might be able to enchant and use as traps, or just enchant for himself. He did have a few ideas for traps, but wasn’t sure how he should make them trigger. Wouldn’t do them much good if he sent the hunters out to set traps only to have them wasted on random wildlife in the forest. His other problem was numbers, he had no idea how quickly he could make them, and five or six traps probably wouldn’t have all that much effect one way or the other.

He asked Sam to make him a few rough metal plates and some stakes. He figured he could test some things out with them, and since the goal was that they would destroy themselves when activated he didn’t really care what they looked like. He had a sudden unrelated thought. I wonder if I can enchant fabric? Or leather maybe? I think I need to make something that helps me hide my face. Unfortunately, that meant another encounter with Sarah’s mom. Might as well get it over with I suppose. He bid Sam farewell, then quickly made his way to her shop, doing his best to avoid people on the way.

He hurried inside when he got there, more concerned with getting away from the people pointing and staring at him than he was with another encounter with Sarah’s mother. He looked around as the door shut behind him, and the moment he spotted her, she looked up at him smiled. It was disturbing how predatory that smile was too. “Hello again Sebastian!” She walked over to stand in front of him and without preamble she grabbed his chin and started to turn his face in different directions. “I’m guessing you are probably wanting something to help you hide from your newfound admirers?”

What is with women and grabbing my face? Sebastian thought irritably, “Yes ma’am, I was hoping you could make me some hooded robes or a cloak with a nice roomy hood on it.”

She snorted, “None of that ma’am nonsense anymore, call me Jocelyn, or hopefully someday soon, Mother-in-law! As for a cloak or robes, Sarah told me all about your change while you were in that meeting with the mayor and captain. She mentioned that you probably wouldn’t like all the attention it would draw, and while I find it a shame to hide such a pretty face, I agreed to help her out.” She pointed to a table off to one side of her workbench, “Got them right over there, one set of fancy mage robes with a deep mysterious hood, and a new cloak, also with a hood. I imagine the cloak is for times when you expect to use your bow? The robes would probably get in the way of shooting.”

Sebastian was stunned, first by the less than subtle push to ask for Sarah’s hand in marriage, then by the way they both anticipated his desires, and finally by the quality of the robe and cloak she was offering to him. Probably her way of encouraging me to marry Sarah. He thought dryly. He sort of understood, many people got married within a year or two of their coming of age test. She seems to have decided that since he is the only one in town that is both Sarah’s age and at the same social tier, they shouldn’t bother waiting. He was perfectly willing to wait for now though, and he took his mind off of it by looking at his new garments a bit closer.

He tugged on the robe, marveling at its velvety soft fabric. He really wasn’t big on standard mage attire, but this was much more comfortable than he had expected they could be. Eager to finally be able to blend in again, instead of being the focus of everyone’s attention, he focused his mind on the robes. After shaping the enchantment he wanted, he unleashed the magic onto the robes. Since he was wearing them, it had the unexpected side effect of causing his entire pattern to flare with arcane light as it flowed through him and into the robe.

While he felt that was an incredibly overdramatic way to enchant something, he couldn’t help but feel happy with the way it only tired him, instead of causing immeasurable agony. Jocelyn interrupted his thoughts though, “Oh my, that was certainly impressive.” she said softly, “What did you do to it?”

Sebastian grinned at her and flipped up the hood, watching as the world dimmed slightly. “It reduces the amount of light let in and out of the hood, so no matter how bright it gets, or the angle of the light hitting me, it will still hide my face.” He decided to wait on enchanting the cloak for now, the robe had used up a surprisingly large chunk of his mana, and passing out in the tower, or the smithy, was one thing. Passing out in Jocelyn’s shop was something he was completely unwilling to risk.

He thanked her for the robe and cloak and bid her farewell, then made his way back to the tower. He was relieved to find that while strolling through town in mage robes still drew gazes, they didn’t stick to him nearly as long, or cause outbreaks of whispering. He went upstairs when he got back and hung the cloak in his room before going to the kitchen to find dinner.

Sarah was there again, and since she was already cooking he sat at the table to wait. She noticed him after a bit, “Oh, you got a new robe? It looks nice!” her voice had a touch of concern in it, clearly knowing where he would have gotten the robe.

Sebastian suddenly had an idea. A horrible, terrible, malicious idea. Jumping to his feet he smiled at her, “Yup! Your mom gave me a new cloak too! She only asked for one thing in return too!” He dropped to a knee in front of her. “Sarah, will you marr-”

Sarah’s eyes went wide and her face turned bright red. “Oh no, oh no, no, no, no, she didn’t!” She spun around and started to storm off, obviously intending to go and confront her mother about sending boys to propose to her. She was halfway out of the room when Sebastian couldn’t hold it in anymore and burst out into laughter.