"It eludes me why Sudomeas, a deity of knowledge as its cleric claims, took so much interest in this area.

I have learned that the priest wishes to restore an abandoned fort few hours of walk from the village and wants to set up a church here. The villagers are eager for him to do so; especially as the group which went with him to hunt gobbears have found out that more beasts have taken a residence there.

Due to the support he and his followers provided to Crestfall so far, his influence among the villagers has grown significantly. There are also rumours that serfs from nearby villages consider moving here, at least until beasts’ migration ends; even if the hamlet is on the fringe of the civilised area, it recently started to be perceived as a safe haven.

A few of the cleric’s followers seem to be exceptionally talented, maybe even gifted warriors. I watched them fighting against beasts. Some behaved more like seasoned troops than simple farmers wielding their tools as improvised weapons. Maybe they were the reason why this deity decided to send his cleric there?

Summing up, in a current situation his presence is beneficial, as he coordinates villagers against more intelligent threats migrating from the mountains. I am in no position to rule out whether it would be advantageous in the long run.

Off note: I believe that one of the children living in the village is a gifted singer. He couldn’t be older than seven winters, yet even a child rhyme sang by him had a feel that I rarely heard from the bards who have been invited to the manor."

- a report delivered to House Faranger

Three darts of energy surged from Lara’s extended palm and flew against Sten only to dissipate crashing against a shimmering barrier appearing in front of him. The apprentice answered with a short incantation, sending fiery rays against his opponent. With a shout and gesture, she erected a similar shield around herself. It absorbed first of the projectiles, yet two further hit the slightly weakened barrier in the same spot, penetrating it. The girl managed to dodge one of them, yet the second hit her in the chest.

With a scream, she jumped into a nearby pond of water to get rid of flames spreading around her robes.

“Ha! It’s 6:3 for me now!” Sten shouted, proud of himself.

Ion created four Magic Missiles from his fingers and directed them on the paths that would connect against Sten from four different angles. The apprentice managed to quickly cover himself with a Shield spell, yet as Ion expected it protected only his front.

“How many times I have told you to create it in the shape of a dome,” he said with an annoyance as two of his darts moved around Sten’s barrier and struck him.

Afterwards, Ion addressed Lara, who stopped pouting seeing Sten’s misfortune, “And seeing that he has been performing a lazy version of the spell in all of your duels, I wonder why you still hadn’t thought about using it against him.”

“Sorry, Master Evans, we will try to do better,” the apprentices answered in unison.

Ion only nodded, pulling his hood deeper as they prepared for another mocked fight.

Over the past few days, changing his appearance with transmutation was getting harder and harder to him; not only sustaining the spell was getting more straining for his mana, but the headaches were also occurring more frequently and were more severe.

‘I guess that is the reason why wizards can’t behave like doppelgangers, at least not in a long run.’

Due to his body developing a partial resistance to transmutation spells after his prolonged exposure to its effects, he had to resort to illusions, make-up and hoods whenever possible. Which was whenever he wasn’t in proximity of Melker or Silverford family members.

‘It will probably take months until I could cast Alter Self on myself as easily as before, if ever. I wonder if at least it also increases my resistance against malevolent transmutation attempts. Or if the similar effect occurs by exposing oneself to different types of spells. Could one, by repeatedly burning himself with fiery spells, develop resistance against them?’

The collage of knowledge he learned in his dreams was unhelpful. It could be summed up with: “It depends, varying greatly between spells, casters and even outside conditions.”

Ion really began to envy the apprentices their chance to receive a structured knowledge during their time in the guild. The arcane knowledge which could be fully utilised, without adjusting, applied to the laws governing this Plane here and now.

‘Without a need to correct everything, without wondering if something is not working due to my lacking understanding, or due to the magic working slightly differently in the times, continent or whichever Plane Vision-me lives.’

This yearning was simply another reason for Ion to wish to travel to Aethera University as soon as possible.

‘Eh, the task at hands first.’

With Ion’s growing difficulties in sustaining his cover and Sae’s earlier lack of progress in finding out an attainable way to silently bypass the inner wards of the treasury, they feared that they would have to drop their plan to steal back the manuscript. However, the news about the festival that would occur during the Hallowing ceremony gave them a glimmer of hope.

Like other nobility, Silverfords declared that they would be assisting clerics during the ceremony. Most of their guards and soldiers would either protect them or be keeping order in the town while commoners would attend the festival.

According to Sae, with the estate’s thinned defences – actually, just a regular number of guards, as Silverfords have been beefing up their numbers after obtaining the manuscript – even if they activate the inner wards forcing their way through them, they should be able to escape before Silverfords gather forces to stop them. They just had to plan their escape well.

Which was one of the reasons why Ion decided to assist in the apprentices’ training. Having a good reason to spend his free time in the gardens, Ion was choosing specific areas as their training sites. Mainly places close to the forgotten glyphs set up by Silverfords’ daughter before she left for the University. Recharging almost inert wards was far faster and less conspicuous than creating new ones. The only things needing adjustment were their trigger conditions, which Ion was slowly, and hopefully covertly, modifying. He wouldn’t have it that easy if the wards were still charged.

‘It’s faster but not necessarily easier. Not understanding the spells she wished to manifest through those wards, not knowing the ideas behind them, I can’t release their full power nor recreate them on my own.’

The pattern used when arraying runes into wards wasn’t really a consistent language, so trying to understand someone else’s work or copy it wasn’t a simple task.

‘I can only identify them as patterns connected to Evocation, of 2nd and 3rd circles. Maybe those are some common spells, only with changed attributes? That girl sure is talented. I’d almost wish someone triggers them accidentaly so that I could see their effects in action. Still, if everything goes well, I should be far away from anyone who might get struck by them.’

Spending his time training apprentices also gave him more opportunities to talk with them over the past few days. He got to know them better and learned the reasons behind their fleeing from Viridineae Convent.

Honestly, their story was kind of disappointing. No great conspiracy, nothing he could use as an eventual leverage against their guild in Grasshaven.

Both Lara and Sten had been street urchins with an affinity towards mana. Around two years ago, they used few wild spells to protect themselves from a thug, the commotion sighted by a Viridineae wizard. Taken by a promise of having a place to sleep, they began their lives as a part of a guild.

However, as their training progressed, it became evident that Sten’s talent was more Evocation oriented. Moreover, he really struggled with spells that supported agriculture and magically enchanted plants, which are a speciality of Viridineae Convent. Because of that, the guild has arranged to transfer him to Utherlight so that he could get a tutoring from Ordo of Foc Sagrat which specialised in offensive spells.

For Sten however, a chance to get an education tailored to his talents paled in comparison to Lara. Unable to convince the guildmasters to change their mind they decided to flee and be together.

'How rash. Do a few years of isolation matters in a grand span of a wizard’s lifetime?'

‘Surely, Vision-me seems talkative today,’ Ion tried to smile. ‘The apprentices’ story is another proof that not joining any guild was a correct choice. To be ordered around, and if not wishing to follow the orders be forced to flee… it is surely not the life I would want for myself. At least it seems that so far the guild is not too concerned with searching for runaways.’

“Ha! You can’t hurl your firebolts now, can you?” Lara’s cheerful laugh brought him back to the reality. Sten was thrashing viciously trying to break free from numerous vines and grasping weeds restraining him. Some even entangled his hands, rendering him unable to cast.

"I think that we can try something different now," Ion spoke ushering the apprentices to follow him.

He had already finished with this ward for now; only final runes were left to be added later as he didn’t want someone to accidentally trigger it too early. Which wasn’t even that probable, as from what he has seen, areas near the wards still had an ill reputation amongst Silverfords’ servants.

For now, Ion wanted to see how well would his newest undead fare in the combat.

“Those will be your new sparring partners,” he opened the door to his laboratory, mentally ordering four vargrs to move out.

“What are those?” Lara looked terrified, glancing at the undead wolf-like creatures. As they were killed and raised not that long ago, they weren’t visibly rotting yet. “Are they dead?”

However, the eerie stiffness of their moves and an empty stare was giving off their true nature.

“Yes, so there is no need to hold back now. Imagine that they are a pack of vargrs that attacked you in the forest. So, work together and protect yourselves.”

Not giving them any longer to prepare he ordered the creatures to attack. The monsters shambled forward, their primal instincts albeit distorted by Necromancy, taking control.

His first animated creatures weren’t able to move at all, so even if undead vargrs were much slower than during their lives, it was still a progress. A jogging human could probably outpace them, at least in short distances.

‘Too bad that as zombies they lack any intelligence, unable to think like a pack. If only… no! I won’t be trying this.’

Ion sighed as he mentally ordered two of the creations to change their path, trying to encircle the apprentices.

“You just gave away the advantage of range without doing anything,” Ion said when monsters were just 10 meters from them.

This seemed to awoke the apprentices as they started to act.

With Lara’s chant, vines sprouted from the ground around her, entangling two Ion’s vargrs and slightly slowing down the remaining. Sten joined his palms and roaring flames emerged from his hands, spreading in a cone, charring one of the creatures that tried to encircle them and one of the undead restrained by Lara’s spell.

Had the affected monsters been still alive, they would probably howl in pain and choose to flee, yet as undead, they had no such concerns.

The half-burnt vargr pounced against Sten, who, much to Ion’s annoyance, again used the Shield spell that only protected his front. The apprentice screamed as the second one bit him in the ass, the mass of the colliding creature sending him tumbling on the ground.

‘I doubt he will learn from this,’ Ion sighed.

“Sten!” Seeing the undead approaching the lying, bleeding boy, she placed her hands on the ground causing a sudden eruption of stones and earth from below the monsters, twisting and wrecking paws of one of them.

Not wanting Sten to get accidentally hurt too badly, Ion ordered the vargr that was still able to move to attack Lara instead.

It tried to jump on her, only to rebound from a proper shimmering barrier that she formed around herself. However, the sight of its fangs just a few centimetres from the girl caused her to shriek in fear and have broken her concentration on the entangling vines.

“You must trust the defences your spells provide, an attack from opponent can’t scare you!”

The plants started to wither and disappear, releasing the remaining vargrs. In the meanwhile, Sten managed to finish off the monster that stayed near him with a barrage of Magic Missiles. Breathing heavily, he straightened himself, pointing towards the incoming undead. His call was answered and a thunderous wave swept forward, pushing away the vargrs. Lara used the opportunity to retreat and began conjuring entangling vines again.

It was less effective this time, as two of the vargrs managed to break free and began trying to penetrate the barrier surrounding Lara. This time, however, she didn’t let her concentration slip away.

“Oh, there you are!” Sae’s must have returned and be nearby as Ion heard her through the Message cantrip. “I just returned from the town with your apprentice, so try to not be too surprised!”

‘What?’

He looked around, wondering what Sae devised this time. She was weaving to him and true to her announcement someone was following her.

“Aww!” Lara’s cry of pain brought his attention back to the apprentices.

“Shit!”

She was lying in a pool of blood, a battered vargr chewing her arm. Ion immediately ordered his undead to stop attacking and run to the girl. She was gasping for air, drifting in and out of consciousness.

Ion placed his hands on her and started chanting. For a brief moment he wanted to use Sten as a source of lifeforce – wouldn’t it be poetic if he has helped her? – yet seeing that he was already in a bad shape he decided against it. Despite a wave of tiredness and a slight feeling of a lightheadedness washing over him, he had no problem to guide the energy to the injured parts of her body.

Within seconds Lara’s breath became even and most of her wounds closed themselves. Seemingly only a part of the energy stored inside Ion’s body was enough to restore her life-threatening wounds almost back to her prime.

Or, to be more precise, Ion used mostly the excess lifeforce he drained from vargrs before animating them today. Still, even if he had chosen to use his own energy, it would be around 1/3 of the pool he could manipulate safely, assuming that the moment he heard a warning from Vision-he last time could be considered reaching a threshold.

‘But I will have to observe the time of dissipation of a foreign Lifeforce another time.’

He thought, slightly dejected that he was forced to end one of his experiments abruptly.

Even if Ion could have stopped using Life Transfer immediately after only stabilising her condition, he decided against this. After all, he was posing as a Master Necromancer.

The awestruck gaze of Sten made him smile.

“We will end for today. Take her to the room and apply this to your wounds.”

Ion removed from his Bag of Holding one of his ‘upgraded’ healing ointments and handed it to Sten.

“Just try to not inhale it while applying, it might make you dizzy. Better stay in a bed for a while after using it.”

The shocked apprentices were still standing there, looking at him.

‘Better to get rid of them before they start thinking that it was my fault that they were being hurt. Not that they would dare to say it aloud in front of me.’

“There is a fatal flaw in your fighting style, which is becoming more evident when you are faced against something not utilising spells. I understand that you were taught by wizards focused on agriculture, but to not teach you something as basic and useful as Arcane Armour? The principle of it is similar to Shield, at least a proper one, encompassing you around. The difference is that it requires more attention when casted and draws its strength from a material component. Thanks to using almost only the ambient mana it is much easier to sustain it far longer. We will train this spell tomorrow.”

Finally, the pair started to leave. Despite everything that happened, it was limping Sten who needed Lara’s support as they walked. Ion observed the duo for a moment, thinking.

They fared quite well against his vargrs. Only two of the undead survived the spar, yet both were close to crumbling, much of their skin peeled and charred, already missing some body parts.

‘Owlbear cubs would probably make more sense as a distraction. It’s a pity there is no chance that they’ll bring me an adult ready to be animated! The vargrs demand so much coordination to be effective as zombies. Without my direct control, they are simply trying to charge in a straight line, they would be close to no threat to anyone prepared.’

“Do you think Silverfords would enjoy the changes you’ve made to their garden?” Sae approached him.

The mounds of earth and pieces of gore were scattered nearby resembling more a dwelling of an Ankheg than a garden.

“Some of this could be resolved with prestidigitation…”

‘…but would be a pain in the ass.’

Ion mentally ordered the vargrs to flatten the mounds. As long as they still sustained themselves, he could use them. Trying to repair them with the Lifeforce now would be only a waste of energy. It would be far easier for him to raise new ones if he needed more undead.

“At least it wasn’t their proper garden, only some backyard grass, so they should be fine with this…” the wizard shrugged.

The slightly familiar woman following Sae stared at him absentmindedly for a while before deciding to ask.

“Earlier… Have you really healed her?” Sae struck the girl with her elbow. “Master?”

Apparently, not only Sten was impressed by his new spell.

Ion recognised the voice as Reria’s. Looking from up close, he began to discern a resemblance under the make-up and a wig.

“As it wasn’t based on the same principles as a clerical magic, I wouldn’t really call it healing,” Ion knew that there were numerous differences between using divine magic, nature energy, lifeforce and pure mana to mend injuries. He just couldn’t recall those visions clearly. “The more proper term would be… infusing, I guess. Not that it matters right now, apprentice. Let’s go to the room. There are some things we need to discuss.”