Chapter 8

“So, how did you do it?” Erick asks me, before taking another drink.

“Did what?” I ask him doing my best to sound as I don’t know what is he is talking about.

Erick sights before continuing. “How did you get Lis to quote Gandalf?” And just like that I couldn’t keep the cheshire cat smile from my face anymore. “That my friend, is a state secret.” I answer him before downing another shot. We were sitting at the cafeteria bar. I don’t know if a regular military base should have an alcohol serving bar, but thanks god we do.

Seeing as the force is made of so many different crazy, I mean, eccentric, people and creatures, some with the power to bend reality to their will, a bar was something the commander and powers that be had to compromise.

Not only it’s designed as place for people to calm down at the end of the day, but a safe place for the many factions that compose the forces to discuss non-military related matters. There are still regulations on on who can drink and how much they are allowed and etc. To avoid people on active duty or with scheduled missions getting drunk.

Fortunately for me, the commander has a good enough heart to leave me with one day leave of my three hard earned ones..

“You called in a favor!” Damn, caught red handed.

“I called in a favor.” I answer him with a sheepish smile. “But you are still paying for the drinks.”

“Whatever, I just can’t believe you would spend a favor owned by a sidhe royalty to win a bet.” He states dumbfounded. “Such a waste.”

I give him my sheepish smile again, and raise my glass for a toast. Erick sighs and toast as we down another one. Even with the small improvement to my constitution I get from my connection to Winter, I’m starting to get drunk after the 5th, 7th shot if count the two at the commander office. Unfortunately, we are not drinking real scotch, like the one me and the commander toasted, but enclave made spirit.

“You see Erick, we could have died today, hell, I could die tomorrow or the day after. So I take these small pleasures whenever I can. Plus, owning me so much favors sits really bad with Lis, so I am collecting the small ones when I can.” Not to mention that I feel a little guilty for tricking her into owning me so many favors. Not that I did especially on purpose, I did want to have something over her, when I heard a summer sidhe royalty would join my team, but things escalated out of control that night. Plus I like her as much as you can like a Sidhe.

He nods and pour us another drink. “So I heard that you managed to piss of the commander again today. How did you do it? Considering we arrived barely an hour before.” The rumor mills surely run fast around here. “Personal business Erick.” He nods again, being a wizard since before the end, Erick understands that when a wizard don’t want to talk about something, there is usually a good enough reason, so he doesn't press me. The commander could surely learn from him. “I don’t think she accepted that excuse?”

“She loved it. She liked it so much she gave me a job as consultant to the guard in a case.” I answer bitterly after downing another shot. Was it the the 9th or 10th? “They asked for help with a case in the special district. I’m to report there the day after tomorrow.”

He freezes. “I hope this is not an attempt to recruit my help.” He tells me after a few moments. ‘Well, considering we are bound as survivors of the old ways of magic before the end, and how well I respect you and your skills, I would love too ask you a favor.” Ericks goes pale as I make a small pause. “Can I count on you to keep up the training schedule for the team while I’m away?” I drop my serious tone when I finish and can’t help grin at him. “You asshole.” He answer relieved. “Sure, I’ll make sure to keep the training going. Lilian still need to work on her control, and Johnson needs to learn good sense.” The understatement of the year I think to myself. “But I don’t think Pyralis will listen to me.”

“I’m going to collect one more debt she owns me and have her taking care of my back in Net town.” I tell him. “Better her than me.” He answers.

After that, we made small talk until I felt drunk enough to fall asleep as soon as fell on my bed. I got my leather coat at the way out and walked all the way to my room on the barracks. I disable my wards long enough to enter and face plant on my bed after making sure they were up and running again. And the last thing I think as the sweet oblivion of sleeptake me is “What a fucking day.”

I wake up early the next day. Besides my little drinking adventure, it wasn’t very late when I went to bed, so I’m not feeling that terrible. A little headache, but nothing serious. After a shower, I almost feel like smiling, but then I remember that I have tons of things to do to prepare for tomorrow.

Wizards, are the most common and versatile types of magic users. Contrary to Sorcerers, like Lilian, or Warlocks. We study magic for years, understanding the rules that it follow and we can devise spells for almost anything. It just take us time to study and develop them. A wizard who had time to prepare for a situation is a very dangerous foe, If we know what we are going to deal with, we can always come with ways to help deal with it. Sure, we are limited with how much power we have and ours skills. For example if I ever had to fight Mab, I would prepare against cold spells, glamours and to bring a lot of cold iron. And I would still get squashed like a bug. Because you know, Queen of Air and Darkness, Monarch of the Unseelie and all that..

But the point was, if I’m going to have to work with the guard on the special district, I better prepare myself for it.

The special district on Net town, is where most of the magical beings, not belonging to the courts, reside. It’s mostly Wyld Fae, plus a few more magic creatures who joined the enclave along the years. So basically it’s a melting pot of powerful entities, many whose are regulated by their own codes, customs and even by their own magic like the Fae. And in top of that we have the guard trying to make sure they still follow their version of the law. Really nice place.

Although they have some magic users and touched on the guard, the bulk of it’s policing force are regular humans. So from time to time we and the defence forces get request to help in cases involving magic. And due to my status as one of the winter knights and long standing story with the magical beings, that dutie falls to me more often than I like.

It does makes sense, since I’m closely aligned with the Fae, the magic community value my word, as breaking it would look bad on Mab. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. I already have enough trouble dealing with the Fae on the forces and whenever I’m summoned to court (I mean the winter court, not a court of justice).

Ok, if we are going to do this, let's review the facts. There has been a few missing persons case on the special district. The district being the district, means that the guard is having trouble getting any information from the locals. So, bribes are in order, I mean gifts. What the guard fails to understand is that with the magical community, nothing is really free. They value favor and obligations a lot, especially the Fae. So if you want information, unless helping you further their interests, they will not give you to for free. The guard has too much of that ‘everybody's the same at the eyes of the law’ mentality. And that's the citizens duty to help the law enforcement. That doesn't work very well with the magic community. So if I want to get things done, I better be prepared to pay up from my own purse.

Second is personal safety. That is usually easy for me. Abjuration is my specialty after all. What I didn’t mention this before? I’m sure I must have. Anyway, shields, barriers, counter-spells and etc are what I’m really good at. But my last stint on this kind of job taught me that there is a big difference in fighting on the open with nothing but a small team of friendlies around you and in the middle of an urban area. So more compact shields, less brunt force, avoid striking first and beware of collateral damage (The commander wanted to skin me alive when the guard tried to bill the forces for that one building).

Checking my available gear, the first thing I do is leave my scouting leather long coat on the closet, and grab my combat long coat. I check the coat enchantments and decide that reinforcements are in order.

Second checking my focuses. The staff is in good conditions, since I reinforced the enchantments before leaving for the last mission. I check my amulet and my bracers and they also are on good condition. I also grab my combat stick (I refuse to call it a wand) it’s a 45 cm longs heavy wooden stick with some heavy enchanting. Good for close combat in small spaces. I also deem a good idea to reinforce it’s enchantments.

Ok, with my gear selected, I pack it all and leave my room for breakfast. After a quick bowl of cereals and some OJ, I leave the barracks and head to the frankenstein building. My first stop is at the comms room to have a message sent to Pyralis on the summer court. Then I go the workshop. The workshop occupies the entire basement of the building. It’s has over 20 personal rooms for enchanting and alchemy plus few bigger rooms for projects that require more people working together. I sign in at one and start re-enchanting my stuff.

You might be wondering why do I need to enchant my gear again, it’s due to the nature of magic. You see, I’m not changing the enchantments, like trading the kinetic energy absorber enchanting from my beads bracers, I’m just reinforcing it so it doesn't fade. You all remember when I told you all about how magic requires life or else it slowly becomes chaotic? The same principle applies for enchanting objects. No known non-living materials can keep a magic enchantment forever. It will slowly unravel with time. How long it lasts depends on how strong is the enchantment, the material (gems and things that used to be alive works better). Some big ritual enchantments can contain self-renewing enchantments, but they require a constant source of magic. That is how we power our safe houses, our shields and many structures on the city.

Fortunately, for me to reinforce the enchantments is a simple act, unlike creating a new enchanted item, it can be done in a few hours instead of a few weeks.

First my combat stick. It’s has 3 enchantments on it. The first is the same kinetic energy storing and release enchantment I have on my staff. It basically stores energy from me walking around and swinging it and I can later release with as a big punch. Talking about punches, let me tell you a cool story. This idea is not originally mine, I have got it from two of my favorite wizard characters I used to read before the end. It’s a genius idea in my opinion, it’s charges itself, so no magic required, and it only requires a small amount of will to release, usually allowing you to sucker punch any enemy that is watching for spells. Anyway, the first time I tried this enchantment, I copied those two 100% and made rings that carry the energy, so I could punch out a troll for example. The idea was awesome. Little me with my 1,87 meters and 90kg knocking out a almost two meters and a half troll weighing half a ton.. But I must have jinxed myself, because somehow Dresden, and whoever designed the Ring ot the Ram, found a way to deal with the knockback that releasing such kinetic energy causes, it’s a few times worse than shooting a gun, since the energy is more spread. So, when I went and try my new rings I ended with a dislocated shoulders and three broken fingers.. After that I switched to the staff and the stick. Much safer, and easier to enchant, since the surface area to enchant is much bigger.

The second enchantment, is also one I keep on my staff, it is basically a spell circuit for me to channel the power of the winter well in to a cone of freezing wind, the same I used against the barghats yesterday. I like it because it’s quick and have a good rate of magic energy conversion, since I’m not trying to use the power of winter to light a fire for an example.

The third and last enchantment I have on my stick is a dispelling one. It basically releases a charge of uncontrolled raw magic that can destabilize unprotected spells and enchantments. Any wizard worth their salt will have countermeasures on the form of their spells and enchantments, but sorcerers, warlocks, touched and especially the crazy wild magic monsters that lives on the wasteland, rarely do so.

Once I finish with the stick, I start on my coat. Have you wondered why on all the old stories wizards were always wearing long robes and etc.? It’s simple, because they didn’t have long coats at the time. No, seriously, it’s because of surface area. The more surface area an item has, the better you can enchant it. Of course there is a limit where bigger stops being better, depending on what your trying to enchant, but in general the theory holds true. That’s why enchanting a one piece robe or a long coat, for more modern wizards, is much easier and efficient then let’s say a jacket and a pair of pants. Ok, now that I already explained the reason behind wizard fashion sense, back to enchanting.

My combat coat is focused on taking a beating. It has kinetic energy dispersion, elemental, slashing and piercing resisting enchanted in to it. Plus a small thermal enchantment inside to make sure I don’t melt on hot days. While my scouting coat that I used on the mission is more focused on avoid detection and hiding my magic from sensitive creatures. In my experience is much better to avoid a fight, then to survive one.

It takes me the better part of the morning, but I finish my work in time for lunch, after that I check the comms room again. Lis received my message and agreed to meet me for lunch. I think it’s funny, how before the end of the world, whenever you had to deal with the Fae, you did a summoning, and if you did it right, they would quickly arrive by crossing in to our world near you. Now, you got send message and they need to move like everyone else..

Lunch goes without a problem, and I manage to secure Pyralis assistance. It only costs me a debt she owned me for rescuing her from a fight with the blue men of Mynch, on our first fated excursion on Net town (the same one where I stopped her from burning a whole residential district).

With everything basically set, I went for the base observatory. From there you can see most of the enclave. With the enclave shields active and being battered from the wild magic storm, the entire enclave was colored in dark blue and grey tones, with sparks of white whenever the shield was hit by the storm.

The enclave, home for near 60 thousand souls, plus another 30 thousands or so Fae and other magical beings. It’s located against a cliff side in in a small valley. This semi-hidden location makes up for the bulk of hour defences and protects us against the worst of the storms. The enclave itself looks like a semi-circle cut in three pieces there is the Winter Court to the left, Neutral town in the middle, being as big as the other two pieces together, and the Summer court to the right. Four meter tall walls circle the entire enclave, powerful enchantments powered by the power of the queens are engraved on these walls. They both raise our shields and help conceal us. The expeditionary forces headquarters is located on a high hill against the cliffside, positioned where would be center of the semi-circle. I appreciate the view for a while, my mind wandering about the years after the end. From wizard apprentice, to military adviser on magical matters for the commander, to envoy to the Fae, to winter knight, to hero, to villain back to hero and now even leading people to the outside. It sure have been a hell of time, and it doesn't look like it’s slowing down.