Riloth the 19th the 88th-94th

Training with Ren usually ended between two and four, depending on some ineffable variable I could never nail down. As I became more capable—or able to explore the resets to get off a good hit—anything it seemed, could cut a session short.

From me landing a lucky blow, to her knocking me on my butt too easily, she’d brush herself off, or help me from the ground and then say, “Thanks for the spar, you know the way out,” and then move to her bar and fix herself a drink.

One notable time she ended the session after I knocked her peg leg off with a well-timed Gust near the edge of the sandpit.

Each day after training I went to the bath, library, or Levar’s for a chat, depending on my mood and the available time. I enjoyed talking to Levar, but I’ve tried to keep contact at a minimum to preserve the illusion that he was not doomed to forget our interactions each day. The man is a well of information and can usually be steered to a new topic of conversation to inject some variety into the monotony that human interaction had become, but I feared the day when I could find no new thread of conversation. Despite being in a dour mood from a recent break-in, he always cheered up when asked a question pertaining to his work.

One day, I asked him how he could possibly ethically source all his ingredients when they included items like unicorn horn and ground-up pixies.

He became a bit more animated when he started to explain, “Unicorns shed their horns regularly. If they die, their horns lose their magical properties. All of them, not just the one they bore upon death. When a unicorn dies, hundreds of thousands of gold’s worth of horns across Kaltis become worthless in an instant. Attempts have been made by my less-than-upstanding fellow alchemists to breed domesticated unicorns, but a unicorn in captivity never regrows its shed horn. Without a horn, a unicorn’s color darkens until it becomes a nightmare, with manes and hooves of fire, causing maddening dreams to all in the area wherever they went. While a slain unicorn’s horns lose their magic, the horns of a nightmare become corrupted. A tainted horn is alchemic chaos and bears no outward sign of the change. A potion meant to regrow a limb may instead set the imbiber’s insides on fire, or grant them immortality while living in constant pain.” He paused to take a breath, having seemingly said all that without breathing. “Needless to say, the well-being of unicorns is a major concern to the Alchemist Guild."

“Alright, I could see how that would ensure the horns were ethically sourced, and rare, but what about the pixies?”

He perked up further with this explanation, excited to share the anthropological tidbit. “Pixies are well aware of the magical properties their corpses hold and一along with the assistance of the guild一have built their society around the fact. Enclaves collect their dead, dry, and process them, and the guild sends couriers around to purchase them on a regular basis. Before this practice emerged, the pixies were nearly driven to extinction by adventurers seeking to add more profit to their travels. Thankfully, the guild interceded and stopped buying ‘essence’ of pixie from non-pixie sources and the pixie community has thrived ever since. Initially, the price increased, but if nothing had been done, there would be no more pixies left at all. There are the occasional instances of pixie communities disappearing only for a neighboring one to sell us a surplus of product, but that is an internal matter amongst the pixies I have no authority to comment on.”

While he talked, I looked through the other ingredients until I came across a jar labeled “infant teeth - human.”

“How in Fauell do you ethically source these?” I asked, holding the jar up in repulsion.

“Baby teeth fall out on their own,” he replied as if it was obvious—because it was. “Parents bring them to the guildhall, and we offer a flat rate. Actually, in areas outside the cities, the pixies collect them from villagers and sell them along with their dead. They have become quite adept at sourcing all sorts of reagents.”

Along with my chats with Levar, I made full use of the Parlor’s facilities to recover from Ren’s abuse. My totally rational fear of Tilavo began to wane after observing his unwavering path through the resets in that first week. So long as I didn’t have you with me and I didn’t mention dragons, I would probably be safe as I had been up until that library encounter. I never saw him before nine, and with Dagmar's early wake ups, I had a pleasant few days of breakfast at the buffet, followed by training, and wrapped it up with a soak and early dinner ordered off of the menu at the Parlor’s restaurant. Until the rats returned.

On the eighty-eighth reset, I returned from escorting Dagmar to find the dining hall once more in chaos. Previously, I had neither the will nor inclination to deal with this mess, but after a few weeks of scheduled training, I found myself in a different mindset.

These rats need to learn a lesson. I don’t know if they will remember it, but I’m going to teach it to them.

The dining room was quite large, around seventy feet in length and forty wide. Long, food-laden tables lined one wall, and behind them doors led to the kitchens. Opposite the kitchen was a hall leading to the main gaming floor. The narrow walls had doors leading to the baths and to the foyer. I entered the room from the foyer in time to see a swarm of rats skittering out of the opposite door that led to the baths. While I saw them first, I was not the only patron to do so. A woman’s shrill cry broke the amiable chatter of the hall.

“Eeeeeeek!” she screeched. “Rats!”

Chaos broke out as the patrons scrambled over each other to flee. Some brave noblemen equipped with their dress swords deemed it their responsibility to defend the fleeing patrons from the encroaching vermin. This act of courage—even if only against rats—impressed me, and I was tempted to sit and watch how things played out.

As I debated, three richly dressed men ran at the swarm with swords drawn. The rats, on seeing a threat, halted their advance to face the swordsmen.

I probably should do something.

Responsibility overtaking curiosity, I shouted, “Be careful, they’re pack rats!”

As if reacting to my voice, the swarm grew. Rats began to appear out of thin air all over the far side of the room, some even appearing mid-air. About a dozen of those appearing in the air materialized on a trajectory that took them into the wall, dying on impact.

That’s strange.

All the surviving newcomers congregated. Where once had stood thirty rats, now milled at least one hundred. The three nobles, previously confident, now began to waver. By the time I got close, they had begun to flee.

“Stand firm, we can do this,” I told them, trying to emulate Daulf’s tone of reassuring command.

My words didn’t have the intended effect, but the doubt on their faces began to lessen when I unleashed a Gust at the thickest mass of rats. The spell threw them in a three-foot-wide area sailing through the air towards the wall. Many disappeared mid-flight, but those that didn’t crashed into the wall with varying levels of bodily harm. Those unaffected by my spell began to close in on the four of us. Overdressed一and some overweight一though they may have been, the nobles knew how to wield their jeweled dress swords. We fell in, back to back, as the tide of tiny enemies closed in. If they had been regular rats of the same number, I believe we would have stood a chance, but these were anything but ordinary.

A rat leaped from the buffet table at the rotund noble on my right. He swung at it mid-leap, but before coming in contact with the blade, the vermin disappeared and his sword met nothing but air. Emboldened, the rest of the rats attacked. We met their claws and teeth with swords and boots, but all our swipes and kicks met air as the rats disappeared. Each swing of a sword would cause a handful of creatures to disappear while leaving only one or two dead. We held them at bay until they started to reappear. As they did, they immediately charged and caused others to follow, as if the rats that hadn’t vanished had been waiting for them before acting. With each burst attack, we would kill a few only for the rest to get through.

I swung at a rat that charged from the pack at me. It disappeared before I could cut it in half. When I turned to fight off another attack, the first reappeared and two more joined it in its new attack. I kicked one away and cut the second in half, but a third grabbed onto my leg and began to crawl up. With each rat atop me, my focus split, and I failed to repel the next.

The tide of brown and gray fur washed over us. They chewed on my legs and crawled up my body, biting all the way. My concentration on the Gust broke, though it was no longer deterring much of the swarm. With so many on me, my sword became useless. I tried to pull them off of me, but for each I threw away, another took its place. In a fit of panic, I struggled to build the construct for Lightning Bolt and failed. On my second attempt, I managed to form it and unleashed a bolt of lighting into the rats on my chest. The lighting jumped from rat to rat—using my body as a conduit. They fell off me in a writhing mass, and I collapsed atop them stunned.

My reprieve was short-lived. The ones that had not yet reached me now scampered over their fallen comrades to entomb me in their biting frenzy. My world became pain as they dug into every inch of exposed flesh. My mind fled to the Arcane Realm, and I pierced the Font of Air, shaping the power into a Vortex. My awareness returned to my body with no time having passed.

The effect was instantaneous. The rats on top of me flew into the air. Some grabbed hold of my skin and clothing with their teeth and claws, while others disappeared using their innate magic. As had become habit from the hours of practice, I Conjured my belt knife to my hand instead of drawing it. It wasn’t until after it had appeared that I realized I’d done so with Vortex active.

I did it!

Knife in hand, I cut at those that still clung to me as I rose to my feet. The moans of pain around told me that my companions were fairing as poorly as I’d been. Blood pooled on the floor and they were each covered head to toe in rats. I bent down to recover my sword, advanced on the nobles and proceeded to slice the biting fur coats off them. My approach sent most of the critters flying, and I cut the rest away with my sword. The nobles fled when they discovered they were not fated to die at the teeth of the swarm, leaving me to battle it alone.

I didn’t mind. With Vortex, the rats were impotent. At first, some attempted to get to me, but the wind took hold of them and threw them to their deaths. They fled from me, and I chased them down with a vengeance. My proximity was enough to herald their dooms, and the few that remained disappeared when I got close. I hunted them through the dining hall until none remained.

With none left, the adrenaline faded and I found a seat at a mostly blood-free table to rest. Then the world went dark.

Some time later, I awoke in my room with Daulf tending me. The bites had only been partially healed, and I had lost a lot of blood.

Blood loss feels a lot like Will drain. I wonder if there's anything to that?

I tuned out Daulf as he repeated line by line his assessment of my amazing character from the day I’d been beaten by those hoodlums. Pretending to sleep, I attempted to cast a Message to Dagmar, but the distance was too great, and my Will too low from the loss of blood.

The spell formed after nearly a minute of effort, the need to stay still diverting my focus. I shaped the power from the Font of Mind to connect to Dagmar, but I sensed she was too far away as soon as I made the connection, and I didn't have the Will to send a message that far.

It looks like blood loss caused Will drain. Oh well, she’ll figure out.

When Daulf finished saying nice things about me, he gave my hand a squeeze and sat in silence for the rest of the night. I let sleep take me, glad I had switched to only taking a partial dose of the forgone sleep potion. As I drifted off, I contemplated what Dagmar's reaction would be in the morning.

I hope she doesn't kill me in my sleep.