I haven’t seen Val Maxis the entire time, though my owl has spotted him on occasion. So much for getting ahead of the report and controlling the message in my favor. Still, I have been valuable to the army so I think I can smooth it out. I may have to suck up my pride for a few weeks, but I am confident I can convince him to accelerate my instruction.
Kowtowing is a terrifically effective tactic if one can keep clear the concepts of respect and sincerity. To show respect, one simply needs to perform certain socially agreed-upon acts. Yet to show it is not to feel it. To be sincere, there may be no obvious display and yet the effects of its presence will be felt. I have no compunction about being insincere to those I do not respect by feigning obeisance. And those who feel placated by such petty acts are not worth respecting anyhow.
It is on the twelfth day that the gates to Druumshallt are damaged beyond immediate repair. Unable to seal the Elysians out anymore, the Orc Hordes resume their favored tactic of straightforward engagement. War Chief Grimjaw’s control over the Hordes is impressive in that they were made to retreat and hold the keep instead of fight to the last on that first day. Once again, the charging masses are a crashing wave on the shores of Elysium’s army. The sons and daughters of farmers and merchants are better prepared this time and press the hordes into the tunnel with a pincer maneuver, using the forest cover to advantage once again.
A few more days’ fighting reveals that the orc legions beyond the gate are insurmountable for the Elysian force. With their stores running out, the orcs fight to a temporary stalemate deeper in the mountain. When the dust settles, the state of the war is a decidedly grey shade of uncertainty.
Val Maxis comes to collect his apprentices, leaving the remainder of the fighting to be handled by simpler folk. The trip back is made in relative silence. The young wizards-to-be look drawn and much older than when they left the safety of the tower some three weeks prior. Val Maxis himself appears troubled, his thoughts far away. I think I am the only one not brooding.
We are allowed three days’ rest before resuming studies. I do not need it so I rejoin the first year students until the time will be right to approach Val Maxis again.
By a couple of weeks later, things have returned to normal—up-to-and-including being bored to death with the first-year material again. It is taking more and more effort to keep up consistently adequate behavior. I am beginning to doubt that this is a course of action that will net me results. Val Maxis is characteristically strict. I notice him notice my behavior, though I am not sure how much more I can take before something gives. I am not prone to flights of fancy and I have supreme patience in most circumstances but I have no taste for being marginalized or underestimated.
Another two weeks pass and I realize that Val Maxis is giving up on me. Whatever interest he took has waned and he simply has not admitted it yet. What’s more is that, aside from access to his library, he has nothing I need. The lessons about not forcing arcanum out of its natural state of flow, as well as the breakdown of the elements of magic, were the only things holding me back from truly understanding wizardry. Now I am fluent in the language of magic and all I need is to build my vocabulary, so to speak.
So I go back to sneaking volumes from the sections I oughtn’t. This time I abandon all structure and go for the juiciest tomes no matter their level. It is only a matter of time before my apprenticeship will end and I am determined to make the most of it.
The first is Affliction and Withering: A Study in Organic Decay. Very interesting to me, especially in light of the energy draining touch I received when chosen by Ner Ngal. I hadn’t been born with the ability and I did not understand it well when I got it—a young man of sixteen with no formal training in magic. As magic is outlawed in Varasht, apart from the Viziers, I had no one to turn to on pain of death. Along with the dark ritual that caused the withering touch, this had been the final nail in the coffin that prompted my family to have me banished; not just from my hometown of Shirokh, but all of Varasht. My father was a bureaucrat and held station just below the administrator of Shirokh, the Satrap, so it was trivial for him to make it official. I did not mind leaving at that point. I was too big for that place. Nothing there but fearful men and antiquated traditions holding back progress.
I was as hungry for arcane knowledge as a child as I am now. That much has not changed. Now my mastery and knowledge have never been better. Through the dissertation in the book, I am able to increase the potency of my touch, as well as add spells to my arsenal that cause debility or illness in living things.
Next I take Magic For Practical Adventuring: Volume II. I already read volume I. It lives up to its namesake and I discover new ways to augment myself and my equipment for a variety of situations: spelunking, dungeoning, navigating underground such as in Dwarven mines, Duerger tunnels, or Snerfneblin ruins, being at sea, tropical environments, arctic climates, Elven glades including a classification between Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn elf ethnicities, and dragon dens. While there are seven volumes in total, the last four are all about planar and extra-planar travel—Val Maxis’s specialty. Most of his library has been collected from near and far, old and new. That this series is written by Val Maxis is not lost on me.
The Wordbearer Chronicles is a dark fantasy web series with new passages on Tuesdays.
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