Ascendant

It took a day to get a coat in his size made, but Nym was happy with the results. He decided to hold off on the shoes until the group made their second run for supplies and used the rest of the money to pay ahead for his room at the Trough and Saddle. He debated heavily on it, but in the end, it wasn’t much cheaper to buy meals without the room and he liked having a bed to sleep in. He’d gotten used to a warm bath too.

He visited the guildhall in the morning and Navarim took him to the air field to practice. He didn’t stick around since Brogan said he could send Nym back through the teleporter. The old man worked Nym until he was ready to pass out, sticking him with a group of kids five or six years older than him and using him as a prod to motivate them.

“Look at this! This boy is barely half your age and he’s outflying every single one of you!”

Nym won the races against them. He beat their times in the obstacle course. He emerged victorious when they played a game where everyone stood on a pole and they all tried to knock each other off with concentrated gusts of wind. At first, it was a rush, but it didn’t take long to notice the glares the mages were giving him.

Brogan was not helping matters. In fact, he was actively making it worse as he rubbed the class’s collective noses in it each time they were beaten by Nym. The glares got less and less subtle every time Nym won. He considered throwing a few games on purpose, but he hadn’t held back at all and the gap in abilities was obvious. No one would believe if he all the sudden cut his maximum speed by half, which was what he’d need to do to even give them a chance.

After an hour, Brogan sent the whole class to break and dragged Nym off to the side for a talk. “I’m going to be honest with you, I figured you’d win the first one or two and then be too tired,” he confessed. “Things have gotten kind of ugly now, so I wanted to apologize. Nothing left to do but ride it to the end, but I’ll keep a close eye on you. No one is going to take it out on you.”

Nym wasn’t sure what to say to that. In hindsight, of course Brogan had realized things were getting out of hand, but his decision to double down on it instead of putting an early end to it baffled Nym. “Why did you do it?” he asked.

“At first, to motivate them. This class is lazy. Nothing new there. Most all classes are lazy, and teenagers are easy to provoke into working harder. But then you just kept going, and going. You didn’t have this kind of stamina a few days ago. I wanted to see how far you could push before you gave out. But you beat them all! The entire class is wiped and you’re good to do another lap.”

“Probably because I didn’t play tag with you again,” Nym told him.

Brogan shrugged. “My miscalculation, either way. Son, I understand that you are… not financially stable. When you have the opportunity, you should have the mages guild perform an aptitude test. I say this in the best possible way; you are not normal. You’re too advanced for your age by every metric I can casually measure. The only category you even approach standardization in is your knowledge base, and even then, you’ve figured out stuff in your narrow band of interest that’s too advanced for your level of development.”

There were a few words in Brogan’s speech that Nym was guessing at the meaning of, but he thought he had the gist of it. He only had a single silver shield left after paying for his new coat and a week’s stay at the Trough and Saddle. He needed to save it for shoes and maybe a second set of clothes, or if things got desperate, food. So, really, what it came down to was one simple thing. “How much will it cost me, and is it really necessary?”

“Ask Mage Navarim when you get back. I took that test a hundred thirty years ago, and I didn’t know what it cost then either. As for necessary, it is if you want to go to the Academy. I think you should. You’re obviously talented and smart. I know money is an issue for you, but I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

“Maybe if you’re offering to pay for it,” Nym said.

Brogan grunted. “Not on my salary,” was all he said.

The conversation died off as they watched the class he was teaching recover their breath. Finally, Brogan said, “Let’s get you back to town. Zoskan, wasn’t it? Think about what I said. If you can find a way to make it work, I guarantee it’ll be worth it. Abilanth has one of the best schools in the world.”

* * *

Navarim was happy to answer questions, but once Nym found out it would cost him five shields, he lost interest. Every service the mages guild offered was so expensive. He briefly wondered how much it would have cost him for using the teleportation platforms to go to and from the air field. He decided not to ask, lest Navarim mention repaying that expense.

The only thing to do was keep gathering things from the forest for Cern The alchemist was his only real source of revenue, and Nym used the second outing to purchase a second set of clothes and shoes. He was left with four shield three, as they said, or four shields and three shims. It was almost enough to take that licensing exam so he could fly in town, and Nym considered pushing for it.

Navarim warned him off. There were many other subjects he listed off that Nym had never even heard of, and there was no way he could pass the entire exam. It wasn’t designed for just one topic, but it was an all-or-nothing grade. Either he passed everything, or he got nothing except a wasted five shields.

He felt rich with the weight of the silver and copper in the pocket of his new pants, but Nym was afraid to spend it. The second trip into the forest had seen them hitting new spots, deeper in, trying to find places that they hadn’t already cleaned out. There was a reason they normally only made one trip every other week, and while having Nym along expanded what they could reach, it didn’t completely negate the fact that stuff needed time to grow back.

With that thought in mind, Nym allocated one shield to covering a second week’s stay until the group’s next trip. Since he still had some money left, he had Navarim point him to a bookstore that sold texts for apprentice mages, but the older mage’s warnings about the prices proved all-too-true. Even the cheapest of beginner primers would completely drain all of Nym’s reserves. Regretfully, he left without a purchase. The shop keeper and the guard both gave him suspicious looks the entire time he was in the store.

Stymied by a lack of funds and out of ideas, Nym simply left town to practice flying on his own. The forest wasn’t as good an obstacle course as the air field, but he didn’t need anyone’s help to get there and no one was pushing him to compete against the other students. He took his own pack with him and just wove around, stopping occasionally to scoop up some of the things he recognized from Cern’s list. Maybe he could slip them in with the next haul, or find someone else to buy them.

He flew back to the city when the sun started going down. By now, the gate guards on every shift knew him by sight, and nobody was giving him a hard time about getting in and out. He paused when he saw Teran was on duty today. “Hey Teran, got a question for you.”

“What’s up, Nym?”

“I was just wondering, do you know if anyone besides Cern needs anything from the forest. I kind of have more than I can sell to just him.”

“Wait, you’re going into the forest?” Teran asked. “By yourself? I knew you went a few times with Therm’s group, but that’s incredibly dangerous to go in on your own.”

Nym shrugged. “I haven’t had any problems yet. So… bag full of mushrooms and flowers and moss used by an alchemist. Any ideas?”

Teran just shook his head. “Cern’s the only alchemist in the city, as far as I know. Though some healers do also use herbs from the forest. I’m not sure they’d want anything you have today, but you could try a few of the clinics set up around town.”

“Thanks, I’ll do that,” Nym told him. He went into town and headed straight for the closest clinic. Teran was right though, there wasn’t a lot of overlap between the kinds of things Cern wanted and the kinds of things a healer wanted. Moreover, the healers all seemed to align with Babkin’s way of thinking and refused to tell him anything they collected from the forest so that he would not have a reason to go there.

It was annoying. He’d spent three days living in it, had gone back in half a dozen times now for various reasons, and he was fine. Yes, there had been one close call with some spiders, but it wasn’t even that close. He’d gotten away easily and hadn’t been hurt. It wouldn’t even have been an issue except he’d needed to sleep and they’d gotten the drop on him. It wasn’t like he slept there anymore.

Nym just knew if he was older, this wouldn’t have been a problem. The struggle to get adults to take him seriously was never-ending. In some ways, being a child probably helped, as it seemed like a few adults were more inclined to give him some leeway or a good deal, but it wasn’t worth the aggravation of them constantly thinking they knew best and trying to tell him what to do.

He walked into Cern’s shop, only to find it half-dismantled. “What happened?” he asked the alchemist, who was working with two mages Nym had seen around the guildhall recently.

“That little mishap a few days ago reminded me that I forgot to renew the anti-shatter wards on the baseboards. It’s such a huge pain to do that I kept putting it off. I was just lucky that nothing broke the other day, though quite a few things ended up on the floor.” Cern gave Nym a shrewd look. “I guess I owe someone a thank you for that. Must be the glassblower.”

Cern nodded his head towards the two mages who were busy at work. Nym got the message. Cern knew he’d used magic to catch everything, and was grateful for the help, but wasn’t going to announce in front of two mages from the guild that Nym was unlicensed and using magic in town. “Uh, right, yes. Anyway, why are you tearing the place apart?”

“Some of the potions and elixirs react badly to having wards cast near them. It’s easier to just clear the whole space for them to work, then put it all back when the wards have settled.”

“That sounds expensive,” Nym remarked. “Is it really cheaper than just occasionally dropping something?”

Cern snorted. “If it were just me, you’d be right. That’s one of the reasons I don’t have them in my labs. But the… ugh… customers can paw at them here. Half of these vials are display only. Just colored water and if someone wants to buy one, I spin them a story about it being old but I have a fresh batch in the back. And still, just the cost of the glass and the few real brews out here, no, it’s cheaper to keep the anti-shatter wards working on the floor.”

He noticed the pack Nym was carrying and gave it a curious look. “What do you have there?”

Nym handed it over, and Cern flipped open the top to reveal the harvest. Slowly, he poked through it. “Nym, why do you have this?” he asked. He did not look pleased.