Ascendant

Apparently, in Thrakus they called the local guard constables. Nym had no clue why. Everywhere else he’d been, the guard was just the guard. Also, apparently in Thrakus the constables were quite annoyed with the group for beating up a bunch of men, even if those men had been the ones to start it.

Even so drunk they could barely stand, it was no contest. The ground just opened up around the thugs, swallowing them whole and then closing again. Six of them were buried up to their necks in the first few seconds of their attempted ambush. The other one did manage to jump away in time to avoid being captured by that spell, but as soon as he landed, he fell victim to the same fate. The only difference was that it was Ophelia’s spell that caught them instead of Bildar’s.

And then the guards, er, constables got involved and the whole group had to produce licenses, of which Nym of course didn’t have one, but Bildar assured them that the magic all came from the adults anyway so it wasn’t relevant.  That also annoyed the constables, who were already annoyed at being forced to deal with the whole situation, and who were especially annoyed at how drunk all of the mages were.

“Can you at least get them out of the ground?” the exasperated constable asked.

Bildar stared at the man dumbly. “Maybe,” he said. “Not sure if I could do it without hurting them.”

“And once again God teabags my beer,” the constable muttered. “Fine, we’ll dig them out ourselves. You will be fined two shields per man.”

“That’s outrageous!” Bildar shouted. “Why should I pay sixteen, wait… six, seven, no, fourteen shields just because they attacked us and we defended ourselves?”

“I’m not fining you for defending yourselves. I’m fining you because you made a public nuisance of yourselves. Now if you can get them out and fix the road, you won’t have to pay.”

While Bildar argued with the constable, Ophelia put a hand on Nym’s shoulder. “Do you think you can make it back home on your own, or should one of us go with you?”

Nym considered. It was late in the evening, but not truly dark yet. There hadn’t been any troubling incidents other than the failed ambush just now, and that wasn’t even aimed at him. And the perpetrators were idiots who’d openly discussed their plans not fifty feet away from their would-be victims in the middle of a crowd.

“I’ll be fine. It’s only a twenty-minute walk,” he said seriously.

“You be careful then. I’ll expect you to meet us at the Boot and Strap by noon tomorrow, if you’re serious about this.”

Nym had only a vague idea where the inn they were staying at even was, but he was sure he could find it, especially with that much time. “I will be there,” he promised.

“Good. See that you are. Now get out of here while we deal with this mess.”

* * *

Nym had arcana poisoning again, but only in his head. He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten it, since he didn’t remember doing any magic at all, but it hurt so bad that the sunlight streaming into his room stabbed clear through to the back of his eyeballs. With a groan, he rolled over and pulled the blanket over his face.

Suddenly he sat up. The sun was already up and he was still in bed! He had no idea what time it was or how long he had to find the Boot and Strap, and he’d thought his arcana poisoning was getting better, hoped it was at least, because he was going to have to do magic today. Now everything was ruined.

He scrambled out of bed and ran downstairs, where one of the innkeeper’s kids was wiping down some tables. A nearby table had a wooden tub piled high with dishes. Nym breathed out a sigh of relief at the sight of it, because it meant they were just now cleaning up from breakfast. He still had an hour or two.

“Sorry Ermy,” the boy said. “You missed breakfast.”

“That’s okay. I’m just relieved that I only missed it by a bit. I have to meet some people today at noon and I thought I was late.”

“Your friend that you’re waiting for is finally coming?” the boy asked.

“No, different people. I should get going though. Hey, do you know where the Boot and Strap is? I’m supposed to meet them there.”

“Sure, I know where all the competition is.”

Nym got his directions, thanked the boy again, and rushed out the door. He navigated his way through the streets of Thrakus, head throbbing in pain the whole way, and entered the Boot and Strap, only to find it empty. “Oh no, I’m too late after all,” he moaned quietly.

“Wass’at?” a voice said from behind him, causing Nym to jump and spin around.

An old man, all leathery-faced and covered in liver spots, sat in the back corner, nursing a tall wooden mug with dried foam down the side. His hands shook, but that didn’t stop him from cradling the mug close to his chest. There was perhaps more hair on his eyebrows than there was on his head, and either way, the amount on his ears took third place.

“I said, ‘wass’at?’ Speak up!”

“I… I’m sorry. I was just supposed to meet some friends here, but I think I missed them.”

“You the magic boy? Here for the builder mages?”

“I guess so?”

The old man nodded to himself and took a long pull from his mug. When he set it back down on the table, beer slopped out of the top and splashed across the wood. “Right, the girlie one had a message. What was it now. What was it. Let me think. Something about fighting with the constabulary, and half of them spending the night in the drunk tank. And that she wasn’t going to be here today, to try back tomorrow.”

On the one hand, it was a relief. He wasn’t late, he hadn’t missed them, and he could go back to his own inn and go back to bed. On the other hand, it was kind of annoying and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be working with the crew of earth mages if they were going to get so obliterated that they ended up arrested on his first night of meeting them. It was not the best first impression.

“Okay,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll try again tomorrow I guess. Thank you for telling me.”

He made his way back to his own room, stopping only to get something to drink, and then gratefully crawled back into bed for another four hours. Everything would be better when he woke back up, he hoped.

* * *

The next day found him feeling much better. He felt so good, in fact, that he thought he could start casting spells again. He tried a few small first circle spells in his room, just to make sure there was no residual problems, but it seemed like three days of using no magic at all was what he really needed to finally recover from the massive arcana injection he’d been hit with.

Nym caught breakfast this time, and with plenty of time to spare. He vaguely remembered some of what Bildar had told him about the correct mindset for using elemental earth magic, and how everything had to be planned out in advance and slotted together to fit perfectly, with no room for errors or imperfections. With nothing else to do while he waited, he decided to give that a try.

Nym found an out of the way spot where no one would bother him and tried to think about the deliberate placement of each piece of arcana needed for a simple earth construct he’d seen over and over in the books he’d read. If it worked correctly, nearby dirt would collect into a hard packed sphere of earth.

It was not a complicated spell, but halfway through he realized he hadn’t left himself enough space to put the arcana into the center of the construct after he built the framework. He let the spell fizzle out and started over again. Next time, he left the space, but because he left so much space, the framework didn’t connect together properly.

The third try saw all the pieces in there, probably correct, but when he went to actually activate the arcana construct, one half twisted to the right while the other twisted to the left and the whole thing tore itself apart instead of doing anything useful. That caused a small explosion of arcana which thankfully was undetectable by non-mages, or probably any actual mages if they weren’t close enough.

The sun rose towards noon, and Nym gave up practicing. He was sure that it would come under the tutelage of four skilled earth mages, assuming they hadn’t gotten arrested again. He was happily surprised to find the whole crew sitting at a table at the Boot and Strap when he arrived, looking none the worse for wear, though Bildar was decidedly grouchy and was stabbing at his lunch like it had personally offended him.

“So things did not go well with the constabulary?” he asked after they’d exchanged greetings.

“Cost us three crowns, all said and done,” Ophelia explained. “Bildar is not happy about it.”

“Those bastards at the contractors guild aren’t any better off, at least,” the bearded mage said. “Half their crew is still in lock up. Soon as we’re done eating, we’ll be off on the next job. Sorry Ermy, but I don’t think I have time to teach you with this set back, plus I was going to have you working under my license, but you can only do that officially if you’re my apprentice. Nobody would have looked at it too closely last week, but with this whole thing with the contractors guild escalating, they’ll be looking for a way to hit us. We would have to make it official and register the paperwork with the mages guild in order to hire you unless you can get your own license.”

Nym was considering taking the licensing exam anyway. He had the money for it finally, and even if he didn’t pass, it would at least let him know what areas he was deficient in. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure if it was safe to even walk into the mages guildhall. Analia’s message had indicated that it wasn’t safe to use the teleportation platforms in Abilanth, and he wasn’t sure if Thrakus would be any better.

He also imagined that even if he could pass it, he would need to supply his name at least so they knew who to issue the license to. The Thrakus guildhall might not know who he was, but he assumed there were people somewhere in their system who would check his name against a list of wanted criminals. He could just take his assumed identify even further, he supposed, and become Ermy in truth.

The more he thought about it, the more he liked that idea. The whole personage of Nym needed to disappear for a while, at least until he knew exactly where he stood with the government and its law enforcement. Part of plan D assumed he and Analia would be fleeing across the border if necessary, but Thrakus was the meeting point if they got separated leaving Abilanth. The escape attempt had gone just about as wrong as was possible, so leaving the kingdom was the next logical step.

In the meantime though, it might be time for ‘Ermy’ to figure out what exactly he still needed to learn to pass a licensing exam. By good fortune, there were four earth mages seated at the table with him who all happened to have licenses and were predisposed to helping him. It would just be foolish to ignore that opportunity for information.

“What exactly do you have to be able to do in order to get a license?” Nym asked.