61 Home again

Chapter 61: Home again

"What is going on here?!" Esmeya yelled, staring Gilah down, her eyes burning with the fury of Tartarus.

"Ah, mornin' boss," Gilah quickly pushed out, only slurring half her words. "I was just... entertaining Mitten until you came up."

"Mitten?"

"It's special privilege," Mercury said, his head held high. "If you think about using it, I'd ask you not to."

Esmeya sat down on one of the stools, leaning her chin into her palm and letting out a long sigh.

"Ahhhhhhh, what am I going to do with you. I told you not to drink on the job, Gilah. At least, not before everyone's up you could stick to it..."

She then quickly snatched up the glasses, and emptied one into her mouth, the other one down the sink.

"Hey!"

"Shush, I shouldn't be drinking this early. Look what you're making me do," Esmeya said, shaking her head at them.

"And Mercury, didn't we agree to meet at the gloryhall? I was about to be on my way there."

"Well, you know how it goes, you have one thought, it leads to another, and boom, you're at the Mages' Guild," he said, shrugging slightly.

"Sigh. Well then, I trust Gilah has not made too poor an impression on you?"

"Rude," the barkeep said.

"No, it's been quite enjoyable. She seems good company, at least as far I can tell."

Esmeya flashed a small smile. "That is something, at the very least. Perhaps you will be stopping by a couple more times in the future, we wouldn't want you to be too discouraged from coming here. But please, do explain what train of thoughts led you to make the journey here."

"Man, you're relentless with these questions. Can't a friendly cat- mopaaw not just live life?"

Esmeya simply stared at him, with her chin in her hand, not even blinking.

"Fine, fine!" Mercury said after a while. "Jeez. I thought I was supposed to come here. That's it. I was confused after waking up, misremembered, dragged my sorry damn self out of bed, and walked over here. Maybe I really should've gotten Avery to tie me to my bed."

"Hm," Esmeya huffed with a smirk. "Well, at the very least it sounds like your journey was pleasant."

"It helped clear my head a little," he nodded. "Anyhow, what brings you here Esmeya?"

Gilah scoffed at this. "You're just gonna call the guild master by her first name?"

"Got a problem with that?"

"I do not," the wizard in question quickly replied. "And neither should you, Gilah. It is my honor to besmirch, after all."

"Whatever you say, boss. I'm just a lowly student, after all," the barkeep said with a light frown, though she didn't mind too much, since Mitten seemed like a decent guy.

"Well then, Esmeya, should I show you the place?" Mercury asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.

"Ah, we still have to wait for a moment. Elliot is still on his way here, and he would be very upset with both of us if we were to abandon the poor boy here," the woman replied. Mercury only gave her a quick nod.

"But do tell, dear Mitten-"

"I will claw your fucking eyes out."

"Very well, then. Dear Mercury, what made you start to attempt understanding magic?" she asked, tilting her head a little. By now, Gilah had filled their glasses and Mercury's bowl with far less alcoholic drinks than before, leading her to take a sip of a bubbly, pale drink, that had a yellow hue to it.

"Now much," Mercury replied. "I was chillin' in a forest and saw the <Runecarving> Skill, so I bought it. My mana ran out, and I decided I'd give meditation my best shot. It's a bit of a trope that you can absorb mana from your surroundings by doing so. And then there was the rush of endorphins as I succeeded."

"I see, so you simply continued down this path for the pleasure handling mana brings?" Esmeya asked curiously.

"Not quite," Mercury then said. He paused to think for a moment, taking a couple licks of water from his bowl. "I... started because of that, yeah. You could say that. It certainly made getting into things more easy. But as I started handling mana, I got curious. How much can I move it? Can I lift it? How can I apply its energy?"

"Then, my core expanded as well," he continued. "Its wall broke down and I thought I'd ruined something, but turns out that was the start to growing my mana veins. Now here I am, having spread them almost all throughout my body, and more questions are popping up. How can I control different masses of mana at the same time? How do they react to each other? Can I control the mana outside my body somehow? How is my willpower, my mind related to all of this? What exactly is my <Astral Body>?"

"You possess an astral body?" Esmeya asked, raising her eyebrow a little.

"According to my Skills, yes," Mercury said, seeing no particular reason to lie about it.

"Well, that is curious. Usually it takes quite some time for magicians to form theirs, yet you seemed to have managed a little quicker," the woman spoke, a smile slowly emerging on her lips. "What are your secrets, beastie?"

"I do not know about secrets, woman," Mercury said, knowingly making his tone into a little bit of a hiss, "but I do know that I dislike being dehumanized to a lesser being. So stop it and just ask upfront."

Esmeya quickly covered her mouth with one of her hands in surprise, her eyes open a little wise. "I- I apologize sincerely, Mercury," she quickly stammered, shaking her head. "That was unlike me. My thoughts sometimes slip out entirely unfiltered. I am sorry."

"... Thanks."

"I will not pry for your secrets, simply tell me what you are comfortable with," Esmeya said a little more calmly, having regained her nerves. She really needed to get her tongue under better control.

Mercury's ears perked up for a moment, and he shook his head at the guild master. "It might have to wait a little," he said. "We're getting company."

Right on call, the steps down the stairs became faster, before they heard someone yelp, followed by a couple crashes, the sound of glass shattering, and, after a couple of seconds, a bruised Elliot, upside down, with his robes on his face, at the bottom of the stairs.

Very slowly, he lifted the robe away just enough to see the room, and immediately, a bright grin flashed onto his face.

"MERCURY!!"

"Elliot."

The boy quickly cast a gust of wind under himself, which soon had him turned upright again, and he immediately began charging at his furry friend, only to be stopped by the guild master putting a firm hand on his shoulder. Her shadow loomed over his face like a grotesque visage of death for a moment.

"Elliottttt?"

"Y-Yes guild master?"

"What did you break?" she asked, squeezing his shoulder a little tighter.

"U-Uhm, I don't k-know... I was rolling down the stairs too fast to see." The boy broke out in a nervous sweat as he spoke, fearing the woman's wrath and his fate, but after a moment of dreaded silence, she let out a long sigh.

Esmeya took her hand of Elliot's shoulder and gave another short sigh as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "I swear, what am I going to do with you," she muttered to herself, shaking her head.

"Train me to be a great mage?!" the boy asked, brimming with excitement.

"I think it was a rethorical question," Mercury jumped in.

"It was indeed," Esmeya nodded. "Well, I suppose since everyone is here, we better be on the way."

"Alright, fair enough. See you later Gilah, pinky promise."

"See you later, Mittens," the barkeep said with a smile.

"Mittens?!" Elliot asked.

"I do not stop my wrath for the sake of children," Mercury simply said, activating <Bloodlust> to make a point.

[<Bloodlust> has levelled up! <Bloodlust lv. 2 -> 3>]

A fitting time for it to happen indeed.

For a moment, shivers ran down Elliot's spine, and he knew then and there that perhaps Mittens would not be his nickname of choice.

- - -

After a while of walking, the three of them arrived at the wreckage of the inn. Part of the ground floor had caved in, dragging half of the first and more than two thirds of the second with it.

"Are you sure your items would have survived this?" Esmeya asked, squinting her eyes at the wreckage.

"Positive," Mercury nodded. After all, his belongings were safely stowed away inside his trusty log, the friend that would never betray him.

Esmeya then nodded, choosing to trust his words.

"My room should be around here," Mercury said, pointing at the rubble, and not long after, the mages went to work. Quickly, large pieces of debris were lifted away, and clouds of dust blown into the sky in an impressive display of telepathy and wind. It took them less than 10 minutes to sense the magic in Mercury's log, and only a short while more to fully get it out of the ground.

"An enchanted... stump?" Esmeya asked with a slightly confused expression.

"Indeed," Mercury said proudly. "Elliot, would you un-dust it? Wow, that's a lot of dust..."

Not long after, the log was fully recovered and even cleaned off. Even the things inside it were still intact, his blanket, the chest of scrolls and books, his claw-sharpening kit, and the booklet on runecarving.

"Home sweet home," Mercury whispered to himself, making his way over to his trusty, and sparkly clean belongings. The mages had done him the favour of fully washing the log and blanket, while simply blowing the dust off books. He was more than pleased.

"Why did you enchant an empty log, Mercury?" Esmeya asked, a hint of curiosity gleaming in her eyes.

"Well, I told you I woke up in a forest. I spent a night in there, then another, and it got cosy. To feel safe, I started removing the moss and plantlife bit by bit, and then I began carving runes. This is how far I got."

"Indeed, I can see that..." Esmeya muttered, running her fingers over its surface.

"That's so cool!!! Can I go camping with you once?!"

"We'll see, kid," Mercury said with a smirk, before turning his attention back to the guild master.

"Hm, these runes aren't state of the art, but they quite clearly show your progression. You are familiar with increasing the potency through overcharging them, I see. Yet, not all of them are overcharged, a good balance of power and stability..."

"Stability? What do you mean?"

"Overcharged runes explode when broken," Esmeya said matter-of-factly. "It usually causes a chain reaction, ruining the objects the runes were inscribed on. To keep the damage small there are different patterns that have been developed to keep the runes safely spaced apart. Of course, depending on the size of the pattern, and which runes are used, it needs to be altered."

"Indeed, that was the idea behind it," Mercury lied.

"No, it wasn't," Elliot said with a grin. "You learned it too late, so you didn't overcharge all of them, you just carved runes randomly where you found space. Look, here there's a couple charged ones next to one another."

"Fffffrick," Mercury said, almost having a slip of his tongue. No cursing next to children. Then again, he usually drew that border at 14, so it didn't seem to important here.

"A little luck, then," Esmeya said with a soft smile. "It matters little. Luck is also a skill, to a certain degree. You should not become reliant on it though, while luck may sometimes be of help, it will not always rescue you. But back on topic, are you aware you can upgrade your runes?"

"Hm?"

"It seems not. Allow me a demonstration," she said, pulling forth a piece of wood from the rubble. "Elliot, mid 1st grade Elasticity rune."

"Yes, guild master!" the boy said, quickly pulling a carving tool from his satchel and going to work, meticulously carving out lines. After a couple of minutes, he was done and handed the piece to the guild master.

"Decent work," she said, slightly bending the wood, "yet it will go no further than an angle of about 15 degrees. Now, to upgrade a rune, you need to know how to construct its higher rank version, or you can modify it yourself if you know enough about the script. I do know, and as such, will simply increase its power."

She then pulled forth a carving knife of her own, one with a steep triangular tip, made to carve deep, but slim grooves. The magician got to work quickly, retracing Elliot's steps, yet adding more lines and decoration around what he had made. Some of her incision went deeper and some were more shallow, and occasionally, she would even pull out a needle looking thing to poke holes in the sides of the tunnel.

After a few minutes of concentration, she spoke again.

"I have now carved out the rune's new shape. While doing so, you need to keep the mana flowing only through the main channels, to ensure no instabilities occur in the transmutation process," she said, wiping a couple drops of sweat off her forehead. "Now that the pattern is finished, I will pour the remaining required mana into it. To be safe, I will not overcharge it, and match the frequency of my mana to Elliot's."

Then, the wood in her hand began to glow. The light was a deep, rich blue, and it slightly illuminated the air around it for a moment, before it settled down, and the rune seemed to have dark water flowing through its channels.

"Now it should be more flexible," Esmeya said, and without hesitation, she bent the piece, forcing what used to be a flat piece to do a 180 degrees turn.

"Whoa. That's like fricking rubber," Mercury said.

"Indeed. Now, this, as well as the runes on your log, will not recharge itself. Well, they will, very, very slowly. Usually, to avoid needing to wait days or weeks until runes begin their function again, we add cores to the items, which gather the mana to power them. Other options are manually recharging the runes, or inscribing mana-gathering arrays, yet those are often more trouble than they are worth."

"So basically, you stick a mana magnet to it."

"... Yes," Esmeya said with a smirk. "Essentially. Yet, I think I have answered many of your questions, and you have answered so few of mine. Would you like to accompany us back to the guild, and tell us a bit about your story?"

"Sure," Mercury said and gave her a nod. "Let's head back then."

- - - - - -

Lucia woke up in a cold sweat. It was early in the morning, the air outside still chilly, and the sky not yet bright. She'd had a horrible nightmare yet again. Her breath was ragged, and even when it did come out from between her blue lips, it did so in milky clouds.

The fire in her heart had become so small, so quiet, she shivered all over. With some hesitation, she wiped the sweat off herself and put her feet down on the floor, the cold instantly piercing through her soles and shooting up. But she was awake now, and her demons weren't here to haunt her. Slowly, but surely, she reignited the flames in her heart, and began warming herself.

The cold fought back bitterly as Lucia walked through her empty room. She was headed to the kitchen, yet on every step, the frozen air fed the icy in her lungs. Her mouth felt like it burned, and she was certain she tasted a little bit of iron, but it was of no matter. She simply kept fighting back against it with her fire.

As she got into the kitchen, she poured water into the kettle, and although she took care not to splash any on her hand, a drop slid down the side of the kettle, and instantly froze upon touching her. It hurt, and she was certain she could hear her skin sizzling as the ice stuck to it and burned, but she could sparsely drop the kettle.

After a couple seconds of silent agony, Lucia placed the kettle down on the fire-attributed core she had on the stove, before igniting it with a hint of mana. She also held her hand up in front of it for a moment after flicking away the drop of ice on it, trying to get just a little heat back into her bones.

Her nightgown was not the warmest piece of clothing she owned, but she already knew that even her blanket would not free her of this. It was a battle she needed to win on her own now, so while the tea boiled, she closed her eyes and looked within.

She saw the coals that usually burned within her chest, flaring up with white heat, and yet now they laid dead, with only a couple miserable sparks flickering in and out of existence. It seemed things were worse than she had anticipated. Another shiver shook her, as her lips began shaking and parts of the icy mist from her mouth actually began falling, plinking on the floor in the form of tiny crystals of ice.

Still, Lucia would not give up the fight so easily. She hugged herself tightly, standing close to the flame of the stove, and listening to the water slowly boil, and she focused. She thought about Avery Beckham, the man without respect, with his insidious grin. She thought about the beast Iris was so fond of, the wretch that had dared insult her once. She thought of the heretics she had met before, the murderers and thieves, the arrogant, and the gluttonous.

Her wrath served as a spark, igniting the coals again, and a small layer of ice on her heart seemed to thaw in the flames of fury. But this was not enough, this fire was one that consumed, not one that thawed, and if this one reached her heart, she knew it would burn.

No, instead, she thought of Nira. The woman who had offered her a hand when she was yet new in this city. She thought again of Avery and "Mercury", two people she would now consider as her friends.

And she thought of Iris. The one who was always by her side, the one she could always rely on, the one who had saved her from herself so many times before. Lucia thought about her debt to the maid, about how much gratitude she carried in her heart, and how she would not hesitate to give anything for her.

And when the water boiled, hot tears were streaming down her face.

"Where did you go...?" she whimpered into the dark, yet no answer came.