BT - Book 1 - Chapter 50 (Patreon)

“No,” Micah shook his head looking at the slate covered in crude chalk drawings in his brother’s hands.  “The mana transference is all wrong.  You need to focus the diagram on gathering and releasing a burst of wind before you implement the sharpening.  Right now, this version of air knife sharpens nothing before releasing a puff of diffuse wind.”

“It just doesn’t make sense Micah,” Trevor slumped against the wall of the cave in frustration.  “I don’t understand how you can memorize all of these nonsense words and hand movements.  Everything you say sounds logical but when I try to process it, they just come out like mush.”

“Well,” a faint smile appeared on Micah’s face.  “Mom did hit you on the head with her rolling pin more than once to discipline you.  That might be the cause of your problems.”

Trevor snorted and threw Micah’s hand transcribed spell primer at him.  The book slapped into Micah’s wind shield and fell to the ground.  He rolled his eyes at his brother.  The older boy struggled with focus, and given his propensity for practical jokes and tantrums, the defensive spell seemed like a valid precaution.

“I don’t see why I need to know this crap Micah,” Trevor moped, his arms crossed as he stared at the slate.  “If I can stab things well, that should be enough.”

Micah picked up the sheets of paper covered in his neat and closely packed handwriting bound together with thread. Silently he shuffled them back together and handed them to Trevor.

“Spellspear requires you to have five levels in spellcasting,” Micah sighed, massaging his aching temples.  “It also requires eight levels in spear usage and five levels in athletics, but I don’t think those will be nearly as much of a problem.”

“I don’t know Micah,” Trevor glanced longingly at where his spear stood, leaning against the wall of his cave.  “I really think my strength is more ‘poking things with my spear’ than magic.”

“Look,” Micah sat back down across from Trevor, the ripple of wind wall surrounding him.  “Spellspear isn’t a magic heavy class.  As I understand most people with the class don’t get past tier two.  Most of the focus is learning a couple of low level spells and practicing them a lot to compliment your spear style.”

“I guess,” Trevor sighed, picking the primer back up.  “I just don’t think I’m used to not succeeding right away.  Usually I can figure something out on at least the second or third try.”

“That can’t be true,” Micah frowned, cocking his head slightly at his brother.  “There’s no way you pick everything up on the first or second try.  I remember you bashing your head against the wall when Mom tried to teach you algebra.”

Trevor grinned back at him.  “Easy, after the first week, I just just snuck out of the house and went chasing girls.  If I can’t learn something quickly, my theory is that the gods don’t mean me to know it”

Micah buried his head in his hands.   Trevor’s sudden laughter didn’t help his burgeoning headache.

“Trevor,” he tried to keep his voice even.  “You’re pretty skilled with that spear right?”

“We’ve sparred,” his brother frowned at the memory of losing to a thirteen year old.

“How do you plan on defending against a mage or an archer?” Micah asked.  “What if someone just shoots you from thirty paces away?”

“My team will have an archer,” Trevor frowned.

“Sure,” Micah waved a hand.  “But what happens if your archer goes down or can’t be counted on to keep the other ranged attacker pinned.  What do you plan to do?  Block arrows with your spear.”

“I guess I’d get shot,” Trevor grumbled, shifting slightly.  “This isn’t fair, you know that melee classes can’t do much against ranged combatants.  We either have to close range quickly or count on an archer or caster to help out.”

“Trevor,” Micah rolled his eyes.  “Spellspear can’t cast much magic, but wind shield is tier two.  You can use it to block arrows while you return fire with air knife.  The class won’t make you a noble on its own, but it’ll go a long way toward evening the odds.”

“Since when do I need to be a noble,” Trevor shoved the collection of spell diagrams away from himself.  “There are plenty of people that live happy lives as spearmen or swordsmen.  I don’t see why I need to study myself ragged in some muddy hole in the woods.  I’ll just take whatever the gods see fit to give me.”

“Trevor,” Micah’s eyes were closed.  “I love you man, but you’re a fucking idiot.  We have just under five years to become powerful enough to raid the Great Depths.  I’ve told you that the Durgh are coming and you just keep shrugging it off.  This isn’t a joke, and it isn’t a prank.  We need to take this seriously, and we need to put together a team.”

“If you’re so sure it’s true,” Trevor snorted.  “Just contact the authorities.  I’m sure you have something in your bag of future tricks that could convince them that you’re the real deal.  Pull a rabbit out of your hat and have someone with proper training solve the problem.”

“That’s the first thing I did,” Micah’s eyes were ice cold.  “As soon as I realized I was in over my head, I appealed to the Kingdom to solve the issue.  Do you know what happened?”

“They didn’t believe you?” Trevor shrugged, perking up slightly now that they were no longer talking about studying.  

“They believed me Trevor,” Micah closed his eyes, trying unsuccessfully to divert his memory from the last moments in the dungeon as Bart’s pleading eyes met his.  “They even stopped the invasion.”

His brother shifted slightly, blinking as he tried to make sense of Micah’s words.

“But if they stopped the invasion,” the older boy trailed off.

“The nobles don’t suffer challenges to their power Trevor,” Micah’s voice was leaden as the rituals he was forced to perform flashed through his mind.  “They taught me how to do things.  Powerful and terrible things, but that knowledge came with a cost.  I was enslaved and forced to perform atrocities.”

“I’m sorry man,” Trevor responded apologetically.  “It’s just weird to hear the words of an adult coming from my kid brother.  I mean, it sounds like you’ve been through a lot but it just doesn’t seem real to me.”

“Trevor,” Micah opened his eyes and stared at his brother.  The older boy refused to meet his gaze, shying from the intensity in his voice.  “When I served with the Royal Knights, my instructor forced me to grow by putting my life at risk.  He was a terrible man, but he knew that children can’t focus.  They’d rather chase skirts or play games than study.”

“Please,” Micah’s eyes bore into Trevor, forcing the other boy to shift and squirm against the cave wall.  “This is important.  I know you just want to goof off or practice with your spear, but the rest of your life relies on you learning enough of the spellcasting skill to get this class.  Hells, I’ve struggled through timeline after timeline trying to figure things out.  I need it all to stop.  I feel like I'm getting whiplash.”

“I can try Micah,” Trevor mumbled, still not meeting his eyes.

“You can do better than that,” Micah responded.  “Trevor, I need this to be my final loop.  The last time, I-”

He stopped, the breath catching in his throat.

“Trevor,” Micah’s eyes were damp.  “I started to lose myself.  I stopped acting and feeling like me.  I need someone to make this journey with me so that I’m still ‘Micah Silver’ once I come out the other side.”

“Micah,” shame flooded Trevor’s voice. “I’m sorry, I just-”

“Don’t be sorry,” Micah’s back straightened and his eyes hardened.  “This will be easier for both of us when I find Telivern.  Right now, I’m having trouble keeping my emotions in check.  I know that this is hard for you, and it isn’t my intention to run you ragged, but you need to understand that this is important.  A better class does more than round out your build and cover your weaknesses, it gives you more attributes per level.  At lower levels, the ones that the guilds around here play around at, that’s not a huge deal, but once you become more powerful.”

Micah shrugged, but his eyes burned.  “Through the help of summons I was defeating blessed over twenty levels higher than me near the end.  Power begets power Trevor.  The gods didn’t make the system to be fair.  A strong class only gets stronger over time, and both of us are going to need that strength if we’re planning on making it through what’s coming.”

“Who is Telivern?” Trevor picked up his slate and piece of chalk once more.

“A friend,” Micah calmed slightly, a soft smile ghosting across his face.  “Through everything it tried to warn and support me.  I can see that now.  It knew what I was doing to myself and what it would cost me in the long run, and it tried to stop me.”

“I didn’t,” he sighed.  “I may sound like I have all of the answers Trevor, but I don’t.  I fucked up last time.  Bad.  Despite me ignoring its warnings, Telivern stood with me through everything.  I’m not going to let it waste away in this timeline.”

“That…” Trevor cocked his head in confusion.  “That really doesn’t answer much.  In fact, it sounded more like you were talking to yourself than to me.”

“Maybe I was,” Micah smiled back at him, marching across the room and picking up the handwritten spell primer before returning it to Trevor.  “Doesn’t change the fact your spellforms are garbage and we only have a couple of months until you turn sixteen.  No more distractions.  We need to get your mana transference and gathering runes up to snuff as soon as possible.”

“But Micah,” Trevor whined, a hint of a smile on his face as he opened up the primer to the page on air knife.  “I have to eat and sleep!  You need to let me relax at SOME point.”

“You’d think that,” Micah’s face erupted into a predatory smile, “but I found some rituals that can fix those little problems.  Sleep and food are just wasted time that could be spent studying.”

Trevor glanced at him dubiously.

“Plus,” Micah continued, a thoughtful tone infusing his voice.  “I’m pretty sure I see where I went wrong the first time.  With any luck I’ll be able to cast those rituals without any permanent side effects.”

Trevor gulped.