BT - Book 1 - Chapter 51 (Patreon)

“Micah, Micah!” Esther’s voice pulled him from the book he was reading.  Sighing, Micah closed the Ageless Folio.  His parents insisted that Trevor and him spend their nights at home.  He still slept four to five hours a night, but the rest of his time was spent working his way through the portion of the Royal Library that he’d managed to smuggle out in the Folio.

The door to his bedroom slammed open and Esther ran in, her hair a mess and her eyes alight.  Micah barely had a chance to shift his position on the bed before she threw herself across the room to tackle him.

For a brief moment, his reflexes began to fire.  Micah’s hands rose, one gathering a swirl of mana into the form of an air knife while the other prepared to block the incoming attack.

He closed his eyes, willing his body from its state of high alert as Micah recognized his sister sailing through the air toward him.  She impacted on his chest, knocking him backward into the bed as his breath left his body.

Micah opened his eyes, Esther eclipsing the wooden ceiling to his bedroom as she excitedly bounced on his chest.

“Trevor got his blessing!” Her words almost ran together.  Without waiting for a response she jumped off of Micah and raced to the center of his room, her tiny chest heaving in excitement.

“He got something good then?” Micah asked as he pulled himself up to a sitting position, resisting the almost reflexive urge to cast mending on himself.

“Uh huh!” Esther clapped her hands together.  “You have to guess what he got!”

“Well he practices with his spear a lot,” Micah forced his face into a look of concentration.  “Probably an Uncommon blessing with a focus on the spear and a slight air affinity.”

“HE GOT-” She stopped, frowning at Micah.  “Did he tell you?  How did you find out before me?”

“I woke up to use the bathroom and he was already awake,” Micah chuckled slightly as he slipped from the bed.  “He let me know about his blessing before going back to bed.  I’m sure he’s sorry for stealing your surprise.”

Esther’s eyes grew wide and she ran out of Micah’s room, leaving the door open behind her.

“Trevor!”  Her voice shouted from the hallway as the soft pit pat of her bare feet on the wooden floor faded quickly into the background noise.  “How come you didn’t tell me that you already told Micah about your blessing!  It isn’t FAIR!”

Micah smiled as he walked over to his dresser, an unadorned and well used piece of wooden furniture.  Quickly he sorted through his clean clothing and got dressed.  He needed to make it to breakfast to flag Trevor down before the bo-

He caught himself.  Technically, Trevor was a young man now, as if a deity of logic magically blessed him with the power of responsibility upon his sixteenth birthday.

Despite his blessing, Trevor would be his usual irresponsible and excitable self.  So long as Micah could keep him from running off to join the Lancers right away, now that Trevor had a status sheet, they could actually check to see how close he was to achieving the spellspear class.

Micah knew better than to trust his brother.  He’d finally wheedled and begged Trevor enough that the young man had begrudgingly actually trained the skill.  Of course, that didn’t mean that Trevor wouldn’t sneak out to join a guild as soon as he was able.

Trevor wanted adventure.  He took Micah’s warnings seriously, but there was no way to understand the urgency of their situation without living it.  As often as Micah described the horror of the ambush and Basil’s Cove being reduced to rubble, it was nothing more than words for Trevor.  

The cotton tunic slipped over Micah’s head shortly after he got rid of his sleeping clothes.  A wry smile twisted his face.  He remembered exactly how he’d been at sixteen.  An idiot that thought he could challenge the world.  Even if he wasn’t on track to become a hero that the bards would sing songs about, he’d been convinced that everything would work out.

Technically that wasn’t wrong.  After years of pain and struggle, things were still working out.  After a fashion.  Hopefully.  Still, he’d need to watch Trevor.  He’d caught his brother trying to sneak out of lessons more than once and he wouldn’t past him to try and join a guild behind Micah’s back.

Sweeping into the kitchen he hugged his mother, and slipped past her to grab an apple and slice of bread before darting out the door.

“Micah!” He ignored her shouting after him, “today is Trevor’s blessing day, hold up so we can-”

He didn’t hear anything more as Micah rushed out into the busy morning.  Behind him, his father’s clothing shop was open and well to do customers filtered in and out, but paid them no attention.  Instead, he began running as fast as his scrawny legs could carry him toward the Lancers guild hall.

The streets of Basil’s Cove were their regular busy selves, but no one paid much attention to a sprinting teenager.  Either they assumed he was late for an apprenticeship or up to some meaningless youthful game, but no one really paid Micah any mind and he made it to the guild hall in a matter of minutes.

Quietly, he leaned against a nearby warehouse, munching on the apple and bread he’d carried with him.  Several adventurers filtered in and out of the Lancer’s headquarters, but beyond them only forgotten day laborers, porters and and manual construction workers walked by.

Finally, Micah spotted his quarry.  A predatory smile blossomed on his face as he shifted away from the wall.  Waving his hand he cast plant weave, frowning briefly at its mana cost.  It wasn’t much, his levels in the spell as well as the general spellcasting skill assured that, but his low level really restricted his abilities.  He’d really need to level up soon, skills and training could only take you so far.

Mana rushed into the roots and grass dwelling just under the streets cobblestones.  For a pregnant moment, nothing happened as the rocks bulged upward slightly.  

Then, greenish brown tendrils burst forth from the street, traveling up Trevor’s legs and locking in place around his knees in a minute, quite literally rooting him to the ground.  Micah smiled as his brother gave a yelp of surprise that morphed into a sullen resignation as he approached the trapped man.

The smile on Micah’s face only grew as he imagined what he looked like.  A scrawny youth, all elbows and knees, confidently approaching a panicking sixteen year old that looked like he’d prefer to be anywhere else.  The entire situation made him sound like a poorly contrived villian from a bard’s tale.

It was probably for the best that the forgotten kept their eyes on their shoes as they hurried to and from their grueling and poorly paying jobs.  The fewer eyes that saw him accosting Trevor, the better.

“Micah,” Trevor grumbled his hands ripping unsuccessfully at the roots wrapped around his ankles and shins.  

Micah clicked his tongue.  Plant weave was only a tier one spell, but given his skill levels, Trevor would need to add more than a couple points to his body attribute if he wanted to escape via brute force.

“Funny seeing you here Trevor,” Micah threw the apple core into a nearby alley.  “I just spontaneously felt the need to go for a jog to work on my body attribute, and here you are.”

“Come on Micah,” Trevor begged.  “I have the levels in spear and athletics that you wanted.  I’m just two levels short of level five in spellecasting.”

“Good,” Micah’s smile turned genuine.  “Honestly, that’s better than I expected.  Before I started pushing, you’d only train for an hour or two a day, and you didn’t have the faintest inkling as to how spellcasting worked.”

“I just want to fight things and grow stronger,” Trevor averted his eyes from Micah.  “Look, I know it sounds silly, but every minute you keep me locked in that cave is killing me.  I need to actually do something.  What kind of adventurer plays it safe every day rather than actually fighting monsters?”

“The successful kind,” Micah snorted.  “You do realize that most nobles have their entire class structure laid out for them before they turn ten, right?  It’s not terribly uncommon for them to not take a class until much later.  Some wait until their seventeenth birthday, grinding away at the skills they’ll need for a particularly rare or powerful class.”

“But I’m not a noble Micah,” Trevor was definitely whining now.  “I mean, I got that Uncommon blessing you told me about, but waiting just doesn’t seem right.  The guild will ask a ton of questions if I approach them for a class later.  This is the only way to keep your secret.”

“Hardly,” Micah crossed his arms.  “I can make a class crystal without much trouble.  All you’ll have to say is that you got the class as part of your blessing and tried to make it on your own before realizing that you’d made a mistake.”

“I guess-” Trevor responded evasively, scrambling for another excuse.

“Stop being a baby about this Trevor,” Micah flashed a smile at his brother.  “Anyone watching us would think that you’re the thirteen year old and not me.  Trust me, as soon as you qualify for a better class you and I are going to start leveling in earnest.  I’ll cram adventure and excitement down your throat until you’re sick of it.”

“You’re like ten years older than me,” Trevor answered sullenly.  “Of course an observer would think that you’re older than me.”

Micah chuckled.  With a wave of his hand plant weave evaporated.  

“Come on Trevor,” he turned around, not looking back to see if his brother followed as he began walking out of town.  “I know that you’re excited to put your new blessing to use, but there’s only two more levels of spellcasting to learn.”

“That’ll take weeks,” Trevor’s voice was still subdued, but he was trailing after Micah anyway.  “I’ll start falling behind other adventurers.”

“Don’t worry,” Micah smiled, glancing up at the clear morning sky.  “As urgent as you think leveling up is, it’s worse.  I’ve been forced to hold your hand while you struggled with basic spell formulas.  That’s time I should have spent leveling up.”

“You mean it Micah?” Trevor’s questioning tone was hopeful. “Once I get the new class we’ll actually get to fight some monsters.  You’re going to actually help me catch up, right?”

“I’m going to work you ragged to get those skill levels Trevor,” Micah answered.  “We’ve already wasted too much time.  Both of us need to start leveling as soon as possible.  Plus, I have an appointment to keep with an old friend.”

“Friend?” Trevor asked from behind him.  “Is it anyone that I’d know?”

“Not really,” Micah responded coyly.  “It’s someone that helped keep me centered in my last timeline.  Things went poorly near the end, but I can’t help but wonder how much worse they could have been without their help.”

“Does this person even know you right now?” Trevor’s brow furrowed slightly.  “You’re not just planning on walking up to a stranger and revealing their deepest secrets to them are you?  I mean, it worked on me, but you’re my brother.  If you do that to someone at random, they’ll think that you’re a stalker or something.”

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Micah winked at Trevor.  “I’m sure that they’ll come around eventually.”

“I’m not sure I like this idea Micah,” Trevor shook his head, blowing some of his hair out of his face.  “Can’t we at least talk with them normally a little bit first before you spring the big reveal on them?”

“That won’t really work,” Micah smiled wistfully.  “They don’t talk all that much, but I’m sure that given enough time the two of you will become the best of friends.”