Blessed Time II - Chapter 6 (Patreon)

The barge slid into its slot, thumping against a quay as a pair of sailors jumped off of the large, rectangular boat and onto the weathered stone to begin tying the vessel down.  With a sigh, Micah closed the Ageless Folio and stood up.

The wood planks of the deck rocked gently under him as the boat bobbed up and down on the current.  Out in the Leel River itself, a trio of daskin, water serpents covered in heavily armored scales, skimmed just below the surface as they cut through the waves toward a cluster of driftwood fishing shacks that lined the delta where the river emptied into the Emerald Ocean.

By the smell of things, the daskin were on the prowl for dinner.  Even as Micah watched, a middle-aged man exited one of the shanties, tossing a bucket full of scales and fish guts from morning’s catch out into the surf.

The animals changed course, darting through the water toward the refuse.  One of their arrow-like heads crested above the waves, surveying the shore for threats while the other two feasted.

Younger daskin, like the trio gorging themselves on fish entrails, could defeat most blessed below level 20 in the water.  They were a little weaker and more awkward on land

Three hundred or so paces away, closer to the ocean itself a woman dragged a pair of sacks out, each filled with discarded oyster and clam shells.  With a grunt, she dumped them into the water, drawing a swarm of excited gulls.

“Oi!  Silver!”  Micah jerked his gaze from the water as Benja, the barge’s captain called out to him.

The man was shirtless, a wise precaution given Saravok’s unrelenting sun.  Working on the river was a bit cooler than the deserts that occupied most of the country, but operating a barge was physically demanding work.  Benja’s well tanned muscles gleamed with sweat as he finished loading a large box full of dried dates onto a sling that the wooden cranes built into the dock used to unload trading vessels.

“Eryk did something to his back when we were trying to empty the hold.”  He nodded toward a man laying on his back near the center of the ship.  “I know the terms of our contract say that you only agreed to heal my boys until we put into port at Janamyr, but he’s really in a bad way and-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Micah replied, dismissing Benja with a wave of his hand as he began walking toward the injured worker.  “It’s not like we’re in combat.  Under controlled circumstances like this, fixing him up is just a bit of mana away, and I have more than enough to spare.”

He crouched down next to the young man, taking note of his shallow breathing and his stiff, clenched jaw.  Micah put a hand on Eryk’s shoulder, closing his eyes as he activated augmented mending, not needing to utter a single word to cast the familiar spell.

A moment later, he found the problem.  A vertebrae in the man’s back had been displaced, putting pressure on the bundle of nerves that passed signals and mana from his brain to the rest of his body.  Micah pulsed mana into the spell, shifting the disc back into its proper place before healing the damaged muscles and soft tissue around the injury.

Eryk gasped for breath, hands unclenching as Micah’s magic smothered the pain that had been assaulting him.  The injured sailor finally opened his eyes, staring up at Micah through their reddish brown depths without any comprehension.

“Soliburn,” Benja called out behind Micah.  “How are you doing?  Did Silver fix you up?”

Micah stood up, letting the prone man hoist himself up off the deck.  Eryk rotated his body to the left and right before eventually responding to his captain.

“It still stings a little sir, but I think that’s just in my head.  I can move without it feeling like the morning after shore leave, so whatever spell Micah cast, it did the trick.”

“Then stretch out the kinks and get back to work,” Benja said gruffly, reaching down to wrap Eryk’s hand in his in order to help the younger man to his feet.  “The sooner we get the cargo offloaded, the sooner I can issue your pay and unleash the lot of you on Janamyr’s bars and brothels.”

Micah watched the sailor jog off toward the work crews, Benja standing beside him.  Neither of them said anything, instead taking in the hubbub and shouting as stevedores from the city began driving animal drawn wagons up the wharf to pick up the barge’s cargo.

“Thanks for that Silver,” Benja’s voice broke the silence.  “You could have easily said no.  A lot of spellcasters have.  They don’t like that most of my boys don’t have blessings.”

“It’s not their fault though.”  Benja shook his head, sending his mop of sweaty black hair flailing from side to side.  “They didn’t ask to be born like this, but half the people I run into think that they’re lazy, criminals or both.  Hells, some of ‘em even treat me differently for employing the forgotten, but that makes even less sense to me.  What are we supposed to do?  Let ‘em starve?  If a man wants to work, I say let him work.”

“You don’t need to justify yourself to me,” Micah replied, patting the other man’s slightly sticky bicep with a smile.  “My mom’s forgotten.  Before she met my father, she spent years living in the slums and selling flowers by the side of the road.  I am more than slightly sympathetic to their plight.”

“Aye.”  Benja’s face softened.  “I wish there were something I could do about it, but fixing society seems like a task for someone more important than a barge captain.  I just make sure to treat my boys fair and do my best to ensure that shopkeeps don’t short change them on attunement.”

“The gods did not make Karell with the poor and downtrodden in mind,” Micah remarked, turning away from the workers to face Benja directly.  “The ultimate goal of everything on this broken world is to hone the blessed into unstoppable powerhouses.  If the gods don’t care for those without status sheets, it’s only fair that those of us who can make a difference shoulder their share of the burden.”

“Huh.”  Benja’s brow furrowed.  “I didn’t take you for a follower of Ankros, but I didn’t think that he cared much for the forgotten.”

“Mursa,” Micah supplied.  “She tries to add a bit of nuance to the rather monolithic viewpoints of Luxos and Ankros.  Sometimes it works, but a lot of the time we end up outthinking ourselves and losing the general populace as we try to thread the needle.”

“There are worse patrons to have,” the captain replied agreeably.  “Now, unless there is something else you need, I think it’s about time that we conclude our contract so I can go back to overseeing the boys.  If I leave them alone for long enough, one of them is going to manage to break something important.”

Micah reached out, taking the captain’s hand in his own.  With a push of his will, he transferred the agreed upon attunement to Benja.

“There we are,” the shirtless man said with a satisfied grunt.  “Two points of Sun Attunement up front, two on delivery, and healing services during the journey in exchange for passage for 5 humans and two animals.  A fair exchange even if one of the animals in question was a flying panther.”

“Ravi is harmless,” Micah replied, a ghost of a smile toying with the corners of his mouth.  “She’s just a bit inquisitive and overly friendly.”

“Harmless?”  Benja asked, eyes twinkling.  “Say that to the pipe I dropped in the Leel when she landed on the deck next to me while I was trying to smoke.  You’re lucky I didn’t bill you for a new pair of underwear for that.  She scared the everloving hell out of me.”

Both of them chuckled, enjoying a moment in the beating sun as the rest of Karell continued with its business around them.  Then, one of the crates slipped as it was being lowered to the wharf, crashing down with a loud crash that momentarily halted all movement on the dock.

“Oi!” Benja shouted in alarm as he sprang into motion, sprinting toward where his sailors were unloading the ship.  “Careful now!  I can’t sell spilled wine and broken glass!”

Micah turned away, leaving the captain to figure matters on his own as he went below deck on the barge to find the rest of his companions.  Almost as soon as he dropped through the trap door that led to the ship’s hold, Eris blew by him with the superior speed of a blessed with a combat class.  Barely half a step behind her, Esther followed, a paintbrush coated in something red in her outstretched hand.

Without missing a beat, Micah blurred into motion, grabbing the two of them by their shoulders before they even realized he was there. Eris shrieked, practically jumping out of her skin as Micah’s grip brought her to a halt.

Esther just giggled, lunging around Micah to smear some of the red paint on Eris’ face.

“No fair,” Eris complained.  “If Micah hadn’t stopped us, I would’ve escaped.  That point doesn’t count.”

Micah blinked, taking note of the three shaky red lines on each of the girls faces in the dim light that filtered through the trap door.  Up and down the narrow hallways cheap magelights were infrequently embedded in the barge’s wooden walls.  After all, cheap was a relative term.  Attunement spent paying for a spellcaster was attunement that wasn’t going toward the trading vessel’s profit margin.

“Maybe I chased you this way on purpose in order to have Micah distract you,” Esther replied.  “Drekt always said that you need to pay more attention to your surroundings.  Regardless, no matter how it happened, I managed to paint you, so that’s one point for me.”

“Now,” she continued triumphantly, flipping the paintbrush around to offer the wooden handle to Eris, “the score is tied and you’re it.”

Micah released the two of them, instead snatching the paintbrush before it could be passed over like a baton.  Both of the girls looked at him in confusion, barely registering Micah’s presence despite the decisive role he’d played in their recent exchange.

“I have no idea why the two of you are playing tag with paint, but it’s done now.”  Micah did his best to adopt a stern expression.  Despite taking on responsibility for an entire mercenary company, he still felt like an imposter every time he acted like an adult.

“Drekt said that tag in the enclosed corridors of the ship would help us work on our agility,” Eris answered helpfully,  “He said that using a paintbrush rather than our hands would make it feel like we were using weapons.”

“That actually makes a kind of sense.” Micah shrugged helplessly.  Drekt knew a lot more about mundane training than him.  Micah didn’t even pretend to understand some of the psychological tricks the big man exercised to wring every last dreg of potential out of the guild members.

Perhaps more importantly, the girls had too much energy.  Micah’s attributes were high enough that he didn’t physically have a problem keeping up with the two of them, but emotionally, they were draining.  He could certainly understand why Drekt would be keen on finding ‘activities’ and ‘training exercises’ that would both occupy and tire them out.

“Still.”  He twirled the paintbrush between his fingers before hiding it on his body.  “We’ve reached Janamyr and it’s time to get moving.  The two of you will have to settle for a tie this time.”

“Eris.”  Micah nodded at the girl.  “Let your dads know that I’ll meet them up on the deck.”

“And Esther,” he continued, turning to his sister.  “If you could get Telivern and Ravi moving, that would be great.  The sooner I get to the saltwater docks, the quicker we can figure out what our options are for booking passage across the ocean.”

“Do you think we’ll have time to explore the city?”  Esther asked excitedly.  “I heard that Janamyr has everything.  If you look closely enough, you can even find food and trinkets that the capital doesn’t have.”

Eris didn’t say anything, instead just looking at Micah with hopeful eyes.  He let his expression soften slightly, reaching out to tousle Esther’s hair.

“Maybe for a little bit,” he relented.  “You’ll have to be careful though.  Drekt and I have let the two of you run wild around Red Sands because we spend half of our time in the field, and everyone who is someone in town knows better than to start trouble with us.  I hate to say it, but both of you are a bit feral.”

“Unfortunately,” Micah continued with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Our reputation is a bit local at the moment.  There are plenty of guilds and elite blessed living in and around Janamyr that I would prefer to avoid starting trouble with, and none of them know the first thing about me.  You’ll have to be on your best behavior before we unleash you on an unsuspecting city.  We’re on too important of a mission for the two of you to accidentally start a blood feud with some ancient clan.”

That was close enough to agreement for Eris and Esther.  They ran off, paintbrush forgotten as they sought to finish Micah’s tasks in the hopes that prompt performance might lead to him releasing them to explore.

He smiled slightly to himself, taking the rungs of the ladder two at a time before mounting the deck once again.  Who knew.  He even might talk with Drekt about sending the girls out to the shopping district with a chaperone.  It all really just depended upon when the ship he chartered was able to set sail.

Of course, it would be at least two days before they could leave Janamyr.  Trevor still needed to visit the fighting pits tomorrow and place a bet on a modest underdog.   Outfitting a voyage across the Emerald Ocean would be incredibly expensive, and Micah had no idea what to expect on the other side.

The seven people in their party needed food, weapons and supplies for a month-long journey across an endless prairie clogged with nomads and monsters.  His whirring mind easily identified dozens of problems with the grand ‘plan’ bequeathed upon him by the gods, a little over half of which could be solved by spending attunement.  As for the other half?  Hopefully frequent castings of weaves of fate could help him predict the future and the worst of them.

Micah froze.  Mana flowed down his arm and congregated in his cupped left hand, forming a lightly glowing green ball of pressurized air as the hair on the back of his neck stood up straight.

Gooseflesh ran down his arms.  Micah didn’t know how he knew, but instinctively he could just tell that somewhere, someone was observing him.  He strained his senses, trying to track down the hidden vantage point of the person spying on him, but only succeeding in finding the faintest whiffs of a familiar sensation that triggered recognition from his arcana skill.

Before Micah could continue his investigation, Trevor popped his head up from the trap door, glancing around the bustling deck until his gaze landed on Micah.  His brother waved to him, and Micah curtly waved back, keeping his attention on the search for whatever was out there.

But the moment was gone.  Part of Micah simply wanted to dismiss the sensation as an overly active imagination, but at the same time, no adventurer worth their salt simply ignored their instincts.  The same innate sense of unease had kept Micah safe and alive in dozens of dungeons where he hadn’t consciously noticed a threat.

Trevor clambered up onto the deck, relegating his concerns to the back of Micah’s mind.  Whatever was watching him, it was gone now.  He’d look into the matter more later, but for now he needed to talk to his brother about earning the funds their voyage would need.