Dream II - Chapter 21 (Patreon)

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Race: Saurian

Bloodline Powers: Improved Strength, Rending, Firebreath
Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 4, Wind (Noble) 2, Sound (Advanced) 1
Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

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Nothing much came of Jamise’s bluster.  Despite the city’s best efforts, the perpetrators and reasons for the attack remained a mystery.  In the following four weeks, he barely saw Adam.  Unsurprisingly, the Patrician was furious.  Every city official, including Pothas, was involved in the search to uncover clues about what had happened.

Even the job boards and brokers were pulled into the fray.  There was still some work outside of Vereton, but almost every offer Sam looked over was for investigating or supporting the investigation into the assault.  The handful of remaining tasks were all for necessary activities: stockpiling food, maintaining water cisterns, cleaning the city’s aqueducts, repairing damage from act of magical terrorism that had devestated the city, and increasing the number of weapons in the governments stockpiles.

There might not have been an army camped outside of Vereton’s gates, but there was no question that the city was under siege.  Samazzar completed a couple of jobs repairing the damage to keep up appearances.  His skills and talent didn’t align with construction or building, but at the very minimum, he had strong arms and the ability to heat and soften metal without the need for a portable forge.

Dussok was much more useful.  Sam’s sibling wasn’t at the level yet that he could shape and change metal with his mind, but his skill in the mystery let him easily sense faults in the building material and gave him an intuitive feel for the work.

On the other hand, Takkla wasn’t able to help all that much.  Her mastery over fire was helpful, but not enough to actually alter the heavy building materials that they were working with.  As for her physical body, Takkla was considerably more agile than the average human, but only of comparable strength.  When a job called for someone to scale up the side of a building and hold timber in place, she was a good candidate, but for almost everything else the thin saurian wasn’t much better than the average person.

Reconstruction gave him a chance to see what a formally trained practitioner could do in magical combat.  Its true, with a bit of trickery he’d managed to destroy a goblin village, but after walking through the streets of Vereton while helping Dussok carry logs and carts full of cement, Samazzar’s accomplishments didn’t seem nearly as impressive.

There were spots where entire wooden buildings had sprouted into bloom, growing thorn covered branches and roots that stretched across the city’s streets to fuel some sort of magical attack.  Almost as fascinating were the various ways in which these barriers were destroyed.  In some spots, cobblestones were embedded an entire arm’s length into the expanses of wood.  In others, jets of water and air had cut narrow polished paths through the massive expanses of vegetation.

Everywhere it was more of the same, wooden walls grown and magically rotted through in a matter of seconds stood next to spots where warriors specializing in strength had simply hacked their obstacles apart with axes.  More than once, Sam found himself getting lost in the story told by the smoking wreckage and stretches of street that had been transformed from rock to glass.  Each scar in a building and destroyed bridge bore signs of the hundreds of mysteries used in the titanic battle that had rocked the city, and Sam’s curiosity demanded that he learn more about each and every one of them.

Unfortunately, Pothas had other ideas.  Once the initial repairs were out of the way, and Samazzar had done enough of his ‘civic duty’ to avoid suspicion as an outsider, the wind master cracked down and put him to work.

The old man was much less carefree.  He was frequently called to consult with the Dean and the Patrician about questions related to Vereton’s magical defenses, and the remainder of his time was spent in fervent study, stating that the recent battle had helped him reach a critical point in his understanding of the mystery of wind.

His master might have been close to a breakthrough, but that didn’t mean he neglected Samazzar’s training.  Instead, he dove into it with renewed glee.  At least four days a week Sam found himself practicing with either Rose or Pothas at least four days a week.

Those practice sessions took on a much more frenetic tone.  Before, Samazzar mostly received lectures and pointers from Pothas with the old man directing him to take things at a comfortable pace while filling in any gaps in his knowledge.  After the attack, the focus shifted to improvement no matter what the cost.  The wind master would frequently team up with Rose to unleash reagents and artifacts infused with magic, exposing the two magi as well as Sam and Percival to blasts of wind and pressure that ordinarily could only exist deep at sea or atop a stormy mountain.  There wasn’t much room for safety in those howling maelstroms, and more often than not Samazzar found himself limping home bruised and battered from his long days of study.

He learned a lot during these sessions.  Especially when Rose or Pothas would use him as an experimental subject.  Apparently his resilient saurian physique combined with Sam’s budding mastery over magic made him an ideal specimen to try out new compounds and apparatuses on, all while the more experienced magi took notes and deepened their own understanding of the mysteries.

One day Pothas would feed him a small portion of a southern cloud kraken’s wind bladder and Samazzar would spend most of the evening as a balloon, bumping up against the ceiling of his master’s study as the old man batted him around with the force of pressurized air.  Another, he would bolt his arm in place and grit his teeth as Rose slowly cut one scale off at a time with a scalpel of highly pressurized oxygen before gulping down a potion to heal the damage.

By far the most useful to Samazzar’s understanding of the mystery was a recurring experiment.  Pothas would give both Percival and him masks made of heavy waterproof canvas with magically grown hollow wooden tube sticking out of it.  Then both of them would climb into stone boxes that resembled coffins to a distressing degree.

As soon as the roofs were placed on their boxes, Rose would continually pump fresh oxygen into the tubes that extended out of their prisons while Pothas destroyed the air around them.  A minute or so into his immersion, the absence of air and outside stimuli around him let Samazzar begin to sense the gasses inside his own body.  Then, the faint sensation and wonder transitioned into burning pain as the air inside him tried to escape, causing his eyes to bulge as it pressed painfully at his skin and scales.

At first, the treatments only lasted for minutes at a time before Percival would beg to be released through his air tube.  Then, the two of them would climb out, covered in bruises only for the other apprentice to complain how much the practice hurt.

After about two weeks, Pothas stopped taking Samazzar out of his coffin just because Percival gave up and the air deprivation sessions grew much longer, sometimes even stretching into multiple hours as Rose fed him healing potions through the breathing tube.  Sam didn’t delight in pain, but it was hardly an enemy.  He wouldn’t have survived a single bloodline evolution if he hadn’t accustomed himself to a little agony along the path to power.

Every minute inside the box felt like Sam’s scales were on fire, and the only reason he didn’t come out covered in his own blood was that the liquid would boil and dissipate into the airless container the second it left his body.  The sessions would uniformly end with the saurian staggering on weak legs into Pothas’ study, scales cracked and chipped with blood flowing freely while Percival sulked over his bruises in the corner.

It hurt, but Samazzar could feel his mastery over the wind growing with each day.  He wasn’t quite ready for a baptism, but he was only a moment of enlightenment away from breaking through into the next tier.

Outside a couple of pointers and check-ins with Crone Tazzaera, the rest of Sam’s time was spent in Henry Etanne’s forge.  After all, Vereton might be under threat, but that didn’t mean that the Patrician had suddenly grown soft.  The saurians still had living expenses and tuition that they needed to pay, and the lack of missions outside the city walls only meant that they needed to spend even more of their time on the more mundane jobs available through the Academy.

Next to him, Dussok pounded away at a spearhead, pulling the glowing red chunk of steel from the fire long enough to inspect the metal.  On his other side, Henry’s maul sent sparks flying about the forge as he worked a bar of alloy made from ordinary and falling star iron into the rough shape of a sword.

Dussok nodded in satisfaction, picking up the spearhead with his bare hands before tossing it into a nearby bucket of water.  The tub’s bottom was already filled with tempered spear and arrowheads, the product of a hard morning’s work, and all that Etanne would permit the saurian to make.

Without waiting to be asked, Samazzar grabbed the bellows for his sibling’s furnace and worked it, monitoring the heat and airflow until it reached the exact levels needed.  Then, without speaking, Dussok picked up another slug of iron from the rack next to him and thrust it into the glowing embers, beginning the process of forging yet another weapon for the city guard.

“Sam.”  Henry Etanne’s voice came out as a croak after long hours spent laboring over the forge.  “It’s time to turn this into steel, I’ll need some coal.”

Samazzar turned and jogged over to the supply cabinet, effortlessly weaving his way through the crowded smithy with the help of the mystery of air.  He opened the coal bin and paused for a second, looking down at the four hoppers before glancing back to Etanne with an unspoken question on his face.

“It’s a squire’s blade,” the blacksmith supplied, bicep bulging as he landed another blow on the length of metal in front of him.  “It’ll need more than ordinary coal, but Vereton isn’t paying us to go overboard.  A couple lumps from the midnight seam should do the trick.”

His hand darted down, grabbing two fist sized chunks of remarkably dark rock from the second container and turned back to run it over to Henry.  The midnight seam was a famous coal mine in Atophel.  Each lump was a minor alchemical reagent.  On their own, the coal wasn’t particularly impressive.  It had hints of several mysteries and could be used in a number of heat and filtration based alchemical formulas, but it wasn’t a vital component in any important or world-shaking crafting recipe.

Where it excelled was in quantity.  Unlike most reagents that were collected in twos or threes and carefully hoarded by artificers and alchemists, coal from the midnight seam could be used in mass production.  It did everything ordinary coal could, but noticeably better, and products made with it were easier to enchant.  The sword Etanne was working on would be stronger and hold an edge better than the sort that a normal person could purchase in a market.

The big man took the coal from Samazzar’s hand, crushing each lump in his fist before sprinkling the dust over the surface of the glowing metal.  Henry nodded, a half smile on his face before raising his hammer once more to begin working and folding the substance into the iron alloy so that he could turn it into steel.

Samazzar glanced back at Dussok, cursing under his breath as he felt the oxygen content of his furnace slipping below where it should be.  He grabbed a shovel, burying it into a bin full of grayish coke before flinging it into the forge and returning to his bellows.

His scales glistened in the firelight as the cacophony of creaking fabric and falling hammers washed over him.  Muscles heaved and the furnace flared, returning the heat in the room to its usual intolerable levels.

After a moment or two, Sam fell back into an easy rhythm, alternating between the two sets of bellows as Henry and Dussok continued their labor.  Ordinarily, this would be work for an apprentice, but with his knowledge of the mysteries of fire and wind let Samazzar keep both furnaces in pristine condition, allowing the blacksmiths to work untroubled.

Despite the ache in his arms, it wasn’t a bad deal for Sam either.  He got a good workout and a couple parros all while fine tuning his control over wind and fire.  Working in the forge didn’t develop his understanding of the mysteries nearly as fast as the days he spent researching with Pothas, but there was no denying the steady gain in his understanding.

Just as Etanne quenched the sword he was working on, spilling a cloud of steam into the smithy, the front door opened with a jangle of metal bells rattling against the wood frame.  Sam didn’t bother looking up, instead reaching out with his senses to find the silhouette of a large human clad in bulky armor with a sword strapped to his hip.

The man didn’t do anything beyond wave at Henry, so Samazzar kept working while the master smith placed his finished blade aside and approached the newcomer.  A couple of minutes later, Dussok finished off another spearhead and Etanne called a stop to their work for the day.

“Oi, Sam and Duss.”

Samazzar could almost see Dussok wince at the shortened version of his name.  He turned around to take in Adam Joosen standing next to Henry, his usually pristine hair matted with sweat and bags under his eyes.  The knight gave them a quick smile as Etanne continued speaking.

“That’s enough with the hammer for a while.  We need to take an hour break or so anyway or the two of you will collapse from dehydration.  I know the Patrician has us pulling double shifts, but there’s only so much a body can take without an elixir, and we don’t have the time to nurse an injury or a breakdown.”

“I can keep going,” Samazzar replied cheerfully.  “My muscles are a little sore, but Master Pothas has me on enough potions that I barely even feel exhaustion anymore.  Takkla has to stop me from working on my projects and remind me to sleep most nights.”

“Right,” Etanne said, squinting at him and unconvinced.  “Alchemy can be useful, but most of the time it doesn’t change your body’s functions, just excites or deadens them.  Even if you can’t tell that you’re reaching your limit, that doesn’t mean you’ll be fine if you overdo it.  Take an hour break to rest your arms and drink some water.  I’ll be too tired come sundown to drag your scaly behinds out of my smithy if you pass out.  Unless you’re okay waking up on my floor feeling like crap, I’d suggest taking it easy.”

With a snort, the blacksmith walked past the three of them, opening the door to his office and stepping inside.  As soon as the door shut, an awkward silence fell over the smithy.  Finally, after almost thirty seconds Adam broke the quiet.

“The Patrician has you working double shifts?”

“And nothing fun either,” Sam responded, sour expression on his face.  “Before the attack, we were helping Henry with a sword that he swore was going to be a masterpiece.  It was fascinating.  The three of us were pioneering new methods for producing heat and mixing alloys, but then the order came down.  Vereton was in danger, so the Patrician wanted weapons and a lot of them.  Most of what we’re making are simple swords, spears and arrows.”

“Etanne says that some of the other shops have gotten the same sort of contract but for other sundries,” Dussok supplied.  “Smith Halfhand is producing nothing but simply breastplates and chain armor, Cooper Reisnen and Smith Blaine are cooperating to produce as many shields as they can, and Smith Britte is making nails and joists for the remaining construction projects.”

“I’ve held one of Britte’s swords,” Adam said with a snort.  “I’m glad the government has him sticking to sundries.  Any weapons made by him are almost guaranteed to be more dangerous to the soldier holding them than to whoever they try to stab.”

Dussok and Samazzar shared a quick look.  Adam’s assessment wasn’t wrong, but at the same time Henry was a proponent of having a healthy and friendly working relationship with all of Vereton’s major craftsmen.  Britte didn’t produce the best products, but the stout man had six sons and fourteen apprentices.  He almost certainly made the most.

“Do you think the guard will start hiring?” Sam asked, carefully avoiding Adam’s inflammatory comment.  Etanne was a nice man and he paid fairly.  The last thing Samazzar wanted to do was to start trouble for his employer because he was unable to refrain from acidic gossip.

“They already have,” Adad responded with a sigh.  “They haven’t increased their pay or signing bonuses much yet, but I’ve seen their recruiting sergeants skulking around any number of bars in some of the seedier parts of town.”

“No,” the man continued.  “What I’m worried about is a draft.  The weapon stockpiles you’re talking about aren’t for equipping professional soldiers.  It sure sounds like we’re preparing to shove a spear into the hands of every half trained shopkeeper or day laborer that we can round up, and that’s almost always a recipe for a bloodbath.  A soldier with a single elixir could go through them faster than a knife through wet paper, let alone a practitioner or an expert with more than one elixir worth of improvement.”

“I guess we are doing cheap mass production work,” Samazzar replied, speaking the words slowly as his mind raced through their workflow over the last couple of weeks.  “Barely anything specialized or set to be enchanted.  Just cheap and easy to use weapons.”

“Part of that is lack of resources,” Adam said grudgingly.  “Look, what I’m about to say doesn’t leave this building.  Henry Etanne is trusted by the city government, and my plan is to trust the two of you as well, but-”

“What about Takkla?” Sam asked, cutting the knight off.  “We talk about everything with Takkla.”

“It’s true,” Dussok rumbled.  “Samazzar provides boundless and potentially reckless optimism.  I am the bucket of cold water dousing his ambitions with reality.  Of the three of us, she is the most pragmatically creative.  We all make decisions together.  There’s no way I could leave her out of the discussion.”

“Fine,” Adam relented.  “My plan probably required Takkla’s involvement anyway.  You can talk to her about our discussion today, but no one else-”

“If it’s important we will need to speak to Crone Tazzaera as well,” Samazzar interjected.  “The last time I didn’t talk something urgent over with her before doing it, the three of us were enslaved by goblins, and as fascinating as that experience was, Dussok didn’t seem to care for it.”

“I did not care for it,” Dussok replied smoothly.  “I would also agree that we run any important decisions or discussions past Tazzaera.  She adds the weight of experience and wisdom to any decision we make.”

Adam deflated.  He had already looked tired beyond belief, but whatever energy was left in him faded under Samazzar’s cheerful interjections.

“Fine,” he said.  “If I recall correctly Tazzaera is an instructor at the Vereton Academy anyway.  Bringing her in shouldn’t be a problem.  Telling you not to let something ‘leave this room’ is more of a figure of speech anyway.  I just wanted to talk about a sensitive subject and make sure that you didn’t wander around spilling the secret to random civilians.”

“Oh,” Sam responded, nodding happily.  “That shouldn’t be a problem.  Outside of Pothas, Rose, Henry, and you, we don’t have many human friends.  Not everyone treats us poorly, but people don’t go out of their way to talk to us.  We should be able to keep your secret without too much trouble.”

“Well,” Adam replied, pausing for a second as he digested Samazzar’s words.  “That’s more than a little depressing, but hardly the point.  It seems you understand the gravity of what we’re about to discuss.”

He paused, looking around the empty smithy once as if there might be a shadowy figure hiding in one of its corners just waiting to eavesdrop on them.  Finally, he made eye contact with Samazzar.

“Our problems are twofold.  The Patrician is right to prepare for an army.  It’s clear that something is happening, but it didn’t start in the last couple of weeks.  Trade and resource gathering operations have been dwindling for almost a year now.  At first it was work slowdowns.  Then there were rumors of bandits.  Later the bandits started hitting larger caravans.  Now, it’s an outright terrorist attack.  It’s like Vereton has had a speckled anaconda wrapped around it, tightening its coils every time we tried to take a breath.”

“But it’s like we’re fighting with shadows,” Adam continued grimly.  “Every expedition that goes looking for our enemy barely even finds a trace.  By now it's clear that there’s an army out there, but every time we search for them, they disappear like mist under the morning sun.”

“Now here we are,” he said with a sigh, reaching up to rub his temples.  “Resources are running low and we’ve lost contact with our outer ring of extraction colonies.  We’re still getting food from some of the farms and orchards near Vereton, but the iron mines and timber mills are silent.  Before long, whoever is out there won’t even need to invade.  They can just wait for us to run out of supplies and tear each other apart.”

Adam lapsed into silence, and Sam cocked his head to the side, watching the unhappy human for a couple of seconds before he prompted him.

“I suppose you’ve come to us with a plan of action?  I haven’t seen you in weeks and it's clear that you’re being worked to the bone.  It doesn’t seem like you to reach out to me just to complain about something that you can’t change.”

The knight chuckled, removing his hand from his face as he straightened his back and squared his shoulders and looked up at Samazzar.  When he met the saurian’s eyes, there was a hint of life to his face for the first time in the conversation.

“True enough Sam,” he said with a hint of a smile.  “I’ve gotten permission from my superiors to venture outside the City and try to restore contact with some of the outlying production compounds.  The only problem is that they haven’t authorized anyone other than my adjunct, Meredith Lewtin, to come with me.  Apparently everyone else is needed to defend the walls and continue the neverending investigation into what happened.  Now, I don’t like to brag, but I’m ready for my third elixir, and I’m pretty good with both a sword and the mysteries.  I can hold my own against a handful of bandits, but-”

“That’s hardly enough under present circumstances,” Samazzar finished for him.

“Exactly,” Adam replied.  “I was given a budget for mercenaries, but I need people I can trust.  Right now, half of the people suggested to me by the head office looked like they would bolt as soon as they were out of the city and away from whoever it is that has us under siege.”

“How much?” Samazzar asked.

“fifteen parros a head per day,” Adam responded unhappily.  “I know it isn’t much, but it’s all I was able to shake out of the petty cash account.”

Samazzar made eye contact with Dussok.  The bigger saurian chewed on his lower lip, deep in thought for a couple of seconds before nodding slowly.

He reached out a hand to Adam and smiled.  The human’s face lit up as his gloved fist enclosed Sam’s and pumped once.

“So long as we can make some quick detours to pick up a couple alchemical supplies that I will need,” Samazzar said cheerfully, “fifteen parros a day shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”