Chapter 49 - The Humble Life of a Skill Trainer (Patreon)

So much for my original plan. I thought to myself as Abby, and I sat across from the Baron in his study. While the large man brooded behind his desk, I glanced around the room, trying to work out the reason for our silent wait. The fireplace was cold, the pot that had steeped wine the last few visits was now missing. Instead of the warm but dark environment of our earlier talks, the light was now brightly shining through the western facing windows. Despite the brighter feel to the room, the tension from the silence grew in both my apprentice and me. I sat in the large chair facing the fireplace while my apprentice chose the chair behind and to my right. She sat close, almost huddling behind me. Her seat choice suggested she was seeking my protection, but I thought she simply wanted the chair furthest from the Baron. His countenance when we entered, was dark and brooked no-nonsense. Frowning as we entered the room, he silently gestured us to our seats before returning to his desk. Sir Wincome followed us initially, but at the Baron’s gesture, he stationed himself outside the office.

Despite the noble’s look as he signaled us to wait silently, I wasn’t worried that he was angry with either of us. My guess was this had to do with my recent revelation of the Mage’s actions. It came too quickly on the heels of the discovery of his meddling to be anything else. I was still slightly concerned that he might want to discuss the budding relationship between his daughter and me. While Abby and I sat silently, the Baron sat behind his desk and read from a stack of papers. It was an awkward and uncomfortable wait of ten long minutes before a knock came at the door.

“Enter,” the Baron said without looking up from his paperwork.

At the entrance of the Mage, the tension mostly drained out of me. I wasn’t sure about why we were a part of this meeting, but I knew that we weren’t the ones who had stepped in it, either. By the quick sideways look of Mage Fordson, he knew that he was in store for an unpleasant time. I was expecting Fordson to activate [Acting] to put on a stoic look, but oddly he didn’t. That isn’t to say that he suddenly broke into a sweat with shaking knees, but the sudden shift in body language and movement, the signature of active use of [Acting], never happened. He seemed mostly calm, but there was a thread of concern and hesitation that ran through his movements as he crossed the room. His approach highlighted an odd feature of the layout of the room. The room’s features had been arranged in a triangle - our seats as one point, Fordson in the midpoint of the room, and the Baron’s desk as the third point. The room was square with one point containing the doorway, but our three points were where people would typically come to rest. The arrangement left me feeling like I was sitting watching a play performed on a stage between the Baron and the Mage. The sideways glance of the Mage before he spoke only enhanced this feeling.

“My Lord, you called for me?” The Mage said, the questioning tone coming with an almost - but not quite - churlish note.

Raising one finger, the Baron continued his perusal of the paper on his desk. Seeming to come to the end of the rolled vellum writing, the Baron looked up at the Mage before he spoke.

“No, I’ve read it twice. I don’t see it in any clause here,” the Baron said.

Mage Fordson was silent but flinched when the Baron lobbed the rolled sheepskin, which bounced off his chest. Rising from behind his desk, the Baron leaned forward, and his deep voice seemed to reach an even lower register as he bellowed at the frail seeming white-haired man.

“Nowhere in our contract does it say you can endanger my daughter’s life and scheme behind my back. You refused to accept a gentleman’s handshake on our agreement, wrote it up, forced me to sign it, and then you fucking go back on it, even then? Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you?” The Baron asked, his last words cutting through the now silent room.

Behind me, I could hear Abby shaking, her body shuddering at the sudden anger. Despite the near-silent movements, my apprentice said nothing. Almost against my will, my hand reached backward and was grasped in her own. Giving her a silent squeeze, I continued to watch the drama unfolding in front of me.

“My Lord,” the Mage began with a slightly bowed head, “I was commanded by the Mage’s Guild to kill him by the Triumvirate. If I’m to remain a member in good standing, I have to follow their orders,” he said with an only slightly conciliatory tone.

“Then you tell me and keep me informed. I promised to protect him, and I won’t have you breaking my agreements.”

While they hadn’t rehearsed this conversation, I could see the political game-playing here. Neither of us needed to be here to convince Fordson of his mistake. We were here to hear his excuses and the Baron’s response. This was as much a message to us as it was the Baron chewing out Fordson.

Fordson stared at the Baron, the two men staring eye-to-eye. Fordson looked away first, but I was interested to notice that the Baron struggled some to maintain eye contact. What stood out to me was the Mage failing to use [Acting] at all. Leaning on a Skill might not have been noticed by the noble, and even if it was, Skills were a type of strength, and leaning on a social Skill in a social situation made sense. [Acting] could only enhance the force of his gaze and the silent struggle. I was betting that the Mage would still have turned away; the Baron had the advantage here, and no amount of staring would change that. Yet, he simply suffered under the Baron’s gaze. I would think he would refuse the Baron’s yoke and refuse his demands. The Baron was a high noble, but the Mage still had magic and could flee his domain quickly enough.

The Baron’s next words illuminated the situation to me. I thought they were as much for me as they were a reminder to the Mage.

“The King asked me to take you as my Mage. The King promised me that because of your anger with the Guild, you would be true. The King promised that you would serve me faithfully for the time you had left. For the love you had for the boy he was, he swore that you would be an ally in our cause. Was he wrong?”

Each statement seemed to strike like a blow to Mage Fordson, the words cutting through his forced stoic look. At his question, Fordson’s facade crumbled, and his eyes locked onto the ground, his lips dropping into a deep frown.

“Well? Anything else to say for yourself?” the Baron asked?

“No, my Lord.”

The Baron clenched a fist, his knuckles crackling at the action as he leaned forward over his desk, “Then are you ready to receive your punishment?”

The Mage simply nodded, but I noticed that he didn’t seem worried about his punishment, only upset at his failure. That subtle detail oddly stood out to me, but I couldn’t imagine why he was so confident that the Baron would be merciful or that he could bear the punishment. It was the Baron’s daughter he put in danger. The man was willing to upend his own rule for his daughter. I wouldn’t have been as confident as the Mage if I had been in his place. Perhaps my thoughts on him using magic to flee wasn’t too far off?

Turning to the pair of us, I watched the Baron’s eyes soften for a moment at Abby’s shaking, but his stern look quickly returned. Opening his desk, he searched for something, then lightly grunted when he found his prize. Rounding his desk, the noble approached his Mage with an alchemist’s ampule flask. As he approached my apprentice and I rose, a single squeeze from my hand seeming to bring enough comfort to help my apprentice calm herself. When I released her hand, there was a brief moment where she tried to keep prisoner my hand, but reluctantly she released it. Handing me the flask, the Baron stepped back a pace and kept his eyes on me. The lack of eye contact and the distance between them calmed Abby further. Her extreme reaction to the Baron’s tone and body language said ugly things about her time of imprisonment, and we would need to address it in future training, but for now, I was fine with standing between her and the Baron. We were not the target of his ire at present.

“I’m claiming one of my dosages now. I’ll have my Seneschal provide payment later,” he said as he gently extended the flask to me.

Turning to Abby, I handed her the flask then studied her eagerly. We hadn’t discussed how her Fount Skill manifested, and I was eager to see how she produced her poison. Despite the tense atmosphere, I was still curious about her Skill and how it worked. Was it mixed in her spit? Tears? Blood? Would she need to visit an alcove to fill it? There were many ways discussed, but I had never seen it first hand. At my curious glance, my apprentice looked away, but my raised eyebrow seemed to shift her from embarrassment to annoyance. Reaching up, she grabbed her hair, sliding her hand along the long tresses until a thick dark oil pulled free from her locks. Oddly enough, the oil seemed to flow from the hair itself and didn’t form on her head. The thick oil clung to the lip of flask and slowly oozed into the bottle but streamed through her hair and hands without sticking. It was deeply odd in appearance, and mentally I checked her Skill list while she acted.

Poison Fount - Tier 2: 7

Poison Fount’s are often the source of unique compounds.

Passive Effect:

Lesser: Poison Resistance - Some resistance to the effects of poison compounds.

Lesser: Personal Poison Detection - Detect your poison from a distance.

Greater: Personal Poison Resistance - Significant resistance to your poison.

Active Trigger Effect:

Produces personal poison (Noble’s Bane).

The lack of description of where the poison would be ‘produced’ had left me wondering for a while now. I hadn’t pressed my apprentice about how it worked, considering her embarrassment. I was surprised it was so innocuous. I had been worried that it would come from a more challenging location, and she would need specialty clothing created just to ease access - modified maternity or Pleasure House clothes, perhaps. With it being produced simply from her hair, and with the ease at which she could control the poison as it left her hair, it was a lot less of a concern. Despite this, she was still avoiding eye contact as she worked one-handed to milk her hair and deposit the oil in the flask in her other hand.

Once the flask was full, she handed the bottle to me and retreated to her seat again. Turning to the Baron, I handed over the nearly full container with a dark certainty with how it would be used.

“Drink it,” the Baron said as he passed the flask to the Mage.

“My Lord! This would block me for a week!” Mage Fordson said while visibly sweating as he stared at the flask like it was a viper.

“Drink. It.”

Audibly gulping, Fordson tipped the flask back and swallowed the oily liquid. As the fluid passed his lips, his skin turned greyed and wrinkled while his body hunched and bent. The smooth surface on his arms wrinkled as his limbs thinned, the skin sagging around his bones. Gasping after swallowing the liquid, the Mage silently passed the flask back to the Baron without looking, his eyes fogging over as air wheezed through his thin lips.

“My Lord,” the ancient man that had replaced Mage Fordson said as he tried to bend in a bow, “with your permission, I would like to rest,” he gasped out with a defeated tone.

The Baron slowly circled his desk, sat, then glanced at all three of us.

“You are dismissed.”