The mage just nodded gratefully as he accepted the outfit. His student wasn’t obliged to share with him, so thanks were in order. Although, what was he going to share when he himself was wearing some hand-me-downs…
“Level three?!” For the first time in a while, Forian’s composure abandoned him. Looking around in shock, he took a closer look at the group surrounding him. The dean, who’d personally trained him to pay attention to detail, would have snorted derisively — Forian hadn’t noticed the depiction on the lix’s silver armor that told him it was level three, too. That was the highest anybody under level twenty could wear. Everyone else had mimicry turned on, the true value of their protection hidden, and the academy mage could only conclude that the months of torture had dulled his perception. All his colleagues camouflaged their armor as the white robe that symbolized the academy. And for whatever reason, it hadn’t even occurred to him that anyone else could do the same. So, Tailyn was wearing a complete level three outfit… Not bad. It finally made sense why he wasn’t wearing the ring — what did he need with something that miserable?
Forian spoke that last thought aloud, deciding to finally praise his student.
“You have level three, too, I take it? Not bad for a beginner mage, not bad. And what…”
When he saw the boy’s reaction, Forian trailed off. Tailyn was blushing, but not the way he did when he was embarrassed. He was trying to hide the truth.
“So, you aren’t wearing a level three outfit?” the mage said, and Tailyn turned an even deeper shade of red. His eyes were fixed on the floor. But the strange part for Forian was that he wasn’t the only one taken aback — everyone else was staring at the boy, too.
“We gave you back two outfits!” Valia explained, forcing Forian to mask his expression with impassiveness. Two outfits? What was going on? How did they have that much equipment?
“Well… I…” Tailyn began to mumbled, but his mentor quickly jumped in.
“Precise. Simple. No emotions. Out with it!”
“I’m not wearing a level three outfit because I don’t need it,” the boy blurted out. “I’m wearing this…”
His armor transformed, and a silence fell over the group. The lix couldn’t have cared less what his master wore so long as his master liked it. Valia smiled — the gorgeous armor turned her boy into a true cavalier, and that was all she cared about in that moment. But Valanil and Forian were stunned, their consciousness carrying them far away. Neither of them would ever have guessed that the boy had Vargot.
“Oh, and there’s this.” Tailyn held out his hand, and his staff leaped into it, straightening out and lengthening. It wasn’t nearly as twisted as it had looked on the boy’s back.
“Matilda,” Forian said, swallowing hard as he recognized a weapon he’d once carried himself. That was back before the lixes had destroyed it.
“This, too, as long as I’m showing you everything. Everyone knows about it, anyway,” Tailyn continued with a sigh as the bracelet on his arm dropped down toward the ground. Only instead of ringing as it hit the stone, it turned into a small golden dragon that hovered in the air a step away from its master. And that was the final straw for Forian. Completely losing his aura of leadership, he sank down onto the ground — Tailyn hadn’t just surprised him. He was shocked.
“The dragon legendary card. There are at least two of them,” the mage mumbled, recognizing the beast. His department dean had one, too, only about three times as large.
“I won’t tell you my parameters — I’m not supposed to.” Tailyn saw his mentor’s reaction and lost control — he wanted to prove he was a worthy student. He wanted to show off. He just wanted to be a regular boy. “But I have a store, an alchemical workshop, a mountain of ingredients, good cards — ”
“Tailyn, enough,” Valanil said sharply. “You forget yourself.”
Forian felt a pang of jealousy — some nobody of an herbalist had been the one to put the boy in his place rather than him. And that helped the mage regain his composure. Getting to his feet and brushing the dirt off, he turned toward Valanil and addressed the suddenly quiet boy.
“Tailyn, I want to know this woman’s status. Who is she, and why does she know so much about you?”
Valanil tensed up under the mage’s intense stare. Forian had quickly adapted the outfit Tailyn had given him, turning it into the snow-white robe academy mages used to instill fear in most of the world’s inhabitants. And not only that, but the herbalist realized the mage still had his personal deck, it was presumably fully charged, and he was prepared to use it at the drop of a hat.
“She’s my trainer.” Sensing that something was amiss, Tailyn stepped between the two. “She taught me alchemy, and she also made a deal with the guards to have them teach me how to use staffs and knives. Oh, and elixirs.”
“How did he get so lucky?” Forian asked, looking askance at the herbalist.
“A blood debt,” the latter replied with a shrug. “Tailyn saved my life. Twice. Or maybe even three times — I’ve already lost track. I want to balance the scales, so I’m not just any trainer; I’m the boy’s official trainer. The god recognized me.”
“What? How dare you?!” the mage exclaimed indignantly. “Only mentors have the right to name trainers!”
“Oh, and you’re such a great mentor that you left him with two cheap cards and nothing to go on in a border town,” Valanil replied, snorting and no longer fearing for her life. After the few minutes she’d spent speaking with Forian, she’d figured out how to position herself. But just in case, she doubled down. “The god led Tailyn to me, the god let him save me, and the god confirmed my right to call myself the boy’s trainer. So you could be his mentor three times over, Forian Tarn, but that still wouldn’t give you the right to question the decision. If you want to take that up with someone, just take yourself right over to the nearest temple. It’s not my problem!”
The mage’s expression darkened, but he contained his rage. Valanil was right.
“If that’s the god’s will,” Forian said coldly. “When we get back to the empire, I’m going to find out everything there is to know about you. We’ll see what kind of trainer you are.”
That was an open threat, but Valanil wasn’t worried. Her cover had saved her life once already, and it had been checked back then by far more experienced investigators than the level thirty-three upstart eyeing her in that moment. If the names hadn’t raised much of an eyebrow, the rest was going to be fine. And that meant she could plow on ahead.
“You’re welcome to dig into whatever you’d like. But right now, we have to figure out how to get out of General Isr Kale’s tomb.”
“This isn’t his tomb,” Forian said, and the group all stared at him. “This is that ancient piece of scum’s hall of fame, the spot where he boasted about everything he did. Actually, I’m glad the lixes stripped it bare. Isr Kale doesn’t deserve for his name to be remembered.”
It took an effort for Valanil not to throw a punch at the mage, demanding that he shut his dirty mouth and take back what he’d just said. Only a true mage marked for destruction could call a hero like the general a piece of scum.
“Mentor, where did they capture you?” Something dawned on Tailyn, and he decided to check out his hunch before he mentioned it aloud. “In the forest or outside it?”
“Yes, here in the forest,” Forian replied, not sure what the boy was getting at. “I was able to take out three of the guards, but the fourth blocked me and put me to sleep. I woke up on a torture table without clothes — the lixes destroyed everything I had on.”
“So, you weren’t marked as a slave, but the location security system still didn’t kill you,” Tailyn continued. “That’s only possible if you have a mission having to do with the tomb. The secret mission Keran mentioned in Culmart… Are you supposed to find the general’s tomb? The real tomb, not the hall of fame.”
Forian gazed silently at his student with mixed emotions. On the one hand, he was happy to see th
e boy using his brain for more than holding his skull in place. On the other, Forian was equally capable of drawing conclusions, and Tailyn clearly had a mission related to the tomb, too. That was the real reason the odd group had showed up there. It wasn’t the tale Valanil had spun. And to wrap it all up, there was an additional notification. The dean had made his favorites take an oath not to let anyone find out about the mission, and the god had heard it. Even the lixes hadn’t been able to beat the details out of Forian no matter how hard they tried. But then…
Mission update: Search. Updated description: this mission is secret, and you only have the right to discuss and share it with the dean of the magic card department, Keran Tisor (dead), Tailyn Vlashich, Ka-Do-Gir, Valanil Revolt, and Valia Levor.
“Really?” Forian said slowly as he began putting together the packets to share. The god was never wrong. And if it decided the group was worthy of the dean’s secret, that was the way it was. It was also a good verification — the god would never have him share the mission with someone who wasn’t worthy. Everything that was happening was for the good of the academy, and that was the will of the god.
“This is a decoy the ancients made to keep marauders off the scent. The actual tomb is located farther down, and that’s why we need to head up. The entrance to the tomb is outside the hall of fame at the top of that black pillar. Here you go.”
New mission: Search. Description: make your way down to the third level of General Isr Kale’s tomb and examine the sarcophagus. According to ancient manuscripts, it contains an entrance to a dungeon, a mythical location plucked out of our world. If that’s true, explore the dungeon and report back to the dean. The location map is attached. This mission is secret…
“And now, Student, I’d like to know how you got past the location defenses.”
Chapter 18
“WOULD YOU LOOK at that…” Forian said as he once again read through the description of the mission Valanil had sent him. Isr Kale’s tomb definitely indicated that there was some leftover from the exodus down in the lower levels who had managed to stick around, building a connection with the lixes and exchanging the gifts of the ancient piece of scum for the sustenance it needed — living souls. While Forian had never come across anything like that personally, he knew his dean had actually built a reputation as a hunter of ancient monsters. He'd taken out at least seven of them. And it turned out the mage’s student wasn’t half bad, either — killing One, the hexagon general’s top spawn, was no laughing matter.
Tailyn looked over at Forian and quietly hated himself. Even after a direct order, the System hadn’t given him an update, meaning that while Ka-Do-Gir and Valia had been included in the list of people he could share information with, Valanil and Forian hadn’t. It was like they weren’t worthy. And because of that, he had to dodge and even lie to the person who was supposed to become the one most important to him over the coming eight years. His mentor. But the System didn’t give him another way out. Happily, the boy remembered his other mission related to the tomb, just fibbing about when he’d gotten it by saying it was when he’d broken the prisoners out of the lix camp. He claimed he’d guessed why the lixes were taking them to the Forest of Desire, and the System had done the rest.
Valanil appreciated the boy’s story. When she shared the mission with Forian — the boy still couldn’t — she added a point to draw the mage’s attention away.
“There’s apparently a pool in the town they were taking us to. Halas was only sending mages that way, after all, so the bastard probably wanted to see if he could get another mana farm up and running.”
“We should definitely check that out,” Forian replied. “We can’t leave those pools around — we’ll take this one out, too. Grab the cage and the magistrate, and head up. We’ll meet by the door. Tailyn, you stay with me.”
The mage quickly downed three flasks to max out his mana. Meanwhile, Valanil sent him an invitation to the group, though he declined without bothering to give a reason why. The herbalist understood, of course. He just didn’t want to share his parameters, a smart move by someone who didn’t trust anyone.
“Lix, you and your friend grab that thing,” Valanil said with a finger jabbing in the direction of the cage holding Vu-Rga. The shaman had already woken up, and all his efforts to get himself free were amounting to nothing. The old creature was as helpless as a newborn kitten behind those bars.
“The little duchess and I will carry the magistrate. Come on, Your Highness, grab that end.”
Valia glared at Valanil, though she said nothing as she picked up the magistrate’s legs. Regardless of his age, the old mage was anything but light, promising a difficult climb. All the girl could do was rely on the skills she’d picked up in the quarries she’d been sentenced to. One way or another, carrying heavy rocks around tempered you even when your strength was all the way down at two.
The procession began its slow journey upward. Tailyn cast another glance around the empty level — there was no loot to gather after the battle. With everything valuable already tossed into the portal by the lixes, even their equipment was only enough to give everyone in the group five hundred gold after it was sold. Marauder turned out to be powerless, as well. Halas’ advisor was useless, with nothing whatsoever to his name. Of course, the main loot was with Vu-Rga, but nobody was in a hurry to risk opening the cage. They all understood that the moment the monster made it to freedom would be the group’s last. Even Forian wasn’t going to be able to help.
The boy’s mentor waited for the rest of the group to disappear before turning to his student and handing him a metal disk with ten thousand coins.
“Turn off your group connection. Good job. Now, head into the store and buy five Alron potions. They should cost two thousand coins each.”
Tailyn followed the instructions without asking questions, not even expecting his mentor to explain what was going on, though the latter surprisingly did just that.
“It’s really a shame you became an alchemist, especially without really being prepared for that. Over at the academy, that’s not a class they really like, not even in our department. But that’s water under the bridge, so we’ll make do with what we have. Once you get to the academy, you’ll really dive into the science, but we can cover the basics — you should know that there are four main division in alchemy, with neophytes always picking two to delve into. If you try to cover all of them, you’ll be such a bad alchemist nobody will need you. The Alron potions you bought are bombs. Those are ranged weapons that do damage when they hit an obstacle. Give me a couple other examples of bombs.”
“Alchemical fire. Acid. Ice explosion,” Tailyn said quickly after pulling up his skills. The picture was starting to make sense.
“Exactly. Those are all bombs. Next, we have concoctions that block different types of damage. The most popular is salamander potions — they let you ignore fire. Give me a few other examples.”
“Basilisk, lervan, and yeti potions.” That was easy enough, too. Tailyn had all of them.
“Excellent, you’re getting it. Next, there are the classic potions that have oils you rub on weapons. That group has everything that increases parameters. Examples?”
“Mana and shield restoration, magic enhancement. But I don’t know anything about those oils.”
“That’s fine. If you pick that block, they’ll teach you everything. The last division is abilities, or what makes alchemists especially valuable in our world. Have any idea what I might be talking about?”
“Recharging cards?”
“Yes. Lots of people unlock the alchemist skill for themselves just to get that ability. I’m one of them, in fact, though you should end up being much better than me.”
“What about my lesser regeneration potion? It’s definitely not a bomb, though it isn’t really a concoction, either. Is it just a potion? But it doesn’t improve parameters; it just heals.”
“That’s an ability. And it’s rare, I should add, even unique, but defi
nitely an ability. Step farther back, and I’ll show you how Alron potions work.”
Tailyn went over to the way up out of the level and turned around. Forian was just finishing setting up a potion next to the pool, after which he sprinted off uncharacteristically fast, almost as if there were a crowd of angry lixes after him. Grabbing the boy, he dove through the doorway, and a deafening explosion ripped through the air a moment later. The entire lower floor was splattered with red acid, and the air was filled with steam, but the job was done. The pool was gone without a trace.
“Alron potions explode a little while after being exposed to the air,” Forian explained as he set the boy down. “Your personal shield would probably have kept you safe from the main hit, but that wouldn’t be enough to soften the impact. Anyone within a meter is torn to pieces. Although… You have Vargot, so you’d survive, but you’d be the only one. That’s why it's so expensive. It’s too dangerous. Okay, let’s go catch up to the rest.”
Forest of Desire (The Alchemist Book #2): LitRPG Series Page 25
