Guilt and Punishmen

by Sophia Schmidt

  "Stop that." She cut him short.

  "It tickles!"

  Chapter 183 Crucible

  "It tickles?" Lith echoed her words.

  "Do you mean you can actually feel my touch?"

  Solus froze for a second, the sudden realization was overwhelming her.

  "I can! By my maker, I can feel it. I'm not just a piece of rock!"

  She started to move all around the room passing through the walls, the ceiling and the furniture of the rooms, even going outside before returning back to Lith.

  "That's odd. I don't feel anything by touching something inside the tower nor external objects, it seems to work only with you."

  "Perhaps it's because this new form of yours is still too weak. Remember that we share a body and mind link that makes our interaction unique."

  The wisp moved in front of Lith, touching his forehead.

  "You are right." She said.

  "It's a bit faint, but according to your memories this should be the sensation of skins touching. I can also sense your warmth. What about you?"

  It took Lith a while to realize that albeit small, the wisp emitted a faint warmth.

  "Same. Solus, can you please lower yourself a bit?"

  She had just moved at his chest's height when Lith embraced the wisp with his arms.

  "How do you feel now?"

  "Like it's the happiest day of my life." Her voice was wavering and even if she didn't have tears to cry for once Solus didn't care about it. No matter how small, she would treasure those sensations as long as she could.

  They remained like that for several minutes. It was the first time for Lith to experience happiness from the contact with someone that wasn't a member of his family. It felt odd but natural at the same time.

  He could also perceive all the strain weighing on her mind being relieved bit by bit.

  "You wouldn't be in hot waters with your friends if you were so thoughtful with them too. When one hits rock bottom, even the smallest gesture makes a world of difference."

  Despite her words being true, Solus had ruined the moment for Lith but she realized it too late.

  Lith let her go and proceeded downstairs towards the Forgemastering lab. Her comment had brought him back to reality, reminding Lith how little time they had at hand.

  "Our biggest issue with Forgemastering is that it's a complex and profound discipline. Once I understand how a fake spell works, I can turn it to true magic and improve it as far as I can imagine it.

  The same doesn't apply to Forgemastering. So far I only managed to obtain with true magic the same effects as items enchanted with fake magic already have. We must find a way to take our Forgemastering to the next level, otherwise the specialization will be useless.

  If I can't achieve an edge over fake mages by forging my own equipment, I can as well as drop this discipline, buy what I need and invest my time in fields where true magic actually makes a difference."

  Lith and Solus revised together several papers he had copied from the academy's library about failed attempts to break past Forgemastering's limitations. They had less than ten days, so they had to pick the most promising ones and hope that true magic would succeed.

  "As Isaac Newton said: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. I may not be a genius but I can still use their work as a ladder to get past this hurdle."

  After much discussing they selected two methods that were both simple and brilliant at the same time, allowing even a novice like Lith to understand them easily.

  The first one was the Heisen's principle. It stated that a Forgemaster's work affected matter, so the harder the material to enchant the more difficult the process became. Heisen suggested that enchanting an item during the last steps of its forging would make the effect stronger despite consuming the same amount of mana.

  "It makes sense." Solus pondered.

  "We have seen how enchanting an item requires creating a pseudo core and carving with magic the runic pathways necessary to keep the core stable and prevent its stored energy from leaking.

  By working on something close to its melting point, it should offer less resistance to the magic flow."

  "Yeah, that's what Heisen said and attempted multiple times before giving up." Lith pointed out.

  "According to these papers, his experiments managed to produce a small number of enhanced items, but he never understood why all the others would blow up in his face. After losing his arms for the fifth time, Heisen declared the process a failure.

  Do we have a safe room? I like my arms as they are."

  The wisp representing Solus' consciousness flickered a few times while the tower trembled lightly.

  "Now we do." A new door appeared in the forgemastering lab.

  To no waste precious materials, once again Lith decided to use small rocks of different size and composition as test samples. First he had to find the temperature where the sample would show the first signs of rounding due to melting.

  Then he would stop heating the rock and proceed to enchant it while Solus would keep the magic circle active and filled with mana. Thanks to his new mana sensibility, Lith could see the mana pathways form more easily and bigger than usual.

  The enchanting process was a success, but when he checked the final result with Invigoration, he discovered it to actually be a failure.

  "Damn! The high temperature made things easier but more unstable. Both the pathways and the pseudo core are deformed by the changes that happened during the cooling period." Lith sighed.

  "Maybe it's actually a success. Let me try."

  Solus threw the enchanted stone in the safe room, making the door disappear before activating it with her mana imprint.

  The following boom made the walls tremble.

  "Or not." Lith said with a stern look.

  "No wonder Heisen gave up on this method and no one is researching it anymore. Well, we still have to try many possible variants of this experiment, maybe one will succeed or at least give us some inspiration."

  ***

  Meanwhile at the Ernas Mansion Phloria was outraged.

  "I knew it!" She was reading again Lith's background check.

  "On both his brothers' heads, that's rich. One of them got disowned while the other left the family as soon as he could. It's more likely for me to marry a goblin than for Lith to love his brothers. How shameless can one be, Lucky?"

  Lucky woofed and wagged his tail, hoping it was play time already. She threw it a ball while marching double time towards the tailors' quarters.

  "It's not entirely his fault, though. How could I be so stupid to pick up the call while still half asleep? This is so humiliating! Enough with skirts and nightgowns, I need something with pants even for sleeping.

  Usually mom would have a seizure hearing such a request, but recently she seems meeker. Guess it's better to strike the iron while it's hot"¨C She thought.

  Phloria was indeed right. Jirni Ernas in any other circumstances would have prohibited the tailors from following her daughter's order. The manor's staff was well informed about Jirni's standards about education and how easy it was to get dismissed without a reference in case someone angered her.

  Orion's threat still echoed in her mind though, leaving Jirni at a stalemate. Her husband was a man of his word, so when she heard him talk about divorce she had almost choked on the food.

  Their marriage was an arranged one, to join together two of the families most loyal to the Crown allowing both of them to increase their status in the nobility.

  Her maiden's heart had quickly fallen for the young knight, at first for his broad chest and his arms as thick as her head that could literally sweep her off her feet. Later for his golden heart and sunny disposition.

  They were still deeply in love with each other; hence she was unable to understand why her children couldn't trust her to find a suitable partner like Jirni's parents did for her. Jirni was too scared at the thought of losing her husband to squabble over
small stuff, giving Phloria what she wanted.

  "I don't know what's wrong with kids these days." She complained to Rose, her lady in waiting.

  "Making such a fuss about an insignificant matter like murder, blowing it out of proportions. I killed my first man at six years of age, mastered the art of torture by twelve and yet I grew up as a refined, delicate lady. Right, Rose?"

  "Of course, your Ladyship." Rose swallowed a lump of saliva. She knew all too well how her mistress could butcher a whole family without ruining her appetite for dinner. There were many words she could use to describe her, but delicate wasn't among them.

  ***

  After five days, Lith's experiments had yet to bear any fruit. To avoid deformations in the pseudo core or in the mana pathways, he had tried to quickly cool down the samples as soon as the enchanting process was over.

  The final product would be much better than normal, but also extremely volatile, almost killing Lith in the resulting explosion.

  Then he had tried working with higher temperatures, discovering that the sample would reject his magic wasting all his time and effort. At lower temperatures he would simply obtain standard quality items.

  Even working on the materials that Zekell provided him, the results were always the same. The quality of the sample was irrelevant for the Forgemastering process, at least at Lith's level of comprehension.

  "Dammit, Heisen's principle is an utter fiasco." He thought

  "Using true magic to keep the enchanting process until the sample cools down only resulted in a handful of dust. No matter its quality, inanimate matter doesn't seem able to withstand so much magical energy for a longer period."

  "At least it didn't blow up like all the other experiments." Solus sighed. ¨C

  They hadn't much time left and were still at square one.

  Thanks to Warp Steps, Lith could now come and go from his house without losing his tail first. Despite the constant use of Invigoration, both him and Solus were running on fumes.

  Forgemastering required massive amounts of mana even for normal enchantments, Lith would have never been able to keep experimenting for so long without Solus' help.

  They both needed proper rest.

  Lith was really surprised finding a stranger waiting for him in his own home.

  "Welcome home, dear." His mother Elina dusted off his chest and shoulders from the remains of his latest failures, since he usually was too tired to notice them.

  "This man says he is Orion Ernas, the father of your schoolmates." Orion gave him a polite bow, his face expressed concern.

  "He says he needs your help."

  Chapter 184 Cornered

  Ernas Mansion, the day before

  Archmage Deirus and Orion were starting to get seriously worried. Half of the academy's break was almost gone, but Friya and Yurial were only getting worse. Yurial would rarely come out of his room and almost refused to eat.

  Before every meal, Yurial had to take a bland sedative or he would throw up immediately. He needed a potion to sleep, another for waking up and many others not to jump at every noise he heard.

  Friya on the other hand, was restless. She would barely sleep, focusing all her energies on training without a care for her own body. Friya had also put up a constant frown and during her spar sessions she often injured her partners by launching every attack like her life was on the line.

  She would easily fall into a frenzy and only Orion could stop her from doing something that she would have regretted later. The worst thing was that she didn't show any remorse afterwards, blaming her opponent for being weak.

  "If they can't even match a fifteen years old, they should stop calling themselves sword practitioners and dedicate their life to knitting." Was what she said every time, making Jirni proud and Orion frustrated.

  After changing her nightwear, Phloria had recovered very quickly, but whenever someone asked her why and how, she would just turn beet red and refuse to answer. In her case the new shame had driven away the old one.

  Quylla had completely recovered on her own, but she was deeply worried for Friya, that was changing into someone Quylla could hardly recognize as the kind and thoughtful girl she loved so much.

  "F*ck Linjos and his idiotic ideas." Velan Deirus was considering following Orion's lead and challenging the Headmaster to a duel.

  "He turned my poor son into a larva and to add insult to the injury his group was the only one facing that trial. If only they reached the goal second, this would be someone else's problem." He sighed.

  "This is partly my fault too. After all his siblings grew up as profligate spoiled brats, I was so afraid of being hurt again that I always kept my distance. All these years, I kept myself so busy with my scheming and experiments that I never established a proper father-son relationship with him, more like master-apprentice.

  Now he doesn't see me as a worried parent but as a disappointed teacher, so my words are unable to reach him.

  If Yurial doesn't manage to snap out of it, my son's career is as good as over."

  Orion poured an amber-coloured liquor in two glasses and then offered one to his fellow sufferer. It was the new world's equivalent of whiskey.

  "I have your same problem. I managed to catch Friya off guard right after the exam and she opened up. Now she refuses to listen to me though, it's like talking to a wall. If I send her back to the academy, she is bound to get expelled because of her violent behaviour.

  She doesn't trust me enough to share her burden with me and I can't blame her for that. I was so busy with my duty that even the few times I was at home, I just checked that Jirni wasn't going overboard and left without even saying goodbye.

  In hindsight, leaving my new daughters so much personal space was a mistake. It grew into a gap that I don't know how to cross over. That's why I was thinking of asking their friend's for help."

  "What friend? Are you talking about the lich?" Velan curled his upper lip in disgust.

  "What lich?" Orion almost jumped from his chair hearing that word. Lichs were the Kings and Emperors of the undead. Mages that had sacrificed their humanity in exchange for infinite life, allowing them to hoard infinite knowledge and power.

  "You should really work less and attend more to social events. That's how the little Lith of Lutia is known among the nobility." Velan explained with a worried look.

  "He appeared out of nowhere, with a ridiculous baggage of knowledge and experience for someone his age. Some of my friends that worked together with him during the plague, reported that he is a ruthless killer capable of intimidating even veterans and has displayed a terrifying mastery of darkness magic, hence his moniker.

  I think your wife could take a liking to him." The simple thought sent a shiver down Orion's spine.

  "I ran a background check on him, but it never reported something so extreme. Nonetheless, I know by experience that traumatized soldiers have an easier time opening up with their comrades. Maybe they will listen to him."

  With no other option left, Orion used his royal pass to access from the personal Gate of house Ernas to the Mage Association's branch located in Derios, the capitol of the Marquisate where Lith lived.

  Not knowing the region, he was forced to fly and ask for directions from time to time. When he reached Lith's house, Orion was pleasantly surprised by it. It was a smaller cottage than the one he had assigned to his gardeners, but it was in a lot better shape.

  The house had clearly been renovated multiple times over the years, it didn't look like a farmer's home, more like the cozy countryside love nest of a minor noble. The walls were entirely made of stone instead of wood, and the sloping-roof was being covered with high quality tiles.

  "The boy must have spent quite a lot for materials and manpower. Someone who takes care of his family like this can't be as bad as Velan said. Unless it's Jirni."¨C

  Orion laughed at his own joke, drawing Elina's attention.

  "Good sir, are you lost? There is nothing here for a nobleman lik
e you."

  The woman in front of him was stunning. She had to be in her mid twenties, about 1.62 metres (5'3") high with shoulder blades long hair of a beautiful light-brown which red shades danced under the setting sun like a wildfire.

  She had such fine proportions and a smile so kind that a lesser man would have been tempted to flirt with her despite the dire circumstances.

  "If I wasn't already married with the most beautiful and loving woman of the Kingdom and my daughter wasn't in need of help, I may have courted Lith's sister¡ Wait, what's that?"¨C

  The contrast between Elina's gentle voice and the long black stick she held made it appear even more ominous. Judging from the number of yellow runes engraved on its surface and it's humming sound, Orion determined it had to be some kind of lighting based weapon.

  "The design is so rough and amateurish to give away the element of surprise, but I bet it packs quite a punch and from this distance dodging is not an option. If Lith made that thing, Velan could be right."¨C

  "There's no need for violence, ma'am. I mean no harm."

  Elina emitted the cutest chuckle while covering her mouth with her hand, but never lowered the stick from her unexpected guest.

  "I'm sorry, but I trust a noble only as far I can throw him. What business do you have here?"

  "I'm Orion Ernas, the father of Lith's classmates. I need his help for one of my daughters' sake."

  "Do you have proof of what you say?" Her hand trembled a little.

  "I'm sorry?" Orion was flabbergasted.

  "My son is pretty famous around here. Everyone knows he goes to an academy, so anyone can say to know him. If you can't prove your claim, I must ask you to leave."

  "Your son? Aren't you his sister?"

  Elina's smile disappeared.

  "Flattery will not get you my trust. I don't want to use this thing but I'm ready to!"

  Her trembling intensified, but Orion knew that look. She wasn't bluffing. Luckily Phloria had told him about her meeting Lith's parents, so all he needed to do was to call his daughter and make her vouch for him.