Grandmaster Arcanist [Chapter 8]

Hey peeps!

Another chapter! <3

Shami

CHAPTER EIGHT

QUALITIES OF A LEADER

We needed to take some of these creatures with us, or at least samples of their flesh. I felt that it was important, not because I was an expert on magic research, but because I knew other people were. They would need to examine the flesh of the monsters and see what was wrong.

I worked with Hexa, collecting up everything we needed before heading back through the prison and up to the town of Deadman’s Bluff. When I exited the building, Illia was there waiting for me, her eldrin on her shoulder.

Illia touched her eyepatch as she said, “Volke, I didn’t find much in the town besides the citizens. I informed them of what was happening. A few of them told me that the arcanists of the Second Ascension were here, but fled when they heard we were heading this way.”

I nodded once. Then I placed a hand on her other shoulder. Her one eye widened.

“Thank you,” I said.

She grabbed my wrist. “You didn’t find Luthair.”

Illia always knew what I was thinking, even if I never voiced my thoughts. With a sigh, I nodded again.

“Don’t worry,” Illia whispered, tightening her hold on me. “We’ll find him. You’ll see. We’ll do it. Together.”

I appreciated her support. Illia would always have my back—that I was certain of.

Nicholin slipped around the back of her neck and then placed both his front paws on top of Illia’s hand holding my wrist. “Uh, if we’re making a pact to find Luthair, you know I need to be involved, right? We and Luthair go way back. I’m the original friend.”

Illia narrowed her eye at him.

With a wiggle of his nose, Nicholin snorted. “What? We lived through a shipwreck together. That makes us blood brothers.” He rubbed his ears and then tilted his head. “Wait. Do knightmare have blood? I don’t think they do…”

“They don’t,” I said, half smiling. “But you’re right. Thank you. Both of you. I really appreciate the support.”

A tremor of movement swept through Deadman’s Bluff. I glanced over my shoulder and spotted Terrakona coiling himself just outside the boundaries of the town.

“Warlord,” Terrakona telepathically said. “We have defeated bandits, saved this town from the Second Ascension’s terror, and rescued Vethica from their clutches.”

“Is you eldrin speaking to you?” Nicholin pushed my hand off Illia and then stood on his hind legs, lifting his head high so he could get a better view of Terrakona. Then he waved. “Tell him I said I have everything handled here.”

Illia placed a hand on Nicholin’s face and forced him down into a sitting position. “I’m sorry about that. He’s excitable.”

“You have many great accomplishments. You should revel in your good deeds.” Terrakona shifted, and his black crystal mane caught the sunlight just right.

“I’ll try,” I whispered to myself.

Terrakona… He had better words than me. He was right. I couldn’t dwell on what I didn’t accomplish. I needed focus on what I had done—and what I could do. If I had to chase the Second Ascension to the abyssal hells, I would. They wouldn’t escape me.

And Luthair wouldn’t want me to dwell. He was always so pragmatic. He valued my health and safety above all else. He wouldn’t want me to worry—Luthair would recommend I focus on the bigger problems first.

The sky went black.

My thought abruptly ended. I whirled around and glanced upward, my heart hammering. Illia and Nicholin stared at the darkness as well, neither moving, neither saying a word.

The people of Deadman’s Bluff emerged form their houses. They pointed and shouted, their confusion creating a white noise of panic. I wasn’t afraid, but I understood what this meant. I kept my gaze on the sky, waiting for the pillar of light that indicated someone bonded with a god-creature.

But I didn’t see any.

The sky was black for at least thirty seconds, and then the inky void disappeared. The sun shone bright again, washing over the town like it had never disappeared.

“Did you see that?” Nicholin twitched the tip of his ferret-like tail. “Oh, man. I didn’t think another person would bond with a god-creature so quickly! You god-arcanists are worse than weeds. Springin’ up everywhere.”

I wanted to agree with him, but…

The Autarch could bond with multiple god-creatures. What if that was him?

Since I hadn’t seen a pillar of light, I wondered if it was because the god-creature’s lair was far from her. Veryfar from here.

“If that wasn’t the Autarch, we need to find them,” I said.

“Warlord, I suspect that is the endless undead. The Frith Guild does not have the runestones for those god-creatures.”

“That’s true… But the endless undead was supposed to be the last god-creature to show up.” It just didn’t make sense to me. Or were all the creatures already here and waiting?

Illia stepped back. “I’ll go get the others. We should hurry—if we need to deal with god-creatures, you and Zaxis should be ready.”

She was right. We needed to get back to Regal Heights. While it was sad that we didn’t have Luthair, we now had many tasks at hand, and the most important was the god-creatures. Vethica and her eldrin needed to get back to New Norra as well.

I’ll come get you afterward, Luthair.

“I’ll meet you at Terrakona,” I said to my sister. With a forced smile, I added, “Don’t take too long.”

Illia chuckled right before she teleported with her eldrin, disappearing in a pop of silvery glitter.

***

Together as a group, we traveled south, away from Deadman’s Bluff.

The first night we stopped, we did so because of foul weather. Terrakona had reshaped the terrain around us, and made a cave-like structure for us to rest and to shield us form the icy rains. The floors of the cave were smooth, benches jutted out of the ground, formed by rocks, and the walls protected us from the weather.

We needed all the protection we could get.

Liet wasn’t feeling well.

We holed up in our temporary home, with Terrakona and Raisen just beyond the entrance. No one would bother us with a world serpent and a hydra guarding our door.

I had created a fire for us, so that we could stay warm through the night, but I expected we’d leave first thing in the morning. A small chimney-style hole allowed the smoke to escape without allowing any weather to get in.

We couldn’t press on in the cold darkness. But once the morning came, we would leave, regardless of the wind and rain.

“Do you need anything?” Hexa asked Vethica.

She didn’t have an indoor voice. She spoke with boisterous energy no matter the situation, and even now, while Hexa sat with Vethica nearly thirty feet away, I heard everything.

Hexa pulled off her coat and offered it to Vethica. Then she motioned to the fire near the center of our cave. “Are you cold?”

“No,” Vethica replied.

“Too warm? Should we move away from the fire?”

“I’m fine.”

Hexa scooted closer, until they were hip-to-hip. She patted down her own curly hair, saying nothing else. With my tremor sense, I felt her heart hammering. I wondered if she was still anxious from worry, or if now it was something different. Vethica held her pouch of sand close, clearly worried about her eldrin.

Vethica had lost an eldrin before. She had once been a thunderbird arcanist, but now…

I understood why she would find it difficult to be cheerful.

Illia stood closer to me. She glanced over at Hexa and Vethica, occasionally frowning, but not saying anything. Although she didn’t say anything to me, I knew she was worried about Hexa. They were close friends, and Illia always frowned like that whenever she was doubtful.

Everett and Liet sat on one of the benches near the wall. They spoke in tones that were neither frightened nor excited—completely neutral and controlled. But something was wrong. Liet sweated more than normal, and her heart skipped a few beats from time to time.

I suspected she didn’t want anyone to know she was feeling off. Liet always radiated confidence, and now I knew how skilled she was at maintaining that façade. Even if her body was weakening, she didn’t falter.

And Liet didn’t do it for herself—she did it for everyone else. To keep their spirit’s high.

We could be discussing the Second Ascension, or the new god-arcanists, or the arcane plague. But everyone here knew what needed to be done. Discussing it further would only lead to anxiousness and uncertainty about the future.

I wanted to be more like Liet. I wanted to instill a sense of security and normalcy with my mere presence.

In all the legends I admired as a child, I enjoyed the tales were a swashbuckling arcanist swooped in, and everyone immediately felt a sense of relief. Master Arcanist Gravenwell will handle this! It was as if everyone considered themselves already saved as soon as the arcanist showed up, even if the problems hadn’t been resolved yet.

With a smile I didn’t feel, but desperately wanted to have, I turned around. The others glanced over, the silence of our cave meant everyone heard every tiny movement.

“Have any of you played vanguardbefore?” I asked. “I haven’t played in years, but I really loved it.”

“That requires a game board and pieces.” Illia motioned to the cave. “Not to be a bummer, but we don’t have any of that.”

With my manipulation, I formed a long table from the stone. It lifted straight out of the rock, as though it had always been there, it had just been hidden. Then I created chairs—enough for each of the arcanists.

A game board…

That was so small, and the pieces were even tinier. Was my skill with my magic good enough to create a vanguardplaying set?

I wanted over to the table and focused on the stone. The minerals here were hard. Dense. I placed my hand on top of the table and concentrated on rearranging everything. Changing the rock, changing the shape.

A small rectangular board formed. One with little rails, to keep marbles in the game area. I tried to create marbles, but the little stone balls that formed on the board were lumpy, and one cracked.

Hexa, Vethica, and Illia all walked over to the table and took a seat. When I glanced over to Everett and Liet, they smiled, never hinting at any distress. They were slower getting to the table, though. And Liet took a seat farther away from everyone, at the end of the table.

“How do you play?” Hexa asked, poking at the game board. “There are holes in this?”

The board was flat except for a few divots. Everyone picked a little hole they wanted, and then players would take turns rolling their marble. The point of the game was to successfully roll your marble into each of the holes before any other play could. It was harder than it sounded, only because people often rolled their marble into the same hole over and over again.

It wasn’t a complicated game, but I remembered laughing a lot when I was younger.

Vethica picked up a stone marble. “These look frail.”

I grabbed one of my impromptu marbles and held it in the palm of my hand. Then I closed my fingers around it as tight as I could, focusing my magic in on the center. For a short moment, I tried to hardened the rock, but then I imagined glass. Something lighter. Something transparent.

When I opened my hand, I caught my breath.

A clear crystal orb rolled along the lines of my palm. It wasn’t a perfect sphere, or even that smooth, but it was far prettier than I had imagined.

“Since when could you do that?” Illia asked, her one eye squinting at my creation.

“I haven’t really made anything like this before.”

Everett’s mimic leapt onto the table. She purred as she walked over to the board game, her gray fur catching the light of our fire. “Oh, vanguard is that game were you roll little objects? I like this one. Whenever I see tiny sparkly things, I can’t help myself. I just want to pounce on them. Can I play?”

“Please do,” Everett muttered. “Play for me. I hate this game.”

Hexa snorted and half-smiled. “Why? Is it difficult?”

“No. It’s the opposite. It’s simplistic. I like games that involve strategy. This is for children.”

Liet gave him a sidelong glance. “I tend to remember you losing this one a lot.”

Everett matched her gaze with a glower. “It’s luck based. Of course I would lose. Everyone loses. As an old wise man once said: if you play, you’re a loser.”

“The words of someone with a bitter chip on their shoulder.”

“I’m not bitter.” Everett turned to face her, one hand balled into a fist. “I just know a terrible game when I see one.”

“I’ve never played,” Hexa interjected. She pulled the board closer to her, the stone scraping along the surface of the stone table. She cringed and kept it still afterward. “I wanna try it. C’mon. Show us how, Volke.”

Vethica tucked her pouch away and sat closer to Hexa. “It’s a simple game, really. We played a few times on the airship, when the treks were long and we had nothing else to do.”

Nicholin teleported from Illia’s shoulder and appeared on the table. Then he scurried over to the board and touched everything—the sides, the little divot holes, the marbles—and after his “inspection” he nodded to me and everyone at the table.

“This is up to regulation standards,” Nicholin declared. “I approve.”

Illia dragged a hand down her face. “It’s a children’s game…”

While they all argued over the game, I grabbed each of the marbles and used my magic to alter them into the shiny, beautiful crystals like I had before. They weren’t like star shards—they were more like geodes. Beautiful, multicolored. The more marbles I made, the better they became.

They were smoother, more spherical, and captured my attention.

For my manipulation, I could alter land—the creation route—or I could manipulate water—the destruction route. I hadn’t much manipulated water, even though I was born on an island and lived my live on the waves. Manipulating the earth and the soil and the terrain spoke to me.

If I kept heightening my understand of it, I would lose the ability to manipulate the water. I’d master the creation aspect of my god-arcanist abilities.

It was probably for the best.

Illia sat down on the other side of Hexa, still smiling. “I actually hated this game when I was younger.”

“Why?” Hexa asked.

“I never got my marble into the right hole.” Illia pointed at her eyepatch. “Lack of depth perception made it difficult. All the other kids would make fun of me.”

“Jerks.”

Vethica huffed a laugh. “Sounds just like kids, honestly.”

“Volke would always chase them off.” Illia’s gaze fell to the table. After a short pause, she added, “He never let them make fun of me for long. But just to get back at them, I threw all their marbles into the ocean.”

Nicholin brought both his paws to his mouth, his eyes wide. “That’s so… devious.” He coyly smiled. “I love it.”

I placed our new marbles on the table and rolled one to each player—including one for Everett. He took the small orb and rolled it between his fingers, showing off a bit of his impressive dexterity and slight-of-hand. He stopped just as quickly as he started when he glanced over at Liet.

She held her marble and examined the inner sparkle before smiling at him. “I bet you I win.”

“It’s a game of random chance,” Everett barked. “There’s no point in betting.”

“There’s skill involved. You need to aim the marble, and shoot it just right.”

“The board is too small, and the holes are placed at random. There’s no real skill here. No strategy. You just aim and shoot.”

“So, you’re too afraid to make a wager with me?”

Everett opened his mouth, and then closed it. When he opened it a second time, it was with a smirk. “Very well. I’ll bet that you’ll lose.”

“You have a special talent for turning things negative,” Liet said with a laugh—so easy and effortless. No one seemed to sense her struggle except for perhaps Everett. Everyone else smile and chuckled at her challenges.

Vethica even murmured, she seems a lot better now—you were worried for nothing.

I kept my concerns hidden, but when I met Liet’s gaze, there was a hardness there. We needed to get her back to Regal Heights, and then perhaps New Norra. She went quiet and rubbed at her arms, shivering more than the others whenever no one was looking.

Illia showed everyone the rules while I stood by the table. They were laughing and pointing, and part of me was proud for turning the situation around—for lifting their spirits.

“Volke, it’s your turn,” my sister said.

Just to spirt Everett, I barely aimed and missed my hole. I really wanted Liet to win.

And it seemed everyone else wanted that as well, but everyone giggled and stifled laughs whenever they missed. Marble after marble went into the wrong divot.

Except for Liet’s. She leaned onto the table and made a perfect shot. It wasn’t that impressive—it was a small board and everyone was correct, it was a game designed for children. As adults, we should’ve had more success. But everyone was too busy having a good time.

“I guess that means I win.” Liet lifted and eyebrow and turned to Everett. “We didn’t put anything down as a wager.”

Everett crossed his arms, his expression the very definition of grumpy.

“What’s my prize?” Liet asked.

“This piece of string in my pocket.” Everett pulled it out and tossed it onto the stone table.

“That’s not very valuable.”

“Yeah, well, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

Nicholin snickered. Then he jumped around the game board before curling up in the center, like a cat that had found a tiny container to cram itself into. “This is my bed now.” He poked his nose over the side of the board. “You all sleep elsewhere.”

“We should rest,” Illia said as she stood. “We have a lot to do tomorrow.”

Everyone else stood and complied, their mood’s infinity better. Illia was right, though. I returned to dwelling on my problems. I doubt I would find much sleep at all.