Aeres Academy - Chapter 15 preview

“Junk, poor and poor quality.” Petra was a slim black-haired lady with liquid brown eyes and a certain mischievousness lurking within. Right now, though, she was all business and handled the weapons with ease, idly hefting the spiked club with one hand and waving it around. She dropped it on the table, pushing the sword to one side – the junk quality item – while leaving the bow, arrows and club in the center. The table itself was rather sparse, only a few other items – mostly harvested bits from the various monsters, the majority tossed into buckets by the side – taking up space on the wooden table beside her. 

“I can give you three shards for the sword, mostly because it’s dungeon metal.” At my empty look, she sighed. “You children are all so silly. Dungeon metal is mana-infused metal, often with little to no guidance. It’s a little more durable than iron of the same sort, and takes to enchanting a little easier. Marginally more worthwhile for adventuring-oriented smiths and armorers to work with.”

“Never heard of it,” I said. “Nor am I that young.”

“Why would you? No one else cares – it’s not enough of a difference for anyone but adventurers, so we’re the ones who purchase it all.” She looked me up and down, smiled lavishly. “And no, no you’re not. So many of you are.”

Then, moving on, she tapped the bow. “Not much demand for that. Ignore what that old fool says – there aren’t that many archers among delvers. Most of those type have their own weapons too, so unenchanted dungeon drops are worthless.” She shoved it back to me. “I can’t even give you a shard for this. Maybe a couple of levels, if you want?”

I shook my head, not seeing a point in taking a few coins for the bow. Instead, I pulled the bow to me. Maybe I could get some practice in with it, just for fun’s sake. After all, I’d taken some classes a few subjective decades ago. Might be worth regaining some skill in it. 

“Good call. There’s an archery range, though it doesn’t get much use.” A flickering glance down my body, noting my brawling gloves before she continued. “Most people do take time to find a weapon they like.”

Diplomatically, I muttered, “I’m sure I will too.” 

“Same problem with the club. Not much use for it. Most men don’t know how to use theirs, either.” She grinned at me.

“I’ve not had complaints.” I found myself returning her grin.

“Still, some people always think they’re better than they are. There’s some demand, so I can give you, hmm… two shards for it.”

“Come on, there’s enough spikes in there to be worth at least half the sword,” I said, trying to wheedle a little more out of her. The look she gave me shut my mouth, as I recalled that this was very much a single-buyer circumstance.

“Fine,” I said. “Five shards then. And I keep the bow and arrows.”

Petra’s hand came up for a fist bump and I copied the gesture. It amused me a little, that it was a common way of sealing deals, like our handshakes. No high fives though, and the hand clasp – rather than the handshake – was occasionally used, by certain groups. Bows – hands together or by the side – were uncommon as well, though, again, dependent on the cultural group.

I was still trying to tease out who did what exactly, there being more of a regional mean and then individual cultural groups. Since I’d been placed in a less than ideal fantasy world without any of the usual groupings of fantasy creatures, humanity had done its usual and created sub-groups, cultures and races that were different enough that some degree of racism was inherent in their interactions.

Not much though. Something about having dungeons that could spill out at any moment, wiping out life in a large area, managed to keep the inter-species animosity to the lower level. Same with sexism, though I assumed that had to do as much with magic skills being inheritable and varied enough that even female delvers could be formidable. As the story of the Angel of Uroi exhibited.

If anything, the main sources of tension came in the form of city state envy and cityism along with tensions between adventurers, delvers and dwellers: respectively, the groups that went into the dungeon, traversed the deep dungeon and did not journey into the dungeon at all.

“Alright, here’s the chip.” Once we had sealed the deal, Petra had taken to scribbling on a simple dark, almost midnight black shard. It was small and inert, but I could not help but stare at it as I took the shard in hand.

“Never seen an onyx shard before, eh?” She grinned, cockily and wrongly.

“You’re just… handing this to me?”

“Sure, why not? It’s inert right now, so you couldn’t power an enchantment with it. Nor do you have the skills to enchant it, so trying to steal it would be foolish. And I got you marked, so running away would be a silly idea anyway.” She shrugged. “And there isn’t a way for you to fake the chip otherwise for more points. Or if you could, then there’d be no point being here, no?”

I grunted in acknowledgment. She was not at all wrong – onyx shards were from boss cores down in the hundred-plus levels. Even the inert shard I held was worth a significant amount of bosses. Anyone who could afford to bring a shard – even an inert one – of their own to the test to cheat their way in probably could afford an education at a more prestigious school.

“You best get moving. Or else you won’t be able to register the shard at all. And you want that, don’t you?”

A quick bow and I headed out the doorway, only slowing for a brief moment to see the first of the injured slowly stumbling back. Many looked to have hasty bandages added to them; in one case a healer was floating a group of them in at the same time on a magical stretcher. The few injured that were still sensible enough to pay attention to their surroundings shot me resentful looks, especially as I was carrying my new bow and arrows over my shoulder.

Rather than face their ill-placed anger, I hurried on, pausing only long enough to get directions. In the waiting room, attendants from this morning were waiting, a few of them with laggards like myself but the majority just seated, bored. They took up one side of the big hall, while on the other a group of waiting aspirants stood, milling around and making the best of the wait by devouring the food laid out for them, or, in some of the more injured cases, resting on benches. I noticed more than a few aspirants dozing, one going so far as to snore.

Guards stood all around, though fewer than in the morning. Just a few here at the doors themselves. There might be more where the aspirants stood but I could not pierce the crowd so I returned to my initial objective. On a whim, I made my way to my original attendant when I spotted him, dropping the onyx shard and the empty transfer bag on the table without prompting.

“So. You survived.” A look at the onyx shard and then the bow and he grunted. “And did well too.” A hand passed over the pouch, magic thrumming through him as he wove a basic spell. 

Magic – spell casting specifically – was a specialized endeavor. It was only available for a select group, those who had the right kind of skill that allowed them to exert control over magic. The skills came in a variety of forms – Mana Manipulation, Mana Siphoning, Elemental Flow, Energetic Twisting, Energy Imbuement, Seven Color Aura, etc. – but the end result was the ability to control magic. 

Depending on the skill, it could be an internal magical control or external, though most internal magic controllers focused on developing in-born skills. Mana Reinforcement, while viable for use on magical artifacts, was much better utilized on the body, or enhanced via magical tattoos. In some cases, those same tattoos or modifications to the body allowed internal mana manipulation skill users to become more flexible with external mana; but mostly, they stuck to their own sides of the table.

All that was to say, a small percentage of skill users were spell casters who could directly control the weave and flow of mana. The rest of us had to make do with manipulating the runes embedded in enchanted objects. We were the magical equivalent of drivers, while magic users were mechanics, able to build their own machines.

Theoretically, at least.

Learning how to manipulate one’s aura, control and refine it so that one could better utilize the more complex runes on an enchanted item and activate the right set of runes was part of the curriculum in any good delving school . Many complex enchanted objects had a “safety” rune set that ensured the objects were not accidentally activated. 

No one wanted a wand of fireballs going off because some kid played with it.

Till I learnt that skill, making the spatial bag change from store and transfer to extracting shards was entirely out of my ability set.

The tinkle of shards as the attendant upturned the bag into a long and shallow tray drew attention. I stared resolutely ahead, not deigning to react to the increased scrutiny but taking in the wide variety of glittering crystals before me. Tiny shards the size of my pinkie’s first phalange, from first floor worms, sparked with tiny fire. There, one from the vole – bigger, but less bright. And finally, the thunk, thunk, thunk of three much larger cores announced themselves. 

Let me tell you, if looks could kill, myself and my parents and grandparents would have fallen over right about then.