The spell [Earth Fist] was a third-tier geomancy spell. Fourth-tier if using two. As unimaginative as most humans' spell names, it created a fist-shaped stone the height of a man and sent it careening towards the designated target. I didn’t use this spell, though I certainly wanted to.

Instead, I used [Earth Manipulation] to mimic the spell's shape and entrap Deidre the Annoyance. One of the benefits of [Earth Manipulation] used at my level of expertise is that it only takes concentration and mana, without any gestures or words. A benefit that left the pyromancer surprised at her sudden entrapment. With her hands trapped at her sides, and only her head free, she shrieked in surprise.

I began to speak as I withdrew a spare mana crystal from my bag of holding, “I have heard you. Your words might have had some merit had we been debating this in the confines of a lecture hall and if you had spoken them respectfully.” The mana crystal glowed with a steady light that was almost as bright as the torch behind me. With a thought, I snuffed the torch’s fire. It wouldn’t do for the woman to have ideas of freeing herself from her confines only to cook herself in an oven.

“Yet you did not. Nor did you seek me out to discuss this privately,” I began to form another spell, one that attached the stone fist to the mana crystal, so that the fist could retain shape based on a power source outside my own.

“Instead, you announced for all to hear a direct challenge to my authority within this army. How would your superiors in the mage corps respond?” I asked as I looked up from the crystal to her eyes. She stopped her struggling inside the stone fist and scowled at me.

She also refused to answer.

After a moment, I turned from her to address the others in the crowd, “For those of you unaware, the standard response to insubordination in Sena’s mage corps is the loss of a body part. A finger, or ear. Maybe an eye.” I could see that many in the crowd didn’t appreciate the idea of losing a part of themselves, some on the verge of decrying such a punishment.

“But!” I called, and began casting another spell on my prisoner, a mana sensing one that would tighten the grip of the stone fist should she attempt to cast a spell, “But we are not in the mage corps, and I would not enjoy seeing any of you marred in such a fashion. Miss Diedre Firefist will need to endure her present circumstances for the evening and speak with me on the morrow. I trust that none—”

“No! You can’t do this! I’m a fourth-tier mage!” she cried in interruption.

I frowned and cast the same spell I had constructed for Chelsea’s irritating talk, the one that silenced her words. Then, I continued, “I trust that none of you will act in any similar manner.”

I stopped in my speech there, feeling as I had already talked too much. These were mages, after all. They should be carrying themselves with a degree of decorum that would make regular soldiers jealous of their dignity. Without further consideration to those outside my tent, I entered. It had been a tedious evening already, and I wanted to attain a good measure of sleep before the sun rose.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the immediate opportunity as I heard the tent flap swish an extra time behind me. When I turned, I found Loralie standing at the entrance. I tilted my head and nodded a greeting to her, but she simply looked at me for a moment before seeming to make up her mind.

“Mr. Fargus, why did you place me over the other spellcasters?” she asked in a tone I couldn’t quite place. I would have labeled it simple curiosity had it come from anyone other than her.

“I placed you there because I believe you to be the most effective at leading them,” I stated as if a matter of fact. If she didn’t prove competent at more than four hundred years old, then my opinion of the woman would fall drastically.

“It had nothing to do with surprising me so that I would come to your tent all alone?” she asked, this time her tone made her insinuation very clear. “What will people say if we spoke here uninterrupted for hours?” she raised a brow.

While in the past I had engaged in much witty wordplay with an assortment of women, it had been nearly a hundred years or more since I actively played in such verbal games. I was still slightly embarrassed by how I conversed when we first met. Sometimes, my experience in the matter gave me an instinctual need to react, and before I could stop myself, I returned her poke with one of my own.

“I suppose what other people will say is entirely dependent on if you remove your illusion or not,” I didn’t smile or cringe, but retained a very neutral expression between when she entered and now. It was a difficult task, even as I succeeded.

Her eyelids closed to little slits, as if she had grown suspicious of me. Her words were barely more than a whisper, just enough for my half-elven ears to pick up, “I see. How you do so twist my heart, Nemon Fargus.”

She turned and left, leaving me feeling a bit out of sorts. I didn’t want to lead the woman on. I had no intention of forming a relationship with her beyond that of professional colleagues. I also feared that she had misinterpreted me on purpose as a reason to continue playing whatever game she was playing. I stood there in the dark for several moments trying to think of the best way forward with the woman, but eventually gave up the train of thought. Tomorrow would be a new day, and with it, perhaps some clarity.

The morning didn’t actually provide any additional clarity with regards to Loralie. It did present me with an opportunity, though. I had yet to fully investigate the effects of using different versions of the tea on humans. I brought the tea along not for use with my army, but in hopes that I could find a way to allow the Mirktallean forces to mistakenly capture it. While I didn’t imagine that it would affect the slaves’ behavior much, I also didn’t expect the slavers over them to share anything beyond gruel.

It was a warm early morning before the sun had risen, one that promised a hot summer day to follow. Yet, that didn’t mean the army slept. Most had woken early to pack their gear and take down their tents in expectations of today’s march. I wouldn’t be far behind them, but had to deal with the matter of the [Pyromancer] first. Diedre had picked herself up from the ground after I released her from the earthen fist, and walked inside behind me in stunned silence.

Most of my furniture had already been packed and loaded by my assistants, leaving only a stone table and two stone stools that I had created a few minutes ago. On that table waited two wooden cups, one filled with steaming tea and the other with apple wine. Beside each cup was a small plate with a slice of hard bread, and in the center of the table, a metal teapot rested.

I sat on the stool next to the apple wine, chosen because its color was the closest match to that of the Asrid Flower tea, and gestured for the woman to join me.

Her legs had been trembling greatly as she walked, and she plopped down on the stone stool with a relieved groan. Her eyes were darkened, and cheeks puffed.

“I take it that you aren’t in service to the Tervan’s by the way you haven't mentioned bloodletting. Let me hear you curse at the Slaver god.” I began the conversation with a bit of misdirection. I highly doubted the woman was a Mirktallean spy. Likely she was in service to the Senan King, because I could sense the magic of older Asrid Flower tea moving about inside her.

Her response was a litany of heresy against the Slavery god so great that my ears burned at the thought of a woman saying some of those foul words. She was stopped a few minutes into her tirade by a bout of coughing and patting her chest. I simply gestured at the tea, which was a little cooler now, and watched as she drank the cup dry in great gulps. When she finished, she opened her mouth in a snarl that I knew meant she was prepared to continue, but I held up my hand.

“It is clear you hold no admiration for Mirktal,” I spoke softly and calmly, to set the tone for the rest of the conversation.

Diedre lifted the corner of her lip in a sneer. Her voice was hoarse as she spoke, “Of course not! Those bastards killed my husband. I came here because I couldn’t stop killing them, and figured you of all people would understand. To hear you speak of Pestilence is an insult to his memory.”

I hadn’t suspected that her motive was personal. Nor that she would have left the mage corps for a lack of enemies. It came as a surprise, but I hid it under the guise of sipping my wine as I thought about it. Now, I felt a touch guilty at testing the tea upon the woman. It was clear that she was still suffering greatly, and I suspected the calming effects of the tea would likely only postpone her anger until she no longer drank it.

Yet, when I set my cup back down, I poured refilling hers. The experiment had already started, and it would do neither of us any good to stop it now. I stuffed away whatever guilt I felt by doing it with the lie that the calming effects were needed. That I had to see the reaction to gauge if I could use it to turn the King’s men against him.

“Tell me then,” I began again, this time with a conciliatory tone. “Are you here to seek your death?”

“No.” She lied even as she met my eyes, and immediately drank more of the tea.

As I watched, the effects of my tea overwhelmed what was already in her body. She, a fourth-tier mage sensitive to her internal mana, didn’t appear to notice the little turmoil between the two, so I doubted there would be more than a handful who could. I nodded, “We will arrive at Goldseat in three days or less. By then, I expect you to know if you will be fighting in the vanguard or the mage corps.” I stood, a signal of her dismissal, but she didn’t move or speak.

Instead, she fidgeted with her cup tilting it around and around. “Wizard Fargus,” she said with an agitated tone. “How am I to march after standing all night with no sleep?”

Her question confused me and I couldn’t help but frown. How was this my concern? As far as I considered the matter, she had brought it on herself. To have her march with no sleep and sore legs was just an additional punishment. I almost said as much but decided a more tactful response would be better.

“Why not ask a [Wagoneer] to sit in their wagon?”

She looked up at me with a vicious smile, “And tell them what? That I am too weak to walk because I was held in your hand all night and didn’t sleep?”

I stiffened, having not expected that. I should have though. She was a pyromancer, after all.