The trip north passed like a whirlwind in a dream. I was completely engrossed in my magical textbooks each night. Every drop of distilled knowledge was like honey to my starving mind. I didn’t realize how much I missed using my head to figure out something new and exciting.

First, I sank my teeth into Magical Theory for Beginners. It described an omnipresent but intangible substance known as Aether. It is just as vital for life as air and water. People “breathe” it, in a way as it passes through them unseen and unfelt. The Aether our bodies can process and retain becomes Mana which can then be used to support sustained mental activity or be projected outward to impose our will on the outside world. In a cute bit of serendipity, they quantified Mana with MP, shorthand for Manifestation Potential.

It didn’t end there though. Aether which spends enough time steeping in any particular element will take on a taint related to that element. Most aether is tainted in this way and so it is very difficult to gather untainted Mana.

Mages will commonly spend a large amount of time meditating near say, an ocean or deep underground. There are methods to cycle tainted Aether through your body until you adapt to that particular flavor of Aether. Mages can take this further until their bodies respond more favorably to the tainted aether. This practice also makes it easier for a mage to manifest spells with the related element. Those who succeed are considered to have gained an affinity for that particular element.

Near the end, it described the most basic mana manipulation technique. I followed the instructions, starting with my hands pressed together, almost like I was praying. As I pulled them apart I imagined a string stretching out between them. Then I pushed my hands back together, compacting the string into a knot before pulling my hands carefully apart again, producing more string. I repeated this process a dozen times before I noticed any difference. After a time, it felt like there was something between my hands. It was like squeezing something very soft, and a little springy. It felt a little like I had an invisible nerf football between my palms. It took me almost half an hour of repetition but eventually, a dim spark shone from between my palms.

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You have learned a new Skill!

Mana Manipulation

Increased speed

Increased efficiency

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The notification broke my concentration and the spark disappeared with a quiet pop. I wasn’t upset though. How could I be? I was a mage! By the most generous interpretation of the term maybe but I had just summoned a spark of mana. Sure I made a magical contract before, but that was cheating. I was using an ability, it was practically automatic. On the other hand, that spark was my first step towards actually understanding and performing real magic.

Every night from then on, I spent the time to summon another spark of mana. Each successful attempt took a little less time than the previous one. I could even make larger or brighter sparks if I spent extra time gathering my mana but I could never hold it for very long. Keeping the spark from dissipating was draining on its own.

When I felt confident, I tried to take a practice shot with my wand. I expected minutes of charging up but when I imagined a string extending from my palm into the Oleth rune, the wand sucked up my mana hungrily. I couldn’t stop the process until the Nin rune was satisfied. A second later, the wand discharged. A misty blue egg burst from the wand and sped out into the night. I didn’t want to hurt the ship on accident so my target was the ocean. When the egg impacted with the water it burst. I could clearly see a temporary depression from the released shockwave. The water rushed back in to fill the void and splashed upward satisfyingly.

My glee at the success was tempered when I checked the wand. It had lost one of its ten durability points from that meager attack. I decided against any more test runs. A quick calculation revealed each shot from the wand would cost 10 coppers assuming a constant rate of decay.

Horton Fairbrook’s Guide to Meditation was much less fascinating and didn’t lead to any cool experiments but it laid out a method to gain an affinity through meditation. I couldn’t try it on a constantly moving ship but It did accidentally answer another question that had been bugging me. The mages in Navarone seemed to focus on the elements of wind and water with a smaller focus on darkness. I had wondered why there were no fire mages when that was arguably the most popular kind of magic back on earth.

Navarone was just better situated to cultivate those affinities. The huge cavern provided a source of darkness even during the day, it also meant that anyone in the city was almost completely surrounded by open air which is great for wind magi. The benefits of a coastal town to a water mage is pretty obvious too.

The Introduction to Runes book consumed me entirely. The more I read, the more I understood, the more I came to find similarities between the runic language and a programming language. Each rune had a specific function and they could be combined modularly to produce an overwhelming number of effects. For instance, I could splice more Nin runes into my wand, increasing the mana cost and damage dealt. It seemed that like programming, enchanting was only limited by imagination and funding.

My increased intelligence had kickstarted my reading comprehension like I had hoped but it had an unintended side effect too. The magical wind I conjured with my fiddle grew stronger and with a deeper mana pool to draw on, I could maintain it for longer. Less and less time was spent actually sailing the ship.

Because of this change, we made better time than ever. Most of the trouble with the trip north comes from fighting the wind all the way. The wind generally comes from a little west of true north in this part of the world. My little storms basically took an uphill slog and tunneled straight through that hill, making the trip easier and more direct at the same time.

When we docked at the mining town, security was noticeably heightened. Stern soldiers escorted a mage in ostentatious golden robes as they searched the ship and the crew, matching our cargo against the manifest twice before letting anyone disembark. The mage cast a spell which pulsed out from him, rebounding off of items like sonar but passing through the ship like it wasn't there. He also sent a directed blast at each crewmember which didn't go over well.

The rest of the crew's indignant questions were answered curtly. Anyone who wanted to know more could visit the chapel in the middle of town. The inspector himself was far too important and busy to stick around and chat. I decided to investigate before doing anything stupid in light of the heightened security.

It was a grisly sight. Nearly a dozen men were hanging from their ankles, naked. Most of them were dead. A couple stirred weakly, groaning in their hoarse voices. I stopped a porter and bought the story from him for a copper coin.

“What happened here?”

“These idiots put the whole town at risk.” He spat at one of the still living soldiers. “As if their job isn’t easy enough, they go and get themselves blind drunk while they’re supposed to be keeping watch for barbarians. They managed to steal some rum from the officers, no one knows how but these louts insisted they bought it honestly, lying traitors that they are.”

My stomach did a flip. Was this my fault? No, it can’t be. I never told them to drink while on duty. They should have known the consequences. This was their choice, even if I was the one to make that choice possible. Besides, these were soldiers to an empire which enslaved people just for being culturally different, and vulnerable to their military. Still, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the example of harsh military discipline. The air was thick with flies, attracted to the rotting produce smeared over the prisoners and scattered on the ground.

I made sure to engrave their anguished expressions in my memory. The smell didn’t need any help sticking to my memory however. Eventually, I left the grisly scene behind. I couldn’t muster up the mood to play music in the taverns of the mining quarter but I did visit and purchased another couple dozen gemstones from miners who missed the opportunity last time.

My one and a half silver wasn’t close to enough to cover the cost but the miners were willing to take my rum in trade. It wasn’t as precious a commodity to them as it was to the soldiers but it wouldn’t get them killed either. It’s not like I made a loss or anything, but the days of easy profits were over. That was fine though. I had already made more than I ever expected. In such a short time.

On the way to the tower, I spent extra time talking with the slaves in transit and swapping stories. It felt like a feeble attempt at atonement but it was all I could reasonably do. Only one man, Bodrin, was forthcoming enough to tell me his story. If I didn’t have any rum left, I might not have been able to get him speaking at all. Given enough rum and mutton however, his sorrow came spilling out of him in one long torrent.

“We used to live in a beautiful valley. It was a simple life, we did not leave the valley and outsiders did not trespass on our land. There was plentiful game, clean water, fruit in abundance, a robust farming tradition, and a culture which celebrated carvings, artistic representations of the natural world. When the empire came, they burned what they could and smashed what couldn’t. Our culture was “impure” and had to be cleansed to make way for the enlightened people of the empire.”

He adopted a sour expression before taking another swig of rum, as if to wash away the taste.

“They killed my son when he tried to stop them, they took my wife. Spirits only know where she is now. I’m such a coward. I should have stopped them. I could have at least died with my son.”

“That’s not true.” I argued, a little drunk myself “You’re still alive, that’s what matters. If you fought and died, who would remember your son? Who would even think about your wife? So long as you’re alive, there is hope.”

“What do you know about it?” Bodrin shouted.

I tried to quiet him before Duncan could wake from the noise. It wasn’t long before I snapped back.

“I’ve been ripped from my entire goddamned world! At least you can still hope to find your wife! Everyone I loved, everything I knew is gone forever!”

Some dam deep inside me had cracked. Thoroughly walled-off emotions began to seep out and every thought that escaped widened the crack further.

“Try and wake up a world away from everything you’ve ever known. Try and pick up the pieces when even common sense gets taken away, replaced by monsters, gods, essence, goddamn indentured servitude!”

I should have been more compassionate to this man on his way to a labor camp and likely death sentence. I should have, but I wasn’t. All the unwanted feelings I had been so carefully ignoring were coursing through me in an unstoppable flood now that there was an outlet. I was always a self-described loner but there were a few people I could relate to. Elisa, Tommy, Bruno… I didn’t have many friends, but that made losing them even harder. With the floodgates open I couldn’t stop the sobs from wracking my body. Surprisingly, Bodrin pulled me in for a hug and we cried together for a time. We were born in different dimensions but were united by the upheaval we were both going through.

In a strange twist, Bodrin ended up being the one to comfort me, something I felt guilty about later but at the time I selfishly indulged in an outpouring of all the unspoken feelings I had been bottling up.

At some point, I promised that I would do everything I could to help him. With the fellowship and certainty that can only be achieved with too much alcohol, I promised to free him from that island and help him find his wife. It didn’t matter that I had no idea how to accomplish that goal. All that mattered was that I wanted to help this man I had unexpectedly found a connection with.

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Quest Accepted: Savior in a Strange Land

You have promised to save Bodrin from slavery and help him track down his wife.

Success: Maximum reputation with Bodrin.

Failure: Bodrin will die.

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