Chapter 33: A Level 10 Magus

After they’d eaten, Miro finally felt the full brunt of not having slept the previous night, and thought that if he didn’t lie down and close his eyes soon, his mind would spontaneously shut down and he would drop face-first into the ground. By the time he reached his sleeping bag, he only had the energy to wiggle halfway into it before he told himself he would just rest his eyes for a moment and complete his journey later, and instead fell asleep on his back, his face to the stars. Miro though generally did not sleep well on his back, and shortly afterward became aware of a tickling sensation in his throat and realized he was snoring. This half-sleeping sensation allowed him to hear his name being spoken from beside the campfire, which gave him the jolt he needed to fully wake himself up.

“This is your mission,” he heard Hima say, “You tell me if you’re still proceeding with it. Otherwise I’ll happily return to the Akademiya.”

He thought he would have felt relief – at this knowledge that Hima might soon be taking her leave of them – but instead he was surprised to find that he only felt a flash of worry, so he chose to keep listening instead of drifting immediately back to sleep.

“Our orders were specifically to make sure he reached level 10 before we entered the Northlands,” Nydra said, “Do you think this debuff would prevent him from getting there?”

“I don’t know. So far, I haven’t noticed that it affects leveling, if anything, as I’ve said before, he’s levelling faster than he should be. But it does greatly impact his ability to use his skills. It might also explain –” Hima fell silent when she noticed that Miro had gotten up and walked up to them.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, stretching as if from a long relaxing sleep, “But I feel like I should be part of this discussion.”

Hima was looking up at him with narrowed eyes. “Did you add another Charisma point while on your little adventure?”

“Why? Am I suddenly inexplicably more charming?”

“No,” she answered thoughtfully, “I just have an inexplicably greater desire to punch you.”

“Well, yes I did and don’t you make me feel bad about it. I needed to put it somewhere that would actually help me survive and you made it quite clear that my fireballs weren’t doing the trick.” Hima looked up at him silently, slowly blinking. “I promise I’ll throw both my next two points into Vitality.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she murmured eventually.

Seeing that no one was eager to volunteer to continue the conversation he interrupted, Miro pried further. “So does anyone want to fill me in on who it is that’s so invested in me reaching level 10?”

He expected awkward glances to be exchanged between the other three, but Nydra almost immediately volunteered an answer, “It’s the orders –”

“Possibly ‘instructions’,” Peteri interrupted, surprising Miro.

“Possibly instructions …” Nydra corrected herself with no hint of irritation, “That came straight from the Prime Minister.”

“The Prime Minister?” Miro was all but ready to inflate his own sense of self-importance.

“The Prime Minister has always had an unhealthy interest in the Akademiya,” Hima explained, “Particularly their newer, more questionable projects.”

“The Prime Minister was the one that discovered the first magus,” Nydra explained, sounding almost wounded on behalf of the statesman. “His interest in the affairs of mages is understandable. And the second magus in particular.”

“Could the debuff also be the reason why I haven’t shown any Magus powers?” Miro asked.

“It could be, I don’t know.” It was by the tone of her voice that Miro for the first time realized how much Hima loathed to say those three words. “There are masters at the Akademiya who have actual first-hand experience with a magus, but they prefer the comfort of their own quarters to being out here in the Lowlands with us. When all this is over, and I deliver you back to the Akademiya, maybe they’ll find someone who can solve this mystery for us.”

“The Akademiya?” Admittedly Miro did not dwell much on his future beyond this adventure, but this course for his life would have not figured into even his wildest fantasies. “You mean I’ll be trained up as a mage there?”

“That’s the plan,” Hima’s aloofness contrasted harshly with the quivering excitement in Miro’s voice. “When we return to the capital you’ll be enrolled in ‘mage school’, if you can even call it that. Though you’d be a little bit overage for a first year.”

Miro couldn’t care if he’d be in a room full of toddlers, as long as those toddlers were mages. There was, however, the journey that needed to be undertaken before that could happen.

“So the Prime Minister said I shouldn’t come back unless I reached level 10?”

“No, lad, no,” Nydra shook her head and her gaze softened, “It was nothing of the sort. The order –”

“Instructions,” Peteri corrected again.

“Whatever they were,” Nydra continued, “They were more on us than they were on you.”

“How does that work? It’s clearly on me to reach level 10. Maybe on you to help get me there,” he nodded in Hima’s direction, but she didn’t react, “But how is that on the two of you?”

“What I’m saying is if you don’t reach that goal, that’s for Peteri and myself to answer to,” Nydra said and Peteri nodded solemnly in support. “You focus on what you need to focus on, and we’ll worry about the rest.”

“It’s politics,” Peteri added.

“Okay,” Miro said dubiously, and then to Hima, “So you really think my levelling is not affected by the debuff?”

It seemed to him that Hima wanted nothing more than to avoid saying her most-hated three words. “So far it doesn’t seem to be. Maybe we can find you a few more classic quest scenarios and you’ll have a solid chance of making level 10 before we reach the Northlands.”

“I’m sure if anyone can make that happen, it’s you.”

She raised one eyebrow at him. He recalled quite clearly that she said they didn’t have to be friends, but what she didn’t know is that when he heard those words, they settled in his mind into something akin to a challenge. Everywhere he went, despite his efforts, he seemed to make no friends. Instead, whether it was Volod who tried to drop a bale of hay on him, or the mage from the fishers’ town who tried to fight him at the Deep End of the Bottle, or the mystery riders who died at the hands of the bandits on the high road, other people had nearly cost him his life every time. He was determined that this time it would be different, though beyond the slightly questioning look that she’d just given him, Hima made no further acknowledgement of his attempt at flattery.

“So are we still moving on according to plan?” Miro asked the last two of the King’s Finest. “Despite … everything?”

“Nothing’s changed, lad,” Nydra assured him.

“Good, and no more making decisions or having discussions without me,” Miro said, trying to channel his Charisma points but really feeling like his heart was about to thump out of his chest, “Especially when it’s about me. I want to be a full member of this party, not some tagalong luggage you’re lugging around and wondering which tree you can leave me under so that you can pick me up on the way back.”

Nydra gave a short laugh, though her mouth was still closed. “Okay, Miro, we can do that.” She nodded a few times and shared a look with Peteri. What was that expression on both their faces, Miro wondered. Some kind of satisfaction, or, he dared imagine, even pride? Either way, debuff or no debuff, he was going through with this, he was going to survive, he would go to the Akademiya, he would be cured of his ailment, and he would become the magus everyone expected him to be.