Primal is the sphere relating to manipulating the essence of reality, binding effects from other spheres into objects, creating permanent effects, and some say controlling backlashes. -Antonio Ravnos

Adrian

It is a while past midnight, my vision having long shifted to infrared when anything noticeable happens. I can see red blobs moving up the street. They are moving slowly. I don’t think K has noticed them, but she has noticed that I have started to focus on the street.

“What you see?”

“Movement.”

I smile, she has already picked up a handful of words. Though since I just taught them to her I don’t know if they will stay in her memory. She pulls a flashlight out of a bag and offers it to me. I shake my head, and reach for the rifle on my back. I can already see them, or rather their heat. The flashlight would just hurt my eyes.

“I thought that humans cannot see at night.”

“I picked it up from the Grey Dream.”

“With what?”

“EP”

I take aim, the red blobs have stopped moving. They can probably see me in the moonlight, it is almost a full moon when the clouds are not blocking it. Yeah, they are definitely trying to sneak up to the wall. I have one of them in my sight, I fire the shot and the blob move backwards, the shape of its head has changed so it should be dead.

As my ears ring from the rifle’s noise the three other red blobs stand up and charge. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else behind them. I take all three out before they reach the wall, semiautomatics are great. I did spend ten shots on them though. Maybe I shouldn’t be focusing so much on understanding how light and darkness can be twisted while on watch?

The blobs slowly begin to turn the color of the surrounding street. I don’t see any other sources of heat, I also couldn’t hear anything over the rushing footsteps of some of the soldiers to my position.

“Enemy scouts not attack”

It’s not a real sentence but the soldiers understood me. They have been snickering at K teaching me their language but I am starting to learn it. There are some similarities to the Latin-based languages I already know. Though there seems to be more forms of conjugation though. They have one for a future that could possibly be true but is not what will happen. K says that nobody ever uses more than half the tenses.

Though they mimic my broken use of their language to mock me, they do what they are supposed to do. They are more honest than the two-faced nobles and I did enjoy making the soldier who beat me this morning run all the errands. I sent him for a bowl of soup for each soldier on the wall, twice. Everyone except that soldier enjoyed it, they have started calling him Soup Fetcher over it.

He’s going to get me back for it after dawn but I’ll just do the same after dusk. I go back to having K teach me Althaen. I’ll check the enemy scouts at dawn.

It is dawn and as my eye focus back into the regular spectrum of light I jump down the wall of the palisade, some of the soldiers rush to follow me. Do they have orders to keep me from running away?

I arrive at the nearest corpse before the soldiers catch up to me. It looks almost human, slightly tipped ears, though not thin and lithe like an elf. The face has some goblin features though they are minor, the nose points slightly upwards and the eyes have the same sheen as a goblin’s.

Downplayed goblinoid features on a slightly bulky humanoid body. Likely a hobgoblin if it is highly intelligent. The equipment was well maintained until a few hours ago, no rust on its sword and the thing only stinks a bit. Definitely a hobgoblin. They are smart and this is bad news. Should I let the nobles know or allow them to suffer greater casualties so my group can leave easier?

We are being watched everywhere except for while we are in the bank. No, I need time to steal supplies. I also need to see if there is any more dragon’s blood. Books too, I need books for the mages of my group.

I should have the corpses brought in, “Kythia could you have the soldiers carry these to those old nobles?”

“Sure.”

K calls over some of the soldiers including Soup Fetcher as some of his contemporaries started calling him. They pick up the corpses and we walk over to where the ‘slave census’ was yesterday morning. Today there is not a line, though there are more soldiers wandering about.

K and me walk into the tent and are met with a death stare by Sunchaser. The other two nobles react instead to the hobgoblin corpses carried by the following soldiers. Neither of them is Trían, I haven’t met them yet. Am I going to have to go through Sunchaser’s whole you’re not a noble again?

I am not sure what Sunchaser started spouting off, but it was something about not being a good sentinel? The other two ignore him and are getting a report from K about why we are here. They seem to already know about me and my squabbles with the Sunchaser family.

Sunchaser is now going on about who is supposed to be doing something. It’s an accusation, though the other nobles aren’t answering him. I am sure he is targeting me with whatever it is that he is saying. Regardless K finishes the report for me and begins to leave the tent.

I guess we are done, so I follow her out.

“You need to do something about the Sunchaser house.”

“I’m aware of that. So, what happened?”

“Sunchaser convinced them that there is no need to worry about a few hobgoblins. So, nothing will change.”

“Idiots. Thank you for helping. I’m sure your tired, go get some rest.”

“What about translating for you?”

“A minor inconvenience to me is not worth running you ragged. Do you think I cannot notice your fatigue?”

K leaves as I walk to the training grounds. When I arrive there, I can see Bryan already being beaten by one of the soldiers. I walk up to the soldier in chainmail, but before I arrive a wooden sword strikes my back. Lightly, it was thrown.

I turn and pick it up off the ground, a soldier is facing me. Soup Fetcher, he wants to spar. He wants to humiliate me, good then he will fight for real. He moves towards me and I barely get the practice sword in place before his strike lands.

I try to counter and get disarmed. The angle was different from yesterday's, a twist to get the handle out of my hand instead of just hitting my hand. Soup Fetcher’s blade is now swinging at my face, I drop to a roll to grab the fallen sword.

I dodged his attack but didn’t manage to pick myself up fast enough to keep him from kicking me. He is moving faster than yesterday, I can’t move as fast as this man. I can see it, but not react fast enough to dodge.

I stand up and we continue, I focus on memorizing the movements of my opponent. I can’t react to your moves individually but maybe I can find a pattern.

As we approach noon, I’ve gotten rather good at anticipating Soup Fetcher’s attacks. He favors striking the limbs of his opponents. I’m still taking hits faster than I can repair the bruises. Why is it that it only took me a few minutes for that disembowelment but almost the same amount of time for these bruises?

It must be a matter of focus. I start to sidestep before my opponent lunges, I am rewarded with a hit to my side. Shit, I mistook his pattern. He must be altering it. I can hear the other soldiers laughing and exchanging bets. I have some trouble breathing.

My side is wet, a dark spot is slowly expanding on the shirt. He broke the skin, I touch my side it hurts. I’ve a cracked rib. It’s almost high noon, I toss the sword back at Soup Fetcher.

“I concede”

He smiles. He won. It was never like he could have lost, I am an amateur at the sword. I focus completely on my injuries and they begin to fade. My breathing becomes easy once more. I smile, and start to watch the other fights. I was able to block a few more strikes between disarms. I improved, or was it fatigue from it being the end of their day?

The soldiers who are still beating down people are all just toying with us. I notice Harrold walking up, the soldiers who were beating his ‘students’ stop just before he reaches them. Each time the students look up and quickly scramble to follow behind Harrold. He ignores me as he walks by. Good, if he doesn’t think I am important it will be easier to peruse his tomes and toys.

He arrives at Bryan’s spar, but stops to allow the soldier to beat at Bryan some more. I am the only one taking more punishment in these ‘lessons’ but I am also healing myself during them. Nobody has called me out on using that magic so I guess they see it as self-augmentation?

Bryan gets knocked to the ground after being tripped by the blunted spear. Now, Harrold begins to walk forwards, after he glanced at me. So, he does know I exist but wants to belittle me? How much does he know? I walk over to Bryan and help him up. I try to push his body to heal but like every other time I have tried, nothing changes. I am missing something; do I need to know more about anatomy or life energy?

Abagail walks over with some water, I don’t know how she got out of the spars two days in a row. Regardless, we end up following behind Harrold into the library where he has his study.

The study has been rearranged, all of the boxes are open. The books have all been reordered and there are several papers strewn about. So, my theft was noticed. Harrold pulls out the same necklace as yesterday, it flashes and is once more a little dimmer.

“Yesterday there was a theft by one of you. I will give you all a single chance. Speak up and return what was stolen or I will punish all of you slaves.”

So, dragon’s blood is valuable. I start to look around, everyone is confused. Nobody volunteers any information. They don’t know anything. Harrold stands in front of us, he is getting angry.

“Know this slaves, you have all offended the Sunchaser family. I will not be teaching anymore; instead we will have lessons as if you already knew magic. You come up here.”

And he pointed at me. At least it was from the Sunchasers that I stole from, they already want to kill me so I feel less bad about it now. Or did I ever feel bad about it? I should have. I stand up and walk to the front.

“Demonstrate Burning Hands or be beaten slave.”

“I am no slave.”

Harrold moves to slap me, I catch his hand. He moves much slower than Soup Fetcher, he is also physically weaker than me.

“You dare touch a noble.”

“I’ve done a lot more than touch. Surly someone told you a ‘barbarian’ noble would be watching.”

Harrold frowns, he was told. I release his hand.

“I don’t believe you, no noble would be here to just watch.”

“No noble would care for his followers?”

“If you are a noble then prove it. Demonstrate Burning Hands.”

“Why should I?”

“To prove your words.”

“I already know what I am, I don’t need to prove it to you.”

Harrold moves to strike me again, there is a hint of fire covering his hand. I am definitely going to keep stealing his shit. I catch his hand again and take control of the little bit of fire on his hand. I turn it to burn him, after all that’s what the fire would do if it wasn’t being controlled.

He lets out a scream as his spell gets disrupted from the damage to the hand. He looks at me, “What did you do?”

“You spell was sloppy. Do you think I would have to do anything at all? But you want proof, then I will take something for slandering me.”

I release his hand, there are second degree burns on it. “If you can prove it slave fine.”

I smile, perfect. What should I try to get? First a demonstration.

“Burning Hands is a simple spell as far as the components go. Thumbs touching and fingers spread like so you add mana as you speak an incantation. Burning Hands.”

Fire erupts in a fan out of my fingers, I let is wash over the edge of one of the tables. I hold it for a second before allowing reality to return to normal. Harrold has a look of anger on his face.

“That can’t be right you didn’t use the right incantation.”

“An incantation is a way of vocalizing your intent, a safeguard against botching your spells. It is the mana that does the real work not the words or gestures. While needed, they can be substituted with other phrases, after some practice.”

Harrold is staring at the scorch marks on the table in front of me. The ‘students’ are likewise staring, I don’t think they heard my excuse.