Wizard's Tower - Arc 3 - Chapter 47

“Leslie, that is not a concern of yours,” I shook my head, though I don’t think she was listening to me. 

“Master—Nemon—I just want to know what you plan to do with her,” my former assistant whined. 

Her eyes were locked on Rhaela the Red, the spy who was currently sitting on the bed in her cell pretending not to hear the conversation. Leslie stood between her and me so I could only see the back of my former apprentice’s head. 

Another cell nearby held still held the messenger, who wasn’t handling captivity nearly as well. The man had already tried to break out by chipping away at the stone floor with a wooden leg from his bed—a plan that got him nothing but splinters and a lop-sided sleep. He was currently red-faced and screaming at us—not that we could hear after I placed a silence spell around him.

I sighed, maybe a bit dramatically. It wasn’t that I couldn’t answer her, it was that it had nothing to do with my experiments, those being the preface that she used to enter my lab and ask an inordinate number of questions these last three days. In the past, she hadn’t been one to find extermination interesting, but I had hoped her new tier level would make her more curious about the boundaries of known magic. Little did I know, that most of her questions revolved around she should carry herself now that she was a high Tier magic-user. 

“I didn’t know her well, but I have heard she has done good work for you. And Kine cares for her. Isn’t that enough to grant some mercy?” she bleated, regardless of my prior response.

“I will answer this question once, and it will be your last question that does not involve furthering your mastery over magic. You are no longer my apprentice, so you should understand your presence in my laboratory is a courtesy that will not continue. One that most other mages would find offense even to inquire about. Is that understood?” I pinned the woman with a stare that I used on unruly students when I was a teacher and watched her squirm uncomfortably. 

She straightened the arm of her new blue and gold robe nervously before answering. “Yes, master.”

I hmphed at her, but I had laid the groundwork for kicking her out of the room should she not adhere. I straightened my back and adopted an educator’s tone, “She has betrayed me and harmed those who lived here, but I don’t believe she intentionally would have allowed any action that would result in the deaths of Loralie or Pyl. This betrayal should have consequences she should atone for. Yet.” I paused and smacked my lips once before forming a sterner impression, “She had betrayed Alderman Kine more so than any other. And I will leave her fate to him to decide.”

Leslie was silent for a moment, and I took that as her understanding. I turned back to my worktable to look at an artifact looted from the Mirtallean wizard’s tower, a chunk of red stone I hadn’t seen before that gave off heat and flames without burning away. I would have assumed it a piece of the Plane of Fire, had I now seen that planes were constructed atop a base of the same type of crystal used to summon elementals. This was the second of three artifacts they had brought to me for investigation. The first was a living human eye that blinked and moved, for all that there was no body attached to it. The third was a holy artifact I refused to touch or near me.

I felt I was close to understanding it. Unlike the eye, which had an intricate and powerful spellwork I had never seen before crafted onto it, this one had no spells I could detect at all. Which made it solely a material. My [Analysis] spell, even with the increased utility from my tower crystal, only returned [Eternal Coal] when cast. My current hypothesises were that it was a chunk of dragon detritus or a spiritual mineral taken from the plane of some god; maybe even a—

My line of thought was broken as she asked one more question, “Master Nemon, does Kine know that?”

I huffed and turned back around. “He would if he asked me! And no, you may not tell him. I warned you about touching the parasitic mushrooms, didn’t I? And how many times did you touch them and require my help to purge it?”

Leslie looked down at her feet, her curly black hair partially covering her face. She looked more like a girl her age in that moment than the 5th Tier mage she was, “Twice, Master.”

“And the jar of pollen I had saved from the monsterized Asrid Flowers, how long were you under its sway?”

“Half a day, master.” 

“And my elemental air squirrels?”

“I couldn’t know that trying to pet one would free them!” She answered, frustration leaking into her voice.

I stroked my beard as I waited for her to calm herself and meet my eyes. When she did, I spoke with a caring but firm voice. “Young lady, you have grown powerful in your success. Moreso than any of your peers. That is a talent to be proud of, and I certainly am proud of you. Yet hear me now. Just like I warned you not to touch those things, do not discuss this with Kine or anyone else. Kine needs the time to calm his emotions lest he makes a judgment he would regret. When he had calmed, he will inquire. Let Miss Rhaela’s fate free from your mind.”

“Yes master—yes, Nemon.”

I eyed her for a second or two more to make sure she wouldn’t roll her eyes or give another sign that she wasn’t going to follow my direction, and then I turned back to the table. “Come, look at what I have learned, and share with me your thoughts.”

“But that—that is boring. I don’t understand how you can spend all day here.”

Without looking back at her I nodded, “Yes, I suppose it might be boring after three days. Perhaps you and the other heroes might be up for slaying some of the Pestilence nearby? Searching for survivors that are fleeing from the monsters?”

“I could see,” She answered thoughtfully, before voicing perhaps the worst idea I ever heard. “We could also see about the snake god. We slew one god already.”

“No. Absolutely not. That foe is beyond you and your comrades.” I answered her with more force than I intended, and she looked surprised at my response. I tried to soften the blow, “I don’t mean that you aren’t strong, you are among the strongest—”

“No. I understand.” She turned away so I couldn’t see her expression and began walking towards the exit as she muttered to herself. “I’ll ask the others about hunting hydra. I know Mena and Tond would agree. And if Tond agrees, so will…” 

I watched her leave, concern in my eyes. I spared a glance towards Rhaela after she left, but the woman was sitting on her bet lost in her own thoughts after overhearing us. In truth, as angry as I was about the assassin she let in, I could see she harbored more guilt and shame over it than any punishment I could imagine. As fellow magic users at the edges of the hinterlands, Loralie had been her friend long before I met either. I doubted I felt any worse over the loss than she did herself. 

That evening, I bid farewell to the heroes. It was just after dinner and they were off to a new quest to slay hydras and bring me back hearts, eyes, and blood. The scales were useless to me as reagents, but they were also on the list now that copper and leather were more difficult to obtain.  According to Eni, the only smith in the village could partner with a tanner to create a set of armor from the hides of the monsters, and I wasn’t necessarily opposed to the idea. Especially so if the monsters' magical defenses could be something transferred over in the armor. 

I was eating the last bit of my dinner, fried flame boar pieces and vegetables, when occurred to me that while Tond had a class title that included leadership, Leslie was the actual leader of the group. It was an odd sort of leadership, as well, given how Leslie seemed to run her ideas through Mena before presenting them to the group. Perhaps Tond was given command in battle? I shook my head at the thought before biting and realized my error immediately. 

I had picked out the pieces of carrots from the meal and set them aside on my plate, but I missed one. I could help but sputter it back onto the dish like an uncivilized lout. I would need to have words with the cook again, it seemed. 

I was rising to do just that when Fentworth entered holding a missive. He spared a single glance at the mess on my plate, and tactfully held back his judgment. “My lord, a missive from Lord Froom, for you.”

I watched the man with an even gaze before accepting the scroll. He had a dry sense of humor that made it so I wouldn’t put it past him to choose a specific moment to give it to me. Not that he would hold a missive overlong, especially given our current circumstances. Still, it seemed like a very coincidental timing considering the words I had in mind for the cook. 

“Thank you Fentworth,” I said with a tight smile. 

He bowed slightly in response and went off to handle other duties. I suspected they had to do with using my bath when I was otherwise occupied, but I wouldn’t begrudge anyone a desire for cleanliness. I tapped the missive on the table as I considered that thought a little more carefully. I hadn’t seen a single bathhouse in the village during the ceremony. Not that I had toured the entire village, but I would think a building that large would be apparent. 

“Mister Fentworth?” I called out towards the staircase, loud enough I knew he could hear me. It wasn’t long before he returned, only twenty-four taps of the missive against the table. 

“My lord?” he asked once he reached the base of the stairs.

“Is there a bathhouse in the village?” I asked with all the innocence I could muster. 

With a straight face, he tilted his head in thought before shaking it. “I don’t believe so, my lord.”

“Hmm. Be a good man, and send one of the runners to Kine with the idea, will you?” 

“Certainly,” he answered with a small bow and stepped out the front door. 

Now, I wasn’t certain he was using my bath, and it did have a significant amount of cleaning spells enchanted into it so that it wouldn’t matter. Yet, I still watched him carefully as he went about the duty to see if there were any signs of it before turning my attention to the scroll.

I dispelled the wizard trick, a minor illusion that would make it appear as though my nipples roamed my body at random times, and carefully inspected every inch of the scroll for other hidden tricks before opening it. Having only a single, obvious trick was almost a trick in of itself, as Alred would know I suspected more. My former apprentice was likely giggling to himself at the thought of me spending hours looking for a second trick that wasn’t there.

The missive itself was simple enough. He granted [Magus] Nichols leeway to depart his service for mine should she choose, and offered a commendation for the work she performed so far. He also detailed how the efforts to create gateways in the fallen Mirktal kingdom and the more northern country of Furing were doing. 

His assistant Skelt was heading the efforts there and had recruited my three assistances to further the effort. They had been more than helpful with raising plateaus. Froom’s mages wouldn’t have been half as complete with their tasks now without the aid of my assistants. Without the magical items needed to fly, having companion bonded wyverns to ride made them able to travel to the furthest reaches of each country. Only the capital of Furing remained untouched at the present, as fighting hydra seemed to have replaced the normal gladiatorial death matches the men there needed to win to be allowed to mate.

I still had trouble fathoming how that country could function, especially without any centralized institution of learning for magical classes, but politics wasn’t my strongest suit, to begin with. Still, Froom's response regarding Miss Nichols was more than enough to improve my mood after the dreadful carrot fiasco, and I hummed to myself as I walked the missive upstairs and laid in on the very top of the stacks of maps with a small enchantment to make it glow. 

That should be more than enough to attract her attention when she returned to her duties in the morning, and I wanted to check in on Pyl. He had been diligently working duties to let travelers enter and leave the plateau during the day, and retreated to Loralie’s tower during the evening. I hadn’t the faintest idea what he was doing there, but given his previous lack of diligence regarding safety wards and his reports of lack of emotions, I wanted to ensure that someone was taking their time to speak with him on a regular basis.