Draith
patreon
Chapter 28 - High Road
🕑 Added 2025-03-03 14:00:07 +0000 UTCThe lessons continued, and while I listened, the fact that Forge Theory required a secret I couldn't touch unless I traveled nearly a quarter of the way across the continent, caused it to lose a little of its luster.
Thankfully, I was able to reach a compromise on writing down notes after I sketched out a functional hydraulic braking system that could be applied to the carriages common in the western kingdom. It was actually simpler than most cars back on Earth had needed, since there was less in the way.
While she'd been curious, she grudgingly admitted that since my designs didn't require a Forge Heart, they weren't technically Forgeborn secrets.
In turn, I was surprised how much I enjoyed teaching her, Tresla, and even Calbern about the fundamentals of Mage-hood.
It was shocking to realize how much I'd taken for common knowledge not even Calbern knew. Simple concepts such as variable mana density, everyone kind of knew about. But he'd been shocked that it could change based on population density, and that even non-mages contributed to the local manasphere and affinity absorption.
Which didn't even factor in the other sources of mana, such as powerful storms, vibrant trees or even a scorching desert. They were the low quality sources. A Thousand Year Ice Blossom could provide as much mana as a hundred square miles of empty tundra.
"And no, the Thousand Year Ice Blossom isn't actually a thousand years old. Someone just called them that. They only take about five years to develop to maturity, if treated properly," I added before Inertia could get Tresla to translate yet another clarification request.
Tresla's tinkling laughter indicated she understood exactly what I'd done and why.
"There was actually an effort to raise several back on the family compound. But they threw off the balance so much that father decided to establish a valley specifically dedicated to water mana. That was the only time I remember seeing snow."
"It was quite the spectacle. I still remember building a snowmage with the young master," Calbern said.
I nodded. Perth had enjoyed the snow, but he'd been displeased when a lot of his favorite foods had disappeared. Funny how a little unseasonable weather can ruin an entire season’s crops.
Or in the case of the Aranor family, an entire week’s worth alongside a hefty mana expenditure.
Near when we were planning to stop for the day, we spotted an interruption to the smooth stone edge of the high road. A thin tower of silvery metal that barely stretched ten feet above the main lane stood at the edge.
If I wasn't mistaken, we'd come across the first of the high road's wards. Its protection was what kept the road intact and free of monsters. Considering the partially damaged road we'd passed along, I suspected this one needed maintenance.
Which was my responsibility. If I wanted trade to flow between the rest of the Frigid Peaks and my domain, the road needed to be safe.
"Gonna need to stop for a while," I said as we got closer to the ward array. "Need to make sure everything is working properly. Which means I'm going to have to study it from top to bottom."
Receiving affirmation from the others, I set to work. Althon had provided me with a guidebook for how the wards were supposed to work, which I’d yet to refer to. Even as I started tracing through the components, I was already finding problems. A tenth of the connections had been removed. Probably from somebody scavenging. Not that they'd be worth anything. The guidebook indicated they'd been shiny while they were functional, and I figured that meant some fools would assume shiny meant money.
Half an hour later, I stepped away from the array.
"Done, master Perth?"
"Ha. Hardly. I've only finished tracing out all the problems I can see," I said as I sat down next to Calbern. "Which still leaves the ones I can't."
A series of whistles from Inertia let me know she had a question.
My eyes automatically shifted to Tresla's cloaked form as she pushed herself up from the edge of the high road, coming over to translate. "Inertia asks if repairing this ward is truly worth the effort, so far from your domain. She reminds you that your supplies are not infinite."
"Don't I know it," I mumbled. If I was reading the instructions correctly, doing the repairs on the ward would take me the same amount of silver powder as scribing a dozen pages.
I still had fifty pages worth of essence, but I'd been hoping to save that for my experiments. Twelve pages worth of powder was… a lot.
On the other hand, if I wanted to make this into a trade route, I'd want the wards fully functional. Plus it'd make our journey a lot safer.
Still… a dozen pages. Just for the problems I could see. And it was even kinda working already.
"Inertia's right," I said, huffing out a heavy breath before pushing to my feet. "It's not worth repairing. Not yet. In fact…"
I'd already mentally chastised the people who scavenged it before me. But that was cause they'd taken the shiny parts instead of the bits that were actually valuable. Looking at the ward, I figured I could probably recover twenty pages of silver from it, if I was careful.
Not something I'd be doing, but if it came to it, I might be able to salvage from one ward to repair others. It’d be better if I could get supplies from Nexxa, but that’d be easier on this end than once I got to my domain.
We ended up making camp not far from the ward, where a nearby mountain met the high road, offering natural shelter. We'd passed a couple more of the watchtowers similar to the one where we'd parted ways with Nexxa, though they were all in much worse shape. One of them had only been the floor with a single stone where the stairs had once led up.
After the first ward array, we started coming across them more frequently. Luckily, the next one we came across was in much better shape. It only took me half a page’s worth of dust to get it in peak condition, which I spent just to know what a fully repaired ward did.
As soon as the repairs to the ward were done, a soft silver glimmer lit up along the entire roadway. The road, which had already been in much better shape than even the previous warded section, had the few minor scratches on its surface wiped away. The already clean surface of the road was further wiped away, going so far as to spread a cleaning effect up the length of our boots.
Even the watchtower was perfectly preserved.
That ward was the only one in such good shape. Most were closer to the first, though none were quite as bad. Ten pages was the average I would've needed to repair them.
A month after we'd left Nexxa, we camped in another of the half-broken watchtowers. We'd been eating a lot of monster meat, since Inertia could easily track them down and return to the high road with one. None of us knew anything about foraging the local foliage, so our seasonings were limited to our supplies, and after a month, several had run out.
I'd expected to see a village or two in the shadow of the high road, but the land remained empty of anything but Frigid mountains and monstrous creatures. I was wondering if there would be anyone living in those buildings I'd seen in my domain.
"Inertia says we are making excellent time. Her last trip, they made half the progress in a day we've achieved. She credits your spells," Tresla translated, her head laid against Inertia's lap.
"I honestly didn't expect Minor Heal to work so well on the horses," I admitted while helping Calbern prepare them for the night.
"Your ability to grow fodder for them has also proven critical, master Perth. Finding good fodder is often a challenge on journeys through harsh terrain. It has allowed us to focus on travel," Calbern added while handing me a brush.
Over the last month, I’d convinced him to let me help with more of the little chores, if only so we could spend more of the day traveling. As relaxing as brushing the horses down was, I did regret not adding a spell for it. I had ideas on how to build my own, but like most of my ideas these days, it had to wait.
"I was thinking we might take a break from the trek tomorrow," Tresla said, rolling to the side, a glimmer of red escaping the cloak before she was repositioned.
Even after a month of traveling with her, that glimmer of red was still all I'd seen other than her cloak, gloves and boots.
"What were you thinking?" I asked, continuing with the smooth strokes. I'd long since discovered the horses didn't like jerky movements. Having to chase them down after I’d left them untied hadn’t been fun either, even with Inertia flying overhead shouting directions.
"Inertia says there's a beautiful lake about a quarter of a day ahead. It's a lot warmer than most mountain lakes because of the nearby hot springs," Tresla replied while pushing to her feet and setting up the cook pot.
"Wait… you want to go swimming?" I asked, my hand unintentionally jerking the brush. The horse only gave me some side-eye, so I continued, glad Perth had long ago been taught to respect a horse's hooves. It wasn’t something I would’ve even thought of.
"Is that so strange," Tresla asked, accepting several broken logs from Inertia who enjoyed smashing trees for firewood. Smashing being rather literal.
I glanced towards Calbern, hoping for support, but he was working on cleaning one of the horse's horseshoes. "You never take off your cloak," I stated, pointing the brush at her, which earned a whinny from the horse. Returning to my task, I repeated, "Never."
"Who said I was going to take off my cloak?" Tresla replied, tinkling laughter escaping said shroud as she lit the fire.
The warbling whistle-hiss I'd come to recognize as Inertia's laughter joined in. There was even a soft chuckle from Calbern.
"Fine, be that way," I said, though I too was wearing a smile. "A day off sounds good."
Comments
PatronTurtle
Is he able to reverse engineer how the wards function? It sounds like most of this tech is somehow creating self-functioning spells that use [draw mana] or similar to power themselves. Would be really useful to make his own wards
