M.D.Syl
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Chapter 92 colorless
🕑 Added 2023-06-27 14:04:32 +0000 UTCAuthor notes:
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Chapter 92 Problems.
There are too many people, creating too many problems.
But not enough people creating solutions.
This is what I love about money.
It’s the solution to so many problems.
Kilako, the Golden Prince of Gains.
{28} Noxi (April) the 18th
My sleep is disturbed by the agony on my face. It itches and burns. The healing potions clearly don’t help. I already took two more of these just so I could sleep in peace, but now I have unbearable nausea in addition to burns.
I sit up and hesitantly glance toward the silver mirror in the corner of my room. I don’t dare to take a look at my face. The acid had probably damaged my face beyond recognition. I’ve seen what ‘Kusharisa’ can do to someone’s face… it isn’t pretty… Why do I always get hit by acid? Snakes! The sooner I face this, the sooner I get over this. I don’t have time to wallow in self-pity and hate my new looks… get up! Go to that mirror, and look!
I can’t… What will Kolag think? He already saw me… he didn’t say a thing… I saw the look on his face... or not his face, but I saw how he looked away... what was I expecting him to say? Bloody! Rotten snakes! I’m getting a healing potion and going back to bed…
Focus! Get up! Go to that mirror! And look!
Fiiine!
I hold my breath and approach the mirror. One glance is enough to send me running back to bed. It’s hard to believe it’s me. Aside from my red hair maybe... I never really believed I’m a great beauty… but at least my face never looked like melted cheese before… The queen with the melted face… people are going to love me… all hail the melted cheese! Yeah!
I can’t help but let out a horrified snicker and go back to the mirror. Staring at my gray eyes behind the melted cheese of a face. Some of my hair had fallen too, but at least most of that is intact. It still burns and itches, the healing potion only numbs the pain for a little bit.
I can’t go out looking like that! I have to fix this!
How?
I eye the thick grimoire on my table with a sigh. I open an empty page. I need a spell that heals skin damage and restores skin to its healthy state. I think worriedly, channeling my mana into the page.
The page hungrily consumes all of my light and water mana, then automatically convert some of my other elements to the right elements as the spell forms on the thick sheet.
To my relief, words appear on the thick sheet.
Brigit’s Skin Restoration.
Names: Brigit’s Skin Restoration. Skin Restoration. Wrinkles Smoother.
Element: Life
Sub element: Skin (water) – restoration (light).
Level: 1
Language: nim <water>
Words: Fai. Nim. Oue-rissu nirissu asuli fenu, oue nimfai rialuwe, fainim. Nimakee ni/niyu/niar rilaluwe, akeloki si ril. Asano si aluwe nufilata.
Translation: Life. Water. Here’s a flect bending flower. Here’s a fish scale, blood. Caress my/his/her broken skin, smooth the edge. May the skin flourish.
Quicken: Fai. Nim. Nimakee ni/niyu/niar rilaluwe. <life. Water. Caress my/his/her broken skin.>
Patterns: 18
Gestures: holding hand above the target at close range.
Offering: Blood from the caster, 5 Belladonna/cyclamen petals/5 fish scales.
Requirement: temperature above 15c and below 30c.
Range: near touch.
Target: damaged skin tissue.
Duration: channel spell
Effect: The spell will heal damaged skin tissue at a slow rate. The spell will fully restore the damaged skin from any natural damage such as: fire burns, frost bites, acid burns, cuts, flaying (can grow new skin), wrinkles, etc. The spell cannot dispel skin related curses such as petrifaction, nor heal skin that still has toxins embedded in it. In case of contaminated skin, it is advised to cut out the damaged tissue and regrow new skin using this spell.
Cost: 50 light gems, 30 water gems for initial cast. 5 light gems and 3 water gems per second to maintain.
Bound cost: 30 light gems, 20 water gems.
Altered cost: 10 light gem, 5 water gem. Per pattern.
This chant is quite familiar. I’ve heard it before. Oh! It's the same spell the hag used to heal my skin after she regrew my hands.
I go over the spell, letting out a relieved chuckle until I reach the patterns section and the world feels like hell again.
18 patterns?! 18 snaking patterns?! Venom!!! How am I going to cast this?! Janara you are so dead the next time we meet! You bitch!
Ok. Calm down. Focus… I can fix this. I form patterns one after the other, trying to hold them separately. With full focus, I manage to reach 15 patterns. I'm not that far from 18… Let’s practice…
I spend a few hours merging opposite patterns that don’t fit, just like how the hag had taught me. I push myself further and further, despairing, but at the end of the day, I’m still stuck at the limit of barely 15 patterns.
I've had enough… I can’t do this… I’ll heal myself when I can cast 18 patterns… if I even live until I reach that point... I'm going back to bed...
The only problem now is that I can't rest. The constant burning and itching won't allow me to sleep. Frustrated I leave my bad and turn to the alchemy book in search of a potion that deals with pain. This potion is only slightly more complex than a healing potion, and the materials required also include more herbs. Sending my maids to collect all the materials takes a few hours, but by the end of it, I practice making the: 'Pain Tolerance' potion.
After a whole day of practice, I can finally sleep peacefully using that potion.
*
{28} Noxi (April) the 19th
"She won't see anyone." I hear Zoe at my door.
"Yeah yeah, I heard you the first time, Tulips. Now move aside, or I'll move you aside," Salik's voice is casual despite the implied threat.
"But she's indecent!" Zoe tries.
"Nothing I haven't seen, and I couldn't care less." Salik barges into my chambers, ignoring Zoe's protests.
"She's the Queen!" Zoe trails behind him.
"She's a kid who got hurt, Tulips. Now shush, let the adults speak, please."
"Excuse me! You can't just..."
"You're excused, Tulips."
I sigh, sit up in my bed, and move my blue bed curtain. "Zoe let him in."
Salik enters my vast room, wearing his brigandine armor. An axe in his belt, and a helmet under his arm. There's no sign of his awful straw hat. "Hey, kid."
"Hey..."
He stands there, bushy brows forming a frown. He looks into my eyes despite the sorry state of my face. "I know you got your face melted and all, but we really need you. The city is preparing for a war. A city in crisis without a ruler is like a goblin den without its brood mother. Not sure if you ever seen one, but goblins will start eating each other... not pretty."
"Yeah... I know... I just..."
"Can't show your melted face around?"
The guy never heard of tact... I'm too tired to even get mad at him... "When you put it like that..."
"Thought so. Here. Got this prepared for you." He throws an object toward me.
"Latsa." <Lift.> I catch a mask with my magic.
The mask is beautiful, forming a pattern of a red and orange butterfly with the eyeholes becoming a part of the patterns on the butterfly's wings and the nose being the butterfly's body.
The mask would cover all of the upper part of my face, leaving my mouth visible between the lower parts of the butterfly wings.
I put the mask on and rush to the mirror.
With my red hair flows all around it, I actually look rather attractive, and the area around my lips and chin isn’t as damaged. The acid didn't touch my mouth and chin much.
The only problem is the constant burning and itching, but I just drink another pain tolerance potion for that.
Salik chuckles behind me. "We hold a council meeting within the hour, kid."
I turn to face him. "Thank you! I'll be there."
He gives me his sarcastic smirk and leaves my rooms.
"Zoe, get me something red to wear!"
*
“So tell us what we’re dealing with, Tasiya,” I ask my Keyholder. In addition to her job as a keyholder, she is now the official spymaster of my court. She agreed to take the fake job and develop her own network of spies. But for now, the one who provides the information is still Marasi who prefers to keep his identity a secret. How he gives her his information, I don’t know and I don’t need to know.
The middle-aged woman reads from her parchments. “Your majesty, Queen Phoebe rules over five cities along the river south of here. From what my sources tell me, her army has ten thousand abled men. She owns a small fleet, and they can be here within two weeks. On another note, King Luard had a vassalage relationship with Queen Phoebe. King Lurad would pay her a yearly tax of two thousand sorcerer stones or their worth in gold each year.”
Now it makes perfect sense why Luard squeezed his citizens for taxes, he simply wanted to survive. And I have to face both him and Janara now…
“Why are you assuming she’ll be marching these armies north?” Jolla intervenes.
“She blames me for the death of her lover. She wants me dead. That’s the easiest way to do it,” I reply curtly.
“The men won’t like this. On both sides. Mages are supposed to fight their own battles and duel each other. Not march armies against one another. The armies are to be fielded against the crusaders of Noxi,” Jolla chides.
“But they’ll march against me if she commands it.”
“Yes,” Jolla admits, reluctantly.
“Then she will command them. Salik…”
Kolag interrupts me. “The crusaders of Noxi? What do the crusaders of Noxi have to do with this?”
Jolla glances at him from behind her glasses. “Pha. By Tukado's beard, aren’t you a paladin of Noxi? You tell me…”
“I’m not a paladin yet, milady Jolla.”
She sighs. “The church of Noxi deemed all sorcerers and worshipers of Jalier as corrupt, in other words, deserving of death. Did you see a church of Noxi anywhere in this city? Haven't got some rotten tomatoes thrown at you for preaching the word of your god? Noxi is hated in these parts, more than Rakisha…”
“But why?!”
“The church of Noxi sends crusades up here to ‘cleanse’ the sorcerers and the worshipers of Jalier… the majority of these cities worship Jalier. Although a minor demi-god, he advocates that all sorcerers should be worshiped and obeyed, no matter how good or bad they are to their people. It is…”
“Why would anyone worship a god like that?!” Kolag shouts, abhorrent.
“Why would anyone worship any god? Why do you worship Noxi? Noxi encourages a lot of deaths of anyone who isn’t from the intelligent mortal races… even some of the intelligent mortal races are marked for death as well.”
“Noxi is the god of justice!”
“And that justice includes the slaughtering of goblins, orcs, kobolds, and according to some interpretations of the texts, elflings, gnomes, and dwarves too. Not to mention the fae.”
“I’d never! Goblins and Kobolds have to be cleansed since they bring death and destruction. Savage orc tribes should be put down to the sword, and not all orcs are savages. But the rest?!”
“What about Elflings? A single Elfling can kill a whole city just by being there. They wreak havoc by living. But most elflings are peaceful, and even the ones who cause damage don't mean to. Point is. Every god has a reason why you shouldn’t worship them. I worship Tukado. God of knowledge. I’m a gnome. We do not like sharing our knowledge, it’s against our nature. Yet, my god advocates for sharing knowledge and innovations with all the mortal races. Including orcs and elflings. Sharing any knowledge, no matter how dangerous it is, with everyone. Do you have any idea how much damage this could cause? If orcs knew how to operate a dwarven golem or a gnomish war machine for example? Every god has their fault.” Jolla finishes her lecture with a shrug.
“And what’s wrong with worshiping someone like Brigit Goddess of Life for example?” Kolag questions.
“A goddess who advocates that killing is wrong? Plenty. Did you know that an acolyte of Brigit can’t kill anyone?! Not even in self-def…”
“That’s enough!” I interrupt. As much as I enjoy seeing Kolag’s beliefs shaken, this isn’t the time for it. “Discuss theology later. Salik. Janara or Phoebe whatever her name is, has ten thousand soldiers. What are we going to do about it?”
“We’ll be facing between five thousand to seven thousand men in the field. She’ll need to leave some garrison behind.” Salik pauses to take a sip from his flask. “You don’t need me to tell you this, but we don’t stand a chance. Even with a forced levy, we'd have below two thousand men…”
“What if we add a thousand orcs to that?” I ask Salik. Balgrum said he could bring his clan to fight for me, now I’m really glad I gave him Lezere’s body…
“The savage made it very clear, he will not fight for you,” Kolag states with his echoing voice.
“I may be able to work around it. I’ll go visit his clan, I might be able to convince them to fight for us.” You don’t need to know everything... “Does anyone know the location of the nearby orc clan?”
“They’re north of here, about a five days ride,” Jolla replies, fixing her glasses.
“Hmmm… that does give us a small chance for survival, but we still need more men.” Salik doesn’t seem too worried. “Unless you can challenge their queen to a duel and solve it with magic as Miss Jolla suggests.” He looks at me with a mocking grin.
Of course he isn’t worried. He wants to die in battle, this is a snaking glorious battle to die in…why would he even care to get me to this meeting... we're all going to die... Maybe because if he wins he has an even better story to tell. “Ideas anyone?”
The deathly silence only fans the raging flames inside me. If only Kolag would’ve been there on time! Rot and venom! Stop it! It’s not his fault…
“Armies don’t grow on trees, Your Majesty.” Jolla’s apathetic voice tells me she doesn’t care about this either. Why would she? She doesn’t care who gets to be the Queen as long as she has her library.
She’ll start caring if I threaten to burn her library to the ground!
Stop being petty… besides, I need her loyalty, not ire or fear
“What about you, Kolag?” I ask. We haven’t really talked since the fight we had after the battle with Janara. And now, both of our faces are covered by some form of a mask. Some couple we are…
“I’m willing to lead men into battle.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
“Then what are you asking,” he asks angrily. Then, in a lower voice he adds, “My Queen…”
This is a mistake, I should’ve talked to him in private before all of this… “How many can you take by yourself with the demon’s help?”
He jolts up angrily. “Do you honestly think I’d repeat that?! Did you not see how many people died?! The only reason I did that was to save you!”
“I guess I need saving again…”
“No, you’re not! You’re using me as a damn weapon! I’m out of here!” He stomps his metallic boots toward the door.
“Do you know what will happen if we’ll lose?” I ask dryly.
“I don’t care!”
“Oh you do. Let me tell you what happens when an army conquers a city. I should know, I experienced it first-hand."
I look directly into his visor as he turns to face me, not bothering to hide the bitterness in my voice. "All these people you wanted to help for the past few weeks? They die horribly. The widow you fixed the roof for? She gets raped along with all the other women, then gets sold into slavery. Her children get tossed around like broken toys, if not killed outright." This is manipulation… I’m no better than the hag…
"Everything burns, while a group of violent thugs has drinks and a party on the ashes with their new whores in chains. But even they are simply happy to be alive and survive the damn day! All I ask from you is to make sure those thugs are dead before they do all of that!” Manipulation to save women and children, I’m way better than the hag!
So now I even believe my own lies uh? It’s the truth, whether it serves my purpose or not is irrelevant…
He punches the wall behind him and the room shakes. “Then we could leave this city, Janara won’t attack if you aren’t here. Let’s leave this place, recall Jerro and Berthold, find someplace quiet in the woods to live in. We don’t need any of this.” He gestures wildly around the room.
“Nah ah! If we leave, King Luard will come back, and I’m not letting that bastard take over this place. Not after the way he treated the people living here. Not after what he did to Lezere!”
“Send me to speak to Janara then! I’ll convince her not to attack." His fist strikes the armored plate on his chest. "You were right, it’s my fault I wasn’t there. So let me fix this! Send me as an envoy to Janara, she won’t kill me, we both know that.”
“That’s… that’s actually a good idea. If you can get her to hold off the attack, we don’t have to worry about anything.” Something tells me it won’t be that easy… but doesn’t hurt to try, does it? It’ll hurt if she kills him… or imprison him… it’ll hurt me a lot…
I also need his demon to hold off a part of her army… I doubt it can deal with all of her army… especially if they have iron weaponry… but a demon ambush to a part of her army in the streets, after they break through the walls… that’ll deal a lot of damage…
It’s his choice, I can’t force him to do that for me…
Yes I can. I can trick him into the right place and time, then take off his helmet, simple!
No! Never! I’ll never ever do that to him! Don’t even think about it!
He’ll never forgive me for that… He’ll never want to put innocents in danger, so an ambush on the streets is a bad idea to begin with…
Letting him go see Janara and convince him is a better option. If she somehow turns hostile to him and corners him, he'll have to use the demon to kill her...
But he might die... Janara might just kill him somehow?
How? I'm not sure how I'd kill him myself, not with that demon.... demons eat magic, so it's like he's made out of iron regarding magic... I saw him take a spear to the face and it didn't even hurt him, just made him revert back to his human form. I don't think she can kill him.
Jerro said he could die back at the spider nest.
Maybe to a bunch of monster spiders with a spider queen that is much larger than the demon and can fight that thing physically. I doubt Janara can fight it.
“Very well, you’ll leave tomorrow,” I finish my contemplation.
He strides towards the door. “I’ll leave right now!”
“Kolag? Tomorrow!” I still need to talk to you… I’d rather we make up before you leave… before you may die on me… I don’t want our last moment together to be one that we hate each other…
“Every minute is a waste of time! Lives are at stake!” he declares stubbornly.
Oh for the love of… “Is it a waste of time that I want to spend one more night with you before you leave?! Before you might die on me and I may never see you again?! Is it too much to ask?”
He turns with a grunt and sits down in his chair again.
“So how will this work Salik, in terms of strategy?” I pretend not to care about the looks I get from the rest of my advisors. It’s easier when my face is behind a beautiful mask of a butterfly. So what if I love him?! It’s none of your rotten business!
“Ahem… well. They’ll arrive by the river, we need to sink a couple of ships to block the docks. We could also try attacking them at night with fireboats, which is a gamble, and we’ll need to place eyes to tell us before they get there. Other than that, we need to construct some siege war machines as soon as possible, we have the wood for it at least. I doubt they’ll lay siege for long, they’ll try and break through the walls with their numbers. I’d much rather lure them into guerilla warfare in the streets than fight them over the wall. Unless you get me those orcs in time, then, we may be able to hold the walls for a little while…”
The meeting goes on, but we just repeat the same decisions we’ve already made. The council goes on to their business, and I gesture for Kolag to follow me back to my room.
*~*~*
Power level: 3rd stage apprentice.
Mana pools status:
Crown-knot: Affinity 10: connected: 1 gem replenished per minute.
Neck-Bridge: Affinity 6: formed: max amount of gems drained per day: 73
Abdomen-storage: Affinity 5: formed: 11 gems. Conversion ratio: 6:1
Air: Affinity 4: formed: 22 gems
Fire: Affinity 2: formed: 11 gems
Light: Affinity 3: formed: 16/17 gems
Water: Affinity 6: formed: 33 gems
Earth: Affinity 1: formed: 5 gems
Wood: Affinity 2: formed: 11 gems
Gravity: Affinity 9: formed: 49/50 gems
Cantrip known:
Air: Shavi’s Breeze, Shavi’s Sword. Shavi’s Hair Dryer, Aria’s Enhanced Hearing. Aria’s Sonic Scream.
Fire: Nuriss’ Flame. Effrat’s Firefly, Effrat’s Fire Breath. Sorladika's Lesser Heating. Nuriss’ Ignite. Oniga's Soap Creation.
Light: Noxi’s Light. Lako’s Blinding Light. Rika’s energy hand.
Water: Water Evocation, Water to Ice, Ice to Water, Water to Vapor, Vapor to Water, Mayan’s Icy Spike, Ayla’s Water Jet. Ayla’s instant freeze. Ayla's Flowing Shield.
Earth: Alice’s Oil Summoning, Reiko’s Acid Spray. Alf's Copper Bolt
Wood: Arigor’s Lesser Vines. Kolosu’s Vegetable Summoning.
Gravity: Lumina’s Kinetic Burst. Tukado’s Repulse. Tukado’s Lesser Shield II. Imari’s Minor Telekinesis. Imari’s Jump. Leo’s Pull. Leo’s Grounding. Alino’s Light Body. Alino’s Heavy Body. Alino's Orbiter.
Transmutation: Oniga's Laundry.
Spells known:
Light: Rika's Electric channelb
Gravity: Alino’s Weightless Bodyb.
Life: Brigit’s Lesser Cure Poison.
Focus capability: 15 patterns.
Social status: The Queen of Red Cedar City. Inara, Daughter of Mysteries. Apprentice to the Maven of Mysteries. Sorceress.
Personal Wealth: 1761 Magic Gems. 40 Diamonds. 1420 Golden Peas, 45 Silver Scales, 32 Copper Bits.
Personal Items:
Magical necklace. Contains 100 gems of general mana, can be drained like a mana pool. It’ll recharge by itself at the rate of five gems an hour.
1 potion of lightning body.
1 potion of mana, medium grade.
5 potions of Lesser Healing.
5 potions of Pain Tolerance.
An enchanted belt with eight pouches, the enchantment keeps the pouches’ content fresh. Each pouch may contain 10g of petals or six potion flasks.
Fresh rose petals, 39g
Fresh lavender petals, 10g
10 empty soul bottles. Glass with a diamond stopper, put in scaled leather wrapping.
The Great White Egret grimoire. Dedicated by the Maven of mysteries to Inara. 24/100
Present Companions:
Kolag of house Befar
Salik
Zoe
Ryon
Languages:
Toml’a <People’s tongue> Fluent
Sinteo <Speech> Fluent
Myrsha <Gravity> 8/10
Felul <Wind> 1/10
Injuries and scars: melted skin; face, upper chest, chain scar.
-
Kingdom’s treasury: 8,438 gold coins.
Kingdom’s citizen: 5,898 humans, 2,251 human children.
Kingdom's army: 800 levy militia. 900 footmen. 26 peacekeeper knights.
Notables at Court:
Tasiya Keyholder
Jolla SilverQuill
Talbot Bookkeeper
Marasi Chef extraordinaire (spymaster.)
Old Gardner Tiom
