HankTheMoose
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3.13 Priorities
🕑 Added 2024-11-28 14:37:50 +0000 UTC“Tell me what you’ve worked out about the Temples, so far,” Iriala demanded, stabbing her fork into some greens. She’d summoned Bernt to her office for lunch – the second time she’d done so since he’d been reassigned to the guild.
The first time around, she’d grilled him about post-Madurian history. He’d answered her questions as best he could, but the archmage had exacting standards. Sure, he knew what happened and when, but she’d wanted interpretation and applicability in the modern context.
This time, he’d come prepared to do better.
“They don’t really get along,” Bernt said. “The Invigilation isn’t really an alliance of like-minded gods, or their temples. If you look at their writings, it’s clear that they really only have one thing in common – they’re all interventionists.”
Iriala looked at him over her glasses for a moment and then resumed eating. Bernt took her silence for confirmation that he was on the right track.
“All of the gods had good reason to take offense at the purge of their temples in Mahat’Ur, but only those four actually intervened personally. Working together probably only served to ensure that a more conservative god, like Oreleth, or Rouan, wouldn’t challenge them for their direct interference. After all, their actions nearly led to the destruction of human civilization. They were taking a risk.”
“Good. What does that mean for us?” Iriala asked. “Specifically, with regard to political influence.”
Bernt shrugged. “It means we can deal with each temple individually. Each of them have relatively simple and predictable objectives and interests. Noruk wants to facilitate unity through conquest, while Balarian wants freedom, novelty and heterogeneity. Eyeli wants to create prosperity through order and growth, and Ruzinia just wants to save everyone.”
“Which means,” Iriala finished, offering him a small nod, “that getting an individual temple’s support is often as simple as aligning your actions and objectives with their relatively simple interests.”
“Right.” Bernt said. “But what are our objectives? You haven’t even told me what our interests are. The guild, I mean. What do you want me to get out of it for you?”
Iriala scoffed. “It’s not about me, young wizard. The Mages’ Guild is a powerful institution in Besermark – and the oldest one, for that matter. We aren’t the most popular, the largest, or the wealthiest guild, but we’ve always been closest to the ears of the powerful. We’ve represented the backbone of every human military and every center of learning and academics since the Madurian Empire. We are their true legacy, more than any other institution. Every ruling noble in the country has a court mage to advise them – not a court warlock or a court berserker.”
Bernt took a bite of his own lunch – a sadly bland vegetable wrap he’d bought at a nearby market for a few coppers – and chewed unenthusiastically to give himself a moment to think. “So, we just want to make sure we’re part of the action? So we don’t lose face?”
“No,” Iriala said bluntly. “Of course not. We want to prevent a massive war from breaking out if at all possible. Chaos is the catalyst for political and societal change, and the guild has a lot to lose. We’re vulnerable. Our guild is active in infrastructure management, communication, security and warding, medicine, construction, agriculture and nearly every major industry in the country. We already lose too many fresh academy graduates to the military – we absolutely can’t afford to have hundreds of our guild mages drafted and killed fighting the Duergar. The entire country’s economy would collapse. And that’s if we win!”
“Right, and the king can’t afford that either,” Bernt said slowly, as several other facts finally clicked into place in his mind. “That’s why the count and the guilds are just letting the Temples take over like this, right? Nobody has the resources to fund a massive war. If the Invigilation is in charge, they’ll have to use their own resources, and also pull in all of our neighbors to share the load.”
Iriala shrugged. “If it comes to that. Our interests are clear. We need the Invigilation to take things one step at a time – to reach out to the Duergar’s Imperial Council and discover their intentions. I expect that they don’t understand the extent to which their vassal is trafficking with demons. If we’re lucky, they’ll simply fight amongst themselves and leave us out of it entirely.”
“That… that would be ideal.”
Bernt tried to imagine it. It sounded too good to be true, considering how things had been going.
“It would,” Iriala agreed, “but there’s no chance of that happening if Noruk’s warmongers march an army of fanatics down there first. The only way to reach the best possible future is to make that future for ourselves. So, we know what Noruk wants – he and his priests are obviously not a potential ally. What have you learned about Eyeli?”
***
Bernt left the lunch meeting disturbed by the implications of what the archmage had told him. Did Iriala seriously expect him to single-handedly influence the entire Invigilation to do as she wished? It seemed laughable. He wouldn’t need to convince Torvald to speak out against invading a foreign empire on Noruk’s say so. But what was that worth?
How much weight would Torvald’s word carry? Bernt wasn’t part of the conclave – he could only try to talk to people informally. But why would anyone at the Sacral Peaks listen to him? How did Iriala expect him to change anything?
Trying to banish the looming sense of dread that had formed in his stomach over the course of the meeting, Bernt dropped by Magister Pollock’s office to discuss potential experiments that he could run in the Phoenix Reaches. Despite himself, though, he quickly found himself derailing the conversation and spilling his worries out to the old man, starting with the lunch meeting, and explaining backwards to where he agreed to become Torvald’s legitimator.
“Take a breath, boy.” Pollock admonished him. “Iriala has always been too focused on her schemes, you hear me? The world will burn tomorrow, or it won’t.”
The old man leaned forward, tapping on the pages of Bernt’s notes on his desk as he met his eyes. “It’s all just a distraction. This, right here, is real history.”
“The archmage says this could impact the future of the entire guild, and all of Besermark with it! How can I ignore that?!”
Pollock shrugged. “A few cities more or less in the world – that’s a concern for kings and emperors. That’s why they get to wear a golden hat! Powerful people with more knowledge and experience than you are already working to protect the status quo – that’s what Iriala wants, is it not?”
“I guess.” Bernt conceded. “She didn’t sound confident that things would go our way, though.”
“It doesn’t matter! There’s always something threatening the kingdom. You just never hear about most of it. When you can, you should leave those concerns to the people who are best equipped to deal with them. You need to consider what you can do better than anyone else.”
Bernt looked down at the notes the old wizard had been poking at a moment before.
“Experiments?”
“Research!” Pollock corrected him emphatically. “Research into the applications of sorcery and sorcerous investitures in magecraft. Preventing a larger war is laudable, but it’s a poor use of your time. These experiments are important! Far more important than politicking with priests. You invented a method for restoring burnt out war mages to service. Perfecting that, and developing yourself to see where we can take it in the future, would make a huge difference. Instead of supplying guild mages for a war, for example, we could restore trained veterans in trade. It would strengthen both the guild and the entire country as a whole!”
Bernt blinked at Pollock, surprised at the frustration that had crept in his voice as he spoke. “Uh. I heard that former war mages were already using it, actually. Fiora – my boss – was a war mage. She said that mages would have started using my method the moment they heard about it.”
Pollock scoffed dismissively. “All the more reason to speed this along! Without a proper, officially sanctioned procedure, you’ll have people burning their spirits to cinders with improperly optimized hellfire derivatives. This sort of thing needs to be done in a controlled environment with trained experts!”
That seemed more than a little hypocritical to Bernt, considering the kinds of risks that Pollock considered entirely justified for himself and wizards in general. Considering the man’s mood, though, he decided not to mention it.
“Alright, then, why don’t we go to Iriala and ask her about it? I’m sure she’ll see the sense behind it if we explain it like that. Maybe I could bring an entire research team along!”
“I have.” Pollock said, sounding suddenly exhausted. “I’ve been hounding her about it for weeks. She’s too conservative – says I’m pushing you too fast, and that the guild in Teres needs to get used to the idea before we can get anything officially endorsed. There’s a lot of resistance there to the idea that ‘primitive’ magic like sorcery should have a place in the guild at all.”
Bernt ran a hand through his hair and tried not to curse.
“So, I actually have two important jobs to do, but I can only get support for the one that I’m unqualified for,” he concluded, the earlier sense of dread he’d been feeling returning, now redoubled.
“Nonsense!” The old wizard cackled. “You have one job and I’ll help you with it. The one Iriala gave you is a waste of time. But she’s still throwing lots of time and guild resources your way, and that is not a waste. A good general education never is.” He picked up the notepaper in front of him and waved it in front of Bernt’s face.
“Now, I have to ask, what exactly do you hope to learn by summoning a lesser flame sprite?”
Bernt shrugged. “I want to toss one into a rune circle to see if it’ll unravel into a spellform. The description made it sound almost like a cross between a spell and an elemental. If I’m lucky, I might be able to use it as a sort of bridging investiture.”
Pollock squinted at Bernt in consternation. Then, he opened his mouth, closed it again, crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling, considering. Finally, a slow crooked grin spread across his face.
“And if it doesn’t work, you might still be able to harvest something from it that might support the growth of your sorcerous investitureYou are a madman, Bernt.” he chuckled. “But I like the way you think.”
***
By the time Bernt left to go home that night, he felt almost confident. Well, maybe confident was a bit of an exaggeration, but he had a direction. Goals that felt achievable. Sure, he would do what he’d promised to Iriala and talk to whoever might listen at the Sacral Peaks. Ultimately, though, he was sure that Pollock was right. The biggest impact he could have was as a wizard, not as some kind of Mages’ Guild diplomat.
The old pyromancer had not only helped him refine his experiments, he’d also given him a list of potential materials to look for. Most of those had already been in the reading materials Bernt had checked out about the Phoenix Reaches from the library, but Pollock’s list included their uses in various mana network architectures, and even a few notes about alchemy and ritual magic.
After stopping for a few sticky buns from a familiar-looking street vendor in the Temple District, Bernt made his way through the inner gate to the ruined Crafters’ District. It was already dark out, and he could make out the shadowed silhouettes of Duergar prisoners as they repaired cracked foundations and laid new ones. Seeing them there, calmly working in the middle of Halfbridge still left a bad taste in his mouth.
Tugging his scarf tighter around his neck, he hurried past, suddenly feeling unaccountably disturbed. Something felt… wrong, here. It was too quiet, somehow, and too dark. He could still hear the noises made by the Duergar workers, of course, but the blood rushing through his ears was even louder.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and Bernt flinched, whirling around.
A silhouette stood in the street behind him, nearly half as tall again as he was. Quick as a snake, the shadow reached for him, a creepy, six-fingered hand darting at his face. Bernt, though, had reacted even before he’d fully registered what he was seeing.
Light flared in his right hand as he poured manaburn out into it and flung it forward toward his assailant.
The motion turned out to be unnecessary. As soon as the light touched the shade, it collapsed down, stretching out along the ground away from him like the shadow of a man that wasn’t there. It wriggled oddly, as if the demon were still trying to strike him, but it couldn’t break out of its two-dimensional form. The shadow advanced, feet first. It briefly crept up onto his robes, but was forcibly pushed back by the light a moment later.
Realizing what it was, Bernt lifted the flame flickering in his right hand to keep it down as he formed banefire in his left. Before he could finish casting, though, the shadow flickered and was gone.
Bernt whirled around, trying to find it, but there was nothing there. The Duergar were still working, though one was looking curiously at the light Bernt was holding up. Bernt glared at him until he looked away, and then turned to continue making his way to the Undercity. He’d have to report this to the Solicitors, but he doubted any of them would still be in the office.
For good measure, Bernt cast a torch spell and set it hovering over his shoulder. He didn’t care how many strange looks he got, he was never going anywhere without a light ever again.
Comments
Stephen Pearson
Thanks for the chapter! :-)
