Blessed time 2 coda a li.., p.5
Blessed Time 2: Coda: A LitRPG Adventure, page 5
“Like the nightwasps,” Trevor agreed. A flash of realization went off behind his eyes, and he pursed his lips at Micah. “Say, brother dearest… you didn’t have us fight the nightwasps because you knew I wasn’t ready to fight a swarm of opponents, did you?”
“You’d either follow my instructions or you’d learn you weren’t invulnerable.” Micah shrugged back at his brother. “A little pain to learn the lesson now beats you running ahead of a party and getting seriously injured in a more dangerous situation. Plus”—he flashed Trevor an impish grin—“think of this as revenge for the entire ‘pepper’ thing with Becky.”
“Are you kidding me?” Trevor stared at him incredulously. “That must have been over a decade ago for you.”
Micah didn’t respond. The warrior in front of them had finished his purchase, a large steel shield with padded leather straps. He walked up to the counter, trying to project an aura of innocence.
“Hi!” he said cheerfully, piling the boots and bracers onto the table in front of the shop assistant. It wasn’t the one he’d worked with on his last visit to Haarvash’s, but she wore the same low-cut uniform and pretty smile. Clearly Haarvash wanted his customers dazzled and distracted while they made their purchases.
“Hello to you too.” The woman working the counter looked dubiously down at Micah. “I can call Haarvash over if you want, but I’m pretty sure none of this equipment qualifies for youth pay. Luxos isn’t likely to reimburse us for adventuring gear, so I probably won’t be able to just give it to you.”
“Oh, that’s fine!” Micah tried to put as much excitement and cheer as possible into his expression. The clerk would expect an excitable youth, and that’s exactly what he was going to give her. “My brother just got his blessing and he’s going to be an adventurer. Mom and Dad transferred some attunement to me so I could buy him gear as a birthday gift.”
“Well, isn’t that nice.” Her expression morphed back into a candy-sweet smile as professionalism took over. “Is the handsome young man over there your brother?”
She nodded at Trevor, which the young man took as an excuse to saunter over. Micah bit his tongue as her eyes flicked up and down Trevor’s well-muscled body. The two of them locked eyes, and he just stood there, more or less forgotten with his half-completed transaction.
“I saw you were talking about me.” Trevor’s voice was about an octave lower than Micah remembered. It took everything in Micah to not roll his eyes when Trevor ran his fingers through his thick chestnut hair. “My kid brother isn’t bothering you, is he? The least I can do is make it up to you by buying you lunch.”
“I’m on duty for the next two hours, but after that…” The woman trailed off, blushing slightly as Trevor leaned across the counter.
“That sounds almost as great as you.” Trevor winked at her. “I’m Trevor Silver, what should I call you?”
Micah snorted, unable to help himself. Here he was trying to save the world, and all his brother could think of was a pretty smile. Ultimately, Micah's reaction didn’t matter. Trevor and the clerk were too wrapped up in each other to notice anything around them.
“Claire Attin.” She smiled at him, flashing her clear blue eyes. “Why don’t we go somewhere near the docks? I love seafood, and I know a place that has the best dire sea snapper on the Horn Coast.”
“But Trevor,” Micah interjected, trying his hardest to sound like a child mid-tantrum, “don’t you remember that you were going to come with me to see my friend? You promised!”
“Your friend wouldn’t happen to be a girl, would it?” Claire looked at Micah for the first time since their initial exchange, a hint of suspicion in her voice.
“No.” Micah pointedly ignored the way Trevor’s muscles locked and his jaw clenched. “They’re just out in the forest outside town, and Trevor’s been promising to take me out there for a week or two. The plan was to head out right after I bought his new birthday gear.”
Claire’s expression softened. Her deft fingers quickly checked the tags on the gear, and she made a note on a ledger chained to the front counter.
“We wouldn’t want to make you late for meeting your friend,” she practically crooned. “That will be a half attunement for the both of them.”
Micah touched her extended hand and willed the attunement to transfer. His hand grew warm for a second. The woman retracted her hand, and her eyes went blank for a second as she checked her status. Finally she nodded and passed the gear back to Micah.
“And as for you, Mr. Silver”—she winked at Trevor—“I have tomorrow off of work. Meet me at the corner of Flower and Schooner Street at noon.”
“A lovely plan for a lovely woman,” he replied smoothly before turning to follow Micah out of the store.
As soon as they were outside, Micah roughly handed the gear over to Trevor. Briefly he flexed his hands to return feeling to them after clutching the arm and shin coverings tightly. Micah might have the points in Body that he needed to carry the gear, but his tiny arms and hands still made the process uncomfortable and awkward.
“Put this in your backpack,” Micah said. “You’re going to need to have it on hand. If you’re actually wearing it, you won’t be able to have it ready in time.
“I thought you were going to try and screw me over in there,” Trevor chuckled briefly before frowning. “Wait, why do I need to have the greaves and bracers easily accessible? From what you said, enchanting takes hours of work. You’re making it sound like I’ll need to have them ready at a moment’s notice.”
“First of all”—Micah smiled as he began leading Trevor toward the city gate—“I’d never get in between you and a girl. I mean, I’ll let you get stung by wasps for being dumb in a second, but no matter how gross it is watching my own brother hit on someone, I’m not stepping into that.”
“Thanks,” Trevor laughed as he shouldered his travel pack, weaving through the crowd after Micah. “Say, I don’t suppose you have anything about Claire in that little book of yours. Maybe what her favorite color is, gift ideas, or anything like that?”
“While that might be what you’d use time travel for”—Micah shook his head, the smile still on his face—“alas, it is not what I used the Folio for. As for the enchanting? I found a new way to do it that doesn’t require a sacrifice. The tradeoff is that we need the energy source to be alive.”
“Wait.” Trevor’s expression clouded. “Does that mean you expect me to restrain and pin down a wild animal while you perform some sort of ritual on it?”
“If you’re going to get a day off,” Micah replied with a chuckle, “I’m going to make you work for it. Think of it as a character-building enterprise.”
Trevor cheered up noticeably once Micah confirmed that they’d have a rest day. Personally, Micah would probably need a day or so to recover from the rigors of enchanting Trevor’s armor and his own spear.
Three hours later, Trevor’s cheer was completely gone as the two of them chased an aging stag through the forest. A grin split Micah’s face as he chased after the deer that would become Telivern while Trevor, shrouded in sweat and constant mumbled curses, tried his best to keep up with him.
Micah turned his body sideways and slipped past an oak tree, the branches of a nearby bush scratching at the back of his tunic as he tore after the stag. He reached outward with a hand, using plant weave to grip at the deer with nearby foliage, slowing it for a second.
It broke free before he could make it within twenty paces, but Micah’s smile only grew wider. The last time he tried the trick, it had escaped before he could make it within fifty. After an hour of chasing the animal, it was finally beginning to tire.
Behind him, Micah heard the sound of a branch snapping and some more swearing. An hour of chasing the stag tired more than just their quarry out. Trevor’s breaths were ragged and erratic as he ducked under yet another branch trying to keep up.
The deer pulled ahead, crashing through a bush it no longer had the energy to go around. Micah activated plant weave once again, infusing his mana into roots and boughs of the bush to wrap them around the fleeing animal.
It tripped as a branch slapped into a hoof mid-leap. Startled, the stag stumbled and fell to the forest floor. Quickly, Micah repeated the spell, wrapping tree roots around the downed animal.
It struggled against the bonds, trying to free itself before collapsing once more to the dirt. Its eyes darted to Micah as it trembled with panic. He winced at the uncomprehending terror reflected in his friend’s gaze.
“Shh,” he whispered as he approached it, petting its fur gently. “I’m not gonna hurt you. In fact, this should help you out quite a lot.”
It shuddered under his hand, heart beating in quick stutters as it looked for an escape route.
“Don’t worry,” Micah said, his voice quiet as Trevor caught up. “Pretty soon all of those aches and pains are going to be a thing of the past. Just hold still for a little bit, and you’ll be as healthy as a yearling in no time at all.”
Trevor stumbled into the clearing behind him. With a wheeze, he dropped his backpack onto the forest floor and put his hands on his knees, trying to steady his heavy breathing with huge gasps of the earthy summer air.
“Once you’re ready, bring the armor over here—I’ll start prepping the enchanting circle in just a minute.” Micah raised his voice so that Trevor could hear him, his hand petting the heaving fur of the stag’s sides, uninterrupted by his split focus.
“So, is this deer the sacrifice?” Trevor asked casually as he opened up his backpack and set it down next to Micah. “Are we going to get some venison out of this debacle? I’m hungry enough to eat an entire boar.”
The stag trembled beneath Micah, drawing a disapproving hiss from him as he shot an angry glance back at Trevor.
“No,” he bit out, a hint of anger flaring. “The deer is a friend, not food. Now get over here. I’ll need you to hold it down if it breaks free from the spell while I set up the enchanting.”
Trevor grumbled as Micah began to spread the quartz dust in a circle around the trapped animal. His ire dissipated when he noticed the deer calming under Trevor’s grasp. Maybe everything wasn’t going as planned, but things were certainly moving in the right direction.
7
Deer Friends
Micah made a note of the sun’s position, scratching the data hastily into the Folio. Whispering under his breath, he flipped to a page detailing his observations from a previous timeline on the current astrological conditions.
The stag snorted. Most of the gray had left its fur by the time Micah enchanted Trevor’s greaves and bracers, but there were still some hints as to the animal's age. Stiffness in its gait, a slight discoloration around its eyes—nothing definitive, but enough that Micah knew it had at least a couple years left to give him.
“Don’t worry about it too much,” he spoke to the animal, not looking up from the Folio. “I’m almost done setting up the final ritual. Just hold still a little longer and I’ll clear up all those nagging aches from old age.”
The deer cocked its head at him before chuffing out a breath. It lowered its head and began eating grass, every inch of its body displaying forced disinterest.
“Yeah, yeah,” Micah chuckled as he placed the ritual’s reagents carefully into the quartz circle surrounding the stag. “Give me the cold shoulder. I’m used to it by now.”
The stag raised its head, a tuft of grass in its mouth while it contemplated Micah. It watched on, wholly unafraid while he placed the mask over his head. At his level, Micah could probably cure the ailments brought on by inhaling the mixture of crushed obsidian and mercury that he needed to paint the runes around the outside of the ritual circle.
Micah could feel its eyes on him as he worked in silence, the sun beating down on him and sweat dampening his hair. He sighed; it was hard enough to see what his hands were doing through the smoky glass of the mask’s eye holes, but the heavy waterproof cloth didn’t breathe at all.
That was the downside to enchanting. The detail and nuance required by the runes forced the enchanter to either paint them using a liquid or inscribe them into a stone floor with a chisel. Of course, if he were truly desperate, Micah could always try to draw them in the forest soil with a finger or stick. Unfortunately, it was hard to ensure that the corners and curves of any rune drawn in soil were crisp. For anything more than a beginner’s enchantment, the tendency of soil to flake off or cave in would doom any but the luckiest enchantment.
Even as his enchanting skill improved, Micah still preferred ritual magic. Admittedly, there were plenty of similarities, but by and large ritual magic castings focused more on external factors such as the state of the cosmos and the environment in which the ritual was to be enacted. It was still hard work, but most of that hard work was performed in a cool and dark library. Possibly sitting on a couch.
Enchanting involved precision work. Rather than days researching the ritual, Micah spent painful hours cramped and hunched over, straining his eyes to make sure curves and angles of his runes were drawn correctly. He’d spent the tail end of the last timeline perfecting the art, but it still tried his patience each and every time.
Standing up, Micah stepped back from the circle and pulled off the heavy mask, sucking in deep breaths of the rich and earthy air. The deer cocked its head before returning to its meal of grass.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” Micah chuckled, grabbing his spear and placing it into the center of the circle next to the dismissive animal. “I know that my activities are intruding on the big day of eating and napping you had planned, but I’ll let you get to it shortly.”
He stepped back and nodded at the circle in satisfaction. The runes needed to hold the enchantment had long since been carved on his spear. All that remained was for him to enact the enchanting ritual itself.
The nonsense words flowed past Micah’s lips as he curved his hands into the seals called for by the casting. Mentally, he grasped onto the temporal energy dwelling inside the stag and pulled, creating a gossamer thread of power that tied the ritual circle, the deer, and the weapon together.
The deer twitched slightly, flicking its ears in discomfort as the ritual’s magic began to pull the years from it. Micah bit his lower lip, flicking his wrists like a conductor directing an orchestra as he channeled the temporal energy into the spear. Vertigo washed over Micah when a full point of attunement was ripped from his body to fuel the ritual.
Even with the aid of the temporal energy, the cost of the enchantment was incredibly steep. Micah didn’t see the point in half-measures. He already had skills necessary to craft a high-end enchanted weapon. There really wasn’t a point in delaying the casting. With the stag on hand, he had everything he needed to create a tool that would serve him well throughout the entire Durgh incursion.
One rune after another lit up along the weapon’s haft. Static electricity ran up and down Micah’s arms as he reached out, grasping the thread of energy with his mind. With his other hand, Micah drew runes in the air. They glowed briefly, mirroring the carvings on the spear as they flared with occult energy.
The symphony of mana and colors rose to a crescendo. Micah reached out with both hands, grasping onto the almost-completed spell form. Alien words spilled off of his tongue as he forced it into the spear.
Light flared, illuminating the clearing as the spear erupted into a rainbow of luminescence. One by one, the reagents melted, their essence pouring into the ritual and tempering the enchantment.
Micah’s voice swelled, his hands gesticulating wildly as he teased and coaxed the temporal energy and free attunement into their proper shape. He squinted his eyes against the blinding aura spilling off of the stag and spear, struggling to keep the mana in its proper place for only a couple seconds longer.
Then the enchantment finished. The light flickered out, leaving Micah stunned and blinking. His spear almost seemed to writhe with energy as the potential from the enchantments coursed up and down its length.
Micah staggered forward and picked up the spear, his eyes heavy. His arms felt leaden, their movements dull as he inspected the weapon. It was like he’d just run for hours and hours, an exhaustion of the soul rather than the body.
The deer snorted.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Micah responded with a lethargic smile. “I told you that the ritual would only help out.”
It approached him, shoving its muzzle into Micah’s neck. For a brief moment he felt the cold damp nose against his skin before it was replaced by the sandpaper roughness of the deer's tongue against his cheek.
“You’re welcome.” Micah patted it on the side of its head, shifting his hand slightly to avoid its antlers. “The rituals should be done now. If I use any more on you, you’ll end up as a faun again, and I speak from experience when I say that reliving your awkward childhood sounds better in theory than it is in reality.”
It stepped away from Micah, cocking its head at him quizzically.
“Nothing so drastic,” Micah replied, holding the spear up so that he could inspect its delicate runework. “I knew where to find you because I’m a time traveler. We’ve met before. Over the course of a couple lonely years, you became the closest thing I had to a friend. We fought side by side until you evolved. There hasn’t been much that’s gone completely right in my life, but you feature prominently amongst most of those memories.”
The deer bopped Micah on the cheek with its nose, drawing his attention away from his new weapon. It flicked its ears at him, as if to emphasize an unspoken question.
“I can’t tell you what you’ll evolve into.” Micah winked at the stag. “That’d be cheating. You’ll just have to kill a bunch of monsters with me to find out.”
