The money had started coming every week. Naori was very confused at first, after all, a mage on a horse wearing some sort of uniform just arrived at her small little hut and handed her the sack with coins in it."You must have made a mistake," she had said. The man didn't have much to tell her other than that there was no mistake, Naori was the addressee. Every week the same man came to deliver her a small sack of coins, and every week she tried to get more information from him. All she learned was that the money was coming from a mage named Wintersbane, and that he sent it from the Sheriff's headquarters.Naori was young, but she knew that this wasn't normal. After 4 weeks, she had more money than she'd ever seen before, and she cried. A lot. She wished her parents and Shinra were here too.After 6 weeks, she estimated there was enough money for them to move to a better home and not work for over a year. Without Shinra though, she didn't need a better home, so she might not have
In some ways, the room was as familiar as her lab at home. It was filled with books, and several workstations with bubbling concoctions and glass beakers and tubes. Loren wasn’t study wine making any longer though. She had started with a focus on agriculture, but found that the discoveries she had implemented in Innisrillin were decades ahead of the research in the THRUST agriculture department. She spent a few weeks there, but quickly tired of teaching her professors, instead of learning, so she switched to the weather department. Surely something as important, and elemental as the weather had centuries of research behind it. And it did, but the professors and students there had a very theoretical approach. They were nearly philosophers instead of Magic researchers, and she bored of it even faster than the agriculture group.Loren had despaired, truthfully she thought, ‘If this is the state of magical research in the Capital, why did I leave my friends and family?’. Then it ha
Loren was energised like never before. She tried to speak to the professor after the lecture, but he was surrounded by a throng of students and she lost her nerve. Instead, she went straight to the Administration building and switched her major, again. “What is your new Major?” the administrator asked, a slight smile tugging at her lips. She had processed Loren’s other transfers and thought it was funny. Not a lot of students could afford to be so indecisive, but this one brought out her banking sigil like it had unlimited funds behind it. Banking sigils were small mithril plates with a simple but powerful spell on them that could be used to transfer money between sigil holders. Their use had revolutionised commerce so much that the banks no longer moved silver, gold and platinum between accounts, they just maintained the architecture and log books of the vast and complex banking sigil spell.Loren’s sigil had a delicate engraving of grapes on a vine, and she waved it towards
Loren approached like a thundercloud. It was a testament to how self absorbed the male students were that they didn’t notice as she came upon them. Each step her plan changed, ranging from yelling at them to blasting them with a bolt of lightning.She could see the small person they had surrounded. The little girl was dressed like most zombie villagers in a sturdy homespun cloth dress that reached her ankles, an unbleached cream shirt and a dark woollen vest. On her head, she wore a simple linen kerchief that kept her long hair from blowing into her face. ‘Oh, she is so beautiful!’ Loren thought. ‘How could these mages see this perfect angel and not feel protective of her?’ This only made her angrier.She could hear the girl now.“I’m sorry I’ve upset you. I thought Zombies had access to all public spaces?” Strangely, the girl didn’t sound afraid, just curious.Loren wondered how a Zombie, with all the prejudice they normally faced, could be so calm?You see, I was led to be
Shinra had a limited view of the world above him, but he could see through his dark mirror enough to know the heads of the guild were unleashing a lot of magic to where he had been. It was impressive. He couldn’t make out the colours, but there were flashes of elemental magic, and things more powerful, like that blue wave that had pushed him back at the last second.Shinra knew enough about magic from word of mouth to understand that elemental magic was the easiest for mages to use, because it required less weaving. Elemental spells were usually destructive, and were often the strongest spells most mages could do. Since the weaves were simple, they could put more of their magic into it. When Shinra thought about it, it made him more impressed by Loren. She was building things with magic that was several levels beyond what these Assassin mages were showing right now.‘Don’t get cocky,’ he reminded himself. ‘They aren’t the ones hiding inside a protected dimension trying not to t
Shinra waited a full minute after the leaders of the guild left before emerging from the shadow. He was surprised he came out dry, because it felt so much like he had been submerged. Though he was bleeding from several wounds on his back, he didn’t have time to check them. It hurt to make big movements, but the pain was manageable.He crept through the open door, past the first 3 bodies, and looked for the last 3 assassins’ trail. He could do this. They were strong, but now he’d have the element of surprise.It wasn’t hard to find the men, they travelled slowly through the Manor, looking for survivors. They didn’t find any, and Shinra was wary of getting too close. He couldn’t see the attack weaves they’d spun, but the air around each man crackled with energy. Shinra was starting to regret not pressing the attack earlier, while they were surprised and disoriented. Maybe that state would only have lasted a few seconds more, because the men in front of him now were all business.
Shinra decided he had nothing to lose. These guys looked like they had no small amount of pride as well. 'I guess I can use that to my advantage.' "Huh it looks like I'm the only one being drawn out by your spell. I wonder what that means?"Shinra affected of cocky questioning grin on his face. He had to admit he didn't feel nearly so confident right now but men were looking at him like he was a mouse that had come out to play with tigers. But this mouse had killed all the other cats and he needed to remember that." I guess they all fell asleep? I expected so much more from the Akasooki guild. "Even though the force was still tugging Shinra forward, he found yet much more control of his motion if he didn't fight against it too much. Which was why he was able to plant his front foot and do a 180 side step and then reverse it in the other way traveling forwards and something like a zig zag line for three steps. Which was important because he heard the crash of high velocity project
“What do you mean I can’t see him?” Loren was not the kind of woman who let anything, or anyone stop her.“Ma’am, you can’t just walk into the palace complex and go where you want.” The speaker was a nervous looking young mage, wearing the green robes of an imperial administrator. Administrators were the grease that kept the machinery of the empire moving, an army of them worked with each minister and department, and they did everything from schedule meetings to collecting taxes.In Loren’s experience though, they were bureaucratic piss ants that pretended to help people, but really just wanted to exercise their authority whenever they could. They hid behind rules and process, rather than actually getting things done. If Loren had tried to innovate farming closer to the capital, where these administrators held sway, she would still be filling out applications for the right to change the spacing between her grape vines. The Administrator smiled, and the little glint there told