Last Words chapter 41 (Patreon)

Esther set up the meeting with the scribe, and when I tried to pay, had just waved me off. Apparently the scribe was an old friend. I suspected her whole speech about how expensive it was had been partially aimed at driving me off this course of action. I ALSO suspected that, knowing she couldn’t, she was going out of her way to help me the only way she knew how.

It warmed my heart knowing I had such good friends here. Esther had been kind of my rock since I landed in this world. Warm, kind, and supportive, she was about ten times more affectionate than my own mother had ever been, and I felt seriously indebted to her, though I’d never say so because she would probably smack me upside the head for it.

Honestly, it made me tempted to tell her the truth. I wasn’t sure exactly how becoming a mage worked, but I suspected that the normal rules about some people just not being able to condense a mana body were simply a lack of resources in this small town. None of my people had any issues creating theirs, and I hadn’t really seen many mana fruits in town. Given the presence of the dangerous animals in the forest and how they hoarded the fruit, that wasn’t too surprising, but it did explain a lot.

I was betting a mana fruit could solve Esther’s problem, and probably Bran’s too. Although…come to think of it I couldn’t remember if Esther had ever actually told me she couldn’t form a mana body. She might have mentioned not being mana touched at one point, but I was pretty sure that was back when I first arrived and she thought I might be one of the baron’s lackeys.

Given her knowledge, it wouldn’t shock me if she was already well into or even past a Beginner mana body, but that was her business. She’d already done more than enough for me without me prying into her life. I decided after I applied my first pattern I would offer her and Bran mana fruits, claiming I’d gotten them in trade with the Silent Pond. I’d put off the possibility of telling them about the door for when I knew them better. It felt disloyal to doubt them like that, but they couldn’t come through until next year anyway, so there was no real rush. Knowing had no benefit for them.

My appointment with the Scribe was around noon, so after waking up to a hearty bowl of stew (I was becoming increasingly convinced Esther didn’t know how to cook almost anything else), I headed into town with Bran acting as a guide.

Bran, despite being one of the grooms at the Inn’s stable, had dreamed of being a Scribe himself when he was a kid, and apparently he’d apprenticed under the Scribe Esther was sending me to. That was actually how they’d been introduced. So naturally he knew the way there and was able to guide me and act as a go between for Esther and her mysterious Scribe friend.

“So, tell me what I need to know about this Scribe,” I told Bran as we walked. “What are the rules here? Am I supposed to avert my gaze? Do they have some special title? Do I enter the room backwards and spin around three times? People have given me conflicting descriptions of Scribes, with some of them making them sound like service professionals and some making them sound like major power brokers. What’s the etiquette?”

He snorted at that. “Nothing so formal. At least not for a Scribe at this level. Beginner scribes are respected but not feared or anything. Of course, some of the more powerful scribes would be able to demand treatment like you just described, but none of them would be anywhere near here. Besides, once you reach those kinds of ranks, pretty much everyone is so powerful you’re expected to bow and scrape to them.”

I made a note of that as we stopped in front of a surprisingly small shop with green curtains over the windows. A sign above the door read ‘Aranov Italics’. Bran didn’t hesitate, pushing the door open confidently as a bell above the door rang and we stepped into a cozy little storefront.

The walls of the place were tacked with drapes or batting of some kind, and there were counters along the sides filled with a variety of complicated materials in small wooden boxes kept behind glass. Bran brightened when we entered, smiling widely at the pretty blonde girl behind the counter. “Alexa! I didn’t know you’d be working today.”

She glanced up to see us and beamed. “Bran! It’s been too long. I’ll tell father you’ve arrived. And you brought a friend, how nice.”

“This is Gus,” he said quickly, gesturing for me to step forward. “Esther sent him. She was hoping your dad might be able to help him discover his affinities. She said he could put it on her tab.”

The girl rolled her bright blue eyes. “Like you could even call it a tab. He’s never going to actually charge her anything for it. He just doesn’t like people acknowledging that he gives away free services. But very well, added it shall be.” Her eyes turned to me, politely interested in a new face. “You must have arrived in town recently. I know most of the residents and you don’t seem familiar.”

“Yeah, just wandered in recently,” I admitted cheerfully. “Esther has been a lifesaver, helping me get accustomed to Derkholm and the surrounding area. I’m from fairly far away and we do things a bit differently back home.”

“That sounds exciting,” she said with obvious interest. “I’m afraid I haven’t been far beyond city limits myself. I would love to hear more about your travels. Let me go get my father, I’m sure he’ll be just as fascinated as I to know what affinities might be common near your home. Mana density of various types has a profound effect on affinity growth, so the mana environment during your childhood should be reflected in your test.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that, actually. There wasn’t any mana where I’d grown up, did that mean I would have no affinity? Or would I have some weird affinity like ‘words’ because of my speaker nature?

Alexa hurried off into a door in the back of the shop I hadn’t noticed, coming back in minutes with a tall, imposing blonde man with a close cropped beard and leonine mane of hair. His eyes, a much icier blue than his daughter’s, seemed to pin me like spears as he took me. “So, Esther sent you, eh?” he asked in a cold, assessing drawl.

“Yes sir,” I said respectfully. “She said you could help me find my affinities.”

“Bah,” he snorted. “Of course I can. I’m a peak Beginner Scribe. Discovering the talents of some wet behind the ears brat would be childs play for me. The question is will I even bother to do so?”

Alexa chimed in helpfully. “He will,” she said with a cheerful smile. “He never says no to Esther. He’s just acting tough to try to salvage his image.”

The man’s whole icy persona crumbled. “Lexi!” he all but wailed. “Don’t tell strangers that! It hurts my credibility when you say things like that, you’re ruining daddy's reputation!” I turned to raise an eyebrow at Bran, who was trying his best not to laugh. The big man, whose name I didn’t know yet, turned on me sternly. “Listen up you brat. I don’t know what Esther told you, but I’m not some pushover. I owe her a favor so I’ll do your test, but don’t expect me to go giving away services to you in the future. And stay away from my daughter! My Lexi doesn’t need shady hooligans like you hanging around disrupting her work day with nonsense stories!”

Alexa rolled her eyes in the background, clearly more than familiar with this particular attitude. “Father, Gus is a trusted friend of Esther, and we should take good care of him. Besides, I’m sure you’re at least somewhat interested in the experiences of a traveler like him. If nothing else, perhaps he can introduce us to some new reagents for inks.”

The big man threw back his head and groaned like he’s been stabbed. “Do you see what I’m dealing with Bran? She calls me FATHER now. Like I’m some kind of despot who forces her to make gruel in the mornings and shovel the leaves. Where is my cute little Lexi who called out for daddy every evening when I got home?”

“Dad!” she snapped, her expression cracking. “You are EMBARRASSING me! Can you be a normal person for five minutes?”

“And now she’s ashamed of me,” he said sadly. “Never have children, boys, they’ll grow up to break your heart. Why, I remember when all she talked about was how proud she was to have a Scribe as a father. I suppose teaching her the secrets of my trade was my first mistake, but who knew she would be so talented?”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Just…come with me. We’ll leave him here and I’ll do the test. It’s more of an item than a process anyway. He’s impossible to talk to when he gets like this. Sorry, I told him recently that I’m thinking about striking out to open my own shop and he’s been inconsolable.”

“You are?” Bran said excitedly. “That’s amazing! I can’t believe we were fellow apprentices. You’ve come so far since we were kids!”

Alexa’s gave him a shy smile, and her cheeks heated up in a way that made it clear that her she wasn’t interested in the mysterious traveler for anything but stories. I could tell there was a definite mutual spark between those two, and I made a mental note to try to help Bran make an impression.

We followed her into the back where she’d just come from. Bran chuckled at her as we left the room with her father, and she glared at him, albeit without much heat. “Oh don’t even start! He’s SO embarrassing. I wish he would just realize that I’m not a little kid anymore.”

“Magnus is one of the most caring fathers I’ve ever met,” he said gently. “I wish my dad cared half as much about me. Cut him some slack, ok?” He put a hand on her shoulder, and I was pretty sure he missed the blush on her cheeks because of the way they were standing, but I sure didn’t.

We walked down a flight of stairs into an underground space, down a long hallway and into a small, ominous looking room. When we stepped inside, Alexa walked to a series of sconces, lighting a few candles to illuminate the space, then gestured to the room’s center. 

There was a big empty circle in the center of the area, and at its heart sat…well, a chair. It was made of dense, heavy, dark wood, with hoops of black metal along the arms and knotted handholds at the end of each. The handholds all had sharp black spiked sticking out at five relatively equidistant points. Five spikes for five fingers.

Alexa grinned at my obvious trepidation. “ May I introduce you to ‘The Chair’. I know, it looks scary, but it’s not really that bad. The spikes are clean and very sharp. You’ll barely even feel it while it’s happening.”

I sighed, because I knew no matter how menacing it came across, I needed to know what my affinities were. “Alright,” I said with a groan. “I guess I’d better get started. I assumed I have to sit on this thing and then stab my hands with it?” She nodded, and I grimaced. I had been sort of hoping that she was going to say no to that one. Oh well, I guessed I’d deal with that later. For now…I supposed I should take a seat.