A Soldiers Life - 208 - Voided Warranty

Chapter 208: Voided Warranty

I secured the window and door, the scent of the previous night’s adventures lingering in the air. Settling into the weasel pelts, I prepared to delve into my research. My evening in the dreamscape was going to be busy. The shelves were still missing hundreds of books, waiting to be filled with newly previewed knowledge.

As I traversed the dreamscape, I ignored the grumblings of the manifestations and created a whole shelf of books from the bestiary I had paged through earlier today. There were about twenty-five books in total, well past my normal limit of ten. Most of these books focused on the Boutan Caliphate Orcs. The fact that they were included in the bestiary told me what the Empire thought of the orcs.

Next, I added a few books on the void affinity spell forms, a subject I had been eager to explore. With my void affinity score of 22, I was hopeful that I might find a useful spell form to imprint. This was a unique opportunity, marking the first time I had access to this rarity affinity’s spell forms.

Even in the dreamscape, I could feel the pressure of a headache. I hadn’t pulled so much knowledge in a long time—if ever. I gave Oscar a pat, “I will be back in a minute.” I exited the dreamscape before I reviewed anything. I had planned to return as soon as my migraine subsided, but instead, it just settled into a steady throbbing pain behind the eyes.

While I was lying there in modest pain, I took out two essences: the major illusion essence and a major dexterity essence. While battling my migraine, I relaxed and focused on the essences as they worked through my body, one after the other. Hopefully, after I receiving the apex channeling essence, I would not have to deal with the painful aether burn any longer.

An hour passed, and the headache was fading slowly but not going away, so I returned to the dreamscape. Oscar barked, jumped, and ran to get the ball. Even though he was not real, I felt guilty, so I tossed the ball a few times before heading back to the growing library. I had been hoping to add dozens of books tonight, but they were not in the cards after that experience.

I pulled the two books I had created on the minor void spell forms. There were five that I could access with my 22 affinity, unless I started killing void mages and using the collector on them. I would prefer not to encounter any creature that yielded a void affinity. This was most likely going to be the limit of my strength in the void affinity.

Void magic apparently had one unique property. It was much easier to overcome a person’s aether resistance and use it on a person. The reasoning seemed to be shadowed in mystery, with the prevailing theory being that void magic didn’t have substance, making it difficult for a person to resist its effects.

It was clear why the Emperor was feared. If he had a high affinity for the void, he could make people literally disappear. My dimensional space could do that as well, but I had to overcome my target’s resistances, my range was limited, my aether always bottomed out, and I had a finite space.

Skimming to some of the more powerful spell forms requiring a seventy affinity or higher just sounded scary: annihilating wave, banishment, mind blank, and abyssal hole.

Even the mid-tier spell forms sounded deadly: warped lightning, confinement, memory theft, chaos storm, and disintegration. Whatever their plans were to remove the Emperor, I planned to be far away when they confronted him.

The five lesser spell forms I could imprint were:

Banish Object             10

Cleanse                       15

Purify Self                   20

Fatigue                                    20

Erase Memory            20

Banish object was the simplest spell form. It allowed you to remove something from existence—forever. Whatever the target was, it was irretrievable. With a ten affinity, the size was just a three-inch cube, but it would double volume every ten points of affinity. At an eighty affinity, that would be a nineteen-inch cube. This low-tier spell was not designed to overpower aether resistance, so it was useless to use on people or artifacts.

Cleanse was a cleaning spell form. It eliminated all material in contact with your skin—including clothes—a way to avoid bathing for the rest of your life. There was an entry under the spell form of a particular mage who fought barehanded and destroyed armor and weapons using this spell form by focusing the spell form through his fists. You should never underestimate magic’s potential.

I will admit that purify self was appealing. It could eliminate poison and disease and even cleanse your bowels. The spell focused only on the mage's internal state, removing any foreign material. Having a higher affinity would only speed up the process. Never being susceptible to poison or disease would be a huge advantage. I had almost died from a death dog and seemed to encounter a lot of spiders.

Fatigue seemed more impractical to me. It created a field in front of the caster, draining everyone’s energy. Not aetheric energy, just muscular energy. It could turn a battle by making the targets too weak to fight effectively, but I thought it useless since the spell didn’t differentiate between ally and foe. The higher the void affinity, the larger the area of effect, but still, the mage had to be on the front lines and would make a tempting target.

Erase Memory was the other spell form that drew my attention. With a twenty affinity, the target would forget everything that had happened in the last ten minutes. The length of time doubled with every ten affinity attribute points. I could see the use of this spell if I needed to make someone forget what I had just done—like kill a giant without touching them. The more advanced spell form was memory theft, which allowed the mage to remove a specific memory from the target.

The only spell form that made sense was purify self. It would complement my healing spell form, and I wouldn’t have to fear being poisoned or diseased. I still wouldn’t want to fight the giant hairy arachnids, but at least if I made a mistake when it inevitably happened, I would be fine. I perused the spell forms for purify self a few times, but the throbbing headache in the background didn’t allow me to focus.

The remainder of my night was sparring against the orcs with Konstantin. Maybe I missed him a little, and working together on the same side was not so bad. For some reason, the dreamscape Konstantin still thought it his job to correct everything I did constantly.

I had stayed in the dreamscape longer than normal, and Zyna was already up as I headed to the balcony. “Dress in your parade armor. We can visit Ignis now.”

I paused. “Is anything wrong?”

“No. There were a lot of messages sent last night across the Empire, but there were no developments. That is expected to change when they resume excavating Atlantium in a few weeks. We are fairly certain the Caliphate will be focused on the western Empire while Esenhem and Bartiradia focus on the lost city.”  Zyna stood and smoothed her chancellor robes.

“Any word from Cornelius?” I asked before I went and donned the fancy armor.

“Soon. He will call on you soon. It will most likely be abbreviated training, as well, as we desperately need forest scouts and sentries. The last I heard from him, he was scouting locations to move the training to since Gnoll Garden is known to the orcs and elves.” I nodded and handed Zyna a loaf of caramel bread from my space. It was still warm, and I added candied dungeon apples to it. She shook her head, amused and smiling as she gratefully took it. I had been saving that for a special occasion, but it looked like Zyna needed it more right now.

It wasn’t long before we were headed to the Imperial Legion Hall. I had my face plate on and carried my resin-hide armor in a sack. Zyna, in her Chancellor robes, was never questioned as we passed from the Mage College to the Imperial Grounds. There were definitely more Imperial Legionnaires around the grounds escorting numerous figures. It almost looked like someone was paranoid an assassin could anywhere.

The training yard, like Zyna predicted, had almost no one. Three legionaries went through sword forms in the armor, and another did the same with a spear. The Legion Hall smithy was already loud, even just after sunrise. I began to have doubts that Ignis would have time to work on my armor.

Ignis’ gray hair was matted to her head with sweat as she shaped a cuirass. The other smiths had paused their work as the Chancellor walked the length of their workshop. Ignis saw her but didn’t stop her work until Zyna reached her. “Another favor, fire witch?” A few armorsmiths recoiled and sought to get behind their anvils for protection.

“Why else would I visit you here?” Zyna said, amused. She motioned for me to present the armor.

“My armor took a little damage,” I said while unpacking it from the canvas bag. She was already frowning, seeing it was resin-hide. She shook her head as she looked it over. Grunting as she examined the hole above the heart.

“You were wearing this when it was damaged?” She didn’t look up as she took blue chalk and marked the cosmetic and more serious repairs requiring the resin hide to be heated and formed into the proper shape and then patched.

“Six days.” Ignis finally said. “Don’t know why he needs it. He is wearing a perfectly good set of metal armor.”

“We need it in two days. He is being recruited to serve the Hounds,” Zyna said.

Ignis looked up flabbergasted, “Why would he want to do that?” She shook her head at me like she was a disappointed mother. “They have their own armor anyway. Why would he need this?”

I placed an elvish tome on her anvil. It was one of the thicker tomes in the collection, but it was not a tome of skills in the craft. Instead, it was a beautifully illustrated book with pictures of masterworks. Ignis was already stupefied by the fourth page she turned. “Back to work! This is my business, Vincent,” Ignis barked at the armor smith who was edging closer.

Ignis eyes glazed over as she paged through it. “Can you get it done in two days?” I asked, but the images continued to enthrall her.

After minutes, she finally said, “You can learn a few things from this one fire witch. He knows favors go both ways.”

Zyna arched an eyebrow, “And your grandson being accepted on a full scholarship to the Collegium Scholarium was not a favor.”

Ignis waved her hand, “Fine. Fine. Who needs sleep anyway? I will have his armor tomorrow.”

“Can you get a sheath for this too? I want to give it as a gift.” I placed the orcish runic short sword on the anvil.

Zyna arched an eyebrow but didn’t comment as Ignis tested the sword. “A gift?” She said to no one as she swung the sword into a burlap sack. It thudded loudly. “Artificed to be light except on striking. A good weapon.” I nodded like I already knew that. So, it was more effectual than I had assumed. Still, Renna would need it more than me, and I had a few days to teach her how to wield it. “Not a problem. Fancy or plain.”

“It is for a new mage. Something plain she can carry if she ends up leading a company.” I responded. Ignis nodded and racked the blade. She shooed us away, complaining I was stealing her sleep, but she wrapped the elvish tome like it was a newborn.

As we left, the noise of hammers returned to its cadence. Clear of the noise, Zyna increased her pace. We were soon back at the Mage College and climbing the steps of another tower. Zyna entered a library on the third floor. A surprised curator stumbled on seeing Zyna. “Do you have a copy of the dreamscape manuscript for me?”

“I am sorry Chancellor. I have not gotten around to it. Chancellor Evander said I had till dinner bell.” Standing next to Zyna, I could feel the air get warmer.

“By lunch. I can get it to you by lunch. I can pull a mage scribe to the task. I will personally deliver it to your apartment.” He said, bowing for forgiveness. Zyna harumphed and spun.

I followed her back to her classroom in the War College. Her class was due to start soon. “You can return to the apartments. Make something good like last night for dinner. Renna will be by to supervise you after midday meal. The curator from yesterday is gossiping, so make sure she returns to her room after sunset and have her show some restraint in the library.” I nodded to her in thanks and retreated.

I spent what remained of the morning training and prepping dinner. I was planning to serve meat buns, one of the local recipes I had been given. It was probably commoner food, but Zyna preferred it that way. A nervous knock attacked the common room door as the midday bells rang.

The curator was sweating and breathing heavily as he held out a fresh leather-bound manuscript. I assumed it was copied by magic and not by hand. I wondered if the technology of the printing press existed anywhere in Desia. He was glad to hand off the manuscript and dashed down the stairs not realizing Zyna was not here.

I paged through the manuscript slowly, and the pages were brilliantly white, with the dark text. The penmanship was extremely neat, like most books I had seen. The door was still open as Renna stumbled into the room, winded from climbing the stairs. She slammed the door behind her. “Is Zyna here?”

“No. She won’t…” I didn’t finish as she wrapped her arms around me, and we kissed passionately for a minute. I had to pry her away.

“We need to get down to the library. I only have the afternoon to look at the books.” I explained.

“What are you going to learn in an afternoon?” She pouted as she collapsed on the sofa.

“What I might learn is something that may save my life one day.” I said seriously as I moved to the door.

“But all you do is page through the books! We can have more fun here. But I suppose I can wait till tonight.” She huffed and stood. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was not returning here after the library. We could always find time tomorrow.

The curator grumbled the entire time I worked. I kept Renna at arm’s length, explained why, and worked through the books with urgency. Half a day more in this library, I would have all the books. As the dinner bell sounded, I broke the news to Renna. “You should get to dinner. I will see you tomorrow.”

Renna had a displeased countenance as she left the library. I was just as unhappy about the circumstances as she was, but I trusted Zyna’s judgment. I climbed the stairs and put the meat buns in the oven to bake while I finished paging through the dreamscape manuscript. I read as I went.

Dreamscape amulets were exclusively dungeon artifacts. They were too complex to be artificed, which added immensely to their value. The first three chapters detailed manifesting items inside the dreamscape.

There was no new information; I thought I did much better than the text explained. There were numerous warnings about incorporating too much or items that were too complex. Migraines could last weeks if the mage overextended in the dreamscape.

The next few pages talked about the environment and controlling weather. Zyna walked into the kitchen carrying a bag and smiling. “I see you got the tutorial manuscript. I have the essences.” She inhaled the scent of dough and meat.

“Boar and bear meat buns,” I revealed. She nodded appreciatively and placed the bag on the counter. She fished twenty large pieces of gold out of her pocket. “The arcane armor amulet will be delivered in a few days. It is coming from a retired war mage. He is probably making a mistake, as the Emperor will call recall him to serve when the elves or orcs intensify their efforts.”

“So, what did you get for the charm amulet?” I asked, more than a little eager to see. I could tell she was stalling for dramatic effect.

“I think you will be happy.” The fire mage got a large bowl and slowly emptied the essences into it…

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