The Enchanter's Apprentice [Irregular] - Chapter One

“Thank you for your patronage!”  Areius bowed deeply as the customer left the shop, not remotely disturbed that the customer did not bother to acknowledge his thanks.  It was far better, he had learned, not to be acknowledged at all in the grand scheme of things.  The reason why Areius thought this…

The blow to the back of his head as he was trying to straighten from his bow sent him to the floor.  Areius had, unfortunately, been expecting this and was just as unfortunately unable to prevent his fall despite that expectation.  He was able to get his hands in front of him and stop his face from slamming into the wooden floor, which was a definite win.

“Aww, get up you weakling idiot, don’t laze about on the ground, you aren’t paid to rest!” The voice of the man who had struck him, Lorency Orrion, who also happened to be Areius employer, had him scrambling to his feet.  “Your lucky that is all I am bothering with after your blunders.  Lucky I am even still keeping you on and training you with all the mistakes you make!”

“Yes sir,” Areius replied meekly, head bowed as he faced the storm of criticism.  “I am deeply sorry sir.”

Deeply sorry that he couldn’t just punch the fat bastard in the gut and walk out the door, but he could do no such thing.  Well, he could, but the guard would just drag him back after flogging him and then he’d be flogged again by his boss.  After all, that was what had happened the first two times Areius had tried.

“Your runecarving is so sloppy, it is a miracle anything you touch works at all and a bigger miracle it doesn’t explode in your face!”

Lorency, it seems, has a lot of steam to blow today.  Areius thought to himself, still apologizing by reflex when required.  It was hardly his fault that Lorency was too cheap to pay for either the repairs for his tools or new ones to replace them and on top of that would buy discounted acids from shady unaffiliated alchemists instead of the proper, guild approved, stores.

For that matter, Areius was essentially self taught when it came to the rune in question.  Runes of Sturdy were supposed to be one of an enchanter’s basic staples, but Lorency, the Master Enchanter of this run down shop, was hardly the kind of man to put down his bottle and teach his apprentice.

And considering how deep in his bottle Lorency had been during this past week, Areius, the apprentice in question, had to handle the customer’s orders himself.  Enchanting was not an easy process, and Areius had a teacher that was both unreliable and poor at explaining even the most basic concepts, which had almost led to Areius failing his work on the customers sword.

Specifically, an errant cut had almost ruined the line of runes he had painstakingly been carving.  The easiest way to ruin an enchantment, at least a runic one, was to scratch the runes and repairing that damage was hardly an easy fix.  The shape of a rune was the result of very specific formulas, and any imperfection or deviation weakened runes ability to direct magic, meaning that just filling or otherwise mending a cut area on a rune had to leave the lines of the rune itself as smooth and perfect as possible.

Perhaps more importantly, at least to enchanters, was the danger that could result from damaging a rune.  Lone runes were nearly useless and in general you could gauge the value of an enchantment by how many runes it took to make it.  More runes usually meant a more complex and powerful enchantment, although there were exceptions to that, but all safe enchantments had at least five runes.  The two starting and the two ending runes being the ones that safely guided the mana into the enchantment and regulated the flow of power out and were responsible for dispersing unused mana when the runes became damaged.

Before this highly critical element of safety could be added to the enchantment, many enchantments were likely to blow up in a person’s face when something went wrong.  It was only through quick thinking and quicker work to mend the damage that Areius still had hands to work with.

Apparently, Areius had let his daydreaming show on his face because Lorency unleashed another blow to bring him back to reality.

“You listen when I speak, boy,” the fat older man wagged a pudgy finger in front of Areius’s face.  “Or I will toss you out on your ass so fast you burn it off skidding across the damn road!”

Areius apologized again, mouth full of blood, but both he and Lorency knew that threat was empty.  Areius wanted to leave this hellhole, and Lorency could not afford to get rid of him!  The lecture continued in the shop, which was really more of a slightly converted hovel without even a sign to hang over the door.  True, it had more than one room and the floor was wood, but it would be hard for most people to tell the difference between most hovels and this shop and hardly anyone would think an Enchanter lived and worked here.

Whether it be identifying the magic of an artifact brought in by adventurers or crafting an entirely new enchantment for a customer, even a relatively unskilled enchanter was in high demand and was paid in silver for their trouble.  Decent enchanters made gold and the best could demand prices that would bankrupt small kingdoms.

Lorency Orrion, however, was not only an unskilled enchanter of the lowest caliber, but also a man with many vices and nary a hint of willpower.  The man was nearly always drunk on the most expensive wine he could afford and would throw his money away eating two or three times more than he needed in his gluttony.  The places he would do those two activities often held his favorite hobby, gambling, and he would end the night with one whore or another.

Rather than fix up his dilapidated ruin of a shop or clean up the slovenly and stained clothes stretched over his bulk- rather even than purchase the appropriate tools to work with- Lorency would spend his money on those vices even when his frankly repulsive personality pushed so many customers away he had to borrow money to keep up his indulgences.

Lorency was not unaware of the problems he had, however, and Areius was his solution.  Picked out of the orphanage at fourteen years of age, Areius was chosen for no reason in particular other than his relatively polite demeanor and that his late mother had worked in a high class store and he had helped her more and more as he grew up.  Lorency needed a clerk and someone to handle the smaller, more mundane parts of enchanting and Areius had store experience and was educated to read and write.

With his father a soldier who died in a war when Areius was nine and his mother dying the next year during a freak monster invasion of the town, Areius was orphaned at ten and accepted into the city’s orphanage.  The matron of the orphanage signed away Areius’s legal rights to Lorency as part of the procedure for Areius to become the man’s apprentice four years later.

In theory, there was a difference between a slave, an apprentice, and an indentured servant.  In practice, an apprentice would always be an apprentice if the master wouldn’t teach and an indentured servant’s debt was paid off with the value of his work, which was determined by the person he served and could say its value was almost nothing.

The lecture over, and the payment pocketed, Lorency left- not even bothering to hide his intention to go drink and gamble the money away- leaving Areius to mind and clean the store as usual.  The latter of which, Areius would always do, but the former…

After cleaning the store as best as he could given his equipment and the places condition, Areius did not bother to stay longer.  This city was too close to the southern wilderness to get any real business besides adventurers, and most of them would go to one of the three other enchanter stores in the city- each of which could boast not only competent Master Enchanters, but several well-trained apprentices apiece as well as a far more attractive store in a richer part of the neighborhood where they wouldn’t get mugged.

Only the cheapest of adventurers came to Lorency, and only an idiot would come back a second time.  Areius was not even sure that his Master Enchanter was actually qualified, and would not believe for a second that if he was that qualification hadn’t involved bribing someone.

In short, with Lorency gone to drink, eat, gamble and whore, and the chances of someone actually stopping by the shop incredibly low, Areius could not be bothered to stay either.

Instead, the sixteen year old boy did what he had done as often as he could for the past year and a half since he took a chance and got the one opportunity he would ever have to get a chance to escape being Lorency’s apprentice.

He walked through the city, unconcerned by the fact the quality of the pedestrians around him had increased since the slum he had left and that more than a few looked down their noses at the poorly dressed boy passing them on the road.  He might have cared about that, seven years ago when he had a family or even five years ago when he was still adjusting to life in the orphanage.  But now he didn’t care, why should he?  Shrinking back from this because of a few looks would mean spending the rest of his life sleeping in the back room of a broken down shop and getting beaten by a blob or lard that masqueraded as a human.

Besides, it was not long before he was at his destination, and the contrast between this shop and the one he left could not have been sharper.  Behind the glass windows were displays of swords and armors, all glowing softly with magic from the runes carved into them.  In particular, one blade was particularly eye-catching, as the runes had been filled in with emerald to enhance the magic and the whole blade had an intense green aura that surrounded it.  Aside from the passive enchantments that strengthened and sharpened the blade, when the wielder spoke the trigger word a green barrier would surround the user for a number of seconds that was capable to blocking arrows or projectile magic.  It had three charges and could recover one charge every eight hours or faster if recharged by a magic user, making it an extremely strong and attractive enchantment.

The cost for the strengthening enchantment Areius had placed on the sword that the customer had picked up today was a mere seven silver.  True, compared to an average pay of three to four coppers a day for most laborers, it was a vast sum.  But as Areius opened the door and entered inside, he reflected on the three thousand gold price tag the sword enchanted to form a barrier had sported.

Honestly, it was overpriced by two thousand gold coins, but no other Enchanter within three hundred miles could perform something like this so all an Adventurer could do would be to grit their teeth and suffer the gouging.  Not that the vast majority of Adventurers could afford something like this, that would even be beyond the reach of some of the lower nobility.  But that was immaterial and did not matter.  What did, at least to Areius, was that one silver coin was worth one hundred copper ones, and one gold coin was worth twenty silver.  That would make the sword worth six million copper coins, roughly equivalent to two million days of the average laborers work.

That was the kind of overwhelming price that only a skilled Enchanter could demand, and it was a far cry from the worthless scraps that passed by Lorency.  With hard work, Areius planned to reach that level of success.  First, so that he could have a secure and safe life full of luxury, and second so that he could come back and laugh at Lorency Orrion and his failure.

“Areius!  My friend!”  The twenty four year old man who called out to him was mundane and nondescript to the extreme.  Sporting short, sandy brown hair and always having the light fuzz of a man who could not grow a beard or moustache but tried anyway, Kalvin was one of seven apprentices in this shop, and was friendly to Areius for only one reason.  “Come to listen to me talk to myself while I work again?”

“You know me,” Areius replied lightly, surreptitiously passing Kalvin a silver coin he had stolen from Lorency.  “I just like to stand around in odd places and be quiet.  For some reason, your workshop has just the perfect atmosphere.”

They did this dance every time Areius showed up for “lessons.”  Legally, no one but an Apprentice’s Master could instruct them and further, an Apprentice could not instruct another Apprentice without the Master’s express order to do so.  The funny thing about the Guilds, however, is that rules only apply to those without money and without connections.  Admittedly, Areius did not exactly have a lot of money- certainly not enough to bribe the Master Enchanter of this shop to ignore him- but fortunately, everyone hated Lorency almost as much as Areius did and in a combination of pity towards Areius and a desire to cause trouble for Lorency, the Master Enchanter had decided to ignore Areius’s presence and let Kalvin tutor him.  Areius impressed him, both in diligence and intelligence, and had even expressed interest too Lorency to take Areius on as another Apprentice of his.

Lorency had, as one might expect, refused outright.

Areius, however, was not aware of that- he was merely thankful to have someone to learn from, and frankly Kalvin was a superior teacher and enchanter to his supposed mentor.  Kalvin’s Master had even been hinting recently that Kalvin might soon be able to complete his apprenticeship and become a full enchanter.  An impressive accomplishment that rarely occurs before the age of thirty!

He followed Kalvin into the backroom of the shop, a wide space with many desks filled with tools and materials, all organized neatly in a room brightly lit by enchanted stones fixed to the walls and ceilings.

Bribe or not, Kalvin did not outright teach Areius- both wanted to maintain some level of deniability just in case they ever needed it- but as he worked, he talked out loud about the formulas and runes he was using.  He would muse about the theories behind them, consider aloud the best tools and materials to use, and even brag about the spell matrix the runes connected with in amazing detail.

Areius would listen for an hour, or sometimes be lucky and be able to listen for two, before he had to leave.  One silver for an hour or two of time, without being able to ask questions or have any explanations beyond what was said, would seem an insane price to most people.  But it was worth it to learn as much as he could, and honestly, Kalvin risked the Guilds wrath even doing this much.

Besides, it was not like Areius was spending his own money.  Lorency had, rather foolishly, left the bookwork to Areius.  And since Areius also took care of customers he was the only one who knew how much people actually paid for their work done and had few qualms about lying to Lorency and pocketing the difference.

Of course, after Areius left his ‘lesson’ he made a few other stops.  Purchasing acids from the apothecary and certain quantities of metals from blacksmiths were necessary to keep the store running and also gave him an excuse for where he was if Lorency happened to come back early.  Areius was back at Lorency’s shop by sunset, while Lorency did not, in fact, return early- as mere sunset would be for him- and Areius gave the man even odds for either stumbling in at midnight or not even coming back until tomorrow afternoon.

There was, however, someone else there- three people in fact, all dressed in leather armor.  They seemed rather put out, either because the shop was closed or because it looked like crap.  Probably both.

“Hello there,” Areius called out, a friendly smile on his face that was only partially a lie.  He wasn’t a total misanthrope, he actually liked people and his work even if he hated the environment he lived in.  “Sorry about that, I had to step out for some supplies, can I help you with anything?”

The leader of the Adventurers, because they could be nothing else, stepped forward and cleared her throat.  “We were actually hoping you would be able to identify something we found, would that be possible or do we need to wait for the Master?”

Reflecting that the woman was rather pretty for an Adventurer, Areius easily agreed to do the identification.  He wasn’t bad at it, and frankly, if he could not they would probably have to go to one of the more experienced Enchanters as waiting for Lorency wouldn’t help much.  The only reason they were here at all is that Lorency charged only a quarter of what the other enchanters did for the service.  The only way he got business was by doing things for dirt cheap, after all.

He unlocked the door and invited the trio in, apologizing in advance for the shops appearnce.  It only seemed to amuse the adventurers, and despite the apology, Areis did not much care what they thought about the place- it was not his fault it looked like it was one blow away from collapsing into a trash heap.

“So what is the object in question?”  Areius got down to business quickly, not having much to put away.

In response, the woman leader- Areius hadn’t asked their names and they had not asked his, which was the norm when dealing with adventurers that might have potentially valuable artifacts and did not want to leave a name behind and become a target if they did- reached into the leather bag that hung at her waist and pulled out a small stone ball and set it on the shop counter between the two of them.

Focusing his eyes to see the flows of mana as he picked up the ball and examined it, he found it to be an impressively complex enchantment on many levels.  The runes themselves were tiny, but perfectly carved- which was no small feat on a round surface- and, despite appearances, the runes were not empty, but filled with some sort of clear solid.  He’d say it was glass, but no glass was so crystal clear like this.

“I’m going to be upfront with you,” Areius said with a sigh.  “I doubt I will be able to identify this in the slightest and you should probably skip all the way to the best Enchanter in town.  The actual Master and not his apprentices either, mind you.”

“That rock has that crazy of an enchantment on it?”  One of the male followers snorted, then laughed.  “It is just a rock, right?  How hard could it be?”

“Shut up Harold,” the leader admonished the man.  “There is a reason we have you hit things with a sword instead of think.  You are far more likely to hurt yourself doing the latter of those.”

“I can tell you some things about it,” Areius said with a laugh.  “Free of charge too because there is no way I can really identify this.”

It really was a rather peculiar and interesting artifact, the runes and mana structure were absolutely stunningly well made.  Mana would flow out of the ball at certain points and curve around it in complex patterns before flowing into another, and based on what little he could see on the inside…

“For one thing, it has an absurd amount of mana in it, I am frankly amazed that it can even hold it all.”  After all, the amount of mana a material could contain was not very flexible.  From what Areius had learned from Lorency on one of the rare occasions that bastard taught, the most any Enchanter had managed was to increase the mana capacity of a material by about three percent.  This was considered a major breakthrough and the costs involved were staggering.

Enchantments were magic after all, and magic requires mana.  Mana is naturally in the air at a roughly uniform density worldwide and when absorbed by a mage or magic tool, will flow back into the area at a roughly constant rate.  Better and more complex enchantments almost always require more mana, but it is fairly easy for an item to have a higher mana requirement than the environment can supply constantly.  Hence, the mana must be stored up in an item and then used.  This means the maximum limit to an enchantment depends on what is being enchanted, or more specifically, how much mana that item can hold.

Areius roughly explained that to the adventurers, continuing by saying, “Well, I am simplifying a bit because I’m skipping out on talking about mana syphon mechanics, but the point is that even though I cannot tell what it does, I know that whatever it does is pretty fantastic.”

Even diamond can’t hold mana like this stone can, the amount of mana is incredible, even with the mana syphons he hadn’t bothered explaining to these laymen it would probably take years to charge, Areius thought.

“For that matter, I can also tell you that it is not entirely inactive.”  Areius went on, “If I had to guess the active part of the enchantment is there so that it can react to something, which will then activate the main enchantment, but that is merely an educated guess on my part.”

That was, for the most part, the extent of what he could glean from the artifact.  As Areius handed it back, the leader tried to pay him but he waved it away.  He didn’t really figure out all that much at all, he was hardly able to read the things mana!

As they were leaving, however, a drunk Lorrency Orrin stumbled through the door and into the adventurers, his bulk knocking the stone ball out of the woman's hands.  Eyes widening, Areius dove to try and catch it before it hit the floor.

He did not make it in time, the ball hit the floor and a flash of light blinded the rooms occupants.  When they could see again, the ball was rolling on the floor without even a scratch on it and the boy named Areius was gone.