Humas

16. Overcoming Obstacles, Part I

For long and boring hours, Tercius and Lucky kept going east at a trot, sticking close to the canyon, and still they remained on the southern side of it. As no narrow point in the canyon came, Tercius had to acknowledge that erosion or some other factor had taken its toll.

That left him with two options.

Cross the gap directly by flying over it with telekinesis or go further east into the mountains and cross there with mundane means.

Instead of choosing either, Tercius decid...

15. The Verdant Grove, Part II

Tercius tried to stay as still as possible. “It feels like a snake or something. What should I… do?”

“Snake? Oh, snakes. No snakes in forest. But—”

“What? What is it?”

“Don’t worry, they won’t harm us. The forest is with us,”

There was movement where Leawarra was and then, in a shower of sparks, the spare flammable torch caught fire, revealing the perpetrator in all of its glory.

Tercius swallowed.

Gnarly and covere...

14. The Verdant Grove, Part I

His wrapped head was on fire, but a strange calm existed below his pumping heart.

“Lucky, down!” Tercius commanded and felt his {Teaching Bond} with the ram snap into place. With all the urgency he could muster, he said the command again. “Down!”

The nervous ram reluctantly obeyed, folding its long legs and resting its torso on the grass. Lucky's back was long and strong enough to hold a saddle that was made with a mind for three people. T...

13. Ascending Izmittor, Part II

Tercius heard them before he saw them.

First came a short, high-pitched screech, a sound wave that gave both him and Lucky the shudders. Then, barely a breath later, came a series of fast, hollow-sounding clicks.

Born and raised on the other end of the continent, Tercius had never heard the calling sounds made by Steel Beaks before, nor had he even seen the predator for that matter, but the book that he read was spot on in the description of the sound. He could just imagine the fl...

12. Ascending Izmittor, Part I

Just as the world itself was waking with the arrival of the sun, their golden bubble landed and the solid spherical surface dispersed into golden motes of magia. The land was flat here, the dry grass below their feet crunching. Directly north of them, the land rose into gentle hills of gray rocks.

“This is as far as we can take you,” Mistress Prime’era said. “The treaty line is a few minutes of flight north of us. It might take you a while longer to cross it.”

Tercius no...

11. Price of Progress, Part II

AN: Chapter 2/2. Make sure to catch the one below first.

*****************************************************************

By morning, Tercius was as good as new. He resumed his training with Lucky at first daylight. He only stopped when sunlight went away and the progress made for the day could be summed up with a single word.

Monstrous.

Lucky was rapidly turning into a role model of proper behavior, obeying his commands without any fuss whatsoever. In the entire day,...

10. Price of Progress, Part I

AN: Sorry for tardiness. Chapter 1/2. Next one is after this one. 

****************************

Day or night, Tercius spent the hours being instructed by the magi or giving instructions to Lucky. He pushed himself forward of his own free will and the three magi supported him unconditionally with anything he needed.

In his case, potions staved away the need for sleep almost entirely.

For Lucky, Mistress Kalina used those berries that the ram liked, some adjusted sl...

9. Butting Heads with the Headstrong

“That one,” Tercius’ beast of choice was a shaggy gray mountain of a ram, easily tall enough for a grown horse to hide under it.

Upon hearing his words, Mistress Kalina's eyes narrowed at the beast, and a finger was pointed. Magia swirled on the top of that finger and the greenish bubble that was their vehicle made a small hole for the spell to pass.

Below, the gray ram bleated weakly and slowly laid on the ground, not caring for the snow, the bushes, or the rocks over which...

8. The Worm of the Matter

Tercius read through the books that his Mentor gave him well before the last of his candles melted entirely.

The books were written like a survivalist guide, with clear guidelines as to what to do in case this or that happened. In concise paragraphs, Tercius was introduced to the nature of dangerous and usable flora, fauna, and fungi, followed by facts of geological and hydrological nature, and then some natural magical occurrences that he could expect and then some more completely mund...

7. Expanding a List Takes Some Consideration

The brainstorming session ended with a successful conclusion and Tercius was completely agreeable to the choice of the two elder Mistresses.

Still, the accumulation of so many things that happened to him in a single day finally wore him down. As soon as the three women left his room, he collapsed on the creaking bed and took that nap that his body so wanted and needed.

When he woke up all groggy it was nearly dark.

A note at the nightstand informed him that his Mentor needed...

6. The Cornerstone of a Good Plan

Tercius roamed the old city’s districts, with no discernable pattern to his path. He chose the turns and twists at random, provided that he moved west.

Skill {Magia Touch} developed. Obtain Yes/No?

The notification impeded his vision as it awaited his decision, but despite it, he observed the surroundings like a tourist, taking note of the way the structures were built. Anything particularly practical looking, he tried to memorize for later use, be it the way a ...

5. The Mage-In-Training, the Speaker and the Lions

Skill {Magia Touch} developed. Obtain Yes/No?

Tercius just blinked at the notification. As his lids fell to cover his eyes, the words turned from black to white, as if to refuse his weak attempt to hide from it. The letters would adapt to whatever shape and color they needed to and they would stay to occupy the center of his vision until he made the choice.

Well, it wasn’t as if he could say that he was surprised to see this Skill develop.

The year behind ...

4. The Temple of Divine Balance

Isidorus didn’t make Tercius wait for long.

The temple was on the other side of the old city and the walk to their destination promised to take at least half an hour, if not more. One small blessing was that by the time Tercius and Isidorus had started their journey, the early morning crowd was thinned by at least half. It made navigating the streets much easier and frankly more palatable for him. Crowds had always suffocated him in a very physical and mental way and in all his years ...

3. Money Makes The World Go ‘round

Sitting back to back on the dry grass, Tercius and his brother-in-craft Neiran spent their time shaping raw stone, taking large gravel, chipped stone, or those stones that were too small and too big, and reforming them all to the specifications their master-in-craft, Ciron, gave them. Each block they made had to have a certain length, width, height, and all flat surfaces. Some were cubes, some were bricks, but all were shaped between their small palms.

Since they first got ...