Corvis Eralith
Leaving Ruby Drinks behind, I and Gilbert continued to travel on the Anvilrun toward the Pits of Vildorial.
The roar of the tavern faded behind us, swallowed by the vastness of the underground city, and for a moment, the only sounds were our footsteps on the worn stone and the distant murmur of the crowds that thronged the streets above.
The Lower City—the lower official level of the dwarven capital—was the next step.
I could already feel the change in the air; it was heavier here, thick with the accumulated weight of centuries of industry, of lives lived and lost in the shadows of the upper tiers.
"Gilbert, you have been unusually silent," I said, glancing back at my companion. "Is there a problem?"
"No, Finn, nothing," Gilbert said, shaking his head. His long sideburns swayed with the motion, and I saw something flicker in his eyes: a hesitation, a weighing of words. "I think I have underestimated you. For that, I am sorry."
"Underestimated me?" I replied, turning back to look at him fully. The dim light of the lanterns lining the Anvilrun caught his face, casting shadows that made him look older than his years. "I don't understand."
"I thought you wanted to make the Warend Trading Company more profitable with this Throneholder competition," Gilbert admitted, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. "Yeah, with good intentions, of course—Elder Rahdeas has saved my family, I would never doubt his good heart. But still..."
"You thought that our ultimate goal remained profit," I finished for him, the words tasting familiar on my tongue. It was the same assumption so many dwarves made about Elder Rahdeas, the same lens through which they viewed every action, every ambition. "I take no offense."
"Good, I worried you might have gotten angry," Gilbert chuckled, relief evident in his voice.
The lower we got—like a law of reality itself—Vildorial became more and more poor in appearance. The remaining grandeur of the Upper City faded, replaced by the grit and grime of industry.
The air grew thicker, heavy with the smell of coal smoke and molten metal, and the crowds thinned, replaced by workers in stained aprons and children with hollow cheeks.
The district that marked the border between Middle and Lower Vildorial was called the Cogs, such named because here was the metallurgical heart of the city, where the most famous and talented blacksmiths of Darv worked.
For how much I loved Burim, the Cogs was a hundred times better—not in size and sheer output, but in the quality of the craft. Every forge here was a temple, every hammer strike a prayer.
It was also where the Underpasses were located—the large underground roads that connected Vildorial to the other Darvish cities that were without portal.
The Anvilrun became larger here; it was hard to tell Vildorial was vertically developed, able to support the large influx of people coming for the Darffest to Vildorial.
I stared at one Underpass. In The Legend of Darff, I had read there were eight of these since ancient times. Bronze Underpass was an enormous tunnel, comparable to those of the Hearth, but not as bucolic and dreamlike as the ones of the sanctuary of my Clan. It was a throat of stone, swallowing and disgorging travelers in a constant, restless flow.
A large city door was opened wide, welcoming the people flowing in. I also spotted the garrison of Vildorial checking on the people that came in and out, their armor gleaming in the dim light, their eyes watchful.
"Gilbert, do you know where Bronze Underpass leads to?" I asked the boy beside me.
"No, why?" Gilbert asked back.
"Just curiosity," I replied, making to move away. "Let's go."
We continued to travel on the Anvilrun, passing through dozens of smithing shops. There were so many signs naming the shops that I wondered how one had to decide which one to go to. Each sign was a declaration of pride, a testament to the skill of the craftsman within.
And... it was starting to get very hot.
Darv's cities, usually, despite being in the desert, maintained quite cool temperatures thanks to them being underground, but all these smiths working here raised the temperatures by many degrees.
The heat radiated from the forges, from the sweating bodies of the workers, from the very stones beneath my feet.
In a way the Cogs reminded me of Evascir's Forge Room, only dispersed throughout all of Middle Vildorial's lower section and Lower Vildorial's upper one, and also far less advanced in the sheer intricacy and density of the machineries.
Perhaps Evascir would be interested in visiting Vildorial, I thought. Instead of remaining in Azellio bear-sitting Berna.
But Evascir's role in Azellio was, unfortunately, too important. He was already starting to meet with other Sornèvaines and—helped by Great-aunt, whom I had asked for support—was starting to facilitate the settling of hundreds of nomads in Cradletown.
Dad was also thinking about giving the "Sartobels" a minor noble title to thank "Lidayoz's" work in the Holy City. But enough about Elenoir.
"We could visit one of these shops," I considered aloud, looking at the many craft shops. "Gilbert, have you ever been to one of them? They are also making discounts."
During the first day of the Darffest, just as The Legend of Darff told, all dwarven shops were encouraged to make heavy discounts, like a Black Friday on Earth.
This tradition existed because it was told that Darff, during his birthday, didn't accept gifts to himself; instead, it was Darff the one to gift his people. What a strange individual he was.
"Let's try this one," I said, randomly choosing a blacksmith that vaguely inspired me. "Frederock's Tools & Tempers. A catchy name."
"You look like a tourist, Finn," Gilbert sighed as he followed me inside.
Frederock's Tools & Tempers was filled with every kind of tool, but what drew my attention was a shouting dwarf that seemed to wish to pass the Darffest in prison, as he was snarling at two guards.
"I have been robbed!" The dwarf, probably the owner of the shop, snarled. "Robbed right before Darffest's week!"
"Finn, maybe it's better if we choose another shop," Gilbert said, his hand on my shoulder.
"Listen, Koal," one of the guards said, annoyed. "All the attention of the guards is on the Darffest. We have no time for a theft."
"No time for a theft?!" Koal, as he seemed to be named, bellowed. "You've got to be kidding me! I have an important client coming soon, and he is willing to pay more than one like me would see in a year. So... DO YOUR DAMN JOB BY MOTHER EARTH!"
The situation escalated quickly. The scandalized dwarf was grabbed by the neck and forced down on the counter of the shop by one of the guards.
"Don't make a fuss, Koal," one of the guards said before I stepped in, much to Gilbert's shock. But he had already learned not to intervene in these scenarios.
"Apologies, I would like it if you left that honest dwarf alone," I said, looking up at the two dwarves. They were shorter than the elves I was used to interacting with, but they remained taller than me.
The other guard—the one not pinning Mr. Koal to his counter—turned to look at me. "The situation is under contro—"
"I agree," I said, cutting him off, "but only if you were to leave poor Mr. Koal alone. I am sure he is sorry and everything, but I think you are exaggerating a bit."
The guard pinning Mr. Koal down scoffed and let him be.
"Bah, we should have let this old fool yell all alone," the guard said, making to leave with his colleague.
Power abuse by law enforcers... a classic between worlds, I thought. The weight of that observation settled on me, a reminder that the struggle for justice was universal, timeless.
"Fucking rooks," Mr. Koal muttered once the guards were gone. "Thanks for the help, kiddo. You've got guts."
"It was a pleasure. I like to help," I replied, looking up at the dwarf.
He was a dark-skinned elder with grey hair and a grey beard—I couldn't tell if that was because it was his natural colour or the effects of soot and smoke. He looked like the most stereotypical of dwarven smiths.
"Anyway, I overheard someone robbed you," I said. "May I know more? I would like to help."
"Thanks for the offer, but that's the work of those damned rooks," the dwarven smith replied. "Not that of a brat."
I frowned, peeved. "These kinds of things are my job," I said. "I am running for the Throneholder position. Perhaps you have heard of me: I am Finn Warend."
"Ah, then I guess that's your duty too," the dwarf replied. "I was robbed of a crate containing a newly discovered material. I need it back, otherwise I'm gonna miss a big wad."
"What kind of material was it?" I asked. "And do you have any suspects? When and where was it stolen?"
"You make too many questions. I don't like it," Mr. Koal replied.
Was he being serious? How could I get back what was stolen without any information? Wander around all of Vildorial hoping to find it?
"Mr. Koa—"
"Frederock," the dwarf corrected me. "Call me by my name."
"Mr. Frederock, I need information about what was stolen if I want to search for it," I tried to explain.
"I don't share information about clients, especially well-paying ones," Frederock replied. "They are the fuel of my activity. A Warend should understand that better than everyone else."
"And if your client doesn't have their goods, they shall be quite angry, now, wouldn't they?" I asked, trying to use his own arguments to make him see reason.
"Yeah..." Frederock grunted. "Fine. I was stolen a crate of a newly discovered black rock: Combustium, they call it."
Combustium? He meant coal. But in the novel, coal wasn't discovered until the war, by Gideon Bastius's miners, to fuel the trains which design Arthur had given the Sapinese artificer. Who was Frederock's client to be requiring coal?
"Combustium?" I echoed.
"Yeah, don't ask me why my client wants it, but he pays well," Frederock snorted. "I am no fool to deny so much money for a useless rock."
"Yeah..."
I needed to investigate this further. Coal being used could mean either bad or good news for Dicathen. It all depended on its use.
—
"Finn, you really want to waste your time with this?" Gilbert asked me as I crouched in the warehouse of Frederock's Tools & Tempers.
It was a packed room full of many mining wares. The thieves had taken the Combustium directly from the storage room during the night before the Darffest week, when everybody lowered their guard in lieu of the incoming festivities.
But they must have left traces behind, and I wanted to discover them.
"Justice is not wasted time," I replied. "Moreover, I am curious about this client of Frederock's."
If he was who I thought he was, then I would have a connection as valuable as Elder Rahdeas. I had already tried to get in contact with Gideon Bastius, but House Glayder and all of Sapin seemed to guard the man like a national treasure.
And seeing the current relationships between Sapin and Elenoir, I couldn't even go to Xyrus to speak with the artificer myself, right where he lived.
"I don't see why checking this warehouse helps us," Gilbert sighed, crossing his arms.
"No one is completely invisible," I said, looking around. "Everything and everyone leaves traces on the world."
There were four small windows to avoid toxic gases from accumulating inside the warehouse. They were wide enough for a thin dwarf to pass through.
With Massbinding and my own augmented strength, I lifted the various goods stocked inside the warehouse, searching for anything out of place.
"Finn, what's that?" Gilbert asked, pointing to a piece of cloth that had fallen between crates.
"Evidence," I said, catching the cloth. It was a torn piece of clothing, probably torn off by the window and that had fallen between the other crates as the thieves escaped.
If I had Berna with me, I could have her track the scent like a hound—a bear-hound; but Berna wasn't with me.
But perhaps I had something even better.
I sat down on the floor and crossed my legs, taking off the boot I wore on Finn Warend's Servo-Foot.
"Finn, what's that?" Gilbert asked, looking surprised at my green artificial foot.
"A Servo-Limb, a new invention of mine," I quickly explained, focusing on REstringify.
I took off the string of Fate that attached the Servo-Foot to my body, feeling the malachite foot detach from my ankle.
I swiftly put it away in my storage ring.
The Arbiter's authority over the Edict of Spatium was the power of connection. Up until now, I had entirely relied on the whims of Fate to have REtrocurrent feed me Insight.
But what if I could change that with REstringify? What if I could connect REtrocurrent with this piece of cloth and have Fate feed me information about it?
With this hypothesis in mind, I tried to verify it.
Visible only to my eyes, the string of Fate looked like a single golden hair of an angel: beautiful and otherworldly.
I carefully took it and used REmould to apply that string to the piece of cloth. Then, I connected the string to my brain.
Through trial and error in the past months and loops, I had understood that my three abilities had a location where they were the strongest within my body.
For REtrocurrent, it was the brain and the nervous system. For REmould, it was the skeleton, my bones that supported my body. As for REstringify, it was what kept all my body together: the skin.
I meditated, making mana circulate through my body, trying to call on the river. REtrocurrent gave me what I asked the river for: clairvoyance about this cloth.
In my head, with a mental map that took the map Olfred had put on Elder Rahdeas's desk as reference, I saw a house in the Cogs.
That, that was the source of this cloth.
I tried to ask for more, but the string of Fate started to vibrate.
"Fuck," I hissed, reacting immediately. Before I risked the string being cut—making me effectively footless—I retrieved it. The mental map I had disappeared, but I had luckily memorized it well enough.
I leaned on the wall of the warehouse, tired from the use of all the Arbiter's authorities at once, but satisfied with the results.
"Finn, are you okay?" Gilbert asked. "What have you just done?"
"A magic trick..." I replied, not knowing how to explain it other than "magic."
I put my Servo-Foot back in place and reconnected it with the string.
"I know where to go."
Gideon Bastius
With my hands buried deep in my pockets, I walked the broad, red-tinted street of the dwarven capital of Darv: Vildorial.
The stone beneath my feet was worn smooth by centuries of footsteps, a testament to the endurance of these underground stout people. But the street was choked with bodies, a river of dwarves flowing in every direction, their voices rising in a cacophony of celebration.
Too, too many people, I cursed in my head as I pushed through the throng. I had spent years in my laboratory in Xyrus, surrounded by the quiet hum of my inventions, and this chaos was an assault on my senses.
The Darvish indigenous people were worthy of respect for what they crafted—and brewed, more than everything else—especially a certain merchant's grandnephew...
Finn Warend; the name was a thorn in my side, a constant reminder of my own limitations.
His Water Generator defied the known rules of both magic and engineering themselves—creating!—not transforming or other alchemical processes; being able to produce more water than the mana available had been unthinkable until six months ago.
I had spent weeks trying to reverse-engineer the device, to understand how a child could have achieved what I, the greatest artificer of Sapin, had never even conceived.
But that fox of his great-uncle made me unable to meet Wonderboy. Every time I tried to arrange a meeting, I was met with polite refusals, scheduling conflicts, or simple silence.
Anyway, better not to think about a brat that made me—the best of the best of Dicathian artificers—look like a novice.
The thought was bitter, but it lingered, gnawing at the edges of my pride. I wanted to make Wonderboy my apprentice, to claim his genius as my own, to make myself shine even more if I had such a talent under my wing; but the boy was elusive, a ghost in the machinery of Darv's growing influence.
Ah! Stop thinking about that dwarf!
I had been studying the crafts of the Vildoriallan people for quite some time under order of King Blaine Glayder.
These short, gruff people held secrets and hid treasures in their Kingdom that I had been funded very, very well to discover.
Combustium was one of these treasures—a strange rock that could fuel an oven, a furnace, or anything a hundred times better than wood did. It was comparable to the wood of the Elshire Forest for how good as a fuel it was, and the Kingdom of Sapin wanted that fuel for reasons I couldn't care about.
As long as I received the merits of my job, I was happy.
"Master Gideon," Himes, my butler, called from behind me. "That is not the way to our destination."
I turned to look at the moustached man, narrowing my eyes. "You an expert of Darv now?"
"No, but I made the necessary researches before coming here," Himes replied, his wrinkled face perfectly calm. "Especially considering your poor sense of orientation, sir."
"Lead the way, then," I muttered, stepping aside to let him pass. The man's competence was a small comfort in this sea of chaos.
I had contacted Frederock's Tools & Tempers because the owner, Frederock Koal, dealt with Sapinese merchants pretty often.
With Combustium being a newly discovered mineral, going through lesser-known suppliers would let me have it at a better price—if someone discovered how useful it was, the price would rise like spellfire to the sky. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Still too many people, I thought when we arrived in front of the shop. The street was packed, more crowded than Xyrus Academy on its busiest days. Why were so many dwarves down on this street?
"Himes, you brought the coins, right?" I asked my butler.
"I would never commit a mistake such as forgetting the money," Himes replied, ever the perfectionist, showing me the bag containing the valuables. The clink of coins was a reassuring sound, a reminder of the transaction that would soon be complete.
I opened the door of the dwarven shop and entered inside, lowering my head in the cramped space to avoid hitting the ceiling. The interior was cluttered with tools and half-finished projects, the air thick with the smell of metal and sweat.
Frederock commerced with Sapin—couldn't he build his shop to fit human height?! I shoved the thought away, like the dust that filled my laboratory in Xyrus.
"Frederock! I am Bastius!" I shouted, walking to the counter and seeing the dark-skinned dwarf. "Where's my Combustium?"
I gestured for Himes to give the dwarf the coins, and my moustached butler—by the Divine Dragon, those moustaches—handed the money to the blacksmith.
Frederock's expression grew nervous, a frown settling on his already burrowed face.
"Here, Master Bastius," a childish voice suddenly said from behind me as the door of the shop opened. "The Combustium has been retrieved."
Behind me, standing tall despite his meager height, was a kid.
Round ears, skin the tone of rich brown soil, short hair, and brown eyes like the earth itself. Another dwarven youngster, a bit older than the first, stood behind him, carrying a sealed crate.
"Warend!" Frederock exclaimed, rushing toward the crate despite his age. "You truly recovered my Combustium in such a short time!"
Warend? Wonderboy? Was this truly the Wonderboy who had been haunting my dreams and nightmares both?
"Hey, your Combustium?" I asked, tilting my head annoyed and pointing a thumb to my chest. "That's my Combustium."
The dwarves stared back at me with deadpan expressions. Himes, too, despite his professionalism, gave me a complicated look.
"Master Gideon, I think that was not what Master Frederock meant," Himes whispered to my ear.
"Give the dwarf the money and let's be quick," I said. "It is too hot down here. The heat will drive me crazy."
And I really needed to speak with Wonderboy here.
"Here is the agreed sum, sir," Himes said, handing the money to Frederock.
"Aye, aye," the dwarf said, satisfied. "Have fun with your rocks."
What arrogance—I am the greatest genius of this continent, I scoffed inwardly, but I was too tired to argue further. Himes made to put the crate of Combustium inside a storage ring we had brought from Xyrus, but Wonderboy put a foot on the crate, stopping the storage magic.
"Young sir," Himes began, but I stopped the moustached man.
"You are Finn Warend, right?" I asked Wonderboy.
"The very same," the dwarven kid replied, an annoying smirk on his lips. "And you must be Gideon Bastius, right?"
"Yes, now leave my stuff," I said.
"Sure thing, Master Bastius," Finn Warend replied, his foot finally moving away from my Combustium. "But may I ask for a chat with a scientific eminence such as yourself?"
Scientific eminence... I liked how it sounded.
The merchant boy is playing on your emotions, Gideon; he is small, but he is smart, I told myself.
Now I wanted him as my apprentice even more: was this the game he was playing?
"Yes," I conceded. "Not here tho."
"Of course, Master Bastius," Wonderboy turned to his teenage friend. "Gilbert, do you know a place where I can talk with Artificer Gideon?"
"Oh, ehm..." The other dwarf pondered for a while. "There is a famous inn nearby, on the lowest level of the Cogs in Lower Vildorial."
"Perfect," Finn Warend said. "Master Bastius, is that fine for you?"
He wanted to bring the conversation into his territory—a classic move from merchants like the Warends. I had interacted with many merchants who wanted rights to sell my inventions across my career as Sapin's most prominent artificer; but this boy had something different.
"Yes, yes," I said, waving a hand dismissively. "I need something cool to drink, so let us move."
As we stepped out of the shop and into the crowded streets, I found myself glancing at the dwarven boy who walked beside me.
He was small, barely reaching my chest, but he carried himself with the confidence of someone who had already achieved more than most could dream.
And I wanted to know how. I needed to know how.
Corvis Eralith
It seemed I would no longer need to worry about meeting with Gideon Bastius.
But now that the meeting was happening, I had to make it go as well as possible. The stakes were higher than Gideon could ever imagine.
As for the Combustium, it had been stolen by some poor, wretched souls—kids who thought Frederock would be an easy target and had heard about the large sum Gideon was about to pay. They had been desperate, their eyes hollow with hunger, their hands shaking as they tried to sell the black rock to anyone who would listen.
I had found them in a cramped building in a back alley of the Cogs, huddled together, their faces pale with fear. They had expected punishment, imprisonment, perhaps worse.
Instead, I had just paid them back the sum they thought they could have made with the Combustium and called it a day.
Now, I was walking by Gideon Bastius's side on the Anvilrun, the bustling main street of Vildorial, while Gilbert guided us to an inn in Lower Vildorial.
The Hammerfell boy truly was a godsend. His knowledge of the city's serpentine street had saved us hours of wandering, and his quiet presence was a steady anchor in the chaos of the Darffest crowds.
"Master Bastius," I started, the gruff Artificer—who looked just as scruffy as the novel described him—turning his head toward me.
His hair was a wild mess, his clothes stained with grease and soot, and his eyes held the sharp, restless intelligence of someone who had spent a lifetime chasing answers.
"I am a great fan of yours. I have studied many books about you and your inventions."
It wasn't a complete lie; I had read about Gideon both in another world and in this one too—in Elenoir, the works of Gideon were available despite the absent relationships between Sapin and my homeland.
However, I would indulge in it. I knew from The Beginning After The End that Gideon Bastius really liked being praised and recognized as the smartest Dicathian there was.
I couldn't share the sentiment the artificer had for himself. I knew people of the caliber of Evascir Gigante and Avicenna Artira of Ramdad, beings whose knowledge spanned millennia and whose achievements dwarfed anything Gideon had ever done.
But Gideon could be a close third. His mind was a forge of its own, and if I could fuel it, I could reshape Dicathen.
"A great fan? Really?" The Sapinese artificer echoed, hiding a smirk. "Yeah... I can see why."
The descent through the Anvilrun continued as we left behind the section of the Cogs that belonged to Middle Vildorial to enter that belonging to the Lower City.
The division was less pronounced than the one between the Upper City and the Middle City, but it was still clear to the eyes.
The forges and shops of the Cogs stopped being as advanced and polished as those of the superior level, becoming the locations where the goods consumed by the average and below-average population were produced.
The air grew thicker with smoke and the heat of less efficient furnaces, and the crowds thinned, replaced by workers in stained aprons and children with hollow cheeks.
Now that I thought about it, Vildorial reminded me of another place described in the novel: the Wall, the defensive line built to guard the border between Sapin and the Beast Glades near the city of Blackbend.
The location where most of the fights between Alacrya and Dicathen happened in the novel; where the beast horde attacked, where Arthur lost his father, where Tessia herself fought alongside her squad.
The Wall was built following a vertical layout, very much like Vildorial. Despite the dwarves not being completely aligned with the Tri-Union by that point in the novel, their help was still as clear as those of humans and elves.
"That's the inn," Gilbert eventually said, pointing to a stone building melded with shops and forges. If Gilbert hadn't pointed at it, I wouldn't have recognized it as an inn and not another workshop.
Artisan's Rest, was its name. The sign was worn, the letters faded, but the warmth spilling from the door promised respite from the oppressive heat of the forges.
I sat down in front of Gideon on a stool, the human artificer sitting a bit uncomfortably due to the size made to suit dwarven height. Himes, the butler of Gideon from the novel, stood tall beside his master, not minding the short ceiling in a perfect picture of professionalism.
His posture was impeccable, his face impassive, and I could see why Gideon kept him around. Himes was a rock in the chaos of his master's brilliance.
"Ok, Wonderboy," Gideon said, taking a sip from the ice-cold beer he had bought. The foam clung to his unkept short beard, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. "What did you want to speak to me about?"
"I wanted to illustrate to you my newest invention, Master Gideon," I said after clearing my throat. "I hope you already know about my Water Generator."
"I do..." Gideon replied with a scoff that was half jealous and half annoyed. "The miracle machine that creates water from nothing."
"It's not a miracle machine, Master Bastius. It's science," I replied. "You should know that better than anyone else."
It was "Manatech," but science it remained. The principles were the same: observation, experimentation, and the relentless pursuit of understanding.
"You speak a bit too well for your age," Gideon replied. "It's quite creepy, to be fair. Most brats your age, especially rich brats like you, when they speak to me they expect me to pull out some kind of incredible artifact for them as if I conjured it like fire magic."
"I have had a good education," I said to explain it.
"Yeah, so what is this new miracle machine you have invented?" Gideon asked, true and honest curiosity in his voice. "After a water creator, now you have a food forge, perhaps?"
I chuckled at that joke and then shook my head.
"Nothing like that, Master Bastius," I said. "I have invented this: Servo-Limbs."
I raised my malachite foot and took off the boot around my Servo-Foot, showing it to Gideon. The green gem gleamed in the dim light of the inn, catching the flicker of the lanterns and casting faint reflections on the worn wooden floor.
"This is a prosthetic through and through," I explained. "Impossible to distinguish from a real limb if it wasn't for the colour and sensation to the touch. Everything else? It works like a foot."
I moved the toes of my Servo-Foot with precise movements, impossible to recreate even with precision tools. The green gem flexed and bent like living flesh, responding to my will as if it had always been part of me.
"I can feel with it, and more importantly, I can use magic with it."
I used Ars Terramorph to conjure a thin sheath of earth around my Servo-Foot from the dust, dirt, and soot accumulated on the floor of the inn. The stone wrapped around the malachite, solid and responsive, a testament to the power of my creation.
Throughout all this explanation, Gideon remained perfectly still, observing my Lifework in deep concentration. His eyes traced every curve of the Servo-Foot, every glint of the malachite, every movement of my toes.
I could see the gears turning in his mind, the questions forming, the theories taking shape.
"I will be clear with you, Wonderboy," Gideon said, not wanting to sugarcoat what he was about to say. "I want you as my apprentice. I will make sure you are given all the same privileges as me if you follow me to Xyrus. If you so desire, I can even put in a good word for you to enroll in Xyrus Academy in a couple of years when you reach the required age. You are a mage, after all."
This was the second time I had been offered to be under the wing of someone today: first Hornfels Earthborn and his attempt to recruit me into his entourage, now Gideon Bastius wanting me as his apprentice.
And offering a spot in Xyrus Academy... other races, not even dwarves that had much better relationships with Sapin, were not yet allowed to attend Dicathen's most prestigious school.
It was a tempting offer, a door to a world I had only glimpsed through the pages of a novel.
And while I wouldn't have had anything against Gideon's proposition under any other circumstances—I would have loved to go to school like any other normal person—my current position would not allow me to accept the artificer's offer.
Leadership did not permit me to be humble. It did not permit me to keep a low profile. It did not permit me to be any less than the absolute top.
"I refuse, Master Bastius," I said, causing the artificer to spit his beer in a very comical way. The liquid sprayed across the table, and he coughed, sputtering in disbelief.
Before the man could say anything, I stood up and offered him my hand.
"But I could think of us as colleagues," I told him with a welcoming smile as I waited for him to shake my hand back. "Research partners, or maybe just two fellow enjoyers of knowledge."
"Fuck, fine," Gideon said quickly, shaking my hand back. His grip was firm, his palm calloused from years of work. "Just share with me whatever you come up with and tell your great-uncle to not ignore me!"
"Ignore you? What has Great-uncle Rahdeas done?" I asked, dumbfounded.
"I wanted to offer you to be my apprentice as soon as I heard of that Water Generator," Gideon admitted, chugging down the beer in one swift motion and putting his hands between his messy hair. "Maybe if that old dwarf let me meet you before you grew so arrogant or made that Servo-Limb, you would have accepted!"
"T-that's reasonable," I said, surprised by Gideon's sudden outburst. "I will tell Great-uncle as soon as possible, and I promise to share my theories and discoveries with you."
I would surely share much of Avicenna's wisdom about the folk of calm currents with Gideon. Up until now, I had to restrain the amount of Djinnic creations I resurrected in fear of Windsom Indrath getting too suspicious.
But with Gideon's help? If I played my cards correctly, Windsom would never doubt a thing. Gideon would become a shield, a cover, a partner in the work that would save Dicathen.