The First Mage

We repeated the experiment with Riala a few times and the results didn’t get any less weird. At first I figured the small sphere might be about her being too young, and that she just wouldn’t get a proper sign yet, but after a few tries we did get different results. The glitter sphere was the most common for her, at roughly fifty percent, but the remaining fifty percent were split evenly between Handiworker and Researcher Callings. Since both her parents and her sister Zara had been Handiworkers, it was unclear where the Researcher was coming from. While it was still possible that the sign was related to her being too young, it was also possible that we were truly looking at something new here.

“We’ll have to run more tests on more people,” I said. “Without more data it’s difficult to say what this means. A few more kids would be good.”

“This should be enough for tomorrow though, right?” Berla asked.

Not only would the caravan leave early in the morning, tomorrow was also the deadline the mayor had set for us to show him what we can do, and we had found something groundbreaking just in time.

“Yea,” I said with a smile. “We still have to test the actual ritual, but even just being able to determine someone’s Calling is something that was impossible until now. Right, Pyran?”

The guard looked at me in confusion again at suddenly being a part of the conversation, even though he had still been crouching with us around the water source. “Uh, yes. I do believe Mayor Cerus will be pleased.”

***

That evening I reported our findings to the mayor over dinner. We were sitting at a full table, with him, his wife, and the four of us filling all available seats.

“In conclusion, we are now able to show someone’s Calling, there’s a high likelihood that we’ll be able to determine the Calling someone will get, and I’m very hopeful that we will be able to give specific Callings.”

“Impressive,” the mayor said with a pleased expression. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure about this whole thing. You were lucky to get here at the right time, I don’t usually make deals on a whim like that.”

“You mean they were lucky to catch you sleep-deprived in the middle of the night when you couldn’t think clearly,” his wife chimed in with a derisive laugh.

“Melory...” the mayor pleaded.

“Don’t, Cerus. This ‘whole thing’ could lead to war with Alarna. I know it, you know it, and I bet they know it too,” she said, gesturing towards us. “Is that really worth it?”

The mayor’s wife definitely wasn’t a fan of us, though it was less about us staying here and more about the danger it could bring. Of course she wasn’t entirely wrong in her worries. We wanted to use the mayor and he wanted to use us, but there was a decent chance that soldiers would soon come knocking again. If that happened, and he stayed true to his word, the town of Cerus would have to stand against the army of Alarna. Although I also believed that it would be worth it for them in the long-term.

“Is getting an army of your own not worth it?” I asked and both the mayor and his wife looked at me in surprise. Maybe they hadn’t thought that I would consider what he was going to do with this knowledge, but if you gave a leader the ability to choose peoples’ Callings, he would obviously want to build up his offensive and defensive capabilities. Even Alarna was apparently starved for Fighters, to guard the town around the clock, protect fields and farms, escort workers, and so on. And since the major threat in this world was not humans, but beasts, you couldn’t stuff just anyone in a chainmail and let them do at least the simple jobs. The ability to get Fighters on demand would be a godsent. I would’ve been very surprised if this wasn’t the mayor’s first priority. I didn’t know the exact population of Cerus and the other towns, but even if he might not be able to build an army like Alarna’s in a few days, it was just a matter of time. And then, the town would not only be better protected from beasts, it could become a town rivaling Alarna over time.

“War is war,” the mayor’s wife said. “And no matter what this could do for us in the future, first we have to get past this.”

“You’re right, Melory,” the mayor said and then turned towards me again. “Since it looks like you'll be able to hold up your part of the deal, we should probably talk about this. I have scouts outside the walls who will inform me as soon as they see any soldiers approach. But instead of fighting them, I’d like to invite them in. I’ll let them search the town, and we’ll even assist them, while you are in hiding. And once they’re gone, we’ll start for real. It’s certainly an inconvenience, but I’ll make sure that they don’t find you.”

I figured he might be planning to do something like this, seeing how actually fighting Alarna would be risky. I didn’t mind it, however. It wasn’t a bad plan, but more importantly, maybe we wouldn’t even be here anymore by that point.

“Thank you, Mayor, that will work for us. Now about those tests we would like to run tomorrow...”

As long as we were still here, I would use the resources he was willing to give us to their fullest. The knowledge about manipulating the Calling ritual would not only be valuable here, but anywhere. Including Alarna. After all, it could become one more selling point to convince people about our plans.

***

“I didn’t think that he would want to immediately build an army.” Berla said once we were all back in our room. “Isn’t that a problem for those plans of yours, Miles? If you give the mayor the power to build up a force that could rival Alarna’s?”

“It might be. That’s why I’m not sure whether we’re going to do that yet,” I said.

Originally, I thought we might be able to become Cerus’ “court magician” if we decided not to flee again. As long as we did a good job, the mayor would most likely treat us well, and the stronger the town got, the safer we would be. However, the leaders of Alarna would always be there, waiting for their chance to strike.

Building up Cerus to then take over Alarna at some point was an option, but I wasn’t sure we’d be able to reach that goal without them taking notice. It could take months or even years to find enough people willing to become Fighters, and once the leaders of Alarna learned about what was happening in Cerus, they would realize that we were still here.

Not to mention that if we were going to try to revolutionize this world, I kind of wanted us to be at the top, being able to make actual decisions, and not needing to convince someone above us about our ideas of what the world should be like.

“We will use this opportunity to make as much progress as we can, but we’ll keep the details from him for now, until we decide how to proceed. Maybe we should even make our way back to Alarna as soon as the soldiers are here.”

“Hold up, you want to go back already? You said your plan is still incomplete,” Berla said.

“It is, but think about it! If the soldiers are here, searching for us, they aren’t in Alarna, protecting the town! That’s hundreds of Fighters that we don’t have to fight. If they send a force large enough to potentially take over Cerus, it would be a great opportunity for us.”

‘Miles, you’re getting a little overexcited. Is this really the best way forward?’

Seeing Berla’s uncertain expression and hearing Tomar say this made me realize that he might be right. I was rushing things and maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly anymore. I took a deep breath and thought it over once more.

“Okay, let’s go through it step by step.”

We wanted to be safe from beasts and people chasing us. Staying in Cerus would accomplish one, but evidently not the other. At least not in the short-term. Going somewhere else was similar. Alarna demonstrated to us that they weren’t giving up, so they would surely follow us elsewhere. The only way for us to live in peace would be to get rid of the king and the High Priest, one way or the other. And if we also wanted to change how this world worked, we would ideally become the new leaders. At least temporarily.

Now, if we wanted to do this, we would ideally not give the mayor too much of our knowledge. Eventually we would share it, but for now, it would be too valuable, and we would need every advantage we could get. Not wanting to share any more meant that we would have to leave soon, however. Otherwise we would have to give him something. We would be able to drag our feet for a day or two, but not indefinitely. Since the projected arrival of the soldiers would actually coincide with the timeframe during which we would have to get out of here in that case anyway, we might as well try to use that to our advantage.

And finally, while my battle plan for taking over Alarna wasn’t quite complete yet, we would have a few more days until we would arrive there, and the alternative to going straight there would be to walk the Wildlands aimlessly for the moment. But the area around Alarna was safer, and we needed to go there eventually anyway. Thinking about it calmly and collected brought me to the same conclusion. We were probably on the right path.

‘Okay, as long as you come up with an actual plan before storming the town, I’m on board.’

“It does almost sound reasonable if you explain it calmly like that...” Berla said.

The one who seemed the least enthused about my plans at that moment seemed to be Riala, who was half-buried under blankets and pillows when she asked “We’re already going into the Wildlands again?”

“Yea, looks like we might. Sorry, Ria,” I said with a chuckle.

“We would still need a way out of town though,” Berla said.

“Right, but I’m hoping our covert agent here didn’t come through the front gate and can help us with that,” I said and looked at Reurig pointedly, who nodded back at me.

“That won’t be an issue,” he said.