PreCursive

  I yawned, resting my in my palm.

  I was sitting at the front desk of Van’s butcher shht o the woman I had met all those weeks ago. Rachel, her name was. It was still early in the m, and when I had gotten there, Van had met me at the front desk with an apologetic expression. Apparently, Bleddyn was dealing with a rger-than-normal order today and it would be some time before he could teach me if he even had time. I’d offered to help, but Van had told me that surprisingly Bleddyn had preemptively turned me down. The order was fnus, and it o be done perfectly. My ‘cuts’ were still too amateurish to risk offending him, and potentially ing down on both Van and Bleddyn.

  I’d stuck around anyway, deg to help out Rachel at the front desk instead. I’d taken up plenty of Bleddyn’s, and thus the shop’s, time over the st few weeks that I didn’t mind giving back to it some.

  It had beey chill so far. There had been few ers so far sidering the still early hour, and versatioween Rachel and I arse. Mostly, I had been daydreaming and thinking about lessons with Grey. Since we had decided to go forward with the pn ‘unleash hell on Addersfield’, we’d shifted tracks from what we had been doing. Almost all of my time ent in Grey’s room either learning Abjuration theory or experimenting with Enting through Aetherial Melding.

  Abjuration was…iing, I suppose. It was the first school of formalized Magecraft I was learning, even though I couldn’t practice it yet. Apparently, that was because you o be able to gee your own mana in order to do so, and I couldn’t yet. I had mao pry out the reasrey, and acc to him, level one hundred was the breakpoint there. At that level, you did…something that I couldn’t get him to describe to me, and from that, you gaihe ability to take in raw Aether and transform it into Mana or Ki. Depending oher or not you decided to bee a Mage or a Cultivator.

  Sometimes, it retty damn tiring how cagey that man could be.

  I’d beey surprised at just how close to sce actual Magecraft was, but then again, I shouldn’t have been. Ba my old world, sce itself was just a process, and here Magecraft was definitely just a plicated series of processes on how to shape mana. I’d spent most of my time learning terms like ‘sympathetic resonances’, ‘mana yering’, and ‘iional thought forms’. Grey was insistent that all of this studying was essential to uanding how a Ward Breaker was structed. At least he wasn’t a bad teacher. He’d have to be a good one, sidering how had bee the head of the rgest school on Vereden.

  Oher hand, we’d discovered that Enting through a meld was very…fluid, I guess you could say. When we had first started to practice with it, I had seen Grey grow almost jealous of Aetherial Melding for the first time. For me, Enting through a meld was a very free-form, very loosely defined kind of thing. Through long practice, I’d found that I could sort of nudge and direct the required Aether into the enting forms needed with my senses ahem onto an object.

  Apparently, that wasn’t how orthodox Enting funed at all.

  Grey told me that y-nine pert of Enting involved carving runes into the object that you wao be ented. He had taken an old Entment Disc apart in order to show me. Sure enough, underh the shell of the disc I had seen a plicated arra of extremely tiny characters carved into both halves of the iron disc. Acc to Grey, many, many years ago, people had been ‘gifted’ a strange and expa of characters by the old and mostly dead Gods. From what Grey told me, there were hundreds of these runes and it ossible to bihem to create unique ohese characters had a strange effebieher, drawing it in until it produced a mystical rea. The way that Grey described it to me, the effect of a runic string was determined by the sequence of ruhat were used in an unbroken, flowing arra. He equated it to almost being a form of poetry, but I think he was just waxing poetic himself.

  It wasn’t like that for me, obviously. I just directed the Aether manually and yered it on the object to be ented. It was exhausting, by far the most exhausting individual Profession I had experimented with through Aetherial Melding, but it was incredibly ve pared to traditional Enting. But it wasn’t without its drawbacks, to Grey’s poorly cealed relief. We’d discovered that my melded ents were pretty temporary, only sting a few hours at best. Traditional ents were far loing because they were anchored to the physical existence of the runes. Without them, my ents began to degrade almost immediately. Maybe iure, I could figure out a way to any meld ents better, but that would likely e with more skill. Grey had actually begun to teach me the traditional way of enting. It might end up being the only Profession I learned ventionally. For now, I still wasn’t able to able to make a Ward Breaker.

  I was getting close, though. Turns out, if you devote nearly all of your time to learning to make ohing and ohing only, you started to uand it.

  I was broken out of my daydreaming by Rachel shifting oool o me. Looking up, I saw someone walking past the window towards the front door of the shop. A er, then. Moments ter, a -shaven dwarf dressed in the uniform of the manor servants strode into the shop. My spirits fell at the sight of him. Despite being a servant, I could tell this guy was one of the arrogant ones, just by the look on his face. I roven right by the sneer he developed at the sight of Rachel and me behind the ter.

  “Sves!” He barked at us. “Where is your master? I refuse to deal with one of your kind.”

  This was far from the first dismissive er I had entered in the brief time I’d been here. I bet Rachel had to deal with this all the time. She had told me to let her hahis kind of situation before, so I just lowered my head.

  “Apologies, master,” Rachel said in a deferential tone, bowing slightly over the desk in her chair. “Master Vandimar is currently occupied in his offid has instructed me to watch the shop in his stead.” She was talking clearer than I normally heard from her, sidering her usual at.

  The arrogant dwarf’s sneer deepened. “Perhaps you misheard me, cattle. I refuse to deal with one of your kind, and I don’t care if that glorified mert is busy ting coppers. Fetch him. Now.” He said, menagly.

  Not looking up, Rachel leaned her head o mine. “Go get Van, will ye? I don’t think this ‘un will take no fer an answer.” She whispered to me.

  Nodding shallowly, I slowly slid off of my stool and walked around the desk. Sidling around the manor servant, and making sure to keep my posture as deferential as possible, I made my way to the staircase leading to the sed floor. As I asded the stairs, I was keenly aware of the servant’s eyes drilling into my back.

  Once I was out of sight, I let out a short sigh of relief. It never got any easier, being around most dwarves in town. Most weren’t as bad as that guy, but some got pretty close. I’d had some close calls with people like him, just on the short walk into town some days. Shaking it off, I made my way to Van’s offid opehe door. I was smaller than you would expect it to be. Much small than Ely’s, anyway. The only things inside were two rickety bookcases, a rge wooden desk, a couple of chairs, and a cot in the er. From what Rachel told me, Va most of his time up here, and most nights eve here.

  My entrance caused Van to raise his head from the parts he was iing and blink bleary eyes at me. “Nathan? Whatever brings you up here?”

  “There’s a guy from the manor raising a stink downstairs,” I answered, jerking a thumb over my shoulder behind me. “Doesn’t want to talk to Rachel, and ‘demands’ you e down instead.”

  My words caused Van to let out an audible groan and begin massaging his forehead. “Impatient fool. I told him the order wouldn’t be ready till midday.” He sighed. “No doubt the privileged idiot is going to insist on h over our shoulders until it’s done, now. He’ll just slow the whole thing down.” Looking up at me, Van gave a tired smile. “Inform the gentle dwarf that I’ll be down momentarily. In the meanwhile, you should probably head home today, Nathan. Bleddyn is uo have the time or energy for your usual session.”

  I shrugged, unbothered. “Yeah, I was getting that impression.” Holy, the only reason I was still ing to these sessions was because of Bleddyn. Once we’d finalized a pn on how to escape, it had bee obvious that Fleshcrafting lessons weren’t going to help much. However, I had agreed to get trained by Bleddyn, and I didn’t want to cause him an honor issue by suddenly refusing. Frankly, he’d bee a bit of a friend, too. I didn’t mind hanging out with him for the brief time we had every week. “I’ll see you ter, Van,” I said, turning around to leave.

  Van gave a short, distracted farewell as I closed the door to his office. Taking a deep breath, I walked back dowairs, making sure to adopt a deferential pain. Once I had reached the shop floor, I bowed slightly to the visibly impatient servant. “Master Vandimar will be down shortly, master. He begs your fiveness for the dey.”

  “He will not receive it.” The servant growled self-importantly.

  I bowed again, before walking around him, making sure to read lightly. You never knew what could set off these types. Once I’d made it back around the desk, I bent down to whisper in Rachel’s ear. “I’m off. Bleddyn’s not likely to have time for me, today. See you ter, yeah?”

  Rachel flicked her eyes in my dire and gave me a small, almost imperceptible nod. “Thanks fer keepin’ me pany this morn’. Twas nice.”

  I gave her a small smile, thankful that my face was hidden from the servant. Straightening up, I walked back around the desk and began to carefully make my way to the door. Once I had reached it, I was stopped before I could open it.

  “Wait!” The servant barked behind me. I froze. “Face me, sve.”

  Slowly turning around, I made sure to bow again. “How may I serve, master?”

  Through my eyeshes, I could see the servant narrow his eyes at me in suspi. “Who are you, cattle? Who do you belong to? Vandimar Bellucly possesses two sves, the butcher, and the woman.”

  I could feel myself break out into a cold sweat. How the fuck did he know that? “This one is nobody important, master,” I said, bowing deeper. “This one belongs Lord Azarus of House Savoy. My master sometimes lends me to Master Vandimar when he has no use for me, that day. As it is, master Vandimar has no use for me either, and I’ve thus been dismissed.”

  “Is that so.” I heard the servant say, suspi thi his tone. “I thought I reized you, chattel. You’re the one who survived Lord Magnus’s st hunt, aren’t you? How…fortunate for you.”

  I didn’t like the sinister way he said that at all.

  “Run along now, fool. I’m sure you’ll have plenty to prepare for, ter.” He said with a chortle, malice thi his voice. I saw the servant turn around and dismiss me in my peripheral vision, and took the ce to escape, almost rushing through the door. Nearly running through town, I started making my way back to Azarus’s house, sweating the whole time.

  Fuck, what did he mean by that? Was Magnus cooking up some more evil, petty-minded shit? I made it back to the house and informed Grey and Azarus about my enter with the servant. They didn’t seem as armed as I was but took it seriously anyway. I romptly given a variety of items to hide away on my person. Among them was a new dagger Azarus had made for me retly. Other than that, the only thing we could do we wait around to see if anything was going to happen.

  I don’t think any of us were really surprised when a rge squad of guards showed up at the house around midday. They demanded Azarus turned me over and rebuffed him when he insisted on apanying me. I think everyone involved saw Azarus visibly weigh his odds against the squad and e up short.

  To be fair, it robably the rgest gathering of Addersfield guards I had seen up to that point. Guess they hadn’t fotteussle with him a few weeks ago.

  The guards hauled me along the back to the back of the manor, and into the clearing behind it. I couldn’t say I was all that surprised when I found Magnus sitting in that same gazebo from st time.

  “And here it is,” Magnus said, sweeping his arm in a grandiose manner. He gave me a soulless, sinister smile. “The star of the hour.”

  Here we go again.