Dream II - Chapter 32

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Race: Draconian

Bloodline Powers: Improved Strength+, Rending, Firebreath+
Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 5, Wind (Noble) 3, Sound (Advanced) 2
Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

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Samazzar hurried through Vereton’s post-lunch buzz en route to the Academy.  Another shift at the smithy was done, and he could feel the soot of the forge clinging to his aching muscles.  On the street, he could feel the tension in the air, and every sidelong glance carried the weight of the humans’ fear and judgment.

It was hard to blame them entirely.  The price of bread in the market was almost 50% higher, and that was when someone could find food for sale at all.  At some point the pitches barked by the recruiting sergeants that had popped up at every corner had shifted from ‘bringing honor and glory to yourself and your city’ to ‘three square meals a day.’

It was only a week since his group’s return, but hunger had spiked among the common populace in that time, and unsurprisingly, crime had followed in its wake.  Even before Sam had returned to Vereton, the Academy had issued a standing warning to its students.  Anyone who left the campus’ walls was doing so at their own risk.  The institution’s reputation would still provide some protection, but the threat of future punishment wasn’t enough to stop a handful of out of work commoners from jumping a fop in a fancy cloak if they hadn’t eaten in three days.

A grumbling stomach tended to drown higher order reasoning, and there were a growing number of people in the City that didn’t bother to think about the repercussions if they were caught.  Really, the only reason that Samazzar could walk freely was his new and imposing body.  Where a noble drunkenly throwing his money around in a casino might look like an inviting target for a desperate man with a brick in a sock, three plus paces of scale and claws tended to discourage interference.

“Halt”  A male voice called out as Samazzar stepped out of the crowd to approach the gates of the Academy “State your- oh, hey Sam.”

“Harris Albers,” Samazzar replied, nodding.  The archer leaned over the edge of the gate, planting both elbows on the stone as he smiled down at him.

“Sorry about that buddy,” Harris said, “It’s hard getting used to you being taller and having wings.  Seriously, you should abandon your evolutionary plans and stick to elixirs like the rest of us, if only to make things easier on your poor, suffering gate guards.”

“As soon as you find an elixir that can turn me into a dragon,” Samazzar responded, surveying the extra guards and barriers that had been erected since the previous attack on the City.  “I’ll consider it.  It’s not even really about getting stronger even if that’s a part of it.  I just really want to be a dragon.  The magic and physical strength are there to help me catch the monsters I need to get to that goal.”

Harris snorted.  “Well, I’m not sure what you had for breakfast that made you grow half a pace taller and wider, but if you can find some of it for me, I’d appreciate it.  Ever since things have heated up the officers have been forcing us to drill and workout more.  A little alchemical something to help me speed along my weightlifting and cardio would be appreciated.”

“Speaking about appreciated,” Sam said as he began to pick his way through the guard positions toward the actual gatehouse itself, “I don’t think I’ve thanked you for your intervention at the City gate.  I don’t know that the man I ran into made it specific, but the man I ran into that was checking my team out gave me a warning and heavily implied that the Academy guards had vouched for me.”

The human burst out with a quick, short bark of laughter, his eyes twinkling down at Samazzr.  “Course I vouched for you.  You’ve always treated us like we were real people, and unless I missed my guess you talked to the wind master about getting us coverings for when it rained.  Add in what you did for the families of those knights, and I’d be a right ungrateful slime if I didn’t put in a good word for you.”

“Well, thank you,” Samazzar continued.  “I’m not sure that his warning saved my life or anything overly dramatic like that, but it certainly saved my siblings and I a whole lot of inconvenience.  I’m not sure we would have been able to finish all of our missions with enemy forces turning over every rock looking for us.

“That reminds me.”  A sly glint entered Harris’ eyes as he looked down at Sam, his face still propped in his elbows atop the gate.  “A little bird told me that you might be joining the expedition led by the Knights in the next couple of days to hunt down the bastards that are hemming us in.”

“I’ve agreed to join the army, yes.”  Samazzar answered, eyes flickering to the guards standing in formation around him.  He was very close to the gate so it was unlikely that anyone that didn’t work for the City had overheard Harris, but at the same time, the operation was supposed to be a secret.  Even the fact that a gate guard had heard about the composition of the attack force through the rumor mill was a bad sign for their security.

“Might have to make the trip with you,” the guard responded conversationally.  “I’m a bit sick of being stuck here at home.  I doubt camp rations and sleeping on the ground will suit me, but pacing in a cage like an animal at a zoo suits me even less.”

“It would be good to have you,” Samazzar replied before nodding his head toward the gate.  “But if you would be so good, I need to enter the Academy.  Master Pothas is preparing an experiment and Percival and I are scheduled to assist with it.”

“One thing before you pass.”  Harris shifted so that he could hold up a hand, halting Samazzar.  “Apparently there are concerns that the folks trying to do us in are using alchemy to change their appearances in order to slip agents into critical areas of Vereton.  The new rule is that anyone entering needs to be questioned by someone that knows them personally and asked a question to which only they would know the answer.”

Samazzar cocked his head to the side, mind whirring.  He had certainly heard of alchemical compounds that could change the pigment of a person’s hair or face.  More advanced formulas could even alter their bone structure or hair length.  Still, it would be awfully hard for a human to appear to be a saurian, let alone a draconian.  Theoretically, it would be possible to use the essence of a great reptile in order to grow scales, but the scales would look like the creature the reagent was taken from.  Anyone trying to impersonate him would likely have to kill at least a dozen draconians, a species that barely even existed in civilized lands, in order to finish the potion.  Still, rules were rules.

“Fine, ask your question.”

“Thanks for the cooperation,” Harris replied, his face splitting into a grin.  “Now Sam, when was the last time you and I sat down for a good and proper drink.  Doesn’t matter if it was ale or spirits.”

Samazzar squinted, wracking his memory.  He went out drinking with Adam at least once a week, but-

“I don’t think we’ve ever actually sat down and had a beer,” he replied, shaking his head slowly as he tried to jog his memory.  “If we did, evidently I drank far too much as I can’t recall the incident right now.”

“Well,” Harris said with a quick wink, “that just means we need to make plans to grab a couple mugs when we both have a free minute.”

Sam just blinked at the man, drawing another chuckle from the gate guard as he cupped a hand over his mouth and called down to the person working the mechanism.

“Open ‘er up.  Pretty sure that he isn’t a body double.  Probably.”

The doorway creaked open, revealing the armored gatehouse that led into the campus proper.  Four arrow slits in the wall let guards with crossbows shoot anyone foolish enough to let themselves become trapped between the first gate and the portcullis that marked the beginning of the Academy proper.

Samazzar walked through, nodding at the pair of practitioners that were playing cards outside the passage.  Crone Tazzaera wasn’t on duty, but Sam vaguely recognized the pair of magi that were working, and one of them nodded back.

As for the other?  He wasn’t sure whether she actually hadn’t noticed him or if she was making a point of not noticing him.  Either way, dwelling on the issue when he had a mildly time sensitive meeting scheduled with Pothas wasn’t worth the effort.

He hurried toward his master’s tower.  The changes he’d seen in the city proper were reflected inside the Academy, but muted.  There wasn’t an electric charge of imminent violence, but the gardens and walkways were no longer filled with the chatter and laughter of excited students.  Instead, most people kept their heads down, not making eye contact as they hurried from one building to another.

Sam couldn’t help but notice that there were fewer students too.  Vereton had always hosted a large number of practitioners and magi candidates from surrounding nations, but as the troubles of the City had compounded, most of the visiting scholars had found their own way out of the beleaguered city.  He wasn’t sure whether or not they made it safely back to their homes, but he hadn’t heard any rumors of a diplomatic incident regarding a dead noble’s child, so it seemed likely that the forces pressuring the City were simply letting them pass.

Pothas’ tower was almost empty when Samazzar entered it, so he took the steps two at a time.  Already he could feel the mystery of wind curling and seething above him.  He wasn’t sure if the wind master had already begun his experiment, but he was certainly doing something that had riled up the ordinarily docile airflows of the city.

He reached the upper floor, and the door to Pothas office was open.  Rose, Pothas and Percival all stood on the balcony, harnesses similar to the one he had used at Whistling Gorge, strapped to their chests.  Percival was arguing with the Wind Master, more begging really, but Pothas was all but ignoring his apprentice, his eyes focused on the sky above the Academy where a small dark stormhead was rapidly growing in the otherwise cloudless blue expanse.

Sam touched on the mystery of sound as he stepped into his master’s office, and almost immediately Percival’s shrill voice assaulted his ears.

“-but master, I know that I could reach the next level if I could use the cliff drake’s flight tendons.  Just have Sam give them to me, and-”

“I said no,” Pothas replied absently, attention still focused on the growing stormcloud.  “Your knowledge hasn’t reached the appropriate level for a baptism.  If you tried, you would be wasting the materials and risking your own life for nothing.  I am happy that you want to push forward, but-

“But what master?”  Percival asked hotly.  “I have much more talent than Sam in the mystery of wind and he’s wasting his time developing two mysteries at once.  You saw that he just went through another baptism in the mystery of fire.  Imagine if he spent that time studying wind instead?”

“If you want to buy the tendons from Sam,” Pothas said shortly, “talk to Sam.  You have the ability to go out and earn parros too.  The two of you should be working together.  I will not have petty infighting between my apprentices.”

“He can have half of them,” Samazzar offered as he stepped out onto the balcony.  “There are some interesting potions I can make with them, but I’ll only need half for my own baptism, but if its a fellow apprentice I don’t need money or anything.  I’d be happy to-”

“To sell them for half off,” Pothas cut him off.  Nearby Rose nodded severely, a frown on her face as she glared at Percival.  “It’s all well and good for fellow students to cooperate together.  In fact, I encourage it.  That said, the pursuit of the mysteries involves hard work and sacrifice as much as it does study and research.  The task of earning the money needed for baptisms and experimental research tempers the soul.  I did not take either of you on as apprentices to let you become pampered scholars.  Sam risked his life to earn those tendons, it is only fair that you provide him something in return Percival.”

Samazzar opened his mouth to contradict his master, but Rose shook her head, lips pursed.  He ate his words, quietly pulling the fourth harness over his shoulders and working the ties and buckles that would keep it tight against his scales.

“But-” Percival began, only for Pothas to interrupt again.

“But you don’t have money?  That is a common problem for those that don’t work.  Rose has found you any number of positions that would take advantage of your skills with the mystery of air.  Instead, you spend all of your time with the alchemists.  I haven’t and don’t object to you learning more about alchemy, it’s a noble and necessary art after all, but with the resource shortages you haven’t been able to make potions and without potions you haven’t been able to earn money.  Consider this a learning experience.  At some point, every practitioner has to branch out and learn more skills.  This is just your moment.”

Percival grumbled to himself, casting a furious glare in Samazzar’s direction as he balled his hands into fists.

“Now enough of this,” Pothas continued.  “The tempest is almost complete.  I will need the two of you to redirect the winds away from the windowpanes of my office while Rose and I try to excite the air enough to generate thunder.  The glass was terribly expensive and I suspect I would have to answer to the Dean, if not the Patrician directly if I let something happen to them.”

Pothas raised both hands above his head, and almost immediately the wind rose in response.  A gale rushed past Samazzar, rattling the windows behind him, and he reached out with his mind, redirected the gust of wind away from the vulnerable glass and toward the more robust stone walls of the tower.

Rose joined Pothas, raising her hands as well.  The black cloud began to descend, and Sam sucked in a breath as he felt the titanic energy contained within the compact mass of wind magic for the first time.  It was more than enough to level a building.  The strongest gusts in the Whistling Gorge had easily knocked Samazzar to his knees and sent Takkla flying.  This storm was like a crystallization of that force.  Every square pace of the dark mass contained just as much force, compressed and roiling as it fought for a way to escape the two practitioners and ravage Vereton.

And ravage it would.  The barely contained wind had enough force in it to shatter wood and dent rock.  Only the barest hints of the storm’s true force were escaping, but Pothas was right.  Both Samazzar and Percival would be needed to keep those undirected jets of air from doing severe damage to the more fragile segments of the tower.  As things stood, even with his best efforts there would almost certainly be damage to the eaves and curtains of the rooms below the Wind Master’s.

Then, a hand of wind reached down, grabbing all four practitioners from the balcony and lifting them into the cloud.  Samazzar’s ears popped almost immediately from the sudden and unnatural increase in pressure.  Rain slapped into his scales, moving fast enough that it may as well be gravel.

The magic holding him aloft faded, leaving him to the tender mercy of the rampaging storm, and Samazzar closed his eyes against the onslaught.  His harness dug into his chest and shoulders as he was tossed back and forth like a leaf tumbling down a waterfall.

Nearby, Rose and Pothas hung in the air, untouched by the chaos roiling around Sam and Percival as they poured their willpower and magic into the storm.  He could feel the pressure fronts shifting, and static tingled along Samazzar’s arms as they began the spirit in earnest.

He forced his attention back to the tower, layering another coat of his willpower over the sensitive windows.  Percival was panting, but the other apprentice was doing his part as well, and between the two of them they were keeping Pothas’ office more or less intact.

A blast of wind hit Samazzar in the shins, sending him spinning end over end.  His stomach jumped into his throat, threatening to send his dinner flying into the magic charged air.

Sam let his focus waver for half a second, grabbing hold of the force clashing around him in order to steady himself before returning his attention to the windows.  With each passing second, he could feel his understanding of the mystery growing.  He was growing closer to the level needed for a baptism, but it was clear that he wouldn’t be stepping over that edge today.

Instead, he kept a fraction of his consciousness watching the storm while he layered protective layers of wind, one after another, over the entrance into Pothas’ office.  It was a breathtaking experience watching the Wind Master and Rose work.  Planes of compressed air passed by each other without any interference, gathering and focusing until they could be pressed together in the center of the maelstrom.

More importantly, there was an area, about five paces on either end, that both of the practitioners refused to touch with their magic.  Rather, they kept  the forces growing inside form escaping while they continued to feed intermittent bursts of high and low pressure air into the sphere.

Inside, the wind began spinning on its own.  At first slowly, then faster and faster until it contained enough power to fling a pebble through a brick wall. Samazzar could barely keep his mouth from flopping open as he observed the miniature storm forming on its own.  He had read books that vaguely described the process, but this was his first time actually seeing the birth of a tornado.

Then, Pothas released the barrier, letting the twister expand even as he hammered it with another wall of magic.  For a fraction of a second, there was a greasy feeling to the air as the static charge spiked, and Sam’s heart began to race.

But nothing happened.  The tornado lost force as it expanded, and the building electric charge fizzled and began to dissipate.  For a couple of seconds, Pothas pushed even harder creating extreme conditions that would be impossible to replicate in the natural world by twisting planes of high and low pressure together into cords of chaotic wind, but they fell apart as well.

Finally, the old human gave up and began dissolving the stormcloud even as Rose used her magic to grab hold of the four of them the minute the strong winds lost their hold.  Gently, they floated back to the porch.  Percival and Samazzar had done their jobs, protecting the huge panes of glass even if the stone surrounding the porch was battered and chipped from its exposure to the storm.

Pothas sighed, gingerly reaching up to begin undoing the straps on his harness.  Finally, once he was halfway done, he put on a brave face and turned back to three of them.

“Next time I guess.  I had hoped that the pressure of upcoming conflict would help me achieve an epiphany, but apparently luck wasn’t with me.  I made some progress today, but-”

“You’ll succeed next time,” Rose finished for him.  “Everyone fails more often than they succeed.  You taught me that Master.  A bitter lesson, but one that no one is truly exempt from.”

He stared blankly at Rose for a second before breaking into a chuckle that quickly morphed into a full belly laugh.  Within seconds, the severe expression on his face was wiped away, replaced by a smile and a guffaw.

“There you have it,” Pothas replied between bouts of laughter.  “Let that be a lesson to all three of you.  If you live long enough, eventually someone will throw your own quote back at you.  Worst of all?  It’ll be right.”

“That’s part of the reason a master takes on apprentices,” he continued, shedding the last of his harness.  “It’s easy for me to get lost in my own head at times, but the three of you keep me honest.  I may know a lot, but even the word ‘master’ is an exercise in narcissism.  I have some power over the wind and it is a strong ally but has served me well, but I am far from its master.”

Samazzar nodded, his own hands working furiously to undo the straps and buckles of the harness as Pothas turned to him.

“That reminds me, Sam, I heard that you were planning on taking part in the expedition to eliminate the forces besieging the City?”

“Yes?” Samazzar replied, tossing his harness to the side.

“That’s a great service you’re performing for Vereton,” Pothas said slyly.  “I wasn’t able to get you a pass to the archives after your supply run due to some political difficulties, but this will be the second time you’ve risked your life for the City.  I’ll get you a pass this time even if I have to kick down the Dean’s door.”

Sam perked up, so excited that he almost missed the glare Percival fixed on him.