§106 Opportunities (Patreon)

Princess Mariella — Imperial Palace, Avimore

The day had been long, and the carriage ride was rough. Mariella somehow got stuck in a Priory carriage with bad suspension, and she could feel every stray rock and crease in the road through the bench seat. The lower city clinic had been full of early cases of corruption, and she'd spent everything she could on purifying them. Tonight, she would ask for mana crystals so she could finish the rest of them before they got much worse.

Death by corruption was a slow process, until it wasn't. At the end, the stricken would liquify at a startling rate and die, leaving behind a pool of stinking, corrosive goo. All that was left to do was scoop it up with a shovel and put it in a pit to burn. Wooden shovels were preferred, as they were cheap to replace and could be disposed of at the same time as the liquified flesh. The dead did not, she learned, turn into mana beasts as feared. Not unless there was a powerful mana source nearby. So far, it had never happened.

Domine Gareth sat across from her, wincing with every sharp knock against their seats. He was a healer from the local priory, looked seventy years old, but could have been far older. Some healers learned to extend their lives.

"That was a solid night's work. Your studies are coming along very well, Your Highness. Did you cross a threshold recently?"

"I'm second tier now." She gripped the edge of her seat and put weight on her tired hands in an attempt to ease the burden in her bruised cheeks. The compartment banged and rattled as they crashed over a pothole. "But it's never enough, is it?"

The truth was, she hadn't crossed the threshold so much as she blew past it without noticing. She was never blocked at nineteen, nor did she need a special quest to clear her path.  She hit level twenty, received a single notice reminding her of that fact, and kept on going.

"There is always one more rung on the ladder," he agreed. "Your tutors must be proud."

Two months with Miss Wibbles was worth years with the palace mages. Possibly more, when she considered the rare skills she had learned. Mariella had picked up new Spellwork sub-skills. Silent Spellwork was unusual in a first-tier, and Repeat Casting was rare outside of palace combat mages. But her new Innate Spellwork skill wasn't even in the books. That didn't mean it was unheard of, but it was rare enough not to be officially documented. Her attribute range was growing, too. She had limited access to spirit magic now, and she was close to being able to summon Miss Wibbles without the wand.

As they made the final turn into the priory, the healer gripped the compartment's handholds. "Here comes the median. A dori says she hits it."

"No bet." Mariella tensed for impact.

The entire carriage jolted into the air several inches and landed askew, tipping hard enough to throw them, if they weren't already holding on tight.

"Are you blind, woman?" he yelled at the driver. "Are you driving by touch? I'm safer on foot than riding in your death cart!"

A lazy, "Sorry, sir!" came faintly from the front of the car.

"She doesn't sound very sorry to me," grumped the old healer. "Does she sound sorry to you?"

"Not particularly," Mariella chuckled, "no."

"Damned bushkin. You'd think they could SEE BETTER IN THE DARK with those HUGE EYES!" He pounded on the roof of the compartment.

"Sorry, sir," came back the sing-song reply.

The vehicle came to a skidding stop, nearly pitching Mariella into his lap.

"Finally! Sorry to leave you alone in a death trap, but I'm taking the coward's way out and making good my escape while I can. Good evening, Your Highness." He fairly leaped from the car and retreated to the safety of the Priory's stone buildings, leaving grumbled grievances against dim-sighted bushkin and their slack reins in his wake.

He was replaced by an acolyte with a message, sealed with the imprint of a justicar's signet. "For you, Your Highness." The acolyte didn't wait for a reply, but followed the healer's stream of curses.

Mariella changed seats and knocked on the wall between herself and the driver. The carriage pulled away from the priory smoothly enough to let her read. The news was good: Church investigators tracked the recent shipment of corrupted ore back to its home province. The justicars didn't have a specific mine, but they knew which stop it came from, and that would be enough to find the source. They promised to notify Taylor, Rasmusen, and the province's governor.

Clinic work was rarely easy, especially in Lower Avimore, but she looked forward to the day she didn't have to worry about scooping people into buckets and burning them. She had never imagined such a scene when she chose to learn healing magic. Had she known the truth about the profession, how much grit it demanded of its practitioners, she might have chosen differently. But Mariella had a taste for it now, and working in the clinic taught her more about the lower city than all the legate's dry reports. In this case, she'd been able to go beyond simple healing and helped make the city a better place to live.

The carriage's suspension hadn't changed, but the ride was considerably smoother.

"Anika," Mariella slid open the little window between them, "why do you drive like that when he's here?"

"Because he loves it. He's not happy if he can't complain about something. He asks for me by name."

"He asks for you by name, just so he can yell at you?"

"Well, I did just throw an old man around in my carriage." Anika laughed, "Like an apple in a box. I guess I deserve it."

The next morning, Mariella barely made it to the monthly briefing. The previous night had taken a lot out of her, and she badly wanted to sleep in. Eterine had to summon maids to drag Mariella out of bed and dress her while she was half-asleep. They got enough tea and food inside her to keep her going through the meeting and delivered her on time. Having servants who would do such things was a luxury, to be sure, but sometimes it was a luxury she could live without. She would rather be in bed. She stifled a yawn and took a seat next to Rebecca.

"Clinic duty again?"

"There's been a new outbreak of corruption. But we should have it handled soon."

The flaming princess frowned. She never liked the idea of imperials mixing with the lower city, though it happened more frequently than she knew. "Why do you bother with Lower Avimore?"

"Because," sighed Mariella, "Upper Avimore stis on top of it. If it crumbles, do you suppose we're far behind?"

The doors opened, and Osmund entered, trailed by princes Wolston and Nathaniel. The room stood and bowed to Father when he entered, and waited for him to sit. Normally, he was early to the gathering so he could greet them as they arrived, but today he was in a rush. She wondered what business had put him behind schedule so early in the day.

The brief was mostly good news, for once. The situation at Grisham's Wall had improved to the point that volunteers could start rotating out and returning home. The summer harvests were mostly excellent, and the weather might just hold through the autumn. There weren't any major political troubles in the provinces, and the church had regained the gods' favor. Priests and paladins were gaining experience again.

But that didn't mean the Gordian Empire could rest. Predictably, the dwarves were urging the empire to retake Restoration and push into their ancestral home of Garem-Da. Meanwhile, the elves politely suggested that the Empire not repeat its recent catastrophic mistakes, but cross into The Muse and push for Arc-Home. The emperor never got a quiet year to enjoy his victories and the prosperity of his people. Someone always demanded more.

After the meeting, as the emperor's brood of children wandered off to their various appointments, Father approached Mariella. She bowed automatically, but her hands grew cold while her heart pounded. In all her life, she had never had an unscheduled, unscripted encounter with the man. And then, he spoke.

"I have heard about your work in the city clinics," he said. "It pleases me to see my children apply themselves to the betterment of our people."

Mariella was so shocked, she nearly forgot to reply. But her training saved her. "It's my privilege to serve the Empire, Father."

"Your tutors tell me you broke into the second tier. We shall speak soon about your future."

"Thank you, Father. I look forward to it." Her heart was nearly in her mouth.

"What are you playing at?" Rebecca hissed at her later, while they were waiting for lessons to begin. Other than their attendants, they were alone in the magic training yard. "It's that wobble-blob, isn't it? It's been teaching you! That was my spirit!"

"You rejected her, remember?" she hissed back, "You shot fire at her and tried to send her away! You didn't want Miss Wibbles until you found out she was useful!"

"That slime is mine, and Father's eye is mine by right! I'm the noble here," Rebecca whispered through clenched teeth, "I'm the one he should be talking futures with. Not you."

"I wasn't trying to climb over you. I was trying to save people's lives. If you want Father's eye, then try doing something for the Empire instead of just thinking about yourself."

"Oh, I am. You'll see. I'm sick and tired of watching you get all the accolades! Soon, it'll be my turn. Once I have the Divine Envoy on a leash, they'll forget all about you!"

"Rebecca, no! How many times have they told us to leave him alone?"

"Because they're afraid of him. But with him under control, we can make him do what we want. That's good for the Empire."

"He's not to be touched. Father has his reasons. Whatever you're planning, don't do it."

"Oh, it's already done."

"Done? What did you do?" She grabbed her sister's arm. "Rebecca, what did you do?"

"You'll hear all about it," said the smug princess, "at next month's meeting. We'll see who he pays attention to then." She yanked herself from Mariella's grasp and strutted away to the far side of the yard.

Ras's warning, the one about not letting the envoy think of the empire as his enemy, came back to her. If Father and the church were both that careful with him, there must be good reasons.

Mariella ditched the session. She had something important to do.

Taylor — The Other Place

In theory, the latest crysoberyl should have been perfect, but it was flawed. The stone was a cycle of twinned crystals, each branching sixty degrees from its sibling. Together, the six twins formed a star with six points. It was an extraordinary stone, weighing nearly a pound, and was suitable to grace a royal scepter or a crown. Yet it wasn't fit for his purposes.

 The main body was perfect, without cavities or inclusions of any kind. The problems all lay along the lines where the twins joined each other. There were tiny cavities in the stone at regular intervals, like points in some secret mathematical function Taylor wasn't privy to. In their own way, the cavities were perfect too: perfectly symmetrical, perfectly spaced, and perfectly unwanted.

It wasn't from unwanted vibration, because that would have produced clouding or shifting in the crystal lattice. Nor was it a contamination of the material, because that would have discolored the gem. For some reason, his process produced perfectly twinned gemstones with a perfectly regular pattern of nearly microscopic cavities.

He glared at his crystallarium. It looked like a magic toaster oven whose insides were lined with Alchemical circles and symbols. He could make fabulous diamonds, rubies, emeralds, topaz, and quartz of any color or variety, so long as they weren't twinned. But twinned crystals always had the same defects. It wasn't just a problem with chrysoberyl.

Taylor was stuck, again, on his most important quest. Probably the only quest that mattered.

Quest: [Two Knexenk Are Better Than One] Copy the Knexenk origin and allow it to grant classes. This is a main questline – completion clears your path to the fourth tier.

Subquest: [Create A Knexenk Core] Create the crystalized core necessary to duplicate Knexenk. Requires a flawless crystal of BeAl2O4, cyclically twinned, weighing a minimum of eight pounds.

That was when Taylor noticed the timer. Mariella had set it to one minute. They were only supposed to meet twice a week, and even that was a bit much for Taylor's taste. He only tolerated it because she was a good student who used what she learned to help regular people. Had she been less diligent or too proud to help the common folk, he would have applied his usual rule about princesses and dropped her.

He tossed the priceless gem onto the box with his other failures. He could sell most of them if he wanted to and make a fortune. But dropping large twinned stones onto the market could raise a few flags, especially with anyone who had seen Knexenk's core or knew what it was made of. He couldn't very well come out and ask Rasmusen what he knew about Knexenk's Origin statue: that would give away what he was working on. Taylor liked the man, but he doubted the Domine would approve of duplicating the church's supposed goddess.

He would have to try again, this time with a faster-growing stone. That way, he could make more attempts in a shorter period of time. But it was pointless to repeat his process until he had something new to try.

In Taylor's class interface, the timer next to Mariella's name reset to one minute. He watched it count down to zero, and she reset it again. This time, it read:

Summoner: Mariella (99:99:99:99)

Then it changed to:

Summoner: Mariella (10:00:00:00)

And a few seconds later:

Summoner: Mariella (99:99:99:99)

That wasn't a request for an unscheduled lesson or an impromptu tea party. That was an emergency call. 

He set the timer for two minutes and prepared to leave, transferring a few things from his satchel into his inventory: his sword, some healing potions, a handful of accessories for emergency occasions, and several of the dull red high-capacity mana stones he favored. He changed to slime form and sped to Portal Park, where he took the lampost gate to Wenfold. Most of his trees in Aarden were miles away from a Twilight gate, but the lampost put him only five hundred yards from the vent where he had first summoned the Army of Darkness. He bounded into Twilight fifteen seconds later than promised, and the summoning request came right away.

Accept.