~Chapter Eighteen: A Charming Entrance~

"Dolsrus was a nice city. Still is, I suppose."

***

The caravan stopped some ten kilo-necro meters away from Dolsrus, just far enough that the city was lost over the rocky horizon. The terrain here was strange, with some areas filled with grass, and others rocky, dead soil. Where were the effects of my burial ground so pronounced?

The stop wasn't anything unplanned. With so many horses and three dozen carriages making up the bulk of the caravan, it wasn't surprising that we had to stop every so often to feed and water the animals. Not to mention ensuring that all of the equipment strapped to the carts was still in order.

While the merchants and caravaneers took their time preparing lunch or stretching their legs, Alex, the limpet, and I moved off to the lee of a hill and sat down quite comfortably under the beaming morning sun.

The night, spent camping in a circle off the road, had been nice and quiet, and so I thought that we were due a little bit of disruption.

"Are you done?" I asked the limpet.

She had a sandwich stuffed up against her face, courtesy of Alex, of course. She swallowed the last few bites, rubbed the back of her hand against her mouth, then nodded. "I'm ready for anything, Master!" the limpet said past a full mouth.

I nodded and shifted so that I was a little more comfortable on the grassy ground. "Very well. Show me how far along you've come with Prestidigitation."

The limpet saluted me. "Yes sir!" she said before moving back a step and taking a deep breath. She seemed a little nervous. Perhaps that was fair, I was asking her to demonstrate one of the most simple yet complex spells in a fresh wizard's arsenal.

The basis for it was quite simple and very much open-ended. It was a spell that used the caster's ability to visualize action and press magic itself into accomplishing that action. Essentially, it was a 'do anything' kind of spell.

It is, of course, exceptionally weak. What the spell gains in-breath, it loses in depth. A flame created with Prestidigitation would be far weaker than one created with a Create Fire spell and would tax the caster far more.

The goal of the spell wasn't just to give the caster more tools, or rather a multi-purpose tool, it was to teach the caster how to visualize a spell and the way magic wrapped around to act with the caster's will.

The Limpet was learning the most basic and versatile spell there was, without my assistance. It would go a long way towards showing me how creative she could be, and would set a baseline for her abilities.

"Bending magic with the weave's equation

Turning my mind into iron persuasion

Into this earthly plane

I bring powers arcanely

And by my will, I cast Prestidigitation!"

The limpet stuck her hands out serpent quick and... a series of small lights flashed and popped in the air before fizzling out.

I clapped politely, and Alex joined me a half-second later. "A successful cast," I said.

The limpet's face took on some colour. "Ah, well, it's just a few lights and some noise. I can practice more. I'll get better, I swear!"

I waved off her concern. Light and sound at the same time were somewhat advanced. Not truly impressive, especially not with such a long chant and the entire, unshortened, somatic component, but she was still new.

"That's good. Continue practising."

"Yes, Master!"

"Very well, I think it's time that I teach you another spell."

The limpet started clapping before stopping and bowing. "Yes! Thank you, Master! I'll do my best to learn it well."

"Hmm," I agreed. "This spell is called Detect Magic. It, as the name suggests, allows the caster to detect magic. The hows of that detection are very much dependent on the caster's visualization of the spell. I once knew a wizard that could hear magic as a sort of song. I tend to prefer visual displays myself, but there are some handy tricks that you can do with that spell."

The limpet nodded. "I can imagine smelling magic must be useful too," she said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"Yeah, because the, uh, the light of it won't distract you in a fight?"

I considered that for a moment, then hummed. "That's a good idea. Either way, the spell is rather difficult, a tier above the spells you've been learning so far. This might be beyond your current ability to learn, though if you do learn it, it might assist you in the future."

The limpet started toying with the edge of her shawl. "How's that, Master?"

"Which part are you referring to? Your inability to cast the spell, or the way this spell could help you learn faster?" I asked.

"Ah, well." The limpet shifted her foot into the grass. "Both? I guess."

"Spells are generally segregated into tiers. These tiers are created to differentiate spells based on two factors. The complexity of the spell and its potential to cause harm. Invisibility, a second-tier spell, is hardly an order of magnitude harder to cast than Minor Illusion, a zeroth tier spell," I said.

The limpet pulled a notebook out of her satchel and started to scribble things in a hurry. I gave her a moment to catch up.

"The complexity factor is rather self-explanatory. Some spells require more knowledge of the arcane, more experienced, and more materials to cast. Miscasting them can have far greater repercussions."

"Got it," the limpet said as she finished a line. She looked up, waiting for me to go on.

"The other factor... let's call it the responsibility rating, is determined by how dangerous a spell is, not necessarily to the caster, but to the society around the caster. Incendiary Cloud, an eighth-tier spell, is relatively easy to cast. It can also destroy a small settlement if mismanaged."

The limpet seemed to take that in stride. "I think a lot of cultivators have similar things. Some skills and arts are kept secret until a disciple proves that they have the attitude needed to learn them."

"That's reasonable," I agreed. I would always be an advocate for the freedom of knowledge, but I wasn't so foolish as to suggest giving scrolls of Armageddon to every child on the street.

Trust people. But verify that they're not idiots.

I slid a hand into a pocket and found the tome I was looking for using a minor Book Finding cantrip. "Here," I said as I passed a slim notebook to the limpet. "These are the somatic and verbal instructions to Detect Magic. Learn them by the time we find some lodgings in Dolsrus."

The limpet took the notebook, then bowed over it. "Thank you, Master! I'll do my best."

A glance over my shoulder showed that the merchants were getting ready to set off once more. I climbed to my feet and Alex did the same while patting the grass off of his dress. "Time to head out," I said.

Before returning to the carriage, I reapplied my Minor Disguise, turning my skeletal face and hands into rather plain examples of each. I once more looked like a rather average, if dull, middle-aged man.

A mental command had the skeletons and shades and will-o'-wisps forming up along one side. I would have the lot of them run off to hide somewhere before we reached Dolsrus.

Avoiding attention would likely help avoid problems too.

We sat in our carriage, myself in the middle with my two companions by my sides, and were soon joined by the same merchants as before.

The caravan took off with a series of shouts from the drivers, and neighs from all the horses pulling us along. And just like that, we were approaching Dolsrus once more.

I let my mind wander a little, enjoying the sway of the carriage over packed-dirt roads while the limpet muttered and took notes from the book on her lap.

When we finally crested a hill some hours later, I caught sight of Dolsrus out ahead of us.

The city was set next to a large lake, one grand enough that I couldn't begin to make out the opposite shore around the curvature of the planet. I could see why it had earned the name Silent Lake, there was hardly a wave in sight, only the occasional ripple in the water, especially near the city itself.

Dolsrus was a decently large city, with tall walls all around, and some well-tilled fields beyond that. The buildings poking out from behind those walls were thin and covered in steep roofs made of what looked like beaten copper. There seemed to be a lot of copper in the construction around the city, from roofs to little copper-walled shacks next to the farmland.

Perhaps the metal was common around these parts? Interesting.

What was far more interesting were the great big statues lining the sides of the city's walls. No two were the same. From giants of marble with huge, ungainly clubs, to refined figures of men at parade rest, their bodies covered in intricately detailed armour.

Golems, no doubt the creations of the local Jade Golem sect.

It would be interesting to see them at work, and maybe to take one or two apart to see what kind of innovation their creators had come up with.

The caravan slowed a little as it headed towards a large gate guarded by a pair of statues as tall as a common oak. Both of them towered above the road, no doubt making the people below them feel small in their presence. Their masks, grotesque faces carved in a rictus of anger, certainly aided their image.

As we finally reached the gates, a group of guards stepped out and began assessing each carriage in turn. They seemed like simple militiamen, in breastplates and rounded helmets made of brass. "Travel permits?" the one that finally reached our carriage asked.

The merchants ahead of my and the limpet all reached out and found some folded documents that they handed to the guard. He checked each one with the bored efficiency of someone who had been doing the same thing day in and day out.

Then he looked at me and Alex. "Permits, sir?"

I had my disguise's face smile.

"Charm Person."

I was never terribly fond of that particular spell. It was far too bard-like for my liking. But, I had to admit that it did have its uses. I might have been able to avoid some issues had I been more willing to use it sooner, but there was something fundamentally wrong with changing a person's opinion without the use of rhetoric and logic.

"I think that you'll find that I'm perfectly in my rights to be here."

The guard, now joined by a few of his friends, nodded along. "You're allowed to be here," he agreed. "What about that maid. We got reports of a person in a maid outfit attacking the Four Venoms sect. Can we see your identification?"

"You don't need to see his identification."

The guard blinked. "We don't need to see his identification."

I smiled gently. "This isn't the maid you're looking for."

He eyed Alex, eyes narrowed, then looked to his companions. "That's not the maid we're looking for."

"We can go about our business," I added.

The guard stepped back after giving the merchants and the limpet back their papers. "You can go about your business."

"Move along," I muttered.

The guard waved us on. "Move along."

The carriage rolled on past, unencumbered by any bureaucratic nonsense.

"Master, that was incredible," the limpet said. "Can I learn to do that?"

I chuckled. "Maybe one day you'll have the force to do so," I said. "But that day isn't today. Come on, once we've found a place to stop we'll head out and look for a nice inn to stay in. There ought to be at least one nice establishment in a city of this size."

***

Answer to the last riddle: News

Today's riddle: Add two letters to me and I become shorter? What am I?

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