Chapter 21: Truth's Sting

After a good nights sleep, I was finally ready to put the finishing touches on my submission for the trials. Since I had to make it for a random soldier I tried my best to walk that eternal tight rope every desiger has walked since invention began: User friendliness vs technical capability. I sussed through many designs but I finally decided on two items.

The first was a leather arm bracer with a metal guard over it. It had a hole in the middle that lined up with the diagrams triangle on the bracers leather. The leather would then be firmly glued with some mix of magical slug slime and glue that acted as a super adhesive. Considering the slugs were one of the few domesticated magical creatures, the sticky substance they left behind in their trails wasn't as difficult to gather as many of their more wild friends products and people found that you couldn't advance your magical abilities with it. That left the goo only painfully expensive as opposed to wallet crippling.

This guard would shoot out a mud mix with fast fading water and long lasting dirt that would cake them in quickly drying mud. My testing had shown that putting the control switch directly on the device was too much of a pain to use in a combat situation. So I had it stitch it up to a special leather arm piece. This would have the initiation square on his index fingers knuckle hooked up to the rest of the diagram with the line running along his inner arm, hopefully providing some protection. But this was just a back up to the main weapon.

It was a long, two handed hammer with a solid stone head. It had a punch far above its weight class with the hollow tube on the bottom allowing flames to shoot out the back of the head and mana to flow back into the enchantments. This would add huge strength to any blow. But that wasn't the only function it had. If a button by the index finger on the grip and one in a as of yet undetermined hole were pressed, the stone head would close it's back opening and the flame enchantment would activate a special explosive effect of condensing several fire effects at the same time inside the bottom of the hammer head while leaving the attached stone base untouched. This pressure should then have the head shoot out as a quick and dirty missile.

What made this so powerful, aside from the obvious, was two fold: not only did the enchantment charge up enough during the fight to remake the head in seconds, the user could make the flame enchantment spew a stream of fire when the head wasn't present by pressing only one of the buttons. This function assured virtually no down time in the crafts fighting abilities.

The biggest drawback was of course, whiplash. The first time I had tried this on a wood mock up, the head had hit like the fury of a volcano distilled down to a single point. Which saw the head bounce back clean off the pole and nearly taking my right leg with it.

I decided to use a kind of shock pad using water. It had a three chamber pad surrounding the back of the head, well below the flame port. The two chambers on the right and left would be filled with water and have a flexible leather head sticking slightly out. These would also help reduce recoil from the missile function.

When the internal pressure of the water from the bending head reached a certain point a pressure sensitive square would activate another water spell that would over fill the partially filled middle chamber with enough force it would push back against the stone heads bending, with it's water set to last only as long as the pressure did.

This was another handy little tid-bit I had found using the library. Using a square to both activate an enchantment and act as a router wasn't possible. But you could change what would constitute a press and how many signals it would send out, which had the first function widely used as a means of replacing metal locks and keys. Most people used round tubes with different surfaces on the end to 'unlock' the squares acting in place of their mechanical counterparts. What I saw when I looked at the ability was a pressure sensor.

Of course the road from design to product was a rough and uncaring one. I spent many long hours the previous 3 days and nights constantly tinkering under the fire light of my crude bark craft lamps. The constant back and forth readjustments, the worst of them being getting the sensitivity down for the shock pad to where it wouldn't send a water jet with just regular movement or getting the stone pad to just press down slightly against the leather top so as not to puncture it.

The mock up staff was a sturdy wood piece with a hollow head. This hollow had several leather strips held in place with a cheap glue around the inside wall with the flame enchantment in the middle. The sides had three leather pieces with the stone enchantments. One would make and reform the hammer head with a similar one to make a head with the closed back. While the third would maintain and repair several lines of stone on the bottom of the shock pad that would distribute the impact along the shaft in several small arches as well as make the base that would take the heat and explosive impact of the missile function.

For the missile function it required an AND square. This type of square would only activate when two other squares were pressed at the same time. For my purposes I attached a small square in a small hole in the wood near the grips that wouldn't be hit by most spell effects or be accidentally pressed with most of the regular swinging motions. When this square and the square on a special index finger groove of the shafts grip for the flame enchantment were pressed together it would send the head flying.

I had an idea for another craft. But it was some pretty advanced stuff if it worked at all and I had no intention of making any major contributions that may benefit the Front, even indirectly. Just trying to test the limits of my abilities and get a great grade was the main goal here.

Looking out the window at the shadows angles I realized I had spent too much time tinkering with my inventions. Going out to the blacksmith I picked up my main weapons shaft. It was expensive with all the custom work that had to be done with the grips. Using a metal enchantment I could have easily made it myself but I needed to leave behind a solid trail explaining how I made these tools in case I was looked into. Considering the waves I would be making that was certainly going to happen at some point.

Speaking of trails, I gritted my teeth at the next stage of construction. I was a crafter and that meant if I wanted to explain how I got all the constructs for my enchantments, I would have to ask the various students for them. The best out come would be that they just sigh in annoyance and do it. A lot of the time they would just whine, wasting so much time that they would have been done by the end of their rant if they had just gotten to work immediately.

I made my way to the smaller tower where training took place in the group, keeping my bigger items in a large leather pack slung over my back and keeping the leather strips holding the actual enchantments that would hold the constructs in my hands. Making my way up to the roof I came up to the table off to the side. There was a skinny brown haired man lost in a book he was reading sitting in a chair behind the table this time.

"I need so-" He put up his hand.

"All right, good luck getting them." He said, not even looking up from his book.

I suppressed my sigh. Going around, I managed to get my water constructs pretty easily but when I asked for the earth ones I got a scoff for my effort from one burly dude who only gave me one. A few more rounds of begging, and I was becoming more and more bitter at how little I actually needed these people.

On my third attempt to get my second earth construct I felt a tap on my shoulder. The shorter man had black hair and ocean eyes with an odd mix of greens and deep blues. He looked a little sweaty from his long day of work.

"Hello, I heard you needed some earth and fire constructs. Maybe we could come to an arrangement?" He said

"All right, I am open to suggestions but I'm not sure how I could help you." I said, a little skeptically. I wasn't exactly getting a bountiful harvest here and my patience with the other casters was running thin enough that I was open to a little work.

"I am a dual fire/wind element wizard and I heard you had a craft up and running within a day." He said with a slight hint of a question at the end.

"Yes but it was only a small flame." I responded.

"Only? Well it's more than I have gotten done in my crafting studies. I'm not sure what other people are told of casters or scions studies but we all have to perform crafting to a certain degree. If you help me make my basic enchantment to pass my minimum crafting requirement, I can make your fire construct right now and help you get the other three earth ones you need after we're done." He put out his hand.

I thought about it for a second and shook his hand. If my current approach went on much longer I would be done around late afternoon tomorrow.

After inserting the fire construct into the round leather piece, he led me to a study room where we went over various crafting steps and principles. As we went through each of the steps on his piece of bark I think he got most of it right. Since you can't see a diagram made by some one else, I had to make due with descriptions of the things he was doing which was a pain in the ass. Eventually I worked out that the craft still wouldn't work due to an error in his conception of the squares.

"I think I see what your problem is. When your making the squares you keep saying 'push the mana out' and not merely directing its natural flow." I said as the puzzle pieces fell into place.

" What difference does that make? Don't they both move the mana out of the square?" He asked.

"Yes but think of the mana in this diagram like a river. The squares are like damns who can open certain gates to let the water flow past, which are our instructions. It works fine under the regular flow but if you increase its speed that's also increasing the strain on the structure, eventually damaging it." This was something I had actually tried over my days of experiments to help speed up the communication between squares even faster, but my squares would simply overload like his were.

I had an experiment that I needed to test out and this was the most opportune moment I would get before the trials. We burned out the square and the two lines connecting it to the rest of the diagram.

"All right just to control what could go wrong I will make the lines and you put the square in between them." I said.

He then guided me in making the connections I needed to make. However unknown to him, I only held the connection temporarily while not pushing the connecting lines into the material itself. After I was finished he put in the square making sure to word it so the mana would flow out at its own natural speed. He pressed what I assumed to be the button and I could see the soft glow of the two line I was maintaining take on the blue glow of a mana flow as I held them in place. Doing this wasn't nearly the hard strain like it was when I first used spirit magic and I could now maintain it outside my own body with ease. I guess like all my other muscle groups this ability got better with practice.

The craft produced a rose made in flame. It even had full petals of moving fire and the thorns running down its stem gave off soft wisps of smoke. I was always more of a function over form type but even my uninspired sense could appreciate the finer details of this smoldering flower. The clear ocean eyes of its maker shone with a sparkle in the blueish green. I took this moment of distraction to make my lines of connection permanent. Realizing he had been staring, he coughed and closed his eyes.

"Thanks man, if you ever need anything just call for me and I will see what I can do." He said putting out his hand.

"I will, but what's your name?" I asked shaking his hand. We were in the same group but aside from that first pairing almost 3 weeks ago, we hadn't taken another session together.

He stopped and looked at me for a long moment, eventually the ghost of a smile played along his mouth.

"My name is Jeff and my brother's name is Andrew." He finally said.

"Ah the snorer." I said like I had found my long lost nemesis. Having had him fall asleep in some of our group study sessions when going over history or math, I spent the whole time early mornings trying keep a good distance from him when the groups were formed to avoid losing a whole study period to that racket.

Jeff sucked in his lips like he was trying to not burst out laughing for a few seconds.

"Yes, that one. Well how about we get you those constructs".

We headed back towards the tower and this time they were practically lining up to give us the constructs. Apparently, Jeff was someone of considerable renown. Which made sense when I recalled the conversations I overheard on my first visit to the dorms.

I thanked him for his assistance, after which Jeff said he was headed home. Considering how volatile it was now I got an early lunch of beef stew just in case another incident happened. Then it was time for the lecture sessions. As I prepared my self for the coming napping session, I continued going over the same circles in my head.

How much I should give away technology wise, what industries should I spin up first, and how far should I go with my abilities to get ahead? That last one was the big one right now. It had replaced the question of how to extend my life span which was about the only major long term planning I had gotten done.

The history section passed by in a haze of word vomit. After which we got to the survival section, which everyone was clearly more interested in. The grey haired veteran came in and wasted no time with introductions.

"All right we've covered the bigger threat but orcs are hardly the only ones stalking these lands. The most dangerous threat isn't always the most intimidating one. Case and point: Druids."

I felt the hair on the back of my head stick up. There were few times in life were I let anger control me and I was thinking about letting this be one of those times. But, arguing with him here would draw too much attention.

"This is an opponent designed for stealth and subterfuge. It won't whack you over the head like an orc or take a bite out of you like a mountain troll. They use some foul magic to befuddle the mind and induce their victims to their will."

A girl near the mid section raised her hand.

"My mother said they are cruel trick by the elves. Is there any truth to that?"

The veteran smiled faintly.

"As an official member of the Front, if I were to breathe any life into such rumors it would lead to a diplomatic incident. I must also remind you that just because druids are only found near elven territory and bring all their victims into elven territory does not mean the elves are responsible for them." He said with a meaningful look in his face. His unsaid meaning seemed to be understood by everyone in attendance.

I began to feel a tightness around my chest. At first I tried to just dismiss this uncomfortable strand of thought from my mind but suddenly a piece of the puzzle fell into place. From what I recalled of the map, it looked like it was only the elves beyond the rumble. Now that I think about it, why go there at all?

I was the weak link. The guards had armor that negated the disadvantage of weight which she had clearly seen and I couldn't match their physical strength, at least at that point I certainly couldn't. So why go through there at all if it would just slow us down more than them? This would explain why she took me through Dwarves Rumble. It was because she was never going to take me to a human settlement.

I struggled with this revelation for a while. Going back and forth over the whole incident until I got a nagging feeling that I was missing something. I just chocked all of my emotions down and tried to follow along with the course.

".... is that as nature spirits they are partially made of mana. We aren't completely sure if they can use ambient mana but we do know that their abilities allow them to perform acts outside of the spell frame work. The most prominent is an attack directed through their eyes. If you see a tree moving and folding into a human shape try to burn if before the face can manifest or else your a puppet on their strings."

A clearly scared man on the bottom row put up his hand.

"Is there any defense once we look them in the eyes? How can they influence the mind? That doesn't fall into any of the elements."

The veteran shrugged his shoulders and put up his hands in mock surrender.

"That's just it kid, the four elements have no allowance for such a thing and some how the elv..... their unknown benefactors have managed it. We humans have had experts with untold rivers of gold and countless centuries going over all the possible spell combinations but your guess is as good as theirs.

As for defending against it, the short answer is none. The long answer is time. Apparently using this ability still drains stamina like any other spell. So, at that point your only hope is to run into a patrol or go together as a group and hope your comrades catch you. Their bewitching abilities wear off as they physically tire so it will certainly be possible to save you if there's anyone around to do it."

My mind was a whirlwind of possibilities, going over everything that had happened. Was her multi-colored eyes really a spell going off? Why did she have me go to the river when the Front arrived?

I couldn't calm my mind so I just tried to take in the whole lecture but alas even this balm for my aches was short lived. Apparently the teacher was done talking about druids various aspects and abilities because the noise had stopped. I looked up to see he was silent for a moment.

The veteran then coughed and got a saddened look in his eyes.

"All right, today's lesson will be cut short. Just know that we are all in this together and what the Front does, it does for the good of us all." He said and strode out the door.

"That was odd" some one to my left needlessly said.

'Welp any chance I had to study today is shot. Fuck this shit, I'm going home.' I thought to my self.

I immediately went out side and waited for a group, staring at the blue sky until a guard unit brought us through the forest. Once we got to the dorms I was getting ready to head to the warehouse but I heard a commotion in the main yard. I made my way past the crowd in front of the reception stalls to see a naked fat man doused in green paint.

He was running around the tower in a wide circle with a member of the Magical Progression Front hitting his back with a cane whenever he slowed down. It took me a moment before I recognized the pudgy man as John, who I had taken a few study sessions with. I could now make out his soft chin and cheek mole as he came near our group.

I looked on for a quick second and felt a tap on my shoulder. Turning around I saw Jeff, who must have seen the questioning look on my face when as I watched the spectacle.

"He was found with an orc. While he usually would not be punished, maybe even rewarded depending on his bravery, it was clear their relationship was consensual." Jeff said, with an air of indifference. He didn't seem particularly upset at the sight.

I mused on this for a bit.

"Well I can see why there needs to be a punishment for this" I said as I looked on. There were tears running down his face as his brown hair went all over his bare shoulders and back dripping the green paint over the rest of his body. Which did nothing to hide the bruises and streaks of blood on his back.

"But this. I don't think killing someone he is attached too then humiliating him like this will increase his.." I stopped for a moment. The word 'trust' I was about to use died on my tongue as a revelation hit me like a physical blow to the stomach.

Apparently Jeff thought I was at a loss for words, so tried to counter my intended argument.

"Whatever he feels, he put us all in danger with his perversions. Should future mages suffer because he couldn't keep it in his pants? What about all the new widows from the soldiers dying from the weapons of a crafter orc? His feelings are the last thing we should be thinking about."

I gave an absent nod, which he apparently took as agreement and turned his head back to the show. I just walked off and ran over the scene of me resting under the tree with Lilly in my head. I did this again and again until I got in the warehouse.

When I was telling Lilly about my people I didn't trust her with my history. Not odd considering all the impossible things I would have to explain to her were actually mundane for my people. But that wasn't the reason. When I refused to tell her my history it was because I didn't trust her, the obstacle of explaining my origins didn't even cross my mind. Which was odd considering how much I had trusted her up to that point.

Our teacher said the abilities of a druid would fade with physical exertion. When we were under that tree we were certainly exhausted. I struggled with the obvious conclusion for a while. My mind trying to come up with any number of absurd conspiracies to explain this information before my harder, more logical side took over.

'Come now, Eli. A woman waiting out in the middle of the forest just willing to go on a long, perilous journey for someone she never met. Would you ever be naive enough to believe such a thing? Even if she was that type of person, would you have ever been stupid enough to go along with her in the middle of some godforsaken forest into what, let's be honest, was obviously a trap? At least without some other inducing influence would you have ever trusted her so blindly? Would the Front really go through all of the trouble of coming up with all of these lies about the druids abilities just on the off chance that you were attending this small lecture of less than 30 people? All based on an incident they have no reason to believe you were involved in. Your smarter than this." The cold voice of reason said.

You could lie to your parents, siblings, loved ones, and all the highest authorities of man but there were few more irredeemable lies and deceptions than those we tell ourselves. I let this hard truth wash over me like a physical pain and forced myself to accept it.

So much work needed doing. Crafting, studying, drawing up a road map for all the innovations I would bring to this world, the list went on and on. But I was hurting too much.

Not angry, outraged, weepy, or even feeling betrayed, just hurt. I went to my bed and laid down for the night, letting this aching pain keep me up for a few minutes before the soothing calm of sleep washed it away.