Sacrifice Mage-Chapter 14: Mage Guild

Eager as I was to test out my hypothesis, I had to explain to Escinca what had happened and reassured him that both of his cultists were fine.
He had looked rather worried, which had obligated me to try and reassure the old guy. The guards hadn’t found the Scarthralls. They
had
discovered evidence of the fight, but no sign of the Thralls themselves. Aurier’s hammer was at the guardhouse too, further evidence of the battle. They had edly found bits of the Thrall on it, so were keeping it for now.
The Elder was not open to having his worries assuaged, unfortunately. He turned my whole talk on its head and ended up reassuring
me
that things would turn out alright and we could still have our little celebration.
Not that I had needed it. Come on, I hadn’t even asked for the fete. That was all Escinca’s idea.
One thing I did appreciate, however, was when he asked me about the actual little battle itself. About how I had felt in the moment of fighting for my life.
About whether I had ever taken someone
else’s
life before.
“Are you guilty about what you had to do, Ross?” he asked.
“I would have been dead if I hadn’t acted,” I said, though my hands were still shaking.
Escinca slowly nodded. “I am glad that you and Aurier came out of it unscathed. But regardless of how we handle things in the moment, it isn’t uncommon for the aftereffects to… linger or even transform.” He paused, as if considering his words. “All I’m saying is that if ever you feel troubled about anything, please don’t hesitate to come to me. I’ll be here to help.”
I swallowed. This old man was a little
too
kind. “Thank you, Elder.” My voice turned soft on its own. “I’ll remember it.”
Before I left, I also ed the incident at the Ration House, specifying that it was me who had changed the order up a bit. “I hope I wasn’t overstepping too much, Elder.”
Escinca frowned at that. “I understand your concern, and…” He sighed. “And you are most likely correct. We were likely paying far more than we really needed to. But I didn’t pursue the matter through the Council—or even try your method, smart though it is—because I didn’t wish to cause friction. Things are not exactly going well for the cult…”
Ah, right. I remembered my little lesson from Hamsik about what the cult did now that gods were all banished, about how less significant they were. I also remembered Escinca mentioning before how the funds allocated by the Council weren’t much to begin with.
“The less work we make the Council do on our behalf,” Escinca continued. “The less we risk antagonizing them or making them think we’re more work than it is worth.”
“I see,” I said. It felt kind of shitty to be tiptoeing like that, but whatever. “Hopefully, it doesn’t cause any trouble. And if it does, I’ll take full responsibility, Elder.”
He smiled at me, not unkindly. “You—and the others too—are the future of the cult, Ross. If anyone is to take responsibility for anything, it shall be me. Farewell, and get some rest, please.”
Rest could wait. After bidding my goodnight, I took to the privacy of my room to test out my hypothesis on Sacrifice. I sat on my bed, my sprite lighting up the room for me, and took out the packets. As I channelled the power of Sacrifice, threads of magical energy bridging a connection between my core and the item in my hands, the barbs in my chest fluttered like they wanted to grow.
“Future of the cult, huh?” I mused. That worked well enough as a switch, apparently.
The packets disappeared in a burst of white light, the mana threads dissolving a second later.
[ Sacrifice
You have Sacrificed 1 [Moderate] Item of Strong Parental Sentiment. Windfall bonus activated.
You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Item of Deceit. Windfall bonus activated.
Reward
: 1 Attribute Rank [Assignable to Any Attribute]
Reward
: 1 lie detection
]
What? I stared at those rewards. On the one hand, that was exactly what I had been hoping. Not the reward itself because that was a bit harder to predict. Rather, I had successfully predicted that the Weave would recognize that the packet I had received from the grateful woman held high emotional value.
So even if the actual item was worthless, the effort that had gone into acquiring it and the sentimental value it held would still be recognized by the Weave. Which it had!
But only for one of them, apparently.
Was it because the other packet wasn’t
really
mine? Well, if it hadn’t been mine, Sacrifice wouldn’t have even worked on it. Nevertheless, the Weave had still recognized that the original emotional value of the second packet had been directed at Aurier. Not me. So I had just received a much simpler reward for the base object for Sacrificing it.
Which was lie detection. Kind of neat, I supposed.
For the first reward, I plugged it into Power. It was already high, but that was the point, wasn’t it? It would be harder to raise up another Rank compared to the rest, so I was just making things a little easier for myself. I could raise the other Attributes to a similar level faster myself.
[ Rank Up!
Your Power Attribute has risen by one Rank.
Power
: Iron IV
]
A pinch of energy flooded my muscles. There. Now Power had the same Rank as my strongest Aspect, Gravity. More importantly, I checked my status again, and sure enough, the countdown had been pushed back to four days. What a relief.
Satisfied with what I had found out about Sacrifice so far, I went to bed. I had some trouble getting some rest, though. My sprite tried to comfort me with its dim glow, which was honestly rather nice. But it took me a while to fall asleep, and when I woke up the next day, I didn’t feel as refreshed as I’d have liked.
At least I had more time to screw around before my mana core imploded.
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I helped Escinca clean early in the morning. Neither Aurier nor Hamsik appeared, but this didn’t bother the Elder, so I didn’t think much about it.
The more important consideration was food. Specifically, I wasn’t sure if I ought to have revealed that I wasn’t eating his breakfast so much as Sacrificing it. Hey, I
was
using it, so there was that at least, right?
Afterwards, I headed off to the Mage Guild. Escinca had once again reminded me to find Kostis and I resolved to do so. I wanted more information about my Path.
It was a bit surprising the Elder of the Sun Cult didn’t know much about the Path of the Newborn Star, considering how much it seemed, well,
sun-aligned
, for lack of a better term. There was that time when Escinca had seemed fascinated to learn what my Path was called too. Yet, nothing further had come from that, even after he had seemed so interested.
“Much of the information we used to store has been lost,” Escinca said after breakfast. “Even before I was installed as the cult leader.” He sighed. “I sometimes wonder how many things of value there are that we simply cannot access any longer.”
It was a bit awful to leave him on that somewhat morose note, but maybe I could figure something out at the Mage Guild and then cheer him up with new info.
As I set out, I channelled Gravity to weigh down my whole body. Not too much so I could keep it up longer, but moving around with greater weight should help my Vitality. At some point, I would need to test what the exact amount of weighting was for my whole body that I could keep up indefinitely.
Essentially, that would be the rate at which Gravity exhausted mana would equal the rate of me regenerating my body’s natural capacity to channel mana.
I liked being out and about on my own for a change. No more Hamsik dragging me around for “lessons”. No more Aurier guiding me like I was some kind of tourist. Just me and my terrible sense of direction, about to be lost in the chaos of Zairgon.
And holy crap, Aurier hadn’t been lying about the rush hour thing. I had gone out pretty early, when people were still busy heading off to work, and calling the gate crowded was a severe understatement. I was swimming in a small river of people, hemmed in on all sides and more or less carried along by the raging waters of humanity squeezing through the partially open city gates.
At least that smarmy guard who had made everyone say the same stupid propaganda wasn’t present. I shuddered at the thought of the holdup.
Asking for directions soon had me on my way to the Mage Guild. I got lost a couple of times, because I did somehow end up first on the street leading to Ring Two, and then at the same area with all the warehouses where Gutran’s smithy was located. Eventually though, I got my bearings and finally came across the Mage Guild building.
It was definitely in a neighbourhood nowhere near Gutran’s smithy. This was a far nicer locale, with actual houses and fields of dark grass. I was sure I spotted things like hospitals, banks, and what even looked like a school at one point, going by the kids nearby.
The Mage Guildhall itself had the appearance of a small, Disney castle. Blue-grey stone made up most of it, with the towers roofed with deep-blue slate and artfully decorated to resemble broad-brimmed wizard hats. Its portcullis looked like it was made of glass. The architect for this place sure had a… vision.
“What business does…” The hawk-headed guard dressed in mage robes looked at my clothing. “…a cultist have here?”
“Well, I came to join the Mage Guild,” I said.
“A cultist… becoming a mage?”
“Is that illegal or something?”
“Well,
no
…”
“Cool. I’ll be on my way then.”
The path from the main gates to the actual entrance into the Guildhall was pretty long. It did afford me some time to take a look, and I caught all kinds of people hanging around. Leafless black trees shaded the fields beyond the Guildhall from view, but I still caught mages sparring with each other or testing their magic, threads of every colour in the rainbow gleaming all around.
As the exterior had suggested, the interior was quite homy too. Wood panelling, bright crystal chandeliers, lush carpets, all the stuff that I would expect to see at a five-star hotel.
More interesting were the various powers, the various kinds of magic, I saw. A cowled Rakshasa had arms made of pure crackling lightning, a fox made of pure fire was tailing a Scalekin, and there was one person who had a crystalline formation for a head. Wait, was that magic, or was there a race with crystals for heads?
While most people were too busy with their own business, I did get a few looks. I was one of the vanishingly rare humans in the lobby, after all. The receptionist I made my way to was a Scalekin, light pink scales flashing under the bright lights.
“How may I help you today?” she asked in a pleasant but practiced voice. If she had any reservations about my appearance or getup, she didn’t let it show. A true professional.
“Hello,” I said. “I was looking to join the Mage Guild. Maybe get some more information about some of the things I was interested in. And maybe meet someone specific if he’s around?”
“I can help you with the first two. We will need to assess that you possess the right Path. Once that’s determined, you can then participate in all Guild activities available at your rank. Fees are due biweekly, and you will be required to strictly adhere to all Guild rules once you sign up as a member. The Guild papers will detail all the benefits you can take advantage of. Any questions before we go and get you tested?”
All of that I had already either heard from Elder Escinca or had been expecting on my own.
“One small thing, yes,” I said. “Can non-citizens become members of the Mage Guild?”
For the first time, the snake lady frowned. I was once again minorly taken aback by the expressiveness on Scalekin faces. “You aren’t a citizen of Zairgon?”
“No. At least, not yet.”
For a second, I was just a tiny bit worried about how immigration was handled in this world, especially in Zairgon. Did foreigners need visas? Would I be labelled as an illegal immigrant for coming through obviously unconventional channels?
“You can still join the Guild,” the receptionist said. “The Mage Guild of Zairgon is just a city-state chapter of the Mage Guild of Ephemeroth, so anyone can join anywhere, really. However, certain benefits do require local citizenship, so you won’t be able to avail yourself of those benefits without it.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’m just relieved I can become a member.”
The receptionist shuffled some papers inside a drawer, then pulled one out and handed it to me. “Please read through this and then sign it if you agree. Please also note the rules. Violating any of them will lead to punishment, potentially even leading to not only banishment from the Guild, but also legal actions if deemed necessary.”
“Sure. I’ll be back in a moment.”
I took the paper, grabbed an empty seat—it was pretty comfy—and went through what felt like a contract to me. Mostly, I just paid attention to the rules.
They were typical things like not harming other Guild members, not using Aspects in a harmful way, paying membership dues, and so on. The only thing that caught me off guard was the bit stating that, as an Iron-ranked member, I would need to attend at least one mage class, whatever those were. Hmm, did I even have the time for that on top of everything else I was supposed to do?
I signed it anyway, because what I really wanted was one of the stipulations at the bottom—membership granted full access to the job board. The cult might not be able to pay me much, which was fine. I could get the money I needed through more lucrative mage jobs.
And then buy what I needed to keep fuelling Sacrifice and pushing off that countdown further.
“Here,” I said, handing the contract to the lady with a small smile. “All signed.”
“Thank you,” the receptionist said.
She inspected it quickly to make sure everything was okay, before ringing a bell. Moments later, a short Ogre appeared, dressed in mage robes and a wizard hat hiding his bald head. Short, as in, short for an Ogre. The guy still stood head and shoulders above me. He smiled at me, revealing teeth like little bricks. I wasn’t sure if that was a friendly smile.
“This is Kliezeg,” the receptionist said. “He’ll lead you to the testing grounds to make sure you have the right Path.”
“Follow, human,” Kliezeg said.
I decided to take that as a speaking quirk of Ogres and not as him seeing me as just another significantly smaller human. He had sounded rather eloquent. “Lead the way, Ogre.”
Kliezeg’s brow twitched, but he said nothing further. We went to the side of the lobby and through another passageway. One Rakshasa guy dressed in light leather armour instead of the typical sorcerer robes greeted Kliezeg and correctly identified me as a newbie as well. The Ogre only responded with a strained smile and nod while we kept on moving.
We went outside and navigated through the other mages going about their business to find a relatively private area, receiving several interested looks. This wasn’t an uncommon process, but a human in cultist robes wasn’t
that
common, going by the number of glances I got.
Kliezeg handed me a tennis-ball sized cube of what felt like translucent glass. “Use your Aspect on this, human. Do not hold back. This is both a measure of what your Aspect is
and
how powerful it is currently.”
“What is this thing?” I asked, inspecting the glass box.
“Merely a measuring device,” someone else said, walking over with an interested look in his slit-pupiled eyes. Another Scalekin, with scales white as milk, except for the areas where his scales had been replaced with literal gems. He was dressed in the finest robes I had seen so far at the Guild, a silver-etched pipe smoking in his mouth. “Iconized to remain indestructible, no matter the Aspect you use. Go on, try it.”
“Ah, Master Kostis.” The Ogre bowed, as my head jolted back to the newcomer. So
this
was the guy Escinca had mentioned. Was this a coincidental happenstance, or had he spotted my robes and beelined to me? “Greetings.”
Kostis wasn’t alone. He clearly looked like some kind of hotshot, so it wasn’t surprising that a posse had followed him as well. All the people who had peeked at me earlier were taking a longer look now, gathering closer to see what all the fuss was about, silently questioning why someone called “master” was taking an interest in me.
I suppressed the little shiver that tried to rise but couldn’t hold back my grin. Looked like I would need to take this test a little more seriously.
And so, I channelled Gravity
and
Sacrifice.