Elwen the Conquered

Elwen spent the next few days shuffling between the inn and the library. There wasn’t much else for her to do, as the festival she was eagerly awaiting hadn’t started yet, so she spent most of her time reading. She would have liked to explore the city more, but Varian took on jobs during the day in an effort to bolster their funds. They weren’t exactly in desperate need of money now, but they still needed more for the future.

As Varian wasn’t available to escort her, she couldn’t move around much. In truth, the city was probably safe enough that she could walk around by herself, but she had no desire to do so. What if she did come across a band of thugs? What if she accidently broke some strange law? What if she got lost?

It was too much for Elwen to handle by herself, so she opted to just wait for when Varian was available. This left her only really able to go to the library, as Varian would drop her off there before heading off to his job.

And so, here she was, drowning in hundreds, no thousands, of books. There were far too many for here to ever read, and yet it seemed like there still was not enough. She was in book heaven; she had never seen so many real books in her life.

In an effort to maintain the appearance of doing something productive, she tried learning more from the library’s small collection of magic books. She found herself re-reading the book she picked out the first day, the one about the magic tools. Ironically, she was actually reading the book to learn more about what the Lapides replaced, the Tanchen Dentose. While the Lapides seemed to be a specialized magic tool, their predecessors seemed to be something that she could actually make.

She just had to figure out how to ‘inject’ her mana into an object. Was it similar to what she was doing with the magic book? If she didn’t have any prior knowledge, which she didn’t, she would call what she was doing ‘injecting’ mana. However, doesn’t that mean that she should be able to extract mana from the book? She tried last night, and so far, she had been unable to do so, and was starting to believe that it was because there was no mana to take.

Maybe she was just doing it wrong? She had tried manipulating her mana the same as when she was channeling it into the book, but instead reversed the flow. As soon as she did this, the channel rapidly narrowed until it disappeared entirely. She was pretty sure that it would have gone away immediately if there wasn’t any mana in the channel, it seemed that all she accomplished was collecting the mana in transition between her and the book, but not collecting any from the book.

From her experimentation, she did learn that she was missing something about the technique, or at least about mana manipulation in general. See, she didn’t feel any mana around her except her own mana, and once her mana left her body, she seemed to lose direct control of it. She could speed up, slow down, widen, and narrow the flow of mana between her and the book, but she wasn’t really able to do much else. She had tried to change the path of the flow, which resulted in the channel breaking. She had tried switching the object the mana was going to, which also failed. She had tried stopping the flow in place, which also, unsurprisingly, led to the channel breaking, and her losing control of any mana that was in it.

She was pretty sure that what she was doing wasn’t what the book was referring to as mana manipulation, as the mages referenced in the book could freely manipulate their mana inside and, up to certain extent, outside of their body. They could also manipulate mana that wasn’t theirs. Apparently, it was common for them to manipulate some sort of residual mana that just floated around in the world. She didn’t even know such mana existed before she read about it, so there was clearly something she was missing.

She had the [Magic Control] feat, which she needed to cast spells. She thought that it also let her, well, control her mana too, but perhaps there was a separate [Magic Manipulation] feat, or maybe [Mana Manipulation]? She thought she saw a section in the library on different feats, maybe she should see if she could find something like that?

With renewed vigor, Elwen got up from her chair in the alcove and went on a search for a new book.

Meanwhile, Varian was out in the middle of a forest, hunting a very particular type of deer. He was tasked by a certain individual to hunt a ‘Greater Westlands Forest Stag.’ In all honestly, it was a tiresome task, one he would gladly abandon if he got a better offer.

However, the reward for this particular job was just too good to pass up. His client was the owner of ‘Oakenwood,’ a high-class restaurant in the city. In fact, it was in competition with two other restaurants to be the best in the city. In exchange for delivering the stag, as well as some other rare beasts that he has been hunting throughout the week, the owner promised a free private room, with the meal included, at the restaurant during the festival.

He didn’t really care about the meal being free, he could probably pay for it even if it was expensive. What really mattered was the reservation. He had been trying to book something at a good restaurant, but apparently all of them were booked through the end of the festival.

It was an added bonus that he was able to complete a few other requests from the merchant’s association to earn some extra cash at the same time.

He did feel a little bad that he had to leave Elwen alone for most of the day, though. He knew that she wanted to explore the city, but this was the only way to secure a reservation at Oakenwood. Hopefully, his plan would make it up to her…

From what he had heard, the festival should start tomorrow. Assuming he gets the stag today, he would be free to take Elwen around to enjoy the festival tomorrow. There were supposed to be a parade on the first day, so they would have to be sure to see that. The festival should last three days, but he didn’t think it would really be necessary for them to stay for its entirety, especially if they can see everything they wanted to the first day. He hadn’t heard of anything special happening on the second and third days, just the parade on the first. So, he had planned to leave on the second day. Although if Elwen wanted to stay longer…

He wasn’t sure if he would be able to say no.

He also wasn’t sure how long he could keep sitting in this damn tree. When is that bloody stag going to show up? He has seen countless deer walk past him on their way to the river to drink, and he appraised each and every one, but he never found the one he was looking for.

This was the only spot in the forest where the deer came to drink, he already checked the previous day when he was hunting the ‘Greater Honeycomb Bear.’ It had to show up eventually, right?

One had been spotted in this forest three days ago, leading a small herd of ‘Lesser Westlands Forest Deer,’ which he had already seen today, meaning the stag was still in the forest.

He considered getting down from the tree and trying to track the stag, but he didn’t want to risk scaring all the deer away by doing so. Plus, he didn’t have a [Tracking] skill to begin with, so he would have to rely on his own knowledge of the art, which was non-existent.

He resolved to stay in the tree for a few more hours. Even if he had to spend all night looking for it, he had to get that damn deer.

At the same time, putting down her book, Elwen let out a sigh. Not a sad sigh, but rather a happy one. Apparently [Mana Manipulation] was a feat related to [Magic Control], which she already had. She was also pretty certain she could acquire the feat as well; it would just take some doing.

First, she needed a spell, [Water Ball]. Luckily, she already learned the spell, so she wouldn’t have to go searching for it. The spell created a big ball of water, which the caster could manipulate using mana. Of course, Elwen couldn’t manipulate her mana, but the spell allowed for a sort of unconscious control. By using the spell, she could learn how to manipulate her mana by replicating what she felt while manipulating the ball.

That was the method that she discovered by reading some of the books on magic theories. Apparently, it was a common method that was used to teach students how to control their mana. She found a whole collection of books on teaching magic from somewhere call the ‘Horenstein College.’ She thought that it was probably a magic university, based on the content of the books associated with it. If she could, she would want to go. However, she wasn’t even sure if it was still around. Even if it was, it would probably be ridiculously expensive to go anyways.

She returned her book to its spot on the shelf, happy with what she accomplished today. “Varian should be coming back soon…” She muttered to herself. It was getting late, a little past the time he normally came to get her. She knew that he was busy with something, and he told her that he might be a little late today when he dropped her off. Still, she wanted to see him…

Later, after they had returned to the inn, Elwen happily skipped down the hall after taking her daily bath, returning to their room. The festival will start tomorrow, and she was excited for it. Varian told her that he finished all the work that he had to do today, so they could go to the festival all day. She was glad that she didn’t have to wait in the library all day while the festival was going on. She was getting a little tired of sitting in there all day.

“I’m back!” She declared as she opened the door to their room and stepped inside.

Varian was sitting in an armchair, relaxing while reading a small pamphlet. The little booklet was a sort of newspaper that they had bought while walking back to the inn. Unlike a regular newspaper, it covered the news of the last two or three months, and was only published a couple of times a year.

Apparently, paper was pretty expensive. As a result of this, it wasn’t an everyday item. Sure, it was still common enough that one could find it if they wanted to, but the price shied most people away from using it too much. It was probably the reason for the high security deposit at the library, all the books were probably really expensive to make, so if many of them were damaged the library would have a hard time finding replacements.

On the desk next to him lay a set of clothes, as well as a few toiletries, like the bar of soap she forced him to take with him. No, he didn’t stink, but after she spotted a few drops of blood on his clothes yesterday she refused to be near him until he cleaned off. Sure, in the field it might be difficult to be clean, but if they were in the city there was no excuse.

She plopped down on her bed. As she was already ready to go to bed, she climbed into the covers, exhausted from the day.

Of course, she wasn’t nearly as exhausted as Varian, although he hid it well. After he found the beast he was looking for, he spent an hour or so chasing it, sprinting after it. He thought animals were generally only able to sprint for short distances before they needed to rest, but apparently not. He had almost chased the thing out of the forest before he finally caught up to it.

And who knew it was so hard to shoot a bow while running? He eventually got the stag with his spear, but he lost all of his arrows. He had to go and get some new ones on his way back, and they weren’t exactly cheap either.

Still, it was well worth it. After turning the stag into the client, he confirmed his reservation for the second day of the festival. The owner even showed him the room that he would be using, as it wasn’t occupied at that time, being in between customers. It would suit his purposes wonderfully.

He stood up from his chair, taking the items on the desk next to him. It was his turn in the bathroom, as long as her got there before anyone else. He was glad that the facilities here were nicer, he knew that Elwen certainly appreciated them, he just wished that they could have their own bathroom. It was common on Earth, so why do they have to only have shared bathrooms here?

When he got to the door, he looked back at Elwen. She was already under the covers, hidden beneath them. She had pulled up the blankets completely, blocking out the light.

He put out the lights before he left, letting her rest more comfortably. He was confident he wouldn’t need them when he got back, and if did he could just stumble around until he eventually made it.

He quietly closed the door behind him and headed to the bathroom.

‘She wasn’t lying when she said I didn't stink, was she?’ He resolved to be extra careful getting all the sweat and dirt off of him. Tomorrow was an important day, after all.