Chapter 26 old man
Pov Jean
“Sarah how the hell are we gonna find anyone who'd be willing to teach us jack?”
My mouth ran before the thought even finished, like usual….
“Well we were told to ask around while the weather held up. So let's go buy a few little things to loosen some lips and hopefully we catch a big fish.”
Nodding, I stroke my non-existent beard. A shame cat-kin can't grow facial hair.
“Think we'll find someone like the elder?”
“I doubt it, most veterans like him live as leaders of small communities, or live life in luxury till the end. Or meddle in politics.”
Frowning I turn to Sarah, stopping dead in my tracks.
“How do you know all this?”
“Well, me and Xion read, unlike some people… hell even Derrick reads…”
She mumbles.
“I get it, let's go get everyone some snacks or something.”
I dismiss with a wave, trudging through the mushy snow on the street. After talking with a few store owners and getting some meat skewers and some sweet bread we heard about a few candidates. An ex adventurer, a wandering scholar that specialized in Spatial magic and a ranger. Sarah wrote all this down with a pencil and some paper, the bigger cities had paper for relatively cheap as it turned out, I only know because I was worried it would be expensive like the parchment we had at home.
Munching on a meat skewer me and Sarah chatter as we make our way to the spatial mage first. If we could cut down on the travel time between towns we would practically be rolling in the dough. That and we could go home without needing to do a complete 180 on our travels. The continent was huge, all of them were. Dad once said he had tried to make a map of the world, he spent 20 years mapping out 2 of the 12 continents before he gave up. He said the time he spent on the ocean just to get to the other continent was 2 years one way. That long on a boat? No wonder my dad was the best. As we reached the edges of town the people began to look shadier, and as we approached the ‘Frothy mug’ inn we were given several sneers and nasty looks.
We entered the front door to find what looked like a bandits den. Im confident we'd be able to escape but im suddenly wishing we had brought Xion or Derrick with us. One by one everyone looks at us as we enter, a few openly laugh at my hat, pointing at its size and weird shape. Why am I the only one with any fashion sense?
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We approached the innkeeper at the bar. Questions on our lips.
“We're looking for a scholarly type, we have a job for him.”
I try to imitate the gruff nature of the inn. The innkeeper, a burly Ork, rolls his eyes and tells us he's in room 4. We walk to the door and knock, after a few seconds an old man answers the door.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah, we heard that a spatial mage was here, my mercenary group has a few casters and wanted to try and learn.”
He strokes his impressive beard, it was around two feet of grey hair.
“Whats the exact classes I'm gonna teach? And the pay?”
Oh shit. I knew we should have brought Derrick.
“The classes are great mage-initiate and pathless.”
His eyes widen, the cogs in his mind turning.
“Well for a class with such potential I'd be more than willing to teach cheaply, never heard of a pathless though.”
We quickly explain that Xion wasn't bound to one set of class skills and general skills, that she could learn any but she wasn't as good as a purely dedicated class was without lots of effort.
“Sounds like a better version of ‘jack of all trades,’ my price is 2 gold per lesson.”
I looked to Sarah for confirmation on price, she just shrugged.
“You've got a deal.”
I name the inn and give our own names, he shakes Sarah's hand with vigor and mine quickly. We return back to the inn to hear sounds of blades clashing in the background.
“Is she back at it again??” I asked Alice, she was sitting near the fire with a glass of mulled wine.
“Yuppp. Now I shouldn't enable you Jean, you're a borderline alcoholic… buuuuttt take a sip of this stuff.”
I try the mulled wine, I typically like beer and ale, the girls drink wine typically.
“Holy shit, this is pretty good.”
“I know right? It tastes like new years.”
“Whats that supposed to mean?”
My face scrunched in contemplation, how can something taste like a day?
“Nevermind Jean, I forget you don't read. You get me right? Sarah?”
Sarah nods after taking a sip.
“I get what you mean, it tastes festive, like sitting by a fire.”
I scowl, looking to get away from their sophistication. I wander through the back door, I'd probably regret it but it's not like I had anything better to do. In the tavern's back yard I see Derek struggling to maintain his defense, Xion pressing him back with both of her blades. I sat and watched for a moment, this was all the sophistication I needed, a duel was like talking with your blade.
Derek tries something new, with a stomp he does a quick spin with his blade, Xion blocks and tumbles once on the ground before regaining her footing.
“Nice one Derek! Keep up the pressure!”
I coach. Times when he made solid offenses were rare. Xion went right back to battering his defenses, until one blade snuck past his guard and went to his neck, stopping short. After one second she pulls back and sheathes her blades.
“Good work. That spin had me surprised, while I don't think it would work on anything but lots of small fry reliably it was interesting.” Derek sheathes his large blade as well before looking at me with a brow raised.
“Oh yeah, I found a teacher you'll appreciate Xion, he's a spatial mage that'll teach you and Sarah. It's two gold a lesson. I asked him to come over tomorrow morning to start.”
I hand them each a meat skewer from our outing. Derek gives a small nod, thank the gods. I thought he'd throw me like the time I bought my sword. Apparently I was charged almost triple the going rate, Derek while always being quiet had nearly cried, and then thrown me several houses worth of distance when he found out. It was a good sword though… still is!
