He kicked at the desk in front of him, rocking the chair back to fall away from the dagger. In a single, smooth motion, he unsheathed [Webcutter] as he rolled back into a standing pose, already focusing [Mana Shroud] on empowering his weapon.
Ramsen threw the dagger at Axl's heart, the weapon faster and emanating a denser threat than he expected. Axl barely had time to tilt his sword, the flat of the blade blocking the thrown dagger, the force of the hit pushing his entire body back to slam into the doorway of the shaman's office.
"Three," he said with unruffled neutrality. The dagger was somehow back in his hand, and he put it back under his desk, as if filing away a simple requisition form. "A decent recovery from minor soul injury, well done."
Every sound felt like pain against his brain, the dim office light feeling like it was burning into Axl's eyes. He knew he should fight against this man, or did he? His body also felt sluggish, not so much as in that he couldn't move well, but he didn’t feel like he wanted to, like any act felt too heavy, not worth it. Even his thoughts slid to a crawl, as if too heavy a burden.
"What you are feeling now is spiritual malaise," Ramsen was so loud, each word a screech. "Perhaps one of the most insidious effects of soul damage, other than the long-term repercussions, of course. Take a moment to reinforce your [Mind-Soul Bulwark] and regain your bearings."
But Axl knew he was the enemy, his sword out, the memory of that traitorous dagger all too clear. But he was too weak, his mind slow and foggy. He needed to attack.
Every shred of his will and bearing was focused on [Filial Deathshroud], forming an invisible shard, like a barbed arrowhead, dripping with poison and sharp edges. His pounding headache grew with each moment of forming the attack, rising to a piercing peak as he launched it at the shaman.
The orc's composed face contorted in an expression Axl couldn't interpret, a hand to his chest, before he cleared his throat and folded his hand back to his lap.
"That was a more powerful strike than I was expecting," he said, after a few seconds. "An interesting choice over recovery and defense."
Slowly, Axl's thoughts started to flow again, and he realized he was being irrational. If the orc wanted him dead, he'd have died a dozen times over as he stood there for seconds on end without doing anything. Forcing himself to sheath his sword, he paced back across the room and picked his chair back up, sitting back down across from the orc. The motion felt like countless eternity, each movement harder than activating [Attuned Drill Strike] with a battle-weakened body and bottomed-out Mana.
"You may now rebuild your defenses," the shaman said, then smiled. "Or attack again, I suppose."
Axl grunted, and he focused on [Mind-Soul Bulwark], painfully rebuilding every facet of the eight-sided mental construct around the small marble of his soul. He could see the tiny indentation on his soul, red against the metallic grey, the wound left behind from Ramsen's attack was barely visible, to the point he'd not have noticed it if he didn't know to look. A minor soul injury had such a drastic effect. Axl grimaced at the thought of what a major one would be like.
The stray thought colored his rebuilding defenses, each facet of his mental icosahedron now studded with a spike jutting outwards at the face's center, as if to attack the world without. Somehow, Axl got the sense this subconscious modification would let him counterattack whenever he was struck, an instinctive drive to fight back, to struggle against harm.
His protection finished, Axl looked back up at the orc shaman, who was busy manipulating some runes in the air. These were far more complex than any he'd seen in the Lomenkkar tiles, the connections between them fiendishly tangled and interrelated. But the morass was suddenly gone, Ramsen looking back at Axl.
"I see you finished reconstructing your defenses, good. I was unsure if you would be able to do so with an injured soul. You may leave now. I strongly suggest you rest for three days before resuming your usual training, five before any more with me, at the very least. I have already informed your contracted trainers about this, so you may immediately begin focusing on your recovery."
Axl nodded and got up, barely able to remember ambling back to his alchemy hut before passing out on his cot.
The next morning, he felt worse than any time before, worse than when Bryson convinced him to get drunk on field ethanol, worse than when he blew off the inside of his mouth chasing his alchemy quest. An entirely new surface area of pain had revealed itself, and it was proudly showing off what it could do. Still, it was not all doom and gloom as Axl noticed the increased proficiency of his defensive Skill.
Skills: Mana Shroud (Rare, Proficiency G.4), Mind-Soul Bulwark (Rare, Proficiency G.2), Attuned Drill Strike (Rare, Proficiency G.2)
Not quite what he envisioned for his very first lesson in Limerence, but he had to admit that the orc shaman certainly delivered top bang for his buck. After all, not only did he now have a feel for how to defend against these kinds of attacks, but he sensed he could easily use [Filial Deathshroud] now. He tried to build one of those soul arrowheads he used to attack Ramsen, and the pain in his soul increased, so he dismissed it. But it was already promising he got halfway through activating the item before he had to let go, so there wouldn't be any trouble incorporating it into his fighting kit.
He had some water and salted monster meat, forcing the food and drink against the lingering nausea, when Moxlin finished her talismanic construct and turned to him, looking relieved.
"Oh, you look better. Yesterday you looked like a shadow brought to life. You didn't even respond to me when I talked to you!"
Axl chuckled. "Sorry for the rudeness. It was quite the intense training session. Soul damage doesn't mess around."
"Soul damage?" Moxlin paused, then threw up her forearms. "Soul damage! You know, every time I think you reached the peak of your nonsense, you pull off something like this. I thought all these orcs would be a good influence, with you finally going to school to learn to do things proper, but I guess your true nature as a difficult student shows up here too!"
Axl let her rant continue for a while longer, her annoyance genuinely amusing. Soon enough, she trailed off into talking about her recent attempts to impress the healer with an improvement on triage talismans, and eventually turned back to her craft. The whole verbal detour felt oddly soothing to his soul's pain.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
As much as he wanted to recover productively with some crafting, Axl found that any attempts to use [Gastric Cauldron] just fumbled the process entirely, the soul damage hobbling his ability to focus. So all he could do was eat and sleep, and even knew that should be what he should focus on to recover properly, but by noon, he was already bored out of his mind.
To his surprise, Suliana knocked on his hut's door and asked to speak to him, so he let her in, the two barely fitting inside the cramped space. Moxlin loudly announced she would go shopping for a few hours as she gave him a suggestive look before leaving, her attempts at subtlety even more terrible than usual. He only hoped Suliana wasn't as used to dealing with spidery body language as he apparently was. What a shameful area of expertise.
"You know, there are larger artistry workshops available," Suliana said, moving some of Moxlin's failed talismans from a stool onto an overflowing table to take the seat. "Given your contribution to the longhouse, I am even certain the shamans would commission a specialized space if it could help your craft."
"We're fine for now," Axl shrugged, "but thanks for the offer. I'll bring it up with them if I think it could be of use later."
Suliana nodded. "I will then no longer waste your time or mine," she paused, quietly taking a deep breath. "I came here to ask you a favor, in fact."
"Not sure what I could do for somebody as powerful as you," Axl replied, unsure of what this could mean. "Is it something related to alchemy? I'm afraid I can't do any of that until I recover."
Suliana shook her head. "No, it's about one of our support archers, Alifren. According to Soffal, you've been spending some time with her recently, and I believe she is on the verge of—a miscalculation."
Axl said nothing, waiting for her to continue, not wanting to agree to anything just yet. Did Suliana maybe think he'd help the orc girl to escape? Was he in trouble here?
"In four days, she's scheduled for a longhouse quest to procure natural treasures in three areas to the west, the final one at the base of the ringed mountain range surrounding the vale. The others that signed up for the quest are entirely unsuited for it, both in party composition and individual talents, but all refused the offer to be assigned better options, insisting on this particular quest."
Axl breathed out, relieved she likely didn't blame him for this, but was maybe going to ask him to stop the girl from trying to run away. Perhaps this could be good practice for his Charisma, if nothing else.
"I'd like you to join in that quest and make sure they survive their goal."
Axl rose an eyebrow at this careful phrasing. Not return alive, not give up their obviously telegraphed plan to run away. Almost as if Suliana wanted them to escape. But why?
He took a drink from a canteen, giving him a moment to think. "Why me? I'm only G-Grade, and not experienced in parties at all. There must be dozens of orcs better suited to help."
"I already tried that," Suliana took a swig from a flask suddenly in her hand, then offered it to him. "She's properly spooked, and the quest membership is full, so we can't forcefully add anybody else. But Soffal has the feeling she will ask you to join her in the next few days, which is why I'm here."
Axl exhaled in frustration and drank from her flask, surprised it was brewer's ale from the barhouse. Soffal wasn't actually lying about the trainer's predilection for the absurdly strong drink, apparently. Did that make his Charismatic subterfuge more impressive or less?
"I do not expect you to do this uncompensated," Suliana continued. "If you agree, I will give you preferential access to the blacksmith, to make sure you can get the equipment we discussed before the party heads out, as much as he will keep up the pretense of haggling with you. I would go with you and pay for it myself, but I do not want to risk Alifren noticing that I contacted you over this. The girl is far better informed than she has any business being, likely due to the elf scout that joined her party."
Axl perked up at this offer, eager to accelerate that part of his plan. From what he'd heard, the blacksmith didn't take any of the orcish currency, dealing almost exclusively in natural treasures or metalwork in his workshop, and Axl hadn't been able to build up any of that to get to those services. This would be good payment for services rendered, but there was one problem here.
"How long will this quest take?"
"Between a tenday and half a month, normally." Suliana took back her flask. "But I expect you to be back by seven days at the most."
This confirmed it. The party would run away at the edge of the mountains, and he could just hurry back. Still not ideal, since that would only give him ten days at the camp after coming back to continue his training and get some more ducks in a row before the chief was supposed to come back. Regardless, he had to start collecting natural treasures anyhow, to get the blacksmith to upgrade his sword and armor, the only really pressing thing he wanted from the place before he left.
"Alright," he said. "You have a deal—but if the girl doesn't ask me to join before she leaves, I still get the equipment."
"Acceptable," Suliana got up. "Wait an hour before I leave to go to the blacksmith's building, this visit should look like one of my normal check-ins with injured trainees that way."
Axl nodded, and she was off. He took the time to wake up as much as he could, the ale actually having helped a bit, and when the time came, he started towards the central building dominating the orc encampment.
As he drew near the tall, stone wall, the sound of metal on metal grew louder, the single door into the solid wall nondescript, facing the entrance to the encampment. Oddly, it had no handle or window to the other side, from which he'd expect a guard to peep through to see who was out there. Axl simply touched the door, and it opened, quietly and smoothly. It was absurdly thick, almost a meter of solid metal, like a reinforced vault door.
The sound of metal being struck was now deafening, and joining it was a merry cacophony of various other sounds of mining, the sound feeling musical to Axl's ears. He even paused for a moment to appreciate it before stepping forward.
Beyond the reinforced door was a rather small building, built with the same dark stone as the wall surrounding the compound, a trail of dirt flanked by stones leading to the building's entrance, with a side-path leading around it. Axl knew this led to the mining garden at the back of the smith's workshop, but he resisted the temptation to look at the metal-producing wonder and instead walked up to the building's door and touched the simple array above the doorknob, announcing his presence.
The door opened inwards, this one a simple, if solid, wooden construction. A blast of heated air erupted outwards, the ambient Mana thick with the feeling of a blasting furnace, oil, and, of course, various strands of metal. Axl took a deep breath, [Mana Shroud] deeply absorbing the refreshing Mana, even his gills flaring, then he entered.
A naked skeleton stooped over an anvil, a half-finished greatsword before him, held by a pair of tongs as he lifted the weapon from the cooling oil. The skeleton was short and quite stockier than the bone structure of any elf, and he had a small ridge of uneven horns around his skull like a crown. A subtle red glow emanated from behind his empty eye sockets, his face set with a permanent skeletal grin. This was Gildear Thirdborn, the undead blacksmith who operated this smithy well before the longhouse encampment was built around it.
"Been a while since I saw an elf soaking up what I put out here," a deep voice rose from behind the line of white teeth of the skeleton's skull. "But what's this nonsense? G-Grade? I'm not running a nursery here, infant. Tell Suliana the deal's off, I don’t—oh, what's this?"
The skeleton paused for a moment, staring out at the air. Axl brought a hand up to his sword and partially unsheathed it, ready to fight. That was the trouble with dealing with the undead blacksmith, apparently. Even Suliana mentioned he only had 50-50 odds that the smith wouldn’t attack Axl upon getting the quest, why she wanted to come with him to begin with.
"Bah," Gildear shrugged. "I get a dangerous sense from you, so not worth the risk. But now I know what all the orcs have been blabbering about these last few days. I keep away from the idle gossip, but you're quite famous, blue elf. Our very own local temptation."
Axl grimaced, not quite liking what he was hearing, but at least he wasn't kicked out of the smithy entirely.
"So will you make me my weapons?" he asked.
"Not for what your trainer lass offered, I won't."
Axl smiled, because while he wasn't as adept at Charisma as Soffal, he was now at least practiced enough to sense the smith was full of crap.