Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

Like nothing happened the woman waved to her assistants and they draped the winter cloak over his shoulders. From a distance Arthur was able to appreciate the design and coverage of it. But actually wearing the thing was completely different. It was very thick as to be expected with the winter variant, but it didn’t feel very thick. It felt no more than if he was wearing a thin blanket over his shoulders than a winter cloak.

“Mr. Arthur, I welcome you into the arcane community not as an apprentice any longer, but as a full fledged Evoker and all the privileges that come with it.” The woman said as Arthur was looking at his cloak, any trace of her abrupt action was gone as if it never existed.

The people in the audience began to clap for Arthur who quickly gave a deep bow and returned to his spot in the line.

With each and everyone of the new Evokers the women turned to the audience. “And thank all of you for taking part in the ceremony as well. To thank you all we have provided food and drink for you all to enjoy over by the door. I have noticed that a few of you have already taken something already, and I hope that you enjoyed it and will return for more.”

With the end of her statement several of the people seated in the stands slowly stood up and began making their way towards the food table, some with a little more effort than others.

The eleven new Evokers were also given permission to go and have something to eat, the woman also encouraged them to talk with some of the people there as they might even be offered to become their apprentice. Become an apprentice to a powerful mage being one of the best ways to advance the ranks and learn quickly as books can only teach you so much.

Along with the other Evokers Arthur awkwardly walked down to the food he helped bring out, the first item that caught his attention was the large cooked chicken, specifically the large leg. Walking over to it his stomach gave its opinion on what he should do with a large growl, grabbing hold of it he gave a pull. The leg was still stuck to the chicken, annoying Arthur. Quickly conjuring a small knife from earth Arthur started to cut away at the fat that was keeping them together until the leg came right off.

Happy with his prize Arthur walked away from the food to give everyone else space if they wanted anything. A few of the high ranking mages did take notice of him but said nothing. Most of those there weren't really looking for an apprentice , they just wanted the free food, but there was a small handful that were interested. Such as a high elven woman who struck up a conversation with the young dark elf that worked with Arthur not too long ago.

Most of the other new Evokers just followed Arthur’s lead and took something to eat from the table before walking away for someone else to take what they wanted. For the most part the room was filled with an awkward silence as no one really wanted to start up a conversation. Eventually however the new Evokers did start to talk amongst themselves, they mostly talked about what they wanted to learn about now that they had access to a new section of the library and all sorts of magics that were out of their reach for a while.

“I am really looking forward to learning actual healing magic, you know like healing broken bones and stuff like that without needing a potion to do it.” A human man around Arthur’s age said in an attempt to start a conversation to fill the silence within the room.

“I've found enchanting to be quite interesting. I already spend some time every day doing alchemy so I could also delve into golemany as well, it is a subcategory of both of those so I should be able to make that work.” Arthur responded before taking a big bite out of his chicken leg, he looked over and noticed the young man he was talking to was enjoying a sandwich he made out of a bun and some of the chicken. ‘Dam, I should have done something like that when I was up there.”

“Enchanting? Wow, I hear that enchanted weapons and stuff can sell for a lot of money depending on who made it.” Taking a bite out of his sandwich the young man continued talki8ng with his mouth half full. “There was this one enchanter I heard about from my father that lived like 100 years ago, he once sold one of his creations for the lordship of a city. I think he said it happened somewhere on the continent of Pyrosa, specifically on the eastern side of the continent.”

“What was the enchanted creation he sold to this king that warranted such a price?” To be honest with himself Arthur wasn’t really all that interested at first, but the mention of someone selling a single creation for a city was definitely something to get his attention.

“From what I recall it was a crown of some sort, the stories that my father told me included all sorts of power from controlling the weather to bringing prosperity to that king's rule. Though most of those are probably just stories. The only one that sounded somewhat reasonable was that the crown could bestow great wisdom to its wearer, from what I understand you could enchant something to make you smarter, it is just really hard and at a time of such little arcane knowledge would be very worthy of such reward.”

Arthur looked at the young man as he spoke, while the generic nonsense regarding controlling the weather and bringing prosperity were likely just stories, the last part regarding enchanting something to make yourself smarter did sound quite interesting. The most interesting part was the possibility that you could do something similar with other things, like physical strength for example. ‘With something like that you could create an army of people with physical or even magical capabilities boosted far beyond what they normally had with just a few enchanted items.’

Arthur clutched at the amulet around his neck, the enchantments within being what allowed him to even understand what people were saying around him. Did it operate in a similar way to what the young man next to him just described, he would need to study it when he received some proper lessons in enchanting. ‘I recall Henry said he would be willing to teach me once I became an Evoker, I should see him once I get an opportunity.’

After another hour of small talk throughout the auditorium people slowly began to leave along with all the new Evokers sighting that they had things to do. Arthur amongst that crowd went straight home to hopefully show Gaelin and Calavia later in the evening at dinner which both were invited to.

Since Gaelin was still attending classes at the guild when he returned he went into the alchemy and room and began creating a few miscellaneous potions he hadn't done in quite some time. They probably went worth as much as the spark powder he had been selling recently, but with his sprites high he didn’t really care about that and just enjoyed the process of trying out a few old potions.

Around an hour after Arthur started brewing these old potions Gaelin returned with three loud knocks at the door. Arthur rushed over to the door still wearing his nice new cloak and let him inside. Gaelin was staging at the door covered with snow like a small blizzard just came through the city. “Gaelin? What happened to you, did you walk through all the snow on your way back?” Arthur quickly rushed Gaelin inside and used his aeromancy to knock off and throw the snow outside.

“Well as I was walking back from the guild it started to snow, I didn’t think all that much about it until it started blowing as well. I started walking faster but it didn’t really help as it just got worse, I even lost my way a few times with only the familiar buildings helping me. Did you not look outside once or feel the cold creeping in through the windows?” Arthur paused, think back he just assumed that the cold he was feeling was because the fire was dying down a little. While it did need a bit more wood to keep burning he just assumed it would take some time to warm the house back up, the idea that there was a small snow storm out and that he should look outside didn’t even occur to him as he blocked off his windows to keep it safe.

“Well I was quite preoccupied with brewing more potions to sell since I returned from the advancement ceremony, I even received a nice cloak from it as you can see.” Arthur gave a small twirl to show Gaelin what he received, though he didn’t look happy with the answer.

“Yes, yes, very nice. I assume that was from the guild for advancing. Is it something everyone will receive or is there a special requirement for it?”

“From what I understand everyone who advances to the rank of evoker will get one for their ceremony, though I will receive another in my guild mailbox that was specifically made for warmer weather, the one I am wearing is for cold weather and based on my walk home it does its job quite well.” Thinking back to his walk home Arthur noticed that the cloak was on its own a very good insulator of heat, combine that with the enchantments that began to generate heat and he could barely feel the cold outside, it would have been easier to overheat and die from that instead.

“Do you get better ones when you reach higher ranks within the guild or was this just a one time thing?” Gaelin asked while actually giving the cloak a proper look.

“Honestly I don’t know, I would suspect that at certain ranks you would be given something. Kind of like my mage staff, though this is apparently a toned down one.” Arthur reached into his bag and pulled out the metallic staff, since he hadn't been using it for a while he kept it in his bag where it was safe and within his arms reach.

“Wait, this is a toned down mage staff? Why would they give you something weaker than what you are supposed to receive? That doesn’t make very much sense.”

“That is because it wasn’t from the guild, apparently it was a gift from the crown. A priest of Xardas was the one who gave me the staff in person, but he claimed that it was from the crown for my efforts against the vampire cult that was hanging around in the western district several months ago. It actually happened a little shy of a month since I arrived here.”

Arthur continued on and explained in as much detail as he possibly could about how he learned about the vampire cult and how he took part in the attack against it, though he left out the detail of how he went out on his own and was followed by the paladins of the circle of fire. He made himself look to be a sort of underdog fighting against the evils of the world and was saved by the powerful albeit prideful paladins.

“Really, you were saved by paladins? I am surprised they would care for anyone or anything outside of their religion. The self righteousness of the paladins of the circle of fire is something that is well known across several borders belonging to humans, dwarves, and even elves.” The way Gaelin spoke of the paladins even by disregarding his comments about their pride gave away that he didn’t have the highest opinion of them.

Arthur was about to ask him about this when suddenly several loud knocks came from the door. Quickly walking those few steps Arthur opened the door to reveal Calavia standing there. Unlike how Gaelin arrived covered in snow Calavia only had a little stuck to her winter clothing and she looked to be far warmer than he was despite wearing less layers than him.

Calavia looked as if she was about to say something when she noticed the grey cloak that Arthur was wearing, something that she hadn't seen in quite some time.

“Oh My Gods, you advanced!” Calavia practically jumped into Arthur’s arms as she said this. “This is wonderful Arthur, now you can start studying more advanced magic. Heck you can even start learning magic outside the four evocations within the guild. Did you have any ideas as to what you wanted to do?”

“Yes actually, I want to learn enchanting magic as it is something that has been an interest for quite some time now.” Arthur quickly closed the door to keep the house warm.

“Oh, enchanting magic. That isn’t quite what I expected. I would have imagined you would have wanted to learn something like alteration or restoration magic as those would complement your magic fighter style you had going on a while ago.” Arthur smiled at that statement, it had been a while since he used his armor instead of just conjuring shields or something else to protect himself.

“Enchanting would also help with that, I could enchant my weapons or armor to be more protective or I could even give my armor the ability to cast basic protection spells in my stead. Maybe I could have a necklace that could heal my injuries on the battlefield as they happen, that way I wouldn’t need a healer or be less likely to die from my injuries.”

The debate continued as the two walked further into the house, Gaelin tried ignoring the two as he practiced his geomancy more. Recently he had been able to conjure up earth from pure mana, now all he needed to do was perfect it and drastically reduce the mana consumption from it before he could start casting the tier one spells he had seen both Arthur and Calavia do so often.