Stahlia, Three Years Old, First Month of 940
I lowered my eyes from the light that was starting to fade and looked around fearfully. The rotund priest had a twitchy expression, and all the parents had gone silent. The children were still chattering excitedly amongst themselves, but they could hardly be expected to understand the full implications of what had just happened. When no reproach was forthcoming, I slowly resumed my descent and made my way back to my original place.
“…and thus concludes the dedication of Ris Village’s children in the 940th year. May you all find and fulfill your purpose.” The priest seemed to have recovered and concluded today’s ceremony. I found my way to my parents and asked if we could go home. My mother agreed and picked me up before leaving with a brisk gait; my father had some business to attend to as the mayor, so he stayed behind in the temple.
Arriving back at our house, I promptly shut myself away in my room. This is horrible! If it weren’t bad enough that the priest didn’t know what to do about my status before now I’ve gotten a blessing in the color of winter! The winter faction hardly has any redeeming gods in it at all! If it had been any other season at least I could have hoped it was one of the three normal gods, but winter is completely evil! I flopped back onto my bed and let out a long sigh.
A few hours later, there was a knock at my door. I stayed silent, hoping whoever it was would assume I was asleep. My mother opened the door and let herself in, “Stahlia, if you do not come out, you will miss the dedication party.”
I had exactly zero desire to attend this party and simply turned onto my side. “Stahlia, I will not allow you to miss the party. If I must, I will pick you up and carry you there by force. You would not want your peers to see that, I should think.”
I groaned. She was right, I couldn’t afford to make any more waves than I already had today. Regretfully, I roused myself and followed my mother out of the house.
The dedication party was a sort of feast in the village square; I had never been before, as only people who had had their Dedication Ceremony were permitted to attend. All the children from earlier were sat around a large table that was set up down the middle of the square, stretching from the doors of the church to around the middle. The five children who had a class were sitting around the head of the table near the church.
The five of them were sitting still and were largely well behaved, while some forty-odd other children were restless, though none of them tried to leave the table. Near the head of the table, next to the five class children was an empty seat. Don’t tell me… My mother gave me a light push towards the empty seat. This is awful.
With nothing else to do and no way to escape, I took my seat next to Giogi. He looked up from his bowl as I sat down, “Rude! Everyun was waiting!”
This kid… it’s not like I want to be here, I would have been just fine if you all started without me. Still, I knew it wouldn’t work out well for me if I antagonized him by being curt, “My apologies for my tardiness, it is a great honor to be seated at the head of the table with the five of you, I am very blessed.”
He stared at me with a blank face and returned to his food. Seriously, putting up with kids is just… So irritating. I was sat at the end of the right-hand side of the table with Giogi to my right side. On my left, there was an empty place with no chair separating me from the next child, one of the ones who hadn’t had a class.
The children who had had a class were arrayed in such a way that they wrapped around the table such that Jav sat at the actual head. The lone girl, Sana, sat across from me. She was picking idly at her food and seemed fairly overcome by all the attention our group was getting from the adults spread around the square. I smiled at her ruefully, at least someone seemed as uncomfortable as I was. Smiling had been a mistake.
“Your Stahlia right?” The girl seemed to interpret my smile as an attempt to start a conversation.
“Yes, I am Stahlia Rosalie-daughter.” I had a social obligation to respond now that she had introduced herself. If my mother caught wind of me forgetting my manners there would be hell to pay. Ever since the Ammonia test, she had been a fair bit stricter when it came to matters of my etiquette.
The girl smiled, pleased that I seemed happy to speak with her. “My name is Sana! Daughter of none…”
In this world, only nobles had a family name. For commoners like ourselves, it was common to introduce yourself with the name of your mother or father, based on your gender. After marriage, the wife would introduce herself as the wife of her husband, while the father would continue to use his father’s name. My mother would call herself “Rosalie Fynnswife” when meeting someone for the first time.
I had never heard my father give an introduction before, so I wasn’t sure how he did it; his father had been executed as a traitor so that might make things awkward. By calling herself “Daughter of none” she was basically telling me she didn’t know who her mother was. That would cause her a lot of problems later in life when she was trying to find a spouse.
“The light was pretty. The way it made your hair glow...” The girl seemed intent on making idle conversation now that introductions were over.
“Hmm? Yes, I suppose it must have looked very nice. I was too shocked to notice myself though.” In spite of myself, I continued the conversation; at this point, it would have been acceptable for me to thank her for the compliment and start eating, but for some reason, I found her innocent demeanor charming.
“Jav got light too! That was so cool!” Giogi apparently desired to be a part of our conversation as well.
Are you trying to be irritating? Who cares if Jav got a blessing? I’d rather know why I got one, my class doesn’t have any connection to winter that I can think of… I tilted my head towards Giogi, “Indeed, I was merely blessed through no merit of my own; Jav was simply spectacular, the golden light that descended on him took my breath away.”
That wasn’t a lie; I had been shocked when Jav had gotten a blessing since that had served as confirmation that the gods and goddesses here held real power. Hopefully, a bit of self-depreciation will get him to shove off.
Giogi looked at me like I was crazy, before mumbling something I couldn’t catch and turning his attention back to his food.
Is this… are you upset that you’re being overshadowed? Is this a case of childhood jealousy?. I decided to press my attack and extract socially acceptable vengeance, “Yes, but while he may be a farmer, the priest said his blessing was from Goddess Vitae, I am sure his fields will be rich and he will have a very happy wife one day.”
I finished with an appropriately shaped smile. Giogi seemed disgruntled that I was praising Jav, lending credence to my theory that he was simply jealous. This kind of shit is why I hate children.
Sana was watching me intently. “Stali, do you really think Jav will make his wife happy one day?”
Let’s go in for the kill. Hopefully, that stops Giogi from being so irritating in the future. I nodded emphatically to punctuate my stance, “Yes, I do believe that he will have a very wealthy house once he grows up.”
The girl seemed to get a faraway look in her eyes. “Do you want to marry Jav, Stali? Then you could be a mommy! The priest tells me that getting married is how you become a mommy. The reason I don’t have a mommy is that she never got married.”
What? I feel like there is a serious miscommunication going on right now. Frantically shaking my head I attempted to set the record straight, “No Sana, you misunderstand! I am not thinking about myself at all! I was simply stating an observation.” Sana got a somewhat sad expression for some reason, so I decided to rapidly change the subject. “You are very well-spoken Sana, not at all like any other children I have met save myself.”
My compliment elicited a happy smile. “Thanks Stali, I grew up in the temple, the priest taught me lots by reading from the temple books. He always said that ‘those loved by the gods learn quickly.’” That would explain it, the passages we had been read today were quite verbose, and apparently having a class causes you to develop faster, as I thought. That explains why the five kids who had a class are more well behaved and better spoken than other’s our age. I’m my own exception of course.
“I see. Well, truthfully, I found the story we were read today extremely interesting. You said the priest read you stories from the scripture. Would you be willing to tell me some of them?” Sana stopped and thought a moment before nodding happily.
“Yes! I would love to!” Sana seemed positively radiant at the idea.
The rest of the celebration proceeded without much of note. Giogi was sullen towards me for the rest of the night, but he didn’t try and start any trouble, so I was able to ignore him. My father interrupted us and gave an address that I mostly ignored, and Sana and I moved away from the other kids as soon as we were able. We spent the next several hours discussing religious stories. From our conversations, I was able to conclude that the entire religious system seemed like an institution designed to steer people into leveling up and seeking to find their purpose. Of course, it was always certain to tell you that if you struggled to find it yourself, the kingdom would be able to find it for you. The whole thing seemed like a cult designed to create subservient cogs in the machine known as a kingdom.
Of particular note, was a story detailing the Nine Kings of Hell; seven of the kings were described as governing a specific temptation of man. I was fairly certain that these were the seven people granted a portion of divinity by the Dark God and the Goddess of Light, but since those “temptations” were not named I could only speculate. There were also two greater kings who ruled over the seven. Once every thousand years, it was said that one or more of the Kings would break free from perdition and walk the world once more, seeking to lead the perfect children away from their purpose. Considering the current year was 0940, I had a sneaking suspicion that this story was a quest flag for an important future event.
Towards the end of the night, I introduced Sana to my mother and father and informed them that I had made a friend, news which pleased my mother a great deal. My father was pleased when he found out that Sana had been raised by the Priest, and told me that “He is a good man. I believe this will be a good friendship for you.”
I was still concerned about the reaction to my blessing and my abnormal appraisal results. However, nobody had said anything to me all night so I was beginning to think it might not be as big a deal as I thought. In fact, when I asked Jacqueline, who through our biweekly nightly training sessions was quickly becoming my closest confidant, she told me not to worry about it; she was sure that nothing bad would come of it. We arrived home and I promptly fell asleep.
★★★★★★
Fynn
My precious daughter finally had her dedication ceremony. My wife and I were certain that she would be revealed to be exceptional, we had seen her grow up after all. Imagine my shock when the priest announced that she had not been born with a purpose. I was able to recover my surprise before it betrayed on my face, thanks to my noble past, but watching Stahlia turn and descend from the steps with such a sad expression twisted my heart; I resolved to shower her with praise once we got home.
Just as I was considering what the best things to say would be, I saw the light of miracles descend upon my daughter. A stir ran through the crowd; this was the second blessing this year. Normally, a blessing will only be given once every five years or so, and everyone who receives one goes on to accomplish great things. It was not unheard of for a child with no purpose to receive a blessing, but it was the extreme exception.
I wonder, did the priest lie? Is my daughter in fact so special that he could not announce it aloud? What will this mean for us? What is more, she was blessed with the icy white of the winter faction. That meant that whichever god or goddess had blessed her was one of the black sheep. The winter faction was widely regarded as outliers among the gods and goddesses. Goddess Antenora was a god who watched over criminals and betrayers. she was also my precious Stahlia’s birth goddess, a revelation that had greatly upset Stahlia before we explained that the god of your birth has no significant meaning.
Goddess Caina was the bringer of change. She and her followers were well known for rejecting the order of the world and seeking to bring about change whenever they could, outright worship of her was frowned upon by the kingdom so she was always venerated alongside another god or goddess, never alone. Last of the winter faction was the God Virgil, who kept the story of the world. He was also well known to fancy the young Goddess Caina in an inappropriate manner. Even the other gods were known to grow disgusted with him at times. Of the three, one of them had seen fit to bestow their blessing on my precious daughter. I was not sure which one was the worst case.
One could usually intuit what god’s blessing they received based on their purpose. In the case of Jav, he had received the light of the Autumn faction, as his purpose was to be a farmer, the priest had been able to determine that Goddess Vitae who oversees the harvest of crops was the one who had blessed him. I realized that I had become lost in my own thoughts, Stahlia would be with us soon. My daughter must be incredibly confused and probably quite frightened right now. I was considering how I should greet her when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
Turning around, I saw one of the junior priests, “The priest bids you stay and speak with him.”
The junior priest delivered his message and stepped back to the wall before skirting the crowd and entering the inner chambers. I suppose I should have expected that the priest would want a word. In this kingdom, the church was second only to the king. To that end, despite being commoners, full priests held the same amount of power and influence as a noble of the baron rank. Being a mere village Mayor, I could not refuse the request for an audience.
I signaled my wife who nodded and scooped up my daughter to bring her away from here. I wanted to go with them, but I had my duties to attend to. I made my way near the altar and waited for everyone to file out of the church before climbing the steps and bowing to the priest, “You desired to speak with me, Sir.” I was careful to control my tone; it would not do to betray my anxiety.
“Indeed, Mayor Fynn. I would inform you personally of your daughter’s dedication. The information I had written down for her was a fabrication. I hope you understand the implications.” His tone was calm, but his eyes pierced through me like a hawk watching a mouse.
I swallowed to water my throat before responding, “I will not share what you deem to tell me.”
The priest nodded before continuing, “Truthfully, your daughter was born without a clear purpose. I do not mean that it was absent. For a reason unknown to me, the stone could not reveal her purpose, but I believe she must have one; She has several talents and skills that one her age would need a clear purpose to have. What is more, she was born with a prodigy talent, and her lowest ability score is a C.” The priest paused; he was clearly waiting for me to respond.
“I suspected as much. She has exhibited an extreme rate of learning and a healthy thirst for knowledge far beyond her years.” I was unsure of how much information I should reveal; I had a duty to my kingdom, but I was also Stahlia’s father. I wanted my daughter to be safe and happy. Still, my household had long suspected she had the Alchemy Prodigy talent, but to think her lowest ability score was a C. I recalled what the mage had told us three years ago. From what I could recall, that would mean that Stahlia’s Intelligence was around S. I felt faint.
“What do you need from me, sir?” I queried the priest, hoping to glean where he was going with this.
“As you know, all dedications are reported to the kingdom. I suspect that they will want Stahlia to enroll at the Royal Academy in the capital when she turns ten. To prepare her for that, please make arrangements for her to have lessons in etiquette, and instruct her in the basics of reading, writing, mathematics, etcetera. If you wish, I can prepare a place for her with the five children to learn academic subjects here at the temple, but you will have to teach her etiquette on your own. I believe with your family history you will be more than capable.”
I swallowed and bowed, “As you wish, thank you for informing me.”
Making my exit, I hurried home to speak with my wife and write a letter to an old friend. The priest was a good man and I trusted him. He had not needed to warn me about the Royal Academy but had done it as a personal favor. If a man of his station believed that would happen, I could take it as a statement of fact rather than mere speculation. For better or worse, my family was likely to be pulled back into the world of nobles, I had to start planning to ensure Stahlia would have a future when she walked through the doors of the Academy, without making the proper arrangements, the Noble Children who attended would eat her alive.
★★★★★★
Stahlia
As time passed following my dedication ceremony, I gradually grew to accept that, at least for now, nothing major was going to happen to me. Of course, there were changes; now that I had turned three and had my dedication; I was permitted to travel the village as I wished. I did not need to go with my mother to visit shops, and though she still brought me to Sven’s alchemy lessons once a week, I could now visit without Jacqueline on other days.
My mother had seemingly decided that now that I was moving about on my own, I should be taking my etiquette lessons even more seriously. We would spend at least one day a week going over manners and proper behavior. Personally, I thought that this was a tad extreme; I was a village mayor’s daughter not a young noble. Still, I humored my mother so that I would not lose the privilege to go where I wanted on the other days. Once a month my mother would make me attend a tea party with her to make sure I was practicing my manners.
Of course, when I was not in her presence, I dropped most of the mannerisms she was trying to teach me. I was markedly more well behaved than the other children my age, but I drew the line at being polite; I saw no use in the extravagant mannerisms and odd speech patterns used by high nobility. I think my mother might have missed her past station and was teaching me in order to relive those days.
Around the end of the third month, my parents decided to hire an additional maid. Silvia was a young villager who was the fourth daughter of the local blacksmith. Despite being, to my eyes, quite pretty, her status as a fourth daughter meant her marriage prospects were quite slim.
When I privately asked my mother why she could not get married despite her looks, I was informed that fourth daughters often remain maidens for life. It all came down to matters of inheritance. First daughters were the most sought after; they would be able to bring their mother’s name with them and thus provide her influence to their new household, in addition to receiving the majority of the bridal gifts passed down the matrilineal line.
Second and third daughters would lose their mother’s name once they were married but would still have a portion of the bridal gifts kept for them. This would form a connection between the immediate family of the bride, as well as provide a basis for which to establish a new matrilineal line. By the time you got to the fourth daughter though, they would bring nothing other than themselves to the marriage.
This setup was ingrained in Drakas Kingdom law, down to the percentages of Bridal Gifts to be saved for each of the first three daughters. Apparently, it had been written into law following a blood feud between the third and fourth princesses some four hundred years ago; when the third princess won, she persuaded the king to legally cut off her younger sister.
No such law existed for fourth sons, although they had their own issues stemming from tradition. The first son would inherit the house and become the head of the main family, as well as the de facto head of his younger brothers’ families. The second and below sons would be able to marry according to the status of their father and oldest brother, as other families would use their first through third daughters to form attachments with the main house.
As Silvia was the fourth daughter, she had no future with marriage, unless a son chose disownment in order to court her; an act that would make him a social pariah and likely result in him being driven out of the local area. If his families’ status was high enough, he may even be driven from the country.
So it was that despite having a very fetching figure, with naturally curly blonde hair and soft brown eyes Silvia could only seek employment in one of the few fields open to a woman and decided to become our second maid. She could have taken up a position waiting tables at one of the village inns and taverns or become an adventurer, but those jobs were not exactly friendly towards women.
Waitresses were basically prostitutes and the adventurer’s guild was a boys club, though there were a few successful women they didn’t have a good reputation. Whispers would follow female adventurers wherever they went, generally of a derogatory nature that insinuated they were ingratiated into their parties via less than moral methods. Once all this had been summed up for me, I came to the conclusion that barring an express few jobs, an unmarried woman was generally considered a sex worker at best, and a mere whore at worst.
Silvia took over the majority of household chores from Jacqueline, who was reassigned to be my personal attendant. What kind of village mayor’s daughter has a personal maid following them around! Don’t think you can fool me, Father! Mother just wants a babysitter for when I’m out of her sight! Indeed, this happened shortly after an incident that occurred when I was out on my explorations of the village.
Following the incident where I shut him down at the dedication party, Giogi had begun to be quite abrasive and would heckle me whenever we met in town. At one of these encounters, I was returning from a visit to Sven’s shop in a foul mood; Sven had insinuated that he was planning to take on his younger brother as an apprentice for five years. Following the end of that apprenticeship, he would turn over the shop to his younger brother and go out on a journey. When I had asked why he needed an apprentice when he had already been teaching me, he got a funny look and explained that I couldn’t be an alchemist since I was the first daughter of my family. Apparently, it was my “duty” to marry someone and make babies. Needless to say, I was pretty pissed off as I had no intention of doing that.
I was about halfway home when I saw Giogi. Since I really was not in a mood to deal with his shit right now, I ducked onto a side street. I was intending to cut through to another main road and continue to my house from there, but Giogi had seen me. The little shit actually went out of his way to go down a different side street so as to head me off.
“What’re you doing Mrs. Fancy?” his barbed taunt assailed me, normally I would do my best to brush it off, but the earlier revelation from Sven had left me touchy.
“If you must know, I am going home. If you will excuse me, I am late.” I tried to move past him but one of the goons got in my way. Great, now they’re getting physical. They had blocked me before, and forced me to ask them to move, or apologize for some perceived slight, always following their alpha Giogi like dumb animals. If it was just him things would be different, but the fact that he’s sort of rallying all the classless kids to harass me is just…
“Giogi, your pet is in my way. Please get a leash if you cannot properly train it.” I put as much spite into my voice as I could, I was completely done with this shit.
Giogi took a half step back at my words, he was clearly shaken, I had never acted like this with them before, I had always tried to de-escalate.
Giogi looked over his shoulder at his goon squad and seemed to find his confidence. “Oh yeah? What’re you gonna do? Tell your dad on us?” I mean, my dad is the village chief, I could literally do just that. Still, that would most likely just lead to another speech about how much more advanced I was than other kids, something I didn’t care to deal with.
I shrugged, I was completely done with this shit today, “Giogi, since you can’t control your pets, allow me to demonstrate a properly trained animal. Do try and learn from my example.”
I put my fingers in my mouth and let out a shrill whistle, which prompted Stil to come bounding out of a nearby back alley. Ever since I had begun roaming the town, I had noticed that Stil was always nearby, just out of sight. I had taught him to “come” when I whistled in case I ever ran into serious trouble and needed his help.
“Stil, Mount.” Stil promptly dropped down into his mounting position and allowed me to climb on his back, the sight of which caused Giogi’s face to turn pale. His goons took a few steps back and the one who had stepped out to block my path turned and started running away. They probably think I’m going to attack them. Good, maybe this will get them to leave me alone.
I hitched up my skirt and climbed on Stil’s back. “Stil, Home.” Stil shot Giogi a look that seemed to say you damn lucky punk and marched past him taking me straight home. My mother was waiting for me with her arms crossed and a very, very, wide smile. Her eyes, however, were not involved with that smile.
As a repercussion of those events, I had revealed to my mother that I was not comporting myself as a perfect little lady when out of her sight, so she had pestered my father to assign me someone to keep an eye on me. Now that the dedication was over, there was less need for us to keep our income from my alchemy dealings secret so we could easily afford more help. Thankfully, Jacqueline picked up on my distress and suggested that she be reassigned to me, citing her previous experience working as a maid for a young noble lady. My mother was thrilled when she heard that and quickly agreed. Jokes on you! Jacqueline won’t be giving you any reports about what I get up to! She’s been keeping my secrets for over two years now! We hired Silvia soon after.
I was also grounded for a month and forced to apologize to Giogi and his goons for scaring them. The enforced apology undid any lasting effect of my demonstration, and they predictably continued to torment me. My parents seemed to believe that I was just letting their childish antics get to me and tried to explain that I could not expect other children to behave as properly as I did like I knew they would. I was told that they would eventually grow out of it and that I should endeavor to set an example of proper behavior for them.
When I asked Jacqueline what I should do, she told me that unless they became physically violent, I should simply put up with it while attempting to minimize encounters with them. I told her I was already trying to minimize encounters but seeing little success. A few days later she informed me of each of their general schedules, habits, and what areas of town they would frequent on a given day. Jacqueline is so skilled at looking out for me! How in the world did she get such useful information?!
On a lighter note, I kept up my friendship with Sana. At first, I had just been doing it to get her to tell me more about the religion of this world that she learned from the priest, but as time wore on, we wound up becoming fairly close. Giogi had decided that I should be derided and made fun of at every opportunity because I was “full of myself” and “only got where I was because of my parents”. Sana wasn’t able to make any progress with other children since they made fun of her for being an orphan. Since we were both social outcasts among our peers, I suppose it was only natural that we would grow closer in our misery.
Occasionally, she would get permission from the priest to go out with me, but more often than not we would only be able to hang out at the temple. I would, upon her request, teach her the manners that my mother was trying so hard to drill into me. For her part, she would tell me bible stories. Hardly a normal arrangement for little girls like us, but we were happy with it. As an aside from me teaching her manners, we held frequent tea parties. Sometimes the Priest would join us, providing special tea leaves or snacks that had been made an offering at the temple. I grew fairly fond of him, as he seemed to treat Sana as his true daughter instead of just a ward.
It was at one of these tea parties where Sana excitedly informed me that she was going to get to become a priestess, “Stali! I have something special to tell you!” She was positively beaming and had only managed a single sip of her tea before putting down her cup to talk. It must be exciting if you only took a sip, I had this tea made with an herb that Sven gave me, and I know it’s one of your favorites.
The tea in question was brewed using Snake Grass and was a potent cure for headaches. Snake Grass was extremely sweet, like eating raw sugar slathered in honey, the drug made from it was extremely hard to swallow, as the extreme sweetness triggered the gag reflex.
On a hunch, I had asked Sven if it could be mixed in with bitter tea leaves and he had given me a few grams of it to experiment with. My resulting brew tasted like milk tea and had lost none of the effects of the Snake Grass, despite being vastly improved in flavor. I had been using the tea parties with my mother and Sana to run trials, my mother often talked about having many headaches, so she made a good clinical patient, and Sana was perfectly healthy making her a good control subject.
“Stahlia” I corrected her, the tea parties were officially meant as a way to practice manners after all. “What news has you so excited Sana?”
She nodded at my correction and elaborated. “Stahlia, yesterday when at signing practice, the song I was singing reached the gods and made a miracle! The flower in the music room was covered in light and immediately bloomed. The priest said it was out of season, so it must be a real miracle!”
“The priest told me I could become a priestess!” That’s great for you since as an orphan you have no marriage prospects. I smiled and congratulated her.
“That is excellent news, Sana. You must be very pro- pleased. Very pleased indeed.” I had almost said she was proud. That was one of Sana’s few faults. She was very zealous. If I had called her proud, I would have received a lecture about the danger of the seven vices of man and how they led you to stray from your purpose, thankfully, I had a great deal of experience with these lectures and was able to catch myself.
Still, this confirms that miracles work according to the classic system. You need to truly believe in the power of god to be able to summon it. Other than the priest, I can’t think of someone with greater faith than Sana, it makes sense she would be able to call on divine power.
We continued to talk at length about her newly opened future and it soon came time for me to head home. Jacqueline tidied up our tea set while I said my farewells, and we departed. It was nearing the middle of the twelfth month and the snow was beginning to build up in earnest. Soon it would be too high for me to walk through without employing physical enhancement.
I now had enough mana that I could probably make the trip to the temple but getting back would be impossible. Next year I should have enough to make both trips. I had been making sure to fully exhaust my mana on physical enhancements ever since I learned I could get skills and talents through training. My hope was to get one that would improve my mana efficiency, but thus far I had not managed to unlock it.
Either the skill doesn’t exist, or it requires a LOT of practice to unlock. Until I manage to level up and get a second talent and skill slot so I can browse the list all I can do is keep training my mana every day and hope.
While I was thinking over my future goals, we arrived home. I played with Stil for a couple of hours. He had long since mastered all of the normal tricks you would expect of a dog, so I had moved on to teaching him show tricks. At present, he was learning “Flip”, which would require him to jump in the air and rotate backward to land on his feet, a classic backflip. Silvia was helping my mother prepare dinner while Jacqueline was recounting the details of my outing to my father. During this report, she left out a few small things on my behalf as usual. I am eternally in your debt, my shining knightess.
Dinner was a tad more extravagant than usual, leading me to think that something was up. My father didn’t seem to notice, as he was just enjoying the food like normal. Silvia was eating in the kitchen; Jacqueline was presently waiting at our table. The two of them rotated serving and would switch out after the one finished eating. I eyed my mother suspiciously. She had hardly touched her food and was glancing around the room nervously.
When we finished eating, my father sat back as Silvia poured his usual after-dinner liquor, and lit his pipe. I was preparing to get up and go to my room when my mother called out.
“Stahlia, please wait a moment, I have something to discuss with you and your father.” Her face was firm and resolute. In a panic I began to mentally run down a list of everything I had been doing the past few weeks, trying to determine what my mother had heard and from whom she heard it.
My father put aside his pipe; he could tell my mother was about to have a serious conversation, “What is it Rosalie?” His own voice was just curious, but he briefly glanced in my direction concernedly. Really Father? Do you just assume I did something?!
My mother followed his gaze to me and her eyes lingered for a moment before she faced my father again. “Relax Stahlia, though this does concern you, you did not do anything wrong this time.” Well, Excuse me, mother.
“Fynn dear, I have not been visited by Nymphos for the past three months, and recently Vitae has been attending my mornings.” My father and I both blinked. I quickly counted the gods and goddesses in my head.
Nymphos was the sex fiend goddess who was supposedly related to fertility, and Vitae was the one responsible for watching over pregnancy… “Mother are you pregnant!?” Indeed, I could only assume my mother was trying to be delicate and dance around outright saying she had been missing her period and was now experiencing morning sickness.
My mother gave me a despairing look, “Stahlia, you should know better than to be so vulgar. But yes, I am presently with child. Vitae willing you will be a big sister sometime near the fifth month of next year.”
I jumped up excitedly; I wasn’t sure why I was so happy; I had been an only child in my past life, and I really despised children. My father simply sat back and smiled happily at his wife; he had been worrying that they would be unable to have another child. My mother did not impregnate easily, from what I had heard they had been married three years before finally having me, and it had been four years since then.
I ran over to my mother and took her hands in mine, “Do not worry mother, I am sure this child will be normal, and if they are not, well, I can help!” My mother blinked at me before breaking into a giggle and smiling, I had apparently successfully cleared one of her worries. Namely, that all her children would be abnormal.
★★★★★★
Psycholor
This short side story was originally going to be chapter 8 (and 8 was going to be 9), but after finishing it, I was completely unsatisfied with how it turned out. So instead of trying to force it, I adjusted things and snipped it down to just the base plot points. The elements I cut are mostly getting mixed into other chapters.
From Sven's Perspective. Set sometime between 1-8 and 1-10.
Extra: A Normal Day With an Abnormal Apprentice
Sven Sometime between 1-8 and 1-10.
My name is Sven, I have been working in Ris village as an alchemist for almost ten years now, long enough to remember the old mayor in any case. Recently I was saddled with a new student. She’s the daughter of the current mayor, and she is incredibly abnormal. Frankly, her skill with alchemy is prodigious. I can definitely see why the mayor thinks she has the “Alchemy Prodigy” talent. Thing is, she’s too good. A mere prodigy would still need training, but Stahlia seems to know everything I teach her before I teach it.
A normal child would get bored with my explanations after a few minutes, but she sits politely and listens until the end. After I finish talkin’ I always ask her if she has any questions. The first time I asked I was expectin’ she would be at a complete loss, and I would have to run through the whole thing a second time. Rather than be confused, she put her hand on her chin and gave it some serious thought. Then the wee lass asked me why I didn’t do the process a different way I had never heard of!
I was really shocked the first time she did that and explained to her that the method I was teachin’ her had been passed down for nigh on a hundred years at this point, and in all that time no alchemist had found a better way. She seemed to accept my answer readily enough, but then she asked if we could try it her way. I sighed, who wouldn’t? and explained that she might be getting ahead of herself when I felt a chill run down my spine. I looked up and saw the maid who was the little lady’s escort.
Now, I don’t have any proof, but the first time I met the lass, I was just wondering whether or not I should hold my tongue after she made her poor old Ma faint when I got a chill just like this one. Looking out my window at the time, I saw a figure melt out of the shadows and flash a dagger at me. Now, I’ve traveled ah wee bit in my time on this world, and there’s rumors about a dark underbelly to this kingdom. Call themselves “Shadows”. According to the whispers, the king leads them himself, no generals or nobles in the way. Whenever there be somthin’ important goin down, you bet the major players will have two shadows, their own natural one, and a second one from the dark. I thought they were a myth, but seeing is believing. I somehow knew, that figure was one of those Shadows, and she was followin’ the lass in front of me.
Now, I don’t have any proof, but I’d wager that this maid is that same shadow. She was a little too eager to be the young lass’ escort to and from my shop. She even spoke out against the lady of the house! What kinda self-respectin’ maid does a thing like that? In any case, the message was damn clear. I told Stahlia we would try it her way. Well, who would have guessed it? The little thing’s method not only worked splendidly, it managed an efficiency far an’ above anything anyone had ever tried before! There was no way she was an Alchemy Prodigy. She was something alright, but that wasn’t it. Well speakin’ of the devil. I was lost in thought and look who walked in my front door but the wee lass and her demon maid as well, “Hello Mister Sven!” she sure is cheerful today, as usual.
Better greet ‘er afore the maid gets anxious, “Hello Miss Stahlia, Jacqueline. Ready for today?”
“Absolutely! You were going to show me how to purify mana out of restoration potions right?” As usual, the lass was excitable and eager ta learn.
Indeed that’s what I had told her last week. It was common sense that when you mixed ingredients, you would come out with a brew that had more than one effect. The trick to making an effective potion was to get rid of one of the effects. Come to think of it, this is what I had been doin’ the first day I met the wee lass; boilin’ out the restoration effect from a Concentrated Mana potion.
“Alright then, as I told you last time when you’re brewing a restoration potion, you will first mix up the ingredients and come up with a potion that contains both mana recovery and restoration elements. Do you remember how we extract the Mana Recovery Element in order to produce the Restoration Potion?” Ah, look at the wee lass smilin’ if it weren’t for that demon behind her it’d be absolutely adorable…
“Yes I recall, to remove the Mana Recovery Element you chill the potion, that makes the mana element crystallize at the bottom of the cauldron so you can pour out Restoration Potion. Conversely, to finish a Mana Recovery Potion you boil it; this evaporates the Restoration element leaving only the Mana Recovery Potion. Speaking of that, Mister Sven, I have a question!” Ah course ya do, well it ain’t like that demon shadow maid is gonna give me any choice in the matter, let’s see how your about to revolutionize alchemy this week.
“Hmm? What were you wondering about?” Better check the demon, yep she’s smilin’ at me.
“Well, instead of wasting one element by chilling, should we not heat the potion and then use condensation to recover the Restoration element? That way we would be left with both a Mana Recovery and a Restoration potion!” This wee lass… ‘Condescendation’ what? Yet another thing I ain’t never heard of before.
“Well we could try that, but I haven’t ever thought of doing something like that before so I don’t exactly have the right tools for it…” Please just give up, I don’ know how much more my world can be shaken ‘fore I wind up in an early grave… Ah, shit, the wee lass is smilin’… and now she’s waving over the demon maid.
…And what’s this thing now? Some sort of metal lid for my cauldron? So you put this on then add distilled winter to that bowl-shaped area eh? And now they’re lighting a fire… I hope this doesn’t fail, or I won’t be able to fill out my order request…
Wait, Restoration Potion is coming outa this spot thing in the lid as a liquid and drippin’ into that bucket?! And since they’re heating the brew that means Mana Recovery Potion’ll be leftover in the cauldron! What in the blazes, this completely eliminates the waste from the refinery process! Where in all the hells did this wee lass learn about this Condescendation thing from?!
“Ah, well fancy that, looks like it worked. Honestly, I don’t even know whose teaching who anymore…. Ha…ha…ha…”
“Do not be silly mister Sven sir, I would never have been able to do this if you had not taught me about the refinery process!” All smilin’ and cheery as usual, forget prodigy! I swear, this wee lass is some kinda alchemy demon!
★★★★★★
It was in this manner that Stahlia inadvertently revolutionized the world of Alchemy. In the coming years, this revolutionary process would come to be known as “Condescending” and would completely replace the previous Refining Process, but that is a story for another time.
Stahlia, Three Years Old, First Month of 940
I lowered my eyes from the light that was starting to fade and looked around fearfully. The rotund priest had a twitchy expression, and all the parents had gone silent. The children were still chattering excitedly amongst themselves, but they could hardly be expected to understand the full implications of what had just happened. When no reproach was forthcoming, I slowly resumed my descent and made my way back to my original place.
“…and thus concludes the dedication of Ris Village’s children in the 940th year. May you all find and fulfill your purpose.” The priest seemed to have recovered and concluded today’s ceremony. I found my way to my parents and asked if we could go home. My mother agreed and picked me up before leaving with a brisk gait; my father had some business to attend to as the mayor, so he stayed behind in the temple.
Arriving back at our house, I promptly shut myself away in my room. This is horrible! If it weren’t bad enough that the priest didn’t know what to do about my status before now I’ve gotten a blessing in the color of winter! The winter faction hardly has any redeeming gods in it at all! If it had been any other season at least I could have hoped it was one of the three normal gods, but winter is completely evil! I flopped back onto my bed and let out a long sigh.
A few hours later, there was a knock at my door. I stayed silent, hoping whoever it was would assume I was asleep. My mother opened the door and let herself in, “Stahlia, if you do not come out, you will miss the dedication party.”
I had exactly zero desire to attend this party and simply turned onto my side. “Stahlia, I will not allow you to miss the party. If I must, I will pick you up and carry you there by force. You would not want your peers to see that, I should think.”
I groaned. She was right, I couldn’t afford to make any more waves than I already had today. Regretfully, I roused myself and followed my mother out of the house.
The dedication party was a sort of feast in the village square; I had never been before, as only people who had had their Dedication Ceremony were permitted to attend. All the children from earlier were sat around a large table that was set up down the middle of the square, stretching from the doors of the church to around the middle. The five children who had a class were sitting around the head of the table near the church.
The five of them were sitting still and were largely well behaved, while some forty-odd other children were restless, though none of them tried to leave the table. Near the head of the table, next to the five class children was an empty seat. Don’t tell me… My mother gave me a light push towards the empty seat. This is awful.
With nothing else to do and no way to escape, I took my seat next to Giogi. He looked up from his bowl as I sat down, “Rude! Everyun was waiting!”
This kid… it’s not like I want to be here, I would have been just fine if you all started without me. Still, I knew it wouldn’t work out well for me if I antagonized him by being curt, “My apologies for my tardiness, it is a great honor to be seated at the head of the table with the five of you, I am very blessed.”
He stared at me with a blank face and returned to his food. Seriously, putting up with kids is just… So irritating. I was sat at the end of the right-hand side of the table with Giogi to my right side. On my left, there was an empty place with no chair separating me from the next child, one of the ones who hadn’t had a class.
The children who had had a class were arrayed in such a way that they wrapped around the table such that Jav sat at the actual head. The lone girl, Sana, sat across from me. She was picking idly at her food and seemed fairly overcome by all the attention our group was getting from the adults spread around the square. I smiled at her ruefully, at least someone seemed as uncomfortable as I was. Smiling had been a mistake.
“Your Stahlia right?” The girl seemed to interpret my smile as an attempt to start a conversation.
“Yes, I am Stahlia Rosalie-daughter.” I had a social obligation to respond now that she had introduced herself. If my mother caught wind of me forgetting my manners there would be hell to pay. Ever since the Ammonia test, she had been a fair bit stricter when it came to matters of my etiquette.
The girl smiled, pleased that I seemed happy to speak with her. “My name is Sana! Daughter of none…”
In this world, only nobles had a family name. For commoners like ourselves, it was common to introduce yourself with the name of your mother or father, based on your gender. After marriage, the wife would introduce herself as the wife of her husband, while the father would continue to use his father’s name. My mother would call herself “Rosalie Fynnswife” when meeting someone for the first time.
I had never heard my father give an introduction before, so I wasn’t sure how he did it; his father had been executed as a traitor so that might make things awkward. By calling herself “Daughter of none” she was basically telling me she didn’t know who her mother was. That would cause her a lot of problems later in life when she was trying to find a spouse.
“The light was pretty. The way it made your hair glow...” The girl seemed intent on making idle conversation now that introductions were over.
“Hmm? Yes, I suppose it must have looked very nice. I was too shocked to notice myself though.” In spite of myself, I continued the conversation; at this point, it would have been acceptable for me to thank her for the compliment and start eating, but for some reason, I found her innocent demeanor charming.
“Jav got light too! That was so cool!” Giogi apparently desired to be a part of our conversation as well.
Are you trying to be irritating? Who cares if Jav got a blessing? I’d rather know why I got one, my class doesn’t have any connection to winter that I can think of… I tilted my head towards Giogi, “Indeed, I was merely blessed through no merit of my own; Jav was simply spectacular, the golden light that descended on him took my breath away.”
That wasn’t a lie; I had been shocked when Jav had gotten a blessing since that had served as confirmation that the gods and goddesses here held real power. Hopefully, a bit of self-depreciation will get him to shove off.
Giogi looked at me like I was crazy, before mumbling something I couldn’t catch and turning his attention back to his food.
Is this… are you upset that you’re being overshadowed? Is this a case of childhood jealousy?. I decided to press my attack and extract socially acceptable vengeance, “Yes, but while he may be a farmer, the priest said his blessing was from Goddess Vitae, I am sure his fields will be rich and he will have a very happy wife one day.”
I finished with an appropriately shaped smile. Giogi seemed disgruntled that I was praising Jav, lending credence to my theory that he was simply jealous. This kind of shit is why I hate children.
Sana was watching me intently. “Stali, do you really think Jav will make his wife happy one day?”
Let’s go in for the kill. Hopefully, that stops Giogi from being so irritating in the future. I nodded emphatically to punctuate my stance, “Yes, I do believe that he will have a very wealthy house once he grows up.”
The girl seemed to get a faraway look in her eyes. “Do you want to marry Jav, Stali? Then you could be a mommy! The priest tells me that getting married is how you become a mommy. The reason I don’t have a mommy is that she never got married.”
What? I feel like there is a serious miscommunication going on right now. Frantically shaking my head I attempted to set the record straight, “No Sana, you misunderstand! I am not thinking about myself at all! I was simply stating an observation.” Sana got a somewhat sad expression for some reason, so I decided to rapidly change the subject. “You are very well-spoken Sana, not at all like any other children I have met save myself.”
My compliment elicited a happy smile. “Thanks Stali, I grew up in the temple, the priest taught me lots by reading from the temple books. He always said that ‘those loved by the gods learn quickly.’” That would explain it, the passages we had been read today were quite verbose, and apparently having a class causes you to develop faster, as I thought. That explains why the five kids who had a class are more well behaved and better spoken than other’s our age. I’m my own exception of course.
“I see. Well, truthfully, I found the story we were read today extremely interesting. You said the priest read you stories from the scripture. Would you be willing to tell me some of them?” Sana stopped and thought a moment before nodding happily.
“Yes! I would love to!” Sana seemed positively radiant at the idea.
The rest of the celebration proceeded without much of note. Giogi was sullen towards me for the rest of the night, but he didn’t try and start any trouble, so I was able to ignore him. My father interrupted us and gave an address that I mostly ignored, and Sana and I moved away from the other kids as soon as we were able. We spent the next several hours discussing religious stories. From our conversations, I was able to conclude that the entire religious system seemed like an institution designed to steer people into leveling up and seeking to find their purpose. Of course, it was always certain to tell you that if you struggled to find it yourself, the kingdom would be able to find it for you. The whole thing seemed like a cult designed to create subservient cogs in the machine known as a kingdom.
Of particular note, was a story detailing the Nine Kings of Hell; seven of the kings were described as governing a specific temptation of man. I was fairly certain that these were the seven people granted a portion of divinity by the Dark God and the Goddess of Light, but since those “temptations” were not named I could only speculate. There were also two greater kings who ruled over the seven. Once every thousand years, it was said that one or more of the Kings would break free from perdition and walk the world once more, seeking to lead the perfect children away from their purpose. Considering the current year was 0940, I had a sneaking suspicion that this story was a quest flag for an important future event.
Towards the end of the night, I introduced Sana to my mother and father and informed them that I had made a friend, news which pleased my mother a great deal. My father was pleased when he found out that Sana had been raised by the Priest, and told me that “He is a good man. I believe this will be a good friendship for you.”
I was still concerned about the reaction to my blessing and my abnormal appraisal results. However, nobody had said anything to me all night so I was beginning to think it might not be as big a deal as I thought. In fact, when I asked Jacqueline, who through our biweekly nightly training sessions was quickly becoming my closest confidant, she told me not to worry about it; she was sure that nothing bad would come of it. We arrived home and I promptly fell asleep.
★★★★★★
Fynn
My precious daughter finally had her dedication ceremony. My wife and I were certain that she would be revealed to be exceptional, we had seen her grow up after all. Imagine my shock when the priest announced that she had not been born with a purpose. I was able to recover my surprise before it betrayed on my face, thanks to my noble past, but watching Stahlia turn and descend from the steps with such a sad expression twisted my heart; I resolved to shower her with praise once we got home.
Just as I was considering what the best things to say would be, I saw the light of miracles descend upon my daughter. A stir ran through the crowd; this was the second blessing this year. Normally, a blessing will only be given once every five years or so, and everyone who receives one goes on to accomplish great things. It was not unheard of for a child with no purpose to receive a blessing, but it was the extreme exception.
I wonder, did the priest lie? Is my daughter in fact so special that he could not announce it aloud? What will this mean for us? What is more, she was blessed with the icy white of the winter faction. That meant that whichever god or goddess had blessed her was one of the black sheep. The winter faction was widely regarded as outliers among the gods and goddesses. Goddess Antenora was a god who watched over criminals and betrayers. she was also my precious Stahlia’s birth goddess, a revelation that had greatly upset Stahlia before we explained that the god of your birth has no significant meaning.
Goddess Caina was the bringer of change. She and her followers were well known for rejecting the order of the world and seeking to bring about change whenever they could, outright worship of her was frowned upon by the kingdom so she was always venerated alongside another god or goddess, never alone. Last of the winter faction was the God Virgil, who kept the story of the world. He was also well known to fancy the young Goddess Caina in an inappropriate manner. Even the other gods were known to grow disgusted with him at times. Of the three, one of them had seen fit to bestow their blessing on my precious daughter. I was not sure which one was the worst case.
One could usually intuit what god’s blessing they received based on their purpose. In the case of Jav, he had received the light of the Autumn faction, as his purpose was to be a farmer, the priest had been able to determine that Goddess Vitae who oversees the harvest of crops was the one who had blessed him. I realized that I had become lost in my own thoughts, Stahlia would be with us soon. My daughter must be incredibly confused and probably quite frightened right now. I was considering how I should greet her when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
Turning around, I saw one of the junior priests, “The priest bids you stay and speak with him.”
The junior priest delivered his message and stepped back to the wall before skirting the crowd and entering the inner chambers. I suppose I should have expected that the priest would want a word. In this kingdom, the church was second only to the king. To that end, despite being commoners, full priests held the same amount of power and influence as a noble of the baron rank. Being a mere village Mayor, I could not refuse the request for an audience.
I signaled my wife who nodded and scooped up my daughter to bring her away from here. I wanted to go with them, but I had my duties to attend to. I made my way near the altar and waited for everyone to file out of the church before climbing the steps and bowing to the priest, “You desired to speak with me, Sir.” I was careful to control my tone; it would not do to betray my anxiety.
“Indeed, Mayor Fynn. I would inform you personally of your daughter’s dedication. The information I had written down for her was a fabrication. I hope you understand the implications.” His tone was calm, but his eyes pierced through me like a hawk watching a mouse.
I swallowed to water my throat before responding, “I will not share what you deem to tell me.”
The priest nodded before continuing, “Truthfully, your daughter was born without a clear purpose. I do not mean that it was absent. For a reason unknown to me, the stone could not reveal her purpose, but I believe she must have one; She has several talents and skills that one her age would need a clear purpose to have. What is more, she was born with a prodigy talent, and her lowest ability score is a C.” The priest paused; he was clearly waiting for me to respond.
“I suspected as much. She has exhibited an extreme rate of learning and a healthy thirst for knowledge far beyond her years.” I was unsure of how much information I should reveal; I had a duty to my kingdom, but I was also Stahlia’s father. I wanted my daughter to be safe and happy. Still, my household had long suspected she had the Alchemy Prodigy talent, but to think her lowest ability score was a C. I recalled what the mage had told us three years ago. From what I could recall, that would mean that Stahlia’s Intelligence was around S. I felt faint.
“What do you need from me, sir?” I queried the priest, hoping to glean where he was going with this.
“As you know, all dedications are reported to the kingdom. I suspect that they will want Stahlia to enroll at the Royal Academy in the capital when she turns ten. To prepare her for that, please make arrangements for her to have lessons in etiquette, and instruct her in the basics of reading, writing, mathematics, etcetera. If you wish, I can prepare a place for her with the five children to learn academic subjects here at the temple, but you will have to teach her etiquette on your own. I believe with your family history you will be more than capable.”
I swallowed and bowed, “As you wish, thank you for informing me.”
Making my exit, I hurried home to speak with my wife and write a letter to an old friend. The priest was a good man and I trusted him. He had not needed to warn me about the Royal Academy but had done it as a personal favor. If a man of his station believed that would happen, I could take it as a statement of fact rather than mere speculation. For better or worse, my family was likely to be pulled back into the world of nobles, I had to start planning to ensure Stahlia would have a future when she walked through the doors of the Academy, without making the proper arrangements, the Noble Children who attended would eat her alive.
★★★★★★
Stahlia
As time passed following my dedication ceremony, I gradually grew to accept that, at least for now, nothing major was going to happen to me. Of course, there were changes; now that I had turned three and had my dedication; I was permitted to travel the village as I wished. I did not need to go with my mother to visit shops, and though she still brought me to Sven’s alchemy lessons once a week, I could now visit without Jacqueline on other days.
My mother had seemingly decided that now that I was moving about on my own, I should be taking my etiquette lessons even more seriously. We would spend at least one day a week going over manners and proper behavior. Personally, I thought that this was a tad extreme; I was a village mayor’s daughter not a young noble. Still, I humored my mother so that I would not lose the privilege to go where I wanted on the other days. Once a month my mother would make me attend a tea party with her to make sure I was practicing my manners.
Of course, when I was not in her presence, I dropped most of the mannerisms she was trying to teach me. I was markedly more well behaved than the other children my age, but I drew the line at being polite; I saw no use in the extravagant mannerisms and odd speech patterns used by high nobility. I think my mother might have missed her past station and was teaching me in order to relive those days.
Around the end of the third month, my parents decided to hire an additional maid. Silvia was a young villager who was the fourth daughter of the local blacksmith. Despite being, to my eyes, quite pretty, her status as a fourth daughter meant her marriage prospects were quite slim.
When I privately asked my mother why she could not get married despite her looks, I was informed that fourth daughters often remain maidens for life. It all came down to matters of inheritance. First daughters were the most sought after; they would be able to bring their mother’s name with them and thus provide her influence to their new household, in addition to receiving the majority of the bridal gifts passed down the matrilineal line.
Second and third daughters would lose their mother’s name once they were married but would still have a portion of the bridal gifts kept for them. This would form a connection between the immediate family of the bride, as well as provide a basis for which to establish a new matrilineal line. By the time you got to the fourth daughter though, they would bring nothing other than themselves to the marriage.
This setup was ingrained in Drakas Kingdom law, down to the percentages of Bridal Gifts to be saved for each of the first three daughters. Apparently, it had been written into law following a blood feud between the third and fourth princesses some four hundred years ago; when the third princess won, she persuaded the king to legally cut off her younger sister.
No such law existed for fourth sons, although they had their own issues stemming from tradition. The first son would inherit the house and become the head of the main family, as well as the de facto head of his younger brothers’ families. The second and below sons would be able to marry according to the status of their father and oldest brother, as other families would use their first through third daughters to form attachments with the main house.
As Silvia was the fourth daughter, she had no future with marriage, unless a son chose disownment in order to court her; an act that would make him a social pariah and likely result in him being driven out of the local area. If his families’ status was high enough, he may even be driven from the country.
So it was that despite having a very fetching figure, with naturally curly blonde hair and soft brown eyes Silvia could only seek employment in one of the few fields open to a woman and decided to become our second maid. She could have taken up a position waiting tables at one of the village inns and taverns or become an adventurer, but those jobs were not exactly friendly towards women.
Waitresses were basically prostitutes and the adventurer’s guild was a boys club, though there were a few successful women they didn’t have a good reputation. Whispers would follow female adventurers wherever they went, generally of a derogatory nature that insinuated they were ingratiated into their parties via less than moral methods. Once all this had been summed up for me, I came to the conclusion that barring an express few jobs, an unmarried woman was generally considered a sex worker at best, and a mere whore at worst.
Silvia took over the majority of household chores from Jacqueline, who was reassigned to be my personal attendant. What kind of village mayor’s daughter has a personal maid following them around! Don’t think you can fool me, Father! Mother just wants a babysitter for when I’m out of her sight! Indeed, this happened shortly after an incident that occurred when I was out on my explorations of the village.
Following the incident where I shut him down at the dedication party, Giogi had begun to be quite abrasive and would heckle me whenever we met in town. At one of these encounters, I was returning from a visit to Sven’s shop in a foul mood; Sven had insinuated that he was planning to take on his younger brother as an apprentice for five years. Following the end of that apprenticeship, he would turn over the shop to his younger brother and go out on a journey. When I had asked why he needed an apprentice when he had already been teaching me, he got a funny look and explained that I couldn’t be an alchemist since I was the first daughter of my family. Apparently, it was my “duty” to marry someone and make babies. Needless to say, I was pretty pissed off as I had no intention of doing that.
I was about halfway home when I saw Giogi. Since I really was not in a mood to deal with his shit right now, I ducked onto a side street. I was intending to cut through to another main road and continue to my house from there, but Giogi had seen me. The little shit actually went out of his way to go down a different side street so as to head me off.
“What’re you doing Mrs. Fancy?” his barbed taunt assailed me, normally I would do my best to brush it off, but the earlier revelation from Sven had left me touchy.
“If you must know, I am going home. If you will excuse me, I am late.” I tried to move past him but one of the goons got in my way. Great, now they’re getting physical. They had blocked me before, and forced me to ask them to move, or apologize for some perceived slight, always following their alpha Giogi like dumb animals. If it was just him things would be different, but the fact that he’s sort of rallying all the classless kids to harass me is just…
“Giogi, your pet is in my way. Please get a leash if you cannot properly train it.” I put as much spite into my voice as I could, I was completely done with this shit.
Giogi took a half step back at my words, he was clearly shaken, I had never acted like this with them before, I had always tried to de-escalate.
Giogi looked over his shoulder at his goon squad and seemed to find his confidence. “Oh yeah? What’re you gonna do? Tell your dad on us?” I mean, my dad is the village chief, I could literally do just that. Still, that would most likely just lead to another speech about how much more advanced I was than other kids, something I didn’t care to deal with.
I shrugged, I was completely done with this shit today, “Giogi, since you can’t control your pets, allow me to demonstrate a properly trained animal. Do try and learn from my example.”
I put my fingers in my mouth and let out a shrill whistle, which prompted Stil to come bounding out of a nearby back alley. Ever since I had begun roaming the town, I had noticed that Stil was always nearby, just out of sight. I had taught him to “come” when I whistled in case I ever ran into serious trouble and needed his help.
“Stil, Mount.” Stil promptly dropped down into his mounting position and allowed me to climb on his back, the sight of which caused Giogi’s face to turn pale. His goons took a few steps back and the one who had stepped out to block my path turned and started running away. They probably think I’m going to attack them. Good, maybe this will get them to leave me alone.
I hitched up my skirt and climbed on Stil’s back. “Stil, Home.” Stil shot Giogi a look that seemed to say you damn lucky punk and marched past him taking me straight home. My mother was waiting for me with her arms crossed and a very, very, wide smile. Her eyes, however, were not involved with that smile.
As a repercussion of those events, I had revealed to my mother that I was not comporting myself as a perfect little lady when out of her sight, so she had pestered my father to assign me someone to keep an eye on me. Now that the dedication was over, there was less need for us to keep our income from my alchemy dealings secret so we could easily afford more help. Thankfully, Jacqueline picked up on my distress and suggested that she be reassigned to me, citing her previous experience working as a maid for a young noble lady. My mother was thrilled when she heard that and quickly agreed. Jokes on you! Jacqueline won’t be giving you any reports about what I get up to! She’s been keeping my secrets for over two years now! We hired Silvia soon after.
I was also grounded for a month and forced to apologize to Giogi and his goons for scaring them. The enforced apology undid any lasting effect of my demonstration, and they predictably continued to torment me. My parents seemed to believe that I was just letting their childish antics get to me and tried to explain that I could not expect other children to behave as properly as I did like I knew they would. I was told that they would eventually grow out of it and that I should endeavor to set an example of proper behavior for them.
When I asked Jacqueline what I should do, she told me that unless they became physically violent, I should simply put up with it while attempting to minimize encounters with them. I told her I was already trying to minimize encounters but seeing little success. A few days later she informed me of each of their general schedules, habits, and what areas of town they would frequent on a given day. Jacqueline is so skilled at looking out for me! How in the world did she get such useful information?!
On a lighter note, I kept up my friendship with Sana. At first, I had just been doing it to get her to tell me more about the religion of this world that she learned from the priest, but as time wore on, we wound up becoming fairly close. Giogi had decided that I should be derided and made fun of at every opportunity because I was “full of myself” and “only got where I was because of my parents”. Sana wasn’t able to make any progress with other children since they made fun of her for being an orphan. Since we were both social outcasts among our peers, I suppose it was only natural that we would grow closer in our misery.
Occasionally, she would get permission from the priest to go out with me, but more often than not we would only be able to hang out at the temple. I would, upon her request, teach her the manners that my mother was trying so hard to drill into me. For her part, she would tell me bible stories. Hardly a normal arrangement for little girls like us, but we were happy with it. As an aside from me teaching her manners, we held frequent tea parties. Sometimes the Priest would join us, providing special tea leaves or snacks that had been made an offering at the temple. I grew fairly fond of him, as he seemed to treat Sana as his true daughter instead of just a ward.
It was at one of these tea parties where Sana excitedly informed me that she was going to get to become a priestess, “Stali! I have something special to tell you!” She was positively beaming and had only managed a single sip of her tea before putting down her cup to talk. It must be exciting if you only took a sip, I had this tea made with an herb that Sven gave me, and I know it’s one of your favorites.
The tea in question was brewed using Snake Grass and was a potent cure for headaches. Snake Grass was extremely sweet, like eating raw sugar slathered in honey, the drug made from it was extremely hard to swallow, as the extreme sweetness triggered the gag reflex.
On a hunch, I had asked Sven if it could be mixed in with bitter tea leaves and he had given me a few grams of it to experiment with. My resulting brew tasted like milk tea and had lost none of the effects of the Snake Grass, despite being vastly improved in flavor. I had been using the tea parties with my mother and Sana to run trials, my mother often talked about having many headaches, so she made a good clinical patient, and Sana was perfectly healthy making her a good control subject.
“Stahlia” I corrected her, the tea parties were officially meant as a way to practice manners after all. “What news has you so excited Sana?”
She nodded at my correction and elaborated. “Stahlia, yesterday when at signing practice, the song I was singing reached the gods and made a miracle! The flower in the music room was covered in light and immediately bloomed. The priest said it was out of season, so it must be a real miracle!”
“The priest told me I could become a priestess!” That’s great for you since as an orphan you have no marriage prospects. I smiled and congratulated her.
“That is excellent news, Sana. You must be very pro- pleased. Very pleased indeed.” I had almost said she was proud. That was one of Sana’s few faults. She was very zealous. If I had called her proud, I would have received a lecture about the danger of the seven vices of man and how they led you to stray from your purpose, thankfully, I had a great deal of experience with these lectures and was able to catch myself.
Still, this confirms that miracles work according to the classic system. You need to truly believe in the power of god to be able to summon it. Other than the priest, I can’t think of someone with greater faith than Sana, it makes sense she would be able to call on divine power.
We continued to talk at length about her newly opened future and it soon came time for me to head home. Jacqueline tidied up our tea set while I said my farewells, and we departed. It was nearing the middle of the twelfth month and the snow was beginning to build up in earnest. Soon it would be too high for me to walk through without employing physical enhancement.
I now had enough mana that I could probably make the trip to the temple but getting back would be impossible. Next year I should have enough to make both trips. I had been making sure to fully exhaust my mana on physical enhancements ever since I learned I could get skills and talents through training. My hope was to get one that would improve my mana efficiency, but thus far I had not managed to unlock it.
Either the skill doesn’t exist, or it requires a LOT of practice to unlock. Until I manage to level up and get a second talent and skill slot so I can browse the list all I can do is keep training my mana every day and hope.
While I was thinking over my future goals, we arrived home. I played with Stil for a couple of hours. He had long since mastered all of the normal tricks you would expect of a dog, so I had moved on to teaching him show tricks. At present, he was learning “Flip”, which would require him to jump in the air and rotate backward to land on his feet, a classic backflip. Silvia was helping my mother prepare dinner while Jacqueline was recounting the details of my outing to my father. During this report, she left out a few small things on my behalf as usual. I am eternally in your debt, my shining knightess.
Dinner was a tad more extravagant than usual, leading me to think that something was up. My father didn’t seem to notice, as he was just enjoying the food like normal. Silvia was eating in the kitchen; Jacqueline was presently waiting at our table. The two of them rotated serving and would switch out after the one finished eating. I eyed my mother suspiciously. She had hardly touched her food and was glancing around the room nervously.
When we finished eating, my father sat back as Silvia poured his usual after-dinner liquor, and lit his pipe. I was preparing to get up and go to my room when my mother called out.
“Stahlia, please wait a moment, I have something to discuss with you and your father.” Her face was firm and resolute. In a panic I began to mentally run down a list of everything I had been doing the past few weeks, trying to determine what my mother had heard and from whom she heard it.
My father put aside his pipe; he could tell my mother was about to have a serious conversation, “What is it Rosalie?” His own voice was just curious, but he briefly glanced in my direction concernedly. Really Father? Do you just assume I did something?!
My mother followed his gaze to me and her eyes lingered for a moment before she faced my father again. “Relax Stahlia, though this does concern you, you did not do anything wrong this time.” Well, Excuse me, mother.
“Fynn dear, I have not been visited by Nymphos for the past three months, and recently Vitae has been attending my mornings.” My father and I both blinked. I quickly counted the gods and goddesses in my head.
Nymphos was the sex fiend goddess who was supposedly related to fertility, and Vitae was the one responsible for watching over pregnancy… “Mother are you pregnant!?” Indeed, I could only assume my mother was trying to be delicate and dance around outright saying she had been missing her period and was now experiencing morning sickness.
My mother gave me a despairing look, “Stahlia, you should know better than to be so vulgar. But yes, I am presently with child. Vitae willing you will be a big sister sometime near the fifth month of next year.”
I jumped up excitedly; I wasn’t sure why I was so happy; I had been an only child in my past life, and I really despised children. My father simply sat back and smiled happily at his wife; he had been worrying that they would be unable to have another child. My mother did not impregnate easily, from what I had heard they had been married three years before finally having me, and it had been four years since then.
I ran over to my mother and took her hands in mine, “Do not worry mother, I am sure this child will be normal, and if they are not, well, I can help!” My mother blinked at me before breaking into a giggle and smiling, I had apparently successfully cleared one of her worries. Namely, that all her children would be abnormal.
★★★★★★
Psycholor
This short side story was originally going to be chapter 8 (and 8 was going to be 9), but after finishing it, I was completely unsatisfied with how it turned out. So instead of trying to force it, I adjusted things and snipped it down to just the base plot points. The elements I cut are mostly getting mixed into other chapters.
From Sven's Perspective. Set sometime between 1-8 and 1-10.
Extra: A Normal Day With an Abnormal Apprentice
Sven Sometime between 1-8 and 1-10.
My name is Sven, I have been working in Ris village as an alchemist for almost ten years now, long enough to remember the old mayor in any case. Recently I was saddled with a new student. She’s the daughter of the current mayor, and she is incredibly abnormal. Frankly, her skill with alchemy is prodigious. I can definitely see why the mayor thinks she has the “Alchemy Prodigy” talent. Thing is, she’s too good. A mere prodigy would still need training, but Stahlia seems to know everything I teach her before I teach it.
A normal child would get bored with my explanations after a few minutes, but she sits politely and listens until the end. After I finish talkin’ I always ask her if she has any questions. The first time I asked I was expectin’ she would be at a complete loss, and I would have to run through the whole thing a second time. Rather than be confused, she put her hand on her chin and gave it some serious thought. Then the wee lass asked me why I didn’t do the process a different way I had never heard of!
I was really shocked the first time she did that and explained to her that the method I was teachin’ her had been passed down for nigh on a hundred years at this point, and in all that time no alchemist had found a better way. She seemed to accept my answer readily enough, but then she asked if we could try it her way. I sighed, who wouldn’t? and explained that she might be getting ahead of herself when I felt a chill run down my spine. I looked up and saw the maid who was the little lady’s escort.
Now, I don’t have any proof, but the first time I met the lass, I was just wondering whether or not I should hold my tongue after she made her poor old Ma faint when I got a chill just like this one. Looking out my window at the time, I saw a figure melt out of the shadows and flash a dagger at me. Now, I’ve traveled ah wee bit in my time on this world, and there’s rumors about a dark underbelly to this kingdom. Call themselves “Shadows”. According to the whispers, the king leads them himself, no generals or nobles in the way. Whenever there be somthin’ important goin down, you bet the major players will have two shadows, their own natural one, and a second one from the dark. I thought they were a myth, but seeing is believing. I somehow knew, that figure was one of those Shadows, and she was followin’ the lass in front of me.
Now, I don’t have any proof, but I’d wager that this maid is that same shadow. She was a little too eager to be the young lass’ escort to and from my shop. She even spoke out against the lady of the house! What kinda self-respectin’ maid does a thing like that? In any case, the message was damn clear. I told Stahlia we would try it her way. Well, who would have guessed it? The little thing’s method not only worked splendidly, it managed an efficiency far an’ above anything anyone had ever tried before! There was no way she was an Alchemy Prodigy. She was something alright, but that wasn’t it. Well speakin’ of the devil. I was lost in thought and look who walked in my front door but the wee lass and her demon maid as well, “Hello Mister Sven!” she sure is cheerful today, as usual.
Better greet ‘er afore the maid gets anxious, “Hello Miss Stahlia, Jacqueline. Ready for today?”
“Absolutely! You were going to show me how to purify mana out of restoration potions right?” As usual, the lass was excitable and eager ta learn.
Indeed that’s what I had told her last week. It was common sense that when you mixed ingredients, you would come out with a brew that had more than one effect. The trick to making an effective potion was to get rid of one of the effects. Come to think of it, this is what I had been doin’ the first day I met the wee lass; boilin’ out the restoration effect from a Concentrated Mana potion.
“Alright then, as I told you last time when you’re brewing a restoration potion, you will first mix up the ingredients and come up with a potion that contains both mana recovery and restoration elements. Do you remember how we extract the Mana Recovery Element in order to produce the Restoration Potion?” Ah, look at the wee lass smilin’ if it weren’t for that demon behind her it’d be absolutely adorable…
“Yes I recall, to remove the Mana Recovery Element you chill the potion, that makes the mana element crystallize at the bottom of the cauldron so you can pour out Restoration Potion. Conversely, to finish a Mana Recovery Potion you boil it; this evaporates the Restoration element leaving only the Mana Recovery Potion. Speaking of that, Mister Sven, I have a question!” Ah course ya do, well it ain’t like that demon shadow maid is gonna give me any choice in the matter, let’s see how your about to revolutionize alchemy this week.
“Hmm? What were you wondering about?” Better check the demon, yep she’s smilin’ at me.
“Well, instead of wasting one element by chilling, should we not heat the potion and then use condensation to recover the Restoration element? That way we would be left with both a Mana Recovery and a Restoration potion!” This wee lass… ‘Condescendation’ what? Yet another thing I ain’t never heard of before.
“Well we could try that, but I haven’t ever thought of doing something like that before so I don’t exactly have the right tools for it…” Please just give up, I don’ know how much more my world can be shaken ‘fore I wind up in an early grave… Ah, shit, the wee lass is smilin’… and now she’s waving over the demon maid.
…And what’s this thing now? Some sort of metal lid for my cauldron? So you put this on then add distilled winter to that bowl-shaped area eh? And now they’re lighting a fire… I hope this doesn’t fail, or I won’t be able to fill out my order request…
Wait, Restoration Potion is coming outa this spot thing in the lid as a liquid and drippin’ into that bucket?! And since they’re heating the brew that means Mana Recovery Potion’ll be leftover in the cauldron! What in the blazes, this completely eliminates the waste from the refinery process! Where in all the hells did this wee lass learn about this Condescendation thing from?!
“Ah, well fancy that, looks like it worked. Honestly, I don’t even know whose teaching who anymore…. Ha…ha…ha…”
“Do not be silly mister Sven sir, I would never have been able to do this if you had not taught me about the refinery process!” All smilin’ and cheery as usual, forget prodigy! I swear, this wee lass is some kinda alchemy demon!
★★★★★★
It was in this manner that Stahlia inadvertently revolutionized the world of Alchemy. In the coming years, this revolutionary process would come to be known as “Condescending” and would completely replace the previous Refining Process, but that is a story for another time.
