“I don’t even have a dimensional amulet to store Menadion’s grimoire.” Vidun’s voice cracked, tears streaming from his eyes. “They cost too much and I’m a failure. Aside from Awakening, I’ve achieved nothing in my life.”
“What the fuck?” Solus’ disbelief trampled her usual kindness and compassion. “Are you serious? Did you reveal the existence of your treasure despite not having the means to protect it? How can you be so stupid?”
“Hey, I was drunk!” He snapped back. “Something good had finally happened to me and I loosened up a bit.”
“Whatever.” Solus pinched her nose in frustration. “Here’s the deal. I’m offering you one thousand golden coins and a dimensional amulet to hide them in exchange for the book. Also, I’ll publicly claim its ownership and my friends here will spread the information.”
On her cue, Lith and Strider came out of their hiding spots. Their faces were masks of stone. The slightest mistake and they would crack up in a smile and laugh their asses off.
“This way, no one will look after you anymore and with that money, you can build something nice for yourself.” Solus said and Vidun pondered her words.
Not only because she was right but because the two guys with her were stronger than he had ever believed possible and wore so many artifacts that they shone like suns under Life Vision.
“One word of advice. Hide your money, lie low, and join the Mage Association.” Solus said. “They’ll teach you tier four and five magic and once you master a couple of specializations, it will be easier for you to convince a Council Elder to take you in as an apprentice.”
“Are you really going to give me one thousand gold coins?” Vidun asked.
“One thousand gold coins?” Lith echoed in horror.
“It’s one of Menadion’s grimoires.” Solus looked at Lith with pleading eyes. “And it’s not even coded. It’s worth every coin.”
“It actually is coded.” Vidun showed a random page that Solus could read like it was written in Tyris’ universal language. “Only the first chapters are readable. They contain the basics of Forgemastery and are explained so well that even I could understand them.”
“One thousand coins it is.” Lith whined, but he couldn’t deny Solus’s request.
‘Half of what I have is hers and she rarely spends a dime on herself. If she wants to spare this idiot’s life, it’s her choice.’ He thought.
“Wait.” Vidun said, putting Lith’s already strained patience to the test. “You can keep the money. Take me as your apprentice.”
“No fucking way!” Solus cut the air in front of her with her hand. “You couldn’t keep your only secret to save your life. How could I trust you with my secrets? Either you take the money or I’ll take the book from the guy who kills you.”
“I’ll take the money.” Vidun swallowed, admitting to himself that even he wouldn’t take in an apprentice like him.
Solus handed Vidun a bag filled with gold coins and a non-imprinted dimensional amulet.
“Imprint it and put the coins inside. This way you can check how many coins there are without counting them one by one.”
“Really?” He was flabbergasted and so was everyone else, yet by his ignorance.
“Gods, yes!” Solus said in frustration.
Vidun cried with joy after imprinting his first real artifact and realizing that he was still dirt poor as a mage but was now filthy rich for a commoner.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” He put the amulet in one of his pockets and handed the grimoire to Solus who checked it out immediately.
‘Gods, yes!’ She fell into a trance, the texture of the cover familiar to her touch.
She had no memory of the grimoire but its smell, weight, and even its design triggered short flashbacks from her past.
“All is well what it ends well.” Strider laughed while looking at the poor Vidun fly away as fast as he could. “The guy must be terrified we change our minds and take the gold back.”
“Don’t tempt me.” Lith sighed. “Gods. One thousand gold coins is a huge hit to my finances.”
“Are you kidding me?” Strider furrowed his eyes in disbelief. “I know you are loaded even by Awakened standards. The silver mines, the Forgemastered pieces you sell, your annuities. That amount of money should be insignificant to you.”
“It is.” Lith raised his hands in surrender.
“By the way, is that normal?” The Zouwu pointed at Solus whose eyes were out of focus as she flipped through the pages of the grimoire.
“Sort of.” Lith recognized the signs of Solus recovering bits of her past and covered for her. “She’s such a fanatic that she falls into a trance whenever she gets her hands on one of Menadion’s trinkets.”
Solus didn’t remember those spells but she could swear she knew them all. Reading them gave her an itch on the back of her skull, yet she didn’t waste time rereading. She rushed to the first page, praying to the gods to have mercy on her.
There, in the inscription, lay the following words:
“This book is for everyone and no one at the same time. If you can read these words, it means that you’ve found the cipher hidden in the initial chapters. Here is hidden another one. Use it with the first cipher to read the rest of the book and the second part of this inscription.”
Right under it, there was a shorter paragraph, written in a more complex code that Solus’s mind deciphered with ease.
“Congratulations, whoever you are. You have just become an apprentice of Menadion, First Ruler of the Flames.
In faith, your mentor, Ripha Menadion.”
Under her signature, there were two more. One childish that read “Elphyn Althena Menadion” while the second was elegant and precise and read “Threin Menadion”.
‘By my Mom, Dad!’ Solus started to cry, her fingers tracing the names in descending order. ‘Thank the gods for their mercy.’
When she reached Threin’s name, she discovered that the gods had nothing to do with the grimoire and there was no mercy involved.
A cloaked enchantment released a constant stream of the tier four Forgemastering spell, Clean Slate, that went from the book to her finger. It froze Solus in spasms of agony while a second cloaked enchantment bound the book to her hand, making it impossible to remove without destroying either of them.
Solus wasn’t an artifact, her imprint with Lith couldn’t be jammed but it could still be hurt. Her pain spread to Lith like a disease, their minds getting numb as they fought the waves of spells paralyzing them.
“What’s wrong with you two and who’s that guy?” Strider tried his best healing spells on Lith but nothing worked.
Yet his words were enough to draw Lith’s attention on the opening of a Warp Steps and the black-clad figure that stepped through it.
“Fuck me sideways! It’s one of the thieves.” Lith said after noticing the man was invisible to Life Vision which made no sense.
‘How could he locate us in the middle of nowhere and why did he jump in front of us instead of ambushing us again?’ Even in his daze, Lith felt that something was wrong and activated the Full Guard enchantment of his Voidwalker armor.
Then, the answer came out of the Chronicler’s pocket dimension. A Removal Unit of unknown design that the elf opened, triggering its spell and unleashing chains of blue energy aimed at Lith’s stone ring.
