24- Parchment things up

The confusing information in the magical warnings in front of Mimiru had startled her at first, the last one had even scared her to some degree. It seemed aimed at her too intentionally. Before, all the magic information announcements had been rather reactive, announcing something after she had accomplished a task, almost like a reward for her effort. But this one in particular was different,  almost as if it was poking straight into a sore spot in her mind and soul, playing with some of her deepest inner insecurities and fears.

Yet. After the initial scare, she felt quite calm and relaxed, the whole experience now somehow soothing, she felt relieved with a huge weight off her mind, as if she had been freed of her inner doubts. She felt so elated and cheerful that she immediately made a blunder without thinking about it.

Coming back to herself, she looked at the cup of juice the kobolds had brought her, she tried it and found it to her liking, it was slightly fermented, a very nice fruity taste to it with some slight bitterness that somehow helped to enhance the flavor of berries you could find in the forest. She took it without reserves, emptying the contents of the clay cup in one single go.

“Gahaha!! This is a great party!!” She exclaimed with a thunderous voice that startled everyone and made them look at her almost alarmed due to her sudden change of attitude as well as the magnitude of the volume of her voice.

“Oi Mimiru, what is that? Are you the old man now?!”

“Everyone! Revel tonight!! Celebrate to your heart’s content and may the realm bless your celebration!!” She continued without paying attention to her companion, raising her cup with a huge grin on her face and one hand on her hip, all gestures and mannerisms she had unwillingly absorbed from their mentor.

The celebration seemed much brighter to her now, actually the whole cave seemed a rather brither now that she was paying more atention, maybe it felt that way now that everyone seemed to be looking in her direction. Or so she thought.

Your prayer has been heard

"Blessed feast" miracle granted.

“Bwah?!!!”

Completely surprised and then somehow spurred by her words, the kobolds doubled their efforts at making this as remarkable of a celebration as possible, singing and dancing with more renewed energy. They also started bringing even more food and drinks, in unlikely quantities and in an outrageous pace, bringing to question how they had managed to prepare so much food beforehand. Specially if they had been leading a nomad lifestyle until this point.

All and several other questions where a thing of little concern for Mimiru as she suddenly felt completely drained of energy. She still felt in high spirits, but all her energy seemed to have left her in an instant. She looked at herself, trying to move her arms and legs, the act of lifting her arm felt like it was a taxing endeavor. Suddenly her whole body ached making a clear reminder that she had spent the entirety of the day either exploring the forest while fighting the critters within it, or being anxious and in high alert about the prescence of the kobolds, jumping about every single sudden move they made.

But all that seemed behind them at this particular moment. Mimiru looked around, and upon finding her target, she started walking towards it. She stumbled on her very first step, which lead her to believe that she was, without a doubt, on the right course of actions. Which ultimately led her to fumbling her way on top of Feugan’s back and immediately falling asleep.

“Mimiru! Are you ok?!!”

“{I think she fell asleep? Must be really tired?}”

“Feugan! Is she Okay?!!”

“{Oh… right you cannot understand me…}”

“I cannot understand you, Feugan!!”

“I know… Can someone please tell him that she is okay?”

***

“So. While its possible to infuse a weapon with both divinity and mana, the balance is very hard to keep. Making it a very dangerous tool of destruction in a plethora of ways, most of them the most undesirable, there have been records of swords exploding, longbows catching fire and even maces turning into turkey legs, therefore making it highly unadvised to perform unless adequate amounts of training
It is also important to notice that not all materials conduct mana or divinity the same way, it has been noticed that ‘pure metals’ such as silver or gold can be charged with divinity much more easily, yet branches from trees from sacred grounds have shown an even more splendid flow of divinity.
Mana on the other hand, shows a more marked flow on minerals as well as crafted pieces of equipment. With the few exceptions of very specifical plants, mana flow seems to be a matter of control and design”

The big rugged Guildmaster continued explaining, only the sounds of chalk against a chalkboard interrupting him as he would stop every now and then just to making a drawing pertaining his explanations or a side note to make emphasis on the last point he explained.

“Now! The body can absorb the energies of the land, such as when breathing, or eating. It can also gain energy from defeated enemies, some claim part of their life force is absorbed into our bodies. And as outlandish of an explanation as it sounds, this is yet the most widely accepted theory about this. Due to how adventurers show a remarkable progression in terms of body, soul and mana strength.
While all the enlightened races benefit greatly from the 3 forces, the benefits exhibit in different ways as each race as an apparent aptitude for them, with its exceptions. The beastkin usually boast greater physical traits and show a greater aptitude to convert their life energy into physical manifestations within the body, also known as skills. Allowing them to use far more skills, than your average human, in a single day without feeling tired or risking their lives due to overuse. Of course there are certain races that have shown a greater prowess to mana manipulation such as the Phauxnixes and the Lamia.”

At this point the guildmaster moved to a different part of the chalkboard, one part filled with what seemed like odd figures with lines, circles, letters, shapes and triangles converging into a single weird artsy overdramatic painting.

“But what is mana? Mana is widely accepted as one of the fundamental elements that constitute the world. While there are varied discussions on how everything might be made from elements, such as water, earth, wind and fire. All scholars agree that regardless of this, everything is formed or contains some degree of mana in it. With ambient mana coming in troves from the wind and rivers it was hardly anything disputable really. Heck, a really skillfull mage with big enough familiarity with earth magic, could draw mana not only from the soil but even from rocks.

From that point on, a mage has to manipulate the mana in a minutely manner to use it in a spell”

“Master! Why are we studying this?! I already know all of this!”

“Oh? You know all of this, you say? And yet you had to be carried to the guild this morning, because you overused your newfound access to divinity! Completely drained from energy and requiring assistance to be brought back while in the middle of a job, within the forest dungeon!! Needing a healer just to make sure you were fine without lasting aftereffects!”

“I-it wasn’t on purpose…” came a soft mumbled response.

“So you DO know why it happened then?!”

“I-I think I do have an idea of why…”.

“If you are not sure completely why, then, Ill make it clear to you! Without proper knowledge or practice of your newfound access to divinity, you went ahead and blessed a celebration, in the name of your Patron deity!!” The weary looking guildmaster answered in an agriavated tone. His voice raising with each word further explaining the situation.

“But I didn’t bless on any god’s name!”

The old man stared at her, obviously angry at his disciple for trying to make an excuse when the results were, after all, quite obvious to him. Yet he regained his composure and continued with his explanations.

“Miracles can only be granted by one of the thirteen patron deities or one of their vassals gods. Failure to do so will yield no results, no miracles and in some cases, you will befall upon a lesser curse by misuse of a prayer and divinity”

“C-curse?! Misuse of a prayer?!”

“Of course, kiddo! You thought you could just make a prayer to the air and expect the thirteen to just pick up your slack and figure out who is supposed to answer a random plight?! There are rules to follow, the same applies for us enlightened beings, if a person starts yelling asking for help in the middle of a street, he or she is more likely to attract the city guards than to receive help, best case they will be guided to adventurers or mercenaries, worst case he will pass the night at a jailhouse for disturbing the peace”

“T-that makes sense…”

“Mmmph! You say that as if you were surprised I would give you less than useful information”

“Well I mean, sometimes…”

“Pick. Your. Words. Carefully. I’m still very angry at you for such a folly, kiddo” The Weathered Guildmaster stood in front of her, his already imposing figure seemed to loom even taller than usual, he had placed his finger on the table in front of Mimiru, a gesture to make a point as he was speaking. His anger more evident than ever, not only from the weight his words carried. The way the thick index finger left an indentation on the sturdy wooden table, was proof that he was barely restraining his own frustration over the incidents that had taken place during the last job Mimiru undertook.

He stared at her intently until he finally stood back, taking a deep breath to calm himself he turned around and walked to the other side of the “lessons room”. A room that could hold at least a dozen individuals sitting on the small tables and chairs along the room, an arrangement that reminded Mimiru of the classrooms she had seen inside some of the temples that often took in disciples for training or willingly accepted people for some sort of education.

A special room in the guild, known for being the place where the Guildmaster gave his more -educative- lessons to the less willing to learn members of the adventurer’s guild.

The adventuring trade was well known for valuing strength. Which leads to an easy misconception, “as long as you have enough strength you can do whatever you want” as an adventurer. This sort of misunderstandings leads to the need for a leading figure within the guild. The guildmaster. One of the foremost roles of an adventurer’s guildmaster is to nurture and groom candidates into proper members of the guild. Sometimes nurturing them with lessons and guidance in both manners and rules to follow. And other times grooming them the same way a drill sergeant would to the new members of an army.

As such, the existence of the “lessons room” was well known among the members, either from stories passed along or from making mistakes which lead them to dreadful valuable lessons as adventurers.

As one that had heard the tales, Mimiru wasn’t thrilled of being inside the room while reviewing her performance on the last job she had taken.

“P-Permission to speak, Sir!” She stood straight on her seat, raising her hand. Although she stammered a little, it couldn’t be helped, showing no hint of nervousness nor guilt would just show she believe she had done nothing wrong.

“mmph. Go ahead”

“Even if… er… No, let me rephrase that. I performed a high level of miracle, right?”

“Yes, you did. Divine blessed feast, an advanced miracle that normally only high priests of a church would be able to perform. Rather than asking for the food to be blessed, which results in food consecrated and enhanced by the gods, the whole feast was accepted as a religious celebration which resulted in big amounts of blessed food and wine, until everyone is sated and some even healed of their ailments.”

“B-but why was I able to perform an advanced miracle if I had just obtained divinity?”

“First. You didn’t ‘just obtain’ it. No living being is born without a connection to the gods, even the smallest of insects that live in this world have such a connection. Simply put, the enlightened races are much more likely to receive blessings and miracles due to our capability to perform prayers and offerings.”

“Mimiru!”

“Y-Yes?!”

The guildmaster seemed to have thought of something and with his back to the blackboard in the room, a blackboard that was full of notes regarding a variety of subjects they had reviewed regarding mana, divinity and even skills. The notes to her last assignment were present as well,just like some numbers and random notes, he pointed to it with no apparent intention than to indicate it was ‘teaching time’.

“Question! How does one ‘accrue’ Divinity?!”

“Gah! You- I mean! One- er… A person- A person has to make an offering to the gods, if the offering is to their liking he will be blessed, regardless of the form of the blessing, the blessings leave a small amount of divinity as a remnant on the person in the form of divinity” she was a little bit startled and then after swiftly pulling her notes from her bag, she recited the results of her own investigation on the subject.

“Good! Right on the mark, the more honest and well taken your prayers and offerings become, the more Divinity one will acquire. Second Question!”

“Yes!”

“Where is this divinity stored?”

“I-in the soul?” She answered after quickly peering into her notes.

“Correct! And how do we know this?”

“Because spirits don’t have a body yet they can perform certain miracles as well as magic, which leads to believe they possess both divinity and mana while being only a spiritual being”

“Good! Now, the reason why you were granted such a high level of miracle, simply put, you had enough divinity stored and you performed a prayer that reached the gods. As to why that made you exhausted, just like with muscles, you used too much energy too fast without being used to it.”

“That sounds too simple of an answer”

“Oh! It is!! That is the overly simplistic answer that borders on the ‘Just enough’ so we can understand a little bit of how our world works regarding the subject!”

“…what?”

“You will need to experiment and research a lot more, on your own, so you understand kiddo.”

“Oh… figures…”

“Ok. As I have told you before the best way to come to a better understanding of something is by teaching to others. So today you shall review all the lesson along with Feugan here.”

It was then that the guildmaster brought to attention the fact that the Dragon had been the entire time sitting on a corner in the room. Listening to the lengthy lecture without uttering a word in order to not interrupt the lesson, not that the guildmaster would have been able to understand any of his questions. Nor had he any way to read the expressions of a dragon to make sure if an explanation was fully understood.

“Imma leave all the notes I made on the board, so feel free to use ‘em as a guide on what we saw today and what I’ll test you guys tomorrow, to make sure you learned something useful!”

The hidden threat in the old man’s words didn’t escape Mimiru “Either both of show you learned today’s lesson properly or I’ll find other ways to educate you”.

“That’s going to be an issue, Master!”

“It’s not supposed to be easy, kiddo. But that’s why all the lesson is here in the board-”

“I don’t know how to read, Master”

“har har! Don’t even try and make such weak excuse. My penning aint hard to read at all! And! I know you constantly go around taking notes. You didn’t even bother to hide your bundle of notes from the table!”

The master answered her with his tone of voice a little higher than he intended to, he stared straight at his protegee seizing her answer. He was fully expecting her to crack a smile anytime and say “Syke!” or something like that. Surely, Bannon taught her that weird prank style which the young man had acquired from his father. The old guildmaster just never fully understood how that was supposed to be funny, but Bannon’s father had always been a weird one. Mimiru had been on a long job with Bannon, for a couple of days, which made the rugged old man think that perhaps she had learned it during the whole trip.

He stared intently at her. Fully expectant on the development of the weird foreign joke. Upon realizing she didn’t seem to be doing it anytime sooner and annoyed at the prospect of having to deal with yet another person with an odd sense of humor. He steadied himself to correct the undesired bad behavior out of his most exemplary protegee, leaning foward forward and putting his finger on the table, pointing to her parchment sheets, ready to read her the riot act.

It was then that he got distracted, his eyes stopped on Mimiru’s “notes”

“…!! What in…”

The Guildmaster went ahead, grabbing the notes in front of Mimiru, swiftly checking them with less than a quick glance at each one of them.

“There is not even a single word here!”

“Well, no... I don’t know how to write after all”

“But- But… you are always taking notes!!” He reiterated while pointing at the cheap magical ink utensils she had been using less than a few moments ago.

Disbelief and astonishment clearly painted on his face. He looked at her a with confusion in his eyes, a look soon replaced by understanding.

Until not too long ago Mimiru was training to be a Beast tamer, nothing more than a high-class stable worker in the opinion of the upper economical echelons, and some time before that she had been just a little village girl tending the fields everyday along with her family. Learning to read and write was almost essential for anyone in charge of even the most basic bureaucratic office. It is easy to forget that not everyone has to suffer reading endless piles of paperwork on a daily basis.

The parchment sheets were full of notes, indeed. Notes in the manner of squiggles, doodles, shapes, dots and slashes. Draws of plants and leaves filled a few pages too, followed by circles with the simple common counting system, most likely “notes” of her finances and gathering results. The kid had never learned to write, It was somewhat doubtful she knew how to make simple calculations either, but she knew the value of keeping track of relevant information. The old master would know, he had personally beaten such sense into her with dozens of “research investigations”, all part of his various lessons and exercises on how to be a proper member of the adventurer’s guild. Dozens of lessons and even more researches he had demanded of her. Countless interviews, trips to the apothecary, merchants and a plethora of places, all in which she had somehow managed to bring acceptable information back, with nothing but doodles and good memory.

Goodness sake, how come I never noticed before?

“Do…” The guildmaster stammered, looking as much pensive as troubled. His rugged fingers ran through his grey hair. Worrying Mimiru to certain degree, he seemed so ever sure and full of confidence in everything he did. This man who represented a branch of the adventurer’s guild, his presence an actual boon of security to the city, a man who seemed as large as the world to some. To see him uncertain, was something she had never seen before.

“Do you want to learn how to?...”

“Eh?!! W-Whats this about master?! There is no way I can now! I’m even busier nowdays than when I first joined the guild! Not only with the missions to help Feugan, but I think I’m making real progress with all this Beastmaster deal you know? I don’t think we have the time for that. It takes lil kids about a year to learn it and even longer for adults right? I would also have to pay a premium for private lessons since the priests of knowledge only do it for -free- to kids right?”

He remained quiet, looking at her, she seemed to be content with just continuing with how things were, it was not a -life or dead- situation. After all, it was more common in the city to have a bigger part of the population knowing how to write and read, a bigger part only when compared to small villages and fringe cities, that is. Most people could continue with their lives without even knowing how to speak properly. This bit of knowledge never failed to infuriate the otherwise aloof guildmaster which also happened to be a ranked priest of the goddess of knowledge church.

He was already grumbling internally, a quick thought annoying thought came to his mind, about all the other priests of the church of knowledge and all their sanctimonious excuses about good education requiring adequate tithes. The dogma of the church could be misconstrued in such ways after all. It was almost a forceful show of charity to provide “free” lessons to children, all the while offering a much more advanced degree of education to those offering heavy pouches of golden coins. While still ruminating such ideas, he was brought back to reality by one single detail. Those were not generally known pieces of knowledge. One would have to ask the right questions, to the right people, about the very particular subject of private lessons to adults. All of that questioning around and prodding the right people, about a subject they were rather close lipped about. All that in order to even begin discerning the level of understanding Mimiru had on the subject.

Heh. She must have done a very thorough investigation on the subject.

“Oi! I didn’t ask you if you had the time or money! I asked you, if you wanted to learn!” Much to Mimiru’s surprise and annoyance, the old man was back to his own boisterous level of loudness.

“I-I am too old to take on the cla-”

“Yes or no!, I didn’t ask for ‘maybe’s! Or which excuses you put in for this. Is it this a particular knowledge you have searched for?!”

The Guildmaster’s voice had not only elevated, somehow his voice was louder yet lacking any sign of anger, as he asked the question his words seemed to reverberate within the room. Somehow his muscular frame seemed bigger than normal. Mimiru was fully focused on him, but it was hard to even pretend the room wasn’t turning brighter somehow.

As he stood somehow taller than he had ever before, his eyes felt like they were looking deep into her, just as how he seemed to be the only figure whose undivided attention should be paid to.

“Y-yes! I would like to learn!”

“Good, your answer is honest, firm and without fault.”

It was at this moment that Mimiru noticed the increase in the light of the room didn’t come from the windows, upon closer inspection which had to be done with sqinting eyes, she realized the source of the light was her master, whose figure seemed to be enveloped by light. It was then that she realized he was praying. Or at least it seemed like that, eyes closed, hands up front of himself.

He then moved one hand, putting his index finger on his temple, lips moving into another silent prayer before moving the same finger aside. Mimiru could see a trickly of silver flowing from the master’s temple towards his finger, entranced by the sight she didn’t realize the same finger was drawing closer to her.

With the his index finger now on her forehead, his eyes closed, he kept moving his mouth as if chanting something, with a bright flash of light, the room turned back to his natural colors, making Mimiru realize she was now enveloped in a soft golden light too.

A miracle has been bestowed upon you!

Miracle of Knowledge, “Shared knowledge: Letters”

Do you accept the miracle?

Yes / No

This surprised and dazzled her, in that moment she was not propeprly able to even question what was happening. Yet she was not confused enough to know it wouldn’t be prudent to reject a miracle. She moved her hand and poked the word “yes” on the magical visage, just as she also sharply voiced her answer.

“Yes!”

“Good. Now you just sit there, Ill ask Kara to bring you something sweet for ya along with some aspir from the apothecary. Ill test you guys tomorrow after lunch instead of daybreak”

The guildmaster was now telling this and looking at Feugan, knowing fully well Mimiru had her head busy at the moment. Once the dragon nodded in knowledgement, the weary old man nodded back and without another word walked to the door and left the room.

All the while, Mimiru remained still on her seat. Countless memories of writing lessons unfolding in front of her eyes. Writing practices and exercises in penmanship being recalled as if her own. Lessons on writing the names for animals, plants and a myriad of objects, and repetitions, endless repetitions that made Mimiru wonder if the wristache was the memory’s or her own. Her right hand twitching everynow and then, slight movements of her hand and wrist as more memories unfolded.

Feugan, looked at the now closed door, then he took a look a the now entranced Mimiru, then heaving a sigh, curled his tail around himself and began shuffling trying to find a comfortable position to wait for the snacks to arrive.