Chapter 159 - Orven Talris

Chapter 159: 159 - Orven Talris

Adrien woke before Amelia. Grey morning light slipped through a gap in the curtains and laid a thin stripe across the sheets, and the palace around them was still hushed.

Amelia slept beside him with one arm tucked beneath the pillow. They had spoken, put a name to what was already there, and told her parents, yet this morning felt like any of the ones before it. Nothing had turned awkward between them, and Adrien liked that more than he expected.

He slipped out of bed and dressed. He was fastening the last button of his shirt when he noticed Amelia watching him from the pillows.

"You were planning to leave without waking me?"

"I was planning to let you sleep for another half hour. I wasn’t going anywhere without telling you."

Amelia sat up and pushed the hair from her face.

"We should go find the artificer my grandfather told you about today. We’ve already been in Sylvarin for several days, and I know you wanted him to look at Umbral Root before we leave."

"I was thinking the same thing. If the Heartroot Crystal can actually push Umbral Root toward S-Rank without ruining what makes it useful, I want to know before we start planning the trip home."

"Then give me a little while to get ready. I know roughly where Orven’s workshop is, and it isn’t close to the royal district."

They left after breakfast and crossed into the older districts along the southern river. The polished avenues of the royal quarter gave way to cobbled lanes, soot-darkened chimneys, and workshops wedged between houses. The streets were quiet, yet the mana ran thick here. Without stretching Absolute Mana Sense far, Adrien felt runes being hammered into metal behind brick walls and furnaces fed through formation plates.

"Orven really works all the way out here? From the way Vael spoke about him, I expected someone with that reputation to have a workshop much closer to the palace."

"He could have one if he wanted it. My grandfather said Orven refused several offers to move, including some that came directly from the royal family. Apparently he prefers people to leave him alone."

"That explains why Vael gets along with him well enough to recommend him."

"They’ve known each other for decades. I wouldn’t assume that means they get along."

Adrien let the subject drop. What counted was that Vael trusted Orven enough to send him across Sylvarin with a Heartroot Crystal from the Ancient Tree.

They followed the river for another ten minutes before Amelia stopped at a narrow building squeezed between two forges. A small brass plaque beside the door read Orven Talris, Artificer, and nothing more. Adrien had expected something grander, though the plain front was probably the point.

Amelia knocked twice. They waited a long moment before a voice came through the wood.

"If you’ve come looking for a commission, you’ve wasted the walk. I stopped accepting private work years ago, and whatever you’ve been told about making exceptions is probably wrong."

"We’re aware that you don’t take normal commissions," Amelia answered. "We wouldn’t have come here without a reason to believe you might at least hear this one."

"Everyone standing outside that door believes their reason is exceptional. Give me one reason yours should be different."

Adrien stepped up beside her.

"Vael Edevane sent me."

A few seconds later the latch scraped and the door swung inward. Orven took in Amelia first, then Adrien.

"Vael sent you here personally?"

"He did. He told me that if I wanted the work done properly without destroying what I already have, you were the person I needed to speak to."

Orven glanced at Amelia.

"My grandfather gave Adrien your name himself. I was there when they discussed it, so this isn’t someone borrowing Vael’s name to get through your door."

Orven stepped aside, let them in, and shut the door behind them.

The workshop was cramped, every bench given over to labour rather than display. Tools and half-finished components lay strewn across the scarred wood, and the enchantments overlapped so densely that Adrien gave up untangling them.

Orven caught where his attention had wandered.

"Vael mentioned you had an unusual perception talent?"

"Absolute Mana Sense."

"Then you might actually understand part of what I’m telling you instead of nodding until I give you a price."

Orven swept a clear space on the nearest workbench with his forearm.

"Tell me exactly what Vael sent you here with. If he broke years of silence just to direct someone to my workshop, I doubt this is about an ordinary damaged focus."

"It’s a B-Rank casting focus called Umbral Root. The rank itself isn’t what I care about. It’s neutral between affinities, improves my casting speed, and reduces the mana I lose while shaping spells. I don’t want an upgrade that makes one part stronger by destroying the rest."

"That’s already a better answer than asking me to make it S-Rank. What else are you carrying?"

"Material from an Ancient Tree. A Heartroot Crystal."

Orven’s hand stopped halfway to a pair of tongs.

"You’re certain it’s Heartroot Crystal, not crystallized root mana or one of the lesser formations people sell under the same name?"

"Vael identified it himself."

Orven leaned his weight on the bench and chewed over the answer.

"And Vael believes you should use genuine Heartroot Crystal on a B-Rank casting focus. That means either the focus is considerably better than its rank suggests, or he believes its current structure is unusually compatible with you."

"The second one is part of it. Umbral Root already does what I need. I want it improved, not replaced by something that happens to have a higher rank."

Orven drummed two burn-scarred fingers against the wood, then nodded once.

"That’s the correct way to think about an artifact. Rank tells me how far something has been taken, not whether it suits the hand holding it. Anyone promising an S-Rank result before examining the internal structure is selling confidence instead of craftsmanship."

Adrien had already decided he liked the old man. He talked like a craftsman rather than a courtier.

"That’s why Vael sent me here."

Orven tapped the empty patch of workbench.

"Then we’ve talked enough about reputation and intentions. Manifest Umbral Root and let me see whether Vael was right to send you across Sylvarin."

Adrien reached inward toward his Inventory. Mana left his Core, answered the bond anchored to his soul, and Umbral Root began to take form in his hand.