Chapter 54: The Thought-Sowing Hex

Nathan thought it over, then dug out the rest of his spoils from the Hourbound Grove as well—backpack and the two short swords included. As for the two metal-boxed cookie packs and the weirdly shaped bottle of mineral water, he couldn't even be bothered to fish them out of the backpack.

The magus-robed guy's eyes lit faintly: "This Orbis backpack is also our Far West Order's product—no war-beast, but I can credit it at twenty thousand starlings. The two short swords and the arcane foodstuffs I'll call six thousand. Absolutely fair prices."

Nathan couldn't resist protesting: "Why is the backpack worth that much? And the two short swords are worth more than the Totem Hare?"

The magus-robed guy said: "The Totem Hare is merely a civilian-grade war-beast—those have never carried a high price, and we the Far West Order sell better and cheaper products of the same kind anyway. Our Far West Order Orbis backpack is a spatial rig: load in ten tons or so of supplies and the weight never changes. Brand new they run fifty thousand starlings and up—secondhand, of course, a bit less. As for the Crystal Twins, those are the Glasslake's products—pair them with the right formulas and they'll hit remarkably hard."

The magus-robed guy gripped one of the short swords and drove his power into it; the crystal blade flared with fine light, the blade throwing off a foot-long sword-glow that pulsed and extended, its chill biting.

Nathan was startled and delighted at once—he'd never imagined the spoils he'd picked up had such uses, or this kind of value. He rather regretted it—but one glance at Sigrun and he swallowed the pain and let it go, thinking privately: "Good thing I can still enter the Hourbound Grove. There'll be other chests to open, other relics like these."

He did have other spoils, but none were fit to show. After one more round of haggling, he pinched his nose and paid forty thousand starlings—throwing in the Totem Hare war-beast, the Orbis backpack, the Crystal Twins, and three portions of arcane food—and finally bought himself one discounted Orbis war-beast.

Nathan took the crystal sealing the Orbis war-beast, his face about one shade off crying.

The magus-robed guy shook his head and said quietly: "You got a steal. Without Sigrun's face, how would a deal like this ever come your way?"

Nathan did not feel like he'd gotten a steal—a shellacking was more like it. Never mind the forty thousand starlings; the Orbis backpack and Crystal Twins alone stung all the way to the bone. The boy pocketed the crystal sealing the Orbis war-beast and fled the Far West Order warehouse like a whipped dog.

Tonight's spur-of-the-moment shopping trip now felt like the single worst decision of his entire life.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from NovelPhoenix. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

After Nathan left, the magus-robed guy said wryly to Sigrun: "You went and used the Thought-Sowing Hex to dump stray notions into his head again? That's bad business—it violates the Eighteen Towers' accords with the Concord. If the order found out, you'd be punished for sure."

Sigrun curled her lip: "As long as you don't tell, who's going to know?"

The magus-robed guy said, rather helplessly: "The Thought-Sowing Hex controls the human heart, making people sprout thoughts they'd never otherwise have. That spell is brutally hard to master—of this generation in our order, only you, Sigrun, have managed it. Why spend a profound art like that on this? And then go out of your way to have me sell a perfectly good Orbis at ninety percent off? That's a privilege for internal acolytes—you only get one purchase quota for a war-beast at this level every three years."

Sigrun said, unconcerned: "I obviously know what I'm doing. Don't you worry."

The magus-robed guy shook his head, couldn't be bothered arguing further, gathered up Nathan's items, and casually shelved them in the warehouse.

Sigrun stuck her hands in her pockets and strolled out of the warehouse, utterly at ease. Out on the slightly empty Lombard Row, she snorted a laugh and murmured to herself: "That kid's fun. Give him an Orbis and he's bound to carry more and more out. Everyone's got their eye on the Hourbound Grove now—who knows who'll walk away with the most out of it."

Nathan left the Far West Order warehouse and obediently went to catch the subway, thoroughly deflated. Exploiting the fact that the bloodborn-only subway had hardly any other passengers, he took out the Orbis war-beast to see what the thing could actually do.

By now he was well practiced: grip the sealing crystal, make light contact, and a stream of information flowed into his head—Orbis: a war-beast developed specifically to pair with the ascendant-path spell Sleeve-Vault. It can form four small pocket-realms, sealing objects, living things, spells, and raw aether—broadly applicable.

The Orbis's features seemed decent enough to Nathan, but he didn't think the war-beast was anything extraordinary—his Star-Swallowing Form could manage roughly the same job, and his other war-beast, the Phantomveil Vine, actually outclassed the Orbis in special abilities. Still, this was something bought at a "steep price," not gotten for free, and deep down he valued it a few degrees more.

Every war-beast he'd owned before—the Comet-Gem Mantis, the Totem Hare, the Phantomveil Vine, the Hundred-Refined Ironweave Grub, the Fire-Swallowing Snake, the Insect Nest—had been acquired without spending a cent. He'd treasured them, sure, but he'd never known this wallet-clenching, can't-help-but-take-it-seriously feeling. Fiddling with the special war-beast, he thought privately: "This thing can serve as defense—absorbing an enemy's spells, blade-light, sword-light, fist-force, that sort of attack. In actual combat, it's sort of like having a mage..."

Nathan checked the Orbis's description again and confirmed it was indeed written as dedicated to pairing with an ascendant-path spell—an ascendant-path spell, not an ascendant-path martial art. A strange feeling came over him, something along the lines of: "So now I'm mixing sorcery and martial arts too, huh."

With the subway car empty, Nathan simply unsealed the Orbis war-beast. Its artificial spiritual consciousness emitted a mechanical electronic voice: "Host located. Loading ascendant-path spell: Sleeve-Vault. Loading complete. Deployment finished!"

The Orbis's deployment was simpler than any war-beast before it; Nathan waited a moment only to realize he'd been anticipating nothing. He reached out to test—sure enough, four small spaces surrounded his body, responding like his own fingers, swallowing and releasing any manner of object within a five-meter range. They weren't picky about living or dead, tangible or intangible; strong magnetics, light, and electricity had no effect on them whatsoever.

"So these are the four small pocket-realms? Genuinely magical. If I could actually train this spell myself, who knows how convenient it'd be."

Nathan still wasn't quite used to it. With the abilities war-beasts provided, he always felt that mastering the spells himself would be more reliable—but he'd never had formal spell training and had no master, so that ambition was strictly a daydream.

Nathan had originally been fretting over how to haul a big batch of Goldspear Thistle out of the Hourbound Grove—and the transport question on top. With the Orbis war-beast, he realized he could deliver the goods outright at tomorrow's meeting with Lucan.