Chương 8: -8- Apprentice Of Legend

Calder – Royal Tomb Calder stepped down the ice-slick stairs of the tomb entrance a bit faster than he should have, wincing as his foot slid and he had to brace himself not to slide down three strides of stairs and add to the mounting injuries he seemed determined to riddle himself with. He felt like a bit of an ass for leaving the tavern so quickly and without saying more to his family like he meant to. But Ricktus's damned ridiculous yet brilliant idea to get a commission from the crown had lit a fire under him.

He had to know what he was capable of. If for no other reason than to confirm to himself that shooting for a commission wasn't just a vainglorious way to get himself killed. If he really could combat the more immaterial foes his kingdom struggled with like he thought he could, he had a real chance of it. Normally mages and special magical weapons were required to deal with the Kalderan horrors… But Make Material should change that for him.

I already saw that if I can touch it, it can hurt it; the damn paint on the sword proved that… Speaking of, I need to finish consecrating that tomb once I'm done here. Then maybe actually go the fuck to sleep like a normal person instead of passing out from injuries again. Calder felt along the dark wall by memory, tracing careful steps over lips in the floor and only stopping when he reached the intersection that held Dectus's sarcophagus.

He pulled out some tinder and sparked a single torch on the wall, casting the cold but fine stonework in yellow light. Dectus glided into the room with unnatural grace, nodding at Calder like he was actually happy to see him return for once. Calder took a deep shuddering breath and called upon the system to show him his resources. [Grasp of the Beyond 6/100] Whatever the hell that really meant, Calder was damn near sure it was what his abilities ran on instead of mana. It was refilling, albeit incredibly slowly.

Everything he had ever heard of mana, even in higher tier mages with reserves in the thousands. Resources should refill within a day at most. His was filling only a couple points per day. Whatever that grasp was, he was definitely meant to refill it by using his other skill, Shepherd Of Souls. The system showed the hulking warrior grasping motes of darkness when it was used. And the system never showed things like that idly.

He was carving a new path with little ability to get normal guidance from others, but the system would always drop him hints if he paid attention. Calder met Dectus's appraising gaze and held out his hand in offering of a warrior's greeting. Dectus almost looked amused but chose to humor him, reaching out to clasp Caldes's forearm as Calder clasped his. Calder activated Make Material an instant before their grips met. It was like his soul was plunged into an arctic bath.

A chill shuddered through his body, feeling like it was going to overwhelm him briefly before passing, and an almost indistinguishable mote of roiling darkness leapt from his hand into Dectus the moment they touched. Both of them stared in shock down where they had each other firmly grasped. Calder could feel the fine cloth of Dectus's sleeves and even the sharp edge of his vambrace; it had worked. A distinguished harsh voice rasped out like it hadn't been used in an age, "I'll be damned…" Dectus muttered quietly.

Calder looked up with a big smile, and the ghost's eyes went wide when he realized Calder heard him. Calder tightened his grip and bowed slightly.

"Pleasure to officially meet you. My name is Calder, and thanks for the lessons; they…saved my life." Dectus chuckled almost manically for a moment before shaking his head.

"Boy, there is a question I have been wanting to ask you since the first day you lumbered through these halls." His slightly ragged features looked serious. Calder stiffened.

"Ah, of course, ask away."

"Was it your mother or your father that fucked an ogre? Because good gods, boy, look at you." What the fuck? I didn't know what to expect but… The specter looked intently, waiting for Calder's answer.

"Ahh Lord… I'm human. Both my parents were human. I'm just a big lad…"

"Bah! It would have been funnier if you had some giant blood or something at least." Dectus shook his head. At this point Calder was starting to get more than a bit annoyed. He was thankful to Dectus for all the lessons, but he was expecting a much more…dignified persona, not whatever crude trench humor Dectus had chosen to go with for his first words at Calder's expense.

"What would have been funnier?" Calder said a bit more severely and straightened his posture to look down on the ghost. Dectus smirked.

"Well, if the only apprentice in over a hundred fucking years the gods had deigned to grace me with wasn't even human, of course. Oh, liven up, you big bastard. And ahh… how long can you keep this up? I would love to have a real fucking sword fight." Calder shook his head in disbelief at the so-called legendary lord Dectus but checked; it was a good question he honestly didn't have any damn clue about. [Grasp of the Beyond 5/100] Well, shit, it went down by one in just a minute of us talking.

I would bet money if we were moving around, it would drain even quicker. There is always a catch with abilities like this. Calder released his grasp on Dectus but focused on keeping Make Material active; it seemed to work as he stepped back, but he could see the motes of darkness surging like a thread between them. The torch beside them flickered at the sheer unnatural cold emanating from that miniscule thread. And when Calder tried to step back a bit further, the thread snapped.

It looked like it worked almost exactly at longsword range. A normal-sized longsword, of course, a longsword that actually fits Calder would be an utter bastard of a greatsword to the average person. Dectus's voice cut out the instant the thread had broken, and he looked morose about no longer being able to sling insults. Calder stepped back into range while at the same time slowly drawing his sword. The thin nearly invisible string of darkness snapped back onto Dectus, and his form solidified once again.

"… of a damn sword length, eh? I can work with… oh good." Dectus realized he was material again and leveled his sword down to tap Calders and signal the beginning of a spar. The keening ring that emanated from Dectus's spectral weapon made manifest was unearthly. It echoed in a way sound shouldn't; when he twirled his sword deftly, the wind singing past it was much the same, a disconcertingly wrong sound as something that wasn't meant to be in this realm interacted with the world around it.

Dectus struck without so much as another word, an overhand chop that Calder easily blocked. The ghost's face showed almost rapturous happiness as their swords clashed and he got to feel steel against steel for the first time in over a hundred years. He was distracted enough that Calder's powerful but clumsy low kick almost caught him in the shin. I'm sure not going to win this, but dammit, at least let me get one good shot in for the fucking ogre jokes.

Dectus recovered from his slightly imperfect dodge with sheer aggression, the hallmark of his fighting style. When he put his leg back down after pulling it back, it wasn't just to maintain balance; it was to drive another overhead slash down. This time at a sharp shoulder-height angle and with much more force. Calder ducked under the slash and straight into a vicious knee that Dectus was just baiting him into.

The dull thump of metal against his temple sent his world spinning, and he simply sat down holding his injury painfully. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Calder held up a hand with a grimace to keep his skill active.

"Alright, fuck you, I'm too hurt for this. Wait a day or two also…" Just as he was going to finish his statement, the thread of darkness broke again, and Make Material faded. [Grasp of the Beyond 0/100] Dectus gestured in displeasure and looked like he said something incredibly unkind. But at this point Calder really didn't mind the silence. Dectus hadn't held a damn thing back in that blow, and his world was still wobbling. Damn, did he call me his apprentice earlier? Huh… I mean, he's an asshole, apparently.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting that, but I really would be stupid to turn down his tutelage; the man is a monster with his blade. I'm also overlooking the obvious fact that wandering around as a ghost bored out of your mind for a hundred years might make anyone a bit… Uncouth… or insane. That's a distinct possibility too; he made a joke and then wanted to fight that… yeah, that isn't normal behavior.

Calder pulled himself to his feet and wobbled over to where Dectus was gesturing animatedly towards his own sarcophagus. Calder frowned and tilted his head questioningly. Dectus pointed again, obviously getting frustrated. He pantomimed pulling the lid off. Calder looked at him aghast. His and his grandfather's greatest duty was protecting the final resting places of legends of the past. Graverobbing was the single most severe violation he could commit... but… It was Dectus's will for some fucking reason.

He waited a few more minutes for Grasp of the Beyond to regenerate just enough for him to use it for a word or two. Dectus figured out what he was doing after another ten minutes of wrathful pantomiming. He simmered down with an appraising, almost begrudgingly respectful look at Calder's moral line on the tomb robbing. They clasped hands again. And make material sputtered for just long enough for Dectus to speak a single sentence: "You have permission; take my fucking sword."

He sputtered back into a more etherial form and stepped back. Calder swung his head back and forth nervously, listening to make sure there were no more surprise visitors. This could get him executed if he were accused of grave robbing. Permission of a ghost or not, because good luck convincing someone of that. He grabbed the edge of the sarcophagus and heaved up with his whole body. It cracked open slowly as he strained with his full strength.

The lids were made to be heavy on purpose so a single person couldn't easily do exactly what he was doing. There was a dull flash of golden light as he broke a runic seal he himself had painted over, and the lid slid just far enough for him to fit his arm and shoulder in. He awkwardly groped around Dectus's body, his hands touching ice-cold flesh wrapped too tight over bones and then trailing down a chest plate with a noticeable hole where the heart would be.

Finally, he felt it: a pair of decomposing hands tightly wrapped around the hilt of a blade even in death. Calder was no stranger to dead bodies and the way they locked themselves into horrid rigid poses after death. But he still grimaced slightly as he broke several of the fingers to wrestle the blade from the corpse's grasp. He pulled it out and looked at it in confusion. The blade was shattered only a handspan down the blade, leaving him with the finely crafted handle and a long dagger's worth of cutting edge.

"The hell? Why did you want me to take this?" Calder looked questioningly towards the ghost, who, of course, didn't answer since he couldn't hear a damn word Calder said. Instead, he just nodded happily and gestured that Calder could close the sarcophagus and cover up his crime. So that's exactly what Calder did. He put the blade into his belt loop next to his sword sheath and then manhandled the lid back into its original position.

Then he retrieved the minuscule nearly priceless paint jar from the still blood and gore-coated room along with a fine paintbrush. It still had a small pooling of paint in the bottom, just enough for him to carefully retrace the lines he had broken on the sarcophagus. Two hours and a lot of cursing later, the grave flashed a faint gold as the consecration activated again. Calder breathed a sigh of relief and put his tools away.

By now it was past the middle of the night, and he trudged his way back up into his house, this time flecked in golden paint and utterly coated in dust instead of blood. He quietly crept past his grandfather and lay down on his cot. He damn near had a heart attack when the ominous form of Dectus sword in hand drifted by his window barley visible in the glow of the moonlight. Oh well that's why he wanted me to take the sword… that's what his soul is actually bound too.

I have so many questions but honestly im just too tired. Explains why he never went farther than just outside the tomb. He simply couldn't. Calder didn't even have time to ruminate on the endless series of events before sleep took him. The last thing he saw was Dectus staring to perform a slow series of slashes and lunges. He was obviously enjoying getting to practice his art with a change of scenery no matter how slight.

Calder had managed to finish most of his chores for the day and dodged too many uncomfortable questions from his grandfather about why he was creeping into the house in the dead of night. Apparently he wasn't nearly as sneaky as he thought he was. The old bastard had been snoring and everything, so Calder had no damn clue how he had even noticed, much less remembered. He was walking from the graveyard down towards the town library. It was a miracle that a town this size even had a library.

Normally it absolutely wouldn't, but they had lucked out by having a couple of nobles who maintained summer manors within a few hours' walk of town. And they wanted their spawn to be able to study even on vacation. Thus, Rime Rest had a sweet little old lady named Mary, sponsored by the nobility, who kept a tidy repository of books in her guest house. Calder liked Mary; she was a sweet, sad soul who taught most of the town's young to read and write.

Her husband had died years ago in the war, and now, still childless and with no family Calder knew of, she seemed to fill her days with trying to uplift others. Calder saw her often between borrowing books for the maiden and for himself; he was in the library at least three times a week. He still got chuckles from the looks of surprise when he was in the library, stuffed against a table that wasn't big enough for him in a chair that was one good sneeze from breaking. People looked at him and had assumptions…

Big, brutish, towering over others. All those Obvious physical traits let people's personal biases assume he was simple. In some ways it suited Calder just fine; it was an advantage he could easily exploit in business dealings and life in general if people assumed he was unintelligent. Especially with passing merchants. Calder wouldn't consider himself brilliant, but he had always had a quick mind and, more importantly, a ravenous curiosity for knowledge.

The library had always been one of the few ways for him to indulge himself in that way. Academies and colleges were far out of his reach monetarily. Maybe now with a few years of adventuring, but he had a war and basic survival to worry about before he entertained that daydream. He stepped through the knee-high snow up to the peeling white paint on the library. It wasn't much bigger than his cottage at home, but he knew it had the books he was looking for today. The basics of magic and spellcraft.

His tranquility-shaping talent hopefully shared enough similarities with normal magic practitioners for him to at least garner an inkling of an idea of where the hell to start. Calder started to open the door when Dectus scared the shit out of him waltzing straight through the wall from inside the library looking all around in distaste at the simple buildings. Calder took a deep breath, he was doing his best to ignore the ghost throughout the day but things like this kept happening.

Looking past the judgy ghosts gestures towards the peeling paint Calder just lightly shook his head and went back to his task. He waltzed in, the doorbell jingling behind him, and made sure to kick the snow off his boots before going farther. Of course there wasn't a soul in here today. Mary had waved from where she was tending her garden outside, trying to save her beloved snap peas from the frost. But she knew he didn't need a guide here.

Rows of shelves were packed close to each other with a single table set into the center of the room. The wonderful smell of knowledge bound to paper greeted him. He knew exactly where the books he wanted to read were; he had browsed them aimlessly in the past, never seeing himself as the spellcasting sort. He shuffled halfway down the first row and reached up high, snatching three books, each meant as an introduction to beginner mages or those looking to gain that type of class.

He scuttled back outside with his haul, giving Mary a friendly wave. She waved back.

"Enjoy the books, dear!" He made sure she couldn't see the covers; he would rather people didn't wonder why he was suddenly reading the basics of magic and start making guesses that brought attention he didn't want right now. Calder made his way through town after stowing the books in his thick fur-lined cloak, waving at familiar faces. It was just a brief stroll down the street and then towards the ocean. To find the path Calder was looking for.

The town itself was set less than a hundred strides from where rock turned to sand and sloped straight into the water. There naturally were a half dozen small docks and boathouses set on both the sand and scraggly rock outcroppings here. This was the most placid natural cove near the town. A two hundred stride stretch where the bluffs fell away, leaving easy access for fishermen. Calder walked straight down the beach, struggling a bit in the sand covered in slush.

He obviously wasn't going to try manipulating questionable powers in front of an audience. So he was going to a small sea cave he knew of only a few minutes from town. It took some questionably wise rock climbing and a very tight squeeze, but Calder finally made it to one of his favorite hidden places. The water swell had eroded a gouge into the bluffs here, creating a sandy cave open to the sky above.

One side held a small crack that was open to the ocean; the other trailed down into the much larger submerged portion of the cave. But the part Cadler was on was a plain circle of sand with a large driftwood log he had thrown down here years ago. He sat heavily on the log and smiled to himself as he cracked open the first book. The only other living thing he had to worry about was the omnipresent crabs shuffling around by his feet and the cries of gulls above. Well...

and Dectus eerily walking into the darkness of the ocean for some fucking reason. Alright… let's try some mana-less magic. What's the worst that could happen?