Bookworld Online: Marsh Man

Bokuboy

The supervisor trembled a little and frowned as he instinctively leaned away from me and the enchantment I wore. He stood up and moved away from his desk and went to the corner of the room with an unsure look on his face.

I smiled and moved back over to the door and he sighed and went back to his desk to sit down and started to work again. I did this once more and the man had a perplexed look on his face as he repeated the same action to retreat to the corner and then came back to the desk.

I cast Sense Magic again and saw a slight glow around the whole office, so I cast Detect Enchantment as I focused on the walls. I found the enchantment and concentrated on it for almost thirty seconds to memorize what it was. I then absorbed half of the magic from the enchantment I wore and dropped the concealment part.

“What's the enchantment on the office do?” I asked and the man jerked up and out of his chair.

“Who said that?” He asked, then he frowned. “How did you get in without me seeing you?” He looked around and still couldn't see me.

“Magic, obviously.” I said. “What's the enchantment on the office?”

“It's for security. If anyone crosses it, the guards are alerted and will be here within seconds.” The man said with a feral smile.

“Well, that was a lie.” I said. I had been inside the office for a while and nothing had happened.

The man lost the feral smile. “What do you want?”

I took out the ring that his apprentice used and cast Detect Enchantment on it. I spent another thirty seconds memorizing the enchantment, whatever it was, then put the slightly charred ring on the edge of the man's desk.

He took in a sharp breath as the ring seemed to magically appear. “No!”

“Yes. The constables will be here shortly to ask you about him.” I said and he sighed.

“He wasn't supposed to tell you anything.” The man said and gazed at the ring as if it betrayed him. “I wonder if we'll share the same holding cell.”

“No, you won't.” I said and he chuckled.

“No, I suppose my crimes are much more heinous than his.” The man said and sat back. “So, what are you? A spirit? A vengeful wraith?”

I chuckled. “I'm much more than that.” I said and walked over to him. He stood and walked to the corner of the room.

“No... what... what is...”

I walked over to him and he started twitching, because he couldn't get any farther away.

“S-stop... please...” He begged and I reached for him. “ARRRHHH!” He yelled in pain.

I was surprised when no one came into the office. “It's a silence enchantment.”

“STOP! PLEASE!” The man begged loudly, then I grabbed him with both hands. “UUUGGGHHHH!”

The man fell unconscious from the pain after about ten seconds, so I deactivated the enchantment and then knelt with him.

I took out my enchanting tools and opened up his robes. “You're not going to like this. At all.” I whispered to him and marked off a one foot round area, then I started to carve a very special enchantment into his chest. I used some fortifying waterproof potion and rubbed it into the wounds to solidify them and stopped the bleeding, then I added my enchantment potion to fill in the grooves.

I used the warming spell to dry it instantly and then I infused it with almost twice the magic required. I wanted it to be a very powerful enchantment and knew the more magic I used now, the more effective the enchantment would be with very little magic to activate it.

The best part was that since it was carved into his chest, he powered the enchantment himself. The more he tried to use his magic, the longer the enchantment's effects would last. Since I didn't want to reveal what I had done, I carefully skinned his back with a normal knife to harvest the skin and used some healing potion to heal it.

I flipped him over and used dabs of number ten potion to carefully attach the harvested skin over the enchantment and covered it up. With the addition of more rubbed on healing potion, it sealed the edges and looked almost like it was supposed to.

That's good enough. I thought and put the man's robes back in place and sat him in his chair behind the desk. I quickly searched the desk and found three more rings inside that looked identical to the charred one on the desk. I took one and put it on the desk, out of sight from where the man sat and easily seen from the doorway, then closed the drawer.

It was a bit overkill to have such obvious evidence in the open and I did it anyway. I moved around the desk and picked up the charred ring to put it back in my pocket, and reactivated the full enchantment on my neck. I faded away from sight and slightly opened the office door. The secretary was working away at her desk while writing something, so I slipped out and silently shut the door.

I needed a distraction, so I tapped a knuckle on the closed door. The secretary's head whipped around to stare at the door and looked surprised. I crept by her and she didn't notice as she stood and opened the inner office door. I opened the outer office door and left as silently as I had entered. I had been very tempted to stay and watch the effect of what I did, then decided I didn't need to experience it personally.

I walked back out of the department and made my way all the way out of the building and followed Victoria's directions to go to the dumping ground. I kept the concealment up the whole time, just in case, and arrived there a few minutes later.

I cast Sense Magic and the whole thing glowed with different brightness all over the place. I chuckled at the scene of Victoria desperately grabbing several things and Greta holding a bunch of things in her arms. I let the concealment part of my enchantment lapse and walked over to them.

“Having fun?”

“David! Hold these!” Victoria gasped and tried to hand me several clumps of moss.

“I'd rather use a bag, thank you.” I said and pulled out a folded canvas bag, since I had expected to need it for the grass.

“I could kiss you!” Victoria exclaimed and shoved them into the large bag. “Oh, what the hell.” She said and darted in to kiss me on the lips. “Thank you.”

“I suppose I shouldn't tell you I have two more tucked into my bandoleer.” I said and her mouth dropped open.

“Give me that one.” Greta said and I handed her the bag I held and she put her armful of things into it, carefully of course. She didn't want Victoria to be angry at her if she damaged anything more than it already was.

I took out another bag and Victoria kept handing us things. “Where's the grass?”

“It has to be kept separate.” Victoria said and kicked a sod out of the way. “No! What are they thinking?” She dropped to her knees and ran her hands over a multi-colored clover patch. “Why would they tear up something like this?”

“What is it?” Greta asked before I could.

“It's a plant based magic channel. I had them planted between high magic areas and low magic areas, to help with distribution and to ease the application of the enhanced watering solutions.”

“I didn't see any of that at the botany workshop.” I said.

“That's because I couldn't take any when I left the guild and they wouldn't let me come back to take samples, unless I apologized for making a mistake in abandoning them.” Victoria said. “I refused to kiss their asses for how they treated me and left this place with nothing I'd gathered.”

“Don't you still report to them?” I asked.

“Yes, because any discovery has to be reported officially.” Victoria said and cleared out a huge patch of the clovers. “I'll need that other bag.”

I put the half-filled one down and took out the last one I had on me. She was gentle as she rolled up the clovers and the sod they were in like a scroll, which was neat to see, and she slid the whole thing into the canvas bag. She could only get a few more things into it, because the bag was almost full, so she added them and closed it.

“We need to come back later and get more of this stuff.” Victoria said and we filled the first two bags with whatever she wanted. “I hate leaving it like this, though.”

“We've got plenty of time, now that we know the enchantments work.” I said and she nodded.

The last thing we grabbed was the clump of grass we came for, which she held in her hands and wouldn't let us touch, and I carried the three heavy bags behind her as she led us back out of the facility.

“Full enchantments.” I whispered before we reached the gates and I stopped walking to let them get way ahead of me. The three of us were completely concealed and we only had to wait a couple of minutes before the gate was opened for other mages and we easily slipped out.

As we walked away, we saw several horses with constables on them and a carriage with their crest on it. We didn't say anything until we reached the alley where we had started and deactivated the enchantments to reveal ourselves.

“That was close.” Victoria said and took off her guild robes to put her academy robes back on. “They might have locked the place down with us inside if we hadn't left when we did.”

I glanced at Greta and she looked very sad. I put the bags of plants and sod down to take her into a hug. “I didn't kill him.”

Greta stiffened in my arms. “Why not?”

“He admitted he was behind it.” I said and she looked surprised. “I thought of a much better plan and did that instead.”

“What...” Greta stopped herself before she asked. “Tell me later. We have work to do.”

I nodded and we changed, took our ill gotten gains, and went to the carriage. We rode back to the academy with a very happy Victoria, a pensive and worried Greta, and an amused me. I just couldn't get the thought out of my head of what was going to happen to that poor supervisor when they took him to the station and he tried to cast any magic or someone cast it on him, because he was going to become the center of attention when that happened.