Chapter 6:
Apprenticeships
Izuku awoke to glorious rays of morning light piercing the toothy ceiling like blades and illuminated the cave around him. Isendra was there watching over him and noticed his reawakening.
"You had a poor reaction to the mana potion." She told him helpfully.
Izuku remembered the poor reaction clearly enough that he merely nodded in agreement. Who ever heard of an energy drink that knocks you unconscious?
"So much for saving you time." Izuku moaned as he sat up.
The burning pain wasn't as severe as it had been the evening before, and it certainly wasn't all consuming like it had been after drinking the blue vial.
"I would argue that it was mostly my fault. It is a lesson learned for the future, to assume your origins make nothing a normal affair." Isendra said. "Besides, I left your work for you. I believe you have some pillaging to do."
Izuku looked and, sure enough, his pack sat where he had left it and the bodies remained unpilfered. He got to work on the formerly glowing undead.
He found another gold ring on the corpse, which he added to the large sack of gold in his pack. It was starting to get heavy so he hoped they didn't find any gold ingots there too. More interestingly was the hilt of a sword extruding from his trapezoid like somebody had buried a sword into him at the spot. Turns out, somebody had and with a mighty heave he retrieved the sword from the body.
The very tip of the short sword had broken off on some bone or other and he looked to Isendra to see if she wanted him to keep it. It was rather clean and well-maintained otherwise. It even seemed to glow just a little bit.
"Let me have a look at that." She instructed, reaching out a hand.
Izuku handed her the short sword and she examined it carefully. Her eyes focused on the edge of the blade and broken tip in particular, as if she were deciphering the faint glow around the object itself. She eventually sighed in disappointment.
"It is ensorcelled." She told him. "Enchanted to repair itself over time. It's a good find, but not life changing. We shall sell it to Gheed."
She handed it back to him and he put it in the bag, after wrapping it in the leather shirt they had found, of course.
"Don't forget the wands." She told him.
"Wands?" Izuku asked.
She pointed out two sticks embedded into the undead's stomach. Izuku removed them to find the sticks were thicker at one end and tapered to a point. Crude handles were carved into the larger sides. So these were ensorcelled too? And like the sword looked to have been put there deliberately, almost surgically, instead of in self-defense from the zombie's victims.
"Why are there items inside of the undead?" Izuku asked.
"Because that is part of the process of creating an undead for the lazy or untalented." She told him. "A dead body is a thing, not a person. A cheap way to enchant an object is to implant it with another enchanted object. So, necromancers who are not strong enough to raise the dead by their own power will embed enchanted items into corpses to fuel the reanimation spell. As we saw here, it can sometimes have unexpected effects."
"So, the sticks are magic as well?" He asked.
"Yes. I am sure Akara can tell us in what way they are magical when we return. Are you certain you can carry all of this back?" She asked, concernedly.
"I am the pack mule. It is my job, so I have to be able to do so." Izuku said with a shrug.
It turned out not to be too much for him. The last few months of continuous hard labor had paid off, and the several hour trip back to the Rogue Encampment was a breeze. They made the trip in comfortable silence, enjoying the morning sun and a cool breeze that chose to come through the moors.
The wooden walls had just appeared above the horizon when Isendra finally broke the comfortable silence.
"You are very sensitive to magic." She said without prompting.
"I am?" He asked.
"Indeed. You passed out from drinking a mana potion." She told him, before elaborating at his confused look. "A mana potion restores a person's mana, the fuel by which spells are powered. The only reason it would make you pass out is if it caused an overflow of mana within you. Tell me, what did you feel?"
"Burning." Izuku said honestly. "It was like the burning sensation I've been feeling since the first night."
Isendra raised an eyebrow at him.
"You have felt magic in your body since first arriving in the Blood moor?" She asked. "Yet more proof that your fanciful tale is true. If magic does not exist where you come from, it would make sense for you to be sensitive to it. Like somebody raised in the Frozen Seas, never knowing anything but cold being warped to the Dry Steppes in the middle of summer."
Izuku translated the names of the new places as "Antarctica" and "Sahara" respectively.
"Tell me, what do you believe you should be paid for your work with me over the evening." She asked. "And do not worry about your passing out. As I said, it was my fault."
Izuku had to really think on that one. In terms of actual work he had done he felt like he deserved more money than less, but in terms of what value he actually brought to the mission he realized he deserved very little. If anything, he had slowed her down but saved her the discomfort of searching the bodies and carrying the spoils back.
"Five percent?" Izuku concluded after putting what felt like the right amount of time into considering the question.
"You have good business sense and a fair evaluation of your worth." Isendra told him. "You will receive your five percent and, because I am generous, the leather armor will be yours. I realize it's just a bit too large for you, but you will be growing by quite a bit over the next few years. By the time you have the funds to get proper armor you may even be too big for the set."
Izuku nodded gratefully, but internally did not like the idea of wearing said armor. It smelled of the Fallen, like rotten eggs, and he was squeamish about wearing the clothes of a dead man, even if he didn't know who it was that the fallen had killed for it. Like many other of his squeamish tendencies, he would have to get over it.
"They've returned unharmed!" An archer at the bridge yelled to the crowd already gathered at the other side.
Obviously, they had spotted them coming ahead of time.
"Out of my way." They heard Kashya's voice cut through the small crowd.
The crowd parted at her words and she marched through and over the bridge to confront Isendra.
"Well?" Kashya demanded.
"The Den of Evil has been purged completely." Isendra confirmed with a bow. "And young Midoriya is now a warrior in the making."
Kashya made an ugly face.
"I don't care if you risk your own life, but by what right did you have to risk his life?" Kashya demanded, pointing to Izuku. "He is just a boy!"
"What right? I would say the right of his life debt to me. His life is mine to do with what I please." Isendra said almost heartlessly. "And he shall be a man very soon."
Um, how soon was very soon? He hadn't thought to ask but a society of people in a medieval or maybe even pre-roman standard of civilization might have a frighteningly low age of consent. Were they expecting him to marry and provide for one of the rogue ladies in the camp at twelve years old? The youngest of them was over twice his age!
"She didn't actually force me to go with her, she's just being confrontational." Izuku finally opted to step in with a bored voice. "Probably because she just did a great service to your community and instead of thanking her you try to confront her about not refusing me when I bulldozed my way into her mission and demanded she take me along."
He had to wonder at the emotional maturity of the people on this world, seeing as he felt suddenly empathetic with his bored middle school teacher when the students were being particularly rowdy.
Kashya and Isendra, both turned slightly red in the face at his dressing down, opened their mouths to attack him verbally instead of each other, and were promptly silenced by uproarious laughter. Izuku recognized the booming voice as Warriv's and turned in time to see him stumbling towards them.
"The stones on the young lad! Just completely calling out your posturing like that. I need to play cards with you sometime kid." Warriv managed to get out between two long fits of laughter. "Come on kid, you need a bath, a meal and a rest. I'll get the metal tub so we can make it nice and hot for ya."
Warriv pushed past Kashya and clasped Izuku by the shoulders to drag him inside the Encampment. Leaving Isendra and Kashya to glare at each other.
That morning Izuku discovered that the encampment did, in fact, have the means to provide a hot bath. He was practically boiled alive in the metal tub Warriv retrieved from one of the wagons at the perimeter. He simply placed it on top of a few logs next to the river before filling it up bucket by bucket, then merely lit the logs. Low tech though it may have been, the experience was divine after months of washing in the ice-cold river.
He was allowed a quick nap after that and when he woke up he was confronted by Gheed mid-piss.
"The council of angry women will see you now, kid." The merchant told him, pointing in the general direction of the fire pit.
Izuku finished up then made the short trip to where he suspected this mysterious council would be waiting for him. Sure enough, sitting around the unlit fire pit were Isenda, Kashya and Akara.
"We have drafted a contract of apprenticeship." Isendra told him. "That you are to be my apprentice. That in exchange for your services as my pack mule, along with all other duties I will expect from you as a companion on dangerous missions, I will train you as best I can."
Kashya held out said contract for him to see it and he motioned for her to hand it to him. She did so and he read it. It turned out to be exactly what he expected. This was a contract of indentured servitude, exactly the form of apprenticeship everybody from masons to surgeons took up in the past. It flat out said he was to serve her in any way she ordered him for the next six years. He was not entitled to any pay, though this was Isendra so he knew she was generous anyways, but he was entitled to any and all training she could provide.
His father had warned him about job contracts with the "any additional tasks as required", that if you do contract work you clearly specify your duties and upon being asked for more you charged more. But Izuku wasn't in Twenty First century Japan anymore. Hell, he was pretty sure outright slavery was both legal and well-regarded on this new planet, so he was pretty sure this was a great deal for his current situation.
"I would like an additional clause." Izuku said, looking pointedly at Isendra. "That the contract lasts for six years, or until you find a way to get me back home safely. Whichever comes first."
Isendra gave him a smiling look of understanding and nodded in complete agreement.
"I can amend the contract to match this change." She informed him. "But you do understand the terms of the contract? You belong to her and serve her. In exchange she teaches you everything, though she can outsource your teaching to others as needed. You protect each-other with your lives."
"Yup. I caught onto all of that, and it's more than fair. Because Isendra is more than fair and I trust her." He said with a shrug.
Isendra didn't show any reaction to his words other than by sitting up straighter. She wasn't the type to smirk, but Izuku could tell she wanted to then.
"Are there any other changes either of you want me to make? I will not rewrite it again." Akara demanded of the two.
They both shook their heads and Akara disappeared back to her tent.
"We shall sign it tomorrow, today I teach you the fine arts of bartering and cleaning the smell of Fallen out of clothes." Isendra told him before walking away and motioning for him to follow.
Together they walked back to his tent where he had left the pack of spoils. He donned it and followed her to Gheed's little shop. He looked like he had been expecting them. He had a large tarp laid out with areas marked for weapons, precious metals and gems, armor and magic.
Isendra and Izuku dumped the contents of the pack onto the ground and together they tossed everything from the evening before into their respective piles. As they did so, Gheed took notes on a pad, muttering to himself the whole while. When they finally had it all roughly organized they waited patiently as the merchant did whatever math he needed doing. Izuku caught him muttering about subtracting the cost of cleaning it all and transporting them but the rest of his mutterings had to do with him contemplating what sounded like the names of cities. He clearly knew the best markets to sell each type of item for the most profit, and had a good mind for the cost of transporting his goods to each locale.
"For the whole lot, I'll give you nine hundred gold coins." Gheed declared when his math was finished.
"You have yourself a deal." Isendra agreed instantly.
This was bartering? Izuku had expected a crash course in haggling. This was just pawning off your trash.
Gheed handed Issendra nine entire coin purses, leading Izuku to believe he kept them organized in differently sized sacks. Isendra handed him one of them.
"Take out twenty five and keep the remainder." Isendra instructed him.
Izuku did the mental arithmetic in his head and he realized instantly that this didn't add up.
"But five percent of nine hundred is forty five, not seventy five." He told her.
"True, but you are forgetting the six hundred gold coins you collected last night." She told him. "And seventy five is five percent of fifteen hundred."
He redid his math and found out she was correct. He counted out the twenty five like she had instructed and handed them back to her.
"Now, I believe the young man would like to purchase some charcoal oil." Isendra told Gheed.
"I would?" Izuku asked.
"You would." Isendra confirmed.
"And what scented oil would you like it in?" Gheed asked. "I have lavender, mint, sage and rosemary."
Izuku shrugged.
"Um. Mint, I guess." He said.
It turned out charcoal was great for removing the smell of sulfur from fabric and leather. And so after paying Gheed four gold coins for a pint of a charcoal paste made with mint oil he spent the rest of his afternoon scrubbing it into his newfound leather armor with a horsehair brush.
By the time he finished Isendra had come to collect him for dinner, which as always was being eaten communally at the fire pit in the center of the encampment.
"Do I wash it off now?" Izuku asked Isendra as he sat down beside her with a turkey drumstick and plate of rice.
"Not for another week." Isendra told him. "For now, leave it in the sun which will help to disinfect it further. When you finally wash it off in seven days it will smell divine."
Izuku mentally translated this into meaning "You won't be seeing any danger for another week at the earliest." and "You will be having a lot of work and training here in the encampment." Both meanings were expected, but still disappointing.
"Your training begins first thing in the morning, as soon as we sign the contract." She told him. "Akara offered her assistance in training you as thanks for our work cleansing the Den. When I am off on patrols or doing work without you, you are to respect her as you would me and learn from her as you would me."
Izuku nodded as he chewed on his meat and this new information.
"Soooo. Report to Akara's tent first thing in the morning?" He concluded.
"First thing in the morning." Isendra confirmed.
"Sign the contract and we can begin." Akara said by way of greeting as soon as Izuku stepped on her patch of land.
Izuku blinked and looked around. Finding no sign of his master he looked back to Akara but took the contract in his hands without complaint.
"Where is Isendra?" he asked as he skimmed the document for any changes.
Finding everything the same except for the added sentence he requested he signed at the bottom.
"She was sent scouting just before dawn. Something too dangerous for you to join in just yet. So, your instruction is left to me for today." Akara told him. "She believes you will be a prodigy of magic like her, and has told me you have a hypersensitivity to Mana. I am eager to see if she is correct."
Isendra was a prodigy of magic? She did seem young compared to the other adults in the encampment, but he'd never been rude enough to ask her age.
"So, what will we be doing today?" Izuku asked.
"Today, we will be learning the absolute basics. The art of meditation and feeling the mana within your body." Akara told him. "And that starts with you learning how to breath."
This story was ghostwritten by NonsensicalRants as commissioned by MagikUser. You can hire NonsensicalRants to write your stories as well, all you have to do is provide him with a rough outline and contact him on his patron.
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