Chapter 8

He woke up right before dawn, but he was still feeling exhausted. Clearly, pushing himself too much had a cost that Total Concentration Breathing wasn’t able to fix completely.

The nightmares didn’t help.

He sat on the floor and crossed his legs, taking several deep breaths to trigger Total Concentration Breathing, flooding his system with energy that made further sleep impossible.

He didn’t want to look exhausted. He was aware that the morale was too important. It was for the same reason that he didn’t leave the village immediately, aware that morale could shatter just as quickly.

The last thing he needed was to deal with panicking people. He didn’t do much. He walked around the village twice, occasionally having a few words with villagers who were awake.

He was happy to see that they had two militia guarding each cardinal direction.

While he walked, he tested the benefits of his newest rewards, but he quickly stopped trying to see whether Charisma worked or not. Every person he talked had been extremely respectful and looked at him with awe, and while it could be about the boost from Charisma, it could easily be about the fact that he had killed three necromancers and more than a hundred undead to save the last group.

He shrugged. He would have loved to see exactly how it worked, but it wasn’t worth the effort. If it benefited, it benefited. It wasn’t as if he had many options.

As he did a second tour, he focused on his Sensor trait, which had a more measurable impact. First, it gave him a general sense of awareness of anyone who was close to him, even if they were behind him.

That alone was a treasure for anyone with a hint of ambition. Assassins were a constant source of trouble for all nobles.

Yet, Sensor wasn’t limited to that. Not even close. Even without any practice, he was able to sense the mana in the air more clearly, rather than just relying on his breathing technique to distinguish it.

The real surprise came when he used Bloom to detect. He had picked Sensor as an eventual replacement for Bloom, so when it improved his ability to sense through Bloom, it came as a welcome surprise.

With that, he could actually detect the location of living people. Not accurately as he could do the undead, and certainly not to such a great distance, but it helped.

Curious about its implications, he went to the side of the spring, crossed his legs, and started focusing on his mana, trying to develop a detection technique relying on mana.

It wasn’t supposed to work. Developing new magic was the purview of Dalaran mages. However, with Talented, Conceptualization, and Sensor working in combination, he was able to figure out a technique soon.

It wasn’t anything fancy. He just released his mana as a ring, spreading invisibly, and whenever it touched something, it gave him a vague sensation. It barely gave him an awareness of anything within a fifty-yard radius.

Not perfect, but it was something he could practice while walking. It would work better once his mana reserves grew stronger. After he practiced a few times, he realized it also helped him to understand the movement of his own mana with a clarity that would have made his childhood tutors weep with joy.

Curious, he raised his hand to create another water orb, then turned it back to arcane, able to observe the change far better. The changes were significant enough that he went to pick his arming sword from his room to test Water Breathing.

He wanted to start with an ordinary sword, not wanting to risk the enchantments clashing.

He closed his eyes, took several deep breaths while focused listening to the bubbling water, and delivered a slow, measured slash. The mana dissipiated halfway, ruining the attack.

He took several deep breaths while he swung his sword, using the physical version of the first form several times to push himself physically while his mana reserves recovered. On the other side of the gate, two breaths would have been enough to fill his mana. Here, it took almost forty breaths, which took more than two minutes.

He repeated the mana-infused First Form, and it failed once more, depleting his reserves again. At the same time, he couldn’t help but feel bad that his growing reserves meant that it took longer to refill them.

He knew that mages had better ways to gather mana, but his tutors had never taught him that. Not to keep their secrets, but he had been that terrible when trying to learn magic.

He hummed, but he sheathed his sword after a few attempts. It wasn’t that figuring it was useless, but it was not the best way to spend his time. Not when he could check the border. At the least, he could force the undead to put an even greater presence on the border, which would weaken their attempts to hunt others.

However, before he could leave, he noticed someone walking toward him.

The priest. He looked exhausted, leaning heavily on a walking stick. He looked even worse than he had when his followers carried him across the border, without a color on his weathered face. Arvis didn’t say anything. The old man was a healer, and he knew how ill-advised for him to walk. The fact that he did so showed he had some kind of concern.

“Lord Godwyn,” the priest said.

“A little morning stroll, Priest Aldric,” he replied, as his name had been spoken too many times for him to miss.

“I’ve rested enough,” he said.

“Please, take a seat,” Alric said as he pointed at the rock he used while meditating. The priest did, though the care he put in showed just how bad his situation was. The priest looked silent and pondering, a simple but effective way to take initiative without overbearing. He would have appreciated the argument at any other time. “Holy Father. I need to leave soon. So…” he said.

“I wanted to speak with you before the camp wakes,” he said. Arvis nodded. “I am from the Chapel of Andorhal.”

Arvis winced. Andorhal. One of the first cities hit by the plague fully. Arvis looked at the old man with renewed assessment. Surviving the fall of Andorhal required both extraordinary luck and extraordinary capability.

Though, the fact that he was able to survive despite leading such a large group suggested the latter.

“You’ve come a long way, Father Aldric.”

“Farther than I’d like.” The priest studied him with eyes that were surprisingly sharp beneath their fatigue. “I wanted to thank you. My flock would have died without your intervention. The necromancers were far beyond my ability.”

“You held them off long enough for me to arrive. That’s already a miracle, Father.”

“Not as much as your arrival. I have seen fully fledged paladins unable to fight against the undead like you.”

“I’m no paladin.”

“You fight to defend the innocent, brave and selfless enough to risk your life. That makes you a paladin in my books,” he replied.

Arvis nodded. Coming from someone else, he probably would have explained how he didn’t take a comparison to a paladin as a compliment. They were great warriors and healers, but as Lordaeron’s current state suggested, their reputation as great commanders were greatly overblown. But, coming from a priest, it was supposed to be a compliment, so Arvis didn’t nitpick.

“You’re curious what I am doing here, right?” he asked.

Priest Aldric nodded, not just curious but evaluating. He wasn’t a confused old man looking for guidance. He was a leader, assessing another. Arvis respected that enough to give him something close to the truth.

“Survival,” he said. “For now, that’s all I’m building. A place where people can be safe, fed, and trained to defend themselves. An old favor makes it so that members of the Godwyn family can stay here for a while, but that favor won’t last forever.”

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He nodded. “Elves can be … insular.”

Arvis chuckled at the understatement. “Exactly. Eventually, we have to leave,” he said. “Until then, the more people I can save, the better.”

“Maybe we will get reinforcements,” the priest said.

Alric sighed. He thought about lying, but decided against it. The old man survived Andorhal, after all. “Not likely. From what I’ve heard, the same thing is going on all around Lordaeron, including the capital. Don’t expect any reinforcements soon.”

Or ever, but he didn’t say that. “How do you believe it will develop?”

“Badly,” Arvis said. “But it doesn’t matter. There’s no point worrying about what we can’t control. We should focus on what we should.” The priest was quiet for a long moment, the holy glow around him steadying, growing slightly brighter as if responding to his thoughts. “You speak like a man who has accepted a terrible truth.”

“I speak like a man who spent three months guarding the ruins of Stratholme. Truth is horrible, but ignoring it doesn’t help. Only by facing it bravely, we survive the next disaster.”

“Fair.” Another pause. “The people who followed me, they’ve already sworn to you.”

Arvis smiled. “I hope you’re not getting territorial, Father. It’s just temporary,” he said teasingly, and only because he could see that the priest was relieved of that. He had no intention of leaving that as a temporary thing.

“The opposite,” he said. “I’m a priest, not a commander. They swore themselves because you saved them, and because you’re the first person since Andorhal who offered them something other than running. Food and security. More importantly, someone to believe in. That matters, Lord Godwyn, maybe more than you realize.”

Arvis waited, sensing that the priest was building up to something.

“Maybe we should focus on it,” he added.

Arvis gestured for him to continue. “Just tell me what you have in mind, Father,” he said.

“Before the Second War, it was common for priests to swear themselves into the service of a noble house. I would like to follow that tradition.”

“It would be my honor,” Arvis said. He didn’t miss the implication that the priest wanted to keep an eye on him, which he had no trouble with. The priest shuffled, trying to kneel. “Father, under the circumstances, I think we can keep it simple. Just stay sitting.”