Blessed Time II - Chapter 3

Micah opened his eyes, squinting as the morning light slanted through the flap to his tent.  With a grunt, he pulled himself out of the pile of cushions that passed for a Sandrovok bed.  Esther, his younger sister, loved the things, buying fancier pillows at each oasis they traveled through and burying herself in them each night.

As for Micah, he swore he could feel the sand shifting under him through the silk cushions and canvas of the floor.  Two years ago he had finally grown sick of the cricks it left in his neck and upgraded to a proper mattress despite the extra weight it added to his caravan.

Unfortunately, Micah groaned to himself as he stretched the kinks out of his back, he had traveled five years into the past.  Most of the minor luxuries he’d become accustomed to hadn’t materialized yet.

The clatter of wood on wood outside his tent drew Micah’s attention.  Shrugging on a simple, loose silk tunic to keep the sun off, he walked out into the sand.

Drekt stood, scars covering his crossed muscular arms as he watched two young women spar with blunted weapons.  To his right, Micah saw the other six tents of the caravan along with the sand sledges and Ioloke they used to navigate the desert.  One of the great six legged lizards looked up, docilely chewing on a mouthful of barley as the multi-colored feathers dotting its sides ruffled and fanned gently, keeping its scales cool despite the heat.

According to the sages, the creatures were some sort of magical chimera, a merger between reptile and bird.  It didn’t really matter to Micah, just their tame and dull demeanor combined with their ability to carry heavy weights despite the beating sun.

“Loosen your grip Eris,” Drekt’s rumbling voice drew Micah’s attention back to the sparring match.  “Esther’s spear gives her a reach advantage, but you can counteract that by matching her movements and redirecting them at the last second. The strength of your fighting style is its mobility and your ability to flow around incoming attacks.  Trying to match Esther blow for blow is a mistake.  She’ll just overpower you.”

“But Dad,” the girl stepped back, a squall of wind stirring her frizzy hair.  “I don’t understand how I can block her attacks if I don’t put any force into it.”

Drekt and Trevor’s adopted daughter frowned up at the big man.  Drekt just shook his head, unphased.

“You aren’t supposed to stop her attacks,” he corrected her gently.  “You need to learn how to redirect them.  Saralla, goddess of water and regrowth blessed you with a rare sword-style that suits your water affinity.  That is a gift far too valuable to throw away simply because it is hard to learn.”

“It isn’t fair,” she sighed, stabbing the tips of both of her wooden short swords into the sand and crossing her arms back at Drekt.  “I want a blessing like yours that can grow over time.  Think of all the cool things you can do now that you’ve defeated all of those monsters.  That seems a lot more useful than The Bending River Style.”

Before the argument could get more out of hand, Micah cut in.

“Drekt, can you track down Trevor?  We need to have a guid officer meeting as soon as possible.”

“What could have happened overnight?”  Drekt asked, cocking his head in confusion.  “We have a contract to fulfill and no one sounded an alarm…”

“Which contract?”  Micah questioned, withdrawing the Ageless Folio from its magical storage space.  The book was a key part of the blessing that allowed him to time travel, automatically recording every event that occurred to him and maintaining that information when he switched timelines.

“The provincial government in Red Sand offered us one hundred and twenty attunement to clear the emerald scarab investment out of the Clearwater Oasis.”  Drekt frowned.  “We just picked up that contract yesterday, how could you not remember unless-”

The big warrior stopped, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Micah flipping through the pages of the folio.

“Clearwater,” Micah mumbled to himself, finding the entry.  “The mission will be a success, but the Oasis has a concealed mirage shade population and we will end up spending more resources than expected dealing with them after they attack us mid-delve into the scarab warren.”

“You’re reading from the Folio,” Drekt stated flatly, a slightly accusing tone to his voice.  “What happened?”

“Why is it strange  that Uncle Micah is reading from that book?”  Eris asked, leaving her twin sparring blades partially buried in the sand.  “He usually sits around in his tent reading books all day.”

Esther planted the butt of her spear into the desert sand, walking over to where Drekt and Eris were talking to Micah.  The years had been kind to her.  Once the Silver family fled Pereston, she had fallen fairly naturally into the mercenary lifestyle, training daily with her spear while puberty gave her a slim and athletic build.

When she finally received her blessing, no one was surprised that the gods saw fit to reward her hard work by making it Uncommon.  Almost half of Karell’s population didn’t receive a blessing, and of those that did, the vast majority only received a Common blessing.  Enough for them to function as skilled tradespeople or civil servants, but not enough to place them amongst the elite.

Micah’s only concern was that she didn’t receive an affinity.  Still, the blessing itself was nothing to sneeze at.  Esther woke up on her sixteenth birthday able to sense everything that occurred within ten paces of her in fine detail.  Perhaps more importantly, she could spend her otherwise useless mana to give herself bursts of speed.  The combination of the two abilities had the potential to turn her into a formidable warrior.

And warriors they were, Micah mused looking around the camp.  After ending the Durgh incursion and saving Basil’s Cove, they had fled Pereston, traveling southward through its more temperate climates until they reached the deserts of Sandrovok.  His parents had established themselves in Red Sands, a regional hub located on the banks of the Leel, a massive freshwater river that flowed from Pereston, through Sandrovok’s Capital of Daasmar and eventually out into the ocean.

As for Drekt, Trevor and Micah, they had tried to settle down as well, but the sedentary life had never stuck.  Instead, they formed a small guild, using Micah and his enchanting abilities as the core to bring in a number of lower ranked blessed in search of work as they traveled from oasis to oasis, taking on jobs and clearing dungeons that local groups were unsuited to handle.

In a year and a half, they would finally make their reputation, slaying an entire nest of sun wyrms and saving a favored niece of Saravok’s Empress in the process, but at the moment they were only known in the Red Sands province.  Specifically, they confused the local government by appearing out of nowhere with a core of elite and high level blessed mixed with the refuse that had trouble finding a place in other guilds.

Over the years, Drekt had managed to whip their trainees into shape.  Most had poor classes or blessings unsuited to combat, but through hard work and constant struggle against the desert’s dangers they had evolved into an auxiliary arm capable of going toe to toe with the rank and file of any of the larger guilds.

Micah opened his status, scanning through the recitation of his abilities quickly while he waited for Drekt to return with Trevor.

Age 21 [ERROR] / 35

Class/Level Divine Candidate 47

XP 103,017/850,000

HP 7242/7242

Class Specialty

Chronomancer, Enchanter

Attributes

Body 51, Agility 51, Mind 103, Spirit 102

Attunement

Moon 97  Sun 65  Night 84

Mana

Moon 7385/7385 Sun 7321/7321 Night  7359/7359

Affinities

Time 10

Tier V - Foresight 17, Time Echos 3, Temporal Transfer 2, Haste 16
Tier VI - Temporal Vortex 14, Temporal Stutter 7, Stasis 6
Tier VII - Time Leash 6, Weave of Fate 3,

Tier VIII - Deja Vu 4

Wood 8

Tier I - Refresh 14, Mending 13, Plant Weave 21

Tier II - Augmented Mending 20, Root Spears 14

Tier III - Heal 13, Paralytic Sting 6, Explosive Thicket 11

Tier IV - Regeneration 14, Healing Wave 6, Poison Fog 14

Tier V - Panacea 6, Coma 2, False Life 3

Tier VI - Binding Vines 9, Infest 3

Air 7

Tier I - Gale 11, Air Knife 24, Air Supply 6
Tier II - Wind Shield 11, Sonic Bolt 18

Tier III - Updraft 5, Pressure Spear 15, Sonic Orb 14

Tier IV - Flight 12, Wind Blade 9

Tier V - Vacuum 4

Blessings

Mythic Blessing of Mursa - Blessed Return, Ageless Folio

Skills

Anatomy  10

Arcana   15

Enchanting  34

Fishing   2
Herbalism  5

Librarian  5

Ritual Magic  33

Spear   39

-Wind Spear 13
-TITS  21

Spellcasting  48

He’d used his time in exile wisely.  Outside of improving his skills and performing the costly and difficult ritual to raise his wood and air affinities, Micah had focused primarily on increasing his magical repertoire.  Mostly, this meant researching new time spells, but when the chance arose he made sure to trade, buy or steal new additions to his Air and Wood repertoire.

The status was still missing a couple of the spells he’d learned in his run up to the campaign against Baron Hurden, but for now it was more than enough to deal with the day to day threats lurking in the desert sand.

“Micah!” Trevor’s voice pulled him out of his woolgathering.  His older brother flashed him a smile, a sliver of white contrasting with his sun bronzed skin.  “Drekt said that you just came back from using your blessing.  How bad are things?”

“Wait,” Esther’s eyes glinted.  “What do you mean ‘came back.’  Everyone is always so mysterious about Micah’s blessing.  We all know exactly what everyone else in the group’s blessing is, but I don’t even know anything about what Micah can do beyond that it involves that magic book of his.  Why won’t any of you even tell me what it’s rarity is?”

“Because Esther, it’s a secret and whenever you learn a secret, the entire camp knows it by the end of the night,” Trevor replied smoothly, walking up to Eris and rustling her frizzy hair.

“Come on Dad,” Eris begged her adopted father, “please tell me with Uncle Micah’s blessing is.  I promise not to tell Esther.  In fact, I promise that I’ll lord over her that I know it while she doesn’t until the end of time.”

Trevor’s severe expression cracked as he broke into a smile.  He removed his hand from her hair, forming it into a fist before gently knocking her on the top of the skull as if she were a door.

“Enough of that,” he chuckled.  “You and Esther can take a break from training.  Run along and get into trouble while I talk with Micah.”

“She will you know,” Drekt rumbled fondly, watching the two seventeen year old girls scurry off into the camp.  “I don’t know why you encourage her to make mischief Trevor.  She’ll manage to find enough of it on her own.”

“I read a book on leadership and governance in the last town,” Trevor replied with a shrug.  “It said that you should never give command that you know will be disobeyed.  She’s going to get into trouble no matter what I say.  This way I’m the cool and fun dad while you get to discipline her for whatever prank she pulls.  It’s all part of my master plan.”

Micah smiled at the two of them as he motioned for them to follow him into his tent.  This is what the last year had been missing.  After the disastrous battle where Baron Hurden’s daemon horde had defeated the bulk of Sandrovok and Pereston’s armies, things had gotten grim.

Drekt and Esther’s death as they held the gates so that Red Sand could be evacuated had only made the problem worse.  Trevor had survived to fight alongside Micah until the end, but there hadn’t been much joy in that struggle.

Still, even if he only had one more chance, that would be enough.  The gods had a plan and it would be enough to change things, to sever that timeline before it ever had a chance to get started.

This time, Micah could change things.  He didn’t have another choice.