The Foundation Mage [LGBTQ+ Kinky Progression Fantasy]

Re'tai whispered to the flagbearer, who ran off ahead of them, flag whipping in the wind.

Re'tai wasn't forceful but she did seem to encourage their group's quick departure.

Vicktor decided to flick on his mage sight as he walked by the cooking apparatus, expecting to see some kind of inscription for heat. Instead, he noticed three things: First was that what he had assumed was just black soot lines, were in fact inscriptions, faintly glowing to his mage sight. The second thing he noticed was that the rice being served seemed to contain higher than ambient levels of mana. The final thing was that the ambient mana in this whole area seemed exceptionally low, he checked his Ruakh and it had barely filled at all.

'huh, odd... I wonder if Master Tosk would know why...'

The group followed a slightly nervous Re'tai. He started to practice his meditation as they walked, focusing on pulling in the minuscule amount of ambient mana as he tried to ignore all the short people looking at them and commenting about their... hair?

It was the biggest secular building they had seen in the city, the only larger buildings were for the goblins gods and their chosen.

"Really, all of your Mages are here in this building?" Alar asked, his beak ajar in bewilderment.

"Yes?" Re-tai responded to the avian but seemed to be unable to parse the owlish features. "There are somewhere on the order of twenty thousand goblin-kin here in Tao-Ti-Cua. Less than one in a hundred goblins demonstrates the raw talent to be a mage. We only have so many mages because they live longer."

It was decidedly smaller than the builder's guild hall, which itself wasn't particularly big. The caravan guild hall had been larger as well. Many buildings in Allium had been. Vicktor wondered how many lived in Allium; he had never got a straight answer.

"Come on in, you're not scared of Mages are you?" Their guide joked as they opened a large door for the three apprentices to enter.

It was nice to have vaulted ceilings, so that the three ‘giants’ were able to not stoop in order to walk into the main hall.

Waiting for them was the oldest goblin Vicktor had seen, but the man seemed to walk and talk to three younger goblins as they spoke around a clay-topped table. The flag bearer stood next to them, seemingly comfortable just listening. The incredibly old man seemed to function without much difficulty. He did rest most of his small frame on a black wooden walking stick. His long white hair was thinning and mostly gone from his wrinkled scalp. He turned away from the three younger goblins and bowed slightly.

"Welcome Human Mages from Allium and beyond, I am El-tek, a tier two Mage. These are my apprentices who are learning irrigation magic. What are your ranks and fundamental principles so that I may help you find someone to exchange knowledge?"

Alar was quick to respond, "Human mages don't talk about their tiers or fundamental principles so explicitly, its generally vague or 'you can tell once you've surpassed them' type of language."

"Hmmmm, what about just your general specialty and method of attack?" The old man tapped his walking stick on the floor.

"Apprentice Alar at your service, I study mainly flight magic and inscriptions, Master El-tek," Alar bowed to the old man.

El-tek gave the avian a strange look, "I don't claim to be a master of anything. I'm just fairly decent at gardening with a little magic."

The old goblin tapped his staff again.

"Hmmm. We don't have any flight magic, but Ar-vor might be able to show you how we do inscriptions without metals. Next?"

"Thank you, Master El-tek" Alar said, which caused the old goblin to tap his staff again.

Nora bowed to El-tek, "Apprentice Nora at your service, I study body enhancements and archery."

"That warbow of yours is quite formidable, we have a few people who increase their strength with magic, but those aren't considered Mages in our little society, I'll direct you to them."

"Thank you, El-tek," Nora bowed again.

"Apprentice Vicktor at your service, I focus on manipulating soil and rock."

"Hmmmm. We have someone who shoots stone projectiles and some people who cut stone into blocks, would that be interesting?"

The old man scratched his head.

"Part of the reason you are here I imagine is because we are having issues rebuild the bridge over the Imjin River"

"Almost certainly, although I did not know that you had a name for it. For humans it's just an unnamed tributary for the Lenorlea river"

"Well I'm glad humanity is no longer teaching it to be 'Goblin Hair Creek', we have an old map acquired from humans that labeled it as such." The El-tek was trying to put a polite spin on it, but there definitely had been conflicts between the sapients.

'They did just try to kill us in the woods, it's surprising that only that woman has tried to threaten or kill us. These beasts are–'

Vicktor forced himself to reject the retributive urge that he felt. He would be better.

"Do you not have any earth mages? Material guides are relatively common, no?"

"No actually, goblins tend to have more Material Creators than anything else. Creating the basics are far more common. There hasn't been a metal creator since before I was born, over sixty years ago."

Vicktor felt like he properly contained his surprise. He had done the math in his head quickly and realized that this person was similar to a hundred and eighty year old human, but was likely similar in true age to his grandparents.

'Goblins lead rather remarkably short lives, huh?'

He tried to catch any stumble or pause he might've made, "I didn't know that, thank you."

"You're very welcome. The way I see it, we're basically the same, but a few small changes can have profound effects. How do you three feel about our hair?"

"I don't fully know, it's nice to look at? I've partially figured out the dyeing and the beading, but i don't understand it." Vicktor said.

"I didn't even really look at it as odd, but I guess it is. My feathers never grow close to as long as most humans keep their hair" Alar looked at his forearm covered in small feathers and then towards Vicktor’s arm, which was decidedly more mundane.

"I'm a little envious of how everyone seems to make it look natural. I keep mine short because if it grows out too much it gets in the way" Nora ran her hand through the medium-short hairs on her head.

"So you three understand that it has some stronger societal weight to use, but don't understand? Perhaps in a similar way to how you've noticed we don't use as much metal?"

"I hadn't actually," Nora said, frowning.

"I did, but mainly because of my interest in inscriptions," Alar pulled out a turret from his bag, the whole thing was maybe waist high or so for the old goblin. "I assume this would be worth a lot?"

The old man let out a slightly wheezing chuckle, "Worth a lot to who? To a Chosen perhaps not besides a shiny curiosity, but to Mage? The inscriptions alone could be valuable to study, perhaps even to advance to a tier two mage. Oh, you humans called something pretentious like Rector, right?"

The three apprentices smiled lightly and nodded.

"What is that contraption's value to some thief? They know nothing of what it means besides the value of the raw material, they might not even know what the various alloys of that expensive gift are."

Alar looked sheepishly at the device in his claw and put it back into the bag.

"Finally, what does that thing mean to a commoner? Perhaps that you are rich and powerful? Greedy and dangerous? Or maybe just a sign that you should stay away until you know more about them."

Vicktor felt very self-conscious about his inscribed metal and wood staff, his hand and the pack full of different ores on his back.

The El-tek waved a wrinkled green hand, "Don't feel bad about gifts you've been given. The main reason I said this is because the three of you don't really know how you come across to us. None of you have long hair, none of you have a history that you are proud to show."

'Oh... OH! They don't live as long! They have less time to grow out their hair!'

Alar asked, "What's the Ritual of the Vanquished? Will they be hurt?"

El-tek’s age seemed to return to him, "A form of punishment and eventual atonement, I think you can guess what will happen, and what it might mean. But don't ask anyone to spoil you for what exactly happens. The ritual is always public and I hope you feel the proper weight of its meaning upon yourselves."

The ancient goblin tapped his walking staff against the ground and cleared a small tear from his eyes.

The other goblins seemed slightly confused, but they remained as silent as they had been the whole time.

"We've all got things to do, so let's get this cross-species Mage exchange started... No creation or destruction of life please..."