BECMI Chapter 72 – Extending Influence
EBOOK SEVEN IS OUT! WOO HOO, Finally!
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My reading books with demure touches of my floating skeletal Hand didn’t stop a portly red-headed and copper-skinned Freir from throwing himself down on the chair opposite me, while the rest of my crew spread out around the table. They set down their lists of what they needed to accomplish one on top of another by me, and I glanced at them while addressing the chubby Freir neutrally, “What are you seeking today, Adept Vaar?”
“Bloodline Shards!” the young man said eagerly, his pale brown eyes lighting up.
I inclined my head, and he hurriedly set down the sum required in glowing platinum crowns on the table, twenty of them for the Valence I spell, each worth fifty gold coins. He was careful to do so neatly. The last sneering Zorozo who had scattered them had watched me throw them all over the library and tell him to get lost and fetch his own money, most of which had somehow disappeared before he could retrieve it. The Fraer clans had issues with elves in general, but reserved most of their ire for the Delphan nobles of House Iendyl, with whom they had feuds reaching all the way back to a mutual homeworld long destroyed out in the void.
I definitely was no elf of either Colorajo or Erendyl, so I didn’t get as much flak, except on general principle.
Bloodline Shards had made me famous from my first demonstration of my roses shooting Thorns with screaming skulls attached to them. EVERYONE wanted such a flavorful spell. I had happily parted with it, since it was really no stronger than a normal Shard/Magic Missile spell… and quickly became even more famous, since every single Casting of it was unique to the mage who used it.
Now Bloodline debates were racing around the School, fed by this one spell… which I parceled out with Blood-bound Ink, a few every day. Whether or not they could comprehend the spell was up to them, but I would supply it… and nobody could resell it, either.
I was aware that some upperclassmen were trying to duplicate the effect, and instead getting some inefficient Illusion wound about a normal Magic Missile that they could adapt as they wish, but from a higher Valence.
I had the spell in memory, so Writing it with the Wand was simplicity. I held out my hand, and Vaar grimaced as he presented his right palm.
I flicked the tip of his finger with my nail, so quickly he didn’t even feel it, and then I brought his finger over to the top of one of the small inkwells there, working his finger so three big drops of blood fell from it into the opening.
He reclaimed his hand, dousing the tip with a touch of gummy paste to seal the poke, and watched as I shook up the ink calmly into swirls of crimson and jet, then held it with one hand over the sheet of very white nonesuch archival-grade paper and proceeded to Write.
As always, everyone was watching, trying to see what they could learn as the Ink swirled up out of the inkwell and followed my hand as I swept it back and forth, up and down across the page, following the dictates of the spell in my head with the black ink that glittered red here and there.
In but a minute I was done, and the sheet was covered in utter gobbledygook to everyone but the young man I handed it to, already dry, along with the capped well of remaining ink.
If he wanted to recopy it, he had to use Bloodbound Ink. Since I had little use for it, I handed it off to those who it was made for.
His eyes were bright as he examined the scroll, seeing something that no one else could see. He hurriedly placed the page between the leaves of a tome he was carrying with him. The capped ink was carefully put into a component satchel, and he rose with only a nod of acknowledgment at me before hustling out of the place to engage in formal study.
If all went well, he would be showing off his fiery magical missiles tomorrow, all puffed up with pride and smugness, as if he’d designed the spell himself. Everybody knew better, but as long as it looked different from anyone else’s, either in color or style or whatever, it really didn’t matter.
Wizards, shallow in all the smartest ways. I glanced at the study lists of my friends, and began making recommendations on books for them to read, which they snatched up and hurried off to locate.
Nicothe, a wanly pale young woman with faintly blued pale skin, trademark coloration of a Delphan heritage, sat down in the chair her family’s ancestral rival had just vacated. She affected blues and dove grays, setting off the dark blue hair color she had inherited, had a very proper posture, and the aeromancy swirled around her, indicating she’d already joined that Secret Society.
Amusing, because Vaar hadn’t qualified for the Fire Society yet, probably much to his chagrin.
“Edge,” she greeted me somewhat stiffly, like most people not knowing exactly how to deal with someone as attractive and steely cold as I was.
“Senior Nicothe,” I replied in eternally bland and unimpressed tones. She was actually one of the beauties of her rank, a Third Adept who was probably only a year or less from graduating, depending on how her studies went.
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She dipped a hand into the purse at her side, drawing out a weighty tome, twenty inches by twelve, bound in cloudy white pegasi hide. “I would like a copy of this to be made,” she stated only a little bit stiffly.
She set the tome down, and quickly set down a somewhat smaller book of similar proportions, with at least as many pages next to it, but all of them were empty. Five glowing crowns were set down carefully above it, somewhat resentfully, as if I should be proud to copy this for her, and not require her to spend her gold.
“Blood-bound or not, Senior?” I asked neutrally, obviously not caring that she was about to copy someone’s Lesser Vagaries of Atmospheric Conditions, a rare book on elemental phenomena of Air that was probably worth two thousand gold, with a special emphasis on cloud and wind magic. Spending two hundred and fifty gold for an instant copy of it was a steal, as opposed to waiting weeks for a scribe to make a copy for her.
She had likely ‘borrowed’ it from someone’s library, and would just as carefully return it, with the owner none the wiser, saving more fees! Noble, indeed...
She paused for a moment, then shook her head. “Open. I may want to sell it in the future.”
“I do not copy the cover,” I reminded her, taking up an Inkwell and exchanging a different Wand from my sleeve with a spin of my fingers and sleight of hand that worked well with the Prestidigitation involved.
The Biblioclone went off smoothly, duplicating the contents of the target book page-by-page in scale to the second one. It would plainly not be the original, with the limning and colored art within, but those could be copied independently or just tolerated as black-and-white line drawings. Color Cantrips could actually do most of that work, if one was skilled at the matter.
The inkwell was sucked dry, black hue going crystalline clear as the contents were consumed.
She opened the plain brown ox-hide cover of the second book, smiling at the ornate calligraphy and bordering revealed on the first page. The coins vanished as I passed my hand indifferently over them, while she reclaimed both tomes, primly putting them away and rising away satisfied with her cut-rate book copying and thrifty use of gold.
Definitely not stealing, nosirree.
I didn’t sell the Biblioclone spell, just the Casting of it, and nobody had managed to copy it by sight or study given the alchemical foundations of the spell... and the fact I used up Wand charges for it, not Casting it for them to examine the flow of magic from.
That irritated a fair number of them who definitely wanted to sell such a useful spell, both the spell itself and the Casting of it. I had plans for employing minor mages to copy a predetermined library of books on command, the availability of which would quickly reduce the price and increase the availability of more common books.
But they didn’t have magewrights here, yet. It would be a good way to employ minor Casters who wanted to make some good, dependable money, at least before the printing press came into widespread use...
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The sixth person who sat down was a fellow of plain brown hair and average features, his inquisitive eyes dancing. “Duke Fenkroft has bribed Dante de Zorozo to challenge you to a duel, Lady Edge,” Nico Bastionelli bent forward and whispered to me.
Juicy information was also something I was known to trade in. As a matter of fact, I had notes passed to me all day, which I was never seen to read, were always empty when others checked, and which people who gave me relevant information had gold ducats or glowing crowns pop up in their hands or pockets.
That information was sent out immediately to my Sims, one of whom was in attendance upon Princess Brittabelle as a maid, and another was working as an aide to the Erendyl representative in Parliament, her cousin Avanlilt Erewahr, among others. Sims had also been hired in to the city tax department and the city licensing bureau, where they were quickly distinguishing themselves with their speed, thoroughness, and a marvelous eye for accounting discrepancies they relayed silently on to me and the others.
I took a blank sheet of paper, folded it over, and gave it to him. “Deliver this to Professor Manuel de Ortagez immediately, will you?”
“Of course, Lady Edge.” He took the paper, tucked it away, rose, and hurried out the door.
Professor Manuel disapproved greatly of the FAERY movement among the families under Colorajo, and learning one of the students here was going to be stirring up that pot at the instigation of a known elf-hater was going to set him off.
He was also a member of the Society of Alchemists, and Nico was desperate to join one of the Societies before he graduated. A favor and an introduction were an honorable way to get into the graces of an established Alchemist, as well as generate some fun, and Nico had some talent.
So, he’d given me some valuable information, and now he was going to owe me.
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“Ho ha! There you are, the pawn of the pallid princess!” came the arrogant sneer I was expecting as I came out of the library. A Colorajo elf, dark brown of skin and black of hair, finely turned out in black leathers, lace, and string ties, and naturally shorter than most Sidhe elves, was sitting there waiting for me with several allies. They included both other Colorajo and a couple humans who came from their lands, most of them in the same sort of horseman/duelist attire, beaded vests and cavalry boots. They’d have had their sombreros on if it wasn’t indoors and considered gauche.
“Spouting out nonsense in classes and attempting to shame a visiting professor! You must be taught to keep your tongue in check, wench!” There was a hiss as his rapier whispered out, and he waved the point under my chin mockingly. “I, Dante Zorozo, will stand for the nobility in teaching you some manners!”
“Drop your rapier, Dante! NOW.”
The iron-cold voice in a Colorajo accent had the twat leaping backwards in dismay. Professor Manuel de Ortagez strode forward, a fellow older and taller flamenco elf, not quite so flashily dressed, but he also had a rapier at his side, and his dark eyes were like iron.
“I accept your duel with weapons,” I replied instantly, right on the heels of that interruption.
Professor Ortagez shot me a very irritated glance, and then simply swatted the wavering rapier away. “Lay your weapon on the floor, NOW,” he demanded of Dante, glaring at him in utterly commanding tones.
“But, but, Uncle Manuel, she has accepted!…” Dante whined. A second later, a second rapier hissed out, his weapon went flying off to the side, and a flat hand crashed against his cheek, nearly knocking him over.
“Insolent child, you dare question me?!” the Professor hissed at him. “Are you trying to heap insults upon the name of the family, you who are carrying an unlicensed weapon, and have no authority to duel with it?”