Frostbitten Wayfarer

Zoe stood up and walked over to a comfortable looking white leather couch that Ren had and waited around for him to come back. She wasn’t sure what the items he would be bringing her were going to be, but she felt excited to find out.

Were they going to be pieces of his project? Would she finally be able to see what he was actually spending all that mana on? Or would they just be massive mana storage items that she’d slave away at without ever learning more about what was going on with the man.

She didn’t have to wait long, as Ren came back out a few minutes later holding a bunch of different coloured objects. He placed them down on the dark red rug in front of Zoe one by one as gently as he could and then looked at her.

“I need all of these filled. Be gentle with them, they are extremely fragile.” Ren said.

Zoe looked through the objects. The most striking one was a large black sphere that would have given those gimmicky ultra black paints a run for their money. It was about six inches in diameter and didn’t roll around at all when Ren placed it down.

Surrounding the ball were several bright white arms and legs, each with three joints and ten phalanges. She reached out to one of the arms and touched it. It felt surprisingly soft and malleable, the white stone looking material leaving a faint indent when she took her hand away from it.

“What is all this, anyway?" Zoe asked. She wasn’t sure if Ren would even answer, but it looked like the ingredients for a strange ball golem with entirely too many limbs.

Ren looked at her for a moment. “Materials for my project.” He said.

“Yeah but what’s the project? Can’t you share a little bit since I’ve signed the contract and all that?” She pleaded.

Ren sighed. “It’s an experimental golem.”

“What’s it supposed to do, if it worked?" Zoe asked.

“When,” he emphasized, “It works. It will assist me with cleaning.”

“You’ve spent four years on a cleaning golem? Or six now, I guess.” Zoe asked.

He rolled his eyes. “I have been buying mana orbs for six years, not working on the same broken project for six years. I will have you know that most of my experiments end up being functional.”

“So what is all the mana for anyway? Why have you been buying orbs for so long?" Zoe asked.

“It is good to have a surplus of mana on hand. I am able to use the mana you provide for charging, and save my and my assistant’s mana for the more practical purposes.” Ren answered. “I have more work to do, however. Charge these and knock on the door when you are done for the day.”

“Wait, assistant? You have an assistant?” Zoe asked as she watched Ren walk to the next room over and close the door behind him.

Not very talkative, Zoe thought. But it was still a fruitful job. Even if she got paid half of what she used to be paid, she had almost seven times the mana regeneration. It still ended up being a significant boon for her.

If she came by Ren’s place and charged the full quota in a given day that would be twenty-five silver. A gold coin every four days and she’d have eight full hours to herself every day still. It was much more lucrative than she expected it to be.

Zoe grabbed one of the strange white arms and started filling it with her mana. It was more difficult than a proper mana orb, to a noticeable degree. But nowhere near as bad as charging sticks or stones — or especially her food.

She wondered for a moment what he was going to do with the mana. The arm was being filled up by her, so if Ren was enchanting them then it shouldn’t work since the mana wouldn’t be his. Was he doing something else with it instead?

Or were higher level enchanters able to work with other people’s mana. She supposed that could make sense — ice she created was much easier to work with than snow that fell from the sky, but that didn’t mean it was impossible to manipulate the natural snow either. If enchanting was similar, then Ren should still be able to create something out of these arms, even if Zoe were the one who filled it.

She thought back on her enchanting lesson. Catalina didn’t say it was impossible to enchant things that were saturated with somebody else’s mana. She just said that Zoe wouldn’t be able to do it at the time.

Zoe had taken that to mean that all enchanting must be done with the enchanter’s mana, but would that even make any sense? What would be the point of mana orbs if people could only interact with their own mana?

It made far more sense that Catalina just meant that Zoe personally wouldn’t have been able to handle the increased difficulty while she was trying to learn the new skill. Which didn’t help Zoe, at all. But it was handy to know, and might help her out with training her enchanting skill later.

The hours passed as Zoe fell into a familiar meditation and filled the limbs. Each limb took thirty-thousand mana. Or at least the first one she grabbed did, the second was only about halfway by the time her meditation was interrupted.

A woman who looked just as prim and proper as Ren walked into the house and looked over at Zoe. The woman’s red hair was tied in a tight bun, and she wore a black suit without a hint of a crease or imperfection. Identify showed her as a dark red marked mage.

“Who are you?” The woman closed the door behind her and set down a bag she’d been carrying on the table.

“I’m Zoe. Who are you?” Zoe asked her.

The woman sat down in one of the chairs and started writing on some paper she pulled out of her bag. “I’m Chloe. You must be the immortal girl that Ren’s talked about?”

“Wait, I’m sorry. What? Ren talks about me?” Zoe stared at Chloe.

Chloe laughed. “Yes, he’s quite talkative when you gain his trust. You’ve been a great help, most people don’t tend to take the mana orb job and it ends up being quite the drain on us.”

“No no, wait. What does he say about me? Immortal? What do you mean?” Zoe asked.

“Not an awful lot. Just that there’s a strange immortal girl who’s been filling an enormous number of mana orbs for us.” Chloe shrugged.

Zoe was panicking. And she wasn’t even sure why, she’d already decided that it wasn’t a big secret that she needed to keep. But being called out so abruptly by somebody she just met was not something she’d planned for.

“Why does he think I’m immortal?” Zoe asked.

Chloe laughed again. “Well, you’ve hardly kept it a secret yourself. But if you were trying to hide it, taking your class much earlier would have helped. Did you get a good one at least?”

“I. What.” Zoe sighed. “Nevermind, it doesn’t matter anyway. Are you Ren’s assistant then?” Zoe asked.

Chloe nodded her head. “Yup, I help out and get some good experience out of it. You’re finally here officially now then, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess. I didn’t wanna deal with taxes so I asked if he could hire me officially so I don’t have to and here we are. Charging weird arms.” Zoe said.

“Don’t tell him I told you, but he got that contract made up for you last year. He thought you’d show up way sooner.” Chloe whispered.

“Really? He seemed to almost not even be interested in hiring me when I talked to him.” Zoe said.

Chloe laughed. “He’s not very open but I think he was quite pleased to have you here.” Chloe stood up. “I should go check on him before he makes something too strange again. Nice meeting you though Zoe!”

“You too!” Zoe called out as Chloe rushed into the room Ren had went into.

When Chloe opened the door, Zoe could hear echos of metal clanging which vanished as soon as the door closed. She had thought Ren was just being quiet, but a weird enchanter having enchanted rooms seemed more logical, now that she thought about it.

Zoe spent the rest of the day charging another four limbs, each taking just over three hours as she filled it with thirty thousand mana. When she was halfway through the last limb, Chloe said her goodbyes and left.

Ren came out of his enchanted room just before she finished with her last limb for the day. Or he came out of the room he was working in, she corrected herself. All of his rooms were going to be enchanted if Zoe had to take a guess.

He summoned a handful of silver coins and placed them on the table. “When you’re finished, you can just take your payment and leave. Just let yourself out, I’ll be busy. The door will lock automatically.”

“Okay! What happens if I don’t show up someday, by the way?” Zoe said.

“Then you don’t show up. I won’t pay you for days you’re not here but the contract didn’t have a time limit. You’re employed by me until one of us decides otherwise.” Ren said.

“Okay! I think I want to spend some time with a friend soon so I was just wondering. Thanks.” Zoe said.

Ren nodded and walked up the stairs that were at one end of the living room Zoe was in. She wasn’t sure she remembered stairs being there when she came in, and did a double take when she noticed them.

A few minutes later Zoe finished up with her last limb and grabbed the silver coins off the table — twenty five in total, then left the house. She heard a satisfying clunk from behind her when the door closed and smiled.

It wasn’t the best job, she had spent almost sixteen hours just sitting on a couch charging random golem bits. But it paid well, it was safe, and there was the chance that Zoe could learn something about enchanting through the process, too.

She stretched her arms and walked down the street. Another step on her list of things to do was practice her skills, and she thought that going hunting with Emma and her group would be the perfect way to get some real world experience with them.

Zoe made her way back to Joe’s inn, up to the room she’d been renting from him, and collapsed on the large bed. Sleep was something that she was beginning to appreciate again.

It had been so long since she really just relaxed and let herself fall into a somewhat regular sleep scheduled. Even though she didn’t have any need for sleep anymore, it just felt nice to wake up and stretch from time to time.

She woke at almost noon, and chuckled at her thought of a regular sleep schedule. Spending sixteen hours charging orbs until early in the morning was perhaps not the best path to her goal. But she rubbed her eyes and stretched out the minor pains and soreness in her back and smiled.

Waking up really was the best part of waking up.

Zoe went to Emma’s tower and knocked on the door. She was usually home in the middle of the afternoon, or maybe getting ready for a big evening hunt with her group at the building she worked for.

Emma opened the door a few minutes later and hugged Zoe. “Have you decided to take your next class finally?”

“No.” Zoe rolled her eyes.

“Why noooot?” Emma whined.

“Because I already have enough to get used to. I don’t wanna add in even more. Besides, I want to enjoy this class I worked so hard for. I wanna appreciate it for what it is, not what the next class does for it.” Zoe said.

“Fine,” Emma hugged Zoe. “What are you here for anyway?" Emma walked back in and sat on one of her chairs.

Zoe followed inside and sat down. “I wanna come hunting with you again. Probably a good way to get used to my new skills.”

“Oh! Yeah, that sounds super exciting. I’m so down. I’m off today actually, but we’re going tomorrow so you should totally join us! Come give us haste!" Emma cheered.

Zoe laughed. “Yes, I’ll come give you all haste. I really want to test out the limits of my frozen arsenal though.”

“Also exciting! I wonder if you can give me a weapon made with it?” Emma asked.

Zoe summoned a dagger made of ice and handed it to Emma. The dagger didn’t disappear immediately, but it began to melt as soon as Zoe let go of it. Emma tossed it out the front door and it clattered onto the stone pathway.

“That’s handy, at least. Not super useful, but handy.” Emma said.

Zoe nodded. “Yeah, could be worse I guess. So when are you going out tomorrow? Morning or evening?”

“Evening hunt tomorrow, Fred’s busy in the morning. We’re going to meet up at the western gate a few hours before sunset, so you could come here in the afternoon and we could head there together?” Emma asked.

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll see you tomorrow then, I’m working for Ren officially now.” Zoe stood up.

“Oh? You finally got a real job?” Emma put on the most surprised expression she could muster.

“Yeah, kinda. I just pestered Ren to hire me though.” Zoe said.

“So? What’s he making with all that mana? A golem right? I bet it’s a super big golem.” Emma said.

“Can’t say, sorry. Contract, and all that.” Zoe smiled smugly.

“Awww. Okay, at least haste me before you leave.” Emma hugged Zoe.

Zoe obliged and cast haste on her friend. “Fine. See you tomorrow afternoon then.”

Emma hopped around as she played with her increased speed. “See you tomorrow! This is gonna be so much fun!"

Zoe smiled and made her way back to Ren’s house while she wondered about what he’d have her charging today. She hadn’t finished the bits from yesterday so maybe she’d just carry on from there?