Rune mage

Chapter 14. Awake

It turns out, if a music mage tells you to sleep, you sleep.

I woke up in the healer's hall in a cot. It wasn't often I had needed a stay in the healer's halls, so I was confused at first.

My favorite healer apprentice appeared as if by magic and smiled at me. "Well. There you are. How do you feel?"

I frowned and rubbed my face. "Confused. How did I get here?"

"Fredric brought you in. He said you just...wouldn't wake up. Our scans were not particularly helpful because you seemed to be both at full power and completely depleted." She paused. "Now you are at full power, with no sign of depletion."

I sat up. Now that I was paying attention, I felt great. "I don't think I have been this rested in years."

She frowned at me. "Fredric did mention you have been going on only a few hours of sleep a night. You can't do that to yourself, you'll collapse." She paused, her eyes twinkling in the way healer's so when they know they're right, "as you just experienced."

"What day is it?" I asked and shifted to get out of the cot.

"You've been here two days, Logan."

I froze.

And remembered what had happened. Noav had put me to sleep. Fredric must have left that part out when he brought me to the healers. Two days meant I was behind in all my classes and the rains were closer to starting.

I stood and walked to the door. "Have classes started for today?"

"Yes. You've been medically excused for today. You need to rest."

"I need to go."

"You need to rest."

"I need to beat the rains. I'm going to put runes down in the waste tunnels to prevent overflow. It won't work if I don't do it before the rains."

She stared at me. "You... what?"

I waved my goodbye and walked calmly out.

I snuck into my bunk and grabbed a bag that I had prepared...before I had forgotten about wanting to protect the tunnels. Then I headed out. I felt powerful. Awake.

If this was how it felt to be fully rested, instead of fueled by magic, I would make more of an effort to get more sleep. My body felt rested and my mind sharp.

And as if my mind had been busy at work while I slept, I suddenly knew how to get the runes down even with the limitations of darkness and filth. If I worked nonstop for the day I could have the bulk of it done before sundown.

I felt unstoppable.

I paused long enough to create the new tools I would need while still in the light. I tested them in the stone around a fountain. Everything worked. Buoyed by this success, I climbed into the darkness of the waste tunnels.

It turned out that I could work in darkness. I had created a way to set in an outline, basically a stamp. After a few taps of my hammer paired with a touch of rune mage power, the outline of the rune was in place. Another few taps and I could have a deep enough impression that even in darkness I could feel my way to finishing the rune in order to power it up. Even working under the filthy water was possible, because I only had to be there a short while. If sleeping enough helped me think of these kinds of ideas, maybe I should do it more.

While I worked I thought of other uses of the rune stamp. I wondered if I could have other people put the stamp down, with me coming in behind and completing the runes and providing power. It was a seemingly simple solution to not having enough time.

I finished with the design for making the overflow design, then I switched stamps and started working on a design for holding power. A web design wouldn't work; spiderwebs broke under the strain of heavy rain and this needed to be able to stand up to flooding.

But I had already designed a mill design. I had a small metal wheel already etched and ready to put into the flowing water. It was my very first power collection design, a design started before I was even a student. The mill in my home village often broke, and we all needed it to work. A rune of repair was the first rune I had invented, without knowing one already existed. Mine was therefore unique in that it was self powered because no one had told me it couldn't be. The intent was to sip power from the water and keep the mill in good repair, no cracks or rust to mar its performance. The last time I heard the mill had not needed repair in the almost ten years since little me had etched in the runes.

This much smaller version connected to my flood protection runes easily and happily churned away.

I stepped back and activated the awareness rune to study my handiwork.

Actually.

This water and waste flow was going to create more power than needed. That could be a problem. Not an explosive problem, but more like a power needs to flow somewhere problem. I pulled some wire from my bag, attached it to the mill and began tacking it to the ceiling of the tunnel, thankfully easy enough to do. Then I led the wire to an opening and tacked it into place. At the opening of the tunnel, I was able to see enough to create a wellness rune, repeating in a circle. This would be powered by the mill device, and would push out general health in this area. I made sure the wire was well secured, then completed all the runes to allow for power to flow. It glowed once, lighting up the dark in the tunnel. I closed my eyes to preserve what little vision I had in the dark.

Finally I etched in a rune of the unseen. I had only used this one a few times, but knew it would keep the wires out of sight. It required more active power than I would like, but with the water flow as it was now, at its lowest, it would still remain powered. I then climbed out of the tunnels, discarding the sack I had used to carry the wire. My tools and clothes were all runed to be easy to clean. I would need to bathe several times, but it was worth it.

Walking back to my bunk covered it muck would not be fun, so I stopped at a public bath and paid to have a private tub, something they would have demanded given my state if I hadn't requested it.

It felt good to be clean and well rested.

I only had to activate runes on my clothes to get them clean, same with my tools. My hair was the hardest to get clean, requiring me to unbraid everything, remove the beads, and repeatedly wash and rinse. I may have done it a few more times than needed, but I wouldn't want my hair to have any lingering smell. Putting my braids and beads to rights took a while , too.

If the attendant was confused at my being able to walk in looking like a rat from the sewer and walking out in the same clothes but looking and smelling pristine, he didn't show it. His expression was professionally blank.

"Do I still smell?" I asked, wanting to make sure.

The young man shook his head. "No, and that must be some kind of magic, because I almost gagged when you walked in."

I smiled. "Yes, I'm sure it was bad." I had activated one of the beginner runes, the first one listed in the school's only book of runes. It would prevent you from being able to smell. I was considering tasking Lu with trying to alter the rune to be used as a smell suppression, preventing things from having odors. It would be a good exercise.

"Thank you. I did my best to clean up after myself, but there may be something I missed."

I walked out with a smile. I should find Isa and let her know the runes were in place so she could monitor it. I had only done one area, but I had done the weakest area and hoped that would prevent flooding everywhere.

I didn't know where she would be though. Instead I headed to work. If I had missed two days of work, I wasn't sure I would have enough to pay the second half of my tuition.

Not for the first time I wondered who had decided to make attendance so expensive and if it was a means of excluding certain mage students. Despite attendance being mandatory, anyone coming from poorly families would be hard pressed to afford to go. Which meant possibly being declared rouge. Which could lead to death. Or you would be sent to the war's front lines.

Halfway to the tavern the sky opened up and it began to pour. I abandoned my thoughts to feel relief. I had just barely made the flood runes on time. Noav and I would have to talk- it had been close. But the rest had done me good.