The Tower: Book One of the Legend of the Artificer

Chapter 9

He smelled like sweat and cloves, and for a moment, the holkind was frozen at the close proximity, because it had been so very long since he had been near any warm, living being that wasn't a particularly pissy star bird trying to steal his honey or peck his eyes out. Even the touch of his hand had his skin prickling and standing on end, and he could feel the heat of him, and oh. Oh, right, holkinds clearly had some kind of touch starvation response, too, and he should probably back up. Immediately.

Grim's hand was dropped, and he rushed to figure out how much he owed him from the receipts.

"Come back next time and I'll have a better enchantment to let you in," he blurted as he looked around for the money he set aside for him. "Preferably something that can let multiple in and not just, uh... Actually, what did it do?"

"It shattered," Grim drawled and leaned on the table, crossed his arms as he tracked his progress with his eyes. "Pretty sure it scared the hell out of Rizz."

"Uh, sorry about that." Rizz must be the other brother. Honestly, what were those names from? He was fairly well read, and they sounded more like something they had picked on a whim, though... "Oh, I get it."

"What?"

"Your names. Your mother is Haimish, so your father must be Greshan, right?"

"Good ear," Grim said approvingly. "Yes, we're from Greshan originally. Me and my brothers ended up here because a good chunk of the guild here got taken out fighting a Orkovi wyrm. They asked for volunteers, promised a huge bonus from some of the bigger patrons that were steady clients, so our guildmaster asked us to come. Probably because she was sick of us, but whatever."

"What about your parents?" he asked as he located the money and compared it to the receipts. Looks like Grim managed to haggle it down. Nice of him.

"They hopped on the chance to sell the estate and go traveling again," he said dryly. "No need to keep it open for us anymore, and they were always wanderers at heart. Last letter we got they were tracking down some lesser wyrms in Vinkar at the request of the drakes there whose land was getting butted in on with their hunting."

"Would've thought the drakes would handle that themselves," he muttered as he counted out the money.

"They would, but drakes and wyrms getting in a fight generally ends in forest fires, and they'd rather their mountains not get burnt to hell outside of the natural fire cycle. Hence, Ma and Pa."

"I've always wanted to meet a drake," he said a little wistfully, and then stopped, because oh, no, talking to Grim was encouraging him to stop procrastinating. How horrible. He needed this man out of his tower immediately.

"I've dealt with fae back home, and I've dealt with drakes, and I'd rather take the fae, honestly," Grim said gruffly. "At least with the fae I can actually follow the conversation. Drakes will drone on for hours about soil quality from three hundred years ago if you let them, and they don't even farm."

"Soil quality is very interesting!" he protested, and then stopped, because what had he become? Oh, no.

"Yeah, you would say that," Grim said with a laugh as he started strapping the vambrace on. "My brothers are probably thinking you ate me at this point, so I have to get going."

"Well, we wouldn't want them worrying about that," he drawled and handed over the money. "Try to not leave on the bandage past the healing time. Might fuck with the magic and textile charms are a bitch to fix. It'll heat up when it's finished. Not burning heat, but like, woke up under the blanket sweating because it's too hot and your feet are uncomfortably warm."

"Noted," Grim drawled and rapped his knuckles on the freshly strapped vambrace. The holkind held out the money and Grim took it, strapped it back into his pack. "If you're making all of this, have you considered trading or selling it?"

"Not really, no," he replied with a shrug. "It's just practicing."

"Practicing for what?" Grim asked, and he paused, his brain descending into white static. What was he really practicing for? He was just... making things to make them, really.

His eyes danced over the workshop, all of the various projects he had laying around, failed prototypes stacked in a box in the corner to be repurposed, and his fingers curled into his palms reflexively as he really thought about it and considered his options and why he did what he did. In his old world, he couldn't do any of this. It was all out of reach, and he had forgotten what it was like to enjoy making anything. Hobbies faded away in the face of working day in and day out, and he often just fell asleep the second he clocked out, slept through meals and food, and woke up again in barely enough time to clock in again. Now, he could just do whatever he wanted. Make as much as he wanted, figure things out, use his brain for more than just answering the phone and telling people he couldn't help them. He could just...

He still wanted to help people, he realized like a thunderbolt to the chest. He wanted to help people, because he knew what it was like to supposedly have the power to help, but only have that power in name only.

But he couldn't do that from here, could he?

"... Anything, really," he replied, but the answer felt a little hollow in comparison to his sudden epiphany. "I just like to make things."

"So, you're bored," Grim supplied, and he gave him a faint smile.

"I'll let you poke around next time to see if anything here is worth anything."

"Well, you just handed me a bandage worth about a silver, so there's that," Grim drawled, and he blinked.

"Really?"

"Do you know how hard it is to enchant linen? The charm is woven into the cloth, isn't it? No embroidery?"

"Yeah, but that was just a prototype? It needs to be able to change its length," he pointed out, "otherwise it's practically useless."

And he didn't need it himself, but he wisely didn't say as much.

"It's clearly not practically useless," Grim drawled and waved his bandaged hand for emphasis as he started to walk to the balcony. "But if you say so."

"I do say so."

"I'll see ya," Grim laughed as he slung a leg over the side and looked down below. "Don't get into too much trouble till I come back. Think about things you'd like to trade and I might consider lining you up with someone willing to deliver. I know some more adventurous merchants who wouldn't mind the trek if you have a good enough product to justify it."

"I'm not a business minded person," he said flatly, and Grim rolled his eyes.

"Well, you gotta be something when you get outta here. Business or adventure, pick your poison, Red."

With that, Grim was gone, leaving him alone with Teacher once more.

"He could have asked to use the stairs," he said faintly, and Teacher shuddered to life.

"And you could have offered."

"Oh, don't start with me, or I won't make you your own carrying case."

"I think we need a lesson in manners after this."