Mid-Life Magic

Though it had seemed momentous at the time, nothing much seemed to have actually changed about his mother after her declaration. Was it a declaration? Or was it more of a question? Seeing the absolute joy the concept had sparked in his mother was more than enough reason to have suggested it. Yet, despite wanting to be supportive of this idea – yes, he was entirely aware it was his idea – the more Darius thought about it, the worse of an idea he realized it was.

Not that he didn’t want his mother to adventure. It was not that. Because he wanted his mother to be happy. And what made her happy was traveling and presumably adventuring. No. It was all the things that came with successful adventuring that was the problem. The renown, the notoriety.

His mother kept a relatively low profile. Sure, there were the small groups of fellow Bellatorisians who recognized the sigils she had snuck into the sign for her shop so they knew to come to her for things. Not official things. Just things. Socks that stayed warm even when soaked through and wet in the coldest of months. Soups that helped when all the medicines of the kingdom’s doctors seemed to falter. Good luck charms that could never be proven to bring good luck, because the luck was only so much as was needed without excess. Creams for rashes. Breads that stayed fresh longer than they should and filled a stomach better than someone else’s loaves. Sweaters that kept lovers faithful, shawls that make one less noticeable to ill intentions.

Honestly, the list was endless.

And while his mother did have a small but loyal following of supporters. Most of them didn’t realize why they supported her. It was good luck. Or her skill. Or expertise. Quality. Most people – alright, no one – in all honestly, had ever said the words magic in a serious way when discussing his mother. Because no one could prove it.

But it was there.

How did you prove she cured someone who was deathly ill by brewing them a pot of soup when they’d clearly been treated by a skilled doctor… or ten. All Sabina Serapha Quintilla had done was to bring over a neighborly dinner at the request of one of the sick person’s loved ones. It wasn’t magic, it was kindness. And how did you accuse her of helping someone steal away your lover when all she’d done was knit a shawl commissioned by his wife. Also, you shouldn’t have had a married lover anyways.

Sabina Serapha Quintilla.

That was his mother’s name. He couldn’t remember what she’d gone by before she’ married Marcellus Quintilla, an armorer in the Aeternus army. A magic armorer. A man, who made armor for dragons, and if everything that was taught in the public schools of their kingdom was true, he was a man who gave dragons flight.

Sabina Serapha Quintilla.

His mother’s name had become a bit of a mantra in Darius’ head as the pair of them walked back down the mountainside towards town. They lived near the edge of it. Quiet, but not farmland. A busy neighborhood with all the average amenities but not bustling. Near enough the practice grounds and the massive forges used to clad the glorious protectors of the kingdom to be practical for commuting, but far enough away that they weren’t kept wake by the hammers at night. That is, when Marcellus was actually home at night and didn’t have to work. Darius had opinions about that las bit, but it wasn’t his place to share them.

“Will you come with me to register with the adventurer’s guild? I’m so nervous. I don’t want to back out.” It was weird how uncertain yet excitedly breathless his mother was. Or not. She’d never come across as the most confident person. Competent? Yes. Confident? Not so much.

So, it was quite in character for her to hesitantly ask for him to accompany her. Not that he had ever considered letting her go alone because the Gods and just about anyone with sense knew that his mother needed… minding. Not because she was incapable of caring for herself. No, she wasn’t simpleminded. But Sabina was… reckless? Ugh. That wasn’t the word. How could he describe it? Darius had always struggled with explaining this concept even to himself, he’d never share wit with others. But… well… it was like this.

Sabina was skipping over the uneven ground. They were on a downward slope and the trail, while worn since this was somewhere somewhat popular, it was also not that cared for or established. That was to say, there was gravel, rocks of various sizes, moss, dirt, decaying matter and leaves, grass… It was uneven and treacherous. Anyone with half a brain would be carefully picking their way through the terrain.

Yet a woman in her forties, with a willow basket she’d woven herself hooked over the crook of one elbow and a glowing smile of fierce joy on her face, was skipping from boulder to boulder down a ravine that was half filled with meltwater. And he wanted to shout at her; that her hair was in her eyes and hindering her view. Or that her city shoes weren’t meant for gripping and sure footing. Or that maybe she was a little too out of shape, to be risking a fall at her age as her rounded plumpness jiggled with each jump.

He wanted to shout any of a dozen thoughts telling him that she was being careless and going to hurt herself being, well, her. But Darius didn’t scold his mother. Because just in the last hour since he’d suggested she follow her dreams and she choose to do so… Her cheeks were rosier, her hair shinier. Her eyes had suddenly become brighter. Even the cut of her jaw and the shape of her cheeks seemed fiercer since she’d decided she was going to become an adventurer. It was as if the decision alone was enough to start a transformation of her back to the wild and carefree spirit that he remembered only in flashes and spurts of member from before…

There it was. The thing which now sent his stomach slipping and sliding into knots. Not her lackadaisical interpretation of safety nor her absolute scorn for gravity. No… that other thing.

“Do you have to register?” It came unprompted from his mouth, and he covered his own lips in horror knowing she’d have the most hurt look of betrayal on her face once he worked up the courage to glance at her. She had stopped skipping as soon as he said it, the air sucked out of her, the joy slipping away.

“I… doooon’t.” the slow wary response croaked out of her without emotion. “But what’s the point of adventuring if I don’t? How do I adventure if I don’t register with the guild to take on requests?” She paused long enough that Darious overcame his fear of what he’d see and looked up at her from where he’d been intently examining a twig on ground. The had both stopped walking. “You don’t want me to be an adventurer?”

“No. No that. I would never want you to not be an adventurer.” His denial was vehement because that was how he felt. Darius felt his mother deserved everything her heart desired, she was just also...

“It’s just that, people are going to notice you. They’ll notice that you are doing ‘things’. Things that ‘known’ magic can’t explain. You’ll have to declare a specialty, a weapon or proficiency. They won’t just let you go about adventures without passing assessment.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully and scrunched up her face before turning back towards town and starting rather more carefully on the track. Which - on the one hand, you know, thank the Gods she’d finally gotten some sense about her frolicking. On the other hand, it was a sign that he’d kind of spoiled something for her. Something important and it built this ache inside him because he’d disappointed his mother.

“I see what you are saying.” She now spoke just as carefully as she was walking, placing words as precisely as she placed her feet. Nodded her head up and down she bobbed her agreement as she went. The grass was dry, dead from long winter dormancy. They passed a vine tangled among the silver and greys of the bent over remains of last year’s pasture. Its bright yellow flowers were blooming in the early spring weather. Smoothly, deftly, she snagged a long length of it, not bothering to stop as the base of the limb she yanked snapped cleanly off without pulling up the whole plant.

“Don’t they still allow beginning adventures to take simple listings. Like gathering botanicals?” She was looping the length of plant loosely from one hand to around her elbow of the same arm, making a large coil.

“They do.” He’d wanted the response to be measured, careful. He’d wanted to warn his mother that she would need to hide her magic, hide her opinions. Tell her this was a bad idea. But he also wanted her to follow her dream and do what she wanted and… “And you’ll be able to get magical instruction from the guild. So, once you found a mentor and took some training…” he trailed off and his mother shot him an exuberant grin.

“Perfect.” Her length of vine was now neatly coiled into a hoop which she slipped over her shoulders like a necklace. Then… she started skipping again. And humming. And Darius lengthened his long stride to keep up with her shorter but faster one.

Sabina Serapha Quintilla.

Sabina Serapha Quintilla.

That was his mother’s name.

Sabina Serapha Quintilla.

She was kind, funny, smart, and she wasn’t a secret sorceress or a wild witch, or some other magical creature at all. Nope. Not even a little bit.

They didn’t go to the any of the Adventurer’s Guild Halls in Centralia, the city that Sabina and Marcus lived on the edge of. Instead, Darius managed to talk his mother into going to the guild hall in Trebal a neighboring, but smaller city. This deep into the Crownlands, the cities were closer together and the Trebal Adventurer’s Guild Hall just happened to be closer to the neighborhood where Sabina and Marcus lived than the Centralia Central Adventurers Guild Hall. Which was good. It was perfect. Why, might one ask?

Because the Trebal Adventurers’ Guild Hall was smaller. Smaller, poorly staffed, and it didn’t offer as many services. That meant less people. Less oversight. Bored, slightly bitter receptionists who didn’t like answering questions, and more importantly, they ask any. The young mage knew because he’d gone there more than once, doing research when he had been uncertain of his acceptance into the Draconarix Academy of Magecraft and Artificing.

Registering was simple. His mother had started out a little too enthusiastically, greeting the receptionist who was clearly annoyed with having to do her job with a bright and loud “Hello!” But after a subtle nudge from her son, she modulated her volume and tone to be a bit more neutral if slightly pleasant. While Sabina Sarapha Quintalla filled out a veritable parade of forms in triplicate, her son turned around and leaned against the counter next to her to observe the main room of the guild hall.

It was much as he remembered. Once it had looked grand, now it had the darker, muted, colors of older buildings past their prime. Even the light from the oil lamps felt like it was only half-heartedly doing its job. Scattered over the stone floor were rough wood tables, firm and solid, old as well. There were a few lower level and older adventurers day drinking – both in small groups and several alone – near a bar off to the side. Maybe ‘older’ wasn’t the right description. Some were clearly in their twenties, most were in their thirties, and even forties. The actual old individuals were rare. But that might just have been from the sample size available. No one was anywhere near the job boards.

“And that’s all your paperwork.” The snotty yet bored receptionist who had hands so soft and gaudily manicured that she couldn’t possibly have held a sword in her life, let alone spent a moment adventuring. Now you just need to be assessed for you level and declare your class and weapon preference.” Her tone of voice held a note of suspicion, as if this was a gotcha moment that would reveal something nefarious about his mother. Darius tensed while trying to pretend he wasn’t paying attention to the interaction going on beside him. Instead of taking offense, his mother just smiled – he could tell she was smiling by her tone of voice – and responded reasonablywith her unnervingly chipper voice.

“What is the point of assessment?”

“Wha- what? It’s to determine your level of proficiency, of course!” her genuinely curious question seemed to catch the receptionist off guard.

“Proficiency at what? I’ve never been an adventurer before. Wh-at needs to be assessed?” Mom has her there. Darius thought a little more smugly than was warranted. He crossed his arms to make his stance more comfortable settled in to wait a little longer.

“We…we…well at weapons. Or ma…ma… magical proficiency. You have to be tested and assigned a level if you don’t want to at the lowest level. You can’t take on any monster fighting jobs until you can prove that you won’t die completing them. And you’ll need to go to the Centralia branch for that because we don’t provide assessments at this branch.” She’d finished up her little spiel, delivered a sickeningly sweet snarkiness, with her smug smirking smile and a shrug. As if she couldn’t have told them this before completing all the paperwork here. “So, you’ll need to go there and redo all this paperwork.” She made to take the application and toss it, but Sabina quickly acted to intervene.

“Wait. Wait. Wait.” She reached out and grabbed for the papers and the receptionist snatched them back while sneering imperiously.

“No exceptions.” Came a scathingly scowled reply. “If you want an assigned level and not to start at level one, you need to go to one of the major Guild Houses.

“But no. No, no, no. You don’t understand. I want to start at level one.” His mother had been shaking her hands in an emphatic negative sign which the receptionist had been ignoring with the intention of tearing up the application until the applicant’s unusual words penetrated her ears.

“What?” It was spat out with more anger than surprise. Then a slim eyebrow rose and the young woman who Darius was certain was the kind of girl his mother would never want him to date shrugged and put the paperwork back down on the counter. “Fine. But you’re only allowed to do gathering requests until you’ve leveled up.” She stamped a magical seal on the paperwork and signed her own name with a flourish as if trying to fix his mother’s fate before she changed her mind.

And when his mother smiled in gratitude instead of berating the receptionist, her frosty demeanor seemed to thaw a little bit. How did she do that?

“That’s okay. I’m not ready for anything much more than gathering requests. Maybe in a few months I’ll try something else.” The receptionist sighed with frustration to reiterate what she’d previously told them.

“Look if you want your level reassessed, you’ll need to switch to another guild hall as your home hall, and that can take months to process.” Then she followed it up with another sigh.

“I thought adventurers could earn level ups without assessment. Is that not how it’s done anymore?” The question seemed to make the already quiet room grow quieter. Every head in the room turned to look at Sabina Sarapha Quintalla and Darius knew that even though they didn’t know her name, he suspected that they would before they left the building that evening.

“Yeeeaaassss!?” Came the slow hesitantly suspicious response. Now the secretary was nervous, drawing the word out carefully, not as if it was something rarely asked but as if it was something dangerous to handle. A coiled viper or a fireball spell that would blow the room if dropped. “But… it…” She sighed reluctantly before deciding to just get the information out and resign herself to the reaction it received. “…requires wearing a tracking and assessment item.”

“That’s fine.” His mother said.

“Everywhere.” The receptionist’s eyebrows furrowed, “You won’t be able to hide anywhere you’ve been from the guild.”

“I’m alright with that.” Sabina smiled happily. Which seemed to baffle the onlookers.

“You have to wear it constantly.” The receptionist clarified. “If you take it off, you’ll have to start over again from Level One.”

“I can’t take it off even to…” It was at this point Sabina’s voice faltered. She grew quiet, slightly alarmed, and glanced around at the listeners, some of whom were pretending very hard not to be listening all of a sudden while others were just openly eavesdropping. And his mother leaned in conspiratorially to the, admittedly, pretty receptionist and raised her eyebrows in the most innocently suggestive face Darius had ever seen on someone, “…you know…sleeeep?”

These antics caused the receptionist to snort and glance amusedly at Darius. “Uh mother.” He slapped a palm over his face and pinched his nose as he turned away, ears purpling with embarrassment, and the receptionist’s snort turned into a chuckle as she responded delicately.

“Unfortunately, no. It cannot be taken off.”

“Huh.” Biting a lip and turning towards her son, Sabina shrugged. “I really wanted to hide this from your stepfather until I had progressed a bit. Maybe I’ll just stay at Level One and keep doing gathering requests forever. It would be a nice little side gig in addition to my shop.” That tore it. Darius felt his jaw tighten. His mother was giving up on her dream because she was afraid of how her husband would respond. It was like dealing with crap his father put her through all over again. He turned to the receptionist looking her in the eye for the first time since they came in.

“Is there another way? There has to be something else?” He felt his eyebrows raising in inquiry and brushed one of his lose blonde curls out of his eyes. “Surely not every adventurer can be assessed for every level?” She had long black hair and very green eyes. Freckles, Darius noticed for the first time. Straight and unusually white teeth. “Nor be able to wear a tracking item for constant evaluation?” He finished hopefully.

And he could tell that there was another option. A third option that didn’t require physical assessments with a guild hall nor a tracking item. An option she hadn’t even suggested because she’d made a judgement call influenced by her cynicism from working at this understaffed, underfunded guild hall with day drinking prematurely retired adventurers.

“What is it?” He pressed as he glanced at his mother and watched her eyes begin to slowly gain that hopeful light to them again.

“We don’t usually offer this to someone who hasn’t already shown that they want to be an adventurer long-term.” Pretty-Green-Eyes, as Darius had dubbed the receptionist because he hadn’t paid attention when his mother asked her name since he hadn’t intended to talk to her at all, licked her lips hesitantly. “But, if you sign a minimum five-year contract, it comes with a… a spell of sorts that has auto tracking of your experience and levels.”

“That, I’ll do that.” Sabina literally jumped with joy, clapping her hands together like an excited toddler. As much as he wanted to sigh at her antics, Darius had to admit that his mom was kind of adorable, the way puppies are adorable even if they are obnoxious because they haven’t learned basic decorum.

“Wait.” With as much patience as he could muster, Darius put out an arm to stop his mother rushing to sign whatever was put in front of her. Which was easy to do despite her shorter frame pushing against him and glaring with a flat annoyed expression. “What’s the catch? Why doesn’t everyone do this?” Even with those concerns expressed, Sabina hadn’t fully calmed down, she was still anxiously waiting to agree to whatever the conditions were. Gods she was… trying sometimes.

“Oh. Um. You get branded with a – Oh, not like that it’s magical and doesn’t hurt.” A quick clarification came when both Darius and Sabina’s eyes opened wide with concern. “It’s just a standard Adventurers’ Guild sigil brand. And… they signify a five-year contract, are fully removable if you choose to have them removed at the end of your contract. You know what?” She’d turned slightly away and had unfocused her eyes, looking off into the middle-distance and holding her chin between a thumb and forefinger as she recalled the important bits from memory. Then she blushed as something occurred to her.

“It doesn’t track your every location, just your experience and ability level, as well as a general direction. For emergencies or rescue missions.” She added quickly before continuing. “But most importantly, It’s actually invisible at low levels unless you will it visible. It will gradually darken even when you are trying to hide it until…” She snapped a finger and held out a hand as a rather official and sturdy looking large tome of maroon leather with gold leaf and fittings adorning it flew off the shelf behind her and into her hand.

With a wiggling of her free hand at the book, the pages flipped swiftly through themselves to the one she was looking for. “…what was it…yes. Level Twenty-Five. That’s honestly well into H Rank, also called Porcelain Rank. Most don’t make it that far if they are starting at the very bottom of J Rank as an Earthen Novice like you plan to ma’am.” The book snapped shut without a flourish and dust puffed out of it in a cloud. “More precisely, it starts to become mandatorily visible a little bit around level 15 but it’s very light and doesn’t fully come in until Level Twenty-Five. People will be able to recognize what it is and tell your level by its visibility around level 20. It’s called an Adventurer’s Brand but it’s really more like a magical tattoo. And it doesn’t hurt.”

Darius sneezed as the cloud of dust enveloped him. Then it started a coughing fit. Some of the dust settled on his mother who was, unfairly, unbothered by it. She merely blew out a breath of air aimed at her eyelashes with pursed lips, then grinned.

“Oh. I know what that is. It’s perfect! How do I sign up for that?” Her light brown eyes sparkled with mischief and… not for the first time… Darius wondered if this was a bad idea or not. Then something tickled in the back of his mind, stories.