The Runic Alchemist

Travelling at the slowest speed possible in the bright daylight, Damian tried his best to ignore everyone around him and focus on his book. He had already found a few good spells that he could use for now, yesterday Damian tried some in the evening on top of the wagon and he was planning to do the same today also. Selecting the ones Damian wanted to try out, he marked them and moved on to read more.

The speed he was reading, the book would barely last two days. But that was enough, Ravensong was just two days journey from Emberlock. They would make it before tomorrow evening.

"What are you keep reading, Chuck ?"

The most annoying part of the journey was of course, the passengers. Almost everyone left him alone except the young boy with his father who was similar in age to Damian. Not having any other kid among them he came to annoy Damian every few hours. And since he refused to tell him his name, he started calling Damian 'Chuck' for some reason. Damian was this close to blowing him up with his fire runes.

"Didn't you ask the same thing two hours ago..?"

"You didn't answer then also, Chuck."

"Who the hell is Chuck !?"

"Come on Chuck, Don't be forgetting your name now.."

"I swear I will..."

But before Damian could finish his threat the wagon halted with a sudden jerk that threw all of them on each other. Damian kicked the annoying kid out of his way; who was in motion of falling on top of him and got out of the wagon to find out what was going on.

He could faintly see a rider coming from the distance. From the direction of Emberlock where everyone outside had their eyes focused on. He was holding a red cloth, which must be some kind of signal.

Everyone followed him with their gaze as he was coming towards them. All the people got out of the wagon and stood in a group facing the unknown news bearer rider. Finally it got close enough and stopped near the front where the big bellied merchant with his carriage was standing surrounded by his mercenary guards.

Everyone also walked closer to listen in, Damian also got behind them.

"Master.. hah.. hah... Master Edgar ! I have... hah seen some.."

"Calm down boy! Someone give him some water.."

After gulping down water and calming down a bit, the rider was ready to talk.

"Now, tell us what did you see ?"

"At the distance of half a day, a group of riders with weapons are coming our way. I can't be sure whether they are following us or just going their own way but they looked suspicious. Their clothes were cleaned and they ride in order, so they can't be brigands. But they are also well built and dangerous looking, nothing what any random group of civilians look like.

"Did they have any sigil belonging to any house ?"

"No, Master Edgar. They did look like they were taking orders from one particular scary person with scar on his forehead."

"Okay... It's nothing to worry about. They have horses, if they were looking for us they would have caught up by now. They must be going their own way. Most likely they also noticed you, but let you go as a sign."

"WH.. What!? For real..?"

A group of unknown origins with better clothes than brigands and way muscular and orderly than a normal group of civilians was following them since yesterday. It was indeed strange but it wasn't confirmed that they were exactly following them, they just might be going in the same direction as them.

Damian thought of one more possibility but for that to be true he would have to assume that Lucian somehow revealed everything about him or lord Jonas was just not having it and had sent men after him without knowing anything at all just to get him back. Why they did not rush towards him and why were they hiding their identity was a question Damian could not think of any answers for.

Everyone looked alarmed but none were scared or troubled by the strange news. Except two people Damian noticed, the father and son duo who kept exchanging glances at each other and tried their best not to look scared.

After that small incident the journey continued and everything went back to normal except one thing. The annoying kid was annoying Damian no more. The father had also stopped complaining about every small thing and both stared in the distance behind them as if trying their best to make a barrier in the air with their eyes.

Damian had been in enough trouble to smell one coming from afar, he promised himself that no matter what he would stay out of this one, if of course it didn't involve him already. In the evening Damian got back on his seat at the top of the wagon and started chanting the basic spell which he wanted to learn.

He was smart enough to not finish the chanting though, to not launch the spell and alert everyone about his powers. People already looked at him funny because of his small height and traveling alone.

He finally managed to learn two new spells, a water ball spell which would have helped a lot when he was lost in the forest and would generally be the most useful for cleaning himself, the normal water rune was so inefficient compared to this one and earth wall for defense of course. They were the most simple and useful ones for now.

He wanted to learn many others but the weird language had really hard pronunciations, other than watching someone use the spell or learning proper pronunciation he could only try and fail till he got them right.

At evening, after making camp and eating their fill everyone busied themselves doing random things. Some social ones talked in small groups, some just closed their eyes and thought better to get some rest. The mercenaries were keeping watch and looked even more careful than yesterday after receiving the strange report. Damian was glad to see that big bellied merchant was not taking this lightly.

Since Damian couldn't read his book and the spearman was busy doing his job, Damian settled near the fire resting his butt that hurt from the bumpy ride. His luck or misfortune, the father-son duo came walking exactly that moment and seeing empty space beside him, settled there.

"Don't worry Chuck, everything will be fine."

"..Is that so huh? Then why do you two look more greener than goblins..?"

"Uhm.. Do I look funny to you Samuel..?" The old man asked.

"No, Your ugly mug looks just as stupid as it did yesterday."

"Who taught you such vulgar things, brat..? Hmmph.. kids these days have no respect for their elders.."

"Chuck, you have money right..?"

"No."

"Would you be interested in an amazing runic item from the empire..?"

Damian stopped the abuse that was on top of his tongue and just looked at the weird kid, squinting his eyes. Not believing one word out of this sketchy duo. However in the next second Damian had his eyes wide open as buttons, the kid really had a strange item with runes embedded all over it's square metal frame.

Activating his [Eyes of truth] Damian looked at the item but it just remained a square metal piece like any other, however when Damian took it in his hands and transferred just a small amount of his mana into the strange item – A drop of water appeared inches above the surface of the metal and remained like that hovering in air.

Damian looked it from all angles to understand what exactly it did, the magic runic circles were one blue that had basic water rune and a black circle that had a complicated space-time runes in it but it did not take too much of his mana, just enough for one air blade spell. Then it stopped absorbing any mana no matter how much Damian tried.

He looked at the strange duo and they were even more surprised than him to see a water hovering on top of the metal.

After some 10 minutes Damian finally understood what it was.

A water clock.

The amount of water increased with each minute and Damian guessed it would be an hour when the top side square of metal was perfectly filled in a cube of water trapped in a transparent square walls looking to anyone observing as if water was hovering above the metal piece. and then he guessed it would start slowly filling the other side of the square metal with the same water that was on top.

He was really curious to see what happened once the hour passes. However the duo had started moving around making faces clearly showing what their aim was.

"It's an amazing thing right? Give me those five silvers and it's yours."