It was a lie. Not the lie he had told the committee during the interview. No,hewas a lie. There was no one called Krasen from Caemdir. Inside this considerably weaker frame, he was still Kraghtol Wulfspar, the half-orc. He had no idea how long the potion would hide the truth, and he wasn’t so sure he enjoyed lying to the world like that. As much as he had hated his skin and his tusks, the new him felt wrong and alien somehow.
He shook his head and yawned. Perhaps he was just tired. Tomorrow would be the first day of his new life with the alchemists, and regardless of how he looked, he would live it to the fullest.
Chapter 5
First Class
When Kraghtol woke up the next morning, he still didn’t feel entirely comfortable with his new body and the situation. Oppressive dreams had haunted his mind again, of dense fog and gnarly fingers. Luckily, he couldn’t remember every detail, but the uneasy feeling didn’t help with his general discomfort.
Only after he left his lodging and navigated through the windy streets of Winterstone, his mind cleared up and he began looking forward to what lay ahead. In exchange for the agreed fee, Mrs. Urdson told him about the courses he could visit: he was free to go to every course that didn’t have a prerequisite, and it was his choice when to attend the lessons. However, to visit the advanced courses, he had to pass an exam of sorts, which was different for each course. While the lecture on “Historical Alchemy” held by the elf teacher, lecturer Holen Merress, required a written test at the end, “Practical Application” and “Alchemical Basics” required a practical proof of skill to pass.
It came as no surprise that most of the committee members — except for Holen Merress — taught only more advanced courses, if any. Thalen Virex, the guild master, didn’t appear to teach at all; he probably was too busy running the guild’s everyday business. One teacher’s name did surprise him, however: apparently, Mrs. Urdson took it upon herself to teach new students the basics of literacy, which she assured him was mandatory.
Kraghtol couldn’t very well admit he could already read and write without having trouble explaining why, so he would have to visit her course and pretend to learn, which piled yet another lie onto the heap that was growing concerningly since yesterday. On the plus side, once he had passed her course, he would gain access to the student library, no doubt containing a multitude of tomes and recipes.
Since today was Freeday, there were no courses, and he could explore the city proper for the first time since he arrived. While searching for a room had introduced him to the general layout of Winterstone, there was so much more to be seen. The city was vast and bustling with activity, even on this windy Freeday. Artists and acrobats tried to catch the attention of passers-by in almost every corner, and the smell of grilled fish and baked waffles wafted through the cold air.
Walking through the streets felt strangely different from what it had just two days before. Kraghtol was no longer worried about strange looks or the orderkeepers’ attention. In fact, people seemed to notice him so little he might as well have been invisible, which was a pleasant change from the attention he usually drew upon himself. However, not everything about his new body was positive. His lack of impressive muscles made him shiver in the fall winds, and the thought of venturingbeyond the clock tower into the Oldport made him much more nervous than before. He wasweaknow, and if someone tried to rob him, he was not sure he could defend himself.
In theory, this free day every week would have been an excellent opportunity to earn some money. Not only did he have to pay the next guild fee in a little over two months, but he also needed to eat and pay for his room. However, Kraghtol quickly learned that the Winterstone authorities enforced the Freeday much more strictly than Brynna, the lone and elderly orderkeeper of Mistpine. All shops and workshops were closed, and people were on the streets or at home, enjoying the regular spare time dictated by law. After a while of taking it all in, Kraghtol turned to go back to his temporary residence.
That’s when he saw him. It was only a brief glance, barely half a second, until the figure turned around a corner, but there could be no mistake.
“Hey! Wait!”
He shouted and started running, earning a few irritated looks on the way, but when he turned into the same alley half a minute later, he found the dead end entirely empty, with only dry leaves swirling around in the gusts of wind. He was panting heavily, his weaker body strained by the brief sprint that would not have bothered him much before. Kraghtol shook his head slowly. How strange. He could have sworn he had seen the gnarly limbs of his mysterious patient back from Mistpine. But the alley was empty, and he could hardly have disappeared into thin air. Still deep in thought, he made his way back to the Crafter’s Quarter.
He met his landlady, the old Mrs. Brott, downstairs in front of her tailor shop and spent the afternoon with her drinking tea and talking, although it wasn’t much of a dialog. Mrs. Brott was extremely hard of hearing and often answered questions with a smile and a completely unrelated comment. At some point, Kraghtol made the mistake of asking her about her craft.Thatwas a question she understood well enough to prompt her into a two-hour monolog venturing from the guild examiners’ uniforms to more details about buttons than Kraghtol had ever wanted to know, complete with an in-depth analysis of the differences between sewn and hammered-on buttons on various types of clothing and the social repercussions of making the wrong choice.
Even though he didn’t share her remarkable enthusiasm for the thrilling world of clothing fasteners, he still had a remarkably good time. The tiny lady was nice and quirky, and it felt good just to have someone to talk to. But it also made him realize how much he missed Merrick. Mrs. Brott was a nice person, but he would have given much to talk to his foster father right now, to tell him how he felt lying to the world, and to listen to his advice. Perhaps, he thought as he said goodbye to his landlady, he should write a letter once he had lived here for a while.
The next morning, Kraghtol was among the first to arrive at the school area, which was a first for him. Usually, whenever he had to be somewhere at a specific time, he was late because he forgot, or — rarely — hours early because he focused so much on the appointment he didn’t want to risk coming late at any cost.
Now, however, he was early — but not unreasonably so. “Alchemical Basics”, taught by a certain Marla Hawke, was about to begin in ten minutes, and Kraghtol had found a whole new appreciation for the prominent clock tower, allowing the whole city to run on a more precise schedule than Mistpine could have ever known. It was visible from almost all over the city, and Kraghtol wondered just how many gazes hit the decades-old clock faces each day.
The campus of the guild wasn’t vast, but labyrinthine enough to get lost in quickly, which Kraghtol promptly did, looking for his classroom. Just as he turned around the corner of an industrious-looking building with multiple smoking chimneys, he spotted an old man with a broom.
“Excuse me. Are you a member of the guild?”
The broom-wielding man looked up in surprise, and a toothless smile greeted Kraghtol.
“Me? Oh, no, I’m just a servant. Is there anything I can help you with, young Master?”
A wave of discomfort washed over Kraghtol. There was no such thing as slavery in Wardenreach, but, especially in the bigger cities, indentured servitude was common, and the difference between it and slavery was slim at best, as far as Kraghtol understood it.
“Uhm. Oh. Sorry about that,” he stammered, but the old man just cocked his head.
“Sorry about what, Master?”
“The, uh, servant thing,” Kraghtol said, not making it any better. He wished he had never spoken to the man. “Sorry, my question must have seemed rude. I didn’t want to remind you of…” He let his voice trail off, not knowing how to continue. Another disadvantage of the rosy skin of a human was that it was terribly obvious when he blushed.
The old man shook his head. “No need to be sorry about that, Master,” he chuckled. “You’re new here, right? Some of the new students are just as unfamiliar with the concept as you are. You will adapt quickly; I’m sure of that. After all, there are over forty of us working for the alchemists, and significantly more than that in the rest of the city.”
“How does it work? Is there really a contract making you a servant? An alchemical contract?” Kraghtol blurted out before he could stop his curiosity. Luckily, the old man chuckled again.
“It’s just a normal contract, on normal paper, cut in half. I have one half, and the other is with the guild. But yes, that’s how it works. You sell yourself into servitude for some time, often to pay off a debt. Well,in my case it was my pa, who gambled with everything he had, and more. My contract is over fifty years old now.”
“Wait, your father did this to you? And you are okay with this?” Kraghtol asked incredulously.
