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Chapter 4 by DodgerMan DodgerMan

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Back to the fields

The announcement continued for a little longer after that, mostly just explaining that she'd be covering the exact same job as Halmonsonn had, and that there shouldn't be much interruption to their daily routines. Most of this didn't reach Roland's brain as he was still reeling from the weird hallucination he'd had. It had seemed so real, and at the same time his entire being seemed to sing at the idea of it happening, but there was something missing that he wasn't sure of. Like, the vision hadn't been wrong for him per say, just not the whole picture. Still, it had him spooked, the visions weren't so bad now, but if he had another during harvest season he was liable to lose a finger, or even his hand.

Either way he tried to put it out of his thoughts for the moment as he followed the rest of the workers out into the fields. As he passed Tara, who was standing at the door and smiling and shaking hands with anyone who felt like stepping out of the crowd, he ducked his head, but he swore he could feel her staring a hole into the back of his head. When he was a reasonable distance past her he glanced back, just to look away as their gazes met. And she definitely wasn't smiling anymore.

'How much fucking trouble am I in?' this was the main thought running through Roland's mind now, suddenly more pressing than that vision he'd had, was the possible ire of his new supervisor. Hopefully he could avoid any more issues with her, but even as he thought that a part of him knew it wasn't likely.


The rest of his work day passed fairly normally, and Roland started to relax and his hopes that it was all in his head. By the end of the day, with the sun setting behind the treetops, he was in much better spirits, so of course that was exactly when the gods felt it prudent to crush his mood. "Imrem, please follow me to my office, we have somethings we need to discuss." Tara's voice carried easily over the general chatter of the men slowly shuffling to the mess hall. Roland's blood froze in his veins, and he slowly turned to face the mage who had him locked in her gaze. He'd never considered running before, not like some of the lads who'd had enough, but right now he was definitely considering it. In the end however he went ahead and started following her.

Seeing him following behind her, she turned on her heel and started marching towards the managers building. Following gloomily behind her he waved halfheartedly to the guys he had been walking and chatting to. Not even sure what it was he had done, his mind was already racing with the possible punishments he was going to get. Then a random thought popped into his head, what if she had seen the vision too. What if he'd somehow **** the vision on her and he was being taken to be killed for attacking a royal mage. Would that even be considered ****? I mean, he was a random classless bastard, how would he even do that? By this point Roland's heart was on overtime, and hopefully the sweat from working would mask the cold sweat he was starting to break out into.

Tara didn't turn when they reached the door to the building, just unlocked it with her key and continued marching through. Roland paused for a moment as the thought of running flashed through his mind again, but in the end he resolved himself and followed her inside. When they reached another door, she finally stopped and turned to look at him.

"This is my office, you go in and seat yourself, I'm going to go grab some food for the both of us, we've got a fair bit to talk about" And with that she was gone down another corridor and he was left on his own. In the managerial building.

Afraid of someone coming down the corridor and asking him questions about what he was doing here, he opened the door and slipped inside. The first thing that struck him about the office was how orderly it was. Having been living in the barracks with about 20 other workers for the past 6 years a clean and orderly living environment was out of the question. But in this office everything was so uniform and pristine, Roland feared that if he breathed too hard he'd upset something from this delicate ecosystem of papers, documents and stationary.

*click* Roland's head swiveled around to the door as it swung open gently, and there stood Tara, arms crossed as she entered back into the room, unconsciously pressing her breasts upwards to Roland's view. However it wasn't her breasts that caught his attention, rather the two floating plates that followed her in. There was no helping the sense of wonder that bloomed in his heart at the sight before him. As a child he'd always hoped he'd awaken a class as a mage, but it wasn't to be it seems. The second thing that hit him was the smell, and immediately his mouth started to water and his stomach let out a growl.

The sound of his stomach growling caused Tara's smile to twitch, but she quickly schooled her features back into a business like façade. As she seated herself the plates floated down, so one of them was in front of the both of them. This was the first proper meal that Roland had even seen in over 6 years, and he found he couldn't tear his gaze away from it, while simultaneously he couldn't bring himself to believe that it wasn't some cruel joke.

"This is for me?" He asked, finally tearing his gaze away from the food. Tara's mouth was thin with displeasure, which made Roland afraid he'd made a misstep somewhere.

"Yes, that's for you. I'm going to have to see about trying to get better food for the workforce, it really does seem to be inadequate." She said, a sigh escaping her as she set her elbows down on the table.

"Eat up, we've got some things we need to talk about"


After absolutely devouring the food set out in front of him, and having the plates set to one side, they sat with one of them gazing contemplatingly at the other, while the other fidgeted. Roland was feeling more satisfied than he had been in years, but they intense searching gaze of Tara was putting him on edge. She seemed to be looking for something, but he really wasn't sure what. Just as he was about to open his mouth to ask her what it was exactly she wanted she spoke up.

"Back in the mess hall this morning, while I was being introduced, something happened." As these words left her mouth Roland's blood turned to ice in his veins. Oh god, this was it. He'd accidentally attacked a Royal Mage, sent straight from the capital. He was gonna be shipped off to some place that was worse than the Frontiers, or they were gonna use him for some secret sanction magical experiments, or...or...

"Calm down, Mr Imrem, you're not in any trouble. At least, not yet"

"I'm not?" Disbelief was clear in his voice. It was only a moment later that he realised how rude that might have seemed, but the mage didn't seem fazed by it.

"No Mr Imrem" she answered calmly, " However I do have a few questions that I'd like you to answer." As she said this she brought two things onto the table. One was a fairly innocuous notepad and pen combo, the other swept any doubt that he was in deep trouble out the door. The second thing she put up onto the table was a small, black sphere, seemingly made out of glass. However Roland had seen one of these once before, this was a truth stone.

"Has something like this ever happened to you before, Mr Imrem?" The first question was delivered calmly.

"N-no Ma'am" was his nervous response.

The stone glowed green.

She wrote something into the pad.

He felt a cold droplet of sweat drip further down his back.

"And do you know what happened to you this morning?"

"No Ma'am" he answered again, unsure where this line of questioning was leading him.

The stone glowed yellow.

She wrote something else into her notepad.

"Yellow means a partial truth, Mr Imrem, could you perhaps tell me what happened from your point of view?" As she asked this she sat forward a bit, her breasts resting on her crossed arms.

"I-I uh, I think I had a hallucination." As the words left his mouth she perked up, and her eyes sharpened. Whatever he had just said had drawn her interest more than anything else that had happened.

"I see." She wrote some more in her notepad after checking the stone again and finding it glowing green.

"Okay, from my perspective, you had what's known as an erratic mana event. Your mana spiked so aggressively it momentarily lit up the room for anyone capable of seeing mana, does this make sense so far?" She was now leaning quite far forward, interest evident across her face.

"But Miss, I'm no mage, what do you mean 'my mana'?" Roland was perplexed, but hope bloomed inside him that she had the wrong person, and that maybe he was also a victim of some attack.

"A common misconception, all living creatures have mana. Our souls generate it passively. The difference between a normal person and a mage is that a mage is able to actively draw on and shape their inner mana pools." when explaining this she took on the air of someone lecturing to their inferiors, something that started to slowly eat away at his fear and bring forth some inner anger. How dare she talk down to him?

"Now, a lot of things can cause erratic mana event, or an EME. Magical diseases, failed spells, magical attacks being rebuked, but all of these leave much more clear signs, and most of them cause quite severe damage and pain. I had to confirm that you hadn't launched a failed magical attack against me, but I didn't feel anything and I doubt my protective enchantments would have been able to deal with something that caused that intense of an EME. Which leaves with one other thing that causes EMEs, which you just confirmed for me by telling me about your hallucination." She leaned forward and locked eyes with him before she broke his entire reality with six simple words.

"Mr Imrem, you're getting a class."

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