Chapter 30 The Last Requirement
Chapter 30 The Last Requirement
When the Keeper didn’t say more than the two words to affirm that he knew Jorren’s father, Jorren didn’t push it. He didn’t see the need to. He decided to leave the Keeper to keep control of the chess piece. If there was something he wasnt’ telling him, he probably had his reasons.
The Keeper rose up from the small stool, carrying the hand concrete mortal with him as he headed for the workbench.
“Now, you’re close to making your third ascension. However, I need you to acquire one more thing.”
Jorren didn’t speak. He simply spun in his stool, his eyes following the Keeper as he pulled out an old scroll from the shelves behind him.
“You will need to find the dormant soulwell,” the Keeper turned to Jorren and pushed the hand mortar to the side, before spreading the old scroll. “It’s one of the oldest Soulwells in the city of Vashen, but the system stopped using it.”
“Why?”
The Keeper looked up from the scroll to look at Jorren. “At some point, the location around the soulwell became too difficult for practitioners to access. Practitioners reported encountering problems with their soul whenever they visited. Some of the guards who walked with the grand evaulator at the time almost had his soul fractureed, hence the name of the location.”
“Which is?” Jorren asked.
“The shattered fields,” the Keeper’s gaze went back to the map. “I have already designed that you won’t go alone. Devan knows about the mission, so he would be joining you. I do not understand why he is yet to arrive.”
“Davan Rell is reckless with everything. Including time.”
“Davan Rell can be reckless,” the Keeper corrected. “But when he sees serious business, he means it. How did you think he was able to become so exceptional.”
“I don’t know,” Jorren said with a question inflection. “His soul structure, maybe.”
“Davan Rell is not the only one in tier five,” the Keeper said. “Yet in the last three years, the young man has performed in outstanding manners that it would be easy for someone to assume at a glance that he was tier six.”
The door to the main entrance flung open and Davan walked in like he owned the room, his white pristine as Jorren know it to be. Jorren wasn’t surprised though. He knew Davan Rell acted like his reputation depended on how clean the white was. If the cloth was clean now, then it was the Davan doing. He won’t be surprised if he heard that Davan used magic to clean his clothes up.
He walked to the work bench and stood beside the table, his eyes on the Keeper. “I apologize. I did have some hitches on my way to this place. Shall we get this over with, or do I need to babysit someone?”
“Actually, no one is goig to be babysitting anyone,” the Keeper said. “I just want to ensure the integrity of the test, hence the need for two people to enter the shattered fields.”
“Oh,” Davan shook his head. “I didn’t realize I was doing body doublling.”
“No, you’re not,” the Keeper said, his voice a low growl. “The shattered field has not been visited in the last seventy years. By right of authority, I should visit the dormant soulwell first. But you need to train and Jorren is way behind on the preparation for his third ascension. We do not have time.”
Davan wanted to retort, but held his tongue. If the Keeper said it, then they had better left it that way. He should probably focus on getting over this mission and heading over to other things.
Jorren, on the other hand didn’t speak. He didn’t like to make much input when men like Davan was in the same room as him. He felt that Davan was struggling to prove nothing to no one, and that was the least of his concerns. His biggest goal was growing to a point where the system now depends on him, and not the other way round.
“You might want to avoid going through the lower tier two,” the Keeper continued. “It’s closer, but it puts you at risk of being suspected by certian vendors in the black market. You should use the narrow way close to the tier five cliff. That’s where your major job comes in, Davan Rell.”
“Well, if we are done with the tutorials already,” Davan complained. “I’d like to get this over with.”
Jorren was already shrugging on his coat, before safely tucking the codex away, Davan obliivious to his actions. He headed to the main door, stopping a few inches away from it and crossing his arms.
When the Keeper said nothing else, Davan Rell headed towards the door and through it without sparing Jorren a second glance.When Jorren glanced in the Keeper’s direction, his gaze had gone back to the content he was grinding in the hand concrete mortar.
He shrugged, opened the door, and walked out into the afternoon snow behind Davan.
On their way, neither Jorren nor Davan spoke with each other. The silence between them was thick and solemn until they approached the tier five ecosystem. Davan was the first person to break the silence between them.
“I hope you’re aware that this is a high risk mission,” he started. “Which means we have to be quick. We get in there, get what we want, and get out.”
Jorren didn’t reply. He heard him loud and clear.
“Just to be clear, we are talking about the shattered fields here,” he continued. “Standard practitioners lose their power here. For someone like you with a fractured soul, I don’t want to even begin to imagine what would—”
“You didn’t want to babysit anyone,” Jorren stopped him.
He glanced at Jorren. “I’m not babysitting anyone. I’m ensuring that both of us come to a common place of understanding.”
Jorren hesitated. “That sounds like glorified babysitting to me.”
“Are you a baby?”
“When you warned about not wanting to babysit me, I’m sure that was not quite the question you considered.”
Davan held back a growl.