The Roaming Mage (1/4)

It's a slow afternoon for Haalfrin as he trudges down Brandsdale road. Haalfrin is on his way back from visiting the archmage's tower for nostalgia's sake.

When Haalfrin went there, he fully expected to feel emotional or touched; he has so many fond memories in that tower with his master.

'Yeah… It didn't really do anything for me. I at least expected to feel SOMETHING, right?' Maybe it's because the town looks so different after nearly a thousand years that he can't even connect what he was seeing with what he remembers. Even the archmage's tower isn't there anymore.

Before Brandsdale, Haalfrin had visited Barony Borin, but he learned that the place doesn't even exist anymore. The Alastan borders had shrunk over the years, and this barony had long since been wiped out by the neighboring Gorima nation.

Even before Borin, Haalfrin went and visited Greenstone. That place had grown into a sprawling city and been renamed New Sandria.

Maybe… it's feeling that he has nowhere left in this world that's making Haalfrin numb to feeling. For a social and sentimental man like Haalfrin, being in a world where you don't know anyone feels chilling.

---------------------

While Haalfrin is walking away from Brandsdale with these empty thoughts, he senses several presences start surrounding him. He reaches out with his spirit magic, and when his Spirit Threads touch the spirits of the men around him, he feels the greed in their hearts.

'I guess I'm being robbed. Whatever. Let's get this over with.'

"Bro… I see 33 of them. Can I keep their skins? Their tattoos look really cool," Dakka's voice asks in Haalfrin's mind.

Of course, Dakka had long since woken up in the ax again, and he'd pestered Haalfrin every now and then with weird requests like this.

Ever since the dragon spirit woke up again, he'd insisted on being allowed to roam freely. Dakka was still a relatively young dragon when he died, so he's still quite adventurous. Once Haalfrin gave his permission the first time, the dragon bone ax was hardly ever on his hip anymore, and was instead floating high in the sky, following vaguely after him.

So, if these bandits had seen a dragon bone ax on his waste, they probably wouldn't have bothered attacking him. The thing leaks so much heat and mana that even magicless people can feel how dangerous it is.

"No. Don't skin them. They're just bandits. I'll kill them if they cross the line." For obvious reasons, Haalfrin doesn't think there's anything particularly wrong with being a bandit… so long as you don't get in his way, that is.

"Aw…," comes Dakka's disappointed voice. "Fine. I'm back to exploring the clouds."

Haalfrin continues walking down the road for a good minute – waiting for the thieves to completely encircle him. 'They seem practiced in setting up ambushes…,' Haalfrin notes.

Finally, when Haalfrin feels their bloodlust reach its peak, he stops in his tracks and looks at in the direction where he knows the thieves are. "I know you're there. Just come out already."

Immediately, a single brawny man steps out. The man has tanned skin and he's carrying a heavy cudgel over his shoulder. The man then steps toward Haalfrin and stares him down. "You know the procedure, right?" the man asks. "Put your hands in the air, and I'll search you myself. Then, you'll stand there quietly and let me take your coin purse."

Haalfrin was going to slice the man's head off the moment he stepped out of the bushes. However, when he sees the man's tattoos, he calms down and decides to not be so hasty with killing people.

"Are those Kareen tattoos?" Haalfrin asks casually while he raises his hands up high.

"Yeah. Since you know of us, you'll realize that we won't touch you if you cooperate."

Haalfrin rolls his eyes and snorts sarcastically, "Well, I don't carry money with my anyway, so I don't have anything to lose by letting you search me."

"Nonsense. You don't look like a beggar."

Haalfrin shrugs. "Check for yourself."

…

While the raider is patting Haalfrin down, the man in question is looking around. Then, he suddenly asks the bandit, "What about the rest of your friends? You have plenty of them still hiding."

The raider is in the middle of turning Haalfrin's pockets inside out when he hears this question. "Oh, they're all waiting to pepper you with arrows, should you step out of line."

"One other question. I thought Kareen were black skinned? You guys almost look like natives here."

The Raider reels back and tilts an eyebrow down in puzzlement. "Where'd you get that idea?"

Haalfrin doesn't answer. Instead, he looks up and thinks, 'Well, the Kareen were originally exiles from the continent to the south. I guess with their descendants being so far north for so long, they must've interbred with the locals so much that they don't look Kareen anymore.'

While Haalfrin is contemplating this, the raider steps back and sighs with disappointment. "Oi!" he calls loudly to his men hiding in the forest. "This one's a dud! Let's go back home!"

All the hidden archers shuffle out of the trees and bushes with their heads hanging down in disappointment.

With Haalfrin alone in the forest, he once again makes his way down the road. 'Huh,' he thinks despondently when he looks up, 'It looks like rain. I don't want to get wet…'

'Whatever.' With nowhere to stay, the man pushes onward – not even bothering to look for an inn, due to his lack of money.

---------------------

Just as the sun is starting to set, Haalfrin finds a small village on the side of the road. 'This place is as good as any to rest for the night.'

He doesn't want to sit in front of someone's house, so he picks the most rundown building here, since he assumes that a house with tattered windows and holes in the ceiling must be abandoned.

However, just before he walks inside the rundown building, he feels two spirit golden spirits inside. 'Huh. I guess someone lives here - a mother and son, from what I can tell...'

'Eh... There's nowhere else to sleep tonight, and I don't feel like sleeping in the house of what I assume is a married woman...'

And so, once he gets to the abandoned building, he plops his butt on the floor and leans against the wall below one of the broken windows. He then erects a small barrier spell to keep the rain from falling on himself. He also makes sure to leave a few gaps at the bottom of the barrier to let fresh air in.

Of course, Haalfrin had to wait until he wasn't moving anymore for him to set the barrier up, since barrier spells can't move.

Once Haalfrin has stopped the rain from falling on himself, he sits cross-legged, and he starts pulling mana out of his soul and converting it into heat. "Ah. That's warm," he mumbles under his breath.

Now that the man is sort of comfortable, he leans back and starts nodding off to sleep.

---------------------

"Excuse me!? Sir!" comes a strange woman's call.

Haalfrin snorts awake. 'Who's that? Who's calling me?'

He turns his head upward, and he sees a young woman with brown hair and brown eyes poking her head out of her window and looking down at him. She must've noticed that a stranger was sleeping against her house. See? She even has a knife in her hand.

'Huh? Someone lives here? Oh yeah. someone lives here. Anyway, I can't blame her for being cautious.'

"Don't mind me, ma'am," Haalfrin calls up to her. He then points up at his barrier. "It takes less mana to keep the shield up if I have something to lean against."

This much is true. He can afford to keep the barrier smaller if he has a wall covering his back.

The woman doesn't quite understand his point; what she DOES understand is that this strange person is a mage.

Instantly feeling a little terrified, the woman looks away from him nervously and asks, "S-s-so are you needing a roof for the night?"

In the woman's mind, a mage could certainly force his way into her home if he wanted to. In that case, it's better to be as amicable as possible.

"No thanks. I'm fine right here." Without even being bothered about this awkward conversation, Haalfrin tightens his cloak even more and starts drifting off to sleep.

Before Haalfrin's mind completely shuts down for the day, he hears the window above him creak again, and he looks up.

There, he can see that the woman is holding a blanket out for him. "Take it," she says quickly before dropping the thing on his barrier and darting back inside.

'…I don't know how to feel about this…' Even still, Haalfrin makes a small hole in his barrier and pulls the blanket through. 'I don't want it to get wet. I can thank this lady later.'

Feeling truly exhausted at this point, Haalfrin finally gets to nod off in peace.

---------------------

Early the next morning, Haalfrin is woken up by his nose. 'What's that smell? It smells good.' Out of instinct, Haalfrin instantly loses the grogginess in his mind out of interest.

Opening his eyes, Haalfrin sees the woman from before holding out a small napkin with a pair of boiled eggs nestled inside, as well as a steaming hot biscuit.

"I'm sorry there's so little food," the brown haired lady says with an embarrassed look. Now that he has a clearer look of her face, Haalfrin has to admit that she's more attractive than most of women he's known, though not as pretty as Freyya.

(… To be fair, all you have to do is have smooth skin and to not be fat for Haalfrin to consider you attractive.)

The biscuit DOES smell really nice, plus he is feeling hungry… 'However, it feels weird just accepting food from people. I don't know why. It's just weird. But… it would also feel wrong to turn someone down when they're being nice enough to offer food and lend a blanket.'

So, Haalfrin takes the food and nods his head. "Thank you."

As soon as Haalfrin finishes his breakfast he stands up and calls into he house, "Ma'am! Do you keep any tools here – things like hammers, axes, nails, and saws?"

"Why do you ask?" the lady calls over to him.

Haalfrin points to her roof. "That thing need to be fixed."

The woman looks down and says quietly, "No. I can't trouble you. That's too much for a single meal."

Haalfrin shrugs. "I'm a mage. It'll be done in an hour at most. That's probably how long it took you to make those biscuits anyway."

The lady concedes the point. "Fine. My husband used to keep them out in the shed attached to the backside of the house."

She puts on her thin jacket and shows Haalfrin to the shed behind her house. On their way over, Haalfrin asks, "Where's your husband?"

The lady looks down sadly. "He died from a bandit attack about 4 years ago."

Haalfrin takes a good look at her. "You only look about 18 or 20 years old at most."

The woman goes a little red at this. "Yeah… We got married as soon as I came of age. He died that very summer."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Oh, it's fine," the woman says as she opens the shed door. "At least he left behind Kamyan. He's my pride and joy." She gestures to her house. "He's sick right now, so I'm sorry I couldn't introduce you to him."

Haalfrin quickly uses his Spirit Sight, and he sees another golden colored spirit inside. "I see. I never caught your name. I'm Haalfrin."

"I'm Tanya."

Once Haalfrin is inside the shed, he finds that there's hardly anything in here. At most, there's a few baskets full of random supplies, as well as a rusty hammer, a small hoe, as well as a handsaw. No nails?

'No nails? Crap.' Just barely, Haalfrin starts realize that he may have just volunteered to do something that he's not prepared to do. 'How am I supposed to fix the roof? I thought I could just slap a few boards on it and nail them down.'

Suddenly feeling a little ashamed of himself, Haalfrin walks out of the shed and climbs onto the roof – all to take a better look at what he's going to be fixing.

'Wow. This is worse than I thought. Where am I going to get the boards for this? Do I know how to make boards? Will that small saw even hold out?'

When Tanya sees Haalfrin standing on her roof and staring at the holes she quietly says, "Um… Sir… You don't have to do this." She can clearly tell that the man doesn't know how to fix a roof. In her mind, a mage probably has bigger things to worry about than doing a common craftsman's job.

"It's fine, it's fine," Haalfrin waves her off. "I'll figure it out."