MageCrafter - 30. Chapter 30

Kotik lay in bed next to a deeply slumbering Baldric unable to fall asleep. This was the first time they had ever stayed in his Lair overnight to sleep. The bed he was laying in was quite comfortable, and he liked feeling the warm secure feeling he had curled up against the calmly breathing older teen. The walls were blackened and light was blocked out of the room, making it nearly impossible for Kotik to see anything even with his Lynxian eyes. It was very quiet as well since the black misty walls were insulating the room from any sound outside of it.

Kotik breathed in deeply as he nuzzled himself into Baldric's side, hugging onto him slightly tighter. He couldn't help but smile at being so close to someone like this. He would have never dreamed of being able to do something like this before. It couldn't have been more than a week since he had met Lord Baldric, yet he was already so attached to him in a way he had never been before. His closeness with Baldric had even opened him up to the old man, which had allowed him to hug the older man the way he had when he had seen him at his late birthday party.

Kotik wondered how the old man was doing now as he pulled the blankets and comforters tighter around both him and Baldric. That pang of guilt from destroying his tavern in his rage knotted the lynxian's stomach up all over again. He didn't even get to see the old man leave. He had been too out of it after his fight with Babica Preja to even notice when The Old Man had left, but he had apparently left the lynxian a message that he had gone back to where he had come from to build up his finances again. He had added that he didn't want the Lynxian to worry about him, but that was easier said than done knowing he was responsible for why the man had ended up leaving.

Kotik wished he could fall asleep, but his mind was far too active for its own good right at this moment. Even with the most luxurious bedding and the comforting presence of Baldric beside him, he could not still his nerves enough to pass out. Lately he had been sleeping deeper than he had ever before, because Baldric, Raudh, or both would have sex with him until he passed out in a blissful climax. The young Lord had just wanted to cuddle with the Lynxian tonight however, which was delightful in its own way. However it left the Lynxian unable to rely on that lewd sleep aid he had come to rely on these past few days.

It wasn't that long ago when the lynxian used to sleep camouflaged in the trees. Campsites attracted too much attention in his experience. The second someone found a lynxian boy they didn't know alone in the woods, the questions of where his parents were and what he was doing would inevitably start piling up. It was easier to just clamber up high enough that a human or even most demi humans would have a hard time reaching him and then camouflage himself. Even during those times when he worked with adventurers to get higher bounties, he still kept himself out of reach when it was time to sleep.

Kotik pressed himself deeper into Baldric and pressed his ears against him to listen to his steady breathing as he slept. When had he started craving physical contact like this? It wasn't that long ago that he shied away from even The Old Man, yet he openly hugged him when his late birthday came up. His thoughts kept drifting back to that moment, replaying it in his mind. It had popped back up in his mind a number of times this night alone. That feeling of being cradled in the old man's arms and just appreciating the birthday party he had planned for him. He wasn't sure what to call this feeling. It hurt, and yet at the same time he wanted to keep imagining that moment as if that would somehow bring it back.

He wanted to see the Old Man again. It twisted him up inside just thinking about it in a way he had never experienced before. He wasn't even sure how to label this type of longing that he had to see him again, cause it didn't resemble how he felt towards Baldric. His life was simpler with The Old Man. He felt safer with him. There was a routine with him that just wasn't there with Baldric.

The older teen he was laying with in this quiet room within the lair was like nothing Kotik ever knew before. Every day he revealed new mysteries and discoveries, both within the lynxian and the world around him. The very idea of routine had been flung out the window since he had been given to Baldric as his Birthday present. The older teen was always working, always doing something, always cooking some scheme or plan behind the scenes. He thought so many steps ahead of everyone else in his life that Kotik found himself in awe of him more than once in these past few days.

The Old Man was the exact opposite. His consistency was unwavering. Kotik knew no matter what he was doing in the woods or what adventure he went on, The Old Man was going to be in the tavern ready to hear about his day when he got back. Sure he was gruff and he was prone to scolding Kotik about something he had been careless about, it was never lost on Kotik that it was done out of a sense of care for the Lynxian.

Now that he wasn't around, Kotik wished he had sat down and just talked with the old man more. He would love to sit down at the tavern across from the Old man and just tell him about everything he was feeling lately. He wanted to share how much he liked Baldric with him. He wanted to share his excitement about learning about magic, and how eager he was to actually start working with magic items despite how scary they were. He used to share what happened in his day even when nothing of note had really taken place, and now that he had all these things to talk about The Old man wasn't there anymore.

If Kotik was on his own, he would almost certainly try to find the Old Man. The old man had not left information where he had gone to, but Kotik was no stranger to tracking down targets. Though he had never taken a bounty for an outlaw on his own, he had occasionally done so with an adventuring group. He found he was exceptionally good at tracking people, in some ways even better than he was at tracking animals and monsters. Humans weren't as good at hiding their presence as a monster was sometimes.

That's not to say it would be easy to track the old man. He had taught Kotik a great many things during the time he knew him. Though the old man did not like to talk about his past much, it was clear he had been an adventurer with all his battle scars. It was the old man that had inspired him to look into adventuring, though he never spoke that highly of the profession. Still there was a mystique to it for the lad. These men and women who went out and dove into ancient dungeons and ruins and searched for long lost treasures from the Dark Age Wars.

Kotik had never been in a Dungeon before, but he heard they were filled with both treasures and horrors in equal measures. He wondered absent mindedly if The Old Man had ever battled a mimic before. Those things supposedly crawled all over the place in the depths of those abandoned ruins. Creatures that took the appearance of treasure chests, walls, doors, furniture, all manner of things. All in an effort to lie in wait to attack an unsuspecting adventurer looking for lost treasure. Knowing how skilled the Old Man was, it was practically impossible he hadn't delved into a dungeon or two in his youth. It had been a long standing rumor among the patrons of The Old Man's Tavern that the owner was secretly wealthy off of selling ancient magic items from one of those legendary dungeons.

Would he try to do that again in his old age? He did leave a message that he was going to go back to where he came from to build his wealth again. He could feel his fear and concern writhe within his body at the very thought. He wasn't a young man anymore, and Kotik could see The Old Man overestimating his abilities and getting himself into trouble. What if he got in trouble and nobody was there to help him? What if he died trying to get a new fortune, but nobody found him and Kotik never heard from him again?

Those fearful thoughts made him want to bolt out of bed and go out and look for the Old Man right there. If the Old Man was going to get himself in trouble then Kotik felt he should be there to help him. He was certainly strong enough to help the old man now. Whatever was in a dungeon couldn't possibly be as tough as Babica Preja, and Kotik killed her with his bare hands. Why didn't the old man just wait for Kotik to wake up? They could have gone on an adventure together to find those funds for his new Tavern.

Except he couldn't do that. Not only could he not go and search for the Old Man, he couldn't even leave the Lair right now. That was because he was under the accursed depths of the sea in the middle of Pantheon knows where. Remembering that soured his mood and flattened his ears almost immediately. He hated the very idea that outside the walls of this Lair was the suffocating ocean depths ready to choke the life out of him. Not only could the vile place kill him just on its own by choking him to death and flooding his lungs with its vileness, it housed a slew of horrors that would make the demons themselves tremble.

Kotik was growing restless now. This train of thought was not doing anything to lull him into sleeping. if anything it was waking him up even more with how agitated he was getting. He wanted to do something. If he was back in his tavern, Kotik would have left and gone hunting in the middle of the night to clear his head. Some of the best monsters came out at night, and he loved the challenge of finding a chimera or Gorgon when it was out hunting and turning the tables on the large creature. He couldn't even leave this temporary bedroom that he was in right now, much less the Lair that it resided in. Not with them being in the ocean like they were.

Kotik found himself getting out of bed due to the frustration that was broiling up inside of him. Normally when he had this much of a problem falling asleep he would go out and search for a tree to sleep in instead. Other times he would climb into some strange nook or shelf and sleep there instead. There was nothing in the room he could do that with right now. It was just black misty walls and the bed with Baldric.

Kotik was a hunter, and he often found comfort being in the tavern specifically because he could come and go whenever he wanted regardless of the time of day or night. He wasn't held captive by the Old Man. He wasn't forcibly indentured by him. He was someone that the Old Man offered a place to stay whenever he wanted, and gave him no judgment for choosing to go sleep in the woods instead for a couple nights a week. The fact that he didn't have that freedom to leave right now was bristling his fur on his tail and ears.

He didn't have that freedom with Baldric. Kotik didn't really have time to think about that while he had been on the Estate because so many new and amazing things were happening. Baldric was able to keep his mind occupied with all the new lessons and sensations. It helped that the Estate was so large as well. It was even bigger than the village he had been taken from, and everyone there had been friendly and welcoming.

His lack of freedom became much more striking with them being in the accursed ocean. Suddenly that huge estate with all the colorful characters and interesting things to learn about had turned into a single solitary room that was now beneath the depths of the ocean. He had nowhere to go and nothing to distract him. He didn't even have any wood to practice making a magic item with. Baldric was so careful to never give him access to wood, yet he kept talking about making Kotik into this powerful MageCrafter. When was he actually going to be able to try stuff on his own? When was he going to have time by himself again?

Kotik cared about Baldric and loved being around him, there was no doubt about that. However, even when he was on the estate he had the inkling that he could end up being able to leave and go off to hunt like he used to do. As long as he came back to Baldric he didn't think it would be a problem. Now that he was under the sea however, he was starting to wonder if he'd ever have time alone like that again. The prospect of not having the freedom to roam was agitating him greatly.

Kotik jolted when the wall and floor in front of him began to light up. For a brief second he looked around trying to find where the light was coming from, only to find that it was coming from him. He looked at his body and at his hands and found that his eyes and even his mouth was emitting a light as intense as a torch.

The lynxian winced and his ears flattened into his head as he felt an absolute deluge of emotions hitting him on all sides. He became aware of so many different people outside of the Lair with his emotion sensing abilities, far more than he had been aware of before this strange glow hit him. His hands raced up and cupped over his lynxian ears as he tried to protect his mind from the deluge of information. He could practically see them in his minds eye as dots of light going about their business.

He suddenly became aware that the Lair was inside of a building of some kind. A building in the shape of an enormous sphere, that had many smaller spheres underneath of it extending far below their location. Each sphere was practically packed with life, each of them working on various projects of some kind, though he couldn't tell what. They weren't just inside the spheres either. There were many individuals swimming and riding vehicles outside of them in the ocean around them, or traveling through a spiraling structure that was connected to everything all the way down to the ocean floor where there was even more people. This place was teeming with sentient life, and Kotik was feeling them all at the same time.

Another group that Kotik was growing much more aware of was the copies of Lord Baldric. They all felt like him, yet none of them were moving. They all seemed to be resting along side the Baldric in the bed. The Lynxian's eyes widened in alarm in just how many copies he was feeling at this moment. They were inside of the Lair itself. They were inside of each of the spheres and the spiraling structure connecting them together. They were outside in the ocean surrounding the buildings and mingling among the beings outside there with them. There was almost as many Baldrics as there were people in the area.

Kotik dropped to his knees and pressed his hands even harder over his ears to try and shield his mind's eye from this deluge of information. This wasn't like when he normally was able to sense emotions. This felt far more intense and invasive than what he was doing before. Normally he only could skim the surface of their emotions, but this was giving him so much information all at once that it was causing him a throbbing headache.

"Boy!" A voice boomed in Kotik's mind as an enormous presence came into his perception. "Cease your tantrum immediately!"

Kotik's lynxian ears trained towards where that presence was coming from. The voice was inside of his mind, but the presence of the being was far off in the distance. It was so much bigger and brighter than everything else in Kotik's emotional perceptions that it dimmed the thousands upon thousands of beings he had been sensing earlier. Within moments Kotik's minds eye was filled with the presence of this being. He was so much bigger than Kotik that it was unfathomable.

As this beings presence solidified in Kotik's minds eye, the lynxian soon realized who this person was. He had seen him once before in an illusion made by Baldric. He was a Gigantes, the child of a god, and he was impossibly huge to the point where Baldric could comfortably sit on the tip of one of this beings fingers. Not only was he huge, he held a massive amount of authority under the seas.

Even from that great distance away, Kotik could feel his eyes boring into him. The Lynxian could feel his emotions writhing even harder than before, and his eyes and mouth glowing even brighter than before as he stared into this beings eyes. Surprisingly the King of Triton seemed to sigh and calm down slightly as he saw the state Kotik was in. Before Kotik knew it, The gruff and angry sounding ruler began instructing him through gaining control over his emotions again. Soon the frantic surge of power subsided and the glowing from his eyes and mouth faded away, leaving him panting on the ground.

“This is unacceptable for a Vicar to have such little control over his domain!” The King seethed into Kotik’s mind, “What has that brat of an Emperor been doing with your studies. Clearly you are ill prepared for your duties!”

Kotik tried to get control of his throat. He was still reeling over the deluge of information he had received earlier and now the overwhelming presence in his mind right now. This being was so much older than he was that it boggled his mind. The way his emotions felt was practically alien to Kotik with how tempered with age they were. He settled on trying to talk with his mind instead.

‘I’ve been learning f-from a Barbarian…” Kotik sent to the being in his mind. King Morcant immediately scoffed and waved the very idea off.

“You are far beyond what a mere barbarian can teach you boy. Especially a novice one if I’m reading this red headed human correctly. No, from this moment on you will be training under me. I will not have someone as powerful as you flying out of control all the time within the borders of my nation!”

Kotik bristled at that, “N-No way! I’m not going out there!”

Kotik yelped as King Morcant grew much more forceful in his mind. He could practically feel the Gigantes snarl at him.

“Don’t think I am unaware of your prejudice against the sea, boy. You really are Cernunnos’s boy to have such a distaste for the realms of water.”

“Cernunnos? What are you talking about?” Kotik asked before pressing on, “And I’m under Baldric, not you! You can’t enslave me!” Kotik was standing up now and his eyes were blazing with power all over again as he stared into the projection of Morcant's eyes. To an outside observer he was just looking at a wall, but to Kotik he was squaring himself up in front of the Undersea king and getting ready to throw a punch right at his bearded face.

“What in Muirren’s name are you on about, you brat?! If you weren’t so tiny I’d bend you over one of my tentacles and swat some discipline into you boy!”

“Try it Squidface!” Kotik Roared back with his teeth showing. He was trembling with rage glaring up at the impossibly enormous figure. He practically felt like he was in the same room as him right now, even though they were communicating with their thoughts.

“Squidface!? Squidface!? Boy do you know who you are talking to right now?!”

“Yeah! I’m talking to another Slaver who wants to control every aspect of my life instead of leaving me alone! That’s all any of you people ever want! All you people want to do is control me! To tell me what to do! To tell me where to go! I’m sick of it! I’ve been clawing for my freedom all my life and you people just never let up! Get out of my head and go spray some ink or whatever the hell it is you do!”

“Say that to my face boy!”

“Maybe I will!”

The two stared each other down for several tense moments before the king started chuckling, much to the Lynxians surprise.

“I will give you one thing brat, you have more of a spine than our Emperor when it comes to Gigantes. I suppose that makes sense, since you’re one yourself.”

That floored Kotik, but he found the will to respond after a brief pause. “Wait I’m a what? I thought they said I was giant blooded.”

“You are far more than just Giant blooded, Brat. You are at the center of a lot of deities plans and have far more responsibilities on your shoulders than you are aware of. Clearly the Emperor has been coddling you with your lessons far too much. If you want to learn of your true heritage and claim the throne rightfully due to you, you are going to need to get over your poultry misgivings of the seas and learn from someone who actually knows how to train you. Or are you content to hide in that Lair like a frightened little kitty cat?”

Kotik Snarled at that insult, his irises contracting even through the glow. “You know what? Sure, I’ll meet you in person! Normally I’d avoid your godsforsaken depths like a plague, but for you I’ll make an exception!” Kotik shoved a finger forward and continued his verbal onslaught, “ You are going to tell me what I want to know, and If you don’t answer my questions I’ll drag your over-sized ass onto a beach somewhere so you can flop around and dry up!”

“I’d like to see you try brat!” Morcant countered before sneering at Kotik, “Still, maybe you are good for the little Emperor after all! He could use someone with a backbone like yours! I’ll be waiting boy!”