Learning miracles and Tom’s departure
2 days after the start of the surveillance programme I was able to figure the people at the table were executives or such at a gang, though the identity of the gang boss remained a mystery. Right now however I was in the main hall of the church waiting for the arrival of a priestess.
Soon the woman I was waiting for had arrived, Wynne. She was an old woman, so old in fact that it looked she had both feet in the ground and could pass away any second now. Walking alongside her was Mr Dolson. She had been the one that originally taught me miracles, at his request.
Seeing me standing there she had a smile on her wrinkled old face, “there you are young man, as I recall last time you didn’t have any interest in miracles, what changed your mind now?”
“Ah, t-“before I could speak Mr Dolson interrupted me “Sister Wynne I don’t think now is the time.” Giving a somewhat puzzled look at Mr Dolson she replied with “If you say so, Doly boy” taking my hand she took me to a side room used by various church officials when they stayed at the church.
Putting her overcoat on the coat hanger in the room she sat on the bed, “that’s better, now let’s get on with business.”, over the course of the next 2 hours she taught me the prayers for, summoning a light source, purging curses, and an offensive miracle, holy bolt. Along with helping me cast them and give me some tips on casting miracles. “Some miracles are universal such as holy bolt ,while others are done by different denominations using different prayers. However, no matter the miracle casted there are 2 things that determine the nature of their effects, the god worshipped, i.e. their holy power and the interpretation of the doctrine by the caster.” Saying this she looked at me and smiled “if you want to learn miracles, not superficially but truly learn them you have to understand the doctrine and not just have a superficial understanding but a deep one. Now enough about work; what is going on your life little man.”
Seeing her not having any more interest in teaching we moved onto more mundane topics, like her and my favourite foods, our favourite places to visit in the town, etc. over the course of the conversation we ended up shifting the conversation to her life, what she did in her free time, how she missed her long dead fiancé and her regrets in life “the only thing that I do regret is not marrying Dolly boy when I had the chance.” Seeing me curious she carried on with a nostalgic smile.
“I might not look it but I am only 10 years older than Dolson, ah you might be thinking how come he looks like he’s middle aged but I am on my deathbed, well that will have to do with his half-elf body. It was about 60 years ago, that I had lost my fiancé at that time; I was travelling in an adventure party and Frank, my fiancé died in a bandit attack. Don’t give that look young man that was a long time ago, as I was saying; after that I was a mess, I could not function properly. Sometime later I happened to see one of my juniors from the holy city as an adventurer, one thing lead to another and he joined our party.” Her eyes that were earlier filled melancholy seemed to gain a lot of spirit as she continued.
“Over the course of next 2 years or so I began to fall for him and he for me. Life was colorfull again, but in the 3rd year of him joining the party on Frank’s death anniversary, I went to his grave and what I felt there terrified me. I felt little pain over his lose, and that scared me, I was terrified; terrified of forgetting him. I quit the party shortly after and returned to the capital, my hometown.”
“I regret feeling that I was forgetting him, I had not forgotten him, just healed. I regret not going to meet Dolson once I realised that, I regret feeling guilty for not explaining why I left and for not conveying my feelings when we met again.”
Turning her head towards me she said in warm and affectionate tone “Child, to live a life free of regrets is impossible, what we can only do is live in the moment and act as ourselves.”
Ms Wynne stayed the night at the church playing with the kids in the evening, helping around with dinner and putting the kids to bed. She left the next morning after giving each of us a hug, looking at her back as she boarded a carriage and left I felt a lot of emotions that I couldn’t explain, melancholy, grief, sympathy, maybe all, maybe none.
Over the course of the next month I had spent a lot of time reading the testament of the moon, especially those that related to the miracles that Ms Wynne had taught me. In this time I had managed to be able to cast miracles instantly, leaving the 3 priest in church in absolute disbelief, after all the time to learn to cast even a single miracle instantly is calculated in years, though it does become faster with each miracle that you are able to be casted instantly.
Though I would like to say that this is all because of my talent, I knew better. There was a certain outside force influencing my speed of learning, at first I thought it was the Blessing but asking Mr Dolson dispelled my idea, the blessing only removed the need for holy power and reduced the threshold of belief, making it easier to learn them but provided little help in mastering them.
Upon further investigation it would appear that the only feasible reason that remained was my understanding of the doctrine, this however was earlier dismissed because according to Mr Dolson [deep understanding] is different than normal understanding. While normal understanding involves the mind and thought, [deep understanding] involves the soul.
Though none of that mattered right now as it was Tom’s 15th birthday; causing the entire mood in the church to be weird. The church didn’t celebrate birthdays except for the 12th and 15th causing the all kids to be very excited for a birthday party and be sad at the same time, as Tom was going to be leaving.
Where was I in all of this, I was busy getting the party supplies, the cake and bread for tonight’s dinner. Getting the party supplies at a general goods store I went to the towns tanner to get parchment, in this city parchment was cheaper than paper, by a narrow margin. Primarily because trees that are used to make paper cannot be grown here, along with paper not providing enough of a profit margin for businesses to import it in bulk.
Buying a hundred sheets of parchment for 5 silver plates that was cut into a size corresponding to A4 size paper. ‘Surveillance takes more money than I thought, I’ll have to increase the number requests that I take’ thinking about the worsening condition of my finances, I went to the final stop on my little shopping trip the bakery.
Entering the shop there was quite a few people in there, one of them being the waitress of the resting road. ‘Tom probably got introduced to this place via his apprenticeship.’ Seeing me in the shop the waitress gave me a polite greeting and carried on with her shopping, since I already knew what I wanted to get I grabbed a basket of the shelves, got the wheat bread Tom wanted and then made my way to the counter.
“Excuse me; I am here to pick up a cake under the name of Tom Inero.” (Tom’s chosen last name)
“Please, wait a moment” with that she went back and came back with a cake. “Here it is, would you like anything else?”
“Just this cake and these loafs.”
“Certainly, that would be 38 copper plates” handing her 4 silver coins, she handed me back 2 copper plates, after that I left the store and carried on back home. Reaching home I could see Harold and Joel putting up decorations while the younger kids played around.
Searching around for Tom around for Tom I managed to find him cooking up a storm in the kitchen looking extra peppy, with Henry, Jill and Sally looking haggard as they were busy cleaning the dishes or peeling vegetables.
Deciding that escaping would be the best course of action, I hurried on back to living room and entertained the little kids, using the light miracle to conjure up some butterflies and rabbits for them to enjoy, similar to the performer at the festival.
Soon it was time for dinner and it was there that Tom’s time in the apprenticeship really shinned, there about 5 different types of entrees, 3 courses of mains, 4 different kinds of disserts and much more. After the scrumptious menu it was time for his birthday cake, with was apparently made with a fruit that tasted similar to blue berries.
After that the rest of the day was spent with Mr Dolson recounting stories about Tom, with Harold, Henry and I chiming in every now and then, after which were the presents, most of which were cards made by the younglings for Tom, and with Henry, Sally and Jill giving him an apron. While Joel gave him some hand-woven oven mitts and Harold gave him a bracelet and a letter.
On My turn I gave him a Chef’s knife that I had ordered about 3 months ago and had cost me over 3 silver plates. Apparently it had black-iron in it, a kind of magic metal making it almost completely rust proof and making it retain its edge longer.
Mr Dolson on the other hand gave him a letter along with a book with instructions to them after reaching his new home.
The next morning, just slightly after dawn the whole church waved Tom goodbye as he packed up his bags and left to find his place in this world.
fin
