bantayden Book 4 Hey Listen!
Book 4 Hey Listen!
Chapter 4
Their next mission didn’t begin with blood or fire but with the chiming of bells, delicate notes echoing through the volcanic streets as Alex and the others followed their escort into one of Athrastas’ merchant districts. The air, as was typical for the city, was thick with the scents of ash and molten stone, but here on this carved street winding through a cliffside plaza it was tempered by something else entirely. There was the sharp tang of heated sand and powdered minerals.
They had arrived at the Glassworks.
The building was a modest complex with its upper levels stacked with blackened bricks and copper inlays. Its lower windows glowed faintly with red-gold light from the furnaces inside. Despite the heat, workers bustled back and forth quickly, carefully lifting crates and carrying sheets of straw and paper. A few stopped and bowed briefly toward Lady Xhiu’s crest that was embroidered on their sleeves before returning to their labor.
The heat inside was oppressive, but the space itself was mesmerizing. Long benches of enchanted crystal tubes, runed crucibles, and sand vats filled the chamber all around them. The main furnace belched tongues of orange and green flame bent across tools etched with glyphs that shimmered as they etched designs into works of art. Many of the runic lines running in and out of the structures, deeper than the eye could follow.
It was beautiful to see such craft refined into artistry.
“Welcome, honored guests,” came a voice from behind.
Alex turned to see the merchant himself approaching. He was a stout man with a short white beard, his hair had gone silver but his steps were still lively and brisk. His robe was simple, patched in places, though the ring on his finger shone with a aether enchantment. He bowed, not too deeply, more like a man greeting equals.
“My name is Master Alven,” he said warmly. “The glassworks have been in my family for three generations now. I thank you for agreeing to safeguard our honor and our wares.”
He gestured, and three figures stepped forward.
Two men and one woman. All were broad-shouldered, dark-haired, and their tusks small but unmistakable, jutting faintly from the corners of their jaws. They were Half-Orks.
Alex blinked but said nothing, masking his reaction with a polite nod. Back on Terraxum, half-bloods had always been a point of tension—soldiers muttered, and the few who served did so under suspicious eyes. But here? No one seemed to bat an eye. The workers didn’t whisper insults, and the guards didn’t sneer when the half-orks walked by.
Alex could understand why immediately. Even with Alven being a human, the family resemblance was undeniable. They were simply Alven’s children, standing tall beside their father.
“Meet Tareg, Veyra, and Jorik,” Alven said proudly. “My heart, my hands, and my legacy, so to speak. They will be overseeing the finishing touches on the wares and direct the loading.”
The three of them nodded respectfully. Jorik, the largest of the two sons, even offered Alex a firm handshake. When he accepted, Alex felt his grip like stone. He was a rather strong figure, perhaps his strength as high as twenty-five. Meanwhile Veyra shot him a suspicious, appraising look, as if testing whether he judged them in some way.
Alex only smiled faintly, shaking his head. “You’ve got a good team. Let’s get your goods moving.”
While Garret, Henry, and Kate supervised the caravan guards, Alex wandered near the furnaces, curiosity tugging at him. The children worked deftly, lifting trays of cooling glass, sliding rods into racks, or inspecting enchantment marks before wrapping each in straw padded crates.
It was the process that held Alex’s attention.
With [Aether Sight] active, the world bled into energy patterns. He watched as Tareg dipped a rod into powdered crystal, then traced it with a thin etching tool. Runes glowed, threading through the molten shape like veins of light. At the same time, Fire-aether currents wove into the structure from the furnace, binding it with Earth-aether traces, and stabilizing them. When that was done, the man handed the still molten piece off to his sister. Veyra bent the glass into a spiral ornament. Alex saw the heat itself guided by invisible channels of mana, flame drawn not just from the furnace but shaped through the mage herself.
Alex watched, drinking it in. It was captivating to see skilled crafters in the middle of their works.
“Never thought glass could be magic,” Garret muttered from behind him. He too was watching one of the ornaments glow as if filled with sunlight.
Alex smiled faintly. “It’s not just glass. It’s also an enchantment method. They’re writing with different filements, each containing different… flavors of aether. The internal structure has lines that channel aether flow. Its all built in during the creation process.”
Obby stirred in his mind. “Good. You’re starting to see things more clearly. Glyphcraft isn’t lesser than combat magic by any means. Enchantment is how civilizations progress and industrialize. As I’m sure you’ve figured out already, its basically you technology from back home. But now you can see just how complicated the craft can be. Not just scribbling drawings on an item.”
The thought left Alex strangely humbled. He’d always measured strength in fights won and levels gained. How much experience he had gained, or how many stats points he had. But here, in this sweltering hall, he saw another kind of power built into every etched rune and hardened glasspane. He saw them doing to the glass almost exactly what he did to his body. Writing aether instructions directly into the muscles and flesh to make it stronger.
He continued watching them as they finished off the last few pieces and set them to cool. It wasn’t too long at all, but time still waited for no one.
The crates were loaded by the time the sun began to lower across Athrastas’s rim, and caravan wagons were stacked with fragile goods wrapped in straw and sealing wards. The mission itself would begin with their departure.
Still, Alex lingered by the furnace one last time, watching what was once a rod cool into a flawless sphere, glyphs shimmering faintly across its surface.
Glass and flame. Fragile, yet unyielding.
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He wondered if there was a lesson in that.
The wagons rolled out soon after, wheels creaking over the black stone roads that wound away from Athrastas’s volcanic heights. Smoke still rose faintly from the mountain above, and Alex cast a look at the floating ships coming in to dock, before the city fell behind them, swallowed by cliffs and ash plains.
Escort duty.
Normally, he would’ve hated a mission like this. These jobs were always long hours of walking beside wagons, waiting for the inevitable bandits, beasts, or worse to appear. All the while, your escort charges would do their very best to get themselves killed, or lost, or stuck in the most ridiculous of places. But this time, he didn’t mind.
Four hundred merit points. He reminded himself.
No one liked escort missions. Which meat no one wanted to do this one either, at least not for low pay. But an Empire and its economy relied on trade and commerce as much as a body relied on bloodflow. Urhara couldn’t let its many merchants and crafters sit with no way to safely move its goods. And wasting military power on such tasks was not the answer.
Instead, they increased the merit reward for doing the jobs that people didn’t want to do. The more hated the hob, the higher the reward, to a degree.
So yes, an escort missions sucked. But it was lucrative, which is why Alex and the others accepted it.
The caravan moved at a consistent pace. Master Alven’s children took the reins of the lead wagons while the “hired guards” patrolled the flanks. Alex and the squad spread themselves evenly, each watching a different approach path towards the wagon that might look like a viable ambush point.
Alex himself settled on the back of one of the lead wagons. The planks were rough and itchy under him, his legs dangling as the wheels jostled along. All the while the crates inside clinked softly with every bump, muffled by wards and padding.
Perfect time to think.
He drew a small slate from his pack and let his finger trace idle glyphs across it, watching the sparks of [Aether Sight] form and fizzle out. Lately his mind had been a storm of half-finished ideas; glyphsigil chains that had collapsed for one reason or another that he wanted to fix, or amplifiers that burned out too quickly and needed tweaking in various designs. Some were constructs that demanded more aether energy for their use than his paltry core-less pool could feed. He could almost see the improvements in each design as he worked, taste them on the edge of his tongue. But despite Obby’s help and knowledge, things were not so easy. Every time he reached for a fix in his mind, the solution skittered away like smoke.
Still, even failed glyphs were steps forward.
“Not bad form,” came a voice from his side.
Jorik leaned against the seat beside him, reins loose in one hand as his oxen pulled the wagon along. His short tusks caught the sunlight faintly to show him an easy grin. “You’ve got a good curve to your flowsigils. Too many novices make everything rigid and force the energy where it doesn’t want to go. But you…” He tapped the slate with one thick finger. “You let it follow a more natural path. That’s an important lesson to learn.”
Alex raised a brow. “You’re an enchanter too?” He had seen Tareg and Veyra at work, so he knew they would enchanters for sure. But he hadn’t seen Jorik do more than handle the forges and the bare materials.
“Of course.” Jorik’s grin widened and his voice changed as he seemed to emulate and old man reciting a mantra. “Glasswork isn’t just shaping molten sand. It’s weaving flame and earth until they sing together. Glyphs are how you tell the song what tune to play.” He laughed and waved a hand. “That’s what father says anyway. I just really love getting to work with my hands. And the enchanting is a puzzle to solve with it. It’s fun.”
Alex was starting to like Jorik already.
Devon perked up from the other wagon, scooting closer until he was practically hanging over the rail. “Wait, you actually etch functional arrays into the glass itself? How do you keep the mana channels from fracturing when the glass cools? Every time I tried, the whole thing cracked.”
Jorik chuckled. “You’re forcing it to accept lines in an unnatural state. Think of it like… tattooing. You write the glyph while the glass is hot but with its future cooling and shrinking in mind. Like stretching a hide to tan and mark it, you need to think about how the leather will look off the rack. Same with the aether lines.”
Devon’s eyes lit up like a kid at a science fair. “Alive glass as a changing medium. That’s brilliant! Alex, did you hear that?”
“I heard,” Alex said with a faint smile, though his mind was already racing with his own ideas. He had run into a similar problem himself when developing his body enchantments. His skin was a stable surface for his glyphwork, so he had to adapt on the fly as he drew them.
But if he took what Jorik said at face value. He should be designing the enchantments for how the lines would end up in the future, as his skin stretches and heals. That would also mean making the design slightly open for upgrades later as well.
Of course! He felt dumb for not having realized it until now. It was so simple in hindsight.
For the next mile, the three of them fell into rapid conversation. Devon pressed for technical details while Alex sketched possibilities on his slate. Jorik answered their many questions with the calm and ease of a man who had grown up with a fire perpetually under his ass. Tareg occasionally threw in a dry remark from the lead wagon, and Veyra—stern and suspicious as she was—listened quietly, though Alex noticed her lips twitch at reactions to her brothers’ enthusiasm.
The first day passed in relative peace, with the wagons rolling along the Empire’s well-traveled road. Alex found himself oddly content. The ride was smooth enough, the weather clear, and the conversation was surprisingly fascinating. Jorik had a keen mind for enchantments and was just as comfortable discussing glass-blowing techniques as he was breaking down the mathematical logic of glyph structures.
On top of enchanting, Alex learned more about the Empire from him in a few hours than he had in weeks of observation.
The Urhara Empire wasn’t about mining raw ore or chopping down endless forests like some of the smaller kingdoms. No, no. The Empire thrived on refinement of such materials. On crafters and skilled mages to produce what others could not. They took in resources from the surrounding area, and even across the entire continent. They tore them apart, rebuilt them, layered enchantments, bound aether essences, and sent out items the rest of the world would crawl over acid laced caltrops to have a chance to buy.
They made Aether-slates that stored and replayed spells. Crystal batteries that stored energy for things like air conditioning or home appliances. Crafted weapons that shifted their weight to balance point with a thought. Armors that grew lighter the faster you ran. Spell talismans, alloy ingots forged by Adept smiths and Magus metallurgists. And so much more.
Alex knew about the Empire’s arcane beast trade, but hearing the scope of it all left him reeling. The Glassworks alone was just a drop in the ocean compared to the tonnage of arcane goods pouring out of Athrasta’s borders every day.
They continued talking even after making camp for the night, stopping only once sleep finally called to them.
By the second morning of travel, Alex almost let himself relax. Maybe, just maybe, this escort mission would be one of the rare easy ones. He tinkered with glyph sketches on his practice slate, talking with Devon and Jorik about efficiency arrays and line-weight. Veyra teased her brother mercilessly whenever he got too technical, and Tareg, more serious, drove the wagon with resolute focus.
The road was calm for many hours, the area quiet.
Too quiet… He knew.
The caravan turned into a shallow ravine. Walls of stone rose on either side of the path, and they had made it halfway through when Alex’s gut tightened. The hairs on his neck prickled, his [Aether Sight] catching flickers of movement at the edges of his periphery. Just behind the large rocks and boulders at the bottom of ravine.
Suddenly various figures stepped out from the ridge above, and below. Some stood with bows strung, or blades blades drawn. Each with scuffed armor that was well worn and used. There were a dozen men at least, maybe more hidden further up.
“Classic,” Alex muttered under his breath.
The leader of the group was easy to spot. He was a broad-shouldered man in a dented breastplate, with a red sash tied loose around his arm. He held a curved blade like he thought it made him look impressive in some way. Alex couldn’t help but imagine a gang-leader in an Earth manga story.
“Hand over the wagons and the goods,” the man called out. His words echoed down in the ravine, bouncing along the rocks and walls. “Nobody needs to die today.”