'Sorry, dear. Feel like another round? I wasn't in the mood when I came to bed, but you sort of changed that."
'At the same time? Absolutely!'
Kal smiled as he threw his bedclothes down towards his feet. He wrapped his fingers around himself as he started focusing on what Perra's hand was doing far, far away back in their farmhouse.
------
Kal approached the tower two days later, having arrived too late yesterday for a visit. He wasn't terribly surprised when the golden-haired dog girl didn't greet him at the window. Without using his speed or haste runes, Carriston was nearly a day's travel from the wizard's tower. With the travel there and back, as well as a day for shopping, three days had passed since their last conversation.
He hoped that her discussion about upgrading her status from slave to companion had gone well. He failed to see any issue, from her own description he treated her more like a companion and it would do little more than change her title. That said, one thing he had learned was that humans could be weird about titles. Even in his own experience, he had a difficult time adjusting to the idea that he was now a mage once he had left most of his farming duties behind. Not to mention when he revealed to the townsfolk of Telsin that he was a magic-user, and everyone began calling him 'Master.' While their interactions may not change dramatically, having the dog girl as a companion would put them on more even footing than a Master/slave relationship. He could see where an old man stuck in his ways might have a problem with that.
He lifted the heavy piece of iron hanging from the front of the door and let it fall, announcing his presence. Kal then stepped back far enough to see into the lowest window, through which he had spoken to the tower's occupants before. He knew that there was a spiral stair that ran right behind the opening and he waited intently for some sign of movement since he was too far away to feel vibrations from the people inside.
"Ria, I need my staff," he said to the pouch on his belt after he saw the old wizard pass by. Apparently, things had not gone well with the dog girl's request for a status change. The older mage must have been sprinting down the steps, but the tiny flash Kal saw of him showed a man enraged. A moment later a speck of light from his bag of holding touched his palm and a staff with a gold cap on one end and a platinum one on the other appeared. He then reached out and touched the runes on his vambraces with magic, but didn't activate them. This allowed him to keep them in a primed state where he could easily pour magic into them with a thought.
There was a quiet click before the door swung inward as if kicked in by a giant. The ear-splitting shriek of protest from the metal hinges made Kal wince but he couldn't free up his hands to cover his ears. The old wizard was stomping towards the open doorway and already about halfway through drawing the rune for his spell with the tip of a wand. Kal recognized the rune but had never seen this particular spell cast before, he also knew he had a fraction of a second to either take it head on or get out of the way. Taking the spell head-on was doable but would bite deeply into his magic reserves, it also would look amazing and show the old man that he was a formidable wizard worthy of teaching.
Deciding that the man wasn't in the mood to talk about Kal's education opportunities, he chose the wiser route and activated his strength rune, jumping up and towards the tower. In the same moment he went airborne, a small streak of flame sizzled through the air where he had just been standing. Kal's feet came to rest on the tower wall and he reached out with his knowledge of geomancy to anchor himself to the stone, the strength rune staying lit up with a dull glow that gave him the ability to stand upright despite the odd angle.
He looked up just in time to see the spell reach the end of its range where it ballooned into a swirling mass of orange and red flames nearly ten paces across. Perhaps he shouldn't joke about getting incinerated as he had at the end of his last visit. A blast of hot air buffeted Kal as the flames dissipated, pushing back the old wizard who had just barely stepped out of the door. The fireball vanished so quickly that only the grass near the very center was charred and still alight in places. The remainder of the plants in the area were only singed, including a few of the nearby trees on the edge of the tower's clearing. Seeing the blackened circle and how large the flaming sphere had been, Kal was glad that he had gotten out of the way. If that had hit him where he was standing it might have engulfed the old mage as well.
The thought flickered through his head that he was being a bit arrogant about the situation, being more concerned about the old man than his own safety. However, the fire resistance rune on his bracer was unique. Where other runes of this type were throttled to keep the magic requirements within reason, Kal had modified his and removed the restriction. Instead, he opted for a bit of resistance where the limit had been but was something he could push through if necessary. Going beyond that point, the energy needed got increasingly larger as the protection included higher and higher temperatures.
Regaining his feet just inside the door, the wizard ran outside and peered about, searching for the young man.
"Listen, I'm sorry about..."
The mage whipped around at the sound of his voice, brandishing the wand and screaming "Give her back!" In an instant, the man had drawn another spell then shoved the wand through the rune still floating in the air. The ornate piece of wood drew in the glowing rune near its base, carvings along the wand's length lit up with eldritch power as the spell traveled toward its tip. Kal brought his arm up in front of him and a magical shield snapped into place above an aqua colored rune. The energy gathered at the tip of the wand momentarily before a lavender bolt of energy streaked towards the younger man.
The force of the impact stung Kal's arm and places on the shield quickly reformed from where the bolt had stripped it away. He stared wide-eyed over the edge of the glowing disk at the man on the ground, Ikuno's spells hadn't hit that hard!
The wizard was also looking up in surprise, this boy had summoned a shield without drawing a rune or creating a magic circle, not to mention that the shield had survived his wand-enhanced magic bolt. It was also slowly sinking that this man was casually standing on the wall of his tower as if it were level ground.
"I don't have her!" said Kal hurriedly as he saw the old man recover and begin drawing another spell. The only 'her' the mage could be talking about was his dog girl servant as far as he knew.
"Liar! You were the one who brought up that companion nonsense and when I told her no, she ran off to be with you! For the last week you are all she has talked about," the man's voice went from angry to bitter.
"I've been off getting supplies the last few days! I haven't even been around! Besides, if I had taken her why on earth would I come back? Certainly not to end up looking like that!" he pointed with the end of his staff at the circle of blackened grass, his other arm was still occupied with maintaining the shield.
The wizard considered his words for a moment before releasing the spell he had partially drawn, another one of those hard-hitting energy bolts, but he didn't lower his wand. "Then why are you here?"
Kal sighed, "For the same reason I started coming here. I need to learn how to protect myself from astral attacks."
"You don't know astral magic?" the man seemed genuinely confused.
The young mage shook his head, "My teacher had no aptitude for it, so she couldn't teach me."
The wizard's confusion deepened as he processed what the young magic-user had said. Kal raised his shield as the man began drawing another rune in the air but this one didn't seem directed at him. When the wizard activated the spell the magic instead flowed towards the man's ears and eyes. "Answer me honestly, did you take Rose?"
Now Kal understood, the man had cast a lie detection spell. "Rose? Is that the dog girl's name?" The wizard nodded. "No, and I haven't seen her since the last time she and I spoke here at the tower."
"Do you know any astral spells?"
Kal had to think for a moment, "Some of my cantrips might be astral in nature but beyond that, no."
"Do you know where Rose is?"
"Odd question, but no, I don't."
The old mage thought for a moment before cursing under his breath and walking back into the tower, slamming the door behind him. The soft click once the door was shut making it quite clear that he didn't want to be followed.
