Chương 5: Chapter 3.5: Barely Worth The Ink

The registrar's office was not a remarkable building, but it might have been the nicest building in Dunmere. Flooding had ruined the merchant hall's lower floor in the last flood, leaving the upper rooms crowded with damp ledgers, tax records, trade manifests, and scant awakening registries. The place smelled of old ink and the musty smell of river mould. Davin Pell waited behind a desk piled high enough to serve as a barricade, while Captain Talvek stood beside the window with his gloved hands clasped behind him.

Three objects had been placed in the clear space between Pell's papers: a clean strip of cloth, a narrow measuring cord, and a square iron token. Only the cloth was within my reach. Pell already looked uncertain, his last awakening test was a girl two years ago when she survived floodwaters by treading ice cold water for a full night, and awakened with water abilities. She left Dunmere shortly after.

Thin hair lay carefully across Pell's scalp, his spectacles had already begun sliding down his nose, and his pen rested above a fresh line in the largest ledger.

"Next please." I looked around, wondering if I was next. There was no one else here. He nodded, and I stepped forward. Men in Dunmere tended to obey registrars because the process of recognition was as much human bureaucracy as it was something more powerful.

"Name," Pell stated. I looked at him, he had known me for years. I replied with some trepidation, "Cael Vey." He wrote slowly enough to make the act feel punitive, "Occupation." I looked towards Talvek. The captain offered nothing, "Woodcutter's assistant." Pell glanced over his spectacles." Current occupation?" The question caught me off guard, as if my life was supposed to have changed with an awakening immediately. Or maybe he was asking if I was still assisting. It was hard to know with registrars.

They could just as easily be asking a list of questions from a policy.

"Still a woodcutter's assistant." Well, I thought I was. Although, who I was supposed to be assisting was a question I was not prepared to answer. Talvek's mouth moved faintly beside the window. Pell looked in the captain's direction, and then sighed before setting down his pen.

"For purposes of this preliminary record, then, woodcutter's assistant. I am not able to certify the permanence given recent events." He motioned for my arm. I removed the coat and laid it across my knees, keeping the gloves inside, then rolled my sleeve to the elbow. Pell gripped my forearm and shoulder with surprising firmness. His fingers pressed along the joint where the Crimson Elf's strike should have left me unable to lift an axe. I felt the pressure and a deep bruise beneath it.

My body gave him less pain than he expected.

"Hm." He squeezed harder.

"That should produce a stronger response."

"It hurts." Pell's eyes narrowed.

"Less than the ledger would say it should."

"I can try complaining if you want."

"The measure does not have a setting for complaints, I imagine all of Dunmere would be classified if that were the case." He spoke with a slow tone, as if his vocal chords were as warped by paperwork as his desk was. He took up the measuring cord and checked my wrist, upper arm, and shoulders.

"Outside of normal range," he muttered to himself as he wrote in the ledger and continued measuring. After what felt like forever, Pell ended his mutterings and measuring and declared my state as less broad than expected.

"What does that mean?"

"An awakening of a human, with a long history of hard labour, through a fight, should have left a more resilient mark. But your body remains as fragile as a commoner." He measured again, muttering the numbers under his breath. Talvek shifted beside the window, and the registrar straightened slightly.

"Still within... acceptable variance," Pell said.

"It is curious, a higher constitution adaptation does occur in labourers. Repetitive environmental conditioning would explain the high constitution, but it does not seem to have translated to your outer body's level of resilience... Strong recovery compared to the human baseline." He returned to the ledger and drew a careful line beneath my name.

"Iron (early). Confirmed for preliminary local recognition." I looked at the square token on the desk. Pell followed my eyes and gave it a small, dismissive tap with the end of his pen.

"Iron means something on the frontier. Remember that in Strathford, being unranked is less common than Iron. Their Hall of Rank and Works records several before the midday meal, usually they are still adolescents." He glanced around the damp room, where an entire shelf of awakening registries occupied less space than Harl's timber accounts.

"Dunmere produces few enough that one case can create rumours."

"So... I am ordinary somewhere else?"

"Provisionally ordinary. Your unclear lineage makes formal recognition in the register difficult." Talvek looked out towards the river.

"People imagine awakening changes their lives," he said.

"In places like this, it increases responsibility." Pell resumed writing with the satisfaction of a man who had prevented a fact from becoming proud.

"I killed a Crimson Elf," I said without meaning to. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Pell's pen continued moving.

"You are associated with the death of a bronze, maybe silver, Crimson Elf under circumstances that remain suspicious without full examination of the body. I would be grateful if you remember that before asking the Registrar to defend their record." Talvek folded his arms. I could not tell whether he found Pell useful, irritating, or both.

"Your abilities?" Pell asked. The names rose when I reached for them and I began to list them "Timbercraft. Labour-Hardened. Axe Strike." I waited for him to finish writing.

"And Desperate Counter." Talvek audibly scoffed at the final one, but said nothing. Pell wrote each one in a separate column.

"Craft, passive, active, active. Reasonable distribution. Timbercraft registering ahead of the others is mildly irritating, though explicable. You have spent too long performing actual labour instead of pursuing active training."

"Like paperwork?" He dipped the pen again with visible approval.

"Properly completed paperwork, yes. Active abilities are always recorded first, then the craft, and concluding with passives. The Strathford Chief Registrar expects mistakes from small places like Dunmere, but not under my tenure has there been an error in classification or recordkeeping." His eyes moved from the ability column to my wrist. The charcoal lines had crept beyond the edge of the rolled sleeve, "Raise that." I did not move quickly enough.

Talvek crossed the room in three quiet steps and took my wrist before I could cover it. He turned the arm into the weak afternoon light in a movement that felt like my forearm was about to separate from my elbow. The charcoal lines branched from the ritual burn beneath the skin, dark enough now to resemble charcoal pressed into cracks in pale wood. Pell leaned forward. His irritation vanished, taking the humour with it, "Possible rite marking." Talvek kept my arm steady.

"Classification?"

"Preliminary only. Certainty requires supplementary background, and the evidence has apparently removed itself from a locked shed." Pell adjusted his spectacles and studied the branching lines without touching them.

"Crimson residue is possible. Mana scorching is also possible. Contamination from an interrupted transfer is possible. The pattern is crude and lacks the symmetry expected in a proper blood binding, although I could not be certain without proper equipment." My mouth had gone dry.

"What is a proper binding?" Pell looked at the mark for several breaths. His delay told me more than his answer.

"A classification I am not applying. Do not make me regret the restraint." Talvek's thumb tightened once against my wrist. Pell straightened and pulled a smaller page from beneath the ledger.

"It may fade. It may remain. If it spreads, you report it before it gets... worse."

"So... what is it?" I ask, suppressing my distress of the black web seeping under my skin. Pell ignored the question, and dipped his quill in ink, "I am recording visible rite residue and abnormal recovery following—" His pen hovered. The nib caught against the paper when he finally wrote.

"Crimson Elf contact." Talvek released my wrist and stepped away.

"Registrar Pell. Leave the room." Pell blinked.

"I am technically conducting official recognition under local authority, and interruption of that process may affect—""The recognition is complete enough for present command purposes. Leave." The registrar gathered his dignity and the loose pages at the same time. He hesitated over the iron token adjusted it slightly so its edge was parallel with the end of his desk as he pushed it slightly forward. Then he retreated with the ledger held tightly beneath one arm. A mouse no longer in his house.

The door clicked shut. Talvek waited until Pell's steps had passed along the corridor.

"Your first report was incomplete."

"I told you what happened at the marker and in the clearing."

"You told me what could be said before gate guards." Talvek moved closer, bringing the order of his office with him. His eyes settled on my shoulder. Pell had not been the only man studying me in that room.

"Crimson Elves do not die easily, Vey. Especially to starving labourers swinging forestry tools."

"There was a doe. It broke loose. Its hoof hit the elf... I... Orven wounded the elf. I used the axe when he was off balance."

"That is what you reported. Yes. I am asking whether it is complete." He seized the injured shoulder hard enough that I braced for the joint to fail. Pain travelled from his thumb down my arm in a deep and hot bolt, but the arm held. Talvek felt the strength beneath his grip. His expression changed by less than Merris' did when finding a false weight, though the meaning was the same. He released the shoulder and turned my wrist upwards again.

"You understand what this town will call you if the mark spreads?"

"Something worse than rite-touched."

"Contaminated." The word sat between us with the iron token.

"People here tolerate awakened strength because they recognise its work utility," Talvek said.

"Blood rites and crimson elves are the stories of nightmares. A man carrying their marks is equally fictious."

"I did not ask for them."

"I did not ask if you had." Anger tightened my hand inside Orven's coat.

"He died pulling me away from that thing."

"I read truth in that portion of your account."

"Then why are you looking at me like I brought it here?" Something hardened behind his eyes.

"Because the elf is gone, your healing is abnormal, and whatever burned your wrist is still drawing beneath your skin." His grip loosened. He had no cleaner account than I did. Talvek returned to the window. River fog moved across the Greywash, swallowing the far bank a piece at a time.

"What do I do if it spreads?" I asked.

"Come to me before anyone else sees it." His voice remained steady. His eyes did not. Talvek opened the door. Harl waited in the corridor beside one of the guards from the gate. Mud remained wet on the guard's boots, and he carried a wrapped lantern in one hand.

"Update on the guards in the forest."

"They've not returned yet," Harl answered. The guard left at once. Talvek gave Harl a short nod, and the foreman followed.

"You may go," Talvek said. I pulled my sleeve down.

"Am I... under watch?"

"You are under notice." As I reached for my coat, Talvek returned to the desk and finished writing a letter silently and folded a sheet beneath one hand. I saw only a few phrases before he covered them: irregular recovery, rite contact, body missing. Beside the page rested dark wax pressed with a seal I did not recognise. Dunmere used a river tower. This showed a narrow city gate above three stars, its lines sharp enough to survive a long journey. Talvek noticed me looking and slid the page beneath Pell's ledger.

Then he placed the square token in front of me.

"Iron recognised," he said.

"Officially." RANK RECOGNISED Your advancement has been recorded by the Dunmere registrar. Your current rank is now recognised as Iron (early). You have received an Iron token of local standing. I stared at the token. Ferrymen, hunters, carters and mill hands worked years for the chance to have a rank entered beside their names. Most stayed Common until age or injury prevented it. Somewhere in Strathford, Pell claimed teenagers like me waited in a queue before lunch.

"Do not mistake recognition for prestige," Talvek said.

"It means responsibility, nothing more." I picked up the token. The iron felt colder than the room.

"Vey." I looked back from the doorway.

"If anyone asks, you interrupted a rite and survived contact. Use those words. Avoid curse, possession, and infection." He gave each forbidden word the care of a man placing lamps beside spilled oil.

"The classification remains under review." The corridor smelled of wet wool, old ink, and river damp. Pell's pen scratched angrily behind another door. Below, Dunmere continued to count, haul, bargain, and complain. I pushed Orven's gloves deeper into my coat and dragged the sleeve low across the charcoal veins. The iron token tapped against my palm with every step, small, cold and barely worth the ink.