The Resigned Dilettante

Chapter 121: Staring at a canal and contemplating a potential end.

[So I woke up this morning and realized that I had completely forgotten to post this yesterday. Extremely sorry. No excuse. Think I came up with a better title than I would have though.]

[Notice: Next chapter will be on the 20th]

“Buy these from me, would you?” I say, dropping a bundle of mass-produced magic weapons on Greg’s desk. Two of the heavy crossbows and a few daggers with basic enchantments I kept from the trip. “I’ll accept any price you can make a profit from,...

Chapter 120: Conversation predicated on an unexpected revelation.

“I see,” I say, “Um… I’m not certain what to say. But suppose I am this person you seem to think I am, I don’t see why you would say that. After all, I am favoured by the Empress. Why would you not assume that I have turned over in earnest?”

He chuckles. “There’s no way you would convert, at least not so quickly. You’re too much like me. Which is how I know there was no way you would admit you’re still working for us unless you know I haven’t turned, and the only...

Chapter 119: A Sudden pain in the... back.

After grabbing my thrown blades, I liquify everything and clean up, grabbing only their coins and two enchanted weapons: Briarhart’s sword, which is iron-phasing; and a basic enchanted dagger of standard imperial army form. The latter is so common as to not be a risk for divinations, and the sword, while having a slightly more interesting form factor, is worth the risk.

Not that I intend to use it myself. It’s too long for me, being nearly as tall as I am, and my form changing blade...

Chapter 118: An Unexpected Tenderness

I try desperately to go to sleep before the boon fades, hoping to acclimate to the slowness and weakness while unconscious. Not that there’s much chance of that. So, I just lay there, staring at the cave ceiling whose darkened details I will shortly not be able to make out.

I always feel like I’ve lost something irreplaceable when coming out of a particularly powerful boon. That I’ll always be lesser than I am right now. I usually tell myself that this isn’t true, and that I’l...

Chapter 117: Clutching the Last Wisps of Power

I leave Lingonhill more laden than I arrived: three extra heavy crossbows, a handful of magic bolts, a light item, a spyglass and a tidy amount of assorted coin. I first head to one of the towns that Bart’s agent was headed to and kill the contractor – another poisonous innkeeper – he intended to hire against Ser Terry.

It’s probably not necessary, but better to do it anyways just in case Bart sent someone else after all. Besides, I need to do some anthropomancy to flood out any...

Chapter 116: A Slight Complication

“We had them. The plan worked flawlessly. They were cornered like rats, and our mage was burning them out. Then we were attacked from behind. Dozens of large chimeras swarmed us, allowing Ser Presley to slip through. I deemed it too costly to pursue.”

“You deemed it?” Vincent asks with scorn, his horse prancing about anxiously as if sensing its rider’s tension. “You deemed a few of your mercenary lives were worth the orb?”

“No. I deemed I would not succeed...

Chapter 115: Mounting desperation

I tell the chimera leader to clear his pack away from Ser Terry’s route, and he complies, but a few attacks still come. Ligryn leads the way, cutting down any that come while Emily pre-emptively explodes an ice orb in any chamber they come to that’s big enough for an ambush.

Like this, they quickly find themselves out of the tunnels using divinations, and I tell the chimera leader to withdraw. It complains that I let the orb be taken and that I am unfit to be leader, but I remind it...

New story!

Hey, I got a new story, "The Boundaries of Light"! Be sure to check it out.

Allia Tredwel’s days at the Thistlehow Academy for the Magically Gifted are filled with fruitful study mixed with the pleasant leisure of times with friends in a beautiful coastal city. However, her good life is interrupted when she must foil a plot by a rogue(?) group of ‘demon’ soldiers to steal her p...

Chapter 114: Cat and mouse...and bigger cat.

[Good news everyone, I have a new story! In celebration I’m going to be increasing the release schedule for this story, "a bright and shiny life", to once every 3 days! (until the 15th at least) I should say that, despite having stumbled into an obvious motif, it is a bit different from this one (for one the mc doesn’t default to murder to solve all her problems), but has its own appro...

Chapter 113: Into The Dark

[So Grammarly has apparently been down for the past 8 hours. I find it more amusing than anything because I just use the most basic features (free with generative ai option turned off) to act as a standard spelling/grammar checker so I'm not dependent on it. But I thought some of you might be amused by the knowledge too.]

As it turns out, the dark isn’t dark, at least not for me. As I enter, I intend to go in as far as I can without light and then use the light crystal I took from Bar...

Chapter 112: An Answer

[I'll be out of town tomorrow so I decided it would be easiest just to put this out the night before]

Not having time to let the lord overcome his drug induced slumber on his own, I plant a seed and target it with rapid growth. A minute later, a two foot tall leafy stalk has grown with red berries. I pick several berries for myself for later, but keep three separate, which I cut open to retrieve the crunchy seeds and I grind them to dust and wet to create a paste. Forcing his mouth open...

Chapter Eleventy-one: The Plentiful Bounty of Lingonhil

Lingonhill is a sleepy little village in the valley created by three nearby lightly wooded hills. I look down on it from the southwestern most one and watch as people amble out of bed and go to work in the morning mists.

If I recall, the cave system is on the titular northern hill. It’s larger than the other two, less wooded and covered in hundreds of bushes bearing the little red berries. The bushes are semi-agricultural in function. The village harvests them and exports a significan...

Chapter 110: Yet More Unjust Rewards

“…This bond you said I’m forming with the dagger? If I used it for the Anar sacrifice ritual, would that strengthen it?

“Um…” The Mynharran hesitates.

“Because I should really kill you.” I stand to loom ominously over his sitting form. How dare he? How dare he think he can manipulate me just by mentioning my mission and my homeland? For what I’ve been fighting for nearly a quarter of my life and will likely spend the rest of my life working for?

He leans ba...

Chapter 109: A Wild Prophet Appears

Pelliphos is fatigued from the gallop, so I ride the agent’s larger horse, who also carries the corpse ball without complaint. I divine the nearest stream to be only ten minutes away, so we go there before stopping to finally tend to Pelliphos as promised – breaking the ball in the stream while I’m at it. I also attend to the new horse, then go through his saddle bags before finally sending him back to his owners. I don’t know the odds of him making it there, but he has a saddle and o...

Chapter 108: Pursuit of the masses

I don’t dare use my concealment spell to escape unaccosted, but it turns out changing my cloak from mirror to concealer suffices. Eventually, I do find a spot to use my silver divining rod and easily find my way through the unorganized searchers. Their own divinations are sloppy and, like in the exam, they get in each others’ ways. Which, to be fair, it would be surprising for rivals to work together.

Of course, there’s a congregation at the carriages that spot me, but I dash into...

Chapter 107: The Gift of Fear

Despite the muffling enchantment on my boots, my footsteps seem thunderously loud. What is going on? Why does the Empress even know my name? The quarrel with Vincent? The mysterious mandate that got me into the Academy? Neither of those seem worth calling me up in front of hundreds of the most important nobles in the empire, especially not in the middle of giving her children gifts.

I reach the designated spot beneath the throne and kneel properly despite my pounding heartbeat. Can she ...

Chapter 106: The Empress Descends

The empress’s colour is crimson. Not the blood red I imagined, but something vibrant and vital. Gold is the secondary colour, spread through her attire like strangling vines. Her outfit’s form is domineering, but not quite militant. A neckline all the way up at the jaw, pants and long sleeves tight against her body, yet creating a sense of flowing looseness with sparing use of ruffled cloth.

Her crown is a gold diadem with shining gems, four fingers wide in a leaf-like lattice. Seem...

Chapter 105: The Equinoctial

Ser Terry doesn’t try to recruit me. He does end up talking with me after law class, but it’s just to tell me he’ll be gone during the break, so regretfully he can’t socialize with me during it. I act surprised and thank him for proactively informing me.

So, I guess I’ll be following in secret after all.

A few days pass, and then it’s the Equinoctial. Allan drops me off with forced cheer in the park that Princep Talia is supposed to pick me up at. He offers to stay unt...

Chapter 104: With friends like me...

The servant Princep Theodore promised to send doesn’t come by for another two days, and by then the meeting time everyone agrees to is earlier in the week. Likewise, we have next week off for the Equinoctial, so it turns out that the first meeting won’t be until the week after. Still, I don’t see Talia having reason to object to my progress. Just being in such an exclusive group with him is far more than could be reasonably expected in such a short time.

I decide to purchase the m...

Chapter 103: Concern

It’s odd. It takes a few hours to go through everyone’s wounds, during which I do unfortunately have to grow a few herbs for some lingering ailments. I expected the itching to intensify from being stuck here, but instead, it subsides and stabilizes at a manageable level.

It’s the act of healing, I think. Their emotions as I examine them, touching them to take their pain away. How the faces all have this look of… submission. Is it mere distraction, or something else? Something th...

Chapter 102: Keeping resolve

[I’m going to be honest, I struggled having Jules say her questions and Malichi answering in a way that reflected both her education level and the conceptions of the setting. Like I say force when I mean energy because I think that energy is too advanced of concept in the way we use it for the setting. Even though the internet says early 1700’s for the concept being developed, which kinda matches the broad equivalent timeframe of my setting (remember it’s meant to have like 500 year spa...

Chapter 101: The lance of absolution

[I added a small section in ch96 talking about how most of the Anar spells have more formal names, which Malz ignore in favour of more descriptive ones. The concealment spell being the Veil of Mithlemar, and the liquefying beam being the Lance of Absolution.]

Allan doesn’t have much to say when I get back. He was pleased that the plan worked, but worried about the interaction. He especially doesn’t like that I’m being thrusted even further into the business of the royal fam...

Chapter 100: A Militant mindset.

What was Princep Talia trying to say, and why was she trying to say it? The crux of her claim was that the empire had access to methods that would have cut short the Caethlain conflict but chose not to use them. Moreover, they chose not to use them for calculated reasons rather than emotional ones. Which means that the empress thought that the insurgency was a benefit.

It’s a bit overwhelming to think that the three years I thought I spent hurting the empire might result in a net posi...

Chapter 99: Protracted engagement

Princep Cecilia does not show for the Dialectical Magicalism club. Erika is upset at the disinterest from her royal patron, but I think everyone else is relieved, except Ligryn, who seems troubled for some other reason.

The session is once again just everyone giving reports on their findings. Ligryn passes again, which upsets Erika more, but she doesn’t reprimand her. Instead, she decides to take her frustration out on me for some unknown reason. Fortunately, I’m better prepared thi...

Chapter 98: Notions of justice

“If you’re both going to sit by me again, then I am going to move.” I say to my two friends who happened to come into the law classroom at the same time but by opposite doors and are now making to do just as I warned against. “If you both want to, then decide between you for today, then alternate from there.”

Best to make them figure it out themselves as arbitrating would simply be too tedious. Normally, I probably would have just asked them not to talk in whispered asides dur...

Chapter 97: Some nice tea

[I suddenly realized while writing this that I somehow added a class to Malichi's schedule from what he had the previous week last chapter. It's just a minor mention, but it may turn out to be more tedious to rewrite than it's worth since I had made earlier decisions based on it being there. No major changes on chapter 92.]

“The boons of Trevali are most suited for students. In fact, we often get an influx of new students making contracts this time of year to complete that assi...

Chapter 96: A highly prestigious group

[Sorry I got this out a bit later than usual. Been a bit busy the last couple of days.]

Riley agrees to the mutual surrender, but is rather particular about the details of the written element of my stake, though I suppose I’m the same way about his. I don’t think either of us is trying to sneak one last one over on the other, but it’s rather hard to write a public statement like this that doesn’t make both of us seem like asses.

So, after the second redraft, we deci...

Chapter 95: The duel

“You’ve been spreading rumours about me, Riley!” I half shout, slamming my open hands on the desk in front of him for emphasis.

I managed to focus on the history lecture, but had to excuse myself from the following Lucas/Preston debate (Lucas once again argued that history is a process, while Preston denied this), citing overwhelming anger towards another person making it impossible to meaningfully contribute. I simmered in the nexus chamber until it was time for math class, then ...

Chapter 94: A bit of relaxation

[A couple of things. To avoid the mistake of two chapters ago, I have decided to forgo the file upload in favour of copying the text over. Let me know if this causes any problems. Second, recently my 'paid member' view hasn't been showing the 'names' post as being pinned, and I also found out that pinning doesn't even work for public view after switching it over. So I have added a copy to the about section which is now the most up to date. Finally:

Chapter 89: No major changes.]

<...

Chapter 93: Contingent possibilities

So sorry I messed up last chapter. I only just now noticed that I had downloaded the first part of this chapter instead of 92. It should be fixed now.