The chartmaker didn’t even acknowledge my entrance as I stepped inside. His quill scratched across parchnt with the speed and precision of a man who had absolutely no interest in my existence. One of his thumbs bore a stubborn ink stain, and perched on his brow was a monocle so smug it sported a tiny, perfectly useless mini‑monocle of its own, like so sort of aristocratic inception.
Why did his monocle have another monocle? That was when I knew I was dealing with the eccentric type.
This would not do.
Ti to unleash the might of a true knight.
I took a breath, squared my shoulders, aligned my spine the way Sir Roland had drilled into until my vertebrae ached, and entered.
[Heroic Entrance Activated — Audience Impact: 10 seconds]
The door slamd open behind with dramatic perfection. A breeze that had absolutely no business existing indoors fluttered the desks, sent a few stray parchnt scraps skittering across the floor, and rattled the inkwells just enough to make them tremble. For a brief three seconds, the chartmaker’s hand stopped, and his normally sharp, calculating eyes widened just enough to (hopefully) question whether the man who had entered was so long-forgotten legend co to life. The faintest crease of astonishnt appeared between his brows, yet even in awe, his posture remained mostly upright and disciplined—clearly a man unused to losing control.
[Heroic Entrance — Partially Effective]
Yet, I was determined to smash that feeble attempt at control. I would crush his soul so hard, I would sunder his composure with the fury of a knight denied recognition, the silent storm of a hero whose glory demanded an audience—preferably one that gasped.
If three seconds of awe had been granted, surely a true display of knightly heroism could stretch it into sothing more. I raised my hand in the most commanding, gallant arc I could manage, and rang out, “Behold the path of Saint rin! Witness the steadfast might of a knight who bends neither fear nor fate!”
The parchnt seed to lift as though caught in an invisible current, inkwells teetered on the edge, and a few quills clattered to the floor. The chartmaker froze entirely this ti. His eyes widened, his thin lips parted, and for the first ti I could see genuine uncertainty cross his disciplined face.
It’s working. It’s working now! The man who had ignored —no, who had been impervious to the might of Maximum Intimidation, has now been reduced to a shriveling heap! I shall—
Anabeth entered.
She burst in with the cheerful force of a spring festival parade accidentally routed indoors. Her bright, curious energy bounced into the room like sunlight deciding it had had enough of the sky and wanted to personally inspect the furniture.
“Oh! Sir Henry!” she chirped, clasping her hands. “Isn’t this just the coziest little atelier?”
[ERROR: Contradicting Aura — Heroic Entrance Collapsed]
The chartmaker’s hand returned to the quill, and he resud scribbling as if nothing had happened. My fully orchestrated display of knightly had been undone in a second by her uncontainable cheer.
And, as if the catastrophe required reinforcent, in toddled Durand—her stone golem—who sohow managed to make everything worse simply by existing. He waddled in with proportions even more spectacularly incorrect than before, and his arms hung with the slack confidence of a child’s marionette after a tantrum. If my entrance had been a storm, Durand was the jester staggering in afterward to sweep the stage with a broom twice his size.
For the first ti since I’d entered, the chartmaker reacted. His eyebrows rose in sothing dangerously close to . . . interest as he peered at Durand with the intensity of a scholar spotting a rare specin.
“Is that your creation?” he asked.
Anabeth bead. “Why yes! His na is Durand!”
The chartmaker’s posture straightened. “So then—you are a thaumaturge? Or perhaps a Concord-Smith?” I didn’t even know what a Concord-Smith did. He studied Durand critically, tapping his ink-stained thumb against the desk. “Fascinating. The gait suggests partial aetheric drift, possibly from using non-aligning summoning material. And the proportional misalignnt . . . did you intentionally calibrate it poorly to test perceptual variance? Or did you experint with emotional input during summoning? Wait—what core did you use? Quartz? Obsidian?”
The conversation was derailing. No. Spiraling. No. Careening down a mountain pass with no brakes.
I could not allow this. A valiant knight always had a Plan B.
I cleared my throat, summoning every ounce of bass and bravado I possessed.
“Chartmaker.” My words vibrated across the room like a temple bell. “Attend .”
[Command Tone: RESISTED]
[Reason: Subject has endured three decades of royal requisition officers]
The chartmaker lifted one finger without looking away from his map. “One mont.” He blotted the ink. “Two, if you keep shouting. That resin compass is delicate.”
My Command Tone had been reduced to background noise.
No matter. A valiant knight always had a Plan C.
What other skills could I use for this situation?
Heroic Entrance: Failed.
Command Tone: Failed in record ti.
Overwhelming Aura: Tempting, but the last ti I used it indoors every chicken within a mile of Dunsvale stopped laying eggs out of pure existential dread for 87 days.
Knightly Choreography: Breaks things. Usually ribs.
Silver Tongue: Still negated.
Inspiring Presence: Useless. He doesn’t need motivation; he needs fear.
Moral Superiority: Risky. Might trigger a forty-minute lecture on cartographic ethics.
Scholastic Arrogance: . . . viable. Academics fear only one thing: soone who sounds like they’ve read more footnotes than they have.
However . . . how did one activate Scholastic Arrogance or Moral Superiority on command?
Last ti they had just . . . appeared on the tip of my tongue, like inconvenient magical conditions tied to my emotional weather. These things tended to activate themselves like curses tied to my bloodline.
But surely—surely—I had so influence over it.
Then I realized I’d just flawlessly activated Command Tone. If Command Tone could be invoked just by thinking lower voice, heroic authority, then perhaps these other skills were similar. I didn’t need to unleash a full-blown, cathedral-shaking Intimidation Aura. I wasn’t here to frighten livestock three towns over.
No, I just needed . . . partial control. A little throttle. Enough to nudge my speech into intimidating, snobby, or obnoxious. Those were, apparently, my only available modes of arcane oratory.
Very well. If the Saints had seen fit to equip with only three verbal enchantnts, then I would wield them like the sacred relics they were.
I narrowed my eyes at the nearest bookshelf and summoned the most potent Academic Tone I could imagine. I pictured footnotes, unread treatises, obscure citations, and argunts about historical map projections conducted entirely through passive‑aggressive phrasing.
Then I spoke, “Curious! One would think a chartmaker of this establishnt would at least differentiate between the Westrin ridian Standard and the Old ridian drift. But perhaps I am expecting too much rigor.”
[Scholastic Arrogance (Lv. 10): ACTIVATED]
[Affected Radius: 3 ters]
[Danger Level: Mildly Insufferable]
It worked. But then how couldn’t I use Silver Tongue, then? Was it because Silver Tongue was a lower level skill than all the other Intimidation-based abilities, so it was automatically negated? Then again, Voice Reclamation was a Lv. 1 skill, and it overrode my Intimidation Aura just fine.
I checked Voice Reclamation again. Ah. Of course. The tiny footnote I’d skipped last ti blinked smugly at from the margins of the skill description:
[Overrides all Intimidation-based abilities, regardless of level.]
That made sense. Satisfying, even. My ticulously annotated ntal codex approved. Now . . . did my very carefully crafted Scholastic Arrogance actually land?
I squinted at the chartmaker, who had set down his quill, fingers poised in the air like he was about to rewrite the laws of Westris itself.
Excellent. The first crack in his scholarly armor.
He set down his quill. “Differentiate?” he repeated. “Sir, I drafted the new Westrin ridian Standard.”
What? There was a new ridian Standard?
He leaned back, as though granting the honor of seeing his face in full disdainful profile. “I chair the ridian Council. Every cartographical treatise within the borders of Greater Westris references my work. The coastal nations argue about my latitudinal nonclature.” His voice dropped another notch. “The High College of Lineation calls the father of modern mapping.”
[Adversary Skill Activated: Scholastic Arrogance (Lv. 12)]
There was a Level 12?
He picked up his quill again with the casual precision of one who has slain many with ink alone. “And you,” he added, “have stepped into my atelier and attempted to correct with a tone that suggests you skimd a pamphlet.”
[Chartmaker Status: Apex Scholar]
[Warning: You have provoked a man who knows all fourteen thods of weaponizing cartography.]
Anabeth, apparently deaf to the seismic clash of egos in the room, wandered over to the nearest stack of charts. She tilted her head at the chartmaker and widened her eyes until they couldn’t possibly beco any wider, and asked in the most sunshiny tone imaginable, “Excuse , sir, but how do you determine which ridian to start your lines from?”
The chartmaker turned to her with an affable smile. “Ah, young lady, that depends on the survey’s purpose, the local topography, and the historical precedence established by the High College of Lineation. Here, let show you . . .”
The chartmaker’s eyes softened as he leaned over the charts and traced a finger along the lines. “You see, the initial ridian isn’t chosen lightly. One must account for magnetic variation, prevailing winds, and for delicate coastal asurents, sotis tradition guides the hand more than reason.”
Anabeth bead, “Of course! The coastal asurents must align with prior surveys, but one also has to account for local anomalies. I read a treatise on this just last month.”
“Ah!” the chartmaker exclaid, leaning back as though discovering a kindred spirit. “Indeed! Most understand the theory, but few grasp the nuance. It is rare to et soone who considers both the data and the history so carefully.”
I flailed inside my head. Grasping the nuance? She’s charming him! He’s smiling at her! Why did that work and intimidation didn’t? Did I miscalculate the aura levels?
Perhaps my whole approach had been flawed from the start. But there was no ti to argue with history. It wasn’t like I was allowed to talk normally, anyway.
Left unchecked, my default Intimidation Aura would just start spewing whatever awful, sweeping declarations it liked—condemning his life’s work, his lineage, and possibly his boots. I could feel it stirring already.
Absolutely not. I needed stability. I needed control. I needed . . . my last viable ability.
Moral Superiority.
It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t subtle. But at least it didn’t automatically call for murder.
Don’t fail now.
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