Chapter 81 The Future and Past of Griddle

Taking a sip of his light beer, Grid grinned and bobbed his head, let out a breath, and said, “Though I can move normally now, I’m a bit out of control of both my legs and my hands, so I’m going to take a break for a while, and then pick up the work when I’ve recovered completely.”

“I agree.” Jace said, “Anyway, you made some before, so you can have a little quickie for a few days.”

“What are your plans for the next few days? By the way, how’s the talk of you entering the Wizard’s Sanctuary going, the king himself went to help you apply?” Grid asked with a cup in his hand.

Jace also took a sip of wine and looked at Grid with a look of anticipation on his face as he watched, and said helplessly, “How can it be, it’s just that I sent a letter to the Wizard Sanctuary to accept me as an apprentice cluck. It shouldn’t be considered official yet, but Marin has already taught me a trick to practice first.”

“Really? What’s the trick, come and have a look.” Grid put his glass down and beckoned.

Jace stretched out his left hand and stared at his fingertips as he murmured, “Liyusa!”

An arcane mass suddenly gathered above his fingertips and a bright aura suddenly spread out, a few people around him looked this way curiously and Jace immediately put the light away.

“Awesome!” Grid said with a couple pats on the back, “You learned the light spell so quickly?”

“It’s just a spell.” Jace muttered.

Grider asks, “It’s no longer much of a challenge at all for you to put on a little charade like that, is it? After all, right, ha!”

Jace smiled noncommittally, but in his mind he felt as if the dwarf was much more tolerant of the Shadow Force.

The dwarf took off a piece of fish and threw it into his mouth and said, “Honestly, this trip to the Red Ridge Mountain …… still makes me think a lot, and that is, it is really hard to fight against those monsters if you don t know a bit of spells or something. Not to mention, even monsters can chant spells now. Even if it’s purely by power, it’s even more powerful with the help of the elementals, so what kind of sense does that make! But it just happened, an old warrior like me was put down on the ground like a wild dog, and the orcs with magic won.”

Jace was silent to see what conclusion he was going to make.

Grid narrowed his eyes and asked, “Do you think I could learn some kind of magic or something, too.”

Jace snorted out a laugh and asked, “You’re in your sixties or seventies before you finally remembered you could learn some magic?”

“Didn’t you say something before about living to test as well as learning?” The Dwarf said, “But barring that, I really doubt I have the talent for it. It’s really all secondary though, in fact, Jace, I’ve realized something very important about myself from all this time I’ve been out and about with you, and that’s that I’ve taken the power of the griffin as my own.”

The smile on Jace’s face disappeared a little bit, this moment, he seemed to understand why this dwarf in front of him, even if he was blind in one eye, even if his hand was not steady with his weapon, still despised this and that, and dared to rush up to whatever enemy he encountered without hesitation.

It was also more profoundly clear why he had such a strong grudge against his inability to be a Griffin Knight anymore.

“I’ve been a griffin rider for far too long.” Grid said as he took a sip of his wine, “I’ve been riding griffins to fight Amani trolls since many years before the opening of the Dark Gate, and by the time the orc wars began, I’d just about forgotten how to fight on the ground, and the griffin had become my leg, my wing, my …… all.”

“What really made me realize this was when I rode that mare you got from the mage district, I had a familiar feeling, the animal under my butt made me feel as if I was back in Cintron, the difference was that I couldn’t manipulate him like I can’t manipulate my own body right now, I …… can’t tell. “

“When you were knocked down by the orc, I was thrown so far away from him that on my feet I even tried to shout an order for the griffin to charge back with me, because on my own feet there was no way I could have saved you before he killed you. It was only when I realized I was no longer on the griffin that I remembered I still had my bow and arrows …… In other words, I’ve been off the griffin for years and still can’t get out of this inertia. Anyway, I don’t want to go on like this. Arcane arts, flames and all …… I’m only halfway through this life, I can’t just go on being mediocre. By the way, do you think it’s possible for me to convert to the Church?”

“It’s hard to imagine, but you can try.” Jace said, “Still, didn’t you admire Darnus Torbane, who wasn’t a priest or a paladin and didn’t know any magic, and was able to defeat unimaginable foes with his sword alone. Didn’t you say back then at the Giant Lake Farm that you wanted to improve with me? Now how come you lost your dream all of a sudden.”

“My injury, Jace.” Grid said helplessly, “No matter how much I train, I can’t stop myself from shaking, let alone this eye. I couldn t even tell how far away he was from me when that orc came charging at me, I could only guess by experience, and I really don t know how far I can actually make it in the …… end like this.”

He lowered his head and didn’t look up for a long time, and all that could be seen was the movement of his beard.

“Have you considered going over to Quel’thalas and asking.” Jace said.

“Ask what?” Grid lifted his eyes to look over.

Jess said, “About how to restore your blindness …… and hands.”

Grid gave a big, dry laugh, but his face sank almost instantly.

He shoved a piece of fat into his mouth and nearly spat it out in a mushy mess, taking a large gulp of ale to slow down for a while before saying, “How can that be? I’ll admit, those crazy people who don’t know what they’re delving into every day might actually have a solution, but how could they possibly be willing to lend a hand to a dwarf like me? I will never ask for help from any elf, not even if I die. How about you let me die, blind!”

Jace coughed helplessly, “You’ve banged so many elf girls, and not one of them is willing to help you figure out what to do?”

Grid glanced at Jace for a moment with half-smiled eyes and said, “Rather not so much anymore.”

Jace took a sip of his drink and said flirtatiously, “I would have thought that since you’ve already summarized a theory of what’s going on in and out of bed, the sample size would have been large enough to be very convincing anyhow.”

“She just wants to get high, you know what I mean? Everyone gets what they want!” Grider said, “Get high and do what you need to do the next day, I don’t want to help her kill anyone, and she sure as hell doesn’t want to help me heal, it’s as simple as that.”

“Her?” Jess asked, “Singular?”

Grid coughed and took a sharp breath and said, “They, it’s them, I’m not good at generic.”

“You’ve been in love with an elf?!” Jace asked in surprise.

“Fuck you!” Grider slammed the table and yelled, “Fall in love? Damn …… that bitch’s pointy ears, I’ll have to cut them off …… cut them off and string them around my neck! And I’m in love, I fuck you!”

Jace couldn’t hold back a grunt of laughter, and Grid stared at him with squinted eyes as he took another gulp of wine, only to realize that the glass was finished, so he yelled at the wine waiter again.

“Don’t fade away! No more light! I want a dark beer! Stout!”

Then he looked back at Jace, pointed at his glass and yelled, “You drink for me too!”

As he said this Jace became even more unsteady and seeing how angry the dwarf was he had to rush to take a sip.

Looking at Grider’s look, he thought that the guy 80% didn’t know when he’d been fooled.

The elves of Silvermoon City were known for their arrogance and extravagance, even when treating their own kind, let alone outsiders. Perhaps to the elven woman in that Grid’s memory, he was nothing more than a miniature humanoid self-propelled tool of lust.

But why is Grider so angry, isn’t it every man for himself, you’re cool and I’m cool?

Or did he give his heart?

The stout came up and Gridd drank half of it in one gulp, then slumped in his chair staring blankly behind Jace for a long time before belching.

Jace said, “Remember what you said, elves help people too, they just need to do it until they have to.”

Grid’s eyes slowly rolled over and asked, “How do you make them have to help?”

“This …… would be a good idea to at least meet an elf first.” Jace said, taking his fork and picking up another fatty piece of blood-toothed boar and putting it in his mouth.

“Are you sure?” Grid muttered, “Surely the elf will have a cure for the after-effects of my poisoning?”

Jace said, “I asked an alchemist, she told me that the elves have fought with the trolls for so many years, there should be quite a lot of injured people with a similar situation to yours, so they probably have a lot of experience in dealing with it. By the way, how exactly was your eye …… injured, was it blinded or broken?”

Grider took off the blindfold and said, “It’s just that I can’t see.”

Jace looked at his invisible eye, a little cloudy, like a slight cataract and not quite as pale. On its own it didn’t seem that serious, but compared to the normal eye next to it it was kind of weird, and I didn’t blame Grid for covering it up.

“It does seem worth asking.” Grid whispered, “But in the end, it’s still just a guess.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic, you’re questioning the heritage of a ten thousand year old civilization.” Jace said, “I was thinking about not limiting my vision to Stormwind, or even within the kingdom. There are a lot of elves in Dalaran, at least more than Stormwind. I want to find my boss …… no, I should be a teacher now, and ask him if there is any chance of needing to travel to Dalaran at the end of the year so I can take a boat to Lordaeron without spending my own money.”

The dwarf’s eyes lit up, “Really? The perks of your job are too good to be true, aren’t they? Can you waive the ticket for me, too, by the way?”

“This ……”

“Never mind, it’s nice to save one.”

Jace said, “Anyway, when we get to Dalaran, I’ll find a chance to ask for you, just ask …… Those elves shouldn’t be so hostile that they’ll even ignore me, right?”

“I wasn’t expecting much.” Grid picked his teeth with his fork, “That said, the meat here just isn’t as good as it is in the Red Ridge Mountains, and after a trip to the inn in Lakeside Town, it won’t taste as good back over here.”

Jace wasn’t really in the mood to comment on where the food tasted good, at this point his disposition had flown to Dalaran.

When I got home in the evening, the Kid was still plowing through the book, and it looked like he’d copied quite a bit already.

Jace picked one up, picked a word at random, and read it slowly according to the generic notation on it, “Anak.”

“No, no, no.” Saeuno said, “It’s still the universal language, master, and to pronounce the demonic language, you have to pronounce it through an accent unique to the Aeridans, learn it from me …… A-NAK!”

When Saeuno made his ayin, it was like he was going through a series of bursts of sound in his throat, almost like he was making an aha, and by the time he got to the nak, it was like he was trying to bite the bone out of something.

All in all this simple word was a struggle for Jace.

“It’s too complicated.”

“To be able to hear the complexity already shows that the master has a very good talent for demonic language la.” The little ghost said, “Be sure to pronounce the words accurately …… must, remember the rules of pronunciation, this is the prerequisite to utilize the power of the full spell in demonic language!”

“Anak.” Jace pronounced it like the Kid did, and the Kid clapped his hands together and said, “Yes, yes, that’s what it feels like! The Aeridans can use magic to strengthen their pronunciation, which in turn continues to strengthen the magic, making their spells more powerful than normal, but I can’t do that lah, I’m just an imp ow.”

Jace nodded and read, “Anak …… misery means.”

And what would happen if you pronounced “f’iket” in this way?

He wanted to just take a swing at the brat, but as he looked at its busy back, he thought that if he scared it enough to jump out the window and set a few houses on fire or something, it would be a bad idea, so he dropped the idea.

“I need a pronunciation rule.” Jess said, “Can you write out a list of pronunciation rules?”

“A list of rules for pronouncing demonic language?” The Kid stared back at Jace and said, “Master is joking, right?”

Jace wasn’t offended by the Kid’s sarcasm, like English were a blend of words and pronunciations from many other, more ancient languages, with countless special pronunciations. Whereas Demonese was a fusion of the primitive language of countless thousands of strange demons in the Twisted Void, and probably the base language of Demonese, Aeridian, didn’t even have a high percentage of words.

Each demonic language has its own way of pronouncing words, and if there were any rules for pronouncing demonic languages, another book might be written.

Jace flopped down on the bed, feeling sore and numb all over, the cold fall air blowing through the window skimming over his chest and belly, all the fatigue of the day draining away so little by little, bit by bit.

It would have been better without that little kid’s constant demonic odor.

“You go back to sleep in your bag.”

“I can rest now? That’s great!” The little ghost excitedly got into the bag.

Now, that’s perfect.

Jess closed her eyes comfortably.

Tummy’s a bit full.