The King’s Road was less of a road and more of a suggestion carved into the dirt by generations of miserable travelers.

  It was riddled with potholes, tree roots, and mud. For the last four hours, Elias had been bouncing in the back of the cart like a bean in a rattle.

  'Why are they even calling this...golden era?' Elias thought and sighed thinking of the rest of bumpy genre ahead of him.

  Then, they stopped.

  Elias lowered his hood and glared at the culprit.

  Barnaby the donkey stood in the middle of the road.

  His ears were drooped. His head was lowered. He looked like a statue of obstinance carved from gray fur and spite.

  "Why have we ceased momentum?" Elias asked.

  "He's tired, Sir," Rylus said, climbing down from the driver's bench. He pulled a shriveled apple from his pack and offered it to the beast. Barnaby ignored it, choosing instead to stare blankly into the middle distance.

  Elias rubbed his lower back. "He is tired? We have traveled ten miles. In my time, courier drakes flew three hundred miles without stopping for water."

  "Barnaby is not a drake, Sir," Rylus pointed out, patting the donkey’s neck. "He is a donkey. And he is carrying... well, the weight of history."

  "I sat in a void for three centuries," Elias grumbled. "I did not complain about leg cramps. I did not stop to eat weeds."

  "You didn't have legs, Sir," Rylus said, not looking up. "You were a metaphysical being suspended in a non-Euclidean state. Barnaby has knees. Give him a minute."

  Elias opened his mouth to retort, then closed it.

  He hated it when the Knight made sense.

  It was disrespectful.

  "Fine," Elias said. "One minute."

  He crossed his arms. He looked at the cartwheels. They were wooden, rimmed with rusted iron. Every rotation sent a vibration up his spine that rattled his teeth.

  "This transport is very slow," Elias decided. "The friction coefficient is too high. The axels are grinding."

  "It's a cart, Sir," Rylus sighed. "It's supposed to grind."

  "Not," Elias said, raising a finger, "if I fix it."

  Rylus dropped the apple. He spun around, eyes wide. "Sir! No! We talked about this! No magic on the livestock!"

  "I am not targeting the livestock," Elias said dismissively. "I am targeting the physics."

  He visualized Friction. The resistance of two surfaces moving against one another.

  It was a useful law of nature, but right now, it was annoying him.

  He pointed his staff at the wheels.

  "[Glide]," he commanded.

  He intended a localized grease-spell to the axles. A simple lubricant cantrip.

  Instead, the System interpreted his desire for a "smooth ride" as a request to delete friction in a twenty-foot radius.

  The effect was instantaneous.

  The cart didn't just roll easier. It lost all grip on reality.

  Barnaby let out a confused bray as his hooves slid out from under him like he was standing on wet ice. He collapsed onto his belly, but instead of stopping, he kept sliding forward.

  The cart, now completely frictionless, surged downhill.

  "Whoa!" Rylus screamed, grabbing the reins.

  It didn't help. The cart spun. Without friction, the wheels didn't need to turn; the entire vehicle just planed over the dirt road like a hockey puck.

  "We are accelerating," Elias noted, clutching the side of the cart. "This is much smoother."

  "WE ARE SPINNING!" Rylus shrieked. "STEER! SIR, STEER IT!"

  "I cannot steer physics!" Elias shouted back over the wind.

  They hit a curve in the road.

  A normal cart would have turned, the wheels biting into the dirt. This cart did not. It obeyed Newton's First Law with malicious compliance. It continued in a straight line.

  Right off the road.

  "BRACE!" Rylus yelled.

  They sailed off the embankment and into a muddy drainage ditch.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Usually, mud stops a crash. It is thick and sticky.

  But Elias’s spell was still active.

  The mud was frictionless.

  They hit the mud, and instead of a wet thud, they skipped across it like a stone on a pond. Barnaby was sliding on his side, looking resigned to his fate. Rylus was screaming. Elias was holding his hood.

  They slid for three hundred yards, gliding up the other side of the ditch, through a patch of frictionless brambles, and finally coming to a halt against an ancient oak tree just as the mana faded.

  CRUNCH---

  Friction returned violently. The cart slammed into the tree. Barnaby scrambled to his feet, shaking mud off his ears.

  Elias sat in the hay, blinking. He was covered in mud. But because of the spell, the mud hadn't stuck to him until the very last second. Now, it slid down his face in a cold, wet slap.

  "That," Elias said, spitting out a piece of straw, "was efficient."

  "Efficient?"

  The voice was low. Trembling.

  Rylus climbed out of the wreckage. He was brown from head to toe.

  Mud dripped from his nose. He looked at Elias, and for the first time, his eyes weren't filled with fear.

  They were filled with rage.

  "Efficient?" Rylus shouted, throwing his helmet onto the ground. "We almost died! Again!"

  Elias wiped mud from his cheek. "We covered the distance of a mile in thirty seconds. We reduced the journey—"

  "STOP!" Rylus snapped.

  Elias froze.

  Rylus walked up to the cart. He slammed his gauntleted fist against the wood.

  "Stop helping!" Rylus yelled. "Just... stop! You treat the laws of nature like they are suggestions! I am a Knight of the Realm, Sir! I am not a crash-test dummy for your magical experiments!"

  Elias stared at him. He expected the Knight to cower. To apologize.

  Rylus didn't. He pointed a muddy finger at Elias.

  "You are powerful. We get it. You are a god in human skin. But you are dangerous. Not to the monsters—you handle those fine. You are dangerous to us."

  Rylus took a breath, his chest heaving.

  "If you want to get to the Capital," Rylus said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper, "you need to let me handle the physical world. You handle the... whatever it is you do. But do not touch the cart. Do not touch the donkey. Do not touch any things around you. Just tag along with me like a statue."

  Elias looked at the Knight. He looked at the mud on his own hands.

  He felt a strange sensation in his chest. It wasn't indigestion.

  It was... shame?

  No. Surely not. He was the Grand Archivist. He didn't feel shame.

  But Rylus was right. He had nearly killed the donkey.

  Elias slowly lowered his head.

  "Agreed," Elias said softly. "I will not cast physics-altering magic without a permit."

  "You don't have a permit," Rylus muttered, picking up his helmet.

  "I know."

  They walked the rest of the way. Barnaby refused to be ridden, and honestly, Elias didn't blame him.

  An hour later, the forest cleared.

  Rushing out of the ground ahead of them was a massive stone spire. It stood fifty feet tall, glowing with pulsing blue runes. It hummed with a low, throbbing sound that made Elias’s teeth itch.

  "Behold," Rylus said, trying to regain some dignity despite the mud drying on his armor. "A Leyline Relay Tower. The marvel of the Golden Era. It powers the protective wards of the entire province."

  Elias walked up to it.

  To Rylus, it was a monument to progress.

  To Elias, it was a crime against architecture.

  He inspected the stonework. The runes were carved deep, glowing with mana.

  "[Inspect]."

  Structure: [Leyline Relay - Class C] Efficiency: 14% Status: Leaking Designer: The Mage Guild (Budget Committee)

  "It's leaking," Elias said.

  "Leaking?" Rylus asked. "It’s glowing. That means it’s working."

  "It’s glowing because it’s hemorrhaging mana," Elias corrected. He pointed to a rune near the base. "Look at this [Fehu] rune. The curvature is wrong. It’s drawn in the equivalent of a child's scrawl. It’s venting 86% of the energy into the dirt."

  He couldn't help himself. It was sloppy. It was pathetic.

  He poked the rune with his staff.

  "Just a little adjustment," Elias muttered. "Tighten the seal..."

  He pushed a pulse of mana into the stone. He corrected the curvature of the rune, aligned the mana flow, and optimized the output.

  HUMMMMMMMM.

  The low throb of the tower pitched up into a high, clear whine. The blue light intensified, turning from a dull cobalt to a blinding white-hot azure.

  "Sir?" Rylus backed away. "What did you do?"

  "I fixed it," Elias said. "Efficiency is now 98%."

  The tower vibrated.

  The sudden increase in efficiency meant the mana that was being wasted had to go somewhere. It couldn't just stay in the stone.

  WHOOSH.

  A shockwave of pure life-mana erupted from the base of the tower. It rippled outward across the surrounding meadow.

  It wasn't destructive. It was pure growth energy.

  The grass instantly shot up to waist height. Thousands of dormant seeds in the soil woke up all at once. In seconds, the brown, scrubby field exploded into a riot of neon-blue wildflowers. Vines shot up the side of the tower, blooming with glowing roses.

  The shockwave passed over Barnaby. The donkey’s gray fur grew three inches longer, becoming lustrous and shiny. He brayed, looking suddenly energized.

  Rylus stood in a field of flowers that reached his chest.

  He plucked a blue daisy from his pauldron.

  "You fixed it," Rylus said flatly.

  "I tightened the faucet," Elias defended. "The waste was bothering me."

  Rylus dropped the daisy. "We need to keep moving. Before the Mage Guild notices their electric bill just dropped to zero."

  "Fair Enough."

  

  Night fell before they reached a town.

  They camped off the road, hidden by the unnaturally tall grass Elias had created. Rylus built a small fire.

  Elias reached out to adjust a log.

  "Don't," Rylus said.

  Elias pulled his hand back. "I was just going to—"

  "No," Rylus said firmly. "You will accidentally invent a sun. Sit. Drink water."

  Elias sat. He drank his water.

  'I want a tea though.'

  They watched the flames dance.

  "What is happening in the Capital?" Elias asked after a while. "Why is everything... broken? The magic. The currency. The tea."

  Rylus poked the fire with a stick. His face was grim in the orange light.

  "The High King is ill," Rylus said quietly. "He hasn't been seen in five years. The Council of Mages runs the administration, and the Church runs the law."

  "The Church?"

  "The Church of the Golden Light. They hunt 'Heretics.'" Rylus looked at Elias. "Anyone who uses unauthorized magic. Anyone who taps into the Void. Anyone who threatens the order."

  Elias looked at his hands. Pale. Void-touched. Capable of crushing diamonds and erasing friction.

  "Unauthorized magic," Elias murmured. "I suppose my library card has expired."

  "If you go to the Capital," Rylus said, "you will be walking into a viper's nest. They won't see a Librarian, Sir. They will see a threat. A monster from the Dark Ages."

  Elias looked into the fire.

  He thought about Master Arion. He thought about the empty shelves of his mind where the last three centuries should be.

  I am a threat, Elias whispered. I am the man who closed the door.

  He looked up at the stars. They were different than he remembered. The constellations had drifted.

  "But I still need tea," Elias said, his voice hardening. "And I suspect the Council of Mages is hoarding the good stuff."

  Rylus chuckled. It was a tired sound, but genuine.

  "Probably," the Knight agreed. "And if they are... god help them."

  ____

  Status Update Mana Consumed: 0.005% (Global Friction Adjustment + Tower Overhaul) Current Mood: Muddy Rylus Loyalty: +5 (Stood his ground) Local Flora: Aggressively Blooming Threat Level: Heretic (Class S)