Magic and Lessons

“Everyone has magical energy within themselves, there are many theories about what that means; some believe it is your soul, others that it keeps you alive, but the truth is we just don’t know. However, just because you have the energy within you does not mean that you can access it” Astrid begins her lecture as Orion moves to the side and sits with Anoir. I glance over at him and see his hand around the woman’s waist, the two of them seemingly enraptured by one another’s company.

“Magical energy has many names, we in the kingdom call it mana, the elves call it ci, the dwarves call it the mountain blood. We will start with an easy method of telling if you can use magic. Which of you gained magical abilities from your spirits?” Rayall, Sara, Cleo, and Sybil raise their hands, Astrid looks over them and nods before turning to me and Korin. “You two, come here” she says, twisting some of the rings on her fingers as we make our way over.

She starts with Korin, crouching down to his height and placing two fingers to his forehead and an open palm on his chest. She takes a deep breath in and a light from one of the gems laid into her rings begins to glow. After a moment she looks at him and shakes her head, “No, I suggest you get better with your sword because you can’t use the art” she says, almost apologetically. She turns to me, “now you” she says. I step forward as she rises back to her full height, I feel her warm touch as she places her hands on my forehead and chest. As before, the gems glow and I feel her warm breath as she focuses her concentration; at last, she looks at me with a furrowed brow. “Are you sure you don’t have any magical abilities?” she asks

I look around the room for a moment before meeting her gaze ad give her a shrug, “I honestly don’t know what my abilities are, my spirit isn’t very communicative” I say, she glances at the others as though to ask if I’m lying, they give her matching shrugs.

“That is… annoying to say the least. But yes, you seem to be able to use magic, your mana is quite powerful” she says, her face furrowed in frustration. “Have you ever used magic before?”

I think back to that fight with Zarin in Blue-Rock, he had me on the ground then a purple blast and he was injured and bleeding on the rocks. “I’m not sure… maybe, I think? I don’t know what I did but there was a flash of light and then someone was hurt. I don’t really remember doing anything though”

She sighs at my explanation, “Well, that sounds like a few hundred spells, it doesn’t really tell me much but that is why I am your teacher. For you, I think we will have to use the basics and try casting spells until you find one that you can do.”

She turns to Korin who had sat on a bench, seemingly happy to enjoy a break whilst we trained with magic. “And you” she says, raising a jewelled finger towards him, “You can go to Orion, I’m sure he has something that you can be doing” she says, giving a little smile as the dwarf groans.

He walks over to Orion who gives him a choice of weapons to train with, Korin picks up an axe and begins to practice drills that Orion showed him. Learning to chain attacks and practice his stances as Orion stays sat with Anoir whilst critiquing his performance.

Astrid returns her attention to the remaining five of us. “Now then, you four” she says running her finger from Rayall to Syibil, “You know your abilities, tell me what they are so I can teach you how to use them properly”

They tell her; both Sara and Cleo’s strengths lay in healing magic and have some abilities for increasing the strengths of their allies and dampening those of their foes. Rayall possessed combat magic, with his abilities including a fireball strike, an ice wall, and blade summoning, all of which he had displayed in his duel against Orion though with obvious flaws to his ability. Sybil came last and was something that impressed Astrid, she was a shadow caster with her abilities involving the capability to summon weapons formed of shadows, stealth abilities that could allow her to pass almost unseen if used correctly, and shadow-step, the ability to travel instantaneously from one shadow to another provided they are in close vicinity of each other.

Satisfied with her ability to train them in their abilities, Astrid began by teaching the basic of feeling and accessing our mana so that we could call forth our magic at will, instead of having it be unreliable and sporadic. She gave us each a ring, when we were able to effectively manifest our mana so that the gemstones within the rings glowed, she allowed us to move on to more advanced tasks.

I watched as the others began to practice their abilities, beginning shakily though quickly improving as they found their footing. Rayall formed an ice wall, only reaching slightly above his waist and shattering after less than a minute, Sybil seemed to be quite proficient in her abilities as I watched her disappear and then reappear in the shade of one of the alcoves. Sara and Cleo practiced their abilities with each other, using a small knife to inflict small wounds on themselves whilst the other practiced their healing on the cuts; Astrid made sure to watch them closely, ready to step in if their wounds grew too severe.

As I looked at the display before me, I grew frustrated, following Astrid’s lessons I could now feel the mana within myself but didn’t know how to direct it. It was like someone had turned on a tap then covered the spout with their thumb, I could feel the pressure building against me but there was nowhere for it to go. Seeing my frustration, Astrid came towards me and placed her hand on my arm to comfort me.

“You cannot force it out of yourself, you have to direct it” she says with a sympathetic sigh, “here, let me show you one of my spells” she adds as I continue to be unable to form any sort of magic. She holds out her hand, directing it to an empty spot in the training hall. She closed her eyes and breathed in for a moment before a large strike of lightning came down above the spot that she was aiming, it burned the wooden planks and left the air smouldering as the sudden burst of energy disappeared from view. The others turned, agape at the display of power that they had just seen.

Astrid looks at them, slightly annoyed “Continue with your practice, that was one of my abilities, lightning bolt” she says, the other look chagrin as they continue with their practice. She turns back to me and speaks more softly, “For that, I felt my mana within myself then directed it into my arm. In your arm there are many pathways, if you can’t use an ability then the pathway will feel blocked at the end, and nothing will happen. I found the one that felt like electricity and let the mana flow into my hand. When it is in your hand you should be able to hold the mana there for a time and direct the path that you want to release it along. This way you can control the strength and directions of your attacks”

I nodded at the explanation, thankful to get something that made some sense rather than just telling me that I should be able to feel it all. I followed Astrid’s instructions, finding the strongest point of my mana then directing it into my arm. I was forceful at the beginning and felt it resist me so I slackened my grip on it and it began to flow, once in my arm I could feel the pathways, hundreds of them, one of them felt like electricity and I directed the mana in that direction. I could feel power in my hand and aimed in the same direction that Astrid had previously.

Focusing my breathing so that it was in time with the pulsing of the energy in my hand, I aimed and released my grip. A spark of lightning flies out and darts a few feet away from me, it does not manage to hit anything and leaves the air around it the hazy image of burning ozone. Unlike the blue-white of Astrid’s lightning bolt, mine was the same dark purple as I had seen in the magic I had done before, the same purple as the energy of my spirit.

Astrid gives me an appraising look as I lower my hand, my spell was nowhere near as powerful as hers had been though it had still been something. “Hmm, very good. On my first attempt I could only make sparks. To tell the truth I didn’t expect you to pick up the first ability you saw, lucky you I suppose” she fiddles with the rings on her fingers, “Odd colour though” she mutters to herself, barely audible over the sound of the other trainees.

We continue practicing our abilities for the next couple of hours, as we progress everyone gains more confidence in their abilities and are able to make them last longer and become more powerful. Whilst the improvement would have had little effect against an experienced adventurer, it was still there and could make all of the difference in dire straits, especially with weeks more of similar improvements. By the end I could feel that my lightning bolt was more powerful than when I had first started, having found better ways to let my mana flow that suited the ability and strengthened the electricity pathway within myself from practice.

Glancing at her pocket watch, Astrid eventually called our training to an end. “Very good for now, you should take some time to let your mana replenish. We’re done with the training for today, I suggest that you practice some more by yourselves later on, and if you can find ways to use your abilities in your daily activities, you should. The more you use them, the stronger they will become” she says as she glances towards Orion who was still watching Korin swinging the sword in the air with obvious fatigue.

Meeting her gaze, Orion gives Anoir a quick squeeze on her waist before getting to his feet and telling Korin he can step. He walks over to us whilst Korin sits down on the bench, breathing heavily. “Okay, right you see that dwarf over there” he says pointing towards Korin, “Before I let you have some lunch, you’re all going to end up looking like him” he paces across the wooden floor, looking at us each in turn, “Let’s see…” he raises his scabbarded sword and points it to Cleo, “Let’s teach you the basics”

The sword drills were exhausting, with my energy drained from using so much mana minutes before I had built up a sweat and could barely keep the sword gripped in my hands. Each time I had tried to lower it and take a break, Orion would walk behind me and hit me a dulled training blade. Not hard enough to injure me, but hard enough to let me know that I wasn’t allowed to stop. By the end we were all sweating profusely, and our screaming muscles would barely allow us to raise our arms higher than our hips.

Having been dismissed from our morning training, we were taken to a room for lunch. It was hardly as extravagant as the feast hall that we had gorged ourselves in last night, the food was not as plentiful either. Still though, the meal was far more pleasant than most I had enjoyed in my life and managed to sate the hunger that my brutal morning had worked up. In the chamber that we ate lunch, the other groups sat at different tables all spaced apart so that we could not easily talk to one another.

After lunch, we were taken to the Citadel library. Floor upon floor of bookshelves lined with tomes both old and new, gilded railings lined the circular wall that looked down to the ground and above was a domed ceiling made of clear glass with daylight pouring through, reflecting from mirrors placed throughout the library and illuminating the complex. We were taken to a group of tables on the third floor with rows of shelves on either side of us. Astrid and Orion had taken their leave of us for the day, leaving us in the care of Anoir for the afternoon.

As we were seated at one of the tables, the dark-haired woman slammed a number of books in front of us. She took one from the stack and flipped through some pages before she found the one that she was looking for, “you can take one” she says absently. We each take one of the books and look at it, a thick green tome, they all have the same title though each seem to be slightly different.

“Turn to chapter eight on basic dungeon monsters” she says as her eyes flit over the words before her. We all open the books and find the chapter, relieved to be doing something that isn’t physically draining. The first section of the chapter is on goblins; I start to read it, but Anoir speaks up and gives a brief overview of the detailed analysis of the creatures in the book.

“Goblins are generally quite small and weak. They don’t have any particular weaknesses and aren’t immune to any types of attacks. They are pack monsters and will rarely be found on their own, if you see one then you should expect more to be around, and they will respond if you attack one of their own. A good strategy to dealing with them is to set a trap or ready any blast spells you have before attacking one of them, lure the rest towards you and then spring your trap on them. Their attacks aren’t particularly powerful but if a pack of them swarm on you then you should be worried and try to cut them down as quickly as you can” she lectures us, briefly glancing up from her book to make sure that we are paying attention.

Cleo and Rayall begin to make notes in an empty notebook as she speaks. Seeing them, I do likewise, taking one of the pads from the table and summarising what Anoir says. Having taught us about goblins, she moves on through the chapter teaching us the aspects of Arachnyls, Hunter-Bats, Giant Rats, Savage Wargs, Chiton Worms, and many others. Her lecture continued for over an hour, telling us of her encounters with the monsters and what she found does work and what doesn’t. When she was done, she gave us each a paper with questions relating to what she had just taught us.

“You can take your time with this. Once you have completed it, give it to me and you can leave the library. After that, the rest of the day is yours to do with as you wish; I suggest you train some more but you can return to your rooms if you wish” she says as she lays the paper in front of us. The others pick it up and depart to different areas of the library, I notice Rayall collecting a stack of books from one of the shelves before he starts to fill in his test. I sit at one of the tables, having a read through the green tome as I write my answers on the paper. I spend some time on it and watch as the others get up and hand the paper to Anoir.

I finish it last and go to Anoir, she doesn’t look up as she slides it towards herself and looks at my responses. Having been thinking about something I clear my throat and speak up, “Uh, Anoir?”

She finishes the page in her book before looking up at me, “yes?” she asks

“I was hoping you could help me with something, I’ve been having sort of visions I guess” she looks up, beginning to become interested. “Yeah, I’ve had it three times now. It’s always the same woman and we just talk” I say as she runs a hand down her cheekbone in thought

“Hmm, tell me about the woman. What does she look like? Does she have a name? what else happens?” she asks, finally closing her book

“Well, she says her name is Lilith. She’s got white hair and golden eyes; I don’t really know much else, we’re always in this dark place so it’s hard to see much. Nothing else really happens we just talk” I say, happy to be getting this off my chest for once.

She’s silent for a moment, her brow furrowed in thought. “There are a lot of instances of visions that have been recorded. I can’t think of any that sound exactly like what you’ve told me, but I’ll have a look through some books and let you know if I find anything” she says.

“Thank you, that would be great Anoir” I say, giving her a smile. I turn to leave but she speaks up again.

“Oh, Aucus. Here take this” she says, holding up a thick book with a purple cover

“Thanks. What is it?” I ask as I read the cover of the book A Collection of The Adventurer’s Abilities

“I think you might find it useful, just a hunch I had” she says with a shrug

I thank her again and leave the library, winding my way through the shelves and tables before descending down the stairs. I pass a few other groups who are still receiving their lessons from their adventurers. As I step out of the great double doors, I see a familiar figure waiting for me and I sigh, knowing I’m going to be getting another lecture.

Calendis is stood with his hands in his robes, giving me a smile as his usual guard accompaniment stands nearby. “Aucus, boy. How was your training. A hard first day I hope” he says, a bit loudly

“Hi Calendis. Yeah, it has been pretty exhausting, I get the feeling that I’m not quite done yet though” I say

He lets out a little chuckle as he slides his hands out of his robes and pushes his glasses back up on his face, “Hehe, no, not quite yet” he says, gesturing for me to follow as he walks down the hallway. I fall in next to him as his guard comes up behind us. “There is someone that we should talk to, I’ve told him a little about you and I think you should speak”

“Okay, who is it?” I ask, smiling as Calendis greets the people that we pass in the hallways. It seems to me that he knows pretty much everyone in the citadel.

“Now that would be telling, what is the world without a few surprises” he says, avoiding my question as he brings us to a stop outside of his office door. He gives me a strange look, before he pushes the door open

I look around, the room is the same as I had seen it last, his desk is still covered in a mess of papers though arranged differently from the day before. The only other change in the room is the man in Calendis’ chair, a brown hair man with a handsome face and a gut beginning to sprout from his clothing. My breath catches in my throat as I realise who the person am looking at is. Prince Orsat.