Sable had showed her hand more than she’d have preferred during that negotiation, but the Wither Witch had been uniquely suited to brushing Sable off. Terminally ill, bad-tempered, and apparently knowledgeable on dragons, Sable had navigated the conversation only through great effort.

But navigated it she had.

Ultimately, the Wither Witch—Roman being her real name, she had learned shortly—had reluctantly agreed to help her. For all that the woman apparently ‘had nothing to lose’, Sable’s offers to aid in curing her disease had been effective. She had been persuaded easily, all things considered. When her life was on the line, Sable supposed that was fair. Her blase attitude was just a mask, or a way to cope. Obviously, she didn’t want to die.

Though, as a level three, Sable wasn’t truly in much of a position to do anything. Her fortunes would need to change drastically before she could help the woman. Once Sable had progressed through the levels and earned herself a small kingdom, surely she would have the needed resources—or strength to find them.

And, the softer part of Sable was willing to admit, Roman’s ailment was a large reason in why she had suffered through the irritating negotiation in the first place. Though she wasn’t truly a dragon—or ‘wholly a dragon’ might be the better phrase—she did find her temper fraying faster than before, and Roman’s lack of respect had grated her in a way it hadn’t in her old life. She’d always had a mostly even temper, in her opinion. Much less so now.

But she’d completed the negotiations, because if she didn’t, then the woman would clearly die.

Having a motive like that pleased Sable. Recent plans had been entirely too selfish, in her opinion. Necessary, yes, and she hoped to to make her own fortune others’ too, but what she’d accomplished recently had still been selfish. She’d bullied and terrified large swathes of innocents, and was shortly planning on robbing them through taxes, too.

But Roman. Sable could easily have flown off and found a different tutor—okay, maybe not easily, but surely there was another mage somewhere in the Red Plains—but she’d persisted with the dark-haired, ill-tempered woman because she had a problem that genuinely needed solving. Though the details behind her skeletal hand, and the illness affecting her, were sparse, Sable thought with sufficient ability, or resources, they could figure something out.

And truthfully, though there might be other proficient magic users in the area, Sable doubted there were many better. Roman came off as competent. Maybe that was an inaccurate assumption, because she had no idea to the woman’s level or real reputation—despite her claims she might be able to fight Sable and win—but something about her screamed that she was, if not powerful, certainly intelligent. Well-versed in the arcane.

So, her motives were slightly selfish in the end. But not entirely. She wanted to help, if possible.

Which led her to this. Her first lecture on magic.

“Each spell begins with a key-rune,” Roman said, “which is the same as any other rune, but it’s the one that defines the structure of your spell. Affinities to key-runes are most often earned through classes.”

[Most often?]

Aylin, of course, acted as her conduit, relaying the question. It was an unfortunate requirement of conversing with anyone not directly subjugated by her. Eventually, Aylin had indicated, Sable would receive a half-dragon form which would let her communicate in a more natural way. Until then, she was stuck using her minions.

“Most often,” Roman repeated. “There’s exceptions, like artifacts from the dungeon which grant affinities, but those are rare. Very rare.” She waved her hand irritably. “Don’t sidetrack us. There’s a million diversions we can go on when it comes to the arcane, and I’m not good teacher in the first place. Let me get from A to B. Sit and listen.”

As before, annoyance flickered at the lack of respect in Roman’s tone. Doubly so because when Sable didn’t correct it, Aylin undoubtedly took note, and therefore her reputation was affected in her eyes, too. But Sable said nothing. She needed a powerful reputation to the general population, but small cracks in the picture—such as with Aylin and Roman—wasn’t the end of the world.

“So,” Roman said. “Each spell starts with a key-rune. Yours, you said, is frostfire.”

[Is it a known one? Common?]

“Not common. But it’s known, I believe. Found in colder biomes.”

Sable inclined her head, indicating for her to continue. Plenty of questions had spawned from those brief sentences, but, again, if they wanted to get anywhere, they needed to avoid getting diverted.

“A spell is built in stages,” Roman said. “First, you start with a foundation.”

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In her black skeletal hand, she lifted a long staff of gnarled wood, stretching it out in front of her. A few feet away from the tip, vibrating black lines etched into the air, coming to life under Roman’s focus. The staff didn’t move; she held it steady as the diagram appeared.

Though Sable had seen bits and pieces of magic, this was the first time she’d seen a sapient person cast—and it was, as expected, a much more deliberate process, hence why Sable had failed to intuit the mechanics by instinct.

“The foundational circle, or the cardinal, contains the key-rune and any other desired elemental runes.”

[Elemental?]

“Effect types,” Roman said. “All key-runes are effect-type, or elemental. Like frostfire.”

[And what are the other categories?]

“Modifying runes.” In the center of Roman’s growing diagram, a tight diagram of black lines had appeared, surrounded by a neatly drawn circle. “In this example, I’ll use ‘debilitation’ as my key-rune, and without any additional effects. But I could technically add, say, a ‘fire effect’. Not that I’m practiced with fire, but it’s just an example.” She seemed irritated for some reason. Annoyed at her clumsy explanation? “Now. In the margin, we draw decorators—another word for modifying runes, but specifically ones laid into a spell diagram.”

Sable watched patiently, suppressing her question, as Roman drew smaller symbols crowding the outline of the circle. The circle sliced through them, not tucked inside or outside, but cutting the tight symbols in half. On the margin, not around it.

“Decorators,” Roman said, “describe a spell’s desired behavior. Where elements such as fire, ice, salt, space, or lightning define what, decorators describe how. For example. Debilitation … forms an orb,” several quick motions as she sketched a rune into the circle’s border, “which will travel,” another rune, “forward,” another, “and on contact, will explode, applying the effect.”

Six runes total. In the center was a key-rune of debilitation, of which was surely a specialty offered by Roman’s necromancer class, then orb, travel, forward, contact, explode. Each of the five decorator runes were spaced in an even pentagon across the circle’s perimeter. By the fluidity she had drawn the spell with, she had clearly planned it out in advance. Possibly the spell was one of her combat go-tos.

Was the equal spacing necessary? Maybe it was a relevant question, but Sable wanted to let Roman get through the lesson without interruptions.

“Thusly designed, the spell must be activated.”

The tip of Roman’s staff glowed a dark black, and the diagram shimmered—then impacted in a way hard to describe, a surge of magic pounding into Sable’s skull the way a loud noise might. It reminded her, in a way, of that monstrous creature of black goo. When it had summoned its javelin, Sable had felt the ability tearing at her skull, though in a far harsher way.

Thusly activated, the black lines making up Roman’s spell vanished, and a black orb streaked forward, originating from the spell circle. It impacted a dead tree a short distance away, and, on contact, exploded, black mist bursting into existence in a ten-foot radius. The smoke disappeared rapidly, faster than it should, until it was gone in only seconds, leaving not a trace behind.

Undoubtedly, if the spell had hit a person or monster, it would’ve applied a debilitating effect. Though what specifically that meant, and the potency and duration, she didn’t know.

[Is the rune spacing necessary?] Sable asked, voicing her earlier question. [You put each of the five equidistant around the border.]

“Not necessary,” Roman said, “but poorly made spells grow prohibitively costly.” She tilted her head. “For a dragon, I assume that’s less of a problem for you. Finesse is less … required, when you can brute force your way through a problem.”

Because of her mana pool, Sable inferred. Most level ones didn’t have mana in the thousands, and a spell’s strength was related—how strictly, she didn’t know—to its mana cost.

[And poorly made,] Sable said. [How is a spell poorly made? And what else affects the quality?]

Even if Sable had enormous advantages, she wouldn’t use them as crutches. When she could avoid it, at least. Since she’d accepted a spellcasting class, she intended to hone her skills as a human mage would. Brute forcing would be necessary here and there, but she did want to manage ‘finesse’, as Roman put it.

“Well,” Roman said. “Construction, but that’s beyond a beginner’s course. Something you can worry about is line smoothness.”

[Line … smoothness?]

Aylin imitated the questioning lull in Sable’s words. Roman seemed amused by that, and Aylin paused, realizing maybe she shouldn’t be relaying words so true-to-life. She flushed, glancing Sable’s way, but Sable just ignored it. Honestly, she was a bit amused, too.

“Line smoothness,” Roman repeated. “Theory is the hard part, but there’s loads of application, too. Drawing the spell diagram is one of them. It takes a deft mental hand.”

Mental hand. An interesting way to put it.

[How do I do it?] In her attempts to intuit how to cast magic, she’d stumbled on something, some ball of hot-cold shimmering energy inside her chest, which she assumed was her mana. But she hadn’t ever gotten to the point of manifesting it. And the reason why was clear—spellcasting was an involved, technical process, clearly learned through practice.

“Draw mana and use it to cast?” Roman clarified.

Sable nodded.

“Carefully,” Roman said. “And with a lot of practice. Some classes, you just activate a skill and get its effect in full. Not for us. Even bad mages need training. Hence, why you needed to come find me.”

That was fair.

“Though,” Roman said suspiciously, “that shouldn’t hold true for dragons. Obviously they didn’t have tutors. Dragons straddle that strange line between monster and person. As far as I knew, their ability for spellcasting comes from raw instinct, a primitive knowledge, the same as most mage-type monsters.”

Roman waited for a response for that, but Sable obviously didn’t give one. She’d convinced the woman to tutor her, and that accomplished, Sable benefited nothing from giving away more about her circumstances. If anything, Roman’s inquisitive nature might make her more interested in Sable, and thus more likely to keep training her—to not renege on their agreement—out of sheer curiosity.

[Describe the process,] Sable said. [I want to start training.]

Roman almost seemed pleased at Sable’s blatant redirection. As if that just made Sable more of a puzzle to unravel.

“Sure,” she said. “Let’s see. How to describe it?”