Nature had an undeniable power over humans. Its grasp was unavoidable and firm. From water, in any of its many forms, as well as heat and sunlight, and lack thereof, these factors were powerful shapers of all cultures.
Take Sogeans as an example.
Every Sogean man and woman knew of a few principles— simple common sense, really— on how to go about their daily life. Midday was that time of day when everyone had to find a place to hide in, or under, or whatever— just stay away from direct sunlight. Any work that could be done indoors was left for midday. It was also a time to cool and relax in water, mostly in enclosed areas of Hippotion where wildlife had very little access. The summer season was the time of the year when this was practiced especially zealously. Morning and evening were the times for outdoor physical activities, a time when farmers and laborers struggled to finish as much essential work as possible. Deep night, on the other hand, was a time meant for rest and recuperation.
But on this night, Tercius was an exception.
Stealth [13] is now Stealth [14]
Covered in a dark cloak, as his Stealth continued to climb, Tercius sneaked through the dark hallways of his house. The morning was still hours away and practicing his Stealth while he used Mana Sight to observe his surroundings.
He stayed close to walls and paused at every turn if only to make up a habit to do it. His feet stepped gently forward with caution, in the same way that Lux showed him.
Dexterity [7] is now Dexterity [8]
Stealth [14] is now Stealth [15]
Tercius stopped walking. For a brief moment, his insides felt on fire. Is it because two occurred at the same time?
Worry turned to curiosity and he planned to repeat this feat once more, just to see if the same things happened again. Dexterity, he invoked the skill.
Dexterity [8]
Your ability to perform closely controlled and purposeful physical movements is increased by a small amount, while the skill is in use. Every skill level increases the effect by a small degree and lowers the cost of use by a small degree.
Everything seems the same as before, he thought and made a brief check with Visualization, just to make sure. Every word was the same, he confirmed. Tercius placed this behind him and continued with his practice. Focused and with a clearly painted image of how things should be, Tercius took every silent step with hesitation. As he stalked, his thoughts kept returning to the many tips his uncle gave him and showed him.
Stealth [15] is now Stealth [16]
Stealth [16] is now Stealth [17]
Dexterity [8] is now Dexterity [9]
Stealth [17] is now Stealth [18]
Mana Sight [38] is now Mana Sight [39]
By the time a loud cry startled him, he had become a bit more natural and relaxed in his steps.
He jumped in fright, but then his mind made the connection. Momentarily surprised to see that the sun had arrived, Tercius hurried to his mother’s room, but by the time he came to the door, his mother was already up and calming the new baby using that soft low voice that she reserved for her children.
*********
Instead of disturbing his new sister and his mother in their feeding efforts, Tercius decided to be of some actual use. After a night’s rest, people needed to eat and he guessed that he was not the only one woken up by the baby's cries.
In the middle of breakfast preparations, Aurelia came down rubbing her sleepy eyes with her little hands.
She stopped at the entrance to the kitchen and stared at him.
“What?” he asked, as he gave her a questioning glance.
“What are you wearing?” she asked, pointing at him.
Glancing down he realized that he still had his cloak on. He had lowered his hood and thrown the sides of the cloak over his shoulders so as not to interfere with the movement of his hands, but he had forgotten about having it on. Oh. And I wondered why it was so hot this early in the morning…
He rinsed his hands in a bowl of water, ridding his hands of flour and fruit juices. After he untied the knot around his neck, he took off the cloak, folded it properly, and then stored it into his amulet while the wide eyes of his little sister observed everything unfold.
“Where did it go?” she demanded in wonder. “How’d you do that?”
Tercius smirked. “Just a little bit of magic,”
"You've gotta show me how to do that," she said with starry eyes while grabbing onto his forearm.
“You need one of these and then—” he said and fished out the amulet from his shirt, only for his sister to grab and pull it for closer examination. The string held on and it merely dug itself into his skin. “Whoa there! I like my neck as is, thank you very much,”
“Where can I get one?”
While Tercius explained to his little sister where, when, why, why not, and so on, Leo was carried down in Ciron’s arms and a few minutes later his mother came down with a sated baby.
The two guests were next to arrive and all of them shared a meal, while Petra subtly and not so subtly extracted information from Penelope and Seliana, first about the two of them, Chameos, Pyramid, and all the while Tercius merely observed the natural way these conversations flowed.
“So tell me about Tercius. How is he doing up there?” Petra asked Seliana and Penelope.
At that point Tercius stood up, his face carefully blank. “I’m going to Maya’s inn. I told Mistress Kalina that I would come for her in the morning,”
Petra looked ready to say something when Ciron stood up from his seat and merely nodded to her. His mother looked a bit calmed instantly.
“Brother… Can I go with you?” his little sister asked, an image of pure cuteness. “Pleeease?”
Tercius glanced at his grandfather and the old man nodded. He would look after her if needed. With a grunt that recaptured Tercius's attention, his grandfather inclined his head to Penelope.
Tercius grunted back and raised his eyebrows while circling and subtly shaking his head in negative. I was supposed to be alone for this and I already have you to come with me.
Ciron grunted back, a deep sound that carried a lot of understanding, but he also raised an eyebrow and tilted his head a bit so that he seemed to be wondering about how fair it would be to leave his peer with Petra. I get it. But your sister missed you dearly. And I don’t want to order you, but do you think it wise to leave your young guest with your curious mother? Look at the girl, she looks ready to jump out of that seat at a hint of any question.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Tercius almost let out a sigh. Sogeans had a guest entertainment system that was vaguely outlined by generations and that meant that since Tercius was the closest to age to Penelope, it was Tercius's obligation to keep Penelope company. To not do it, would be considered impolite.
“Please?” Aurelia asked in a low voice, as her wide green eyes gave him an idea of the only appropriate answer. There was no telling ‘no’ to those eyes.
*********
Old Maya was still the cook for the inn where Tercius had sent Mistress Kalina and he had a guess that nothing short of death would keep the old woman away from her kitchen. The innkeeper, Maya's son-in-law, recognized Tercius after a momentary squint, and words of welcome were exchanged.
Even as he dealt with that situation, he called for Mistress Kalina in the way that she had shown him the day before. He used minute traces of Energy in specific ways and then waited, just as she had instructed. A few minutes later, the Mistress came down the stairs, and after a brief greet to Ciron, Aurelia, and Penelope she asked him to talk in private.
As soon as Tercius and she moved to the table nearby, his mana-covered eyes noticed mana movement and the sounds of the filled dining room dimmed from headache-inducing level to a little background noise that could be easily overlooked.
For a minute or two, Mistress Kalina's green eyes looked directly into his eyes, and no words were spoken between them. "Tercius… what happened two days ago… we need to talk about it."
Tercius crossed his arms across his chest. “Yes?”
“I need to ask a few questions and I hope that you will answer with honesty,”
“Honesty?” Tercius asked after a moment of silence. “What about the spell that can read the truth? Isn’t that better than honesty?”
“I don’t need some truth from you." Mistress Kalina said seriously. "This is not an interrogation. This is a conversation. I think that I gave you enough time to rest and now I am here as a Mentor— No. Not a Mentor. You are not my Disciple and I am not your Mentor. But I am here as a fellow mage, one with some experience on the topic, and I want to help you understand the circumstances of your wild magic manifestation. This is for your own good. Mages are at their most powerful with wild magic, but also at their most vulnerable. A single strong physical blow would have shattered that still growing crystal and traced back through your mana to ravage your psyche. You would have struggled for cycles to recover if such a thing even proved possible in the first place. So talk to me. What happened?"
Tercius chewed on the inside of his cheek as he considered the question and the situation.
What was fine to share with her and what wasn’t? That was the main issue.
Besides I have already helped myself, Tercius thought. I have figured out the most important bit. The Why of Wild Magic, as Master Lazarus called it.
“Mistress…” Tercius began, not sure how to express himself. He had no desire to distance her, but he also had no intention of letting her get closer either. How to explain to a potential teacher that you want to let things slow down a bit? The last few days had brought clarity to many issues he had had and it was a welcome change from before, but now he needed some time to let it rest. Let it all just pass by him.
“Why?” she asked calmly. “If you don’t want to tell me what happened, then you have to tell me why that is.”
Tercius looked at her steel-like eyes and sighed. This woman was not letting it go.
"Mistress…" Tercius said, his eyes uncomfortably darting around the room until they returned to Mistress Kalina. Her eyes were still on him, filled with concern and questions. It was… unnerving. She looked at him as if she was looking at a small wounded child in dire need of help and he…
Tercius swallowed and then shrugged, an action that freed him momentarily from that unnerving feeling that crept onto him. "Mistress. I'm just like that. I don't particularly like sharing things like that. Never did. Probably never will. Especially with people who I barely know. Discounting that one night when you came to Seliana's home, Mistress—" Tercius said, carefully containing his feelings on that topic from seeping into his speech. "—We spent around… twenty-four or so hours of interaction in total. So… Let's leave it at that for now. I will deal with this myself."
“Oh,” Mistress Kalina said. “And how many of these… hours of interaction would be needed for you to tell me something like that?”
Tercius leaned back in his chair and let his arms rest on the table. He was a bit surprised. No one had ever asked him that. Then again, very few people ever spoke to him in such a way as to arrive at this point.
“It… varies…” he replied in a low voice, unable to look her in the eyes as he bullshited through his teeth. There was no exact number. There was just this feeling when outsiders became more than just outsiders. When a barrier of some kind was removed.
“Alright. I won’t pry anymore, for now.” Mistress Kalina said. “But remember your training for wild magic prevention and if anything stressful happens to you… consider coming to me,”
Tercius nodded slowly. “Thank you for understanding,”
The woman nodded back. “So we better get started on these hours of interaction. How about we go and make those potions we talked about?”
That was the topic that he had wanted to talk to her about. Tercius glanced around and leaned in. “Mistress. I… I have an experiment to propose,”
“Oh?” Mistress Kalina said, raising one eyebrow. “Do tell,”
With a deep breath, he used Energy Manipulation to drag over all of the neutral Energy that he had in his Well into the space between his hands. To anyone looking from the side, it would look like he was holding air, but Mistress Kalina's wide eyes, twitching nose, and dry lips told another story. It was three times more Energy than what he had given her for the transport from Nogea to Sogea.
“I was wondering if you would be willing to use all of this in the making of these potions, Mistress. Please.”
The woman nodded slowly as he felt another tug at the Energy from the other direction. Without contest, he let it go.
“If you need more, just give me a word,” Tercius said.
“More…” the woman uttered in ecstasy, as her face went blood red. The ears and the tip of her nose were especially red, but Tercius also noticed that her pupils had dilated to enormous proportions.
*********
Observing the red-faced Mistress Kalina as she made her preparations for her special Potions of Rejuvenation and then observing Seliana as she jumped around the Mistress and kept asking question after question about the process and differences was… Tercius chuckled.
It was highly amusing.
Mistress Kalina outright told Seliana and everyone else who was observing that there were some questions to which she couldn't give any kinds of answers. So far, only Seliana stumbled onto these questions.
The Boiler, the main and only apparatus of an Alchemist, was a wide cylinder made of a glass-like material, approximately forty centimeters in length and half of that in diameter. Its top had a complicated-looking opening, like lattices of some exotic flower— which was enchanted, judging by brightly colored Runes that Tercius saw. The bottom of the Boiler also had a rather large and complicated bright red Rune and many smaller Runes of various colors ran along the length of the tool.
It hovered about half a meter off the ground, as Mistress Kalina took out the ingredients for the potions from her amulet and let them hover in the air around her. He saw very little mana, which either meant a high-level skill was used to hover them or a well-concealed spell.
"— I can answer that. See how these ingredients are stored?" Mistress Kalina pointed at the row of still moving scaly, black tails, various flowers, differently colored minerals, and liquids, all of which were placed into enchanted glass spheres. "That's to limit exposure to various outside contaminants. Dust and other small particles are found all around us. Their influence might be small, but don't be mistaken and presume that it's unnoticeable. We limit the use of tools, simply because we have spells for every single action needed. Do you need to create a reaction from an element? Unlike Brewers, we Alchemists don't use other elements to create that reaction. We use very precise spells that mimic these additional elements up to the point of the need of the Alchemist. You need to measure a certain quantity of a highly unstable and explosive material? There's a safe spell created specifically for that material,"
Seliana ran around the area taking notes in a small black book, oohing and aahing at everything that Mistress Kalina told or showed. Aurelia and Penelope sat at the stairs that led into the house, giggling at the antics of Seliana.
His grandfather was sitting in the corner of the inner garden, baby Portia sprawled peacefully on the massive chest, one ear just where Ciron’s heart was supposed to be. Tercius saw that her eyes were open but she kept studiously silent.
Leo was having a grunting tug over a green branch with Amber, slowly gaining an advantage, but Amber was not above playing dirty. Every time the boy came close to winning, a small spray of water would touch his bare legs and distract him enough for Amber to finally gnaw on the leaves and the stump.
His mother was inside the house, preparing refreshments for everyone.
The weaker version of Energy Sight also gave him an indication of where their spectral household member was. The cat was currently sitting on the window of the second story and observing Mistress Kalina like a… well like a cat observes a mouse. The inner garden was chosen as a site for the potion making, mostly because Mistress Kalina thought that the spirit was structure-bound. If the cat somehow did have access to the garden, despite the many previous attempts to get it to enter the garden, then Tercius was there to make sure that the cat was well behaved.
Tercius ran to the second story and approached the window while avoiding eye contact with the cat. He had no idea how this particular cat "saw", but avoiding direct eyesight was generally good advice with cats, he had been told a long time ago.
With a corner of his eye, he saw that the cat had turned its head to him, its big ears flickering from side to side.
Summoning a tiny amount of neutral Energy into his hands, he almost jumped back when the cat just appeared on his elbow, desperately clawing in the direction of his hand. Slowly, he pulled his arm in and the cat waited as it saw its food approach.
“So you really are bound…” Tercius whispered as he saw the cat gobble that small bit of Energy in a single bite. As that Energy went down the length of the cat, it glowed briefly and Tercius could even see that it had gained a bit of color. At least he thought so.
He gave another bit of Energy to the cat and observed it happen all over again.
"Let's begin," Mistress Kalina said, and immediately one of the ingredient-globes floated and approached one of the Runes on the side. Many more followed and soon the Boiler looked like it had grown small spherical babies all over its body.
The top of the boiler caved into a perfectly spherical entrance and three glass spheres went down the cylinder and deposited their contents on the bottom, only to promptly return out. The opening latices of the Boiler were malleable in their movements, moving in ways reminiscent of a real flower.
A lot of things happened all at once, but only a few of them were seen with the naked eye. It was no wonder that Mistress Kalina didn’t worry about showing this to all of them. Anyone without Mana Sight and Energy Sight, or similar skills for both, would completely miss all the different things happening to many ingredients.
Almost every ingredient received a small— very small, at first, but rapidly increasing— dose of that neutral Energy and he heard Mistress Kalina mumble something to herself in wonder. Some were cut off from the supply of Energy and then differently morphed mana went to work. He saw some ingredients heat up, others cool down, some evaporate into gas, and others wilt and turn to ash. Many of these events happened simultaneously and it was difficult keeping track of everything at once. It got a little bit better when Mistress Kalina started mixing them inside the Boiler, the Runes on the sides letting in small doses of whatever was necessary at certain times.
The spellwork that he saw left Tercius mesmerized. There were dozens of spells happening all at once. Every second that passed by something was going on, something moving, something changing, and Mistress Kalina was at the center of it all… A controller supreme.
Energy Sight [23] is now Energy Sight [24]
Multitasking, Tercius thought absentmindedly. Multitasking.
Even with the ability to observe all of it, from many angles, he still missed many things as his focus was captured by the flashy stuff.
Mana Sight [39] is now Mana Sight [40]
“That’s excellent… hmm…” Mistress Kalina murmured as she moved around the Boiler, making small alterations with mana and Energy where she thought it needed. Under her careful and cheery ministrations, the liquid inside the Boiler changed ever so slightly with each passing minute.
To ordinary sight, the potion appeared a greenish sludge.
To Mana Sight, the potion seemed like a rainbow of many colors.
Energy Sight outlined the boiled in a very clear white light and the spectral cat that sat near him seemed ready to pounce at it, should that potion come near it.