Chapter 7: The One Man Orchestra
My heart pounded and pounded as I stared at my opponents. I looked down onto my right hand, where my sapphire ring sat, and a bracelet of unattuned mana crystal beads wrapped snug around my wrist. I had, with heavy practice over the weekend, managed to work up to controlling eight at once, so it wasn’t quite fully a bracelet and only surrounded part of my wrist. Whenever I used up some I could refill them from a pouch of the same beads sitting on my hip. I stood next to Bysen, her stout height equal to mine, and her short hair rustling in the wind. Fearfully – very fearfully – I finally mustered the courage to analyze her core. My concentration fell to the presence in her heart, and I immediately darted my mind away, even though I knew manasense couldn’t be detected without enchantments. I hadn’t gotten much sensation from my brief gaze into her core, but I knew the feeling of Force mana well enough to immediately recognize it. I was certain her core lied on an intersection – there were two distinct feelings radiating from her, though I hadn’t intruded long enough to recognize the second.
Not wanting to dwell on the thoughts any longer, even though I was now sure Bysen definitely wasn’t a Dream mage, I moved my thoughts to Orva Indomitable. She was huge, more muscular than Linn or even Bysen, and her tantalizing smile was underset with an unseen poison common to members of House Indomitable’s direct lineage. They weren’t snakes, per se, but they were definitely assholes, or at least that was what my father said. Often. Quite often.
I was certain I recognized Orva from somewhere, but I couldn’t quite place where. I was unsurprised to realize that, when my consciousness grazed over her core, I couldn’t identify her mana type. It felt similar to Strength, but it was too diluted to tell. I’d already known she must have had Indomitable mana, though until then I wasn’t absolutely certain that she was of direct lineage. Indomitable mana was a triple-blend, though the public only knew two of its components. It was a stronger version of Titanhearth mana, which was a blend between Strength and Metal mana. Unfortunately, Titanhearth mages couldn’t use Titanhearth mana to control metal – as with most blends, rather than giving a mage use of all component mana types, the mana types instead combined use and purpose, becoming something entirely new – though, if a mage expanded their reach into the Aether, they could grasp at where the component pools didn’t overlap. Titanhearth mana and Indomitable mana both functioned more similarly to Strength mana. However, Indomitable mana was much stronger. I was genuinely horrified to be going against such a beast. Indomitable mana was reserved exclusively for those of direct lineage – House Indomitable was almost as strict as House Royal over its distribution of its mana, and not of their own choice. House Royal forced them to restrict the mana type to direct descendants, to prevent an army of invulnerable gorillas from mutinying, though unlike House Royal, Indomitable mana was distributed among all direct descendants of House Indomitable.
I didn’t bother analyzing Taite, as I immediately knew her mana type from her surname. The Sunniva family was renowned for revolutionizing combat magic time and time again, and many of their techniques had become staple to combat magic as a whole. While they didn’t invent evocation or anything so grandiose, they created several techniques that allowed one to modify their elements in interesting and sometimes outright odd ways – for example, it was their techniques that allowed Darkness mana users to learn to evoke their mana in different states. The Sunniva family exclusively used Radiance mana, a blend between Light and Fire mana that allowed one to evoke and control an almost liquid-like, burning substance, which we as a society eventually realized was just plasma, though the Sunniva family didn’t like when we called it that – they preferred Radiance.
All four of us fell into combat stances – well, the other three did. I just sort of stood there, fumbling awkwardly. I was not ready for this fight. A countdown began, and I readied my soul.
A whistle sounded, and I immediately began plunging unattuned mana into my ring, not a second too late – just a fraction of a breath later, a blinding whip of yellow-white plasma wrapped around my left wrist. My eyes nearly popped out of my head as bluish sparks flung outwards from the navy blue coat of force surrounding me. I instinctively let out a yelp of pain, though I didn’t feel a thing. Red rushed to my face as Bysen rolled her eyes. A whirlwind of force and air spun up around her, and I realized what her other mana type was – Wind. I immediately became much more confident that we’d win, though I was already quite confident, considering I was on the same team as Bysen.
She began rising into the air, and the chaotic storm of air around her became so thick it was impossible to see into. The whirling orb, Bysen still inside, rushed toward Orva as Second Circle runes popped into the air, manifesting a dark, bluish-gray mana crystal between the two. I finally realized where I’d recognized Orva from – she was the other student in my spellcasting class who could cast Second Cirlce spells. Eldest spare me.
ELDEST SPARE ME, I mentally repeated as I recalled the stream of plasma, now tightening around my arm. I looked to its source, Taite, who had a confused look on her face, as though she was simply unable to fathom the idea that my hand hadn’t already dropped to the floor. I slapped my cheeks, chiding myself for losing focus. As I lifted my arm, Taite was tugged slightly forward by her whip. I wasn’t totally sure why – I definitely wasn’t strong enough to actually push a person – until I realized that I didn’t have to be strong enough. I was wearing a suit of pure force, and that force followed all my actions – I could probably lift a boulder if I felt like it. I can use this, I realized.
I began tugging again, and immediately, the whip withdrew. Taite leaped into the air, a jet of plasma surging from her boots. She flew backwards, until the boots deactivated and she gracefully dropped back to the ground. Anger plastered itself all over her face. Several beams of plasma struck me, and blue sparks crackled, leaving me completely unharmed. I thought about what Julian would do in my situation, and began stretching and pretending to yawn.
Several more beams fired in my direction, until Taite finally screamed in rage, releasing an onslaught of even more beams. And then I felt it – an all too familiar feeling beginning in my soul and spreading throughout my body like chills – soulstrain. Soulstrain, already?
It was light enough that I could ignore it, but building up quickly enough that I knew I’d have to resolve this quicker than I would have liked. I mentally scorned myself for weakness, wondering what could have possibly caused soulstrain to spring up so soon, and then I thought about what I had been doing over the past few days – I really thought. I had spent my last few days working on Julian’s sword, and when I wasn’t doing that, I was working on improving my control over my unattuned beads, and when I wasn’t doing that, I was working on improving the Doohickey, and when I wasn’t doing that, I was… I was asleep. I had spent every waking hour of the past few days putting my soul through what could only be described as torture. Eldest fucking damn it all. I scorned myself immediately after that thought for cursing, but I couldn’t stop myself – it was my own head, after all.
I continued standing eerily still, lost in thought and biting my fingernails – or at least attempting to, I supposed my ring protected me from even that – switching my focus to how I could end this as fast as possible. I thought about giving chase, but I knew that would be a fruitless endeavor – my ring didn’t actually make me any stronger, it just surrounded me in a suit of force. It could protect me, and lift things for me, but if I jumped forward I’d have gone exactly as far as if I weren’t benefitting from the enchantment, which I was certain would just be an embarrassingly small distance. Taite wasn’t using mana crystals of any sort, so my unattuned beads were essentially useless. I supposed I could smack at her with them, but they wouldn’t really do much. I could use Force evocations to get myself within range, but evocations were Change-expensive, and soulstrain was something I wanted to avoid. I could safely use manipulation spells, for a bit, but there wasn’t enough ambient force to physically push me around. I could perhaps turn the wind in my direction, but that wouldn’t help me much when Taite had Eldest-damned rocket boots.
I continued thinking and muttering to myself, as I realized that the bombardment of plasma had halted. I looked up to realize that Taite was sitting down with a smug look on her face. “Seems like we’re at an impasse,” she grinned. “Oh, except, not really, are we? I’m not casting any spells. You’re powering an enchantment. You’ll have to give eventually.”
“Well, that’s preposterous. I could just power down my shield.” I did so, and immediately, a whip of plasma appeared and began making its way down toward me. My eyes bulged and I flooded unattuned mana into my ring as fast as it would go. The whip slashed down on my shoulder, blue sparks thundering outward from the collision. Eldest. Damn. It. All. She had me in checkmate. There was nothing I could do but slowly wait as my soul tired itself out.
My heart sped up and its beat thundered throughout my skull as I began to really worry. Technically, I shouldn’t have cared about winning. I wasn’t a combat mage, and had nothing to prove. But my ego wouldn’t let me take a loss so easily. Plus, I’d gone a good sixteen years without finding out the hard way how much plasma to the shoulder hurts, and I wasn’t hoping to end that lucky streak, even if I knew I’d be fine once the healers got to me.
…And I was also afraid of what Bysen would do if we lost.
But then an idea struck my thoughts.
I let down my shield yet again, and another whip of plasma streamed toward me. “You know tiny little moments of downtime won’t be enough to recover, right?” Taite taunted.
I shrugged. “I’ve got to cling to some hope, haven’t I?” I retorted, hoping not to give away my plans. Our little spat continued like that, me occasionally dropping my shield and her attacking, prompting me to reactivate my shield, until eventually we just both sat down next to each other and started talking. Though our conversation was, of course, occasionally interrupted by a beam, whip, bolt, or other shape-meant-to-murder-me of plasma.
Our topics ranged from politics, to enchanting, until eventually landing on the fight between our combat partners. Bysen continued shooting thin, sharp curves of wind and force at Orva, who defended with a series of Second Circle runes that erected an impossibly hard mana crystal before dispersing. I was terrified, and astonished Orva could defend herself. Wind-Force mages were just about as close as you could get to Decimation mages without being Decimation mages, so long as they were trained well. And it was clear that Bysen was more than talented, as the sphere of chaotic wind and force spiraled around her.
Orva had a massive, dark bluish-gray circular nest of mana following her around – a Flowform. She was a Second Circle mage – I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she would resort to using one. “Why d’you think she’s using a Flowform to strengthen herself? Why,” I paused, letting down my shield, and not a second later propping it back up as a lance of plasma speared toward my abdomen, “not use a Second Circle spell?”
“For the same reason you’re using that enchantment instead of casting a First Circle spell,” Taite replied. I was briefly offended that she considered my ring at all comparable to only a First Circle spell, but let the slight pass unacknowledged. “Flowforms are easier on the soul than even enchantments, though they don’t have the same bang-for-your-buck that enchantments do. She’s got to defend against those razors your friend’s spewing at her.” Now the battle was starting to make more sense. Orva was putting a lot of effort into each and every shield she propped up. If she used a Second Circle strengthening spell, she’d probably be able to fight back better, but she definitely wouldn’t be strong enough to avoid complete damage from Bysen’s cleaving projectiles, and she’d risk building up more soulstrain every time she used a shield to defend herself. I realized she was probably employing a tactic many others had proven tried and true in the two fights prior to ours – tiring the opponent out. But one thing didn’t make sense to me.
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“Isn’t she going to tire herself out before Bysen?”
“Balmung, please, aren’t you a noble? You should know these things,” Taite responded. “House Indomitable has been breeding specialized Aethermold for ages. Eventually, they got something truly indomitable – a special breed of Aethermold that practically doesn’t succumb to soulstrain. So long as it’s putting out under a certain threshold of effort, it feels practically nothing, though the caveat is that anything over that will quickly knock the wind out of it. They have to spend a lot of time exercising their souls to increase that threshold, but the payoff is huge. So long as Orva isn’t spending too much effort at once, she’ll definitely win a battle of endurance.”
“Oh," I said, letting down my shield and reactivating it as a beam of plasma speared toward my gut. Taite physically winced that time – that was my queue.
I stood up, and dusted myself off. My plan was simple – tire her soul out so she couldn't afford to run away, then boom. She’d been spending more effort on spells than I was on my shield – every time I let down my shield, without fail, she’d let out an assault of plasma – and, if I let down my shield often enough, she’d use her soul’s exuberance up on her spells faster than I did on powering my shield. I lifted my hand toward her face, and a glowing rune appeared and began to shift next to it. This was the true, in my opinion, genius of my plan. I’d been so worried about how I should go about evoking force, I had forgotten I’d been doing it the entire time, though with plenty more efficiency than a spell, with my shield ring. I just hadn’t even considered using the force as anything other than a shield, as that’s what I’d made the ring for. Like Taite said, enchantments were generally much easier on the soul than spells, though usually less versatile. But thanks to my ring, I had a blanket of force I could use however I wanted – and that included manipulating, which my soul was just unstrained enough to do. The rune next to my hand shifted, and…
Boom.
The force surrounding my hand blasted toward Taite, blasting her away and knocking her unconscious, creating a vociferous, booming echo that reverberated throughout the ring. Even Bysen and Orva briefly stopped to look my way, though they went right back to their battle. I hadn’t intended to move so much force, but I felt a pride in how densely packed the huge amount of force had been around my hand. First Circle enchantment my ass.
My shield briefly dimmed around my hand where I’d moved the force, though it gradually returned to its former vibrance. I breathed a sigh of relief, releasing my shield as a team of healers made their way toward Taite. A feeling of reprieve washed throughout my entire body as it thanked me for stopping the abuse on its soul. Sorry, that’s not gonna last long. I looked throughout the crowd for Julian, though I couldn’t make out the crowd’s individual faces. Instead, I just turned to the general direction of where I was pretty sure I was sitting before the battle, and stuck my tongue out. Eldest, I hope Julian’s actually sitting where I’m looking.
I turned back to where my combat partner was firing away at Orva, and began making my way toward them. I glanced toward the bracelet of enchanted unattuned mana crystals on my wrist, before turning my gaze back to the mana crystal shields Orva surrounded herself with to defend against Bysen.
I definitely can’t punch through those, I thought, but maybe I can give Bysen a helping hand.
[break]
“By the Numen, Bal, that was amazing!” Garberend shouted as we exited Collie.
“That’s easy for you to say,” I replied with a breathy voice. “You aren’t dealing with several day’s worth of constant soul abuse right now. And now I have to go to spellcasting class!”
“Really, Bal, it can’t be that bad,” Julian exclaimed. “Considering the one-sided beat-down you and Bysen gave those two! Y’know, you really had me going there with the whole ‘let’s sit down and have a nice chat,’ thing, but you really showed her! Some people are calling you Time Out ‘cause of that.”
“Oh please, not all the names are negative. What about the One Man Orchestra?” Othili contributed.
“One Man Orchestra?” I asked.
“When you began peppering Orva’s shields with those piano-sounding beads, Julian here began bragging to all of those surrounding us about how he gets to fall asleep to the sound of a lovely viola every night,” Othili explained. “Of course, no one knew what a viola was except for him, so he just said, ‘It’s like a violin,’” she added with a laugh.
“And once I finished talking about that, some guy behind us,” Julian cut in, “I suppose he figured you had the strings section, and the piano, and, well,” he mimicked the motion I made with my hands before I’d blasted Taite, “the percussion, and he shouted, ‘One Man Orchestra!’”
“I don’t think it’s going to catch on,” Garberend said. “Time Out is much more catchy,” he continued with a grin.
I groaned, about to fire back, when I noticed Bysen moving towards us. “Bysen’s coming,” I quivered.
“Why are you so afraid of her? She beat me up too, you don’t see me crying about it,” Julian chuckled.
“You heal faster than a Resilience mage. I had three broken bones! You don’t get a say in this,” I quickly whispered as she continued her approach.
Finally, she got to us and pulled me aside. I mentally prepared myself as she began, “Good work.” Huh? “Your long-term planning won us the battle. Without that bracelet,” she said, pointing to the incomplete circle of unattuned mana beads on my wrist, “we probably wouldn’t have won.” Huh. I supposed I had painted an incorrect picture of her in my head. “That being said, your performance with Sunniva was abysmal. Had you been strong enough, you could have kept up with her enough to attack her with Force magic, but you were weak,” she continued, her voice rising. Her face scrunched up in an ever-so-slight anger, and I quickly took back my earlier thought – the image of her in my head was eerily accurate. “Meet me after school. We will discuss these matters in private.”
She left, and I sat in a stunned silence. Once she was out of range, Julian laughed. “She likes you.”
“Excuse me?” I responded.
“‘Good work,’ is the nicest thing I’ve ever heard her say to anyone,” he said. “‘Good work, Bal! Your long-term planning saved us! We will discuss these matters in private after school,’” he said with a high pitched voice, swooning, batting his eyes, and attaching a wink at the end.
“You forgot about ‘You’re weak.’ She’s probably going to force me to run miles or something,” I complained.
“Oh, and you’ll do whatever she says, huh,” Julian teased. I gave him the satisfaction of an overexaggerated eye roll and the conversation moved on to other topics.
[break]
After lunch, I went to spellcasting class, and as I entered I noticed an excited look on Professor Andsware’s face. “For most of you, depending on your professor, magical combat has begun today,” he said, once everyone had entered and sat down. “Some of you, depending on how it went, may feel some excessive soulstrain, so following along with the lessons is not a requirement for today.” I sighed a heavy breath of relief. “However, this will be one of very few exceptions. In the future, be sure to exercise your soul regularly to heighten your endurance. The topic for today is crystallization and its uses.”
He pulled out a knife, placed his hand on his desk, and plunged it toward his hand. The knife bent on contact, a loud clang sounding as students across the room gasped. “Now, I’m sure several of you have heard tales of legendary heroes struck by a blade, only for it to crack, break, or bend under their superior strength. But this invulnerability isn’t something only available to Strength mages – it’s something we can all benefit from,” he explained. My eyes were so wide they must have spread leagues as my hand furiously scribbled trying to take note of every word coming out of the professor’s mouth. I only hoped it’d be legible when I looked through it later. “Now, unfortunately, unlike some other spellcasting methods, most notably the slime-bred Pneuma employed by Corvurago, Pluma, and Praecor, we do not gain any physical benefits from using our souls – Aethermold doesn’t inherently benefit the body. This means that, barring some exceptions such as Strength mages, we are all just as fragile as any other human.”
He let a small silence pass, allowing students to think about how Professor Andsware could have accomplished that feat. “Of course, many mages were far too egotistical to allow themselves to be so fragile. There were many attempts at strengthening the body using only mana, some successful, most not. The one that stuck doesn’t actually strengthen the body at all. Who here has ever met a dwarf?” A couple students raised their hands, myself included, but most didn’t. Most dwarves stayed in their homeland, though there was some known immigration to Stolther due to its high elevation and mountainous terrain. “For those of you who do not know what a dwarf is, they are a species that evolved right alongside us, though with one key difference. As many of you know, Undheim lies north of us, and is much closer to the Chaotic Wreak than anyone considers habitable.” The Chaotic Wreak was a fog of incredibly dense mana north of Yppath, clouding over the sea that lied between us and Pluma. Because mana was so readily available, many species evolved to rely on it, and became dangerous predators. Many species. It was an incredibly dangerous area where few ever returned, and those that did spoke tales so absurd that no one could tell the real from the fake. “Dwarves originated in Undheim, and evolved to grow a coat of thin, flexible mana crystal over their bodies. It is paradoxically hard yet flexible, and the study of this phenomenon is what led to the creation of the personal shield.”
He turned to the chalkboard behind him, and drew a humanesque figure – it was always important for a mage to practice art, to make sure runes were as accurate as possible – then surrounded that figure in a dotted line. “The shield is made of incredibly condensed flexible mana crystal. Permanent crystallization allows one to have it active at all times, though it’s quite a slow process. It’ll be a few weeks before you notice any differences. That being said, being able to constantly add to your shield, in addition to the enhanced efficiency that comes with progression through Circles, allows one to have impossibly thick shields that become incredibly difficult to penetrate. As a matter of fact, paranoid non-combatant mages have been some of the most powerful soldiers in several past wars, due to continuously adding to their shields without ever damaging them through combat. Don’t worry – the shields are thin enough that you’ll still be able to see, feel, touch, taste, and hear through them.”
He paused again. “Not all of you will find this necessary in life, only those of you wishing to be combat mages, or those of you who are overly paranoid, but I highly encourage you all to learn this – it could save your life someday.” He drew a series of runes onto the board, before adding another series under it, saying, “And here is the Second Circle set for the same spell, for those of you who are able. Keep in mind that these are simply the publicly available sets for personal shields – your families may have access to more efficient sets.” I copied down both sets and paid rigorous attention to every word he said.
The remainder of the lesson mainly focused on different ways to build up a personal shield, how to repair it in certain areas when it broke, and what to do for cleanup when casting the spell – apparently, unless you were using Knowledge mana, the spell didn’t actually focus itself around the caster, though I had some ideas to remedy that – it instead emitted a, for lack of a better word, cloud of crystallizing mana that happened to latch onto the caster, but also onto everything surrounding them. Apparently scrubbing off mana crystal was particularly tedious if you didn’t do it immediately, and also the excess mana crystal could be used or sold. Finally, the lesson concluded with a process to loosen and shed the shield, though the process took a couple weeks. Apparently, people with multiple attunements sometimes wanted to switch which mana crystal their shield was made of, and needed to shed in order to rebuild a shield of a different mana type. Since mana crystals all had different properties, it made sense – for example some were stronger, or more heat-resistant, or anything else the mind could dream of.
After spellcasting, history was notably bland that evening. Professor Kendra had no interesting relics to show us, instead going over several folktales of the past – Aheawan the Lich, a mage who died and became possessed by his Aethermold, The Tale of Tamar Tilian, a surprisingly violent children’s story about a mage who used spatial enchantments in battle and was speared by several spatial tears as one of the enchantments failed, and several others. Finally, it was time to meet Bysen.