Jace left the tower in the morning still pensive from the events of the prior day. He tried to clear his mind by jogging the stairs down the tower, then exited the keep. As he shot out of the keep, he stumbled to a stop to avoid crashing into a large group of women in black robes. He could easily guess why they were waiting there. Most of them carried their possessions.
When the women started talking he cut them off and said “Yes you can move in. work on the fundamentals. I’ve class to attend.”
The truth was he knew he would be in a great deal of trouble with the faculty, as he probably had almost half of the women in this academy living under his roof now. Judging by this group’s level of enthusiasm to join his ‘harem’ he chose not to go to class, for fear of a repeat of the prior day. Instead he left the keep on the west side and made his way down to the black sand beach.
The walk was pretty, but did little to calm his mind. He was just a regular American kid. He played a lot of sports. He had a number of good friends, a few childhood friends, no one he would ever consider an enemy. He never really envied anyone before. Even when his mother passed on from cancer he didn’t look at his friends and envy them for their mothers who were still there. He never saw a friend date a girl he was interested in and got envious. There was always someone else. He lived a care free, responsibility free and comfortable life. One in which he could pursue whatever future he wanted. He never had anyone else counting on him in any real important way. His teammates wanted him to do well so they could win, but it wasn’t life changing if they didn’t. He had been flagellating himself endlessly for seeing these horrible things people did to each other here without saying anything against it. Then unable to bear the weight on his conscience he decided to step out.
It was only now he fully understood what it meant to take responsibility for your actions. He had said some outrageously nonsensical things to those men, and then alienated himself from all the men in this place by taking the women. And then as if to further compound it, if he wants to do ANY good, he has to make good on those promises.
He knew how he had helped Khana pass that test. Yet his action had been smoke and mirrors. A parlor trick. He suspected even now Khana could not cast that spell again. He had cheated the system by showing an untalented person how to sense the pulse, by becoming the pulse for them. He can’t do that for all 30 or 40 women. The staff might not have noticed that Khana couldn’t cast anything outside of arms reach, but he noticed it in class yesterday. He noticed that clever girl knew better then advertise it, and pretended just to be REALLY weak. No one doubted it. However, if 40 women suddenly pass the test for channeler and none of them can cast anything beyond their palm, someone will put two and two together and realize he had been cheating them through the test.
Jace, what an inspired name. He wanted to laugh at himself. He wasn’t much of a fan of fantasy stories. When it came to fiction the types of books he liked were things about spys and military operations, not witches and warlocks. So when he decided to cast of his old name and take on a new one for this place the only fantasy character he could think of was the most irritating character in Magic the Gathering. Jace the “asshole” some of the players would call him. There were a number of different cards sporting that name, released over the years. Almost all of them with absurd cheat like abilities and low cost to play.
His cousin Kelley, had taught him how to play that game when he was in middle school. She was huge into fantasy stuff and a giant nerd, being a senior in high school at the time and playing a game like Magic. He knew she never really grew out of it as she got older. That said she had this huge love for fantasy art, and was a rather good artist in her own right. Even if she was always reading forgotten realms books and talking about old versions of D&D. He smiled thinking about some of her rather good drawings of unicorns in purples and pinks and dark skinned drow with white hair, and wise wizards with floppy hats and staffs. He remembered being in middle school and loving looking at her art.
His reminiscence ended at the beach. He could hear the waves crashing against the shore, the croaking calls of the colorful lizards flying between the giant fern/trees. There was some sort of weird crustacean like creatures slowly moving around on the beach. Not a lot of them. They looked like overgrown pill bugs, shells as black as the sand. They didn’t seem to do anything except slowly crawl around near the edge of the ocean.
He really wanted to try sailing. Of course that was ignoring the problem.
He needed a permanent solution to those girl’s problems and fast. He needed something that would allow them to always allow them to always feel the pulse.
He frowned.
He stopped where he was standing. He suddenly had an audacious idea. He didn’t know if it was possible, but from what he knew of magic it might be possible. Blended magic. Magic circles. Enchantment. He didn’t know enough about those things, but he thought he might have a solution somewhere in it.
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Turning from the edge of the beach he knew he had to bother someone he had already irritated but he couldn’t think of anyone else who might know the answers to the questions he’d ask.
He ran the whole way, trying different glyphs he thought he might be able to enhances his body’s function a bit with. To his surprise the “strength” glyph could actually increase his physical strength, however it took a tremendous amount of power to use. He suspected his own understanding of the glyph was probably inadequate since he was just trying something on a whim. The “speed” glyph on the other hand did absolutely nothing when cast on himself. He wasn’t sure if he was using it wrong, didn’t know enough about its composition, or it simply didn’t mean “speed” like he was thinking. It’s possible it was a glyph which meant something else, and it’s real meaning was lost in time. Energy, however, worked exactly how he imagined as he was able to wash away any weariness or exhaustion and even feel a bump of energy with a fairly minor expense of magic.
He searched through a number of courtyards, at first he was being careful hoping not to be seen by groups of witches, but it seemed an unfounded worry. He saw no witches anywhere. Eventually he found who he was looking for. Unfortunately, the person he was with was another person he had irritated. Perhaps he could resolve a misunderstanding. He strode up to both Kay’rin and Karius discussing something under a tree while sitting on a bench. Now that Kay’rin was wearing a dress she looked like a rather pretty girl with an unfortunate haircut. He could see just looking at Karius, he was infatuated regardless. Heck, Karius didn’t even notice his approach, it was Kay’rin’s glare that notified him something unfortunate was approaching.
“Good morning Wizard Kay’rin, Grand Channeler Karius.” Jace figured there was no point returning the open hostility with hostility. Besides he didn’t dislike either of them.
“Channeler Jace.” Karius spoke quietly, with a flat tone. “What can we do for you?”
“It’s actually about the… um… experiment I’m conducting. It seems somehow a rumor got started and now a number of witches seem to believe I can help them jump up to channeler.” He laughed weakly.
If the mood of the other two was cold beforehand, it turned glacial the moment he mentioned the “experiment”. Knowing he had to move the conversation past that he kept speaking. “The thing is, while my theory for getting those girls past the test for witch is fairly solid, and I suspect inspired. I have little hope to pull the same miracle I pulled with Khana for all of those witches without knowledge of things I do not know. I would normally, be willing to take classes until the relevant information came up, but I only have 3 weeks. I was lead to believe if I had a question about magic, short of some of the greybeards here, you Karius were perhaps the best person to ask.”
Karius stared at him a long time then spoke slowly “You can ask your questions, but I cannot promise I’ll answer. I don’t know what game you’re playing at this morning, but it sounds like it will be in bad taste.”
“I would like to know if there is a library. A central deposit of information.” Jace knew he was being circumspect, but the last thing he wanted to do was actually talk about his theory. He didn't need people telling him why it wouldn't work. It was better just to make it work and worry about explanations later.
“I see no harm in this question, there is.” He raised a hand and pointed at a domed building to the north.
“Are there any experts on Artifice or enchantment?”
“There are. I’m fair at it, but if you want to speak with the best, speak with Wizard Bravre.” That was the name of the wizard who traveled here with Kay'rin. Jace glanced at her a moment then continued.
“What about experts on magic circles?”
“No one is a master of them. The closest you’ll get is some of the writings of a long passed Grand Wizard known as Ghalus.”
“Those are my questions, thank you Grand Channeler”
At this point the quiet Kay’lin spoke up “Jace?”
“Yes Wizard Kay’rin?”
“What is your goal gathering all of the witches in the fortress? This morning there are none attending class, and the whole place is in an uproar claiming they’ve moved in under you. They even took their children.” Kay’rin was looking at him with a slightly hostile look on her face.
“I just want to help them Wizard Kay’rin. Help those who couldn’t dress up like a boy to avoid getting a dick stuck in them.” She sat back as if slapped, a puzzled look on her face.
Jace smiled and waved at them and started running toward the library, not giving them a chance to respond. He was getting rather excited and almost started to laugh when he thought about his cousin's reaction if he told her what he planned to make. Sure he probably could make the item anything, but if it's required for a mage, it had to be that. If he could pull this off, that classic symbol of a wizard on Earth was going to become very popular with human mages on Althos very soon.