The streets of Estin were difficult to navigate even in the best of times. The central island was small—relatively speaking—and had far too many buildings packed together atop it, bundled together like a cramped maze. It was a far cry from the wide open spaces of Straetum, and Wyn wondered how children played in such a town. There was no room to run around after all, did they climb instead?
Regardless, the already narrow streets were choked with people, even more than there had been the night before. It was legitimately hard to move, and even harder to follow Nereus as he pushed his way through the river of people.
“Um, excuse me, sir?” Wyn slipped through a small gap between two people. “Where exactly are we going? And what is your research about?”
A stall-merchant grabbed his shoulder. “Hello young man, could I interest you in—”
“Sorry, but I’m not interested at the moment thank you,” Wyn said, nodding as he shook the overly aggressive man loose.
He looked around, already Nereus had already vanished into the crowd, though it had only been a few seconds. And he hadn't even heard the answers to his questions.
Damn it! Eia can you help?
She sighed into the mental connection. She could do that?
Take a left.
After a few more instructions, he saw the mage up ahead and sped up to catch him. They abandoned the main streets and were soon headed towards the edge of the island. Thankfully, this meant the crowds were growing a bit thinner, and navigation became slightly easier. Each karst around the island was connected by two rope bridges: one for entering, one for leaving. They were only wide enough for one person, and a bridgeman posted on each side only let a few people onto the bridge at once, and they had to wait for several minutes before they could cross.
Wyn cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I didn’t hear what you said earlier. Why did you suggest I come with you?”
Nereus turned to face him halfway, adjusting his glasses. From the way he stood, Wyn couldn’t see his eyes. “You interest me more than your friend, that is all.”
“Is it because of my blessing?”
The mage didn’t respond for a moment, he seemed to be considering his words. “In part. I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to study this ‘spirit fire’ more… there is something about it that I can’t place yet. But more than that, I feel I can help you in ways that Tor cannot.”
“You mean by making me a mage?”
“Perhaps. That is an option that is available to you, and one I think you should consider. But there are more paths than simply a mage or channeler, and those aren’t necessarily separate to begin with. Tor said something similar, true, but knowing a path exists, and knowing how to walk it are two very different things.”
“So there would be channeling, mana-weaving, and… bonding?” Wyn fished for the topic he was interested in, and he knew the mage would know something about it from what little he’d caught about the ritualists and shamans earlier.
Nereus brighted. “Ah you were listening to me before! I knew you were attentive! Yes, that's exactly right. Bonding is one of the most important parts of being a mage in fact! You see, for a loom to truly be effective, it needs to have significance to you, and you have to spend a lot of time with it on your person. That’s done so that a bond can be formed between you and it.”
He held out his staff: an ornate piece of curving wood with the top tightly bound in a leather bag. He undid the string and pulled the bag off. As he did, a set of small wooden windchimes clattered down, hanging from the top. Nereus smiled wistfully. “These chimes were the basis for my loom, they provide its personal significance, and the staff came from a thousand-year-old sage tree in Edria, rich with life mana. That provides the power.”
Wyn reached out, running his fingers along the wood with some reverence while the chimes sang their gentle tune. “So you have a bond with your loom then?” He asked quietly.
Nereus tapped the side of his glasses twice, then dragged his finger across the frame before taking them off his face. He held them out to Wyn, and Wyn gladly put them on.
The world did not glow bright with color, and he couldn’t see all the mana he had before. But as he looked at the mage, he saw a thin, faintly green line, drawn between him and the staff. It spiraled its way up the length of the wood before reaching down and wrapping itself tenderly around the chimes, holding them as they swayed.
Wyn reached for the bond slowly, glancing up at Nereus to make sure it was okay, and the mage nodded. His hand passed through the bond as though it weren’t even there, and he felt nothing as he did.
“Is this your aura?” He asked, awed.
“In part,” the mage replied. “Aura is the matrix for the bond, it allows information to be transmitted between the two parties. In this case, my casting intent is channeled through the bond to my loom. If my staff were a living creature, its own aura would contribute to the bond as well, and the more information I wanted to transmit, the thicker the bond would have to be.”
Wyn thought of Phyrus, the thief in Precipice and his bond with his bird. He thought of his own bond with Eia, and the line of spirit fire he’d seen drawn between them earlier, if only for an instant. Out of curiosity, he glanced into the air around him, but even with the lenses, he could see nothing.
“This Wyn, is something that neither Tor, nor Corrin can understand.” Nereus continued. His voice was soft, and perhaps a bit nostalgic. He stared at Wyn, and his eyes seemed to know all the secrets of the world. “Bonds are a powerful thing, and they occur more frequently than you would think. They come in all types and strengths, from the bond between a water spirit and the water it purifies—weak and fleeting—to the bond between a beast tamer and their beast, strong enough to rival even a channeler for pure power.”
He plucked the glasses from Wyn’s face and tied the bag back around his staff, silencing the chimes. Only then did Wyn realize that they had reached the front of the line and would be allowed to cross the bridge. Nereus went first and Wyn followed a few moments later, stepping onto the rope bridge as it swayed just enough for him to notice.
As he crossed the bridge, Wyn looked down at the grass below. It was cut notably shorter than the grass surrounding the town, and ended a good fifty feet below the bridge. He hadn’t been able to tell the evening prior—nor had he been paying attention—but just above the grass, in the area around the island, spires, and bridges, were large nets that stretched out over the top, he assumed to catch anyone that fell.
Spirit knights, mages, bonds. So many different thoughts swirled around in Wyn’s mind, overwhelming and intimidating and wonderful all at once.
Eia, he thought. How was it that our bond formed?
There was quiet in his mind for three long breaths. My mother chose you, and I wanted to be your bond. That was that. It is easier for spirits, and even easier with your blessing.
An image crossed his mind, himself backed by a hundred spirit beasts, like some sort of wolf pack with him at the head. It was an amusing thought—he’d always wanted a dog.
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Why was I chosen?
I do not know her criteria for choosing you, and my memory from before you awoke your blessing is hazy. But as for why I wanted to bond you. I think… I believed in what you could become.
And what was that?
Exactly what you want to be. A hero.
He clamped down on his emotions as his face went red. Of course, he’d admitted it to himself during the flood, but after the heat of the moment, it was embarrassing to have them said back to him like that, what kind of adult dreamed of being a hero?
Eia flitted down onto his shoulder, speaking quietly. “I think it’s a wonderful thing.”
He covered his face with his hands.
They crossed two more bridges after that, not speaking again, until they reached a wide karst just outside the inner ring. It was shorter than most, only about twenty feet above the sea, and flat-topped, though whether by man or nature Wyn didn’t know. There were only two buildings of note on the karst, with one taking up most of the space. At a glance it seemed like an inn, though its construction was unlike any Wyn had ever seen, with a small courtyard in the center surrounded by rooms on all sides. On the other hand, the second building was small, perhaps only twenty feet across in any direction. Through the two windows on its front Wyn could see a shelf full of books.
An inn and a library—what a lovely pair.
Nereus sped up a bit as he got closer, walking through the courtyard of the inn as he entered his room with a happy sigh.
The room was, to put it simply, a mess. The low table in the center of the room was a battlefield of alchemy and academics. Beakers filled with viscous, softly glowing liquids jostled for space against half-burnt candles and parchment covered in all manner of symbols and writing. The floor wasn’t safe either; half-a-dozen dirty robes were crumpled in one corner, and yet more books and papers lay strewn across the woven floor. The bed was unmade, with a quilt hanging halfway off the back and pooling on the floor. A large tome lay open up by the pillow as well, with an ink quill resting on the nightstand next to it along with a jar filled with some variety of magic stones.
Nereus didn’t seem to mind—as he wouldn’t with it being his room—walking across the floor with ease as he plopped down at the table, gesturing for Wyn to do the same. Careful not to step on anything, Wyn made his way over and sat across from the mage. Nereus was already sifting through several of the documents, shoving the rest onto the floor.
“Put the beakers on that shelf over there, would you Wyn?” He pointed to a shelf within arm’s reach and Wyn obliged, careful not to spill any of the dangerous-looking mixtures. “Just a bit of a side-project.”
“What is it exactly you’re working on sir? Is it related to my spirit fire?”
The mage affixed him with an interesting look. “It could be, though it’s impossible to say at the moment. No no, my studies here are two-fold.” He spun two of the documents around and Wyn looked over them.
The parchments were covered in incredibly detailed drawings, both easily recognizable as one of a veldstrider, and the other as grass. Neither was artistic though, they were scientific in nature, detailing the biology of the veldstrider under its shell, as well as the grass from stem to root. Several notes had been scrawled into the margins, highlighting specific features. Wyn could hardly make sense of it, but Nereus pointed around the picture as he explained.
“Across Aeora, several creatures rely on lift spirits to defy gravity, but none illustrate this principle more elegantly than veldstriders. They’re too heavy for the grass you see?” He pointed vaguely to some numbers on each page, and Wyn could sort of see what he was talking about, but the knowledge was far beyond the simple schooling that they received in Straetum.
“Veldian titanstalk is the most prominent grass in the sea. It grows rich in life and earth mana, making it comparatively stronger than most grasses on the continent. That’s how many species are able to traverse it. Veldstriders take advantage of this with their tendrils, grabbing onto over seven hundred blades at any given time. However, it’s still not enough.”
“They bond with the lift spirits to make themselves lighter right?” Wyn spouted something he remembered Kei saying almost a month prior.
“Exactly,” Nereus said. “And they do so in greater numbers and more frequently than any other easily observable creature on Aeora. That makes The Grass Sea one of the best places to study them.”
“I see. And you think understanding them better might help us harness that ability in some way sir?”
Nereus nodded. “It is an invaluable ability because it reduces weight without altering mass—a weapon with the same effect would weigh nothing to the wielder, but hit just as hard. There are similar enchantments and spells that can be used to similar effect, but all at some or great mana-cost, whereas lift spirits seem to require none at all. Spirits, however, do not tend to bond with non-living things, which is the crux of most bonding research at present.”
“I think I understand?” Wyn rubbed his head. Thinking in terms of mana-cost was new. How advanced was the east in terms of such things? “You said your research was two-fold though?”
“Ah right,” Nereus pointed to the grass parchment. “I am spending time here to study the grass itself. I mentioned earlier that my staff was crafted from the branch of a sage tree rich in life aura. Now, titanstalk is no sage tree, you wouldn’t make a loom for a mage of my calibre from it, but its abundance is unprecedented for how much it contains. If it could somehow be modified to grow smaller, it could provide an abundant, cheap source of mana to be used in all sorts of applications.”
“And you’re going to be doing all of this?” Wyn’s head was spinning.
“Of course not, I’m just doing some preliminary research. Since the borders between nations have opened, a whole new world of study has opened along with them. Before the war, an Edrian mage could only dream of conducting research here. Frankly our knowledge remains woefully incomplete. It makes even tolerating army life worth it. I’ll be taking my findings back to Taravast and presenting them to several research groups. In that sense, this Colossus hunt has proven quite fortuitous.”
“Is that how most mages are?” Wyn asked. “You do research?”
“Mages are a vast group,” Nereus adjusted his glasses as he turned and began gathering papers off the floor. “For example, some are purely research-focused, whereas I am employed by the army. As such I’m required to devote some of my craft towards combat. On the other hand, there are mages whose only concern is pushing their own powers further. They are similar to spirit knights in that sense. Frankly, mages and channelers are not opposites. And further, ‘spirit knight’ is merely a job title.”
“Really?” Wyn raised an eyebrow. “Tor made it seem as if they were diametrically opposed.”
Nereus rolled his eyes. He inspected one of the document’s he’d picked up before nodding and adding it to a pile. “Nothing in this world is as black and white as that man likes to think. It’s true that most mages are vastly different from channelers and vice versa, there are plenty of exceptions to that rule. One of the Aegis themselves, Cyrill the Stormweaver, perhaps the single most accomplished spirit knight in Taravast, could be considered an archmage in his own right.”
Wyn blew air through his lips. “That’s… a very convincing argument. And you could teach me?”
“Not a chance,” Nereus laughed. “I could hardly teach you to cast a single spell unassisted in two weeks' time. If that, considering we’d be starting from scratch and you wouldn’t have a loom. If you were enrolled at the mage academy, your first year would focus almost solely on theory. Too many good mages lack a solid understanding of the fundamentals these days.”
Wyn’s face fell.
“But.” The mage raised a finger. “I can set you on the path. Whether you follow it or not, that is up to you.”
Wyn turned it over in his mind. He couldn’t be a channeler, but did that mean being a mage was the right decision? He shook his head, remembering Tor’s words, and how little he really knew.
I don’t have to rush this.
“If it’s all right, sir, I’d like to learn more from you and from Elder Tor before making any decisions.” He bowed his head onto the table.
“That’s a wise answer.” Nereus sniffed. “However, I must make one thing clear—my knowledge and instruction are not handed out freely. If you’re serious, you’ll need to earn it.”
“What would you have me do, sir? I’ll do whatever I can to earn your guidance.”
“Perfect! Then in that case, grab those orange and yellow elixirs off the shelf and follow me.”
Wyn looked back up, the mage was getting up and dusting off his robes. He took the stack of papers he’d been gathering and put them into the leather bag on the wall, before taking it off the hook and slinging it over his shoulder.
“What?” Wyn blinked. “We’re leaving?”
“Of course!” Nereus said. “You just agreed to do whatever it takes, yes? I’ll explain on the way. Now chop chop, we have work to do. The grass isn’t going to experiment on itself!”
And that was how Wyn found himself drafted as Nereus’s research assistant.