The distance to the inn turned out to be significantly longer than the distance to the square — not including the amount by which I had to double back, of course.
I didn’t mind, however, as I was still in the early stages of recovery from my stint at the library, and the fresh air and small amount of exercise was doing me good. Besides, it wasn’t like it was particularly far in either direction to begin with.
In any case, the inn was surprising in precisely the opposite way everything else in Phantasmagoria Falls had been so far. Namely, it was far smaller than I expected — especially given that it was supposedly the only lodgings available for visitors.
That isn’t to say that it was actually small.
No, as I stepped through the small, decorative cast-iron gate and into the shady clearing, I found it rather difficult to take in the entire building at once — something about the particular angles and faces of the thing made it difficult to fully capture in my mind’s eye.
It was a bit of an unsettling feeling, especially for me in particular.
The basic spell patterns for auditory and visual illusions weren’t exceptionally complex, which was convenient for me, as I was, admittedly, rather terrible at formal casting. No, what made a proper mastery of the art of illusions so rare and difficult to achieve was the process of adequately translating intent into effect.
Once properly constructed, the spell pattern for something like a classic fireball mostly worked on its own, with minimal additional guidance from the caster. But the simplicity — and more importantly — versatility — of the illusion patterns came at a cost.
There was no pattern for any particular illusion one might wish to conjure. Sure, a sufficiently skilled mage might be able to create one, but it would most certainly be fiendishly complex — and worse, it would only ever be useful for that singular effect.
Over the years, I had often heard people express sentiments about wishing for artistic talent. They would blame their hands, suggesting that if they could merely translate the vision in their mind to the pigments on the canvas, that they could churn out masterpieces with ease.
They were laughably wrong.
Wish for an artist’s eye, not their hand. If those people really could project directly from their mind to their canvas, they would soon realize that the image in their mind was far, far less detailed and coherent than they thought.
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Which is precisely what made the art of illusions so difficult — and I emphasize the use of the term art. Master the basic spell patterns, and congratulations! You get to advance to square one of learning to cast illusions.
I didn’t know all of that when I first signed up for the elective. For most people in my position at the time — those muddling through the curriculum with barely passable grades on practicals — it would have been a terrible mistake.
Fortunately, I had a strong natural talent for it, and from that point on things went much better for me. I managed to get a fair chunk of my practical credits that way, and the rest of the time I could spend mastering theoreticals, as well as my main program of alchemy.
That isn’t to say that I was great at it from the very beginning. I believed in talent, but not in the way that most people talk about it.
Usually when I hear people talk about talent, they use it as an excuse for their own inadequacy. They’ll say things like “I wish I were born as talented as they were,” and personally — I find that rather insulting.
People who are true masters of their chosen skill work hard. No one is born a great mage, a perfect dancer, a brilliant scientist, or a genius artist. It takes time, it takes dedication, and it takes sacrifice.
But talent does exist.
No one is born any of those things, and as I said, it takes work — but for the same amount of effort, some will naturally far surpass most others. It’s not fair — but it doesn’t invalidate the accomplishments of those who achieve greatness, either.
I was born with a talent for art, if not magic, and I was fortunate enough to gain the tools and opportunity to develop it.
Nevertheless, while others might do so if they knew, I myself couldn’t honestly profess myself a master of the art. But that isn’t to say that I wasn’t better than most — in fact, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that I could qualify to return to the academy and teach the elective myself…
…if I could meet the other requirements, that is.
As I said, I was a piss-poor mage.
In my very first semester, I realized that my ability to produce mana was not only subpar — it improved at an absolutely glacial pace. After years of fairly regular practice since graduation, I had less raw power output than most second years.
I wasn’t particularly great at weaving spell patterns either. I was great at the theory, and pretty good at memorizing them, but the actual process of knitting mana into the higher dimensional topologies that would let me impose my Will upon physical reality…
It did not come easily. Rather funny, actually, considering how good I was at visualization in three dimensions.
But I digress. In any case, this all meant that I had an excellent eye — by now, I could take one good look at someone I just met and make a pretty decent sketch from memory the morning after.
So all that to say: the building was oddly weird and confusing, which I disliked.
It also took up most of the clearing. It was obvious that many of the trees had branches cut away to stop them from growing straight into the building, and I even saw several old stumps.
Warmly glowing, wax paper lanterns hung from lines strung between the branches, and several of the many glass window panes shone with light from between drawn curtains as well.
The inviting coziness almost made up for my irritation at the architecture. Almost.
How could one arrange nothing but wood and brick to be so befuddling? No matter. I was tired — hungry, too — and I would be as happy as they were accommodating.
How gracious would they be? I supposed I was about to find out.