It is inevitable that the enemy will win in the end. They are as insidious as the water they inhabit, an unnatural erosion wearing away at our lands and our souls.
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"I'm sure you've met my son by now: Lian?"
Jair maintained a polite smile as he inclined his head in a half-bow half-nod. "Indeed I have, Lord Teretho. He and I have been acquainted in the past." Mostly at the wrong end of Lian’s fist, but the statement wasn't a lie.
Lord Kyson Teretho needed to be handled with straightforward honesty; the man despised liars and sycophants. But it would set them at odds if Jair were too honest; Teretho’s only son and heir was already underperforming academically, to accuse him of unseemly violence would cause a familial rift that always interfered severely with Jair’s integration.
Lian was the sort who’d hold a grudge for years if pushed to it, but handled properly could be a non-issue. His eagerness for his father’s favor made it easy to brush their past history aside. As long as Jair didn’t push the matter and refrained from showing him up too badly, they could easily pretend to be friends.
"Excellent, excellent. I'm sure the two of you can become even more closely acquainted now.” Lord Teretho reached into his pocket and withdrew a thin metallic circle. “You should come to our oasis for Solaria. We hold a gathering there every year, you know."
Jair's eyebrows rose involuntarily as he accepted the disc, inscribed with the transit key for Teretho Oasis and the Solaria date some weeks later. "Thank you, Lord Teretho, I will take it under consideration."
Teretho normally took close to a year to ally with; Jair’s record was five months and that had required foregoing practically everything else. To receive a Solaria invitation at first meeting? Things truly had changed far more than Jair anticipated.
If judging by wealth alone, Teretho shouldn’t be at such a mid-performance gathering. Lian had received every possible advantage in his youth, yet still failed to create his soulspace in time for the second advancement group. A personal deficiency that earned Lian no small amount of Lord Kyson’s ire, which Lian in turn took out on any convenient target.
Which, for a long time, had been Jair himself. He couldn't help but wonder how this new dynamic would change things.
As the clear social leader among year-three advancees, Lian made it plain that any opposition, resistance, or defiance would result in escalating consequences over a longer period of time. Jair grew a bit numb to it all over the early uncontrolled repetitions of these first months.
By now Jair considered Lian more an inconvenience than a true nemesis, though still a pain to deal with. But having Kyson Teretho's approval this early in the game? That would be worth exploring.
A casual glance at the others showed several envious faces, Matricia Eldren foremost among them. But of those present Teretho was preeminent and none dared to presume now that he'd staked his claim. At least not while he stood among them.
Teretho left soon after, not even staying long enough to offer obligatory congratulations to his son. His departure left Jair to the mercies of the other squabbling nobodies, all taking Teretho's cue and babbling on about how much they'd love for him to get to know their children.
In this, Jair's extensive knowledge of their futures served him in good stead. He doubted any of his classmates told their parents anything about him, so he was able to easily convey the impression of being a well-liked, perhaps even trusted, acquaintance. Some were familiar patterns, others required more innovation.
"Why yes, Lady Sectri, Noelle is a lovely young lady. Is she still pursuing her interest in the kalini? I have yet to hear her play, but she seemed quite enthusiastic about it."
"Denor has always been an inspiration with the blade, I hope to reach his level someday.”
“Ah, Ser Zialir, you must be very proud! I hear Njen placed favorably in the spring recitational, perhaps a contender in the future?”
“I understand Kael might be up for induction as a Silver Star in the next year? Truly an honor at such a young age, he can’t be much older than me.”
The rest of the hour passed in an endless succession of introductions, congratulations, and subtle (and not so subtle) prodding about everything from Jair’s family and background to his grades and ambitions for the future.
By the end of it all, he had amassed another three invitations to visit various houses on specific dates, an open invitation from the Ielga which he doubted he’d ever bother with, and more offers of ‘help’ assessing his new weapon than he could ever need.
Most interesting of all, he’d received a second Solaria invitation - this from Matricia Eldren the moment she was sure Kyson Teretho was out of earshot.
He finally extricated himself, introductions finished, connections established, hints dropped, and all, his mind swimming with new thoughts and plans and questions. There were openings here he could exploit, as well as whole new areas to explore at his leisure.
Now that the necessary networking was set up for later, he could turn his attention back to more important things. Solaria wasn’t for another three weeks, and the first of the scheduled invitations fell within a week of the festival. Plenty of time to deal with that whole mess later.
First priority, saving Ran. First step, assess exactly what they had to work with. The question of what exactly he’d managed to create from that desperate ascension burned in the back of his mind the whole time. The sword survived the transition all the way from the farthest forward point to the very beginning, so clearly something had gone right.
Stepping outside the amphitheatre’s dome and onto the black stone path leading to the student housing village felt simultaneously nostalgic and stifling.
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Jair had to resist a visceral urge to hunch, scurry, hide; habits he’d thought completely left behind returned in full force. But Jair was no longer the scared, defiant, uncertain child he had been when he lived this life before. He suppressed those instincts without so much as a hitch in his step, emerging into the familiar heat of the inner academy grounds.
The central crystal dome may be the obvious highlight of the Astralla Institute, its opulent greenery visible even from outside, but the rest of the place did its best to compete.
The library towers dominated the skyline, each an intricate construct of pale stone and metal woven together so tightly you could hardly tell where one material ended and the other began, the subtle patterns of mana containment buried within layers of ornamentation.
Jair could pick out the patterns only because he’d once spent years studying such constructs in hope that knowledge alone could change things.
Most walkways were edged with hardy shrubberies in purples and browns set against the vivid black of the walkway stones and the bright white of the buildings. Though sand was omnipresent, subtle spellwork corralled it away from anywhere students would need to walk, leaving the paths pristine and the air above them distinctly clear.
Seeing something as precious as mana spent just to keep walkways clear had stunned him when he first arrived. Now it barely registered. He’d seen far more extravagant displays.
The outer walls were more decorative than defensive, dark sandstone which provided a stunning backdrop behind the ivory and crystal of the thin square towers interspersed just frequently enough to give off a fortress aesthetic.
No one bothered him as he hurried to the apartment he and Ran shared. When Jair opened the door, Ran was sitting in their dining area with his own sword across the table and his eyes closed, but the moment the door clicked he leaped to his feet with an excited grin.
"Well?” Ran demanded immediately, eyes drawn inexorably to the sword at Jair’s waist. “Let me seeee!”
Jair smiled, Ran’s brightness reminding him of why this all mattered. One brief spot of light in his endless ever-repeating war. Hopefully this time wouldn’t be so brief.
Reverently, Jair drew out the sword. Its silver fire blazed up at once, casting shadows across the walls and ceiling.
Finally, he could find out exactly what he had managed to create, the blade purchased with over twenty years of pain and loss and desperation.
"Inspect."
─ Maelstrom
─Type: Ascended Soulsword (3rd Form)
─ Rank: Legendary (10%)
Imbued with the pure energy of Mount Sanctum at its ascension, this blade has transcended its humble origins and become a weapon of *****?
– Class Requirement: Mageblade
─ Bound to Jair Welburne
Jair stared openmouthed. He’d expected Advanced, or perhaps Epic if he got lucky, considering the strength of Mount Sanctum’s mana forge. But Legendary! Even on an interrupted ascension?
The row of unknown characters was mildly troubling, and he’d never seen a rank with a percentage before. The word Legendary pulsed and flickered, sometimes almost disappearing, sometimes half its letters twisting into unreadable chaos, as if the rank itself were damaged and reduced in effectiveness.
Neither concern could override his happiness.
“Maelstrom,” Jair whispered. His sword never had a name before now, but with the tumult in his heart and the chaos of its rebirth… yes. The name felt right.
The sword itself was wavy and uneven, lacking symmetry and elegance. The blade was too heavy, the extra starsteel and missing pearl threw off the balance, and his mana resonated against the power within it that pulsed randomly, barely contained.
Ran stared in equal shock. “Legendary? Bound? How? That’s impossible. Third form? Jair, third form?!”
Jair didn’t answer as he removed the ceremonial sheath from his belt, setting it aside to be returned.
He didn’t want to lie to Ran. It was one thing to manipulate the nobility and figure out exactly how to push the headmaster's buttons, but the one person he didn't want to understand that deeply was Ran. He never wanted to start seeing his friend as more a calculation than a person.
"I had a very strange initiation." Jair settled for something ambiguous, rested a hand on Maelstrom's hilt, allowing pride to show clearly on his face.
"And you... ascended your sword how? Your soulspell?”
Jair smirked. “You really want to know?”
"N-not like that!" Ran's face reddened as he realized what he'd said. Sharing the details of your soulspell was practically taboo; even married couples would think long and hard before divulging anything that personal. "I'm just thinking, not asking!"
"Riiiight."
"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."
"Good. Then I won't."
Ran relaxed, a bit, but he still couldn't tear his eyes away from the sword.
Jair ran a hand lightly down the blade, feeling the indents from where he'd reshaped it with burning fingers, and a shiver ran up his spine at how close he'd come to complete failure.
"There's got to be a way to fix that, right?" Ran gestured to the dull sections, the wobble streaked with pink traces of blood, the way the middle pearls were scattered in broken sequence.
"The containment is faulty,” Jair realized. “That's why it glows so much. Once we kill your dragon, we’ll have to visit Aethron. He’ll know how to correct the imbalance, if anyone will."
Ran threw his arms in the air in frustration. "Dragon, now? And who's Aethron? Jair, what is going on?"
"I suppose you could call him my future mentor. He's a bit crazy though." Jair's face broke into a smile. "I can't wait to introduce you! You'll love him. I can just imagine the debates now."
“That does it, something is definitely wrong. If you had a mentor lined up, I would have known about it before now."
“Welll…” Jair drew out the word awkwardly. “We haven’t technically ever met, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know I exist, but I’m confident I can convince him to take me on!”
“Are you okay? You seem different since this morning.”
Jair made a show of checking himself over. “Nothing wrong that I can see.”
“We should still visit a healer just to be sure. Ascending your sword to third form in the same moment you first receive the class isn’t normal. There might be repercussions we don't know about.”
"I doubt it's anything to worry about.” Jair pressed two fingers to the sword and two to his forehead, transitioning it back into his soul in a flash of silver light. “We have more important things to deal with. Like research!”
"Research? Into the sword?"
"No, no. That's ancient history. We need to research dragons."
“Dragons.” Ran stared at him like he'd lost his mind.
Jair grinned back as if he were entirely in control of his faculties, and winked. “Trust me, it could save your life.”
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