Alexander Anaximenes

Alexander sipped on his tea, a lovely straight-cut white sinensis with heavy notes of muscatel. The brewing was done exactly the way Alexander liked it. The barest kiss of tannins from a longer brew, but not bitter enough to notice in any meaningful way.

Baphelus brought out the good stuff today. I’d guess that bad news is coming.

“It’s quite nice, as always.” Alexander offered.

“Why thank you, Alexander. It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to call you up like this. I really should get around to bothering my favorites a bit more… It’s a shame that I’ve had to make all of these bothersome business calls of late. I’ll get right to it. We need to have some hard conversations with our shared pupil. As you know, we’ve got the mid-term examination coming up in just under three months. You’re going to talk to him about the vultures. I’m going to talk to him about the copying clause, and recommend he starts work on a domain.” Baphelus said.

Alexander grimaced.

Oh… Is it coming up that soon?

“I… see. When you say vultures, do you mean to say that you don’t think it’s a good idea for Gio to take an endorsement? Many, if not most commoner students end up signing. I frankly do not see how he could advance enough in his spellwriting to produce a domain in less than a year. Aside from that, he is already making connections, I think he could end up with a great commission from several houses, if not the ring-guard themselves.” Alexander replied.

“Have you taken much time to ask what he wants to do? Giorgio wants to learn. He wants to advance into the upper echelons of academia! Those commissions would have him leave as soon as he graduates.” Baphelus retorted.

He does know that I have 256 other students, right?

“Well… Gio is a smart boy and a fiendishly hard worker… but I don’t see how that could be a realistic path for him. His scholarship will only take him to the eighth year of his studies. If he wants to follow the path of the archmages… he’d need to be able to finance his studies.” Alexander said.

“That’s for him to worry about, I fear.” Baphelus grimly stated.

_____

Gio

Gio stared at the black door in front of him.

“Remember that while this won’t be lethal, It won’t be easy either. You’re not trying to impress me or anything - this is for you and me to gauge your progress. We’ll be having a nice sitdown after to discuss. Do your best!” Baphelus said, urging Gio onward.

Stepping through the black door, Gio was met with the same black, starry void as he usually saw in the Manse, but something felt different.

The glossy floor lit up with ominous red swooping lines and concentric circles, as the stars around him faded out. A guttural noise sounded out from the darkness, like the warning growls of a tiger mixed with the sound of wet meat slapping against a cutting board. A foul, acrid odor wafted towards Gio, and he readied himself.

“[Prismatic Shape]” Gio said, summoning a ball of light.

A wretched shape, like an elongated scaled wolf with several long, vine-like tongues and too many bloodshot eyes pounced towards Gio. The faint hum of death magic emanated from the monstrosity.

Resurrected dungeon creature. Some sort of minor basilisk?

Gio dodged out of the way, summoning a mirror image and backing out from the beast. Several of the beast’s eyes glowed with a sickly yellow glint, alighting on the mirror image. Gio shot out a few reflective shards, aiming for the eyes. More growling behind him alerted Gio just before a wooden club slammed down on his position.

Rolling away, Gio touched the ground and summoned a thin sheet of mirror along the surface, straining the limits of his conjuration spell beyond its intended shape.

Not fast enough! Conjuring big enough mirrors is too much for me right now.

Gio summoned a flat disk of constructed light, sending it careening towards the hulking form of some sort of minotaur with patches of flesh missing. Completely ignoring the projectile, the bull-faced humanoid rushed forward and hefted the wooden club overhead, trying to smash down on Gio and meeting a pane of mirror mana.

“[Reflect]!”

The club shattered through Gio’s spell, laying Gio out on the ground. Gio felt the wind get crushed out of him as the minotaur pushed down on his chest with the blunt instrument. Out of the corner of his eye, Gio noted that the basilisk had jumped up into the air toward his prone form.

[Multitask] was thrumming like an engine in Gio’s mind, churning out a sea of possibilities. Pinned under the minotaur, Gio couldn’t dodge. Time seemed to slow, as he raced to try and find an answer.

[Hairline Fracture]? No, the club is wooden… I’ve only practiced on stone.

Gio caught his own eye in the reflection of the glassy floor.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

That’s it! This needs to work!

“[Mirror Jaunt]”

Gio sunk into the mirror realm- pushed deeper than he’d ever gone by the minotaur’s club. He looked up at the surface of the floor, sinking into reflection like diving under the surface of a crystalline lake. He noted that the dim room above him was incredibly clear to his senses, but the space around him was blurry and non-distinct.

The mirror realm itself is formless. I’m not in the reflection right now, Am I? No, that’s not what this spell does. I’m borrowing a bit of the mirror realm to jump between reflective surfaces. This bought me a few seconds, but I need to resurface. How do I approach this?

Gio flew through the space, feeling like he was half running, half swimming through the airless plane. He created enough distance between himself and the two monsters, noting with dread as a third monster (a flaming bird, some kind of glowing pelican?) joined the other two

Lurching through the floor in between glowing symbols, Gio climbed up from the reflection, quickly getting to his feet. The new bird was the first to notice him. The grotesque charred beak of the bird lobbed what appeared to be a ball of magma toward Gio.

YES!

Gio shifted his body so that the center of his mass was lined up with the projectile. He focused, summoning a sturdy plane of mirror mana. The air rippled out from his palm, and Gio felt the flaming orb sink deep into the reflection.

Gio let loose an amount of arcane mana that felt like a lightning bolt coursing through him as he activated [Hairline Fracture], as he seamlessly drew upon [Font of Mirrors] guiding the mana towards the crackling reflection. Gio breathed, looking past the distorted air and guiding a torrent of flames toward the basilisk and the minotaur.

The basilisk tried to dodge, but there were too many projectiles. The lithe lizard let out a horrifying screech, as it sizzled and writhed around on the ground. Its head had been melted nearly entirely off by the barrage of molten liquid. The minotaur smelled of burning fur, and let out a grunt, discarding the flaming club. Although badly singed, and covered in burning liquid, the great beast charged forward to rush Gio.

Gio threw out a few needles of mirror toward the bird, and gasped in a huge breath, as he dove into the floor. Entering the space between mirrors again, Gio surveyed the image beneath his feet. The minotaur looked about tensely, sloughing off burning skin as its red eyes scanned the floor slowly. The flaming bird had taken to swooping in circles, also looking for Gio.

If only I could… wait, why can’t I?

Gio summoned a bit of mirror mana, feeling an odd sensation as something that felt distinctly wrong was conjured in his hand. Gio pushed it toward the surface and felt slightly disappointed as a lopsided, dull oval emerged from the reflection near the foot of the minotaur.

Instantly, the zombified minotaur crunched down on the glass object, watching with uncontained rage as the conjured object dissolved into mana.

Gio tried again to shoot a projectile, attempting to ignore the sensation of summoning an object in the liminal space. A needle-thin spike of mirror shot out, stabbing deep into the wing of the bird, sending it plummeting to the ground. The flaming bird tried to take off again, but its lame wing prevented it from doing much but flopping around.

Gio approached the surface, slamming a lance of mirror into the skull of the bird as he raised to the surface. Pulling himself up, he dodged just out of the reach of the ragged minotaur. A crackling noise across the space alerted Gio to a new threat.

A deep spike of fear plunged deep into Gio’s heart, as he looked upon the grim visage of an armored skeleton, crackling with dire blue flames and brandishing a halberd.

Shit. That’s a lesser death knight.

The Minotaur allowed Gio no time to freeze, bursting forward into a reckless sprint as more flesh fell off of its unbalanced frame. Gio fired off a spike toward its leg, trying to knock it off balance. The bolt struct true, but didn’t seem to do much in the way of disabling the raging creature. Gio considered diving back into the mirror but thought to conserve his mana. Casting mirror image, he conjured a sword-length haft of mirror, watching his two clones brandish an identical copy.

Gio braced himself. The minotaur picked an image, lowering his head to try and gore the illusion, but instead receiving a spike of mirror through the back of the head. The beast dropped to the ground, inanimate.

Gio turned to the final combatant, who was approaching at a leisurely pace. The skeletal knight raised its halberd in a threatening stance.

C’mon, throw the spear or something, preferably projectile-based. I don’t know if I have enough mana to use mirror jaunt again, especially not for more than a few seconds.

Gio felt himself weaken. His knees buckled instantly, as his makeshift weapon dropped from his hand, clattering to the ground and shattering.

What… is…

Lethargic, Gio could barely lift his head, as the death knight sauntered forward, pointing the tip of the armament at Gio’s throat.

_____

Gio awoke under a cozy blanket to the aroma of lemon and lavender, sitting on a particularly comfortable chaise lounge.

“There he is. Have a cookie, you’re going to need to recover your strength.” Baphelus offered.

“They smell lovely. What was that at the end?” Gio asked.

“[Curse of Malaise]. It took you out rather wholesale, didn’t it?” Baphelus replied.

“Yeah… Those monsters were nasty. Your work, I presume?” Gio asked.

“Hardly. I’m more of an incorporeal undead user, personally. But these days, I find myself uninterested in in spiritcraft. I mostly fuss over my magnum opus, seeing if I can improve it or whatever. But let’s talk about your performance. Nice job figuring out [Mirror Jaunt], I was hoping that a bit of stakes would make it click for you. And throwing the projectiles from the mirror realm is just nasty. That’s going to be a real pain to defend from when you start dueling more.” Baphelus noted.

“I don’t think mirror jaunt takes me to the mirror realm… or at least, I wasn’t in the reflection part of the mirror realm. I surprised myself with how long I could stay under, though.” Gio replied.

“Fascinating. From the research I’ve been doing since taking you on, I think the mirror realm is heavily affected by the observer effect… basically, witnessing that realm shapes a lot of the way you experience it. And what do you mean? You only ever stayed under for a split second.” Baphelus said.

“What? No, I was under there for like... A whole fifteen seconds. At least.” Gio corrected.

“Hmm… watch this.”

Baphelus summoned a black surface, Which flickered to life with a birds-eye view of the arena. Gio watched as he disappeared from underneath the minotaur’s club, and instantly appeared a few paces away. Then, he dived down again. A second later, a spike shot out to clip the bird, and the top of his head erupted from the glassy floor to spear the bird.

“That’s… there’s some sort of time-dilation effect. It’s not much, but I was doing a bit of thinking under the surface. It kind of feels like swimming, in a weird way.” Gio replied.

“Interesting. I’ve not seen anything about that in literature. Well, grab a pen- we’re going to talk about what you can improve on, starting with your horrid curse resistance.”