“This trigonometry shit is a waste of time. Why under the Light of Ra’un do I need to know Snell’s Law in order to make more of these things?” The binoculars were lying dismantled on the table in front of us and Aelfric had completed detailed sketches of each of the components. I was trying to teach him the physics behind how the binoculars functioned. But he was having trouble with basic algebra.

“The glass you make is not going to have the exact same refraction index and the plastic prisms. You need to know the maths to be able to figure out the size and shape each prism needs to be.” I answered for the fifth time,”

“Bah, I’ll just transmute the glass to make it have the same refrack thingy. It’ll up the price by a few marks; but they’ll still be much cheaper than an enchanted spyglass.” He said with a grin.

“Are you sure you can isolate refractive indices when you have no idea what they are?”

“Boy, that’s half the job of an alchemist. I don’t need to know how troll liver works to steal the regeneration. I don’t need to know how a treent works to make barkskin. I don’t see how capturing the speed of light in plastic is any more difficult.”

I was getting frustrated. The gnome’s wilful refusal to try study how alchemy worked was grating. He just parroted what he was taught fifty years before. I loved the idea magic; but I guess I’m a scientist at heart.

I stood up and started pacing around the room. The lab was a hoarder’s wet dream and a safety nightmare. The walls were covered in bookshelves. Even with the translation potion I couldn’t understand their writing. Despite having similarities to various Mediterranean languages they used a completely alien set of symbols. In front of the shelves sat workbenches filled with all sorts of esoteric equipment. The mortars and pestles, scales, crucibles, jugs, beakers and flasks were normal enough. But there were also stone pads with glowing runes used to isolate properties, the translation spell called them Ideals, of various substances. And a set of tools halfway between a butcher’s and a surgeon’s used to slice and dice various magical ingredients. The whole area was stained red. And a set of cages containing all number of test subjects and live specimens. Rats, bat, insects, small elementals called sprites in the shapes of icy dragonflies and fiery hummingbirds, a tiny troll like creature called a gremlin and a few other poor fucks.

Underneath the workbenches were a dozen cauldrons each containing about fifty doses of potions of each type. There were no hoods to gather up the fumes. Aelfric told me not to worry; but I still couldn’t shake the feeling some of it was toxic. Breathing near the red healing potions made my skin tingle. And the fumes from the brown goop filled with green flakes, the potion of barkskin, made my tongue feel leathery.

. In the centre of the room was a bigger conference style table with various notes, papers and books piled ten centimetres high. Underneath it were storage crates containing who knows what. And scattered around the room were stools Aelfric stood on when he need to use any of the human sized tables. I’d already tripped over them five times.

The tool the gnome was currently using was a clay crucible lined with glowing runes and filled with molten sand. He only had a limited amount and couldn’t order any more until summer; but he assured me transmuting stone to glass only cost a few extra marks per dose.

“Fine, fine,” I said. “Whether or not you’re successful I’m still getting paid. Right?”

The gnome looked offended. “Of course I’ll pay you. A deal is a deal. Though I really should be charging you for the many tongues you’ve been stealing.”

My face flushed. “I, I, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I stammered.

Aelfric chuckled. “Relax boy. I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. I can’t cast preservation but that metal you have is worth a few marks. What do you call it? Aluni…Alu… whatever. And my scrying tells me your plane has tons of it. Give me the salvage rights and we’ll be even.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“For the last time,“ I shouted, “I can’t sell you the plane. You’ll have to speak to our leaders when they get here.”

“That’s alright. I’ll just add your thievery to the list. It’s a shame these peasants have banned slavery. But there are other ways to make sure your debt is paid.”

Shaking my head I left the lab while the gnome cackled behind me.

The wizard’s tower had been built in the stupidest place possible. Passed the waterfall in front of the council chamber there were more switchbacks leading to a cliff above the pastures directly opposite from the city. The icy conditions made the climb a hundred times more perilous. It took me an hour just to reach the front door.

And as wizard towers go it wasn’t one of the most impressive specimens. Only three storeys tall, made of rough stone with cracks running through the building. The only impressive thing about it was the front door. It was a solid block of wood half a foot thick. There was no door knob and the hinges glowed with a faint light. I wasted another twenty minutes pounding on the door with all my strength. Eventually it groaned open and I was greeted with the visage of a yawning satyr with his robe hanging open. I felt my face flushing as I averted my gaze.

The satyr wizard exhaled a braying snort. He said something in Low Imperial while closing his robe and motioning me to come inside. I handed him the potion of many tongues. He promptly downed it and said, “My apologies. I forgot how prudish you humans can be. Come in. Come in. I was watching the wyvern attack on your camp before I fell asleep. Of course by then the last dose of the potion was wear…”

“Wyvern attack!” I exclaimed. “What happened?”

“Nothing to panic over. A flight of wyverns decided to use your airship as a roost. But they were run off when our militia arrived. I can show you in the scrying mirror.”

The inside of the tower was just as rough as the outside. It was a single open room with a rickety wooden staircase following the spiral of the rough stone walls. The furniture was much nicer; a hardwood table, chair and bed carved with spiral patterns and set with semiprecious stones. But the effect was marred by the dirty woollen sheets, floor rugs and dirty robes scattered everywhere.

Hektor led me up the stairs to his first floor workshop and library. It wasn’t much neater; but at least the bookshelves were dusted regularly. As always he made me wait while he climbed to the second floor to get the scrying mirror. As he climbed he chanted something in what I assumed was True Imperial. The lightshow accompanying his spell dissipated as he disappeared passed the landing. I assumed it was a ward or security spell. The rest of the tower had a few glowing heat runes; but they were nothing like the aurora that accompanied Hektor on his trip up the tower.

When he returned he was carrying a mirror wrapped in a scarlet cloth. He laid it on the table and spent maybe two minutes casting an incantation. The surface of the mirror blurred. Once it cleared I could see the plane from a bird’s eye view.

“Hmm. It looks like the wyvern attack was fought off without major issue. It seems like the entire camp is packing up and preparing to come here.” Hector said after a glance at the mirror.

I wasn’t as easily convinced. Baggage was being piled up in front of the plane but the pack goats hadn’t been loaded and there seemed to be several arguments as various possessions were sorted.

I didn’t notice any major conflicts; so I took the opportunity to clarify a question from the previous session we had endured.

“So there are sixty four basic arcana. And they act as the basic building blocks of arcane spells.”

“More or less,” Hektor answered. “Tier 0 spells require you to invoke at least one of the arcana. But it gets more intricate as you rise up the tiers. A tier one requires three arcana. A tier four requires eighty one different arcana. “

“Ok. So why do the tiers work in base three?” I asked.

“What in the name of dead Hermetos is base three?” Hektor countered.

“Each tier supposedly requires three times the number of arcana as the previous tier. It seems arbitrary. But the number of fundamental arcana is sixty four. Which are organised in groups of four. Four classical elements. Four primordial elements. Four groups of the other elements. But the tiers of each spell is determined in groups of three, nine and twenty seven elements.”

“How in Death’s Crotch and I supposed to know. Arcana magic was developed before the Second Empire. It’s at least seven thousand years old. You’ll need to speak to a master of the Ordo Arcanum or the Magisterium if you want to find an expert in arcane history. The only time I’ve left the highlands is for my test to join the Ordo Arcanum. And I barely passed the tests to join the fourth circle. I’m afraid they consider me barely more than an apprentice. The preservation I use to extend my lifespan is the only tier four magic I can cast. And even then I have to recast the ritual every month for it to remain effective.

My advice is to focus on mastering the basic arcana. It’ll be years before you can consider membership in the Ordo. The mages of Larium are much faster; but from what I’ve gathered they take so many shortcuts in teaching the arcana that their alumni are barely more capably than your average sorcerer.