Elise sat at the dining room table, anxiously tapping her foot and staring out the window. Across from her, Mary sat in front of a wooden bowl. In one hand, she held the Master Tome of the Arcanist and had her other hand face down over the bowl.
“I just don’t understand,” Elise said quietly. “There hasn’t been any record of Ichor or magic or Arcanists at all before we found Biscuit, and now there’s some girl with a staff that has Ichor in it?”
“Ohh,” said Mary, “that’s what you’re worried about? I didn’t even notice the staff, I just thought you were stricken by the redhead beauty.”
Elise stuck her tongue out at Mary. “I just hope Dad gets back soon. That meeting with the king had to be about the staff, I just hope he can keep his cool.” She turned back to focus on Mary and the bowl. “Anyway, how’s the spell coming?”
Mary huffed and shook the hand that was suspended over the bowl. “I can get the water Ichor just fine, but it just fades away before it gets to my hand.”
“Hmm,” Elise closed her eyes. “Try one more time and let me watch.”
Elise focused on seeing the Ichor around her. She ‘watched’ as Mary pulled the light blue air Ichor into the book and transformed it into deep blue water Ichor. Converting the air affinity to water affinity was fairly simple as they had a lot of the same properties as both kinds of Ichor like to spread and fill the space they’re in. To make it even simpler, most air had some amount of water droplets in it already and most water had small amounts of air. With the benefit of hindsight, Elise wished she learned to use water Ichor before trying fire. She felt it would’ve taught her to identify the similarities and differences between Ichors faster, as well as allowing her to put out accidental fires.
Elise studied the newly formed water Ichor spread churned in Biscuit’s core. Mary slowly moved it in the shape of the spell rune. The Ichor sloshed and churned as it was shaped, very nearly spilling outside the lines. It took her a long time, but Mary finally solidified the water Ichor in the shape of the rune and transferred it to her other hand, the stream of Ichor getting smaller the farther it traveled. Once it reached her hand, it condensed into a pool in her palm. A few drops of water dripped from her hand and landed in the empty bowl and the pool of Ichor dissipated.
“Of course it works now,” Mary rolled her eyes. “Still wasn’t great, but it’s the best I’ve done so far. Maybe I just need to start with more Ichor”
“That’s about where I was when I was first trying,” Elise said. “I think it’s just a matter of practice. The stream of Ichor gets smaller because you don’t have that great of control over it and it gets absorbed and dried out, getting more of it won’t help as much as practicing your control over forming the rune.”
Mary pouted for a moment and slid the book to Elise. “Can you show me one more time?”
Elise nodded, took the book, and closed her eyes. She quickly pulled in the same amount of air Ichor that Mary did and converted it to water, using the vapor that was already present to make the process faster. She formed the new water Ichor into the rune and moved it into her other hand. It pooled inside her palm and began to pour into the bowl like a pump.
She had tested the water she could create earlier, and she found that it was safe to drink but tasted quite bad. She vaguely recalled that well water usually had some amount of minerals in it that contributed to the taste. She wondered if she could make good tasting water once she learned how to manipulate earth Ichor, but it would take a lot of experimenting to get it right.
Mary nodded at Elise’s demonstration, but was still visibly frustrated.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get it soon.” Elise slid the book back to her. “It’s just practice.”
Mary placed her hand back over the bowl and closed her eyes, ready to try again, when they both heard the rustling of keys outside the front door. Elise knew that only she and her father had keys, but still she quickly put the bowl away and had Biscuit turn back into his cat form. The door opened, and Tobias walked in, slamming and locking the door behind him.
“This is bad, this is bad, this is bad,” Tobias muttered to himself. He was white as a sheet with sweat dripping down his head.
“Dad? Are you ok, what’s going on,” Elise asked.
“The king has an official ‘royal Arcanist’ now,” he said while pacing in the entryway.
“Is it some redhead girl with a funny staff,” asked Mary casually. “We saw her ride in with the Prince.”
“Oh that staff is anything but funny,” said Tobias gravely, then he paled even further, which Elise didn’t think was possible. “Wait, did she see you? Did she see Biscuit?”
“Oh shit,” Elise grew pale as well and looked at Biscuit, who was looking rather concerned himself.
“Wait, what’s the problem,” asked Mary.
“If she can sense Ichor like we can and she saw Biscuit then she, and by extension the king, would know that we have been hiding something powerful.”
“Oh shit,” said Mary.
“Wait, Dad, how did they know to call her an Arcanist?”
“I messed up, I was surprised and accidentally said it out loud. I didn’t tell them anything else though! I made up some story about old legends or whatever, all they know is the word Arcanist.”
Elise sighed and held her temples. She was feeling the beginnings of a headache.
“It could be fine,” Tobias said, clearly unconvinced by his own reassurance. “Her magic seemed… different from ours. Maybe it's different enough that she couldn’t sense ours?”
“Different from ours? Are there other kinds of magic?” Elise asked.
“It was definitely Ichor… She was able to fire a blast of Ichor that was so condensed that it nearly broke one of the guard’s shields. It was red, though not like the colors of affinities that we see when we meditate, it was just red and everyone could see it. No runes or anything either.”
Elise looked down at Biscuit. “Do you know anything about something like that?”
Biscuit thought for a moment, then transformed into a book and flipped to a page near the back. Elise picked it up and read it aloud.
“A Staff of Life is an artifact designed to be a quick path to great power. The name ‘Staff of Life’ has a misleadingly positive connotation, as the staff works by channeling the life affinity Ichor from the user into the siphoning gem and concentrating it into a solid state. Unlike all other external tools for casting spells, a Staff of Life has no Ichor core of its own and the use of it does not involve drawing in any Ichor from the environment. Use of the staff directly drains the life essence of the user, which can lead to adverse health effects unless properly maintained. As such, most Arcanists believe the staff to be a great perversion of the use of Ichor leading the creation and use of them to be banned.”
“And then it goes on to say how to make one,” Elise finished.
“Ohhh that only makes me want to make one more,” Mary giggled.
“This…” Tobias had stopped pacing and was holding his hand over his mouth. “This is very bad. The king has Prince Edward training her to use the staff for the military.”
“At least that puts her far away from us, right?” Mary began bouncing her leg and picking at her fingernails.
“I overheard her talking to Edward after the meeting, they’re both going to come back in four weeks. I worry that even if she couldn’t sense our Ichor now, she will be able to after four weeks of training. It’s not even just hiding Biscuit from her, I don’t know if you two have noticed, but the Ichor in each of us is a lot denser than they were before, and much brighter than anyone else. If she could sense Ichor she could easily pick us out of a crowd.”
“What do we do?” Elise was starting to get a little scared. “Can we just try to avoid her?”
“We can’t count on that forever, especially if she becomes a regular member of the king’s court.”
“Do we have to, like, train how to fight too?” Mary sounded unsure of the suggestion. “You know… just in case?”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone!” Elise said, distressed.
“I don’t think it would come to that… Honestly, from what I saw of the girl she seemed kind.” Tobias resumed his pacing around the room. “Though, I am frightened to imagine what Alban would do with her in his army, but at least there’s only one staff that we know of. If he discovered us or Biscuit… He could make his soldiers learn to cast spells… An entire army of Arcanists.”
Elise sat on the floor and held Biscuit close to her chest. He tried wriggling out of her embrace, but she held him even tighter and he meowed in protest but admitted defeat.
I’m not gonna lose this cat to someone like that. All the people that would be hurt… If a king like Alban had this power it would change the world, and likely for the worse. But what can I do? It’s just me and Dad and Mary. Could we really stop a king with an army if it came down to it?
Mary sat down beside Elise and laid her head on her shoulder. After a moment of more pacing, Tobias sat down with them. The three humans and one arcane cat all huddled together in a sullen silence.
I guess all we can do now is…
“Hope for the best,” Elise said, snapping everyone out of their introspection, “prepare for the worst.”
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‘Preparing for the worst,’ Mary knew, just meant more practicing the same things they had already been practicing. She wanted to get better at using Ichor more effectively, however, just in case there was a fight with some weird redhead with a magic staff. Elise was like a sister to her, and Mary would fight to protect her and Tobias if need be.
Probably Roland, too. If Elise or Tobias gets in trouble then Roland will be too, even if we kept him dark about all this.
Mary had honestly been planning on talking to Roland at some point already, but the whole ‘being one of the first people to learn literal magic’ thing kind of took over. Though, now that she is learning magic, Mary feels like it would be hard to talk to him while hiding such a big secret. She didn’t entirely understand why they weren’t telling him, either. Tobias had said he didn’t trust him to keep such a big secret, but Mary believed Roland would understand how important it was not to tell anyone. She wasn’t going to go behind Tobias’s back, however, so the secret would remain hidden.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Elise and Tobias were sitting at the dining table, discussing potential plans for the future, but Mary wasn’t paying them much mind. While they spoke, she had full control of Biscuit and while usually she used her time with Biscuit to play with the cat, now she had something she wanted to look for in the book. She thought she remembered something interesting about the description of the Staff of Life, so she flipped back to that page and skimmed it. The words blurred together as she read, and she had to double back a few times because her eyes moved faster than she actually read, but eventually she found her prey.
“...the staff works by channeling the life affinity Ichor from the user into the siphoning gem and concentrating it into a solid state.”
So I did remember right. If the staff can do that with no core or runes, why can’t I do the same thing? Not with life Ichor though, that would be stupid.
She thought back to Elise’s lesson on how to create fire Ichor in her core by condensing air Ichor.
What would happen if I just… keep condensing? Would I be able to cast that out like a spell?
She briefly considered looking to see if there was already a spell like that in the book, but wanted to try it for herself. While still holding the book, she drew a large amount of air Ichor into her core. She had learned enough about the air to make the Ichor turn a light blue a few days ago, and since then it had become much easier to control. She condensed down the Ichor into half the size, careful not to let it spread back out.
This is the point where if I combine it with more air Ichor it will turn into fire, but what if I just… don’t?
She condensed the ball of Ichor down even smaller until it was only a quarter of its initial size. The Ichor writhed and wriggled, trying to spread back out, but Mary didn’t let it. Instead, she held out her arm and pointed her open palm at the empty chair across from her. She released the Ichor down her arm with the intention of firing it out her hand, but it fizzled out before it reached her wrist.
Same thing with the water ichor from earlier. If it’s a lack of control like Ellie said, I just have to keep trying.
She gathered in more Ichor and repeated the same steps again; this time being very careful not to let any air dissipate on its way to her hand. Surprisingly, the small bolt of air reached her palm and cast like a spell. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a condensed projectile like she had hoped but was merely a light breeze.
Maybe I was right before and I need to be getting more Ichor. If I get more of it, make it smaller, and move it faster, this just might work.
She pulled in more air and condensed it down, but as she condensed it she continually added more and more air until nearly her entire core was filled with incredibly dense air Ichor. From there, she packed it down even further. It took a lot of effort but eventually she had a ball of Ichor that was bigger than the first but significantly more concentrated.
She held out her hand once more and, with all the remaining effort she could muster, the bolt fired through her arm, out her palm, and collided with the chair with a satisfying crack. Mary’s arm was shot back from the recoil and the chair toppled over with a large dent from the impact. Elise and Tobias both yelped and darted to their feet, looking all around for signs of danger. All Mary could do was laugh.
“What the hell was that?” Elise shouted, clutching her chest.
“A little warning first would be appreciated, dear,” said Tobias. “Did you learn a whole new spell just now?”
“Yeah! Well, kinda! I didn’t use a rune or anything, I just figured it out from the page on the staff! If you can condense some Ichor down really far then you can shoot it out like an arrow!”
“You got all that just from the staff? Like you didn’t get the idea then looked it up in the book, you just tried it and it worked?” Elise looked impressed.
“Yeah! I only tried with air but it probably works with other affinities too. Let’s try fire next!” Mary held out her hand and closed her eyes, baiting the others into reacting.
Elise took the bait and pressed Mary’s down into the table. “Nope! No shooting fire projectiles in the house!”
Mary pretended to look offended and stuck out her tongue.
“That was quite impressive, you’ll have to show us how you did that.” Tobias picked up the fallen chair.
“I dunno if it’s very useful,” said Mary. “It took a really long time to cast.”
“That’s sort of how it is with all the spells right now,” said Elise. “The more we do it the better we’ll get, we can worry about usefulness later.”
Tobias frowned slightly. “You don’t mean usefulness in combat, do you?”
Mary looked down, feeling bashful. “I don’t know… it wouldn’t hurt to be ready for a fight. Just in case one finds us, you know?”
Tobias sighed. “It’s unfortunate that you need to worry about such things, I wish I could do more to shield you two from dangers like that.”
Elise placed a hand on his arm. “The best thing we can do is be ready. I don’t want to fight anyone but I’d protect my family from people who’d misuse this magic. And hey, if nothing bad happens, at least we’ll know how to do some pretty cool things.”
Tobias chuckled but was still clearly distressed. “I guess you’re right.” He turned to Mary. “Why don’t you show us how you cast that spell, dear?”
Mary went through her demonstration, showing them how she condensed the Ichor and fired it out of her hand. The three of them practiced the improvised spell a few times using a strong wooden cabinet for target practice.
“I wonder if we couldn’t get more power out of the blast if we treated it like a bow and arrow,” Tobias muttered, largely to himself.
“I don’t follow,” Elise said.
“I’m just thinking out loud here, but what if we get the condensed Ichor…” He gathered up another condensed bolt of Ichor and held it in his core. “And then we gather even more air…” He pulled in roughly as much air as was in the bolt but didn’t condense it down any. “We put the bolt in our arm, fill the rest of the arm behind it with the air, and then pull the bolt back towards our core. As we pull it back the air behind it will compress down like a bowstring. Once enough tension is built up, we release pressure on the bolt, the air behind it will expand quickly, and the bolt will—” The Ichor in his arm shot out of his hand at an alarming speed with a mighty crack. It flew significantly faster than any shot before it, and blasted a hole straight through the cabinet.
“Woah!” Mary looked at the power of the blast with wide, excited eyes. “That was awesome!”
Tobias grimaced at the damage but looked proud of the accomplishment. “That might be enough experimentation for the day, don’t you think?”
Elise nodded, but Mary pouted, “But experimenting is so much fun! I have so many ideas I want to play around with!”
“Maybe one of these days we should let you borrow Biscuit for a while?” Elise offered.
“Oh! That sounds like fun!” Mary’s head filled with vague half-baked ideas she wanted to try.
“That would be ok with me,” said Tobias, “but I have something I’d like to figure out first. I want to try to make spell scrolls again, would you two be willing to help me with that tomorrow?”
Mary and Elise looked at each other nervously. The last time Tobias had tried to make a spell scroll he nearly burned the house down.
“It’ll be fine if we’re all helping,” said Elise. “And we know a water spell now, just in case.”
Mary nodded apprehensively. “Let’s do it.”
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Elise and Mary sat on the floor of Tobias’s repaired study, tossing a ball of water to each other while Tobias tried writing a spell scroll. They both needed practice controlling water Ichor, so Elise had suggested they play catch while they wait for her father to be finished. It had taken them quite a few tries to catch and throw the water without losing control and getting wet, but they were settling into a good rhythm. After a few minutes of this, however, they both turned it into a competition to see who could get the other the most soaked.
Elise knew that the speed at which they could practice spells would increase significantly if they could start making spell scrolls. The process was largely straightforward: all it required was to copy both the text and the rune from the Master Tome onto a scroll while pumping it with Ichor. Spell scrolls didn’t have an Ichor core like the book has, but they could use a completed scroll to allow more than one person to cast a spell at a time.
While Tobias was copying everything from the Basic Arcane Flame spell onto the scroll, Elise and Mary were on water duty in case it started another fire. They each had a bucket of water sitting beside them, which they had filled entirely from water made from their water spell. It was getting easier to cast spells by the day, but Elise knew it was only a matter of time before they moved on and tried learning something harder. She had taken a peak at the more complicated spells further in the book and just looking at their runes made her head spin.
“Hey, Ellie, I was thinking,” said Mary quietly so as not to disturb Tobias’s work. “If we can make scrolls that have runes on it, and someone at some point probably made Biscuit, who has a core, what if we also make something that has one?”
“What do you mean?”
“So, remember how cores can have an affinity? Imagine if we could make something that has, like, a fire core. We could carry it with us, make some fire Ichor, store it in the core, and then we’ll have instant fire Ichor whenever we need it?”
Elise thought for a moment, it was a very good idea. Casting a spell took a long time for them because they had to first convert Ichor into the right affinity and then shape it into a rune. If they could have the right affinity Ichor already made and ready to go it would make the time required to cast a spell cut in half.
And then once we’re good enough to cast spells without runes, casting would be so fast.
“That sounds really cool,” Elise whispered. “How do you keep thinking of things to try?”
“Because you—” Mary poked Elise playfully on the nose —”only go by the book. Books are boring, you have to play around with stuff to really learn new things!”
“It sounds like it could be hard to do if there’s not already a spell for it but it definitely sounds possible. You should look into it when we’re done with this.”
“Ladies,” Tobias cut them off, “It’s time.”
Elise and Mary perked up and grabbed their water buckets.
“All that’s left is to pour fire Ichor into it until these runes start glowing,” he said. “This is when the fire started last time, so be ready.”
“Do you need help,” Elise asked.
“I should be ok… but be ready, just in case.”
Elise began pulling in air Ichor into her core and turning it into fire as she held her bucket at the ready. She had only recently started to be able to make fire Ichor without the book’s help which was an exciting development, but it was hard for her to hold it in for a long time without it seeping out of her core.
Tobias, with one hand on the book and the other on the scroll, began to pump in fire Ichor. He began slowly and gradually increased speed. Elise could sense the fire Ichor beginning to grow and crackle inside the scroll. The flow from Tobias’s core into the scroll grew shaky and began to peter out.
“Help, please,” Tobias said with a false air of calm.
Elise quickly placed her hand on the scroll and started pumping the fire Ichor she made into it. This let Tobias retreat to gather more of his own fire Ichor. Once Elise was almost out, Tobias switched with her and kept pouring fire into the scroll. They repeated this motion for a while, each taking turns filling the scroll while the other replenished their supply of fire. After a few minutes, the runes lit up a bright orange color and the pair stepped back and sighed.
“I think we did it!” Tobias wiped some sweat from his brow.
“Why don’t you test it out,” asked Elise.
Tobias nodded and held the scroll in both hands. The three of them held their breath in anxious anticipation as he filled his core with fire Ichor and poured it into the rune. He carefully traced the freshly drawn lines with the Ichor, and soon the spell was complete. He held a hand up and conjured a small flame floating above his palm.
“That’s so cool!” said Mary.
“Indeed it is,” said Tobias tiredly, dismissing the fire and rolling up the scroll. “It won’t last forever, soon it’ll run out of Ichor and won’t work anymore. Luckily we can make more with just the scroll. As long as we copy it right we don’t need the book to make more of this spell.”
“Should we make some more then?” Elise asked.
Tobias looked down at his now shaking hands and sighed. “I think that took too much out of me. You two are welcome to, however.”
“I’m good, I can’t sit still long enough to copy all those words,” said Mary. “I could help with drawing the runes though.”
“Maybe another day,” said Elise. Making a single scroll had taken hours and she wanted to rest, despite the fact that her father had done most of the work. “Oh, you wanted to borrow Biscuit for a while, yeah?”
“Yeah! If that’s not too much of a hassle,” said Mary.
“No hassle at all, dear,” said Tobias, handing the book to her. “Elise and I can practice controlling Ichor until you’re done.”
“Wait a second.” Elise took the book from Mary and turned it back into a cat. “Hey my little Biscuit, you be a good boy for Mary, ok?”
Biscuit meowed in resignation. Elise was getting a little better at telling what he was thinking, and he seemed to trust Mary enough to be ok with this arrangement, but preferred being with Elise.
Elise planted a little peck on Biscuit's forehead, and he let out a happy meow. She handed him back to Mary.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him and he’ll be back before you know it.”
Tobias reached over and patted Biscuit gently on the head as Mary held Biscuit’s paw and waved goodbye with it.
Mary soon left to return home, leaving Elise and Tobias alone to meditate. There was a lot Elise wanted to practice, and without Biscuit she had nothing but time.