On Eternium II – Excerpts from a letter between wild mages
...Brothers, Sisters, I have successfully acquired a copy of the book we spoke of.
The knowledge inside sings to me, it calls me, I know we are on the right track, like all words, all things have an opposite.
When I return, I hope to see a raging forge and a few dwarven hands...
Late winter / Ice 783 ADM – Eternal Empire – Modona’s upper district – Merxau laboratory
After the adrenaline had run-off, Ulysse had taken a surprisingly tame decision, next time he used magic, he would not use any dangerous words. Let no one say that getting a second-degree burn wasn’t a good way to learn a lesson.
Like any kid, he’d gotten his fair share of scrapes in life, he even briefly broke a bone once. Burns too, very small ones, from touching the chimney’s iron. None of these had prepared him for literally wrapping his arm in fire.
It could have been way worse though. He didn’t quite know how long the fire had remained, but it couldn’t have been more than five seconds. Leaving him with deep throbbing pain and slowly forming blisters.
At that point, Ulysse could have just poured one of the regeneration potions he’d snatched from the bathroom. However, he’d been told in no uncertain terms that for all the good they did against fresh bruises and small cuts, they were just too weak for anything actually serious. Plus, they’d leave scars on such a big burn.
He certainly didn’t want to explain how he’d gotten burnt to his mother, especially since he’d just gotten off from the dreadful church classes.
Luckily, knowing an alchemist, who also happened to be your father, was just the kind of thing that could come in handy in that situation. He might have had other, better options, such as asking priest Xavier for a miracle, but that would mean both involving his mother and going to church.
Yuck.
That being said, Ulysse had still expected that telling his dad about breaking inside the laboratory, and his subsequent lie about burning himself on the flame thingy – whose name he didn’t know – would carry with it some sort of punition. Albeit, a lighter one than what his mother would give.
He was quite surprised when his father actually broke into a smile and seemed quite... happy, strange, given what Ulysse had told him. Instead of being grounded, Ulysse was given some sort of salve he’d have to apply onto his burns, along with a simple proposition;
“Son, why don’t you come to the lab with me next week, I’ll show you a few fun tricks.”
Overall, Ulysse was pretty happy that his father had taken to the lie so easily, although it made him feel a tad guilty. Mogens seemed to be really looking forward to spending time with him.
Ulysse realized that the idea didn’t displease him either. After all, the two of them hadn’t spent much time together in the last years.
Even he, who wasn’t quite a people person, knew that his parents had pretty much opposite worldview, to the point where they basically split their time with the twins. Alice had spent much of the last two years with dad, having fun, while he had been hiding in the library, or trying to channel while his mother tried to get him to join the Orders.
She still did actually, though that was hardly possible now. Before Ulysse had just been a non-believer, now he was mage, albeit one that was dangerous only to himself.
That being said, he spent the rest of the week applying the salve and resting inside the library – where sadly, he didn’t get to see the Librarian. Otherwise, his arm was fine now, there was only a thin circular scar surrounding what had been his scales.
On the first day of the following week, Ulysse went to the lab. Well decided to learn enough alchemy to make his own ritual ink.
A quick look at the door taught him it had been repaired, but was unlocked. He stepped inside.
Mogens was wandering around the shelves, seemingly preparing something, he didn’t think to look behind him. Ulysse made some noise by closing the door, hoping to be noticed.
“Welcome to the lab son,” His father said, giving a quick look behind him, “Why don’t you take a seat? And how is your arm doing? Do you need more of that salve?”
“Uh,” Ulysse hesitated before the stream of intense questioning, “My arm is ok, I have a small scar but it doesn’t itch anymore.” He said, before pulling a stool and sitting on it.
“I still have a few reagents to gather. Why don’t you scour that book on the table?”
“Sure!” He said, eagerly opening the book – Alchemy, from whelps to dragons.
“Or, we could talk,” Mogens continued before Ulysse could really start reading, “You know I'm on talking terms with Vic’. By that I mean we don’t just talk about work.”
“Ho.”
“I don’t want to stop you, I always let you choose what you wanted to do, but if you keep hurting yourself I will.”
Dad cares now? Thats a surprise.
“Just so you know though, if you continue on That path, you won't be allowed to stay here for long. Magic tends to draw the wrong kind of attention.” He chuckled, “And we’ll have to explain that to your mother.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Can we just do the Alchemy thing?” Ulysse was irked by the sudden care his father was giving him just because he was doing magic now. Was he too useless before to be cared about? There hadn’t been a single time when Mogens had told him to stop channeling, although he must have known he just couldn’t do it.
Ulysse stared at the book while Mogens kept on gathering from the shelves.
Eventually he spoke again, “Where is Al’?”
That made Mogens pause a second before he answered with a sigh, “I had to let your mother have her if I wanted you in the lab.”
“Great...”
In their complicated relation to Odette, the two of them were alike. Ulysse wouldn’t outright call his mother evil, but... she was just so set in her ways, wanting everyone to follow them too.
Mogens sat down next to him, “So talking is not all that crazy after all. I’d understand if you didn’t really want to learn, since...”
Ulysse shook his head, “No, I was actually looking forward to learning some alchemy, with you.”
“Well, that was the idea. I’m glad you are finally taking interest in the trade.”
“Yeah, maybe I should have read on it sooner.”
“Absolutely, and you’ll see, alchemy is so much fun.”
That turned out to be true.
That day, Mogens walked Ulysse through the basics in an unconventional fashion, sprinkling in – sometimes literally – many a dazzling practical example. From colored flames to a stone that tasted of chocolate, and small potions that either made you float or hear smells.
The many novel concepts and ideas, coupled with the fun, quickly made the two of them forget about the earlier awkwardness. There was no use in being too grumpy anyway.
It could be said that out of the two of them, Mogens was still the one who had the most fun, seeming to radiate with excitement every time he showed a new reaction to his son. Though, whether it came from his passion for alchemy, or from spending time with Ulysse, the young man didn’t know. Maybe a bit of both.
Surprising himself, since he hadn’t tried alchemy in years, Ulysse asked to continue their ‘Bonding time’ as his father had called it. He had to admit it had been nice, both the bonding, and the alchemy. It called to that same part of him that had become so engrossed in magic lately. Had he known at the time that mixing powders could bring forth such fantastical effects, he would have jumped straight into it.
Sadly, the him of years ago had just been so engrossed with the idea of being a glowing channeler with a flaming sword.
Ho, the time he would have gained, the dread he wouldn’t have felt.
During the rest of winter, as well as most of early spring, Ulysse got into a routine, spending half the days under his mother, and the other half inside the lab.
In that time, he had mostly mastered the basics, which had come to him rather easily. Ulysse certainly wasn’t an alchemy genius by any means, in fact he was outright terrible at some parts of it. He was still pretty smart, and a huge bookworm, able to swallow entire textbooks in record time. One of his weak points – though it was more lazyness – was ingredients preparation. It was just so tedious to cut, dry, crush, stir, boil, scrape, every ingredient, and do it again hundreds of times.
His main weakness though, was improvisation. He was good at following a recipe to the letter, but the moment he didn’t have a specific ingredient, or knew of another cheaper yet stronger one, he improvised. Badly. Same with procedures, when he didn’t know about one, he just did something similar.
Apparently, the quick improvisation that worked great when fighting his sister or casting spell – swapping techniques or words he didn’t know with similar ones – was a terrible idea in alchemy. Resulting in inert, or potentially dangerous potions.
Those failures didn’t really faze him, it was normal not to excel at everything, and Mogens gave him plenty of encouragements.
Plus, Alchemy was far from the only thing he’d done during the last month and a half.
He’d kept on both his swordsmanship training with Grace, and the occasional nightly spar with Alice.
On such occasions, the twins found themselves talking and complaining about their days. Though for very different reasons.
Alice was being dragged around mom’s side of the family – the Kleites – in a sort of bragging game. Odette was proud to have a daughter so talented in channeling the Divine.
On the topic of the Kleites, or specifically their uncle Robert, he had apparently been sent away temporarily, half on a mission, half on a punition for endangering them.
Alice also had etiquette courses, which she couldn’t escape with either parent. The things were just sooo tedious.
Ulysse, on his part had done his best at escaping Odette’s attempts to drag him to church, strangely, she didn’t want to brag about him. Other than that, she had a lot of preceptors brought home, showing him a variety of ‘respectable scholarly fields’, unlike alchemy apparently. Still, some of them were interesting, so getting caught by her wasn’t a complete waste of time.
Some of them had looked at him strangely and weren't invited a second time.
While both twins shared a close bond, there still remained something he hadn’t shared with his sister. He had simply told her, in no uncertain terms, that he mustn’t speak of it. Just like she didn’t talk to him about her crushes she met during the etiquette course.
He knew that because mom was a gossip.
The thing he couldn’t share was obviously, magic, three had warned him to keep it secret, not only for their safety, but as a test which he didn’t want to fail. Though not keeping the secret didn’t stop him from practicing, that was exactly what he did whenever he managed to escape his mother’s attention.
Since his first ritual, he hadn’t tried anything as ambitiously reckless, nor did he suffer any new manifestation. He kept to speaking only one, or two words at a time, and though some combination of words pushed him to his limits, the effects were always lackluster. Now he could feel something airy – likely his mana – flowing from him into the spell, but it was always weaker than rituals. The best he’d managed was to start a small fire by saying <
Now that he’d learned some alchemy, he’d also started making ink to train on rituals.
One of his latest works had almost gotten him to win in a spar against Alice. Sneakily cast before starting, it had allowed him to overpower her in both strength and speed, for about thirty seconds.
It had been rather simple to put together, but harder to master. The ink was made with his blood, powdered bull bone for strength, and rabbit fur for speed. While the parchment only consisted of two words <
It wasn’t anywhere near perfect though, the words had to be drawn very big to hold a lot of power, or it wouldn't last long at all. Worse, if he stopped focusing on the mana being used slowly, it burnt up all at once and made him dangerously fast and strong. He had bruises to prove it.
The issue could have likely been solved if he’d known of some time related words, but he didn’t.
Sadly, no matter how much fun he was having with his newfound powers, he knew that time was running out. Mogens had talked about him not being allowed to stay for much longer and the Librarian’s last note had been about a talk at the end of Mercy, which was now only a week away. He had a feeling that talk would be about that, otherwise, what would be the point in giving him time?
That being said, if Ulysse suddenly had to leave home, he’d be fine with it. Somewhat.
He’d spent the last few days making sure he was ready for it. Clearing things out with family by not quite saying goodbye.
It didn’t help that he would be leaving behind both Alice, and his father with whom he’d become much closer lately. A part of him hoped that Alice would join him later, but she obviously wouldn’t, she hadn’t even started reading her own magic book and was doing just fine with channeling.
He had a few ideas about communication, but they wouldn’t be practical for some time.
Nevertheless, time was way out of his control, he could only count the days as Mercy came close to its end. Tomorrow would mark the one-year mark since he’d been given the book of Chosen-tongue. One year since he began learning magic.