"Maybe if you're not the person it's happening to. More like a nightmare for me," Oliver said.

"Mmh, right." Tiro's smile lost that predatory quality and his face fell a little. "Well, sounds like something to discuss over a couple of beers, eh?"

"Tiro, it's, what, noon?"

"Something like that. Why?"

"I don't drink before dinner."

"Sounds like a miserable way to live," Tiro said. "Anyway, I didn't mean now. I've got something I need to attend to. Look, do you want to get back to wherever you came from?"

"Earth, and yes, I do."

"Mm," said Tiro, drawing out the syllable as he stood, stretching his back. "Well, let's start with this: in order for to you to get back home, we need to keep you alive long enough first. So, no more fiddling with your system, all right? And we're going to need to get you to a proper magister, one who can advise you on your unique difficulties. What Path have you taken?"

"I… okay. Well, it's hard to explain. I see a spreadsheet."

"A sheet? Why do you see a bed?"

"Bed? No, it's like an accounting table, or, or — a list of supplies. Inventory, you know?"

"Accounting," said Tiro, grimacing. "Never was much one for numbers. But that's odd, isn't it? Which temple is it that is full of pen and paper? I've never seen it."

"Tiro, you have to understand, I'm not from around here."

Tiro caught Oliver's eye and nodded. "Right, we've established this."

"So that means I've never been inside a temple until today."

"Right, but that means…" Tiro paused and Oliver looked over to see his eyes wide. "You're unpathed?"

Oliver opened his mouth to say that he had no idea what that was, but Tiro cut in to explain. "Unpathed. It's somebody who never developed their system. Happens once in a while, when somebody is Impressed but never gets a chance to internalize their Path. It usually doesn't end well."

"That… must happen a lot," said Oliver. It wasn't like everybody lived in a large city full of temples.

"Less than you'd think," said Tiro. "Most Impressions are conducted within the temple walls for a reason."

"Right, makes sense. Well, yes, I'm unpathed."

Tiro nodded. "Frankly, I'm impressed you haven't blown yourself up or melted your mind yet. Most unpathed don't make it to their teens."

"It's all thanks to you. What happens to them?"

"Well, without the structure of a path, their system soon begins to malfunction. Consumes more and more of them until they, well, blow themselves up, melt their minds, or… worse."

"Worse?" asked Oliver.

Tiro made a face. "You don't want to know. Let's save that conversation for later."

There was an awkward pause while Oliver wondered what could be worse than losing his mind counting milliseconds for the rest of his hopefully short life thereafter. "So, what do we do about the fact that I'm unpathed?"

"Well, you've made it this far," said Tiro. "And there's a risk that if we try to alter the course you've chosen for yourself, it'll backfire. It's nearly impossible to safely change your path once you've set down it."

"There's no fix?"

"I don't know. We're going to need to have a real magister look at you."

"Isn't that who we were just talking to? Polephenes?"

"Polephenes is — well, he's complicated. But he's more of a healer than he is a magical scholar. I didn't know what was wrong with you, so I felt he was the safer bet."

"Well, it worked, so thanks."

"Mention it, frequently and at length."

Oliver snorted.

"So… magister. I might have a contact that could help, but I'll need a day or two to set up a meeting. Can you wait until then?"

"I suppose," said Oliver slowly. "What will it cost me?"

"Call it a favor," said Tiro, turning to go.

"Wait. I need to know. Why are you helping me?" said Oliver. "To put it bluntly, I don't trust you, and you shouldn't trust me either."

There was something Tiro wasn't saying, something he wanted from Oliver. He just couldn't see what it was. It frustrated him, but right now, he didn't have much of a choice but to move forward and hope that when the butcher's bill came due he could afford it. He'd get himself killed experimenting, if he wasn't careful. Acceptable risk.

"You shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, Oliver," said Tiro over his shoulder. "I already saved your life. What more could I want from you?"

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

A lot, Oliver wanted to say, but in the end he just smiled faintly and nodded, and the two went their separate ways.

The rest of the walk back to the Gray Bean, he paid special attention to his surroundings. He'd been followed once, and didn't want a repeat, no matter how innocuous it might seem.

Tiro might have been a bard, and a passable one at that, but that wasn't all he was. Oliver was certain of it.

—

Later, that afternoon, in his room by himself, Oliver discovered a way to temper the effects of a spell. To decrease its volume, so to speak.

It had all been quite natural, quite straightforward. He'd barely experienced the faintest hint of system-aura before it was done.

He'd created a column headed volume – at first, it hadn't seemed to have any effect, the system treating it as simply more random data he'd entered. But then he associated it with the concept of throttling mana, something which was clearly not only possible, but commonplace. And after only a moment, with a flicker of colored lights in his vision, he knew that the column would affect his spells.

For the first time, he began to question if that resistance ought to have been there, whether he was slowly breaking down something that ought not to be broken down.

The thought of that made him a little nervous; what if it was a safe-guard of some kind? But he knew he couldn't rely on Tiro. He needed his own plans, his own leverage. He needed to work things out for himself.

So, despite his misgivings, he assigned the volume column the same type of unit as the mana column – a unit which he'd mentally come to dub mana-days – added a per second qualifier, and set a limit for the Spark entry. 0.01 mana-days per second.

He sat there, palms sweating, bouncing his foot on the rough floor. He could wait for Tiro. Or he could start building his power now.

The memory of the millisecond-fugue was fresh in his mind, very fresh. But he knew what he'd done wrong, now; he'd learned that the system drew on his mind, could overdraw. It made sense.

With a muttered curse, he triggered the spell.

At 0.01 mana-days per second, the Spark spell had no visible effect save a slight warmth in the air above his palm. At 0.05 mana-days/second, the barest tip of a flame flickered in and out of existence.

At 0.1 mana-days/s, a steady tongue of flame danced in the room for a few moments before it guttered out a couple of seconds later, and he saw why; he'd run out of mana, and quickly. But he'd done it; successfully constrained a spell not to consume all of the available mana as quickly as possible.

He felt a surge of triumph. He'd done it!

Then he began to wonder at the possibilities, the practicalities of it, and in so wondering came to the matter of inputs. Spells required direction, after all, targets. Inputs. For the Spark spell, it was straightforward. Make a tongue of flame hovering above his palm, close enough to burn.

But what about Second Wind? How was it possible that the spell was able to affect only the injured parts of his body? And the other spells, too. They were targeted somehow too, in different ways according to their purposes.

The cleaning spell, which he hadn't thought of in weeks – the one the jailor had cast on him – how come it only cleaned the dirt from the room? He'd later come to realize it had also emptied out the contents of his gut, hence the tingling feeling. But why did it stop there? What about hair? Fingernails? How did it qualify dirt, anyhow?

Another mystery to be added to his research list. So many questions, so little time.

This was an achievement, a step towards unlocking the power the system promised, the power he needed, but there were bigger fish to fry, now that he'd made this small achievement. He needed more spells, and enough mana to become an archmage.

He allowed himself a moment to compartmentalize his morning's brush with death. He opened up the memory, turned it around in his mind, savored it, allowed himself to freak out for a little while. His own personal debriefing.

Didn't work as well when you didn't have somebody to share it with, but the lessons this world taught him were paid for in blood. He couldn't afford to ignore them.

Once his hands stopped shaking, he stood and left the room.

—

The university grounds were pristine. Every tree and hedge clipped to perfection, rich green grass, no sign of fallen leaves despite the season.

Oliver knew he was conspicuous, passing through the main gate. It felt almost as if he was being watched, but there was precious little he could do about it. He looked around, seeing only a few handful of other people on the grounds as he walked down the main path towards the large building that crouched at the end of it. It was made of some white stone, with columns at the front lending it a noble Grecian air.

He approached the building with some concern, expecting to be stopped, but nobody approached him even as he made his way through the enormous brass double doors at the front.

The building's interior rich, dark wood walls, the floor polished marble, worn dull in places by the passage of many feet. A balcony overlooked a wide main floor some fifty or sixty feet deep, with graceful staircases swooping up either side of the hall.

There were more people in here, most dressed in long fine robes, passing by in ones and twos and speaking in hushed tones.

To his immediate right as he entered there was a grand wooden desk, and at the desk a small, wizened old man sitting on a chair that left him barely visible, lost behind the massive edifice. Wispy white hair framed a face that bore more in common with a raisin than a man.

"Sign in, please," he croaked as Oliver approached. He handed him a sheet of paper pinned to a slab of wood, and a quill.

Oliver found that all of the other lines on the paper were inscribed in a language he did not understand, but since he was signing in, presumed they were names. They were made runes or letters of some kind, seeming most similar to the Latin alphabet in their restrained, simple forms.

Though the pen was a traditional quill, there was no ink pot in sight. At a loss, he traced out his signature with his customary flourish regardless, watching as the pen left a trail not of ink but using some kind of magic. Pressure? The trail left by the pen was dark. He handed the board back.

The old man seemed nonplussed as he examined the signature, but opted not to make a big deal of it. "Purpose of your visit?" he asked.

"I'm looking for work," said Oliver.

"Indeed," he said. "Can you write?"

"Yes," said Oliver.

"What kind of work, exactly?"

"I was thinking something menial. Cleaning, organizing, grounds keeping, that sort of thing."

"Eh. And your path?"

"An old family cleaning path," answered Oliver gruffly.

The old man peered at him, leaning forward a little to look him up and down. "Is that so," he said. "You'll be wanting to speak with the Chief Custodian, I expect."

"Right. Where can I find him?"

"The administrative building. Follow this hall straight out the back, then head across the green to the building on the right."

Oliver thanked him and walked through the building and out the back, via a somewhat less grandiose entrance that led onto more manicured grounds behind the building. A large green, ringed with buildings and with a path running through it. Not altogether too dissimilar from a college quad.

There were more people here, congregating to the right of the path, which led straight back.

As he drew nearer he realized that they were standing around the rim of a bowl dug from the earth. He saw that it was a large amphitheater, scooped out of the earth. It was full of people dressed in rich clothing, robes and fancy hats and all. There were two, three hundred people listening, some murmuring amongst themselves as he spoke.

They were listening to a man on the wooden stage at the bottom of the amphitheater. Oliver slowed his steps as he passed by. The rim of the amphitheater came within only a few paces of the path, and there were people standing all around at the top, listening.

He stopped among them. The man was lecturing on magic.