Chapter Three - No Questions

49th Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden Era

The Sapphire Ocean

She sat between her companions, though remaining seated wasn't an easy affair. She lacked a posterior to sit upon, and so the back of her... body rested directly upon the wooden bench they'd been assigned to that morning.

The curved wooden barrel that was her torso had a tendency to roll slightly, and so she was holding herself in place with her legs caught on the legs of the table. Fortunately, the table was bolted to the floor.

The three of them were in the ship's mess, a large but narrow room with three long tables flanked on all sides by benches. The kitchen was just further in, and an elderly man was tending to something on the stove.

The sailors had come for their morning meals and left already. They had been eyed the whole time, but other than one or two inquisitive questions, they'd been left alone. Not being able to talk was... surprisingly frustrating.

She felt like she had a lot to say, but her ability to communicate was rendered down to simple nods and shakes of the head, with perhaps a gesture or two.

The two puppets next to her were in a similar position.

She knew that one of them was Unit One, and the other Unit Two, but those names felt far too weak. She'd taken to calling them Red and Blue. The barrels around their chests had the faded remains of paint in those same colours. Her own had a bit of green.

She wondered what her chest had been, before it was turned into the receptacle for her very being.

A woman stepped into the mess, the same mage she recalled seeing at the moment of her creation. The woman wore long, darkly coloured robes that were open at the front to reveal well-tailored but otherwise simple clothes. The only thing of true note in her clothing was a sort of jousting shield over the right side of her chest. It was held in place by a few leather straps. It was a small kite-shield, no wider than a handspan and covered in intricate carvings of a blue dragon wrapped around a single tree.

She had no idea what that meant, but the symbology seemed important.

"Ah, you're here," the woman said. She nodded, then sat herself down across from the puppets. The mage glanced around the room to catch sight of any eavesdroppers, then she reached down and pulled a small satchel onto the table. "Magus Maldrak has asked me to guide the three of you through some basic lessons. I find that this is a difficult thing to be asked to do. I've avoided teaching, though I did participate in some group projects at the academy I attended." She leaned back a little, eyeing the three of them. "I've never had students with so little base knowledge."

Shrugging, the magus reached into the satchel and started to pull out a few items.

"Magus Maldrak had two lessons he wanted me to impart. The first about the location we will soon be arriving at, the second about the arcane arts."

The blue puppet shifted with a clack of wood on wood.

The woman looked up, then smiled. "Interested, are you? Magus Maldrak didn't have much to say about who you were before, or who you might have been. But I imagine that anyone who has delved deeply enough into the arcane will have some amount of that delve marked upon their very souls. Perhaps you were some minor practitioner before? Ah, it matters little. Let's begin with this."

She pulled out a small tube made of some sort of pressed tin with a cap on the end. Unscrewing the cap revealed a rolled up piece of thick parchment that the magus placed upon the table. She ran her hand over it, laying it out flat.

It was a map.

"Do you know how to read maps?" she asked.

The puppets took a moment to reply, but eventually all three nodded. She wasn't sure how she knew, but she did. It was similar to knowing how to read, she supposed. It might have been the same with knowledge of how to move, but this new body was jointed strangely and balanced incorrectly.

"Hmm, that won't do. Put your hands on the table. Left hand is no, right hand is yes," the magus instructed.

The puppets all placed their hands on the table, though it took a moment.

She didn't like looking at hers. They were ugly things.

Their palms were all puck-shaped disks of wood, obviously hollow on the interior so that the mechanisms that controlled their individual fingers had a place to fit. They had three fingers on each hand, and a thumb that could pinch in and out. The fingers were only articulated at their middle, unlike a human hand which had a second join near the end. Grabbing anything was a challenge, one only made harder by the lack of skin.

"So, do you know how to read maps?" she asked.

All of them raised their right hands.

Then the green-barreled puppet brought her hand even higher up and pointed as best she could at the Magus.

The woman blinked, then her brow knit together. "Is this a misunderstanding?" she asked. "Or are you trying to ask a question?"

She lowered her hand onto the table, then raised it back up.

"That's a yes. I can't imagine discovering what your question is when all I have to work with is a binary would be easy," she said. "Is it a question about the lesson, or is it a personal question?"

The green puppet tapped the table twice.

"The latter. About me?"

She raised her right hand.

"Well, that narrows it down somewhat. Does it pertain to the lesson?"

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

She raised her left.

"In that case, it matters little, does it? You've lost my interest. From here on out, only raise your hands to answer questions I may pose, understood?"

Reluctantly, she raised her right hand.

"Hmph, very well. Keep in mind that you will soon have the ability to speak. We can't expect you to carry out the Magus's will without being able to communicate. What use is there in a scout that can't relay what they've discovered? In any case, this map is of the Yellowfield region of Draya Calyrex."

The map pictured a large region that featured several plateaus and an in-land lake of some decent proportions near its middle. The shore stretched on for some ways next to an area marked out as the Sapphire Ocean. There were markers for several settlements on the map, including a large one along the shore and more deeper within. These were usually along the sides of large rivers that seemed to flow down along the length of the plateaus in the region.

"This area is the one where we will be making our landfall. It's our hope that the Yellowfields will be the area least impacted by the dragonplague." She tapped a part of the shoreline some distance away from the city along the coast. "This is where Magus Maldrak intends for us to stop."

The puppets all leaned in a little closer, their eyes clicking down as far as they could go to better observe the map.

"This is the town of Shorefarm. It's a small, unnoteworthy settlement that housed some few hundred peasants and was ruled over by a lesser lordling. I suspect that your task on making it to land will be to clear the town and its surroundings of any threats."

She allowed them to stare for a moment longer. Shorefarm seemed like little more than a blip on the map, not something that drew much attention.

"We don't know what to expect on arrival, but... if there are any survivors, they will have been maddened by grief. It is safe to say that little humanity will remain amongst them. I believe that your primary task will be securing the docks and seaside village next to Shorefarm, as well as a local mine."

She rerolled the map suddenly and tucked it away.

"Others will cover the details better than I can. I am an arcanist, not a tactician. What I do know, and what I intend to teach you today, is magic."

She pulled out two small objects from her satchel and placed them on the table. One was a ring, made of a golden material and created in the likeness of a coiling dragon. The other was a short stick of carefully carved wood.

"There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of magic. These are the arcane arts and the draconic arts. I am a Magus, and am therefore an arcane wizard. The magic I practice draws from both the power within myself, and the raw essence of the world around me. This is a limited resource that only replenishes itself slowly. Arcane Wizardry is a structured, intellectual pursuit of magic, relying on study, discipline, and the manipulation of universal laws. Practitioners draw power from the world itself, weaving complex spells through the use of symbols, formulas, and rituals. This magic is detached from the land's draconic history, instead focusing on timeless principles that govern reality."

She flicked the little wand, and a sparkle of bluish lights appeared on its end and fluttered through the air.

"Wizards spend years perfecting their craft, and their power lies in their ability to adapt and innovate. They wield tools like grimoires, staffs, and magical artifacts to channel their energy, relying on precise incantations and well-crafted spells. This form of magic is often seen as clean, elegant, and versatile, in contrast to the raw, instinctual nature of dragon affinity magic."

She picked up the ring next. "Draconic magic, or dragon affinity magic, is a primal and deeply personal form of power, drawn from the lingering essence of the great dragons that once ruled the land. Each dragon's affinity—whether fire, frost, storm, shadow, or another force of nature—serves as a unique wellspring of magic. Practitioners tap into these energies through ancient rites, meditations, or by invoking the dragon's name in their spells. More often than not, they need access to the actual essence of that dragon, be it food grown from dragon-fertilized soil or a discarded scale piece or something that the dragon used their essence upon."

She raised the ring and frowned deeply for some time before a tiny spurt of flame came out of the dragon's mouth. It was no longer than a fingertip, and flickered like a candle in the wind.

"This magic doesn't require actual worship but relies on an understanding of the dragon's essence and a willingness to align oneself with its raw power. Those who truly revere a dragon or its ideals might find their magic amplified, but even skeptics can wield this force by channeling it through relics, bloodlines, or sites of draconic significance. This magic often has a visceral, elemental quality, and the caster's body can bear subtle marks of the dragon's influence, like glowing veins or scaled skin. This magic isn't more versatile than a wizard's... but it is undeniably more powerful with significantly less effort necessary to achieve greater power."

The woman glanced at them all.

"Any questions?"

Three right hands rose.

"Ah... well, these will have to wait. I'm a busy woman and I don't have time to play games. I've done as Maldrak asked, and you'll have to be satisfied with that."

***