I bounced back and forth on the balls of my feet, eyeing the spell-crafted practice dummy on the other side of the mat. I began gesturing and speaking words of power, formed the array.

Again, the channel opened, and this time, I poured dragonfire into the arcane missile spell. It drained a good bit of my fire, roughly a fifth, before it completed, and I pointed at the target.

Magic exploded out of me.

An arcane missile the size of a balista bolt, glowing a bright purple that was the exact mix of my blue ether and red-white fire, shot across the distance faster than I could track.

It ripped through the dummy, which practically exploded under the force of the impact. It kept going and smashed into the wall of the arena, which was covered in protective runes.

I staggered back.

“By all the hells, what was that?!” a student next to me demanded.

“Arcane missile?” I said, though it came out more like a question.

“Like hells. What, you got some kind of force affinity or something?” the student asked, her voice pitching up at the end as if worried I might say no.

“Something of that sort. It burnt through a fifth of my power to cast, though.”

Not technically a lie. It had eaten up a fifth of my bloodline, even if it had only cost as much ether as a normal arcane missile spell. The student seemed to relax at my words, though, nodding as she went back to her own spell practice.

I laughed and raised my hands, preparing another spell. What to cast, what to cast?

I began putting together the spell array for summon gadhar, moved my hands, and spoke several long lines. As the channel between ether and fire opened, two fifths of my fire rushed in. It ran through the spell array, settling into the part where my ether would enhance the gadhar’s bloodline.

The gadhar appeared in a flash, but to all my senses it seemed normal. Using the innate celestial, I asked it to attack the dummy – or what was left of it – then dismissed it early, letting the extra ether funnel into its bloodline. The gadhar had seemed a little stronger than usual, but not absurdly so. I was guessing it was an investment, like professor Toadweather had talked about. I would be able to pass a portion of my strength to my summon.

I didn’t have much fire left, so I contemplated my last test carefully, before casting arcane armor. When it formed, its plates were thicker and sturdier looking, but not as drastic as the improvement to the missile.

That made some sense. The armor spell lasted for hours, so infusing extra power was good, but not as dramatic as a quick offensive spell.

Still, I was quite pleased with the components I’d purchased. A good use of two hundred silver.

Speaking of components…

I started heading out towards the Charm and Fable, and when I entered the shop, I found someone new behind the counter.

The man looked to be in his early forties, but he had the kind of absurdly well-honed physique that made him look like he could fight a man half his age. He had dark skin, short cropped hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and intense brown eyes. He wore a sleeveless shirt and cargo shorts, with a plain looking sword at one hip, and a glowing mark on his right bicep, shaped like a flute and sword crossing over a cornucopia. He glanced up and nodded to me. I nodded back and walked up to him, then held out a hand.

“Emrys of White Sands,” I said. “You must be Charm. Fable told me to come and meet you today.”

“So you’re the student he told me about!” Charm said, stroking his beard. His voice was odd. Foreign, but not an accent I recognized.

“Yes sir, plea–”

There was a surge of movement as a song hung in the air. Charm had leapt over the counter and was swinging his sword down at me. The blade, despite the fact it was ugly and pitted, as if made from pig iron, hummed a melody that warped the air around it.

I yelped and dove to the side, starting to shape a spell, but Charm flicked his sword out. The shimmering around his blade condensed at the tip, and a wave of unrelenting force exploded out at me with a shouting sound. I kicked off the ground, using the tiniest pulse of my bloodline as I did. The force struck the wall, causing the whole building to shudder.

Charm flicked his blade in three quick slashes, his tattoo glowing silver as he did, and lines of what looked like silver force magic shot from its tip. I hit the ground, rolling, then popped up and flicked my hand out, completing the last word of power.

I poured the remainder of my dragonfire into the spell, and a ballista bolt of force erupted across the distance. A high pitched, frenetic song rose through the air as Charm sliced out and split my arcane missile in two. It dissolved into sparkling motes of blue and red light.

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Then Charm sheathed his sword and offered me a hand.

“Not bad, kid,” he said with a grin.

“Why did you attack me?!”

“Mate, this is a component shop. We get people from all over who shop here. Some of them are strong enough that they think that they can threaten us for cheaper prices. Some are down on their luck and trying to steal something valuable. Some are three stages into the Creep. Whatever the reason, there may be a time where you gotta knock the piss out of a customer, or at least show you aren’t gonna let them hurt you.”

He leapt over the bar with one hand again.

“We’ll got a button that can call Fable or meself, but there’s no guarantee we’ll get here instantly. Even with Fable’s magic being good for teleportation. So I gotta test ya.”

I let out a grunt of annoyance, but I could see his point. I just wished he hadn’t scared me half to death with the sudden attack.

“Did I pass?” I asked instead.

“Eh,” he said. “Not bad. Could be better. I think once you’ve formed a wand, staff, or amulet, that’ll help. You’re slowed down too much by spellcraft right now.”

“Okay, hold on,” I said. “I’ve heard about wands, staves, and amulets, but I want to know what they actually do?”

“That’s wizard stuff, and I’m not much of a wizard,” Charm said with a laugh.

“You’re a songcaller, right?” I asked. “I thought it would be a bit more relaxing, but I could hear the music in your attacks.”

“Hah!” he said. “Lots of people do. But swordsong is a potent battle technique. Not my only trick, but yes, I’m fairly advanced in it. I’ve also got a truesilver ranked destiny mark, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“I… What are destiny marks?”

“Destinies aren’t just marks, any more than magic’s just memorizing spells, life enforcement’s just spiritual, or divinities are just blessings,” Charm informed me. “Don’t have a knack for true destinies, but the mark works well enough for me.”

That was less than helpful, so I glowered at him. He laughed and held up his hand.

“Alright, listen. There’s a whole ritual to awaken destiny power, and then progress it. It’s got its own powers’n such, and requires a lot of work to progress. They’ll grant you a lot of power, but they also limit you. They’re common in my homeland. I got the destiny of the farmer, and had to work to develop the mark of the sword and mark of the song. Since I took up practicing the swordsong, now it gives me a continually refreshing pool of stamina, which I can also feed into my attacks or swordsong.”

“Huh,” I said. “Is there a mage destiny?”

“Nah yeh,” he said, which I took to mean yes, even though it started with ‘nah’. “It’s a bit shonky, since you’re not really learning the magic yourself, more learnin' to imitate bits of spells, songs, and bloodlines.”

“Interesting… You know a lot about power systems.” I said, leaning forwards.

“You can say that,” he said with a grin. “Fable’s powers might not be quite as good as mine in a fight, but he’s still a ripper at moving me around. I’ve visited more spots than most.”

“Can I have your advice, then?”

“Go for it.”

“Your partner no doubt told you about my bloodline.”

“He did. I can hear it too, though. It’s… I’ve seen a lot, but I can’t think of seeing many people with a bloodline so compact at your age. Only twice, actually, though they were twins, a long time ago.”

“How did they fix the problem?”

“About having done too much to be able to expand their tornados, or you your fire, much anymore?” he asked. I nodded.

“Well, I won’t lie – their solution won’t exactly work for you. They used an artifact from the age of pools that had the power of an elder tempest elemental sealed within, consuming and splitting the power between themselves. The magic from that age had different rules that let them ignore a lot of the problems when expanding their tornados. But before they found that artifact, there were a few things they did.”

He stroked his beard again, trying to remember.

“I remember a couple of bloodline expansion exercises that they managed to get some small gains from… But are you sure that it’s a problem?” he asked. “Don’t get me wrong, in an ideal world, you’d find a similar artifact, but are you a dragon or a mage?”

“Both? But a mage first. A dragon mage, if I could.”

“Right – well, look at what you’re doing now,” he said. “You’ve essentially given yourself an amplification affinity. If you keep progressing things as they are now, your fire will always remain smaller, but also a lot denser and more potent than your ether. Don’t treat it like a primary source of power, treat it more like an affinity. You infuse it into spells to supercharge them, not use it as a baseline.”

He tapped his tattoo again.

“Like what I did with this. I integrated it as a sub-part of my songcalling, rather than treating it as a totally separate source of power. Oh, and maybe look into some of the old information about draconic magic.”

“What do you mean? Dragons don’t have magic, or well, spellcasting. Our power is mostly physical, with a few magical ones like transformation, dragonfear, and a breath weapon.”

“Back in the ages of sunder, pools, and wilds, dragons had a lot more connection to magic than they do these days,” Charm said. “It’s probably not worth digging for that information right here and now, before your duel with Gerhard, but I know it didn’t entirely vanish during the modern age. There was a kingdom – it’s deep in demon territory now – but it was ruled by a dragon mage lineage. It was started during the age of sunder, but its dragon mages continued to rule for at least a millennium afterward.”

“What was its name?”

“Ketsalkuetspalaltepetl,” he said. “I’ll write it down for you, along with the general location.”

“Thank you,” I said. “How do you know this?”

“Oh, I went through one of their ruins, once, looking for some components for Fable,” he said, grinning. “I’m one of the major suppliers for the really unique things our store sells. Business contacts can get mundane components, but Fable’s portals can get us access to a lot of planes and places for harvesting. It’s my job to go get them.”

“That sounds like an interesting job.”

“Oh, it is. But speaking of jobs… Sure, kid. I’ll give you a shot. Don’t let me down, alright?”

“I can promise to try,” I said.

“Hah. Fair enough. Get back here, I’ll show you how to work the shop.”

We spent the next several hours going over the shop’s procedures. Like Fable had said the last time I was in there, I had to learn a lot. People came to the shop from all over, and judging by the strange glass window and Fable’s spatial magic, I suspected that fact was more literal than most shops in this city. I had to master currency conversions, the spatial enchantments that hid the more valuable items, the incredibly warped space of the storage room, estimating the value of magical components, and more.

Then there were the customers. Over the course of the day, I saw just about every mortal race under the sun, plenty of people with non-mortal bloodlines, and a few completely non-humans. There were warriors and wizards and people with powers that smelled like nothing I’d ever smelled before. By the end of the shift, I was nowhere near ready, but Charm didn’t seem upset.

“Working at any component shop takes a lot of knowledge, but it can open doors for you,” he said. “You’ll learn in time.”