“I’m glad to see everyone has their primers today. Go ahead and get started on marking your letters, today is going to be a little bit different than normal. I won’t be able to help much, so ask each other for help. If you can’t agree, then you can ask Nick and Sheila.” We heard Father Tomas explaining to the little kids as we walked in to the church. Noticing the door open, he turned and smiled as he saw us walking in.
“Ah, just the group I wanted to see. Any need of the meditation circle?”
“Nah.” Nick waved him off. “Boring day. You have that book for us?”
“Yep, it’s on the table over there.” He waved to a small, two person table off to one side. “I hope you guys don’t mind answering questions for the little ones while I work with Terrance?”
“Fine with us.” Sheila answered, pulling Nick along to their area.
“Terrance, let’s head to my office. It’s a bit more private.” At my nod, I followed him to a small side door hidden behind a bookcase if you were looking at the room from the front doorway. Following him back, we danced through the small bodies spread out haphazardly. Heading through the door, I took a quick look around while Tomas moved behind his desk. The walls were mostly bare, though there was one painting of a sun setting behind the mountains on one wall. Opposite the painting as an uncomfortable looking cot. His desk wasn’t that large, and he kept it quite clear except for a small inkwell and a quill pen. It appeared to be his one luxury, as it was inlaid with silver creating some decorative swirls.
“How was your day?” He asked after getting settled, clasping his hands together on the desktop. He seemed fairly laid back, but the slight tremor in his pinky let me know he was nervous. That eliminated several paths, most of them ones that I wasn’t going to attempt anyway.
I took a few moments, trying to make my face look conflicted. After releasing a deep sigh, I finally answered, “It’s been a bit trying to be honest. Can I confess a few things to you?”
“Of course.” He nodded.
“I’m.” I paused. “Scared.” I finally admitted.
“Oh? Of what?”
“My magic.” I immediately replied. “I had a nightmare this morning, and poor Ellie was trying to comfort me and wake me up. According to Scott, I woke up ready to unleash some magic, but I don’t recall any of that. Father Tomas, you have to help me! I don’t want to hurt Ellie!” Hoping that I wasn’t laying it on too thick, I slumped back in my chair. “She’s been so nice.”
“I see.” He said, steepling his hands and bringing them to his chin. “Do you know what kind of magic you have?”
“That’s another part that scares me.” I nodded. “Scott said it was death mana. I don’t want to accidentally kill Ellie! But it’s also confusing.”
“Confusing?” He asked.
“Yeah. I know I need to work on my magic, so I spent today trying to meditate and visualize like you guys told me. I could only get a few flashes, but it was strange. There was a little bit of that grey color Scott described, but the majority of it was pink.”
“Pink?” He sat back, eyebrows raising. “You’re sure that was the major color?”
“More than the grey. There was a blue as well. Like you were looking into a deep lake, a dark blue.”
“Hmmmm. Well, this does seem off.” He nodded. “I can at least help you a bit, and we can work together to explore the rest. So that blue you described? That’s plain mana. If you get more schooling, they will call it unaspected. That’s just fancy for saying that you can use it for almost anything. Spells that don’t require specific mana will use it, like the mage hand spell.” With that explanation, his hand glowed blue for a split second before an ethereal hand extended off and hovered over his desk.
“Oooh.” My eyes widened in mock admiration. Mage hand? Please. A basic tier one spell that was inferior to telekinesis, as the visual representation was a waste of mana.
“Now, your grey mana most likely is death mana.”
“No!” I shook my head defiantly. “I don’t want death mana! I don’t want to be a necromancer!” Hunching over, I wrapped my arms around my chest and started rocking back and forth.
“It’s ok.” I felt a calming hand on my shoulder, stopping me from rocking. “You won’t be a necromancer. What do you know of affinities?”
“Nothing. I only heard that word from you yesterday.”
“I see. Well, it’s like this. Affinities describe how closely you align with a specific mana type. There are a few very rare circumstances where they can be increased, but generally you are born with your affinities and there is no changing them.”
“Ok, but what do they do?”
“Patience, I’m getting there.” He said with a gentle smile. “Affinities are just descriptions. Spell efficiency, ease, growth, and conversion are just some of the things that are aided by a high affinity. That’s why it is one of the first things we try and establish.”
“Conversion?” I asked, confused.
“Of course! All of your mana starts out as neutral mana, the unaspected version. You convert it to the specific type needed for each spell, but how fast you can convert depends on your affinity.”
“Gotcha.” I nodded. “But how does that make it so that I can’t be a necromancer?”
“From what we know, necromancers need at least a high affinity to death mana. They can then combine it with life mana to create undeath mana.”
“Life mana?”
“That would be the pink mana you have. It is powerful in its own right, but it doesn’t really have much in the way of offensive capabilities. That’s probably why your mind reached for death mana when you were scared this morning. There are very few creatures that can resist death mana.”
“I see.” I nodded along, agreeing with him for the most part. Unless your spirit was a lot weaker than the caster, spirit mana tended to be more of a support type than an attack or defense type. “What can life mana do?”
“I’m not really sure, it is a fairly rare aspect to have. Healing is possible, but you absolutely have to promise me that you will not attempt any healing before you get the proper training on it!”
“Sure, I can promise that, but why?”
“Healing requires not only exquisite mana control and usage, but you also need to know exactly how to fix what you are trying to fix. If you do it wrong, at worst it will heal incorrectly. But if you aren’t careful, you can induce the wasting disease in people.”
“Really?” I asked, shocked. I knew it was caused by a concentration of life energy, but didn’t know that it could be induced with magic. “So aside from healing, what can I do to practice it?”
“There are a few low level spells, but a lot of them are highly restricted because of the ability to abuse them. These ones usually alter someone’s feelings. Aside from that, one of the most useful is Detect Life.”
“Detect Life? How can I learn it and what does it do?”
“It detects nearby life. A great spell for scouts and sentries. Unfortunately it requires you to be able to connect to another life first, so that’s what you will practice on. For the next few days, that’s all you will do. Try and connect with Dax and the sheep. Use your mana to figure out what they are feeling. Once you have that down, we can work on learning the chant to the spell.”
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“That sounds. . . rather boring.”
“Oh it will be. But animals are fairly simplistic, so it should take a week or two at most. Now, since we know what mana you have.”
“Wait a second.” I interrupted. “You still didn’t tell me the levels of affinities.”
“Oh. Sorry, sometimes I get distracted. The levels are null, low, medium, high, and perfect. Null and perfect affinities are exceedingly rare. As the name implies, a null affinity means you will never cast that type of mana. This is usually paired with a perfect affinity for the opposing element, and it means that you can cast spells with next to no effort. Most affinities are low affinities. Nick and Sheila both have low affinities for earth mana. They can learn spells, but they will never advance to the second circlet. That is the level that is generally accepted to be called a mage by the way. Sheila was lucky in that she has a second low affinity, that with wood. If you have a strong drive and at least one medium affinity, you should be able to become a mage. Second circlet, maybe third circlet. This is what the majority of mages can do, and they usually only have one element besides neutral. High affinities often give rise to what people call geniuses. It really doesn’t make them smarter, they just seem to intuitively understand the element. Plus they can process mana faster, which lets them advance faster. They usually have a second minor affinity, and very rarely a third. Questions?”
“No, seems fairly straightforward. But I’m glad you brought up the circlets, I’m kinda interested in seeing how I can figure out my power.”
“Ah, the dream of every kid. Sorry, but you’ll need a special magic tech to determine your level, and you won’t get to see that until you head to the capital. You might be able to learn how to determine the level eventually, but it is a high level life spell so it’ll be a few years. Before we discuss circlets though, we need to go over meditation. I was surprised that you got some flashes of your corescape.”
“Oh, well I thought about it and it seems meditation is somewhat similar to a practice from our tribe.” I said as I cursed mentally. What did I call that stupid thing with Nick? These two would definitely compare stories. “Reflection is what we call it. We split into groups at the end of the day. One group at a time we spend a bit reflecting on actions and choices in the day that we made, and what we could do to improve the situation. The huntsmaster also had us doing it after weapons practice.”
“Oh, you practice weapons? What do you use?” He asked, and I cursed myself for giving him another thread to tug at.
“Oh well. See.” I said, trying to buy time by running my hand through my hair. “It’s a bit embarrassing, but. Well.”
“It’s ok, you don’t have to tell me.”
“No! No, it’s ok. It’s obvious that you would be the warchief here, the person in charge of the defenses. One thing you should never do is lie to the warchief, especially about your skills. That gets you and others killed.” I explained like it was something I had grown up hearing all my life. “Unfortunately I am absolutely terrible with weapons. I didn’t have the arm strength to draw our bows, and the clash of weapons had me flinching. I was eventually given a stick and a dagger and told only to draw the dagger if I was alone.”
Tomas stared at me for a second, slowly stroking his chin. Eventually he nodded, saying, “Eh, that’s fine. Not everyone is going to be able to use weapons. At least you can use a knife if someone gets within the range of your magic. I’ll look into getting you a metal knife, and you can practice coating it with death mana. That won’t degrade the material, and should give your cuts a bit of extra damage.”
“Oh?” I asked, playing interested. Bit of extra damage? Come on. Death mana often slowed creatures by killing their muscle groups, but it didn’t do much extra damage. Now if you could get what these people called the second tier rot mana, then you could do some extra damage! Animals immediately recognized the scent of rotten wounds, and would often flee rather than press their luck.
“Indeed. Now, we’ve covered the affinities and mana types you have, on to the most important topic.”
“Oh no, is this the meditation lecture?”
“Yep!” He said with a grin. “Sheila told you?”
“Only that you would be giving it.”
“I’ll have to thank her for not spoiling it. Go ahead and try and relax, I’ll walk you through why we put so much emphasis on meditation. I’ll answer questions about it tomorrow. Now, relax, and just listen to me.” As he spoke, his voice took on a strange rhythm and tone, relaxing me. I didn’t fight it, at least this time, because it didn’t seem malicious. “Good. Relax. Feel your body. Feel your mana. Feel your corescape. They are all intertwined. Your mana nourishes your body, your corescape refines your mana, and your body protects your corescape. Feel for those flashes of corescape you had earlier today. Imagine them. They are within you, at the tip of your breastbone.”
“Feel the mana there. Is it still? Just sitting there, waiting to do your bidding. Send it through your body. Feel the pathways. They travel down your arms to your hands and back, forming two loops. You have smaller loops heading down each leg and back. And last you have a loop running up your spine and through your head and back. Feel them. Send the mana coursing through them. Each cycle cleanses them, removing impurities. Your corescape burns them, returning them to mana for your use.”
“As the mana cycles, some of it will seep out into your body. This will strengthen you, and allow your mana channels to be flexible. They will need to be to grow stronger, and to withstand the pressure when using more powerful spells. Your entire life will be spent doing this, improving your body. If you are advanced enough, you will be able to open the stoma in your feet and forehead, so you can cast spells from there.”
“Each cycle also increases the purity of your mana. Pure mana is able to be converted to aspected mana much easier, as there are less impurities to work around. It can also be compacted better, allowing you to more efficiently expand your corescape. Expanding your corescape will let you have a larger mana reservoir. With a large enough mana reservoir you can maintain a stock of different aspected manas, letting you use spells faster. More and purer mana will increase the activated gems in the circlet. Once you have reached a certain level, there is a process that will be required that will allow you to increase your circlet level.”
As he droned on, I tried to enter the barest hint of meditation. They were right about the visualization trick, so I wanted to see what else they might have known that we didn’t. I really could feel my mindscape in my chest, and started cycling the mana like he instructed. I shuddered a bit as I fought through the pins and needles feeling in my legs and spine. To a lesser extent I felt it in my left arm too, but that wasn’t surprising. I had tried dual casting, but found it too difficult. This stuff? Well I could at least feel the mana starting to move.
“Gah.” I lurched forward as the pain in my extremities suddenly spiked, not quite having reached my feet.
“You ok?” he asked.
“Yeah, just. Painful. I tried to get the mana to circle in my legs, but couldn’t get any through.”
“Hmm. That could be because you just haven’t used them yet, and they are getting blocked. Ok, let’s try this then. For the next few times, I want you to try one leg at a time, see if you can thread a fine line of mana through the blocks and work through them. Think on everything we discussed. When you are in the field, try and connect with animals. When you come back for lessons, I want you to simply meditate and work on clearing your mana paths.”
“Alright.” I nodded. “But what about learning other things?” I asked.
He sat there for a while looking at the ceiling, answering just as the silence became uncomfortable. “I don’t know why, but I feel like a storm is coming. And not just the one that Hazel said will hit later this week. No, this is a far more dangerous storm. And book learning can wait. This stuff won’t. My mind is saying that I shouldn’t trust you. Hell, everything I have ever learned is screaming at me not to trust you. But I have this feeling that you need to know and I need to trust you.”
Looking directly into my eyes, he continued. “I can’t trust you yet. But I won’t ignore my feelings, they have saved my life far too many times. So I will do my best to train you. And if nothing happens, well we have lost nothing. If it is and we are prepared? Perfect. And if the absolute worst happens, know that there is an Inquisitor awaiting at the bottom of the mountain for winter to end. They are a last resort, and will have to go through me to get you if you don’t betray us.”
I froze as he kept talking. Does he actually know what he is talking about? Or is he just fishing for information. Some of the best inquisitors back in Necropolis would assume things and wait for their questionee to fill in the blanks and confirm their guesses. That’s what he’s gotta be doing! “I don’t know how you think I could betray you guys. I already owe Scott and Ellie my life. I don’t think I could live with myself if I made anything happen to them.” At least until after I cured Scott. Once that happens, the scales will be balanced between us.
“I’m sorry if that came off as accusatory. I just wanted you to know what options there are. It’s getting late, so why don’t you head on back your home. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
I was in a stone tunnel. Floor, walls, ceiling. All were stone. Good stone too. Solid, no cracks, and the joints were well mortared. Looking behind me, then in front there were no differences, so I set off in the direction I was looking when I first arrived. I kept a simple walking pace, splitting off in random directions when there were forks in the path. It wasn’t always left or right, the biggest branch was at a small fountain where I quenched my thirst before choosing between seven different options. Three left at the cardinal directions and stayed level. Two in the direction I was traveling headed upwards, while the two next to the door I entered from headed down.
“Ahwoooo!”
I stood there for a second after hearing the howl. I knew that howl. Argos! Desperate now, I took off heading upwards. I had enough of a presence of mind to keep to a loping jog, but that was about it. I still felt panicked even though Argos wasn’t even close to me. I ran for as long as I could, hoping to find a way to break the trail but destined for disappointment. Several more times I heard the howl, each time getting slightly closer. It was the fifth or sixth time I heard it that I bolted upright in bed, chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath. My clothes were sticky with sweat again, and I felt bad as I knew Ellie would was the sheets again for me today. Though I tossed off the blankets, I couldn’t get back to sleep. Couldn’t. Might as well admit it, I didn’t want to go back to sleep. Those dreams were disturbing.