The coastal nations took to the seas early, taking with them the knowledge of ship building and naval navigation.
The land locked nations moved inward as the ocean came to their shores, and brutal battles ensued as dry land became more and more scarce.
-A Brief History of the Flood by Albert Moonsuckle
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Despite there being a marked lack of adults to oversee the study group for primals, Zale insisted they all show up in the training room Saturday morning.
“We need to set aside time to focus on our magics,” Zale said, when everyone—including Amara—had protested.
“Don’t we do that every day?” Rakin asked.
“I don’t,” Amara said, earning a glare from Rakin.
“I do,” Kole shouted, raising his hand high and smiling.
“It’s either this, or we go for a ten-mile run,” Zale said, “And I don’t think that would be wise before our hardball match tonight.”
Kole didn’t think that was the only alternative, but decided to not press the issue.
They relented, and Kole was relieved that they didn’t have to walk across campus back to the art college to get back into their study room. Zale simply opened a door that Kole was certain had previously opened to a closet, and the training room appeared.
“Oh, hey,” came a voice from within.
Inside the door, the room was much improved from the last time they’d seen it—that time having been in the wake of Runt’s kidnapping by a swarm of giant magic spiders with a psychic connection to their friend’s psychopathic twin sister.
The webs were gone, and the broken furniture had been removed though not replaced.
Aside from the cleaning, there was one more significant change in the addition of a cot, sofa, and other sundry items one would expect to find in a living space.
Kole didn’t recognize the voice and drew his wand as he took in the room.
“Oh, you’re alive,” Zale said, with what Kole thought was forced cheer. “Hey Runt.”
Recognition caught up to Kole’s ears, and he realized it was Runt, only the girl had spoken without her usual cocksure attitude, sounding uncertain for the first time in his interactions with her.
“What are ye doing here?” Rakin asked, not forcing any cheer.
“I was waiting for you guys,” she said, more in line with her usual surety.
“Here?” Zale asked.
“Well... I did also need a place to lie low. I may have overestimated a new skill I was working on after the whole spider event, and I thought it best to stay out of New Lakeside for a while. And...” she trailed off, uncertainty returning.
“I wanted to thank you all for saving me,” she finished, looking at exactly none of them as she expressed gratitude. “You didn’t need to save me. I wouldn’t have saved me if I was you.”
“We were actually trying to save my sister,” Amara said, correcting Runt as she would have corrected Kole for making a mistake in a discussion about runes—without malice or reproach but out of a strong desire for accuracy in all things.
“Right...” Runt said, wholly in uncharted territory. “So, thanks. If there's anything I can do to help you guys. I owe you.”
Zale caught Amara’s eye and gave her a look that Amara had come to recognize meant she’d made a large social gaff.
“Sorry?” Amara said, clearly unsure what specifically had been the problem.
“You don’t owe us anything,” Zale said, giving Amara a stern look. “We did want to find you, and we would have done it had Amara’s sister not been responsible—not that we knew that at the time.”
“But we wouldn’t have been able to find you if that had been the case. So it's good. Right?” Amara added quickly, trying to recover.
Runt rolled her eyes and Zale palmed her face and rubbed her eyes in frustration giving up.
“Either way, I owe you,” Runt said.
“Can you steal a student's class schedule for me?” Kole asked, jumping on the offer.
“Obviously,” Runt said, once more in her comfort zone. “But that's pretty specific and weird.”
“I’m looking to avoid a student named Corbyn Highridge and need to know where he’s going to be so I can not be there.”
“Highridge? That’s an Illandriosian name. What did you do, steal his whale shit?”
“No, he wants something I have, but he thinks I’m dead and now he’s trying to find it. I’d like to keep the idea that I’m dead going,” Kole explained while still remaining vague.
“Did you steal it?” Runt asked with sudden interest.
“No, it's mine.”
“Flood, I thought I might have underestimated you,” Runt said, devoid of interest as suddenly as it had arrived. “Sure, I can do that. Do you want me to tail him too and tell you his routine?”
“You’d do that?” Kole asked, surprised.
Runt shrugged.
“It’s good practice. Shalia’s gone, and I can’t go back to New Landing anytime soon.”
“That’d be great,” Kole said, relieved to have a semblance of a plan in place more detailed than ‘avoid Corbyn'.
“So, you nerds here to study?” Runt asked, looking them over. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
Before anyone could say anything, Runt had slipped through the door to their home, and closed it behind her.
“Darn it,” Zale cursed—sort of. “I’m not supposed to let her in there.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
They spent an hour where each shared where they were at with their primal issues. Having been living and training together for the past month, none of what they disclosed was new to the group but having it all spelled out in the open served to both keep one accountable for their own progress and give the others the chance to make a suggestion.
Amara had done nothing to improve her control of the Font of Understanding, despite the recent discovery of her sister’s use of it to co-opt a hive of mage slayer spiders into doing her bidding. Though with her mental state, no one pushed her, and they let her use her sharing time to discuss her plans for the next revision of her broom.
Kole was really fascinated by the possibilities of her Font, despite his previous desire to think about the confusing topic as little as possible. The way Amintha had gotten a group of spiders to work together with ant-like cooperation suggested that Amara might be able to use her abilities to help other non-Understanding primals work together better.
While Amara wasn’t part of their team for class, she was definitely part of their group, and he suspected she’d be pulled along with them the next time some extracurricular adventure swept them up. It would be good if they started to see where she could fit in.
But, not yet, Kole told himself as Zale politely interrupted Amara’s lecture.
“Doug,” Zale said, giving him the room, “what are you working on?”
“I’ve given up on trying to stop my involuntary teleportation,” Doug admitted. “Now that I can tell when they are going to occur, I can try to fight them when they happen, but meditating on it isn’t going to help. I’ve started trying to learn how to do something intentional. Kole’s trick of vanishing the card inspired me to try to do something similar. I’ve heard that the cantrip for the Font of Space lets wizards summon an item from on their person to their hand, so I’m going to try to do that with arrows. It’s an easy next step that would be really useful in battle.”
“That’s a great idea,” Zale said encouragingly. “Any progress?”
“No,” Doug said, though he didn’t seem embarrassed by the fact.
Next it was Kole’s turn, and he admitted he’d put zero thought into his primal abilities.
“I just think, for now, my time and Will is better spent on my wizardry,” Kole told the group. “Wielding the Font of Illusions does seem to be getting easier, and I’m guessing that's due to my improved skill in wizardry. I think it's best I focus on my immediate issues, and when I have time to tinker with primal magic, I’ll be far better equipped to deal with it.”
No one protested, and Rakin was up next.
“I’m trying ta improve my control,” he said, and in demonstration held a stone in his upturned palm.
The stone rippled and morphed itself from a smooth river stone into a more jagged design with a spiral of wide fins.
“What is it?” Kole asked.
“A flower,” Rakin said, as if it was obvious.
“No, it's not,” Doug said.
“Bah! I said I was workin’ on it,” Rakin shouted, tossing the stone at Doug who ducked under it easily.
“I’m trying to expand my aura range,” Zale said, going last. “I can sort of stretch the effect if I think about it, and it seems to get a little easier each time. If I could cancel out sound in a large bubble, that could be extremely useful.”
“Aye,” Rakin said with a nod, “Ye’d be a nightmare for anyone using verbal spells.”
Zale nodded.
“I’m working with Kole to get access to the Font of Light, I expect I’d get a darkness aura if I can find it. That will be of limited use with my current range, but if I can make it large and see through it with my Willsight, I could make anyone who got close to me blind.”
“Is this why Runt hates you?” Kole asked. “You do seem to have the perfect skill set of a thief.”
“More like an assassin,” Rakin said, earning a swat.
“No,” Zale said, not even looking to Rakin as she hit him playfully. “We never liked each other. The magic is just a new reason. Honestly, if I could trade abilities with her, I would. You saw how tough Parrotsong was fighting Rakin the other day. If I could have that strength, I’d be unstoppable.”
Kole tried picturing Zale with the tribal tattoos of the Iron Veins, and then began to wonder to what extent those tattoos covered their bodies, which led him to other thoughts that caused him to blush.
“Well let's get to work then, shall we?” he said, standing up, hoping to hide his embarrassment.
They spent an hour doing light primal training before Kole said he’d have to stop. He’d a very good idea of his Will recovery rates, and he knew that if he spent anymore, he’d not recover it in time for their match that afternoon.
Zale, Kole had learned, recovered her Will much faster than she had any right to, so it wasn’t something she had to watch as closely—not that her passively sensing Kole draw upon the Arcane Realm cost her any.
Rakin’s own fine control practice took small amounts of Will, and cost him none of his Ki, but he still took Kole’s stopping as a cue to give up his own efforts.
Doug’s attempt to conjure an arrow to his hand had resulted in nothing more than a headache and a slight drain in his Will, but Doug’s Will supply wasn’t something the Blessed had to worry about either, since activating Assuine’s Blessings hardly took any of the Blessed’s Will, instead being fueled by the goddess’ power in the world. Once he could actually control his ability to teleport, his Will would become an asset.
Amara, who’d just been sketching plans in her notebook, was the most reluctant to stop when they all broke for lunch.
“Have you two made any progress on your mental vaults?” Zale asked Doug and Rakin as they cleaned up.
“No... why?” Doug asked.
Zale sighed.
She turned to Rakin, who was using his magic to push all the sand that had escaped back into the fighting pit, in a manner that seemed a little too focused.
“Rakin?” she asked, tone stern but knowing.
He gave the sand a big mental push, and it billowed into a cloud which drifted towards the pit.
“I... forgot,” he finally admitted.
“Mental vaults are important!” Zale scolded them both.
“Why?” Rakin asked.
Zale, who’s mental vault didn’t really function due to her voidy nature, opened her mouth to explain but found no words came out.
Kole thought for a second that she’d activated her silence aura, but the slight tilt to her eyebrows told him she didn’t have an answer.
He jumped in.
“If you’re a primal—a non-sorcerer one at least—you can see your Font from your vault without building a bridge. You can use that access to better understand how your abilities work. It will let you see the magic in a way you could only intuit before.”
“That’s it?” Rakin asked, as if that weren’t an amazing thing Kole would have loved to be able to do.
As an unprecedented primal sorcerer, Kole lacked that deep connection to the Font of Illusions, his vault lacking access to the Font. Instead, when he opened his bridge, he found his vault just outside of the Font, while he imagined Rakin would find his bridge—if he ever bothered to make one—inside the Font of Earth.
Or would he? Kole wondered, considering his duel primal nature.
“No one knows what yours would do,” Kole said. “You have two Fonts. That’s unheard of. Will you have access to both? Or none like me? Vaults are useful for more than that. You can use them for memory enhancement, defenses against mental magic, or even help multitasking. I’ve been working on keeping my awareness of my surroundings while in my vault, and I’m finding I can almost carry on two lines of thought at once.”
“Fine,” Rakin said. “Find me a book or something.”
Zale smiled, and mouthed “thank you,” to Kole, who couldn’t help but smile back.
You’re smiling too much! Stop smiling so wide? Oh no... now I’m thinking about it too much. How do I smile?
Rakin pointed to Kole.
“What’s wrong with his face?”
“Who do you think we’ll face tonight?” Kole asked the group as they ate.
“I hope it’s Gray’s team,” Rakin said, rubbing has hands together. “I’d love to punch Harold in the face. Or Esme in the face. Or Gray in the face.”
“Not Mouse?” Kole asked.
“Na, she’s alright,” Rakin admitted, giving Doug an approving nod. “A bit weird though.”
“It won’t be them,” Doug said, “Mouse said they are up next week."
“I’d say I hoped it was Shalin’s team,” Kole said, “But I’m not sure we’d win against them.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Zale said. “You didn’t have your blasting rod, and I didn’t have my sword or armor. And Rakin got goaded into losing his cool.”
“Literally,” Kole said, interrupting.
“Aye,” the surly dwarf agreed.
“I think he’d stand a chance at beating them to the ball,” Zale finished. “And we could go all out without fear of killing them.”
They finished their meal, idly speculating on who they might face and what environment that might be in. Since learning of the parameters of PREVENT’s practical training this semester, they’d spent no small amount of their free time researching optimal hardball tactics—‘they’ being primarily Zale, but she then forced the information into her teammate’s heads under threat of additional morning conditioning. So, while they had no clue what they would see, they had some clue as to what to do if they encountered any of the typical hardball environments.
Despite all the preparation, Kole couldn’t help but be nervous. Their last match at the end of the previous semester had been a disaster. They’d avoided attention from the failure due to the battle royale nature of the match. Their team had just been one mediocre team among many, but now their performance would be front and center, victory or defeat.