Ensouled artifacts bend the long-established rules of magic. While casting a spell, a wizard must draw from one or more specified Fonts, carefully guiding each Font to create the desired effect. Primals have more intuitive and unstructured control over the magic of the Font they channel, but with each effect they only draw upon the one Font they are connected to. Ensouled artifacts have the flexibility of both and the limitations of neither.
-Deckard’s Compendium of Ensouled Artifacts
—
“I’m going to the Griffin’s Roost,” Doug said as soon as Tigereye dismissed them. “Mouse wanted me to meet her there for dinner to either celebrate or commiserate.”
“I’ll go with,” Zale said, and then turned to Kole expectantly.
Kole’s natural inclination was to decline any social overtures when the alternative was studying, but he caught himself before doing so.
He quickly weighed his choices.
Go study and be alone, or spend more time with Zale?
Even with the prospect of Harold and Gray’s presence, he found the scale to be far more balanced than he would have expected.
In a moment on uncharacteristic self reflection Kole thought, Am I becoming less obsessed with my magic, are those two guys growing on me or do I like Zale more than I think? Maybe all three? No, probably just the last two.
“I’ll go,” he said, coming to a decision.
He could always stay up really late again after all, and he vowed not to promise that he wouldn’t if Zale asked. Though, he had his doubts how well that condition would hold up if she threatened him.
She does take after her mom in that way at least.
“I’m out,” Rakin said, and walked out.
“No. Wait. Don’t Go.” Zale said quietly with a straight face as Rakin walked away.
“Where does he even go when he’s alone?” Kole asked, long since wondering what the anti-social dwarf did in his free time.
“Rakin?” Zale said, surprised at the question. “He trains. That’s pretty much all he ever does.”
“Really?” Kole asked.
He knew his friend was talented, but he really had no frame of reference for the abilities of a student of the Order of the Resounding Silence. Nor did he know what their training entailed.
“Yeah,” Zale said, “He doesn’t really have any hobbies. He meditates a lot, works through his forms, practicing his primal control, and ever since I pushed him to work on his mental vault last week, he’s dedicated an hour to that every day. A half hour in the morning and a half hour at night.”
“That... doesn’t seem in line with his general personality,” Kole said.
Zale shrugged.
“He likes being difficult, but mostly he just likes to rile people up. He needs to maintain control at all times, or he could go mad. I think he likes to poke at others so they lose their cool as some sort of revenge against the world—or he gets it from his mother. She’s as bad as mine. You saw what happens when he loses control. It’s been like that most of his life, and he used to have episodes weekly. It's better now, but he wants to master it. He has to prove it to the dw—” Zale cut herself off and then said. “Those back home that he can.”
----------------------------------------
For the second time that day, Kole walked into an establishment called the Griffin’s Roost. This time, they were greeted kindly at the door, and walked in to cheers as some of the patrons recognized them.
Ever since the PREVENT classes had begun competing in a hardball league, the adventurer patrons had taken to celebrating any that entered. It had started as a jest, the seasoned warriors acting as though the students were famous competitors from the real hardball circuit, but the act lost its joking air as some of the groups gave outstanding performances.
“The Forsaken!” a voice cheered as they walked in.
Zale smiled, and let her illusion drop, regaining her natural white and black visage. Doug looked from Zale to the eyes on them, and then waved.
Kole tried to draw upon his Fade ability, but found the attention on him so great, he couldn’t even attempt the magic and simply lost a chunk of Will for his efforts.
“Flood,” he cursed at the waste of Will, ignoring that succeeding on casting it would have wasted it equally as much for little actual gain.
The greetings were followed with offers of free drinks. Offers which Kole gladly accepted, his frugal nature overwhelming his desire to avoid social interactions.
As Kole drank a free ale, from some province he’d never heard of, bought for him by a gnome covered in rune crafted gear, he reflected that free drinks tasted better.
Zale bought my drinks too though, he considered, not able to recall the last time he’d paid for one.
Before he could delve too deeply into that, Zale dragged him away to go congratulate the Risen Dahn.
The other team had occupied a corner booth, all four of them sitting around talking, with two older adventurers standing in on the conversation. They were discussing some of the choices of the match, Harold and Gray contributing mostly, while Esme was fixing her hair with a small compact mirror. Mouse was sitting in the corner, nibbling at her food and looking like she’d rather not be a part of the conversation.
“Doug!” Mouse exclaimed when she saw them approach.
Trapped in the corner, she looked to her left and then her right and then rapidly shrunk down, disappearing below the table. As a mouse, Mouse ran between the two amused adventurers and turned back into her human form just before reaching Doug. The two embraced.
“You did great!” he said, lifting her up and spinning.
Mouse let out a very mouse-like squeak.
“Let’s go!” she insisted and began pulling Doug out of the tavern.
Doug looked back helplessly as his girlfriend dragged him away. When Kole waved bye with a smile, he seemed to relax and let Mouse take him.
“What do they actually do when they go off together?” Gray asked loudly.
Kole found himself answering without thinking.
“After the whole thing with the carrot, I decided not to try to dig too deep into that relationship,” Kole said.
“Same,” Zale agreed.
“What carrot?” Harold asked, looking between the two.
Kole had grown comfortable talking with Gray after the last two weeks of class, but he realized suddenly that this was the first time he’d ever spoken to Harold. Looking at the other boy, Kole found that all the dislike he’d felt for him was gone.
Ever since eavesdropping on his conversation with Gray, Kole’s disdain for Harold had lessened, as he finally understood the reasoning behind his issues with Zale’s voidling nature. It hadn’t been him having a problem with Zale. He’d simply not been able to handle other people’s reactions to her in a way Zale appreciated. That revelation hadn’t made Kole like Harold anymore, and he’d still disliked the boy greatly, but even then Kole knew that to be jealousy.
Now, he stood next to Zale as Harold looked at her hopefully, and he found he wasn’t jealous anymore. In fact, he felt nothing one way or the other toward Harold.
Gray turned out not being so bad, he thought to himself. And Zale seemed to think Harold was a better guy.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
On some level, Kole had decided to give Harold a chance when he’d agreed to come at all, but in that moment, he consciously chose to leave his past, Rakin-influenced biases behind.
“Let me tell you about the carrot,” Kole said, telling the group about Doug’s strange attempts to court Mouse.
The conversation flowed from that to the hardball match. Kole and Zale found themselves seated next to the three other students shortly after. The two adventurers that had been with them had excused themselves when the topic had moved away from hardball toward strange teenage relationship.
“So...” Gray began during a lull in conversation, looking at Kole. “I heard you were having issues finding a mentor. Any luck after last week?”
Kole took a drink to buy time to think over his answer.
“Not really,” he said, wincing a little. “I was hopeful Zale’s Uncle would take me on, but he’s gone. There’s not a whole lot of wizards specializing in traditional wizardry around looking to take on an apprentice.”
“Not a lot, or none?” Gray asked.
“I haven’t performed an exhaustive search, but there are at least two. But one’s like 19, and they aren’t around very often,” Kole said, remembering Theral, who he’d not seen in weeks.
A man who he was explicitly forbidden of speaking about by Zale’s terrifying mother.
Oops, Kole thought, silently wishing Gray wouldn’t press the topic.
“I’ll see if my mentor knows of anyone,” Gray offered, but he didn’t have a lot of confidence in his tone. He turned to Zale then, smiling maliciously. “But, speaking of your uncle, why have you never told us about him?”
“Good question,” Harold said, joining in.
Zale darkened as she blushed at the attention, and she copied Kole in taking a deep drink as she collected her thoughts.
“So, he’s not actually my uncle,” she began, and then proceeded to speak around the truth as she told them about her eccentric but selectively present uncle.
----------------------------------------
Kole had a surprisingly good time with Gray and his team. Most of it he thought was because he was also with Zale, and part of him even enjoyed morning conditioning since she was there—a very, very, small part.
Over the past two weeks he’d discovered he got along well with Gray if they could both get over the awkwardness of their…rocky start. They had a similar dedication to both learning wizardry and becoming an adventurer. They were even trying to be adventurers for similar reasons, both having lost their adventuring parents at a young age. There were a few other wizards in their PREVENT class, but Kole and Gray were the two with the most advanced theoretical understandings of the art, and likely the top two when it came to combat.
Theory and practice went hand in hand when learning wizardry but applying that practice to combat took more than just raw magical talent. It was difficult to keep one’s focus in the heat of battle, and some of the most gifted wizards couldn’t focus enough to even cast a Firebolt when faced with a charging troll.
Oftentimes, the best battle wizards were the most decisive and level-headed, not the prodigies—though raw magical power did help. Once you had the ability to blow up creatures with a thought, it really came down to controlling one’s mental state, and the massive Will pools and ingenious spell constructs of the prodigies gave no advantage if they used their brilliant minds to panic or their great magical talents to teleport away.
All that is to say, in even a school full of students learning to be every stripe of wizard, Kole and Gray were a very specific breed.
“I don’t feel so good,” Esme said, daintily holding her hand over her mouth as she rubbed her stomach.
“Harold, do the thing!” An inebriated Gray said as they swayed back towards campus.
“What thing?” an equally drunk Kole asked.
While Gray and Kole were both unique magical talents, they were also teenagers who’d been in a tavern full of patrons sending them free drinks without end. They’d gotten a little carried away.
“Yeah!” Zale said, joining in—also drunk, “Do it!”
“Do it! Do it!” Zale and Gray chanted together.
“Do what!?” Kole demanded.
“Healing!” Gray shouted, and the looked around embarrassed and covered his mouth, as if he could recall the shout. In a whisper he continued “He can cure drunkenness.”
“No,” Harold said, firmly, though also slightly slurred. “I won’t.”
“Awww,” Zale said disappointed, but gave up.
“Why not?” Kole asked.
“Keev doesn’t appreciate that,” Harold said, referring to his god, one of the many demigods who Blessed those who sought to do good as adventurers.
Demigods were beings with the blood of the god’s in their veins, who went on to do great and or terrible things, gaining renown, fame, and or infamy. This combination of recognition and divine heritage allowed people to ascend to godhood. Fortunately for the Illusian races, the vast majority of these descendants chose to pursue good, and after ascension, Bless those who did the same. Either that or it was far easier to ascend through fame than infamy. There were competing theories, but all they knew for certain was that the good and neutral aligned demigods greatly outnumbered the outright evil ones.
In their inebriation, the students took a shortcut back to campus their more sober selves would have avoided—or at least created Lights before entering.
“Ow!” Gray said, as he bumped into a crate in an alley, then he began to laugh at himself.
“Here,” Kole said, opening his palm as he tried to cast the Glow cantrip.
He found that in his current state, manipulating his Will was quite difficult. Like trying to grab hold of a slimy and wriggling live fish.
On his third try he got it, and the white light flooded the alley, revealing that they weren’t alone.
“Oh! Hello there!” Zale said, cheerfully waving at the two men in front of her.
Kole stared at them confused for a moment and turned around to find two more behind them.
Harold put his hand on her shoulder, and it glowed gently for a moment. Zale’s face sobered, and her smile faded into a determined expression as the drunkenness left her.
“Oh,” she said more seriously, as she noticed the clubs in the hands of the four.
Harold quickly poked Kole and Gray, cleansing their minds with his Blessing before moving to Esme. Suddenly clear headed, Kole looked around again to take in his surroundings.
The four men had continued to close in as Harold sobered them up.
“Flood,” Kole cursed, turning to Zale. “Again?”
Zale was in her disguise now, having reactivated it when they left to avoid a situation just like this.
“This isn’t my fault,” Zale said, spreading her arms and gesturing at herself to emphasize her disguised appearance.
“It wasn’t your fault last time,” Kole said, though it wasn’t the time or place for him to bolster her self esteem.
Harold gave Kole an appreciative nod despite the situation.
“Drop your stuff and run, and no one needs to get hurt,” one man said, brandishing a club, the tip of which was stained a darker brown than the rest.
“This happened before?” Gray asked, looking between them.
“You don’t remember?” Kole asked, a little irritated. “You were really mad at me after. Said it was my fault.”
Gray’s face fell.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I’m sorry about that.”
Clunk, clunk, clunk.
“Ahem,” the spokesman for the thugs said, tapping his club on the ground. “I don’t think you lot are taking this seriously enough. I’m going to count to five, and you can either drop everything you have on you, or we’ll take it from you.”
Zale moved to reach into her jacket and looked around.
“One!” the man said loudly.
“Try not to kill them this time,” Zale said.
“They didn’t die!” Kole said, affronted.
“No thanks to you!”
“Two!"
Zale vanished into a cloud of black motes, and Kole turned to face the speaker. The two men that had come up from behind were standing close to each other. They had closed in as they threatened the students, and were now only ten feet away. Zale and Kole were in the back, with Harold and Gray in front of them, and Esme in the very front. Beyond them were two more thugs who were blocking their exit.
As soon as Zale vanished, Kole had begun constructing Thunderwave, very glad Harold had consented to heal their drunkenness after his experience with Glow. By the time he’d spun to face the men, the spell was completed, and he sent it though his bridge. As soon as he did, his light winked out as he lost his mental hold on the cantrip.
A loud crack of thunder echoed through the alley, and Kole faintly heard the men crashing into wood in the aftermath. His night vision ruined by the brief light, he couldn’t see what had become of them, but his hearing hadn’t been totally lost.
Behind him, he heard Esme shout a command.
“Take off your pants!” followed by the jingling of what sounded like belt buckles.
In front, the two men tried to regain their feet, and he heard the shuffling of broken planks and then a shout of alarm as Zale reappeared in their midst and proceeded to kick them back to the ground.
Kole cast another Glow spell, and in the light of it saw the two men he’d hit with Thunderwave hastily crawling away from Zale on all fours.
On the other side, Gray and Harold charged the two now pantless men, screaming a battle cry.
“Arghh!” they shouted, running at the pair.
The two men both stepped back instinctively at the sudden charge, tripping on their pants and falling onto their bare bottoms. On the ground they fought to lift their pants back up, but one quickly gave up and ripped them off, turning and running, leaving his accomplice and trousers behind.
The lone straggler curled up into a ball once he’d realized he would not get away, covering his head with his hands.
Gray and Harold had slowed as soon as the first man had fled, and they came to a stop before the cowering thug.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Harold said.
Esme let out an exaggerated sigh.
“It usually is once boys start to take off their pants,” she said, looking at the bare bottomed thug appraisingly and then shaking her head.
“Let’s go home,” she said, stepping around him, “I’m exhausted, and somebody removed my buzz. I wasn’t drunk, unlike you four slovens.”
Harold shook his head in annoyance. Kole had though that there had been something between the two last semester. Rakin had been certain Esme had like Harold, and that maybe have been true, but whatever affection had been seemed to have vanished over the break and she’d been cold and distant to the Blessed.
Twenty minutes later they were at the entrance to the art building that Zale usually used to get into her home.
“Bye,” Zale waved to the others as she walked inside with Kole.
“Where are you going?” Harold asked, pointing at Kole.
“Home?” Kole asked, confused by the question.
“Together?” Gray asked, raising his eyebrow.
Harold’s face darkened, and Esme had a small smile of enjoyment at what was about to occur.
“No!” Kole and Zale shouted together.
“Kole, Rakin, Doug, and Amara all moved in after my mother went missing and Amintha escaped,” Zale hastily explained.
Esme’s smile faded, and she scrunched her nose in disappointment, while Harold visibly relaxed.
Then it was Harold’s turn to give a mischievous smile—something that didn’t seem right on his usually earnest face.
“I’m sure your mom won't be mad two boys moved into your house while she was gone,” he said.
“She’ll understand, “ Zale said with little conviction. “Right?”
She looked at those around her, and Gray and Kole avoided eye contact.
“I’m a bit worried about that myself,” Kole admitted.
“It’ll be fine,” Zale asserted, forcing confidence she clearly didn’t feel.