Sorcerers once trained by placing themselves in controlled situations of life or death. The ship clans, demonkin, and many of the divine bloodlines all had their own methods to unlock specific abilities. They didn't always get the desired results, but no one could argue their torturous methods were not effective, though many—including this author—argued all the same.

-Tallen Elmheart, On Mages

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Ten minutes later, Kole was sitting in a barrel waiting for the lid to be sealed above him. He held his cloak above him, having smeared it with excrement to give the appearance of a full load. The smell was horrible, which may have been why no one looked too closely before sealing each container. With a series of deafening bangs, Kole was sealed in, and a moment later, he was on his side, rolling down the rail towards the barrier.

“This is a terrible idea,” he said to himself before he began retching at the smell, barely able to keep it down.

Mouth shut, he decided.

His mad spinning stopped as he hit the barrier, but it was followed by the sensation of his stomach dropping from under him as the buoyancy of the barrel hurtled it to the surface. Time was impossible to gage in that dark and terrible ascent, and if asked later he would have claimed it took an hour, but in reality, it was closer to a minute. Eventually, the speed reached an equilibrium, and the stomach-dropping feeling was replaced with an unstable tumbling that culminated in a brief moment of free fall as the barrel breached the surface and shot into the air before crashing down into the water once more.

Distantly around him, Kole heard other barrels breaching and splashing down, but his focus was solely fixed on trying to keep his breakfast of dried meat down. He couldn’t imagine the smell getting any worse than it was, but he didn’t think adding his own excretions to the situation would help either. Casting the cantrip for the Font of Air, and using most of his Will to do so, he held his palm up to his face and breathed in the clean fresh air.

The wait was actually long this time, as he sat there in the barrel praying to Riloth that he be plucked from the sea. He bobbed slowly in the wave, occasionally violently interrupted as a barrel from below crashed into him. But, after an eternity of Fauell, Kole heard a rope hit the side of his prison followed shortly by a sudden jolt as the barrel struck the side of a ship and was lifted.

There were many more bangs to follow, but eventually, the last one was on top as the lid was removed.

"It's a Flooding kid!" a voice said, "Where's the shit?"

"I'm a cast away requesting passage!" Kole shouted from his very undignified position.

"Ah, Flood," the man cursed, resigned.

Kole's father had taught him much about the ship clans, being from one himself. One very important teaching was: don't stow away on a ship clan's ship. Stowaways were as likely to be killed as thrown back into the sea, castaways however were rescued. The ship clans lived on the sea and knew its dangers more than any other group not of Oule, and they took mercy on any who suffered the wraith Riloth's storms.

While Kole wasn't actually a castaway, his claim spoke volumes of his knowledge of the people. And, while not a particularly a rule-following people, he did check all the boxes of a castaway if they really pressed the issue. He was fished from the sea, floating in a makeshift vessel he'd boarded under desperate circumstances.

"Get up out of there," the man continued. "What are you? Some sanders kid?"

"Yes," Kole answered as he climbed out. "My father was—is—a stormcaller."

The man let out a whistle and reassessed Kole. Due to the odorous nature of his job, the two of them were alone on this particular section of deck.

“We better get you washed up before you go see the Grand Master then,” he said, gesturing to a bucket of water on the side.

Kole obliged and began to rinse himself off.

“I hope you weren’t too attached to those clothes boy, because you’re going to need to toss them overboard.”

Kole looked down and agreed. They hadn’t exactly been in pristine condition before being covered with filth, and even if he knew both Mend and Clean, it was unlikely they would have been salvageable. There was only so much magic could do.

Kole stripped down and cleaned up a bit more before putting on the canvas clothing his new acquaintance handed him.

“I’m Meech, by the by, and this is the Willowboom,” the man introduced himself, gesturing to the ship.

“I’m Kole, Kole Highridge,” he said, giving his mother’s family name, “but my father was of the ship clan Teak.”

Meech let out another whistle. His father’s clan had been an old one, as evidenced by the simple name. As clans grew and splintered and new ships were built, they tended to take on names of their own, but they were usually derived from their old clans.

“Alright, let's go see the Master,” Meech said, leading Kole up a ladder.

Kole winced at pain as each rung reminded him of his tender ribs.

The ship was massive and was the core ship of the clan that bore the clan name on the rear. Ship clans were made up of many vessels, from galleons to sloops, but each clan had a massive heartship that served as the core of the fleet, nearing on small cities. These ships were constructed with the aid of magically enhanced materials and took constant magical maintenance to keep going. They were home to all of the centralized services that smaller ships could not support, such as schools, blacksmiths, and other tradesmen. They also served as the seat for the highest ranking Stormcaller amongst the fleet.

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While not the highest ranking member of a ship clan, that would be the High Captain, the Grand Master quite literally answered to no man. The High Captain could be replaced with a vote, but the Grand Master position lasted for life or voluntary retirement.

Needless to say, Kole was very nervous.

“Why do I need to see him?” Kole asked, managing to keep a tremble from his voice.

“Trust me, you’d rather see him than the Captain.”

They ascended many levels and passed over the top deck to the aftcastle, where they climbed a grand staircase, past the captain’s quarters, higher still to the quarters of the Grand Master. The ship was largely free of artistic flourishes in the woodworking, the wood all sculpted for purpose, and painted for decoration and protection from the elements. But, up here, some liberties had been taken and the doors and panels that made up with living quarters of the ranking members of the clan were covered in ornate scrollwork.

Meech pulled a small cord hanging next to the door and the bell could be faintly heard through the thick wood. A moment later, the door opened, revealing a man in his early forties, wearing a similar loose-fitting canvas outfit the rest of the clan wore, with cords tied around his wrists to keep the fabric from interfering with his spellcasting. He wore no visible insignia of rank, but his clothing did seem to be of a higher quality than Meech’s.

“Good morning sir,” Meech said with an overly dramatic bow. “We got a castaway requesting passage.”

“Why not take him to Meerim?” the Stormcaller asked, looking Kole up and down.

“Well, he seems to be more of a fugitive than a real castaway, but his father was a Stormcaller.”

Kole shrank a little at Meech’s accurate assessment of his situation and managed to restrain his instinctive reaction to correct the implication that his father was deceased. He didn’t expect to keep the fact he was on the run a secret, but he had hoped his situation wouldn't have been so glaringly obvious.

“Well, in that case, he better come in,” he said gesturing for Kole to enter, but stopping Meech from doing the same. “You better go get cleaned up. You have three more days of dung duty.”

“Aw come on,” Meech said disappointed, “Can you just, you know...”

He gestured wildly at his filthy self with his hands.

“That would defeat the purpose of a punishment detail wouldn’t it?”

Meech relented and bid Kole goodbye before leaving.

Once inside, the mage directed Kole to a seat at a table.

“I’m Grand Master Stormcaller Jorin, but please, call me Jorin. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Yes please,” Kole said, realizing that despite it feeling like years since he embarked on his stinky journey, it had only been two hours since he’d eaten beneath that tree.

“So,” Jorin said as he went about preparing some tea, “tell me how you became a castaway while we were docked at a floating city.”

The room had no stove, and Kole watched as his host caused the teapot in his hand to whistle as he placed his free hand on the side and spoke the verbal components of a spell.

“I’m not a fugitive—probably,” Kole amended. “I struck a classmate in the face, but that's hardly grounds for the search party they sent out after me.”

He sensed Jorin's skepticism as the man paused his tea preparation to look at him.

“Well... he was wearing enchanted glasses, which may have broken when I punched him in the face, but he’d already struck me with a club by then, so it was clearly self-defense.”

“Why flee then?”

“I’d already been planning my departure before this whole incident. I’m going to the Academy of Illunia to become a proper wizard. My uncle... doesn’t approve.”

“That raises more questions than it answers,” Jorin observed. “Why would the child of a Stormcaller, raised in the magical hub that is Illandrios, need to go so far to become a ‘proper’ wizard?”

Kole didn’t want to answer at first out of instinct but realized that this man wouldn’t care.

“I’m a primal,” Kole said as if admitting some great sin.

Jorin's eyebrows raised in surprise.

“I know, I know,” Kole said, forestalling a lecture. “They say primals can’t be wizards, but that's wrong. I can cast wizard spells, it’s just extremely difficult. I think I could figure it out if I can just find the right spells.”

Jorin took a glass orb from his pocket and held it out to Kole.

“As interesting as that is—and I’ll be honest, I think you’re probably going to fail—that's not why you are in my quarters. Swear on this oath sphere that you aren’t actually a fugitive, and I will cover for you to the captain. You must have Riloth’s own luck, the deep whale product you stowed away in was due for Edgewater.”

Kole touched the orb with an outstretched finger and spoke, infusing the orb with his Will imbued with honest intentions.

“I swear I’m not a fugitive,”

“Great,” Jorin said, smiling. “Let’s go see about getting you a bunk, and you can explain how in the seas you are a primal and a sorcerer. ”