Ensouled artifacts are the rarest and most powerful of all magic items. While they were once prolific and the most common of all magical items, the secrets of their creation were lost during the Flood.
-Deckard’s Compendium of Ensouled Artifacts
—
Minus the changes to Zale's complexion, things mostly returned to how they were before the eventful weekend, with of course the addition of Doug.
Doug joined their martial class and practiced with the archers and those learning to fight with hand axes. Zale continued to coach Kole one-on-one, but now with her disguised coloring, people stopped giving the pair such a wide berth. Some even waved as they walked past.
"Do they think I'm just, like, not part voidling anymore because they can't see it?" Zale asked Kole, flummoxed when someone gave her a nod of hello in passing as they were cleaning up at the end of class.
"I don't know," Kole said. "The ignorant aren’t particularly gifted at critical thinking. They were dumb to fear you before, and they are equally dumb to think you’re suddenly 'safe' now that you look different—even if they are technically right to not fear you. They're right for the wrong reasons, which is still wrong... Right?"
Zale laughed.
"I think you're right. They didn't really know why they avoided me before, and now it's easy to forget it ever happened."
Her smile faded.
“For them at least,” she added.
On the way out of class, Tigereye gave all the students an update on that week’s dungeon trial. Every group would find themselves in a village on the floating ice sheet of the arctic circle on the 3rd of Erebog. He told the class to "Prepare for the stay" and no further details were provided.
“Slaggin Faust cursed gopher balls!” Rakin cursed at the news.
“What’s wrong?” Kole asked.
“There’s no stone or earth on the arctic circle,” Zale answered for Rakin, who’d stomped off.
“Oh…” Kole said, seeing how that could make the Earth primal a bit upset.
Hours later in WIZ 105, Kole half listened to a lecture as he reviewed his notes on Magic Missile and Shield. He’d neglected his work on them and needed to get back up to speed before returning to them.
Eventually, Professor Underbrook’s lecture topic wandered into an interesting category and he focused on the class.
“The two lost Fonts” Underbrook said, letting the words hang. “Creation and Time.”
Time! Kole thought, grabbing his mother’s locket under his shirt.
Kole had studied the Font some. From what he knew of his mother’s disappearance, he and his father had always suspected the pocket realm she’d been lost in had been connected to the Font of Time in some way. The time his father had spent in there hadn’t aligned with the time that passed outside, and he’d written of other odd Time shenanigans within.
“Both are considered lost, but for different reasons. The Font of Creation is more of a mystery. While both Fonts were lost to us around the time of the Floods, the mechanisms of those losses are not the same. Traditional wizards with affinities to Time were rare even before the Flood. If any survived wars, the flooding, or battles with dragons, forsaken, and the Avatar, they did not live long enough to see the discovery of the Halkin method of Arcane exploration, gates, and spellforms. That might not have been the end though. Many Fonts were lost in this way but later discovered through exploration of the Arcane Realm in the proximity of the Primordial of that Font. Unfortunately—or possibly fortunately—the Primordial of Time has never ravaged our planet. Wherever it might reside, it is quite content to stay there and not make its presence known.”
A student raised a hand and was called on.
“How do we know the Primordial of Time is on Kaltis at all?”
“That’s a good question. Does anyone know?”
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“Pack rats,” Kole said without thinking.
He’d looked into them after his first run-in to make sure they weren’t too dangerous.
“Very good!” Underbrook said, “Yes. Master Wizard Marcus Travin of the Tower of Illunia famously discovered that pack rats drew upon the Font of Time shortly before the repudiation of the Tower by Chosen Daulf. After, much of their secrets were leaked out and we learned of this. Wherever, or whenever the Primordial of Time resides, the pack rats know and are not telling.”
He smiled and winked at the class.
“Moving on. The Font of Creation is lost by wholly different means. Early reports claim that sometime after the Flood, and before the discovery of the Basin, wizards could no longer access the Font. They reported experiencing something unknown at the time, but now we see is akin to what wizards experience in a runic ward meant to block sections of the Arcane Realm. No one is sure how this occurred. But current evidence suggests that somehow this Font was blocked from us. Was it the gods? Outsiders? Powerful beings? The Primordial of Creation itself? We don’t know, but every wizard has a theory or two if you ask over a drink. I myself am not so conspiracy-minded and suspect it is a result of the Font’s uniqueness as the first Font.”
Professor Underbrook then went on to talk about the spells lost with the Fonts, but that quickly lost Kole's interest and he returned to his review. The knowledge of spells he would never learn or even see held no interest for him.
As Kole was packing up his things he sensed someone standing over him. He turned to see Gray looking from the elevated row of desks behind his own.
"What do you want?" Kole asked in an uninterested tone.
"I heard you almost got Rakinar killed over the weekend because you can't do magic and rely on trinkets. Zale too." He said it casually but the words stung.
"Where'd did you hear something like that?" Kole asked.
How does he know? Kole wondered.
He wasn't supposed to talk about the specifics of what had occurred and hadn’t told anyone. The fact his blasting rod had failed, leaving him helpless was an awfully specific detail for him to have picked up.
"Your friend Amara TA’s my alchemical materials class. She talked about a 'friend' of hers who was using a prototype of hers and it disintegrated mid-battle. She tried to be subtle but..." Gray trailed off, seemingly reluctant to say something insulting about Amara.
"She doesn't do subtle," Kole finished for him.
"Yeah... And Mouse saw Rakinar in the Glades infirmary. It didn't take a genius to put it together, though I don't know what you fought."
"Rakin was fine," Kole defended, "He hurt himself... Mostly. And I helped Zale. Why don't you just mind your own business and I'll mind mine?"
“Look, it's not personal. I don’t hate you. In fact, I really appreciate how you have helped Zale through all the recent… difficulties. It’s just that I know you will get people killed and I want you to realize it too before it’s too late. You've been lucky so far, but even Riloth's Blessed's luck runs out ”
Kole stopped loading his bag and took a deep breath to steady himself. The repeated claims he was doomed to failure were starting to get to him, especially since he felt Gray was kind of right—for now.
“We are at a school. A place to learn. I know I have my limitations, but I’m working on them. If I can’t overcome them, then I’ll get kicked out. The things that happened this weekend? If I hadn't been there Rakin and Zale might have died. I’m not trying to fool anyone. I’ve been very upfront about my abilities and struggles and I'm doing what I can to eliminate them."
“Have you though? Been upfront?” Gray asked, “You say you’re a primal and a sorcerer, but I’ve never seen you use any magic from either. Are you even a primal, or are you as broken of a primal as you are a wizard?”
Kole didn't know what to say. Gray was kind of right—again. It was quite infuriating.
"I don't owe you anything. And, if anyone is going to be hurting Zale, it's your friend Harold."
Things gathered, Kole left, both to hide his embarrassed face at his last statement and avoid any more of Gray's sort-of-accurate points about his shortcomings.
Kole spent the rest of the evening working on his progress of Magic Missile until he’d spent a fourth of his Will. Then he moved on to his less magical coursework. His massive pool of Will was his biggest asset. With it, he could train himself in wizardry two to three times as long as his classmates with their smaller, non-primal or sorcerer-enhanced pools. But, even with that advantage, Kole sought to maximize his Will usage. So long as he was never full up on Will, he’d always be generating more.
It took about six hours of sleep to recover one’s whole Will capacity—no matter its size—and people naturally recovered anywhere from a quarter to a half of it throughout the day if they started it with none. Kole himself could recover nearly half his Will through the day, even more if he napped—though recovery while sleeping wasn’t linear, and short naps had minimal effects.
If Kole started each morning with some sort of Will expenditure and ensured he never capped, he had effectively sixty-five Will to train with through a day. To put that in perspective, other wizards Kole’s age were lucky to have a capacity of fifteen by the time they’ve learned first-tier spells, increased to twenty-five if they had some sort of innate magic.
His home of Illandrios instilled the importance of efficient Will usage from an early age and utilized its easy access to clarity potions to foster the development of the Will capacities of their young. Though Kole left his home behind to seek the secrets he needed to unlock his potential, he kept their lessons with him.
He took a break from his study to meet Zale, Doug, and Rakin for dinner to discuss their plans for the upcoming dungeon run, but Kole’s mind wasn’t in it, and he let the others work out the plan. His conversation with Gray had lit a fire under him, and he was resolved to prove the other student wrong.