If the Material Realm were a bubble, pocket realms could be thought to be smaller bubbles clinging to its side. Their contents are separate from the larger bubble, but made of the same air. As they are separated from the environment beyond, they are also separated from the air within the larger bubble. Much like with bubbles, if the surface of a pocket realm were to be pierced, it could pop, releasing its contents into the void. If, however, the membrane between the smaller bubble and the larger were to be destroyed, the contents of the realm would vomit forth into the Material Realm.

-Pocket Realms, From Theory to Fact

—

Tigereye broke the students up into three groups by levels of proficiency after the morning warm-ups on the second class of the week. Kole’s group was by far the least physically imposing, and Kole recognized his fellow as coming from crafting and magically focused curriculums. All the prospective wizards from PREVENT were there save for Gray, who was in the advanced group with Harold, Zale, and Rakin.

Kole spotted Doug’s horns poking up over the crowd of the intermediary students. He was one of the best in the class with his bow, but this trial would be with melee weapons, and he was proficient with his dual hand axes, but not on the level of Zale and Rakin.

Gray’s presence in the advanced group surprised Kole. He knew the boy was talented, but he’d never really seen him fight outside that one instance with the goblin-rats.

Or was it rat-goblins… He wondered.

The rules were laid out, and class this day would be a sparring heavy warmup day for the tournament that would occur the next week. There would be a four-round double elimination tournament, with a losers bracket winner facing the undefeated member of the winner’s bracket.

Sparring weapons runed for tournaments would be used, that could detect how severe a hit was. The weapons had a light rune on them that grew brighter as you landed blows on your opponent, the light turning from white to green when you had won. Tigereye didn’t go into the details of the function.

I should ask Amara how they work, Kole considered, but then thought better of it. Zale can probably give a more succinct and understandable answer.

There would be no prize for winning, but performance would factor in heavily in one’s passing of the class. During the warmup sparring, Kole found that he wasn’t the best in his group, but he was far from the worst. Most of those in his group also used quarterstaves, but one dwarf who was blessed by Bild wielded a mace and shield—which Kole thought was rather unfair, and a few others of noble bearing had rapiers.

***

Kole asked Zale how the weapons worked after they cleaned up.

“They don’t,” she said with uncharacteristic grouchiness.

“What do you mean?” Kole asked.

“They don’t work for me, at least, my opponents don’t,” she explained. “They work by absorbing some of the Will when they make contact with a person, and somehow reading the response of the person struck. When I get hit with one, they just sort of break.”

“Why?”

“Voidyness I guess. My Will doesn’t play well with runes,” she explained.

“How will you compete then?”

Zale’s frown turned into a cocky smile.

“It won’t matter if they don’t hit me. They just use the old school tournament scoring system in my matches.”

***

In WIZ 105, professor Underbrook gave the students an in class assignment as he discussed the offset gate project with each student one by one.

“Kole, this is simply wonderful,” Underbrook said when Kole came up to his desk.

He spoke louder than Kole would have preferred and could feel the eyes of his classmates boring into his back.

“I know Master Lonin has his rules and principles, but he’s being a fool to ignore your talent.”

“Any chance you can change his mind?” Kole asked, trying to keep the desperation out of his tone.

“Oh, I’ve suggested it a time or two at staff meetings,” Professor Underbrook said.

“You have?!” Kole said, surprised.

“Oh yes. He had a keen interest in your progress.”

“He does!?”

Underbrook smiled, and now it was Kole who was too loud.

“Oh yes,” Underbrook affirmed. “The top students in PREVENT are a regular topic of faculty discussion, but Lonin specifically asked after you. I think he was a little disappointed your group has been performing so well in the dungeons. I suspect he hoped you drop out.”

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“Can you—“ Kole began but Underbrook cut him off.

“We’ve gone a little off-topic. If you want to ask Master Lonin to reconsider, you’ll have to do that yourself. I’ve already talked his ear off about you enough. Let's discuss your classwork here.”

Kole explained his plan for the spell.

“That will actually probably work!” Underbrook said after Kole had finished.

“Isn’t that the point?” Kole asked, confused.

Underbrook waved his hand and then lowered his voice conspiratorially.

“This exercise is mostly just an introduction. I don’t actually expect any of you to actually succeed in creating a unique offset gate, only try. That’s why learning it isn’t a requirement.”

Bolstered by the praise, Kole took pride in Gray’s glare as we walked past him back to his seat, where he ignored the class assignment and continued his prep work for Thunderwave for the next day’s dungeon delve.

***

Kole’s group met up in the library after dinner once more to prepare for their caravan, but quickly realized they didn’t really have much they could prepare, and the conversation drifted back to the strange horses.

“Did your mom say we could see them?” Doug asked hopefully.

Zale shook her head.

“No, but she didn’t tell me not to.”

“How is that different?” Kole asked.

“It means she probably wants me to sneak out and see them. Anyone up for it?”

Doug’s hand shot up, and Rakin sighed, raising his hand begrudgingly.

“You have the weirdest relationship with your mother,” Kole observed, raising his own hand last.

***

So, just after dusk, Doug escorted his three teammates through the great oak and into the Glade. The dryads guarding the tree let them pass without issue, nodding in recognition at everyone but Kole, who they gave what he could best describe as a stink eye.

“Did Pale Oak tell the other dryads about me?” Kole asked in jest once they were beyond earshot.

“Oh yes,” Doug said, “She really doesn’t like you, but she thanked me for helping you.”

“Oh…” Kole said, unsure of what to say.

“Dryads are surprisingly big gossips,” Rakin said.

“That’s…” Doug began to defend them, but then conceded, “Kind of true.”

The group walked through the main path through the woods someway until Doug led them behind another building of similar construction to the infirmary, logs that seemed to be molded together. The Glade was fairly empty at this time of night, save for the occasional nocturnal creature roaming about.

Doug led them then through the forest, and they backtracked until they came to a secluded clearing filled with the six-legged horse creatures, all sleeping. Instead of a fence, brambles grew thick around the clearing to keep the creatures inside.

“I don’t see any guards,” Rakin whispered.

Kole couldn’t either, but he could hardly see at all on the moonlit night.

“Owls,” Doug said, pointing to the trees.

“How do we distract them?” Zale asked.

“I could start a fire,” Rakin suggested, in what Kole thought was a joke, but it was hard to tell.

“No,” Doug said seriously.

“I could just sneak up invisible,” Kole suggested more helpfully.

“Yes, but we all want to see,” Zale said, not outright dismissing the idea.

Doug shook his head, a very noticeable gesture with his antlers amplifying the movement.

“Owls have incredible hearing, you’d need to do more than be invisible.”

“I could do something…” Kole started, not confident in his idea.

“The out-of-focus thing?” Zale asked.

Kole nodded.

“Can you affect others with it?”

“Maybe?”

“Let’s try,” Zale said, extending her hand.

Kole took it gingerly, and closed his eyes, focusing on Zale’s hand and reaching for the instinctual power of the Font of Illusions. He had decided early on in life he’d not waste his Will developing the skills to wield it, instead dedicating himself to the more broadly applicable art of wizardry—as hopeless as that may have seemed at the time.

His invisibility spell was sorcery, and he couldn’t even begin to unpack how that spell functioned, but as he focused now on the Font of Illusions with his neglected primal powers, it felt more substantial than he remembered it.

Not more powerful, or more present, but more in some way. He could notice nuance to the power where before it was just a blunt thing. Like, he’d always seen it as a rope, but only now he realized a rope was made up on many little strings.

Why do I notice this now? He wondered

But then a lesson came back to him from Tallen, as he’d taught them about the difference between Voidling Will and a normal person’s Will.

Manipulating Will was like using a tool, and growing in proficiency with the tool would make one more proficient in all its applications. Right? And…

He considered more how much time he’d spent working on his spellcraft of late. The hours experimenting with Thunderwave and piecing together spells. In the last few months, he’d spent almost every last bit of his Will studying. Casting spells was an okay way of gaining control, but the Will expenditure to knowledge gained was skewed towards spending rather than learning. But, creating spells? Exploring the Arcane Realm? Those cost very little Will, and were extremely educational.

Sorcery was blind instinct, unknowable until the mind jumps to it and then only blindly repeatable. Wizardry was about knowledge. Primal magic was all about applied intuition, something Kole had never gained alongside his abilities as literally every other primal ever had, but maybe it could be approached with knowledge when intuition failed.

Kole dove into his vault, and looked out the door of his bridge, examining the Font of Illusions. If he’d been a non-defective primal, his Font would have been visible to him upon the creation of his vault, and he’d have been able to study and learn from it from the start, but his hadn’t appeared. When he’d created his bridge, it had been right there, dominating his view of the Arcane Realm, and he’d been distraught but had never considered that maybe he could learn to wield it better even without the intuition.

So, Kole tried now, drawing on the power of the Font to divert attention from himself. He felt the power as it ran through him, not going to his skin as he’d expect, but to the center of his being. He felt as his Will began to drain slowly as his friends looked at him. He felt as his mind reached out to theirs and gently pushed their attention away.

He tried pushing this magic into Zale, through his hand, but nothing happened.

I can do it with stuff. He considered, remembering how he could infuse his Will into objects to connect them to his power.

He thought through the implications further. It wasn’t so much that he included the objects into himself. He could make people ignore an object in his hand while not ignoring him. So, he could direct what people noticed.

What’s the difference between me and a group other than scale? He considered.

So, instead of adjusting the ability, or pushing his Will out into Zale—something that wasn’t even possible, he instead adjusted his mindset. He kept the ability active, and instead thought of him and Zale as a pair, not as two individuals.

Instantly he felt the Will drain double.

“Arg” Rakin grumbled. “This is giving me a headache.”

“It worked!” Kole said proudly, releasing the ability.