Far from there, to the west of the man-made desert Yggdashell inhabited, around a river that ran in circles because it was training for a marathon, unaware of the fact that rivers weren’t allowed to run in the race for reasons half-bigoted and half-ignorant, had settled a small town of people wise enough to harness the infinite energy of the circular river for their own benefit. It goes without saying, but they disregarded the feelings of the river about the wheels of metal and wood they placed onto it to move their mills and generate electricity.
One of the mages in such a place of rooves synonym of purple shingles and banks that hoarded pink and white gravel was a mother. Not a bad mother, but neither a particularly good one. She didn’t have a title for it, as reproduction was sort of an inherited talent in her family. Her mother had been a mother, and also her grandmother. Her father had not been a mother, so she couldn’t take after him. none of her grandfathers had been mothers, while all of her grandmothers had been. There was a pattern there, of the women on her family marrying into non-mothers. Until her, at least: her husband had been a mother, but only because the town’s church had fumbled the registration of one of their nuns and accidentally written his name instead, and thus Mother Rigobertonio Muycalamitoso was born.
And as a mother, she had to have at least 1(one) unit of offspring (Can be acquired on spring), as per the guild guidelines and regulations. This one was female, with hair as dark as a raven that enjoyed the benefits of the N-word pass, and skin as pale as a raven that followed the Road of Albinism. This little thing, having suffered only six springs of existence, vastly surpassed Kalon’s intellect. She had even memorized her multiplication tables, the prodigy.
She sat on a chair of forged iron, the oh, so civilized brat, and smiled with teeth oh, so brushed three times a day like dentists recommend. Her mother, standing in front of her, dressed on her mage attire, a collection of blue and purple clothes that fit her like a glove three sizes too big for the amputated stump they are meant to cover.
“Today, my love, you will take your first step toward becoming an arcagnostic. I take you completely understand what this entails, dear?”
The little girl bounced in place. “I will get whistles!”
The mother pulled a chair for her too and nailed her blue eyes onto her daughter. “Whistles? You are starting on your path to understand and manipulate the world and you are excited about the training whistles? What are you telling me next, that you want to be a cultivator instead?”
“No. I just like whistles, mommy.” Then the child cried out like a mating pterodactyl, a sorry attempt to imitate the training whistles of the arcagnostic initiates.
“Good gods above, Samari, don’t do that again,” the mother said, tapping her ear slightly to drive the tinnitus away. “The whistles are simply tools to let you master the flow of vital energy through your body. Don’t abuse them, as they are as delicate as our art, not as brutish as a cultivator’s.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Then, a vile question sprouted in the mind of the child and erupted out her mouth “Could I be both an Arcagnostic and a cultivator?”
The mother frowned, and then put on a fake smile.“It’s possible, dear, but I will whoop your ass if you ask again. It’s a foolish endeavor, to combine the Cultivator’s all-you-have-is-a-hammer mentality with the arcagnostics fine-tuned control of vital energy. From whichever side of the equation you come, initiating on the other discipline will present a great challenge. The amounts of energy a cultivator pumps would blow the training whistles up, and if you are an arcagnostic, you could use the time you spend learning the ropes of cultivation in attaining an higher mastery of our arts. For what benefit? To forever fend off death? The best arcagnostics can seduce the gods of death into life eternal, they can offer the dark lady gifts no cultivator could conjure. There’s no need to use your spirit to subjugate the world, dear, when you can use it to bribe the very foundations of existence.”
“And cultivators? Can we bribe them too?”
“Why do you think they come to us for the making of their elixirs?” Any pretense of a smile abandoned her face as she felt the weight of coin in her pocket. “I still regret turning that baby into pills…” she murmured, just low enough so her daughter wouldn’t hear.
“Because they are morons,” Samari stated a truth of the universe.
“And because most of them don’t have the fine control needed to extract the full potential from a substance or…” and she stopped before saying “a baby”.
“Nor they can use the whistles!” Many things could be said about Samari, but not one as true as that she had a one-track mind sometimes.
“Aren’t you excited about the secrets of the world that you are going to unveil?”
The child shook her head, holding her mom’s worried stare.
“About recognizing each facet of your spirit as easily as you recognize your facial features when looking into a mirror?”
Samari gave yet another negative.
The mother was at a loss. This little imperfect reflection of her had to be toying with her. “This is serious, dear.”
“And I seriously like whistles.”
“Go marry a whistle if you are that dead set on getting them,” she had begun regretting setting that order for her father’s sperm the day she was conceived. Maybe Arcagnosis was not something one should mix with sex.
“Maybe I will, one day, when whistle marriage is legalized!” The child pouted and crossed her little feeble arms, because she didn’t even lift, bro.
The ducks on the pond of her mother’s mind decided to leave it all on autopilot and migrate to warmer climates. “Moving on, tomorrow you will start your practice. Bring a notebook, a pen, and liquid corrector, I am going to impart you a class on the basics.The whistles will be postponed until tomorrow.”
Samari screeched. She was a pterodactyl dying of autoerotic asphyxiation.
“Behave yourself, and I will teach how to mess with your brain using arcagnosis in a few weeks.”
Two tracks, Samari’s mind had two tracks. “Yay!” and so she stood from the chair, ran past the oaken table and through the bronze door frame, her long black hairs, never cut, following her like a ghost that had fallen through a chimney and into a paper shredder.She was going to be an Arcagnostic like her mom! And that meant, in first instance, that, after years of practices, she would be able to perform fantastic feats, ranging from becoming invisible, to controlling her bodily functions, to crafting magical artifacts. Among them, whistles.