Chapter 4: Smoke, Lectures, and Holding on Tight

“Smoke?”

I took a couple of sniffs, inhaling an acrid scent. I paused for a second, fearful that my implants had finally fried my brain. Pushing that aside, I threw my weight against the front door to “Papers & Powers”. I took a half stumble inside, listening for the crackle of flames. I heard something, but it was more of a rustle, and it came from the small tea and snack station Master Alric had wedged in the corner. It was hidden behind a tall display case, showcasing a diploma and listing prices of available scrolls.

I recognized the wafting smell of burnt sugar. A few calm breaths and my heart slowed, no longer a frantic bird trapped in a cage. In fact, it was too easy. Tess thought her heart had been modified, and I’m inclined to believe it. That quick of a drop was not natural.

I rounded the back of the display case, knowing what I’d see. Master Alric; mussed hair, fly-away beard, and jam-stained fingers. He stood there, blinking owlishly, with a mug of sugar-laden tea in one hand and what I’d call an English muffin smothered in an orange spread in the other. A heating stone, complete with glowing orange rings just like an electric stove top, was boiling off black smoke from the charred sugar coating it. He always put a hefty amount of sugar in his tea, enough that it left a thick sludge in the bottom of the mug. Sludge that inevitably slopped over the side. Bubbles grew and burst as I watched. What was my Master doing here so early in the morning?

Like most shop owners, Alric lived in the second story above the storefront. I’d never been up there, but I had seen him come down the stairs. This, though, was the first I’d seen such behavior before opening hours. His unkempt state was another new sight for me. His graying beard and hair were normally brushed and oiled to perfect ringlets. I was jealous of his normal facial hair sculpting. How was he able to be late most other days? Talent.

“Master?”

He continued to blink at me some more. It took longer than I’d expected, but the glaze of a sleepless night began to wear from his eyes. He combed a guilty hand through his beard. Seeing he’d forgotten that he still held his sticky muffin, Alric did a little backward hop and hunch. By that little maneuver, I could tell he’d expected to see the offending breakfast hit the floor. It didn’t. Clinging to his beard was the world’s largest crumb. I made double sure my features were blank. I saved that tidbit for tonight, knowing Tess would find it as amusing as I did. The smallest of smirks on my part would see the long day ahead taking a very different direction.

“Book?” He straightened, clearing his throat. “Ahem. Yes, Book. I see you are finally taking your tutelage seriously. Good, umm…yes.” He turned with great dignity, the picture of nonchalance as he pulled the sticky mess from its tangle. That’s right, screamed his demeanor. I meant to do that. He gave me a vague wave, cradling his tea and muffin in one hand while picking hairs out of the jam with the other. Then he disappeared up the stairs.

“O-kay,” I said after he was gone. The whole episode dulled some of the shiny off of my spell-slots discovery. Or maybe not. I let my smile free.

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“[Mana] is a living thing, with a will of its own. You can guide it, force it, or even bribe it.”

“Bribe it, Master?” I hadn’t heard that before.

“Yes, Book. Bribe. Like all things living, it has desires. Think of [mana] like a greedy child. Petulant and demanding. But, give it a sweet and it while follow the strangest of strangers.”

That…didn’t seem right.

“What does [mana] want?”

“Everything! Anything!” Alric expounded. His passion for the subject charged the elf like nothing else. This was the Alric that had mastered the art of scroll making. “It’s not for the [mana] to tell you, it’s for you to know it!”

I had kind of expected something else. More Zen and the Art of Calligraphy. When I tested with the Master for the opportunity to train under him, I had taken more of a 'pretty-pretty please work for me' attitude. And it had worked. That was still the way it worked for me. I could see [mana] as shimmery dust motes in the air. Then I reached out with my intention and asked them to respond. I formed a mental picture of what I wanted, and if they agreed I could see a purplish silver stream coalesce with my HUD. It then flowed into what I wanted to be infused. It had worked well enough for me.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Today, Master Alric walked into the back to check on my progress in mass-producing ink for him to use in fulfilling the big contract. He couldn’t get to his part until I finished mine, so I didn’t blame him. I also didn’t blame him for not wanting to use a more refined, more expensive ink for the batch of fifty [torchlight] scrolls. The right ingredient for the right job.

Unlike this morning, he had turned up in immaculate shape. I guess he was making up for the state I had found him when I thought the place was about to burn down. His Master’s robe was dyed a deep cerulean blue that would make the oceans jealous. It was trimmed in an ethereal silver embroidery, the exact same shade of a high-quality [Scrivener]s ink. His heavy, dark hair, with just enough gray tempering it to be stately, fell in flowing waves. The ringlets of his beard glistened lightly with oil, not a single stray curl. His image could used for a recruiting poster.

Too far? He did enjoy spending money on himself. He earned it, so why not? I could still wish he’d toss a few more coins my way. I’ll have to edit it a bit before rattling it off when he is in a bad mood. Not the money part, of course, but all the other stuff. That’d be a surefire way to diminish my already meager stipend. The rest I want to be believable, hopefully not too rehearsed. I’d need to insert it in as casual a way as possible. Brown nosing 101.

I hadn’t noticed him at first, despite all the folderol, but he’d noticed me muttering.

"Pretty-pretty please…pretty-pretty please…” I was saying it like they were the words of a spell. Which they kinda were, in my mind. That started the current lecture.

“You came late to the [Scrivener] class, I know.”

Late? I was two years past the legal drinking age back in Colorado. Anyone of my generation hardly moved out of the home by now, much less settled in a career.

“It’s almost as if your parents didn’t initiate you in the ways of the Mother of Trees,” he shook his head.

Whoa, close call. The almost question was rhetorical, thank God. Uh, Mother of Trees. I was getting better, but still slipped up in my thoughts. I was better at it than Tess.

“You will get it, son. Try this. Every night, when you crawl under the covers, pull in all the [mana] you can manage and just…,” he paused a beat. “Hold it.”

“Hold it?”

“Don't do anything with it, don’t try to control it. Just hold. No shaping, no studying. Just hold. Try not to even think.” A grin tugged one side of his mouth up.

“I know, I know,” I said, my own grin forming. “Easy enough for me.”

“Easy enough for you.” There was no sting in it. “Just live with the [mana], no expectations... Not from either of you.”

I knew that [mana] was a living thing (try NOT to think of the Force), every elf I’ve met spoke of it, but this seemed to be something more. Master Alric spoke as if it had its own will. Self-aware, even. As soon as I thought about it, my implant pulsed. What…the…hell? For a brief moment, I’d swear that the composite of software-ruled hardware fitted to my synapses had agreed with me. Not in just a fact-checking manner, either.

“Do this every night,” he continued. “As your capacity to hold [mana] increases, be sure to increase your pull to fill it all the way. Then, when you find your grip still holding firm to the same amount you started with, on waking the next morning, come see me. We’ll work on the next steps after that.”

There was a reason I stuck with Master Alric, despite my regular grumblings. That passionate, impromptu lecture was everything. It wasn’t the first one, either. I didn’t only mix ink and do chores, depleting my [mana] reserves with the constant infusions I performed. Or feed tiny unspeakable things to larger unspeakable things. Fending off some of those plants while caring for them could be downright dangerous, too. He had also told me back in the beginning that it would be this way for the immediate future. That I would only dip quill in ink and pour intent into parchment when he deemed me ready. And that I should never ask before my time. A strict no-pestering policy.

With my lesson in the mysteries of bribing [mana] over, Alric went back to checking my work. He dipped his little finger in a half-full ink pot and brought it close to eyeball it. A grunt let me know it was passable. He then measured the emptiness from the viscous fluid to the rim of the oversized mixing carafe. The frown following that up said I needed to make more.

Master Alric left me to it.

Wait, did he call me ‘son’?

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“So there he was, a trash cat caught in the light, English muffin glued to his face.” I guffawed. The laughter shook me hard, inviting Tess to join the amusement. I was so caught up that I failed to see her reaction. Or lack of one.

“Yeah, great one.”

The flat tone took me a moment to register. When it did, I continued to shake a little, my body taking longer to catch up with my mind than it probably should. Where were my entrancements now, huh, when I needed them?

“Tess?”

She began to shake herself, but not in laughter. Great, wracking sobs overtook my only true friend in this world. She was my person, and she was hurting. I didn’t even need to ask why. It was always right there, just beneath the surface for both of us. How could it not be?

I put my arms around her, holding tight. [Mana] wasn’t the only thing that needed to be clung to tonight.