My dueling classes follow a similar trend. The duels' challenges range from the opponents. Fire mages are the type I prefer the least, which is my first duel away from Shan’s protection. Furthermore, this person has stood out as one of the flashiest. The spectacle is an attribute of the giant balls of fire they hurl. I scramble as the signal begins the match. Avoiding two explosions before a third throws me back.

I decide any play is better than letting them go unthreatened as I favor my swords and run into range. I spit different types of magic at them, gauging which will be the most effective. Flames engulf their appendages, evaporating the water magic and eating the air. I doubt it will help with the destruction magic, determining my use of spit for the clash. The heat of their flames dries my skin as their kicks trail fire. I duck the barrage and strike their kick.

I have water magic overproducing sweat to deter the flames beating at my defenses. I flip in the air, sliding on my side and prodding at their other legs. They jump the strike, incinerating the ground at their feet and the back side of my legs. My remaining momentum rolls me out of reach. Changing tactics, I spit destruction magic at the balls of fire as I cover the distance. The destruction negates the fire magic, but I will run out far before the fire mage.

My blades sing a song, cutting through the heat and pain to whistle at the peripheries of understanding. The dance seeks its partner from those tender to advancement, a step here, a poke there. I have a rhythm, a set of actions that inevitably conclude: Shift here, guard, strike. My dance falters, and the song slips its tenuous grasp— boom!

I awake in a tent with a creation mage and Shannai. My body is fine, tired, and nauseous but not severely injured or even sore. The two are speaking in a hush outside of the tent. There are three other cots in the tent, one accommodating an unconscious initiate. I cycle my creation magic and find my reserves depleted. Reduced regeneration comes with depletion.

“How are you feeling, champ?” Shan patronizes.

“I doubt that I won.”

“You did not.”

“Depletion?”

“Yes. I was telling your friend here that it's strange. It is severe depletion, which is due to your multiple affinities. People who deplete several affinity pools at once can experience heightened reactions.”

“Thank you, Mage.”

“No thanks needed, young one.”

“How did you deplete all your pools at once?”

“I am not sure.”

My next dueling class is more favorably one-sided. Jer is smaller than my opponent, but the armor fills the difference. It matches the crimson Warhammer down to the bladed butt, which is swinging at me within moments of the initiating signal. I weave the attack, testing a few prods before retreating. The hammer disintegrates the rock underneath its weight in a familiar fashion. A hammer infused with destruction magic? Is this one of the little lackeys? It isn't far from the frame to an ugly half-remembered face.

A new determination puts my best forth, kindling an ease overshadowing the stain. The prey bites, swinging the hammer with commitment. It isn’t hard to dodge, but getting within range is. I spit destruction magic that fizzles against the crimson plates. Fire magic tarnishes the metal, but will it be enough? No, I can't produce sufficient heat to cause any problems.

I plant my strike right between the binding at the shoulder, tearing but not enough to dislodge the pauldron. For fucks sake, these jagg-offs have pauldrons. I stifle my laughter, inraging my blundering attacker and forcing another fury. I focus on the same left armament, tearing it free and clunking to the ground. I spray the built-up fire spit on the exposed padding, lighting the shoulder on fire. As they use their arms to put out the fire, I take seven steps in a circle around them. Six stabs through each gap score the necessary hit count.

I smile at the brute, my circle putting me back in front of them, waving goodbye. They look ready to continue the fight, but the mediator ends the retort. I am being brash, but the rush trivializes any concern, even if they are objectively petulant. If this is Little Gallah’s caliber, our duel will end soon. Yet he's probably an external caster like his father.

I have been focusing my attention on several varying topics throughout this year. Sometimes, there are too many to keep straight or understand what I should focus on. I could be missing something obvious, which prompts me into my soul space, a place thus far considered useless. I look around the empty void, unsure of what I want to do.

Constructing an image of myself here should give me deeper truths. But I don't follow the directions provided by the manuals. If my studies in the athenary have taught me anything, it's to be skeptical. So what can I deduce? Soul mages use this technique to cultivate an understanding of self. By creating some kind of metaphorical objectivity, they detach themselves from bias, which reveals the truth.

But the guides advise me to make a garden of my thoughts and feelings. To tend to what you want to grow and leave the rest to wilt. A mix of creation and destruction, then. A place with life and decay, like a swamp? But do my feelings and thoughts compose me? What about my hopes and fears? What about my secrets and lies? Or even the world that obliges me, molding me through existential subjugation. Am I anything more than that which composes me?

No, I am all these things and more. Thus, I need to stand the test of scrutiny. Mine shall not be some filtered garden that stifles actual growth but a mess of chaos and order. To contest destruction and cleanse myself of unreasonable doubt, to explore the reality of my actions, and to be further assured of myself. But with the same breath, never will those wretched parts of me be allowed to fester. But where to start?

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

A swamp is the only landscape with enough. A grove of trees springs from the mud, jaded with thorns and densely packed but resilient, fortified by constant hunger. My mother was gone, never to be a part of my world. But on the day, it became strange after weeks of awkward questions and expectations. Confusion is a gray muck lining my worldview, shifting from white to black as my perception evolves. That day, I knew I would cross the wall like my parents did. I’ll find my mother, no matter the cost. The waters of my fate eat into the muck, diluting any pretense and assuaging a murky pool of paths. Gnarled trees camouflage behind a foliage of ignorance. Classist burs coat the banks, pricking passersby with their poison.

It’s too much. The cost of being is too high. Realness invades my senses. The world is big and scary— No, will rules soul. In this fetid swamp of misconceptions and anxieties, I sit. Meditation comes easier with practice. A step needs to precipitate. A seed to plant into the soggy ground, willing the new thoughts to grow. Vines wrap around the grove, fortifying their confidence with companionship. Vines form from the tests I have thus far overcome and all that I will hold dear. A new friend grows, a new power hardens, and a new truth gives gaze through the fog. With this, I am not alone, and two trees grow into my accomplices and dozens more for those who have helped me along the way.

By the end of my labors, there's still much… Though my eyes lift to the achievements. I’m going to save the world. I can save the world and get out. I have a life and plans to continue striving towards. Once there, I can do more. But without them? Can I throw my life into a cause before even meeting my mother? Can I sacrifice myself before I can find what I am giving up? No, I can't.

The practice proves helpful, and I add it to my daily routine between the workshop and classes, a calming touch before enduring what's become the worst part of my day. I did not blame the mages’ who taught initiates (aside from Gallah) nor the rule makers proclaiming how things ought to be. No, my blame is subtly but wholly shifting to the system that is Grev’Haim. We enforce the fundamental ideologies that form a shared morality. But the question of why hangs above like bait, leading me from my course.

“Complacency is the hope,” I argue, finding Shannai to push my thoughts onto.

“You’ll find no debate in me.” Shannai refuses.

“Come now. Advocate for destruction? I am looking for a fight.”

“Okay… The system stood the test of time. How can something that has produced millions of years of peace be wrong?”

“That is the problem. How can we know what peace is in such a state of ignorance? For all we know, this is squalor compared to something else, and that is just as a society. Not accounting to the variance in living conditions experienced by the poor and rich.”

“I’ll give you their final and only argument: Creation. Creation is a dictate beyond reproach and plainly states that we must not advance. Our religion is complacency. And so you can not argue as to do so will be arguing the word of life itself.”

“There is no argument there.”

“You are not faithful?”

“Are you?”

“In the back of my mind. In a way that doesn’t consent to all of this but is my own.”

“Oh? A blasphemer.”

"Faith is a calming relief in dark times. As with everything, it depends on how much you use it and to what effect."

“It can be. I certainly have taken solace in it when less is around. Now— Now, I am skeptical. More and more isn’t adding up. And this place, which I knew wasn’t perfect, has been opened further, revealing a putrid core. Can faith be good if a place so pronounced in it is this corrupt? Or, like you said, can nothing be wholly good?”

“Sure, there is innocence in it, marred by it continually. More importantly, there is something in faith that is uniquely qualified to subjugate.”

“I wonder what else we will find to be a lie.”

“Just stop assuming anything is true. Unless you or a trusted person has verified it.”

“Sounds lonely.”

“It can be, but not all of the time.” Shannai laughs, bumping my shoulder with hers.

Frustration vents on the dueling grounds, facing each opponent as if they were Mage Gallah himself. Until, in the second week of Baldi, I face off against the next best thing. Little Gallah bears a resemblance to the elder in every despicable way. The condescending superiority complex, the pompous posture. Everything and more wears proudly in that hideously familiar sneer. I smile back joyfully, lowering my stance and redying to pounce. A momentary silence lingers as I tamp my diaphragm into steady motions.

The signal blares through me. That reaction jukes the first blast of destructive magic. The second catches my right arm but has little effect. The large balls are pitch black and disintegrate anything they touch. Destruction is naturally weaker against living creatures, but it compounds. The destructive magic now latching onto my right arm will start deteriorating it. If he can land enough, it will work faster. Already, a light burning sensation spots my skin.

I fling out an assault and land two hits before a wave of destruction magic crashes into me. I roll without intention as the force tumbles me, doubling the pain in my arm and starting a sensation of burning across my body. My rage billows at the indelicate use of unrestrained power flailing against me, prodding my fury further, fixating it on this welp.

That emotion tinges the edges of my vision with red, leaving only enough to see that sneer. I tear into my opponent, screaming my anger all the while. The attacks I make lack my usual reserve, prodding strikes that don’t care where they land as long as they do land. I do not care about which points to avoid or how my attacks will hurt. He gets some magic on me, but the pain is distant. I simply wish to break the opponent before me, smash that sneer under an unrelenting barrage. The chance comes in between seconds, and I feel my magic drop prodigiously.

I falter for an instant, stopping before the critical mistake. Yet what had I been about to do? A wave topples me, and I am tumbling again. Why did I stop myself? I had him, one more attack, and he would die. The intended blow haunts me as if acknowledging what happened uncovers the truth of it. That strike would have harmed my opponent. The strike that drained all my magic would have killed him.

The spot in the center of little Gallah's chest called me, telling me a strike here would be advantageous. The center of a person's magic channels. What would have happened if I'd attacked that spot? In that state? And what had drained all of my magic?

I have to stop myself. In that instant, I found myself not concerned with seriously harming this young man. No matter how useless he is, even considering he is antithetical to all good and honorable conduct. It was me who was the monster at that moment. And so I surrender to the embodiment of my hate. He yells belligerently as the destruction rains acid, but I ignore it and kneel to my convictions.

“Are you okay?” Shannai asks after the healer attends to me.

“I am. Just a little intense.” I mutter.

“You will get him next time.”

“I lost to myself, not him. I became enraged.”

“We all get angry.”

“I don’t permit such extravagance when it comes to matters like this.”

“Ah, creations’ mercy. You have to give yourself a break, Vesh. You can’t control so precisely.”

“We should get going. We have to meet Jer at the tavern before the others arrive.”

“If you’re ready.” Shannai offers with a hand.

“Thank you.” I accept, taking both.