“Awakening is a strange process by which Sleepers are awoken to the nature of reality. It is a journey, unique to every individual, that forces a young mage to see the nature of the Tapestry for the first time. An Awakening also imparts some form of knowledge to the recipient. The exact nature of this knowledge is, once again, unique to the individual and it’s source is a subject that is debated quite heatedly among scholar magi. Regardless, Awakening is always the first step in a young magus’ education and must be undertaken with proper diligence and care at every step. Proper safety protocols start with...”
-Anatolius “On the Education of New Magi”
Vikkar stood at his desk at the front of his classroom. The eyes of his students were locked onto him; fresh, bright and lively eyes. Vikkar had grown to take great personal pride in how ready his students were to learn. He’d been with this particular group for six years now and they were still as sharp and ready as the day they started. There was a niggling at the back of his mind for just a second, a little voice that seemed to know nothing about his long career as an educator and was demanding to know what exactly was going on. But then it was gone, and it was time for class to begin.
“Welcome back everyone, did you enjoy your break?” The group of thirty students gave a low rumble of assent, many of them smiling as they did so. “I was very pleased to hear that all of you chose to join the work study that Professor Zeta arranged. I will be the first to tell you that as a doctor, you can truly never have too much hands on experience.” The class laughed at that, Vikkar was stuck for a moment wondering why. He’d said it as a joke, of course, but suddenly he couldn’t remember why it was funny. Was he going senile? That shouldn’t be possible.
He was torn suddenly from his ruminations by a question from the first row, “Excuse me professor, I don’t mean to interrupt your thoughts, but what will the lecture be about today?” That would be Vera, a Njol from the Wild Lands and one of his brightest and most talented students. The back of her head down to her waist was shadow that shifted with the same twitching cadence of fire. A trait common to the Njol, although the location of the shadow varied between individuals.
“Ah, my apologies I was lost in thought for a moment. Our lecture today will be a live dissection. We will be discussing the anatomy of the Riddari. And before you ask, no I am not the subject.” The students tittered politely. “I do personally know our subject however. My father passed away last week, and he made a request of me. As you know, until very recently, it was absolutely taboo among my people to perform any sort of research on the dead. My father personally overturned that law, and donated himself into our care to help get rid of the stigma that many still have regarding the practice.” Vikkar heard the doors opening behind him. Moments later a table with a thin sheet of gauze laid over its occupant was wheeled into the center of the room and then the wheels were locked to prevent it from moving further. Vikkar walked out from behind his desk and started towards the table. The assistants that had wheeled in the table also left a rack with all his familiar tools.
Preparing to begin the presentation, Vikkar reached for the familiar pathways of his magic to clean his hands. A practice that wasn’t strictly necessary but he was in no rush to remove this particular habit. He grasped, looking past the reality before him into the Arcanum. He leaned on the transient nature of all reality and removed the dirt and any other contaminants from his hands and workspace as easily as breathing. It had never truly existed in the first place. Nothing truly did.
Vikkar started panicking, the strange memories vanishing fast. He was back to being the same lost 20 year old who had almost died on Krassus; the old, confident professor gone like smoke. He looked over the tools laid out in front of him, then turned and looked over the class. Thirty faces looked down at him blending with a very different crowd in his memories. That crowd had been just as silent though. That crowd had held the same expectant look, as if their breath was caught just before exhalation.
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Vikkar found himself pulling back the gauze. This man had been there with the last crowd as well, though he’d been more alive then and he’d looked taller when Vikkar had been in chains. He’d been positively effervescent by all accounts the last time Vikkar had seen him, marching up and down the square and giving a sermon every bit as lively and infectious as any Vikkar himself had ever given. Aeoren Brine, Warcheif of the Riddari.
Vikkar felt rage rising in him. It bubbled and boiled in his veins like the oil that had mangled and scarred his legs. The oil that this man in front of him had poured. And for what? For trying to understand? For trying to learn? Vikkar had dreamt of tearing this man apart and always woke up happier. And now he could, couldn’t he?
“Teacher?” Vera’s voice snapped Vikkar out of the fog he’d wrapped himself in. “Is everything alright?” The students were all looking at him with worried frowns now. Looking from them to his father Vikkar felt his anger ebbing away. His exile, his pain, his anger; these were all just temporary fixtures in a world he now knew to be riding always on a sea of chaos, and what were they truly worth? A bit of catharsis was the most they’d ever get him.
This classroom, and these students weren’t real, but then nothing really was. Their possibility was worth infinitely more than holding onto what had been his reality. Vikkar turned to his tools and addressed the class, “Before I begin, tell me: what is the purpose of dissection?”
A few hesitant murmurs came, the question seemed too simple and therefore it had to be a trap. “To save lives?” That was Grayson, a Demon Touched with the head of a bear. It wasn’t a bad answer, Vikkar thought as he turned a knife in his hands. But it wasn’t a good one either.
“The purpose of dissection is to learn. What we do with that knowledge is an entirely different matter, but your firm moral stance is comforting. When we open up a cadaver we do so in order to understand how it worked when it was alive. We study that one creature down to the smallest minutia. We do this to study the rest of its race by proxy. This form of learning is especially valuable to you and I. In order for us to fix what ails a creature, we must know its natural state.” Vikkar felt a great weight sloughing off of him as he spoke. “While we do this to heal, others can use the same practice and the same knowledge to bring harm. It is our own choices that make all the difference.” He had held so dearly to these ideas in secret, and never realised how much they had eaten at him until a good man had died on his table. Died because Vikkar didn’t know enough, couldn’t know enough. And then Vikkar had found himself dissecting that same man by torchlight in a stolen rowboat. Here and now Vikkar could air these thoughts, and the satisfaction he felt at watching them nod in agreement made this moment the happiest of his life.
Vikkar began, the sight of his father no longer filling him with rage, or any emotion really. He still hated the man, but Vikkar had moved past him. “Now listen very closely…” the lecture proceeded, the names of the various body parts and their functions coming to Vikkar as he saw them. The operation flowed like a trance until there was no longer a corpse in front of Vikkar but instead a few neat piles of bone, muscle and viscera.
When Vikkar looked up from the operation table the classroom was gone. In front of him was a realm of scintillating light. Each moment the light was forming into visions from a thousand different realities before collapsing and reforming into something entirely different. Vikkar felt it would be too easy to forget himself in these visions. He could just watch the infinite possibilities until his breath ran out. But he had a purpose now. He would make that classroom a reality, and he would become a doctor worthy of teaching it and no amount of pretty lights would distract him from that task.
Vikker looked down, by his feet was a blood red brick. He placed it down, and found another ready to be placed. The simple motion lulled him into a trance and with each brick that he placed a new sense opened up to him. The world around him had been whispering countless secrets all this time, and until now he had been deaf. When he finished a dome stood before him, a white obelisk at its center. Vikkar stood before it and carved his true name at its base, taking his first step into the world of magic.