Jeb showed up early to the next session of Introduction to Alchemy. He hoped that today’s session would actually touch on Alchemy, rather than just focusing on how to use the equipment. The course’s Professor was seated at his desk when Jeb arrived in the room.
Jeb moved to the same desk he had taken on the first day of the term and received an approving nod when he sat down.
“Jeb?” the Professor asked.
“Yes, sir,” Jeb replied calmly.
“What are you doing here so early?” The tone of the question cushioned the words, making it clear that the Professor was genuinely curious about Jeb’s motivation for arriving to the classroom well before anyone else had.
Jeb shrugged. “I came to class early last time and you had me start on the work early. I wasn’t sure if the same would be true again today.”
The Professor peered over his glasses at Jeb. “Do you have something else scheduled immediately after Introduction to Alchemy?”
“No,” Jeb shook his head.
The Professor’s eyes narrowed, as though he was unsure how to take Jeb’s answer. “If that is the case, then why would you wish to start on the work for this course earlier?”
Jeb’s brow furrowed as he thought about the question. He hadn’t been expecting to have to justify his choice to arrive at the class early. After a moment of consideration, he decided to answer as honestly as possible, “the material for this course is interesting, and I am excited to start on it. In general, I like to start doing something I am excited for as soon as reasonably possible.”
The Professor nodded as though Jeb’s answer had cleared something up for him. “I can understand that sentiment. I regret to inform you, however, that my having you begin last class session early was the exception, rather than the rule. In fact,” he began paging through what Jeb had to assume was the syllabus for the course, “I do not believe that there is another day where that will be the case.”
“That’s all right with me,” Jeb replied. “Would you prefer that I wait for class to begin somewhere else?”
The Professor waved a hand. “No, no, do not feel as though you need to leave. I am happy to use this time as an informal office hour, should you desire that.” He looked at Jeb expectantly, “do you have any questions for me right now?”
“I do actually!” Jeb said, realizing his tone had suddenly grown loud. In a quieter voice he continued, “is there a syllabus for this course?”
The Professor nodded slowly. “Of course there is. Syllabi are a requirement for any course at the Academy.” He lowered his gaze to the stack of pages in front of him. After a moment, he spoke again, “was that a subtle way of telling me that I forgot to give out the syllabus for this course last session?”
Jeb smiled sheepishly. “If you would like to take it that way, that is fine. Truthfully, though, I’m not sure if you handed out a syllabus last session. If you did, it was after you had told me I could leave, and so I did not get one.”
“No, if I did not hand out the syllabus at the beginning of the session, I would not have handed it out at all. With that in mind, I will also not give you it now.”
Seeing Jeb’s expression, he continued, “if I give you a syllabus now, I will remember that I have given out the syllabi for the term and assume that the rest of these,” he waved a number of thick packets in the air, “are extra copies that I had printed for some reason. I make a new syllabus each term, and so I would dispose of the rest of these, and no one else in the course would know what the expectations are for them this term.”
“That makes sense to me,” Jeb said half truthfully. If he were being fully honest, he wasn’t entirely sure why the Professor couldn’t just have Jeb remind him to hand out the rest of them at the start of the class session.
Seeing that the conversation had come to a close, Jeb pulled out the latest book Margaret had found discussing the origins of Glyphs and Enchantments. It was an old text, one which he found by following trails of references. If he understood the relative chronology, and assuming that there was only a single edition of everything he was reading, then this text was written nearly at the same time that Marcus the Mage was writing his own meditations on the field. Of course, Marcus’ Meditations were a seminal resource, though for whatever reason, Jeb had not found anyone reference them in his research. When he had asked Margaret about that, she rolled her eyes.
“Marcus’ Meditations are well known because Paul and Silas’s followers encouraged everyone to start reading them. They rely heavily on the writings of earlier Mages, and add little of substance to them.”
Seeing Jeb’s confusion, she shrugged. “At least, that is what most of the reviews of the book in days before the Republic was fully established suggest. It is possible that what was considered derivative then is no longer considered so.” She paused from looking at the pile of books she was carrying, giving the question further thought. “At this point, a majority of people likely do not cite his Meditations because they are read now for their spiritual value, rather than their informational value. I am happy to acquire a copy of them if you would like.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Jeb had refused the offer at the time, though he was beginning to consider it. At first, he had thought that the book, which he had heard snippets of as a child, was too florid in its prose. As he continued to read older and older tomes, however, he was beginning to realize that was less a truth unique to the book and more a stylistic choice that the field had moved on from. Reading the latest book, Jeb felt as though the author spent a full page to describe what a modern author might use a sentence on. Try as he might, however, he could not find any extra meaning in the extra words. Whether that was due to his own ignorance or the author’s need to use the longest words possible to describe each concept, he was not sure.
By the time that he had struggled through a single page of the tome, the classroom had filled. Just as he turned the page, the bells tolled out the start of the class period. The Professor leapt up, as though he was just as surprised by the sound as Jeb.
“Good,” the Professor paused slightly, glancing at a clock on his desk, “morning class. It was brought to my attention that I neglected to pass out the syllabus for this course last session.”
The students began to nod. The Professor began to distribute the syllabi to each member of the course. Jeb noticed that there were still twelve desks and a student at each desk. Hmm, he thought to himself, I wonder if everyone passed the entrance examination, or whether there was some sort of waitlist for the course. He shrugged the thought away when the Professor came to his desk and dropped off the syllabus.
It was by far the thickest syllabus that Jeb had seen since coming to the Academy. It was at least fifty pages thick, with densely typed text on both the front and back side of each sheet of paper. Jeb skimmed through it quickly, trying to see what made the syllabus so long. Before he was able to get a picture of what the syllabus was filled with, the Professor had once more moved to the front of the room and begun speaking.
“As I said a few moments ago, good morning. My name is Professor Quicksilver, and I will be teaching Introduction to Alchemy this term. Now, there are a number of fundamental truths of reality that I hope to distill into something you all will retain.” He giggled slightly. “Please pardon the pun. I cannot promise that I will not make more, though I will make an effort to limit the number.” Professor Quicksilver paused as though he had forgotten what he was saying. “Ah!” he exclaimed after a moment, “as I was saying, you may notice that the syllabus for this course is larger than the standard here at the Academy. That is because I have listed out what I expect of you for each meeting of this course. It would be less than useless for me to simply tell you to produce a potion, even given that each potion is described in the textbook for this course. In the interest of keeping the equipment,” he paused slightly, “and all of you safe, I have listed the ingredients for everything that I will have you produce in this class, along with the quantities and recommended method of preparation. That, along with the safety information for each reagent and method you will use, occupies the bulk of the syllabus text.”
The rest of the class session was spent with the Professor explaining what, exactly the rest of the syllabus text was made of. When the session was over, the rest of the class quickly filed out. Jeb waited, curious about something that the Professor had said during his lecture.
“Professor Quicksilver?” Jeb called to the Professor before he left the room.
“Yes?”
“During your lecture, you mentioned that some of the potions we will make this term are different than in previous terms, because the supply of reagents has begun to run low. What happened to the supply?”
Quicksilver gave a pained laugh. “The same thing that has happened to the supply of every other Magical Harvest in the Republic. Since the banishment of the Druids, no one has been able to come up with a viable alternative to produce them.”
Jeb nodded, expecting the explanation to stop there. To his surprise, Professor Quicksilver continued, “to answer the obvious followup question of why this is only now becoming an issue, some two score years later, many at the Academy, myself included, initially believed that the banishment would be lifted. As a result, Quartermasters set the standards for supply to a much smaller quantity than they might have if we had foreseen the length of the Druids’ removal from the Republic. They are now realizing that the current conditions are unlikely to change in the near future, and are therefore limiting the use of military critical reagents much more stringently. The material for this course was prepared in close conversation with the military, and many of the potions that are historically created in this course are of military importance for that reason. The Alchemy Faculty met over the term break to find and create suitable replacement potions for this term. If all goes, well, these replacement potions will likely remain on the syllabus for Introduction to Alchemy in future terms, at least until proper diplomatic channels can be established with the Enclave of Druids.”
“The Enclave of Druids?” Jeb asked.
“Whether we can call the Enclave of Druids a nation is up to some debate, and I am not well versed in the specifics. I believe that a majority of the Druids from the neighboring countries joined the Druids of the Republic when they were exiled from the country. Of course, banishment and exile are certainly debatable terms themselves.” Quicksilver shook his head and refocused on Jeb. “Hmm, I feel as though I remember being told something about you.” He paged through a journal that was filled with small taped notes.
“Aha! Your Theoretical Glyph Professor mentioned that you produced Manaweave for him. Is that true?”
“Kind of?” Jeb hedged. “The Weaver in the Workshop made the Manathread and Manaweave, but I supplied him with the Managrass for that. Why do you ask?”
Jeb had asked the question more out of politeness than legitimately not knowing. Given that Professor Quicksilver had just been telling him about the Republic’s dire lack of many Magical ingredients, he was unsurprised when the Professor suggested that Jeb might consider growing some of them in addition to the Managrass he was supplying to his Glyph Professor. As he walked out of the classroom, he debated the pros and cons of doing so.
On the one hand, growing nothing but Managrass was beginning to get somewhat repetitive. On the other, Jeb had no idea whether he would be able to grow any of the plants to the standard that Professor Quicksilver would require. As he paged through the syllabus in the Stacks, he began making notes on the different plants he would be working with.