As the dance continued, Jeb felt the Magic in the Ritual continue to build. He began to understand what Aquam had said in the lecture. Unlike the practice dance, where Jeb felt his own Magic twisting and joining with the watery Magic of the Dean, this time the Ritual pulled in Magic from a dozen disparate sources. Still, they were quickly flavored by Jeb and Aquam’s own Magical signatures.
When the first lap through the Ritual was finished, Jeb nearly took the next step to begin another repetition. The sudden silence of the room kept him from making what he knew was a mistake. As he shook his head, Jeb felt the strange pull of the Ritual slowly lessen its grip on him. He was once again in control of his own body, if only technically.
Blinking, Jeb wondered why his eyes hurt so much. His hand came back drenched in sweat, which made him realize just how hard he was breathing. He bent down onto his hands and knees to try to catch his breath, hardly noticing the light in front of him. Aquam came over, not seeming the least bit affected by the Magic they had done, and helped Jeb stand up. He gave a nod of his head that seemed to suggest “look at the light.” Jeb obliged.
The light in front of him was not the small wisp that they had created on their first pass through the dance. Calling it an orb was misleading as well, though. Jeb could not point to exactly where the light was coming from, only that the room was clearly brighter because of the area in front of him. There was an energy to the light, calling Jeb to resume dancing, or move and run, or do anything active. It took only slightly longer to fade than the other groups’, and Jeb was momentarily disappointed.
He did his best to suppress that feeling. There was no reason that he should expect to be better at Ritual Magic than all of these trained Magical students. A part of him had hoped that he would somehow be able to master the Magic on his first attempt, even though he had not ever verbalized the thought. Now that he was confronted with it, though, Jeb chuckled slightly, reminding himself not to start thinking too highly of himself.
As the last beats of light finally faded, Aquam gathered the students around him and once more took control of the classroom. “What did everyone notice?” The question seemed intentionally vague, but most of the class instantly raised their hands.
With a nod, Aquam acknowledged one of the students. “Each group created a different light,” she commented simply.
Aquam gestured for her to continue.
“If I had to guess why each group’s light was so different, I would assume that it is something to do with the way that our own Attunements interacted with each other. I do not believe that our Attunement is the sole reason for the lights’ variety, but I would be shocked if it was not a factor at all.”
Aquam nodded and then gestured to another student.
“The Ritual felt much different when the rest of the class was watching,” another student said. Without needing prompting from Aquam, he continued, “it almost felt wilder, as though the Ritual was moving us, rather than us moving through a Ritual.” He flushed slightly, clearly uncomfortable admitting that he had lost control over a Magic. Seeing the rest of the class nod in agreement, the blush faded.
The rest of the class chimed in with their own observations. Most of them were a variation on what the two first students had said. Once everyone had the chance to voice their hypotheses, Dean Aquam began to lecture.
“Those are all fantastic observations and guesses for their causes. I would like to focus on the first observation: that the different pairs each created different lights. None of you explicitly called out the differences that you noted. Would I be correct in assuming that, in addition to the different colors, you also noted that each light seemed to have a different emotional affect?”
Most of the class frowned slightly, as though they had not noticed that. Dean Aquam nodded. “If you are not looking for it, the emotional aspect of each light is easily missed. However, I noticed that all of you were far more fidgety after Jeb and I finished our Ritual. Our light came with the sense of motion.”
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Students began to play back the events of the class in their minds. Each of them began to nod as they started to recognize the way that their behavior had been shaped by the different groups’ Ritual lights. Seeing the sense of agreement, Dean Aquam moved into a diversion.
“Earlier I said that each community chose the best dancers. That was not entirely accurate. To be certain, every dancer selected was able to perform the Ritual without error for the hours on end that the day required. Each was able to weave the Magics together from the entire community. During studies, it appeared as though more than half of the people met these criteria. What set apart the dancers chosen was the nature of light that they produced.”
A student coughed, and Aquam seemed to realize that his diversion was shaping to be far longer than he had planned. “All that to say, different communities valued different effects. Some preferred a calmer light, and others preferred a more active light.” Returning to the lesson, he continued, “color is, as Cecilia noted, due to the Attunement of the dancers. Just as we train Mages to suppress their own Attunement in many Spells, however, trained Ritual dancers learn to shape the Magic towards what they want. To some extent, the same is true of the affect, though that is much more ingrained, and therefore harder to consciously manipulate. Jeb, for instance, will never be a Sage, sitting still to meditate on a mystery for decades and centuries. This came through in the way that his Ritual called everyone to movement.”
Having gone through the theory portion of the lesson, Dean Aquam started offering corrections to each of the groups, pointing out where they had danced less than perfectly. Jeb tried to think of what the Dean would tell him. The entire Ritual still felt a little hazy as he thought about it, but Jeb managed to find what he thought of as his biggest weaknesses.
First, his foot placement still was not perfect. He was beginning to wonder if his feet were just too large for the dance. Try as he might, he could not figure out what, exactly, he did that made his feet come down off of the correct location. He moved on, doing his best not to get bogged down in any particular failing he had.
Other than his foot placement, Jeb knew that his control over the Magic was more than a little sloppy. It was nice that Aquam had been his partner, because it really highlighted just how much more control over the Magic Jeb could have had. The Dean seemed to hold all of the Magic of the Ritual almost effortlessly, pushing it back into each perfect motion. As Jeb tried to think of other issues that he had, Dean Aquam came over.
“It looks as though you are thinking about something,” the Dean commented.
Jeb shrugged. “I was just trying to figure out what I did wrong during the Ritual.”
Aquam nodded and began to explain what he had seen as Jeb’s failings. “I was performing the Ritual with you,” he admitted, “so my observations may not be as thorough as I gave the rest of the class.”
The Dean highlighted the two weaknesses that Jeb had already found in himself. With that, he walked away. Jeb noticed that the rest of the class had already left the room as well, and so he went to the Emporium.
“Good evening Jeb!” Catherine called between pouring glasses of beer. “Would you mind coming back to help? We seem to be in a bit of a rush right now for some reason.”
“Preliminary examinations for the Doctoral programs just finished,” one student called.
Jeb and Catherine looked at each other blankly.
What are preliminary examinations? Jeb mouthed to Catherine, who shrugged her shoulders. Apparently neither of them knew.
Jeb hopped over the railing and started to pull beers for the queue of hopeful Doctors. A part of him noted that his own ales were only slightly less popular than Lionheart’s, and that realization made him happy. Even if they were only drinking it because it had a Magical effect, plenty students still seemed to prefer his beer to the master Brewer’s. When the rush died down, he and Catherine chatted about the starts to their terms.
“Are you up to Brewing some barrels?” she asked when they had finished catching up, handing him a slip of paper.
Jeb glanced at the clock on the wall. “I should have some time,” he said, taking the sheet. That seemed like as good of a cue as any for him to leave, so he made his way over to the Brewery.
The windows of his Brewery had almost completely frosted over. What, exactly, the frost was made of, Jeb did not think that he wanted to know. He looked at the list that Catherine had given him and started cleaning the empty barrels that someone had returned to the Brewery. Thankfully, the list of barrels to make and the collection of barrels he had were exactly the same.
Jeb prepared the first batch of Firestout. As he started working with the Essences, something felt different. It was strange, but Jeb felt as though what he was doing was almost a very pared down version of a Ritual. He could not focus on the feeling, however, as the Essences tried to escape his grip the moment he relaxed control over them. When time resumed its normal flow, however, he frowned and jotted down a note. That realization bore further consideration.