Unsurprisingly, the room erupted at the end of the Bard’s speech. Calls of heresy were as common as critiques of specific portions of the pedagogy. When the crowd had died down to a dull roar, the Bard shrugged.
“Given that I have previously answered the last five questions I have been asked, I am going to say that the time for questions is over. Anyone is, of course, welcome to schedule a meeting with me to discuss anything. I am certain that you will be able to find my office.”
With that, the Bard stepped into the door at the back of the stage and disappeared. Jeb spent the rest of the day considering the Bard’s talk. The fact that he had been a test case made him feel used for a few hours. After mulling the situation over, though, Jeb recognized that the Bard’s time had to have been worth a fortune, if the prices his classmates charged to tutor were any indication. He had volunteered his time to teach Jeb Bardic Magic, and he had legitimately believed that he was teaching Jeb with the most effective pedagogy he had access to. Even if the Bard had benefited from the arrangement, that did not make his kindness to Jeb any less real. Nodding to himself, he resumed writing.
Jeb woke up with his notes pressed into his cheek. Apparently he hadn’t made it back to his dormitory the night before. His slow return to reality meant that he jumped when he saw that there was someone standing over him.
“Good morning,” the Bard said, tone playful, “I am glad to see that you have yet to lose the drive you had in Humdrumville.”
“Good morning,” Jeb replied, brow furrowing. “What are you doing in the Stacks?”
He shrugged. “I could ask you the same, but I do not feel like that would be a productive conversation for either of us. Regardless, I did neglect one portion of your training, and for that I apologize. Given that you have mastered the Ephemeral Song I tried to teach you, you are certainly ready to remove Lute Enforcement from your Status.”
“How would I do that?” Jeb asked, curious how it might differ from the process he had used for removing his Glyphs.
The Bard’s smile sharpened slightly. Just for a second, the ambient noises of the Stacks came into perfect harmony, and Jeb had the feeling of being in the middle of some grand symphony. The feeling faded.
“The process you used to remove your Glyphs should suffice for this as well.”
The Bard started to leave, turning just before he disappeared from sight.
“Oh,” he said, as though the thought had just occurred to him, “I heard that you were working on Weaving fire.”
“Yes?” Jeb replied hesitantly, but the Bard was already gone.
Jeb tried to refocus on his work, but his mind kept returning to the Bard’s comments. I’ll remove the Song, he compromised, “but then it’s back to work.”
He stood and ran to his room. Once there, he picked up his lute and started moving towards the farm. The Bard had said to remove the Song with the same technique he had used before, after all.
Sitting cross-legged on the lawn, Jeb let himself lose focus, just for a moment. He listened to the sounds of the bees around him, reminding himself that, while he was a body and a soul, his soul connected far outside of his body. With that thought, he delved deep into his Status and through it, finding his Skills and everything else that had bound itself to his soul.
Unlike the Glyphs, Lute Enforcement did not seem to interfere with the flow of his soul at first glance. As Jeb watched for longer, however, he saw that his initial thought were wrong. The Song redirected his soul at least as much as any of the Glyphs. It just changed the flow gently enough that it was nearly unnoticeable.
Jeb reached down, trying his hardest not to consider what it meant that he was able to project an avatar of himself inside of his own soul. With a sharp tug, he tore the Song out of the bedrock of his soul. Unlike the Glyphs, it did not come out cleanly.
Like roots on a weed, the Song was connected deeply to so many other parts of his soul. Jeb felt a crack run through his entire being as the connections started to fray. Before the fissure could grow, however, Magic consumed the Song and repaired the broken ties. The crack inside of Jeb’s spirit mended itself, and he felt somehow more unified than he had been.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Coming back to himself, Jeb picked up the lute and started plucking out the notes he remembered. Magic did not immediately flood the connection, and Jeb was briefly worried. Almost as though it had taken that concern, the strands of his music and will merged together and poured into the lute.
Jeb let out the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. How, exactly, he had managed to hold his breath while singing, he couldn’t tell. Regardless, he had.
Feeling his soul flow without the block of the Song, Jeb felt invigorated. His Weaving Skill seemed to cry out, and he listened to it, traveling to the Workshop. When he opened the door to the Weaving Workshop, Jeb took an instinctive step back.
The shadows of the room had distorted somehow. When the Weaver turned to see who had entered his domain, it almost seemed as though each of his limbs had doubled. Blinking, Jeb turned the thought aside.
“Just a trick of the light,” he murmured.
“Welcome back, young Weaver,” the Weaver said. “What called you to return after so long away?”
“It hasn’t been that long, has it?” Jeb asked.
The Weaver stared at him, unblinking, and Jeb started tracing back to the last time that he had worked on his Weaving. With a start, Jeb realized that he had gone terms without visiting.
“I’m sorry for my absence,” Jeb said quickly.
The Weaver waved him off.
“I assume that you wish to resume your work on Weaving Fire?” he asked.
Jeb nodded, and the Weaver tossed a bundle at him.
“This contains everything you needed before, except for the fire, of course. I have little doubt that you will be able to find flames, however.”
“Thank you!” Jeb called, leaving the Workshop. He made a note to give the Weaver some more Managrass when he felt up to planting again.
Back at his seat in the Stacks, Jeb looked at his notes, then back at the bundle in his hand. Much as he wanted to explore Weaving fire even more, he could not shirk his responsibilities. Jeb set the bundle aside and started to work on revisions.
After working for a few hours, Jeb set his pen down and stood. He had reached the point of mental exhaustion where any work he attempted to do would not only not help him, it would actively hinder his efforts. Excitedly, he picked up his bundle and hurried to the cafeteria. A quick meal later, Jeb started wandering the hallways, trying to find somewhere empty with fire.
He came into a clearing that overlooked the grove he had increased his Tier in. There was no fire, but there was an ornate fire pit and a large stack of lumber piled next to it.
“Is this ok for me to use?” Jeb asked. As he had expected, the Academy did not respond.
Looking around, Jeb saw the signs of a room in the Academy that had not been used for ages. None of the features individually meant much, but something about the combination of a lack of dust and a sense that the air was somehow fresher than it should be, along with a host of other traits, told Jeb that the room was not seen often. He picked up a few of the logs and started to build a fire. A part of him said that he needed to go look for kindling and tinder, let alone a fire starter of some sort, but he quieted it. With a brief effort of will, Jeb created a Glyph to Create Fire and lit the wood.
The flames quickly ceased requiring Jeb’s Mana, and he let the Glyph crumble away. He pulled out the Weaving equipment and started to pull a thread out of the flame. To his relief, his ability to do so had not faded with the time spent away. Jeb worked until the fire had burned out.
When it did, he blinked a few times, confused why the thread had suddenly ended. He saw the dying embers, extinguished them with some Created Water, and looked down at the spool he had worked. It was far more thread than he had made the previous time, that much he knew for certain. However, it was nowhere near enough to make anything out of. Jeb set the spool inside the bundle and wrapped it back up.
For the rest of the term, Jeb’s days followed a predictable routine. He would wake at first bell, work on his Ritual until his mind grew numb, then eat and go to a seminar. On days that he could not find a seminar he was interested in, Jeb instead went straight to the fire pit. He Wove until a large stack of wood, which replenished itself daily, burned out, then spent some time in the Emporium, chatting with his friends and refilling barrels as needed.
At the start of term break, Jeb looked down at his paper. As far as he could tell, there was nothing more he needed to add to the Ritual to make it usable by someone else. Running with excitement, he hurried to Dean Aquam’s door.
Dean Aquam quickly paged through the slab of papers that Jeb had set on his desk.
“Fantastic job overall,” he complimented, “but I do note that you have not compared your techniques to other forms of teleportation.” He glanced up and saw Jeb’s confused face.
“This is part of your doctoral work. It is not enough to simply do something, you must also put it in the context of work which has been done before.”
Jeb nodded and left, leaving the pile behind. Back in the Stacks, he, Margaret, and Philip looked for any book which referenced teleportation, however obliquely. By the time that the next term had begun, the two Librarians had cut him loose, informing him that he was more than capable of continuing the search on his own. He took the autonomy in stride, setting the Weaving aside for a while.
When Jeb started to compile his notes, he noticed one major trend that bothered him. It seemed as though the Druids had a method of teleportation between trees that was mentioned in a number of tomes. None of them, however, gave the slightest amount of detail as to how they teleported. Jeb started wandering the Stacks, emphasizing his desire to learn how the Druids teleported.
He came to a locked door, the first he had seen in the Stacks.