12th day of Brownleaf, tenth month of the year, 983:
“....and I'm telling you the runes are all over the place! Can you see it or shall I grow some eyes for you!?” Bellowed Albestus, all composure lost half an hour ago. After a two hour-long debate over dozens of possible failures in the manufacturing of the new spell circle that, surprisingly, wasn’t working, the emotions were starting to heat up. ‘This damned soil repairing spell is not worth this. Dice, give a signal, anything to just erase it and be done with it!’.
“Has your age managed to liquify your brain, block your eardrums and make you deaf!? I am telling you these runes are the same from yesterday, and no amount of your screaming is going to help it! Now, you can be constructive or get your ridiculous beard out!” The forehead of Jil was red with anger and tiredness. A few beads of sweat reflected the light of the morning sun.
“So the whole making a three layered construction of the spell circle and praying to Eclair for it to work sounds like a good plan to you?! And you are not even using a tridimensional formation to help the mana flow permeate all the rings equally. Your top and middle layers are sucking all the mana, decompensating the flow and causing an unbalance in the bottom one! I have been telling you to use, at least, a fourth layer!!”
“It’s intended, intended!!! The outer ring is the most important part of the spell; it's the basic structure that needs the most mana and, together with the middle layer, they form the guiding energies and give it a structure to suck mana from!! A four layered version would do a shittier version of it!” Finally, all decorum had been lost. “The bottom layer and interior spell circles of the spell are for precision, the calculus of the needed nutrients and fine damned tuning to regulate the mana!! The rest of the rings are there to help the transition and stabilise the flow of mana, apart from dictating what properties are we returning to the soul, I do not intend to return it to bedrock!!”
The spell in question could be imagined as a letter O, in the letter itself it had three circular lanes. The outer layer had the ‘feeder formulae’, magical focusers that sucked ambient mana, together with the directions and canals to channel it to the second later. The middle one used another set of formulae to distribute that mana from those to below the spell circle, in this case the stone ground, making a cascade effect of mana. The last one absorbed some of the mana that was cascading downwards and redirected it to its interior circles. These were inside the theoretical O, four situated symmetrically and a small one in the middle. The small one utilised the cascading mana to resonate into the earth below and send the collected data to the four circles that were near it. These last four unearthed and removed the earth, locating needed nutrients and facilitating their extraction.
One could ask what magic runes were. They were the written willpower of trained mages. Explaining from the beginning, anybody could cast a spell with enough ‘will’, being this word a comodin for ‘exhausting concentration, reasoning and mental gymnastics’ to both aim, calculate the dimensions and form the structure necessary for the creation and the desired end result of a spell. The reality, as always, proved the method of single handedly casting a spell both inefficient, as there was a fixed quantity of mana inside a person and it refilled slowly, and fairly dangerous, for even exceptionally simple spells could misfire in catastrophic ways. And, while it was definitely quicker and more secretive, the high skill ceiling meant that only High Mages could dare to hold a success rate good enough to reliably depend on these.
This problem gave way to a different world, a world of mathematics and ink. Writing the dimensions, intended range, desired explosion and mana expended on a firebolt, for example, could be said to be time consuming. The results, however, spoke for themselves. With a 100% rate of successful evocation and the ability to make the same spell over and over again if you had written it in a papyrus, for example. The caster now did not need to stand near the spell if they configured the conditions for its launch. Now, all of the intended spells were completely customizable.
This revelation bestowed upon the whole continent an era of change. True mages decreased substantially, as the new magic required a focus on science and learning the old war mages were incapable of evolving towards, but all non combat types of spells became more common, as this new mage caste was composed of researchers, investigators and science men. The last grand achievement of this new magic was the discovery of ‘magic binding’, the art of enchanting items with spells, granting them whatever the Binder wanted to give. The mana conductivity varied from one material to another, giving a new dimension to crafting.
And runes were the simplification of spell circles.
Returning to the discussion, the problem in this spell was thought to be occurring in the construction of the outer layer. As it had feeder formulae, Albestus defended that it was draining the mana that it was redirecting downwards, causing problems in its dispersion and bringing a half powered state. Jil, on the other hand, defended that enlarging the spell would instead cause this problem, for a bigger separation between the layers meant a bigger path that the mana would need to travel, increasing the chances of it being syphoned away.
“Yeah yeah yeah, and how is it going with the whole, ‘It doesn’t need more mana, it needs fine tuning’?! Because I am seeing a bunch of nothing of value coming out of it! And don’t let me get started with the whole ‘three layers are better ‘blah, blah, blah’ aspect of it! Jil, you are hallucinating right now. It works for complex spells that have a need for a well defined and unidirectional flow of mana. Instead, you have chosen a tridirectional flow.You are making your spell far more complex than it needs to be. Scratch the focusing structure and pull apart the rings. If you structure it on a three dimensional basis instead of a cylindrical formation, a bit of reconnecting the rings with a few individual runes will fix this in no time.”
“....you, you have got, you have got to be kidding me! We did that three days ago!!” Jil tripped on a book, causing his intent to lunge at Albestus to fail.
“And we had almost fixed it, Jil!! But you know what hasn’t fixed it, your three cursed layers!!”
“If I may interrupt?” Both Albestus and Jil had been too caught up on the not so refined art of screaming at each other to realise one of the maids had entered the room, had been cleaning for the past fifteen minutes, and had taken a look at the spell before addressing them.
Too startled and ashamed to continue their debate, they silently nodded.
“I could be mistaken but, isn't the outer ring made with the characters of a fire spell, and not an earth one? At least it's different in design to the rest. Also, the runes in the button layer are all of the enchanting variety,“ Said, while showing the runes of her enchanted maid outfit, ”and not the common letters used in spell casting, right?”
Both Albestus and Jil turned slowly to look more closely at the basics, which so many academics usually forgot quite easily, and both took a long and hard look.
Speechless, both of them started to rewrite the spell. Five minutes later it started working as intended, as it had done a week ago.
……….
Not all of the morning of Albestus started so chaotic nor eye opening, but it was rare the day a ‘civil discussion’ didn’t resonate inside this building. Be it a discourse of the material that was already there, over random or new spells, or over anything remotely academic in nature, this was a place of learning. And a place of learning was always full of discussions.
Properly dressed like a man of his position, a thing he discretely took pride in, he readjusted his bow tie, a marvellous, in his opinion, piece of clothing of the odd migratory orc tribes of the wild south. His pattens were of high quality, stitched with expensive warg hide. His braies followed the trend, dyed an exuberant sky blue which combed pretty nicely with his dark blue tunic. Lastly, his cape was a thing he had spent countless hours enchanting, and its mere appearance screamed “mage”, with a blue that constantly changed its shade and which was never soiled by dust or dirt.
His tall pointed hat was something he wore with less hubris, as his hair had started to fall and it was but a reminder of his gone glory. His green eyes and caucasian appearance, not that the caucasus existed here, were pretty common in the north, and, with a stature of one metre and eighty centimetres, he usually towered over the common people, a thing that didn’t help to keep his large pride in check.
But even after all that high nobility tryhard clothing style, he was, at his core, a true researcher. And he wouldn’t doubt to discard the crown of the very Empire he served for a chance to discover the answer, or answers, to one of his questions. His study was testament to that almost mad pursuit of knowledge any sane mage that took pride in his career partook of.
Walls full of bookshelves, packed to the brim will almost all know books related to magic and science, an achievement that could only be achieved here, in the north, in the Endless library of Alpin. A magical building of old, it was home to the copies of all known books of the Empire, and an expense the barony was still paying to this day. His desk was marginally better, as it had, at least, a bit of gap to be able to settle the elbows on.
“Home, sweet home.” Albestus couldn't stop himself from softly whispering his inner emotions. The smell of books was a thing he had loved since his father had teached him to read, and, while the magic world could get exhausting, he had never felt more alive than in his research.
On his desk rested proudly the “Scientific Badger”, highest honour an investigator could receive. Noct had fought day and night with the courts of the Duke and he had delivered. Even more, his team had received the “Honourable contribution” award. Job offers were already raining on them, not that they would leave the Library for meagre money. Their current job was kind of nice too.
“Albestus, you are an excellent mage, but a horrible academic. I’m sure you aren’t sure why you should care for things you don’t know you don’t know, but I pray for your mind to, soon, find the enjoyment that discovering something you only know can bring. You can change the world, for you youngsters always manage to make something even more outrageous every time.” His old teacher stifled a laugh, and continued. “But I guess I was the same, I only wanted to blow up things, and be the hero I thought my powers could make me become. Still, you should do what you want with your life, if you need another nagging lecture, you know where to find me.”
Stopping himself from reminiscing a bit longer, he resumed, reinvigorated, his work. His team had, still, a lot of things to discover.
……….
“Is your Light not with you today, veteran meat bag?” Asked a Dryad, a legendary monster born from the feelings of the trees and forest. If nature had a will, these creatures would be it. Unforgiving, completely alien, almost immortal, the perfect killing machines of their turfs. If not aggravated, they were kind and innocent, if weird, that only wanted to protect what they loved. Few monsters had suffered as hard with the rise of the “rational” species as the tree dwellers, but still here they remained, ancient reminders of the old forests of before.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Lord Ashen has been preoccupied with matters of importance, but here you have it,“ Answered Albestus, trying to hand the missives he was carrying to the bastard hybrid of a tree and a woman and failing, as it appeared completely uninterested in them. “Do you still remember the letters or shall I read them?”
“We are not talking about another meat bag.” Leaves shook,” Neither will we forget something that has been bestowed upon us in exchange for nothing. The forest yearns for the Light, he has made it grow so much. It tasted great. The leaves chant a new symphony we will never forget.” As if remembering something, it turned a bit, “We will also add you upon the thousands of the meat trees that had helped us as if it was only natural. Nature is everything but unforgiving, and yet you all chose to help.”
“....I see.” Not knowing what to say, he tried to go back to the main point, “I came here to ask for your opinion on the new forestry industry as lord Ashen felt compelled to ask for the opinion of the forest. Do you mind the new woodcutting practices on the edges of the forest?”
With the rustling sounds of a thousand leaves dancing to the winds of the cold north, the dryad fussed with the tree that was near it, and reappeared behind Albestus.
“Why should the forest mind about saplings dying? Our songs are a complex balance of life and death.” It switched positions again, now away from Albestus and caressing the leaves of the top of a tree, seated on top of a branch. ”You bring both life and death in equal parts on your side of the Edge, but you help the forest grow everywhere else. We also hunt and kill each other for Light and Land, ours is a perpetual battlefield. Yours? You kill quickly, you do not prolong the fray, you birth. You help them grow and give birth, and you reap the life they owe you. We see no problem with your pity. Fret not, if, we do not doubt it won’t happen, you encroach on the forest, we will grant you the same kindness of yours. A quick death. The edges are, and will always be, yours.”
It disappeared again, and now, with the looks of the illusion of a peerless beauty in the image of a red heard human lady, appeared in front of Albestus and finally took the letters that, if not for Albestus wearing gloves, would be drenched in cold sweat,
“......We thank you for this, Dryad.”
“Before you go,” The dryad transformed her human legs into roots and dug the earth, ”You meat trees like to bury your kind, don’t you? We were hurt, but we realised we were both hunting the same, so we return you their bones.” Before Albestus could scream ‘Nether’, the recently stirred ground exploded outwards in bones and dirt. Five whole disassembled human skeletons, their bones picked clean. The very sight almost made Albestus jump backwards, as in mere seconds they were neatly piled in front of him. Resisting the instinct of running away, Albestus tried to compose himself to no avail. The Dryad, undisturbed, continued. “These are you so called ‘badits’ we think. They were bringing fire sprung from the bodies of our fallen towards the forest. We do not like fire.” With these parting words, the dryad left before Albestus recomposed himself to say his goodsbyes.
Looking around, the forest was losing, in his eyes, the calming air it had had. Now, seeing enemies all around, Albestus couldn’t resist the desire to curse quietly.
“You are coming yourself next time, armoured bastard of a regent.”
A sudden wind passed by, rustling the leaves of the forest, and Albestus couldn't help but think it was the forest laughing at him. “If it were in my hands, I would have burned this cursed forest to the ground”, but he was smart enough to not voice his last thoughts.
……….
A few hours later, Albestus was resting in the public library of the guild. He usually hated reading where he could hear other people. Nonetheless, now the distant sounds of discussion and the turning of pages was what he needed to finally calm down. A reminder of the superiority of mankind and, more importantly, of civilization. Of things his mind could comprehend.
Just when he was getting into his current book, “Components of a true blue fire spell and its similarities to air manipulation magic”, a highly interesting book on why stronger versions of fire spells needed a counterpart of air magic for better burning power, or electricity and water magic for more explosive might. Just when he was reading one of the authors proposing a particular hypothesis to the reasoning behind, a maid interrupted him.
“Master Alpestus, Lady Ashen is requesting an audience with you.”
With the personal abilities of someone who had to bootlick nobles to be able to afford his research, he hid his anger for being molested at such an inopportune time of his reading session.
“Lead her to my study, I will receive her here.” Albestus started to weave some space altering spells.
Bowing, the maid answered, “It shall be done.”
Cursing inwardly for the fifteenth time today, he finished his phasing spell and transverse the distance between his position and his study instantly. Almost emptying his stomach, he uselessly wondered, again, how Noct could handle this type of spell so well, and sat on his chair. Serving himself a glass of “Fenix Salt”, an energising mixture born from the Zun cultist of the east, which had a black colour and a sour taste, he felt himself ready for the task ahead.
Not late enough, a knock soon was heard from the door of the study.
“Come in.” Spoke Albestus
Lady Soral of the Ashen entered the study, followed by the High Paladin Sorak, and curtsied.
“I thank you for attending to me on your busy day.” Soral remained undisturbed by his lack of proper respect, as he was supposed to both open the door and bow to her, not the other way around. Sorak, on the other hand, was as readable as a book, and she was not happy.
“And to what do I owe the unexpected visit, Lady Ashen?” He enjoyed too much seeing Sorak trying to contain herself, but he reminded himself to do it in moderation.
“I will be blunt, High Wizard Albestus,” ‘I’m a mage!’ he stressed in his mind, his fake smile and easy going attitude not faltering. ”I have come here to ask you to join my faction. You are a highly skilled individual and your talent could be used for something more at my orders.”
“Those are bold words, Lady Ashen, I do not..”
“Save us the back and forth, Albestus. Are you with the true sovereign of Alpin or not? I will be frank with you, High Wizard, I fear the Regent may come for my life, so, pardon me if I’m being disrespectful, I would appreciate going back to my training as quickly as possible. As you would happily go to your research, I guess.” Sharp eyes. ‘There is no fear there. She is threatening me.’
Albestus reclined on his chair. While he knew Noct was an unforgiving and cruel bastard, he was always relatively just, if he could be forgiven two of his ten years of governance. He always strived to the best end result for the majority of the people involved. He despised corruption and crime and cracked down hard, maybe too hard, on these disturbances. An excellent administrator and Lord, if not for the blood he had made flow to achieve this.
Even more, he had started to notice a change for the better in the last couple of months. The last six years, while very stable, had been stale. The lightening up of the iron fist could only mean an explosive increase in prosperity.
He remembered the chaos of his first two years of governance, for he was but a Lord in name only, with no power or experience to manage his own realm. The next two years he had spent purging with steel and blood his staunch opposition and all people who dared to hurt his barony with extreme prejudice. Albestus grimaced at this bitter memory. But he progressively eased his iron fist during the next six and the realm had come stronger from it.
Albestus looked towards the Lady in front of him and seriously thought about her offer. While his brother acted upon his ideals of what an ideal barony would be, and had gotten sidetracked by the whole falling into a murdering fury, he had always debated with himself on how to better his little corner of the world.
Lady Soral didn’t have the same look in her eyes. He knew Noct would jump in front of an innocent person to save them, magic and injury risks be damned, and act like it had been but a simple bother. But, Soral? She acted like she thought she should act. She was kind and compassionate, yeah, and he was sure she would grow to, maybe, surpass his brother on his lordly duties. She appeared to be the ideal Lady, and maybe she would maintain her kindness. But he knew that fickle resolution would come crashing down quickly enough, and Soral was chock full of it.
If Noct had been a stray arrow, Soral could be a whole volley. He calculated a bit and made a bet against himself. After six months of trying to rule the new barony she wanted to create, fighting with her old “supporters” for a weak sense of power, trying to deal with the wave of crimes the dismantling of the police state and the aftermath of killing the best warrior of the barony would cause her to turn into an even worse tyrant.
“She is completely amoral, not to say bad, but she would discard her ideals the moment she realised she didn’t need to act like a good person.” Pondered Albestus, cynical to the core. He oughta thank Noct, for he had purged every powerful merchant and general smart or evil enough to play her sister like a fiddle. What’s more, he could see her badly camouflaged hatred, the promise of future retribution. She saw him as nothing but a pawn to be discarded, too close to his brother for comfort. She had the same look as her brother when he looked at slave merchants.
“No, I think I will refuse your offer.”
“Pardon me. Albestus, do you realise you are betraying your rightful Liege?” Sorak tried to argue. ”You are causing unnecessary friction between you and your guild and your future lord. See reason Albestus, nobody would fault for breaking a contract I am sure has little loyalty from both parties. We need the mages to rebuild the barony and upgrade it to what it could be! Following the current Regent would only stop the progress”
Albestus’ fingers started to lightly hammer the table, “Stop the progress? Who or what do you believe has been improving the city, the great Fires of the Theocracy? I for one have grown tired of these petty tricks. While our current regent may have been overbearing in his duties, he is distributing justice in his de jure realm, as nobles are supposed to be able to do. He has secured stability and security and that is no small feat.”
“You know perfectly well what I am saying, High Mage Albestus.” Sorak tried to reason.
“No, I don’t know what you are saying, and I am feeling like my time is being misused for useless reasons. You come to the Guild, that I founded thanks to the support of the rightful regent of Albin, accuse my employee of acting with tyranny when he had been upholding justice, even if with too much overzealousness but still within his power, and who has never found guilty a common man that did not commit crime, and only to try and prove your empty points? Nethers, he reformed our legal system and turned our barony in the safest of the whole north, and you accuse him of brutality after imparting justice on criminals of the highest degree? You know those men would have been tortured alive on other baronies.”
Before Sorak could dig herself a bigger hole, Soral interrupted. “Yes, I agree with you on the ‘it was in his powers to do so’ and I do not doubt that ‘every other noble would have done worse’. Be that as it may, that is besides the point.” ‘She knows how to dodge an issue at least.’ “Being able to do something doesn’t make it the right thing.” Soral sighed, “I refuse to debate semantics with you. You raised a point, his overzealousness, and you are right. If I may construct a theoretical situation, do tell me, If I went against his ideals, would he go against me? That’s why I am asking you to join. It’s insurance, nothing more, nothing less. For what we know he could just rescind his regency without problems and we would have been forced to do nothing. Are you helping me protect myself or not?”
Albestus reclined on his chair, “If I am not being too forward, Lady Ashen, I am too busy to deal with your fictional family feud. You could always order me to do it if you see that pertinent.” ‘Will you pick up the challenge?’
“Then we are done here.” A few seconds later, Soral and Sorak left the study.
Albestus smirked. “Took you long enough.” Sighed Albestus, while he looked towards the window. He may not care about a lot of things, but, in his eyes, Noct, as bad as the rumours could get, was a just and capable, even if cruel, ruler. In the current state of the Imperial Nobility, that was more than enough.
And, cursed be Eclair, he had come to like the bastard, even going as far as to consider him a colleague, if not a friend or a lord. And he could be a lot of things, but he was not, nor would he be, a betrayer.
……………