MARIN

Marin woke up in the infirmary. Cryonolon, the master healer, was still there and was more than happy to repeat the lecture he had given Syn and Behngi earlier. Marin was embarrassed at realizing that if it hadn’t been for her being so caught up in her practice, she would have been aware of Syn and Behngi warning her about the impending danger emerging from the fallen trees.

“Until you are certified for monster hunting, always run.” Cryonolon chastised for the third time. “How did you upset a revenant anyway? What were you doing?”

No one replied immediately, but Behngi and Marin looked to Syn to explain. Syn hid her face in embarrassment for a second before responding. “I was just practicin’ fire magic on some trees. I only did three trees! How was I supposed to know some bark crab was gonna try to eat us!” Syn seemed almost on the verge of tears when she finally asked, “Are we in trouble?”

Cryonolon sighed and stroked his beard, “No, you aren’t in trouble. You are adults and made choices you thought you needed to for learning and practice. The tree revenant was an unlucky unforeseen circumstance, but you must know that this is a risk you take with old forests like the ones around Spire.” Cryonolon sat down on one of the beds as he finished his explanation.

“Master Cryonolon?” Marin asked before the old Cryomage looked down at her. “Where did it come from? How do we know where monsters like that are?”

“Young Miss Marin, monsters can be almost anywhere for any reason. They are the souls of the departed who hold onto the hatred from their lives. They can’t move on, so they anchor themselves here. The romantic old soul in me wants to speculate that this revenant was a student of Spire who died. They loved the forest here, but they hated something else more. Something like reckless young students who destroy nature.”

Marin responded, “But I saw it almost rip a tree in half.”

Master Cryonolon stood up. “Let this be a lesson to you, Miss Marin. It would have been happy if it had killed you and burned down the forest in the process. Hatred isn’t rational. That’s why we call them monsters. Sip on your potions, and then get some rest, kids.”

AELLARIA

Aellaria couldn’t deny one simple fact. Marin was a comforting presence. As much as Aellaria disliked sharing the space. As much as Aellaria hated when she had to hold herself back for Marin, as much as she hated Marin’s weakness, it didn’t matter. Not once, but twice now, Marin had brought Aellaria back to reality.

There was something about Marin’s country innocence. Marin had an almost infinite pool of patience regarding Aellaria, even when Aellaria didn’t deserve it.

Aellaria was caught between Zenithor’s fury and Lilium’s fear. One moment, she just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. These feelings of Lilium’s only stoked Zenithor’s anger. The next moment, Aellaria needed to open the dorm room door and hunt Callo down like an animal. On top of that, Aellaria kept seeing, hearing, and feeling things that weren’t real.

Aellaria’s only coping mechanism was Marin. Marin was just so simple. So real.

Aellaria hated this feeling. This need to rely on something else was revolting, and why Aellaria brewed her first poison for herself. Until now, alchemy was only for concoctions, potions, and poultices. It was the crutch that would harden Aellaria into the vision Zenithor had. However, Lilium’s memories were breaks in her hull and threatened to sink Aellaria—despite their love for Lilium, Aellaria and Zenithor had to forget to continue.

It was called the forgetful poison, designed to force the body to forget the bad memories the mind focused on. This poison was commonly used to help mitigate the ‘realness’ of trauma.

Now, the batch of poison-filled tubes sat in front of her alongside an empty journal, quill, and freshly prepared glue.

One final painful hurdle stood in front of Aellaria: the journal. She had to relive Lilium's memories one more time and record every detail.

Aellaria drank the first vial and started thinking about and writing Lilium’s memories: what it felt like to meet Callo, what it felt like to be protected by Callo, how Callo made Lilium feel normal, and how Callo made Lilium feel special. Aellaria wrote every detail, putting it out in the journal. As the memories were recorded to the page in ink, the poison acted as an eraser—scrubbing all traces of Lilium from Aellaria’s mind.

It was risky, but Aellaria felt that the poison was wearing off. She downed another vial and wrote quickly.

Tears flowed from Aellaria’s eyes as she relived what it felt like for Lilium’s heart to be shattered by Callo. Aellaria transcribed every heartbreaking word from Callo’s lips, every plea made by Lilium, and every thought as Lilium lay destroyed outside of Callo’s estate.

Then Aellaria thought of the moments that hurt her personally. When, in her rage, she sent Marin to the infirmary and publicly defeated Syn.

Before it was all gone, Aellaria turned to the blank page before the journal entry and wrote a straightforward line to title the passage.

‘Callo deserves a painful end.’

As the memories faded and the tears began to dry, Aellaria watched those words. The words spoke an undeniable truth, but they no longer carried the pain. It was euphoria. The voices of Lilium and Zenithor were finally calmed. Aellaria couldn’t feel Lilium at all anymore.

Relieved, Aellaria dipped a finger into the glue and ran it along the edge of the pages– sealing Lilium away. Once the glue dried, Aellaria dropped the journal into the dimensional pouch and relaxed.

It felt like Lilium had died again. The rational part of Aellaria knew that Lilium was just an echo of memories being relived, but it was so real. Aellaria took most of the night to reflect, and even the feeling of Lilium’s death faded to a silhouette in her mind.

When she looked at Lilium’s memories of Callo, Aellaria knew that something profound affected her, but all that remained was the knowledge that it hurt enough to need removal. That Callo deserved his fall and more.

Zenithor was still there—the most brilliant mind in spell crafting and thaumaturgy ever to exist. However, now it felt like there was a crack in her brain. Aellaria’s mind used to be Zenithor’s. Lilium changed that with the invitation of her memories. Aellaria was Zenithor, but now Aellaria knew she wasn’t just Zenithor. Maybe something new was created the day Aellaria woke up.

By now, Aellaria could write a treatise on souls that would forever change how the world viewed life and death. However, Aellaria knew it didn’t matter if humans learned from Zenithor’s soul. It was human destiny to find the most efficient route toward catastrophe. Nihility wins.

Aellaria recalled Zenithor’s life before marrying Celia. After living among the elves for decades, Zenithor returned to Element, intent on teaching everyone everything he had learned from Arcane–about enchanting artificial intelligence, enchanted tattoos, and creating teleportation circles.

These should have been magical discoveries that changed the world. They should have been launching points for magical discoveries over the next century. They weren’t.

The artificial intelligence enchantment affected the caster. Rather than creating an arcane assistant to help with spell casting and running down creative paths, most sorcerers used the arcane assistants to develop friends or worse. Emotionally connecting with a manufactured mind easily caused mental collapse, and the whole practice was considered taboo.

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Enchantment tattoos may have been the most significant real success story. Runes of spells used to enhance the body, like flight, stone skin, or way of water, could be tattooed on the skin for faster casting. If the tattoo was made with a special ink by an enchanter, it could significantly save on mana use. However, this was an uncommon practice due to pattern restrictions since it would require a person to tattoo themselves. Those tattooing magical runes on their body were prone to mistakes, and many mistakes when working with enchantments were extremely deadly.

Finally, there was the teleportation circle. The teleportation circle would allow hubs to be created for instantaneous permanent travel. This should have changed the trajectory of humankind forever. However, sorcerers and the Wizards College deemed it too much of a security risk for these to be created, activated, and maintained for free. Due to the rarity of properly trained sorcerers and wizards, this required expensive fees for anyone to even use the rings. The only people rich enough to teleport were royalty and the merchant class, who could manipulate markets.

Human lust, fear, and greed poisoned the gifts Zenithor spent forty years decoding from the elves. After these failures, Zenithor decided it was time to focus on his own happiness. He had just enough of his life left to start a family and try to pass these wonders on to a better generation.

Aellaria had lost track of time and almost jumped when Marin entered the room. When Marin closed the door, Aellaria said, “Good evening. You are quite late.”

Marin fell into bed and smiled at Aellaria, “I killed a monster. It was really… scary. You feeling better?” Marin asked, her face reading surprise.

Of course, she would look surprised; Aellaria had just spent weeks mostly ignoring Marin. Now, she was up late, initiating conversation with the lottery apprentice. Aellaria returned a surprised look of her own. “You killed a monster? What was it?” Aellaria asked. Monsters were rare around Spire since it was essentially a factory for future monster slayers.

Marin sat up against the wall, crossing her legs and arms proudly. “I killed a Nature Revenant.”

Aellaria laughed. Mirroring Marin’s posture, “I killed a Nature Revenant, Then I killed a troll. By Phoenix’s ashes, I swear on my way home, I slayed a dragon.” Aellaria said, laughing hard enough to make the tip of her hat sway back and forth.

Marin scooted forward on her bed and whined, “I did! It was going to eat Syn like corn, so I impaled it!”

Marin’s tone and response only made the situation funnier for Aellaria. The floppy hat fell off and rolled onto the floor as Aellaria tried to slow the runaway carriage of her laughter. “It could have been a stump!”

“No! I almost died. I had mana exhaustion, and if I hadn’t killed it, I would’ve been gobbled right up.” Marin pleaded.

“Did you get it’s core?” Aellaria challenged. She felt joy and expressed it with a playful smirk. “If you killed a nature revenant, you should have its core.”

“Core?” Marin asks.

Aellaria felt better. Teaching was Zenithor’s passion, and being able to teach someone something new made her feel more at peace, even if just a little bit. “Cores are believed to be the remains of the person's soul that caused the monster. A Nature Revenant should have had one.”

“What does the core do? Why do people think it's the soul?” Marin asked.

“The only proof of a soul, or an existence after the body, comes from two places—the existence of monsters and the ascension of gods. Monsters don’t use the physical body of the deceased, but we know from the monster’s memories that they were people. Gods don't have physical bodies either, at least not the ones they had when they were people.”

Marin nodded, but Aellaria felt most of this was in one ear and out the other. Then Aellaria chastised herself for thinking poorly of Marin. ‘She wasn’t dumb, just uneducated.’

“We think cores are the remnants of the soul because they only appear inside monsters, and we know that they contain memories from generally troubled people already dead.”

“Who are ‘we’?” Marin asked. “Are you a Soul scholar? What do the cores do?” Marin asked again.

“I’m sorry. It's a bad habit I got from my master. The correct term is Spiritual Thaumaturge.” Aellaria paused briefly. Cores are precious little marbles inside monsters. They are valuable because if someone with talent absorbs them, they can awaken the innate chaotic magic in that person’s body. This is why there is no way you could kill a Nature Revenant and leave its body in the woods. That core could be worth tens of thousands of gold.”

Marin looked like she was about to cry, and that is when Aellaria became certain Marin’s story was not a Jest Tale. “How in the world did you kill a Nature Revenant?” Aellaria asked. Unless Syn became a much better fighter than Aellaria remembered, there shouldn’t have been any reasonable way for the trio to defeat the mighty monster.

“I’ll tell you if you can help me get that core,” Marin said, knowing that thousands of gold was enough to bring prosperity to her family’s farm.

“I will help you get the core if you tell me how you defeated the monster.” Aellaria countered. She trusted Marin but wanted to know precisely how a weak mage could perform such a feat before committing to a nighttime adventure.

“Okay,” Marin said. She then retold the entire afternoon's events. Practicing with water and cold, Syn burning down trees, and fighting with the Nature Revenant.

Aellaria thought for a moment. “Can you show me the technique you used?”

Marin took a moment to summon a small amount of water before freezing it. She then cast the push spell to drive it down into the carpet. “Like that, but it was…” Marin mimed, holding a box that was a couple of feet wide.

“Well, I got to see this for myself,” Aellaria said, sitting up. She reached down and scooped up her hat. When Aellaria looked up, she saw that Marin had an excited look on her face. “What?”

Marin looked like she was about to pop. She hopped to her feet. “A midnight excursion with my favorite roommate…. I thought you hated me, and now we are going on an illicit adventure.”

“We are adults, Marin, and we are allowed to leave at night. Nothing about this excursion can be described as ‘illicit.’ We just can’t come back in until sunrise.” Aellaria said.

“Illicit adventure with Aellaria,” Marin said again happily.

“Stop saying that.”

“If I say it again, will you not go on the adventure with me?” Marin asked.

“If you keep saying we’re going on illicit adventures, I will kick you right in your ass.”

Marin could’ve died that night, but still, Aellaria saw pure joy in the young woman’s face as she debated internally whether an injury was worth teasing Aellaria. Finally, Marin nodded and said, “I’m ready for Aellaria’s Illicit adventure.”