Ch. 9.2 — Northlands. Expanse. Zwischenland. Ruins_The Glass Wizard - The tale of a somewhat depressed wizard

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It was not just the sky.

As he stood and stared and strained his eyes against the vast expanse of nothingness that surrounded him, Yves realised that he could not recognise any light beyond the radius of the Vicha. He saw nothing beyond its twisted threshold.

It was night, so yes, everything was dark. Yet, in the distance, the storm persisted, thunder reverberating through the desolation. Yves knew there must be lightning slashing through the firmament. But no matter where or how long he looked, he did not see a single streak of gold cleaving through the enveloping blackness.

How far did the Vicha's influence extend? A meagre two kilometres, perhaps even less?

Yves could not see light past two kilometres.

Yves could not see past two kilometres.

A mere three months past, he had revelled in the brilliance of 𝞨𝟁𝞬’s cosmic canvas. He had beheld the radiant stars and the two majestic moons that graced the firmament, oblivious to the impending eclipse that would forever obliterate their presence. The aftermath of the storm left him haunted by their absence.

Throughout the tempest that had relentlessly pursued him from the lighthouse, Yves had been oblivious to the decay of his surroundings. Rain and mist, unrelenting in their assault, had veiled his vision to the point where they had swallowed even his outstretched hand, leaving him blind to the encroaching darkness until now.

Until yesterday, Yves had relied on his second sight to discern the energies in his immediate surroundings. Even during the previous afternoon, when the rain had ceased for the first time in forever, respite had been fleeting, confined to mere hundreds of meters. The clouds and fog never dispersed between the unyielding rainstorms. Their newfound absence gave him nothing but impenetrable darkness. Yves heard thunder, but saw no lightning — which meant that all phantom presences of light were lost to him beyond this distance.

In the realm of phantom presences, lightning manifests intensely compressed light. In its potency, it surpasses all other natural phantom presences within the Material Dimension. Its density of light fragments outshines daylight, fire, and anything created by the commonplace lightgiver artefact. Wherever Yves could not discern lightning through first sight, all other phantom presences of light would remain elusive, including the subtle, ever-moving nuances birthed by the sun. He was blind to anything past two kilometres.

It could be even less. It was too difficult to tell at night.

When did this happen? Since when was he this short-sighted? Since his return to the crater? Did it manifest abruptly, a consequence of the shift, or had it evolved gradually over the past three weeks? Was this diminishing a one-time occurrence – a result of the Vicha’s devouring, a change triggered by his mirror world transformation, or the repercussion of his harrowing return to the dual reality – or would his first sight continue to decrease at this relentless rate?

The world around him had been severed at its edges.

Everything was disappearing.

Everything was displaced by darkness.image [https://glasswizardchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/009.2_The-Glass-Wizard_Fantasy-Adventure-Magic-Webnovel-by-The-Duckman_Depressed-Wizard-Online-Webseries_Noise_17.1.png]

Yves hated darkness. He hated darkness even more when he knew that it was not even there, it was not even real. There were radiant stars, and the moon with her child, and, quite possibly, distorted yet beautiful fragments of light embedded everywhere throughout the expanse — they existed, tangible energies beyond his perception.

Yves had spent days entrenched underground, endured weeks in oppressive dungeons and caves, even delved into the recesses of the Albweiss Mountains. Yet, those experiences differed, for the darkness in those confines belonged to the places themselves. When Yves departed, the darkness remained there. This darkness, now, existed solely for him, a night that felt as if Teharun refused to set.

And like Teharun, who took all shifting energies from the world, this abhorrent night left Yves with nothing. Only his personal darkness remained. The expansive sight and energies from the sky realms, once teeming with winged beasts and dragons, were now beyond his reach, transformed into an obsidian ceiling overnight. Its pillars manifested as the ominous sensation of his world contracting, the last vestiges of light fading. It felt as though he again stood at the centre of his dome, as though he never escaped, besieged by encroaching darkness — a horrendous nothing closing in with every blink of the frantic-fearful eye, this Vicha born from an elf curse. It was a nothing that took nothing yet left nothing, consuming without taking from the world, devouring from within, impossible to outrun.

Leaning, his body pressed against the entrance of his refuge, Yves wrapped his arms tightly around his chest, clutching his drenched cloak against the cold that clung to his skin. He heard the noise. He slid down along the stone wall into a crouch. He trembled, still. His hearts raced in disarray. He heard the noise. The darkness drew closer, the black ceiling and the stone walls converging around him. Darkness and pain on the outside brought forth darkness and pain from the inside, and everything clashed and melded. And into the suffocating vacuum that gave Yves nothing to hold onto, seeped the haunting elf noise. And the noise grew and swelled around him and within him, and it submerged him in a maddening sea of sound. He heard the noise. He could not breathe. There was not enough air. There was no air. He heard the noise. He heard the noise. He heard the noise. He heard the noise He heard the noise he heard the noise he heard the noise the noise he heard the noise the noise 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖓𝖔𝖎𝖘𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖓𝖔𝖎𝖘𝖊 𝖍𝖊 𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖉 𝖓𝖔𝖎𝖘𝖊 𝖓𝖔𝖎𝖘𝖊 𝖓𝖔𝖎𝖘𝖊 𝖓𝖔𝖎𝖘𝖊

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Yves had crossed paths with an elf and lived. He had seen an elf through second sight, and whatever it was that he had seen, it had stared back at him.

He was a fledgling wizard of just half-eights, on his first journey through the dense forests of the Great Western Plains. This venture marked the commencement of his training at the academy, a treacherous path that led through the Veridian Expanse. The Veridian forests spanned a vast and perilous wilderness that served as the inaugural trial for aspiring novices and their familiars. Yves and Midnight navigated a journey fraught with dangers, but nearing the heart of the forest, the towering spires of the academy eventually loomed into view.

In the midst of the dense foliage, a harrowing scene unfolded before them — two figures racing past; an aged wizard and his familiar, a black Jabarrah bird. The wizard bore severe wounds, and the Jabarrah, clinging to his tattered coat, faltered at the precipice of death, his body battered, with wings broken and feathers torn. They fought the most terrifying battle Yves had ever seen.

In the shadows of the forest, Yves witnessed the emergence of dark light, ethereal beams of void, unleashed by the wizard upon his relentless pursuer, the elf.

The elf was but a flicker at the edge of perception — he moved with such swiftness that Yves only recognised him when he had already closed the distance. The elf ensnared the wizard with an unseen force, suspending him mid-air, contorting and torturing his body, ripping apart the wizard’s limbs, his presence and magic shaking Yves to the core.

image [https://glasswizardchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/009.2_The-Glass-Wizard_Fantasy-Adventure-Magic-Webnovel-by-The-Duckman_Depressed-Wizard-Online-Webseries_Noise_19.png]Elves are sickly, nightmarish entities of pure, unrestrained and unbearable 𝖓⃦̳̿𝖔⃦̳̿𝖎⃦̳̿𝖘⃦̳̿𝖊⃦̳̿ [noise].

Their presence distorts all senses of a wizard. Their existence is a living dissonance, a disorienting and jarring scream that warps everything around them. Their breath is the guttural rushing of flooding fire, their voice the roar of an inferno – both silent to the ear but devastating to the mind. Their being devastates the gentle melodies of the forest; a violent, chaotic clash of sound capable of driving even the most composed wizards to madness. Their laughter erupts as high-pitched shrieks that shatter shards and crystals, and their screams echo like the wails of a thousand tortured specters.

Scripture holds that they had once been sensible beings of beauty and grace, but that they were corrupted by ancient and unspeakable forces. Now, they are a wandering plague, obliterating everything they touch and leaving nothing but destruction in their wake. Their touch is a thousand needles piercing your skin, each puncture transferring more terrible noise. To face an elf is to face the embodiment of chaos, the very essence of madness.

Their Rothar is an infernal blaze. If you look at them with your second sight, it burns away your sight. Yves had only looked for the blink of an eye, saved by Midnight. If she had not sunk her teeth into his arm, hurling him to the ground that very instant, his sight would have been forever lost.

The elf noticed their intrusion and unleashed a blast of energy that sent them hurtling backward. Yves crashed into a tree, the impact fracturing his skull, shattering ribs, and breaking limbs. In agony from his burning eyes, physical torment, and the maddening noise reverberating through the forest and his mind, Yves passed out.

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As awareness seeped back into him, Yves found himself in darkness, surrounded by hushed voices. He was in a healers' chamber. He was at the academy. Both he and Midnight, equally battered and wounded, owed their lives to the intervention of master wizards. According to what he was later told, academy masters had responded to magical energies, likely a signal prompted by Master Raidenbarl. Their immediate arrival had driven off the elf. They had found Yves and Midnight at the brink of death, but the healers had managed to salvage their lives.

It had taken years of meditation for Yves to direct his memory past the sickening echoes of the elf noise and to recollect at least fragments of the incident. The initial days of recovery were equally blurry, an agonizing mess of fear and confusion. For the first hours after waking, the elf noise never left him, and he was reduced to an unconscious amalgam of pain and screams and panic that would put any senseless beast to shame. Gradually, the healers subdued his torment, intervening and coaxing his body to preserve its dwindling strength in the fight for survival. As the healers worked on Yves, his panic reactions eventually subsided. He began to rein in his breathing, and to recognise and respond to voices amidst the turmoil within. Far beneath all the noise in his mind, the first subtle thoughts emerged. Fear gripped him — He was horrified to feel his body shattered, restricted in his movement, unable to sit up or turn his head. Blindfolded constantly with a cloth that denied even the solace of second sight, he felt the hands of strangers probing and mending and forcing their energies into him. And he was horribly afraid for Midnight, from whom he had never been separated in his life, but who was treated separately from him, by healers specialised in the care of beasts. It took constant attention from the academy’s master healers to keep both of them alive.

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The aptitude for healing stands as one of the rarest magical abilities, second only to achieving the credibility of an Oracle. Healers are, in the terms of spectra, Worldbenders whose disposition lies right between that of a shifter and a creator.

— 𝔚𝔬𝔯𝔩𝔡𝔟𝔢𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔯 —

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Worldbenders are disposed to shaping the physical world. Like elementers, healers thereby breach the confines of their own being. Yet, while elementers are confined to the manipulation of fire, water and air, healers exert their influence over the bodies of living beings. This ability is reminiscent of the transformative powers wielded by shapeshifters, who alter their own forms.

While adjacent dispositions often share characteristics, healing goes beyond mere manipulation, delving into the ethereal realms of Transcender reading and wandering abilities. This connection is unique, as it bridges dispositions that do not touch —

Yes? Ah, you have not learned your letters yet. Only the capitals? Good for you. Very well, here:

ℭ – C

𝔈 – E

ℑ – I

𝔖 – S

The rest you can gather from context. That is one the best ways to learn. Also, please do not hesitate to interrupt sooner.

It is worth noting that the spectra of magical dispositions form a circular continuum.

Shapeshifters, defined as creators within the Worldbender spectrum, border on the abilities of Lightshifter illusionists.

— 𝔏𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔰𝔥𝔦𝔣𝔱𝔢𝔯 —

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Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

On the perceptive end of lightshifting then lie seers, their abilities sharing similarities with the Transcender perceiver. Concluding the circle, Transcender world reading borders with Worldbender shifting. The elemental dominion of Worldbender shifters imparts a fraction of the profound understanding of matter and reality possessed by Transcender world readers.

— 𝔗𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔰𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔯 —

Against this background, you may now recognise the anomaly concerning healing —

Yes, of course.

𝔄 – A

𝔒 – O

𝔓 – P

This is the one most novices struggle with; actually not a capital letter:

𝔶 – y

But really, a novice of 𝔈𝔪𝔢𝔯𝔶 𝔗𝔥𝔲𝔯𝔪 should know better.

The art of healing demands that a wizard possess the perceptual acuity to discern the intricacies of a patient's body. This encompasses not only physical injuries but also damages to the Rothar. Depending on the healer's inherent potential, such perception delves into facets of soul and spirit reading — dispositions that, within the circular continuum, do not border on one another.

Some scholars go as far as to attribute wandering abilities to healers. They argue that the breadth of control required to infuse and direct a healer's energy into a body suffering from complex, life-threatening conditions mirrors the transfer of consciousness inherent in wandering. Individual healers have demonstrated such nuanced and all-encompassing control over a patient’s body that their craft can hardly be distinguished from wandering.

Well now, consider the infusion of a healer's energy as a conduit for directing and accelerating a patient’s recovery. Imagine, in the most simplistic way that is not yet concerned with the intricate and complex design of the wizard body, that you wanted to mend a broken bone. Make it an easy one. Imagine not an injury where half of the bone is shattered to hundreds of microscopic fragments with such a force that these fragments spread from your patient’s shoulder blade all the way to his lungs, while the other half is strewn across the deepest parts of a forest battleground just waiting for the whims of the next worst fate-distorting witch; do yourself a favour and envision instead a straightforward fracture, a singular, clear-cut break between two pieces of bone. Allow yourself the comfort of not imagining a patient on the precipice of death, who screams and twists and fights back in pain before you can even get close to touching him. Instead, envision a serene and motionless patient who will not bleed dry with every second that you delay doing your thing.

For healing a broken bone, it is not enough to shift the pieces back into place. You need to make them stick. Now, an earth shifter can take two rocks and hold one balancing atop the other as long as he pours energy into maintaining their position. If he stops, gravity will have its way. A skilled earth shifter can reshape and fuse the rocks to maintain stability even after he lets go of them. He can take two rocks and turn them into one. And if you look at the other elements, you can say that even the average potato-farmer human could take two cups of water, pour both into one kettle, and thus make one water. Oh, how much we have in common after all.

You, however, are not a bone wizard, or a muscle wizard, or a sinew wizard. You do not work with the material, but you make the material work. Your craft lies in orchestrating the body’s inherent restorative processes. For that, you need to channel your own energy into your patient. You use your energy to activate, guide, and expedite his body’s natural healing mechanisms.

Extending your senses to see and feel what needs to be done brings you as close to a Transcender reader or wanderer as a Worldbender can get. Essentially, you are a puppeteer for your patient's body. You put everything into place by deftly manoeuvring his physiological strings. Your patient’s body mends the broken bone. You help him to do so in days, not months.

For Yves, it had been two month.

Every day, he feared that Midnight would die, and that he might never again see or walk or wield magic. He just had half-eights. He had started his journey to Emery Thurm with the illusion of becoming a great wizard, but in the literal blink of an eye, he had been tossed into the abhorrent life of a cripple. There were days where he wished to be dead, and others where he swore to become the most gruesome elf hunter the continent had ever seen.

Beneath raw pain, fear and seething anger, Yves could discern a novel sensation emerging within himself. Amidst everything that was wrong with his body and everything that shifted around in his body, something was new. Something stirred. Something unfamiliar yet discernible had taken root, something that wasn’t Midnight or the healers’ energies, something he could not explain. It felt like a foreign presence that was simultaneously him and not him, like a third heartbeat that persisted unyieldingly through panic-induced convulsions and moments of unconsciousness.

It took a relentless barrage of skilled hands, numerous attempts, intricate strategies, and unwavering vigilance from the healers before Yves regained his sight. Throughout the painstaking process, the healers opted to keep his eyes shrouded beneath the blindfold, allowing him only brief glimpses of his surroundings during periodic assessments of his progress. During one such test, as Yves reclaimed enough of his regular sight to perceive his immediate surroundings, he saw it. At first, Yves mistook it for an elaborate cast. Then he recognised it for what it truly was — fused with his left forearm was the silver beak of the Jabarrah bird that had been Master Raidenbarl’s familiar.

The beak had become one with his body, merged with his elbow like two flat silver bones that grew on the outside. To the unsuspecting eye, it looked like a set of curved and connected armour pieces that ran from his elbow to his hand, but it was not an external attachment; it was an intrinsic part of his arm. Yves felt the rigid, smooth surface of the beak fused with his flesh. And then he remembered the changes he had felt within.

In the ensuing weeks, as he explored these newfound sensations, Yves came to understand that the Jabarrah had merged with him in a manner both profound and incomprehensible. Yves could not discern the familiar’s presence as separate from his own, yet he was more because the Jabarrah was now with him. His essence had entered Yves’ body and became a part of him. Despite the absence of a distinct bond like that he shared with Midnight, Yves felt an unspoken connection with the Jabarrah — a powerful beast that, in a strange twist of fate, had bestowed upon him a second chance at life.

The masters at the academy were equally captivated and confounded by this unprecedented phenomenon. The fusion between a wizard and a familiar posed an enigma. Even in the throes of death, familiars did not merge with their wizards, let alone with a stranger. The prevailing consensus among the masters was that the presence of the elf, a being as perilous as it was rare, induced this abnormal occurrence.

Master Raidenbarl was a formidable tutor known for his excursions into the forests in search of unique herbs or energies. It might have been a chance encounter. It might have been a hunt. Elves are notorious for hunting familiars, particularly midnight stalkers. Presumably, the elf coveted the unique magical properties of the Jabarrah.

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The jabarrah is a striking bird of prey that is renowned for its magical potential, and it only ever approaches wizards when establishing itself as a familiar. Its feathers appear in rich shades of blue and green, complemented by deep blue eyes and a long, sand-coloured beak with a distinctive hook-like curve.

As a midnight stalker, the particular jabarrah that merged with Yves had possessed silver eyes, while his feathers and talons had been naturally black. The familiar’s age and Master Raidenbarl's magical competence had contributed to the transformation of the Jabarrah's beak into full silver, accompanied by an abundance of silver feathers that allowed for the storage of substantial magical energy.

Yves remembered the battered state of the Jabarrah. While uncertain of the exact circumstances surrounding Master Raidenbarl's death, Yves had been informed that he had already fallen when the other masters arrived on the battlefield. Everything had happened much too fast, leaving Yves with fragmented memories distorted by pain and fear. It was plausible that the elf had killed Master Raidenbarl before turning on Yves and Midnight.

The Jabarrah, however, had evaded capture by merging with Yves. Although Yves could not trust his memories, fragmented images occasionally flashed in his mind. These disjointed recollections hinted at the possibility that the Jabarrah had intercepted the elf's attack, acting as a shield for Yves and Midnight in the critical moment they were struck. The specifics of their fusion remained equally elusive — whether it occurred just before or after the elf's assault, and whether it was initiated by the Jabarrah or forced by the elf. The familiar might have identified Yves as a novice student of the academy, or sensed something special in him, or recognised a natural connection to Midnight, given their shared midnight stalker nature. It was also plausible that the Jabarrah, in the face of imminent capture or death, simply saw no viable alternative but to merge with Yves, him being the sole living wizard on the battlefield.

Whatever the Jabarrah had intended, the masters acknowledged that his impact on Yves had been profound and transformative. The healers went so far as to credit the familiar with Yves' survival, suggesting that he had played an active role in keeping Yves alive until the masters found him.

Yves' tutors perceived the Rothar of the Jabarrah within him and observed his influence on Yves’ magic. His shards exhibited greater strength and potency compared to his commilita, coupled with an element of unpredictability in their design. As of today, the illusions that came most naturally to Yves were not copies of Midnight, but birds, particularly those that took after the Jabarrah, with his curved beak, grand wingspan, and imposing talons. While his second sight continued to decline, Yves demonstrated exceptional resilience against the intrusion of Transcender wanderers from a young age, a defence far surpassing the expected protection offered by a young familiar like Midnight.

Throughout his student years, academy healers relentlessly attended to his eyes, but their efforts only slowed the degeneration temporarily. Many had tried, but not even renowned masters could halt, let alone reverse the continuing degeneration. The impending loss of his second sight cast Yves into a bleak future where he faced the prospect of severance from all world energies. Adhar and Rothar will be lost to him. The healers warned him that even his first sight would eventually fade, leaving him completely blind. Once blind, Yves might still cobble together meagre glass shards and rudimentary illusions, borne out of sheer routine, guesswork, and luck — creations as crippled as he would be, despairing and humiliating. You would never dignify them as magic, unless you took great pity on him.

This desperate plight became the driving force behind his pursuit of artefacts. He set out in pursuit of knowledge, seeking tomes and tools that extended beyond the academy's resources. Conventional teachings and methods had failed him, all that was taught and done offered no salvation, so he ventured into the realms of the lost, the forbidden and the unknown. He sought travellers who had witnessed the obscure and mythical, wizards whose arcane wisdom stemmed from unconventional sources, and other peoples who honed unique skills. He was granted audiences with esteemed healers like The Wizard With Six Arms, oracles, shamans, and, in his most desperate and darkest moments, even witches.

The only individual claiming the power to fully restore Yves' eyesight was the witch mother who reigned in the Yellowtop Mountain Range. In stark contrast to the legion of healers and shamans who had often made promises only to falter, she presented a unique proposition — three challenges that, if met, promised the restoration of his eyesight.

From the moment her first challenge was issued, Yves dedicated his life to fulfilling her demands. The enigmatic tasks revolved around gaining mastery over the mirror dimension. Under her guidance, he delved into the creation of his ethereal mirrors, the initial requirement she had imposed. Mastering access to the mirror dimension was the prerequisite for the next task. To fulfil her second demand, yet undisclosed, he first needed to see and navigate the dimension, and to wield magic there. Whenever Yves pressed for explanations and transparency, the witch mother had remained cryptic about the purpose behind these challenges, asserting only that they were integral to unlocking the solution for restoring his eyesight. Upon fulfilling her third demand, she claimed the key to fixing his eyes would be revealed. Their pact had been forged many years ago, when Yves had still been young and oblivious to the existence and complexities of dimensional planes — let alone 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔩𝔪 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔊𝔬𝔡𝔰, as the Stalker had called it.

Yes, to trust a witch was to court either heresy or folly, contingent on her true intentions. A blind wizard, however, could not blink twice before he was a dead wizard. If his body did not deteriorate on its own without access to Adhar, witches, mercenaries and the King Brothers were all too eager to pick off useless wizards. Whatever atrocity the witch mother had planned, if Yves strayed from their agreement, he would not be around long enough to see the world burn. He would die, and she would find the next best Lightshifter to do her bidding instead.

If he endured to see the world through healed eyes, his magic would transcend his current limitations. With the ability to perceive light fragments, his light magic would unveil unparalleled possibilities. Yves had just one-eighths. Seven-eighths of the average wizard's lifespan still lay ahead of him. He had faced a choice — he could opt for a noble sacrifice, confront the witch mother, and risk dying either during the battle or shortly after. Alternatively, he could comply with her demands, see his eyes restored, and live another 175 years of dedicated witch and elf hunting.

Naturally, he had tried to learn and prepare himself for whatever lay ahead with the the second Mirror World challenge or a potential betrayal. Since he began collecting the parts to create the ethereal mirrors, Yves had immersed himself in understanding dimensional planes, particularly the correlation between his dual reality and the Mirror World. However, information remained elusive, especially since he was not a Transcender world reader. Deciphering it proved even more challenging. After years of toil, Yves had little more than a few vague snippets on the Mirror Plane. The original scroll of arcane knowledge that enabled him to craft the ethereal mirrors remained hidden at the academy.

New information was scarce and cryptic, akin to scattered puzzle pieces refusing to be connected. Unveiling hidden truths required piecing together fragments of information from one end of the continent with those that lay buried at the other, a daunting challenge stretching over decades. If you hoped to find anything not already collected, deciphered, or locked away by the academy or prominent organisations of treasure hunters such as the Crimson Circle, you faced formidable challenges. Greater forces than Yves had long amassed and safeguarded most of this arcane knowledge. All Yves could do, through the messages Midnight carried, was implore their help and services.

Since his return after sealing the tunnel, he had meticulously combed through his meagre archives, searching for insights into the correlation between water and the towering ashen wades that were its mirror world counterpart. Broadening his research, he had sifted through and sorted all the information he possessed on the correlation between dimensional planes, but found only general snippets on Transcender world reading, never on the specifics of actual dimensional transgression.

He had tried to find anything that could shed light on his transformation. Could he reverse whatever had happened to his eyes after returning? Would it worsen if he dared enter the mirror dimension again? Was there any possibility to make it better? It had been no use. Yves had too little and needed too much. At the culmination of his studies at the academy, he had been an exceptional student. Since then, he had learned the ins and outs of the average artefact hunt. A diligent scholar throughout, he had translated and researched his tomes for weeks on end when seeking respite from injuries or to occupy his mind after a physically or mentally demanding quest. However, the answers he sought remained elusive. The arcane knowledge he sought was reserved for Oracles and luminaries, eminent authorities who had not just eight but more likely eighty years, with unrestricted access to the academy's immense reservoir of wisdom and extensive resources to research their spectrum.

The unexpected arrival of the Vicha had disrupted Yves' plans, leaving him insufficient time to conclude his research in the lighthouse, even with the limited tomes he possessed. Despite the strain of their journey to the human habitat and through the Northlands plateau, he had felt a flicker of anticipation to see the lighthouse again. It was his refuge. It was broken and not beautiful, but it still stood. It could no longer send out light for the desperate and the daring that were lost at sea or desert, however, it still beheld the lights casted within its rooms. Over the years, Yves had transformed it into a place of his own making. Even though it offered not a comfortable life, it offered comfort. It was centre of calm amidst the everlasting storms that plagued hundreds of kilometres of monster-ridden desert coast — the first place Yves thought of when contemplating the concept of home.

His initial plan had been to stay for weeks, not mere days. Following that, he had intended to travel together with Midnight, not split up. That was all before the encounter with the Stalker, before sealing the tunnel. Back then, Yves had believed that he had at least five to six, perhaps even another seven years to somehow figure everything out before going blind. He had even felt a sense of optimism, observing the strides he made in controlling his mirror world form. A year ago, during his renewed audience with the witch mother, he had genuinely believed that he could fulfil their arrangement — she had at last disclosed the third challenge. Her demand involved the pursuit of the elusive Crystalline Trench, a challenge that had initially led Yves and Midnight to the central Northlands. For a diverse array of reasons, they ended up gathering research from the human habitat. And as a result of what they found, Yves had decided to persuade the Crimson Baerras to take them to sea.

If they succeeded in locating and gathering the crystals from the Trench, and if Yves then completed the witch mother's second demand in the Mirror Dimension, she would restore his eyes. Despite everything, this … had not changed. In the midst of losing sight of the present, he needed to envision this future.

Yves struggled back to his feet, then onto the sled. He pressed forward; the moons and stars gone, and the darkness ever closer.

image [https://glasswizardchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/009.2_The-Glass-Wizard_Fantasy-Adventure-Magic-Webnovel-by-The-Duckman_Depressed-Wizard-Online-Webseries_Yves_Blindfolded.png]

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Ch. 9.2 — Northlands. Expanse. Zwischenland. Ruins

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