Monday of his third week began as routine. Micah finally managed to get up a few minutes before Ryan got to his room by forcing his body to roll out of bed. Not wanting to fall, it lurched to a stand. Half his blanket slipped down in the process and he stumbled onto it with one foot, got caught up with the other. A quick windmilling of his arms set everything right again.
Phew.
Number one priority was to keep quiet but half-asleep, he expressed his thoughts in groans.
“Grng?” Meaning, Pants?
“Erh?” Oh, the blanket hid them. Stupid blanket.
A look around and, “Hm?” translated to, Is Ryan not here yet? And I haven’t woken anybody up. Yes!
He picked up his shoes and headed for the door, then spun right back around as he remembered. Careful not to stumble over Lanh’s backpack in the aisle—Micah would have to talk to him about that sometime—he fetched his keys from his desk and crossed the distance to Vladi’s bed.
“Vladi,” he whispered, shaking his leg through the covers. “Vladi. Vladimir. You wanted me to wake you up.”
“Gmr,” Vladi spoke.
Micah couldn’t translate that. He thought about it for a moment, scratched his cheek, then tore the guy’s blanket off. Vladi curled up in a ball to escape the cold. Micah headed out. He’d tried his best, but there was only so much he could do without waking up the others.
He had gotten used to sharing a room from living at Ryan’s place for a few months—and he’d shared a room with Prisha when he was very little—but having roommates was still weird. Micah kind of wished he could have gotten a room with the other guy after all. There were double rooms, he knew. Why couldn’t they have gotten one of those?
He struggled into his shoes and headed for the glass doors of the bridge just as Ryan came down the stairwell in the opposite building. He paused a few steps back from his own. So much for not minding the cold.
Micah steeled himself and opened the door, then rushed through the morning chill to the other side.
He should have brought his fire resistance ring with him. But it lay forgotten in his closet back in the room, along with the rest of his magic equipment. Whenever he slipped it on, a warmth spread over him for a second. He just forgot to wear it half the time because it was new, and a ring, and he was a teenager. It drew attention, so it stayed in his pocket instead.
On the other side of the bridge, he pressed his back against the door to make it shut quicker and noticed the clock on the wall. He frowned at Ryan. “You’re later than usual.” So he hadn’t managed to wake up earlier after all? Aw.
“Had to pee,” Ryan mumbled, “didn’t want to get out of bed.”
“Oh.”
They headed off, through the hallways, to the foyer, and out. With another person joining, it was much easier to head into the chill. Even if Ryan had an unfair advantage. They took the streets just outside the Guild at a slow jog rather than shuffle through its halls and headed in through the Southwestern entrance. On the other side, they took a left instead of a right.
Micah had learned fairly soon, he did not want to run over an hour every morning to do a single lap around the Tower. It was extremely exhausting and time consuming, even with Ryan’s aura helping.
Ryan only disliked the wasted time. They still had to get ready for school and get to the cafeteria early to grab some grub, so they treated their morning runs more like warm-ups.
In through the Southwest, they headed for the Western portal and halfway back again, and found a lawn to do some exercises on. Most recently, a mixture between push-ups and jumping jacks, after some stretches and warm-ups. That cut the distance down by half and saved them time.
A quick shower and it was Micah’s favorite time of the day—breakfast. Scrambled eggs, toast, mini-sausages and fruit. Jam. Peanut butter and jam. Or ham and cheese, if he wanted. Butter. So much butter that melted on warm bread. They got free reign and barely had to wait in line because they got there early.
Breakfast was so good, it made Micah wonder if they had different cooks for the different times of day. Or did they order all this stuff from someplace else? He’d have to ask Mrs. Elle the next time he went to steal their compost.
Mm … Should he even still be doing that, though? Sure, Dennis liked it. And the young groundskeeper had leveled from their last project, but he hadn’t gotten [Green Thumb]. One of his colleagues had and she wasn’t always here and she didn’t want to spend all day doing nothing but watering plants. She wanted to level, too, after all.
Micah wondered if using tools to meet a need would reduce the chances of getting a Skill that did the same.
“You’re Micah Stranya, right?” someone asked him, interrupting his thoughts. In the aisle next to him was that friend-guy of Shala’s. The older one with the butler. Shala stood at his side. He was about half a head taller and had a rounder face, but because of structure. He looked fit.
Micah finished his bite and nodded, chewing as quickly as he could so he could swallow to talk. Meanwhile, Ryan and Lisa gave the newcomers suspicious looks, one arm wrapped protectively around their plates.
“Yeah. Hey there, Shala,” he greeted him and got a nod in return. “And you are …?”
“Navid Madin,” he held a hand out, so Micah shook it. It could be a little firmer, he thought, but the guy did a sharp squeeze, so Micah squeezed back. A more eccentric handshake, he supposed. He liked it.
There was a pause. Micah wondered if he should invite him to sit or something, but the two didn’t even have food yet. Did he want something …? Wait, they didn’t have group homework again and Micah had forgotten, right? He’d accidentally done one of those on his own last week.
Lisa snorted and went back to eating.
Navid stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned back a little. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Sion said I should.”
Micah blinked. “Who’s Sion?”
“Me.” Shala pointed at himself.
“Oh?” Micah stared for a moment. “Oh!” Oh, right. Shala had been his last name on that list. He’d forgotten. In his mind, the other guy had somehow become his last name. “Right. Sha— Sion, right.”
He could feel the heat creeping up his face.
“You can still call me Shala.”
“Oh, thank fudge. Sorry.” He tried to seem properly embarrassed by the mix-up. Thankfully, the other guy didn’t seem to mind.
“And you’re … Ryan?” Navid asked, one hand still in his pocket as he offered a hand. “Ryan Payne? You spoke on the first day.”
“Yeah.”
They shook hands and Micah noticed the Madin symbol for Hadica, Gardens, on his cufflinks. Shiny.
“And you …”
“If you forgot my name, I’d be happy to leave it that way,” Lisa commented.
He smiled. “How could I forget you, Chandler?”
“By hitting your head?” she offered. “I could help out with that if you’d like.”
Navid took it in stride and addressed Micah again. “Your grandfather worked with us for years, you know? Decades, really. It—”
“He did?” Micah interrupted him. “Which one?”
“On your … father’s side. Mikhail.”
Oh. Micah knew little about the man. Unlike his other grandfather, he’d never even met him since he had died, long before Micah had been born. He jumped on the idea to learn more. “What did he do?”
“He was a liaison, of sorts, you might say,” Navid told him. “He worked for us in estate management.”
“He was a realtor?” Ryan asked.
Navid weighed his head slightly. “In a way.”
“Awesome,” Micah said. “I never knew.”
“Well, it’s good that you do now.” Navid smiled a very white smile. Micah was seeing more and more of those lately. It made him wonder if he should work on alchemical toothpaste.
“The past is important,” he went on. “It’s a shame your father did not follow in his father’s footstep. But then again, neither have you, it would seem?”
“Nope,” Micah said with a smile, “and I agree. With everything.” He did want to know more about his family because the past was important. And it was a shame his father hated the Tower as much as he did, nor had Micah followed in his footsteps. He gave Shala an appreciative look. He had cool friends.
“I’m glad. It would also be … awesome if we could rectify that mistake, don’t you think? Foster a similar relationship, you and I. Either here at the school or in the future.” He gestured off-handedly.
Micah was about to nod out of habit when he weighed his head instead. “Being a realtor sounds … cool. It does. I love property and architecture.” He frowned. It sounded weird just saying that. He didn’t know why. “But, uhm, I already have a calling. I’m an [Alchemist]. I want to become a climber. That’s sort of why I’m here. Aren’t you?”
Behind him, Shala chuckled.
“Of course, of course,” Navid said. “But in other matters, also. Just think on it, Micah. Have a nice breakfast. Ryan?”
Ryan twitched.
“Chandler?”
“Go away,” she grumbled. “I’m eating.”
He shook his head and left.
“Later, Shala.”
He raised a hand in an over-the-shoulder salute. “Later, Stranya.”
Micah turned around and stacked some food to shove into his mouth, chewing happily. So his grandfather had been a realtor? He’d never known. He learned something new every day.
After a moment, Ryan asked, “What was that?”
“Stupid power play,” Lisa commented.
Micah frowned and mumbled around a mouth full of food, “Powah pleh?”
She gave him a look. “Your grandfather worked ‘with’ them— Oh, no. I’m sorry. ‘For’ them? And he would love to rectify that mistake?” She shrugged. “Power play. Not his best, I’ll admit. Still annoying.”
Micah swallowed. “Oh. I thought … Wasn’t he just being nice? You know, introducing himself to people?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Maybe not,” Ryan added.
“If not … did he win?”
Ryan shook his head. “I don’t think you were playing. You left him hanging there, Micah. Not cool,” he joked.
“At least, in the end,” Lisa added. “You gave some ground in the middle, nodding along like that.”
“Huh. Cool. Are you still going to eat that?”
When she didn’t react fast enough, Micah reached over to steal one of the sausages she’d shoved off to the side of her plate. Her eyes went wide and she slapped his hand away, knocking over her cup of water.
“Micah,” Ryan complained as it swept over to his side of the table.
“Sorry! I’ll go get— Uhm, hm.”
“Towels?” he asked. “To clean it up?”
Micah shook his head. “Hold your hand in it.” He reached a hand into his pocket and slipped on the fire resistance ring, felt the familiar fall and rise of its scales and a warm hug spread all over.
“What?”
“Hold your hand in the water and turn up [Hot Skin] as much as you can.”
He squinted at him. “Why?”
“Just do it. I wanna try something.”
After a moment, Ryan sighed and placed his hand in the largest part of the puddle. Micah considered laughing and telling him it was a prank, but watched the water get warmer and warmer instead. Its colors seemed to bleach in the heat essence. In a way that made them seem more real, like they were one step closer than everything else.
It was still extremely slow. Micah was beginning to panic. How was he going to tell Ryan he stuck his hand in the water for nothing?
From one moment to the next, the entire puddle warmed up. He frowned at Lisa. “Are you doing something?”
“I’m doing something.”
“Thanks.”
“Does this mean I can take my hand out of the puddle?” Ryan asked.
“No—”
“Yes,” Lisa interrupted. “You’d interfere with the spell, otherwise.”
Micah frowned. “He would?”
“He has about half a dozen auras close to him that’ll interfere with any kind of mana shaping you try to do around him,” Lisa explained. “Haven’t you ever heard of the kid that floated?”
“Uhm …?”
Ryan frowned at her, too. “Do you mean the children’s story about how a magic item made a girl float because she still had her imagination, but did nothing for adults? What does that have to do with anything?”
Lisa hesitated. “Maybe not the best example. Kernel of truth? The point is, it’s easier to manipulate mana around children than adults. Adults have more numerous, more mature, and more rigid magic radiation coming off from them.” Her eyes lit up all the sudden. “Oh, what about that mage who saved a kid who fell from a bridge but couldn’t do the same for its mother?”
“Are you talking about … the Ferryman’s Grandson?” Ryan asked.
“Am I?”
“The daughter of a ferryman falls in love with a married man. His wife and child fall off of a bridge one day and she saves the child but lets the woman die so she can take her place?”
Her face fell. “Oh. Well. The good news is … she couldn’t have saved her even if she wanted to?”
There was enough heat to work with—it wasn’t a lot of water—so Micah interrupted their conversation by grabbing Ryan’s hand and shaking it violently to make the water splash. Then he lifted it off and cast, “[Dissettle].”
Some of the water rose off the table as mist, like he’d planned. What he hadn’t planned was that it wasn’t all of it … and the rest still splashed onto their clothes or stuck to Ryan’s hand.
He got unamused looks for that.
“Oops?”
“Here,” Lisa said and did something to make the final few droplets rise into steam and join the rest.
There was a thin cloud above their table now, quickly dissipating. Micah had long since started shaping mana over his glass. Doing this was practically second nature to him. He had practiced for months.
A funnel of spiraling water, currents extending out into the air around it. He held that in his mind and hoped his mana would follow its image. Slowly, it would be tainted by that and start drawing water from the air. The essences would follow. But only then would Micah know if he was actually doing it right. He could see the water essences. They revealed a bit of the funnel shape, but …
He glanced over at Lisa.
“Don’t look at me,” she told him. “Keep it up.”
Micah sighed and looked back. The water and its essence slowly gathered, flimsy, thin, and Micah half-wished it seemed as real to him as heat essence did. He wanted it to be there. Visible. But the more he focused on that image, the harder it got to keep it. The less water he drew.
And why should you?
Micah frowned at the thought. Did water … not want to condense together if it was warmer? Of course not. Now that he was forcing it to, he realized as much. Dragging it down through the funnel was harder and harder. What if he let go?
Or what if he—
He looked to the side and searched the currents of wind essence passing through the room, waited for breeze to past by and focused on that instead.
Micah, what are you—
Shh!
What is more real? his mind asked. That which you perceive it to be or that which is? The colors on the stone or the stone itself? Set it out in the sun and rain and which will decay first? The illusion.
The tiny pin-prick of the breeze he focused on expanded and warped the air around itself, to the exclusion of all else. It was a distorted bubble in the room now, only broken by lazy currents of wind passing through. But it dominated the warmth. A different kind of real. Heavy and far away. Something that would last.
Cold.
Water poured down into his glass.
[Skill — Condense Water obtained!]
“Ah?”
----------------------------------------
“That was it?” Micah demanded from Mrs. Burke as they filed into the classroom. “I just needed to make it colder? Argh!” He ruffled the back of his head. “I hate spellcasting. It’s stupid. Everything’s stupid. I could have gotten that Skill months ago.”
On a whim, he chose to sit in the front right row rather than the back so he could keep the conversation going.
Lisa had a spring in her step as she sat down next to him and Ryan dropped onto the seat to her right. She seemed happy he’d finally figured the spell out. It kept him from complaining about how she hadn’t told him of his mistake sooner. At least, now he could say he had earned it on his own … right?
Like hell!
“Not spell casting,” Lisa told him. “Physics. Of course, you’ll have to make the air colder if you want to condense water from it.”
“To be fair,” Mrs. Burke added as she sat her things down on the desk, “it’s a little spellcasting. I imagine a … third? Fourth anchor? Added sensory imagery, anyhow; it helped.”
“Uhm, mental image, structure, motion, and … cold?” Micah counted. “How do you count?”
“Four,” Lisa told him. “Mental image, structure, motion, and [Essence Sight]. You were doing something there separate from the spell itself, beforehand. That distortion of cold?”
He remembered that much. How had he done it?
“I don’t know about this [Essence Sight] of yours, but you might just have used it as a stop-gap to add the mental imagery,” their teacher said. “Either way, there’s a simple way to find out.”
They looked at her expectantly.
She shrugged and got the keys to the backroom out. “Just cast it out loud again. See what happens.”
Micah was a little confused. What was even the question? “Are you wondering if I need to look to cast it?”
Lisa nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. It’s possible. Either you added the cold to your mental imagery to make it more sophisticated—adding other senses like temperature, taste, and smell can do that—or you used your [Essence Sight] to fuel the cold essence in the area around your spell, requiring line of sight.”
So he’d used [Essence Sight] to fuel the cold? Was this about how perception was power again?
“But then again, most spells will require line of sight until you’re more experienced,” Mrs. Burke commented as she ducked away.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Micah hesitated and slowly got up. Lisa and Ryan looked at him. He walked over to the sink in the corner of the room, the others still looking, and closed his eyes. Facing the sink, he held up both hands, left one cupped slightly, the other as a funnel, and cast, “[Condense Water].”
Like second nature, he could shape the mana as easy as saying it now. Almost physically, he could feel a chill go through his body. Right. He would barely need to think and definitely didn’t have to look to add a cold effect. His mana already felt like a heavy stream in the winter.
The sound of something wet pattered into the sink and he kept it going. With closed eyes and a smile, he asked over the noise, “Did it work?”
He already knew the answer.
“Don’t sound so cocky. If you dry out this room and ruin my skin, I’ll have you study moisturizing spells for a month on end,” Mrs. Burke told him as she carried in the treasure chest.
“Apologies, ma’am,” he said and cut the spell off. But he still smiled as he sat back down. Leaning forward, a quick look to the side got him a smile from Ryan in return.
Finally, he had learned his first proper spell. Next time, he told himself, he was going to make sure he didn’t make a stupid mistake like that again. It almost made him want to put in a request to change his schedule and take a spellcraft course. He would probably have learned about it there.
It wasn’t like Lisa would tell him if he made a stupid mistake, he thought and glared at her.
She smiled right back at him. Stupid Lisa.
“So, what spell are you going to learn next?” Mrs. Burke asked him instead of starting class right away.
“Uhm, [Chill] maybe?” Micah asked. “Or something like it. I could reverse-study [Condense Water] to get it more easily, right? And I could use it for my alchemy and to cool Ryan in the summer.”
He needed spells other [Alchemists] would get from their Paths.
“[Chill] is a tricky one. Most cold spells are. But is Ryan a hot-head, then?” she asked, smiling over at him.
“No, ma’am,” Ryan said. “At least, I don’t think so.”
“He is,” Micah corrected him, “it’s just literal.”
That demanded explanation.
It was a few more minutes before class finally started and Mrs. Burke began with a short lecture on the necessities for Skill-confirmation of self-taught spells.
“What’s the difference between an uppercase Skill and lowercase skill?” she asked. “What do you need to do to get one over the other?”
Stephanie raised her hand. “Security?”
“Security? How so?”
“Uhm, you need to be able to cast the spell like that.” She snapped. “Every time. Without fail. Only then will you get the Skill? So if you still struggle with it, or your spellscript isn’t very good, or you need a very long time to cast it … ehh.” She weighed a hand left and right a little.
Micah had definitely been struggling before today. He’d always felt like he was working blind and forcing the spell to work. Adding a simple cold effect made things so much smoother.
“Exactly,” Mrs. Burke told her. “What is the second difference?”
“Incantation?” Ryan offered. He explained without being prompted, “Even if you’re half-asleep or hit your head, you can say the Skill out loud as a last measure to successfully use it.”
“True,” Mrs. Burke said, “but, you need to be careful with the examples you offered. Why?”
Micah knew that one from personal experience, so he raised his hand.
“Yes?”
“If you push yourself too far, it can hurt you. Like, if you have no more mana or you’re in poor health, using a Skill can force your body to try and do it anyway. That could make you collapse.”
It had made him faint, once, right in front of Ryan. When he had tried to make his breath potion back then. That had been embarrassing. Thankfully, it had been Ryan. If it had been any other person he would be cringing right now.
“Right. Any other points to remember? Aside from the many nuances of Skills you’ll learn about in Social Studies?” She looked around, but nobody raised their hands. “No? How about this: Can a [Fighter] who has the [Swordfighting Path] and nothing else learn a spell like [Condense Water]?”
There was a pause as they thought about it.
Eventually, a boy raised his hand at the table opposite them. Micah didn’t know his name. “Yes, but it’s harder. The further self-taught Skills are from your Path, the harder they are to get. And if they’re a direct result of your Path, you know it because you’ll have explored your Path? If not, you’ll just learn the Skill.”
“Exactly. That’s important to keep in mind when training towards something specific, because it can take longer to get.”
So [Condense Water] wasn’t a direct result of either of his Paths? Micah wondered how he would have to change the spellscript to get it to count as an [Essence Path] Skill or … if he would even be allowed to use mana at all.
For now, he was going to continue on this route; using mana as a stopgap to explore essences. And he was going to add [Essence Sight], too. Today was the first time he’d actually felt like perception gave him influence over them.
With that in mind, he leaned over to Lisa and whispered, “Could I get [Chill] just from looking?”
She hesitated. “Possibly.”
“It’d probably have a different name then,” Ryan whispered in a joking tone, “[Gaze of Chilling Grasp], or [Chilling Gaze of Doom], or something like that.”
Micah smiled at that. Doom. “Yeah.”
“—Oh, right. You three changed seats. Then we’ll start in the second row on the right and go clockwise again,” Mrs. Burke said.
His smile fell. What? They were getting the dregs? That meant someone else was going to steal his favorite items again. He groaned while the row behind them cheered. Lisa just shrugged and got out a marble to practice.
When Micah wasn’t overworked from three additional orientation courses, lists of homework, and triple gym classes, he spent his time either hanging out in the foyer, practicing alchemy or— well, he had practiced for [Condense Water], earning some money in the Tower, or exploring the Registry.
The last one was the most exciting, but it was much harder to find things in there than the school library. After almost an hour of wandering around aimlessly, he resorted to asking at one of the front desks. A friendly woman asked him what he was looking for and Micah told her, “References to ‘essences,’ please.”
Fifteen minutes later, he got a short list with the ten most relevant texts and was pointed in the right direction.
Huh. That was easy.
The first book was an annotated copy of a nurse’s diary that was over seventy years old. He frowned at it as he picked it out. The second half of the list were books on the North, its magic, traditions, and mythology. There were even some Northern texts that had been translated.
Micah considered reading them—he did, hand hovering over the first one’s spine. But then he remembered Forester and left them where they were. He still had four other books to read through anyway.
One was an essay by no other than one Ameryth Denner herself on references to essences—Micah kind of wished she had told him about it—two were history books on historically noteworthy individuals, and the last was on magic theory. Not much. Micah took it all.
Back at their school’s reading area, Lisa had stacked a pile on spirits, summoning, and zoology on the long tables. So much for not needing zoology courses.
Ryan had a boring book on meditation theory. Micah thought he recognized it from somewhere, but wasn’t sure.
He set his own five books down and joined them in reading quietly for hours on end. It was fun.
Well, four of the books mentioning the same [Archmage] Christopher who had apparently discovered “essence sight” in his old age, gone insane, and promptly died six months later was a little less fun, but otherwise …
My current patient claims that he can see ‘everything,’ one of his nurses wrote in her diary. That explained relevancy.
Apparently, the diary was famous in its entirety because it was one of the few primary sources they still had of the time, before two wars and two oppressive regimes with their own ideas of what should be passed down to the next generations within eighty years had ruined everything.
It didn’t help that the Registries were only a little over forty years old and fighting an uphill battle on gathering texts. There were a lot of private libraries they would like to get their hands on that refused them.
Even when we blind his eyes or sedate him, he won’t stop rambling about the ‘essence.’
The first bit didn’t surprise Micah. He had tried looking at a concept like truth essence once and … Well, he couldn’t think of that memory without physically cringing at how embarrassing it had been. He guessed if he looked too far and tried to see “everything,” he might go insane. Anyone would.
Poor [Archmage] Chris.
Really, the other bit interested him more. Even with his eyes closed. The diary went on so Micah put the thought aside and read, even the parts that didn’t have to do with him. It was fascinating.
I’ve tried using some of my “skills” on him, but they don’t seem to work and I don’t understand why. Is it because he’s a higher level than me? He might be resistant to them, Morena has been saying. I’ve been getting a lot of levels in “nurse” from taking care of him. It almost makes me feel ashamed.
He checked with a few other primary sources and they were all similar. Skills would be written in all sorts of grammatical variations and the authors were uncertain at best and blindly confident at worse about how they worked. They wrote as if they were bumbling around in the dark, which, Micah supposed, they had been. Just like he was half the time if he didn’t have people to ask and books to consult.
Maybe if I get high-enough level soon I can help him. I’ve asked some of the magic types—
Magic types, Micah wondered. Not [Mages]?
—for help, but they have few spells. What use is their magic if they can only use it to throw explosions around? Hooligans. Those that try to help only make things worse or say things don’t work the way they should around my patient. Just another excuse not to learn any useful things.
That was another interested tidbit. Micah showed it to Lisa and she wagged her eyes at him. Had the [Archmage] been interfering somehow?
The diary went on for a few years and over the course of it, the [Nurse] seemed to become more and more jaded. She didn’t try to understand why things worked they did anymore, she just gathered a list of empirical data and adapted to it, which he thought was pretty smart.
She also kept notes on her own Skills that were interesting. He almost got lost in reading secondary texts or the annotations discussing the diary when he remembered why he had read it in the first place.
Even with his eyes closed.
That’s how he wasted two days trying to see with closed eyes. He quickly gave up because it was too embarrassing … and because he’d bumped into the bookshelves, the tables, chairs, and the Ryan one too many times.
Lisa seemed bemused by his attempts and subsequent forfeit. “Micah, what are you doing? You’re so fixated on normal sight, you can’t even cast a spell without looking for support. How do expect to learn something like that in two days?”
Fixated on normal sight? “No, I’m not,” he pouted, speaking barely above a whisper in the quiet library.
“How about you to try to figure out or see something else first?” she told him. “Like essence variations? I studied those when I … had about as much experience with essences as you do now.”
“And how old were you then?” Micah asked, feeling a little insecure.
“That’s not important.”
“When did you even get your Class?”
She didn’t move—her way of trying to prepare a lie.
“It’s alright, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he quickly said. “I’ll just assume it was early, like me?”
She looked visibly relieved. “Yeah, something like that.”
“But I’m not,” he said before she turned back to her book on … why was she studying human anatomy? Homework? “Fixated on normal sight, I mean. I can only see because of [Essence Sight] in the first place, remember?”
She frowned. “You mean you abusing your essence sight to maintain normal sight somehow makes you less fixated on it?”
He could not argue with that.
On his way back from The Dangers of Healing the next day, he went looking for a store that made glasses and gawked at their prices through the window. That was a lot of money for something so fragile. Even more than a magic item. Would it be worth buying it from his savings?
He sighed, Probably not.
Maybe if he found another good treasure chest or something. He headed back to school.
His newest way of trying to further his essence Path was exploring different “frequencies,” as Lisa called them. She insisted he should go searching blindly, but whenever he tried to do that, nothing happened. He had to concentrate on mana and mental essences to even see those shells around people and they were confusing enough. How was he supposed to find anything if he didn’t know what he was looking for?
He practiced switching back and forth between shell-sight and nature-sight and studied nature essences each time they rioted. Though here in the library, it was more as if they behaved like normal when he did. He wondered if he could somehow get them to riot like that all the time.
He practiced a few more times and each time he did, Lisa would shift in her seat or glance over. Eventually, he asked, “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You keep on glancing at me.”
Was he doing something wrong?
“I didn’t want to say anything.”
“But …?”
“Look, I’m glad you’re trying to figure stuff out, but … the flares. They’re a bit annoying.”
“The flares?” Oh, right. She could sense them, too. “Oh. We can go somewhere else.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “The meditation room in school or someplace else.”
Ryan looked up from his own book and frowned. “We?” Apparently, he had been listening.
“You’re my seeing eye dog,” Micah joked.
He seemed to think about it for a moment before his face fell. “Micah, you sometimes, when you mess with your Skill, have poor eyesight. And you can undo the effect whenever you want. You’re not blind.”
“Yea, but I still need you,” Micah said, “to undo the effect, like you said.”
“Maybe you should practice that, then?” Lisa suggested.
Oh. Hm … Micah sighed. “Yeah.”
When he got tired of bumbling around in the dark, he read more of the texts on essences, re-read the nurse’s diary, or practiced using [Essence Sight] to influence the world around him.
Basically, he stared at one type of essence really, really hard to the exclusion of all else. Like when he stared at something until the world started to grey and fade out around the edges.
Doing that, he managed to cause a faint breeze that could rustle leaves, make something shine a little brighter—which hurt his eyes—and create a cold spot. What a great and terrible mage he was.
Mrs. Burke suggested he look into sight-based spells, but he still had three and a half more books on essences to read and a bunch of homework, now that bootcamp was almost over. He focused on getting that done first.
The moment his head hit the pillow on Friday evening, he fell asleep with a smile. Finally, he was seeing some progress. However little it was.
----------------------------------------
Saturday, the 22nd of September woke Ryan with a soft knock on the door and he lifted his head up, confused. Had he slept in? He glanced at the clock on the wall, but no. Right about now was when he’d normally wake up.
With a silent groan, he slipped out of bed and put on some pants in case it was staff come knocking. Rubbing the drowsiness away, he opened the door to find Micah in loose climbing gear and smiling proudly that he had woken Ryan up first for once.
It had been six months since the guy had first stepped into the Tower. One-hundred and eighty-one days since the Den collapsed and Titanic Salamander had been spotted; since the Tower stopped repairing itself.
“Hey,” he whispered. “Wanna’ go hunt some Archertoads? I’m out of glue ammo. And ingredients for glue ammo.”
Ryan breathed out a huff and said, “Sure. But later? I want to get breakfast first if we’re climbing first.”
“But breakfast only starts in an hour?”
“Yep.” It was the weekend. Bootcamp was almost over and he’d spent the last few days doing homework for hours on end. Ryan went back to bed.
After a moment, Micah whispered next to him, “At least, hand me a pillow or something.”
He shoved his pillow over and Micah leaned against the bedside to nap. It was little longer than an hour before they woke up again.
Breakfast wasn’t much. Ryan was used to eating after exercising. Fighting Archertoads, he was going to be doing a lot of jumping and rolling around to avoid their spit. He didn’t want his stomach acting up. In exchange, he packed some sandwiches for a lunch snack.
Lisa wasn’t around, but then again, she never was this early on Saturdays. They left a note in a nook under the table they usually sat at in case she showed up, that they wouldn’t be gone long. Only an hour or two, to get things Micah needed from the toads and maybe some things he needed from Tunnel Spiders. If they found a connecting tunnel easily enough.
Neither of them could get there with any kind of consistency from the main portal after all.
Micah half-skipped sideways or walked backwards ahead of him, so Ryan slowed down a bit to give him time. He was excited about “real” classes finally starting and getting a break before they did.
In the end, Lisa hadn’t managed to convince them to join the dueling club. They’d said they might join again in the next semester, but they wanted to take it safe and not overwork themselves right away.
Quitting would look bad. Joining late wouldn’t, so much.
“Aren’t you excited about weapons training and, uh, more obstacle course, and … spear-throwing?” Micah asked, losing his momentum toward the end.
“You have no idea which courses I picked, do you?”
“Nope.”
Ryan shook his head to hide a smile.
“C’mon, but you got to be excited about something?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Like you?”
“I just got a good night’s rest this morning. And a nap. I’m full of energy.”
“You seem almost manic, like Lisa is when she doesn’t get any of that.”
“Nope. I’m normal.”
Yeah, he was.
They passed by some guild employees and ducked out of the way to let them pass in the hallway.
“So? So? Are you excited?”
“Yeah, I am,” he admitted. “A little. Especially about Beer—” Ryan caught himself, but it was too late. Micah had heard.
Eyes wide, he said, “You were just about to call it Beer Fest.”
“Harvest Festival.”
“You’re a Beer Fest Guy.”
“Harvest Festival,” he insisted.
“Hey, Saga!” Micah called. “Ryan’s a Beer Fest Guy!”
Ryan leaned forward to look around the corner, panicking, and she was actually there, headed out there in her runner’s clothes like usual. What was she doing here this late? Had she also slept in?
“Good for him,” she called back.
“I’m not a Beer Fest Guy!” Ryan called and turned to Micah. “I’m not— Listen, it’s just my dad—”
“Your dad’s a Beer Fest Guy?”
Ryan couldn’t lie. It wasn’t like Micah was not going to see him next week. He would have spared him, but Ryan had the sneaking suspicion Micah would enjoy it. “He likes to get a little … a lot drunk,” he said. “I’m just used to calling it that because he does. And Finn does.”
“That’s awesome.” Micah laughed.
Yep, Ryan thought. He thought it was awesome.
“Oh, but your poor mom.”
She’s not quite innocent, either.
“This year, yeah,” Ryan admitted. But maybe his dad wouldn’t get so drunk because she couldn’t join him? Like a mutual-suffering type thing? He could hope. His dad got huggy when he was drunk. Maybe he could off-load the jostling to Micah.
They took a left down the stairs, through a short hallway, and into the Guild hall. From there, to the Southwestern portal. It was still a little strange, to go in through this one. Ryan was still used to using the Western portal for two and a half years. It was disorienting on the way out, like he’d gotten lost.
Micah did his hop-skip and backwards walk on the way there again, talking about wanting to learn sight-based spells once they got back, now that they had more free time. He asked Ryan what he was up to and he dodged the question with some half-truths about archery and meditation theory.
They had to weave around a link of climbers coming from the Tower halfway to the portal.
“—lucky we found a portal so soon after the other.”
Ryan caught bits and pieces of their conversation in passing, but tried to blend them out. Then they had to squeeze through two other groups, and then one standing in a circle in the middle of the road.
Rude.
A lot of people coming out the Tower. Had they caught one of the shift ends? It was almost noon, so it seemed too early for that.
“Hey, do you think I could borrow one of the books for when we go back home for the weekend?”
“I …” Ryan frowned, as he followed two people walking past.
“—have you ever seen that?”
“Nope. I never even knew they could show up so close to each other.”
“Uh, do you even have a library card yet?” he asked.
“Uhm …”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’”
He smiled cheekily. “How long do you think it takes to get one?”
Ryan almost gagged as he stumbled past a man who smelled like he hadn’t taken a bath in months, and then past two others who smelled just the same. They looked ragged. Had they just gotten back from an expedition or something?
Normally, he would have been curious, but the people looked bewildered and smelled really bad.
“I don’t know,” Ryan said, distracted. “I’m not sure you even can borrow books from the Registry.”
“Oh? But from the school library, right? I could split my reading up into on-campus and off-campus.”
“Yeah, you could do that.”
Ryan hadn’t really had a reason to get a library card until now, but it was a good idea to get that done.
“I’ll have to do it as soon as I get back.”
“Me, too.”
More and more people came out of the Tower ahead of them and they had to practically push through a mass of people to make their way in. Ryan almost wanted to drag Micah to the side out of the crowd for a moment, let them pass and then head in, but the crowd was loud around him, half the conversations talking about portals or silver doors for some reason.
Micah took his hand ahead of him and for a moment, Ryan forgot all about the other conversations. The guy dragged him through another team and right up in front of the Tower’s silver light.
The last sign Ryan had that something was wrong came in the form of a group of climbers pointing up at the Tower. They pointed over the portal. Half the crowd turned around to see.
He tried to crane his neck up to see himself, completely forgot to tell Micah to stop, and only tugged on his arm with a little bit of feeble resistance.
Then it was too late. Micah pulled Ryan through the portal and they were elsewhere.
A long hallway reminiscent of the Sewers stretched ahead of them, but was too-well lit for them to be there. The smells were off. Wet moss and river stone. It smelled more like a stream in the rocky woods than the Tower. There was too much air. It wasn't stuffy. But there were hints of wet fur and glue in the distance. Rats and frogs.
The Open Sewers, then. Not the Open Sewers he knew.
Instead of dark, the wall to their left was light grey, almost bleached. It was intergrown with moss, strange plants, and wild grasses. It looked old enough that it would fall apart if not for the quality of its architecture.
The water reached just above their boots, below their ankles, and was as a clear as a forest stream save for the loose detritus. Flakes, rising from the bottom. The ground beneath them was uneven, broken away in parts, falling away into a chasm to their right.
Chasm to their right.
A massive chasm gaped to their right, maybe six meters wide, and the only thing that separated it from them was a crude, stone railing that was broken away in parts. It looked like a bleached version of the one they had kicked in to dig in the Fields back then.
Ryan could hear something buzzing. Insects. Either nearby and small, like the bees and mosquitoes he knew and hated, or far away and … not small. Thankfully, he spotted a regular-sized beetle fanning its wings on a grass leaf at the edge of the chasm a moment later. He could drop that one, small worry.
On its walls, moss grew like patches of forest green with plants both familiar and unfamiliar, in normal colors, or colorful, in normal sizes, or— The types of mushrooms that grew from trees grew out of crevices. One of them looked like it reached farther than Ryan was tall.
The light came from above, streaming down in a way that created a fuzzy wall of white at the end. Jungles of green poked out as they stretched over the chasm's ledges. And in the distance, something caused the large leaf of a fern to dislodge and spiral down the depths. As soon as the breeze dropped it, it crashed from one side to the next.
A whiff of mildew and wet sandy rock. A smell Ryan recognized too well from the last few months. It climbed the chasm like the first sign of a storm front a mile away. Maybe closer. Much closer.
He noticed something then. The many, many indents in the chasm walls, the stripes that ran in between patches of green and where nothing seemed to grow, or that which did grow was broken or flattened.
Something tapped like a thousand pickaxes over and over in rapid succession in the shrinking distance and his heart lurched before he tore Micah away from the railing and threw him into the corner of the wall, furthest from … it all.
No portal. Of course, there wasn't a portal. Why the hell wasn’t there a portal out of here?
Ryan hid him with his body and shield, ignoring his protests, and, against his better instincts, glanced back.
A shadow three meters wide brought a storm of wind and bad air as it shot past up the chasm, a thousand legs finding purchase in the rock with sounds that made his ears hurt. Impossibly fast, impossibly long, it was deafening. The size was large enough to blot out the light and when his eyes adjusted, Ryan thought he could almost see its insides through the plated underside of its body.
A truly giant centipede. A titanic one.
He prayed to anything that was listening that it wouldn’t notice them or hit the space between the rocks. If even one of its legs missed the ceiling and punched into here, it could pierce them like a skewer and might not even notice.
A minute passed. Two. Rubble and rocks from the railing and ceiling fell into the water, their sound absent. Micah's hair whipped in his face. The last thing that passed were cord-like feelers that whipped so close, Ryan almost panicked before it was gone.
He only noticed he hadn't breathed the entire time when his body tore in as much air as it could.
Micah didn't move.
For another minute, they just stood there to make sure it wouldn't come back while its afterwind brought in dust and loose greenery. Then Micah shoved him away violently.
“What the fuck, Ryan?!” he hissed, barely above a whisper. “Why the hell would you shove me in the corner like that? How the hell are we supposed to”—he lost his words for a moment—”supposed to dodge when you box us in with nowhere to go?”
“I didn’t know what to do.”
He ran his hands over his face, through his hair, and spun around once. His face looked like he was suppressing another curse or scream.
Ryan felt the same. He pressed a hand against the rough stone. It was littered with much smaller indentations, but no portal.
“What would I have … have supposed to do if it had killed you and moved on?” Micah asked without looking at him, almost to himself. “Dragged you away or left you to die here. I have one middle-grade healing potion with me.”
Supposed to have done, Ryan corrected him in his thoughts, seizing the measure of normalcy. The answer was obvious.
After they calmed down as much as they could, here, Micah looked at the unfamiliar floor stretching out for miles in front of them and asked the obvious question, “Where are we?”
“I have no idea.”