If you could learn to cast any kind of magic, what would you choose? Fire Magic? Water? Light? Earth? Flesh? Blood? Death?
The choices are limited, but the applications and the angles from which to look at them are limitless. Once upon a time, for example, there was a musician who used light magic and illusions to create her instruments with the snap of her fingers. In another story, an earth [Mage] created an entire kingdom by remodeling the ground around him.
There are tales of [Necromancers] who also knew the arts of flesh and blood who could cure any disease, and start the worst wars in the remembered history of the world.
To put it simply, magic isn’t just the school you choose to learn, it’s what you envision it to be. No, envision is the wrong word: desire. Now that, that is the right way to put it. Magic is Desire and the will to make it all come true.
So, of all the things Issekina could learn, of all the schools of magic, which one do you think Grandmother was going to teach her?
“Illusion Magic.”
Isse batted her eyes in surprise.
“... Ok. But, aren’t illusions, like, tricks of the mind? Useful in a pinch, but if you’re too close someone is bound to notice.”
And you can’t even fight with them, helpfully added Siidi.
One of the corners of Grandmother’s mouth lifted ever so slightly to form a smile.
“You used the right words, Issekina. Tricks of the Mind. You could say that illusion is the Magic of the Mind. And, most important of all, how to trick it, to make it believe things that aren’t there. But Illusion Magic is trickier than that, because some minds are stronger than others and will notice immediately if you’re playing tricks. So, one must learn how to enter a mind to discover its secrets, to understand how to best bend it into believing what you want. That’s the main gimmick, one of the great mistakes modern [Mages] make.
“For example, take the [Appraisal] Spell. It allows you to read the Class, Levels and Skills of a person. A very powerful spell for information gathering, that is for sure, but quite easy to ward against.
“Most modern [Mages] consider it some sort of Miscellaneous Spell, one of those that doesn’t fit in any specific school of magic, like [Detect Truth] and [Detect Lie] and all the likes. They don’t dig deep enough, see only as far as the school of magic’s name. For example, fire magic isn’t all about creating [Fireballs] and [Fire Walls] and the likes. It’s also about controlling heat and, if applied correctly, can be used to create rudimentary illusions. Same for water and ice magic. The two schools are connected, they are one and the same, yet modern [Mages] divide them in two and never think about learning both, or working in pairs.
“These are just some basic examples, even stupid, you could say, but that is the truth of things.”
She stopped, staring down at Isse, her eyes asking her if she understood what had been explained. The spiderling nodded over her cup of tea.
“Good. Now, you have learned how to see Mana, but you’re yet to understand how to bend it to your will. Pull the threads, as your Magic School says.”
Isse nodded, then had a doubt: “You talked about the many schools of magic, but what exactly is Thread Magic?”
This time, Grandmother smiled. It was a truly disquieting sight, her white lips bending upwards, revealing a row of pearly white teeth, all perfectly aligned and perfectly clean, as if she’d never used them to eat anything in all her life while still obsessively brushing them every day.
“Thread Magic is common to us arachne, because we tend to see mana in the form of threads and connections, weaving them together. That is why we get [Thread Magic] as a school and Skill. It makes something that would otherwise be extremely complex easier.
“Now, I would like to teach you a spell such as [Appraisal] or [Detect Truth], but I was told that starting with such complex things is not advised for beginners. So, instead, for now I shall teach you a very basic [Minor Illusion] Spell.
“[Let Me Show You].”
She opened the palm of her hand, just as she’d done the last time when she’d cast that fire spell that looked like a fox fire. But instead, this time, a small, fuzzy, ball appeared in her hand.
A moment later it began moving, unfurling, and Isse saw it was a mini arachne. The smaller version of her sister looked around, then began crawling up Grandmother’s arm and down towards the ground. The movements were there, even the appearance, but if you looked close enough you could see that the face was completely expressionless. After it touched the ground, skittering away from Grandmother, the face disappeared and, bit by bit, the rest of the body followed. Five meters away there was nothing left of it.
“You looked at it wrong Issekina. Observe not the result, but the weaving. Let’s try again: [Let Me Show You].”
This time Isse looked at the elder and changed her perspective.
[Mana Sight - Personalized].
And the world turned into a mass of interwoven threads of innumerable colors, beautiful beyond comprehension, and very much giving her a headache. It would be impossible for most people to distinguish anything, even in the white clearing that, she knew, had been ‘built’ the way it was exactly for the purpose of teaching magic to arachne.
Isse had, on her first try, witnessed a small part of this whole, and that had caused her to begin bleeding from the nose from the sheer amount of connections and information. Since getting her Skill, she’d tried using it again, the operation getting progressively easy on her mind and body, but she still couldn’t quite look at it all without beginning to feel sick.
She had also noticed another strange detail: there were three threads bound to her other than the ones she had with her arachne friends, Makira, Aru and Grandmother. Three little threads that disappeared into the canopies of the trees. One was a light yellow and seemed to not be quite there, like a dream. The second was bright red, as if it had been steeped in blood. The third… she wasn’t sure. Sometimes it was there, other times… not so much. Uncertain, as if it was trying with all of its strength not to be seen. It was strange to say the least.
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Those threads were there even now. Even the dark one. No, actually, it was more present than usual here for some reason.
Still, she didn’t look at them long. Instead, she looked at Grandmother.
The moment she did, the impossible amount of threads thinned out, giving her more space to look at what the elder was doing. And then they changed: the colors on her threads started bleeding away, bleached white by an invisible hand. And then it was snowing, yet the snowflakes were all hanging in the air, not falling, sewn into that endless white loom of lives and souls, Grandmother at its center looking like a woman in the middle of a snowstorm.
She was plucking at the threads, her fingers ever so gentle yet decisive, as fast as light yet unmoving, for this wasn’t her, but the puppet she looked like when one Observed her, seeing part of her true self.
The threads were taken, pulled and cut and sewn together, all at the same time, as if the elder had more than two hands. And maybe she did. Maybe her puppet hid some extra appendages in that waterfall of white hair. Or maybe it was all just a trick of the light.
It didn’t matter. Or rather, it did, but it wasn’t what interested Isse. That was the little puppet taking form in Grandmother’s hands, looking exactly like the one she’d made before, just without color. That came later.
When she finished, she said those words: [Minor Illusion]. Yet Isse had this strange feeling, like Grandmother was saying the name of the Skill more as a reminder of what it was than to actually help herself in casting the spell.
Then it was over. Isse deactivated her [Mana Sight] and saw another little arachne crawling out of Grandmother’s hand, small and beautiful.
“Many [Mages] believe that, just because a spell is defined as Minor, it is less powerful, has less applications. Here is a secret, Issekina: the name doesn’t matter. Only what you are capable of doing with it. A [Minor Illusion] is a basic spell, that is undeniable. It will become unstable and disappear the moment it stops touching the body of the caster, but it is light on one’s mana pool, and so long as it’s close, it can create things just as complex as a [Greater Illusion].
“Illusion Magic, as you’ve seen, is intrinsic and simpler for us arachne with Thread Magic, for we can weave them just like we would any other thing. Naturally, you will not be able to cast it with my same proficiency. I highly suggest you do not try to create a… what did Makira call them? Ah, yes, Minichne. Start with something close to your heart. From there, we can learn more complex things.
“Now, try weaving the spell.”
She did.
She activated her [Mana Sight], looking at the endless threads, and immediately had to sit down.
“Do not look at the whole, it will break you. Nature is endless and beautiful, but we were made of Death, not nature. Concentrate only on a small portion of what you see, that will help,” came Grandmother’s voice through the fog of her headache.
She looked up, Observing the world and its endless connections. She looked at the thread that came out of her head, those light brown, maybe chestnut, threads woven together, a reminder of the doubled nature of her soul, and looked only at it and the other threads of that same color.
Slowly, like someone’s eyes getting used to the darkness, she began seeing less and less threads, the colors becoming more uniform, until she looked back at the clearing, and there was only brown.
“Not my favorite color, but it is a good start,” spoke the Grandmother-puppet.
This is so fucking surreal, said Siidi.
I’d say it’s more painful than surreal.
Yeah, apparently your headaches are mine too, so don’t do too much magic or I’ll want to murder you.
She couldn’t contain herself. She chuckled.
And then looked at the threads again. And agreed with Grandmother: brown was a sad color. Too much of it took away from everything else.
Ok, let’s try doing this right.
She extended a hand towards the closest thread and grasped at it.
Well, was half expecting my hand to pass through.
Magic isn’t that difficult.
She chuckled again, a small smile appearing on her face.
She pulled on the thread, and all the others appeared to move closer, as if just waiting for her to pull at them too, to use them to cast her spell.
She raised her other hand, plucking another, pulling, then snapped her wrist one way, breaking the thread. There was no sound.
And she began weaving, her arachne nature and her Skill [Magic School: Thread] guiding her movements into fashioning something simple that mattered to her: a mask. But not just any mask: it was her face. Her old face. The one she had in the world before being brought here. It wasn’t special: she hadn’t been a beauty, average at best. Small lips with a slight pout, small half-lidded eyes that made her look like she was sleep deprived most of the time, and a little nose that was slightly squashed after years of being a little beast of satan.
She hadn’t been special, no, not at all, but she’d been this, and she wasn’t going to forget it.
Creating the details wasn’t easy, and she was sure she’d gotten things wrong here and there. Too much for the first time, but she didn’t care. Grandmother had told her to make something that mattered. And this mattered a lot.
She didn’t know how long she stayed there, weaving her mask, but in the end, when she finished weaving, she felt something, like a tug coming from deep within her. She suddenly felt a bit emptier, and at the same time her mask felt more present, more there than it had been before, quasi-solid.
She knew, deep down, that she’d done it. She’d cast her spell.
Oh my god she’d just cast a spell!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
Her smile became as big as the Cheshire Cat’s as she deactivated her [Mana Sight] and looked at her handiwork.
And saw it was brown, like the mask was made of wood.
“Not bad. Not bad at all. Don’t worry, the colors will come later,” said Grandmother. Her voice was very approving.
“It took you twenty-three minutes, sure, but that’s acceptable for a first time. In the future, you’ll have to learn how to be faster. You’ll change yourself to cast spells better. But that is something for the weeks, no, months to come.”
She loomed closer, looking at the illusion of a wooden mask Isse was holding in her hands, and smiled slightly.
“One day, you could wear it again, this old face. There is no shame in wanting to be what one was.”
She snapped her fingers, and suddenly color flooded the wood, making it look like a human face. It was… much more beautiful than she’d been, and the eyes’ color was wrong, and her cheeks had never been so naturally blushing, but it was her, truly her, in a way she never thought she could’ve been ever again.
“Our lesson today has come to an end. Go play with the others, Issekina and Siidi. Word has reached me that you’ve finally remembered how to be a child,” and, again, Grandmother smiled. It was still disquieting, but there was emotion down there. Love. She loved all of her children and grandchildren.
She was a monster, sure, but a monster who’d learned what it meant to live.
Isse left.
And, that night, she Leveled.
[Soul Mage Level 7!]
[Spell - Minor Illusion Obtained!]