It was lucky that I had just returned from vacation when I walked through that portal. My brain was refreshed and relaxed. Otherwise, I probably would have gone crazy after the first few days of doing nothing but sitting in the room that the Abbess had assigned to me and reading the books that we had pulled out of the library. It wasn’t too different from my job back home, but critically, back home I had a life outside of the job. It may not have been much, and mostly involved books, video games with a few social and family outings for leavening, but it was a life. Here, the monotony of reading the books was broken only by a once daily visit from the Abbess, who mostly just questioned me on what I was reading, and a lunch trip with Astri with her friends.
The newness of the material delayed the creeping boredom for a few days. With the Abbess’s help, I was able to make my way through the texts on the basics of the political territory I had stumbled into. It involved another trip down the library to hunt down some other texts to follow up on some references in the first historical text I had pulled out. Surrounded by a magical university, perhaps politics didn’t need to be my first focus. But I found myself wanting to understand the world I had been dropped in.
Colvale itself was something of a self-governing city-state where politics was dominated by the Monastery and its graduates. It belonged to a larger confederation of states known as the Riverrine Confederation but based on what the Abbess told me was more of a vassal than a member, and did not directly answer to the Confederation’s government. While the Abbess was vague on the specifics, it seemed like Colvale had really carved a lot of the civilization on this continent out of nothing. The original founder, and first Grand Abbess, Uthel, had established Colvale just about a thousand years ago as a retreat from the larger world and the rest had grown up around Monastery as a source of income and protection against the wider world. It had been under two centuries ago when the Confederation had arrived to absorb Colvale.
Of that wider world, there was relatively little information in these first texts. Mostly, the history books either focused on the succession of Grand Abbots & Abbesses over the thousand years or focused on the succession of High Kings of the Riverrine Confederation as they acquired various regions on the trail north to Colvale. The texts were suspiciously light on the details of how Colvale had come to be a part of the Confederation, just that a deal had been struck. Many of the other provinces had been conquered or the High Kings had sponsored expeditions to settle on top of ruins of previous civilizations. I picked up the hint that civilization in this world was very old. The places and names were all meaningless to me until I really spent time with a map, which I hadn’t yet. I only knew that Colvale was the farthest north of the territories of the Confederation, which otherwise stretched across three small continents/large islands.
It was hard to wrap my mind around the idea, but it really did appear that there were a Hundred Continents. This world was absolutely massive, far larger than Earth. Curiosity burned within me at the idea. Even the local government controlled the bulk of two landmasses that were the size of Australia and parts of a third area that was more of a broken archipelago than a solitary landmass. Colvale was part of that third one. The sheer amount of territory that entailed was astounding to me and none of the texts seem to indicate that the Riverrine Confederation was some kind of major world power. It dominated the local region though.
Looking into geography led me to consider the quest that the gods had given me as part of the summoning. The paper had told me that I was supposed to help some Archduke in Dagva-Nor, but when I asked the Abbess, she’d never heard of that country or any nearby land that used the title of Archduke. A century-old grand atlas of the Hundred Continents eventually revealed a continent very far away that was labeled as Degven which we concluded was a likely older name for where I was supposed to go. It was on the way back up to the study that I asked the question that had grown in my mind.
“Why should I stay here?”
The Abbess looked at me in surprise as we entered the study. “I had not thought you so eager to be about the quest the gods gave you.”
I shook my head. “It’s not that. It’s just that I’m wondering if this is the best thing. I went through the education system back on my world and I thought I was finished with school. For the last several years, I’ve been living a real life. Just sitting around doing nothing but reading all day…” I trailed off, perhaps a librarian wouldn’t be the best person to complain to about that.
She seemed to understand me though. “You’re bored.”
“Mostly, yes. But it has got me wondering whether all of this is necessary. I know the Grand Abbot said that, as a potential mind mage, I was vulnerable. But Astri said that out in the wider world, people don’t talk about affinities as openly. Couldn’t I just not be a mind mage?”
The Abbess shrugged. Her voice sounded carefree, but in a forced way that I recognized as someone who claimed not to care about something they did care about. “If you left now, you wouldn’t be any kind of mage. We’ve stayed away from magical instruction this week because it really would make more sense for your instructors to work through it. But it isn’t something that will simply happen. It takes study, understanding and a lot of control to be able to actually work magic. If you left before you figured that out, you just wouldn’t be any kind of mage.”
She looked at me for a moment before continuing with a sharper tone. “If you left now, you would be little better than the commoner your story pretends you are. Not all of the powerful or wealthy people in this world are true masters of magic, but they are all trained in its use. The poor are the only ones who live without magic of their own, or the affinity to learn it. Even those born into wealth and power must secure a minimum training in their affinities if they wish to keep it. Is the life of a day laborer really all you aspire to in our world? Why you left your old world behind?”
My denial surprised me with its vehemence. “Absolutely not! I was not much of anybody back home, I will be someone here.”
The Abbess smiled slightly before nodding sharply. “Then you must know magic, and you can only learn your kind of magic here. The mind magic at least. That rare affinity, you could probably learn at some other academy, but then I’d miss out on the chance to study you.”
I flopped down noisily on the bed. My boredom had even seen me pick up the habit of making the bed every morning. “It’s just very boring to be stuck reading these books all day.” The Abbess did not grace my whining with a response. I looked up at her. “Is magic really that stratified by power? Will my false origin be so rare here?”
The Abbess walked over to a chair which sat by the desk in the room. “Not in and of itself, no. As we had to work around when crafting it, almost everybody is awoken to magic. But not everybody awakens equally. It is something of a mystery to us what controls how many and what strength affinities people awaken with. There is an inheritance component, in that the children of people with many affinities tend to also have more than normal. These families naturally accumulate power and wealth. Most commoners might awaken one major affinity, if any, and we don’t really know why they awaken so few. The wealthy are also generally better able to afford to send middling students for magical education. Exceptional talents such as yours or Lyle’s, the Monastery or other academies will teach without payment. But Astri’s family is paying quite a lot of money for her to be trained here. That training will make her more powerful and capable than most others, so she’ll offer a solid return on their investment.” She shrugged. “If they thought about it that way, which her family doesn’t. They just saw that she had potential and the Monastery would be a good place to train her.”
“Why would they choose the Monastery specifically?”
“The same reason I took her and Lyle both as my Apprentices. They both possess a major affinity for death magic. While not as feared as mind magic, it is still an unpopular field. Colvale permits and studies all branches of magic, not all academies would. Here, the unusual is celebrated, not rejected.” She sounded proud, but bitterness also laced that pride. I decided I didn’t want to pry too deeply, as there were wounds there that I almost certainly didn’t want to know about.
I furrowed my brow. “But wasn’t I told that I wouldn’t be able to learn much about void or holy magic here? If you teach…”
I was cut off by a careless wave of her hand. “Accepting all fields of magic doesn’t mean we have experts in all of them. The inherent isolation of the Monastic lifestyle does not encourage either group of mages to stick around. We have books and some people with minor affinities in those two who I’ll be happy to introduce you to at some point, but there are other academies that specialize in those fields. That is one reason why we encourage our students, once they reach the rank of Journeyman, to, well, journey. They go out and seek training from other academies and experience the world outside the Monastery. Most never return to take the Journeyman exam in order to become full members. I think we’ll only have three next week who will make the attempt. That’s compared to the over one hundred Novices I’m told will participate in that test. You will likely face the same choices as your education progresses.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
I couldn’t say I had any good arguments for why I should leave, so I settled back down. After the politics, I moved on to focus more on the bestiary. I mostly used it to look up varieties of fish and livestock so I could avoid future embarrassment like with the vergan meat. The conversation with the Abbess gave me another day of focus, but the boredom of just sitting around and reading did not abate. I brought up the topic at my daily lunches with the Apprentices.
Astri was normally the one to escort me from what had started to feel like my cell and the campus. I’d asked her once whether it was punishment or reward for it to be assigned to her so often instead of Lyle, the Abbess’s other Apprentice. She’d just shrugged off the question. “I view it as a welcome break. I don’t really care how the Abbess sees it if it gets me out of some of the tedium.”
Today, however, it was Lyle who fetched me. “My turn for escort duty.” He said, bursting into the room so abruptly I jumped and dropped the book in my hands. “Oh,” he stopped and said with a sad tone, “you actually are just reading in here. I was hoping for something more interesting when the Abbess asked me to stand in for Astri.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” I said wryly as I picked up the book and set it on the table. “Why are you the one springing me from my cell today?”
“Your cell?” Lyle looked surprised. “Becoming a monk already?” I looked at him in confusion and he shook his head in exasperation which I couldn’t tell whether it was faked or real. “Sorry, forgot you’re from under a rock. Monks actually call their bedrooms cells. Couldn’t really tell you why. Anyway, it’s not for anything special. Astri was making good progress on an air magic construct and the Abbess didn’t want to interrupt her. She won’t be joining us for lunch today. Anyway, come along.”
As we made our way out of the tower, Lyle explained what he’d meant about a construct. It was apparently the crucial new thing that an Apprentice had to figure out. Spells had tiers based on their complexity, which Lyle called Circles. “It all comes down to runes.” Lyle held out a hand in front of him. “The central rune is the affinity rune, it’s the first you’ll have to learn to control.” A rune lit up in front of him, it filled with a shimmering color that wasn’t like anything I’d seen from the spells others were casting. When it was full, the whole thing flashed to a vibrant blue. “This is water magic, which you said you share with me. Once it is completed, it makes this a water spell. All other runes then give shape and power to the water magic that now infuses the spell. Each Circle contains only a certain number of runes. Lower Circle spells can be formed easily enough by memory.” Watching carefully, I noticed two concentric rings of energy form around the water rune, filling in with additional runes whose meaning I obviously did not know yet. Instead of firing the spell off, Lyle let it disperse, the watery blue energy shifting back to the multi-hued one before dissipating into the air. “Once you start to get to the Fourth Circle or higher, which is the tier that Apprentices have to have mastered before they’ll let us test out of it, that becomes impractical. Instead, you have to build proficiency on smaller constructs that you can then build the full spell out of.”
Ellie whooped in happiness for Astri when Lyle shared why she wouldn’t be joining us. Okyor looked sad, but he had a similar appearance whenever any of the others talked about their progress. He was nervous about his lack of an actual Master although the others told him not to worry about it overmuch.
“So, Kyle, you said the room was your cell when I came to retrieve you.” I noticed that Lyle was a bit more formal around the others than when he’d come to pick me up. Not unfriendly, but simply sitting straighter, with maybe a slightly more dignified vocabulary. “Do you feel so constrained?”
I shrugged. “Constrained is the wrong word. It’s not like the Abbess is holding me prisoner. I’m just bored and I have nothing other than the books. I’m looking forward to this festival for the break as much as anything else. It’ll be something new.”
Ellie’s eyes narrowed at me. “How could you never have attended the Nevernight Festival before?” She had finally come around to me not being secretly a Magus, but she still found my story highly suspicious.
I shrugged, opting out of saying anything more that could away anything to the inquisitive young woman. I was saved by Lyle’s expression of surprise. “You mean you’ve never left the Library other than to come to lunch with us? Have you no hobbies?”
This time I followed my second shrug with a comment. “What even is there to do around here? What do people at a magical academy do for fun when you aren’t studying? You four only seem to talk about your studies, the upcoming festival, or other students you know and how you think they’ll do on the tests.”
This conversation snapped Okyor out of his introspection and a sudden grin split his face. “Do you like games?”
The shift in him caught me by surprise. “What kind of games? No offense, but I don’t think we’ll have many in common.” I relied on his foreign - and socially lofty - origin to hide my ignorance. “I’m not much into gambling, if we’re talking dice or cards.”
Okyor leaned forward. “We can trade card games later. I was talking Dominions.”
Ellie sighed dramatically and stood up. “I’ll take that as my cue to head out. You boys have fun with your diversion. Good luck escaping the fanatics, Kyle.” I was only confused for a moment before the two guys pulled my attention back.
Lyle was bundling the empty dishes onto trays to take back to the kitchen. “Great idea, Okyor. We haven’t been to the game hall since before the last term’s finals. This’ll be great, Kyle. It makes sense that you’ve never heard of it. No offense to the common folk, but this isn’t exactly a game they’d be familiar with.”
I was confused, but I was swept along by the other two in a tide of enthusiasm. The two were bantering about strategies as they bundled me along. Whatever magic was doing the translation for their language worked overtime to try to render the words into something comprehensible to me. I caught references that sounded like video game terms from back home, like tanking, buffs and debuffs. Turtling, biomes, grinding, and ladder were also familiar to me, but I had no idea what they were talking about with drawrate.
Lyle guided me out the door to the cafeteria via a hand on my back, pushing me towards a new part of campus. “So, Okyor, going to slum it with me on the singles table while we show Kyle around?” He smirked at me. “Our visitor here is making a diplomatic maneuver here, always playing with Astri. They’re quite far up the ladder in the doubles matches. I’m not as good a player, but I do enjoy watching them when they really get their mojo going.”
Okyor looked at Lyle. “I haven’t asked you this before, Lyle. But do you really not mind me pursuing Astri? I know the expectations your parents set.”
Lyle laughed casually. “I don’t have to become her lover to ‘cultivate good relations’ with Astri.” His voice took on a mocking baritone and I guessed he was quoting his father. “It will help both your kingdom and the Confederation more if something were to happen between you two than if she were attached to a random Colvale merchant family.” So it was just Eliandra he was more formal around, since he had relaxed the instant it was just the guys.
Okyor shook his head. “I doubt anybody would call your family random. Besides, aren’t royal marriages usually used to consolidate power within a realm?”
Lyle shrugged. “And if that’s what her father decrees, we’ll adapt. But absent that, have fun, Okyor. It really doesn’t bother me. And it has nothing to do with introducing Kyle here to the fun that is Dominions.”
I was surprised to find that we weren’t going to a building on campus. Instead, Lyle & Okyor led me to a side gate in the campus that led to a stairwell. It was long and I looked at the two of them worriedly. “We’re going to have to climb all this on the way back, aren’t we?”
Lyle shrugged. “Unless you’d rather take the long way back from town. It’s a scenic walk, and less steep, but it is a lot longer. If we get into a real game of Dominions, it would have you getting back quite a bit after dark. The Abbess probably wouldn’t be pleased that I kept you out that late.”
The stairs led to a landing that looked like nothing so much as a subway station. Lyle showed me that it was more like a taxi stand where you could summon an individual capsule to deliver you to a programmed destination. “This platform is only accessible to Monastery residents. Outsiders can’t even order a capsule to take them here without verification. The previous Grand Abbot didn’t even want to allow a station this close, something about physical exertion being good for us. That’s also the reason for the staircase. ” A quick flash of a low Circle spell provided authentication for the platform. “But it still saves us a few hours walk.” He smiled brightly. “And the compromise to have these individual capsules also means we can go directly to the gaming hall without having to follow the loop.”
The capsule rose out of the ground, a sphere of rock glittering with inlaid crystals. The side melted open, revealing simple stone benches. Okyor took one while Lyle and I crammed into the other, Lyle having to stretch his arm behind me so that we wouldn’t be too cramped. Some work of inertial dampening magic took hold and I didn’t even realize we were moving until I looked out a viewing port and saw trees whooshing past me at frankly astonishing speeds. I’d never been on a subway system that could have moved us this quickly.