Over the next week no one saw Ilthur after that first meeting. They truly had been left alone in the Tower. Thequen made the most of his time. The lounge areas seemed to somehow restock with food every morning. From this selection he would choose enough for the day, move it all to his quarters, the small room he’d first slept in. After that he re-shelved whichever books he’d finished in the library, and then went seeking for new ones. Among the stacks he’d found a few blank handmade notebooks, along with a stick of charcoal that had been on the floor, as though dropped by some long forgotten student.

He only sometimes saw Ariana or Cody as the days went by, other than in passing, as they all frequented the same areas. Conversation was kept light, as despite serving in the same mercenary company Thequen felt he barely knew them. His study yielded practical benefits. He read everything he could find about the history of the Tower, and of Tower Mages. Other than that, he picked up right where he’d left off at the Academy-- studying the runes and symbols relevant to constructing spells in the colors he performed most strongly in: silver and green, or air and nature, depending on which theory of spell-craft a given text’s author subscribed to.

Every teacher of magic holds things back. The Academy instructors held much back, and charged hefty fees for it. Knowledge was rationed, spells had to be copied from books under supervision, and teachers played favorites among those students they liked most. Bribes exchanged hands. Promises were made. A shifting mass of alliances and enemies. In Greria unless you were a person lucky enough to be born wealthy and train privately under a mage serving as your tutor, the Academy was the only path to learning the arcane arts. Here there was very little of that. Obviously, this was not all that Ilthur had in terms of books and stored up knowledge, else this collection of connected rooms would not have been called the ‘Lesser Library’. That aside, Thequen was grateful for the opportunity to focus purely on study. He buried himself in rune-work. Writing them by hand first, then practicing drawing them in the air in the privacy of his bedroom. Due to his lack of talent in the colors outside his two specialties, most of them would have no magical effect on their own, but it would all serve as building blocks for later. That was his hope, anyway.

Days passed in a blur. He reviewed everything he already knew, and then pushed into new territory at a rate that would have appalled his old instructors. On the third day while taking a break to read Histories of Great Empires in his room, he was interrupted by a knock at the door. “It’s Cody, you busy?”, Cody said. Thequen marked his place with an errant scrap of paper, then closed the book and set it down on top of the stack which had accumulated next to his bed. Thequen went to the door and opened it.

“No more so than normal? Is something wrong?”, he said. Nothing seemed out of place. Cody was as he had always been. Pants, boots, blue tabard, shaved head, muscular shoulders.

“Do you have a knife or anything metal I could borrow? I’d like to test a spell to make sure I’ve got it down.”, Cody said.

“Isn’t there something in the room with all the food?”, Thequen asked.

“Right. Silverware. Wanna come see something cool then?”, Cody said with a smirk.

Thequen’s process had already been interrupted, so why not? “Sure.”, he said. Cody led the way down the now-familiar path to the room where the food kept reappearing every day, and where Susan’s crystal ball still sat on the table. They stepped into the room.

“Why does the food keep appearing every day?”, Cody asked as he looked over the table.

“Magic?”, Thequen said. He had thought this was obvious-- he’d never seen anyone else in the tower over the past few days, other than Ariana and Cody.

“Susan?”, Cody asked.

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A simple application of green and white mana along with the correct rune sequence can evoke edible food. Without a high degree of talent in the required colors, the result is often sub-par.

Thequen knew this was true in theory, but he’d never been able to produce anything using the textbook combinations. Even the strongest mages he’d trained under could basically only make tasteless bread and other simple foodstuffs. “Is this some sort of repeating effect that Ilthur set up?”, he asked.

A female laugh trickled through Thequen’s mind. Cody frowned. Perhaps he heard it too. Don’t be silly. Ilthur has absolutely no talent for green. It was me. If you ask nicely, I might even make you something on request.

“There is no silverware. I need a knife. Or some kind of cutting edge.”, Cody said.

Snack food is easiest. Though I can create food, I’ve always hated doing dishes. Did you not check the rooms on the second floor? There should be a storeroom with some odds and ends in it. A few kitchen knives, if nothing else.

Cody rolled his eyes. “No, I did not go poking about in the fancy magic tower of the wizard I met less than four days ago. I don’t fancy being turned into a toad for screwing anything up.”, he said.

There is nothing naturally dangerous to you to be found on the first and second floors except your own foolishness. Don’t be stupid and you’ll all be fine.

“Uh huh. Then let’s go upstairs.”, Cody said.

Thequen grabbed a cookie and took a bite. “Good cookie. Thanks for your help.”, he said as he looked at the ball on the table. Susan did not reply. Cody led the way upstairs, and they opened doors until they found a room full of what Thequen thought of as ‘junk’. Boxes of odds and ends, furniture, some of which was in pieces. Cody rooted through wooden boxes until he found what he was looking for.

“There we go.”, he said as he withdrew a wood handled kitchen knife from a box. He pulled it halfway from its leather sheath. The blade glinted dully. “No polish, but no rust either. Good.”, he said. Before they stepped back out into the hall he also grabbed a wooden chair-leg.

“That’ll do huh?”, Thequen asked.

“Yep. So first off, take this knife and push it into the wood.”, Cody said as he held out the knife to Thequen. Thequen took it, then Cody crouched down and put the table leg on the floor, pinning it on one side with his hand. Thequen withdrew the knife from the sheath.

“Sure?”, Thequen said as he bent down and pushed the knife’s edge against the wood. As expected, the blade bit into the wood a little, and nothing else. “That’s it?”, he asked.

“Nope. Pull it out and just hold it while I cast.”, Cody said. Thequen easily pulled the blade free of the wood and held it out toward Cody.

Cody spent a brief moment sketching a handful of runes in the air with a fingertip, while muttering their names. Thequen recognized them, even spoken in the old tongue. Alteration. Harden. Sharpen. Reinforce. Cody fell silent as he ran his finger along the flat of the blade. Golden mana flowed from him to the weapon as his forehead beaded with sweat. In a few heartbeats it was done. “There.”, Cody sighed. “Now put the blade to the wood again.”, he said.

Thequen pushed down on the wood in a different spot. There was a gentle hitch of resistance, and then he tipped forward a bit, almost losing his balance as the blade sliced clean through the wood and scraped loudly against the stone flooring. “Sharpened. Very nice. Clean. How long does the enchantment last?”, Thequen asked as he held the blade up and looked at it carefully. If he squinted he thought he could see a faint bit of golden glow shining around the edge.

Cody chuckled. “Functionally? Years. The blade might still snap or rust, but the edge will be unlikely to fail. It’d be much more complex to wind enchantments throughout the whole thing and make a truly indestructible weapon. The right kind of magic might still unravel it anyway, even though I spent weeks enhancing it.”, Cody said with a shrug.

Thequen put it back in the sheath, careful not to press the blade edge against the leather. He held it out to Cody. “Here you go. Neat effect, thanks for the demonstration.”, he said. He thought it was impressive-- it was one thing to read about what could be done, and another to see it. If Cody could do this to a pile of swords and arrows, he would probably never lack employment. Gold was one of the rarest colors to manifest in a new mage, and it was absolutely necessary for most types of magical crafting.

Cody shook his head. “You keep that one for now. I’ll do up one for myself and Ariana as well later today. Never hurts to be armed.”, Cody said.

Thequen fixed the enchanted blade to his belt. “Well, then thanks again. I owe you, I suppose. If there’s anything I can help with, let me know?”, he said.

They both stood up. Cody scooped up the two pieces of wood. “Sure thing.”, he said.

Thequen returned to his studies.