Alex couldn’t help but worry while he sat waiting. The feeling of being powerless was the worst thing imaginable, and a man was nowhere more powerless than when his wife was giving birth. It didn’t help that the healer had said it was a difficult pregnancy, she quickly followed it with there was nothing to worry about.
Alex found that to obviously be incorrect as there was nothing he could do but worry. Each time a flash came from under the door his worrying only got worse as they each signified a spell being cast. How many could be normal the worrying father thought to himself.
After another flash he could no longer stay seated as he got up to pace the length of the room. He was tempted to go into the birthing room itself but he didn’t want to distract the healer, or even worse bring down her wrath. It was wise advice to always stay on the good side of a healer, even more so when your town only had one.
This got him thinking about his town and daydreaming about getting to raise his children. All three of them, and that was the other thing to worry about. Going from the father of none to the father of three, how could he cope with that? The pacing increased in speed as the soon to be father continued to find more things to worry over.
“If you wear a hole in my carpet I am charging you for it.” The calm voice brings him to a stop.
“Is she okay? Are they okay?” He does his best to hold still as his eyes dart to the doors behind the healer.
“What, you think I am a two bit healer that can’t manage birthing a few babies?” She can tell that he is genuinely worried. “Fine, fine, go have a look and no fussing.” She walks down the hall muttering ‘new parents.’
Alex manages one breath, one moment of trying to calm himself, before he opens the doors. The loud, beautiful sounds of crying fills the room.
His wife, looking tired, holds one swaddled baby as two assistants are holding the others. Alex makes his rounds checking in on all four of them. He did the normal dad things; counting fingers and toes, making silly faces, and slightly crying.
“What do you think we should name them?” Kita asked her husband.
“How many of them can we name after me?” Alex joked. Kita leveled a chilling glare at her husband, and he quickly learned one does not joke with a woman who just gave birth. “I’m just kidding of course, umm what were you thinking dearest.”
“I like the old tradition of giving them names that start with the same letter. It is supposed to be good luck, so what about Justin, Jacob and…” she trailed off while trying to think of another name.
Alex went over to their third child, there were two boys and one girl. “Jessica, Jenna, Jaylene?” He started listing off names.
“Oh no, you know I don’t like my cousin. What was the first one, Jessica? How about Jesse? Justin, Jacob and Jesse. I like it.”
“Yeah I think it sounds nice.” He continued to circle the room mostly to keep his thoughts from circling as well. It was quite something to go from no kids to three new babies. Or, at least he thought it was, it wasn’t like he had much experience in the matter.
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The next few years held little to speak of, outside of the trials of being a parent for the first time. Which, as soon as they hired on additional help, wasn’t as difficult as they feared it would be. Luckily being somewhat successful merchants meant they were able to afford it, though it also meant that one or both of them were often traveling.
It was due to the travel they never put together the odd nature of their children. After all it was only a few occurrences here and there that indicated things were not quite normal.
There was the time that Jacob fell off a ladder and all three children started crying at the same time. Or when Jesse said her first word ‘mama’, and Jacob and Justin started saying it only moments later. Alone they were odd, but if someone was around to see all of them they might have noticed just how odd it was.
These occurrences only started to increase with frequency as the babies got older. And it turned out it was stranger for none other than them.
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“Mom, where are your others?” Five year old Jesse looked up at her mom as she brushed her hair.
“What do you mean by that dearest?”
“Like my Jacob and Justin, where are your others?” Jesse was having a hard time putting her question into words.
“You mean my siblings? I only have one brother and you met him last year, though I suppose you wouldn’t really remember that. He lives in another town a few days away from here.”
Jesse scrunched up her face as she didn’t think they were talking about the same thing. “Are you still able to talk so far away?”
“Oh” Jesse’s mom puts down the hairbrush. “Well, we don’t really talk much. My family didn’t really approve when I decided to move out here with your dad.”
“Hey dad, are you busy?” Justin looks at his father with wide eyes.
“It feels like I’m always busy” he pauses as he looks down at his son. “Though I suppose it is time I took a break.”
“I was wondering, do you have any siblings like mom?”
“Oh, she was talking about her brother?” Justin’s father paused a bit concerned, but decided to not think too deeply on it. “No, sadly I don’t have any siblings, I am an only child. Why do you ask?”
“Just asking I guess, and are there any other you’s?”
“Any other… Me’s? Well, not that I know of, why are you looking for another dad?”
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“No, it’s not that. Do other people have more than one body?”
Alex looked down at his son trying to figure out where the strange question was coming from. Though, sometimes kids just ask strange things so he decided to assume that was the case.
“I have heard that some of the really powerful people in this country can make copies of themselves when they fight. I think they call them clones.”
“Wow, really!”
Justin leaned back in his chair “I don’t know too much about it. Neither your mom or me really have talent when it comes to mana.”
“Mana?” Justin’s eyes practically sparkled with interest.
“Oh, that might be a bit too much of a topic for me to go over right now. But you know what, you guys are just about the right age to start school, well if there was a school in this town. I will look into finding a tutor then you can learn everything you want.”
“Thanks dad!” Justin shouted as he left the study.
They knew their parents were kind, but they were also busy most of the time, so they tried to keep their interruptions short. They all still vividly remembered the one time they had frustrated their father to the point of yelling, and did not wish to relive the experience.
As they had been doing since they were born the three of them freely shared their thoughts. It would be tempting to think of them as one mind with three bodies, but that would not be accurate. Though it was also not accurate to say they were separate entities. Not that they knew it then, but since they all came from the same soul they were intricately linked.
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The middle aged man adjusted his spectacles and examined his pupils. Mathias was used to educating those of more noble upbringing, but frankly he was tired of their pompous behavior. The moment a job had come up from a middle class merchant in a small town he had been happy to take it.
Had been, but now he was having second thoughts. The children appeared fine enough, but the lodging and the town itself were. Well, he was expecting quaint, not rural.
‘I guess this is the price I must pay.’
“First lesson children. In life if you are willing to seize your destiny all things are possible, but there will also be a price to pay. So make sure what you want is worth it, do you understand?”
“Umm, like how an apple costs you five copper?” Jacob asks.
“Or how if I take a cookie I will be punished for it?” Jesse continues.
Mathias blinks once in surprise, the first answer was good for such a young child. The girl though, that was an unexpected answer. “Yes, quite like that.”
“Well then, who can lead me to the classroom?”
“We will” all three of them respond in unison.
Alex and Kita smile as their three children lead their new tutor to the redesigned guest room. “Don’t you think they are too young honey?” Kita looks at her husband.
“No of course not, you can never be too young to start learning. It’s not like we are letting them learn how to become fighters.”
“I suppose you are right, I still worry though.”
It doesn’t take long for Mathias to put away his belongings as he is once more surprised that his pupils want to begin learning immediately. ‘Maybe this teaching job will be better than I thought.’
What more could a teacher ask for than a brilliant student to teach, and Mathias had just found three that would learn unlike any student he had before.
“Since I wasn’t expecting to teach today, how about you three ask me questions and we just get to know each other?”
“What is mana?” Jacob asks.
“Or just straight to it I suppose.” He pauses to see if the other two would interrupt their brother but they stay silent waiting for his answer.
“In short mana is the energy of this realm. It is the source of power for any fighter, mage, crafter, alchemist and numerous other professions. It is what allows us to grow and perform beyond our normal capabilities. From what I know almost no one in this area of the realm is capable of creating a mana core, so perhaps a demonstration.”
Mathias closes his eyes, raises his right hand with the palm facing the ceiling, and concentrates. A second later a ball of fire appears in his hand.
“I don’t have much talent myself, but even with an orange mana core something like this is easy to do.” He waves his hand and the fire disappears.
“I wanna do that!” all three of them exclaim at the same time.
“Sadly it isn’t something just anyone can learn. Well, technically with the right resources anyone can learn it and I guess this will be your second lesson of the day. Power is everything in our country and to get power you must have power. Yes, a bit of a conundrum I know, and yet that is how it goes.
“Anyway, in order to use mana you must first build a mana core. For this you have two options on how to do it. If you are interested in magic and alchemy then you are going to want to make a mana heart. Or, if you prefer fighting and smithing you will want to make a mana form.”
“So, you can only choose to be one? A mage or a fighter?” Justin asks.
“Good question. The short answer is yes, but like I said all things are possible if you are willing to pay the price. In this case if you choose to make a mana heart and form then you will need to expend several times the amount of resources. For some reason it doesn’t require twice the resources to accomplish but almost five times. We call these people vanguards, they are quite rare though.”
“How does one make a mana core?” Jesse was the next in line to speak so she asked.
“Like I said, if you have the money then you buy expensive ingredients, pills and potions and use those to increase the mana in your body. For the rest of us though, you have to take in the ambient mana all around us. It takes a while to notice but there is mana all around us in the air and in the earth.
“With time you learn to pull it into your body and once the concentration becomes high enough you start to form a mana core. When this happens you can either focus the core in your heart or spread it throughout your body.”
“Or?” Jacob asks since there was a third option.
“Yes, or you form a mana heart and connect it to your blood flow. Which would doom any but the most talented of students as progressing through the mana core stages of a vanguard are much too difficult without assistance.”
“Stages?” They all spoke up again.
Mathias was starting to notice they would all speak together when they were excited. It was a little strange, but he had tutored a few twins in the past and they had a habit of speaking in unison. So, he assumed it was just like that but with three this time.
“I take it this is all we will be talking about today? I assume you have all seen a rainbow?”
The three of them nod.
“For whatever reason mana cores progress much in the same way a rainbow does. They start out at red, then orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and finally white. For a total of seven stages.”
The day’s lesson continued as Mathias went into further detail on how to sense the ambient mana in the realm and draw it into one’s body.
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The next year passed much the same as the one before it, well for Kita and Alex, but for the three children it was a whirlwind of learning.
Mathias merely thought he was lucky to be teaching a trio of geniuses as they picked up on things remarkably fast. It was strange though how they always got the same scores, but he chalked it up to the strange triplet behavior.
“It truly is remarkable. I know you might think it is just a teacher bragging about their pupils, but your children are brilliant. Honestly I don’t think they will need me for much longer, normally it takes several years to learn as much as they have.”
Mathias happily lauded praise on the three children to their parents.
“You should really give some thought in sending them to an official academy. I would of course be happy to write a letter of recommendation. Though, I am begrudged to let them go. When will I ever find such students again?” Mathias lamented in jest, or perhaps in intoxication as he was known to enjoy his wine.
“Well honey what do you think?” Alex asked while looking over at his wife.
“I want to give them the best that we can, maybe it is time we consider moving to Odonchester? I know it is a bit soon, but we were thinking of doing it eventually.”
Alex mused over his goblet of wine “I suppose. In one years time, yes I think it is possible. Strange, and we thought we would move out to the country to have a family, now it is that family pushing us back to the city.”
“Excellent, excellent! Though I must say there is something nice about living in a small town. Don’t have to be afraid of who you can and can’t offend, personally I think I would be happy to never return to a city.” Mathias interjects into the conversation.
Yes, the main reason to avoid the city. Any city would have mages and fighters, not people you could easily offend.
“That is all right, though we don’t have much talent with mana, we are quite good at business. So it won’t be anything to speak of, but we should be able to gather enough pills to establish cores for ourselves” Alex says.
Since a person’s power was tied closer to their wealth than their talent it was expected for any well to do person to have a mana core. And then of course the richer you were the more powerful you were expected to be, frankly people wouldn’t take you seriously if you weren’t able to back up your words with strength.
“Then you will have nothing to worry about! To the future!” Mathias raises a goblet in cheer.
Three sets of eyes were quietly following the conversation.
It was only a few weeks after Mathias had arrived for Jacob, Justin and Jesse to realize that they didn’t just share thoughts they also shared mana. At first it would seem that would allow them to absorb mana three times faster but that wasn’t quite right. They also learned three times faster so their efficiency increased quicker than it should as well. Not that they could know but they were only a few days away from condensing their first mana core.