The journey of Opportunity through uncharted waters passed without event for eleven days. The sailors were highly competent and performed their jobs without much ado. Kewari’s aid was only required to treat minor wounds. She passed the time by occasionally yelling at people, overtaxing their bodies. Gurten managed the crew’s morale by speaking with them daily. Outside of these conversations, he enjoyed casual reading, far away from wherever Kewari was muttering obscenities at her own books.

The sailing itself involved ensuring they did not move too far off course. Malysseus spent little time focused on this, appearing only a couple times per day to check on the wheel. All of the shipmen commended him on a fantastic job keeping course, complimenting his uncanny knack for navigation. He was, of course, cheating using a spell he developed for open waters. It calculated the degree to which a ship had strayed from an original heading. Since he knew his heading, it was nothing to calculate backward to adjust the course.

The crew noticed their Captain grew increasingly frustrated, day in and day out, despite his weak attempts to hide this fact. Since he was trying to hide it and failing, naturally, the whole crew began talking about it. Despite their history sailing together, the sailors outside his inner circle knew little personal information about the enigmatic captain. They whispered about how he missed his wife or how illegal substance use was making him irritable. The truth was more mundane, at least to the mind of Malysseus the Wizard, where even the magical was mundane.

He sat in his office on the twelfth day of Opportunity’s journey, staring at a small cup of water. The cup of water was a center point in the final step of the magical exercises he was practicing. The exercises were of his own construction. The intention behind such activities was a crescendo to successful lightning magic. With a sigh, he began another attempt at his meditations anew. The fake smile plastered to his face leveraged to reinforce himself against his rising temper.

He pulled on the threads of magic, forming the first combination in his arsenal. He converted equal parts of his Mana into the essence of air and water. Swirling the elements, a mist blanket poured from his hands, causing the window in his cabin to fog over. He chuckled, imagining what explanations the crew would make up instead of Wizardry. As the fog overwhelmed the room, he shifted the threads of Mana. The water essence in the mist, combined with newly manufactured earth essence, converted with a twirl of his fingers.

The mist thickened with the air essence’s dissipation. The new element, combined with the water, formed ice crystals and collapsed to the floor under the weight of gravity. As crystals hit the ground, he shifted his powers again, peeling away the water from the combination. Instead, Malysseus forced more Mana into the room, restoring air essence to the spell. The spell produced from air and earth essences was gemstone. The ice crystals converted to small sapphires, which glistened with some of the remaining moisture in the room.

He picked up the small gemstones one by one. As he retrieved each jewel, he converted the power inside. He replaced the air essence with fire magic by dragging his hand across each stone. The new combination was made of magma, collecting into a small orb of magma. When the collection was complete, he surged his Mana, despite his exhaustion, replacing all the earth in the mixture with water.

Fire and water essence combined to make crystal. The converted crystal floated gently in his palm, light beaming into the crystal, causing the latticework structure inside to refract light throughout the room. Malysseus took a deep breath as he reached the final act of his spellwork. Cementing his intention, he pushed his way into the last step.

Breaking down the crystal’s internal structure, which made for excellent lightning magic training, he focused on converting the strands of broken crystal. If all went well, the strands of lightning would converge on the cup, shattering the pottery and sending water tumbling over the polished mahogany desk.

All did not go well. The spell collapsed under the weight of Malysseus’s intentions, threads of crystal clattering uselessly to the floor. Everything went to absolute ribbons, causing him to let out his breath as a deep sigh. The exercise took only a minute, mostly from collecting ice crystals, but left the Wizard feeling profoundly drained. He collapsed into his chair, staring angrily at the cup.

He couldn’t determine what part of the process he was missing. His biggest issue seemed to be holding the spell together, but the why eluded him. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why lightning spells were the only type he couldn’t hold together. All of his other spells were immaculate and powerful. Combinations were always tricky, sure, but the others were comfortably possible.

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Grimacing to himself, he steeled himself for one more attempt. Malysseus repeated the same exercise, keeping the essence conversions precisely the same. He did everything exactly the same until the very last step. On the last stage, he went with a dangerous spark of inspiration, forcing way more Mana into the spell than was ordinarily necessary. The crystals sparked, pieces of the mixture converting properly to lightning.

Malysseus watched in awe, dumbstruck that the issue would be a lack of Mana in the spell. If he understood the mixture, lightning magic consumed at least double the energy of other combinations. Then hell broke loose.

The lightning and crystal mixture hit the cup, shattering the pottery as he had expected. Unfortunately, the magic also rebounded on him, singeing through the sleeve of his jacket. He felt the shock radiate through his body, causing his muscles to spasm and lock. He collapsed, instinctively taking a fetal position.

Malysseus breathed deeply.

Slowly.

In. Out.

He continued his breathing, recovering his ability to think first of all. He unclenched himself from the fetal position, finally able to breathe normally again. Next, his sore muscles fell back under his control completely. He stood to his feet as memory returned, remembering to check the wound for minor concerns like an impending fatality.

It wasn’t great.

Malysseus knew he was going to need treatment from Kewari. He also knew she was going to want to hear the story. For once, he couldn’t wait to explain himself. The elation at nearly functional lightning magic wasn’t going to wear off any time soon. His confident, fake smile transformed into a genuine smirk. It was the kind of smirk only a true Wizard could pull off. Changing into a new coat, without singe marks, he went to find Kewari.

She was sitting on the side of the boat, lounging by herself. She was still muttering curses in a low tone. She didn’t look up from her book as Malysseus approached or as he nestled next to her. She didn’t look up when he leaned against the railing; it required a tap on the shoulder to draw her attention.

“What’s gotten into you?” Kewari asked, staring at the stupid grin on his face. Knowing him well, she could tell something was different about the smile.

He puffed out his chest as he responded, “Had a bit of a breakthrough, you could say.”

“What kind of breakthrough?”

He lowered his tone to a conspiratorial whisper, “The kind so good it’s like magic.”

She raised her eyebrows, springing to her feet. Malysseus followed her as she led the way to his office. As they entered the office, she hastily closed the door behind them. Gurten was nowhere to be seen on deck since he avoided her string of curses, so she jumped into an animated discussion without him.

“You finally got the lightning combination?” Kewari asked.

“Yes!” he exclaimed. “Well, sort of. I got the spell partially working, but I saw lightning for the first time.” He continued in the tone of a used boat salesman, underselling his concerns. “There was a tiny bit of crystal left over. Infinitesimal, really. You’re probably going to want to take a look at this.”

He swept off one half of his new coat jacket. Her eyes widened. She paused for a moment, staring at him intently, and then smacked him across the back of the head.

“What were you thinking?” she accused.

“I was thinking I wanted to finally cross this giant stone wall around lightning magic,” Malysseus shot back. “What was that for?”

“For dangerous training without me. You could have died if the lightning hit something vital. Died, Malysseus.”

“That doesn’t sound like something that would happen to me,” he said, uncertain if she was mad from concern or missing out. “I’m far too good-looking for all that death nonsense.”

Kewari sat down on his desk while he stood above her, activating some of her true magical healing abilities. The warmth of the healing magic slowly washed over his wound. Her hands emanated a soft yellow glow. The power wasn’t utilizing much Mana, so the process took much longer. Spells that instantly healed the body taxed a healer heavily, so she avoided them wherever she could.

“How did you get your Wizard abilities, anyway?” she asked, watching her own spell take root. “You’ve never talked about it.”

He knew he never mentioned it, but something about the concern in her eyes made him want to send it all spilling out. Of course, he couldn’t give away all his secrets, but he saw no reason to conceal the general idea from her.

“I was coming home from school one day,” Malysseus said, “Still real young, I was about fifteen years old. There was an incident in the street involving two Wizards clashing with large quantities of magic. Over the next few hours, I slowly sensed something. It felt like it was crawling inside my blood. I went to the doctor, who sent me to the city to consult with a real healer of some renown. He explained to me that I was sensing Mana.”

“We can sense Mana, too,” Kewari agreed. “That must have been how he knew.”

“What about you? Is your story something like that?”

“No, nothing like that. My powers developed after bargaining with a magical creature. It found me in a moment of great need. I was without food or water in the middle of the desert. The creature offered me a way out.”

“What did you give the Unicorn in return?” Malysseus asked, a deep grin returning to his face.