Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 9)

[Mastery Training: Whirlweave (Rank I)—Progress to Rank II: 40%]

[Training Completed: +32 EXP]

[Progress to Level 7: 3657/4550]

***

[Intermediate Synaptic Threading—Progress to Understanding: 51%]

[Training Completed: +43 EXP]

[Progress to Level 7: 3700/4550]

***

[Mastery Training: Whirlweave (Rank I)—Progress to Rank II: 56%]

[Training Completed: +14 EXP]

[Progress to Level 7: 3714/4550]

“Breath, shape, guide,” 

Fabrisse whispered for what must’ve been the hundredth time for the day. The air in his dormitory wasn’t particularly inclined to move, but Fabrisse coaxed it anyway. Small currents first—barely more than the faintest stir of a page on his desk—threaded between his fingers and dissolved before they reached the window. He tried again, adjusting the angle of his palm, breathing in tandem with the shaping lines in his mind. This time, the air curled into a proper eddy, brushing the back of his hand before flattening into stillness.

[FP: 0/34]

[You cannot cast spells anymore. Please rest and drink water.]

[Intense Physical Limit Reached: STR +1]

He sank into his chair, pulled a half-filled logbook (a separate one from the one he used to detail Stone Thaumaturgy skills) toward him, and scrawled: 10 → 0 in 27 minutes. That was faster than the forty-three minutes it had taken him to drain from twenty to ten earlier. The pen hovered for a moment before he added a question mark beside STR +1. Would the increased strength slow FP drain in the long term? Possibly. But that test would have to wait until after his hands stopped trembling and his head felt less like wet wool.

“There’s this thing called rest, you know,” Greg said without looking up from his own desk. “Proper resting ensures maximum learning efficiency.”

Fabrisse glanced over. Greg was in the exact same posture as three hours ago, still scribbling in tight, bureaucratic loops. The heading on his current page read: Perspiration: Data Analysis, Hour 14.

“Then why haven’t you rested?” Fabrisse asked.

“I simply have a more durable stamina than you,” Greg replied.

Trajectory Insight had been of great help to Fabrisse. The skill itself didn’t seem upgradable, and it didn’t need to be because it’d already proved its worth. Through Trajectory Insight, he’d found out that practicing with still air in a compact room environment with little interference worked best for Whirlweave (Rank I) training, and he’d been able to pass the halfway mark towards Rank II mastery in a single evening. But even with shortcuts, there was a limit to his cognitive functions, after all.

A faint warmth pulsed at Fabrisse’s wrist. He turned it over to see the private glyph etched there ignite in a brief curl of silver, script unspooling across the skin in Celine Moose’s slanted handwriting:

‘Someone got your brick. They r coming around at exactly 9 bell if ur at dorm. Step outside for a moment, they'll be waiting for 10 mins.’

The message bled away a heartbeat later, and the glyph returned to its dormant state.

Fabrisse closed his logbook, capped the pen with exaggerated care, and pushed himself up from the desk. His legs felt like they belonged to someone who had been sitting far longer than was healthy, but the warmth still lingering at his wrist nagged him toward the door.

The hallway outside the dorm was its usual muffled noise from below and dim evening wash of amber glyphlight like the campus was ashamed of itself. He stepped out onto the front landing, the air cooler than inside, carrying the faint scent of damp stone and someone’s late supper.

Sure enough, a figure stood just past the edge of a floating glyphlight. Not Liene—too tall and angular. Not Tommaso—wrong stance, no swagger. And definitely no one from his close circles. Still, there was something annoyingly familiar about the way the greyish, wavy hair caught the light, like a mental file he’d forgotten to label.  He could picture passing them somewhere on campus—near the north refectory? Waiting in line near the ritual basin? But the exact context stayed stubbornly out of reach.

The person caught sight of him and closed the distance with an easy stride.

“Are you the one who placed an ad for the Marrowgate brick?” they asked, voice steady, almost businesslike. He was a head taller than Fabrisse, the kind of tall that made you instinctively step back to take in the rest of him. His features were striking in a way that caught the eye, but there was something in the set of his gaze that kept the impression from being wholly trustworthy.

Fabrisse nodded.

The man’s mouth tipped into something like a smile, warm enough to seem genuine and just a smidge more trustworthy. “Svetoslav Kovrin,” he said. “You can call me Sven. I’ve seen you around a few times.”

“Have we met before?” He asked.

“I’m a friend of Liene.”

“Oh.”

Now he remembered where he’d seen this guy Kovrin before; this was the guy who accompanied Liene the day he trained with Veliane Veist. Liene had many more friends than he did, so it wasn’t really surprising that she got a friend he didn’t know about.

From beneath his arm, he produced a rectangular bundle swaddled in plain cloth and held it out. The shape, weight, and faint mineral tang were hard to miss even before Fabrisse took it.

“Careful. It’s a bit heavier than it looks,” Sven said, not letting go until Fabrisse had a solid grip. “You doing much with Marrowgate lately, or just collecting?”

Fabrisse, who had never been halfway through a chat with this man, hesitated. “Mostly . . . cataloguing,” he said, after a beat.

“Cataloguing,” Sven repeated. “Useful skill; more than most think. Bet you’ve seen some odd pieces come through. You know, I used to collect rocks once.”

Fabrisse raised an eyebrow.

“Quartz mostly,” Sven went on, conversational as if they’d already been talking ten minutes. “Milky, smoky, amethyst. There’s a kind that forms double terminations if the growth’s slow and the pressure steady. Got a piece once that split light so clean you could trace the fracture lines like a map. Shame I lost it in a move.”

“Double terminations are rare in campus strata,” Fabrisse said before he could stop himself.

Sven’s grin widened just slightly, like he’d been hoping for a hook. “Exactly. You ever seen one in the wild?”

“No,” Fabrisse admitted. Then, after a pause, “Not yet.” Why am I talking about quartz with a stranger?

“Anyhow, check your brick. See if it’s the one you’re looking for.” He wriggled his brow once as his gaze cast down at the brick.

Fabrisse flipped the bundle in his hands and peeled back the plain cloth just enough to see the rough, weathered surface beneath. The hue wasn’t dyed or painted. This was natural, a muted violet deep in the clay, with tiny specks of mica catching the lamplight. The edges were worn but intact, and the grain was right for old Marrowgate masonry.

He turned it over once, testing the weight. The mass distribution matched what he’d read in the old survey notes. No strange chipping, no resin seal—nothing to suggest it was faked.

“It’s genuine, isn’t it?” Sven asked, watching him closely.

“Looks genuine,” Fabrisse said, rewrapping the cloth. “But I can’t confirm resonance without instruments.” The Wing of Substratal Studies had calibrated arrays for detecting emotional heat signatures in stone.

[Sidequest Ongoing: “Hearth-Laughed Brick”]

Progress: Item acquired. Verification pending at the Wing of Substratal Studies.

Sven shrugged. “Go ahead, buddy. I won’t claim the rewards until you’ve confirmed it. I’m gonna need your glyph address to keep in touch, though.”

Fabrisse adjusted his grip on the brick and dug a bit awkwardly at his wrist glyph with his free hand. The silver etching pulsed once, opening a narrow ribbon of script where an address could be written. Sven did the same, his glyph flaring a cooler blue-white before the two bands touched. A small pulse of heat traveled up Fabrisse’s forearm—confirmation of the exchange—before both glyphs faded back to dormancy.

“Right,” Sven said, stepping back a half pace. “Now you can reach me when you’ve checked it.”

Before Fabrisse could answer, a familiar voice cut through the amber glow of the landing.

“Hi, Fabri!” He turned just as Liene jogged up the last steps, cheeks flushed from the chill. She spotted Sven and slowed, eyebrows arching in mild surprise. “Oh! Sven? I didn’t know you knew Fabrisse.”

Sven’s grin tilted a little wider, like the comment amused him. “We’re acquainted now.”

So he really is Liene’s friend.

“Well, you’re both earth-inclined,” Liene said, glancing between them. “There aren’t that many of you lot, so I guess it’s not surprising you’d cross paths.”

Sven’s eyes lingered at Fabrisse for just a moment too long, a glint there that wasn’t quite simple agreement. “Some paths are worth crossing,” he said. Then he gave a small, almost courtly nod. “I’ll leave you to it. Have fun, Liene. See you around, Fabrisse.” And he was gone, boots tapping away down the walkway.

The sudden quiet pressed in. Fabrisse turned to Liene. “Why are you outside? It’s nine already. We shouldn’t be out now.”

Liene reached up to pinch his cheek before he could side-step. “Worrywart. Even the headmaster isn’t worried about security threats anymore. Why should you? Also,” her expression brightened, “I’ve got someplace I want to take you today. You have some time to chill and hang out?”