Daniel Newwyn

Chapter 6

Added 2025-06-30 10:27:48 +0000 UTC

Fabrisse was not at the Synod anymore.

He was home.

Home-home. Not dorm-home.

Fabrisse didn’t exactly announce his return when he slipped in through the side gate. He’d been sneaking home since he turned sixteen, enough that the boundary wards had stopped reacting and the neighbor’s cat now expected treats.

His house wasn’t far from the Twelvefold campus, but it was still far enough that nobody came here unless they meant to. The Kestovar home sat tucked in the outer boroughs, where the commune started forgetting they were commune. Not exactly wealthy, not exactly falling apart, just quietly humble, like it hoped the tax auditors wouldn’t notice it existed. Ironically, magical universities tended to be built well away from cities anyway, partly for reasons of sanctity, but mostly because spell leakage tended to make the locals burst into song or spontaneously molt.

Dormitory-bound students didn’t just leave, not unless they’d been expelled, exorcised, or caught invoking minor elementals in the refectory again. But after getting publicly whacked in the face by a god-box and potentially bound to a sentient calibration system no one else could see, he figured the usual rules were a bit more wobbly than usual.

Rubidi had nearly ruptured a blood vessel whisper-yelling at Lorvan in the corridor. Severa had refused to make eye contact. And someone (he suspected Cuman) had stuck a note on his dorm door that simply read: ROCK WITCH.

His sister, Dubbie, eighteen and devoutly uninterested in all things magical, was half-curled on the sitting couch with a dog-eared copy of The Vintner’s Affair and a mug of lukewarm steepleaf. She didn’t look up when he entered.

She was a little soft around the edges, with a cottagecore aura. Petite, with perpetually sleepy-looking eyes, she had the kind of face that made grandmothers coo and shopkeepers offer her extra stamps. To be fair, she was always the kind to nap a lot, but weirdly never went to sleep on time.

“You’re home,” she murmured, eyes still on the page.

“Momentarily,” Fabrisse said, toeing off his shoes and collapsing onto the nearest cushion with a sigh. “Where’s mom?”

“She’s on shrine duty.” The Order had enchanted a local shrine, one with a creek that could cure townsfolk of simple diseases. There had to be at least two attendants at all times. Their father worked as a border guard. Naturally, he wasn’t around often.

Her son was just slapped in the face by an divine artifact god-box, and she’s on shrine duty?

That didn’t sit right. His mother wasn’t the sort to stay away when something like this happened.

Maybe the Synod had flagged the artifact as volatile, too sensitive to involve an emotionally compromised party, like the mage-mother of the boy it chose to punch. But then they shouldn’t have allowed him to go home. Knowing the Synod, though, someone may have tried to escalate the case, but it would have to go through at least three layers of bureaucracy. He got home before they reached a directive.

“This late?”

“They need extra hands. The shrine’s being renovated. How was the week?”

“They made us redo the Flame Litany twice because Severa’s a perfectionist and Aldren tried to hover too close to the dais again.” Fabrisse rolled to the creaky edge of his childhood cot, flanked by a chipped glowing lantern and the faint scent of lavender-scented disinfectant. The sigils still hovered in his periphery, and he’d tried hard to pretend they didn’t exist, to limited success.

“Mhm.”

“Then the invocation took forever. Lorvan saw me. Draeth insulted my academic lineage.”

“Mhm.” Dubbie turned a page.

“I collected a new shiny Medarian pebble by the river.”

“Mhm.”

“And then we opened the Eidralith and I became the Chosen One of the Twelvefold Flame,” he added.

“Mhm—wait, what?” She slapped her book shut around her thumb like a startled clam.

Okay. His family definitely didn’t know.

“It was more of an accident, really. I tripped. Possibly resonated. And now there’s a semi-visible arcane apparition giving me tutorial objectives.” He gestured vaguely to the space next to his head, where a soft glyph was slowly blinking [Pending Calibration – 4 Tasks Remaining] in a stiff font he’d never seen before. Every letter looked like bricks from different molds. The white color of the floating glyph sheet was unmistakably the same one as the Eidralith, however, so it was difficult for him to deny that whatever he was seeing was brought by that dumb box.

Dubbie stared at him, then at the empty air, then back at him. “Have you been licking the stones again?”

“I have never licked the stones,” Fabrisse said. “Besides, even if I had—which I haven’t—the apparition says ingestion is ill-advised. Also, it called me a calibrator. I don’t think it’s a job. It hasn’t specified a pay.”

Dubbie stared at him for a second longer before standing abruptly.

“I’m making the tea,” she said with a sigh. “The one that helps with hallucination.”

Fabrisse watched her go, half-offended. “It’s not a hallucination. I can’t hallucinate concepts I didn’t know existed.”

“Mm-hmm,” came her voice from the pantry. The clink of ceramic followed. “You said the same thing about that moss-covered spoon when you were twelve.”

“That spoon bit me,” Fabrisse muttered.

Dubbie didn’t reply, but the water started boiling.

She’d always been like that—calm, slightly acerbic, and annoyingly unshakeable. A homely girl in every way their mother approved of: sensible, non-magical (by choice), with an ear for recipes and a terrifying knack for budgeting. Which was a shame, really, because she had more natural talent for magic than he ever did. When the recruitment missives had come, she was the one they’d wanted. She’d smiled politely, thanked them for the offer, and declined.

Fabrisse had signed his name in her place before anyone could stop him. Anything to get away from their mother, who’d banned him from rock collecting and confiscated his prized Arcanosaur-themed stamp book during what he still referred to as The Incident.

He sagged further into the cushion and stared at the air just above the chipped lantern. “This is why she banned the rocks, isn’t it?”

The glyphs had stopped blinking. In their place was a quiet, clean prompt, sitting like a polite but insistent guest at the edge of his thoughts:

[Calibration Interface – Dormant State Detected]

You are eligible for Guided Orientation.

Would you like to begin the introductory tutorial?

There was something unnervingly cheery about the text, like a helpful waiter offering a tray of knives.

Fabrisse sighed and nudged the mug aside. “Fine. Show me the part where I explode.”

He mentally reached for the option marked [Yes].

The air shimmered.

A new pane unfolded, ornate as a cathedral window and approximately as helpful:

Welcome, Apprentice Kestovar_28

INITIATING TUTORIAL MODE [PHASE I – Orientation & Spatial Awareness]

Please remain still. Calibrating meat vessel . . .

Fabrisse stopped sinking into his seat. “Pardon?”

Do not be alarmed. The disorientation is temporary.

[Note: Tutorial Mode may not be available again. Proceed with care.]

He was already alarmed.

PHASE I: Orientation & Spatial Awareness

Step 1 of 4: Access your Aetheric Self-Registry.

Hint: Generate a localized mental ping toward your core identity object. Not emotionally, but conceptually. Preferably with metadata.

“What does that even mean?” Fabrisse frowned. He had no idea what the hint was trying to tell him.

He saw ‘core’ and ‘mental’, and he assumed he had to concentrate on something. He tried focusing, mentally groping for . . . well, himself, as if rummaging through a disorganized closet. Something clicked. Not quite a thought nor a memory, but a sensation like tapping on frosted glass.

A translucent panel slid into view just above his right eye, displaying unfamiliar, overly formal text:

CALIBRATOR PROFILE: FABRISSE KESTOVAR_28
Class: Apprentice (Unclassified)
Field Role: Inert-Adept (Dormant)
Tier: Unverified
Epochal Registration: Legacy Validated
Status: Conscious – Mildly Concerned
Vitality (HP): 72 / 80
Focus (FP): 30 / 30