Daniel Newwyn

Stat tracking

I have made this spreadsheet that y’all can access. This spreadsheet updates Kestovar’s stats via snapshots. We have 2 important snapshots so far: Chapter 12 and Chapter 91. Come in and check how much Kestovar has progressed! This might be the first LitRPG ever where the MC takes 80 chapters to level up by 1 level . . .

I will soon be adding his stats after he has levelled up to Level 6. It really took him around 140 levels to gain 2 levels. There’s a first for everything, I guess.

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 17)

The Archive was not a single hall but a sprawling complex of chambers, vaults, and stairwells stacked into the heart of the Academy’s oldest keep. Every wall seemed laden with stone-etched formulae and erased annotations from long-dead researchers, while the air carried the faint mineral tang of preserved aether. The deeper one went, the more the ambient glylphlights dimmed, until even the grand corridors had the hush of a subterranean sanctum.

High Instructant Bellare, the bald and stocky man leading the way, was a familiar face to Severa. They had worked together on no fewer than three artifact research projects, the newest being a study on fusing rare, combat-oriented trinkets into a single epic-graded ring. Ever since she had bonded with Embervein, Severa’s fascination with practical combat artifacts had only deepened. Her handling of them was still rough—sometimes even reckless—but Bellare had been patient, guiding her through the intricacies of mechanical resonance and compatibility.

The first thing Bellare said to Severa when he saw her was, “Are you okay?” The second one was, “The epic-grade ring you sent over to me only reacts to water spells.”

Severa’s legs nearly betrayed her, and she had to press more firmly into Halveth’s arm to remain upright. Even so, she answered without hesitation, her tone polished as ever, “Does it give no augmentation if one casts any other spell?”

Bellare was already turning, walking ahead with his hands clasped behind his back, his pace brisk enough that she and Halveth had to adjust to keep stride. “Presumably,” he said over his shoulder. “However, preliminary trials indicate the intensity output of water-based invocations across all tiers is increased by approximately one-hundred and fifty percent.” Then he turned back to her. If he had any concern for her current physical state, he sure wasn’t showing it beyond the inquiry earlier. “Has the Embervein reacted to any other element, or only pure fire?”

“Only fire so far. I couldn’t get solar invocations to run through its core. I’ll try to channel Energy or Lava into it once I branch out to those elements.”

Bellare gave a short hum of acknowledgment. “That would be expected. Many artifacts recovered in the last century were dismissed as little more than trinkets because they failed to respond to the majority of elements. For decades, the assumption was that a non-reactive core meant uselessness.” It is only recently, through a handful of independent studies, that researchers have begun to understand the specificity of elemental resonance—that a piece may be extraordinarily potent under one aspect and entirely inert under another.

Severa was eager to respond, as this was one of the few subjects she actually had an ounce of interest in, but Halveth immediately cut in, “This is a matter to discuss later, Bellare. We would very much like to see Draeth now.”

“Of course, Commander.” Bellare had always been respectful despite the fact Halveth had long been dismissed from the army.

Instead of leading them deeper into the Archive’s main corridors, however, he turned toward a narrow side passage and placed his palm flat against a stretch of wall. What opened before them was not a carved tunnel but a hallway of pale light woven thin, as though Bellare had stitched the aetherrealm itself into a passage. The aether had its own dimension, so one could often bypass physical distance through it, but such travel was typically unstable unless one was capable enough of a thaumaturge.

“An auxiliary throughway,” Bellare explained in his usual neutral timbre as he stepped inside. “Conjured to link Draeth’s alternate study with the Archive. It saves one the trouble of three flights of stairs and the eastern ward’s patrol.”

Bellare’s method was a compromise. The corridor he conjured was serviceable, but dim, the luminous walls no brighter than a guttering lantern flame.

Severa stepped inside. Halveth’s hand remained firm on her arm as they followed, but Severa found her gaze drawn to the corridor’s subdued radiance. She would have called it underwhelming, if not for the quiet awe that crept into her chest at the thought of anyone simply cutting through reality for convenience. That was the kind of spatial manipulation Severa had yet to be able to practice, mainly because it required an incredible amount of mental stamina and aether pool reserve.

“Keep close to the center line,” Bellare instructed without looking back. After another minute, they reached their destination: a cavernous hall masquerading as a study. Draeth never did anything in moderation. Like his other private studies, this one was needlessly, almost comically vast, spanning high vaulted ceilings from which an archipelago of suspended glyphlamps (yes, these were different from glyphlights) drifted in slow orbits, as though the man could not tolerate a simple chandelier when an entire firmament would suffice.

The floor was, once again, some exotic onyx veined with a pale opalescence and a surface polished until it reflected like still water. Draeth’s penchant for minerals was no accident of taste. He had a thorough, almost intimate understanding of them, the kind born not of mere scholarship but of decades spent tracing the resonance of stone as though it were a living language. Which made it all the more requisite that he mask this interest as nothing more than shallow extravagance, a vanity project befitting his station. Otherwise, the Order would be hot on his tail.

Draeth was already seated on a chair with armrests carved from granite when they entered, as if he had been expecting them not merely this hour, but this very moment. In one hand, he cradled a porcelain cup, while the other hand rested with deliberate poise atop the chair’s stone arm, his long fingers curled as though sculpted there.

He might have just woken from a nap judging from the languid ease of his posture, but he looked immaculate, as though the act of rising from bed had already left him fully assembled. His black robes were free from crease; the silver-threaded trim sharp as blade-edges; his collar high and perfectly aligned. Not a fleck of dust clung anywhere. His hair, what little remained, was reduced to a thin ring about the back of his skull, but rather than diminish him it only drew attention to the austerity of his brow and the penetrating severity of his gaze. At seventy, Draeth had long since shed the illusion of youth, yet in his case the lack of it only magnified the sense of permanence.

Severa straightened at once as she stepped into the study, hands clasped before her. Her chin dipped in a respectful angle. “Headmaster. We meant no disruption.”

[You say his name is Draeth?]

Yes. Be respectful and don’t do your analysis on—

Murelien Draeth — Preliminary Analysis (Confidence: 47% — Obfuscation Detected)

• Perceived Social Standing: High ~ Extremely High — 74–90%
  

• Reliability Index: Low ~ High (Calculated, Opportunistic) — 32–68%
  

• Approachability Score: Negligible ~ Low — 2–27%
  

• Attitude Toward You: Ambiguous (Instrumental) — 22–67%
  

• Obfuscation Layering: Extreme — 79–96% (Direct assessment impaired)
  
  

—him.

[You might need to up your social game if we wanna read this man fully, girl.]

Severa resisted the urge to sigh.

“Come in, Montreal. We need to proceed with your diagnosis this instant,” Draeth intoned. Each word of his sounded like the toll of a bell.

You didn't ask for an extremely detailed description of Draeth, but you got one anyway. Have fun with it.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 20)

Fabrisse didn’t know if the Quartz-Mutated Nibberhare had noticed them staring, but if it had, it hadn’t cared enough to move yet. It sniffed the air then lowered itself into a crouch that made every muscle coil like a wound spring.

“Don’t make sudden movements,” Liene whispered. Her hand dipped into her satchel. When it came out, she was holding a small crystalline orb inscribed with faint glyph-lines—another one of her emergency light traps.

The runes danced in tiny motes of light across her hand as she cupped it, trying to mask the glow. “I don’t know if this is strong enough for something stone-touched,” she murmured.

Earth, in its pure form, was considered the most inert of the four classical elements, and stone even more inert by extension. Its essence was density, permanence, the refusal to be moved. But creatures did not reason the way humans did. Many lived and died with their bellies pressed to the soil, their burrows hollowed through rock, their diets steeped in dust and mineral runoff. Over generations, their bodies learned to drink from Stone’s deep, unmoving well. It did not make them agile spellcasters—no creature hurled slabs of granite with a sorcerer’s precision—but the resonance seeped into their bones, their teeth, their armor, and possibly their neck skin too, in the case of this nibberhare.

In the past, Fabrisse would’ve wondered why generations of researchers didn’t dissect all these animals and figure out how they absorbed the element. However, after seeing Draeth cast a Rank IX spell—what could only have been Rare tier or higher—he figured maybe they already had. Maybe they had made a breakthrough and simply buried it, for political reasons.

Fabrisse tracked along the creature’s body and decided his Stupenstones wouldn’t get through. The quartz wasn’t random growth; it had spread in deliberate lines, as though generations of pressure had guided where the mineral took root. The thickest ridges spiked across its shoulders, its belly, even down the spine of its neck—places any predator would naturally aim.

Liene’s whisper was steady, but her free palm had already opened as if gripping an invisible haft. Lines of radiance stitched themselves out of nothing, forming a shaft first, then lengthening into a tapering head. A Lance of Light coalesced between her fingers

“Stay behind me,” she breathed. “If the trap fails, I’ll pin it through the joints. That’s the only place not armored.”

“What happened to not harming animals?”

“Imagine the pride your Department would feel when their student brings back something like this, Fabri,” Liene’s voice dropped lower. “If we can bring its carcass back, they’re giving us at least 100 Kohns for this rare specimen.” 

100 Kohns would be like ten merryberry pies. It would cover his eating expenses for some time.

Fabrisse almost let himself imagine the coins stacked neat in his pouch—until the nibberhare lunged without warning.

Liene snapped her wrist and flung the crystalline orb. It cracked open, spilling a lattice of glyphlight that wrapped the creature in a glowing net. For a heartbeat, Fabrisse thought it might hold.

It didn’t. The net couldn’t cling to the mineral plating. With one violent twist, the creature tore the glyphwork apart.

“Damn it.” Her grip tightened on the Lance of Light. She drew back and threw, and the spear of radiance streaked across the gap. Only to meet dirt. The nibberhare had swerved with its unnatural speed, the lance shearing a glowing line across the forest floor instead of the exposed joint she’d aimed for.

The nibberhare’s eyes fixed on Liene, more like a shard of garnet than anything living. Then it surged forward, quartz claws ripping up soil as a low vibration rattled from its throat.

The vibration deepened, resonating through its plated chest until the sound sharpened into a grinding crack. Segments of quartz along its back glowed, and then they rocketed.

[Adversary activates: Crystal Spine Volley]

A storm of spines launched, glittering like diamond shrapnel. Liene dragged her hand and cast her lightshield, the disc of light widening instinctively into a barrier dome. The first wave clattered and ricocheted, spraying shards in all directions.

But one spine slipped the angle of her defense, whistling toward Fabrisse like a crossbow bolt. Fabrisse’s fingers jerked into a half-formed mudra, lips whispering the mnemonic drilled into him for Stillbrace:

“Air stands still.”

He was supposed to channel resolve into the weave. But all he felt was the hot coil of shame, for freezing, for dragging Liene into this.

The spell formed anyway. The air stilled into a disc before him, and the crystal spine shattered against it. A shock shuddered through his arm, but the quartz cracked against the improvised barrier and fell in splinters at his feet.

For a heartbeat, Fabrisse could only stare. Shame had been enough.

His breath hitched. That would’ve hurt a lot.

The creature only used the covering spray as momentum. Its bulk lunged low, claws gouging furrows into the earth with each bound.

Liene frantically dragged her hand wide to create another light shield, but as a translucent wall blossomed between her and the charging mass . . . the nibberhare tripped. Its foreclaw caught on a hairline fracture running through the earth. A jagged fissure had unzipped the exact moment the rodent stepped on it. Fabrisse’s Shearline.

Before it could recover, he spun his fingers in a clumsy spiral, pulling stray threads of air together into a tight weave. He chanted his mnemonic and cast Whirlweave. The air smacked the nibberhare’s snout. 

The effect was absurdly mundane for how much effort it cost him. The quartz-beast reeled back with a startled grunt, whiskers twitching, nose wrinkled as if he’d just booped it with a rolled-up parchment.

[Damage Dealt: Nose Itch]

“You should stick to tripping it, Fabri . . .” Liene had already cancelled her shield and formed a new Lance of Light. “How many more Stone spells can you cast?”

“I can keep casting for a minute.” He’d worn Lorvan’s ring and Tommaso’s trinket for this reason.

“Okay. Keep tripping it. It’s gone back up!”

Fabrisse planted his heel into the soil and shoved his aether control to the ground. The ground quivered beneath the nibberhare’s claws, small tremors rippling outward in a circle. Tremblehold.

The beast’s quartz-plated paws sank a fraction into loosened dirt, but then the nibberhare sprang. Its hindlegs coiled and launched as if the earth’s shifting meant nothing.

[Adversary’s DEX Check: 20 > 12]

[Tremblehold failed]

He forgot about the dexterity requirement! This rodent was quite a bit too fast for him to contain. But . . . Shearline required the same DEX check. Then why did it work? He tried to remember the detailed description of the spell.

Effect: If the opposing creature is aware, it forces an immediate DEX check (DEX = 10 + Caster’s INT modifier) to avoid stumbling or partial restraint.

Ah. If I understand correctly, Shearline can trip the creature if they’re unaware.

“Fabri! Why stopped?” Liene had no choice but to press forward on her own. She used her lance like a polearm and drove it toward the creature’s exposed shoulder joint, only for the radiant tip to glance off quartz plating with a brittle crackle.

She swore under her breath and jabbed again, rapid staccato thrusts, but each strike scraped or ricocheted off the armor. The weapon should have been piercing; Fabrisse could see the points of articulation she was aiming for. But in the chaos of movement, her precision faltered. 

Fabrisse blinked hard, replaying the earlier stumble in his head. The nibberhare was once again focused on Liene. This was the chance.

“Shearline now!” he muttered to himself, thrusting both hands down.

The earth split a hair’s breadth from the creature’s foreclaw. Its step landed directly on the fault, quartz plating grinding against stone as the fissure yawned wider. With a sharp crack, the beast’s legs tangled, and it staggered off-balance in a jarring stumble.

Liene saw the opportunity and reversed her grip on the Lance of Light. The next thrust struck clean, slipping through the narrow joint behind its plated shoulder. The radiant tip punched past armor at last, sliding into living flesh beneath.

The nibberhare shrieked.

[Damage Dealt: Deep Cut To The Joint]

Her spell is strong! It cuts through flesh like butter.

Liene saw the opportunity and conjured a fresh shield in her off-hand, a compact disc of light. The nibberhare lashed down with its claw, but the miniature barrier caught the strike with a crystalline clang, holding steady. With one leg gone, its ferocity meant nothing.

[Adversary’s DEX Compromised: 20 → 10]

I can Tremblehold it now!

It tried to wrench free, but the ground shook minutely with Tremblehold. The hare dropped to the ground again. Liene pressed her assault. A few more precise thrusts into weakened gaps—armpit, hip, throat seam—and the nibberhare sagged. Its red eyes dimmed, body rattling as it collapsed to the ground, finally still.

Before Fabrisse could exhale, Liene summoned her last light trap. This one was larger, a radiant lattice spreading out like a net. The weakened creature thrashed halfheartedly, but its struggles barely slowed the glowing weave from sealing shut around its form. The bindings locked in place, humming as they constrained the corpse-like body.

Liene flashed Fabrisse a sharp grin. “That was my last trap. Let’s pull back before another stone-touched hare shows up.”

[Combat Completed: +52 EXP]

[Progress to Level 7: 4536/4550]

[Multiple Skills Progressed: Stillbrace, Whirlweave, Tremblehold, Shearline]

[Item Dropped: Crystalline Spine Fragment x4]

No! That’s not enough for levelling up! Again, he was fourteen points short of leveling, as if the Eidralith was teasing him.

Then he remembered something else.

I haven’t gotten my experience point from the field trip yet. It’ll probably only count after I’ve walked out of the forest.

He saw that there were item droppings, and when he scanned the ground, there were indeed fragments. He picked them up and put them into the satchel. As he turned one of the fragments over in his hand, the light from Liene’s trap its latticed interior, but the reflected hue seemed a bit murky. Must be a characteristic of quartz formed on lifeforms. He wasn’t sure if it was reagent, component, or just debris. Too crystalline to discard, too strange to ignore.

Maybe Min Hajin would know.

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 16)

It didn’t make any sense. How come Fabrisse Kestovar, of all people, pulled her mental health out of the nadir? 

DeShawn. Explain.

DeShawn’s reply came instantaneously.

[Certain man just come with the vibe, ya get me? When you’re near, it’s like man’s aura buffs you automatically.]

How much does he buff me?

[Can only tell when I see him.]

“Aunt Merry,” Severa said, her voice steadier than she felt. “Let us get closer to the source of the sound.”

“Why?”

“I need to have a brief conversation with someone there.”

She prayed her voice carried none of the weakness trembling through her body. Out this late, no one would question her presence, as students were often scattered across the Synod grounds at every hour. But if anyone caught the way she leaned on Halveth’s warmth or the stutter in her step, the questions would come fast. 

“Who exactly do you think is worth the risk of being seen like this?” Halveth droned on.

“I will keep it brief.”

Halveth didn’t say anything more.

There were possibly four figures sitting around a campfire from afar, two of which had stood up upon seeing Severa. She slowed her steps once the two figures approaching her from the courtyard became distinct. Even at a distance she recognized the blond girl that always seemed to orbit Kestovar.

Her breath felt shallow in her chest, so she forced it deeper, lengthened each exhale until her shoulders stopped shuddering. The girl broke from the fire first. Severa marked the detail: confident, but cautious.

[That’s the guard dog, girl. Always walks before the pup.]

That was the moment that words reached her—gentle, even—but her ears caught only fragments over the buzzing in her skull. Need . . . assistance? That was what she thought she heard.

“No,” Severa answered. “That won’t be necessary. I am quite all right.”

The girl’s attribute showed up as she spoke something again. Judging from her facial expression, she was insisting on offering assistance.

??? — Preliminary Analysis (Confidence: 39% — More observation required)

Perceived Social Standing: Low ~ Moderate — 30–60%

Reliability Index: Moderate ~ High — 52–72%

Approachability Score: Low ~ Moderate — 42–79%

Attitude Toward You: Low ~ High — 38–62%

Benefits of Befriending: Low ~ Moderate — 20–48%

She seemed like a nice enough person, but that would be all she was. A nice person.

“I assure you,” Severa said again, firmer this time, “I am fine.”

Severa gazed past the girl, to the young man who lingered just behind her. At once, the numbers in her vision jumped again.

Mental Health Stability – Practical Exertion: 26% (+1%)

A thread of relief wound itself through her chest. Unacceptable, irrational—but undeniable. It was him. Her head felt lighter. The pressure behind her eyes ebbed. She could breathe again. 

“Kestovar,” she said.

But Kestovar didn’t react. His head tipped, almost as if he thought she were speaking to someone else. His eyes darted past her shoulder, then slid back to the blonde girl as though expecting her to answer instead.

Why’s he always so . . . passive? DeShawn. How is this meek little scholar-energy ever going to be of help to me?

So she tried again, sharper, “Kestovar. I need a word.”

The girl hesitated, then stepped aside. She gestured back toward the fire, murmured something to him, then she left him to her, retreating toward the warmth of the circle.

As she looked at Kestovar again, his numbers showed up in front of her.

Fabrisse Kestovar — Preliminary Analysis (Confidence: 61% — More observation required)

Perceived Social Standing: Low — 12–28%

Reliability Index: Moderate ~ High — 40–76%

Approachability Score: Low — 21–39%

Attitude Toward You: Low (Distrustful) — 18–34%

Benefits of Befriending: Moderate ~ High — 42–83%

Effect: When within a 5m radius proximity of Fabrisse Kestovar, gain +12% Mental Health Stability (Theoretical & Practical); -6% ~ +6% Empathy Quotient (Theoretical & Practical)

[Distrustful of ya. Low perceived standing. But stabilizes your mental health, yeah. Empathy swings from being close to him; sometimes up, sometimes down. Know what that means?]

Why are you listing what I can already see?

[Girl, you bullied him.]

I didn’t bully him. I was harsh on him sometimes, but I said nothing the Magister would not have said to me. I even tutored him last week and I’m tutoring him again this week.

[Relax. I’m not the moral police. I ain’t no Saint when I was around.]

[But whatever you were doing with him before? It wasn’t working. Think of this as Social Engineering 101. I’ll give ya a few options.]

Response Option:

“Good evening.”
 Estimated Attitude Toward You change: 0% ~ 0%

“I will be unable to conduct our tutoring sessions this week. I do hope you will understand.”
 Estimated Attitude Toward You change: +0.3% ~ +0.6%

“It is quite late. You should be more mindful of your health, Kestovar. Staying out in the cold will do you no favors.”
 Estimated Attitude Toward You change: -0.7% ~ +0.3% (might backfire due to distrust)

“Back to your dilly-dallying, I see. It seems even a week of effort cannot persuade you to take your studies in earnest.”
 Estimated Attitude Toward You change: -1.2% ~ -0.4%

[If you want the buff, be nice to him. It’s that simple. Tutorial level type shi.]

Halveth lightly touched her arm; a cue that they’d better leave. Severa looked away, feigning disinterest as the faint projections hovered in her periphery. She did not care for DeShawn’s running commentary. She did not care for its so-called options.

Unfortunately, she’d memorized all the options.

Her gaze slipped, unbidden, to the supposed best choice, and she whispered it into words, “I will be unable to conduct our tutoring sessions this week. I do hope you will understand.”

“Of course,” Kestovar nodded. It didn’t seem as though there was any change within him. Yet, DeShawn notified her anyway.

Estimated Attitude Toward You change: +0.3%

[See? You’re learning already. Salvage your relationship and you can use him as a lifeline before you go cray-cray.]

I don’t subscribe to your numbers. 

He smelled faintly of pie, and that activated the only part of her body that seemed to be working properly: her stomach. She wanted merryberry pie. The very idea made her knees want to abandon her noble stance immediately. She hadn’t had anything in her stomach all day. She must leave now before she started salivating and he realized she also consumed food like a normal person and not bags of blood.

Severa said with as much cordiality as possible, “Please, I would ask that you pretend you did not see me here tonight. I trust that is something you can do, Kestovar?”

“Yes,” he said carefully as he nodded again. “I can do that.”

A neat, carefully wrapped package tucked against one of the possibly dozen of his robe pockets. Her gaze traveled past it, taking in the circle of figures gathered by the fire, their faces lit with anticipation and quiet warmth. 

Ah. It’s his birthday.

Her lips almost curved into a smile.

The date was impossible to forget. Her own birthday tomorrow made this one memorable by default.

“On an unrelated note . . . Happy birthday, Kestovar,” she said, taking in his stunned face.

Estimated Attitude Toward You change: +0.4%

Social Aptitude Practical Exertion: Extremely Low — 28% (+1%)

Mental Health Stability Practical Exertion: Extremely Low — 28% (+2%) [12% Temp]

As she stepped back, letting Halveth guide her away from the fire, a quiet satisfaction settled in her chest. I remembered his birthday. On my own accord.

The Drip Core artifact hadn’t even registered this information. She had wished him happy birthday purely from the kindness of her heart, and somehow, that simple, unforced act felt heavier than any calculated spell or social maneuver she had mastered.

You didn’t think of this, did you, DeShawn?

[How could I have thought of a piece of information you didn’t provide me, girl?]

[This ain’t the win you think it is.]

Severa lifted her chin and began striding forward, the measured gait of a noble young woman. Almost immediately, the internal injury bit her from inside. Her legs quivered, and she found herself shortening her stride, forcing smaller, more controlled movements to compensate for the internal weakness.

Just don’t trip in front of witnesses, she told herself. She didn’t trip.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 19)

They’d already managed to capture six more hares, and that wasn’t necessarily a good sign. Veliane could only maintain so many constructs, and the net of her light glyph had sagged with the weight of their extra prisoners.

Veliane said, “If these hares keep fighting inside here, the lattice could destabilize. We need to head back before they wriggle free.”

Sven grinned. “So basically, we’ve overachieved.”

“Overburdened,” Veliane corrected.

They turned back along the trail, but Fabrisse’s eyes snagged on something past the brush. A thin veil of white aether shrouded like mist between trunks, glowing where it touched bark and leaf. Beyond it, the forest seemed darker, denser, as though the light bent differently inside. A weathered wooden placard leaned against a crooked post, covered by moss around the edges.

He brushed it clean and squinted at the carved runes.

“Caution: Quillbacks Roam Beyond This Boundary.”

The words sent a prickle down his spine.

Liene came up beside him and read aloud, her tone oddly casual. “That part of the forest’s infested by Quillbacks. Their actual name’s longer, but people just call them that. Rodents, kind of porcupine-ish but with mineral spines instead of keratin.”

“Stone quills,” Fabrisse guessed.

“Exactly. They’re nastier than nibberhares, though,” Liene went on, moving her satchel higher on her shoulder. “They can launch their spines when they’re threatened. The aether concentrates in their stone tips, so it’s not simple to block with shields because it vibrates straight through. Get one lodged in your ribs, and you’re done moving for the day.”

Sven let out a low whistle. “Sounds like a fun fight.”

Veliane simply said, “Not today. We’re overloaded already.” And moved on.

Liene lingered, watching Fabrisse, who had also lingered. He hadn’t moved. His gaze was fixed past the mossed placard, through the curtain of white aether that rippled between the trunks. 

“Fabrisse,” she urged gently, “we should go. The others are already—”

“Can we walk past that line?” he interrupted. His fingers tapped at the side of his satchel. “I need to confirm something.”

Do I trigger another quest if I walk into a new territory?

She stayed silent for a second then said, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt.” Then she shouted toward the far side, “We’ll meet you at the forest edge! Don’t wait on us.”

The second Liene finished her sentence, Fabrisse walked past the cloak of aether.

Sure enough, another quest triggered:

[SIDEQUEST RECEIVED: Vermin Control: Quillback]

Objective: Capture or eliminate 5 quillbacks

Reward: + 300 EXP

• 1 STR

• 1 FOR

• 2 Stone Thaumaturgy Mastery Point

[Reminder: Vermin Control quests can only be completed once every 8 hours. Come back in 7 hours and 45 minutes to accept another quest.]

Why the limit, he wondered. Maybe the system didn’t want him to exploit it too much. Because he had found a way to better control his gains.

Mastery Points were only reliably given via quests, and quests had been unreliable. However, now he’d confirmed some quests were region-locked. If his guess were correct, the Quillback quest gave him Stone Thaumaturgy points because their features aligned the most closely to that element. The Nibberhare quest didn’t give any Master Point, however; possibly because they were too weak. 

If he could find and target the creatures that gave him the most Air or Fire Thaumaturgy points, he’d improve his ability in these two elements by a lot; enough to possibly catch up to over a semester’s worth of spellcasting that he had lagged.

“So?” Liene peered at his face. “What did you find out?”

“You won’t believe this,” Fabrisse turned to her, grinning ear-to-ear. He told her about the possible life hack he’d just found.

Liene’s eyes widened, her lips parting in a delighted breath. “That’s brilliant! Fabrisse, that’s very smart.” She shoved her satchel higher and leaned on her toes, energy sparking in her posture. “If you’re looking for Fire-adjacent animals, you’ll need to trek up the inactive volcano to find Emberwhelps. They’re these little lizard-things, no bigger than your arm.” She traced a line in the air with both arms to draw the outline of the whelp. “They puff sparks when they’re threatened, but they’re the safest Fire creature in the region to farm—barely any power behind them, and they scatter the moment you hit back. People usually ignore them because they’re worth almost no experience, but for what you need?” She gave him a quick grin. “They’re perfect.”

These were potentially low-risk, high-return creatures. Fabrisse jumped physically, clutching his satchel close as his finger shook from joy.

Liene stared at him. “You want to trek up the volcano right now, don’t you . . .”

Fabrisse nodded rapidly, curls bouncing. “Yes. Yes. Right this evening. Do you want to come?”

“Okay. I’ll try to clear my schedule, but no promise.” She rubbed her belly. “Can we get back and grab some lunch now? I’m starved.”

“Yes—”

A notification jumped at him.

[Hostile Adversary Spotted: Quartz-Mutated Nibberhare]

His satchel strap dug into his shoulder as the notification burned across his vision. Slowly, he turned. At first glance, it was a hare, with long ears, twitching nose, and thick hind legs poised for spring. But its size was wrong. It stood nearly to his waist, bulkier than any nibberhare he’d seen penned in the campus yards. The fur along its flanks was patchy, peeled back in places where clusters of pale quartz jutted out like barnacles.

“That hare . . .” Liene murmured, unable to look away. “It has stones on it.”

His Spectral Appraisal returned results.

[Quartz-Mutated Nibberhare]

Type: Aberrant Vermin, Stone-Enhanced

FP: 48/48

Attributes:

STR (Strength): 8

DEX (Dexterity): 20

FOR (Fortitude): 19

INT (Intuition): 14

ARC (Inner Resonance): 2

EMO (Emotional Attunement): 3

SYN (Synaptic Clarity): 2

Skills: Crystal Spine Volley; Burrowstep; Shatter Kick; Crystal Bite

Mineral Carapace (Passive); Skitter Reflex (Passive)

[WARNING: Spines and claws reinforced with mineral crystal. Low ~ moderate threat level.]

Potential Rewards: Common Quartz (Clear/Smoky/Amethyst Tint); Crystalline Spine Fragments

Fabrisse whispered in a daze. “So they do eat quartz dust.”

Our boy learning to exploit the system!

Tough stuff

I think the challenge for me with writing Severa's book is that I have to treat it like a separate entry instead of just an extension to Fabrisse's POV. I'm going to post it separately on Royal Road, and naturally a lot of readers will be completely new ones. I think right now there are things in Severa's book that are implied knowledge from Fabrisse's first book. It's going to need some tightening before it bears a structure of a standalone book with clear world-building for a brand new reader.

Severa Book 2 (Chapter 15)

Severa’s breathing had stabilized by the time they reached the dungeon’s entrance. The weave of warmth Halveth had threaded into her had dulled the worst of it—what had been a gnawing, suffocating throb in her chest was now only a muted undertone, steady enough that she could draw full breaths without shuddering.

Only now did she realize one thing: her weapon was gone. “My . . . my dagger.” The Embervein was supposed to be strapped to her side, nestled in its sheath. Now only the sheath remained. 

Halveth said, “I’ve retrieved it for you. It’s wrapped in cloth in my inventory.”

I don’t even know that I’ve dropped it. That’s how far gone I was.

“Merry . . . I’ve failed you.” The words broke from Severa as soon as she could manage them.

“In no way have you failed,” Merry said at once, voice steady, almost sharp in its certainty. “Your adversary was several multitudes above your level. No Magus-Student could have met that challenge head-on. You came close.”

Severa stayed silent, eyes lowered, the words she wanted to summon folding back into her throat. That got Halveth to turn to her.

“I’ve known you long enough to know when you’re going to keep all your wounds locked in again,” she said. “If you have something to say, say it.”

“I . . . failed to feel again.”

“Were you trying to cast joy or mischief?” Those were popular emotions that Severa had typically avoided.

“Rage, Merry.” 

Halveth’s brow furrowed. Rage was the last thing she expected Severa to lack. It was an amplifier, brutal and consuming, and Severa’s entire problem had always been bleeding too much of it, burning herself out before her precision could make the difference.

“Why?” Halveth asked. “What blocked it? You’ve never been short of anger.”

I can’t tell her. I can’t tell her I was scared.

DeShawn’s prompts cut through her thoughts again.

Response Options:

• Spontaneous remark or light teasing — Estimated Attitude Toward You change: -2.7% ~ +0.4%

• Change the subject — Estimated Attitude Toward You change: -0.4% ~ +0.1%

• Short reply — Estimated Attitude Toward You change: -0.7% ~ +0.1%

• Admit you were scared — Estimated Attitude Toward You change: +0.5% ~ +1.0% + Potential changes to Mental Health Stability

What—

[You want me to write up auto-responses for ya? Because I can.]

I—

Before Severa could response, another option apparition showed up:

Response Options:

• “Guess my rage clocked out early. Even anger needs vacation time.” — Estimated Attitude Toward You change: -2.7% ~ +0.4%

• “Merry. You must’ve seen that void gate back there?” — Estimated Attitude Toward You change: -0.2% ~ +0.2%

• “It doesn’t matter.” — Estimated Attitude Toward You change: -0.7% ~ +0.1%

• “I was . . . afraid. That’s what stopped it.” — Estimated Attitude Toward You change: +0.5% ~ +1.0% + Potential changes to Mental Health Stability

Why in the nine hells would admitting weakness, of all things, raise Halveth’s attitude? Halveth was strict, iron in her bones, result-driven to the marrow. The woman praised victory and measured every word in terms of tactical utility. Admitting to fear—openly, shamefully—should only earn a scornful look. 

I don’t believe you, DeShawn. How confident are you in your estimation?

[68%, for Halveth. Picking the optimal option, man, it’s statistically better than you running your mouth.]

Severa’s thoughts circled, and only when Halveth filled the silence for her did she realize she’d stayed silent.

Halveth said, “The pressure’s gotten to you,” she said, utterly unsparing. “You’ll get used to this kind of pressure. Not today, but one day.”

Which, Severa admitted, was probably not the wrong diagnosis.

The phantom text dissolved from her vision, the branching options shuttering in on themselves until only the truth remained: she’d made her choice, whether by hesitation or will.

She’d selected the fifth option: Silence.

Halveth’s Attitude Toward You change: 0%

[Coulda been worse. Also, girl, I gotta show you something]

Mental Health Stability
  

Theoretical Understanding: Low — 39% (-1%)
  

Practical Exertion: Moderate — 32% (-5%)

Stress Resilience
  

Theoretical Understanding: Moderate — 65%
  

Practical Exertion: Moderate — 53% (-2%)

The numbers burned across her vision. Mental Health Stability: 32%. 

I’m not unstable. I’ve got it under control. Almost. I just need . . . a rest. And some more training.

[Feel free to doubt it. But the stats don’t cap, girl. Numbers don’t lie.]

The dungeon mouth receded behind them, stone dripping with the echo of what had nearly consumed her. The path ahead stretched into uneven ground, part moss and part scree, and even with Halveth coaxing the wind at their backs, quickening their pace, the walk wasn’t short. Each step thrusted Severa deeper into herself.

It’s fine. It’s all fine. I’ll scale down my ambitions. No more reckless plunges into the unknown. Next time, only Tier II. I’ll scout twice, three times if I have to. I won’t dive headlong into unstable grounds again. Not without certainty.

Control. Yes. I can control my emotions. I just lost the rhythm today, that’s all. 

[Do you always talk to yourself that much?]

Severa immediately winked three times with her left eye and DeShawn promptly shut up.

By the time the treeline thinned, the shadows of towers already stretched across the horizon. Midnight draped the path in velvet dark, the sky stripped to stars and the faintest blade of a waning moon. Severa tilted her head, and there it was—the South Westeros Branch of the Unified Synod for Thaumaturgic Studies. Even from a distance it was impossible to mistake: the campus wasn’t so much built as it was imposed on the land, a citadel of scholarship that had swallowed an entire valley whole.

The outer wall curved like the rib of some colossal beast, black stone fused with veins of quartz that caught the late sun and threw it back in fractured brilliance. The fortifications stretched wide enough to encompass not only libraries and lecture-halls but the actual contours of the valley itself—streams, hills, even a portion of the cliff-face had been folded into its design. A single bastion at the northern corner stood as high as the spires in the capital, its top lost in haze. That was home to the Synod’s Aetheric Beacon.

“It’s getting . . . really cold.” Severa’s teeth clattered together as she clasped her own arms.

Her vision wavered at the edges, as if the dark were thickening into a haze. She triggered Sanguine Focus, but only managed to pull the blur back to baseline, to the simple clarity of an ordinary gaze.

“Hold still,” Halveth said. The warmth threaded through her before, now surged in sudden, blinding pulses against Severa’s back. Each interval pressed into her like the sun itself had fallen behind her shoulders, radiating through her chest, forcing her heart to slow, her breath to deepen.

Halveth murmured, “I’ve informed Draeth. He’s still awake, and he’ll send someone to meet us inside the Synod grounds. You won’t be alone.”

Draeth was the Headmaster of the Synod, and the man who’d sanctioned the majority of Severa’s dungeon runs. 

Headmaster Murelien Draeth was a man set firmly in the older decades. Even in an age where most patrons had long stopped paying handsomely to sponsor dungeon expeditions, it wasn’t uncommon for him to hire recently graduated Magi to explore them. There were few opportunities left that offered substantial rewards for legitimate artifacts, and Draeth had learned how to leverage that scarcity. Most of his clients (and very often Draeth himself) demanded results fast, and he’d learned that newly minted Magi often took more risks and could be manipulated into doing the dangerous work he didn’t want to touch himself. 

But Severa knew she was an anomaly. To her knowledge, she was the only Magus-Student he’d ever authorized to enter dungeons alone, without a certified party. Every other student was required to travel in teams under supervision. Draeth, for all his political cunning and obsession with artifacts, had trusted her with a freedom no one else had. That thought tightened her chest with pride, and now, anxiety.

Severa would be in trouble with Draeth if he found out she’d taken the liberty to explore a closed off dungeon, with consequences. And in turn, Draeth would be in trouble with far bigger players.

What if someone finds out how I’ve almost lost my life in an unsanctioned dungeon, and use this to shut down dungeon delving for good? They would start by questioning Draeth on how he’d allowed a student to roam such dangerous ground alone. Draeth was the largest patron of dungeon expeditions in all of Westeros; if his reputation faltered, the repercussions could cascade. 

“We’re to be greeted by High Instructant Bellare,” Halveth said. “He’s travelling past the Eastern grounds as we speak.”

“Merry. We need to take the most secretive route,” Severa said, her voice low, cutting through the chill that had crept up her spine. “Can you keep the healing lighter? Just enough to keep me moving?”

Halveth’s hands wavered for a moment before she eased the stabilizing warmth. Severa shivered, rubbing her arms, and realized with a sinking weight that she couldn’t conjure any aether of her own. All she could muster was enough resonance to sustain Sanguine Focus, and even that felt like dragging a lifeline through treacle.

No. No no no. What if . . . I’ve lost all my resonance with the aether and can’t ever get it back again?

“Merry. That Dragonkin . . . wasn’t normal, was it?” Severa could feel how shaky her voice was right now. “It had void energy in it. Whatever it’s imprinted on me, it’s sucking my aether pool.”

Halveth whispered in her ear, “Keep moving, Severa. That’s all that matters right now.”

Severa’s chest tightened as Halveth’s silence stretched. It could only mean one thing: Halveth knew the situation was grim. Every step dragged against the cold that had seeped into her bones, and panic throbbed behind her temples. Aether control was the one thing she’d ever been good at. What would happen if she no longer had any aether to control?

Spellcasting had defined her for all her life. Without it, she was untethered.

Her hands trembled. She clenched them into fists. Instinctively, she winked three times with her left eye.

DeShawn. Show me the numbers.

The snarky voice in her head took more time than usual to answer.

[I can only show you your social and emotional measurements. You know that.]

I don’t care! Just show me numbers. Something. Anything. Please.

[If you say so, girl.]

Social Aptitude
  

Theoretical Understanding: High — 85%
  

Practical Exertion: Extremely Low — 27% (-4%)

Political Savvy
  

Theoretical Understanding: Moderate — 70%
  

Practical Exertion: Low — 37% (-1%)

Mental Health Stability
  

Theoretical Understanding: Low — 38% (-2%)
  

Practical Exertion: Extremely Low — 20% (-17%)

Stress Resilience
  

Theoretical Understanding: Moderate — 65%
  

Practical Exertion: Moderate — 46% (-9%)

Empathy Quotient
  

Theoretical Understanding: Low — 39% (-1%)
  

Practical Exertion: Low — 34% (-1%)

Charm Factor
  

Theoretical Understanding: Moderate — 67%
  

Practical Exertion: Moderate — 60% (-2%)

Why is everything dropping?

[You can’t be flexing your social game right now, girl. It’s all tied up with your mental power at the moment.]

It can’t be. I—

Severa stepped on something and almost tripped, and Halveth had to steady her. As the secret path wound between the outer walls of the Synod ground.

[Girl. Stop thinking. Breathe or something.]

She passed a cracked plaster wall of the Supreme Thaumarch Muradius, and her thoughts snagged on the memory of her room, where once she’d taped a cheap poster above her bed. Long gone now, replaced with a thaumagraph of her and Forsing, both of them smiling like the world wasn’t such a collapsing thing. The poster’s old caption still clawed at her: Scale the toughest dungeon and you can change the world.

Change the world? She could barely keep her legs steady. She actually tripped on uneven stone, pitching forward before Halveth’s arm steadied her. Her hands wouldn’t warm.

The numbers jumped again in her head—dropping, sliding, bleeding red—and she couldn’t stop watching them fall.

What if . . . What if I can’t . . .

[The more you think, the more you spiral.]

I’m nothing. I’ll be nothing.

[Severa. Listen to me.]

Then a familiar voice rang in her ears. “I have to sleep. I’ve got a lecture and two tutoring sessions tomorrow.”

Her Sanguine Focus seemed to be working again, as she’d picked up conversations even before anyone entered her field of vision. She knew that voice. It belonged to Fabrisse Kestovar.

Immediately, she was met with a notification.

Changes to: Mental Health Stability

Practical Exertion: Extremely Low — 24% (+4%)

Why is it clawing back up?

The sound of someone else resounded, but it was all warped and muffled. Only Kestovar’s next words were comprehensible, “It’s Wind Thaumaturgy.”

Changes to: Mental Health Stability

Practical Exertion: Extremely Low — 25% (+1%)

She stopped walking, and raised a shaky hand as if she could touch the numbers inside her mind.

It’s gone up again.

Is it because of . . . him?

I’m cooking y’all. Tying up all the plot points and the overarching mysteries regarding the Void faction into coherent world building.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 18)

They had to devise a new strategy, though Fabrisse didn’t think the problem lied in strategizing, but more so in how they actually implemented their plan. Liene insisted on not murdering the pest, which ruled out the most efficient approaches, so they had to settle for creative measures.

“Bait them,” Veliane said, rubbing her temple as if she were tutoring children. “Everything moves for a reason. If we can find what they want, they’ll come to us.”

“They want to not be near us,” Fabrisse muttered.

Veliane ignored him. “Do you have anything they like?”

At once, everyone’s eyes turned to Liene. She clutched the satchel still dangling from her shoulder, where more random glowing objects might or might not be waiting to detonate at eye-level. “What? I don’t carry carrots around!”

“They don’t eat carrots,” Fabrisse said automatically, even though he had no actual evidence for this. He simply couldn’t imagine a magical hare caring about carrots when there were far more interesting mineral vibrations in the soil.

“Then what do they eat?” Liene challenged.

“Quartz dust.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Liene said. “You just like quartz.”

“Fine, fine,” Fabrisse put his hands in front of him, “I don’t know what they eat, but I know they are known hoarders. If we take away some items they deem important, they might come back nagging for them.”

“And the items they deem important are . . . rocks.”

“Yes.”

“You only want to follow through with that plan because you want to use that skill that lets you speak with rocks and reveals their emotional state.” Liene placed a hand on her hip.

“. . . Partially.”

Liene exhaled and turned to Sven, who was placing a foot over his mechanical trap that’d triggered. The trap obviously didn’t work as intended, seeing how there was no hare inside. “Do you have anything to contribute?”

“I’m just here to enjoy the ride.” He said as he popped a candy into his mouth. Fabrisse had no clue where he’d stored that.

Veliane pinched the bridge of her nose. For someone so famously self-contained, the gesture was as close to an outburst as Fabrisse had ever seen.

“That’s it,” she said. “Your heads are all . . . not in the task. I’ll take charge before we waste the entire day chasing rabbits.”

Fabrisse opened his mouth, then closed it again. Not rabbits. They’re hares. Different genus, different bone structure, different nesting behavior. Rabbits dig burrows; hares nest aboveground. They have longer hind legs, sharper reflexes, and less domesticated disposition. If we were really chasing rabbits, the whole strategy would be different—

He pressed his lips together. No one needed the taxonomy lecture right now.

Everyone stared at her. Liene even tilted her head in faint disbelief. Veliane didn’t usually take charge; she usually let her silence weigh enough to do the work.

Veliane lifted her stylus, already drawing symbols that Fabrisse couldn’t make out in the air. “Listen. We each have strengths. We’ll use them properly. Lugano—light spells. Can you cast something steady and not chaotic?”

 Liene perked up. “Like a soft beacon? Moonlight glow?”

“Yes. You’ll be lure. Nothing brighter than a lantern. These hares are already frightened; we don’t need them more startled.”

She turned to Fabrisse. “So you can cast environmental earth control spells, right?”

Fabrisse hesitated. “Not . . . earth. But I can do stone.”

“To a sufficient degree, I believe?”

“He’s been training,” Liene cut in. “He masters at least five different control skills now and can cast them simultaneously.”

No I can’t . . .

“Can you at least raise ridges or pillars to steer movement?”

“I can steer movement.” Not what she asked, but Fabrisse assumed it’d be sufficient.

Then her eyes landed on Sven. “And you—actually, what can you do? What’s your core affinity?”

Sven grinned as if she’d asked him to name his favorite dessert. “Earth and water.”

Veliane actually stopped writing her glyph. “That’s . . . a strange specialization path.”

It’s very strange. Most people go air and fire. The Synod pushes them. Water’s rare enough, but earth and water? He’s basically . . . mud.

Sven looked pleased. “I can do Mud Thaumaturgy. Mud’s as versatile as it’s gross, since it sticks to everything. Have you ever fought mud?

Veliane shook her head.

“Didn’t think so,” Sven added.

“Actually, mud is better at environmental control,” Veliane said.

She’s right. But if Sven can cast mud, he’s already doing the thing I can do, but better . . . Veliane finds the hare; Liene guides them; Sven traps them; and Veliane captures them. What do I do then? I can’t do anything these guys are already capable of.

“You should throw stones at the hares, Fabri!” Liene declared, then nodded to herself enthusiastically.

“Pardon?”

“I can only guide the hares after someone’s lured them out of their hiding. Your stone flinging has good accuracy.”

Fabrisse stared at her. “You have Lightstrike.”

“I forgot how to cast Lightstrike.” Liene grinned, hands behind her back.

“You forgot. Right.”

“It’s a great chance to hone your skill!” Sven weighed in. “You should use every possible opportunity to get better. I’ll gladly leave the trapping to you too if you want.”

“I can do the throwing.”

“That’s settled.” Veliane finished her glyphwork: a beige-glowing lattice that floated just above her palm. With a tug of her stylus, she dragged it forward, and the construct obeyed.

Another version of her detection spell, Fabrisse realized—but portable.

Veliane walked ahead first, and the rest followed.

***

Veliane’s lattice haloed the grass at their right flank.

“There,” she whispered. Fabrisse squinted, spotting nothing but a ripple of green blades under the wind. More than five meters, without his mitts nor. He adjusted the weight of the stone in his palm, feeling its grainy chill as he transferred his Lodestone from the satchel to his robe pocket.

“Why do you still have rocks inside your robe pockets if you’re not planning on flinging them?” Veliane saw him handling the stone and asked.

“Uh . . .” There was no way he could explain Celestial Hoarding. He couldn’t even explain his Shadowed Reposition Protocol earlier, and had to settle with ‘it’s my innate ability’. Both Liene and Veliane had accepted his explanation without question.

“Shhh,” Liene cut in to save him. “Talk later. Stone the hare now.”

Fabrisse took a deep breath. He didn’t need to hit it. Just frighten it out. That was the plan.

But something eased in his chest as he drew back his arm. The tension of strategy, of proving himself, of Liene’s absurd Lightstrike excuse—gone. He was just a boy with a stone, and a target. His breathing slowed. The world steadied.

He let fly.

The stone cut the air in a clean line.

A ‘bam’ cracked across the grass. Everyone froze, watching for the hare to bolt. Sven had his staff already raised, and the soil a few strides ahead of him sagged, darkened, and in the space of a breath softened into gurgling thick mud. 

But there was nothing. The grass shivered once, then went still.

Liene tiptoed forward, golden light flickering from her fingers. She crouched, parted the grass, and gasped. “Fabri!” she called, grinning back at them. “You hit it in the head! Knocked it out in one shot!”

Liene reached in with both hands and pulled the limp hare from the grass, cradling it like a prize. Its ears flopped against her wrist. “Completely out cold,” she announced, delighted. Veliane turned to Fabrisse and gave a small, approving nod. 

“Good job!” Sven barked.

The words landed heavier than Fabrisse expected. A warmth rose in his chest, swelling against the constant knot of self-doubt. Pride—real, solid pride—slid through him like the weight of the stone had transferred into his bones instead of leaving his hand. His cheeks burned, but he couldn’t help the sudden, fierce joy at being seen, at not fumbling the task for once.

Veliane held out her palm, and the beige lattice she’d been maintaining peeled open like a net. “Give it here,” she said. Liene passed the hare over without protest, and the construct folded around the creature’s body.

[Nibberhare Count: 4/5]

They hadn’t gone ten more paces before faint rings spread out across Veliane’s glyph surface again. She raised a hand. “Left. Near the scrub.”

Fabrisse was already fishing for a stone. He weighed it, narrowed his eyes at the ripple of grass, and let it fly. The stone plunked into the soil just beside the patch.

But the hare startled anyway. The blades shivered, then burst open as a streak of fur bolted free.

“Got it!” Liene’s voice rang, and her fingers danced. Wisps of gold sprang from her hands. They hurled in at the hare’s sides, pressing it in until its zigzagging path funneled straight ahead.

Veliane jogged over and thrust her glyph forward. The lattice peeled open into a geometric snare as the creature let out frantic cries. It dropped neatly around the struggling creature, cinching shut with a snap of pale light.

The hare vanished into containment.

[Nibberhare Count: 5/5]

[QUEST COMPLETED: Vermin Control: Nibberhares]

Reward: + 250 EXP

• 1 STR
• 1 DEX

[Progress to Level 7: 4484/4550]

Veliane exhaled, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “That,” she said, “is how it’s supposed to work.”

It’s still way over-engineered, but who cares? I’m doing well.

“Good work, team!” Sven tapped his staff into the ground twice. “It’s a bit past lunchtime already. Let’s make it ten before our stomach rumbles.”

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 17)

Fabrisse had forgotten he had a skill called Shadowed Reposition Protocol until a hare the size of his torso shot straight toward his face. And today, he learned he could cast that skill only by thinking about it.

[SKILL CAST: Shadowed Reposition Protocol (Rank II)]

[Displacement Radius: 0.479m]

The world tilted. His body whooshed into a darker spot in the woods where the canopies covered fully, half a meter to the left. The hare passed through the space where he’d been standing, so close its whiskers brushed the air against his cheek.

To Veliane, it must have looked like Fabrisse simply wasn’t there for a second. Her eyes widened in disbelief. “What spell was that?”

“I don’t—” A second hare smashed into his face. Its claws spread like a rake, and the impact knocked him back a step. He yelped. “Ah! That hurts so bad!”

[Damage Taken: Negligible Hurt Blown Out Of Proportion] 

Veliane swung her stylus not so gracefully.  A sharp gleam of copper bled through the glyphwork, and the spell itself shook violently as it formed into a web-shaped glyph. When a hare slammed into it full force, the construct shuddered. Fabrisse thought it would snap.

But instead of breaking, the net convulsed and tightened, holding the hare in place with a brittle vibration. The creature thrashed and squealed, but the mesh clung on, trembling like it could unravel at any second.

[Spell Detected: Minor Containment Array (Quickcast)]

Copper is the color of confusion. I don’t think she planned on channeling that . . .

[Nibberhare Count: 3/5]

[SYSTEM NOTE: The count might fall if creatures manage to escape.]

“Herd the rest over to that direction!” Veliane pointed at the general direction where her and Sven’s traps were spread most densely. Fabrisse made some quick calculations and saw a non-zero number of hares, possibly ten.

“You didn’t tell me there are that many!” He hurried back, chanting the mnemonic for Whirlweave. He swung at a random spot in his vision, but since there were so many hares, it smacked directly into the cheek of one. The force didn’t topple it, but the impact puffed out its fur and sent it staggering with a strangled squeak. Instead of running straight, the animal careened in a lopsided pattern, legs scrabbling out of rhythm like a cart with one wheel missing.

“I didn’t see there are that many!” Veliane ducked an incoming hare. “You saw the mirage from my glyph.”

A darting figure tore through the undergrowth. Liene barreled in, hair bouncing, and a pouch she had brought with her (filled with unknown content) swung by her side.

“Yes!” Fabrisse muttered under his breath, stepping aside. She’s got this. There are some great crowd-control light spells in the notebook she jotted down . . . Flashstorm; Solar Scatter; Prism Panic. The last spell has ‘Panic’ in its name!

Liene raised her hands and whispered the incantation, clearly aiming to prod the hares into motion. A faint wisp of pale light drifted from her fingertips, fluttering like a nervous firefly. It meandered a few inches and sputtered out, barely reaching any of the animals. The hares didn’t even notice. They all ran past her. 

That’s her control spell?

“Why’d you cast that?” Fabrisse whispered, exasperated.

“I was afraid I’d scare the little things too much!” Liene admitted as the last of the hares ran past.

“Now’s not the time! Contain one!” Fabrisse yelled, sprinting toward the nearest cluster of hares.

“Danger! Behind you!” Liene shouted as she traced patterns with her finger.

“Where—?!”

Instinct took over. [SKILL CAST: Shadowed Reposition Protocol (Rank II)]

[Displacement Radius: 0.582m]

The world tilted again. Fabrisse’s body slipped into a darker patch beneath a thick canopy, half a meter to the right this time.

He landed, ready to act—only to realize the ‘dangerous’ hare he was trying to reach was still way too far off, streaking across the clearing.

Thwack.

A spell hit him square in the back of the head.

[Spell Cast: Violent Snare (Lite)—Air Thaumaturgy Tier 1]

He staggered forward, hand on his skull. “Ow! What? I—” He then turned around in amazement.

“H-how are you there?” Liene gasped. “I’m sorry! What spell did you cast?” 

The hare he had been trying to reach raced on toward the traps, completely unbothered. Before Fabrisse could even rub the back of his head, Liene spun on her heel and bolted after the fleeing hares.

“Not that way! That’s my—” Veliane shouted, but it was too late.

With a startled squeal, Liene barreled straight into Veliane’s partially active containment trap that she’d just set.

A clacker of beige lattice wrapped around her legs, stopping her in a tangle of half-formed glyphs. She flailed, satchel swinging as she tried to extricate herself while the hares zig-zagged past with near-military precision into the decidedly non-trap zones. Something flew out of her satchel and she was too off-balance to catch it.

Fabrisse stumbled over, still wincing from the Violent Snare. “Uh… Liene? That’s not how we were supposed to do this!”

“I—I didn’t see it!” she cried, hopping and twisting as the lattice tickled and clamped. “I was just trying to—ugh! Why is it here!”

“We didn’t expect you to join in . . .” Veliane murmured.

“Can this get any worse?” Fabrisse walked over, careful to move enough to the left to avoid the trap. Then, he stepped on something else. The thing that had dropped from Liene’s satchel earlier.

“Oh no, my—”

A miniature light trap activated. A sudden flare of pale light burst, punching straight into his eyes. The brightness felt like it drilled through his skull. He squinted and flinched, stumbling forward, then backward, then forward again. 

“Ah! Not again! My eyes!” Fabrisse yelped. Why? Argh! Lights! Why? I am hurt! Why is my best friend a walking sunbeam?!

“Sorry! It’s meant to spook skittish animals!” Liene cried.

“I am a skittish animal!” Fabrisse clutched his eyes. 

“I—I didn’t mean for that to—” Liene twisted her head to see what had happened. The trap reacted exactly as it was designed: the more Liene fought, the tighter it gripped. The strands coiled and cinched around her legs and arms, pulling her into a crouch. “Ah! Veist! Undo the glyph!” She wailed.

Veliane gave the slightest sigh as she dissolved the spell.

[Nibberhare Count: 4/5]

Then, Sven’s enthusiastic voice travelled from afar. “Great work, team! We got one more!”

[Nibberhare Count: 3/5]

The nibberhare from earlier broke free from Veliane’s hastily-cast copper glyph and dashed off.

[Nibberhare Count: 4/5]

“I got another!” Sven yelled.

[Nibberhare Count: 3/5]

“Never mind! It got away!” Sven yelled.

Veliane walked over to Liene and offered her a hand. “So . . . what now? The hares are scattered all over the forest.”

Liene turned to Fabrisse, who was still rubbing his eyes. “Do you want to continue?”

“We can’t end it here . . .” Fabrisse whispered, moreso to himself. “It’ll be embarrassing.”

“Agreed,” Veliane said.

Liene raised her hand, fingers tracing precise arcs in the air. A brighter, more controlled glow gathered around her palm. “Fine. Let’s do it for real now.”

Author’s Note: This spell is first mentioned in Book 1, Chapter 14.

Spell Profile — Shadowed Reposition Protocol (Rank II — Intermediate Stealth Spell)

Type: Concordance (Stealth) — Short-Range Displacement & Spatial Masking

Description: Allows the caster to instantly displace their body into the nearest zone of lower attention density (e.g., shadows, obscure terrain), minimizing visibility and exposure. Primarily used for evasive maneuvers or tactical repositioning.

Displacement Radius: 0–0.6 m per cast (Rank II) + 0.1 per RES after 10 (capped at 15)

Displacement Speed: Practically instantaneous; effective latency ≤ 0.05 s from thought to relocation

Environmental Limitation: Requires an adjacent area with at least minimal occlusion (shadows, cover, or darkened terrain) within displacement radius

Duration of Effect: Instantaneous; spatial masking remains for ≤ 2 s post-displacement (Rank II)
Aetheric Reaction Equation: 100% Innate Recognition — the spell relies entirely on the caster’s subconscious awareness of surrounding spatial and attention density gradients

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 14)

Marrieh Halveth never let her boots touch the ground. Each swirl of crimson wind carried her like a kite on its string as she rode the air.

[Yo, who that? Let me check her out really quick.]

Check the dragonkin’s status first . . .

[I hear ya.]

DeShawn immediately spat out the results.

Frostborn Juggernaut — Hostile

Emotional Equilibrium: 34%

Emotional Status: Resolute, Reawakening

The Juggernaut’s roar shook the cavern, and its trident arm wasn’t fast enough—so it swung with the other hand. 

A crimson gale lifted Halveth higher, and the punch ripped only a hollow through the air. 

Her bowstring thrummed. One arrow. Two. Then three. Each shaft was a searing streak, a trail of scarlet fire carving into the Juggernaut’s chest. The beast staggered but didn’t collapse, bracing itself with a bellow that fogged the cavern in rime.

[The lady is Halveth?]

Yes.

[Where did she get her arrows from?]

Watch.

She didn’t need a quiver; the aether was her arsenal. Every time her fingers brushed the air, flame coalesced, solidified, and hardened into a shaft of burning red. By the time her hand drew back the bowstring, another arrow had already existed.

The Frostborn Juggernaut swung its trident desperately, ice-slicked fangs of metal glinting blue-white. It couldn’t touch her.

“Stay down,” she spat, firing a single arrow.

The shot carved through the cavern like a comet, embedding itself into the Juggernaut’s collar. A gout of searing crimson aether exploded, sending cracks spidering up its crystalline throat.

Severa saw the scabbard strapped behind Halveth burning hotter and brighter each time she let another arrow loose. She’s charging it, Severa realized.

The Juggernaut bellowed once more and went for a direct stab this time. 

Halveth dipped under it, her body twisting in the air, cloak snapping in the gale. The trident slammed into stone, shattering a ridge of ice into glittering shrapnel—but she was already moving.

Her hand finally seized the scabbard. The blade bled into being in a deep, living crimson, its metal veined with ember-glow that pulsed like arteries under skin. Every beat of light along its length answered her own fury, answering crimson with crimson, as though the weapon had been waiting for rage to wield it.

This was the legendary item, Fury of the Veinfane Cataclysm. A rather grandiose name, if anything, but only grandiose would fit an artifact of that caliber.

Merriah Halveth — Ally

Emotional Equilibrium: 88%

Emotional Status: Controlled, Wrathful

Flame erupted as it left her back, not the delicate crimson glow of her arrows but a torrent of pure, burning aether, so bright Severa had to shield her eyes. 

Halveth spun. Her arc ended in a single swing.

The scabbard painted a crescent across the cavern, a half-moon of searing fire that licked ceiling to floor. A geyser of steam and liquefied frost-bone burst forth.

The giant crumpled. Its halves slid to either side before crashing against the cavern floor.

Then Marrieh Halveth touched the ground.

[She good. But let’s be clear, you did the grunt work for her.]

Steam still sizzled from the bisected corpse when Halveth’s boots finally kissed the cavern floor. She didn’t even glance at the Juggernaut’s remains. Her eyes went straight to Severa.

A sigil flared across Halveth’s palm—clean, geometric lines of scarlet aether forming a lattice that pulsed like a heartbeat.

“You . . . should you use rage for diagnostics?” Severa whispered weakly.

“Shhh,” Halveth said. Halveth swept down beside her, sliding an arm under Severa’s shoulders and carefully rolling her onto her back. Severa winced at the movement.

Heat flooded through Severa’s sternum. Her body jolted. The sigil spread over her like a net, tracing veins, lungs, and everything at her core. Severa didn’t love the feeling of being thoroughly inspected, but she wasn’t about to protest now.

[You want a reading of her emotional state, girl?]

No.

Halveth’s jaw clenched. She studied the faint lattice of light across Severa’s chest, then looked back at her with the smallest hint of a grimace.

“There’s something wrong with you,” she said quietly. “I can see the disruption, but I don’t know what it is.”

“I thought . . . you were gone, Merry.”

“I couldn’t have died from that; it would’ve been too shameful of a death.” Halveth brushed a cooling layer of flame across Severa’s arm, easing the ache in her muscles.  With her other hand she guided Severa slowly upright, one steady pull at a time until she was propped against her shoulder. “But I had to best another dragonkin down below.”

Severa gave a shaky breath as Halveth’s palm moved to her back. Scarlet warmth seeped through bone and lung, a dull throb fading as a healing weave stitched along strained muscle. Her breath evened, but she still shook from the cold.

Halveth’s gaze sharpened. “Are you cold?”

“Yes,” Severa admitted, her voice trembling.

“You’re suffering some kind of internal injury,” Halveth murmured, almost to herself. “And it’s made worse by how weak your body is after Bloodform. I can’t cure this type of damage.” Her hand lingered against Severa’s back, steady but frustrated. “We need to get you out now.”

Before Severa could protest, Halveth’s arm locked firm around her waist. With effortless strength she lifted her, holding her close as aerowings form behind her back, colored by ivory sparks of resolve. Aetheric Aerowings allowed for more graceful control compared to other forms of flight spells; possibly to ensure minimal shaking and damage to Severa’s body. 

“There was an identical . . . dungeon down there?” Severa coughed as she asked.

“Yes.”

“I’ve never heard of . . . any dungeons . . . with two identical boss chambers.”

“This dungeon is one of its kind. Those were bosses, but there still isn’t loot.”

They flew in the air, approaching the gaping hole that connected to the narrow tunnel below. The wind tore at her, and with the pins long since scattered across the cavern floor after the earlier fight, her hair was everywhere, whipping into her mouth, plastering damp strands across her cheeks, tangling over her eyes until she could barely see. A state of complete dishevelment. She hated it; hated the sensation of being reduced to some bedraggled mess clinging to Halveth’s shoulder while her hair flailed like a banner.

Severa’s head lolled to the side to spit out a strand of loose hair, and there it was again—the void gate.

Its edges writhed as if unwilling to remain motionless, and what had formerly appeared to be a blot of darkness stretched thin into the hint of a doorway. A pitch black flame had ringed around it, guttering higher. 

The aerowings beat once more, and Halveth angled them toward the mouth of the narrow tunnel that had first carried them into this chamber.

“Merry,” Severa whispered, almost biting her tongue. “That gate . . .”

“I see it. Let’s not care about it now,” Halveth said with a frustrated voice. “We need to get you to Draeth.”

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 16)

[Nibberhare Count: 2/5]

They tried the same routine twice more, crouching through the undergrowth with Fabrisse coaxing the wind and Liene playing with her golden lights. But the nibberhares were far from stupid. After the first capture, the colony seemed to realize something was wrong. The brush went quiet except for their own footsteps. Every crackle of leaves turned out to be nothing but the tail of a squirrel or the flutter of a bird lifting away.

By the time Fabrisse finally coaxed another one into the open, it bolted halfway toward Sven’s lure, then doubled back with a twitch of its whiskers, vanishing into a hollow tree root so fast he nearly lost sight of it. They walked back to regroup with nothing in hand.

“They’ve gone into their hideouts,” Veliane observed, straightening from her crouch, her cloak falling back into neat folds. She brushed soil from her hands, unruffled as ever. “That’s the flaw of luring. After the first few, they learn. It may be hours before they risk coming out again.”

[SYSTEM NOTE: Vermin encounter difficulty has escalated. Colony threat level: Wary.]

Sven tapped the butt of his staff against the loam. “Then we change strategies. Forget luring; they’re not biting anymore. We’ll have to search for their hideouts and smoke them out.”

Veliane inclined her head. “That can be arranged. I have a detection glyph that can resonate with animal burrows.”

“I’ll go with you,” Liene volunteered instantly, already taking a step forward.

But Sven turned with his easy grin, cutting her off almost before she finished. “Fabrisse should go, shouldn’t he? He’s the one who’s learning.”

Liene tried to protest, “But—”

“Think about it,” Sven spun his staff casually. “He’s just had success with Whirlweave. If he goes with Veliane, he’ll see how the glyphwork and the tracking mesh together. If he doesn’t learn the technique, he’ll learn which spell he has complements the technique. That’s real field experience. Whereas you—” He gestured toward her with his staff. “You’ve already done this sort of thing a dozen times, haven’t you? You’re too good at it. Not much point in you tagging along when the point is for everyone to grow.”

He’s not wrong. Liene’s only here because I asked her to come along.

The way he said it left no room for contradiction. He wasn’t insulting her—quite the opposite, in fact. He’d complimented her right into a corner.

Liene grimaced. It seemed like she was trying to think of something clever to say.

But Sven only added, with a conspiratorial wink, “Besides, you’re better at herding than burrow-sniffing. Someone has to stay ready to pounce when we flush them.”

That reason—annoyingly—was airtight.

Liene exhaled and let her hands fall to her sides. “Fine. But Fabrisse, you’d better come back with something useful.”

Veliane was already moving before the argument fully settled. She drew a slender stylus from the inner fold of her cloak—bronze capped, its shaft faintly veined with quartz—and let a pale trail of aether run along its length. By the time Fabrisse noticed, she was inscribing arcs into the air itself. Only once, as she slipped between two roots, did she glance back over her shoulder to check whether he was following. Fabrisse stumbled a step forward, clutching his sleeve where Liene had let go. He realized belatedly that Veliane expected him beside her, not behind.

“I’m coming,” Fabrisse murmured as he looked back at Liene one last time.

“Careful not to drop your satchel!” Liene said. He should’ve really left the stone satchel at home if he wasn’t planning on using them.

***

Veliane Veist moved with a steadiness that made Fabrisse think of Lorvan. Every line of her stylus was deliberate, unhurried, as if she already trusted the glyph to hold before the last stroke even settled. Beige aether threaded across the air, folding into neat lattice curves that clung to the world like spider silk.

Veliane was the only other person Fabrisse had ever met, besides Lorvan, who preferred calm. Most thaumaturges he knew avoided it, citing its ‘flatness’ as the main reason for low offensive output. But if you were only trying to contain or detect things, you wouldn’t need higher damage. Also, calm required patience, a kind of emotional self-regulation most students didn’t bother with.

It was rare to see Fabrisse start a conversation first. But today, he had to, or they’d just be walking in silence (which was alright, but not when you need to team up). “So, uh . . .” He tapped on the side of his satchel three times. “Did you choose Mentor Lugano, or did he choose you?”

“I chose him,” Veliane said. “He’s great with glyphcraft, which is also something I want to learn.”

Of course. She likes things with finesse.

The stylus in her hand moved in a final loop that sealed the glyph into place: three layered curves aligned within one another, all tapering to a single point. Fabrisse felt a low vibration that didn’t travel through sound but through the ground. A shimmer rose in his peripheral vision: lines of beige aether spreading beneath them in a web, mapping the top layer of soil.

Veliane pressed two fingers to the stylus and murmured a single word of command that he couldn’t hear. The lattice responded, bending toward a shallow depression to their right.

“Burrow,” she said as she set another containment trap near where she stood. “Don’t run toward this spot, okay?” She pointed at the trap. “This is for the hares.” 

“Okay.”

“Do you have a spell to pull the hares out?”

“I can throw rocks.”

“You’ll lose the rock.”

“Maybe not.”

Fabrisse crouched, peering at the glow. The pattern didn’t just reveal the hollow; it showed warmth, subtle movements, and quivers of displacement in the loam. He could almost see the nibberhares curled inside as their tiny bodies got mapped as distortions.

I don’t have a spell that can hurt the hares. But I have one that can frighten them.

“I’ll fire the spell now, from . . . this angle.” He walked to a spot that’d align with the traps Sven’d set up. “Can you draw a containment glyph on the fly? Just in case.”

“Yes.” She stopped for a second before adding, “I have a mnemonic for quickcasting. It’s even quicker if I cite it backward like you did, but I can’t.”

“Why do you need to mention that . . .” He murmured to himself as he aligned his hands with the mouth of the burrow. The memories of him confessing to Veliane by citing Draeth’s speech in reverse returned, and the tips of his finger glowed amber.

“Huh?” Veliane raised her voice just a little. “You mean, citing backward? I thought that was a funny thing about you.”

Fabrisse was busy chanting mnemonic for his spell, so he wasn’t thinking much about Veliane’s statement.

“Ash above, ember below. Sight the flame and let it go,”

He then opened his mouth without thinking, “There’s nothing funny about a botched confession . . .”

Her brows furrowed. She cocked her head. “Huh? What confession?”

“What do you mean ‘what confession’?”

[SKILL CAST: Cindermark (Rank I)]

[Estimated Range: 2.2m (86%) + 12% from Celestial Hoarding]

The flare spell shot straight into a burrow. A second later, an entire colony of hares rocketed out of the hole like water smashing through a floodgate.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 15)

The moment they stepped into the forest, a quest popped up in Fabrisse’s vision as if that quest was region-locked.

[QUEST RECEIVED: Vermin Control: Nibberhares]

Objective: Capture or eliminate 5 nibberhares

Reward: + 250 EXP

• 1 STR
• 1 DEX

[SYSTEM NOTE: Do not underestimate a rodent’s bite radius, reproductive velocity, or ability to ruin footwear.]

Of course he had to accept that.

The group didn’t even bother forming a complex plan. Sven suggested they simply spread out and sweep in a rough semicircle to flush the nibberhares toward a choke point. Veliane added that if they startled the colony, the rodents would scatter in panic, so it was better to funnel them toward a shallow gully where they could be captured or dispatched cleanly.

For Fabrisse, it still felt strangely overengineered. This was supposed to be a beginner quest. Kaldrin had told him that first-years cut their teeth on it by simply whacking the things with sticks and hoping they didn’t trip over each other in the process. More sophisticated thaumaturge would never be anywhere near a nibberhare anyway; slaying one would only yield 5 Kohns in return, redeemable in the Synod, and between four people the amount earned was negligible.

But Veliane sketched sigils in the dirt with her boot, setting up soft-binding glyphs to corral movement. Sven shifted his grip on the short staff he’d brought along (for reasons that seemed excessive against rodents), twirling it once as though preparing to crack the skull of creatures ten times the size of a nibberhare.

Liene finally clapped her hands together with a bright smile. “Well, the point of the field excursion is for us to get to know each other as a party and get familiar with each other’s style! So let’s treat it as if we’re going on a hunt for, oh, I don’t know.” She put a hand on her chin. “A small pack of forest drakes. Something you can’t just swat and be done with.”

Which meant they’d definitely need a complex, and even more overly-engineered plan now.

Luckily for Fabrisse, the party settled quickly on a simple structure: two on lure duty, two on control.

“Fabri and I will do the luring, and you two can take the trap.” Liene spoke as if it had been pre-decided.

“Okay,” Veliane said at once, brushing the edge of her cloak back. She crouched to the soil and began marking circles with the tip of her boot, with Sven moving beside her.

Veliane’s boot traced precise arcs in the loam, her posture sharpened by concentration. At first glance the symbols looked like standard containment glyphs—something even a scribe-for-hire could set up with enough chalk and patience. But Fabrisse knew better. Normal glyphcraft relied on rote geometry: set the angles, balance the runic lattice, anchor it with chalk or ink, and let ambient aether drip through like water through a sluice gate.

Veliane’s marks, though, shimmered with a beige glow of aether, the same beige he saw from Lorvan’s calm-powered containment glyph. Lorvan had told Fabrisse that imprinting calm would produce stable, consistent containment fields with smooth edges that resist leakage or collapse compared to standard glyphs. The trap could remain for hours. Fabrisse had no way of confirming, for he hadn’t seen the glyphs from other disciplines.

Sven planted the butt of his staff in the dirt, drawing a rough curve in the loam with the tip. “We’ll set the traps along this perimeter,” he said, gesturing to give them the line. His tone was more practical than commanding. “So you two just focus on luring them in, and make sure you don’t stumble into the traps yourselves.”

“Let’s go!” Liene said, almost bouncing, and tugged Fabrisse by the sleeve. He stumbled after her as she led them deeper between the roots.

They crouched their way through the undergrowth, listening for rustling or claw-clicks. Liene’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “So, what do you have in mind?”

Fabrisse’s first thought was Tremblehold but dismissed it. Using that for luring felt ineffective, at the very least. He’d need to cast the spell so many times just to direct the hares in the right direction, and if he hit them right, the spell would slow the creatures down instead of pushing it to run towards traps. 

That made him think of another: Whirlweave, Rank II. But the new aetheric reaction equation was convoluted: he’d need to continually cast the spell while doing it quickly, plus mnemonic recitation. He’d burn out long before they flushed enough nibberhares into the trap.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Too many parts.

Then he remembered. Liene’s notebook had an alternative formula scrawled between doodles and cheerful annotations for this very spell, at this very rank.

She’d written: Sooo, how I do it is just casting continually, but with joy! That’s it. You know how easy it is to guide the wind when you’re actually having fun? It’s like the air wants to play along if you do. No need for quick hand motions or chanting.

I can feel joy now, he thought, but do I have enough emotional awareness to cast it on command now?

[Whrilweave—Rank II—Updated]

Alternative Aetheric Reaction Equation: 60% Joy Channeling + 40% Continual Shaping

Alternative Casting Requirement: SYN ≥ 9; EMO ≥ 15

I have 15! I don’t just have 15. I have 17!

The mere thought made blue sparks dance across his fingertips.

A twig snapped to their left. Liene’s eyes lit, and she pointed wordlessly. Just past the tangle of bracken, a nibberhare crouched, its ears twitching like antennae.

He raised his hand and let the wind slip loose, not from rote geometry but from that surge of satisfaction, a little giddy at proving himself capable. Blue-tinted air curled from his palm in a coaxing stream. The foliage rustled, parted, and the hare bolted straight out into the open, guided by the playful current.

Liene’s eyes lit up. “You’ve read my notes!”

The hare darted in the direction of Sven’s perimeter, exactly as intended. It was gone from his radius in a blink of an eye. His wind couldn’t pass the roughly three-meter threshold.

But Liene was already springing after it, igniting a quick flare of gold. “I’ve got it!” she sang out in a breathless whisper.

She released a small prism of light—bright, dazzling, like sunlight bouncing from water. The hare skidded at the sudden gleam. Dazzled, it turned sharply, darting exactly toward the shallow gully where Veliane’s glyphs were set.

“C’mon, Fabri, hurry!” Liene called over her shoulder, already chasing after the light-beguiled creature with delighted energy.

The undergrowth whipped against his legs as Fabrisse scrambled to follow.

Liene hardly needed him once the chase began. Every turn of her hand shaped the light, refracting it just where the nibberhare’s eyes would catch. It bounded, zigzagging madly, but each swerve only pushed it closer to the line Sven had marked. She was laughing under her breath, exhilarated, her gold flare dancing like a will-o’-wisp between the trees.

Fabrisse trailed behind, panting, but couldn’t help noticing: she wasn’t working against the hare’s instincts. The nibberhare burst into the shallow gully, paws thumping hard against the loam—

—and the ground snapped shut.

The air clenched as if the space itself remembered it was smaller than it looked. The hare let out a distorted squeal, cut short as translucent walls manifested around it.

The hare hurled itself against a side. The barrier didn’t flex or ripple.

“Perfect catch,” Liene whispered, grinning wide as she jogged up. “That’s one for Veist.” Veliane simply nodded.

Fabrisse’s breath caught, not at the hare, but at the way the trap’s edge held, beige and smooth and absolute, as Lorvan had described. That was super effective.

[Nibberhare Count: 1/5]

Sven smiled. “Lure one to my traps next. Mine’s nothing fancy; it’s mechanical, but it makes a cool sound when it clicks.”

“Okay!” Liene jogged back the direction she came from, grabbing Fabrisse by the wrist in the process. “You keep casting Whirlweave the moment you see movement, okay?”

Her grin was so bright and unguarded that Fabrisse felt the corners of his own mouth curve upward along with her.

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 13)

This chapter got some crazy shiii.

Her fire struck the dragonkin’s neck. For a moment, the cavern lit like a forge. But when the flare died, the Juggernaut remained exactly as it had been—its crystalline plates unscorched, its glacial veins untouched.

DeShawn’s overlay bloomed across her vision:

Frostborn Juggernaut — Hostile

Emotional Equilibrium: 78%

Emotional Status: Stable, Confident

[See that 78%? The lower it gets, the more rattled opps are.]

Stable. Confident.

So that wasn’t it. Or maybe her spells were simply too weak to matter, an ant’s bite against a mountain. She swallowed the sting of that thought, breath ragged against the bitter air.

If I can’t break its armor, then I have to break its stance.

Her gaze darted to its trident, then back up to the way it hunched. Big, armed creatures with wide swings always had one flaw: they hated enemies up close.

Wind surged at her heels, and she darted.

She saw the opening—those glacial ribs, those seams of aetheric flows running beneath the frozen lattice. All she had to do was—

The Juggernaut’s other hand slammed her away. 

She smashed into the cavern wall, the shock ringing through her spine, and then—mercifully—snow. A cascading drift softened her crash, though each layer still hit like stone packed to powder. Snow poured around her, burying her where she lay. 

[You okay?]

Don’t ask unless you can help, she replied as she dug herself from the snow, melting it with her firespark fingertips. 

Her Tier II upgrade—Airstill Bulwark—thickened the air around her at the last possible instant. The impact still rattled her bones, but the difference between ‘painful’ and ‘fatal’ was that stubborn cushion of frozen wind.

Severa staggered to her knees, coughing hard enough that each spasm scraped her ribs raw. Her lungs burned like she’d inhaled shards of frost. When she pressed a hand against the snow to steady herself, she realized her fingers trembled. 

The Juggernaut’s blow hadn’t just flung her. It had left something behind.

I feel sluggish.

[I thought that was your natural speed.]

Please, be silent. I’m . . .

The thought gnawed at her: I’m losing it. I couldn’t even see that hand coming earlier.

She glanced down as her fingers scraped against something hard in the snow. The glint made her heart jump—her magnifying lens, spiderwebbed with cracks. The lens had been her edge, her tool to read the aetheric flows and strike them where it could hurt. That was the only reason she’d been able to see the aether concentrated along the dragonkin’s rib earlier.

The ground trembled. Her head jerked up.

The Frostborn Juggernaut was moving. Its trident dragged at its side, gouging furrows of glittering frost in the cavern floor.

Severa forced herself upright, knees shaking. She sucked in a freezing lungful of air and let it out slow.

The monster is coming. I have five seconds at most.

Then, she raised her hand to her lips. Her index finger pressed against the edge of her teeth, harder, harder—until enamel met flesh. The bite split skin with a hot sting. Blood welled instantly. It had been so long since she smelled her own blood.

Then she swallowed.

Her eyes burst bloodshot, sclera veined and gleaming as though her own capillaries had caught fire. The veins raced across her face, dark red and black, crawling like ink beneath her skin. They splintered from her throat to her collarbone, down her arms, across her chest, until her entire body looked like parchment overlaid with a map of burning rivers.

Bloodform, Tier IV, Rank I.

Tier IV was the Legendary tier, the highest form of spellcasting a thaumaturge could reasonably learn (because Mythic spells were unreasonable).

But Severa hated her Bloodform. 

Not because it was weak, but because it was unearned. She hadn’t trained for it, hadn’t bled for it; she was simply born with it by bearing the Montreal lastname. And she had never been able to force it past Rank I. This Bloodform wasn’t a gift but a scar, the one humiliating shortcoming in her otherwise immaculate record of thaumaturgy. It reminded her that no matter how far she climbed, there was still a rung she could never reach.

[Something is wrong with your body girl . . . Lemme show you.]

> Hyper Awareness Mode Initiated

Duration: 30 seconds

Thirty seconds. That was the limit of her bloodform.

The Juggernaut lunged. Shards of rime peeled from its trident as it swiped the weapon in an arc.

But she wasn’t there anymore.

The veins across her body flared crimson. It was pumping her own blood. Her thumb pressed to her lips—one more bite, sharper this time. A tiny vein burst under her teeth with a copper tang. She growled:

“Ignis; Shutur; Veyne”

A firebomb swelled, its heart a writhing sphere of molten red, but now its edges ran dark where her blood threaded into the blaze. Flame and vitae tangled, sparkling on the edge with the golden hue of reverence.

Explosive Pyroclasm, Tier III, Rank III was the name. Bloodbound was the variant.

She thrust both hands forward.

The blood-fed inferno roared away.

It streaked across the cavern and slammed against the Juggernaut’s rib seam before the dragonkin could parry.

The Pyroclasm gnawed into its chest, the blood-stained flames searing deep until the outer shell of ice cracked, then burst into a stream of melted water.

[Holy shiiiiiiiiii. That’s fire, girl.]

The one time she let her emotions get the better of her judgment in a dungeon, something horrific happened.

Whole plates sloughed off in molten sheets, dripping like slagged armor to the floor. Beneath, raw frost-bone gleamed—exposed, vulnerable.

The monster reeled, a sound like grinding glaciers tearing out of its throat.

Frostborn Juggernaut — Hostile

Emotional Equilibrium: 49%

Emotional Status: Disturbed, Panicked

That’s the right spot. The scales must not be as thick, or not as strong against flames.

Her bloodform made spellforming instantaneous now. There was no sequencing, no careful weaving of runes; her body forced the shape into being. Her hands shook, but her voice did not.

“Ignis; Shutur; Veyne!”

Another Pyroclasm flared into existence, but this one swelled far past what her veins were meant to contain. She was climbing to Rank IV—the very lip of her boundary. The fireball expanded with a convulsive upheaval, heat screaming off it. The sphere’s surface spat sparks like molten hail, edges flickering white-hot where the core collapsed in on itself.

Black and crimson rivulets slithered around the orb like serpents, strangling the blaze tighter, compressing it into a weapon too violent for its own frame.

Both her spell prisms slipped free from her belt. She didn’t aim with one—she hurled two. They caught the cavern light like twin shards of starlight before locking into place in front of the Juggernaut’s fractured rib seam.

The firebomb streaked forward. It struck at the exact instant both prisms slammed against the beast’s chest.

The firebomb imploded first, then the prisms refracted the collapse into a stormburst outward. The blast clawed into every direction at once, a corona of searing bloodfire that burned red at its edges and pure white at its core.

The Juggernaut’s torso convulsed, ice ribs shattering, frost-bone shorn open as if by a giant’s axe. The cavern itself shuddered under the thunderclap.

Frostborn Juggernaut — Hostile

Emotional Equilibrium: 17%

Emotional Status: Shattered, Desperate

[OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH]

[YO GIRL, YOU JUST DROPPED A NUKE ON HIS CHEST.]

[WHAT’S THAT TING YOU THREW? DOUBLE NADES? WHO EVEN DOES THAT? YOU DO. YOU A PROBLEM.]

The dragonkin was still standing. At the center of its chest, where the twin firebombs had struck, a cavernous wound gaped open. Frosted ribs splintered in every direction, and vaporous curls rose as blood and melted ice mingled.

[KEEP PUSHING, SEVERA. YOU GOT HIM STAGGERING. HE DON’T WANT NO MORE.]

Severa collapsed. The veins that had glowed like living embers now throbbed painfully, empty and sluggishly retreating, leaving her limbs heavy as metal. It was like a sugar crash—if sugar were blood. 

If only she had been able to push her Bloodform to Rank II, the surge might have lasted longer. She could have paced it, let the energy ebb instead of burning it all away violently, and avoided this crippling aftermath.

Her father’s words returned to her, “When you have distinguished yourself as a thaumaturge, do tell everyone that you only used a Rank I Bloodform out of sheer modesty.”

How she yearned so much to have been able to prove him wrong.

> Hyper Awareness Mode Disengaged

> Emotional Read — Severa Montreal

> Emotional Equilibrium: 17%

> Current Mental Stability: 16%

> Primary Emotional Read: Despair

[Severa. You can do this. One more push.]

[C’mon, girl. Stand. I’ve just been awakened. You can’t go so soon.]

All Severa managed was lifting her head. Her head lolled back against the icy floor. Her vision swam, but she caught the sight of the dragonkin coming nonetheless.

Its massive chest still bore the gaping wound where her twin Pyroclasms had struck, yet the creature’s limbs moved with relentless intent. Each step it took gouged frost and stone, crushing the ground beneath it.

Have I misjudged? A dragonkin has two hearts; one in each rib. Maybe I should’ve shot the other rib instead of doubling down.

Then she saw something else. Behind her, beyond the fractured cavern wall, the void bloomed from possibly the same blot of darkness she’d seen before. It looked like some sort of gate; a void gate. She didn’t know its mechanics, had never studied it, and yet the raw presence of void thaumaturgy screamed its danger.

Void thaumaturgy was forbidden art. That was the reason why her last mentor had been arrested.

Why is the void here?

But maybe she’d never get to know.

A cold crawled up from her bones. Her muscles spasmed, her joints stiffened, and every inhale brought a sting sharper than ice itself. This Juggernaut could employ some sort of aetheric magic, and it had left a debuff, an internal wound woven into her aetheric core.

The Juggernaut’s trident rose. She couldn’t look away. The intent was obvious.

I’m so stupid. Why did I think I was anything special?

A fissure ripped open in the cavern floor, bursting with crimson sparks and screaming with raw aetheric energy. From it erupted a surge of red aether, spiraling like a living lance. 

The dragonkin stumbled, snow and shards of ice spraying outward, its trident sliding from its grasp for just a fraction of a second. The force left it reeling, a choked bellow escaping its throat as it fought to regain balance.

Marrieh Halveth glided on a gust of aetherically-enhanced wind. Three arrows were nocked on her bow, each shaft blazing with red aetheric fire—the very color of unrestrained rage. She drew her bow back, and the three arrows sang through the aether in unison, each with a zigzag trailing tail of scarlet light like lightning scarred across storm-tossed crimson clouds.

The arrows struck in perfect sequence, one after the other, embedding into the Juggernaut’s exposed chest. The crimson aether flared on impact, fusing with the melted fissures from Severa’s firebombs. The beast convulsed violently, staggering under the combined assault, frost-bone cracking further and shards tumbling like shattered glass.

“Hands off my protégé,” she bellowed.

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 12)

The last time Severa Montreal had felt fear was last week, when she was jumpscared by a medium-sized spider. That one was lame; she didn’t talk about that. The time before that, however, was real. She had stood before the examination dais and felt her focus drain away, knowing the spell wasn’t going to form. It had been a light thaumaturgy test; an element that she could execute in her sleep. Her Eidolon of Luminance had been so beautiful, so elegant, that she had spun it again and again, weaving cascades of refracted light into intricate patterns just to demonstrate her surplus control. Not a single thread of aether had slipped; she had made it look effortless. The professors had nodded. Some students had even applauded.

And then came the final repetition.

It was there that she’d learned the limit of her aether pool.

Today, she’d be learning the limits of her body.

The humongous hand smashed through Severa’s diamond shield as it hurled her over the hole it’d just punched. 

She arced across the chamber. Then the final level unfolded before her eyes.

The dungeon had opened into an impossible cavern, so vast her mind struggled to hold it all at once. An endless ceiling of rime and frost curved high above,  serrated spires of ice spiralling up a sky glazed over in glacial blue. It was as though an entire mountain had been hollowed out and inverted.

And then—a blot of darkness. A single, uneven spot that seemed to absorb the light around it, like a wound in the cavern itself. She couldn’t focus on it properly; the speed of her flight twisted perspective, and the shadows shifted as she spun past. 

Amidst it all, moving with the inevitability of an avalanche, was a dragonkin at least four times her size.

Its scales were slabs of glacier, translucent and veined with frozen rivers of light, every breath coiling into storms of diamond dust. Its body alone filled the center of the chamber as though the lair had been carved for it, an organism the size of a cathedral pacing inside its own ribcage.

Severa’s gaze snagged on its eyes—twin spheres of winter, deep and merciless—and for one moment she knew: she would meet her end today.

No. I must live.

Her reflexes snapped back into focus. She twisted, dragging wind into a desperate spiral behind her back. The gust caught, slowing her arc just enough to glide her down toward a ledge of ice. Her boots scraped, skidding for purchase, but she remained upright.

The potion she’d forced down before this chamber still thrummed in her veins. She could call on her full strength again. But the belt at her waist felt far too light. One vicious swing from the dragonkin had scattered the rest of her potions into the abyss.

So this would be it. One fight. And only as much aether as her pool would let her hold before the edge gave way.

She wondered if Halveth had been safe. Without her aunt at her side, she felt the air press colder against her skin. She had always imagined herself self-sufficient, but the truth broke over her now: she felt unsafe, exposed, a child dressed in diamond glass and bravado. The cavern was too vast, and she was too alone.

But I’m not alone, am I?

The thought came: she could wake DeShawn up. It had given her potentially useful numbers before. Maybe there would be something it would do. At the very least, it would whisper something in her ears. Tell her she wouldn’t die alone.

Survival first. Then find Aunt Merry. That is your directive. A Montreal doesn’t die in dungeons.

The thought barely formed before the dragonkin moved.

It had watched her land. Out of reach, yes—but not out of sight.

The glacier-beast stooped. When it rose again, a weapon was in its hand: a trident sculpted of packed rime and frozen veins, its prongs honed to spears of glassy death. The haft alone was thicker than her torso.

A name tore its way out of memory. Frostbound Juggernaut. Threat rating: Epic—for a Party of four. Do not engage alone. 

Elemental susceptibility: fire, light, plasma, magma.

The Frostbound Juggernaut’s trident sounded like an avalanche as it came down. 

Shards of ice spun outward in a deadly hail.

Severa’s hands had already flown to the glyphs seared into her gloves. “Lift,” she hissed. A swirl of wind coiled beneath her boots, catching, trembling, stuttering—then launching her skyward in a lurch that nearly sent her tumbling right. Flight had never been her forte.

Her teeth clicked shut as the gust jolted her higher. She flung her arms wide, forcing the currents to steady. 

Before she could even line up a shot, the Juggernaut wrenched its trident back. Its icy prongs angled up, and soon it stabbed again.

Dodge left, she gritted her teeth. The wind carried her, one second away from danger again.

Her chest heaved. Her mind refused calculations. All she could hear was the pounding in her ears. Panic narrowed everything to instinct.

She needed help.

Maybe if I wink thrice with my left eye . . .

And she did.

DeShawn came back to life—[Girl, you rude asf—hell nah wtffffffffff]—the exact moment the trident speared toward her face.

Severa bent her knees, coated wind around her hands—Close Combat Wind Manipulation, Mark VI—and shoved her palms down. For one reckless heartbeat she leapfrogged the Juggernaut’s trident, skimming over its glacial prongs as the force of her own gust flung her clear.

[Girl, what you doing? What even is that giant bipedal komodo thing?]

DeShawn, we’re about to die. Please help me.

[What am I supposed to do? Do a personality reading on that walking popsicle? Ahhhhhhhh fly higher!]

The gust spat her out of reach. Severa tumbled, air roaring past her ears, her pulse slamming against her ribs. She righted herself just in time to see the Juggernaut’s trident gouge a pillar of ice where her body had been. Splinters cascaded like razors through the air, and she coughed. Not good. She brought her hand to her neck and started warming it with aetheric fire sparks. 

Her throat burned. Sparks scraped her tongue. But at least she was no longer coughing.

She forced the wind to cradle her again, wings of pressure barely keeping her aloft.

[Okay, okay. Keep the popsicle in your vision. I’ll see what I can do.]

Can you read its mood?

[If it knows how to feel, yes.]

I’ll test out different weak points. You find out which one it’s the most uncomfortable parrying. Okay?

The Juggernaut stabbed again.

Severa did not dodge this time. She landed with both boots on the haft of the trident. Her neck had warmed enough. The world lurched—her stomach with it—as the weapon swung upward. For a heartbeat she was balancing on it like a tightrope, gliding as though the monster itself had thrown her into the sky.

The Juggernaut snarled, jerking the weapon to fling her off. It was almost impossible to keep balance without her hands. But her casting arsenal shrank without them.

There was one thing she could do without her hands . . .

On my mark. Gauge its emotion.

Her fingers clawed for balance, wind bracing her ankles, her teeth gritted against the bite of frost seeping through her soles. She inhaled. Cauterflare Invocation, Tier III, Rank III would be the spell she cast.

Now.

She opened her mouth and spat fire.

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 11)

It took only minutes on the second level for Severa Montreal to realize this would be a punishing run.

The second level opened into a much narrower cavern network that felt almost deliberately designed to funnel intruders into predictable paths. The ceilings were lower here, the rock walls scorched and etched with blackened streaks; evidence of fire magic used not for creation, but for survival. That was the first thing that struck Severa as odd.

Severa’s eyes adjusted to the darkness; literally. Scarlet radiance ignited in her gaze, suffusing her eyes with crimson depths. She channeled aether into her ocular blood vessels using Sanguine Focus, a low-level blood thaumaturgy spell innate only to those of House Montreal. Thin veins of aetheric crystal snaked through the rock. They didn’t glow in such weak light, but with her enhanced sight, she could trace each filament’s subtle shimmer. She noted each one, making mental calculations on how she could leverage their conductivity for low-cost spells.

Then she caught tiny wing membranes, scaled in muted orange and copper, flexing as the wyvernlet clung to the ceiling.

The wyverns here moved differently. Miniature in size—scaled-down predators to fit the cramped confines of the second level—they darted with a tighter and more erratic rhythm. Their wingbeats rattled the low ceiling, and from seeing one diving, it seemed as though their dive was sharper. Also . . . their underbellies glimmered with icy cyan undertones.

Even their breath exhaled a faint mist, the result of elemental equilibrium. Fire-resistant but partially cold-infused.

Halveth’s voice came behind her, steady as ever. “Different strain. Fire-resistant. Likely evolved or selectively bred by the dungeon’s ecosystem.”

The scouting notes just last week had indicated standard Lowland Hollow skirverns, prone to panic under even small fire spells. These were something else entirely. Did the dungeon morphed into something else in a week?

This doesn’t make sense. The fire marks left on the walls can’t have been new; which means this specific section of the dungeon has been around for some time.

This suggested the dungeon sub-realm could shift locations to an entirely new place and override the existing dungeon, but she had never heard of reports of any kind. What’s going on?

A hollow pocket in the rock rattled. A wyvernlet lunged out.

Severa hurled an aetheric fireball at it out of instinct—a low-cost spell that used fright as a catalyst; her fright would come and go fast, but they made excellent fuel for quick-cast spells when they surfaced. The flames roared, blackening the wyvernlet’s scales. The creature still pressed forward.

Severa barely twisted aside in time, her shoulder grazing the cavern wall as its claw swiped where she had been standing. Ouch. Her defenses were too weak for direct contact; she needed to avoid it entirely. Every instinct screamed: a strike here, a touch there, and she’d be the one scorched. 

“Say the word if you need aid,” Halveth reminded.

“I can handle it,” Severa whispered. Not asking for help had been the reason why she’d gotten capable.

The wyvernlets must be nesting in these tiny alcoves, using the cramped space as a launch point to ambush intruders. Their speed wasn’t random; it was a calculated use of gravity, tight walls, and sudden angles.

At that velocity, even her fire spells couldn’t stop them. But blunt force could.

Another wyvernlet erupted from a hollow just ahead, wings tucked like a dart. Sever gestured immediately: the aether crystallized around her arm, solidifying into a faceted diamond shield: Prismatic Aegis, a Tier III Crystal spell, Rank IV. The shield would’ve been bigger had she had time for mnemonics.

The wyvernlet’s head collided with her Aegis with a crack. It staggered back, dazed, and its wings beat erratically against the low ceiling. Severa didn’t give it a moment to recover. She thrust a quick-fire burst toward it, a low-cost flame designed to capitalize on its momentary disorientation.

But something felt off. The air around her suddenly sharpened; a sign that the temperature was dropping. Frost crystallized along the edges of the shield, thin and glinting. She realized with a flash that the wyvernlet’s underbelly wasn’t just ice-toned for show—the elemental equilibrium she’d glimpsed in its scales was active. Several others must have been moving in tandem, synchronizing their elemental auras.

She could feel the cold closing in.

Can’t swing my dagger fast enough; I need an AOE. But this passage is too narrow. I might collapse the structure.

Severa’s mind raced. Narrow walls, low ceilings, frost spreading along her shield—there was no room for a reckless detonation. Yet something had to be done.

She reached into her satchel and pulled one of her three crystal prisms, letting the smooth quartz catch what little light the cavern offered. 

She tossed the prism into the air. Her fingers traced a precise gesture, and she blasted a concentrated ray at the prism: Solar Convergence, Light Thaumaturgy Spell, Tier II, Rank VI. The spell blazed a brilliant golden from the emotion she drew upon—reverence—a memory of her first idol, Peta McPyre, who had cleared a Legendary dungeon alone at thirty-two.

“Duck!” Severa yelled as she herself ducked.

The prism caught the ascending ray like a shard of captured sunlight. Light splintered along its facets, scattering into a cascade of golden beams that arced in perfect geometry across the cavern. 

The prism refracted the solar energy into a perfect, omnidirectional lattice; every wyvernlet caught within its radius was struck simultaneously. The wyvernlets screeched and darted. Golden shafts sliced through the shadows, each one puncturing their scales, wings, and claws. Sparks danced along the edges of their armored hides. Incandescent sparks showered across the entire chamber.

All the wyvernlets were reduced to ash. The prism broke into thousands tiny pieces.

Light Thaumaturgy was a highly specialized form of Fire and Air Thaumaturgy hybrid. Although Light was the fifth element she learned, right after the four basic: Fire, Air, Water, Earth, she’d only ever reserved it for emergencies. It was incredibly aether-draining, and the reason why Severa had been wary of casting these spells was that she was frail. Physical frailness inherently limited access to the aether pool, so her spellcasting had to be strategic and precise.

Severa sagged against the rough cavern wall, every muscle trembling from the effort. Her chest heaved as she fumbled into her satchel, pulling out a cyan vial. She uncorked it, tipped it back, and chugged down the content. Screw being graceful. I’m so tired.

Then Halveth emerged from the now-resumed darkness. “They tried to neutralize your fire and ambushed you from all sides, but you managed to read the situation. Good job. However, you must know your limit.” She got down to one knee beside Severa, inspecting her. “You’re sweating. I was this close to intervening.”

Severa didn’t reply. She was busy inhaling.

“Can you . . . help me . . . pick up the loot?” she rasped.

Halveth’s hand hovered near her satchel. “There’s no loot.”

Severa stopped breathing for a second. “Come again?”

“There’s no loot,” Halveth repeated.

That was . . . wrong. Every other time she’d cleared even a dozen lesser creatures, there had been something—a scale, a claw, even a scrap of hide. A single shard of proof. Not a single wyvernlet had dropped anything.

Halveth now stood, extending her hand to Severa. “This is a Tier III dungeon at the lowest, but there’s nothing to gain here. We must retreat.”

Severa knew Halveth was right: she wasn’t yet ready for a Tier III dungeon solo run. Not until she could solve her aether conservation bottleneck. But she had almost cleared the second level; there was only one more to go. If she went home now, she’d return empty handed.

“Fine. Do what you do best. See if your ‘best’ can even clear that unstable dungeon,” Forsing had said.

He would know she had failed.

“Severa Montreal.” Halveth stared at her. Halveth didn’t possess sanguine irises, but her gaze was enough to melt gold all the same. “At the first sign of doubt, we retreat.”

“Aunt Merry, I—”

A giant frosted hand smashed through the ceiling of the tunnel. The crystalline fist collided with the ground in a spray of frost, and in the instant of impact, Halveth vanished. The space where she had knelt was empty, swallowed by the abyss of shadows that yawned beneath the icy strike.

Severa instinctively conjured flames. The flames engulfed her palms as she turned her hands into living fire. This was thaumaturgic fire with a mind of its own. Her palms radiated warmth, but it never burned; the fire existed in symbiosis with her, attuned to her intent. She could pivot, dodge, or raise a shield, and the flames would burn only where she willed.

Her supervisor had just vanished.

She looked down at the flames swallowing her hands. They burned charcoal; the color of fear.

And the icy fist came down again. That single fist was the size of her upper body.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 14)

It seemed nature had decreed that every misfortune should befall Celine Moose. A fresh blemish had appeared on her forehead, and now she’d learned that Greg Johnson was unlikely to appear at the jousting tournament. She’d also overslept again, by no fault of her own. An all-nighter devouring her latest detective story was just too enticing to resist, by nature. Her worst nightmare, however, was that her blood tasted too sweet and attracted the entire surrounding mosquito population; which was plenty, considering they were at the edge of the forest.

The first stop on their field trip was a scrubby clearing just off the main trail, where the grass thinned into patches of hard-packed dirt and wiry weeds. Low stone ridges hemmed it in on three sides, forming a sort of natural corral. This, apparently, was prime habitat for Nibberhares—aetherically-imbued rabbit-like pests no larger than a rat, with stubby ears and teeth sharp enough to shear through garden roots.

“What do you mean he won’t come?” Celine cocked her hip to the side as she put a hand on it.

“Well . . . It’s not that he ‘won’t’ come. He’s just not likely to.” Fabrisse rubbed the back of his head then rubbed his nose.

“You said he will just yesterday.” Celine looked like she was having none of it today. Her blemish poked out angrily as she asked, equally angrily. “Did you ask him, Fabrisse? Did you really ask?”

“I—well, yes, but that was—uh—” He glanced at the ground, then the sky, then back at her as if one of them might provide a better answer. His mouth opened, closed, opened again, closed again, then opened the third time, but no words volunteered.

Celine had come armed for the occasion—her Thaumaturgical Rabbit-Hunting Package (Standard Edition) slung neatly at her side: a collapsible snare etched with binding runes, a pouch of powdered repellent for warding the burrows, even a pocket-sized lattice lamp designed to lure the nibberhares out at dusk. She had had everything prepared, except for the mosquito spray.

And yet, none of it seemed to matter now.

“You forgot to ask him, didn’t you?” she said with a voice as sharp as the little teeth of the pests they were meant to exterminate.

Fabrisse wilted. His shoulders hunched, his gaze dropped, and the loose thread he’d been worrying at his sleeve began to fray.

“Forget it,” Celine snapped, turning on her heel so abruptly that the snare clinked against her hip. “I’m not in the mood anymore.”

Fortunately for Fabrisse, Celine had managed to rope along a familiar figure who’d act as the voice of reason: Liene. 

Liene stepped in between them and spoke in her damage control voice, “You got all your gears ready, Celine. It would be a shame to back out now.”

“Well you have fun with him!” Celine stomped on the ground. “You didn’t like it last time he forgot about you, did you?”

Fabrisse turned away instinctively as the memories of how he’d let Liene wait half a day returned. Liene couldn’t say anything to that, so she just let Celine stomped her way out of sight like a sulky child.

The moment Celine disappeared from sight, Liene heaved a sigh. “That wasn’t very nice of you. She’s right to be upset.”

He knew that. Celine had put effort into helping him with lots of things, all for something deceptively simple in return.

“What do I do now?” Fabrisse asked in a tiny voice.

“Do what she asked you to do. Try your best to convince Greg to go see the jousting tourney tomorrow. She really looked forward to it, you know.”

In any case, they needed to solve their immediate problem: they needed four people for the excursion, and they had two. Fabrisse hoped that their supervisor, Kaldrin, wasn’t too strict with the rules, since they were only hunting rabbits after all. Kaldrin had always seemed like the rather lax kind.

Unfortunately, the one who showed up wasn’t Kaldrin.

“Professor Kaldrin has urgent business to attend to today,” Lorvan spoke as he approached them. “I’ll be your supervisor.”

Great . . . We’re never getting clearance for this field trip then.

“Well, Mentor. It seems like we have a tinyyyy problem,” Liene dug her toe into the ground awkwardly. “We’re missing a few party members.”

“Then we cancel the trip,” Lorvan said.

“But we can’t . . .” Fabrisse tried to protest. He’d prepared, too. He’d even brought a slingshot with him in case he ran out of aether to fling stones at rabbits.

Liene slid in before Fabrisse could say more. “My wonderful mentor,” she began, drawing out the word with her softest smile, “surely we don’t need the full four people for nibberhares. They’re practically vermin. Even the villagers manage with nothing more than brooms and baskets.”

Lorvan folded his arms. “The villagers don’t need to file incident reports, Miss Lugano. I do. The protocol is four members minimum for any sanctioned excursion. End of discussion.”

“But you know us,” she pressed, voice lilting in that sing-song way she always used when trying to disarm him. “I’ll keep an eye on Fabrisse. You won’t even need to lift a finger. We’ll be careful, promise.”

Lorvan said flatly. “I know you, and I know him, and I know how you two do not have a care for safety. Safety regulations aren’t optional, not even for pest control. You’ll both return to the Hall, and that’s final.”

Before Liene could mount another appeal, a figure approached with her gaze lowered, fingers twitching minutely as she sketched sigils into being without even looking. Lines of pale glyphlight stitched together from her fingertips as she walked.

Of course Fabrisse realized that green hair and those crystal-clear emerald eyes even when downcast. It was Veliane Veist. He hadn’t been thinking about her anymore, but it didn’t mean she got any less attractive.

Glyphweaving as she walked meant only one thing: she was shadowing Lorvan again, as part of her independent study.

Liene eyed Fabrisse as she said, “You could stare a bit less obviously, you know.”

He leaned toward her, whispering. “It’s Veist. If she tags along, that makes three.” 

“Which means . . .”

“Maybe . . . if we convince her that hunting nibberhares counts as practical glyphwork—”

“I don’t think she’ll agree.”

Veliane’s glyphwork vanished into the air as she slowed to a stop before them. “Good morning, Mentor,” she politely bowed to Lorvan before turning to Liene and Fabrisse. “Good morning. Are you allowed to go on excursions with only two members?”

“Of course not,” Lorvan answered without hesitation. “They’re about to return now.”

Fabrisse braced himself for dismissal—until Veliane spoke again. “I will help, if you want.”

Fabrisse’s jaw went slack. Veliane Veist, offering to join them? He’d never imagined such a thing. She was a Scion; people approached her. That was the natural order.

But she stood there, expectant, as though the choice was his.

Lorvan folded his arms, unimpressed. “If you want to make it challenging, limit yourself to glyphcraft alone during the excursion.”

Veliane nodded. “Understood, Mentor.”

Fabrisse was still staring, a little too wide-eyed, until Liene jabbed him lightly in the ribs.

Lorvan’s gaze swept over them, steady as granite outcrop. “You’re still one short,” he reminded. “Three is not four.”

As if the world itself had conspired to answer, the crunch of boots on frost-fractured quartzite rose from the path. A tall figure emerged from between the trees. His hiking pack slung across one shoulder, and a staff balanced loosely in his hand. Svetoslav Kovrin looked up at the gathered cluster and broke into a grin.

“Well now, this looks like a council of doom.” His voice carried the rough warmth of someone who never minded intruding. “What’s all this about?”

Sven? Why would he bring a staff to a hike?

He tipped his head first to Liene, eyes lighting with a familiar friendliness. “Morning, Liene.”

“Hey, Sven,” she answered with a little wave. “I didn’t know you hike.”

“Not usually,” Sven said, tapping the staff against his boot. “Research. We’re staging Ashes of Caldanor next term, and I figured I should know how to look like I’ve walked somewhere farther than from the Hall to the bakery.”

Of course. Always for the stage.

“So, you’re doing something? Party excursion, maybe?” He looked at the snare over Liene’s shoulder.

“Yeah. We’re missing one person, actually. Care to join?” Liene returned him a little grin.

Sven thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Why not? It still counts as hiking, just with extra steps.”

Liene turned to Lorvan, “Can we go into the woods then, Mentor?”

Lorvan nodded unceremoniously.

Fabrisse frowned just a little. It felt like he’d been running into Sven everywhere lately. At this point, he kind of expected to find Sven lurking behind a shrub with stage makeup on. But it wasn’t his concern now. With Sven, they’d have a full party, and he’d finally be able to test the new spells he’d learned. If anything, he was in luck.

NOTE: There is never a wrong time to prolong Celine Moose's suffering for no reason.

Favorite Side Character? (Multiple allowed)

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 13)

“This is a Hearth-Laughed Brick,” Min Hajin said as he returned the brick to Fabrisse. It turned out that Fabrisse hadn’t yet had the skills nor the knowledge to assess this brick, according to Min, who’d spent half an hour on assessment. Fabrisse couldn’t even feel its emotional imprint from touching the object. No joy; no ale craving; nothing.

“Why couldn’t I feel anything?” Fabrisse asked.

Min glanced at him. “Did you feel any change in heat?”

“A bit.”

“Then you knew something changed. Just not what.”

Fabrisse nodded, more slowly than he meant to.

“Sometimes they won’t come, the emotions, if your emotional aptitude isn’t at the right level,” Min said. “This one holds the memories of events, not just people. Tricky work.”

That still didn’t explain why Min had deemed Fabrisse not yet capable of conducting assessment. He knew how to work the instruments, but Min Hajin hadn’t been there to see if. What if he didn’t do it right the last time and returned the wrong results to Severa? There was no way to tell now.

[Sidequest Completed: “Hearth-Laughed Brick”]

Reward: +2 EMO

Bonus Objective: Make a new friend in the process.

Reward: + 2 Emotional Thaumaturgy Mastery Points

Oh. There are mastery points for emotional spells too. The Invocation of Grief doesn’t require any elemental affinity, so it makes sense.

“So you have passed the Synaptic test,” Min said as he returned to his chair.

“Yes.”

“Participation in the Wing is not required during exam month,” he shuffled through his paperwork and pulled a palm-sized slab of schist from under a stack, running a steel pick along its grain to flake off a thin, glittering sheet. “But the earlier you can commit, the earlier you can start field work.”

“You think I’m ready for field work now?” Fabrisse’s eyes lit up.

“After learning Aetheric Grain Analysis, you can accompany Exemplar Kann. She is in need of someone with the time, and the commitment,” Min Hajin said, with a heavy emphasis on ‘commitment’. “Can you make time to learn Aetheric Grain Analysis today?”

“I’m sorry,” Fabrisse said, rubbing the back of his head. “I still have tutoring sessions.”

“Understood.”

It would be a dream come true for him to go on field excursions, doing what he assumed to be spending hours staring at rocks. He’d be on the official payroll. However, he’d done mental calculations. Passing his classes and aiming for at least a partial grant would make much more sense financially.

It’s just until after the exams. Then I can make time again, he told himself.

“Thank you for your help,” Fabrisse gave Min a curt bow. “Now if you excuse me, I’ll be heading to my tutoring session.”

As Fabrisse turned to leave, he could hear Min’s final words, “Remember why you started this in the first place. Then you’ll find your answer.”

***

[Intermediate Synaptic Threading—Progress to Understanding: 78%]

[Training Completed: +48 EXP]

[Progress to Level 7: 3748/4550]

Fabrisse plopped down on the stone floor. His wrists ached from repetition, but the corner of his mouth tugged up anyway. He’d almost gotten it. The aetheric release now came so close to matching the exact beat of his physical movement that sometimes, it landed perfectly. 

“Good work today, Kestovar,” Professor Kaldrin said, striding past the practice circle to retrieve his timer. “Once you’re finished with this, you’re ready to learn the needed Air spells to pass the final test. If you learn them quickly enough, you can take to the fields and gain some hands-on experience.”

“Has Miss Moose told you about the field trips?”

“Yes. I think it’s a good idea for you. I can sanction the trips for you if needed.”

Fabrisse tilted his head, the question sitting just behind his teeth. Why was Kaldrin teaching Air thaumaturgy at all? The first time Fabrisse had seen him in action, the man had clearly wielded emotional spells, and more importantly, Darkness spells. 

“What’s your specialty, Professor?” He asked.

“Darkness,” Kaldrin said without pause, then added just as quickly, “I don’t like to use them, and you also shouldn’t learn them.”

“Then how come you’ve learned those Darkness spells?” The chains; the dark hands—they were all high level casting.

“For research. I practice thaumaturgy for further learning instead of learning to further my thaumaturgy practice. Many Pre-Order artifacts react to darkness spells.”

“Why so?”

“We don’t know yet.” Kaldrin said, eyes narrowing at some private thought “But many Pre-Order artifacts seem . . . too compatible with Darkness thaumaturgy to be a coincidence. My team suspects some of them, perhaps the Eidralith itself, were not just tools, but implements in ancient rituals. I can’t say much more than that, though.”

That sounded ominous and more vague than Fabrisse would’ve liked.

Kaldrin closed the timer with a click and glanced back at him. “Anything you’ve forgotten to ask before we wrap this up, Kestovar?”

The two words hit like a spark in dry tinder. 

Forgot. Wrap.

Oh no. Liene’s gift. I’ve totally forgotten to unwrap it.

“I—uh—need to go home,” Fabrisse blurted, already from the floor.

Kaldrin didn’t stop him.

***

It was no surprise what lay beneath the wrapping. The moment his fingers worked the ribbon loose and peeled back the careful folds, the weight and dimensions confirmed it: a notebook. That was fine. Liene knew he liked notebooks.

The surprise came when he opened it.

The first page wasn’t blank. It was already inked with her handwriting, the kind he could recognise in a crowd: slanted a touch too far forward, hurried in the curves, but anchored by decisive strokes. Not messy, exactly, but impatient. 

At the top, in neat print, was a short letter:

Hi Fabri :D

I wanted to give you something tangible, maybe a little sentimental, but then I thought you’d prefer something practical. You’ve been studying hard, and you’ll be graduating in a year. Maybe you’ll go on to be a great thaumaturge, the kind all the big institutions chase across the major cities. If that happens, I hope we can still make time to see each other now and then.

I’ve written down a little something that might help when the time comes. It isn’t much, but maybe it’ll be useful. Happy birthday, Stoneboy.

He flipped the page. The first page read, ‘Basic Air Thaumaturgy, Tier I Skills’, and details of how to achieve those skills. The material looked familiar at first—skills straight from the standard textbooks, the ones every student could recite by rote.

But then he noticed what wasn’t in the textbooks.

In the margins, in her sharp, leaning hand, she’d written the things only practice could teach: the tiny adjustments of breath that steadied a shaky casting; the trick of using one’s off-hand to anchor a resonance when the dominant hand faltered; the unofficial, alternative gestures that cut a spell’s fatigue in half if you dared to bend formality.

Little shortcuts, little cheats.

She favoured bullet points and margin arrows over needless artistic touches, which was uncharacteristic for her, but maybe she had been in a hurry to jot down all the content in a short amount of time. Her indexing system was adequate, if a little arbitrary. He would have liked more colour-coding.

Then he flipped to the next page, and the next, and the next. It wasn’t a handful of tips. It was over a hundred pages (or at least what he thought was a hundred pages), each crammed with diagrams, notation, and short, functional descriptions. Every skill she had learned over the years. How she had trained to master it. Adjustments for different ranks. Cross-references to variations he’d never heard anyone mention aloud.

By the twentieth page, he had to stop, thumb resting at the edge of the paper, because the sheer scope of it hit him: this wasn’t just a gift. This was her entire craft, distilled and handed over without hesitation.

He didn’t know how long it must have taken her to write all this, but it seemed like a lot of work. People didn’t normally do that.

He shut the notebook carefully. His chest felt tight, though not in a bad way—more like when he held too much aether at once, and had to find a place to put it down.

Pie, he decided, he would return her goodwill with pie. She liked slenderberry pie. And maybe a wheel of cheese, the fancy kind wrapped in wax. That seemed proportional.

“Who gives someone an already written notebook as a gift?”

Fabrisse glanced up. Greg was leaning in the doorway, watching him with a mildly amused look he always wore when Fabrisse got too sentimental over rocks.

“She does,” Fabrisse said.

Greg’s eyebrow ticked up. “Is this from the same blond girl?”

“Yes.”

Greg considered that for a beat, then said, “She doesn’t know how to best use her time.”

“It’s useful.”

“For you. Not for her.”

“Don’t you have lectures to attend?”

“That’s why I’m standing at the doorway and not near my desk.” And with that, Greg left.

Fabrisse suddenly remembered that he had to tell Greg something. Something vaguely jousting related. But he couldn’t recall how in the Flamus Greg would have anything to do with jousting.

He shrugged. If he couldn’t remember it, it was probably unimportant.

Severa Book 2 (Chapter 10)

The remaining skirverns seemed to have flapped their wings more slowly. They now moved in a circle as the scent of their fallen kin carried on the aetheric currents. That was the annoying thing about skirverns: once one of their flock died, the rest went into revenge mode.

The one redeeming aspect, however, was that they came in flocks. A well-aimed, sustained spell could turn that instinct against them. Severa adjusted her grip on Embervein, letting the triumphant certainty swell through her veins.

She whispered the next mnemonics:

“Feed the flame on rivals three,
Strike as one, and bend the spree.”

She invoked the Invocation of Tri-Phoenix Shaping, Mark III.

The one clean aetheric arc from the dagger seceded into three; each tendril of flame blazed with that same blue core, tinged with flickers of green where her confidence surged strongest. They swept in perfect synchronization.

“Showmanship now, Severa?” Halveth’s voice came behind her.

The first arc struck a skirvern, searing through its scales with a flare of azure light. The second found another as it banked wide, The third arc met the final skirvern head-on, connecting with a crackling snap as the azure flames consumed its neck in a single strike. 

The chain kill had worked perfectly.

Halveth’s voice resounded behind her again, “Impressive, but keep an eye on your aether! There are still two more levels to clear, and I won’t carry you if you burn out here.”

The only word Severa registered was ‘impressive’.

The remaining skirverns scattered, shrieking in retreat as Severa and Halveth advanced through the Lowland Hollow. As she walked, Severa’s eyes scanned the ridges and basalt outcroppings

Her intuition whispered that something was lying in wait. The cavern’s ceiling soared impossibly high, lost in mist, but the basalt ridges and jagged outcroppings created sharp contrasts in light and shadow. Most of the skirverns’ movements threw chaotic, fleeting silhouettes, but here, some shadows lingered unnaturally, frozen in positions no creature should hold. A careful observer could see where the air had been compressed and displaced unnaturally, as if something solid waited silently in defiance of gravity.

An ambush.

Flames leapt from Severa’s palm with instinctive precision, radiating in a broad arc that forced the ambushers to reveal themselves. The hidden creatures recoiled at the extremely bright flare. She sent arcs of blue fire streaking through the space, tendrils of flame bending around outcroppings, cutting off retreat paths and dominating every angle. Sparks of confident green chased after the edges of her flames.

One creature lunged from a ledge, but Severa had anticipated it. A sweeping red flame carved through its motion. Another attempted to leap from a shadowed outcrop; a whip-like strike of fire intercepted it midair, leaving it smoldering. Two neutralized. One to go.

The third creature launched itself from a craggy overhang, dropping into the hollow: a wyvernkin sentinel. Its scales were darker, almost iridescent under the aetheric gloom, and thicker along the spine and shoulders—a natural armor that could shrug off a single blast. Its bipedal legs were long and digitigrade, ending in clawed feet that scraped the basalt with each landing. Broad shoulders supported its muscular arms, tipped with razor-edged talons capable of slashing as easily as a blade.

This is a tough opponent for a first level, Severa thought. It had the cunning to force mistakes, to exploit gaps, and to draw her into wasting her aether. She would need to preserve her aether—two cyan potions weren’t going to last forever, and there were still two more levels to clear.

She scanned the surrounding area. Light from the aetheric sky glinted off countless tiny crystal formations jutting from the basalt, naturally grown in clusters and veins that traced the ridges of the hollow. The cost of manipulating existing elements is always lower than conjuring one from the Aetherrealm, she thought. Let’s use crystals to my advantage.

She let the creature make the first moves.

The Sentinel closed the distance. It lashed forward in a probing swipe, forcing her to sidestep and gauge its reach. With a quick gesture, she invoked the Crystal Thaumaturgy spell, Shard Scatter. Tiny crystal shards leapt from the tips of her fingers. Quick spells were needed, and this one had low drainage on her aether pool.

The first shards pinged against its shoulder plates, not enough to pierce, but enough to draw out a flinch. The creature recoiled, trying to readjust its stance.

This one seems wary of contact. I can waste its energy with low-cost spells.

Severa’s eyes tracked the movement, noting how it overcompensated. The sentinel lunged again, claws scraping the basalt, but she had already raised spikes of piercing shards on the ground where it was about to step on. The Sentinel skidded to a halt, rearing back as the shards bit into its scaled legs. She tapped into another low-cost Crystal spell: Prismatic Lances. Thin beams of refracted light erupted from small crystal points along the ridge of the hollow, streaking toward the Sentinel’s exposed flanks. The prismatic beams struck like needles, forcing the sentinel to twist awkwardly to protect its vulnerable joints. Never once had the sentinel been close to a few paces near Severa.

The wyvernkin tested her again, lunging forward with a sweeping claw, but Severa anticipated the motion and let a ripple of Shard Scatter erupt beneath its landing zone again. She could tell its weak spots now from the way it protected itself: the exposed joints at the inside of its elbows and knees, where the thick spine scales didn’t cover; the soft membranes under its armpits; and the thin, reflective scales along the sides of its neck, just below the jaw hinge. Seconds passed, each strike chipping away at its armor, each feint drawing it into a rhythm she could predict. 

The sentinel’s breathing grew heavier, its lunges slower, more hesitant. Here’s my chance.

With a single inhalation, she let the collected aether surge into Embervein’s dagger, and struck. The blade didn’t pierce cleanly, but it clipped the sentinel across its armored flank, sending it sprawling.

I was aiming for the neck, she huffed. My weapon handling is still so bad.

The wyvernkin struggled to its feet, claws scraping against the basalt, wings bracing for another lunge. Its chest heaved; even the thick armor along its spine seemed to weigh heavier now. She waited for the perfect opening and swung the Embervein again. The flames extended; a mnemonic-less version of the Invocation of Phoenix Shaping. It didn’t grow to full length, but it didn’t need to. The blade grazed the sentinel’s neck, not precise enough to be fatal, but enough. The creature’s legs buckled and it toppled onto the hollow floor with a shudder.

Severa let the sentinel’s body slump fully against the basalt floor as she scanned for any signs of loot. Aetheric creatures sometimes left small traces, such as vials of condensed mana, fragments of crystalline energy, or even shards that could be harvested to forge items. This sentinel offered nothing.

“Well,” she muttered, brushing ash and dust from her dagger, “I suppose some fights are just practice.”

“Better control now,” Halveth commented.

Severa straightened, allowing her lungs to fill. Usually, first-level dungeons didn’t carry this kind of lingering disturbance; there was no boss waiting just beyond the first stretch. But this sentinel had been . . . unusual. Its very presence had warped the local aether, leaving small eddies of unstable energy along the ridges.

She tapped into a low-cost scanning spell: Invocation of Aetheric Echoes; a spell that didn’t have an affinity but could simply be used with good aetheric control. Silver filaments of light flowed from her fingertips, curling through the hollow like a gentle wind. They traced residual currents of life, sweeping the space methodically. Nothing else moved, nothing else throbbed with life except the distant, skittering silhouettes of skirverns perched high above, silent and wary.

Severa retracted the filaments, letting them vanish into the air. “Clear,” she said.

“Onward,” Halveth said. If Halveth didn’t offer anything more, it was most likely safe to march on.

Severa adjusted her grip on Embervein and stepped forward. How pleasant does it feel to be in a dungeon, she thought. She was in her element now; she was thriving. It would’ve been foolish to listen to Forsing earlier.

Next chapter comes in a few hours

So I’ve gotten accused of AI-generating my book, and em-dashes aside, I can assure you the only thing I have in common with an AI is the inability to remember which skills Fabrisse has learned over the course of the book (which has led to more than one instance of harrowing editing). You are telling me the AI can come up with legendary, thought-provoking lines like ‘The pie shop smells like pie’ or ‘It implied he was a dog’! I find that hard to believe.

Jokes aside, I am unreasonably angered. I did not spend close to 10 years writing for my prose to look similar to ChatGPT vomit. Maybe I need to start using fewer em-dashes and stop adding similes to every other paragraph—like a hyperactive bard attempting theatrical gymnastics in print.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 12)

[Mastery Training: Whirlweave (Rank I)—Progress to Rank II: 100%]

[Training Completed: +87 EXP]

[Progress to Level 7: 3811/4550]

Fabrisse had managed to finish leveling up during the break after his morning lecture. The instant he levelled up, he was met with the following message: 

[FP: 0/38]

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

From 10 to 0 in approximately 26 minutes, he jotted down on his notes, down from 27 minutes with the extra 1 STR gain. The change was probably too insignificant, and the statistics too few to lean towards any result, as there would be too many other variables to account for.

He found an empty bench at a more secluded place outside the lecture hall to inspect his new Whirlweaving spell.

Spell Profile — Whirlweave (Rank II — Intermediate Air Control)

Type: Air Thaumaturgy, Localized Current Generation & Vector Manipulation

Description: Create a stable wind current within a 2 m radius from caster’s locus (±10° directional tolerance by default); speed adjustable between 0.8 – 2.5 m/s at Rank II. At high resonance control, currents can be curved to follow a set trajectory.

Duration: 7 s + 1.5 s per RES after 4 (capped at 18)

Wind Speed: 2.5 m/s (light wind) + 0.5 m/s per RES after 10 (capped at 20)

Wind Bending: Available only if RES ≥ 15 — caster may curve wind path up to 15° per 1 m traveled, maximum 30° total bend per cast.

Aetheric Reaction Equation: 35% Continuity Shaping + 25% Spatial Awareness + 20% Spellcasting Speed + 15% Mnemonic: Breathe, Shape, Guide, Curve + 5% Emotional Neutrality

Casting Requirement: SYN ≥ 9

I can bend my wind now. Good—Wait. Huh? The equation has changed. Now I have to speed up my casting to achieve a good result, instead of being able to dawdle like before.

He went to check the next immediate levels, and sure enough, the winds got stronger and stronger, and the radius grew further (but not that far). This might become an extremely powerful spell for something that was only Common grade, at least for slapping people in the face. Although it seemed like the maximum rank he could train towards for this spell was only V. It made sense; the spell would be too overpowered otherwise without a ceiling.

Someone passed by on the gravel path. Fabrisse lifted his head. Spatial awareness had started to get drilled into him after so many stupid mistakes, enough to keep him from staring at his Eidralith like a magpie with a bauble. 

It was the same tall, grey-haired guy. Sven was the name, he believed.

“Fabrisse Kestovar, right?” Sven said with an easy-going smile.

“Yes.” It still weirded him out a bit that this guy’d learned Fabrisse’s full name now, and the only thing he remembered about him was that he’d asked to be called Sven.

“I’ve just walked out of an Emotional Theory lecture too. How far along are you?”

“We’re learning Story Construction today.” 

“And how’s it?”

“Not good.” It was still the one thing Fabrisse struggled greatly with, actually. He still remembered the last time he tried to come up with a fake dead dog grieving story to cast a spell. It did not work out.

“I struggled with emotional channeling in general once, but my story construction isn’t half bad.” Sven nodded once and put a finger on his chin. “Liene told me you have a bit of trouble channeling your emotions, and I think I have just the right solution.”

Liene told him? Is he and Liene close enough for that? And why is he offering me a solution? We’ve barely talked, and I haven’t even examined his brick yet.

But this seemed like an important moment. If what Sven offered him was of substantial value, the system would likely validate it by giving him a quest or something.

He wasn’t wrong.

[Quest Received: “The Beginner Playwright”]

Objective: Successfully channel an emotion into a thaumaturgic spell.

Reward: + 300 EXP, + 1 EMO

Would you like to accept this quest?

[Yes] [No] [Remind Me Later]

The Eidralith doesn’t even bother leaving a cheeky note for this quest. Rude.

He glanced at Sven again, hoping another five seconds without verbal communication wouldn’t come off as weird.

To do this, I need to pick a spell with emotions as a casting requirement. But I’ve been actively avoiding learning those. Even spells that required emotions like Steadroot only called for safe, grounding emotions like Calm or Resolve. He didn’t have to fake resolve.

“I don’t have much time now,” he glanced at his glyphwatch.

“I can give you a suggestion that I think is actionable, and you can follow it and see how it works for you,” Sven said. “Then if you think you’d like to know more, we can chat.”

“Okay.”

“Good. We’ll need to take a short walk to the Dramaturgy and Performance Wing. That’s where I usually am.”

Of course there was a department for acting in the Synod. Emotional channeling was a cornerstone of most schools of thaumaturgy, and acting was simply the art of packaging an emotion convincingly enough to make it contagious, even to yourself. Students who couldn’t conjure feelings on demand sometimes learned to fake them so well that the magic didn’t care about the difference. The Synod called it ‘Applied Performance for Thaumaturgic Efficacy.’ Most students just called it ‘acting class.’ 

Fabrisse had enrolled in a couple of the open workshops once, on the optimistic theory that maybe this was a skill you could brute-force through exposure. It turned out the exercises were about as far from his comfort zone as one could get—big, expressive movements, voice projection, pretending to cry over imaginary tragedies while making prolonged eye contact with strangers. He’d lasted an hour before excusing himself under the pretense of a sudden schedule conflict, then spent the rest of the day quietly recovering from the sensory whiplash.

This time, however, he’d go. He was never going to get past the bottleneck if he avoided it forever.

They left the bench and cut across two courtyards before turning into one of the narrower side corridors. Sven led him past a row of poster frames advertising upcoming student performances—half of which looked like spellcasting showcases in disguise—and stopped at a heavy door with a brass placard that read Rehearsal Studio 3B.

Inside was a spacious, black-walled room with tiered seating on one side and a polished wooden floor in the center. High above, a lattice of floating crystal orbs drifted in slow arcs, shifting hue and brightness with each command rune on the wall.

“Are we even allowed to be in here?” Fabrisse asked, halting at the threshold.

“Don’t worry,” Sven said, flicking a slim silver pass engraved with the twin masks of the Dramaturgy Wing. “I have access.” Sven strode to the center of the ashwood circle and turned, hands loosely clasped behind his back. “So, say, you need to channel grief. What have your mentors been trying to get you to do?”

Fabrisse hesitated. “You really want to know?”

Sven raised an eyebrow.

Fabrisse sighed, and the memory came back in vivid, mauve-tinted detail. “Your dog’s dead, Kestovar! Kill the demon now!” 

He was too embarrassed to recall the rest. But he did summarize what happened to Sven.

“Right,” Sven said once Fabrisse had trailed off. “That’s exactly the problem. Do you like dogs, Fabrisse?”

“Not particularly.”

“Tell me one thing that you like.”

“Uh . . . mingleberry pies.”

“Pie, huh? Hmm . . . Now, I don’t want to sound like I’m smarter than your mentor, but I am a professional play actor, so I know a bit about story crafting.”

“Oh?”

Sven showed him a mysterious smile. “And here’s the thing—emotions don’t come in a one-size-fits-all box. You can’t hand someone a stock tragedy and expect it to bite. Grief, joy, rage; they hit hardest when the story hooks into something you care about, not something the instructant thinks you ought to care about.”

He stepped closer, lowering his voice as if weaving a spell. “Imagine them! Golden pastries of your choice, crisp at the edge, buttery-soft at the center, steam curling from their perfect lattice tops. You’ve waited all week for them. You’re carrying the box home, the smell wrapping around you like a lover’s embrace. And then . . .” Sven mimed catching a dropping object, “. . . you trip. The box flies. It bursts open. Pastries tumble into the wet, cold mud. You scramble to save them—only to drop your heavy satchel on top, crushing them into an unrecognizable, soggy ruin. Gone. Forever. No spell in the Synod could restore them.”

Fabrisse winced at the ‘tripping’ bit. He used to be clumsy like that, before he started training his own stealth skills.

“Now you try casting the Invocation of Grief,” Sven smiled. “The practice automaton out there is a safe target.”

Fabrisse closed his eyes. The image slid into place: a pie in his hands—not his favorite pie, not even the right filling, but close enough. His mind tried to argue the details, swapping crust textures, adjusting the lattice pattern, but the scene still bruised something faintly inside him. The imagined weight of the pie in his arms. The twist of his ankle. The awful, sodden thump as the satchel crushed it flat. The sting of waste and disappointment settled like a thin frost over his chest.

The sting of waste and disappointment settled like a thin frost over his chest.

[Emotional State Detected: GRIEF]

Status: Partially Contaminated

Contaminating Emotion: Frustration

He scowled—half at the loss of the pie, half at the fact the grief was actually working despite the pie not being his pie. The PRAXIS NODE didn’t care about pastry fidelity.

Under his breath, he murmured the clean, textbook mnemonic for the Invocation of Grief:

“bind the weight to the heart, and the heart to the void; 

from absence, let the tears fall.”

He raised his hand and let the shape of the emotion push through him into the weave.

It worked. The arc leapt from his palm, travelling farther than his usual range, but still dying just short of the practice automaton. Periwinkle sparks burst forth—true grief, no longer the muddy mauve he usually produced—but with a thin tail of orange trailing behind, a telltale leak of frustration.

Still, that was it. Invocation of Grief.

[Spell Registered: Invocation of Grief (Rank I)]

Type: Concordance (Emotion [Grief])

Description:

Draws upon a conjured or genuine grief-state to manifest a periwinkle discharge that inflicts emotional disruption and mild physical backlash on the target. The effect is brief, intended for controlled training or low-threat engagements. Incomplete or contaminated grief-states reduce potency, range, and alter hue.

Aetheric Reaction Equation: 40% Emotional Output (Grief) + 30% Aetheric Synchronization + 30% Mnemonic Phrasing

Base Damage Output: 12–18 Spell Damage on direct contact. Scales with EMO: +1 Spell Damage per EMO over 5 (capped at 12). 

Base Velocity: 15m/s. Scales with RES: +0.3 m/s per RES over 5 (capped at 12).

Base Range: 5 m (emotive arc dissipates rapidly beyond this). 

Scales with EMO: +0.1 m per EMO over 5 (capped at 12).

Scales with RES: +0.2 m per RES over 5 (capped at 12).

[Quest Completed: “The Beginner Playwright”]

Reward: + 300 EXP, + 1 EMO

[SYSTEM NOTE: You haven’t learned to feel, but you have learned how to fake your feelings.]

[Progress to Level 7: 4111/4550]

This was it. His first pure emotion spell that could actually go on the offensive. And it was with the help of a guy he didn’t even know two days ago.

But how strong is ‘12 Spell Damage’? This was his first offensive spell after Stupenstone Fling, and the Fling’s damage output had been calculated using a different quantifier, so he had no framework for it.

[Automatic Response: 20 Spell Damage would roughly equal to throwing a stone with 55 N of force—enough to sting, bruise, and briefly stagger an unarmored person.]

Thank you for the easily visualizable response, system, though I asked for 12, not 20.

“Hey, nice one,” Sven called from across the room, grinning like this was his victory too. “First clean cast always feels good, doesn’t it?”

Fabrisse just gave a small nod, still staring at the faint traces of periwinkle drifting from his fingertips.

“Have you checked out the brick in the lab yet?” Sven asked.

“No,” Fabrisse said.

“No rush.” Sven leaned back against the workbench. “So did you find it helpful?” 

“Very. Thank you.”

“Good. You can come find me in this very room every Monday, Wednesday, Friday morning. Just ask for Sven.”

Fabrisse tried not to meet Sven’s eyes, and ended up staring at his shirt instead. It was printed with a sketchy illustration of a blond priestess from some popular serial he vaguely recognized, a giant dragonfly wheeling through the background behind her. He didn’t particularly care for that character, but staring at her felt . . . inappropriate, somehow. So he let his gaze drift past, settling on a random light orb hovering in the far corner of the room.

Does Sven count as a friend now? I really need to run tests on the brick he gave me to see if the primary and bonus objectives have been met.

Sven will be an important Book 2 character; I swear. Not random addition for the sake of word count.

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 9)

They would depart at dusk. 

Severa had spent the better part of the afternoon deciding what to bring. She laid out her usual assortment of vials, reagents, and instruments, weighing each item’s usefulness against the burdens of carrying too much.  Her hand lingered over the usual trinkets she might grab absentmindedly—small charms, an extra grimoire, her routine thaumaturgical stylus—but Aunt Merry had warned her earlier: this would not be her usual dungeon run.

Finally, she made a choice she would never have considered before: three crystal prisms. Neither she nor Halveth fully understood its properties, but after seeing Kestovar deftly channel his magic through quartz, achieving results she hadn’t thought possible, the decision felt instinctive. A renowned Petramancer had described the prisms when he handed it to her: when aligned with fire-type thaumaturgy, it could focus and multiply the energy into a single, devastating burst, enough to turn a small chamber to cinders if wielded correctly.

Beside it, she placed the aetheric magnifier, a lens more than simple glass: it enhanced the flow of magical energy, revealing subtle currents and distortions invisible to the naked eye.

Along her belt rested four small vials: two health potions, their ruby-red liquid swirling faintly with stabilizing charms, and two aether potions, glowing with a soft cyan hue.

She was about to change into her dungeon outfit, but then she remembered she wasn’t alone.

Listen, she telegraphed to DeShawn with a slow thought, I am about to attire myself appropriately.

[So? I ain’t gonna look. I don’t have eyes.]

I am not comfortable with having an observer present during this.

[Ooooh, you bossy already. You could put me to sleep.]

How?

[Wink twice with your left eye and I’ll be—]

She winked twice and the voice immediately vanished. DeShawn could’ve mentioned this before it’d uttered any of its unnecessary comments, and she wouldn’t have had to listen to all that.

Peace at last.

She shed her usual flowing robes, careful to fold them neatly, and slid into her fitted leather jerkin that cut close to her torso. The seams were stitched with precision, edges beveled and layered to prevent chafing or snagging. Another pair of tapered leather trousers and knee-high boots hugged her calves and she was set.

She fastened her belt, ensuring each potion, vial, and pouch sat exactly where it should. Crossbody straps settled over her shoulders, cradling her instruments. 

There was only one thing left: her dagger. 

She lifted Embervein from its velvet-lined sheath, the blackened starsteel blade catching the lamplight and sending streaks of blue across the walls. The runes etched along its length glowed as she traced a fingertip along the blade, letting a whisper of her aether seep into the grooves. The metal drank it in gluttonously, the cold blue light intensifying as the latent fire stirred beneath the runes.

Severa adjusted the final strap of her crossbody harness and stepped into the corridor. Halveth was already there, leaning against the edge of the fountain that the Magister had definitely once told her to not lean against. A reinforced leather cuirass, light enough for mobility yet layered with thin steel plates over the vital points, covered her torso and a pair of vambraces and gauntlets protected her forearms. Across her back, a scabbard rested empty but ready, its straps adjusted for swift access, alongside a compact crossbow. Small pouches of reagents, smoke bombs, and a pair of throwing knives hung from her belt and harness. She looked like the most combative thaumaturge in all the lands.

“You’re choosing to bring the dagger with you,” Halveth commented as she saw Severa.

“Yes.”

“Have you mastered the second phase of edge-channeling yet?”

“I suppose.”

“When? I am your only certifier.”

“I’m bringing it with me and you’ll judge my mastery then.”

Weapon mastery—and especially the fine control required for aether channeling into offensive artifacts—had always been Severa’s weak point. It didn’t help that a frustrating proportion of worthwhile dungeon rewards turned out to be blades, spears, and other such things meant for people who actually enjoyed swinging them.

“I’ve told you this dungeon might be unlike anything you’ve seen before,” Halveth said. “I don’t suppose you’re thinking this is going to be a pleasant stroll?”

“Of course not. That’s why I’m bringing my best relic.”

Halveth looked at her for another moment, unconvinced, before turning to the front gate. “Daylight’s fading. We best be on our way.” Then, as if remembering something, she turned back and extended her hand. “Your forged ring, Severa, as per your request.”

Nestled in her palm was a band of darksteel chased with a thin seam of ruby, the result of fusing Severa’s last rare-grade focus ring with another of its elemental opposite. The ringsmith—Arven Tolbrecht, master of his craft and utterly humorless—had claimed the pairing shouldn’t work at all, then grudgingly admitted it did. The opposing resonances, he said, had somehow stabilized into a sharp, clean aether flow. Enough, at least, to give her synaptic timing a measurable edge.

Severa slipped it on, feeling the metal settle against her skin like it belonged there. A quick Invocation of Staggered Radiance; one she’d always found annoyingly prone to sputtering—ran smooth and crisp this time, the light blooming with more force than she expected. A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Yes. This would do.

Berrick, reliable as ever, had a carriage waiting to take them directly to the dungeon’s outer gate. The ride would take less than thirty minutes, which meant there would be plenty of time for conversations.

They got on. The wheels jolted over increasingly uneven cobblestones, and the glow of the city walls dimmed as it slipped past the small window in rhythmic flashes. 

Halveth sat across from her, one arm draped over the seat, helm resting in her lap. “You turned Forsing down,” she said without preamble. “Why?”

Severa met her gaze briefly, then looked back at the window. “Because I did.”

“That’s not an answer,” Halveth replied. “You know I would have accepted in your place. Especially given . . . our circumstances.”

“I am nothing if not stubborn,” Severa said.

She had every right to be. Forsing’s words had landed like a slap to her pride, stirring a fierce, almost reckless determination. Every instinct in her body screamed to prove him wrong—not just to show him, but to prove it to herself.

She would clear this dungeon, right then, right there. And the timing—by the Flamus, the timing. Tomorrow was her birthday. For most, that meant a celebration. But not for a Montreal. A birthday in her bloodline was no soft, private occasion; it was a public testament. Her forebears had treated the day as both ledger and trial, each birthday another line inscribed in the family’s long, austere record of excellence. And her father, the Magister, would be there.

She had to have something to show for her birthday.

Halveth studied her for a moment then sighed. “You were lucky it was Forsing. You may have pissed him off, but at the end of the day, I trust he still meant you no harm.”

For a moment, Severa questioned whether upsetting Forsing had been the right decision. His estimated drop in attitude had been 2.9% after the refusal; negligible. But she shouldn’t be thinking about that. She should be thinking of challenging herself in the upcoming dungeon; her favorite pastime.

The carriage slowed to a halt on the dirt path, lanterns swaying in the cooling dusk air. Ahead, the dungeon’s entrance rose from the hillside like the mouth of some petrified beast—arched stone, weathered glyphs, and the dim gleam of a containment seal, its light throbbing with patient regularity.

The sigil belonged to the Order. Heavy, old magic—layers upon layers of wards designed to keep whatever was inside from becoming anyone’s problem. To most, it was an impenetrable wall of light and willpower.

To Halveth, it was an inconvenience.

She stepped forward, placing one gauntleted hand against the barrier. She cast a Water-affinity spell called Tidewave Unweaving, and the seal shivered beneath her touch. Ripples spread in concentric circles, as though the magic were a pond disturbed by a single drop. The luminous threads of the ward began to loosen, drawn apart like wet silk unraveling in the current. One by one, the layers of light bled into a fine mist that drifted away in the evening air, until only the yawning dark of the dungeon mouth remained.

Her magic had always been simplistic and capable.

“There,” Halveth said, stepping back and adjusting her vambrace. “Entry’s clear. For now.”

Severa stepped forward. The moment she stepped past the threshold into the dungeon, Halveth’s voice dropped into a register that was almost swallowed by the dark space. “Remember, Severa Montreal. At the first sign of doubt, we retreat.”

“Understood, Mentor.”

The light from outside dimmed into an emerald gloom as they stepped into what the Guild registries called a Drakeshroud Expanse, a sprawling dungeon-type notorious for wyvern colonies and their symbiotic ecosystems. For Severa, it was an old favorite. She’d always found the hunt here to be an elegant balance of danger and control; wyverns were intelligent enough to test a fighter’s adaptability, but predictable enough to read once you’d learned their patterns.

Technically, the Expanse’s first section wasn’t supposed to house them. The entry biome was meant to be a Lowland Hollow—wide plains of windblown grass and scattered basalt ridges, populated only by warren-lizards, horned hares, and the occasional sky-manta drifting lazily overhead.

However.

The first thing she saw, even before her eyes had fully adjusted to the dimness, were shapes wheeling above—broad wings catching the faint green light that seeped through the aetheric sky far overhead. The ceiling was impossibly high, lost in mist and shifting clouds, and the cavern floor stretched into a horizon so distant it almost felt wrong to call it a cavern at all. This was no confined corridor. It was a self-contained world, suspended in the folds of the aetheric realm.

And the shadows circling there weren’t sky-mantas. From a distance they might have been mistaken for sky-mantas—until the shadows passed overhead. These were bigger, far bigger, wingspans that could swallow a skiff whole, necks coiling like ship-rigging under strain. And the sound they made wasn’t the song-whistle of a manta; it was a tearing, metallic scream.

They were wyverns.

“If this is the first level, this isn’t a Tier II Dungeon,” Halveth said. Forsing wasn’t trying to scare her. He was speaking the truth.

If Halveth stays close, nothing bad can really happen. The thought came as naturally as breathing, and it steadied Severa’s pulse.

She drew her weapon. The dagger’s starsteel laid dormant until she spoke the shaping words.

“Steel that sleeps, awake in flame,

Curve and burn, now take your name.”

Heat gathered in her chest and raced down her arm as she invoked a Fire-channeling spell, Tier III, Rank IV: Invocation of Phoenix Shaping. High-level spells like these often required precise emotional channeling; and she’d chosen the most suitable emotion according to Thaumaturgic theory: triumphant confidence.

Many spells require specific emotional channeling to amplify the effect or even allow them to be cast at all. For example, the direct output of the Invocation of Phoenix Shaping might be X, but this same fire spell cast with channelled confidence might bring the output up to 150% of X. Other methods of non-thaumaturgic spellcasting in this world might be much less complicated, but they often have to circumvent this limitation by using prepared foci, artifacts, or alchemical fuel.

The rune etched into the hilt flared to life, veins of molten light racing along the blade’s length until it turned a blazing blue.Where her confidence peaked, the blue deepened, and tiny sparks of green flared in the heart of the flame like the flare of copper in a forge, producing brief, bright bursts that leapt along the curve of the blade before vanishing into the heat. Fire sculpted the tip of the dagger, lengthening it into a slender, predatory curve. Steel became the heart of the flame, until all that remained was the arc itself: scorching blue heat, so hot the air shimmered around it. The curve was that of a falcon’s talon, built to cut on the draw and again on the return.

Two of the shadows broke formation, angling toward her in sharp spirals. Their wingbeats churned the mist into violent swirls.

Lowland skirverns, juvenile by the wing-shoulder proportion. 

Halveth could probably guess it too, but Severa’s mind supplied the rest automatically: brittle bone ridges, thin scale seams at the jaw hinge, tendency to overcommit on the dive. Weakness: lateral neck strike, preferably on the glide-in.

She smiled, turning slightly so the light of her blade painted a curved smear across the cavern floor. “Merry,” she said without looking away from the approaching shapes, “witness my mastery.”

The wyverns screeched as the flame along her weapon surged, stretching in a sweep so wide it seemed to slice the horizon itself. It reached far beyond the steel itself, curving like the tail of a comet.

The first skirvern dove straight into that killing curve. The fire devoured its scale with a sizzling sound. Its head tumbled away and the rest of its body dove straight into the ground.

She swung the dagger again, this time in a whiplash curve. The second head tumbled to the ground.

Severa turned back to Halveth, and her lips curved into a smile as she saw the Prefect’s nod.

“You’ve been training,” Halveth said.

“I’ve been training,” Severa replied as her entire body sparked green, the color of confidence.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 11)

Tommaso strode into the courtyard with that breezy, nothing-to-see-here gait he used whenever he was absolutely hiding something. His jacket hung slightly lopsided, the right pocket bulging in a way that would’ve gone unnoticed if he hadn’t kept patting it like a guilty street vendor guarding stolen pastries.

He didn’t come bringing fireworks, but he did bring Ilya. Her sleeping eyemasks were still covering her forehead as she trudged along, a small distance behind Tommaso.

“Evening, dudes and dudedettes,” he said casually, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Too deep.

From the corner of his pocket peeped a thin cord, glinting faintly under the moonlight before he quickly stuffed it down. Fabrisse caught the briefest glimpse of polished greenish-blue—amazonite, maybe? Or chrysocolla—set into some kind of hand-twisted silver wire. Tommaso saw Fabrisse staring and shoved the thing back in.

“It is criminally late hours for socializing,” Ilya said as she popped open a small vial of absinthe.

Tommaso leaned back against the courtyard rail like he had all the time in the world. “So,” he began, “tell me—did you ever finish that, uh, Synaptic Threading exercise Celine’s been making you do?”

“That’s what Kaldrin’s making me do,” Fabrisse still stared at Tommaso’s pocket.

Tommaso cleared his throat. “Right. Well. You’d be proud to know I just beat my own record in the Flameboard sprint—”

“Show me what’s in your pocket.”

Besides Fabrisse, Liene buried her head in her palms.

“Nope. Conversation first. Warm-up the mood. Savour the moment.”

Liene glared at Tommaso as she whispered to Fabrisse, “Act surprised.”

“It’s for me,” Fabrisse said.

Tommaso grinned. “And if it is, you’re still not getting it until . . .” he glanced at the moon, “. . . another twenty-six minutes.”

“Oh, come on. What difference does it make?”

Tommaso put on his best sage expression. “The difference,” he said, “is spiritual. Cosmic. You don’t just give a birthday gift early. That’s cheating the universe. Throws the whole thing off balance.” Ilya rolled her eyes.

“It’s twenty-six minutes,” Fabrisse said.

“If you get it early, it’s technically just a Thursday gift. Nobody remembers Thursday gifts. But at the stroke of midnight? That’s mythic timing. That’s when the story begins.”

“Oh. Just give it to him,” Ilya said. She stepped forward, holding out the tiny absinthe vial.

“Here. Happy birthday,” she said.

Fabrisse took it, blinking. “Uh . . . thank you.”

“Oh, wait. Wrong hand.” She switched, producing from her other palm a slim, flat box wrapped in dark green paper and tied with neat string. The absinthe stayed dangling between her two fingers.

“This one’s the actual present,” she said, passing it over without ceremony.

Fabrisse carefully untied the string and lifted the lid.

Tiny, perfectly sculpted mini snowmen—no bigger than his thumb—tumbled out, bouncing harmlessly against the box’s interior. One even wore a minuscule scarf, spun from a single strand of silver thread. They turned into puffs of snow the moment they met the air.

“Oh,” Fabrisse murmured, trying not to let a smile slip. “I . . . wasn’t expecting—”

Ilya’s lips twitched. “I thought you’d appreciate a warm-up surprise.”

He lifted the paper insert, and beneath it lay a small, smooth charm carved from pale moonstone.

[Item Received: Moonstone Charm]

Grade: Common

Effect: None. It looks nice.

Fabrisse held it in his palm. The moonstone looked nice, polished, and luminous under the courtyard light. It was a simple gift, but he was surprised Ilya had gotten him a gift at all. He didn’t even know when her birthday was.

“Thank you,” he said.

Fabrisse’s gaze picked back up, half-expecting Tommaso to still be leaning casually against the rail, hands buried in his pockets. He raised an eyebrow, a silent you’re not seriously keeping it in there, are you?

Tommaso threw his hands up. “Ah, fine! You’ve stared enough. Happy birthday, Fabri.”

He produced a small, irregularly shaped pendant, glinting faintly in the moonlight. The stone was deep midnight blue, flecked with tiny silver specks that almost seemed to swirl when the light hit them right. It was set in a thin, hand-twisted silver frame, tied on a simple cord.

[Item Received: Midnight Aetherstone Pendant]

Grade: Rare

Effect: Increases Focus Points (FP) by 10% when worn.

That’s an Aetherstone, he thought. The greenish tint came from the hand-twisted silver wire it was set in, but not the stone itself. It’s got that name because it’s literally the first stone they found to be able to store a small amount of aether in it.

Aetherstone wasn’t the most abundant, and as such, they weren’t cheap. Aside from mines sanctioned and controlled by the kingdom, they could only be found in Dungeons. The effects varied widely and could only be verified after a purification process, so even though some stones may have boosting effects helpful to the mass like this item, aetherstone harvesting had never been a serious business outside of wartime.

“Yeah, I know. It’s better than snowmen,” Tommaso’s grin grew wider. “I’m just that thoughtful, aren’t I?”

Fabrisse took it, his fingers brushing the polished surface. The weight was just enough to feel substantial, the smooth coolness grounding.

After Tommaso’s dramatic reveal, Fabrisse tucked the Midnight Aetherstone Pendant into his pocket, still turning it over in his hand. Liene stood, hesitating, then stepped forward with a small, neatly wrapped package.

The shape was unmistakable: a slim rectangle with the weight of pages.

“Uh . . . this is for you too,” she said, holding it out carefully. “But . . . only open it at home.”

Fabrisse took it, noting the smooth texture of the wrapping and the deliberate care in its folds. The corners were crisp, the ribbon tied tight but not fussy.

“Thank you,” he whispered, turning the package over in his hands.

Tommaso stretched his arms with a grin that seemed to take up half the courtyard. “The last day of my leave is spent celebrating my buddy’s birthday! How good’s that? I say we make it memorable—something dangerous, preferably overnight. I’m thinking cliffside sprinting under moonlight.”

Moonlight sprint along the cliffside: thirty minutes there, thirty minutes back, plus changing into suitable gear—forty-five minutes. Travelling from and to would take another thirty. He’d get only five hours of sleep.

Fabrisse’s hands tightened around Liene’s gift. “I have to sleep. I’ve got a lecture and two tutoring sessions tomorrow.”

Tommaso gasped incredulously. “You go to lectures on your birthday?”

“It’s Wind Thaumaturgy.”

“Huh. You’re . . . really committed to that, aren’t you? Fine. Lecture first, birthday shenanigans later. But we will do something wild before the night’s over. I’m not letting this birthday slip by without at least a little chaos.”

Fabrisse thought to himself for a moment, and shrugged. Might as well have fun today. This might be the last relaxing night he’d get in another while.

“I want to go back to sleep,” Ilya said.

After some back-and-forth about whatever that chaos could be, they agreed on the activity with just the right amount of chaos: Tommaso lit a fire, and they sat down and ate marshmallows. 

Then the clock struck twelve.

“Happy birthday to you—” Tommaso began, dragging the others into a slightly off-key rendition of Happy Birthday, Liene clapping politely and Ilya trying not to look like she was enjoying herself.

Fabrisse flushed slightly, unused to the attention, but allowed himself a small, amused grin. Then he saw a pair of glowing eyes looking at him.

Two deep, crimson-red irises, luminous and intense, were fixed on him from the far edge of the yard.

What . . . what is that?

His Auditory Dissipation Field cast even before he registered it.

The pair of eyes closed in until the silhouette of their owner shaped itself. Then Liene saw them too.

“Eeek! Demon!” Liene pointed at the pair of eyes.

Fabrisse squinted, and realized the silhouette looked familiar.

“That’s not a demon,” he said. “That’s just Severa Montreal.” But it was midnight. Why was she outside?

Severa’s silhouette sharpened in the moonlight, but something about her stance was off. One shoulder sagged a fraction, a hand resting lightly against her belt for support. Her ensemble had the air of someone prepared for serious thaumaturgical work: Small, empty potion vials clinked faintly along the belt, each secured in its own loop. A thin coil of mithril wire peeked from a side pouch, gleaming as it caught the firelight. Across her chest, straps crisscrossed over a leather jerkin, holding delicate instruments: a silvered compass-like device engraved with runes, a miniature magnifying lens, and a small, polished crystal prism. At her hip hung a sheath that might normally carry a dagger or ceremonial stylus, but he couldn’t see the actual dagger anywhere.

A steady glow bloomed from behind Severa. The light traced the edges of her form, glinting off the mithril coils and silvered instruments on her chest. Fabrisse didn’t recognize the caster—just a figure dressed in the precise, armored style of a vanguard or field thaumaturge—but Liene’s eyes immediately narrowed. 

“That’s an aetheric sustenance spell,” she murmured. “It’s keeping her standing.”

Tommaso turned around, and his grin slowly faded. “You reckon she’s injured?”

She didn’t look hurt though. A bit strained, maybe, but nothing that suggested critical wounds.

“She looks pale,” Ilya said. “Like frostbitten marrow kind of pale.”

That sounded pretty serious. Frostbitten marrow hadn’t been mentioned in any of his lectures, so this must be real combat knowledge.

“Maybe we should come over and see if she needs help,” Liene said.

“You want me to fetch our teach?” Tommaso stood. By ‘teach’, he meant Lorvan.

“I don’t think she’d like that. But it won’t hurt asking,” Liene replied. “Don’t go anywhere yet.”

Severa was clearly walking toward their direction, but she stopped as she was roughly a dozen paces apart.

Liene glanced at Fabrisse. “Fabri . . . you come with me. At least you’ve spoken to her before.”

Fabrisse stood hesitantly, but followed her anyway.

Severa paused as Liene and Fabrisse approached, glancing over her shoulder at the glowing figure behind her. A single nod passed between them, before she turned her attention to the two students advancing across the courtyard.

Liene stepped forward, keeping her tone gentle and measured. “We noticed . . . and we were wondering if you might need any assistance?”

Severa’s posture remained slightly strained and her shoulder sagged even more than before, but her voice was calm and measured, almost rehearsed in its politeness. “Thank you, but it won’t be necessary. I am quite all right.”

Liene peered in a bit. “Are you certain? You don’t seem quite yourself.”

“I assure you, I am fine.” Then she turned to Fabrisse. “Kestovar.”

Why’s she addressing me? His mind raced through possibilities, none of which seemed to fit the quiet, formal tone she carried.

“Kestovar,” she repeated. “I need a word.”

Fabrisse and Liene exchanged a brief glance. Her eyebrows arched slightly, and his mouth was set in a thin line of curiosity and caution.

Liene exhaled, straightening her posture. “Okay,” she said as she pointed her thumb toward the fire Tommaso’d lit earlier. “If you need anything, though, we’ll be right there.”

Fabrisse shuffled his feet, and his fingers rubbed on his stone satchel again. His chest felt tight—part nervous anticipation, part unease. He’d never seen Severa like this before. Usually, she carried herself with that unshakable poise, precise and unyielding, the kind that made her seem almost untouchable. This was somehow worse. 

He also couldn’t shake the memory of her temper on bad days, and he sure didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that tonight.

Severa’s gaze held him in place, unwavering yet a little unfocused, as if her attention was anchored somewhere beyond him. Then the figure behind her—a woman in her forties—pressed a hand gently against her arm. Even as the older woman took a step aside to maintain the spell, her motions were precise, economical, and purposeful, like someone drilled for years in field maneuvers.

The light from the aetheric sustenance spell bloomed brighter, illuminating Severa’s face and the delicate instruments on her chest. Fabrisse noticed the brief wince she tried to mask.

When Severa eventually spoke, her voice was surprisingly light and gentle, if not a bit weak. “I will be unable to conduct our tutoring sessions this week. I do hope you will understand.”

“Of course,” he nodded.

Severa’s gaze lingered on him for a long moment. “Please, I would ask that you pretend you did not see me here tonight. I trust that is something you can do, Kestovar?”

“Yes,” he said carefully as he nodded again. “I can do that.”

Her shoulders seemed to relax slightly. The light from the spell behind her softened, bathing her features in a gentle glow, and for a moment, she looked almost entirely herself again. 

Then she said, “On an unrelated note . . . Happy birthday, Kestovar.”

She knows? How does she know? Of all people, Severa?

“How do you know?” he finally managed, his voice betraying a mixture of genuine shock and disbelief.

“I must take my leave now. I hope I haven’t spoiled your evening, Kestovar.”

Severa gave a curt nod, then began to move away, her pale form gliding with an urgency that belied her delicate posture. Fabrisse just stood frozen, staring at her retreating figure until she was out of sight.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 10)

One of the most important chapters of Book 2, I think.

“Where are we going?” he asked as he fell into steps just behind her.

“You’ll see,” Liene said, already steering him toward the main path. “Do you think a skitterwhit can beat a freefly in a 1v1?”

By the time they’d crossed the first courtyard, the hour felt heavier in the air—glyphlight pooling on the flagstones, the shadows beyond too deep to look at directly. Liene kept them to the brightest routes without comment, her pace casual, her chatter skimming over harmless topics (unless you were an involving skitterwhit).  She mentioned, almost offhand, that they’d gotten permission from the Synod to be out late, but Fabrisse couldn’t tell if she was joking. 

At least no one stopped them. No wardens at the junctions, no Magus Assistants stepping out of doorways to ask for papers.

They turned down a side lane that Fabrisse recognized, his pulse easing a little—until they stopped in front of the pie shop.

It was shuttered tight, and the flat gleam of moonlight on dusty glass had replaced the warm glow he’d gotten familiar with. 

Without the usual scents of cinnamon and baked crust drifting out, the place looked smaller, like it had been abandoned for years instead of just closed for the night. The painted sign of the grinning baker swung gently in the breeze, the creak loud in the hush.

Liene pressed her hands to the glass and peered in, unbothered. “Huh. Guess they do close after all.”

Fabrisse hung back on the cobbles, and his eyes couldn’t leave the deep shadow pooled in the alley beside the shop. The stillness pressed at him. He knew he had nothing to worry about with Liene, but still, he couldn’t turn his face away from the darkness.

If he turned away, he’d be reminded of how it’d grabbed him in that lightless alleyway.

Liene didn’t seem to notice his attention drifting to the alley. She stepped back from the glass and brushed her palms on her coat. “Anyway, I had my restorative test today. Crushed it. If I ace the final unit exam too, that means—”

“You’ll get to graduate,” Fabrisse said, a bit too quickly, grateful for the safe topic. “That’s great!”

She grinned as she fixed the quill pinning her bun. “Mm. No more pretending to like mental aether math.”

Liene swung her legs over the edge of the low bench in front of the shop and settled herself with a sigh. The wooden slats creaked under her weight, and the cold of the night seemed to press a little less here than in the alley.

“Though,” she said, tilting her head so the moonlight caught her profile, “that kinda means . . . I’m graduating in three months, Fabri.”

Fabrisse furrowed his brow, the words lodging somewhere in the part of his mind that ran mental checklists. Graduating in three months . . . That should’ve sounded celebratory. But the way her voice dipped didn’t carry the lightness he expected.

He hesitated, unsure what to say.

“I’m not ready to graduate,” she murmured. “Sometimes I thought maybe I should just fail a class.”

“That’s not an efficient use of your time,” he commented.

“You sound like Lorvan.” She chuckled as she lit up a lantern-shaped floating bulb of light between her palm. The edges of the deep shadows that had seemed so thick against the alley and the closed pie shop softened, revealing the worn cobblestones beneath their feet and the subtle texture of the bench. “You remember when we were alone in the skitterwhit field? When I told you I wanna go to the far outback?”

“Yeah.” He winced a little. That was the time when the Voidtouched Skitterwhit almost harmed Liene, and he was too weak to do anything about it.

“Life’s easy there, I think. A thaumaturge makes enough money just getting by and helping the folklings. I’m learning to charge aetheric engines for my final unit. If I can store lightning and heat in aethercaches so they can release the energy when needed. It’s good money.”

The idea of aethercaches was brilliant—so compact, so potent—that demand had exploded. Airship cells ran almost exclusively on them now, letting vessels soar for days without the usual elemental refueling. Artisans used them to power massive forges in workshops where natural fire couldn’t reach, and thaumaturges in the city used small personal caches to run portable glyph arrays or emergency wards. Even folk in remote hamlets paid handsomely for tiny, handheld caches to light their homes or power simple mechanical contrivances without relying on unpredictable elemental currents. If you were a light or lightning thaumaturge, you should be set for life wherever you go.

He was too busy thinking about the practical applications of the caches that he almost missed her speaking again, “The thing is, commercial thaumaturgy is more valued than ever, Fabri. And I’m sure it’ll come the time for research thaumaturges too.”

And he knew that much. That was the sole reason the Synod was keeping him despite his practical failings.

“Fabri. Does the Eidralith prompt you to train in all four elements?” Then, she suddenly asked.

“Not particularly. It’s just . . . something I want to do now. You know I have a one-track mind.”

She laughed. “If you have a one-track mind, you must be the most intricately single-minded person in all the realm.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“I mean it,”  she said, swinging her legs slightly. “Sometimes . . . I don’t get you. I’m trying hard to get you, but . . . I’m not that bright, or sensitive, or empathetic. But . . . I don’t . . . why now?” She stopped swinging her legs.

Liene was getting at something. He could feel it. He knew the patterns; she would oil up her phrasing, nudge him with curiosity, and wait for him to fill the gaps. He had to pay attention, because she’d eventually pull him into whatever point she was circling around.

“What do you mean?”

“You wanted to get into stone and mineral research, right?”

“Yes.”

She leaned forward again, elbows on her knees, eyes bright in the lantern-shaped glow. She stared at it for several seconds as if she wanted to escape into the glow. “And how long has it been since the last time you were in the Wing of Stratal Studies?”

“Over a week. Nearly two.” He didn’t know why she was bringing that up, but the factual answer came easy enough for him.

“You wouldn’t have missed stone research for the world before. You say the artifact didn’t force you to do anything, but . . . bonding with it alone puts you in . . . situations.” She leaned back slightly, letting her hands rest on the edge of the bench, and turned her gaze away from him, focusing on the muted shimmer of the lanternlight pooling on the cobblestones. “I . . . I’m happy you’re doing well and all,” she said softly, voice quieter now, “but I know you would’ve done well for yourself with or without the Eidralith. You could be a great field researcher, living a peaceful and stress-free life at the far flung corners of the realm. I just thought . . . maybe you don’t need it.” Her voice cracked as she reached the word ‘need’.

Heat rose behind his eyes. Don’t tell me I don’t need it, he thought. This artifact—this Eidralith—wasn’t some frivolous toy. For the first time in years, he was seeing patterns click, breakthroughs form, things he’d only dreamed of understanding. Even if it hadn’t boosted him directly, even if the magic didn’t force anything, it gave him the motivation, the courage to believe in himself.

He opened his mouth, but the words came out quieter than the anger burning inside. “You don’t understand.”

“I . . .” Her shoulders sagged. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Her hand curled into a loose fist, and the light extinguished from her palm. “Do you feel nervous?”

“What?”

“Of being here in the dark without knowing why I brought you here.”

“A bit.”

“Sorry. I should’ve been more careful, with all that’s happened lately and all.” She turned to him now with a smile; the strainest he’d seen from her yet. It felt like her muscles were going through great effort just to stretch into something resembling ease. “I know you don’t like surprises, but Tom insisted.”

“Insisted on what?”

“Your birthday, Fabri. It’s in two hours. You forgot, didn’t you?”

His mind stuttered through the hours, the logbooks, the Whirlweave drills, the endless looping exercises with Synaptic Threading, the training with Celine, Severa, everything. The dates, the clocks, the passing of hours . . . they had blurred into one continuous stretch of training and focus.

He hadn’t thought about his birthday once today. Or yesterday. Or—he glanced at the moonlit courtyard—possibly even the day before.

Liene’s eyes stayed on him, quiet and unblinking, for a long moment that stretched against the hum of the night. There was a faint curve to her lips that might have been amusement, concern, or something else entirely. The moonlight caught the glint of her eyes, making them seem almost liquid in the darkness.

[Sidequest Received: “Echoes in Stone”]

Objective: Feel the emotional imprint of another person through what they have left on a stone, brick, or other earthen surface. The imprint must be recent (less than 24 hours).

Reward: +3 EMO

New Active Skill: Earthen Resonance Reading (Earth Thaumaturgy Tier I)

Description: Allows caster to probe and interpret residual emotional energy embedded in stones, bricks, and other aetherically attuned earthen surface.

Earthen Resonance Reading (Earth Thaumaturgy Tier I — Rank I)

• Range: 2 meters from the target object
  

• Duration of Imprint Detectable: up to 24 hours old
  

• Depth of Insight: basic emotions only (e.g., joy, anger, fear, sorrow, excitement)
  

• Clarity: 60% accuracy for subtle or mixed emotions; 90% for strong or singular emotions
  

• Energy Cost (FP): 5 FP per reading
  

• Cooldown: 1 minute between successive readings

[SYSTEM NOTE: A quest might reflect a path neglected.]

He stared at the sidequest, then at the subsequent accept/decline prompt, then finally back at Liene. Her thumbs were fiddling, and she was still gazing at him with her glossy eyes, ones that had turned almost longing, as if she were holding a fragment of some unspoken time between them.

She smiled. “Well, happy birthday, Fabri. When Tom comes, act like you’re surprised.”

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?”

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 8)

“Miss Montreal. Miss Montreal?”

Berrick’s voice registered in her head before his knocks on the door did. 

Severa forced her eyes to open. She was once again sprawled across her bed, fully dressed from collar to cuff. Her cheek felt tight and grimy, and when she pressed a finger to her skin, it came away faintly tinted—layers of foundation, unmoved since morning, baked in place by a nap she didn’t remember starting. Her shoes were still on and her hairpins dug into her scalp.

“It’s time for tea,” Berrick reminded her. “Young Master Montreal is already waiting.”

Forsing wanted her to join for afternoon tea? I guess I could spare some time before Aunt Merry comes. My supposed tutoring session today is . . . non-existent, and it’s been some time since we actually sat down.

She swung her legs off the bed and crossed to the vanity, catching sight of the uneven angle of her braids in the mirror. A few deft pulls and re-pinnings brought them upright again. 

[Is your sleep schedule always this bad?] Came the intrusive comments from DeShawn.

Ah, of course. The reason why I had to shut down.

She smoothed her collar, patted at the worst of the creases in her skirts, and pinched a little more color into her cheeks, enough to mask the fact she’d been unconscious rather than simply resting.

[Sleep on time, girl. A bit of self-discipline makes your life all the better.]

Yes; yes. And I have horrendous social execution; no need to remind me.

Severa opened the door. Berrick waited in the hallway, hands clasped neatly behind his back, posture impeccable as always. His face betrayed nothing, not even the faintest twitch that might hint at amusement or concern.

“Miss Montreal,” he said, “you appear somewhat fatigued. I trust you will manage the journey to the sitting room without difficulty?”

“Indeed,” Severa replied, then she started walking.

[That’s how your conversations with people go?]

She didn’t reply to that.

She had known Berrick all her life, ever since she could remember, yet she realized she knew almost nothing about him beyond the strict proprieties he maintained. Once, long ago, he had let slip a single, impersonal detail about himself—he preferred his tea precisely at three o’clock, with exactly two sugar cubes—and she still teased him about it from time to time. But he had never shared anything more, and she remained slightly disappointed. If he had, even in the smallest way, there would at least be something to talk to him about.

[Do you want to know more about him?] Suddenly, DeShawn asked.

What?

[I said what I said.]

Well, I can’t say I’m not in the least intrigued . . . but how am I to do that?

[Turn back around and lemme work my magic.]

Severa stopped. Work your magic? She hesitated. DeShawn had shown her things she had never thought possible, and to say she was curious would be an understatement. With the faintest sigh of compliance, she pivoted to face Berrick fully.

[Stare at him. I need about 10 secs to compute. Keep him in your vision.]

I can’t just stare at someone.

DeShawn chose this exact moment to stay silent.

Fine. Hold some small talks. Be natural. You can do it.

She took a steadying breath. “Berrick, please. Bring me the silver tray from the sideboard. I need it in the sitting room.”

There. Perfect. She could now track him without having to call attention to herself. Ten seconds of observation, safely disguised as a practical instruction.

Berrick inclined his head once and began walking. Away from her. Turning the corner.

That was not well thought out, she thought as she quick-stepped to not lose sight of Berrick as he turned the corner.

Berrick paused, turned, and glanced back at her. “Do you require anything else, Miss Montreal?”

Severa froze, mind whirring for a plausible, socially acceptable reason to continue following. “Yes . . . bring also the tea caddy, Berrick. I will need it on the tray.”

Berrick inclined once more and continued toward the sideboard. 

Severa fell into step behind him, fixing her eyes on the precise angle of his stride. One . . . two . . . three . . .

Then he turned to face her again. “What is it, Miss?”

“Ah—” she blurted before she could stop herself, “and also the teaspoon with the slightly bent handle. I’ll need it on the caddy.”

Berrick paused just long enough to acknowledge her and inclined his head the third time. What else am I going to say if he turns around again? That I need a sugar cube placed on that spoon? Luckily, it never got to that point. Ten seconds had already passed, and she stifled her groan. 

This is ridiculous, DeShawn. Whatever you’re showing me better be worth the trouble.

Almost immediately, a translucent overlay appeared in her vision, filling with numbers and color-coded bars. 

Berrick ??? — Preliminary Analysis (Confidence: 57% — More observation required)

Perceived Social Standing: Moderate — 50–70%

Reliability Index: High — 78–85%

Approachability Score: Low — 35–45%

Attitude Toward You: Neutral — 50–60%

Benefits of Befriending: Moderate — 40–50%

Her fingers brushed and rubbed at the fabric as she regarded the overlay. This . . . I don’t want this. Why? Because it would force her to think about people in ways she found intrusive. People weren’t numbers and probabilities. Social navigation now felt even more like a puzzle she had no desire to solve for sport.

[But this might just be what you need, girl.]

Berrick’s footsteps approached, measured and precise. “Miss Montreal,” he said quietly, “Master Forsing seems rather irritable today. You may wish to exercise caution in your conversation with him.”

Before Severa could say anything, DeShawn intruded her vision again.

Response Options:

• Spontaneous remark or light teasing — Estimated Attitude Toward You change: -1.2% ~ +0.8%
  
  

• Measured, polite, lengthy acknowledgment — Estimated Attitude Toward You change: -0.3% ~ +0.7%
  
  

• Short, clipped, overly cautious reply — Estimated Attitude Toward You change: -0.1% ~ +0.1% 

Severa’s eyes narrowed slightly. I won’t just drag out my response because you tell me it’ll make Berrick think better of me, she thought. I am not a social experiment.

[Man, he ain’t gonna show the real him unless you boost his attitude with you. Isn’t that what you’re after?]

Because Severa spent too much time arguing inside her head, Berrick took her non-response with slightly more concern.

“If you are feeling unwell, Miss Montreal, I can—”

She inclined her head just enough to acknowledge him, her expression impeccably neutral. “I am perfectly well, Berrick. Thank you.”

Estimated change in attitude: 0%

“Then Young Master Montreal is waiting in the arboretum.”

Severa straightened her shoulders and stepped into the sunlight. Ahead, Master Forsing reclined on a bench of polished sunspire quartz, carved in the likeness of intertwining serpents clutching tiny orbs of captured sunlight. He held a leather-bound tome with gilded corners, the title gleaming in embossed script: Manners of Ascendancy: Protocols for Courtly Supremacy. 

As she approached, he looked up, one brow arched in faint amusement. “Taking your time, are we, Severa? I wasn’t aware you had adopted the casual habits of the tardy.”

Forsing Montreal — Preliminary Analysis (Confidence: 53% — More observation required)

Perceived Social Standing: High — 75–90%

Reliability Index: Moderate — 55–70%

Approachability Score: Low — 30–45%

Attitude Toward You: Low ~ Neutral — 30–60%

Benefits of Befriending: Moderate — 45–55%

Likely Irritability Today: Elevated — 65–80%

Preferred Conversation Tone: Formal/Measured — 70–85%

Why is the range for his attitude towards me so high?

[You two’ve got history, yeah? Makes it harder to gauge. Past interactions push the estimate all over the place.]

She gave a quiet huff, suppressing the memory of yesterday’s slip. Of course it does. Nothing about him is ever straightforward. She would not give him the satisfaction of another opening. Straightening her posture, she approached and met his gaze.

“What business do you have with me, brother?” she asked.

Estimated change in attitude: -0.1%

Forsing’s gaze sharpened, the faint amusement in his eyes giving way to a cooler precision. “I have heard you are planning to—how shall I put it?—enter a Tier II dungeon today. It has, regrettably, been foreclosed by the Order.”

Closed? She opened her mouth, but nothing came out immediately.

Who in the Order ordered the order? she thought, scanning her mental catalog of authority figures who could issue such a decree. “By whose order?”

“By the Grand Magus Venaclas herself,” he said, enunciating the name. “The Bureau of Arcane Regulation. This dungeon is highly aetherically unstable and might result in monster spawns much stronger than Tier II.”

“But a Grand Magus shouldn’t have the authority to—” she stopped herself. “Then what do you suggest I do, brother?”

“That is a matter we shall discuss once Aunt Halveth arrives.”

Is this real? Or is he simply attempting to provoke me under the guise of civility?

[Probability of provocation: 67%

Probability concern: 33%]

How did you arrive at those figures?

[The numbers come from cross-checking his moves with the library of known human patterns. Word choice, past vibes with him, microexpressions, posture, and who’s boss in the room. I weighted all that, spat out a probability.]

A sudden rustle of leaves caught Severa’s attention. Sunlight filtered through the arboretum trees as Aunt Halveth appeared, stepping along the winding stone paths. Her movements were measured, confident, but her appearance was unexpected: light armor clung to her torso, a scabbard rested against her hip, and the leather boots made no sound on the stone. She looked less like a thaumaturge and more like a sentinel prepared for immediate confrontation.

Forsing’s eyes lifted from his tome, a faint crease forming between his brows. “Aunt Halveth,” he said, “I see punctuality remains a negotiable concept for you as well. Shall we begin, or will you continue to dawdle?”

Halveth took a seat opposite him, closer to Severa. “I am here now, Forsing. Let us proceed.”

??? Halveth — Preliminary Analysis (Confidence: 59% — More observation required)

Perceived Social Standing: Moderate — 45–60%

Reliability Index: High — 80–88%

Approachability Score: Moderate — 50–60%

Attitude Toward You: Friendly — 65–75%

Benefits of Befriending: High — 60–70%

Social Aptitude
 Practical Exertion: 34% (boosted by 3% in Halveth’s immediate presence)

Stress Resilience
 Practical Exertion: 58% (boosted by 3% in Halveth’s immediate presence)

She boosts my attributes? It does make sense. Aunt Merry always reminds me how to act . . . though not in accordance to social status.

At that moment, Berrick stepped into the arboretum, followed by two junior butlers, each carrying trays carefully arranged with delicate porcelain cups, a silver teapot, and small plates of pastries. He carried the silver tray, tea caddy, and the slightly bent teaspoon exactly as Severa had instructed.

“Master Montreal. Miss Montreal. Prefect Halveth,” Berrick intoned, placing the silver tray on the small marble table between the benches. “Your tea.”

One of the junior butlers, slightly younger than Berrick but meticulous in posture, added, “The scones have been freshly warmed, and the lavender infusion is as requested, Master Montreal.”

Forsing saw the peculiar items Severa had requested and commented, “Ah,” he said, voice smooth, tinged with the slightest amusement, “even the minutest of details receives your attention, Severa. Such is the reason for your tardiness, after all.”

She could feel the familiar tug of DeShawn’s overlay in her vision, urging her to note stride, posture, microexpressions, all while maintaining a composed exterior. She ignored all that.

Halveth, already seated, gave a small nod toward the approaching butlers as she said without looking at Forsing. “Why are you present here, Forsing? Surely this is not simply for tea.” 

[You know, I’m not one into historical soap operas. You better got something good.]

Please refrain from commentary. I will not repeat.

Forsing closed the leather-bound tome, eyes meeting Halveth’s with measured precision. “Let us promptly discuss. You must have heard of Grand Magus Venaclas’ order.”

Halveth said, “What of it?”

Forsing leaned back slightly, resting one arm along the bench. “Since dungeon crawling is no longer a possibility today,” he said, producing a folded parchment from the inner pocket of his robe, “I propose an alternative.” His gaze shifted to Severa, sharp yet oddly expectant. “I am about to embark on a diplomatic excursion, and it would be advantageous to have a competent observer accompany me.”

Severa’s eyes narrowed. “Observer?”

“A personal chronicler,” Forsing clarified. “Your role would be to document proceedings, note subtleties in discourse, and ensure no detail escapes my attention.”

Is he suggesting I become his scribe?

[Seems so, girl.]

He inclined his head slightly, a subtle challenge in his expression. “It will be a splendid opportunity for you to witness diplomacy at the highest level, sister. Exposure to such arenas often informs one’s understanding of influence, nuance, and, naturally, social navigation.”

Severa twisted a strand of her braid as she read the overlay.  Before she could fully process Forsing’s proposal, DeShawn’s overlay returned results.

Genuine Invitation Probability: 78%

Self-Interest / Convenience: 46% 

Calculated Manipulation Probability: 10%

Hidden Agenda Probability: 2% 

Wait. This goes over 100%. 

[One may have more than one interlocking interests, girl.]

Are you saying there’s a 78% chance Forsing is looking out for me? 

[Looking out? Not sure. He seems genuine at least.]

Seventy-eight percent genuine. He had never been genuine, not after that incident years ago at the Guild Hall. And DeShawn expected me to believe he suddenly had my interest at heart now?

“Well, sister?” Forsing said. “I think you’d find my proposal much more pleasurable than the one the Magister would offer should you decline.”

That’s a threat. That was the only word that fit. Her father had never cared enough to push her into anything—certainly not into the treacherous games of court politics—but Forsing’s words hinted at consequences veiled behind civility.

Merry was about to put her cup of tea to her lips, but set it down immediately. “Severa, you are far too inexperienced for such matters.”

Forsing’s gaze lifted. “Prefect Halveth,” he said, “you have done little else but maintain her within the bounds you deem appropriate. Surely, it is only fitting that Miss Montreal be granted the courtesy of her own judgment in this matter.”

If accept Forsing’s proposal:

• Forsing’s attitude toward you: +5.2% ~ +7.7%
  
  

• Halveth’s attitude toward you: -4.8% ~ -5.5%
  
  

• Magister’s (non-registered party) attitude toward you: +???%
  
  

If decline Forsing’s proposal:

• Forsing’s attitude toward you: -2.3% ~ -4.8%
  
  

• Halveth’s attitude toward you: +1% ~ +2%
  
  

• Magister’s (non-registered party) attitude toward you: -???%

[And remember, girl. Each choice is a ting for sharpening your social skills. Every move you make, peep the game and level up.]

Must I choose? I fear I am positively dying.

Severa still stared at the numbers as Forsing’s voice cut through.

“Sister,” he said, “you’re going to need to be faster than this.”

Severa’s lips pressed into a thin line. She inhaled slowly, forcing her racing thoughts into order. The overlay’s probabilities flashed insistently at the corner of her vision, but she ignored them. Finally, she spoke, her voice steady though the tremor of indignation threatened to seep through.

“I—decline,” she said.

Forsing’s eyes narrowed. His hand tightened briefly around the parchment, but he did not raise his voice. Instead, he let the silence stretch, letting the weight of his presence press on her. Then, with a calmness that belied the heat of his temper, he spoke, “Fine. Do what you do best. Go on your little dungeon run. See if your ‘best’ can even clear that unstable dungeon.”

He folded the parchment, tucked it back into his robes, and strode toward the gate. 

• Forsing’s attitude toward you: -2.9%

• Halveth’s attitude toward you: +1.3%

All that was left was Severa, staring after him, cheeks flushed, heart hammering.

Her fingers curled into fists. The words had lit a fire inside her, hotter than any aether-fueled spell she’d ever cast. How dare he doubt her capability? How dare he challenge her like this?

She would show him. Right then, right there.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 8)

Fabrisse had never had the misfortune of waiting over an hour for a girl before, and he hadn’t imagined his first would be Celine Moose.

To say that she’d been taking her sweet time had been an understatement. By the half-hour mark, he’d memorized the pattern of cracks in the flagstones; by the forty-five, he’d counted and recounted every twist in the carved stone balustrade across the street. Now, at sixty-two minutes and counting, he was starting to suspect this was less about tardiness and more about some elaborate, Moose-branded form of psychological warfare.

Not that he complained. Anywhere without strong wind would be a good enough place for him to practice his skills. Severa hadn’t yet communicated with him to schedule another session, and Kaldrin’s synaptic session wouldn’t come until the fifth bell in the afternoon, so for now he’d be training his new Air Thaumaturgy spell.

[Mastery Training: Whirlweave (Rank I)—Progress to Rank II: 24%]

At the sixty-third minute, Celine showed up, munching on a sticky bun the size of a cobblestone, hair slightly flattened on one side, eyes still carrying the faint puffiness of sleep, and her satchel bulging with the some luridly bound paperback whose title blared in gold foil. He didn’t need to ask why she was late.

“Morning, Fabrisse,” she said with a guilty grin. “Ready for our training?”

“I’ve been ready for an hour . . .”

She waved that off. “Well, this is the best time for your aetheric resonance,” she said, the words tumbling out with the airy confidence of someone who’d just lied through her teeth. “Anyway, I’ve posted your ad on the front page of The Synod Gossip Gazette. But why do you need naturally purple-colored bricks?” He’d asked her to post an ad for him, to find . . . a brick.

“Thanks,” he said. She stared at him, waiting for an answer, but then just sighed and let it go.

Truth be told, there was nothing he could say that would justify the sidequest given to him.

[Sidequest Ongoing: “Hearth-Laughed Brick”]

Objective: Acquire a naturally purple brick from the remains of the old Marrowgate Tavern hearth. Said to retain the warmth of the tavern’s most joyful night, its resonance is detectable only to those capable of sensing emotional heat in stone. 

Note: Side effects of prolonged contact may include mild nostalgia, inexplicable cravings for spiced cider, and humming songs you don’t remember learning.

Reward: +2 EMO

Bonus Objective: Make a new friend in the process.

He hadn’t even had time to visit the Wing of Stratal Studies yet, much less wander outside of the Synod for some bricks (even though he was allowed outside now; direct permission from Headmaster Draeth and all). Sure, the brick retains emotional imprint, but how the Eidralith justified giving him 2 EMO seemed arbitrary at best. He wouldn’t say no to such a juicy reward, however.

Even though he didn’t have time, the quest was attainable. He happened to now be friends with the owner of a gazette. A reward of 150 Kohns seemed good enough for the trouble, and Celine’d insisted she’d give out that reward.

Celine trotted over and swung an elbow to meet his shoulder before using it as support. “So what did Montreal tell you the other day?”

He took out his Stone Thaumaturgy skill notebook; one that he’d painstakingly divided into seven color-coded tabs, each for a different category of thaumaturgic utility. Offense (red), Defense (blue), Mobility (green), Sensory (yellow), Environmental Manipulation (brown), Supportive Resonance (silver), and a final tab in plain white—Miscellaneous, the place where anything too weird, too rare, or too situational to classify went to die. He flipped over to the brown section and told Celine about how Severa suggested that he learn Shearline and Binder’s Clasp.

Celine leaned in just a smidge closer every other second, and when Fabrisse finished talking, the furrow of her brow had gotten so deep that he expected her to start sprouting roots from sheer concentration. “Did she just randomly butt in and give you advice?”

“Uh, yes,” he said.

“Has she done that often?”

“She’s given me unsolicited advice no less than three times.”

Celine furrowed her brow again as she leaned back. “Are you sure she hates you?”

“She took my stone and hasn’t returned it.”

Celine pulled out a portable aetheric lexicon—a slim, lacquered case with tiny drawers that clicked open to reveal neatly stacked glyph-slips on paper as thin as onion skin. She thumbed through them as her lips moved in a low chant he couldn’t quite catch—half syllables, half the rustle of wind in dry grass. Then she closed her eyes for a slow count of ten. Finally, she opened them and said, “From my sources, the only other person she’s ever given advice to was a second-year prodigy who went on to win the Continental Thaumaturgic Trials. It was her upperclassman too. She’s now a Magus Prime in the Order’s Strategic Aether Division,” Celine finished, tapping the glyph-slip against her palm. “And she still owes Montreal two favors, probably.”

“And what does that mean for me?”

“I don’t know. Do you have something she doesn’t have?”

“I have a collection of twenty-one more stones.”

Celine sighed, the kind of long-suffering exhale that implied she was trying to teach arithmetic to a stubborn goat. “I’ll have to look into this.”

“Please don’t turn it into a gossip section,” he said.

Celine’s grin was almost predatory. “Oh, no. I’ll keep it strictly off the record . . . until it’s too interesting not to run. You know, for posterity.” She clasped her hands together. “Now, let’s learn Shearline. I think Montreal’s suggestion is good.”

***

[NEW TIER I SPELL REGISTERED: Shearline]


 Shearline (Rank I)
 Type: Active (Sustained)
 Tags: Restraint / Terrain Control
 Element: Earth (Fracture)
 Casting Time: 3.0 seconds
 Cooldown: 4 rounds

Aetheric Reaction Equation:
40% Mineral-based Terrain + 30% Completely Still Stance + 20% Compression Focus + 10% Synchronization → Shearline

Effect: Generates a thin, controlled fracture line through up to 2.5 meters of contiguous stone-based terrain. The fracture is shallow but sharply defined, creating a narrow gap or lip that can snag boots, trip enemies, or anchor other stone-shaping effects. When targeted beneath a creature’s position, it forces an immediate DEX check (DEX = 10 + Caster’s INT modifier) to avoid stumbling or partial restraint.

Fracture Depth: 0.25 meters
Fracture Width: 3–5 cm (non-damaging)
Duration: Persists for 10 minutes or until terrain is altered

Channelling Stability Check: FOR ≥ 10 & SYN ≥ 9 to maintain straight-line fracture under duress.

Limitations:

• Ineffective on liquid, enchanted terrain, or non-rigid surfaces

• Does not deal damage directly—restraint is situational and requires positioning

• Fracture cannot pass through magically reinforced stone without separate dispelling

Casting Requirement: INT ≥ 8, SYN ≥ 6

This skill is almost identical to Tremblehold, he thought as he gained the skill. The only difference being that it pushed the ground until something cracked.

It took him less than ten minutes to learn the skill from Celine. Learning similar spells for specialization was one thing, but there was also an immediately practical reason why he’d need this spell: to bypass cooldown.

“Try them on me,” Celine said, tapping the flagstones in front of her. She had pads on her knees for today; a sign she’d fully committed to be shoved to the ground for the entire morning.

Fabrisse raised an eyebrow but obliged. Tremblehold first: two and a half seconds of shaping, a subtle pulse radiating under her boots. She wobbled forward a fraction, catching herself with an awkward smile. He stepped in with Shearline before the tremors faded—fracture running out like a drawn blade from his toes. But the timing was off; the line split the stone half a pace short of where she’d have planted her foot. Her step landed clean, untroubled, and her smile widened into a grin.

“You failed—” she said, before the ground right behind her trembled minutely again. She almost fell on her butt, and had to balance herself by flailing her arms around like a startled heron taking flight. “Hey, not fair! But good timing. The point of contact is still off, though.”

Still, the principle worked. Chaining a Shearline in-between Trembleholds was a great way to bypass cooldown. He’d never been able to layer control spells that quickly before.

FP: 18/34

His Focus Point had dropped from 20 to 18 after performing the sequences of spells. This meant at full focus, he could probably spam these spells eight times before suffering from consequences, which should be more than enough. The ring Lorvan gave him had done wonders.

Celine wiped the sweat on her forehead as she said, “Keep it up and you’ll make a good Control Support in a party. You can destabilize monsters so someone else can land a hit in.”

“A party? You don’t suggest we go on hunting field trips?”

She grinned. “Why not? If you really want to progress your skills, you need to start fighting instead of keep training.”

For Magus-Students training to become battlemages, there were two main methods to gain actual combat experience: field trips and dungeon runs. They were completely opposite in nature. Whereas field trips meant traveling to monster-infested areas in the open wilds—forests, mountains, abandoned ruins—where environmental hazards and unpredictable encounters were the norm, dungeon runs were far more contained affairs. The monsters in dungeons weren’t even ones from their realm, but most often those from the aetheric realms.

Celine continued, “And we can assemble a half-decent team! I can be a finisher, you can be my support and Liene can be your support. Let’s have Johnson on the party too! What’s his speciality?”

“I have never seen Greg cast a spell.”

“That’s even better! He can be the wildcard.” Celine rubbed her hands together conspiratorily. “We can start small. There’s that containment zone near the South Ley Reservoir. Low-level aetheric beasts spawn there like rabbits.” 

“I didn’t know you’re into field trips.”

Celine placed a hand on her hip. “You don’t know much about me! The faculty’s always sending out students to cull them because they breed faster than aether-leeches in a warm pond. Easy fights, lots of practice, and no risk of something trying to chew your face off in one bite. We don’t even need a full-sized four-people party. Johnson can be our observer!”

Somehow he had a feeling this was less about honing their combat skills and more about giving Celine an excuse to watch Greg swing a sword.

“Fabrisse,” Celine leaned in again, peering at him from below with yet another one of her mischievous grin. If there was a grin diversity contest, this girl would ace it every time. “Johnson is coming to the joust tournament this weekend, right?”

“Yeahhh.” He forgot to ask.

“Goooooood. Make sure he’s there, and we’ll have you blasting Faultweave and Bedhold II by next week.” Both spells she mentioned were Tier II. There was no way he could master them by that timeline if he didn’t use mastery points.

“Okay.” Fabrisse gulped. Now he really had to trick Greg into going to the joust tournament somehow, or else he would be tricking Celine, and the idea of tricking Celine seemed more unpleasant than tricking Greg for some reason.

[Training Completed: +41 EXP]

[Progress to Level 7: 3625/4550]

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 7)

Changed the voice of the System. Refer to last chapter for changes :)

The symbols rearranged again, coalescing into a languid ripple of text across her vision.

[Ohhh. You.]

Her jaw tightened. Meaning?

[Relax. Ain’t deep. You got a name, yeah?]

I am Severa of House Montreal. I was advised that I have been soulbound with . . . you, whoever you are.

[Me? I’m the warden of your new shiny ting: The Celestial Drip Core Supreme Soul-Juicer Mk IV, yeah? Rolls off the tongue, yeah?]

“I—what?” She spoke aloud.

[You heard me.]

She ‘heard’ it, but she didn’t understand it. The syllables had shape and weight—Common, without question—yet their arrangement was wrong, like a chandelier rehung with its crystal drops in random places. Ting? Drip? They weren’t words she’d ever seen in any lexicon, not even the vulgar ones.

What is this dialect? Are you fabricating a language?

[Ahh, see, you’re one of them royal diction types. Always talking like you in a council meet. I’m speaking street lang, see; language of kings, just not your kinda kings.]

Do you have a name? What can I call you by?

[Queen Elizabeth.]

That’s definitely not your name.

[Fine! Name’s DeShawn. Happy now?]

DeShawn? That’s not a common name in any realm I know.

[Not from your time, girl.]

A dull throb had already begun to press against the inside of her skull, and not just from the three paltry hours of sleep she’d managed. This . . . whatever-it-was . . . felt like being trapped in a private audience with some grinning jester who’d mistaken her for the entertainment.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “What,” she said, each word dragged through the sieve of her patience, “can you do for me?”

[Straight to business. I like that.] The voice leaned into her thoughts with an oily ease. [Thing is, fam, I can do plenty. Shields, boosts, power plays, info drops, the whole magic mandem package.]

She narrowed her eyes. “Magic mandem package?”

[Yeah. Tricks, game-changers. Also—think, don’t speak. People might think you’ve lost it if you talk out loud.]

Such as?

[Can’t be giving the whole playlist away at once, you see. You’ll get whispers, insights no one else has. The kind that puts you in charge, not just in the room.]

It took her way too long to translate whatever it had said into Common language. And she thought the Magister and Fabrisse’s cryptic jargons had been painful enough.

The moment she figured out its meaning, she walked out of the room and straight into her private quarter. Come with me, she telegraphed to DeShawn.

She strode down the hallway and passed by the rows of the Magister’s inventions again. Of course her new companion had to offer unsolicited comments.

[Oi, what’s with all these fancy bits on the walls? Gold trim on everything—feels like I’m walkin’ through a jewellery box.]

She ignored him.

[And hold up—what’s that?] The symbols in her vision jittered as his attention locked onto a massive 4D chessboard in the corner alcove, the translucent pieces shifting themselves in a slow, complex battle. [No way. We had one like this in VR. I just watched it play itself ‘cause I was lazy.]

She kept walking.

When they reached her private chambers, the golden glow of the hallway surrendered to a cooler, darker palette. Midnight blues and deep charcoals wrapped the walls, broken only by the occasional glint of polished silver. Her room was simpler than the outside, but still laced with a lacquered desk, a pair of crystal sconces, neatly arranged keepsakes that looked more like curated trophies than casual décor.

On the wall opposite her desk hung a large framed thaumagraph—the kind of light-capture image spell that froze a moment in layered shimmer. In it, a much younger Severa clung to Forsing’s neck, her face lit with a smile far less guarded than the one she wore now. Their formal clothing, stiff with ceremonial embroidery, contrasted with the unplanned spontaneity of the moment. Out of the ten shots that thaumaturge had taken that day, this had been the only one not posed.

[Damn, homegirl, I thought you were all stuck-up and shii. Look at you, grinning and stuff.]

Her brow twitched. Restrain your commentary.

[Whatever you say, girl.]

She crossed to her private chest, released the triple-locked seal with three swift gestures, and lifted out her most prized possession: an ornate dagger forged from blackened starsteel, its blade etched with glowing runes in a cold blue light. An epic-grade relic. Holding it before her, she let its polished surface catch the aetheric lamplight.

What can you tell me about this? She asked, eyes narrowing. She needed to know what this thing knew.

DeShawn didn’t answer for a moment.

DeShawn? She asked again.

[It’s a dagger. What else you want?]

She lifted an eyebrow. The grade. The material. Its aetheric properties. Details.

There was a beat of silence. Then came DeShawn’s response.

[How am I supposed to know? I’ve never held a dagger in my life.]

She folded her arms. You still haven’t answered me.

[Look, I’m not from your time, girl. First time I’ve been properly awake in years. I’m rusty. Gimme something that moves, and I’ll show you.]

Severa drew a slow breath, letting the tension coil. She set her relic down, then  extended her free hand, fingertips igniting in a bright, crackling flame that curled and danced with fierce intent. The fire flared, a vivid Rank V incantation that palpilated with raw power.

The aether around her shimmered, responding to the sharpness of her control.

It says it doesn’t know what things are, she thought, but maybe it can tell properties, say, damage output, mental fatigue cost, effects . . . something useful.

She narrowed her eyes. DeShawn, what can you tell me about this spell? Its strength, weaknesses, anything.

[Damn, girl, you can do that?]

She pressed again, voice sharper. “So? What else? Details.”

[I don’t know nothing, girl. I didn’t even know y’all was out here doin’ fairy godmother vibes magic in this world.]

Severa hissed through her teeth, and the faintest crease appeared between her brows. “Then what do you mean, ‘something that moves’?”

[Get yourself a mirror, girl. I wanna see your face.]

Fine. But I better see something tangible from you.

Severa sank down onto the edge of her chair in front of the mirror, already dreading the endless presence of this relentless voice lodged in her mind. How long was she going to have to put up with this? A lifetime?

The polished glass reflected her almost translucent skin, carefully hidden beneath layers of foundation that masked the slight shadows beneath her eyes. Her jawline was soft, contrasting with the only sharp feature she couldn’t hide: her bloodied, piercing eyes.

[Damn, girl, you know how to do your eyeliner. Sharp as a blade.]

Before she could snap back about the useless compliments, a cascade of glowing numbers and symbols poured into her vision, floating like spectral data around her reflection.

Social Aptitude
  Theoretical Understanding: High — 85%
  Practical Exertion: Moderate — 51%

Political Savvy
  Theoretical Understanding: Moderate — 70%
  Practical Exertion: Low — 38%

Mental Health Stability
  Theoretical Understanding: Low — 40%
  Practical Exertion: Moderate — 37%

Stress Resilience
  Theoretical Understanding: Moderate — 65%
  Practical Exertion: Moderate — 55%

Empathy Quotient
  Theoretical Understanding: Low — 40%
  Practical Exertion: Low — 35%

Charm Factor
  Theoretical Understanding: Moderate — 67%
  Practical Exertion: Moderate — 62%

She stared at the numbers for a very long time.

By the Will of the Flamus . . . She buried her head in her hands. I’m getting socially judged.

Changes to Patron tiers

Hey. So I've made changes to Patreon tiers. Now we have separate tiers for Severa's and Fabrisse's advanced chapters, both are currently priced at $10.

You'll see that there's another tier for both stories, which is also priced at $10 (??). That's my exclusive offer for those who have supported me from Day 1. From now until the 2nd of October, those who subscribe to that tier will receive advanced chapters for both stories forever. The price won't ever change for y'all. From the 2nd of October onward, the price will return to $15.

Before the new month comes, you just need to cancel your membership for your current tier and resubscribe to the new tier called '2-for-1', and you'll receive the benefits. This is the best I can offer for those who have supported me early. Thank you for sticking around.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 7)

The probe’s tip hovered over the first marked grain point.

Fabrisse steadied his breathing, adjusted the sub-zero matrix, and let the instrument’s imprinted aetheric resonance merge with the quartz’s own. The Eidralith flashed some results.

[Survey Point 1/3]  

Aetheric grain reading: 0.037 Hz deviation from baseline.  

Status: stable.

The Eidralith really is convenient in situations like this. He didn’t even have to read from his instruments, but he did so anyway to ensure accuracy.

He recorded it in neat script, then turned the quartz fractionally for point two.

[Survey Point 2/3]  

Aetheric grain reading: 0.041 Hz deviation.  

Note: anomaly threshold not reached.

So far, so normal.

He angled the probe toward the final point, grazing a milky vein that had always caught his eye.

[Survey Point 3/3]  

Aetheric grain reading: 0.000 Hz deviation.  

Flag: potential locked resonance.  

Fabrisse frowned. Locked resonance wasn’t something quartz did under temperature induction. At least, not unless it was shielding something inside.

I should do a lattice scan, he thought, right before the system flashed him something else.

[Optional Follow-up Recommended: Lattice Scan]  

His fingers moved before his mind caught up. He switched the probe to micron-lattice mapping mode, slowly tracing the surface. The instrument gave a soft chime when it hit a distortion.

Forty-three microns in, the lattice warped—just slightly, like a frozen eddy in a river of crystal. The interference bled faint harmonics into the surrounding grains in a pattern that should have dissipated within microseconds, yet clung stubbornly to the structure as if anchored.

This is great; this is awesome. If only Min allows me to conduct this sort of analysis in class. I know all the steps.

Second-order aetheric bleed; this wasn’t from the coldfield nor his probe.

One was pure and mineral-clean, a tone shaped by geological time and pressure.

The other . . . the other had edges, tiny fluctuations that didn’t belong to crystal growth or elemental flow. They were too irregular.

He’d seen similar interference in attuned artifacts before, where the resonance had been warped by long-term emotional bleed from a handler. Grief and joy, fear and longing—human states left faint but permanent impressions in the aetheric structure. He didn’t know which emotion it was, for there were other tests needed using tools he hadn’t yet learned how to use. But the emotions were there.

Is this object soulbound? Likely.

If only he could cast Aetheric Grain Analysis on these fluctuations now.

And if the mineral stratification, the density-to-resonance ratio, and the stubborn refusal to so much as microfracture under coldfield were all added to the tally . . . well.

The PRAXIS note was almost smug now:

[Survey Complete: Extended Parameters]  

Conclusion: behaves like Legendary-tier quartz or above.  

Proof Level: insufficient.  

Margin of error: ±18.7%

It calculated the margin of error for me too? But based on which metrics?

SYSTEM NOTE: Sufficient for bragging rights. Insufficient for peer-reviewed papers.

Thanks . . .

But is this item really a Legendary-tier one? Those are so rare; we’re talking one in a million rare. But this was an item presented to him by Severa Montreal. If anyone had the capability to discover something of that calibre without so much as yawning, it was her.

He almost wanted to take it home with him, and would have done so had he not have principles. 

[New Sidequest Completed: “Shards Beneath the Ice”]

Completion Time: 1 hour, 46 minutes

Reward:

+65% Understanding toward unlocking Aetheric Grain Analysis (Rank I)

+3 Stone Thaumaturgy Mastery Points

Bragging rights (local)

[Research Completed: +25 EXP]

[Progress to Level 7: 3584/4550]

1 hour, 46 minutes? Most field calibrators he’d read about took twice that time just to finish the survey, never mind the follow-up lattice scans and harmonic tests. If Min Hajin ever saw that timestamp, he might even nod in quiet approval.

“Montreal. Look!” He turned, ready to lay out every precise measurement and improbable anomaly for Severa Montreal—

She was asleep.

Standing.

Her head tipped forward a fraction, her breathing slow and steady. The folds of her robe swayed with each breath, but otherwise she was motionless.

He stared, unsure whether to be impressed or deeply concerned. He hadn’t even known people could sleep like that.

“Uh . . . Montreal?” He called again, to not answer.

Maybe she’s exhausted. That’s what happens when you don’t eat dinner.

Instinct told him to wake her—this was the perfect moment to hand over his findings, basking in the rare satisfaction of being absolutely correct.

Then another, stronger instinct reminded him that Severa Montreal was not known for her gentle morning disposition . . . or her gentle disposition at any other time of day, really. He preferred her like this. Silent, but the kind of silent that didn’t involve glaring daggers across the room.

But she’d have to be awake sooner or later.

With careful steps, he closed the distance. She’d gone slack—head tipped forward, shoulders loose, like her bones had taken a temporary leave of absence. The only way she could still be upright was by coaxing the air into holding her there, subtle as a cat pretending it hadn’t been asleep all day.

[Intuitive Understanding Gained: +1 INT]

How does gaining knowledge about how someone sleep raises your intuition? How does this work, exactly?

[COROLLARY: Structural analysis of improbable sleeping postures may improve recognition of concealed magical supports.]

“Montreal. Are you awake?” He called out.

Her eyes snapped open. In less than a heartbeat she was perfectly poised again—chin lifted, back straight, expression politely blank—as if she’d been that way all along.

“Of course. I’ve been awake all along,” she said.

Right. At least she’s not yelling at me. Best keep it that way. “. . . I’ve finished the analysis.”

“What did you find out?”

“The quartz sample’s reaction under sub-zero induction yielded no phase shift, but the surface lattice shows a localized resonance warping at forty-three microns. There’s also harmonic bleed—probably second-order aetheric interference—”

She cut in. “In words that aren’t an alchemy textbook.”

He paused, then said, “There’s an imprint inside. I can’t tell whether it’s positive or negative, or if it’s worth prying open. I don’t have the means or the knowledge to find out. Also, the quartz is already soulbound.”

“To whom?”

“I don’t know. But now that the imprint’s been uncovered, whoever it’s bound to will feel the effect the moment they handle it.” He paused. This was the important moment, and he was eager to see her reaction. “I’m not 100% certain. But this item might be a Legendary-tier quartz.” His voice grew small at the end.

“What?” Her eyes widened, then narrowed, then widened again with the demand. “Prove it.”

That was a decent reaction, but not enough excitement. 6 out of 10.

“I can’t—at least not aetherically,” he admitted, shifting his weight. “I don’t have the skills or the equipment for that kind of reading.” He hesitated, then gestured to the notes laid out on the workbench. “But based on mineral stratification, the density-to-resonance ratio, and the crystalline response under sub-zero aetheric dampening—”

She cut in once more, “In plain terms, Kestovar.”

He exhaled. It was harder to describe to someone who’d little knowledge of minerals than he’d thought. “It behaves like a legendary-tier quartz would, based on every indirect indicator I could test without risking damage. The structure is too stable for common variants, and it resisted all thermal and elemental stimulus without a trace of microfracture. Those qualities . . . well, they narrow the possibilities down to maybe five known legendary types.”

She leaned in over the table, scanning his neat diagrams and meticulous measurements. If she can’t understand measurements, at least she can read the conclusions! This is impressive work. She can’t deny it.

Still, she tapped the page with one manicured nail. “You said might. That means you’re not sure. And if you’re not sure, Kestovar, this could all just be an elaborate waste of both our time.” Her tone was even, but each word pressed on the uncertainty like a thumb on a bruise.

Okay, three out of ten now.

He stiffened, shoulders drawing in. “I told you, without the right testing—”

“Yes. Without the right testing, it’s nothing more than a theory. A good theory, perhaps, but still one you’d be laughed out of a guildhall for staking your reputation on.”

The faint crease between his brows deepened. He should’ve known better than expecting praise from Severa Montreal. Still, she wasn’t wrong, and that troubled her more than he cared to admit.

“Thank you for your troubles,” she said. At least she was nice enough, and hadn’t made any unnecessarily scathing comment.

“I don’t need your thanks,” Kestovar replied. “But please deliver your side of the deal.” Maybe he should’ve asked her to honor her side of the deal and finish teaching him the skill first, but this seemed like an urgent matter to her.

“I keep my words,” she said at last. “There is nothing to worry about. Note down your schedule in a glyph, and I’ll be in contact.”

He did as told, and the second he finished scribbling on the glyph, Severa had already opened the door.

A butler stood at the far end of the corridor, posture so precise it might have been drawn with a ruler. The silent efficiency of the whole exchange left no room for lingering.

Fabrisse glanced back at the quartz one last time, the itch of curiosity gnawing at him. If he could bring it home, he’d have weeks’ worth of tests to run, notes to compile, theories to challenge. But his time here was clearly over.

He stepped out into the hall.