Daniel Newwyn

On Romance

I've received questions about this, and I'm actually not too sure myself since most of my writing is discovery writing. You think I have this shii planned out? I don't. I vomit words, find the similar threads, then stitch the pieces together into a coherent plot.

Now I don't have an end game yet, but from what I've hinted there are two obvious potential romantic interests. Don't worry about there being some sort of dramatic love triangle showdown; I don't like that kind of drama so I prefer not having that in my work (unless that's what you're into idk).

Severa x Fabrisse satisfies that rival-to-lovers itch in me but I've accidentally made Liene too OP. Also it might not make that much narrative sense since having them together means there will be multiple chapters in both books that I'll have to go over the same scenes, and I'd rather not have that. I'll figure something out.

Veliane Veist is not an option for Fabrisse. She will, however, become a pivotal part of Severa's book.

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 6)

Missus told me to sleep early or else, so I had to go to bed and write on my phone. Horrible experience, and imma have to act like I’m not sleep-deprived tomorrow. RIP.

Severa had no need to be anywhere near the Synod’s library unless it was to mess about with Kestovar, or asking him for a favor. She had been waiting for him for an hour; blearily staring at the pockets of students passing by while trying to stifle her yawns. This was an hour she could’ve spent on napping, or better yet, perfecting Pyroclasm Lance, her new Tier III incantation, the equivalent of an Epic-grade spell. It had taken her two months to level it up to Rank VI. The spell condensed heat and pressure into a razor-fine filament of white flame—not the lazy orange tongues most mages tossed about, but an aether-fed plasma that burned hot enough to shear through basalt. Against a wyvern’s scale, it didn’t batter or char; it bored straight through, slagging keratin and cauterizing flesh in the same breath.

Kestovar stepped out of the Synod’s library, squinting at the sun, and nearly collided with Severa. She was planted right outside the entrance, a length of deep green silk cradled in her arms. It was her lunch, and of course, that lunch was another satchel of Endurite Paste.

He stared at her satchel and asked, “Do you . . . eat lunch?”

Kestovar had always had a habit of asking the most peculiar questions with the same tone one might use for discussing weather patterns. Just yesternight, he’d asked her if she ate dinner. Not if she had eaten dinner that night. If she ate dinner in general.

Maybe he thought someone like her would eat dusted gold instead of normal food or something. Maybe he was beyond awkward. It was kind of weird and somewhat funny at the same time. Nobody else would ask her a question like that.

“Are we still doing this?” She asked.

He didn’t answer, but instead only stared at the silk cloth wrapping around her sachet. Of course there was a reason why she wrapped cloth around it; it was so that no one could see how she was culinarily torturing herself.

But if he really wants to know . . . Nothing wrong with just a bit of fun.

She raised her cloth, careful to not let the content poke out. “Oh. This? This is a bag of blood. I suck blood from the nape of people’s necks for sustenance. Would you like to volunteer yours?”

“I’m good.”

“Shame,” she said, tucking the silk back under her arm. The gold threads flashed once before the shadows claimed them again. “Shall we go?”

***

Elon Montreal prided himself on being an inventor, and no inventor worth the title went without a private lab or three—his third lab, naturally, was dedicated to the study of minerals. Severa didn’t pretend to know how half the tools in there worked, which was why Kestovar had to handle them. She leaned against a workbench, watching as he moved with a quiet, deliberate efficiency: setting up the instruments, calibrating readings, cooling a reaction chamber to sub-zero to tease out hidden properties in the stone.

He was utterly focused, transitioning from one stage to the next with a smooth certainty she’d never seen from him before. It was . . . rather impressive. The thought slipped in before she could swat it away. Maybe mocking him for his rock obsession hadn’t been entirely fair.

***

“Montreal. Are you awake?”

It took Severa a moment to register the words. She had, apparently, been sleeping upright—head tipped forward, feet planted, and without realizing it, unconsciously coaxing the air around her into supportive pressure. A perfectly serviceable makeshift chair.

Her eyes opened at once. “Of course. I’ve been awake all along.”

Kestovar stood barely half a meter away, looking at her like he was doing mental math on the probability of what she’d just said being true. “. . . 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.”

For a fleeting moment, Severa wondered if the quartz was soulbound to her. The thought curled, uninvited, at the back of her mind.

Only to be cut short by Kestovar. “I’m not 100% certain. But this item might be a Legendary-tier quartz.” His voice grew small at the end.

“What?” The word came out sharper than intended. Her eyes widened, then narrowed, then widened again with the demand. “Prove it.”

“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 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. Damn it all—they did look sound.

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.

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. Good. Doubt was safer for her than certainty. If he started thinking he’d uncovered something truly valuable, he might be tempted to demand more than their agreed terms.

And yet . . . deep in the quiet part of her mind, the belief was already rooting itself. Maybe being in that dungeon—by her own choice—would become her turning point after all.

But first things first. “Thank you for your troubles,” she said.

“I don’t need your thanks,” Kestovar replied. “But please deliver your side of the deal.”

Technically, she thought, he hasn’t told me much of anything. That could be fair grounds to wriggle out of the rest of her tutoring obligation. Then another thought, sharper and less charitable, followed: what more do you expect, Severa? He’s just a student.

“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.”

Kestovar complied without fuss, inscribing a neat glyph on a scrap of parchment before handing it over. She scanned it, tucked it into the inner fold of her sleeve, and escorted him to the threshold. A polite nod—nothing more—and he was gone.

The quiet pressed in as she closed the door. Only she and the stone remained.

Her gaze drifted back to the stone resting on the workbench under the ocean blue lamp. Was it soulbound to her? Highly improbable. She hadn’t felt the telltale aetheric resonance when she touched it—the subtle tug, like two harmonics finding each other in the aether. And yet . . . what if it was?

What would that entail?

Memory stirred—a lecture, a cautionary tale told in half-admiring, half-pitiful tones. Thaumarch Reno Agustin, driven mad after soulbounding with a legendary-tier quartz. And Agustin’s command of the aetheric force had been leagues beyond hers.

If it made him insane, what chance did she have?

She licked her lower lip, and only now did she realize how dry it was. So what of it?

The same Reno Agustin had risen to Thaumarch—one of the three most powerful thaumaturges of his age—by soulbounding artifact after artifact. Insanity or not, power like that was the stuff of dynasties.

This could be her chance. The beginning of her own ascent.

She would risk her sanity.

Severa reached out. Her fingers brushed the quartz.

At once, it flare, icy and unsoiled, like moonlight refracted through a plate of glacier. Her heartbeat quickened.

Then nothing.

The glow died as though swallowed whole. She felt a small, sharp pang at the back of her head, no worse than a passing headache, but that was it. Her aetheric force didn’t stir, no strange resonance pulsed through her veins.

She stayed there for a full minute, staring at the inert stone. That was it? That was the Legendary-tier item? She bit her lip, irritation prickling up her spine. Maybe Kestovar has been wrong after all. What a colossal waste of time.

Still, a deal was a deal, and she was—if nothing else—curious about what he could actually show in a duel. She would tutor him.

She was turning to set the quartz down when the world ruptured.

A blinding light burst behind her eyes, so fierce she forgot to breathe. Shapes spilled into her vision. Tight, angular strokes flooded in, as though carved by some unseen blade, lined in precise rows. They shapeshifted between pale silver and a deep, shadowed black, each mark bristling with mechanical precision unlike any script she had ever seen. Not runes, not glyphs—these symbols had no breath of the living world in them. They were numbers, though not the kind she knew—numbers stripped to bone, their shapes clean as ice and without adornment.

They streamed past her vision faster than thought.

And then . . . silence.

The light burned away thought, leaving only the stream of cold, alien symbols. Then, between one blink and the next, the rows froze and rearranged themselves into something that spoke.

A thin, scrawled line etched itself across her eyes.

[Welcome, User . . .]

She squinted. Hold on. What’s in front of me?

[Nah, bruv, who’s pullin’ my chain at this hour?]

Her breath snagged. She wasn’t reading these words; they were inside her. Clear, crisp, and toneless, yet somehow dripping with . . . condescension.

[Nah this some type shiiii man. Not another arrogant young master.]

What in the dragon’s dong is this?

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 5)

Fabrisse Kestovar was not a very good thaumaturge. Severa had shown him how to turn the bead of fire into spinning wheels countless times, but he still couldn’t replicate it. She couldn’t understand how he’d yet to be able to copy her. Marrieh Halveth used demonstration to teach Severa new spells all the time, and not once had it not worked. But patience was to be expected with Kestovar; the young man was far from unintelligent, but his motor functions and aetheric timing were severely below par. 

The training was completed an hour later without much progress. Now just outside the Academy’s training grounds, Severa settled herself on a weathered stone bench. She pulled from her pouch a small, sealed satchel of Endurite Paste—a thick, grayish concoction prized among thaumaturges for its potent blend of restorative herbs and alchemical essences. Though its taste was harsh and bitter, the price was steep, and wasting it was unthinkable. There was no time for leisurely meals; every minute counted if she wanted to be ready for her next dungeon run, which would be tomorrow afternoon, right after her mandatory lectures.

She squeezed a portion into her mouth and let the gritty texture crawl unpleasantly across her tongue as she chewed.

She looked up just in time to spot a familiar figure approaching from the far end of the courtyard. Fabrisse Kestovar, accompanied not only by Kaldrin but also by a couple of others—a lanky young man who seemed to be showing off with a flurry of exaggerated fire spells, sparks flying in chaotic loops around his hands—and a pale woman with striking white-blond hair that marked her as a foreigner from the northern realms.

They walked in easy camaraderie, laughing softly. Severa watched as Fabrisse moved confidently among them, as confidently as someone like him could. So he does have friends.

She took another bite of the paste, grimacing at the flavor. Friends are irrelevant, she told herself. A distraction at most. The only person who might care to check on her now was her aunt Merry—but Merry had weightier matters to attend to than visiting an academy kid with a questionable eating habit.

Severa set her jaw and fixed her gaze on the distant horizon. In less than a week, she’d turn seventeen. She cared little for frivolous social bonds; the only connection that mattered was the one she’d forged between her fireballs and the wyvern’s heart in her upcoming dungeon run. This was what she’d trained for: a perilous Tier III delve teeming with wyverns.

Not another minute of peace had passed before a man in his forties strode toward her general direction, accompanied by a young woman who moved with sharp precision. Most would have called the man impeccably styled—his robes cut with exacting tailoring, the faint scent of rare oils trailing him like a personal aura. Severa found it off-putting.

“Pleasant evening to you, Miss Montreal,” the man approached and extended a hand. “Have you had time to mull over my offer the other day?”

“Good evening, High Instructant Mavid.” Severa returned his handshake with a steady grip. “It has been quite a hectic few days, so please forgive me if I have been tardy.”

Mavid smiled. “Do please consider it. I’m prepared to become your personal tutor—and, by extension, your patron. Think of it as an investment in the future. I can guarantee you instant referral to a high position in the Department of Arcane Regulation upon graduation, exclusive access to restricted archives, invitations to the elite gatherings. Of course, if you can keep up your current trajectory academically.”

What’s so special about your offer? She thought. High Instructant Aval had offered the same thing last term, his pitch had even come with the added temptation of guaranteed placement within the elite Northern Guard battalion, and not the frontline kind. The generalship kind.

Severa inclined her head slightly, and picked from one of her various versions of ‘measured and noncommittal’. “I appreciate your offer, High Instructant, but I prefer to consider my options carefully before making any commitments.”

Mavid’s assistant, the young woman with the burnished bronze hair, stepped forward with a confident grace that caught Severa off guard. “Miss Montreal, with all due respect, this is an opportunity few receive. To have someone of High Instructant Mavid’s caliber as a mentor could accelerate your career beyond what you imagine.”

Severa’s eyes turned to Mavid, who subtly placed a hand near the assistant’s shoulder, a gentle but unmistakable gesture of closeness. His tone softened, careful and diplomatic. “I wouldn’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position, Elira. Let Miss Montreal decide at her own pace.”

Severa fought the sudden urge to scrunch her nose at the sight—this was hardly the kind of closeness she appreciated. Elira was clearly half his age, and once his student. But it wasn’t Severa’s place to judge whether they felt comfortable with this arrangement.

Instead, she cast a quick look at Mavid. “Thank you both for your consideration. I will inform you should I decide to accept.”

Mavid’s lips pressed into a thin line for the briefest moment, but then masked it with a courteous smile. “Of course, Miss Montreal. Patience is often the best strategy in our line of work.”

Elira added, “It must be advantageous, coming from the Montreal family. I imagine you have a wealth of opportunities to weigh.”

It made her unreasonably angry, but she forced herself to keep her expression neutral as Mavid and Elira turned and walked away.

Advantageous, my arse, she hissed under her breath, the words sharp enough to sting her own tongue. This was the reason why she hadn’t yet chosen her new tutor. Everyone of them had some sort of agenda. At least, they couldn’t do much worse than her last tutor, who was literally a criminal banking on her support to further her criminal activities.

Severa kept muttering some variations of that line on her way home. She stormed past the grand entrance of her house just as the butler, Berrick, opened the door. “Miss Montreal, good evening—” Berrick began, but stopped short as Severa brushed past without slowing.

“Advantageous, my balls,” she cursed.

“You don’t have ‘balls’, Miss, but you have a delicate pair of feet so please do watch your step,” Berrick added. “The Magister just laid fresh polish, and it’s slippery as a serpent’s scale.”

“Thank you for your concern, Berrick,” she replied, then grumbled more quietly, “Advantageous, my buttocks.”

As Severa pushed open the door into the main corridor, a sudden muffled voice stopped her in her tracks. It was Aunt Merry—Merriah Halveth’s sharp, frustrated tone pierced through the quiet. “I told you, I won’t back down on this. You can’t strongarm me into compliance.”

Nearby, her older brother Forsing’s voice was calmer, but firm and unyielding. “Merry, this isn’t about strong-arming. It’s about securing the future, for Severa and for the family name. She needs to be transferred to the North Westeros branch of the Synod. That’s where the real power lies. The political patrons who can open doors to the offices that matter.”

Merry’s tone grew sharper. “You just want her out of your way so you can climb the ranks without interference.”

Forsing’s reply was cold and cutting. “I want what’s best for my sister. What good does she gain fighting monsters in some dungeon, chasing scraps of loot like a common mercenary? There’s a reason you’ll never command troops again, Aunt Halveth. The age of the battlemage is over.”

Severa gritted her teeth at how true Forsing’s words were. The aftermath of the Fifth Border Wars had reshaped everything. For the first time in decades, humans and goblins had signed fragile treaties, a tentative peace that held the skirmishes to mere whispers along the borders. Where once commanders had led massive campaigns against relentless goblin hordes, now their duties were reduced to managing these sporadic clashes—far less glorious and far less demanding.

As a consequence, the dungeons, once alive with the clang of battle and thrumming with the magic of competing thaumaturges and magi from every discipline, had begun to empty. To make matters worse, Muro Muradius’ recent hardline stance against the use and study of artifacts threatened to snuff out what little remained of the dungeon-diving trade altogether.

Severa’s breath caught as she hesitated at the doorway, intent on slipping away unnoticed. Before she could pull back, a ripple in the shadows brushed against her skin like a cold breeze. Forsing’s voice, calm yet laced with unmistakable authority, echoed just beyond the wall, “Severa. I know you’re there. Come in.”

If there was one aspect of Forsing’s thaumaturgy that still held undeniable mastery, it was his veil magic—an art that bent light and sound, muffling footsteps and silencing whispers. This specific spell, Nullmantle, was a tool designed not only to cloak but to isolate, snuffing out any chance of eavesdropping.

As Severa stepped inside, the door behind her creaked, and Aunt Merry appeared from a side corridor. Her sharp eyes assessed Severa with a measured glance, holding her gaze for just a second.

“We’ll discuss your next dungeon dive come tomorrow afternoon,” Merry said crisply, then turned and disappeared back down the hall.

The first thing Severa said as she entered the room was, “I will not transfer school, brother.”

Forsing’s gaze sharpened as he stepped closer. “Do you actually have meaningful connections in South Westeros, or are you only stubborn for the sake of being stubborn?”

Severa held her stare. “My connections are forged in the crucible of battle and trust.”

“Then why are you entering dungeons alone?”

She opened her mouth to retort, but Forsing cut her off, voice firm and unyielding. “You walk into dungeons alone because you have no friends in the Synod, and no-one wants to dungeon delve for no pay anymore.”

A thousand biting retorts formed on her tongue—accusations she could hurl back like daggers. You only climbed into politics to finally earn Father’s recognition. You traded your closest friend’s life for a seat in the office.

But none of it came out. Instead, her voice was quieter than she wanted. “Why are you saying this?”

“This is not a personal matter, Severa. It is for the sake of—”

“You were the only friend I had. You know this. Why must you say something like that?”

Forsing averted his gaze. His once-clean-shaven face was now framed by a neatly trimmed beard, giving him a more severe, almost calculating appearance. His dark hair was slicked back with meticulous care, the kind of polished style that seemed designed to impress rather than to express. Those sharp cheekbones, the tight line of his jaw, the controlled set of his lips—all the features she had come to loathe in him—made him look every bit the ambitious man she’d grown up resenting.

Without a word, he moved toward a far corner where a large, detailed map of the Kingdom of Raslan was pinned to the wall. After a pause, his voice lowered, steady and probing. “Why do you insist on becoming the best combat thaumaturge, Severa? What good do you get from that?”

She understood that much. Thaumaturgy, once the backbone of defense and power, was fast becoming obsolete. Even the Order’s leader, Muradius, had begun steering the discipline away from its martial roots. No longer was thaumaturgy the fierce art of battle and survival; instead, it was being reshaped into a ritualistic spectacle, flamboyant displays designed to entertain the King and his court rather than protect the realm.

Many branches of the Synod were pivoting, expanding into practical applications like irrigation systems powered by aetheric currents or the development of efficient aetheric engines to fuel industry. South Westeros remained stubbornly traditional, one of the few places still rigorously testing students on their combat prowess, demanding they prove their mettle in the crucible of battle magic. But even here, the tide was turning, and Severa knew the world she fought for was slipping away.

Severa’s eyes glued themselves to the map, tracing the glimmering borderlines and scattered settlements as if searching for a hidden truth in the inked lines. “To keep us safe, no matter what changes come.”

“You don’t even believe in what you’re saying,” Forsing laughed. He was right.

And for once, Severa couldn’t find words to say.

“Thaumaturgy is flawed from the start, Severa.” Forsing’s face darkened. “No matter how elaborate you dress it up, or how grandiloquent the oratory, you cannot deny that relying on emotion as fuel for your magic is an unsustainable source, at the very least. You can’t even control your emotions at a dining table. Why do you think you could sustain at the highest level?”

Emotional input was the crux of thaumaturgy, the very fulcrum upon which its power balanced. A single, well-harnessed surge of fury or devotion could render spell output manifold stronger than any rote incantation of the old schools. Unlike alchemical draughts, whose potency was measured in vials and powders, or glyphcraft that burned through finite reagents, or the costly reliance on artifacts—an entire branch of magic beholden to rare relics and fortunes spent acquiring them—emotion was, at least in theory, inexhaustible. It replenished itself with every human heartbeat, a renewable current tied not to supply chains but to the soul itself.

His words stung sharper than any blade. Severa opened her mouth, but nothing came; the retorts she would normally hurl so easily turned to ash on her tongue. Because he was right.

The only emotions she had ever been able to wield with certainty were rage and that dangerous, swelling confidence that made her believe she could not lose. And when those faltered, she filled the void with fantasies—constructs spun from her own mind. Devotion to figures she had never once met, reverence for spellcasters who existed only as gilded names in history. She had poured herself into the picture-perfect thaumaturgy painted in the tomes she devoured as a girl, shaping her heart around ideals that had never truly belonged to her.

“If you were that good at understanding emotions,” Forsing slowed down his words, just enough for them to cut deeper. “You would’ve been able to make a friend.”

Her throat tightened, but she forced the words out. “Stop, brother.” She tried to steady herself, but her chest ached with the familiar suffocation of it, the desperate will to appear unshaken even as the foundation inside her hollowed out.

For a heartbeat, she thought he might relent. That he might hear the fracture in her voice and remember who they once were.

But Forsing’s eyes stayed cold. “I say this because I am your brother, dearest sister. From another, such a lesson would have come at a heavy cost.”

Severa didn’t answer.

Forsing looked at the corner of the ceiling, then to the chandelier overhead, then to the map. Anywhere but at Severa. “Fine, then. Be stubborn, Severa, as that is one of the perks of being a Montreal. No matter how stubborn you are, your bloodline can always offer you a safety net. I suggest you take a rest; you’re going to need to be in prime condition for your dungeon run.” He paused for a moment, and scanned past Severa as he turned to the entrance. “And fix your braids. The left one’s loose near the nape.”

He was the first to walk out.

***

Severa closed the door behind her and stormed toward her mirror table. Her fingers reached up instinctively to the tight braids that had been her armor for as long as she could remember. Every morning, before the first light, she had painstakingly woven each strand with meticulous care—a ritual as precise as any spell. The Magister demanded discipline in appearance, and Severa had never given him cause for complaint. Even on her worst day, she must look the best.

Her hands tore into the braids, yanking and pulling strands free in a storm of frustration. She clawed at her hair as if ripping it out, dismantling it, tearing through the careful order like a hurricane. By the end of it, she was left with a tempest of tangled strands. 

Severa collapsed onto the wooden floor, limbs sprawled. Her black hair fanned around her like a dark halo, wild and untamed after the furious dismantling. Not a single button on her finely tailored clothes was undone.

Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten all day, apart from the bitter sustenance paste clinging to her tongue. Her back ached from lying with the quartz still tucked inside her robe pocket. She took the rock out and held it high before her face until her vision blurred.

Whatever could this inert rock hold that could possibly change her life?

Severa’s fingers slipped on the smooth surface, and the quartz tumbled from her grasp. Time seemed to slow as the rock spun through the air before crashing against the bridge of her nose.

She growled, biting back a curse as the pain blossomed across her face. Maybe this inert rock couldn’t change her life, but it very well could change the shape of her nose.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 6)

Library work was kind of boring in the best way.

No voidspawns and no Liene leaping out from behind a stack of lexicons. People whispered here. If you did your job right, nobody noticed you at all.

Fabrisse liked that.

It meant he could take twice as long cross-checking a shelf number ‘just to be sure,’ and in the process read half a page of Practical Resonances in Sedimentary Quartz. 

He slipped the book back into its slot and wandered toward the front desk, where Magistra Veirlan was sorting a pile of returned folios one-handed while drinking tea with the other. She was in her thirties, with an easy half-smile that suggested she had long ago stopped being surprised by anything library clerks got up to.

“Magistra Veirlan,” Fabrisse said, trying to be casual. “Would it be all right if I . . . sorted the geological section again?”

She looked up at him, one eyebrow arched. “Again?” Somehow, her quill was still moving. That was a kind of skill Fabrisse wished to be able to learn.

“It’s, um . . . gotten disordered.” Which was technically true, just not disordered enough to require intervention.

She sipped her tea, watching him over the rim in a way that made it clear she knew exactly what he was after. “Thirty minutes, Kestovar.”

“Yes, Magistra.”

“Thirty,” she repeated, already turning back to her folios.

The geological section was three aisles over, tucked behind an unassuming sign marked Aetheric Mineralogy. Fabrisse slipped inside, pulling the rolling ladder along as if it were a co-conspirator.

His notebook was already open to a page full of tight, slanted handwriting and the occasional sketch of a crystal cluster.

“Grainbind.” He murmured the name as he traced the spine of a heavy vellum-bound volume, jotting it down in the margin next to a crude diagram of a layered rock face. That made thirty distinct Stone spells so far—thirty—and he underlined the number twice, just to feel the weight of it.

He flipped through the entry, copying its subtle activation phrasing, the aether resonance frequency, and a note on its use in stabilizing loose scree. He’d copy down the diagrams too, to varying degrees of likeness. The diagrams in this one were particularly neat, so he tried to imitate them.

In addition to the spells from Anabeth’s book (which he still had to return in a week), he’d uncovered nineteen more Tier 1 incantations, nine Tier 2s, and two Tier 3s.

He started sorting them in order, muttering each name under his breath as he penciled arrows between them. He’d start with the ones that were both foundational and possible for him to learn after he’d mapped out their progression route.

“Kestovar.”

The voice came from directly behind him, too close for comfort. Fabrisse didn’t have to turn around to know it was Severa Montreal; she had a way of making his surname sound like an official reprimand. Sneaking up from behind unannounced was sort of her thing anyway.

He took a second to finish writing the arrow between Grainbind and Strata Lock before looking over his shoulder.

Severa stood with her arms crossed, the precise fall of her robe sleeves framing a leather-bound tome clutched against her side. “Do you have time today, as obliged?” Her braids were once again so impeccably intertwined that not a single flyaway dared disrupt their sleek order. It was clear she had personally tended to every twist and tuck, or maybe she had a spell that specifically did so for her.

“Yes. But let me finish my shift first.”

Severa didn’t move. She just stood there beside the rolling ladder, one brow faintly lifted as though she were inspecting the geological section itself and finding it only marginally acceptable.

Fabrisse waited a beat for her to say something else. She didn’t. So he went back to writing, adjusting the angle of his notebook so it didn’t feel like she was reading over his shoulder.

“Grainbind,” he murmured again under his breath, penciling in a bracket that looped toward Strata Lock and Bedhold.

Suddenly she was much closer than he thought, her voice right by his ear. “Are you going to specialize in trapping?”

He jolted and turned just enough to see the faint glint of her hairpin. “How do you know?”

“Your notes happened to catch my eyes. It wasn’t like I planned to look at them,” she said in a tone that suggested she absolutely had.  He didn’t know how she came to that conclusion, seeing how his current page was on Grainbind, an entry-level spell into Stone Formation that would likely branch out into stone projectile offensive moves. “If you’re set on restraint spells, you might want to learn Shearline and Binder’s Clasp. They’re easy Tier 1s, but they’ll let you branch into both pressure-locking formations and flexible stone shaping. From there, you could pick up Bedhold II or Vein Snare—both Tier 2—without wasting cycles relearning foundations.”

Before he could think about whether he wanted her advice, he blurted, “Can Binder’s Clasp be combined with Faultweave for a Tier 3 composite?”

Her brow furrowed slightly. “I don’t know that one. Faultweave?”

Ah, she wouldn’t know a spell from Anabeth’s family line. Maybe Severa didn’t know everything after all.

“Thanks,” he said. He didn’t ask for her advice, but it wasn’t like he wouldn’t welcome it.

She watched him a moment longer, then asked, “When’s your shift over?”

He glanced toward the high clerestory windows, where a wedge of light was just starting to fade. “Eleventh bell.”

“I’ll be waiting outside.”

And just like that, she stepped down from the ladder and disappeared between the stacks, the faint click of her shoes swallowed by the muffled hush of the archive.

He stared after her for a beat, then looked down at his notes without actually seeing them. He’d never seen Severa with anyone outside class or the instructants. No one meets her halfway across the library with that unspoken look of friends who already know what the other’s thinking.

Not that it was any of his business. 

***

Severa was literally outside of the Library’s entrance as he walked out. She was holding something wrapped in an elaborate length of silk—deep green with gold-thread embroidery so fine it caught the last light like water. Maybe her lunch was inside, but it looked . . . flat. Whatever was inside, food should not look that flat.

“Do you . . . eat lunch?” He asked without thinking.

“Are we still doing this?” She turned and looked at him like he was an exam question with no correct answer.

He stared at her silk cloth. She noticed it immediately and raised it closer to his eye level. “Oh. This? This is a bag of blood. I suck blood from the nape of people’s necks for sustenance. Would you like to volunteer yours?”

“I’m good.”

“Shame,” she said, tucking the bundle neatly under her arm again. The gold threads caught the light for an instant before the shadows took them. “Shall we go?”

“Do I have to meet your father again?”

She didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched just long enough for his shoulders to tighten. Then she said, “Possibly.”

He gulped.

***

Rows of glass-fronted cabinets lined the walls greeted Fabrisse as he entered. Each cabinet was filled with specimens cradled in velvet-lined cradles: spheres of rose quartz, glinting shards of tourmaline, whole geodes with their hearts split open to reveal glittering interiors. Every label was written in the same elegant, slanted hand, the ink brown with age but perfectly legible.

Fabrisse took two slow steps inside and almost forgot to breathe. This wasn’t just a private collection—it was almost on par with the specimen archives in the Synod laboratories. Not specialized for rocks, no; but the arrangement, the climate wards, even the quality of the preservation cases were unmistakably professional. Whoever had curated this had known exactly what they were doing.

“Why are you standing there? Come in,” Severa said as she walked past him. When she turned around and he still hadn’t moved, she said, “I hope you don’t just stand still and gawk like this in your lab work.”

Fabrisse shut his mouth, which he hadn’t realized was slightly open, and stepped fully inside. His fingers itched to run over the nearest case, to test the seal on the brass fittings, to see if the imprint resonance matched the ones in the Synod, but ultimately decided to keep his hands behind his back.

A central table stood under a suspended brass lightframe, its surface scattered with jeweler’s tools, small resonance gauges, and a half-disassembled aether lens.

Severa slipped a hand into her robe and brought out the quartz. “What do you need?” she asked.

He stepped closer, studying the stone. The milky veins on the quartz still looked as mesmerizing as the first time he saw it. “To emulate sub-zero conditions. Aetheric catalysts, if possible. And . . .” He trailed off, eyes flicking toward the climate wards in the room. “. . . stabilization lattice, if we want to avoid shattering the imprint before it’s released.”

“We might have that,” Severa said without hesitation.

“You sound very sure.”

Severa crossed the room toward a long cabinet, glancing at the brass labels. Kestovar followed. In the end, they found only two of the catalysts he’d listed, and the stabilization lattice was of an older design.

He straightened, holding one of the small crystalline ampoules to the light. “It’s not perfect, but I can make do.”

As he set out the tools, he hesitated again, glancing toward her. “I should warn you—this . . . I’ve never done it in practice before.”

“That’s fine,” Severa said without missing a beat. “If you fail, we’ll just train you until you succeed.”

Kestovar stared at her for a long moment, as if weighing whether that was meant to be encouragement or a threat. He still didn’t know by the time he looked back down at the quartz.

Specimen detected: Cryoflux Quartz — Grade II

Integrity: 99.3%. Residual aetheric activity: stable.

Estimated Rarity: rare ~ legendary

He’d gone all this way without seeing even the shadow of her father the Magistra, and now he got to work with quartz this rare? Could this day get any better?

[New Sidequest Received: “Shards Beneath the Ice”]

Objective: Conduct a 3-point aetheric grain survey on Cryoflux Quartz under coldfield conditions

Recommended tools: sub-zero emulation matrix, fine-tuned aether probe, patience

Estimated completion time: variable, depending on user competence

Reward:

+65% Understanding toward unlocking Aetheric Grain Analysis (Rank I)

+3 Stone Thaumaturgy Mastery Points

Bragging rights (local)

Would you like to accept the quest?

[Yes] [No]

[SYSTEM NOTE: Just do it.]

Aetheric Grain Analysis? That’s the skill Min Hajin’s going to teach me. He gasped. He hadn’t had much time to begin with. This would make things so much easier.

Without another word, Fabrisse reached for the fine-tuned aether probe, fingers closing around the instrument.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 5)

He had given Severa Montreal a set of conditions. One: she must teach him at least one spell that’s high-value for the exam; something that makes them take notice. Two: she must explain exactly what the examiners want to see, not just the syllabus version. And three: she must run him through a practice duel and tell him where he was going wrong.

She had accepted the conditions surprisingly easily, which made him briefly regret not having asked for more. Maybe he should’ve asked her to return his Stupenstone too, but he doubted she still kept it. In any case, it seemed like that quartz was of more importance to her than he’d initially envisioned.

Serastra’s Ember Waltz, named after a thaumaturge named, well, Serastra, was the spell Severa had chosen for him. Even the name of the spell sounded vaguely like Severa, maybe so whenever he cast it in the future, he’d be reminded of how Severa had sacrificed her valuable time for him.

It looked deceptively simple when she did it. She pinched her fingers together, and a bead of fire blossomed there—not a flare or sputter, but a perfectly smooth ignition, as if flame were simply another element she could conjure from a drawer. With an almost lazy flick, it split into five spinning firewheels, each tracing a wide arc around her with deliberate symmetry before curling back into her palm and snuffing out with a polite tsk of heat.

“Again,” she said, and did it again.

Fabrisse’s eyes narrowed. He tried to watch her aether shaping, her wrist angle, the flare of her aether pattern. However, she moved too fast, each gesture flowing into the next with no pause to analyze. There was no commentary, no breakdown, not even a remark about the resonance balance between the initial bead and the split-phase ignition.

[Serastra’s Ember Waltz Comprehension Progress: 8%]

He tried it himself. Pinch, focus, ignite—his bead flared too hot, cracked apart into a ragged spark, then died.

“Mm. No,” she said, as if that were instruction enough. Another perfect Ember Waltz from her fingers.

He shifted his stance, adjusted his breathing, and attempted a more controlled ignition. This time, the bead formed, but when he tried to split it, it collapsed into a puff of smoke.

“Still no.”

She wasn’t so much teaching as demonstrating at him, and Fabrisse was already cataloguing what he could steal from watching her—the angle of her elbow, the way she seemed to pull the firewheels inward at the apex of their arcs—but there were gaps in the sequence he simply couldn’t fill by sight alone.

“Have you ever had to teach anybody, Montreal?” He asked.

“You’d be the first,” she said as she formed yet another beautiful bead of flames.

No wonder . . .

He stepped back, rubbing his thumb against his palm, feeling the faint warmth from his failed ignition still clinging to his skin. The rational part of his mind—the part that had survived Lorvan’s “teaching” style—told him he should just ask Severa to slow down, to explain her sequence, maybe even walk him through the shaping pattern in discrete phases. 

But the other part of him, the part that had spent the past two years cataloguing every twist of her smile, every little tightening at the corner of her mouth when she smelled incompetence, knew exactly what would happen. She’d tilt her head, give him that perfectly polite, scalpel-sharp look, and say something like, Of course I can explain it, Kestovar. If you think you can keep up.

Another demonstration flickered in his peripheral vision: five flawless firewheels, looping in serene unison. [Serastra’s Ember Waltz Comprehension Progress: 9%]

He exhaled slowly. Maybe I just need to watch her doing the skill for another 400 times.

“Your first stance is wrong,” Severa said suddenly.

He blinked at her. “My—what?”

She rolled her eyes, but didn’t sigh, yet. “Feet apart, left shoulder forward. You’re holding yourself like you’re about to shelve a book, not split an ignition. Reset.”

For a moment he just stood there, caught between surprise that she was actually telling him something useful and suspicion that she was only doing it because she’d reached the limits of her tolerance for watching him fail. He wasn’t going to say that last part out loud, of course.

Still, he adjusted, planting his feet the way she showed him. The shift in weight made his balance feel tighter, more deliberate.

“That’s step one,” she said, as if bestowing a royal secret. Then, without further elaboration, she conjured another bead of fire.

[Serastra’s Ember Waltz Comprehension Progress: 11%]

He sighed.

***

[Serastra’s Ember Waltz Comprehension Progress: 43%]

A bell later, that was as far as he’d gotten. Severa had technically tried to help, but her ‘instructions’ consisted mostly of saying like this over and over and performing the spell again—each time perfectly, infuriatingly—without a single concrete explanation of what she was actually doing. It was a miracle he comprehended that much, if at all.

Severa lowered her hands and stilled. She kept a blank face, except for the faint tightening between her brows. It looked like annoyance, but he couldn’t tell if it was aimed at him, the bell, or something else entirely.

“It’s late,” he said, breaking the quiet.

“It’s past dinner time,” she replied, glancing toward the high windows. Maybe she’s just hungry.

He’d always wondered what posh upperclass people like her actually ate—and, before he could stop himself, he’d formalized it into a question.

“Do you eat food?”

Her head turned sharply toward him. “Are you mocking me?”

“What? No. It’s a legitimate question. Some people have . . . regimens.”

She gave him a slow, assessing look, the kind you’d give a suspiciously-shaped cake before deciding whether to cut into it. “Yes, Kestovar. I eat food.”

“But you don’t eat dinner.”

“I do eat dinner.”

“But you didn’t bring any food.”

“Yes. I haven’t had dinner today, but I eat dinner, and by extension, I eat food.”

They just stared at each other for another second. It seemed like she was going to say something snarky again, so he figured he would cut her off first by saying something extremely witty and clever.

“I haven’t had dinner,” he said.

They stared at each other for another second.

“Is this an invitation, Kestovar?” She asked. Her gaze held steady, unblinking.

His brain stalled. Wait. That sounded . . . a lot like she was implying—no, outright suggesting—that he had just invited her somewhere. Which he absolutely hadn’t. Had he? He rewound the last twenty seconds in his head. Oh no. Oh, maybe he had.

“No . . . I don’t want to have dinner. But you can have dinner. I mean, I want to eat dinner. But not with you.”

They stared at each other for the third time.

Finally, she said, “Your dining habits are of no interest to me, Kestovar. Do, however, leave room in your schedule to call at the Montreal residence at your earliest convenience. For the quartz.”

“Yes. Yes. Of course.”

Professor Kaldrin picked the best time possible to walk in and save Fabrisse from this cursed exchange. “Kestovar. It is past curfew.”

Severa bent to retrieve her things, which amounted to precisely nothing except the faint shimmer of her completed spell still fading in the air. She straightened, smoothing an already-perfect sleeve.

“Good evening, Kestovar,” she said with polite finality before turning toward the newcomer. “Professor.”

“Miss Montreal.” Kaldrin’s expression softened into the kind of smile reserved for famous family names. “I see you’ve been hard at work.”

“Adequately,” Severa replied, as though they both knew the night’s efforts could be measured in finer gradations than ‘hard.’

Fabrisse, before he could think better of it, blurted, “Are you walking home alone?”

She paused , looking back at him as if weighing whether the question was concern or condescension. “Yes. I know how to fend for myself. It’s something you should pick up too, Kestovar.”

Then she disappeared from sight.

He still hadn’t learned what she eats.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 4)

Don't worry. From next chapter of their books you'll see different contents again.

Fabrisse stepped onto the packed-sand floor of the training ring, scanning the other end for a spot as far as possible from Severa Montreal. Even at this distance, he recognized the way she carried herself: precise, controlled, a predator in repose. 

Maybe if he just carried on doing his thing in silence, she’d leave him be. Nine out of ten times, it worked.

He carried the glass bottle of water carefully, uncorked it, and let a few droplets fall onto the sand. Slipping on his Thaumaturge’s Throwmitts, he watched the water ripple slowly.

Fabrisse settled on the far side of the ring, careful to keep his distance. He raised the glass bottle slightly, watching the water inside as it lay still. He pinched his fingers, recalling the delicate water pattern underneath the surface of the bottle.

He aligned his breathing with the pulse of the water, synchronizing his intent with the natural oscillations beneath. Slowly, he wove his mental thread through the ripple, connecting his aetheric energy to the pattern like tuning a fragile instrument. Then he chanted:

“See, wait, speak.”

[Spell Cast: Ripplecall (Rank I)]

The water responded almost immediately, concentric circles blossoming in harmony with his will. The ripple vanished a couple seconds later.

A faint smile tugged at his lips as the water’s ripples held longer than before. Not perfect, but progress.

[Mastery Training: Ripplecall (Rank I)—Progress to Rank II: 2%]

Fabrisse’s faint smile faltered, replaced by a slight frown. He lowered the bottle and glanced around the empty ring, then muttered under his breath, “Why am I even doing Ripplecall?”

His fingers tapped the glass. Just because I happen to be carrying a water bottle, I get pigeonholed into casting water thaumaturgy spells?

He sighed. There isn’t any wind today. Obvious, since it’s an indoor training field. That’s good for fire and air control—less interference.

He turned around to scan the space for the stillest patch of air. His gaze caught on Severa a few steps away, cradling a quartz in her hands.

Hold on. A quartz?

Fabrisse’s eyes narrowed as he studied the quartz cradled in Severa’s hands from across the ring. Why would she be holding a stone like that here? He couldn’t say. It didn’t fit her usual demeanor to carry something so delicate.

The moment his gaze settled on the quartz, his doubts melted away, replaced by a familiar fascination.

Even from this distance, he could make out the stone’s faint translucence—hints of icy blue veins threading through a milky base. The facets caught the dim light in sharp glints, angles so precise they looked almost too perfect to be natural.

It’s definitely a quartz; no doubt there. He thought, But that pale, almost glacial hue . . . no common quartz I know matches it. Not rose quartz, nor smoky quartz. Maybe something akin to those deep-mountain glacier quartz formations—like those rare blue quartz variants found only beneath the ice sheets in the Northern Mounts?

“Do you have business with me?” Came a voice, probably from Severa.

“No,” he answered without thinking. This quartz must have formed under extreme cold, deep glaciers or permafrost layers. That’s why it’s so rare here. The climate’s all wrong for natural formation.

She started to slip the stone back into her robe, but then he added, almost absentmindedly, “That stone might release its imprint under sub-zero conditions.”

“I beg your pardon?” she frowned, turning back fully now.

His gaze remained fixed on the quartz. “It is exceedingly rare,” he said.

“Oh? Is that so?” Severa said as her frown turned into an intrigued furrow of her brows. “Rare in what sense? That I happen to have it, or that you know something useful?” Her words lodged somewhere between incredulity and reluctant intrigue.

“Both,” Kestovar replied. “It’s a glacial imprint quartz. It holds a resonance until the right thermal threshold releases it.”

“Does it actually have a name?” Severa asked.

“I don’t know. I know it’s a quartz, but this type is so rare I don’t know if anyone has classified it.”

“You supposedly spend all your time looking at quartz to not be able to name them.” 

Fabrisse’s lips twitched. Do you know how much it goes into classifying a quartz? You have to start with precise measurements of refractive indices—sometimes down to the thousandth decimal—then map lattice irregularities through internal diffraction or spectrographic analysis. Not to mention identifying any trace aetheric saturations that might skew physical properties. And that’s before even touching on growth conditions, trace element content, or microfracture patterns. Plus, many rare types don’t even have formal taxonomy because the process requires collaboration between geologists, thaumaturges, and historians—and it can take years to confirm if a specimen is truly unique or just a regional variation. It’s not something you just slap a name on because it ‘looks cool.’

“I can still determine its refractive index, map its lattice irregularities, and test for residual aetheric saturation without knowing its formal designation,” he finally responded. “Classification is just nomenclature.”

“Though I suppose you don’t have time,” Severa remarked.

Kestovar glanced toward the glass bottle at his side, the liquid inside catching what little light remained. Then he winced.

Ah. I must get back to my studies. No time to waste debating nomenclature when there are practical calibrations to finalize.

“Why are you even learning water thaumaturgy?” Severa asked, tipping her chin toward the bottle. “Isn’t the Fire Final Test next month?”

He hesitated. “Well . . .” His eyes dropped briefly. “I have a water bottle.”

She stared at him for a second. She must have thought that answer was ridiculous. It sounded ridiculous even to him.

She said, “I know of this one spell that would not disappoint the examiners, if you’re willing to stop wasting your time thinking about water thaumaturgy and focus on something actually relevant.”

It was his turn to stare at her. Severa? Helping? This is just going to be like last time she tries to correct my air casting all over again. She’ll just find every chance possible to belittle me and make the experience as uncomfortable as possible for minimal gain.

He held the stare for several seconds before muttering, “What’s in it for you?”

“Ah. You are sharp today, Kestovar,” Severa said, allowing herself the faintest curl of a smile. “Of course, I’m offering for you to help me crack the stone’s hidden imprint. I could do it myself, naturally, but it’s far more efficient to let someone who already knows their . . .  thing handle it.”

Since when is she interested in rocks? That particular one might be most interesting, but practically, most rocks are . . . just rocks. Many thaumaturges can’t extract enough aetheric resonance from them to ever justify wasting time on them.

Kestovar’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You must know a few geologists who would surely know a thing or two,” he said.

“I suppose I could extend the opportunity to you,” she said lightly, as though granting him permission to reach for the last tart on the tray. “Helping a fellow student does reflect well on my record. And if your work is thorough, I might even mention you to someone who is in need of this type of work.”

Fabrisse’s eyes narrowed slightly as he listened. Despite the familiar edge in Severa’s voice, the offer intrigued him. Helping her with the quartz he was interested in and getting help to pass his Fire Thaumaturgy test? It was almost . . . too good to be true.

Why does she have to phrase her sentences for maximum annoyance—

Quest Received: “Fire and Stone Accord”

Objective: Secure Severa Montreal’s aid to pass the Fire Thaumaturgy Final Unit.

Reward: +400 EXP, +3 FOR, +3 EMO, +3 STR, +3 Mastery Points (Fire Affinity registered upon passing).

[SYSTEM NOTE: Rewards scale with difficulty of quest. Proceed with caution.]

Would you like to accept the quest?

[Yes] [No] [Remind Me Later]

This isn’t even a sidequest. It’s a main quest. And why would I gain EMO and STR from getting her help?

Fabrisse stared at the quest window, then at Severa, who was watching him expectantly with those bloody eyes of hers as she tilted her head.

I don’t want to be near her. But this is too good to pass up . . . 

He accepted. Then he turned to Severa, “I’ll do it. But only if you meet my condition.”

“Oh?” Severa arched an eyebrow. “And what condition could possibly be worth your geological expertise?”

“You not only have to teach me a new spell,” he said evenly, “you also have to help me pass my Fire Thaumaturgy test.”

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 4)

The last chapters are now labelled 2 & 3.

“Oh? Is that so?” Severa said. “Rare in what sense? That I happen to have it, or that you know something useful?” Her words lodged somewhere between incredulity and reluctant intrigue.

“Both,” Kestovar replied, without the faintest trace of irony. “It’s a glacial imprint quartz. It holds a resonance until the right thermal threshold releases it.”

He’s helping. Don’t be mean to him, Severa reminded herself. Why would a glacial quartz be found in a temperate region-locked dungeon, she wondered. Maybe it hadn’t naturally been in there.

“Does it actually have a name?” Severa asked.

“I don’t know. I know it’s a quartz, but this type is so rare I don’t know if anyone has classified it.”

“You supposedly spend all your time looking at quartz to not be able to name them,” Severa folded her arms and lifted her chin, then thought to herself whether that line qualified as mean-spirited. It wasn’t. She was just stating facts.

Kestovar’s brow creased—barely, but enough for her to notice. “I can still determine its refractive index, map its lattice irregularities, and test for residual aetheric saturation without knowing its formal designation,” he said. “Classification is just nomenclature.”

“Though I suppose you don’t have time,” Severa remarked.

Kestovar glanced toward the glass bottle at his side, the liquid inside catching what little light remained. He didn’t comment, but she caught the faint wince that passed over his expression, gone almost as soon as it appeared.

Severa followed his glance, filing it away. Maybe if I help him with whatever he’s struggling with, he’ll have time to spare on dissecting this quartz. He seemed interested in it, after all.

“Why are you even learning water thaumaturgy?” Severa asked, tipping her chin toward the bottle. “Isn’t the Fire Final Test next month?”

He hesitated. “Well . . .” His eyes dropped briefly. “I have a water bottle.”

She stared at him, unsure if he was being serious or if this was his way of making fun of her.

She said, “I know of this one spell that would not disappoint the examiners, if you’re willing to stop wasting your time thinking about water thaumaturgy and focus on something actually relevant.”

It was his turn to stare at him. He held the stare for several seconds before muttering, “What’s in it for you?”

“Ah. You are sharp today, Kestovar,” Severa said, allowing herself the faintest curl of a smile. “Of course, I’m offering for you to help me crack the stone’s hidden imprint. I could do it myself, naturally, but it’s far more efficient to let someone who already knows their . . .  thing handle it.”

Kestovar’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You must know a few geologists who would surely know a thing or two,” he said.

She did. Or rather, she was supposed to. The ones she knew are really the ones her father knew—or the ones Headmaster Draeth knew. Involving either with a potential artifact was the sort of bad idea that tended to stay bad.

“I suppose I could extend the opportunity to you,” she said lightly, as though granting him permission to reach for the last tart on the tray. “Helping a fellow student does reflect well on my record. And if your work is thorough, I might even mention you to someone who is in need of this type of work.”

Kestovar didn’t reply. His gaze slid past her shoulder and seemed to lose focus entirely, as though he were staring at some mirage in the sky.

Severa tilted her head, trying to read his expression. Was he actually weighing the merits of her offer? Or had he simply retreated into whatever odd mental backroom he went to when thinking too hard about rocks and bottled water?

When Kestovar’s eyes finally met Severa, he said, “I’ll do it. But only if you meet my condition.”

“Oh?” Severa arched an eyebrow. “And what condition could possibly be worth your geological expertise?”

“You not only have to teach me a new spell,” he said evenly, “you also have to help me pass my Fire Thaumaturgy test.”

Her smile thinned. “Ah, but how could I possibly guarantee that?”

“Three things,” he said, rubbing his fingers together as though he was doing mental calculations. “One: you teach me at least one spell that’s high-value for the exam; something that makes them take notice. Two: you explain exactly what the examiners want to see, not just the syllabus version. And three: you run me through a practice duel and tell me where I’m going wrong.” His other hand tapped on his satchel for some reason.

“Ah.” Strategic thinking from Kestovar was something she hadn’t expected, though perhaps she should have. She’d hoped bonding with the Eidralith had finally knocked some sense into him, and he’d certainly acquired a glint of fire over the past couple of weeks. With his eyes sharp and locked on hers, there was a focus in him that was . . . charming, in its own way.

Too bad a charming face was worth about as much as a cold pebble.

She wondered what unpolished technique might surface from him under pressure, and if he’d give her anything she hadn’t seen. 

“Very well,” her lips curled into a smile. She pinched her fingers together, and a bead of fire bloomed there, then split into a spray of tiny, spinning firewheels. They whirred around her in leisure arcs, their sparks trailing like comet tails, before spiralling back her palm with a crackle and vanishing in a wisp of smoke. “We have a deal.”

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 3)

“There’s absolutely no problem with the Varnic pose,” said Kaldrin as he demonstrated his own take on the Varnic pose for synaptic threading. “And there’s no problem with rapid, precise micro-adjustments to get your synaptic control to where it should be, either. In fact—here—watch this.”

Before Fabrisse could ask what this was, Kaldrin’s hands darted through the threading sequence, each finger flick and wrist turn snapping into place with surgical precision. “It’s all about cadence,” he said, tapping a small brass timer at his belt. “You hit your release exactly when the tick changes. Not before; not after.”

The timer gave a crisp chick sound. Kaldrin’s fingers splayed—thread released in a clean, invisible snap—then he reset in the same breath. At the second chick, a scatter of golden aetheric sparks ran from his palm like startled fireflies, tracing the air before fading.

“Golden is the color of reverence,” Fabrisse said slowly. “How can you be reverent and not follow the standard form?”

Kaldrin smiled faintly. “I can believe in many things aside from the standard form.”

For someone who seemingly went way back with Lorvan, Kaldrin had already shocked Fabrisse with his approach to, well, everything. Lorvan would have swatted his knuckles for even thinking about a non-standard form, let alone using one. Every drill under him had been done strictly by the book, feet and fingers exactly where the diagrams said, no deviation allowed. Kaldrin was demonstrating to him the deviations.

“You keep this running for the whole session,” Kaldrin continued, winding the device as he restarted the motion. “Your body learns to match the beat.”

Liene, already leaning over, plucked the timer from his hand. She turned it over with a studious squint, then—without asking—started copying his movements behind him, glancing at the ticking face like she’d been doing this for years.

Kaldrin took the timer from Liene and passed it to Fabrisse. “Your turn.”

He set his Varnic stance. The chick sounded; he moved—but his fingers landed the pose a breath too early. The next tick, he overcorrected, hitting the arc just late enough to feel the aether slip past him.

[Intermediate Synaptic Threading—Progress to Understanding: 3%]

[Reward: +6 ~ +12 SYN]

He could connect with the aether now with his improved SYN, but catching it at the exact moment the timer struck was another challenge entirely. The form had to be in the precise spot and his fingers had to complete the gesture on the beat, or the aether just drifted away like water through open hands.

With a DEX of 18, Fabrisse was plenty fast—sometimes his pose landed perfectly, movements sharp and timed to the exact tick. But the instant he released, no aether responded. His body was fast enough, but his intent hadn’t quite caught up to those movements. Coordinating form, timing, and will within such a razor-thin window was harder than he’d imagined.

After a while, his movements became sluggish and he felt like sitting down and taking a break.

[Physical Fatigue—Focus Drop Doubled]

[FP: 19/34]

[SYSTEM NOTE: Please train your physical STR to avoid early fatigue. Feeling fatigue after 5 rounds of synaptic threading is substandard.]

Fabrisse sighed. With Lorvan’s focus-boosting ring on his hand, he can probably afford a few more rounds.

***

[Intermediate Synaptic Threading—Progress to Understanding: 22%]

The clock struck seven. A single session had gotten him almost one-fourth to the finish line.

On Fabrisse’s hands were two bottles of water Liene had gotten for him; one now nearly empty. They were walking side by side down the quiet east corridor, the echo of their footsteps bouncing off stone. Kaldrin stayed close behind, glancing at his watch every now and then.

“Why are we heading this way?” Liene asked, glancing at the shadowed arches ahead. “What are you looking for?”

“I’m looking for the training ground,” Fabrisse said, taking another drink. “There’s one that’s empty at this hour.”

Liene’s eyes widened. “Are you really considering training in the evening too?”

“Uh . . . yes.”

“How much time have you spent training today again?”

“Nine bells and approximately twenty four minutes,” Fabrisse answered.

She stopped, staring at him—utterly blank for once, no clever remark ready.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Fabrisse asked, frowning.

“You’re really becoming an overachiever now!” she said at last, shaking her head in disbelief.

“I’m just catching up. It’s only been two days, Liene . . .”

“Mm-hmm.” Her voice carried a teasing lilt again as she fell back into step beside him. “Just catching up. Sure. Soon you’ll be correcting my form.” She clicked her tongue. “I’d love to join you but . . . you know, I actually have to study. But make sure you get home before eight.”

“I’m sure Professor Kaldrin will remind me to.”

“I could,” Kaldrin said from behind them, “or I could pretend I did and let you learn why the curfew starts at eight.” The joke was in poor taste given everything that had happened, but none of them really minded.

They reached the tall iron gate of the east training ground, Fabrisse already picturing the open space and quiet air he’d have to himself. But when he peered through the bars, his steps slowed.

It wasn’t empty.

In the center of the field stood Severa Montreal, her stance anchored, one hand raised in a poised line. The air around her compressed into a narrow thread, and with a flick of her finger, a needle-thin lance of wind ripped across the distance, striking the bullseye on a far-off target board so hard it punched clean through the center. The target rocked on its stand. 

She was alone today, which wasn’t that surprising given that her mentor literally got arrested three days prior. Still, it was strange seeing her without any powerful adult figure standing within berating distance.

“Uh . . . The training ground is taken.” Fabrisse rubbed the back of his head.

“Taken?” Liene peered in. “There’s literally only one person there. You have half the field to yourself.”

“But it’s Montreal.”

“Come inside. What’s the worst that could happen? Her striking up a conversation?” Liene nudged him on his elbow. “I doubt you guys will ever bond over exceedingly rare rocks, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

You don’t know that she took my pebble once . . .

“I’ll be nearby.” Kaldrin nodded. He’d stay close to keep watch, of course. Even though the threat of the Void faction was over for now, one could never be too safe.

Fabrisse took a hesitant step forward, then stopped again. She’d seen them.

It was impossible not to notice when Severa was staring at you. Her eyes, deep crimson and unblinking, locked with his for a fraction of a second, the kind of gaze that felt like it could pin a person to the spot. Only a Montreal could have eyes like that—bloodied in color, sharp in gaze, and edged with something that anchored the air.

His shoulder tightened.

She looked away a moment later, already resetting her stance for another shot, as if their presence had barely registered. 

Fabrisse turned back to Liene. She studied Severa for a second then said, “Well, if you feel uncomfortable . . .”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I need to feel uncomfortable anyway.”

“What does that mean?”

“Mentor Lugano said discomfort is needed for growth.”

“You’re not supposed to take that literally. But he’s right! Just keep on practicing and don’t care about her.”

Fabrisse nodded. He gave Liene and Kaldrin a brief wave, and they departed.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 2)

“You know you have to pass Basic Thaumaturgy II before registering for any new elective, right?” Said Liene as she stuffed Fabrisse’s face with a slice of pie.

The familiar scent of cinnamon and baked merryberry curled around them as Fabrisse, Liene, and Tommaso settled onto the worn wooden bench outside the little pie shop they’d claimed as their unofficial meeting spot. 

Fabrisse bit into the pie, the sweet filling distracting him for a moment as he chewed. He already knew the rule. He’d tried to push his limits, juggling Wind Thaumaturgy II, Fire Thaumaturgy II, Basic Thaumaturgy II, and Synaptic Control I—all capped at four electives per year. None of those courses were wrapping up anytime soon, except Basic Thaumaturgy II, which was the one he was retaking after failing just two months ago.

Tommaso grinned beside him, swirling the last dregs of his mulberry cider in the glass. “Maybe this time, Fabri, you’ll actually pass,” he said with a playful nudge.

Fabrisse gulped, swallowing a piece of pie in the process. “I have to,” he muttered. “Otherwise, I’m stuck.”

Liene tilted her head. “Well, you could always apply for Accelerated Proficiency Assessment. If you improve your synaptic clarity enough, maybe you can ace the test for Syn Control I.”

Accelerated Proficiency Assessment was basically a way to test out of courses one already knows the fundamentals for. Veliane Veist did it last term, skipped half her classes just by acing those exams.

Tommaso raised an eyebrow. “But ah! Can he hold a flame for more than five seconds? Might be hard to cut corners if he can’t.”

“I think I can do Syn Control I,” Fabrisse exhaled.

The final test for Synaptic Control I consisted of two parts. First, you need to demonstrate solid Synaptic Threading techniques—basically how well you can weave your mental focus into aetheric currents. Second, you pick from a set of ten basic, Rank I skills—fire, water, earth, and air elements all included—and you have to cast five of them with good control and timing. The examiner scores you on how precise and fluid your spellcasting is, especially how well your timing aligns with the synaptic threading.

Two months ago, the idea of a test that tested you on more than one affinity had felt like a looming mountain. But now . . . now he actually felt something else. Confidence. He wasn’t sure he’d ace it yet, but he knew he could improve his synaptic clarity enough to get there before time ran out.

Tommaso elbowed Fabrisse lightly. “Well, if you need help with fire, dude, I’m your guy.”

Fabrisse raised an eyebrow. “You’re leaving in three days.”

“Which means you get three days of free tutoring,” Tommaso said. “I usually charge 200 Kohns per lesson, you know. And no refunds. Though I’d very much prefer our last day here is spent on having fun and not studying.”

“I can’t afford fun right now,” Fabrisse slightly winced.

“Even if it’s leaf hunting?” Liene chimed in. “You know, like you promised?”

My schedule’s jam-packed. Between the four subjects and his job at the library, there’s barely room for anything else. I haven’t even been able to visit the Wing of Stratal Studies. 

But . . . he did promise Liene he’d go leaf hunting. 

Maybe we can manage it this afternoon, after four, once my fire class is done. 

As much as he hated fire thaumaturgy, he couldn’t afford to skip any more important lessons. 

“So . . . after four?” Liene tilted her head until her peering directly aligned with his line of sight.

“You remember my schedule?”

“Of course! I’d be a bad friend otherwise.”

“That makes me a bad friend then,” Tommaso coughed before chugging down his cider.

“That’s nothing new! You’ve always been a bad influence!” Liene reached over Fabrisse’s shoulder to try and clap Tommaso on his shoulder, but her arm wasn’t long enough.

“Being good ain’t fun.” Tommaso shrugged.

“But leaf poetry is,” Liene grinned at him before widening her grin as she turned to Fabrisse. “So . . . four?”

***

Leaf poetry was not that fun.

It wasn’t even poetry, not in the sense that it had to rhyme or have a point. From what Fabrisse could tell, it was just Liene crouching under the ventrafig tree again, scribbling incomprehensible phrases onto leaves like she was preparing an eccentric ransom note.

He followed a few steps behind her, watching as she plucked a fresh batch from the ground, brushing each clean with her sleeve before setting them in a neat pile. Today’s ink was a pale blue that looked exactly like diluted laundry soap.

She dipped her brush, wrote something quick and looping, and set the leaf aside.

He leaned forward. It read:

the clouds eat
the shape of our certainty

He stared at it. He turned the leaf sideways to see if it made more sense that way. It did not.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“It means,” she said, not looking up, “whatever you feel when you read it. Isn’t that wonderful?”

By the time she’d finished five more leaves (“dust remembers / the weight of our footsteps” being the most nonsensical), Fabrisse was starting to suspect that leaf poetry wasn’t about the poetry at all. It was about creating a situation in which he was forced to stand around, baffled, while she quietly enjoyed herself.

And she was enjoying herself. He could tell by the tiny way her mouth twitched every time he frowned at a new one.

“Can I write one?” he asked finally.

“Of course.” She handed him a blank leaf and the brush.

He hesitated only a second before writing:

this is a leaf
the end

She took it from him, examined it with mock reverence, and placed it gently in her ‘finished’ pile. “Perfect,” she said. “Brutal minimalism. Very avant-garde.”

He sighed. Come to think of it, besides getting into hijinks, their interests were not that similar. No matter how accommodating Liene was about his rock obsessions, she wasn’t really into them. Fabrisse doubted she could name more than five common quartz without guessing.

She had moved on to a new leaf, and her voice had fallen into that gentle hum she got when working, almost like she was performing a private ritual.

He let his eyes wander to the gravel at his feet. He should be in the library right now, reviewing synaptic clarity drills. Or in the courtyard, running through elemental cycling. His boot scraped against the dirt. Packed soil and shallow roots stood beneath—good enough. He let out a slow breath, clearing the noise of Liene’s brushstrokes from his head.

[Spell Cast: Steadroot (Rank I — Basic Earth Anchor)]

The stillness entered him first. Thin lines of pressure ran downward, knitting with the stubborn lattice of dirt and stone until the ground beneath him. He wouldn’t be visibly able to see how still he’d made the ground unless something else was trying to move it, but he could feel his aether leaving his fingertip as he cast the spell.

[Mastery Training: Steadroot (Rank I)—Progress to Rank II: 3%]

The familiar text slid into his peripheral vision.

Quest Available: Practice Makes Perfect

Objective: Repeat mastery training of a Rank I spell until it reaches Rank II.

Reward: +1 FOR, +3 Mastery Points (affinity register upon spell reaching Rank II), +75 EXP

[SYSTEM NOTE: The ground can’t complain, so you can do this as much as you like.]

He stared at the last line for a second too long. The system’s sense of humor was starting to worry him.

Still, it only made him more focused. If it wanted him to grind the same spell until it leveled up, fine. He’d already resigned himself to spending an absurd amount of his life standing on dirt for incremental benefits.

Or maybe . . . not now. Not Earth Thaumaturgy.

Menus folded out in crisp golden lines. His mind jumped immediately to fire and air skills—those were the units he was studying right now. If he could rank one of them up before the term’s final assessments, the points might tip his grades just enough.

I need to distribute my attribute points first, though.

This was a no-brainer: 3 points in RES.

And maybe . . . he should finally get serious about Basic Combustion Funnel. In a flame thaumaturgy assessment, it was just showy enough to leave a good impression without setting anything (important) on fire.

Someone’s silhouette had already framed in the curl of the Eidralith’s glyph he’d idly left hovering. Someone that looked very much like Liene.

Fabrisse cut the connection, and the gold lines dissolved into the air. It was Liene.

Liene stood there, hands planted on her hips, eyebrows arched in exaggerated disapproval. “Really in your prodigy era now right, Fabri?” she squinted at him, “Careful, or next thing I know you’ll be racing for the leaderboard with the rest of the overachievers.”

She kept her smile light. He’d seen that smile before, more times than he could count. It was the one she wore right before speaking, only for the words to turn out small and unimportant. The pattern had become so familiar now that he could almost predict the pause before it.

Professor Kaldrin’s voice cut through the courtyard, “Fabrisse!” The tall figure strode toward him with purposeful steps. “You scheduled another practice session with me at five and a half. Don’t be late this time. And good afternoon, Miss Lugano.”

Liene stepped back. “You should get back to your studies,” she said, the grin she wore not quite reaching her eyes. “Seems like your head’s already elsewhere.”

Before he could reply, she pulled one of the freshly inked leaves from her finished pile and held it out. The pale blue words were simple:

you can’t pour from an empty cup

“Here,” she said, pressing it into his palm. “This one’s easy to get.”

Fabrisse glanced from the leaf to her face. “You could come along,” he said, not wanting her to think he was brushing her off. “Kaldrin’s fine with spectators.”

She hesitated. He knew she had restorative theory tests coming up.

“Well,” she said after a beat, tucking her brush behind her ear, “I can always find some more free time.”

Added this to Severa's second chapter

Thought it was kinda funny.

Severa’s first impression of Kestovar had been different. Even now, he carried an almost effeminate kind of charm about him, with an intensely focused gaze that made her think he’d be a different kind of person. Someone driven, someone serious. But that early assessment had disappointed her grandly. He had no interest in ever pushing boundaries, no fire for aetheric study, no real motivation beyond getting through each day.

His only passion in life was collecting quartz and inert rocks from nearby caves and riverbanks. It infuriated her just a bit more even as she saw him. One time, he had spent an entire afternoon inspecting a dull chunk of granite as if it held the secrets of the cosmos, and dared to show up an hour late while the rest of them were drilling glyphs or mastering elemental shifts. She remembered watching him, almost aghast, trying to understand what satisfaction anyone could find in such a tedious, painstaking routine.

Her eyes would almost twitch every time she caught sight of him, perched at the same spot near the riverbank, utterly absorbed in inspecting his rocks. It was maddening. No matter how often she passed by, there he was, still hunched over a pile of quartz and dull pebbles, lost in whatever slow, meticulous world he inhabited. It was the kind of obsession that made her blood boil.

One time, it pushed her right over the edge. She’d just received her practical score for Veil Thaumaturgy I—the highest anyone had ever gotten in that span, a solid 48 out of 50. But the only comment Elon ever gave her was what she should’ve done to snatch the perfect 50. Nothing about the effort, just cold, cutting criticism.

Fuming, Severa stormed out to the riverbank, seeking some quiet, some escape from the grinding weight of constant belittlement. It was a mistake, since Kestovar was there too. How he was still allowed in the Synod while she had to endure constant dismissal for falling short of perfection was nothing short of baffling.

She’d lashed out at him because it was a natural thing to do. By the end of her one-way tirade, her voice rough with frustration, Kestovar didn’t even flinch. He just looked at her, then calmly reached down and plucked a small, smooth pebble from the ground.

So she had to take it from him. She took his pebble and marched off. It was a childish thing to do, but Kestovar seemed the childish kind, so it was only fair.

Severa Book 1 - Chapter 2 & 3

The Aetherweld Silversteel gates of the Montreal estate caught the dying sunset, throwing spectral fragments across the carriageway like scattered jewels. 

The butler, Berrick, was already waiting for Severa as she stepped out of her carriage. He was a man so tall and immaculately pressed, with posture so precise it could have been measured with a ruler. That had been a requirement for Montreal house staff since her grandfather’s time—every spine straight enough to hold a ledger, every word enunciated as though for court testimony.

“Miss Montreal,” Berrick intoned, inclining just enough to signal deference without risk of wrinkling his collar. “Your father is in the east drawing room. Master Forsing arrived this morning.”

Her heel caught on the gravel for a half a second, not from surprise—she had known before Berrick spoke—but from the sudden rush of heat in her jaw. Her eyes had caught a sleek black roadster sat gleaming, the sigil of the Magisterial Bureau of Aetheric Law embossed on its side panel.

The last she’d heard, her older brother had been sworn in as the youngest ever Under-Clerk to the Council of Aetheric Law—a role that was one rung below a full Council Seat and already gave him a voice in drafting policy. And of course, he’d been everywhere since then: in the papers, in speeches, standing behind the High Legates like he’d been born there.

Severa mounted the marble steps without hurry, allowing her breathing to even. The estate doors opened before she reached them, and a pair of liveried footmen stepped aside with the silent precision of clockwork gears. Inside, the central hall had been transformed—her father’s latest obsession with presentation made manifest.

Along the polished length of the corridor, inventions had been staged as though for an exhibition: a self-writing ledger whose ink gleamed with mnemonic glyphs, a hovering globe of shifting terrain mapping the leyline topographies of five continents, a perpetual tea service that replenished cups at precisely three-minute intervals. Some bore discreet brass placards reading Property of the Department of Thaumaturgic Standards—a delegation from the Bureau’s research arm, no doubt, given the crests etched into the corner.

The east drawing room lay at the corridor’s far end.

Severa felt the familiar tightening just under her ribs; a small rebellion of muscle memory that came every time she had to face her father. It was unavoidable; the terms of her stay in the estate meant reporting to him at least once a day, and she preferred to meet that requirement quickly rather than let it loom. Best to get it over with.

The parlor doors were already open.

Magister Elon Montreal sat where he always did: center chair, not the largest in the room but the one with the best sightlines. His hands rested lightly on a thin walking rod of black gloss, and his eyes were fixed not on her but on the fire. He refused to look at people unless it was to intimidate.

Forsing Montreal was already there, seated just far enough from the hearth to give their father the unbroken center of the room. Where Elon’s presence surged like a tide, Forsing’s seemed to run quiet and deep, a current you only noticed when it shifted against you. He dressed with a young minister’s precision—cuffs square, collar straight, signet on his right hand catching the light in deliberate flashes. The silver thread at his cuffs marked him as a Deputy Adjudicator of the Order’s Inner Tribunal, a post most men twice his age would never touch. Even here, in his father’s private study, he wore it without comment.

As Severa walked in, Forsing glanced up and gave her a quick and perfectly weighted smile.

Neither man stood.

“Severa,” Elon said, as though greeting an employee. “You’ve returned on a timely week.”

“Is that so?” she replied, keeping her voice even as she crossed to one of the lower chairs. She didn’t bother with tea.

“The Committee for Legislative Harmonization pushed the Aetheric Requisition Amendments through first reading,” Forsing said, leaning slightly forward, elbows on his knees. “If they pass in full, private acquisition of Class-II artifacts will require direct Bureau licensing, and anything older than the Fourth Border Dispute will be classified Class-III by default.”

Elon tapped the tip of his walking rod once against the floor. “The stated aim is containment. The unspoken aim is consolidation.”

It means the Eidralith, and anything like it, would be locked behind enough Bureau seals to make serious research almost impossible.

Severa caught the meaning easily enough; she’d run enough retrieval missions for the Bureau to recognize a power grab when she saw one. What she didn’t follow was the elaborate chain of procedural maneuvering Forsing began laying out—which subcommittee had been quietly stacked, which Council bloc had traded favors to get the amendments this far, and which foreign delegations were whispering for exceptions.

It was like watching two master fencers circle each other in a game she’d never trained for. She caught the thrusts; she just didn’t care to play the sport. Her game was different: slipping through collapsed vaults, cracking seals older than most nations, prying relics from the dust before the Bureau ever drafted a claim form.

Forsing’s tone was almost affable. “With amendments like these, field collectors may soon find themselves . . . well, outpaced by those who know where the real decisions are made.”

It was polite enough for the room, but she heard it for what it was: You’re chasing trinkets in the mud while I’m shaping the rules that decide who even gets to touch them.

Severa’s mouth curved in something that wasn’t quite a smile. I’m not trading the fields for a desk, thank you very much.

Elon’s gaze must have caught her change. His next words were still pitched for the chamber, but the edge was for her alone. “Some of us,” he said mildly, “excel at the kind of brilliance that leaves no dirt under the nails.”

She swallowed the sting and let the jab slide. Forsing was looking at her and possibly fishing for a reaction, and she was determined to not give him the pain in her eyes. The last time she’d done so, hoping for an iota of compassion underneath those glossy eyes of his, he’d only leaned back with the faintest smirk.

How had he ended up this way? Once, he’d been the one out in the wind with her—an aspiring thaumaturge who’d taught her half the wind tricks she still used. Now, the same hands that had shaped gales were content to shuffle papers and pull strings.

Forsing leaned back slightly, as though remembering something somewhat relevant. “By the way,” he said, tone almost companionable, “is Aunt Merry still funding those . . . what do you call them . . . deep-vault excursions? I heard the Bureau’s Cultural Division is talking about packaging them for public broadcast. They can make the entire sport safer and more palatable for the mass.”

“It’s not a sport, brother,” she answered immediately before clenching her fist. That’d been a grave mistake.

He gave her a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Oh, but for the more strategically minded among us, it very much is. Once dungeon work is finally reduced to a fair-weather sport, you could be a star attraction. We can find you the right lighting and a crowd to cheer you on.”

The words slid under her skin before she could catch them. Severa stood too quickly, the legs of her chair skimming against the carpet. “I have reports to finish,” she said, too curt to be mistaken for polite.

She’d just reached the threshold when her father’s voice followed her, mild as ever but weighted enough to stop her stride for half a breath.

“A Montreal,” Elon said, “contains their emotion better than that, Severa.”

She didn’t answer, only stepped through the door and let it shut behind her with more force than she’d meant. 

Berrick was just coming down the steps from the gallery as she made for the entryway. “Having dinner alone again tonight, Miss Montreal?” He asked.

She didn’t break stride.

“Miss—?”

She was already past him, the great front doors yawning open before she touched them.

Beyond, the manicured lanes dipped toward the outer sprawl, lanterns pooling gold against stone walls and wrought-iron gates. Far off, past the veil of rooftops and orchard lines, the faint white glow of the Synod’s wards shimmered against the horizon. She set her eyes there and didn’t slow.

By the time she crossed the threshold of the Synod campus, the tightness in her chest had burned itself into irrelevance. The training rings were mostly empty at this hour, save for a few silhouettes running drills under the lanterns.

Good. She didn’t want witnesses.

Tonight she’d train until the air tore around her, until her body remembered how to move without thought, until her mind stopped replaying every word spoken in that drawing room.

Control, after all, was the only form of defiance she’d ever been allowed to keep.

She stepped onto the packed-sand floor, and then caught sight of movement at the far end of the ring. Fabrisse Kestovar. Even at this distance, she knew the way he carried himself: shoulders set but never stiff, a gait that always looked like he was on the edge of a turn. He wasn’t alone. Beside him strode a man she didn’t recognize, tall, fur-collared coat hanging open over a set of well-cut traveling clothes. The white-thread insignia at his lapel marked him as faculty—new faculty. Magnus Kaldrin, she guessed, the visiting professor from the Outer Fold.

And shadowing him on the other side was a tall, blond woman, always with the same petal tucked into her messy bun like a stubborn crown. Severa had seen her tagging along with Kestovar several times, but had never learned her name.

Why’s Kestovar here? Is he here for training?

Impossible. He never trains.

Severa’s first impression of Kestovar had been different. Even now, he carried an almost effeminate kind of charm about him, with an intensely focused gaze that made her think he’d be a different kind of person. Someone driven, someone serious. But that early assessment had disappointed her grandly. He had no interest in ever pushing boundaries, no fire for aetheric study, no real motivation beyond getting through each day.

His only passion in life was collecting quartz and inert rocks from nearby caves and riverbanks. It infuriated her just a bit more even as she saw him. One time, he had spent an entire afternoon inspecting a dull chunk of granite as if it held the secrets of the cosmos, and dared to show up an hour late while the rest of them were drilling glyphs or mastering elemental shifts. She remembered watching him, almost aghast, trying to understand what satisfaction anyone could find in such a tedious, painstaking routine.

Her eyes would almost twitch every time she caught sight of him, perched at the same spot near the riverbank, utterly absorbed in inspecting his rocks. It was maddening. No matter how often she passed by, there he was, still hunched over a pile of quartz and dull pebbles, lost in whatever slow, meticulous world he inhabited. It was the kind of obsession that made her blood boil.

One time, it pushed her right over the edge. She’d just received her practical score for Veil Thaumaturgy I—the highest anyone had ever gotten in that span, a solid 48 out of 50. But the only comment Elon ever gave her was what she should’ve done to snatch the perfect 50. Nothing about the effort, just cold, cutting criticism.

Fuming, Severa stormed out to the riverbank, seeking some quiet, some escape from the grinding weight of constant belittlement. It was a mistake, since Kestovar was there too. How he was still allowed in the Synod while she had to endure constant dismissal for falling short of perfection was nothing short of baffling.

She’d lashed out at him because it was a natural thing to do. By the end of her one-way tirade, her voice rough with frustration, Kestovar didn’t even flinch. He just looked at her, then calmly reached down and plucked a small, smooth pebble from the ground.

So she had to take it from him. She took his pebble and marched off. It was a childish thing to do, but Kestovar seemed the childish kind, so it was only fair.

Back to reality, the current Kestovar waved a brief goodbye to Magnus Kaldrin and the blond woman. Then, without a word, he turned and began walking alone toward the center of the ring.

Severa frowned, caught off guard. He rarely moved alone like this—always surrounded by someone or retreating into his usual detachment. The silence left her momentarily speechless.

He glanced over briefly, eyes meeting hers for a fraction of a second, then quietly looked away, dismissing any expectation of conversation.

In one hand, he carried a small glass bottle of water. With careful fingers, he uncorked it and let a few droplets fall onto the packed sand. Then he pulled out a pair of mitts, impossibly ugly in its orange colors, and put them on. Right afterwards, the surface of the water inside the bottle began to ripple in slow circles.

Her frown deepened. She hadn’t known Kestovar could perform water thaumaturgy now.

Doesn’t matter. What matters is my own training.

Severa shoved her hands deep into the folds of her robe, searching for the talisman she’d meticulously prepared for tonight’s training. Her fingers closed around something smooth and cool instead—an inert stone, rough-hewn and dusty. This stone was the one she’d looted from the dungeon earlier, forgotten in the rush to leave the estate.

Her eyes found Kestovar again. He still stood with his back to her, distant and quiet, the small bottle of water steady in his hand. She knew how knowledgeable he was with stones. If anyone could shed light on what she’d found in that dungeon, it would be him.

Severa pulled the stone free from her robe and held it up to the fading light. She turned it slowly in her palm, watching how the angles caught shadows.

But the thought of asking Kestovar felt absurd. For one, he’d rarely given answers worth considering. However, there were more. The memory of her own sharp words, the barbs aimed at his apathy and timidity, echoed in her mind. How many times had she unleashed her frustration on him, using him as an emotional punchbag whenever her father’s cold weight pressed too hard? He was everything she despised right now—unambitious, unresisting, a passive vessel for her anger rather than a partner in it. It frustrated her all the more that he’d never found it in him to fight back, until very recently.

A sudden awareness prickled at the back of her neck. She looked up, sensing someone’s gaze. Indeed, someone was looking.

Kestovar was watching her, though not her face. His eyes were fixed on the stone.

Severa lifted the stone a little higher. “Do you have business with me?”

“No,” he replied.

Severa thought that was it and was about to slip the stone back into her robe when he added quietly, “That stone might release its imprint under sub-zero conditions.”

“I beg your pardon?” she furrowed her brow.

Kestovar’s gaze remained steady. “It is exceedingly rare,” he said.

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 1)

The water rippled.

Fabrisse stared at the ripples for a second too long, just to be sure it was him who’d done it. The ashwood shaft of the Tideshift Conduit was a little too long for comfort, so that when he’d turned to check the he’d turned to check the surface of the small training bucket Lorvan had set out, he’d accidentally swung the staff around like a menacing weather vane.

The rest of him looked like a walking supply closet: padded mitts up to the wrist; the Concord of the Fifth Line snug around his right hand; three thumb-sized Traniv quartz clinking somewhere in the inner folds of his robe like badly hidden contraband. And, just behind him, Liene held the overflow—spare teacup, treatment balm, apology parchment—in a careful bundle like she was guarding unstable alchemy.

The Eidralith’s confirmation came a second too late.

[Spell Cast: Ripplecall (Rank I)]

Ripplecall, or otherwise known as Minor Surface Perturbation, was the first spell he’d learned after raising his Water Thaumaturgy Affinity to Below-Average. With the staff in hand, he could see and isolate the hidden pattern the way a stonecutter might follow the grain. Beneath the bright scatter of sunlight on the water lay a slower, more deliberate geometry: lazy eddies turning under the surface film, the faint inward tug where the bucket’s rim broke the rhythm, the almost imperceptible lag between each ripple’s rise and collapse.

“Good job,” Lorvan told him from behind. “See it often enough, and you’ll internalize the movement.” 

He checked out the new skill he’d learned one last time.

Skill: Ripplecall (Rank I — Basic Water Influence)

Type: Surface Wave Manipulation (Non-penetrative / Emotion-tuned)

Status: Stabilized | Average Accuracy Variance: ±9.4%

Aetheric Reaction Equation: 50% Pattern Recognition + 35% Spellcasting Timing + 15% Mnemonic: ‘See, Wait, Speak.’

Base Effect: Produces concentric surface ripples from a chosen point on an existing body of water; amplifies and prolongs naturally-occurring surface oscillations.

Casting Window / Charge: 0.8 s base charge (fast tap routine) + 0.1 s for each RES.

Cooldown: 2.0 s (short teachable cadence).

Casting Requirement: SYN ≥ 5

He had no idea how and when this spell would ever be useful, but maybe the idea wasn’t for it to be practical. It was for him to learn exactly where to channel his intent.

Lorvan glanced at his glyphwatch as its faint runes ticked away in a slow spiral.

“The session’s over. Go have lunch. Rolen wants to see you early.”

“Oh!” Liene piped up, straightening as if she’d just been offered front-row seats to a lightning duel. “Can I come too? Rolen is my least-unfavorite Archmagus.”

Lorvan didn’t even bother looking up. “The Archmagus specifically asked for Kestovar’s audience alone.”

Liene’s shoulders sank, the corners of her mouth folding in. Without a word, she handed the chipped teacup back to Fabrisse, making sure the handle was turned the wrong way as a token of her disapproval.

Fabrisse waited for another second before asking, “Can I also have my parchment back?”

“No,” Liene said, hugging it to her chest. “I want to see what you write in it.”

He held out his hand.

She let out a sigh loud enough to suggest lifelong betrayal. “Fine,” she said, pressing it into his palm. “But only because I’ve decided this will look more dignified in front of witnesses.”

He didn’t point out that there were no witnesses, and that she’d always been going to give it back anyway.

***

The flame held.

It trembled for half a heartbeat—threatening to gutter out or flare wild—before settling into a perfect, steady tongue of orange, balanced exactly where Fabrisse willed it to be. Fabrisse smiled, taking in the air that smelled faintly of resin and hot iron, the aftertaste of Rolen’s training chamber.

[Spell Cast: Embertrace (Rank I — Basic Fire Control)]

Embertrace, as Rolen had explained for the ninth and final time, was not about making fire—it was about keeping it exactly where it needed to be, no more, no less. Fabrisse could feel the heat anchored to a pinpoint in the air, the way a bead of candle wax clings to a wick. He eased the ashwood stylus back a fraction, letting the flame follow without smearing into sparks, the heat radiating no farther than the space of a clenched fist.

“Finally,” Rolen murmured from somewhere beyond the edge of the light. “You stopped wrestling it. Still with your mitts on, but it’s better casting successfully with aid than unsuccessfully without aid.”

It wasn’t only that he had his mitt on, but also Rolen’s Lodestone and the three Trinav quartz inside his robe that otherwise wouldn’t have worked without Celestial Hoarding. Still, progress was progress.

[Fire Affinity: Below-Average → Average]

Spell Profile — Embertrace (Rank I — Basic Fire Control)

• Type: Fire Thaumaturgy, Micro-Stability
  
  

• Primary Use: Maintain aetheric flame within a fixed spatial locus (±3 cm drift tolerance)
  
  

• Difficulty: Low (requires precision, not power)
  
  

• Duration: 8s + 1s per RES after 5
  
  

• Core Factors: 50% Casting Timing + 25% Sequencing Dexterity + 15% Mnemonic: ‘Pin, Don’t Pour’ + 10% Emotional Channeling

• Casting Requirement: SYN ≥ 9

He’d channeled joy, and it’d felt like a breeze. Speaking of breeze, since Rolen had been eager to improve his handling of fire immediately, Kaldrin’s Wind practice had been scheduled for the following morning, which meant Draeth’s private session had to be delayed until the afternoon. It was a messy situation.

Rolen stepped closer, the reflection of the flame dancing in his eyes. “For the record,” he added, almost offhand, “your Embertrace looks steadier than mine did the first time I cast it.”

Fabrisse wasn’t sure if that was encouragement or provocation, but he let the warmth of it settle beside the flame.

***

The air stirred.

At first it was nothing; only the tiny prickle of motion against Fabrisse’s cheek. Then the sensation expanded, curling around him in a narrow, deliberate spiral. A dust mote caught the light, spinning once before drifting past his nose, proof that the current was his doing and not some errant draft from the training hall’s cracked window.

Kaldrin had positioned him dead center on the chalk-marked circle, away from doors, vents, or even a breathing audience. Fabrisse only had access to still air on all sides, so still that the scrape of his own sleeve seemed deafening. 

“The instructants should’ve gotten you to do this,” Kaldrin said. “But it’s near impossible to extend this kind of setup in a class of thirty.”

The brass-fitted Vortice Rod in his hands (that Kaldrin had lent him) was heavier than it looked, and short enough to force him to keep his movements tight, almost stingy, lest the tip break the imaginary boundary of the circle.

The rest of him was still kitted out like a walking supply chest: padded mitts, Concord snug over his right hand, and a new length of wind-tuned copper wire looped three times around his belt like a suspiciously shiny leash. Kaldrin had only glanced at it once, muttered “acceptable,” and gone back to his own preparations.

[Spell Cast: Whirlweave (Rank I — Basic Air Control)]

Whirlweave, the introductory spell in Kaldrin’s curriculum, was about teaching the caster to create motion where there was none—a seed of wind coaxed from perfectly still air. Fabrisse could feel it now, a thread of moving pressure between his palms, its path neither wild nor yet fully obedient, like the first loops of twine in a knot that had not been tightened. He shifted his grip, and the current shifted with him, brushing past his left temple before closing in again to circle his torso.

“Don’t reach for speed,” Kaldrin warned from across the room, voice like gravel dragged across slate. “Reach for continuity. Fast air is easy to make. Controlled air will actually obey you.”

It was a far cry from Ripplecall’s patterned water or Embertrace’s anchored fire—this had no clear edge, no fixed shape, only the ghost of a boundary defined by his intent. But it was his.

Spell Profile — Whirlweave (Rank I — Basic Air Control)

Type: Air Thaumaturgy, Localized Current Generation

Description: Create a stable wind current within a 1 m radius from caster’s locus (±5° directional tolerance); speed adjustable between 0.5–1.5 m/s at Rank I.

Duration: 6 s + 1.2 s per RES after 4

Wind Speed: 1.5 m/s (gentle breeze) + 0.4 m/s per RES after 10

Aetheric Reaction Equation: 40% Continuity Shaping + 30% Spatial Awareness + 20% Mnemonic: Breathe, Shape, Guide + 10% Emotional Neutrality

Casting Requirement: SYN ≥ 7

Kaldrin watched the faint spiral sway above Fabrisse’s head, his expression unreadable. “Adequate for a first try,” he said after a moment. Then, almost as an afterthought: “Straighter than mine was, the first time I called wind from still air.”

Fabrisse wasn’t sure if that counted as praise, or he would’ve received too many praises over the last two days, but he decided to keep the current going for another second—long enough to convince himself it had been.

***

The ground held.

It pressed back against him—not soft like sand or brittle like shale, but firm in a way that made the bones of his stance feel truer. The pull of gravity thickened, each breath settling him deeper into the circle Draeth had marked out on the flagstones.

Draeth hadn’t allowed mitts, quartz, or even the chipped teacup to remain inside his robes. ‘Your hands,’ he’d said, ‘and the ground you stand on. That’s all you need.’ The headmaster’s voice was the sort that refused argument by existing.

[Spell Cast: Steadroot (Rank I — Basic Earth Anchor)]

Steadroot, the first earth spell Fabrisse had ever cast, didn’t so much move the element as let it move into him: its weight, its stillness, the quiet surety of stone under strain. Threads of packed soil and fractured bedrock interlocked with his will, holding his position as if the floor itself had decided to keep him.

“You’ve got good earth affinity and not one earth spell to show for it,” Draeth said, his shadow cutting across the chalk circle. “You should’ve been able to do this much three years ago.” His tone left no gap for thanks, pride, or relief to seep in.

It wasn’t a pleasant session, but the most important thing was that Fabrisse had seen progress. This marked the fourth basic element.

Spell Profile — Steadroot (Rank I — Basic Earth Control)

Type: Earth Thaumaturgy, Ground Stabilization

Description: Anchor a fixed area of terrain (up to 1.2 m radius) against external force or displacement. The effect is strongest on soil and gravel; reduced efficiency on stone or metal surfaces.

Duration: 8 s + 1.5 s per RES after 5

Stability Increase: Equivalent to +40% mass density for anchored area, +8% per RES after 8

Casting Requirement: SYN ≥ 6

The pressure eased when Fabrisse released the spell, but a faint echo of that rootedness lingered in his calves, as though the ground had learned him.

His new chapter started strong.

Advanced Thaumaturgy (Severa Book 1) - Chapter 1

No breaks for me after all :) I like writing too much. I think this is a quality introduction to Severa's book. Making it funny might be a challenge.

The wyvern fell from the sky with a burning sigil seared into its chest.

It struck the earth like a meteor: with talons curled, wings convulsing, and a scream still lodged in its throat. The sigil ignited on impact, and in the breath between heartbeats, the entire creature combusted. A cone of flame surged skyward, crimson and unnatural, painting the cliffs in strobing shadows before vanishing into nothing but scorched bones.

Severa Montreal landed in a crouch. Her ears rang from the aether recoil, and she let out a controlled breath. 

She stood at the rim of the Calderic Expanse, a collapsed caldera older than most written histories, its floor veined with cooled lava flows and ancient warding channels. Lightning forked silently in the far clouds, hinting at residual aetheric instability. Somewhere beneath stone arches, behind sigil-locked doors and dormant guardian wards would lay the loots she had come for.

She held the posture for a moment. Her internal ledger was already running: trajectory acceptable, sigil timing sharp, but she’d overcommitted her emotion: rage—as made evident from the crimson color of her flame. She could feel the emotion draining her aether pool from the sluggish throb behind her eyes.

Crimson again. Obvious rage overload. Merry would notice.

Controlling one’s emotion was one of the three pillars of thaumaturgy: emotion + intent + technique = a perfect spell. Any other time, Severa could summon emotion like flipping through a well-ordered index: awe for clarity, terror for precision, grief for depth. Whatever the spell demanded, she’d provide it; sterile, strategic, precise.

But not today.

What’s wrong with me? She gritted her teeth. A Montreal doesn’t lose her head.

“Montreal,” a woman’s voice came from behind her. Her supervisor for today’s dungeon delve, Magus Prefect Merriah ‘Merry’ Halveth.

Severa’s moment of introspection shattered. She looked up.

The second wyvern came in low, hugging the thermals rising off the caldera’s fractured edge. Smaller than the first one but faster, it skimmed just above the basalt outcrops, eyes catching the dying light with a glint of uncanny purpose. 

Severa rose, brushing dust from her gloves with the same motion she used to unlock the next sigil string across her left palm. Her breath hitched, then leveled. 

But her heart didn’t answer.

Instead, what surged forward was the raw, splintering burn of inadequacy—that shriveling, heatless cousin to shame.

Her sigil lines burned to life, flaring in disciplined arcs across her forearm and left palm. Rank VI Fire Spell: Infernal Pinion.

In theory, the cast was straightforward. At this level, any spell wasn’t mechanics, but filtration. Intent moved first: aether latching onto emotion like vapor seeking a container. And that container had to be exact.

The container was exact; but once again, her rage was overbearing. 

She clamped down on the rage with the same discipline she’d learned since she turned five: naming it, segmenting it, boxing it away.

And there it was, at the root. Her father’s voice, crisp as crystal: ‘A Montreal doesn’t cheat. You’ll do well to remember that.’

But I did not cheat. Everything I earned, I earned with my own hands.

The sigil left her hands.

Infernal Pinion surged from her outstretched palm in a broad, clawed arc of compressed flame. The spell struck true: the wyvern’s left wing caught the brunt of it, and fire bloomed like fungal rot across its membrane. Exactly as she’d calculated. This strain—Ravener-class, salt-skinned, membrane-thin—was notoriously vulnerable to thermal rupture. Even a moderate ignition would destabilize its flight equilibrium.

The beast howled. Its feathers and skin peeled back in charred strips.

That should’ve been the kill.

And it would have been, if she’d held the casting two seconds longer.

Her flame had collapsed early. The emotional overload—still tainted with that wild thread of rage—had burned through her internal mana pool (aether) and shortened the spell’s duration.

“Low on pool? Finish with marrow-snap. Base of the neck.” Merriah’s voice sliced through the aether haze.

Severa hated when Merriah spoke. It meant she’d done something wrong.

“Understood,” Severa said through clenched teeth.

Her reservoir throbbed, hollow. She dashed forward, boots skidding over fractured basalt as the wyvern thrashed weakly against the slope.

One of its wings was half-torn and its breath stuttered in its throat, but the creature was not yet dead. Her fingers curled into the sigil for Marrow-Snap—a Rank III Bone Thaumaturgy finisher, inelegant but brutally efficient. She didn’t need power.

The sigil flashed once, silver-white, as she drove it into the charred ridge where the neck met spine.

The wyvern spasmed once. Then it dropped dead.

Severa stepped back, chest heaving, heat rising up her throat. Aether sparked behind her eyes, possibly from residual overcast, or rage, or both. She flexed one hand, as if testing for tremors. None. But her jaw still ached from the clench.

A glint of black bone jutted from the carcass. She forced herself to look away. This wasn’t over.

“Efficient,” said Magus Prefect Merriah Halveth as she stepped forward, scanning the charred remains. The slope was still steaming beneath the corpse, molten veins cooling in thin threads of sable black. “But why did you drop your Pinion so soon?” The Magus Prefect’s complexion was almost translucent in the dim light—fair-skinned, almost too fair, like moon-pale ice under starlight. It was a common trait among those from the Far North, where her father had hailed—the frost-ridged icicles of Zarlund, beyond the Windcut Range.

Severa knew Halveth’s gaze was landing on her, but she didn’t meet her supervisor’s eyes. “I already know where I failed.”

“Did the Magister say something to you again?”

“The Magister didn’t say anything out of the ordinary.” Which was precisely the problem.

Nothing out of the ordinary meant the same measured, slicing dismissal barbed in civility. The same tone he used when offering lines like: ‘Still within projected benchmarks, I see. Competent, if uninspired.’

Or worse, ‘I presume the additional instructors managed to help you meet expectations, then?’ The additional instructors were those he’d brought in for her, with his own money. She should’ve refused his offer.

Severa Montreal was excellent. She’d been the best in every single class she was in at the academy. But excellence meant little to a man who measured worth by innovation. A Montreal only earned their name if they left something behind worth footnoting in a hundred dissertations. A new spellform. A reclassification of an entire school. An aetheric theorem reshaping the next generation’s curriculum.

“Severa. You’ve already decided you will succeed without him. Why care what the Magister says?” Merry was the daughter of the Magister’s aunt, which meant she bore no Montreal surname—all of the expectation with none of the recognition. Still, she was a Rank VII Fire Thaumaturge, a title reserved for field commanders and academy war-theorists alike.

Severa didn’t answer. Why, indeed. She didn’t need to be so rattled. Not when she’d cleared the entire dungeon by herself, with minimal help from Merry Halveth.

Severa approached the archway that marked the dungeon’s final chamber. The structure loomed in monolithic silence, built from black-veined stone that glowed with residual enchantment. Twin pillars flanked the entrance, both etched with age-worn sigils and bearing the faint scarring of past attempts to breach them by force. Above the lintel, a mosaic of cracked opal glinted like a fractured eye.

Severa extended her hand and drew a sigil. The spell required no emotion, only precision—a transference glyph designed to interface with the ancient ward embedded in the doorframe. A thin strand of silver tethered the active sigil to the runes carved into the stone. The dungeon itself responded, groaning as locks unwound and hinges wept vapor.

Severa Montreal loved sigils. They represent the precise, encoded form of thaumaturgy technique. Casting a sigil meant she had done it right: exactly the right amount of emotion, exactly the right moment to release it, precisely the structure she’d practiced until her muscles remembered better than her mind. A sigil didn’t care why she was angry—only that her anger was exact, her ratios correct, her timing impeccable.

The doors opened inward, revealing a cavernous antechamber draped in shadow.

“Next time, maybe I won’t even need to accompany you,” Merry commented as she stepped up beside her.

Severa arched a brow, smoothing her gloves with a meticulous tug. “Spare me the flattery, Merry. Even I am not arrogant enough to attempt a solo Tier II Dungeon Run.”

The antechamber spanned wider than expected. Residual aether hung heavy in the chamber, clinging to the walls like condensation. Torches aligning the walls responded to the aether and ignited as they crossed the threshold. Severa's skin prickled with the sudden temperature shift.

“Good preservation field,” Merry murmured, noting how the air lacked the usual rot of time-sealed crypts.

Severa paused three steps in, frowning at the faint echo.

“Hold.” She raised her hand. Severa unhooked the casting stylus from her belt loop and knelt, pressing two fingers to the stone floor. Her lips moved without sound. Glyphwork spiraled from her touch—fine lines of gold and umber that spread across the flagstones like frost.

Divinatory Veil, Rank IV Veil Thaumaturgy Glyphwork, adjusted to spot trap glyphs and hidden enchantments.

The spell took. Light flared, then stabilized, outlining the room in clean geometry. There didn’t seem to be any trap.

Not yet satisfied, Severa stood and rotated her stylus once in her grip before murmuring a second invocation. This one she spoke aloud, her voice precise:

“Fakes reveal, and truth confirms.”

She cast Thaurosight Protocol, a Rank V Veil Thaumaturgy spell.

The mnemonic wasn’t just tradition—it was a necessity, at least until Severa could control Rank V spells fully without verbal command. Many mid- to high-tier spells required more than internal focus. When a caster’s control wasn’t fully fine-tuned to a spell’s deeper structure, verbal interface with the aether became the stabilizing force. Mnemonics served as rhythmic anchors, shaping the spell’s flow and locking it into place.

“No illusion wards,” she said. Her shoulders dropped by a fraction. “Proceeding.”

Merry let out a low breath behind her. “You know, most people just toss a Reveal Orb.”

Severa didn’t respond. She was already scanning the far alcove, where faint shimmer limned a glass-encased object barely visible through the veil’s echo.

The loot was spread across raised plinths and embedded alcoves—no mimicry, no final traps, just the rewards left behind by ancient builders who never expected their dungeon to be breached.

Severa moved first. Her gaze swept across categorized artifacts, fingers brushing labels still etched in High Thaumel script.

A platinum ring set with five converging glyph-nodes glimmered under a sheath of preservation glass. She plucked it free, inspecting its runework. Ring of Synaptic Clarity. It was only a Rare-grade item, and Severa already had something of similar make in her collection, but she recognized the lattice pattern on the underside. It could be fused with her current Resonant Loop to produce a dual-affinity control ring. That would make it Epic-tier, and worthy.

Merry found a cloak next—Wyrmskin Interfold, Grade A. Elemental resistance, high durability, aesthetic enough to pass for formalwear. She twirled it once on a finger and nodded approvingly.

“Will match your field kit,” Merry said.

Severa found a trio of spell-crystals keyed to kinetic compression. She pocketed them without comment. She scanned the area a final time and couldn’t find anything else. She should’ve expected that much. The loot here was decent—respectable, even—but not exceptional. 

Severa had declined a private dungeon run invitation from Archmagus Lellian Dir, with guaranteed epic-tier loots, for this dungeon entrance she’d found herself. For this.

Her jaw tightened.

No. She straightened her spine. I will not let others hand me easy power anymore.

Merry glanced around, already slinging the cloak over one shoulder. “That’s the lot. Nothing left to sniff out. We should go before the wardline resets.”

Severa gave a terse nod. “Agreed.”

She turned to leave, then paused.

A subtle outline tugged at her attention. It was nothing bright or obvious, just an edge too perfectly drawn to be natural. The Divinatory Veil had long since settled, but the mnemonic she’d spoken must have sent a delayed pulse through the matrix. Certain wards didn’t react immediately. Some waited—hinged on timing, sequence, or the right spell pattern.

And this one had just responded.

Severa’s brow furrowed. She drew a slow breath through her nose and reached into her belt pouch, extracting a tracing slate. With a flick of her stylus, she activated a low-output detection spell called Aetheric Diagnostic Matrix, Rank VII, and passed it once over the stone.

Her spell glowed a muted milky white as a matrix formed mid-air, visualizing spellwork patterns with white aether sparks. After a few seconds, the matrix returned a flat result: no aetheric imprint, no glyph structure, no ambient mana retention. In other words, nothing.

She frowned, crouching beside it. It was a muted grey-black with faint blue flecks, like distant stars buried in soot. Inert. 

“What’s this?” she asked aloud.

Merry glanced over, shrugged. “I’m not a geomancer.”

“But—?”

“But from what I’ve seen? If it doesn’t glow, float, sing, or whisper your true name—it’s probably trash.”

Severa didn’t respond immediately. Something about the stone felt . . . wrong in its plainness. 

What if this was an artifact? she thought. One of the hidden-grade relics like the Eidralith that had reacted with Kestovar. Obviously not many artifacts in this realm could ever be supposedly as powerful as the Eidralith, but artifacts had been known for granting incomprehensible powers. So much so that even Muro Muradius—the Head of the entire Order—had openly expressed fear of them.

But then, logic returned.

No way. Not in a Tier II dungeon. Artifacts didn’t show up in places like this. The last time anyone had recorded finding a new artifact was after clearing a Tier V Dungeon, an equivalent of a room full of Legendary-grade loots. This? This was a basic expedition with good preservation fields and a couple of decent finds.

She was about to drop the stone back to the floor when Merry said, “If you’re unsure, take it with you. You hate doubt almost as much as you hate regret. This way, you dodge both.”

Severa paused, lips pressing into a thin line.

There’s no way I’m disrespecting inert stones anymore. Not after Kestovar.

Without another word, she wrapped the stone in an aether-damp cloth, tucked it into her secondary pack, and rose to her feet. The stone had no weight to it magically, but physically it was solid, and a tad too dense for its size. And it hadn’t warmed in her palm at all. Not even a little. The rest of her casting slate was warmer by comparison.

Severa turned toward the exit. The dungeon’s ambient glow had begun to falter—signs the wardline was entering its reset interval. These dungeons are directly connected to the Aetherrealm, which meant after a set interval, creatures would re-emerge across all different levels of said dungeon, so they would need to hurry before having to exert themselves fighting more aetherically-formed creatures for no good reason. The loots would not re-emerge, however, not unless they return to the first level. Aetherrealm worked in strange ways.

She shared a look with Merry, and both nodded. It was time to leave.

Short break

I’m taking a one-day break after the completion of Book I. Both Book II and Severa’s book 1 will commence after this short break. This is so I’m in the right headspace and can continue keeping up with the quality that’s been demonstrated so far 🙏

Chapter 124 & 125

Things got better and better for Fabrisse over the next three days. He’d easily gotten his rightful position as a Junior Lore Clerk after a brief interview, and aced his Basic Synaptic Control practical the day after. Min Hajin congratulated him as he entered the Wing of Stratal Studies. Even Archmagus Rolen had heard about it, and had sent him an encouraging message via private glyph upon his return. He even gained a random INT after passing the Junior Clerk interview for a second time.

All the more reasons for him to feel a bit giddy today, evident by the sky-blue glow wrapping around the Stupenstone in his hand as a blanket.

“Charge your stone with joy, Fabri,” Liene whispered.

They stood beneath a wide sky daubed with scattered clouds. The Eastern Training Field stretched out in terraces of packed soil and arcanely-dampened stone, ringed by brass poles affixed with faintly pulsing wardlines. Several training dummies stood at various distances, but Fabrisse’s assigned target—a dense, basaltic effigy shaped like a half-scale gargoyle—had been rolled out farther than usual, over ten meters downfield. Someone had chalked a white circle around its heart. Fabrisse’s replacement mentor was yet to show up. They should have been here ten minutes ago. 

Fabrisse bounced the Stupenstone lightly in his palm. It pulsed sky-blue in answer, joy humming through the quartz lattice like fizzing soda through a glass rod. He could feel the surge rising as the charge deepened, brightening in both hue and resonance. It was practically singing.

Liene leaned slightly closer, her voice soft but electric. “Your aim’s better when you don’t try so hard,” she said. “Let it feel fun.” That line from her was factually incorrect since every of his better throw had been with careful planning, but he wasn’t in the mood for pedantic corrections today.

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. Joy was easy today. Things were working. His mind wasn’t tangling itself in spirals, and nothing bad had happened in fifty hours. Even the air felt like it was on his side.

He charged the stone with joy. 

Stupenstone Fling (Rank III)—Emotion Charge: Up to 25 EMO points
 → +1.5% base power & range per EMO, capped at 1.375x multiplier
→ Required to access emotional feedback effects
→ Infused emotion alters impact visuals & aetheric pulse

Then he launched it.

→ Trajectory Curvature: Stable

→ Estimated Launch Velocity: 13.2 m/s (80% max) + 13% (Celestial Hoarding) + 5% (Stonebound Synapse) + 22.5% (EMO Boost) → 18.7 m/s

→ Accuracy Deviation: ±5.7%

→ Power: 55 N + 22.5% (EMO Boost) → 67 N

The Stupenstone arced with minimal curvature, slicing through the air in a shimmering trail of sky-blue aether.

Then came the impact.

The effigy cracked. The Stupenstone punched clean through the chalked target zone, carving a conical gouge in the basalt with a burst of force that briefly lifted dust and small pebbles in a halo around the detonation point. The stone then clattered to the ground behind the effigy and bounced once before lodging itself into the soil with a soft tunk.

[Stupenstone Sling (Rank III)—Progress to Rank IV: 3%]

Liene gave an impressed whistle.

“You punched through a mid-density effigy,” she said. “That’s not even supposed to happen unless you’re using a Tier II spell.”

Nearly 19 m/s—that was an extremely respectable speed. That speed was significantly faster than the average person could throw, and would likely result in a strong impact. He had only seen professional slingshotters in local competition fire a stone faster than that. And that was with his less than ideal handling resulting in a velocity of only 80% of the maximum possible number.

He walked toward the shattered effigy with a faint spring in his step, levitating three other stones beside him with easy, unconscious threads of Stonesway. The original Stupenstone came loose with a tug and a light dusting-off. “I think I can connect my emotion better to the spell now.” Fabrisse said, examining the groove in the effigy’s core. “I don’t think I had any trouble connecting joy earlier.”

Liene, who had followed him downfield, tilted her head slightly. “Can you try something you haven’t tried before?” she asked. “Like rage?”

He paused.

Rage.

He’d felt something before—when Severa had insulted him right before he was pushed to the ground by Cuman during Air training. But that’d largely been resolved, and he wasn’t sure he could look at that memory with the same emotion anymore. 

Then he thought of when that voidcaster had nearly erased Lorvan’s arm from existence, and that properly itched him. He imagined the way Lorvan had dropped to one knee afterward, breath hissing through his teeth like he was already adjusting to being half a mage.

That should have made him furious.

He narrowed his eyes, holding the stone steady in his hand. He focused on the pressure in his chest, trying to amplify it.

Nothing.

The Stupenstone stayed inert.

He tried again, tighter this time, summoning the image of Severa’s face. But then he realized he didn’t even hate Severa that much.

“You can stop.” Liene clapped on his shoulder. “Anger doesn’t suit you anyway. It makes you make funny faces. So have you decided on where to distribute your 3 attribute points yet?”

“I think I’ll spend them on the same old.” RES—Inner Resonance. That one attribute had been so hard to come by, and for good reasons. While all his other attributes (apart from FOR) had seen random bursts of improvements during training, RES hadn’t, and it likely never would. If his RES grew over 10, it would potentially open up a plethora of ways to handle his spells after he’d cast it.

“I know you’re capable of self-control when you want to!” Liene spoke in a voice that sounded overly proud, which made Fabrisse even more aware of the irony in that statement.

“Though I’ve got these Stone Thaumaturgy Mastery Points to spare . . .”

“I don’t think you should unlock anything now. You should wait, until, you know . . .” Liene looked around to see how careful she should be with name-dropping the headmaster. “He taught you a few skills first. See where he molds you, and you can save the Mastery points for the rest.”

“But I don’t want him to think I’m useless . . .” Fabrisse scratched his cheek. “And if I know a Tier 1 skill already, we can spend that time conjuring a higher-level spell.”

“Hey. That’s a worry for another day. Right now, you know what you should do? Have fun!” Liene walked up to him, so close she almost intruded his personal space again, and poked on his chest with a quill. “Let’s get out of here! The replacement tutor is already fifteen minutes late, which means we’re, by law, required to vacate the building and go hunt some leaves.”

From the far end of the hallway, a voice echoed toward them, “By institutional decree, Article 14-A of the Magus-Student Tutoring Curriculum Mandate, Subclause 9.2—you are required by law to study Water Thaumaturgy this morning, Wind Thaumaturgy this afternoon, Stone Thaumaturgy tomorrow at first bell, and Fire Thaumaturgy immediately after lunch.”

A robed figure emerged from behind a floating shelf-stack, consulting a parchment as though it had just spoken to him. It was Lorvan Lugano. 

With both hands.

Fabrisse froze. His brain stuttered, trying to reconcile what his eyes were telling him with the conclusion he'd already accepted: that Lorvan might never cast properly again. That he might not even teach again.

Lorvan had denied all visiting entries for the last three days. Not even Kaldrin had been able to get in. The only person allowed in was his designated healer all the way from the Outer Folds. And now here he was, delivering administrative mandates like the universe hadn’t tried to erase his dominant casting arm.

And worse—he was wearing those rings again. The ridiculous ones. One on each finger, five in total, each etched with a different elemental sigil as if to declare I can still do everything, thank you very much.

“Lorvan! You’re alright!” Liene let out a gasp so theatrical it nearly echoed. “You’re not just alright, you’re symmetrical!” She bolted forward with arms already outstretched, barreling into Lorvan with a squawk of joy that probably violated a dozen personal space conventions and three clauses of the Faculty-Student Conduct Code. She skidded to a stop beside him, narrowly avoiding a full-body collision.

Lorvan side-stepped her with ease. “Call me Mentor Lugano inside Synod grounds, please.”

Liene put her hands on her hips. “And you can call me deeply offended, but here we are. So how is your arm now?”

Fabrisse still hadn’t spoken. He was staring hard—not at Lorvan’s face, but at his left wrist. The skin there looked just a little too smooth, a little too pale. 

“The best healer in the Outer Folds lives up to her name. I will be fine,” Lorvan said. The mentor glanced at Fabrisse and narrowed his eyes.

‘How much does she know?’ His look seemed to say.

Fabrisse shrugged and very deliberately looked at a nearby effigy.

Lorvan exhaled. “Congratulations on passing your Advanced Light Invocation II with a Distinction, Miss Lugano.”

Liene blinked, startled. “Wait, you know?”

“Of course I do. I’m your mentor,” he said.

Liene puffed up like a delighted frog. “I was going to tell you! I was just—uh—waiting until you were less . . . medically ambiguous.”

Lorvan raised an eyebrow. Then, with a motion that was so casual it almost hid the significance, he slipped off the ring on his right index finger—the one with a soft golden sheen and a tiny sigil of a rising sun etched into the band—and held it out to her.

“This was meant to be a graduation gift,” he said, “but it seems I may be temporarily mortal after all. You should have it now.”

Liene went very still.

Lorvan continued, “It will sustain your Lightcasting output across longer intervals. More importantly, it’ll help you control the emotional bleed. Your resonance fluctuates too much when you're exhausted.”

Liene reached out hesitantly. “You never let anyone touch these.”

“Correct.”

“And now you’re giving one to me.”

“Correct.”

She looked back at Fabrisse with a puzzled face that looked like she wanted to ask Lorvan ten different questions right now. But ultimately, she took it with both hands, like she was afraid she’d drop it just by being too happy. “I—I’ll take care of it.”

“You’d better. That ring is older than you are.” Lorvan turned, his gaze sliding past Liene and landing directly on Fabrisse. “Kestovar.”

Fabrisse startled like someone had just tapped him in the chest. He stepped forward stiffly, trying not to look like he was thinking about the golden ring still cupped in Liene’s palms. “Yes, Mentor.”

Lorvan didn’t answer at first. Instead, he reached into the inner lining of his robes—some hidden pocket likely sewn in just for dramatic timing—and pulled out another ring.

This one was darker. Iron-banded, with what looked like four nested runes rotating slowly around a central sigil. In thaumaturgy theory, that kind of structure was used to stabilize multi-aspect aetheric channels—a way to keep access to the aether pool open without burning out one's inner lattice. But according to the system’s wording, it was simpler than that. This helped preserve Focus Points.

“I was not joking,” Lorvan said, “when I said you’d have four sessions in the next two days. Archmagus Rolen has returned. He’s reviewed your field metrics from the past few days.”

Fabrisse’s throat went dry. Of course he was not joking. He never jokes.

Lorvan continued, “He is eager to raise your elemental affinity to a standard threshold within your next session. He thinks you’re ready.”

“I—I’m still substandard—”

“Which is why,” Lorvan said, stepping forward and holding out the ring, “you’ll need this.”

Fabrisse reached out slowly and took the ring from Lorvan’s hand. It was cool against his fingers and denser than it looked. The gemstone etched into the center was a perfectly cut polychromatic spinel, rotated along its trigonal axis, with minute inclusions that gleamed like threads of oil under the surface.

That caught him.

Spinel doesn’t fracture like that unless it’s been pressure-grown under artificial flux. And those lines; those aren’t natural growth lines. Those are emotional imprints.

Lorvan modified the lattice by hand.

Item Equipped: Concord of the Fifth Line—Modified (Epic-grade Item)

Inventory Slot: 1

→ Effect: Reduces FP cost of all actions by 50%

→ Amplify the emotional effect of: Calm & Resolve by 20%

→ Status: Calibrated | Owner: Kestovar, F. (Apprentice – Field Calibrator)

That was . . . tremendously powerful. A 50% reduction to Focus Point cost wasn’t just helpful—it was absurd. He could double-cast and still have breathing room. 

“You—you’re giving me this?” Fabrisse asked.

“I’m lending it to you,” Lorvan said.

“But you don’t believe in students using enhancements.” He had to destroy the Silvian Quartz after Ganvar’s capture, too, for safety reasons, so he really didn’t have any meaningful boosts alongside his Celestial Hoarding.

“I believe in the best for my students. If that requires me to amend my approach, I’d gladly be proven wrong.”

Liene let out a scandalized wheeze.

Lorvan watched Fabrisse a moment longer, then gave a faint nod. “Your Synaptic Control retake. Twenty-one out of fifty.”

Fabrisse promptly turned into a figurative log. That was barely average. But it was his best Practical result yet, and for one impossibly weightless second, he felt—

“I expected twenty,” Lorvan added. “You exceeded it. Well done.”

Something in Fabrisse stirred; an instinctive, quiet flare of pride that made his chest puff like a balloon. 

But Lorvan was already moving on. “Now get to your assigned position. As Kaldrin will be taking over your Air Thaumaturgy training, that leaves me with Water. Now I believe you haven’t awakened your Water affinity yet?” Lorvan turned sharply to Liene, who was still beaming at her ring. “And you, Miss Lugano—”

“Oh no, what did I do—”

“—will kindly take your enthusiasm over there,” he said, pointing firmly toward the edge of the courtyard. “And use this time to review your Restorative Theory units.”

“But I just passed a test yesterday! And I just got a magic ring!”

“Does that change the date of your Restorative Theory exam?”

“. . . No.”

“Then go study. We all have our crosses to bear.”

Liene sighed and took out her book from inside her pouch. “Fine. But I’m telling the ring you were mean to me.”

Water Affinity, huh? An affinity can be built up as long as one has enough exposure and a core understanding of how the element works. If one doesn’t intuitively grasp the function of an element, they won’t be able to cast spells in that element even if their synaptic control is perfect. They won’t know where to channel their intent.

“So, Kestovar? Are we doing water thaumaturgy, or do you want to scale down your ambition and train your synaptic thread another 100 times?”

He knew the significance of learning Water Thaumaturgy. Mastery in both Water and Earth Thaumaturgy past the Second Rank would open up an immensely powerful and flexible affinity: Wood Thaumaturgy, that would in turn open up doors to at least three more affinities. It was just that . . .

“I . . . I don’t know how water works yet.”

“You have a sharper sense and control now. You will find out.” He reached behind one of the stone benches near the edge of the platform, and pulled out a long, slender staff wrapped in sealcloth. The wrapping fell away as he shook his wrist, revealing a shaft of pale, veined ashwood reinforced with a spiraled grip of pearl-lacquered resin.

Lorvan tossed it—underhand, but precise. Fabrisse caught it with a startled grunt, barely steadying the weight. He stared at the staff, hands instinctively tracing along the grain. Subtle notches lined its base: resonance markers. Ilya used something like this once.

Item Equipped: Tideshift Conduit – Ashform Pattern (Rare-Grade)

Inventory Slots: 2

→ Classification: Focus Staff | Elemental Attunement (Water)

→ Equip Condition: INT > 25 (Passed)

→ Effect: Reveals microcurrents and elemental motion in nearby bodies of water.

→ Passive: Grants +15% to INT while deciphering water patterns.

→ Status: Unbonded | Compatible with Kestovar, F.

[Inventory Used: 10/11]

I’m running out of space to store things, Mentor . . .

He made a mental note to definitely leave his backup teacup at home next time. And the parchment detailing how to say sorry. He definitely did not need that.

“It’ll show you the hidden motions and patterns in the water. There’s no excuse for failure now,” Lorvan said, already turning away. “The next few months will be crucial for your development. If you can maintain pace and pass your core subjects—Synaptic Regulation, Runic Analysis, Fire Thaumaturgy II, Water Thaumaturgy I—there may be grounds to petition the Office of Magical Allocation for continued grant support. The Synod likes to give grants to those who can control all four elements.”

Behind him, Liene was fake-reading her book with all the stealth of a boulder. She hadn’t even turned the page. Her eyes peeked just over the top, glinting with barely-concealed curiosity.

Fabrisse’s fingers tightened around the staff. His whole body felt primed, sharp. The worry he’d tried to push down for weeks—the cost of tuition, the fear of expulsion, the sleepless calculations about debt—suddenly found something to attach itself to.

He swallowed. “Then I won’t fail.”

“Good.” It was finally then that Lorvan turned around. For a brief moment, the sharpness of his gaze eased. Strands of deep bronze-black rose and fell in weightless arcs, bobbing against the air like silk caught in a slow current. He reached into the inner fold of his robe and withdrew a small, stoppered vial—glass so clear it was almost invisible, filled with a thimble’s worth of glinting water. He simply twisted the stopper free and tilted the vial forward. The water crawled out, so languid it seemed suspended in time. Each droplet stretched into the next, gliding out like molasses. The water tinged beige.

“All emotions start with calm. All pattern recognition starts with intuition. Control your aether in your stillest, and you will control your emotions in your fiercest.” As the droplets dripped in slow-motion in the air, Lorvan smiled. “Today, we’re learning Basic Thaumaturgy for the Emotionally Incompetent.”

[END OF BOOK ONE]

Chapter 123

He caught up to her as she reached the edge of the old quad path, his footsteps ragged, breath sawing in and out like torn bellows. Fabrisse nearly tripped on the last turn and had to grab a post for balance—partly from the terrain, mostly from the fact that his lungs felt like they were boiling.

Liene slowed when she heard him, but didn’t stop. Not until he stumbled again and actually wheezed, a sharp, involuntary sound like a dying teakettle. She turned halfway, arms crossed, watching him catch up the last few steps.

[Intense Fitness Training]

[STR: +1 | Current STR: 9]

“Liene . . . Can we . . . find somewhere to . . . sit down?” He put his hands on his thighs, panting.

She stared at him, not saying anything for a few seconds, then said, “There’s a bench—”

“No, Liene. This needs . . . to be private.”

Her stare got even more intense.

***

The semi-forgotten maintenance balcony halfway up the east tower looked the same as it always did: quiet, dusty, and stubbornly empty. The two old chairs were still there, sagging in opposite directions like they’d been in a conversation for years. Below, the glowvine threads shimmered in the atrium like they always did, but tonight the light felt farther away—too soft to be warm, too pretty to touch.

Liene extended one hand and reached for the railing, fingers brushing over the rusted edge as if grounding herself. With the other, she slowly spread her palm, angling it toward the atrium’s gentle light like she was trying to catch the glow of the vines in her skin. The glow pooled in her hand, casting shifting patterns across her wrist and the edge of her sleeve. She hadn’t said anything.

He’d been sipping from the bottle of water Liene had bought for him, not saying a thing. The scullery only sold either Logan Prime or water at this hour since any kind of tea would keep the students awake at night, and a student awake at night was a student up to mischief. Tea was what he direly needed, as it could’ve calmed his nerves for what he was about to say.

But he hadn’t been able to say anything yet.

Then Liene broke the silence that had gone on for ten minutes.

“I was a weird kid, Fabri,” she said as she leaned her hip against the railing and drew her hand back into the folds of her blouse. Her voice was soft and tired in a way that meant she’d stopped expecting anything and started talking anyway.

She kept her eyes on the atrium below. “When I was eleven, I asked my teacher why we didn’t learn spells for sadness. Like, not cheering charms or distraction tricks. Real spells; ones that could pull a feeling out of you and bottle it somewhere safe. She told me it wasn’t stable.”

She glanced over at him then, a brief flick of her eyes before returning to the view. “But you and I both know that’s a lie. Magic can do a lot of things. It just doesn't do the ones grown-ups find inconvenient. If you feel a stable source of sadness for a long time, you could produce stable magic.”

She lifted one hand again, this time not toward the vines, but toward the air in front of her. Her fingers curled as she flicked them as if striking a match in reverse. A light bloomed in her palm. Unlike the atrium’s golden glowvine threads, this one was a deep, steady blue—brilliant and rich, like ink spilled in a well of stars. It cast no shadows.

Fabrisse thought about how wrong it felt that sky-blue meant joy, when clearly joy was something that jumped and fizzed and tried to escape. This blue—that deep blue—was the opposite. That was sadness.

Liene let her hand fall to her side again, and for a moment, she looked like she might say nothing else. But then she let out a small breath and sat back on the sagging chair behind her. The cushion gave a squeaky protest.

“I came to enjoy writing poetry on leaves,” she said. “I’d go around campus collecting the ones with nice veins or funny shapes, and I’d write little lines on them with gold ink. Sometimes with spells to keep them from drying out. Sometimes not.” She paused. “I think there’s still a box of them under my bed somewhere. I used to leave them in random places—under benches, in other people’s books, once in Headmaster Draeth’s laundry chute. He never figured out it was me.”

He wanted to say something comforting. Instead, he thought about how long it would take a leaf to dry without enchantment.

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “My mom hated it,” she added. “Said I was wasting ink, and potential. I was supposed to be like Lorvan. He’s good at everything. He was already on his second thesis when I first enrolled. They said he’s getting fast-tracked into the Order’s Academic Arm. He deserves it. But . . . I don’t know how to be like him. So I told mom poetry was my passion. Whenever she’d lecture me about how my grades were decidedly average, I’d take out a leaf, write on it, and pretend to not listen to her. That . . . weirded her out, so she finally stopped berating.”

Fabrisse stared at the bottle in his hand like it might offer a script. The water inside had long since lost its chill.

He wasn’t sure why she was telling him all this now.

It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate it—he did, or thought he did—but some part of him kept running diagnostics on the moment, trying to find the pattern, the catalyst. Was it the time? The place? The fact that neither of them had run away yet? He had no reference point for this kind of openness, no prompt in the imaginary social guidebook that said: when someone shows you the color of their sadness, say X in response.

“People don’t like weird, Fabri. Weird gets you sorted into the back row of group projects and forgotten in departmental nominations.” She turned one hand up, fingers splayed in a shrug that looked almost theatrical. “Say. Do you remember the first time we met?”

He nodded. It was their second term of Fire Foundations, when he turned fourteen. He’d been trying to split a flame stream using two mirrored shaping runes etched into a crucible—an idea he’d read about in an upper-year textbook. Technically sound, if wildly premature for a beginner class.

“It was when I nearly set Professor Marrow’s robes on fire,” he said quietly.

She nodded in return. “Everyone else panicked, and you just stood there blinking through the smoke with soot on your face like a confused chimney ghost. I thought, ‘that’s the weirdest boy I’ve ever seen.’” She paused. “And maybe that weird boy needed a friend.”

Fabrisse swallowed. He didn’t have a response ready.

“I . . . you seem to have been busy lately, Fabri, doing your own thing. You’re hanging out with more people. I saw you with the new visiting professor the day earlier; I’ve never even seen him around before. I—I just . . . I don’t know. Maybe you’re growing out of your shell, and . . .” She didn’t finish her sentence.

Fabrisse looked down again. A tiny fray had come loose at the seam of the water bottle label, and he ran his thumb over it with a sort of mechanical focus, the kind he defaulted to when his brain began to overheat.

He didn’t want to lie. Not to Liene. But telling the truth wasn’t simple. There were so many variables to weigh. What if she got scared and fussy about what happened? What if he got her expelled? What if she didn’t believe him? What if she did, and it meant she’d be dragged into something dangerous?

But if he didn’t tell her, who else? Dubbie wasn’t around; she had gone to town and started her life anew. They wouldn’t talk for another month.

‘Growth begins the moment one admits they need a helping hand,’ Severa had said to him earlier today. He didn’t love the idea of listening to Severa’s advice, but he told himself he would’ve done this without her advice anyway, which made it a bit better.

Fabrisse drew in a slow breath. “I’ve decided I’m not going to be one of those people who hurt my friends and make a drama out of my life by letting a misunderstanding stands.”

He glanced up. Liene was watching him with that same patience she wore during her poetry sessions, during the petal ritual, during things she thought were worth the time and energy. “Okay. I’m listening.”

Then he told her about the Eidralith; about the attribute screens, the hallucination-like prompts only he could see, the ancient voice of a system calling itself PRAXIS NODE: Calibration Beta. About how it had labeled him Apprentice – Field Calibrator, Aetheric Epoch 9, and how it operated in Compatibility Mode because the world had moved on without it.

“So the Eidralith is this system, and it aids my progression by giving me, among other things, . . . quests,” he continued. “I was given one right before I chased after you, but I swatted it away.”

“Do you get rewards for it?” She asked.

“Usually. I haven’t had time to check this one out.”

“Maybe you should,” she tilted her head. “Maybe it’s telling you to tell me the truth and you’ll lose out on the reward because you haven’t accepted it.”

He sighed and blinked the interface back into view.

[NEW QUEST RECEIVED: “Threads Left Unspooled”]

Objective: Disclose your high-level secret to a Trusted Individual

Status: Not Yet Accepted

Reward: +3 EMO  

[SYSTEM NOTE: A shared load is lighter.]

Would you like to accept the quest?

[Yes] [No] [Remind Me Later]

Fabrisse stared at it for a beat. “You’re not going to believe this,” he muttered as he chose the option ‘Yes’.

Liene smiled. But then her smile faded. “But you still haven’t told me the reason why you and Celine and Tom and his girlfriend spent the entire day together, and not tell me about it.”

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, he told her everything.

Not just about the Eidralith, but about the events that had unfolded in its wake. About the sudden attack by the voidspawn after their Stupenstone Fling practice. About how Ganvar’d given him a tracking quartz during their tutoring session. About the interview with Celine. About the collapse of the pond. The way Rubidi had dragged him under. How he’d fired a flare for help, and Severa Montreal had shown up to save him. How Lorvan and Kaldrin had chased the voidcaster away for good.

While he spoke, Liene was quiet. Very quiet.

At first, her expression was simply attentive—eyes open and earnest, like she was trying not to miss a single thread of meaning. But when he reached the part about the voidspawn, her brows pinched slightly. The corners of her mouth turned down. When he described the moment the fold buckled and nearly tore open, she covered her mouth with one hand and whispered something under her breath.

When he explained that the perpetrators had been caught, that the worst was over, her shoulders dropped. The tension in her jaw loosened. She didn’t smile, but she let out a long, quiet breath and leaned back against the bench like her body was remembering how to be held up by gravity again.

“I was going to tell you,” he said. “But . . . nobody else was supposed to know.”

“Is that everything?” Her voice was tiny when she finally spoke.

“Yes,” he said, omitting the final part about Lorvan’s arms possibly being erased as he spoke. He figured it wasn’t his place to talk about it.

[QUEST COMPLETED: “Threads Left Unspooled”]

Reward: +3 EMO

Fabrisse sat there for a beat too long after the notification faded. He was feeling something now. Not the sharp anxiety from earlier, not the hollow gnaw of dread, but something warm. Like warmth left in stone after sundown; a kind of softness behind his ribs he wasn’t used to. It didn’t feel earned, exactly, but it didn’t feel wrong either.

Liene didn’t speak right away. She just watched him for a moment longer than was comfortable before turning fully toward him, legs crossed on the bench, one hand braced against the slat between them. “So you were in danger,” she said. “You could’ve just told me so, without telling me the details.”

Fabrisse couldn’t see the logic behind that, but he decided to not question it. 

Then Liene did something very her. She reached out and, with great care, touched the side of his forearm, the way one might calm a skittish bird. “You didn’t have to tell me all that,” she said, voice low. “But you did. Thank you. And before you’re going to say anything else . . . No. I won’t say a thing.”

“Okay.”

“Did you get the rewards for your quest?”

“Yeah. 3 EMO.”

She tilted her head to the other side now. “As in, emotions? Can you feel three more emotions now?”

He gave a hoarse little laugh. “I don’t think it works that way.”

“Well, whatever it is,” she said, “I think it’s working. You can cast ‘joy’ now, and I think that suits you more.”

Fabrisse leaned back against the warped slats of the bench, the warmth still lingering behind his ribs, gentle and unobtrusive. He had three points yet to assign from levelling up, and a bunch of unused Mastery points. He’d yet to try out his spells now that his attributes had seen upgrades. And then there were the Stone skills. Would Draeth be willing to teach him Faultweave if he asked, or would he think that was too high-level for him?

He was halfway through planning a full internal syllabus—what order to learn skills in, whether to prioritize aethereal compatibility or physical efficiency—when Liene’s voice cut through his focus like a soft stone dropped into still water.

“Will you flake on me again,” she said, “if I ask you to come leaf-poem hunting with me this week?”

The stats and skills evaporated from the edges of his vision as he turned toward her.

She wasn’t teasing. Her eyes were steady, thoughtful. She wasn’t just asking for his company; she was asking for follow-through.

“No,” he said, after a beat. “No, I won’t flake.”

“Good,” she said, and leaned her head against the backrest, the way someone does when they've finally been given permission to stop bracing for disappointment. “Because I found a leaf that looks like your freckles, and I need you to see it. But only if I’m not intruding on your practice sessions and it’s not after eight.”

Fabrisse didn’t laugh. But he smiled. Maybe he’d even bring gold ink this time.

Note: I thought I did well this chapter.

Chapter 122

Dry leaves stirred in lazy circles along the path as Fabrisse rounded the final corner, slowing at the sight of familiar figures clustered near the empty stone benches that edged the courtyard in front of his dorm building. The sky had darkened; the glyphlights had lit; and a faint violet haze now laced the upper air, catching where wards met weather.

Tommaso was sitting on the bench’s backrest instead of the seat, boots planted on the stone ledge. As always, gravity to him was just a polite suggestion. He spotted Fabrisse first.

“Hey! There he is. The Sharpshooter himself,” Tom called out, standing to wave with his usual reckless cheer, though the strain behind his grin was a little too tight to miss. “You took your time, stoneboy. Heard what you did from Celine. Great call on that Stupenstone throw.”

Celine gave a half-smile and a nod in greeting, arms folded as she leaned back against the bench wall. Her uniform was scuffed, but neatly repaired at the seams with a few hasty stitch-charms. Her earrings still swung back-and-forth in a slightly dizzying momentum. Ilya, perched beside her, gave a quieter wave. She looked more tired than hurt—pale, but calm.

“We’re all fine,” Tom added preemptively, thumbing over his shoulder as Fabrisse came closer. “Agents questioned us separately, poked around for inconsistencies, but turns out we’re extremely charming when threatened with institutional consequences.”

Celine’s half-smile turned into a full smile. “I think Kaldrin already gave them the clean version.” Which would be the agreed-upon version of how Fabrisse had to be there to feed his pet clucklebeak, and everyone went looking for him, then . . . the rest happened.

Fabrisse let out a slow breath. The low-grade adrenaline that had been coursing through his limbs since Draeth’s office finally began to settle. His eyes scanned each of them, needing the confirmation more than he’d admit.

“So . . . how bad’s Lorvan’s arm?” Tommaso asked. His grin wavered now.

“Well . . . he might not have it by next week,” Fabrisse grabbed the hem of his robe and rubbed his fingers on it.

“Have what? His arm?”

He didn’t answer; instead, he only brought his robe to his satchel and clutched both tightly. Everyone suddenly fell quiet.

Tommaso’s grin evaporated. For a second, he just stared, chest half-risen like he’d meant to say something and forgot how. “Oh.” Then he turned to Ilya. “I think we’ll stay for another week.”

“Were you planning to leave?” Fabrisse asked.

“We’re here as guardians, after all,” Ilya said. “Our leave ends next week.” Then her crow swooped down and perched on her shoulder.

“We can extend for another week for unforeseen circumstances, but that’s the max,” Tommaso added, wincing.

Fabrisse didn’t like that idea. He hadn’t even been able to spend that much time with his buddy since his ‘vacation’ was just extra work. But since they had limited time, they might as well spend it wisely. “We should visit Mentor tomorrow. He’s staying in his private quarter. Headmaster Draeth had called upon a healer from the Outer Fold—the best one the Order had, apparently. He will . . . be fine.”

“Good to hear, man.” Tommaso, ever allergic to silence for too long, clapped his hands together and gave an exaggerated nod. “Alright, alright. Well, since we’re all alive and in one piece, and since our favorite instructant might get to keep at least some of his arm, how about we raise a toast to improbable survival?” 

Nobody said anything.

He hopped off the backrest and slung an arm around Fabrisse’s shoulders before the boy could dodge. “I’ve got a half-case of alderroot ale stashed in our room. I say we crack it open. One bottle per near-death experience. That’s, what, four tonight?”

Ilya cleared her throat.

Tommaso’s arm dropped from Fabrisse’s shoulder like a puppet string had been snipped. “Right. He gave a lopsided smile. “Rain check, then. I’ll put the good bottles on reserve. Maybe next time we can call Linny over. She loves a good ale.”

Hold on. Liene. Today’s Wednesday.

Liene said she’d wait. In front of the pie shop. On Wednesday afternoon.

His gaze darted to the sky. The glyphlights had already turned amber. The upper air shimmered violet. It was past twilight. The seventh bell had rung.

“I have to go,” he muttered.

“You saying something?” Tommaso arched his brow.

“Liene. I have to go see her,” he muttered, even lower now.

“What do you need her for?” Celine’s earring swayed as she gestured to the space Fabrisse’s shoulder with her chin. “Because she’s right there.”

Fabrisse turned around.

Liene was standing just a few paces off, shadowed beneath the old ironwood tree at the edge of the courtyard, where the glyphlight didn’t quite reach. Her hair was tied up messily, possibly because there wasn’t any quill to keep it in place. She wore a fitted cobalt blouse, pressed and buttoned to the collar, tucked neatly into a charcoal wrap skirt that hit just below the knee. Her shoes even matched—matched—not just each other, but the outfit. And she had earrings on. The last time she had those on was during an open verse night, the one where she read that scathing piece about love being a badly transcribed spell and made an upperclassmen cry.

But here she was again, pressed and polished and standing very still.

This was the kind of moment he wasn’t built for. He didn’t know how to arrange it. She looked like she had so much to say and not a single word could get past her face.

He did the only thing that made sense.

He reached into his robe pocket, pulled out a neatly folded list, and held it toward her without meeting her gaze. The folded parchment—creased neatly into eighths—crinkled against his knuckles. He’d spent twenty minutes making a visual to help decide how to say sorry in these sorts of situations. There were three circles and twelve categories, each labeled in firm handwriting. But now that he was here, it felt . . . stupid. Like showing up with a quiz sheet after missing someone’s birthday.

“I was going to come,” he said. “I didn’t forget. I wrote it down. I just . . . didn’t get there in time.”

A breeze rustled the ironwood leaves above them, brushing dry shadows across the ground. Liene looked at the paper, then at him, but didn’t take it. Her hands stayed at her sides.

“It’s not the first time,” Liene said, quietly now. “You left me on wait for hours too, once, so you could . . . with Zan.” She brought up his ex-girlfriend. That could not be good. He knew exactly when that happened too, and how he’d tried to apologize for it. Back then, Zan and him weren’t even together yet.

Tommaso let out a low whistle as he took a step back.

“But you saw her on the green, and you forgot I was supposed to meet you. I waited outside the Archive like an idiot, thinking maybe you’d got the time wrong. Or the location. Or you were in a focus fugue again. Turns out you just got yourself a new friend, and you guys just figured you’d better off hanging out without me.”

Liene gazed past Fabrisse, to Tommaso, then to where Celine stood by the benches. Celine looked like she’d stood up partway, and her mouth moved very slowly as the words uttered, equally slowly. “There’s a good explanation for this—”

But Liene just shook her head once. “I want to hear it from him.” Then she turned to Fabrisse. “What do you have to say?”

He stood for seconds, hoping someone would say something. Nobody did, so he said, “I mismanaged my time.”

Liene blinked several times. Her mouth opened slightly, then closed. Her hands finally moved, and for the briefest second, it looked like she might reach for the paper after all. Then she pulled back.

“Is that the best you’ve got?”

Fabrisse didn’t know what to say. Liene was left out of the loop for a reason; she wasn’t supposed to know. She was a student, and the Archmagi had forbidden any student knowledge regarding the Voidspawn incidents. He would face severe consequences if he dared speak one word about it, as would Celine, and Tom, and everyone else.

He briefly thought about using Lorvan’s condition as an excuse, but how would they explain the wounds? Lorvan had hid in his room for the same reason why he wasn’t allowed to talk about the void in public.

Liene’s voice was thin when she finally spoke. “It’s fine if you don’t want to hang out with me. But you can’t hoard my friends too . . .”

Fabrisse’s throat bobbed. He still had the list in his hand. The creases were digging into his palm.

Liene backed up a step.

“Anyway,” she added, trying to shrug, like it didn’t matter. “It’s whatever. I know you’ve got, like, important stuff now. So. I’ll just . . .”

Then she ran off.

A shove to the back jolted Fabrisse out of stillness. Then came a voice, low and urgent in his ear. “I don’t know what you did, but run after her now.” It was Tommaso.

[NEW QUEST RECEIVED: “Threads Left Unspooled”]

Objective: —

Fabrisse swatted the glowing text out of his vision, and bolted.

Thank you note (And a poll)

When I first wrote this story, I wondered if I'd shot myself in the foot by going the route most other progression fantasy books don't: by making an MC so absurdly weak, lost in direction, unimpressive (maybe apart from some of his moments of deductive reasoning), overwhelmed by the colossal amount of information presented to him. A month later, it feels as though I won't regret this decision.

This book has found itself an audience, possibly one that's grown jaded of all the hyper-focus MCs, and it's growing faster than I could ever have hoped for. Maybe we can carve a niche for ourselves, grow strong, and continue to turn this into several branching books. Maybe you can feel proud to tell yourself you're one of its earliest supporters when it finally gets enough clout to hit the shelves as a paperback.

Anyway, I have a question to ask. Do you want to see the battle between Lorvan, Kaldrin, and (allegedly) Mustafa written in text? This will be Patreon-exclusive content, of course.

Chapter 121

A column rose from the center: hexagonal, clear as water, with veins of copper and iron braided through like a vascular system. From it, four arching ribs vaulted, each assembling itself from grains of stone plucked directly from a glowing leyfield clinging onto it. 

They fitted together. Silently.

He raised a giant stone structure without a sound.

When it was complete, the structure resembled a flower made of tectonic memory: layered petals of slate and agate fanned like protective shields, their inner faces engraved with impossibly tight glyphs.

[Environmental Read: Geometric Purity — 99.8%]

[Resonance Interference: None Detected]

[Threat Level: ???]

[System Annotation: Analysis Incomplete. Please update calibration model.]

Draeth simply stepped back and let the spell stand.

“This,” he said, “is the legacy they erased.”

That’s . . . impressive. It didn’t look impressive, not in the explosive, world-bending way he’d always imagined a Rank IX spell might be. But if Draeth morphed that flower from aether alone . . . This is art; craftsmanship.

This should be the kind of spell whose weight wasn’t felt on the skin, but in the geometry of the room itself. As if the world was quietly choosing to accept it rather than resist.

Why would they erase this?

He almost asked. The question caught behind his teeth like a splinter, but he wasn’t sure if it was safe to say aloud. 

Then, from his right, Lorvan spoke, “I think Mr. Kestovar’s been meaning to ask . . . Why would the Order want something like this erased?”

Draeth did not look at Lorvan. He looked at the spell he had shaped—this quiet, geometric miracle born from nothing but will and memory. Then, with a slow breath, he began, “Muradius is a coward.” He said the name like it burned his mouth.

Muradius? Is he talking about Thaumarch Muradius? The High Prelate of our most holy Order that he’s heap praises upon during every single ceremony?

Draeth continued, “Thaumarch Muradius of the Twelvefold Flames. High Prelate of our most holy Order. Do you know what terrifies him? Not heresy. Not collapse. Not even the end of the age.” He turned his gaze to Fabrisse, and that gaze was soon fixed in stillness, frozen in place. “No. What terrifies that man is irrelevance. The knowledge that something older, something greater, might eclipse him. That an artifact—some fragment of a dead age—could hold more truth, more power, more vision than he will ever claw together in his lifetime.”

Lorvan and Kaldrin looked at each other. Fabrisse looked at them, not daring to return Draeth’s gaze.

“He knows. Of course he knows. He’s seen what just one ancient artifact can do;what it undoes.” Draeth stepped toward the flower again, but didn’t touch it. His hand hovered over one of the petals. “A single shard from the Aetherfall could unmake a mountain or speak a language no living magus understands. That kind of power doesn’t fit his mold. So he labeled them a menace.”

Draeth’s fingers hovered above the petal, then curled into a loose fist.

For a breath, he said nothing.

Maybe the man finally realized he’s said too much . . .

Then—without gesture or word—the structure unmade itself. The petals folded in, the ribs arched down, and the central column dissolved as if time itself reversed its decision. The particles returned to the leyfield, the air cleared, and the room felt emptier than it had before.

“I suggest if you wish to pursue Earth Thaumaturgy,” Headmaster Draeth intoned. “You are to do so in silence.”

A pause followed.

Then, carefully, Kaldrin spoke. “With respect, Headmaster. The boy’s bound to the Eidralith. If he’s going to survive what comes next, then someone will have to make time, privately.”

He didn’t say you, but he didn’t have to.

Draeth studied him for a long moment, then glanced once at Fabrisse. There was a weight behind that glance, the kind that measured outcomes. “Very well. Kestovar.” He stepped forward. “You are to be under my tutelage.”

He no longer spoke for another five seconds, which just made the words hang thicker.

Draeth continued, “You may pursue other disciplines within the Synod if you please. Satisfy your curiosities. Follow your mentors. But remember this.” He took another step, and Fabrisse found it impossible not to meet his eyes. “If you were to accept—truly accept—then the decision is irreversible. You are not signing up for a discipline. You are being inducted into a foundation older than the Orders, older than the flames they pretend to carry. You will be part of something bigger than yourself, bigger than any doctrine.” His voice dropped, a final note beneath the bedrock. “And in return, perhaps, we can mold you into something bigger than they ever imagined you could be. Perhaps.”

You didn’t have to add that final ‘perhaps’ . . .

Lorvan kept nursing his arm. Kaldrin’s arms were still folded. And Fabrisse—half-staggered by the gravity of it—felt the words settle into him like strata. 

PRAXIS NODE CALIBRATION SYSTEM – Compatibility Mode

New Directive Logged

QUEST ACQUIRED: “Stone, Silent”
Objective: Study your first spell under Headmaster Draeth
Reward:
→ +200 EXP
→ +5 Mastery Points (Affinity assigned on successful cast)

Would you like to accept the quest?

[Yes] [No] [Remind me later]

SYSTEM NOTE: Mentorship unlocked. Try not to get archived.

WARNING: Accepting this path will restrict access to all non-Thaumaturgy disciplines for the next 5 system-cycles (est. 5 academic years). This choice is irreversible.

Hold on. So I won’t get to complete the quest given by Varys?

[Yes.]

“Headmaster,” Fabrisse said, more evenly than he expected, “I’ll need a week to decide.”

Draeth stared at him for a few seconds too long, then turned to Lorvan. “What have I told you?” Draeth said, voice colder than before. “The boy lacks ambition.”

It’s not that I don’t want to accept, but the other quest offers 500 EXP for simply showing up. I can make a choice then . . .

Then Fabrisse thought to himself again. Do I really want to venture alone to an entirely new place; an entirely new branch of magic, by myself? Without knowing anyone? What if I return, then Draeth finds out I’ve been sneaking out and gets offended by it?

This is the most powerful Stone Thaumaturge in history we’re talking about. Is 500 EXP really worth the risk?

Do I really want to keep studying Thaumaturgy?

Lorvan stirred. His posture, up until now quietly strained, shifted forward. He stood—awkwardly, but with purpose—and extended his injured hand.

“Headmaster, if I may,” Lorvan said, showing the black-rimmed cuts wrapped with a blood-dark belt. “Mr. Kestovar must be overwhelmed. I suggest you give him a day of thought.

Draeth turned around to him, and he extended his injured hand. “Before you write him off.”

Fabrisse’s breath caught.

Draeth’s expression changed. 

For a second, the air around the Headmaster crackled with silent calculation. He took one sharp step forward and grasped Lorvan’s forearm, inspecting the wounds without ceremony.

“You performed your end of the Cadence of Severance?” Draeth asked.

“I did, after you’ve performed yours.”

“That should’ve halted any spread. The corruption shouldn’t be this advanced.”

“It shouldn’t,” Lorvan replied.

Fabrisse couldn’t help it. He took a step closer, his voice taut. “What’s happening to Mentor Lugano?”

Draeth looked at him, for once without disdain. “Void Erasure. A minor variant, at least by classification. The spell itself wasn’t powerful, but it made contact with exposed flesh. This is what happens when your shielding fails for less than a second.”

He released Lorvan’s arm and muttered a short invocation. With a sharp, glacial snap, Draeth’s hand lit with a muted grey-white pulse. The air grew colder. He pressed two fingers to the worst gash, and the light vanished inside.

Lorvan winced—but only barely. “That will slow the decay. For now.”

Fabrisse frowned hard. “Why didn’t we bring in a healer?”

“There is no healer that can treat this. This spell is undocumented. It doesn’t burn or poison; it erases. The moment it touched your mentor, it began rewriting his skin as if it had never existed.”

“T-then, what can we do?” Sparks of charcoal tingled on his fingertips. The color of fear.

Draeth stood to his full height, the red glow from the archway behind him drawing long shadows across his face. “He will live. The worst that can happen is he loses an arm.”

Kaldrin pressed his lips thin and stared downward. “I take responsibility. I should’ve seen the voidcaster coming.”

Fabrisse didn’t hear the rest.

His eyes were still on Lorvan—on the black-rimmed gash at his forearm, pulsing like an open mouth trying to swallow.

That’s my mentor.

That was his mentor risking his shielding in a frontline spell against something undocumented, unrecorded, unreal, to keep him safe.

Even though the Headmaster had all but dismissed him. Even though not a single ranking mage had spoken for him when the Eidralith bound. Even though his very presence in this room was seen as an inconvenience, an error.

And Fabrisse had the audacity to—

To hesitate. Over a better EXP payout. Over some nebulous promise of Varys’s questline. Over options.

Fabrisse clenched his hands until his knuckles blanched. The static at his fingertips flared again—charcoal-gray, fault-line bright—but now it burned with a different kind of heat. Ivory.

“Headmaster,” Fabrisse said clearly. “I accept the directive.”

The arch behind Draeth flared crimson once more. He nodded.

QUEST “Stone, Silent” — PATH LOCKED

Disciplinary Access Restricted to Core Thaumaturgy (Epoch IX)

Subspecialties: Earth, Stone, Structural Logic, Resonance Theory

Mentor Assigned: Murelien Draeth [Verified]

PATH COMMITTED.

[SYSTEM NOTE: Good luck.]

Chapter 120

“This whole operation,” Draeth thundered as he paced alongside a line of whispering tomes, “has been a resounding failure.”

His voice struck the chamber’s silence like a flintstone on firewood. Draeth’s study was, as always, more theater than office—vast and cavernous, its proportions intentionally disorienting. The room descended gently into a recessed floor, steps wrapping down along the sides of the same centerpiece—a broad and shallow plinth—like the edges of a forgotten amphitheater. Light came from no source Fabrisse could name, and each corner of the chamber radiated with a pressureless glow, casting everything in hues of gold and pearl.

Kaldrin leaned forward from his place at the long, rune-etched table. “Failure? We caught the saboteurs. We secured the Eidralith. We protected our prospect. What exactly would you call that, if not a success?”

Draeth turned on him sharply, robe flaring like a shadow. “You failed to capture High Instructant Ratuk Mustafa.” The name rang out like a gavel. “Allegedly, Ratuk Mustafa. You don’t even have confirmation! Even after we involved the Bureau into our mess! And if he returns to the Kingdom of the Dunes, we’ll have no legal means to retrieve him. Not even the Order dares provoke a diplomatic fracture with the Dune Court.”

There was a pause. Even the aetherlight seemed to still.

Kaldrin’s mouth tightened, but he said nothing.

Lorvan, seated quietly at the far end, shifted a single ring on his finger and murmured as he treated his other arm with his aetherically-lit palm, “We still have his proxies in custody.” The wounds along his arm had yet seemed to heal.

“So what now? You think those people will volunteer names? You think they’ll so much as breathe a clue in our direction?” He stabbed a hand toward the air, as if gesturing at phantoms only he could see. “Who might it be? Dir? Sil? Someone within the Synod itself? You must know yourself how the Order has been looking for a reason to suspend all artifact research within their reach, and by extension, you and me, Kaldrin.”

“But—” Kaldrin objected.

“No,” Draeth continued. “They’ve been waiting for this. All of them. To tighten their hold and centralize power. They want to swallow this institution whole, use every scandal as leverage. Today, the Eidralith. Tomorrow?” He gave a bitter snort. “Tomorrow they’ll be citing this as reason enough to reabsorb the East Westeros Branch entirely. To write me out of existence. And they’ll have the gall to do it in a tone of bureaucratic concern.”

His words moved like chisels against granite now. “You’ll see them in the next Assembly, baring their fangs under all that polished deference. Whining about how we’ve grown too erratic, too politicized. About how our Synod grounds have grown so ‘compromised’ we can’t even protect one student.”

Fabrisse sat quietly on one of the upper rows of the recessed floor, perched at the edge of a step that wasn’t meant to be a seat. The lip of it dug into his spine slightly, but he didn’t move. He kept his head down, eyes on the floor tiles. He wouldn’t get to speak in this game of titles and thresholds and long-standing vendettas disguised as procedural oversight. His presence was tolerated, not included. Yet, he had so much to say.

But when Rolen came to you, Headmaster, your first instinct was to announce a public persecution of darkness practitioners. This has been a much better plan, with a much lesser immediate backlash.

“Headmaster, if I may,” Lorvan spoke. He had not raised his voice, but the clarity in his tone made the others fall still. “You must invest in Mr. Kestovar now. The Eidralith has finally awakened, and I’ve seen Kestovar’s progress myself. You know they didn’t want the Eidralith, Headmaster. They wanted him gone. If they had succeeded, they’d be at the Assembly right now declaring your decade of research a misguided farce.”

It did seem like Rubidi wanted me gone . . . She wasn’t even trying to shut down the Eidralith, if what he felt was correct. She just wanted to take away every bit of affinity with magic he had, so he’d become irreversibly useless.

“It is not yet the time,” the Headmaster’s voice was grim.

“Then when is the time?” Kaldrin’s voice was exasperated.

“You think I want the boy to die? I have risked my standing with the Order itself by involving the Bureau! If that meddling boy hadn’t bound with my artifact, none of this would’ve happened!”

None of this makes any sense. If the Headmaster truly cared about his safety, why hadn’t he acted until now. He didn’t even show his face once, as if Fabrisse were a liability he’d hoped would quietly disappear. And now he did all this to . . . protect his liberty for artifact research?

Fabrisse could hold back no more. There were too many questions that needed answering. “If I may, Headmaster. Didn’t you publicly vote to keep me under the Research chamber?”

“These are matters you don’t need to comprehend,” Draeth’s voice echoed.

“Headmaster.” Kaldrin’s voice dropped to a tone so low it barely rose above breath. “I also propose you no longer treat Mr. Kestovar as an expendable. He’s the binder of the Eidralith, whether you like it or not. You may still rally support from House Montreal in one form or another.”

“The boy collects stones in his free time, in the nose of the Synod!” Draeth smashed a nearby floating tome. At Draeth’s outburst, his palm struck its cover with a sharp crack. The spell holding it aloft faltered for an instant, and the tome jerked midair, tumbling end over end like a wounded bird before righting itself with a shudder and retreating toward the shadowed rafters in offended silence. “Do you think the Order will hesitate to gut this institution if I publicly endorse a gravel-gazing apprentice with a talent for the worst kind of attention?”

“If I may, Headmaster. They will shut down your projects. There will be no Eidralith replica.” Lorvan tried to stand, but winced at the strained effort. “Mr. Kestovar is the only bet you have.”

Hold on . . . Are they insinuating that the Headmaster deliberately did not protect me because of political scrutiny? The Order hates rocks and artifacts. And Draeth, a person who’s this passionate about his artifacts, to the point he’s ready to fight tooth and nail against the institution, should’ve been into rocks.

Then has he been acting all this time?

Draeth did not reply.

For a long time, he stood motionless, hand still slightly raised from where he had struck the tome, sleeve settling like the aftershock of a spell. 

Seconds stretched.

Finally, the Headmaster turned his gaze to Fabrisse. There was no fury in it. Only cold, bitter knowledge. “Kestovar,” he said, quietly. “Do you truly believe Stone is a dead-end element?”

The silence that followed was not uncertain. It was intentional.

“Does it matter what I believe?” Fabrisse asked.

“Tell him, Headmaster,” Kaldrin spoke. “He deserves to know.”

“Know what?”

Draeth’s gaze lingered on Fabrisse. Then, with a breath like he was reciting a footnote from memory, he said, “In the Order’s official record, the highest confirmed achievement in Stone Thaumaturgy belongs to a Rank VI practitioner: Magus Exemplar Ronza Margenholt. She turned dust into a fortress wall during the Fourth Border Siege. A trick they still teach as the pinnacle of the craft.”

Fabrisse gave a small nod. He had read that account. Margenholt of the Quiet Foundation, Stratoglyphic Pattern 9-F. Her stratoglyph patterns were still circulated in archived form for study, though rarely.

Draeth’s next words were quiet. “Behold. This is Rank IX.”

He stepped slowly toward the heart of the amphitheater’s floor. One hand extended—no incantation, no sigils, no prepared substrate. He reached into the slate-colored plinth right at the center.

The plinth groaned. The floor quivered.

Then columns of quartz and metallic filigree smashed through the plinth as they erupted from the ground.

Note: Draeth is an ally now :) still an asshole though

Chapter 119

Varys waited until the others were out of earshot. Their panel dimmed, and the aetherglass retreated into its housing with a hush. The surface turned just translucent enough for Fabrisse to catch the shape of a face behind the mask. Feminine, he thought, though the lines were blurred by veilwork and refracted light.

“Kestovar,” they whispered. “Can you confirm that you have bound with the Eidralith?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause, long enough for Fabrisse to brace for the usual questions about will, binding ceremonies, and emotional stabilization. 

Instead, Varys asked, “Kestovar, did the Eidralith manifest any trace of its internal parameters?”

“What?” He took an unconscious step back.

“Did it project any residual binding matrix to you?”

Fabrisse’s heart skipped; the question hit far closer than he expected.

For a breathless moment, he didn’t speak. “Internal parameters.” “Residual binding matrix.” The terminology scraped something raw inside his head.

The Eidralith didn’t say anything like that. It didn’t call anything that. But it had shown him floating boxes, diagnostics, percentage readouts like some ancient system trying to communicate in a shared language it was not quite fluent in. Not matrices, exactly, but not far. The phrasing was off just enough to make the resemblance uncanny.

No one should’ve known.

Not unless Lorvan had told the Bureau. But Lorvan wouldn’t. He wouldn’t compromise Fabrisse’s privacy like that. He’d always said magical cognition was personal and contextual. Unless he’d been forced. Or thought it was safer this way.

But if the Bureau did know, why would they send someone asking a question that was almost correct instead of precise? Either they knew, or they didn’t. So why . . . ask like that?

Unless . . . they weren’t asking on the Bureau’s behalf.

His mind spun through permutations, grasping for logical footholds. The Bureau pulled from all disciplines—Alchemics, Sigilwrights, Artifact Divinations. It wasn’t impossible that agents from artifact-oriented branches had seen this kind of behavior before. Maybe some relics—especially the old ones—reacted to binding with interface phenomena like what he’d seen.

Maybe it was a normal question. A common artifact phenomenon.

But if it was normal, then a true Bureau agent would’ve eased into it with verified terms and comparison against precedents. At least that was the process he’d learned about as a preparation for his eventual interview with the Bureau.

This person might have a personal agenda. And they might be short on time.

“Mr. Kestovar,” the agent extended their hands and handed him a small card, glowing at the edges with aetheric energy. “The Eidralith,” she said, “is a splinter of the Stone of Origins. As your discipline calls it.”

Fabrisse looked up sharply. “That’s a disputed theory—”

“Is it?” she interrupted, voice still mild. “Do you think it’s funny how Thaumaturgy, the grand formal branch of structured magic, could care so little about rare earth materials, given their origin?”

He stared. It was such a sideways question, so unexpected in tone and subject, that for a moment he couldn’t think how to respond.

“That’s . . .” Fabrisse frowned, trying to trace her logic. “That’s not a question of caring. Thaumaturgy prioritizes consistency of function over anomalous source material. Rare earth samples are low-yield.”

“And yet you’ve bound with an automaton of untold powers.” They stepped a fraction closer. “Why don’t you study with Artifact-Metamagical Inquiry?” they asked, voice no longer neutral. “They maximize the inner potential of an object instead of forcing it into taxonomy. They . . . no, we. We will have a place for you.”

He’d heard of that—Artifact-Metamagical Inquiry—in passing, somewhere buried in the classification trees of advanced divinatory studies. A fringe subdivision, if he remembered correctly, of Artifact Divinations: a field that specialized in reading histories, curses, enchantment layers, and resonance echoes from magical relics. Artifact Diviners typically peel time backward along the grain of an object to see who wielded it, what spells had sunk into it, even what emotions had clung to it in moments of great use. They were observers, not manipulators of the aether.

But the way Varys phrased her words, it might seem like the Artifact-Metamagical Inquiry were looking to turn artifacts into power.

He considered Varys’ words for a second. They weren’t . . . wrong. His place in Thaumaturgy had been a colossal mismatch from the start, and this seemed like the one chance to turn it around. But Varys knew too much. And he didn’t even know their gender.

They turned the card in their hands, and the white aether sparks at the corner spiraled like a seedpod.

He took it with caution, feeling the glyph’s slow pulse echo faintly up his fingertips.

But he didn’t pocket it yet.

“Don’t you want to know about my encounter with the Voidfold?”

“You must’ve seen through me, Mr. Kestovar. I’m here because of special . . . interest. The Order of Metamagical Design would have never let something like this happen to you. We protect our talents like treasures.”

[PRAXIS NODE – Compatibility Overlay: Active]

[New Quest Available: Designated Observer]

Objective: Accompany Agent Varys to the Institute of Metamagical Design for a limited-access observational intake.

Estimated Duration: Half-Day Visit

Reward: +500 EXP | Bonus Insight: Artifact Behavior in Unstructured Systems (Unverified)

Would you like to accept this quest?

[Yes] [No] [Remind Me Later]

Great.

To Fabrisse’s knowledge, the System only issued quests when a course of action aligned—however vaguely—with its optimization schema. If even the Eidralith’d recognized the legitimacy of the offer, then at least some part of what Varys had said held truth.

Varys tilted their head slightly.

Footsteps were approaching from the far archway. Fabrisse caught the subtle shift in Varys’s posture just before they moved.

Before he could protest, they pressed the aetheric card into his palm and guided his hand toward his robe pocket.

“Keep it close,” they murmured. “The glyph has a volatile half-life. If you wait too long, it won’t open.”

Before he could ask open what, the voice behind him cut sharp through the silence.

“Now,” said Professor Kaldrin, his words slow and carved like obsidian, “if you’re quite finished with your questioning, you will leave my student to my care.”

Varys stepped back precisely one pace and lowered their arm. “Of course, Magus Exemplar. Our conversation was merely preliminary.” Then they gracefully retreated.

“Mr. Kestovar,” Kaldrin intoned, “if you would prefer not to spend the rest of your academic tenure beset by meddling Bureau operatives, I suggest you come with me.”

“May I ask who will be there?” He asked, but not without a gulp.

“The same individuals: Headmaster Draeth, Lugano, and myself, of course.”

“But isn’t Mentor Lugano injured?”

Kaldrin sighed. “The Headmaster said that he may heal while he speaks.”

Fabrisse had no more objections.

Chapter 118

The voidspawns were no longer present by the time Fabrisse returned to the North pond.

What remained was the kind of mess that looked, oddly, like it had followed instructions.

The grass bore the evidence of conflict in a patchwork of blunt depressions and scorched circles; the former from kinetic spells and collapsing wards, the latter charred black from Tommaso’s rings of fire. The geometry of the destruction had a strange order to it, like someone had tried to draw a battlefield using only gestures and heat. A few saplings had been splintered at the base, and one of the ward-beacons near the eastern bank had fallen over, melted.

Several clucklebeaks lay still along the slope. Their mottled feathers were damp, splayed at unnatural angles, and their bright crests had dulled. Too many to be a coincidence, but not so many that it felt apocalyptic. None of them resembled Mercy.

Alongside a Bureau agent, Fabrisse stepped further into the pond’s vicinity. Severa Montreal hadn’t been made aware of this battle taking place here, so she agreed to a brief questioning instead. Fabrisse didn’t think she’d missed much. ‘The Battle of the North Pond’ didn’t sound particularly flashy, and there wasn’t anything to see once he’d returned anyway.

Ganvar was already gone, taken away in the custody of the Bureau. Tommaso lay curled in the grass with his head resting in Ilya’s lap, his fire-touched skin finally cooled. He looked young like this, and not the reckless kind. Ilya had slumped back against the thick trunk of a nearby poplar, arms folded loosely, her head tilted as if she’d drifted off while in thought. Her breath was even, but her eyes remained closed. Neither stirred at Fabrisse’s arrival.

They must have been absolutely knackered, but he was glad they looked fine.

Celine sat on the grass a short distance from the pond’s edge, her boots soaked to the ankle, streaked with mud and shards of her own crystals. A Bureau agent stood beside her, tall and slate-faced, wearing the standard storm-colored magecoat with a high collar and faint sigils stitched along the cuffs. In their gloved hand was a small crystalline vial—stoppered with a seal Fabrisse didn’t recognize—and Celine drank from it in short, clean sips like it was routine.

The agent made a note on a hovering pane of aetherglass with a stylus that left no visible ink. They didn’t speak much, only gestured once or twice between questions, and Celine answered each one with as much calm as someone in her situation could be: with an occasional shoulder shudder every now and then.

The vial on her hand gave off a faint steam where it touched her lips. Is it some kind of post-casting stabilizer? Or possibly an alchemic blend for magic fatigue? Bureau agents were pulled from all disciplines—Thaumaturgy, Alchemy, Divine Abjuration, and many others. Maybe that wasn’t an alchemical drink at all.

She caught his glance and then, without hesitation, raised a finger to point straight at him. The Bureau agent paused. Celine gestured again, this time more deliberately, like she was asking permission. The agent gave a single nod, barely a twitch of their chin, and before they’d even finished the motion, Celine was already on her feet.

She broke into a sprint, the crystalline shards crunching underfoot as she ran.

“Fabrisse!” she called. “Are you alright? Where did the voidcaster take you?”

“I’ll explain later. Where’s Mentor Lugano?” He asked back.

“He—”

“I’m here.” came Lorvan Lugano’s voice, hoarser than he’d ever sounded.

Fabrisse turned to see him approaching from the treeline, moving slowly with one arm draped over Kaldrin’s shoulder for support. Both of them were bruised and dust-streaked, walking at a limping pace like the battle had wrung them out from the inside. Kaldrin looked like he’d taken a few nasty impacts—his vest was crumpled at the ribs, and a bloom of purpling bruises was spreading across one cheek, as if his own wards had rebounded on him under pressure. 

But Lorvan was the worse for wear.

His coat was unfastened, sleeves rolled back, and his left hand was wrapped hastily in what looked like the remnants of someone’s belt, dark with drying blood. The skin around the binding glinted with thin gashes curving down from his palm toward the wrist, blackened at the edges like a snake tongue.

“No fatalities,” Lorvan said. “But the voidcaster had escaped.”

“It was the same faceless one we saw, Kestovar,” Kaldrin added.

Fabrisse’s gaze locked onto Lorvan’s hand. “The lacerations . . . are they superficial or tendon-deep? You’re still able to grip, but is there a full range of flexion? Did the darkness spread through direct contact or ambient curse? Is the color a burn reaction or aetheric corrosion?”

“One question at the time, Kestovar.” Lorvan coughed. “To answer your question . . . I should be back in full health in two weeks. Until then, you’ll be arranged a replacement mentor.”

Fabrisse’s brow furrowed, and he stepped in closer without quite meaning to, his gaze narrowing on the curve of blackened gashes winding down Lorvan’s hand. “A cut like that? Two weeks seems physiologically implausible.”

“We have healers in the Synod, Kestovar.”

“Healers with time-manipulative aetherics?” Fabrisse muttered, then looked up as the Bureau agent who had accompanied him—Varys, if he remembered correctly—took one step forward, the smooth gleam of their aetherglass panel hovering back to life. The agent wore a charcoal-colored metal mask, and from their voice, he couldn’t tell if they were male or female. This was the second person with a mask today, and the first one, Ganvar, hadn’t been very affable. He didn’t expect much from the second one.

“Kestovar Fabrisse. We’ll need your full account of the incident,” they said, voice low and politely impersonal, like someone asking for a toll payment instead of recounting a trauma. “And related inquiries as to your role in the incident as a binder of the Eidralith.”

“Can you wait?” He hated Varys already. The Bureau didn’t pause for aftermaths. They were always trying to index things before they’d even finished breaking.

“The sooner you answer our questions, the sooner you can return to your mentors for triage and debrief,” Varys said. “Or to rest, if that’s what you require.”

[FP: 12/34]

[NOTIFICATION: Focus Points have been restored to over 30%. It is still advised to rehydrate.]

The cut-glass glint of the aetherglass panel kept catching the corner of his vision, and the hovering sound of it—like a tuning fork too close to his ears—wasn’t helping. 

He wasn’t ready.

“I don’t—” His voice cracked halfway through, and he looked away from the Bureau mask, focusing instead on the churned-up earth by his boot. He could feel the drag behind his eyes. His mind kept trying to sequence the events logically, but the threads wouldn’t line up.

“Kestovar,” Lorvan said. “You can answer, even if it’s uncomfortable. You’re still in your body, still oriented. If you wait until it frays further, you’ll lose detail. And they won’t wait.”

Fabrisse didn’t reply.

Lorvan continued, “They helped us. We owe them a degree of cooperation.”

Fabrisse finally lifted his head. “Then I want a hard limit on the number of questions. If you breach that, I will stop talking.”

“Noted,” said Varys as he pulled out his stylus. “We’ll begin at the moment of first resonance with the Eidralith. Start with what you felt—not what you assumed it was, but the exact aetheric texture or stimulus that marked the shift. Let’s make our way to that empty patch over there.” The masked man had already walked ahead.

Hold on. They aren’t even asking me about the Voidfold incident, but just went straight to gathering information about the Eidralith?

Fabrisse looked and Lorvan, acknowledged his nod, then followed Varys.

Chapter 117

Exceedingly difficult chapters to write, because there are lots of planning involved and it's really political. But here it is:

Rubidi’s void-cloaked form rippled, bristling, her shape barely holding to humanoid. Darkness sluiced off her like, and the air—or the lack of it—seemed to bend harder around her presence. She didn’t step forward, but the space before her bent as it shoved at Severa like a rising tide.

“You don’t want to fight me.” Rubidi snarled. “I taught you everything you know. I built your foundation. Every clever thought you’ve ever had traces back to me. Don’t forget who pulled you into your little stardom when your daddy left you to rot.”

Severa didn’t interrupt. The rods of light she summoned droned louder, crackling where they touched the geometry of the void, keeping the fissure pried open. Fabrisse reckoned her silence stretched long enough for Rubidi to read it as hesitation.

She began to move slowly, arm lifting, siphoning more of the void around her fingers. The dark thickened around her wrist. “Don’t make me unmake you, Severa.”

Severa’s voice broke the silence at last. “You can’t touch me, Rubidi.”

That voice alone told Fabrisse enough: they were going to enter conversations filled with cryptic high-class nuances and deliberately flourishing he wouldn’t understand.

Then he heard her voice again. “The entire reason you suck up to me—the girl you whine about behind her back for her ‘attitude problem’—is prestige.”

[PRAXIS NODE SYSTEM – INTERFACE REBOOTED]

> Legacy Fragment Detected  

> Node: Silico-Dormant Obscura [28]  

> Historical Registry Confirmed. Origin: Epoch 9e7

> Status: Authentication Token — VALID  

> Welcome, Apprentice Kestovar_28 

> Initializing User Calibration Protocol . . .

. . .

WARNING: Operator Cognitive Sync Incomplete  

ERROR: Ritual Protocols: Misaligned / Deprecated (v12.4.7)  

WARNING: No Administrative Clearance Detected  

Proceeding in Compatibility Mode

The satisfying sensation of seeing the Eidralith glowing in his vision returned, before immediately being ruined by political chit-chat.

Fabrisse craned his neck just in time to see Severa tilting her head slightly. She was wearing an utterly neutral facial expression as she spoke, “You couldn’t court my father’s favor. Or Aunt Merry’s. So you settled. You latched onto me like a parasite. Because even if I’m ‘insufferable,’ I’m still your ticket out of this little swamp you call the Synod.”

The void-shrouded figure of Rubidi recoiled half a step, enough for the air around her to warp out of sync. The darkness wreathing her fingers lost cohesion, dripping in slow, hesitant trails.  

“You have too much to lose. Touch me then, Rubidi. I’d like to see you try.”

The shadows around Rubidi’s face twisted, writhed, then smoothed into a hollow hole. “I don’t know this Rubidi you speak of,” came the response at last. Her voice was calmer now, drained of heat, eerily formal. “You must be mistaken. I am merely a servant of necessity. I have no stake in this quarrel.”

She began to withdraw. She receded, as though folding into a plane the others couldn’t see. The void heeded her steps, coiling away from the cracked seam Severa still held open, sloughing off like a collapsing tide.

Severa didn’t move. Her arms stayed loose at her sides. “Run,” she said, voice like silk wrapped around a knife. “Run back to whoever’s patronizing your little side project. And pray they’ve got enough clout to clean up after you.”

Fabrisse stared at Severa. She hadn’t so much as flinched. The air still buzzed from the departure of the void, and her rods of light hummed in that serene, judgmental way only magically weaponized geometry could. Her hair still hadn’t moved.

She was sixteen.

Sixteen.

What did they eat in the Montreal household? Sanctified posture enhancements? Raw political spite stirred into their tea?

Rubidi had vanished. The void’s retreat finally peeled back the veil—like stepping out of an eclipse—and for the first time, the room asserted itself.

A mirrored panel flared into full opacity behind Severa, throwing back a warped image of the scene. Then another. Then five more. The entire space was octagonal, obsidian-adjacent stone underfoot, mirrored silver along the walls and upper angles. The kind of architectural arrogance that said ‘we see all angles at once’, with no visible seams or frames.

This had to be one of the private quarters in the Mirrored Tower. Probably Severa Montreal’s personal training chamber.

No wonder Rubidi picked this spot. No one else would have the gall to step inside a high matriarch’s sanctum.

Well. Except Severa.

He was still trying to comprehend that when he saw Severa exhaled—too shallow to be a sigh, but not composed enough to be nothing. Her hands, still by her sides, flexed once, as if grounding herself. And for just a second, just one—

Her throat worked, a sharp swallow like she was trying to lock something down. Her fingers curled, almost into a fist, but not quite. They shook once.

Was that fear?

No. Maybe. Or maybe it was just the aftershock of the fold’s pressure. Maybe he’d imagined it. He would’ve liked to think he hadn’t imagined it. It made her almost human, somehow.

Then she turned and approached him as if none of what just happened had touched her, even though Fabrisse had watched the tension coil in her hands. 

She stopped two paces away. Her eyes swept over him as she asked, “Did you fire that flare, Kestovar?”

Fabrisse nodded. His throat was dry. “Yes.”

“That was a clean cast. You saved yourself from . . . whatever that would’ve been. I didn’t know you’d mastered new Fire spells.”

“I haven’t quite mastered it,” he said.

Severa didn’t answer. Her gaze lingered on him a moment longer before turning and began to move around the room. Her footsteps rang sharp and precise against the sableglass floor, a naturally aetherically-imbued stone with a dull glimmer beneath the polish. Not obsidian, though it looked similar. Fabrisse had read that sableglass was not inhibitively expensive to produce but still rumored to hold residual aether signatures. The theory was mostly outdated. But then again, everything about this place felt like a theory made real. 

She moved, unhurried but exact, pulling scrolls from their clamps and gathering folios into a neat pile with the same methodical energy she brought to spellwork. “After what you said to me the other day,” she said without looking up, “I looked into my mentors.”

One sheaf of parchment was flipped, then tossed into a burn tray lined with shielding runes. She didn’t watch it burn.

“You were correct, Kestovar.” Her voice was level. “There was something . . . unsettling about them. I should’ve known when they offered to teach me Darkness.” She paused everything she was doing for a second, then her hands moved again. “They said it was advanced theory,” she went on. “That shadowfold work was just another extension of spatial binding. They were lying. It was a precursor to voidbinding. Subtractive architecture. All of it.”

“I didn’t say anything about that.”

She set the last document down on a glowing slate platform and finally turned back to him. “And perhaps,” she said, carefully, like the words cost her, “you were not entirely wrong about the imbalance between us. In training. In what we were allowed to know.”

That sounded like a concession. Severa Montreal didn’t do concessions.

“But you’ve made progress, yes, Kestovar?”

“I . . . I’ve been trying.”

“Try harder,” she said. “I despise it when someone is given a one-in-a-million fortune and squanders it on mediocrity.”

Fabrisse didn’t respond. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say. Vagueness always made his skin crawl. But maybe, if he understood it right, that would be the closest he’d ever get to an apology from Severa Montreal.

It should’ve stung—being called mediocre again—but somehow, it didn’t. Someone like her would always belittle; that was par for the course. But that little compromise from Severa? That felt like a victory.

Severa studied him again, one hand raised in a short, curved arc. A diagnostic ripple passed from her fingers in a shimmer of green-blue light, brushing over his frame like an invisible comb. Fabrisse tensed on reflex. It didn’t hurt, but he hated being examined without knowing the parameters.

After a pause, she said, “No trace of damage. No aetheric lesions, no splintered circuits. You seem functional.”

She turned away, placing the last of the slates into its housing. “The Lore Clerk position at the Grand Library is now vacant, if you’re still interested,” she said, like she was reciting a memo. “There will be no further interference. You have my word.”

“I don’t want it anymore,” Fabrisse said quietly.

Her head tilted, ever so slightly, then gave him a faint scowl that lasted for as long as it faded. “Take the position, Kestovar. Growth begins the moment one admits they need a helping hand.”

That line hit differently than she probably intended. Not because it was especially kind, but because it acknowledged something he hadn’t been able to admit to himself.

He had been trying. But he had been trying alone far too often.

Maybe he needed that help.

Severa turned and crossed the final distance to the chamber’s mirrored door. It illuminated itself in her presence, then folded open in an iris of light and silver. She paused in the threshold and glanced back. “Come with me, Kestovar. We need to report this to those who can actually do anything about it. Your testimony will be of utmost importance.”

Fabrisse hesitated for a breath, then followed.

Outside the sanctum, the corridor was already flooded with sound: bootfalls, orders barked with unwavering authority, the metallic ring of restraints snapping into place.

Rubidi was there, kneeling and still half-conscious, held by a formation of eight figures in gray-black mage coats, each marked with a seven-spoked insignia stitched in dull silver thread. The Bureau of Arcane Irregularities. The Bureau that had supposedly been en route for three weeks.

One of the agents stepped forward and read aloud from a thin aether-scripted tablet, voice steady, “Affar Rubidi, you are hereby detained under Article 7, Section 19 of The Institutional Accord for unsanctioned dimensional transgression, void-collusion, and subversion of institutional law. You are entitled to one sanctioned representative and a full temporal record audit. Do you understand the charges as stated?”

Rubidi didn’t answer. Her mouth was bruised, eyes unfocused. Her voidform had all but vanished.

Severa watched without blinking. Then she turned slightly toward Fabrisse. Her voice was low. “Did you know this would happen, Kestovar?”

Fabrisse stared at the Bureau’s insignia. It was the exact emblem stamped on the sealed directive Archmagus Rolen had shown him in confidence, before his departure to the Outer Fold. He even remembered the label: Time-Sensitive: Do Not Transmit.

“No,” he lied.

But he knew.

That was the plan all along. Rolen leaving had been a bait. Headmaster Draeth had sent him away, right after the headmaster himself had formally petitioned for an arrest.

“By formal request to the High Seat of the Thaumaturgical Synod Authority,” he had said, “I submit this petition for immediate action against all agents of void-aligned subversion, whose actions threaten to destabilize the sanctity, integrity, and lawful continuity of this reverent academic institution.”

Those were his words to the Bureau. And Fabrisse had been there to witness it.

[QUEST COMPLETED: “Chain the Void”]

Reward: +3 DEX, +2 FOR, +2 SYN, +1 EMO

+987 EXP

+6 Earth Thaumaturgy Mastery Points, +3 Air Thaumaturgy Mastery Point

Title Received: ‘Void-Binder’

[Combat Completed: +557 EXP]

[Progress to Level 6: 3114/2750]

[Congratulations! You have Leveled Up to Level 7.]

Book 2 and new companion book freebie

Now that the Patreon is on its way to concluding the first book, I have decided that the best way forward for Book 2 is to proceed with a parallel plotline. However, to avoid the common pitfalls of a multi-POV book (like having chapters from the POV that some could care less about), I’ve decided I will be separating the two POVs into two separate books that can be read separately. They will provide insight into each other, but one POV won’t become utterly incomprehensible if you don’t understand the other.

Basic Thaumaturgy for the Emotionally Incompetent will basically continue with Book 2 around August, in Fabrisse’s POV. After much deliberation, the other POV will be Severa Montreal’s, tentatively titled: Advanced Thaumaturgy for the Politically Inclined. It will ALSO be a LitRPG. Feel free to speculate on why :D

It’s been my goal to craft as rich a universe as possible for this world, and every subsequent book I release will be more or less tied to the original story. Current Patrons on Patreon will receive the first advanced 60 chapters of Severa’s POV book on top of current releases so you can decide whether it is for you :) So basically 60 chapters worth of freebies. I know some of you might not like Severa yet, but I hope there’ll be plenty of reasons to warm up to her once you get inside her head.

Thank you for your time.

Chapter 116

Longer chapter. Enjoy :)

The rod cracked against the air. Then all sound fell away.

The duo raised their hands like conductors invoking the overture of a war-symphony. Kaldrin’s left gauntlet dissolved into strings of light-incoded symbols. Golden loops unraveled from his wrist, each one forged from braided light, each link interlocking with the rod’s pattern like a clasp finding its twin.

The Fold mouth, an ugly, writhing mouth of spatial impropriety, tore.

The boundary wrenched; cracks bloomed along its rim as if the very fabric of place was tearing itself open under protest. Lorvan angled the rod down like a spear being twisted into a joint. Simultaneously, Kaldrin yanked the chain forward, and the rod-chain spearheaded in two directions, ripping the mouth further apart with a growling sound Fabrisse felt in the enamel of his teeth before he even registered it in his ears.

They’re not just casting, Fabrisse realized. They’re amplifying through glyphcraft. 

He’d been behind for so long that he forgot there were so many branches of magic to look into just within Thaumaturgy itself.

[Intuition + 1 | Current Intuition: 25]

As the Fold-mouth split wider, the chain-rod launched inside like a harpoon. It howled through the warped air, burning golden against the colorless void beyond the breach. 

Kaldrin and Lorvan moved in tandem. Their stances mirrored each other: one grounded, one drawn taut like a bowstring. The chain stiffened as tension fed back through it, turning fluid light into solid pressure.

“Extraction,” Celine murmured. Fabrisse had seen it done before, when Kaldrin yanked the void entity last time.

Kaldrin braced his heels against the soil, grinding a boot into the ley-warmed ground. Lorvan twisted the rod with both hands. But sparks of orange flared even harder from their chain-rod.

Their aether was destabilizing. The sparks worsened, erupting into angular faultlines along the links.

“Kaldrin,” Lorvan barked without looking. “Hold—” The rod sagged in his hands. The chain rumbled, links dimming to a dull bronze.

“If extraction fails, what do they do?” Celine asked.

“I don’t know,” Fabrisse replied. He also didn’t know why Celine thought he’d have the answer.

Behind them, Ilya kept pace with deliberate urgency. Her braid was scorched at the ends, her coat ripped open along one sleeve, but her posture remained resolute as she hurled a sequence of high-grade incantations accompanied by volleys of frosted arrows at the newly-spawned void creatures, now twice as big as before. “They’ll jump into the Fold,” she said. “If the pull fails, they’ll force a crossing.”

“They’ll jump in?” Fabrisse echoed.

“How bad is that?” Celine asked.

“Not good,” Ilya said. “But it might be enough to enable external help.”

“What do you mean by external help?” Celine continued.

“You seeing the sky, Fabri?” Said Tommaso as he skated past low over a muddy patch, his boots not touching earth at all.

Beneath him, hexagonal panes of luminous flames shimmered with faint green edging, assembling in real time like stepping stones laid by invisible hands. He was chaining it with near-zero delay, all the while throwing simple fireballs at advancing voidspawns.

Low aether draw, self-propelling, good terrain avoidance. Huh, Fabrisse thought. He’s conserving his focus points.

Tommaso, who usually preferred explosive speed bursts and gold-lined barrier punches, was sticking to an efficient movement suite?

That could not mean well.

“We’ve already been swallowed into the Voidfold,” Fabrisse concluded.

“Unfortunately,” Ilya said. That must’ve been the reason nobody had noticed anything. They weren’t in the Synod anymore. “But worry not. My tracking concludes there is only one caster inside the heart of the fold. Whoever’s in there, they will have a hard time sustaining the fold while—”

Sounds blurred around Fabrisse.

A bottomless hole split open just two paces in front of him. Claws—no, fingers—long, barbed, and jointed in a way no human’s fingers should, snatched him by the collar and chest. They moved like Rubidi’s, but larger. More evolved. 

He cast Tremblehold on instinct. Tremblehold didn’t work against a black hole.

“Fabrisse!” someone yelled—Celine? Lorvan? He couldn’t tell. The moment had no depth, only static.

The claws yanked him down.

He fell through the rift, through the absence, through the screaming edge of space—

And then nothing.

The rift behind him closed with a snap. He stood, trying to feel the lightless space before him, but he could sense nothing. There was no texture to the space around him. His limbs floated, yet he felt the lurching suggestion of a downward pull beneath his feet.

[Potential Overload Event Detected]

[Cognitive Auto-Sorting Engaged – Compatibility Mode]

Panic tried to sprint up his spine. He wouldn’t allow it.

Checklist, he thought.

He clenched his fists. The familiar compression of his gloves gave him a half-second of tactile anchoring.

Checklist. Stabilize. Enumerate. Prioritize.

• Orientation. No gravity. Visual field absent. No known threat in direct contact—yet.
  
  

• Light source. Needed immediately.
  
  

• Aether channels. Unclear interference, possibly suppressed. Test draw.
  
  

• Time perception. Already unreliable. Avoid second-guessing. Use spell loop as external rhythm.
  
  

• Mental scripts. Run known mantras for void exposure. Reinforce self-concept. Identity must stay intact.

“Draw breath, coax warmth, speak bright,” he whispered. “Draw breath, coax warmth, speak bright.”

A weak curl of orange twisted into being between his palms. Not fire—just the ghost of it. It lit only a narrow cone in front of him, as if the air was too thin to carry light. The edges of the spell didn’t cast shadows. They were swallowed instantly by the void.

One meter visibility. Low flare duration. Aether pressure compromised. Noise profile low. Good.

FP: 17/34

Spellcasting efficiency and stats drop by 30%.

The helix flickered. He adjusted his fingers as precisely as he could, even as his breath shuddered. His chest still spasmed with adrenaline, but the spiral of steps began to hold him upright like a scaffolding.

Then he heard breathing behind his neck.

He turned. The helix caught it—her—just as she moved far too close. Rubidi’s face emerged out of the void like a thing peeling from a veil. Her eyes were bottomless pools of tar, far too wide to be human.

“How do you like this?” She breathed into his mouth. The words entered his ears in the wrong register, with an accent no species had a right to own.

Fabrisse flinched so hard his combustion helix wavered into smoke. He fumbled to recast it, and couldn’t. She had violated his personal space too hard.

“Let’s make this quick and painless. No one will know.”

Rubidi’s gaze pinned him in place. Her hand rose, and with it, the void thickened. She didn’t reach toward him, but rather through him, phasing her arm partially into his chest. It didn’t feel like touch, but like that deeply intolerable pressure building up in Fabrisse’s chest.

She whispered, almost reverently, “Rare constructs like the Eidralith are old. Ornery. But they bind. And bindings can be unwound.”

Fabrisse spasmed involuntarily. His knees buckled as his flare guttered out. But his mind still ran. This is not aggression. This is harvesting. That means she’s focused, and likely not fully aware of her surroundings.

He couldn’t do anything to harm her. But if they were in a voidfold, surely there would be a mouth somewhere to interact with.

He scanned the voidspace. Even in the dim halo of his extinguished flare, Fabrisse’s gaze snagged on something. A patch of space that resisted being blank.

The void around it angled, like the idea of a vanishing point rendered in three-dimensional geometry. Subtle seams formed where the backdrop of nothingness felt slightly . . . structured. It almost seemed like those delicate mirage-lines that appeared in the desert near the edge of his commune, ones that made solid shapes ripple. Just like the one I saw when they first tried to kidnap me.

[DAMAGE TAKEN: Spiritual Damage]

[WARNING: Affinity integrity is being affected.]

[Target Affinity: Stone (Primary) — Status: COMPROMISED]

[Estimated Time to Completion: 1 minutes 03 seconds]

[ERROR: External interface unauthorized. Override in progress.]

He could feel it, that awful unraveling, like his Stone Affinity was being peeled away layer by layer, not cut but sanded, frayed until the shape no longer held. It felt like he no longer knew how to levitate a stone.

No. Not my stones. I have to do something about this.

But his very Stone essence was being taken away from him, and he found it hard to even bring to mind the names of the spells he wanted to cast. The name of his own stone. Every time he tried thinking about Stupenstones, an inexplicable wave of nausea hit him and ceased his cognitive function.

I have to improvise. There’s one skill I can use.

His hand curled, steady now. He needed this to work.

[Estimated Time to Completion: 28 seconds]

He reset his posture. Bones aligned, chest open, breath measured. He remembered Rolen’s instruction: lead from the center. Not the wrist. Not the shoulder. Will first, motion second.

He extended his hand and screamed the mnemonic.

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

[SKILL CAST: Cindermark (Rank I)]

[Estimated Range: 2.1m (84%) + 13% from Celestial Hoarding]

The fire flare burst forth from his palm—an erratic, sputtering spiral of orange and gold, trailing heat like a comet too small to matter. It rocketed toward the rippling seam in the void, that half-seen vanishing point, as Fabrisse prayed the distance wasn’t too far. He needed it to reach. He needed it to reach.

The flare flew straight. Then, without even a flicker of impact, it vanished. Gone, like the void had opened its throat and swallowed the flare whole, as though it had never existed in the first place.

Fabrisse stared, breath locked. That was a distress flare spell. It was designed to bloom, violently, unmistakably—a scream of fire in spellform. Instead, it winked out like a dying thought.

He didn’t know if it made it to the ripples.

He didn’t know if anyone saw it.

He just knew the void had taken it.

Rubidi let out a cackle. “Fool. Shoot spells all you want. Even if you can somehow find the mouth, nobody will know. I’ve connected the voidmouth to my safest retreat. Nobody will come for you.”

A cold beyond cold began to take root in his gut, anchoring there like stone in deep water. 

[Estimated Time to Completion: 10 seconds]

Rubidi leaned close, her presence vast and slow. Her voice dipped into something deeper than language.

“Let the void claim you,” she murmured, “and then I’ll claim your Eidralith.”

He tried to summon the words to cast again. Something—anything. His lips moved, but his hand faltered. The sparks didn’t form. 

[WARNING: Focus dropped below 25%.]

[FP: 3/34]

Spellcasting efficiency and stats drop by 70%

His fingers curled. His chest rose once, sharply—too sharply. His lungs seized. No spell would come. Not with this drain.

He realized now—she wasn’t just unbinding his Affinity. She was draining his Focus. Starving his capacity to resist.

[WARNING: Critical System Compromised. Initiating Forced Shutdown.]

The world dimmed. His limbs sagged like the strings had been cut from them. He was nothing more than a vessel on the edge of collapse. It was all over.

A searing rod of light speared through the ripples. The void warped in response, the rim of the mouth spasming, failing to reject the intrusion. 

Fabrisse tried to gasp, but no air came in. The intrusion was too sudden, too directional, too targeted to be accidental.

Rubidi jerked, her hand retracting from his chest as if burned—not from pain, but from sheer, stunned reflex.

Her void-shaped body stiffened, and for the first time since the rift swallowed him, Rubidi’s composure cracked. Her head turned, slow and rigid, toward the source of the light. “. . . How?”

So someone actually saw my flare.

Fabrisse dropped.

His legs folded beneath him, and the rest of him followed, limp. The faint tether of resistance snapped, and the void caught him like he was dropped into thick fluid.

His limbs floated. The weight of the world peeled away. His chest rose—and this time, it stayed risen. He could breathe.

The voice rang in his ear again. “I’ve always wondered,” she said, not quite steady, “why you thought it wise to teach me forbidden magic.” A second rod followed, locking in parallel to the first, splitting the spatial seam wider, prying the geometry apart. “And explain this, Rubidi,” the voice pressed, sharper this time. “Why do you have three unpublished papers on void-based extraction of affinities and bindings?”

“You . . . Stay away from this!” Rubidi growled, a primordial grumble. “I’m doing what’s best.”

“Best? I see it now—where I’ve been wrong about this partnership of ours all along.” The voice curled with scorn. “There’s no honor in winning by fraud.” 

Fabrisse couldn’t see her, couldn’t move to look. But the light reached him, a rising storm of it, gold and white and severe. His pupils cinched to pinpricks, every part of his skull flinching from the sensory spike.

And yet he welcomed it. Even as his eyes stung and watered, even as shapes shimmered behind his lashes, he’d never been more grateful to be blinded.

[NOTIFICATION: Flash reboot initiated. System stabilizing . . .]

Then the voice returned, this time, with poise. “Now explain. What is the meaning of this?” With a very familiar, utterly smug, insufferably grating poise.

The one who came for him was Severa Montreal.

Small Update

Since I've made some changes to the earlier chapters and added some new content in the middle, Chapter 113 is now Chapter 115; Chapter 112 is now 114, and so on. This is to avoid any potential confusion that might arise.

Chapter 86

NOTE: In setting up for the final fight, I need Fabrisse to have a couple more skills. I was stupid of me to have Rolen offering to help him and not getting him any new spells at all, so I need to take advantage of this. Now he's learning 2 new spells, Glasveil and Cindermark, that can be used in later battles.

Fabrisse exhaled slowly, eyes closed, legs folded awkwardly on the floor of Rolen’s makeshift training alcove—if you could call a place lined with scorched shelves, broken sigil plates, and humming artifacts ‘makeshift.’

The room pulsed faintly with heat. Not from a flame, but from him.

He wasn’t sweating. Not anymore. The first few days had been hours—burning brain fog, nosebleeds, a near panic attack when the Lodestone cracked a little—but he’d made it through.

And now he was casting a passive fire spell without even moving. 

[Mastery Training Completed: Glasveil (Rank I) —100%]

[Spell Learned: Glasveil (Rank I)]

→ Affinity: Fire
→ Status: Active (Passive Sustain)

→ Effect: +10% SYN while a Fire spell is cast within a radius of 2m².

→ Additional Bonus: Dampens aura emissions by 40%; conceals minor aether sparks.

→ Note: Bonus applies only while Fire spells are actively being cast nearby. Benefits drop immediately if spellcasting ceases.

It was deceptively useful—if you knew what you were doing. The boost only triggered when another Fire spell was active in close proximity, or if he was casting one himself, since SYN was only useful during the stage of synchronization, which was decidedly before the spell was cast.

Because SYN affected a spell before it was even released, the trick was to stay in motion and keep spellwork flowing like a chain reaction. However, this spell would still be helpful right now, for as long as Tommaso was near.

The air around him gleamed, not from heat, but from a soft optical haze that dulled his presence in the aether.

“Not bad,” Rolen said, stepping into the ripple of warmth with a raised brow. “You picked that up faster than I expected, especially considering your almost nonexistent Fire affinity.”

Fabrisse cracked one eye open. “So that’s praise?”

“That's an observation,” Rolen gave him a cheeky smile. “But yes, praise as well. Good control of Glasveil will do more than just hide your aura or push your synchronization. It’ll build the affinity itself. A trickle now, but give it time.”

“It can do that?”

“Use it enough, let the aether resonate, and the bond deepens.” Rolen gestured toward him. “Ask the Eidralith. See what it says.”

Fabrisse focused. The familiar pane of script shimmered to life in his mind’s eye.

[Eidralith Attunement Interface]
→ Resonant Element 4: Fire
→ Trace Stability — Suppressed Link — 10%

His mouth fell open. That was at nine! It went up!

“So?” Rolen said, amused.

“So?! The Eidralith agrees!”

“Then congratulations,” Rolen said dryly. “But time is of the essence and you need to learn your second spell.”

Fabrisse straightened a little. “Another fire one?”

“Of course. You’re already primed. We’ll keep it basic: Cindermark.” 

Before Fabrisse could ask what that meant, Rolen raised one hand.

A vertical flare of orange fire appeared from his palm, punching upward in a clean, narrow column. It reached nearly to the ceiling before fizzling out without a sound, nor heat, nor smoke, nor any scorch mark.

“It’s a signal spell,” Rolen said, lowering his hand. “Used to mark positions, call for backup, or send a warning. Because you only focus on the flare and remove the need to call upon heat at all, it can travel rather far even at the base level.”

Fabrisse blinked. “You didn’t even move.”

“That was the move,” Rolen replied. “Cindermark is all about control. You’re not building a fireball. Now take out your Lodestone.”

Fabrisse reached into his robe. The cool weight of the Lodestone settled into his palm, and immediately, he felt the resonance thread open. He really wished he’d unlocked some synergistic channeling with Celestial Hoarding already—then the spell might’ve triggered even from inside his robe. But no. He hadn’t linked those spelllines yet. This was a training-only scenario.

Lodestone, Elemental—Equipped
Effect: Boosts EMO, SYN by 25%. Boosts DEX, INT, STR, RES by 12%.

He stared at his own outstretched hand, brow furrowed in concentration. He tried to picture the spell the way Rolen had: clean, narrow, efficient.  

He gathered heat, shaped a draft of fire in his mind, and . . . nothing. Of course. Nothing.

“First problem,” Rolen said, nudging Fabrisse’s elbow with two fingers, “your arm’s too high. You’re choking the flow. Let it drop slightly—yes, like that. Now square your shoulders.”

Fabrisse adjusted, feeling awkward.

Rolen tapped his spine next. “Back straight. You’re collapsing your conduit line from the base. Fire doesn’t like bending around corners.”

“Conduit line?”

“Your posture is part of the casting. Think of your bones as channels, not scaffolding.” He circled around to face him. “There’s a reason people with weak affinities can still cast—because alignment makes up the difference. So align.”

Fabrisse tried again, this time taking a breath to steady himself.

Rolen watched carefully, then added, “When you raise your arm, don’t lead with your hand. Lead with intent. Like pointing, but from the chest. Your center of will, not your wrist.”

“This is starting to sound like martial arts.”

Rolen smiled faintly. “That’s because it is. The aether responds to form. Now reset, and I’ll give you a mnemonic to anchor the motion.”

“But you don’t use a mnemonic.”

“There are more than one way to cast a spell,” Rolen said. “You can take shortcuts once your mastery of the element elevates.”

Are there, though? Intuitively, there obviously should be, but he had only ever seen one Aetheric Reaction Equation for every skill he got.

Before he could even voice the doubt aloud, the Eidralith flickered to life.

[SYSTEM NOTE: If an alternate casting method is stabilized and repeated under focused conditions, the system may register a new casting profile.

— Criteria: Method must be internally consistent, repeatable, and aetherically efficient.

— Multiple profiles may be stored per skill, based on user aptitude.

Continue practice to unlock adaptation equations.]

Oh, really? Two casting profiles for the same spell? I have to see it for myself.

His hand curled, steady now. He needed this to work.

He reset his posture. Bones aligned, chest open, breath measured. He remembered Rolen’s instruction: lead from the center. Not the wrist. Not the shoulder. Will first, motion second.

Rolen nodded in approval. “Good. Now repeat after me.” He raised two fingers, then intoned clearly:

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

He let the intent surge from somewhere behind his sternum, not his fingers. The heat responded this time, not as a blaze, but a thread of warmth that twisted upward—

fwsshh—

A thin column of orange light burst from his palm, barely half a meter high. It fizzled out in under half a second.

But it was a flare.

He blinked. “Did you see that?!”

Rolen gave a single, slow nod, gaze sharp. “Good.”

The Eidralith responded:

[Mastery Training: Cindermark (Inconsistent Casting) — Progress to Rank I: 5%]
→ Spellform Detected. Efficiency: 42%. Error margin: High. Stability: Low.
→ Adaptive profile not yet viable. Continue repetitions for calibration.

Fabrisse grinned like an idiot. “I knew it was possible.”

“Then do it a thousand more times,” Rolen said. “Until you can turn possibilities into certainty.”

Chapter 115

Rubidi came out of nowhere. There was no illusion this time, as she hurled herself straight at him like a shadow-fed spear. Her fingers were now claws, her mouth open in a voiceless snarl. 

She’s going for the kill, Fabrisse realized. He raised another Stupenstone and tried to aim, but didn’t know where to.

The purple gleam of the rod shaft shivered in the air as Lorvan stepped in the way, followed by pearl white shards. The rod writhed in his palm. From its end, seven serpentine appendages burst forth with a crackle.

Purple-gold sigils flared across their fanged mouths as they expanded, whip-like and precise.

They struck just as Rubidi closed the final meter.

One snake wrapped around her wrist, halting her claws inches from Celine’s bulwark. Another snared her ankle and yanked her. She staggered, then spun. She tried to counter, bringing her free hand around in a raw palmstrike, but two more serpents coiled around her waist and neck, anchoring her like she was being caught in a ritual web.

Lorvan raised his left hand, fingers already weaving the configuration. His voice dropped into the rhythm of spellcraft:

“Seal the fourth with tethered thread—
Lock her fast or strike me dead.”

A binding circle surged beneath her, white runes flaring across the floor like horizontal lightning. The serpents anchored her limbs with radiant precision, feeding their energy into the tightening lock.

He had her. For a heartbeat, it looked absolute.

Then Rubidi screamed. The serpents convulsed.

It’s this feeling again. 

Fabrisse felt the void; it felt like someone was constricting his windpipe. Cracks spidered across her limbs, and the void swallowed the cracks. She was phasing through her bindings.

One serpent slipped.

Rubidi’s ankle twisted in an inhuman angle as the void slipped through the coils. The snakes’  fangs dug deeper, radiant gold sparking at their seams.

A final serpent lunged for her throat—one last desperate clamp to stall her phase distortion—but it passed straight through. She was slipping out of time, out of form, out of containability.

And then the Veyruhn’s Lock tried to close.

It slammed with a clap like heaven breaking, glyph-spikes punching up from the floor to impale the shadow beneath her.

But they hit nothing.

Rubidi had already torn free.

“Voidphasing. That’s a technique only someone who’s neck-deep in Voidcasting could learn.” Lorvan closed his palm. The Lock shattered on impact with the void, fragmenting into a whirl of dead symbols and bleeding sparks. “She’s in a Voidfold now.”

“Why can’t we just attack that visible rift?” Fabrisse pointed at the same rift that’d brought all these void creatures into the pondside.

Lorvan replied, “It’s a mouth. What we’re seeing is just the lip of it; the entry flare. A fold so strong to the point it can summon infinite voidspawn has to sit beneath the space, braided into the leylines.”

A crack of soundless golden lightning split the sky. It struck down, targeting what looked like empty air outside the pond’s perimeter.

The moment the bolt descended, a vertical seam in reality split wide like an eyelid opening. It sucked the lightning in, and the fold closed again before the echo of its presence could fully register. The Voidfold devoured it whole.

“Found the fold!”

The voice rang out from the edge of the shattered dome. A tall silhouette stood against the light, coat flared by magical recoil, his fingers still crackling with golden aether sparks from the spell’s release.

Professor Kaldrin!

More voidspawns peeled out of the shadows. One spawned too close to Fabrisse, and he jolted as he dodged aside and cast Tremblehold on it. Either the creature was too heavy or it had become much more dexterous now, because his spell could barely sway it for a second. Celine immediately hit it with a javelin, slamming the creature against the inside of her bulwark. However, the creature didn’t die. It wiggled and attempted to regain its footing.

Celine scowled. “That should’ve pinned it.”

She summoned another javelin and rammed it through the creature’s chest before it could lurch.  This time it spasmed and dissolved into oily smoke. Close. But the delay was new, and deeply disturbing.

Fabrisse saw Celine sweating, and after a quick check with Spectral Appraisal, he confirmed his suspicion:

Celine Moose – Focus Points: 46 / 111

A new shriek split the air as another voidspawn erupted from the rippling edge of the Fold. This one was longer-limbed, its joints double-hinged and too fluid, its surface pulsing with tiny motes of static. It didn’t hesitate. It ran.

The voidspawn barreled toward them, dragging static across the scorched floor. 

Before Celine could cast, a new voice cut in from behind. “Guys! Move.”

Flames exploded across the creature’s path as Tommaso stepped forward, hands already sheathed in blaze. He snapped his wrists, and three ribbons of fire lashed outward in a forked arc, corralling the voidspawn. The creature leapt tight into a blast column that erupted from the ground beneath it, consuming it in roaring flame.

Another spawn rose from behind it—this one with plated shoulders, half-molten horns writhing across its head. Tommaso twirled his arm, summoned a firewheel, and hurled it like a discus. The wheel bit deep into the creature’s midsection, dragged fire with it, and detonated in a shockwave that took two more of the smaller spawns with it.

“Heck yeah!” He’d already scanned the surrounding space. “Let’s turn the heat back up.”

Five mini voidspawns burst from the ground in a simultaneous shriek, bursting into the yard at full sprint. Hunched and sinewy, they were leaner than the others. They zipped across the field in a streak, weaving around embers and debris, all zeroing in on Fabrisse like knives shot from a spring trap.

A massive translucent hand, sculpted from ice, slammed down from above with a wham. The mini-voidspawn got pinged off the surface like skipping stones launched from a catapult, arcing through the air in cartoonish spirals. Two of them flew higher than the still-squawking cluckclebeaks, who flapped in all directions in their usual feathered panic. One voidspawn went pinwheeling off into a tree and exploded in a puff of smoke. Another simply vanished mid-air with a horrified squeak.

Ilya stepped through the detonated fire from the firewheel. Hovering behind her, sealed in an upright slab of thick, rune-etched ice, was the unconscious masked caster, unmasked. Of course it was Ganvar.

Why does Ilya always have the most ridiculous spells . . .

However, a more important question popped up in his mind. The pond is part of the Synod. Surely with this magnitude of spells being cast, somebody must have noticed?

His eyes rose on instinct, and for a moment, he thought he’d gone partially blind. The sky had dulled. Not just clouded, not just darkened—dulled. All color was leached out of it like ink washed from a page. The blue had drained to a flat, cold gray, a tone so desaturated it looked like it had given up entirely. Even the outlines of clouds blurred into one another, reduced to a slow-churning monotone.

It felt like being quarantined.

“You need to remove the caster, Instructant Lugano,” Ilya said. “These voidspawns will get stronger and stronger.”

Tommaso wiped a streak of soot off his cheek with the back of his hand, grinning as he stepped beside Ilya. “Nice of you to show up, Ice Queen. I was three seconds from spontaneous combustion. Could’ve used some of that frosty affection.”

Fabrisse, catching the tail of the line, braced himself. Here comes the usual verbal slap. But instead of her usual exasperated scoff or a deadpan reprimand, Ilya’s lips curled slightly. She didn’t even roll her eyes.

Another mini void-thing spawn right behind Ilya, and she smacked it skyward with another ice hand, smaller now. The creature cartwheeled into the air before vanishing.

Ilya leaned in and pressed a quick, efficient peck to his cheek. 

Wait, what? Fabrisse’s brow furrowed. She has never shown affection before, and she decides to do it now, off all times?

A glowing glyph flared on his back at the same time, a soft shnnk of layered magic knitting into his mantle.

“Aether pool reinforced,” she said, already turning to face the fold. “Don’t waste it.”

[Spell Cast: Icebound Clarity (Rank V)]

I learned that in Advanced Water Theory. It’s a rare cryo-aether technique, letting casters bypass burnout thresholds without shredding their mana channels. No wonder Tommaso’s been able to cast flashy spells for so long.

“We can hold for another hour, Mentor. Do your thing,” Tommaso said. His back was now to Fabrisse, but he didn’t need to see his face to know exactly what kind of smug grin Tommaso was wearing.

Lorvan, now near the center of the shattered dome, cast a glance toward him. “I’ll leave them to you.” He then strode toward Kaldrin.

Kaldrin was already weaving. Golden light had gathered around both of his arms now, dense and thrumming as he formed geometric arcs in the air. With a flash, he snapped his fingers, and three radiant chains cracked into being, writhing like living gold filaments, charged and tense like lightning frozen in motion.

“You see it now?” Kaldrin called out to Lorvan. “They’re anchored to a leyline scar . . . clever. That’s how they nested the Fold.”

“These folds aren’t stable,” Lorvan answered. “If we synchronize, we can rip whoever’s casting from the anchor lines.”

“Just like L’Nair’s Siege?” Kaldrin asked.

Lorvan’s brow ticked up. “Cleaner. I’ve upgraded.”

Wait. Those two go that far back?

Kaldrin rotated both wrists, and the golden chains reared. The arcs of light in the air interlocked into a shifting mandala. Lorvan mirrored the motion from across the broken field, his serpentine rod unfurling again, this time with tighter control—each head glowing with synced sigils. The ground under his feet began to pulse with layered circles, a rhythm that matched the hum around Kaldrin’s chains.

“On my mark,” Kaldrin intoned.

The aether between them surged. Two distinct geometries aligned across the fractured battlefield. The air bent, threads of unseen force warping into focus.

Fabrisse squinted through the glare, peeking past his fingers. Even half-obscured, it was breathtaking. The golden chains whipped forward with impossible precision, like the battlefield itself had bent to obey.

For a moment, all he could do was stare.

“Now,” Kaldrin commanded.

Lorvan slammed his rod into the earth. Kaldrin swung his arms wide.

The golden chains cracked forward, trailing afterimages in the air as they converged, then struck.

Right into empty space.

Chapter 114

Rubidi? That’s Severa Montreal’s mentor. Fabrisse’s eyes widened. Is House Montreal actually involved? Surely Severa is smarter and more morally upright than resorting to this?

But then again, she just stole my lore clerk position.

But if Lorvan said that was Rubidi, that was Rubidi. He couldn’t argue against cold, hard facts.

Rubidi was never one to waste words. She’d never talked much before unless it was to belittle someone, and she certainly wouldn’t talk much now that her mouth had been replaced by rippling shadows.

She lunged forward, her shadows stretching, dragged by the weight of her own gravity. Trailing streaks of her afterimage stuttered at rapid intervals, which was absolutely offensive to the eyes.

Lorvan whipped. With a smash of his rod at air, the scattered fractures of his Veyruhn’s lock knitted together—six radiant strokes locking into a jagged star. Symbols bloomed at each corner like branded constellations, and from the heart of the formation, spectral filaments shot out. At the center of Lorvan’s chest, just above his sternum, floated a faint, hovering fragment of aether—barely the size of a coin, yet thrumming with dense, radiant rhythm. That must be how his lock was sustaining itself and drawing in aether.

Then he flung the lock at her.

For a split second, her body froze, locked by the threads latching onto her mass.

But then the slit across her chest split wider. With a sickening rip, she shed her own skin like a cloak. Her silhouette peeled from herself, becoming two overlapping shadows. One crumbled beneath the binding light. The other slid backward into the haze.

“She just severed her presence?” Fabrisse muttered in awe as Celine smashed the head of a voidspawn underneath his feet with her javelin.

“Help me with the spawns, Fabrisse . . .” Celine pleaded.

“Oh. Sorry.” He immediately cast Tremblehold on the next spawn, and Celine pinned it down with ease.

Lorvan’s rod traced another glyph, this one arcing along the ground, morphing into a crescent woven from mirrored runes. The stones beneath Rubidi’s new position rose like teeth, then locked into a cage of aetherial bone, each bar scribed with cancelling seals. It was an elegant construct, recursive and multilayered, sealing not the body, but the pattern of the enemy.

But darkness has no pattern.

Rubidi’s body split again, this time vertically. It warped the containment arc, curving the cage toward one version of her, possibly the wrong one. 

Lorvan corrected immediately, twisting the rod to collapse the false seal.

Too late.

Rubidi reached him.

Her limb elongated, thinning into a shadow-spike that pierced the glyph circling his chest—aiming not for his heart, but the harmonic node that anchored the spell.

Lorvan swallowed the damage. His rings blazed. One snapped in half as its stored aether diverted into a defensive bloom. Hexagonal plates of force flared between them like window shutters in a storm.

She hit him.

The rod skidded from his hand as he was flung backward. Rubidi surged forward to follow up.

But the moment her foot touched down, a minor glyph embedded in Lorvan’s falling rod flared.

[Veyruhn’s Lock: Recursive Snare Triggered.]

That looks very much like a trap, Fabrisse thought as he cast Tremblehold on another voidspawn. It was really getting annoying and repetitive now.

Chains of pure syntax lanced out from the rod—runes forming in the air, followed by actual flying symbols. They pierced her projections and sought the core: the locus of identity she couldn’t fully mask. Fabrisse didn’t know where the core was; it was getting extremely difficult to follow such high-speed action.

The chains pierced Rubidi’s illusions like needles. She shrieked. 

Lorvan stood, blood on his lip. The rod flew back into his hand.

Through the haze of ruptured glyphs and dissipating darkness, Fabrisse saw Tommaso’s flame-drenched silhouette dancing against a barrage of attacks from the masked figure. 

How is that still going on at such intensity? Don’t they ever run out of Focus Points?

The masked figure advanced at him with terrifying grace. A flick of their wrist summoned a sliver of light, sharpened into a blade that folded in mid-air and rebounded toward Tommaso. He barely ducked, only to be met by a pressure wave that slammed into his knees. He dove headfirst.

From one palm, a chain of radiant orbs spiraled out: condensed photonic packets, bouncing off the terrain at geometric angles.

From the other, a bolt of lightning cracked sideways mid-flight, then split again, weaving between Tommaso’s sides before striking.

Ganvar’s casting spells from four different elements at once? They don’t look high-level, but so clean. Like she’s combat scripting.

Tommaso burst into a flaming torch. The blaze erupted from within, pouring from his eyes, mouth, fingertips—a solar flare trapped in human form. The bolts of lightning reached him, and he incinerated them. The electrical arcs boiled into white plasma, curling into the conflagration. Then the masked figure’s orbs struck the inferno and erupted in a chain of prismatic detonations, a stuttering fireworks display of collapsing light logic.

And then came the one he knew would follow.

That piercing flash. A lance of condensed force: Pierce of the Iron Saint.

But Tommaso had learned.

With a single gesture, he didn’t meet the strike—he turned it. A low-effort cyclonic twist of air redirected the trajectory. The lance curved off-course, whistled past, and embedded harmlessly in the stone.

Minimal aether loss. Maximum control.

His deflection spell was low-tier, effectively handling the masked figure’s high-powered skill. They stood back for a second, having to recuperate.

That might’ve been their mistake.

Tommaso had the one second he needed. His back arched as he righted himself in the air. Then he started chanting,

“Primeval spark beneath rhythm’s lie—”

I know this mnemonic. He’s finally doing it!

“Celine. Get me close to the dome now!” He shouted.

Celine moved without being told twice. They were really ten meters away; very close to range. Fabrisse pointed to the tiny pinprick on the dome’s surface. “Can you aim for that?”

“My hands are . . . javelined,” she said as she smacked a void-thing aside.

Fabrisse wanted to tell her to take aim, and he’d handle the void-spawns instead, but he knew better. He had a Rank III Stupenstone Fling spell. He’d practiced weeks to master this one, specific spell, one he really had no need to master. This was when all his efforts would come to fruition.

“Then get us five meters closer,” he said.

Tommaso had released his disruption spell sequence—Falcrest Pattern Killstep. 

The first wave was pure sound: asymmetric pulses of inverted tone, fluctuating at off-time intervals. 

Next came the visual pulse: A kaleidoscopic bloom of blinking fractal prisms exploded outward, each flashing in erratic, unsynced strobe patterns. Fabrisse made sure not to look.

Then came the spatial disruptions. The ground swelled beneath the masked figure’s feet. Thermal veins, ignited by the pulse of the spell, coursed beneath the battlefield like magma-fed arteries. Hairline fractures spidered out as if the very bedrock was exhaling.

“Easy!” Ilya shouted from somewhere Fabrisse couldn’t see anymore. “This is still campus ground!”

The masked figure staggered.

Their footing cracked as the Killstep sequence layered deeper—sound, light, and heat, all weaving into a dissonant pulse that jarred the senses and warped the environment. Their arm twitched involuntarily. One of the rebounding light orbs splintered early, flaring wide and evaporating into static.

But Tommaso wasn’t done.

He inhaled through clenched teeth, his whole form now ringed in solar flares. A corona of runes erupted around him, spinning in a double helix as he clapped his hands together.

“Scorchfield Spiral—Ignition Now!”

The spell detonated. A crackling firestorm rolled across the field in a helical band, concentric rings of pressure and flame unfolding in measured bursts. A roaring wall of patterned combustion swept outward, skipping safe zones in fractal rhythms—one of which curved near the edge of the battlefield, almost brushing the dome.

“Whoa, what in the Flamus?” Fabrisse muttered as the static wash brushed past his cheek. He nearly dropped his Stupenstone.

“We’re there!” Celine shouted. Only then did Fabrisse realize his legs had been moving on his own; as did his hand. He’d reached into his satchel and pulled out a Stupenstone. Gravelkin. His most trusted Stupenstone.

But then he saw the final pulse of Tommaso’s Scorchfield Spiral coiling like a fiery wyvern, slamming into the ground around two meters ahead, within spitting distance of the dome’s base.

And that gave him an idea.

“Celine, cover my run right!” he yelled.

“What? Why?!”

“I need to get within two square meters of the fire!”

She blinked, piecing it together instantly. “Spell trigger?”

“Spell trigger.”

Celine didn’t argue. Her right hand flexed, then extended in a fast, flat sweep. A scatterburst of force peeled away three voidspawn, just long enough for Fabrisse to dive into position.

[Passive Check: Glasveil (Rank I)]

Effect: 10% SYN within the required radius of an active Fire spell—Activated

The stuttering chromatic fractals reflected off the mysterious figure’s mask in maddening, disjointed hues. Even their body shimmered at the edges, struggling to anchor itself.

With a hiss of compressed air, the masked figure slammed a crystalline half-disc against her chestplate. It latched with a pulse, and a dome of pale, translucent black expanded around her, refracting the worst of the dissonance. The sound dulled. The heat shimmer warped. The kaleidoscopic strobe fractured at the shield’s edge.

A harmonic dampener.

It steadied her breathing, and her stance re-centered, almost too easily. She shot one finger upward, casting a precision gravity sink toward Tommaso’s last position, regaining tempo.

But Fabrisse grinned.

Because now he knew two things.

One, she needed help to resist overwhelming sensory disruption. 

And two—she was about to face the Clucklebeaks.

He’d taken into account the possibility she’d have a counterplay for a disruption sequence. But did she have a counterplay for two disruptions at once?

“Don’t fail me now,” he whispered as he aimed for the tiny, glowing crack near the foot of the structure. He’d need to throw past a patch of tall grass to reach it. The curve had to be perfect. But he got this. This was like that third glyph in the Arc Pebbles game. He could hit the pinprick head-on. He knew he could.

Fabrisse threw his Stupenstone.

[Skill Cast: Stupenstone Fling (Rank III)]

[Skill Cast: Gravelkin (Rank II)]

Gravelkin morphed into its most aerodynamic form. Slabs of compacted gravel slid and ground against one another with magnetic clicks, folding into a dense teardrop core, flanked by spinning flakelets. 

It whistled through the air like a skipping meteor.

 → Trajectory Curvature: Stable
 → Estimated Launch Velocity: 13.0 m/s (97% max)
 → Accuracy Deviation: ±1.4%

The stone arced through the tall grass, flawlessly, unobstructed. 

The impact bloomed like a gong note as the Stupenstone struck the pinprick node on the dome’s surface.

There was a moment of eerie stillness.

Then came the warble, followed by the high-pitched, accelerating chirpstorm of Clucklebeak panic.

The Clucklebeaks were thick creatures; there was no sugar-coating it. They could sit still through literal Armageddon events. But if the aetheric stability was in any way compromised . . . they riot.

Hundreds of them launched into the air like someone had set off an avian landmine. They flew in chaotic spirals, their stubby wings somehow achieving improbable lift, their oversized bodies colliding midair and bouncing like fluffy wrecking balls.

The dome’s fracture widened under the weight of rising panic. Aetheric pressure fluctuated; more Clucklebeaks sensed it and panicked harder. It was a feedback loop of poultry hysteria.

Another crack. Then another.

The dome didn’t shatter. It popped, disintegrating into motes of broken containment logic.

And then the Clucklebeaks descended.

There were too many of these birds everywhere. The masked figure turned just in time to blast two Clucklebeaks from the air with precise lightspells—both exploded in a puff of burnt feathers and surprised squawks. Another barreled into their flank. Then one hit their back. A pair tangled around their legs, flapping violently.

The figure struggled to stay upright, casting rapid sigils in panic, barely holding ground.

And then came Mercy.

The smallest Clucklebeak. A runt, really. But possessed of something rarer than size: conviction.

With a determined chirp, Mercy tucked his head, rocketed through the air—and headbutted the masked figure square in the diaphragm.

The figure’s harmonic shield fizzled. They staggered.

And that was all Tommaso needed.

From above, blazing like the sun’s arrogant cousin, Tommaso dove in. His fist—a comet in the shape of a man—smashed.

One clean hit.

The masked figure crumpled into the grass like laundry.

Silence. Sort of.

Tommaso rose from his crouch, flaming and triumphant.

He threw his arms up, panting, grinning while Clucklebeaks spiraled around him in dizzy, drunken orbits. One was literally hanging from his shoulder like a confused parrot.

“Victory,” He struck a pose. It might’ve been meant to look heroic. It did not.

And then one Clucklebeak flew overhead and pooped directly onto the unconscious figure’s mouth.

Yes. We did it. We did it!

But Fabrisse could barely celebrate before darkness lunged at him again.

Chapter 113

Celine adjusted her grip on the javelin forming in her hand. “Fine,” she said. “You have brighter ideas than me.”

They moved quickly, ducking beneath a collapsed arch and weaving past fractured stone. The voidspawn had thinned near the pondyard’s eastern fringe, but that wouldn’t last.

Something cracked underfoot.

A ripple bloomed across the flagstone. Fabrisse hissed, “Tremblehold.”

A void-creature erupted from the ground at the same moment, but its limbs twisted, traction lost as it flailed with a wet screech. Celine’s javelin shattered its head on the downswing. The shards near her palm had already fanned out into her next summon.

Another one burst up near his side. Fabrisse’s hand jerked out instinctively, and a second Tremblehold sent it face-first to the ground. The timing was near-perfect. It sprawled in an arc, scrabbling, and Celine’s follow-up bisected it with a mid-air throw.

Momentum held.

[SYSTEM NOTE: Good reflex]

[DEX +1 | Current DEX: 15]

They stayed close, close enough that Celine’s summoned bulwarks occasionally swept wide to catch angles Fabrisse couldn’t see. Once, she pivoted sharply and snapped her fingers, forcing a wall to rotate ninety degrees. It blocked a lurching beast and gave them just enough space to keep pushing forward.

“You’re getting good with that,” she muttered. Fabrisse just kept on moving.

Meanwhile, the pondside roared with colliding forces. Tommaso hovered high in the smoke-wreathed air, arms blazing with kinetic charge. “Sunsting!”

Arcs of concentrated fire lanced down in a fan, chasing the mysterious figure’s trail. They blurred sideways in zipping motion, the flames chasing but never catching. She landed then raised both arms.

Two ripples burst out from the cloaked figure, silent but devastating.

[Spell Detected: Gravitic Lens (Force – Rank III)]

[Spell Detected: Prism Wall (Light – Rank III)]

A pulse of compressed gravity folded space just ahead of them, warping Tommaso’s incoming spell into a spiral. At the same time, a semi-transparent barrier rose up behind them, refracting his next flame burst into useless scatter.

Tommaso’s entire body ignited. Wind spiraled, feeding the blaze into a compact sheath around him, until his figure blazed like a silhouette trapped in a solar flare. Flames trailed from his back like wings. Then he shot forward.

That’s his combustion form, Fabrisse thought as he gazed at the sky, his feet never stopping.

Tommaso struck the ground just short of the shrouded figure’s feet.

The impact detonated in a dome of flame and pressure, a controlled blast wave that curved upward like a flipped bowl. The cloaked figure shielded themselves with their cloak, and that was the last thing Fabrisse could see before the smoke engulfed everything.

Celine and Fabrisse pressed forward—until the ground shuddered again.

Celine stopped. This time, it wasn’t the tremor that made her freeze.

Something had spawned just outside her most recent bulwark. It hadn’t burst from the soil like the others. It slid into existence. 

“Fabrisse,” Celine said, voice low, sharp with tension.

He halted.

The thing stood motionless, if ‘stood’ could describe it at all. Towering and asymmetrical, it resembled a massive tapering cone of sinew and slickened chitin, as if someone had sculpted a leech out of smoke and gave it a set of crooked teeth.

Its limbs were gangly, uneven—two of them dragging, two more arched like bladed stilts. But the worst was its mouth.

Or what might become its mouth. A yawning slit ran down the creature’s front, stretching vertically from where a chest might be too far below its midsection, stitched shut by dozens of strands of blackened membrane. 

That thing could not possibly have been a normal spawn.

The moment the creature’s crooked form angled toward them, Celine dropped into a stance, one hand braced to the ground, the other raised, fingers splayed and trembling. Light shimmered across her knuckles, then raced down her arm in oscillating loops. Sigils etched themselves in front of her palm.

“This will drain my aether pool by a lot,” she whispered, barely audible above the mounting hum of the anomaly’s presence. “But I’ll try . . .”

She didn’t sound confident.

“We should run,” Fabrisse muttered.

“I—Yeah,” she said. “But it’s too late now.”

The creature made no sound when it glided, slick like oil. Its limbs dragged with a fleshy scrape as it slithered toward them, and that slit of a mouth twitched. A stitch popped. Another followed, splitting the seam wider. The gate of void opened inside its mouth.

It was going to swallow them whole. Celine squeezed her eyes shut.

A streak of violet tore through the air: a spiraling rod drilling straight into the creature’s maw. 

The voidspawn seized. The impact lifted it off its limbs for a second, twitching as if caught in some invisible snare. The rod kept pushing, burning through the blackened stitches until it embedded deep inside.

Then came the second scream—guttural, human.

A voice howled from inside the creature.

The rod flashed again—once, twice—and with a violent tug, it yanked out a person.

Ragged, crackling with void energy, a person was ripped out from the gullet of the beast, half-wrapped in corrupted tendrils and choking on black bile. They slammed into the stones outside the bulwark with a wet crunch, still thrashing alongside the twitching tether of the rod.

The voidspawn collapsed unto itself. Its mouth sealed like folded space, and the whole thing slumped, liquefying in real time.

Lorvan stepped through the thinning haze. On his left hand, the hand holding the rod, five rings gleamed—each distinct, set with stones that pulsed in a cadence too slow for normal aether rhythms. Their glow traced up his wrist like veins of starlight.

Fabrisse gawked. Celine, still trembling, opened her eyes with great effort.

They weren’t supposed to be that surprised. Lorvan was to interfere the moment he saw anomalies. But still, the fashion in which his mentor entered the scene, and more importantly, the items he had on him, left Fabrisse in awe.

Those are definitely rings with attribution boosting properties, Fabrisse thought. So even Lorvan has to fall back on his aids now.

He knelt beside the figure he’d extracted from the anomaly’s gullet. 

The figure on the ground convulsed. Lorvan jumped back, releasing his rod’s grip on the figure right before a shockwave of pressure sliced through the air. He pulled his rod back just in time, before a blade of darkness tore through the ground. The fissure it left behind glowed pitch-black.

That looks like a weapon, but not a weapon. It’s a spell made manifest.

The body arched violently, dark ichor spewing from its mouth in a thick rope.

“Look at your hideous form,” Lorvan grunted. “Have you gone mad, spending all your years diving into the darkness, just to become so hideous?”

The figure’s head tilted at an unnatural angle, vertebrae clicking one by one into a quiet, controlled alignment. The darkness coiled around them. They rose.

Fabrisse’s mind rebelled at the sight. The sound of Celine hyperventilating beside him didn’t do much to clear his head.

That’s not a person anymore.

“If the Order turns a blind eye to corruption, then we will carve justice from the dark ourselves.” Lorvan’s hands relaxed. The rod in his left hand gave off no noise, only vibration, an inaudible timbre that prickled across the skin. Its length flared with sigils too old for current spellbooks, too bright for the eyes to see. Fabrisse squinted as purple, reverent sparks bled from the etchings, but forming delicate helices that circled the rod’s spine like prayer wheels.

Then his right hand lifted. Six thin fractures burst outward in perfect angles, knitting into a hexagram whose lines writhed like solder etched through crystal.

[Spell Detected: Veyruhn’s Lock, Sigil of the Sixth Path—Innate Energy Spell]

Innate? Does that mean . . . this is his ultimate spell? A spell only he can cast?

Lorvan never took his eyes off the aberration. His voice cut clean through the static.

“You might have merged with the dark,” he said. “But I recognize you from your scream; your stance. You’ve gone insane . . . Affar Rubidi.”