Chapter 9 – Life Goes On…

The rest of Mirian’s week went smoothly. Each day she went to her classes, each night she studied. Fourthday, she met Xipuatl and Nicolus again who split their time between debate and study, while Nurea loomed in the corner.

That weekend, Mirian went dueling again. During one of the bouts, she noticed Selesia watching her from the crowd, but when the bout finished, she couldn’t find her. She was curious to talk to her again, but it seemed the feeling wasn’t mutual. That was only slightly depressing.

“Have you talked to Selesia again?” she asked Lily when she got back to the dorm.

“No. Hey, check this out,” she said. Lily opened up her spellbook and concentrated, her hands brushing over the spells. The hairs on Lily’s neck stood up. She could tell Lily was casting a spell, but not what. Human senses could only just perceive arcane energy, and it was hard to describe what that sense felt like because it wasn’t connected to any of the other senses. Arcanists usually ended up comparing it to a sense, but that was inadequate.

When the desk started to levitate, Mirian figured out what the spell was. “Holy shit, Lily! Nice work!” The desk was solid wood, with the drawers stuffed with papers, so it had to be at least seventy pounds. Lily let the desk slowly drop back to the floor. Lily’s study of enhanced spells was already paying off. Mirian could lift about five pounds with a force spell. “You can almost lift a person!”

“Well, not a person,” Lily said. “Because of the… soul-thingy.”

“Entropic mana dissolution because of celestial displacement inhibition,” Mirian said.

“Yeah, that.”

The non-academic way of saying it was that the soul, being composed of celestial energy, anchored the arcane energy around a person. In turn, that arcane energy repelled and disrupted any other arcane energy nearby, like the tide parting around a rock. Every living thing had this spell resistance, though it was almost unnoticeable in plants and insects. It only really started to be a problem when the animal in question was the size of a cat or larger.

The resistance only worked for arcane forces. Once a spell had transformed into heat or force, a person’s aura did nothing to resist the effect of the spell. In this case, though, Lily would need to form the spell around the person before it transformed into a lifting force, and this particular force spell (the classic lift object) was formed in contact with the target to save mana.

“What else are you working on?”

“Mostly just the intensify enhancement. It’s the most broadly applicable, and most spells a mage is going to use has a known intensify glyph set. Oh, you won’t believe what happened. You know that idiot Platus?”

“Oh Gods. What did he do this time?”

“I mean, I don’t know how he even got into the class, my friend is sure his family must know someone on the Academy’s board. He tried to hasten a spell.”

“No way.” Of all the enhancements, that was probably the most difficult. Unlike most enhancements, there were no special glyphs. The caster just simultaneously fed mana into all the glyphs of the spell, and only through precise spell control, assembled it in the second before they released it. The risk, of course, was assembling it in the wrong order. Release a fire spell before the glyph indicating the target received any mana and the fire started at the origin point, which was usually your hand.

“He got lucky. His spellbook went flying across the room and he tore a hole in his shirt, but his hand only bled a little. They called a priest over from the temple to see if he’d done anything worse to himself, but he was fine. The professor was furious, though.”

***

Mirian spent the weekend reading through her textbooks and making notes. On Seventhday, she visited the temple, as she always did.

The priest’s sermon was about Xylatarvia, delivering her message of peace, and the meaning of the arcane glyphs to the people. She descended from the stars on a boat made of vines to do this, and the priest was discussing the symbolism of this gesture. Mirian listened politely, as she always did. It was proper to attend, she knew this, but some days she wished she felt the connection to the Gods that others seemed to feel.

Classes kept Mirian busy. In Artifice Design, she’d started work on her spellrod, and most of her time was going into that. She’d re-found Flexible Spellbook Composition for the Practical Mage, and was relying heavily on that as she worked on the glyphstones that would go in her rod. A lot of the work was just understanding machining. It was a prerequisite class, but it had also been three years since she’d done much work in the metal shop. As she worked, she thought about how expensive all of it was. If she was going to open her own spellforge, she’d need a lathe, a grinding machine, a welding machine, a drill press—and that was just for the metal! Nevermind any sort of woodwork and the alchemistry glassware. There was no way she could afford it all. Sure, she could cut costs and use spells instead of a machine for some things, but the spell organs she’d need for all the magical scribing ink might cost just as much in some cases.

All the big spellforges were run by large companies now. She supposed Nicolus was right. That was the way of the future. It wouldn’t pay nearly as well, and it wasn’t what she had dreamed when she’d started this journey so many years ago. Mirian’s mind had always gone to a cozy, well lit shop, the workbenches littered with machines and devices. Each day, customers would come in, and she’d fix their problems, and when she imagined it, it was all immensely satisfying. Churning out the same glyph by rote on a factory floor just didn’t have the same appeal.

Mirian’s rod was a mix of practical and cheap.

All of her mana relays were copper wire, even though silver would have made it more efficient. The glyphs would be contained in three cylinders, two of which could rotate, one of which could not. A clever mechanical lock would keep the cylinders from moving unless a button on the handle was depressed. That was just basic safety; the cylinders rotating mid-spell could cause the device to detonate, and she knew Professor Torres was looking for best-practice design principles, not just magical aptitude. Firstday, she finished the second of the cylinders, and Seconday she finished up the core of the device, snapping the magical catalyst into place. Even with the Academy subsidizing the materials, it was going to be an expensive project. But it was hers after she was done, so it also gave her a way to make something really useful.

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At five, she headed to the study session. Xipuatl and Nicolus verbally jousted again, but talking through the alchemistry concepts made a lot more sense than whatever Professor Atger had talked about. Mirian suspected he didn’t actually know the material at all, and wondered how he had gotten the job. The Torrviol Academy was known for only recruiting the best teachers. Were the academies in Akana Praediar changing that?

Thirdday, classes went as they usually did. But Nicolus wasn’t in Spell Engine Alchemistry. Which was strange. He never skipped classes. Mirian wondered if he had gotten sick. She hoped she wouldn’t get sick. She didn’t have a lot of silver to pay a priest. And if it was one of the diseases that the priests couldn’t cure, that was worse. Students got a discount at the local hospital, but even with that, it wasn’t cheap. Or, more likely, he’d realized attending class was useless if you’d read the book. Yeah, probably that. The class had thinned out considerably since the first day.

Geoarcanology assigned a myrvite fossil study project. That would involve a visit to the geology labs, and the only instruction Professor Holvatti had given them on the arcane resonator was a brief talk while he showed an illusionary picture of one. She could already feel the work it was going to take to research all the little minerals in the specimen and figure out how to use a resonator, and she was still working on her spellrod!

Lily had gotten busy too. She hardly saw her roommate, who spent her evenings mostly at the practice range where the ward system made it safer to try new spells. If she wasn’t doing that, she was researching intensify or extended spell glyph sets.

The dorm was dark when she got back, and there was little to do but go to the diner alone. Mirian regretted not trying to make more friends at times like these. She missed all her preparatory school friends, but she’d made the commitment when she joined the Academy: studies first.

Fourthday, Valen knocked over her ink pot in enchantments, and Mirian was sure it wasn’t an accident. This wasn’t the first time, though, and Mirian had a spell for that. She cast reassemble liquid, using a drop of the ink as a spell component. She badly wanted to confront Valen, but she knew the other girl would just mock her for even talking to her.