Chapter 60 — Magic Lessons with Keira

Ria ended up using her stamina scroll again after staying up late to practice forming wards into spells, but she was more confident in her chances of impressing Lord Vorshan as a result.

The guards at the manor didn't give her any trouble when she showed her invitation and entry pass. A butler led her to a sitting room to wait while a servant fetched Keira. While she waited, Ria checked in with Ranger to let him know that she had arrived without any problems. With Grandma Fana escorting her, there hadn't been any real cause for concern, but troublesome things had happened before, so she thought he'd appreciate the consideration.

A short while later, a page appeared announcing that Lord Vorshan had requested her presence.

Ria mentally grimaced, but properly followed the page. She had been hoping to spend the morning with Keira practicing magic and then meet with Keira’s grandfather in the afternoon, but it seemed fate had other plans for her. She could only hope that her preparation was adequate to the task.

The sight of the artwork lining the hallway was almost nostalgic at this point; so much had changed in her life since the last time she walked these halls. This time instead of an armed escort, a boy younger than her and doubtlessly a son of one of the village's wealthier families was guiding the way. Though he did give her side-eyes from time to time, which she returned with a pleasant smile. Ria was pretty sure he was the same boy who always delivered Keira's letters.

“Lord Vorshan,” the page spoke up upon entering the office where Keira’s grandfather was at his desk looking over reports.

Lord Vorshan looked up and gave Ria a welcoming smile. “Ah yes, Ens. Good work. Fetch Master Marlow for me as well, if you would.”

Once the page had left, Ria stepped forward and curtsied. “You sent for me, my lord?”

His eyes evaluated her for several moments, but far from looking displeased, if anything, his smile grew from before. “I heard from Bastach that you had purchased new clothing, but to think it was to this extent. Other than your still-bronzed skin, hardly a sign of the ‘barbarian girl’ that petitioned me for refuge remains. Though, I hear you've had an eventful few days?”

“Ah, yes, Lord Vorshan,” Ria began then paused, considering the best way to phrase her answer before finally settling on, “Thanks to the shamanic magic license and Bessel giving me a good exchange rate on my Revant coins, I was able to join the Enchanters Guild. I've also joined Adventurers Guild, and I'm really enjoying my time here; there's much more to do than my previous home.”

“Rigure is rather optimistic about your future as an enchanter, and I was quite surprised to see Bastach has put in a request to buy some of your work.” Lord Vorshan made an amused smile then leaned forward, steepling his fingers. “How did Keira do on your little adventure the other day?”

“Keira was a lot of help…” Again Ria hesitated, wanting to cast her new friend in the best light. “She used her magic sight to assist with finding magical herbs, and when the quickslime managed to catch me by surprise, she bravely took Leon’s place holding back the other attacking slimes while Leon activated one of my healing scrolls…”

“Hmm.” A smirk played across Lord Vorshan’s face. “Considering Keira was the one to protect you and Leon, I wonder if I should ask the guild for a refund on that protection mission…”

“Ah-!” Ria turned red with embarrassment and looked to the side when she realized her mistake.

Lord Vorshan chuckled at her reaction and waved it away. “I’m quite pleased that you've struck up a friendship with Keira… particularly in light of distressing recent events. Attending the Grand Academy will not be easy for her, and it would be even more difficult if she doesn't have any friends that she can trust and rely on.”

“Um, Lord Vorshan,” Ria spoke up—there was something she needed to ask. “Is it really true that Amilee will be put to death?”

The lord’s mouth formed a grim line. “It is true that the law recommends death as the penalty for necromancy, and there is little doubt about the evidence of Amilee’s guilt as I’m sure you are already aware, considering your involvement in this case. Amilee made a secret pact with a shapeshifter and performed the necromancy with the intention to immorally gain power. Both are actions that don’t reflect well on her judgment or character and do not weigh in her favor.”

Ugh. Ria had hoped that Keira would have been able to convince her grandfather to chose a less severe punishment. “Isn't there anything that can be done? For me to have received a pardon for my own use of Spirit Magic, and for Amilee to be… because of me. If Keira comes to hate me for it…”

“I would like nothing more than to give Amilee a lighter sentence. We've all known her since she was little. But I’m limited in my discretion, and you've seen the mood of the villagers lately.” Lord Vorshan's shoulders sagged, and he let out a tired sigh. “I’m not who you need to convince. At the end of the trial, I will allow for members of the public to speak against her and in her defense. It’s a risk for you, but if you can commit to me that you will make yourself aware of the laws involved and will keep your arguments relevant, I’m willing to permit you to speak on her behalf at that time. You are welcome to make use of our library to prepare. Would that interest you?”

Ria was stunned by Lord Vorshan’s offer. This was the chance she needed! “Yes, please!”

“Then, I’ll have expectations for your success.” Lord Vorshan gave a wan smile. “Now, to the reason I summoned you, how’s your progress on the task I assigned you?”

Ria felt her heartbeat pounding as the moment of truth had arrived. She took a long slow breath to calm herself. From the way he had asked the question, Lord Vorshan wasn't expecting her to have succeeded yet. “I've completed the task, my lord. …but I wouldn't say that I'm confident in replicating that success with every attempt.”

Lord Vorshan tried to hide a grin and coughed into his fist. “Ehem, well then, Ria. Shall we see how many tries it takes for you to succeed?”

Ria nodded and extended her hand. She had expected to have to demonstrate her proficiency. Letting her mind clear, she focused only on the sense of meaning and carefully constructed the ward-based light spell that she had created, activating the magic upon completion of the spell construct. A glowing ball of light appeared above her hand.

“Excellent, Ria!” Lord Vorshan praised. “And on the first try too.”

Cheeks blushing at the praise, Ria thanked Lord Vorshan and let the spell dissipate.

While she was breathing out her relief that it had gone well, the page boy, Ens, returned with an elderly man wearing what was unmistakably a mage's robe, flowing silver embroidered with blues and blacks. He wore a master's stole and mantle similar to Rigure but with designs of stars and moons on a black background.

“You've called for me, Lord Vorshan?”

“Great timing, Marlow,” Lord Vorshan greeted and turned back to Ria. “Go ahead and show your progress with the task I assigned you to Master Marlow.”

Ria concentrated and again the ball of light formed above her hand.

“What to do you think, Marlow?” Lord Vorshan queried.

The silver robed master mage scoffed. “An unorthodox light spell. Strength is promising, and her control is passable. I'm guessing you want me to teach this girl?”

The blunt assessment shocked Ria, who had come to believe that she was quite talented with magic.

“Hmm. She has an existing relationship with Rigure, but I'm considering it,” Lord Vorshan replied. “Ria, change the ball to fire.”

Ria shot Lord Vorshan a look of surprise but nodded and did as told. She had been expecting something like this for her test. She made a mistake though. Nervous about suddenly being put on the spot in front of the unimpressed elder mage, she forgot to stop the flow of magic while hurrying to change the glyph defining the element, and the spell almost went out of control. Quickly erasing the half-changed glyph and reinforcing the meaning for the control and shaping structures kept the spell intact as the ball changed to unattuned magic.

She properly stopped the flow this time while adding the fire glyph, and when she restarted the flow, a ball of fire whooshed into life where the ball of light had been.

“Excellent, Ria. Next, water.”

Ria replaced the fire glyph with a water glyph, and when she restarted the flow, a sphere of water filled in above her hand. A risked glance at Master Marlow showed both his eyebrows raised.

Lord Vorshan seemed quite pleased, and a worrisome smirk formed on his face. “Great. Now make it a cube.”

Ack! Ria panicked a little. She hadn't practiced making cubes! And if she let the spell stop, the water would splash everywhere!

She couldn't help puffing her cheeks out. The lord was definitely being mean and teasing her!

Even so, there was nothing to do at this point but try. She calmed herself and tried to think of a solution. Fortunately, the constraint was the outer structure in her ward design, so adding the cube constraint to the existing design wouldn't disturb anything, which made the solution fairly simple even if it was a lot to keep track of while staying careful not to overly focus on any one thing.

Once she was satisfied with the new constraint, Ria carefully disconnected and erased the sphere constraint, and as the ball of water filled in the cube, a grin of triumph filled her face. She was further pleased by the stunned expression on the master mage.

“Well done, Ria. So, Marlow, how about now?”

“Were my eyes deceiving me or was she actually revising the spell at your direction as we watched?” Master Marlow asked, his voice incredulous.

“Your aging eyes are as sharp as ever,” Lord Vorshan quipped, looking smug.

“I see.” Master Marlow considered her again. “That is something different then. Assuming this wasn't something preplanned… no, her reactions make it clear that wasn't the case. Honestly, I'm quite surprised to see someone her age with a functional knowledge of spellcraft and glyphs. I'm guessing that is, in part, Rigure's doing. Still, to have found a foreign girl already capable of designing her own spells and casting them without prior practice. And with such a reserve of energy…” The mage blinked. “Just how ridiculous an energy reserve does she have?!”

“Ah, that should be enough, Ria,” Lord Vorshan informed her, as if she was still holding the spell waiting for his permission. “You can dispel the magic now.”

Like hells she could! If she were to stop the flow, what would she do with the water? Wait. Was the purpose of making her change to a cube to add more water? Sure enough, Lord Vorshan's eyes were laughing!

“Grandfather! Why did you have Ens bring Ria here when I was the one who invited her and have been expecting her for a while now?! Couldn't you have waited until this afternoon? She's going to be late for the lesson with-” Keira's complaining voice cut into the room then abruptly cut off. “Oh, good morning, Master Marlow.”

Ria spun around to see Keira, hands on hips and dressed again in her Order of the Golden Dawn robe, only to have the water splash against her hand, her dress, and the floor as she was distracted, and the spell unraveled in a pop of uncontrolled magic.

Ah well. Too late now.

“Morning, Keira,” Ria greeted with a brief bob while drying her hand on her skirts.

“Good morning, Young Lady Keira,” Master Marlow replied and held up a pinkie finger with a fancy golden ring that looked like it might be a focus tool. A spell formed, drawing out the wetness from the recently spilled water and evaporated it into the air.

“Why did I send for Ria?” Lord Vorshan echoed Keira's question and gave his white-and-golden-robed granddaughter a villain's smile. “Well, the servants were having such a difficult time waking you and helping you be presentable that I felt bad for your guest and offered to entertain her in order to maintain the family's good name, of course.”

Keira turned red and started to sputter, “T-there's no way that I was taking that long to make myself presentable!”

Ah, Keira didn't deny being asleep…

“Oh, my mistake then, I'll have to ask your forgiveness,” Lord Vorshan insincerely conceded then clapped his hands as if he just had a great idea. “Since, Ria and Master Marlow are already here, and you're here now, isn't that convenient? Now you can proceed to your lesson directly without any delay and Ria won't be late.”

“Argh! You're not sorry at all, grandfather!” Keira huffed. “Come on, Master Marlow, Ria. Let's leave the old geezer to his ever-growing stacks of paperwork.”

Ria looked to Lord Vorshan for permission, and he waved her along with a wink, but called out to her before she reached the door, “Ria, come see me later, and we'll discuss whether you'd prefer Master Marlow or Master Rigure to handle your Academy preparations.”

“Thank you very much, Lord Vorshan,” Ria replied and gave him a deep curtsy before hurrying to follow after Keira and Master Marlow.

Ria soon found herself seated on a bench in the garden at the rear of the manor. Ria had already wanted to tour the beautiful front garden on her previous visit, but the rear garden was something beyond her wildest anticipations. It wasn't just a garden but a training space for magic. Walled off from view of the neighboring houses were carefully maintained and artistically arranged groupings of magical plants invigorated by thematic metal sculptures representing varied elements and containing glyphs linking them to nearby places of power.

The garden hummed with vibrant flows of magical energy, and Ria felt humbled by the display. If all nobles had access to training gardens like this… no, the sculptures were likely Master Rigure's work. Unless enchanters of Master Rigure's skill were commonplace, even the average noble would surely be envious. But if this was a taste of what could be expected at the Grand Crysellian Academy… a fierce grin wanted to spread on Ria's face, and it was only because of Keira's depressed mood and the situation with Amilee that Ria wasn't dancing around the garden sampling the energy and fragrances all around.

As it was, Ria contented herself with surreptitiously basking in the glow of the light-element statue that resembled a hollow half-globe with large star-shapes cut into it shielding a bright, stem-mounted crystal, affixed to a narrow, arcing pyramid that held it high enough to cast light directly onto the table where they were sitting.

“Now, Young Lady Keira, let's have you explain for Ria's benefit the key parts of the Light Shield spell that you were assigned as homework,” Master Marlow instructed.

Ria carefully kept her amusement to herself as Keira groaned and reluctantly began. She followed her friend's presentation with rapt attention and asked questions whenever there was a part she didn't understand. When Keira stumbled with her answers, Master Marlow stepped in to clarify and formed the spell for them to review its design. As the presentation continued, Keira was sitting straighter and seemed to be enjoying the role of senior student lecturing her junior.

When it came time for the practicing the spell, Ria tried to form the spell as Master Marlow and Keira had demonstrated, but the design was much too complex for her, reminding her more of a clockwork with its unfamiliar overlapping and interwoven constructs than any of the spells at the Adventurers Guild or the ward designs from Luventi's book.

Master Marlow had Keira continue her practice on her own while he took time to give Ria individual instruction.

“Okay, show me that light spell that you cast earlier.”

Ria formed the glowing ball of light. Interestingly, with the abundant light energy from the nearby sculpture, the spell required a fair amount less energy from her to cast and maintain.

“Hmm. Your paper-learning really shows in your spell construction. You see, in modern magic, there is no need to limit yourself to a flat design. There are tremendous efficiencies to be had by taking advantage of different orientations for your spell’s structures.

“In fact, this efficiency is a primary reason that modern magic primarily makes use of standardized spells. Scholars have spent decades finding the most efficient configurations, and there’s no need for a mage to waste time duplicating this research.

“But even with these efficiencies, many mages lack the control and concentration to directly build and maintain more complex spell constructs for intermediate and advanced spells. This is where casting aids—wands, inscribed gems, and so on—can be used to improve control or fill in difficult glyphs and structures. Additionally, there are techniques to make use of control structures that define, generate, and maintain the more complex constructs. The vertices of a cube, for example, make excellent constraints when you need to form a perfect sphere. Some versions of spells will incorporate these techniques into the casting method and design, sacrificing efficiency for ease of casting and reliability. Usability in combat is an instance where speed, reliability, and ease of use can be more important than maximizing efficiency.

“This is also why most mages will focus on learning and practicing a limited number of specific spells. Following me so far?”

Ria’s eyes had become progressively wider as she began to glimpse just how out-of-date her knowledge of magic was. Hungry for more, she nodded, eager to progress to modern magic.

“Can you rework your light spell to change the color of the light?” Master Marlow asked her, and at her nod, he continued, “Okay, reform your spell and keep it active.”

Ria did as told and formed a design she had already practiced the prior night, causing a blue ball of light to reappear above her hand.

“See these structures here and here and here?” Master Marlow pointed. “If you reorient them, you can reduce their size and increase your spell’s efficiency.” He then generated a changed version of her spell, slowly moving the structures and reshaping them until they formed a much more compact design that used a fraction of the energy to produce the same result.

Ria was amazed. Simply freeing the design from the constraints of paper allowed for so many improvements. She would have to change her way of thinking about spell design—and not just for casting magic, but for enchanting as well. These techniques would apply to designs done in layers or worked into the material itself.

“That’s a good expression there, girl.” Master Marlow smirked. “Now let’s see you do it.”

Ria's spell collapsed more than a few times as she was absorbed in the new task. She could do the moving-the-structures-around part while still keeping them connected to the design, but her brain was just so used to forming the designs on a flat surface that reorienting them caused the shapes to skew and the magic to fail—spectacularly. Or, the failures would have been spectacular if she was working with larger amounts of energy.

Taking a break after another failure and letting her eyes wander to clear her mind, Ria noticed that Keira was barely going through the motions of forming her own spell, brooding with eyebrows scrunched up and unfocused eyes staring off into the garden. It wasn't hard to guess what was bothering her friend, but Ria set that aside for a moment, determined not to waste her time with Master Marlow.

“Um, Master Marlow?” Ria prompted and upon receiving his renewed attention asked a question that had been bouncing around in her head since she started practicing moving the structures around while the spell was still active, “Are there spells that make use of changing and moving structures or rotating formations?”

The elderly mage gave her a vibrant grin at the unexpected question. “Indeed, there are. And not just spells that have moving or changing structures, but spells with designs that can self-modify based on divinations and external stimuli.”

Ria raised both her eyebrows at the answer.

“Would you like to hear more?” Master Marlow inquired, and at her vigorous nodding, he began to discuss how self-modifying constructs that could create conditional and adaptive effects were the basis of the field of golem automation.

But that wasn't all, he further teased her with the idea of divination chains where a divination would provide the component for the next layer of the divination and hinted at usages for advanced defensive and offensive magics to create efficiency by restructuring to best match the threat. Why set up a separate defense for each element when one spell can optimize in real-time?

He rounded out his overview by mentioning advanced flight magics that used dynamic formations to constantly adjust and stabilize flight.

Ria's eyes were gleaming with excitement by the time the master mage wound down from his enthusiastic overview of the sort of magic she could specialize in should she do well enough at the Grand Academy, but he soon brought her wild fantasizing back to the present with a simple question, “So now that I've told you all of that, why do you think Lord Vorshan assigned you the task that he did?”

She really didn't have a clue other than the obvious. “To help me develop the basic skills needed for modern spellcasting?”

Master Marlow shook his head in disagreement. “No. I mean, clearly that was part of it, and I can only guess at Lord Vorshan's true motivations, but…” The wizened mage held up a finger to ensure her attention. “…with your knowledge of spellcraft and large pool of magic, efficiency isn't as much of a concern, and having the ability to create or adapt spells in a moment as needed is a tremendous flexibility, and thus a tremendous strength which will give you a considerable advantage over your peers who are limited to a handful of spells that they have intimate knowledge of.”

Though she had to admit that what Master Marlow said made sense, and she was already planning on becoming a generalist due to her lack of an inborn affinity, becoming an ultimate generalist just didn't seem to strike her as a path to the kind of power she was seeking.

A sad half-smile spread across Master Marlow's face as he shook his head. “Amilee made a similar expression once when I tried to encourage her and explain why she didn't need to try so hard to be like her sister.”

Both Ria and Keira's heads snapped up at the invocation of the necromancer girl's name.

“Just because you have the great freedom to be a generalist doesn't mean that you can't work on your attunements and specialize the same as everyone else. It means that in addition to what you choose to specialize in, you will have an unlimited number of extra trump cards that your opponent must constantly worry about, right?”

Ah! Ria's eyebrows shot up in understanding.

The old man chuckled at the reaction he received and eased out of his chair to stand, bowing his head slightly. “And with that, I think I'll call an end to today's lesson. I'm sure you youngsters have much to think about and work on until our next lesson.” He started to walk back toward the building then gave some parting words of wisdom, “Not every mage can be great, but we all have unique differences that can set us apart from others. Finding that uniqueness is the key to success.”

“Thank you, Master Marlow!” Ria called after the retreating man, who raised a hand in a farewell wave as he left.

A glance over at Keira, showed that she had returned to being lost in thought, no longer even pretending to practice her magic. “Um, Keira… I know we planned to make enchanted paper and other fun things… but I think maybe using the time to search in your library about the laws concerning necromancy and pacts would be better? Maybe we can still find a way to help Amilee? Would that be okay?”

Keira looked up with a start, having clearly only been half-listening, but her brain caught up, and she let out a long sigh. “It certainly couldn't hurt.”