There’s nothing quite as scary as an Ice Mage angry at you. A Fire Mage will try to burn you off the face of the Earth as soon as you slight them. An Ice mage will plot his vengeance for months, years, even decades. And when they finally spring to action, they’ll be as easy to stop or be forced to reconsider as an avalanche in the Swiss Alps, although marginally more mindful of collateral damages.

Attributed to Magister André Capagorry

The winter holidays were over in a blink. On the 14th of August, Damien felt satisfied with his progress. He’d absorbed what Roland called “the damned basics if you don’t want to be a dead-weight of an Enchanter”, although he still hadn't managed to correctly manifest a combat-oriented Glyph without an external power source. Roland expected him to “get it right, eventually”. According to his primers, those 'damn basics' he'd learned over the past six weeks were called 'Enchantment, Glyphs, and Circles for use in the field, year 1'.. His next project was to create a network of mandalas in his bedroom that would allow him to fuel all his Magitech appliances with a single cache of LDMs, instead of changing these out when they were exhausted. That would allow him to know when to ask his father for more. His primary problem until now had been the risk of mana dissipation when the appliances were not in use, but Roland had just shown him how to trace warded lines that would prevent mana loss.

Once in sight of the school, he saw an explosion of silver two meters in front of and above him, followed by a distressed cry and a thud. He lifted an eyebrow. “I told you you should make sure of your coordinates for arrival before using Dimension Door.”

Jean stood back up and shot an indignant eye at his Familiar, Lucille, that was singing innocently. She had followed Damien when he left his house, a minute before, while Jean was still trying to finish his breakfast.

“Lucille gave me fixed coordinates. Do you think a Familiar can try to kill its Master? Or is it just really good at making me look like an idiot?” Jean complained.

“Let me see,” Damien replied ironically “Seeing as the secondary part of the summoning is basically to forge an Emphatic link between you both… I’d say no? But then again, I’m not a Conjurer… yet.” He picked up the pace, not wanting to be late to classes on his first day after the holidays. “Though, if you want to be ridiculous for some reason, it’ll do it for you, you know!” That last bit seemed to sting Jean a little more than Damien had intended, but he ignored it. They were late, and even if Jean could theoretically Dimension Door them both to the gates, his latest display made Damien choose not to ask. He didn’t think that Jean had experience taking passengers yet.

“How many spells do you know, anyway? You got to know how to use Dimension Door in your second year...” The question had been puzzling Damien for some time. Dimension Door was a 4th tier spell, complex as anything, and theoretically shouldn’t be accessible to a 16-year-old acolyte.

“Well, you wouldn’t know, but I’d been training for Battlefield Control. I re-specialized on my tutor’s advice since I’m good with spatial calculation...”

Damien tried very hard to keep a poker face. He failed. Well, now he knew who would have had a 'conflicting skill-set' with him, had he chosen to go for the General-class career-path.

“I got from Tier 2 to Tier 3 training up Dust Devil and the Air variant of Sleet Storm. Then, my tutor had me tier-up by failing to cast Dimension Door for four months in a row… At least I was never shunted out of a wall… I’ve seen it happen, and you get internal bruises from that."

Damien winced at the thought, then replied, “That’s a lot of progress. You got up two Tiers in a bit over a year! I need to get to Tier 3 to get to all the complex Circles… The ones that can help in combat, that is.”

Their chatting continued as they walked toward the school.

Julia d’Ursel was not a chatty girl. As a matter of fact, she was very much a bookworm and avoided most social occasions when she could help it. However, she had a soft spot for Manon Addington, the shy, petite, emerald-eyed and brown-haired daughter of Saint-Denis’ Mayor. They made a spectacle just by being together, as she, Manon’s junior by a year, towereed over her. In fact, save for Jean de Bourbon she was very much the tallest child on the island, and a beauty herself if you liked robust, platinum blond girls. Her eyes were a subject of fascination for some; they were of a gray so pale that they'd looked entirely white since her Awakening.

“Ah”, Manon let out a little cry, hid her face and changed direction. They had been walking toward a bench, but she suddenly steered herself and Julia to a secluded corner behind a tree. She was surprisingly strong for her size. Julia wondered what was going on with her but quickly noticed Jean. She refrained from casting a Ray of Frost directly at his face, and instead asked Manon “Should I make Jean suffer a little during practice?”

“He didn’t do anything wrong… He just saw something my father didn’t want him to. Please leave him alone?” Julia felt her heart melt a little. Manon was a pixie made of cuteness, rolled into the body of a Wood abjurer. She fought an impulse to hug her. Manon might be cute, but she hated hugs to the point of triggering her Shield when she was surprised by one. She had once seen a junior student, who’d turned out to be a NoM, being scared away by Cûn Anûn, her wooden Spirit-protector. It was an impressive hunting hound-Spirit that’d been in the Abjurer's family for almost as long as Julia’s own Spirit, Polaris. Her Bear Spirit had been extracted almost a thousand years ago from the heart of a gigantic cavern bear that terrorized traders from the glaciers over the Col des Moines, one of the highest of the Pyrénées mountains.

Manon’s next words made her frown. “I think… He’s afraid of me.”

Julia looked back in Jean’s direction. He was a little pale and was animatedly speaking with Damien, who seemed uninterested, leading him away from both girls.

Then the bell rang. They all had a long day of courses to go through, and it would concern everything from meditation efficiency to the optimization of a Mage’s diet according to their element. The Garden provided most of the food on La Réunion, and quasi-magical fruits attuned to the primary elements would be distributed to the students on a trimonthly basis until their graduation. More ordinary mana-infused fruits, fish and meat from the aggressive merfolks and Magical Beasts would be distributed more regularly. They would also be briefed – at excessive length by her reckoning – on the basis of strategy in magic combat, be it with a regular team, an unbalanced one, or in coordination with NoM militia. Then they would study the theory of the Schools of magic they possessed or were trying to learn. Some of these courses were taught by the Education Board’s teachers, but more advanced or specialized skills were directly taught by their tutors. At the end of the day, they were given a schedule of their upcoming use of the Cognizance Chamber. A cursory glance revealed that she would be going to use it just before Damien and that there was an addendum asking her to not leave immediately after she was done.

Damien entered in the Cognizance Vault. The place was a long-emptied magma chamber that had been detected under the Saint-Denis Citadel and divided into three chambers. Its access was rigorously controlled. In one, five Scrying mirrors were designed to be used in case of the arrival of enemies that would submerge them without any hope of resistance, as a way to link to the Garden, the Cold Peak, the Crater, Saint-Louis, and Le Port. In the second, was one of four original copies of La Réunion’s Covenant, written in French and in four elemental dialects; Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran, plus another primordial language; Sylvan. This document, carved in a six-sided obelisk, was the only reason Humanity still existed according to Damien’s history books and the strategic projections he’d been making as a school project.

The third was the Cognizance Vault, containing La Réunion’s only Cognizance Chamber. And, evidently, the Overseer of its Manufactorium, although that element was a less permanent inclusion.

“Roland? Are you checking that we're not overloading the Core mandalas of the Chamber?” Damien asked, mildly surprised by the old man's presence.

“You kids can’t be trusted with ancient arcanistry, don’t you know that?” Roland ribbed Damien. “I even asked for an assistant to make sure you don’t make a mess of things here. She’s gonna get out real soon.”

Damien looked at the cognizance chamber, that was active, “Is it Julia?” He guessed. “To make sure I don’t melt something we can’t replace? I was worried about that...”

Roland smirked. “There, she’s done. Aaaand she got her Transmutation Sigil done. Well done lass!” He hollered near Julia’s head. Damien winced - her ears had to be ringing.

“I may need a mana potion or a bit of rest if you want me to cast multiple Freezing Rays, sir,” she informed Roland coolly.

He responded by indicating a carpet with a mandala drawn on it, as well as a handful of LDMs. “Meditate here. At your level, LDM-assisted Meditation is still cost-effective.”

Five minutes later, Julia informed Damien and Roland that she was ready by standing up and nodding. Damien entered the chamber. It was darkening, and noticeably cold. “Did she have to do that? Is it revenge for having to stay?” Damien wondered. The chamber was thrumming. He got to the central platform and waited for the lights to finish dimming. Then, he looked below himself, where the ground used to be.

An illusory rendition of his Enchantment Glyph appeared before him. So far, no surprises. Then, he tried inspecting his Elemental Gates. To do so, he first channeled his positive Fire-variant. It manifested as some kind of mass of light, eye-searingly bright, and hot enough to make Damien feel as though he was putting his head in the Manufactorium’s forges. “Alright. I guess I’ll call that Sun-fire for now. It’s close enough, anyway.” Damien muttered, trying to keep his control over the Element.

“Now, for the other one...” He dismissed his sun-fire, then concentrated on manifesting a minimal amount of embers, red as blood and dimming. “Yep, that’s what I thought.” Observing his own Astral Body, made partly visible by the chamber’s Illusion, he could see the mana gnawing at him.

“Definitively some kind of Negative Drain. Not unlike what a Salt Mage would suffer, I think… Let’s give it fuel and see what happens.” He took out a wooden ruler. As curious as he was about his Elements, Roland had only allowed him to test them with a minimal amount of fuel. The Chamber was not replaceable, after all.

As soon as the ember touched the wood, the unease he’d been feeling stopped, and the ember mana began moving vigorously inside his Astral Body’s pathways.

“So, the Ember mana has to either feed on my Astral Body or on a solid material. That gives me an idea...”

He momentarily stopped his channeling, saving half of his ruler. Then, he took out a piece of paper and a pot of ink containing trace amounts of ground LDMs, which was used by enchanters to create some of their weakest mandalas. He drew a circle, then infused it with Ember.

“It works.” With the Chamber still active, he could see the mana, trapped in his mandala. Cut from the external world, they did not weaken, and since he was not actively channeling them, he did not suffer the ill-effects of a Negative Drain. He observed the mandala a little longer, looking for a flaw. Finally, he put the remnant of the ruler inside. As soon as the ruler came into range of the glyph, roughly 15 centimeters by his estimate, a flux of Ember mana was released and attached to the ruler. As the motes of Ember attached to the ruler, it heated up. The mana underwent a change he couldn't quite grasp, before cycling back into the glyph. As more mana cycled back and forth into the glyph, it grew hotter and hotter, before he suddenly lost control of the mana within and the glyph instantly combusted in a bright flash.

Damien smiled, looking at the screen indicating the Chamber’s reading.

Enchantment 3

Unknown Element 1 (provisional name: Sun-fire) 2

Unknown Element 2 (provisional name: Ember) 2

He opened the gate, waved at a slightly disheveled Julia and an overexcited Roland, and told him: “You were right, I got it right eventually”.