Tercius roamed the old city’s districts, with no discernable pattern to his path. He chose the turns and twists at random, provided that he moved west.

Skill {Magia Touch} developed. Obtain Yes/No?

The notification impeded his vision as it awaited his decision, but despite it, he observed the surroundings like a tourist, taking note of the way the structures were built. Anything particularly practical looking, he tried to memorize for later use, be it the way a window's frame was constructed or just the way someone had decorated the walls of their home. For over an hour, he weaved through the streets and alleyways of the old city, always seeking paths that had at least some pedestrian traffic going.

Eventually, he descended into the flatlands.

The Empire had tamed the delta of the River Hippotion with copious amounts of stone and earth, corralling the River’s winding tentacles into canals of stone and then building bridges to connect the two sides. On one such canal-separated and bridge-connected island was The Temple Promenade, where temple after temple dedicated to each of the many humanoid Divines of the Empire lined the sides of a wide street. Trees were planted and gardens maintained around the complex, while thousands of people made their way in and out of their place of worship.

Tercius didn’t walk the Promenade as so many others there, but he did approach one of the canals and observed the grandiose stone temples and their majestic gardens and statues from afar, admiring the amount of planning and work that went into building something like this.

He followed the canal towards the Central Ocean, keeping the temples of the New Ones to his right while heading for the city's docks to a tavern called "Jolly Sailor", a place he stayed at once upon a time. He settled into a corner of the inn's dining room and ordered food to fill his growling stomach. Avoiding many of the strange kinds of seafood offered, he settled on a plain roasted fish. In the middle of his meal, three cloaked shapes arrived and made themselves comfortable around his table.

As one, the three Mistresses removed their hoods. His Mentor, Mistress Kalina, had changed her hair color to a dark brown since he saw her in the morning. Mistress Prime'era's ice-blue eyes were brown now, and he couldn't see that Mistress Helfira had changed anything about herself.

“That was well done.” his Mentor said.

“Thank you, Mentor. So they followed me?”

His Mentor nodded. “A single spirit did, at least up until you headed towards the Empire temples. Did you get what you needed from that place?”

“Oh yes, only I think I got more than I intended. I have a problem now…”

He told them what happened, what the spirits did, how his encounter with the Speaker went, and that the clergy of Divine Balance had means of long-range communication. That last bit caught Mistress Prime'era's attention.

“Now that is some valuable information you have there. Excellent work, Tercius.”

Tercius cleared his throat. It did not sit well that he was spying on his grandmother’s religious community, but it was his end of the deal in exchange for the seal on his Well.

“Yes, well… The problem is that now the monastery will know that I’ve been here, in Spheros, today. If I traveled by foot, it would take me three weeks to get there. How can I show up at their doors two days later?”

Mistress Prime’era waved a hand dismissively. “All plans fail when they come into contact with the real world, Tercius. It’s important to have a degree of adaptability in all your plans, and try to make an abundance of varied contingencies for all kinds of unlikely scenarios.”

“Yes… but I’m on a limit, Mistress. I don’t have the luxury of time.”

“Yes,” Mistress Helfira nodded. “The Academy year starts in three weeks…”

“Uhh… I meant the Seal, Mistress,” Tercius said.

“Don’t worry about the Academy or the Seal, Tercius,” Mistress Prime’era said. “I made that Seal and I can retighten it to near perfection with just a few minutes of work. As for the Academy, I hear that certain security errors have been found in the past year. A surprise inspection of the facilities would take… about a month? Maybe two?”

Tercius and Mistress Helfira stared at Mistress Prime’era with eyes and mouth wide open. Did he hear that right? He did. Did he understand it right? Was she proposing to delay the start of the academic year for hundreds of students solely on his account?

Mistress Prime'era smiled at them with mischief in her ice-blue eyes and then turned to Tercius' Mentor. "What do you think, Kalina?"

"Well… As I recall, Mistress, it has been twenty-seven years since we had a detailed security inspection… say we use the opportunity to encompass the enchantments on the obelisks and the buildings, as well as the amulet identification system and we could get… Well, maybe even four months, if we strive to be thorough enough. Half a year even— if we are thorough and slow."

Mistress Prime'era hummed to herself. "I wonder how many will flee this time when we start looking closely into who did what…"

"The Academy staff will need to be temporarily bolstered after we are done, if only until things get back on a proper timeline as soon as possible," Mistress Kalina added. "But I'm sure that we can manage something,"

Mistress Prime’era nodded. “There you have it,”

Mistress Kalina stood up. “Disciple, come. We have something to talk about, just the two of us,”

Tercius slowly nodded. He was still processing whatever that was, but he managed to collect himself enough to clean his fishy fingers with a little soaked rag, excuse himself from the remaining table occupants, and follow after his Mentor. Mistress Kalina rented two rooms from an amicable older matron and two of them retreated into one. Wave after wave of magia washed over him as Mistress Kalina stood ramrod straight in silence, her hands behind her back.

Finally, she turned his way with tight lips and a frown. “Tercius… Once again, I must urge you to reconsider this. This new development alone, if nothing else, can jeopardize your life. You must see this.”

"I… I do see it. But even so, to me, it changes nothing. I must go, no matter what."

“Do you think… would your father and grandmother want you to risk your life in order to save them?”

“No… But this is more than that, Mistress. I will not be able to have a day of peace if I do not do this. It… gnaws at me. When I do those exercises you showed me, it’s there at the back of my mind. I wake up in the middle of the night and that’s the only thing on my mind. I keep seeing her with a grimace on her face and a scream on her lips. I know myself pretty well, Mistress. Until I fix what I broke, this awful grip will never leave me,”

“You never told me that,”

“What use is saying it aloud? It’s enough that I know it and I know what must be done to end it.”

“Tercius… What is happening to your grandmother is not your fault. She asked and you gave. That’s it.”

“I wish it was that simple… My grandmother has only ever shown care and concern and even love for me. I… I care about her. No, this is… I can bear the burden of my fault, as is. But can she bear hers for as long as it takes for that to be over? And what happens if she succumbs in the meantime? That’s what truly terrifies me…”

She took a deep breath slowly, only let it out even slower, her unblinking eyes never leaving him.

“I… understand… but know this. At the end of all of this, no matter what happens, you better have a working heartbeat, a sound mind, and an intact anima, or not even death itself will save you from me, boy. Not. Even. Death.”

Tercius wouldn’t bet on that.

“Now, have a look at this,” his Mentor waved a hand and a book no bigger or thicker than his palm appeared in the air and floated over to him.

Tercius browsed through the first pages, glancing at the hand-drawn images of various beasts, plants, and strangely shaped mountain peaks, skimming the text written around them. The smell of ink still fresh on the clean yellow pages, the book seemingly opened for the first time.

His mouth fell a little open as he looked up at his Mentor. "This is a…"

“The first part of a compendium that deals with all manner of details of the mountain range known today as Izmittor, fresh out of the hands of our Scribes.”

Tercius’ mouth made an ‘o’ as he looked down at the book.

"It is outdated by a couple of millennia, I admit. It actually predates the Age of Alignment by a couple of centuries but some of it should prove useful to you nonetheless. Now, let us invite Helfira and Mistress Prime'era and discuss what would be a good course of action now."

Tercius nodded. He briefly considered asking his Mentor for advice about {Magia Touch}, but then he thought otherwise. After all, his Mentor thought that he was in recovery from {Spring of Crystal Thoughts}.

*** *** ***

Instead of visiting the markets as was planned previously, Tercius and his Mentor were joined by Mistress Helfira and Prime'era. Four chairs were put in a circle and they sat and brainstormed.

Tercius started by expressing a desire that he did not want to be a disruptive agent for hundreds of students and dozens of teachers of the Academy— to which Mistress Helfira also expressed some concern as she was one of those teachers. Taking that into consideration, they came to an agreement that they needed a completely mundane way that made it appear as if he could have viably made a journey of three weeks in around four to six days, while completely on his own. He also needed a way for two other grown humans to travel with him on the way back. He needed a way to carry some essential supplies, without using any kind of spatial enchantments. The list just kept expanding on and on and Tercius expected for a solution to come about with great difficulty.

As if to counter his thoughts, one answer that satisfied all points made was found almost instantly in the next phase of the planning.

Mistress Helfira gave each of them a brief narrow-eyed look. “As I see it, we need to get him a mount,”

Mistress Kalina and Prime’era seemed to consider that and then both of them slowly nodded.

“That would work, yes,” Mistress Prime’era said. “Something of local origins to Izmittor, I’m thinking. The capabilities of the species should be well known. Alternatively, we could choose a species whose capabilities would be obviously evident even by a cursory glance,”

“Having something local will be a point of connection to the locals there, Mistress,” Mistress Kalina added. “That would project an image of familiarity all on its own and he will need that. We also need it to be somewhat docile, preferably a herbivore. That way, the mount can feed itself easily and relieve that part off of Tercius,”

“Just by defending himself from predators of those mountains, Tercius will provide enough meat and bones to feed even larger carnivores,” Mistress Prime’era said. “But I do agree with you. He is going to a populated place after all and having a herbivore as a mount will prevent certain kinds of accidents. The beast will need to be something that can go over uneven terrain. Ideally, it would be able to jump between rocks and move among them easily. Something that can climb up sharp inclines and walk narrow paths…”

“The problem with getting a local mount, as I see it,” Mistress Helfira said, “is that we don’t have a breeding and training nursery in these parts of Sogea. That leaves only training a local wild specimen for him on our own, which could take time.”

Tercius cleared his throat. “Umm… before you continue planning this further, I should point out that I don’t know how to ride.”

He never had the opportunity to even get up on a horse, let alone something more exotic. He was born in a small village on the banks of River Hippotion and grew up in the nearby town of Nurium, where boats and barges were used to move up and down the waterway.

Mistress Prime’era waved a pale hand dismissively and smiled. “That can be taught as well, worry not. I have centuries of experience to share and my {Teaching Bond} is even better developed than that of my cousin.”

Mistress Kalina cleared her throat and looked at Tercius. “Tercius, follow me outside for a moment.”

“We will go over some options for the mount while you’re away,” Mistress Prime’era said, a fat leather-bound tome appearing in her hands.

Under curious gazes, Tercius and his Mentor went to another room.

“Tell me, Tercius. That pet of yours that you left at your home… Amber, was it?”

Tercius’ mouth fell a little open and he could only blink. “Yes…”

The word became stretched out with uncertainty as he tried to see the angle of his Mentor. There was no way that she was considering that Amber could be a mount… not unless—

Mistress Kalina looked at him expectantly. “You and her… have a link of some kind… A Skill?”

Tercius stood alert as he cleared his throat and looked at his Mentor. Well, he didn’t expect that to come up. His Mentor was not stupid. She suspected, but he would be the one to confirm or deny— no, he realized, there would be no denying today. There were few things he would suffer twice and lying plainly was not one of them. If Mistress Kalina was someone else, someone inconsequential, then he might consider denying it, but she wasn’t. She was his Mentor and he wouldn’t lie. To lie here and now would break the relationship from his side and he would not allow himself that.

He could say that he didn’t want to talk about it but that would be the same as confirming, so he might as well confirm it.

“How can you tell, Mistress? Is it obvious?”

"Obvious… no. There were signs, though. Once, I saw your eyes turn golden. Later, I saw your pet's eyes turn green, like yours. But that could be a play of light, at least I dismissed it as such. Then I saw the way she behaved when I was at your home. How she obeyed you, performing orders which I don't think your regular animal would. What was it that you had Amber do for your siblings that day? Roll over, was it? Play dead? All those other… tricks? She did it all without a single error, doing everything as if she understood completely what you were saying. Then there was the way she plays with the other cats of your household and outsmarts them… it was so peculiar, until it came to my mind that you might be linked to her in some way. I saw nothing linking you two, but… there are Skills that can be deeply embedded like that. The absence of something is sometimes the only proof, Tercius. Am I right that she has increased intelligence because of a Skill of yours?"

Tercius cleared his throat again. He didn’t know about the eyes… he would have to be careful now that he did. As for the tricks… well it would seem that no good deed goes unpunished. He had just wanted his siblings to see something interesting and entertain them a little… Amber also enjoyed getting praise.

“Amber was smart even before we bonded. I taught her those tricks and she was fast to adopt them even before the Skill {Familiar Bond} formed between us, Mistress.”

“Remind me to discuss with you the dangers of your bond to her at another time. Now, as I’ve said, I’ve been observing you. Am I right in assuming that you have {Teaching Bond} as well?”

Tercius swallowed. The feeling of being an open book was never pleasant and it just kept happening over and over again when he was in the presence of the observant magi. First Perdinar, then Mistress Dea, Master Lazarus, and Mistresses Helfira, Kalina, and Prime'era, all in that order. Honestly, the private part of him dreaded the possibility of meeting any more magi.

But the person before him was not just some Magos. She was his Mentor and he was her Disciple. The nature of their relationship was built around keeping silent about the Skills and secrets of the other, while always helping each other grow. At least, that was what he was told.

“Yes…”

His Mentor nodded. “What level is it?”

“[20],”

“Excellent. Only one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“Did Master Perdin’nar help you get {Memorization}?”

“I… yes…”

“Worry not, the Skill is quite common among magi. One of the optional classes during years three and four is dedicated to the Skill, for those who don’t wish to follow the minimal path. So… did you get it?”

Tercius shifted from foot to foot. “Yes…”

“What level is it?”

“[21],”

Mistress Kalina frowned. “That’s… unfortunate. Did Master Perdin’nar not tell you to use {Memorization} [20] on {Teaching Bond} [20]?”

“He did, Mistress. I intended to follow the advice, but… there was an accident…”

His Mentor gave him a blank stare. “An accident?”

“I… I did some Skill experiments and… it sort of just happened…”

At that, Mistress Kalina just blinked. “I see… Well, you will just have to do it the hard way then,”

Tercius was at a loss as to what she meant. “What will I do the hard way?”

“The same thing you should have done before you went experimenting, Tercius,”

“But… but {Memorization} is no longer at its first barrier. I can just join them at their second..."

“Ah. Well, let’s start with this. What people of the Empire call “barriers”, in Magik is Torkap Ce Pragg’e. “Boundary of change”, if you will. Skills are rather malleable when at a boundary of change, more accepting. That said, even a skill that isn’t currently prone to change of its own volition can be coaxed. If you prove willful enough to make it so, that is.”

“I’ve been called willful, by some,” Tercius chuckled. He had been called other names as well. Still, this was a major revelation. So many new Skill venues opened before his eyes…

Mistress Kalina smiled. "Well, the process is identical to the norm. What differs is how long it takes and the degree of pain that happens when it starts working. It starts with pressure. It will grow slowly, but make sure to be ready to stop at once if you feel a sharp pain anywhere on your body. If it goes too far, you will tear your Channels."

“If dull continue, if sharp stop…” Tercius murmured and nodded to himself. “I can do that… and how long does the hard way take?”

“Hours, days, weeks. It is up to you, really. You must tread as close to that edge where you will almost do damage to your Channels, without actually going over. You must find just the right amount of pain and then keep to it consistently for a couple of hours. For most Skills, that does the trick,”

“I see… and what is the goal of all this, Mistress?”

“I thought that was obvious, Tercius. We can train a mount for you, but you will still need to ride it. It would help you immensely if you were to develop a start of a bond with it before you do. A {Teaching Bond} is one of the most powerful temporary bonds that two or more minds can form and it dissolves thoroughly at the first inklings of hostile intent on either side. The malleability and fragility give it the potential to be a foundation for others, which is what likely resulted in your {Familiar Bond} with your tiny river lioness. You should not aim for a full bond with this being, but the foundation of one should be… laid out. Even that will help immensely,"

“I see… Yes, I guess it might work. But with Mistress Helfira and Prime’era there…”

Mistress Kalina nodded. “That is why I gave us this privacy. If you do this, they will likely also see what I saw and they will also come to similar conclusions. It is your life and your Skills and it should be your choice. So choose.”

*** *** ***

Mistress Helfira blinked at him. “You have {Teaching Bond}? A pipsqueak that’s halfway to complete the thirteenth rotation around the sun?”

Tercius’ face darkened. “Mistress… do you really have to use that nickname again…”

“Do I have to? No. Do I want to? Well…”

Mistress Prime’era chuckled.

Mistress Kalina cleared her throat. “As Tercius was saying before he was… interrupted, this makes the plan of training a wild mount in a small frame of time rather viable.”

“Coupled with our help, extremely so,” Mistress Prime’era nodded, trying to keep a smile off of her face.

Mistress Kalina leaned back in her chair. “Now all we have to do is settle on a choice.”

"Actually, Helfira and I already have one picked." Mistress Prime'era said, opening the large tome and passing it his way. "What do you think?"