Chapter 86 — Kindred Spirits And A Gift Most Appropriate

“Ah, Ria! Come in!” a monocled Shadwich happily called out after glancing up from his brow-furrowing study of an odd egg-shaped object on his desk. “Hulle apprised me of what happened at your last Games practice and the need to collect samples to verify your current condition.”

Ria froze for a moment while entering the eccentric researcher’s office.

Ah-! There was something like that!

Blood and hair, wasn’t that what Hulle said?

“Um, okay… do you need me to sit somewhere?” Ria hesitantly asked, visions of blood and the wounded sobbing—dying—conjured themselves unbidden.

“Over there by the alchemy counter should be best. I’ll grab the blood extractor and sample storage box,” was the considered reply as he reached behind him to summon and prepare the needed tools from his storage chest.

Ria nodded, mentally shaking off the memories as she scooted up onto one of the stools, her legs dangling from the not-designed-for-Ria-sized-people height. Ranger followed, sitting beside the stool and looking up at her with a questioning expression.

{It’ll be fine. Was just thinking about unpleasant things.}

Ranger nodded upon catching sight of the blood extractor, its long mithril needle stirring instinctual fears in both of them. Shadwich was screwing a glyph-inscribed crystal vial into the device’s cylindrical vial cover as he came out from behind the desk, and with each step closer, Ria more seriously considered attempting spatial magic to escape.

“This’ll be quick enough that neither of us needs to be worried about being late for class,” Shadwich said, laughing, and as he sat on the adjacent stool, instructed, “Place your arm on the table palm up. The mithril should be sharp enough, but make sure to avoid any body strengthening.”

After doing as he asked, Ria closed her eyes and let her magic sensing show her what was going on as the needle was pressed against her arm, then pressed harder until eventually her skin gave way with a stab of pain and the ‘vein hunting’ began. Somehow, seeing what was happening through her magic sense didn’t disturb her as much even though intellectually it shouldn’t have made any difference.

“Ah! There we go. I’ve got it,” Shadwich announced when the needle finally cornered, pierced, and settled into one of her larger arm veins. “You can open your eyes now.”

She did, and watched in morbid fascination as her wine-colored blood slowly filled the vial with each beat of her heart and pulsing of her veins. Eventually, a glittering caught her eye, and at first, she thought it was a trick of the vial or the the lighting, but tilting her head to change the angle made it clear she was seeing tiny, reflective, and energy-dense bits of gold and similar, though non-reflective, bits of light-absorbing black. No doubt the floating specs of gold and black were orichalcum cells of some kind present in her blood due to her body’s ongoing changes.

Monocle still in place, Researcher Shadwich had also noticed, audibly mumbling about ‘interesting’ this and ‘fascinating’ that while the vial filled. When the blood reached the end, he twisted the vial off the extractor and placed it into the enchanted ‘sample box’ where a velvet cushion inside was shaped to hold it and two other vials. One of the remaining two got screwed onto the extractor, and the process continued with her lifeblood spilling into the second vial until he finally announced, “Success. Let’s get the hair sample next.”

Ria raised an eyebrow. There was still one empty vial. Did he decide against taking more? How much could she safely give? Through Ranger’s eyes, she did look paler than usual… maybe?

Seeing her confusion, Shadwich laughed in his usual boisterous fashion. “The last vial is for the hair sample.”

“Oh.”

Thankfully, the hair sample didn’t involve any yanking or plucking, instead Shadwich rolled several strands of her hair around a mithril rod. When the rod was tight against her scalp, he cut with a mithril blade and the tugging released. The rod with the rolled strands went in the remaining crystal vial, joining the vials of blood in the fancy sample-collection box.

“That’s done. How are you feeling?” Shadwich asked with a big grin as he sealed the box and the box’s glyphs came to life. “Tomorrow’s big day is probably making sleep difficult, I imagine. Excited?”

Ria grimaced and grumbled, “They made me practice etiquette and dancing until morning yesterday! Er… no I guess it was Earthday…”

“Woof!” Ranger confirmed that they had practiced until yesterday morning.

Ugh. Maybe because of going to bed somewhat early and getting an early start to the morning, her sense of time was still messed up. There was still so much left to do!

Her complaint drew chuckles from the jovial researcher. “Etiquette is just a way for elves and nobles to make themselves feel superior. Knowledge and power are much more important in the grand scheme of things. Those with the power set the etiquette after all!”

Ria nodded at the sage words. Ranger seemed stunned at the realization. The way he was reverently staring at Researcher Shadwich drew a chuckle and head pat from the man.

“Now, with your earlier surprise, I’m guessing the samples weren’t your reason for stopping by before class.”

Ria nodded. “I found out that my astral body has fairly extensive damage—we’re guessing from the incident where I created the custom orichalcum glyph—and I was hoping you might have advice or something that might help speed up my recovery.”

“Astral damage, huh,” Shadwich grunted as he squinted at her through the monocle. “Hmmm, I guess I can see that, now that you mention it.”

The broad-faced man’s mouth pressed into a thin line, and he motioned for Ria to follow him before leading the way toward the room’s outer door. “Come. There is something you might find useful.”

Ria hurried to walk beside the large man as they called the elevator platform and rode it up to the tower’s library floor.

“It’s more advanced than I would normally give a first-year student on the healing track and studying spirit magic, but it should be fine if you get Lestina to supervise.”

Rather than from surprise at Shadwich already knowing about her tutor for spirit magic, Ria’s eyebrows rose more at what Researcher Shadwich was casually saying—a suspicion confirmed when he promptly led her into the ‘restricted’ section, ran a finger along the books, and selected one bound in an exotic dimpled leather.

“Only with Lestina’s supervision,” he repeated, holding the book just out of her reach. “Understand?”

“Only with Lestina’s supervision,” Ria solemnly repeated, wondering what sort of ridiculously forbidden text he was handing her.

A glance at the title as she received the book answered her question.

Spiritual Healing Techniques of the Mav’ari and a Proposal for Derived Magicks

Theoretical adapted shamanic magic, if her guess was right. Because of course it was. She had to resist the urge to groan as she sent the restricted treatise to her vault.

“Thanks, Researcher Shadwich. I appreciate the help.”

He nodded and ruffled her hair with a reassuring grin. “Happy to help. Spiritual damage isn’t something you want to leave for too long. Improving the spirituality of your meditation space will also help speed your recovery,” he further advised, and after consulting an odd circular device that promptly disappeared back to his vault, suggested, “Let’s head back to my lab. There should still be enough time to get Ranger started on another fire attunement session if he’s up for it.”

“Woof!” Ranger volunteered.

“Seems he is,” Ria translated.

Getting Ranger submerged in the odd liquid and surrounded by swirling fire essence went quickly enough, and Ria soon found herself riding the elevator platform together with Researcher Shadwich as they both headed to his spellcraft class.

When the platform stopped for a handful of older Ordermembers to embark from the floors used for housing students, Ria remembered that she still needed to pick up a thank you gift for Orlisi.

The beginnings of an idea formed while Shadwich was exchanging greetings with their temporary platform companions..

“Um, Researcher Shadwich,” Ria started. “The cleansing pills that you gave Ranger when we first started improving his affinities and attunements, do the elves make them for people, too?”

A couple glances were directed Ranger’s way and then raised eyebrows in Ria’s direction.

“They do, indeed. Young Ria,” Shadwich confirmed. “Are you thinking about purchasing some? Expelling impurities can improve the quality and effectiveness of a mage’s or martial artist’s attunements. They are particularly helpful when a person has been exposed to corrupted energies for extended periods of time and for removing the spiritual and physical impurities from inferior food.”

Removing spiritual impurities… would that help purge the remains from the spiritbinding?

As two of the Ordermembers disembarked at the third floor, Ria followed up her question with, “Are they expensive? Is that something a young elf would find desirable or hard to obtain?”

“A young elf, huh,” her spellcraft instructor mulled with a laugh as they disembarked on the second floor leaving the rest of the elevator platform occupants behind. “Not a certain young first-year?”

“I’m not uninterested, but I was having a hard time thinking up an appropriate gift for a friend,” Ria admitted.

“For a friend, you say…” The corners of Shadwich’s mouth tugged upward. “High-quality ones can be well valued, particularly if the elemental aspect aligns well with the interested person. Though, concerning the appropriateness of a cleansing pill as a gift… as you saw with Ranger, the more powerful cleansing pills can be rather painfully uncomfortable and rather more messy.”

Ria grinned maliciously. “Oh, definitely, the more powerful, the better.”

Shadwich let out a booming laugh that drew several students’ eyes their way as they walked the busy hallway. “So it’s that kind of gift, is it?”

Indeed. Indeed it was.

It was the perfect revenge thank you gift. Heh, heh, heh.

Turned out, Shadwich had high-quality nature-aspected cleansing pills that he used for experiments with certain spiritual plants and didn’t mind selling her one at a reasonable price. He even promised her a nice gift box. She’d just have to drop by his lab after class to pick it up. He was also already making a custom cleansing pill for her that would be ready soon.

The week’s lecture was timely and relevant, covering the different ways custom glyphs could create problems or inefficiencies when used with standardized spell constructs and strategies for discovering and remedying such problems. He included some amusing and not-so amusing cautionary tales of tragedies and disasters where things went very, very wrong in rather not initially obvious ways.

Though she was itching to ask questions, Ria exercised utmost restraint this time—not just so she wouldn’t irritate the older students, but because she wanted to maximize the amount of class time she could spend with Wendra working on the various apology and gift projects she had committed to.

After the lecture, Shadwich announced that he would be checking with each student to evaluate their progress with the custom glyph creation homework assignment and offer advice.

Wendra immediately turned to Ria and motioned with a big smile. “Scoot over here. We’ve got a lot to talk about with tomorrow being your big day and all!”

The older girl’s mothering was welcome and Ria was glad for it, leaning into the hug Wendra offered once their chairs were close enough.

“So… how’re you doing with the two spells I taught you last week?”

Ria looked to the side and gave an awkward laugh. “Things have been a bit hectic… but you wouldn’t believe what I did with what you taught me…”

“Oh? Hmm,” Wendra hummed, giving Ria a searching look even though the girl’s eyes were crinkling with amusement. “I’m guessing this is related to Orlisi challenging you at last Waterday’s Games practice? Maybe even your performance in the Divinesday tournament? Or maybe the incident at the Grand Library?”

“Well, yes,” Ria answered, and a sheepish grin tugged at her cheeks.

“Honorary Lieutenant Ria, Oathsworn Citizen of Crysellia, Apprentice of the Sages of the Nine Circles, are you being cheeky with me?” Wendra mock pouted and crossed her arms dramatically.

Ria couldn’t hold the smile back and saluted fist across her heart. “Yes, Lady Wendra. This citizen is most certainly being cheeky.” She stuck the tip of her tongue out for just that added bit of extra cheekiness.

Wendra rolled her amused eyes.

Mina turned around, grinning at their display and added with mock seriousness and a waggling finger, “You should know better than to be cheeky with your Order elders, young miss.”

The three of them broke into giggles, drawing annoyed glances from some of their classmates—mainly those that seemed to still be trying to refine their glyph at the last minute, the ones that had also grouped up to help each other, not so much.

“Sounds like you’ve had quite the first week at the academy, Ria—if the Daily Shadow is to be believed,” Mina said, shaking her head in mild disbelief before smirking. “Wendra didn’t mention the crater you made that damaged Shining Sun Hall.”

“Ah, that one, too, was thanks to Wendra’s help,” Ria admitted.

“You’re kidding…” Wendra gaped. “Not sure I want to be an accessory to that. So, what’s this grand epiphany that I can claim credit for helping with?”

Ria gave an exaggerated double thumbs-up. “My successful glyph creation homework, of course!”

She was rewarded by matched groans from the two older students.

“Should we take some distance when you present it for Researcher Shadwich to review?” Mina asked, half-joking.

The desire to prank her older friends was strong, and Ria gave in to temptation. Doing her best imitation of Shadwich whenever he mulled over an idea, she pretended to evaluate the risk then summoned her newest restricted book and cheerfully proclaimed, “Meh, should be fine. Now that I’ve borrowed this.”

She rubbed the dimpled leather and adjusted the red and white classification ribbon as if the book was a precious thing, giving Mina time to read the cover aloud.

“Spiritual healing techniques of the… The heck kind of glyph did you make?!”

Ria stuck the tip of her tongue out again and disappeared the book back to her vault, having gotten the desired reaction.

Wendra was making hooded eyes. “This new glyph is one you made with what I taught you last Goldday, hmm? That you used in the Divinesday tournament?”

“And against your fellow students,” Mina added, also with suddenly hooded eyes.

Ria gulped and waved her hands in denial at the trouble she had just irresponsibly gotten herself in. “Ah, it’s really just an improved metal glyph! I was just kidding! No one suffered any spiritual damage from my use of the glyph…”

Other than her.

“You trailed off,” Wendra accused.

“Er… who knew brain-melting Soulkeeper techniques that make you really smart for a few minutes at a time might be dangerous?” Ria half-heartedly tried, deflecting.

Wendra’s eyes narrowed further. “...how long did you use it for?”

Ria looked away and coughed into her hand to hide her embarrassment. “Half a candle.”

“Gods, Ria! And you participated in a tournament and Orlisi’s stupid challenge afterward?! A challenge that ended up with both you and Orlisi missing the next Games practice, and Orlisi is still recovering! What were you thinking?!”

“I’m okay. I’ll be fine... eventually.”

“You’re not okay at all!” Wendra groaned and looked to Mina. “Mina check her for me, would you?”

“Ah, sure,” Mina agreed with a nod and turned her chair around the rest of the way, pulling it up to Wendra’s desk and reseating herself. “Give me your hand, Ria, and do your best to not block my magic.”

Ria placed her hand in Mina’s without thinking about it, then realized her mistake. “Um, Mina…?”

It was too late though as Mina had already begun working the magic and her eyes were widening.

“What’s wrong?” Wendra asked, worried.

Mina leaned closer and whispered, “Are you demi, Ria?”

Demi-human?

Ria shook her head. “I don’t think so? But Researcher Shadwich has been helping me unlock and awaken my bloodline.”

“What is it, Mina?” Wendra pressed. “Is she badly injured?”

“Just minor energy pathway inflammation, I think,” Mina reported, keeping her voice low. “But that’s not the real problem… Her body composition is weird. It’s like she’s become part metal elemental, or always was? And that’s just the half of it!”

Metal elemental? Was that how the orichalcum in her body looked to others?

“The amount of energy circulating in her body is enough to explode you or me!”

Really?! Hadn’t Lestina said something similar? Wasn’t her isolation chamber meditation supposed to fix that?

“And she has extra physical and spiritual organs that humans don’t normally have.”

“What about spiritual damage?” Wendra prompted.

“Other than the inflammation already mentioned, everything connected to her mystic gates looks fine.” Mina furrowed her brow. “There might be some damage to the less developed areas of her spiritual body, but it’s hard to tell.”

“See, I’m fine,” Ria asserted to Wendra, then turned to Mina, “Um, Mina, can you… keep what you saw secret?”

“Huh? Oh!” Mina’s eyes widened and she covered her mouth with a gasp. “Sorry! I should have asked first. I won’t tell anyone. Unless you tell me to.”

“Thanks.”

Wendra was watching her carefully and seemed to come to a decision. “All that aside, what did you want to work on today, Ria?”

Ria let out a breath in relief. She had thought about that exact question during her early morning preparations for the day and during her meditation in the student lounge and had an answer ready. “I was hoping we could try using the magic from your project to help me with some projects of my own.”

She made the display case for the shadow pearl from Martina and one of the boxes of rough jade appear on Wendra’s desk, taking the lids off both so her friends could get a better look. “I want to make a custom focus tool out of the pearl and a meditation aid with the jade, and I thought using magic to embed gold or silver into the material would be the best way to form the base enchantment… I promised a sculpture of my custom glyph to donate to the Grand Library, too, and I have a fair amount of scrap gold and silver in my vault, so…”

Ria trailed off at the exasperated look Wendra was giving her.

“Shadow pearl, jade?” Mina breathed out, eyeing the size of both the pearl and the jade. “Are you a rich princess traveling incognito or something?”

Wendra paused halfway to touching the pearl. “Can I handle them?”

“Sure. But be careful with the pearl. There’s metal in the core.” At Mina’s questioning eyes, Ria added, “You can too, Mina.”

Both did so, and after returning the pearl to its holder, Wendra eyed the large chunk of raw jade that Mina was examining with glowing pupils. “Do you have a plan for sculpting the crystal?”

Ria looked around to make sure no one was paying too much attention to them and leaned in to whisper to her friends, “I’ve begun learning crystal magic.”

And it was true. Not only had she begun reading through the Vesali primer before Jarrel took her and the others to the academy early in the morning, but she had moved the secure chest bought for hiding it to her student vault so she could access the book during class if needed.

Wendra rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “I take it you aren’t expecting to finish any of these today?”

“Well…” Ria lowered her gaze and fidgeted a little. “For the pearl… my fitting is after lunch…”

Her friends stared at her for a moment, before Wendra gave out a long exasperated huff. “Guess we’re working on that one first, do you have the enchantment worked out at least?”

Ria fidgeted some more before admitting, “I’ve got some ideas for what I want it to do, and was hoping you’d help me improve the focus tool design and help with the custom glyphs…”

This time when Wendra leveled hooded eyes on Ria, Mina couldn’t help giggling.

Several glyph and focus tool design dictionaries appeared on the desk, and Wendra promptly demanded Ria’s notes. Ria quickly did as asked, and explained what she had in mind, drawing further eyebrow raising from her friends.

Mina eagerly offered to help her and Wendra, saying that the healing spell Ria had shown the prior week gave her inspiration on a direction for her custom glyph and she wanted to return the favor. The fourth-year girl’s light affinity and specialization in healing would be a big help when designing and crafting the statue of Lady Averlee, so Ria was glad for the offer and readily agreed.

A demonstration of her new aura was required since the tentative plan was for the pearl to help with that during her debut. Fortunately, both Mina and Wendra had privacy magics they knew. The pair were still eyeing her strangely afterward, and Mina muttered something about Ria really being a princess after all. Awkwardly, Ria was sure her non-denials only raised their suspicions.

During a moment when Wendra was looking up glyphs similar to what Ria wanted to create, Ria took the opportunity to consult with Mina about Cassielle’s condition. Her new healer friend agreed that destroying the improperly healed tissue and using guided regeneration was the most reliable way to approach the problem. Mina surprised Ria by offering to assist with the healing as well, huffing and grumbling about amateur healers and charlatans causing more work for certified healers.

How they would use Wendra’s magic was a large consideration in the planned design for the pearl’s enchantment. Wendra had devised a multitude of approaches to embedding the magically conductive metal into the target material, but the only ones she had reliably working involved silver and non-brittle materials.

Resolving the spatial overlap was the problem for most materials. A physical solution required making room for the enchantable material within the target material through compression, displacement, or removal. Magical solutions that Wendra was currently working on, such as blending of properties, spatial compression, and co-location, introduced their own problems.

Not wanting to have future problems with the pearl cracking or the enchantment otherwise failing, Ria decided that void-based removal of the inlaid design from target material and temporary spatial phasing to insert the inlay would be the best approach. The downside was that the process would be permanent, and both Wendra and Mina had reservations about permanently insetting a task-specific and rushed design into such a one-of-a-kind natural treasure as her special shadow pearl.

Ria glanced up from the practice materials they were testing and the designs they were working on to check Researcher Shadwich’s progress through the class. From what she could tell, most of her fellow classmates had made at least some progress on either a personal glyph or a minor customization refining a particular aspect of a generalized glyph. To Ria’s great surprise, Yarin, who seemed to always slack off in class, received high praise and significant interest from the researcher toward his effort.

Whether to be relieved or not that, at the current pace, Shadwich wouldn’t get to Ria and her friends until near the end of class, Ria wasn’t sure, but she was sure of one thing: she was glad to have made another friend.