[B2] Chapter 87 — Primal Glyphs

Ria was still working together with Wendra and Mina on the basic design for the pearl’s enchantment when Researcher Shadwich stopped at their group to review their custom glyph creation progress. The elder Sage gave Mina an exaggerated wink and commended her for joining a study group with not one but two Sages.

Mina laughed and winked back. “A wise mage takes advantage of benefit and opportunity within easy reach.”

“Indeed. Indeed,” Shadwich chuckled and after confirming with Mina that she didn’t mind doing her homework review in front of her groupmates, he prompted her to proceed.

Ria was curious to see how the self-made restoration spell had inspired Mina and watched Mina’s demonstration with interest.

While forming the glyph and making it visible, Mina explained that she had customized a light glyph to give the generated light energy a ‘seeking’ property rather than a ‘scatter’ property. When the Healing Hands girl demonstrated the glyph’s use for Shadwich, the light from her spell coated the target in a lingering gentle glow.

“I can use it to simply and efficiently target designated parts of a person or object for healing or other effect,” Mina proudly reported.

“Quite nice,” Shadwich evaluated. “Excellent work. Renowned master of light magic Liten Benathi wrote a treatise on cohesive light magic that you might find illuminating on the subject, if you’re looking to explore the concept further.”

A grimace and groan met the man’s pun, but the fourth-year girl still graciously thanked him for the recommendation.

Wendra’s glyph was a reworking of her family’s silver glyph to better reflect nuances in her own affinity. Shadwich was pleased with her progress but pointed out a few areas of the glyph where he felt improving her understanding of the truths of silver—particularly magical silvers—would further improve the glyph’s spirituality and efficiency.

Magical silvers? As in mithril? Judging by Wendra’s eyebrow raise, she must’ve had a similar thought. Was Shadwich teasing the girl or pushing her to reach higher? The mischievous twinkle in his eyes, suggesting he might be teasing, or hoping that by chance the brilliant fifth-year could accomplish it. Though even lesser magical silvers such as moonsilver and quicksilver had distinct properties of their own. Was it possible for Wendra to find her own personal type of magical silver?

Ria tilted her head. Was there such a thing as a personal flavor of metal? The orichalcum in her bracer felt subtly different from that encased in the pearl and from the echoes of her body gate. Did she have her own flavor of orichalcum with its own special properties? Or maybe all metal had different flavors and property nuances based on how it was formed and its history, and it was more a matter of compatibility? Could compatibility change or be changed? Expanded? Improved? It was an interesting line of thought.

Soon enough, it was Ria’s turn and she was eager to show her work. She took out the precious metals text borrowed from the Grand Library and demonstrated the text’s flat orichalcum glyph followed by both her original derived glyph and her new one with the spatter-style modifications.

“Oh-hoh! You’ve discovered primal glyphs! Or at least, dipped your toe into the waters to try them out. That one has a much stronger spirituality.”

“Primal?” Ria felt with some surety that her fire aspect had ‘primal’ origins, and she was very interested to learn what Researcher Shadwich meant in his usage of the word.

“Yes, some concepts predate the formation of the world and maybe even the gods themselves—the current ones anyway.”

Ria blinked at that explanation. “There were gods before the ones we worship now?”

A quick glance around the classroom showed she wasn’t the only one shocked at the possible blasphemy. Wendra wasn’t even hiding her incredulity. Several of the others pretending to not be listening had frozen mid-motion.

Shadwich shrugged. “Maybe not in this world, but it’s the most reasonable explanation for the existence of relics older than creation itself—relics believed to have not been created by the known deities. Whether such were summoned from planes older than ours or survived a cycle of creation and destruction where the world returned to primordial chaos before being created anew, that doesn’t really change the supposition much.”

“A primal glyph… no wonder the resulting magic is spirit-damaging and unstable…” Mina breathlessly muttered.

“Cycles of creation and destruction…” Wendra mumbled to herself, a contemplative look settling over her previously scandalized expression.

What Mina was saying was concerning even if based on a mistaken assumption, but Ria had another worry. An existential one. Could her minor divinity be at odds with the current order? A remnant of a past era? Of old gods that no longer existed? Or from an extra-planar source foreign and antagonistic to the nature of this plane? Something the current gods would want purged?

A touch to her amulet reassured her and calmed her spiraling fears. Would Hemse have gifted her a divine amulet if the gods were against her continued existence? At least two gods, Hemse and Ellnys, were certainly aware of her, and she suspected she had also drawn Xander’s interest. If they wanted her to no longer exist, surely she would already have ceased to exist—one way or another. But, High Priestess Elora did warn her about not revealing herself to the other faiths…

“In any case,” Shadwich continued after allowing them time to digest his answer, “I suspect you will find Luventi’s mithril-aspected meditation room to be enlightening if you haven’t experienced it yet.”

The mithril meditation room? Why would that… “I’ve signed up to use it, but my slot isn’t until next week…”

He nodded. “You’ll understand more once you see it. Luventi had a passion for deriving primal glyphs. He never really explained his reason for the interest, but such research is a good part of the reason the Sages have preserved many shamanic heritages for investigation and study.”

After Shadwich left them to their independent projects, Wendra and Mina both playfully ribbed Ria about being an overachiever and trying to show them up.

In the end, Ria eventually gave up on trying to embed the glyphs into the pearl. With the lecture on complications from using custom glyphs in mind, and their ever-tightening time constraints, Wendra convinced her to accept a temporary solution—creating a cage of twisted gold to form the focus tool’s glyphs and structured enchantment while securely cradling and protecting the tool’s delicate pearl.

The new solution would be quick to craft, easy to modify, and had the advantage of not damaging the pearl. Ria really couldn’t think of a reason to object.

She did want to, eventually, inscribe a hidden layer of enchantment directly into the orichalcum to make the pearl into an orichalcum focus tool that outwardly seemed as a shadow focus tool, but that was clearly a task that would have to wait until she had more time and knowledge.

As it was, completing the filigree-style design using metal-shaping magic and testing the glyphs and resulting enchantment took well into the lunch hour, and they had to move the work to the Order-restricted student labs after class ended.

Shadwich gave permission for Mina to join them in the labs, and with Wendra supervising, Ria also received permission to use her restricted glyph dictionary and her other restricted books and notes that she hadn’t had access to since Shadwich designated them with the striped ribbons that first time they met.

The chance to paw through her restricted books had her two spellcraft classmates unreasonably excited—maybe they expected to find some forbidden tomes of dark magic? As it was, Wendra was surprisingly ecstatic to see the antique Luventi beginner’s tome, even lamenting that they were so pressed for time.

Both her friends were impressed by the divination book from Master Rigure, saying that it was almost certainly a valuable rare book. It was one of Ria’s favorite purchases, full of fascinating methods and glyphs, and was where they found the ‘fate’ glyph closest to the one she wanted to create for her focus tool. The idea that Master Rigure probably acquired such a fascinating academic work solely to predict seasonal weather patterns was painful to countenance.

For their lunch meal, Wendra showed Ria how to make use of the tower’s magic to purchase food from the tower’s chef. Ria didn’t even know the tower had a chef!

As for Phaelys’ plan to meet at the Grand Library during lunch, Towerkeeper Alenna helped Ria have a note sent to Phaelys to revise their meeting plans once it became apparent how much work still remained. Though using the in-tower courier service provided by Seeker’s Hall was expensive, it was the most convenient way to contact the second-year Vesali boy unless she gave him a communication stone—something she was conflicted about whether to do.

He might accept the stone, but… just imagining the awkward conversations that the others around them might hear was enough to make her cringe.

“How is it?” Ria asked as she again wrapped herself in the shadow aura, testing the effect of the focus tool’s revised design.

“Like I only lose one year of my life when I look at you instead of three, oh great emissary of darkness,” Mina reported with a smirk.

Ria rolled her eyes.

“Joking, joking. It’s a substantial improvement over what you showed us earlier,” the healer girl reassured her. “I think you can call this version a success. Your aura projection feels more like what would naturally be felt from a young elite with a very strong bloodline now.”

Wendra nodded agreement. “I feel the same. At this point, I think you’re going to have to accept that is good enough, Ria.”

Ria wasn’t so sure. With the risk she was taking by being in public without Hemse’s amulet, if her aura wasn’t perfect…

The enchanter girl motioned with an eyebrow toward the expensive timekeeping device placed on the table earlier. “You still need to get ready for your outing, don’t you?”

“Ugh, it’s already that late?” Ria groaned in defeat. Her fifth-year friend was right. There wasn’t enough time left to make further refinements to the design.

Not having Ana to help her get ready, Ria imposed on Wendra and Mina to help her change and arrange her hair, a task the two older girls were only too happy to help with, giggling, teasing, and excitedly fussing over her like older sisters. It was a nice feeling even if the two seemed to enjoy making her blush a bit too much.

She had stashed several outfit options in her vault after being unable to decide that morning, but after showing her friends the choices, both insisted that she wear the new dress Keira’s mother had gifted her.

The dress’ saffron yellow fabric accented with delicate patterned gold embroidery and lace wasn’t a color combination Ria would have normally chosen, but as usual, Miss Danna in Vorshan’s Hills did a masterful job on the design, and the visual effect was eye-catching while still being tasteful. It was the kind of sophisticated look that Phaelys would probably enjoy—not that he enjoyed seeing her in a dress…

Ria grumbled at the thought. She wanted to be seen as herself, not just as a war hero!

At least, if the boy was just as obsessed with crystal magic, maybe that would give them something else to talk about. The early chapters of the Vesali primer on crystal magic had left her with a lot of questions. It was a risky topic, though. What could be asked about without raising suspicion on her source of knowledge? She didn’t have a clue.

If she was smart about this, she would check to see what approaches to crystal magic were available in the student sections of the Grand Library, or at the least, ask Alenna to check the Sage Order’s library for her.

Unfortunately, the Towerkeeper was busy with something, and as soon as the last ribbon on her corset was pulled tight and the last braid of her hair was pinned in place, Wendra was pushing her along to pick up Ranger and right out of the tower. Mina wanted to come along and use the opportunity to meet Phaelys but had responsibilities at Healer’s Hall she couldn’t skip out on. Instead, the girl extracted a promise for a tell-all after the big event.

Wendra did a good job keeping Ria distracted as they walked, asking about Ranger’s fire baths, what participating in her first tournament was like, and pointing out places of interest on the campus. With the seemingly random topics, it didn’t take long to realize that her fifth-year friend was doing it intentionally, but Ria didn’t mind. If anything, she was glad. While getting ready, the reality that she was about to spend the afternoon with the most sought-after boy in Crysellia—a boy that might actually become her husband if Lady Asara got her way—was starting to make her more than a little nervous.

Sure, she could rationalize such an outcome as important to her goals of power and vengeance, but that didn’t change the real result that she would spend the rest of her life with the boy, have children with him, and become part of the Vesali family, committing to and taking on all the expectations and duties that entailed—assuming she survived her future attempts to murder the ruling family of Revant.

Curious glances were drawn by her attire as she walked alongside Wendra, but most quickly averted their gaze and gave them space. Whether that was because of her friend being a fifth-year from a Greater House or because she was practicing her shadow aura, Ria didn’t know, but soon enough they made their way through Whitestone Hall, past the archways and the public-facing entrance to where a certain amethyst-haired boy wearing his academy robe was waiting, having a conversation with a certain primly attired chaperone. It was the same place that Iori had waited for her just a few days prior.

Phaelys quickly caught sight of her, and Ria thought his eyes might have involuntarily widened before he smoothly recovered. The pause was slight enough to have been imagined.

He approached her, Wendra, and Ranger with a smile. “Wendra of House Astacio. I see Ria is in interesting company as usual. You have my thanks for seeing her safely here.”

Wendra curtsied. “Greetings, Phaelys of House Vesali. With the attention our Order’s young Divinesday Champion has been receiving… seems wise to deter over-enthusiastic saboteurs.”

"Wise indeed," Phaelys agreed, and his expression perked up. "The games, that's right..."

“Woof!” Ranger complained and stomped a paw at not getting mentioned.

At first Phaelys looked confused but promptly realized where he had offended the deepways hound. “Right, well met, Ranger. I’m sure Ria feels safe knowing you’ll keep her from danger as well.”

Ranger nodded solemnly at the acknowledgment, even if it was late coming.

Ria had to hold back a chuckle at the astonished face Phaelys was making. It was the noble boy’s first time meeting her familiar, and he didn’t seem to know what to make of Ranger.

“Guess, I should get back to the student labs. It was nice meeting you, Phaelys. I’ll leave Ria in your capable hands.” Wendra curtsied again in the boy’s direction then glanced to Lady Janacythe and gave another curtsy before winking in Ria’s direction. “Ria, have fun and good luck.”

With that, Wendra left her and Ranger alone with the Vesali boy and his Chaperone.

Luck?

Ria mentally gulped, but drew from her familiar’s steady presence and her bloodline’s pride for support as she faced the older boy and…

His envious eyes?

Huh?