Early morning light shined through the nearby porthole and directly onto Andromeda’s face. She was already awake, but the sudden bright light in her face roused her from her comfortable morning reminisce with the blankets. Despite the bunks being barely more than passed boards of wood, anything was better than the pain in her back and dirt in her eye that she experienced with sleeping on the ground.

She rolled over to look for Eli, only to find that he wasn’t in the room. She wasn’t surprised because they had both learned very quickly the night before that Eli did not have his sea legs yet. Thus, his new best friend, the port side metal railing outside their room, was holding him upright and steady on their trip.

The captain met them later in the night and gave them the rundown on their situation. They were not to wander outside the crew area of the ship as to avoid bother the crew. Besides that, he didn’t really care what they did as long as it didn’t interfere with the running of the ship.

That was understandable, and they agreed. The traversal from Betel Stretto to Betel Island would take approximately 3 days. So they needed to settle in.

Andromeda was met with an unusual quiet. The room was silent of course, but White and Whisper were as well. This wasn’t unusual, they remained quiet more often than not, but usually they at least told her good morning.

“Hey, how’s it going in there?” Andromeda thought.

There was a moment of silence before a faint wave of approval washed over her.

It’s fine, what’s up?

“Alright, I was a bit surprised you guys didn’t say good morning.” Andromeda thought.

Hmm? Oh, right, yeah… We’ve been a bit distracted. I’ve been working with Whisper on some personal matters, and it’s a bit draining if I’m honest.

>Sorry about that, you don’t have to keep going if you aren’t comfortable.<

I could say the same thing, plus it’s more than fine. Whatever helps right?

“Just let me know if you need some time to talk, I’m always open to it. Well, within reason.” Andromeda thought.

Thanks for that, we might need to take you up on that soon.

“Just say the word.” Andromeda thought.

With that bit of reassurance done, she got up and prepared for the morning. One of the unfortunate things about the entire trip beyond the whole “being kidnapped and nearly killed by a bloodthirsty band of marauders” thing was that there were no major settlements between Trevias and Betel Stretto. Just small farming communities and hamlets, they were lucky if there was even a general store, let alone a well stocked one. Because of this, Andromeda hadn’t been able to take advantage of her apparently substantial amount of coin.

It didn’t help that a good half of it was stolen from her, as well as a most of her things that she didn’t keep in her robes. The only things she had on her person when they were captured was the white mask and the faded hood. Those were most important to her, so she kept them close in the pockets. Her bag, as well as all her notes and the other items she requested, were gone. The food and map were easily replaced, but the ring from Rhys, the gloves from Alice, and the gems were larger problems.

She actually had the gloves in her pockets as well to avoid them getting lost, but they were gone despite the mask and hood not being gone. The ring was on her finger until it wasn’t, which was a real shame because it had been on her hand so long she felt wrong without it.

To ease her conscious, she took some of the spare change she wasn’t using for food and supplies and bought a textbook she found in a bookstore in town.

“The Reflexes of Magic” by Virisai Cobitrinitrix

-----

Andromeda was aware of the first two reflexes.

Refutei, which was the reflex of slowing and freezing. With enough force, the flow of mana can be brought to a standstill. When applies with Mending, this causes damage to restore over time, the benefit being that it can be applied and work passively after the fact.

Expliza, functionally the opposite of Refutei. With enough force, it causes the flow of mana to accelerate violently. In the case of Mending, the acceleration causes the subject to break down rather than repair itself. This can be used in a multitude of ways and quite precisely as well.

She pondered this as she looked over the first few chapters of the textbook, just slow enough that White could transcribe it’s exact wording internally, but fast enough that she was going through a chapter a minute. It was mostly information that she already know, but one tidbit from the introduction chapters that White pointed out was that depending on the discipline of magic, reflexes either could or could not be used together. Mending was one such kind that could not, but others could.

It took a bit of careful paging before she got a chapter that described something she didn’t know already, that is when she looked deeper and paid attention.

“Refutei and Expliza are two sides of the same coin, slow and fast in essence. However, in fitting with the ever famous water interpretation of mana, the essence of “Hot” and “Cold”.”

“This personally dislikes the water interpretation, they believe it draws too heavily on human centric models of logic. But nonetheless, it serves as a useful model to instruct those who are lacking in a strong foundation. In this case, the 3rd and 4th reflex emulate the concepts of hot and cold in a system that resembles water.”

“The first of the reflexes emulates the concept of cold. Criontil. Contrary to the implication that a term like cold might suggest, for mana to be “cold” does not mean it has slowed. This is one such reason why the water interpretation is flawed. With mana the flow can be any combination of slow, fast, cold, and warm.”

“What it means for Mana and for it’s flow to be “Cold” however, can be likened to water with little difficulty. Similarly to ice, magic applied with Criontil becomes more tangible in form. Mana in its natural form takes on a state similar to gas, intangibility and lack of mass not withstanding. Generally speaking, when magic is used with Criontil it will not manifest immediately, instead it will manifest as various forms of solid and semi-solid material.”

“With delicate application, it causes the magic to become a more definite gas that acts much more like what we might call a gas. With a stronger application, it takes on a semi-solid liquid form. The viscosity of the liquid increasing with greater application. Finally, with powerful applications of, a crystallized form of the magic will manifest. It should be noted that Criontil magic is inherently unstable and will break down with time.”

“The application depends on whether the magic is in solid, liquid, or gaseous form. With the solid form radiating the intended effect, the liquid form is notably more stable and is often bottled and diluted for longer term use. The gaseous form however reacts strangely. The magnitude of the effect depends on the concentration, with higher concentrations producing stronger effects. Stronger even than what was originally produced naturally.”

“As with all things, there is disparity. If cold exists, so too does hot. Nijre.”

“If you had to break down Criontil into its very simplest form, it is the manifestation of magic in a tangible form. Something that mana and it’s flow don’t naturally have. If you were to reverse the logic of that, then you would take a tangible form that already exists and give it something that it did not already have, that being magic. Thus is Nijre.”

“Nijre has one form that it takes, and that is imbuing into a subject a magical technique. The form that this manifests into depends on the technique applied. It needs to be noted that this is a distinct and unrelated to enchanting and thaumaturgy, those disciplines work and reflex in entirely different ways. The Nijre Reflex is additive, instead of transitive.”

Andromeda paused, she could feel the effort filled waves of White taking it all in while there were faints hints of confusion which were most likely from Whisper.

This text wasn’t as descriptive as the other one had been, instead of giving her a vague but manageable point to start from, she was basically working with a description alone.

The concept was also confusing. She had been picturing water this entire time, but it seemed like that was a less than perfect idea. Imagining how she would even wrap her mind around something like Warm Ice or whatever it was suggesting.

Yeah, I’m not exactly sure how we can make that happen. I can try to make some in here, but I don’t know if that’s going to help.

>I don’t know if it’s just me, but I have no idea about any of this. It’s all gibberish to me.<

“I’m gonna come back to this and see how Eli’s doing. White, give it a good think while I’m busy.” Andromeda thought.

Will do.

Andromeda thumbed through the rest of the pages so White could get them all down, then she stood up and left the room. Their room opened up into a hallway, which itself branched off the outside deck. There was a bit of outside rail they were allowed to look over for Eli’s sake, but that was about it for leniency.

Even though the bulkhead doors, Andromeda could hear Eli empty his lunch out into the sea below. There was some rough weather the night before and the sea was still churned up from it.

To her surprise, it wasn’t Eli who was sitting over the railing. Though, he was still sitting there beside the one who was really tossing his cookies.

“Morning.” Andromeda said.

“M-Morning.” Eli said, his voice was hoarse and there were faded bags under his eyes, but even that was an improvement over last night.

The man leaning over the rail tried to look up at her, but just as his eyes met hers, they went wide and he went right back over the side.

“Who’s this?” Andromeda asked.

He was an older man, probably about twice her age, with the starts of gray hair along his every so slightly thinning hairline. He was dressed in a tan coat that evoked the look of a researcher, but the long johns he wore under the coat confused that look somewhat.

“Haven’t got his name yet, he was here when I got up.” Eli asked.

Andromeda’s mind was filled with the horrifying realization that Eli had gotten up around an hour before her, and she had been reading for about an hour after that. The poor man’s throat…

White looked around quickly to make sure no one was looking and touched the red gem in the necklace. She felt oneness in her mind and watched as the bleached white skin on her fingers creeped up to her elbow.

White’s Aura manifested and she put it on the man’s back. He flinched at the touch between bouts of involuntary oral evacuation, but within moments he gained control of himself. He was still unsteady, but he at least seemed capable of holding himself together. Just as he turned, she quickly released the gem.

“I-I am frightfully sorry about that miss, I am not one for sea travel it seems.” The man said.

“It’s fine, I wasn’t expecting world-class edicate on a tugboat.” Andromeda said. He offered his hand to shake, then recalled it just as quickly when he realized how unclean it was from his previous activities.

“I see, well, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Aldir Algoer.” Aldir said.

“A pleasure, my name is…”

Uhhhhhhhhh?

>What? What’s wrong?<

“Are you alright?” Aldir said.

Andromeda was stunned by the name, but forced to rebound.

“Sorry, I just remembered something. My name is White.” Andromeda said. She could see Eli’s eyes sharpen as he let his hand drop to his belt.

>What’s going on?<

Quiet.

“White? Interesting! It must be quite the time having the same name as an Arch Mage.” Aldir said, having missed the mood shift.

“It has been a struggle at points. People have a hard time trusting lately.” Andromeda said.

“Indeed, I’ll be honest. It’s a frightening bit of business, those Arch Mages. It wasn’t until I entered the academic field that I understood their nature somewhat.” Aldir said.

“You’re telling me…” Andromeda said.

“So, Miss White, what brings one such as yourself to a metal tub such as this? I find it strange that a mage would choose such a mode of transportation.” Aldir said. Eli silently moved until he was standing behind Aldir.

“What makes you say I am a mage?” Andromeda asked, trying to play coy.

“Pardon my saying, despite my lack of mystical quality, I am quite attuned to mana. I could sense such a feeling from your enchanted robes. I assumed that only a mage would possess such materials.”

“Tell Eli to stand down.” Andromeda thought, then she heard Whisper leave her mind for a moment and come back. Eli gave her a look then moved back to where he was standing before.

Andromeda gave a theatrical sigh, “I am, but if you wouldn’t mind, please keep that information to yourself. I am not in friendly waters, if you know what I mean.”

She was only wearing her innermost layer of clothes as well as the faded hood, so it was surprising that he sniffed out their enchantments. Actually, it was surprising that he could do that at all, or that doing so was even possible.

“Of course, I understand the discretion that the Magi are taking at the present moment. Recent times have been troubled.” Aldir said. Andromeda, and by extension White and Eli, were put off by how nonchalant this “Aldir” was being.

He had the last name of Algoer, and she was en route to meet with a man by the same name. They just so happened to be on the same boat, at the same time, and both on short notice if the boarding process was anything to go by. Not only that, he sussed out that she was a mage instantly. All coming from a port that is apparently known for not often taking tourists.

“We are, sorry to take your time.” Andromeda said, trying to break away from the conversation as soon as possible.

“It’s, Hrmm, no trouble. I… Hghk, hope you have a… a…”

The soothing nature of the aura only lasted so long, Aldir was taken by his nausea and pushed over the rail in a raucous flow of bile.

Even if he was suspicious, this was just painful to watch. She waved Eli over and they headed back inside the bulkhead to the crew quarters. Both with suddenly a lot more to talk about.