NABC Book 6 - Chapter 19
Book 6 - Chapter 19
Brin blinked his eyes open and took in a deep breath. The air was warm and sweet from the flowers and the lightly floral perfume of the lady sitting next to him. It was a pleasant day in the garden courtyard, and now the beauty of the moment hit him with such a strong sense of appreciation and pleasure that he momentarily wondered if his mind was being worked on by some new, strange power. But no. This is real.
His breath shuddered when he let it out. [Delusionist] was gone, and with it, the mental effects that bent his mind towards an unwholesome amount of paranoia. He'd been pushing against those instincts for so long that he had forgotten they were even there. Now being free of it was nothing short of euphoria. Was this how he was supposed to feel all the time?
He felt for his magic, and the glass was more responsive than ever. He pulled the needles out of his wrist, leaving just a tiny dot of glass inside to hold his bones where they should be. It would still take some time to heal, but the throbbing pain in his wrist went away. His last irritation was gone, and nothing was left but the overwhelming feeling of wellness.
He wished he could spend an hour like this, content to sit and enjoy his newfound peace. Had he ever felt like this even a single time in this world? It was real. All of it was real. The healing he’d found in the monastery, the eagerness he felt to get here and start learning about magic, even the growing pressure to spend more attention on Sancha who was sitting next to him–none of it was a [Delusionist’s] coping mechanism. This is who he was right now.
The only decision that needed to be made was how to revise his [Hide Status]. He was still showing [Knightly Conjuror of Glass] and had his level completely blocked. Lumina and Hogg had decided 39 would be a modest yet believable level for him, but what of his Class? After a moment’s thought, he decided to just reveal the whole thing. The first thing everyone saw when they looked at him was the scars. Why bother trying to hide it?
Name: Brin isu Yambul
Age: 16
Class: Scarred Mage of the Glass Furnace
Level: 39
"What a pleasant way to wake up," said Brin with a happy sigh.
Sancha grabbed his hand to stop him from raising it. "Call not upon thy magic!"
Then she widened her eyes in panic and removed her hand, leaning back away from him again. "My apologies, Lord Mistaken."
"No, no, thank you. You're right, I was about to do just that." He had fire magic to play with, after all. Instead, he scanned the logs that the Child had recorded while Brin had been concentrating on Class Selection. It seemed that the [Gravity Mage], whose name was Gyromia, had sat with him for a while as well. Though in Gyromia's case, she'd been too distressed by the murder of all Brin's Mirror Men to follow the Master into the Tower at first, and had only left after Sancha spent a half hour talking her through it.
Gyromai had gone inside when the Master started his speech.
The Master: Good, good, welcome, then. Did I already say that? It's worth repeating. First things first, none of you are allowed to cast any spells of any sort during initiation today. That's worth repeating as well: No magic. Half of you have new Classes and if I let you fumble around with your new abilities you wouldn't have time for anything else. Do that at home with your families. Now, as I was saying, welcome. You and each of you represent the future of this Tower and the future of Frenaria..."
"The Master forbade it, didn't he? I should've expected that. Thank you again for the warning," said Brin. "Were you waiting here for me?"
Sancha held her hands tight together in her lap. "I am sure thou sure knowest it well, but we others have plotted and prepared for this day these many years. I see now that my fears were all for naught, yet when thou slep'st and wouldst not wake, I thought some ill had befallen thee. My conscience would not suffer me to leave thee alone."
"That was very kind of you. Especially after the poor first impression I showed you."
"Oh, nay, that fault was mine. Had I not answered Lord Guoncal with such force, surely the entire wretched affair had been avoided. Poor Lord Guoncal," said Sancha.
"Yes, I'll need to find some way to apologize," said Brin.
"And I as well. Shall we anon?" she asked.
Her hand twitched a tiny amount and he remembered she was waiting for him. He rose, held out a hand to help her to her feet, and then escorted her inside the building.
Sancha had started the day with the [Gatherer of Stones] Class, and it was true that her jewelry was a bit more extensive than was strictly fashionable, with a large variety of different colored gemstones. A Class for collecting jewels, maybe? She now had the much more understandable [Mage of Stone] Class, though only level 15. He wondered if she'd deliberately avoided leveling before getting to the Tower, since even many of those with the [Child] Class had gotten it up to 30.
Inside, Bia raised an eyebrow at the way that Sancha still had her hand resting on his elbow, but what was Brin supposed to do about that? Besides, he barely had eyes for Bia when the absolutely otherworldly structure loomed above them.
The ceiling rose above them like the roof of the world and was split into four-colored sections representing the four elements. The center was kept as a blank white space to represent the Ur-God and then the four sections burst out from the center in a slight spiral. They painted with such a huge variety of figures that he recognized as being mainly religious. More godlings than gods, if he was right about a few of the scenes he saw. The scale was breathtaking, and even if there were no gigantic Tower jutting up from the cathedral base, this would still be the largest building he'd ever entered in this world.
It made the Master and the little crowd listening to him seem almost insignificant. He was just finishing up his speech.
"...is not actually a temple to the gods, no matter how it may seem at first. There is an actual Temple to the gods among the outbuildings near the southwestern entrance. That will not be on today’s tour. If you go there, speak only when spoken to. As for this place, you’ll often come here for music and dancing. Operas perform here, and orchestras, Fine poets and orators. Sometimes, demonstrations of excellent magecraft. If no entertainments are underway, you’re welcome to use this area for study or rest, and this is where I’ll address the entire student body this afternoon. Come along, now. We have much to see.”
The Master turned and walked and the new students followed behind them. They were hushed, some gazing in wonder at the vaulted ceiling, but most of their focus was on the absolute pinnacle of magic who was apparently to be their guide today.
They walked across the hall without a single word, between rows and rows of benches all facing the center in a huge circle. There was no vertical climb as they moved towards the back, so if there really were concerts here he wondered if anyone outside the front row could see a thing.
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The sound of their footsteps against the marble floors was almost deafening amidst so much silence. Brin thought for a second, and then decided to take a chance. Bia had to know he was an [Illusionist]. The secret had leaked to the Tower when Brin joined all the kingdom’s [Illusionists] in the Great Conduit. And since Bia had apparently been tasked with spying on Brin, there was no way she hadn’t been told what to watch for. He spoke to her with Silent Voice, “Does the Master of Magic normally guide the first years?”
“No. And he can absolutely hear us right now,” Bia responded. She didn’t use sound magic, but Brin could also tell that no one except him had heard the response. No one except him and the Master, that was.
Brin watched, and the Master made a tiny little nod.
Brin bit his lip in worry. He had the urge to needle him again somehow, just to see where they stood, but he knew that wasn’t wise. He’d poked the bear twice now. He really shouldn’t do it a third time.
Lumina hadn’t given Brin much to go on regarding him. She absolutely adored him, that much was clear. He was like a father to her, but she hadn’t gone so far as to tell Brin he should think of the man as a grandfather. All she’d said was that they would definitely meet someday and that “Of course he’s going to adore you.” Lumina had a lot of talents, but she was a terrible liar.
At long last, they reached the end of the room. The doors opened for the Master and they proceeded into a golden hall. He’d call it sunlit from the way a bright light shone through gold-stained glass on the ceiling, but he knew that the main body of the Tower should be above them now, so this light was magical. Or mechanical? He didn’t sense illusion magic.
It was a museum, from the looks of it. Many elegant statues lined the middle and paintings covered the walls. The path through the room wound around like a hallway or a maze to present as much wall space as possible for the paintings.
Brin didn’t know if he had much of an eye for art, but they were good. That much he could say for certain. They didn’t have the vain ugliness of modern art from his old world, nor did it feel quaint or regressive like older art from his old world. The paintings were stunning and evocative, scenes of war or love or sometimes regular life, each so lifelike that they seemed like they could jump off the canvas, but also so beautiful that something like that could never exist in the regular world. Each different, but each beautiful, and the curation was art as well for the way that each piece seemed to flow into the next.
This was the art of a [Artists]. High level [Artists], the best.
“This is the Hall of Mundane Art,” said the Master. “Young Lord Vitor, I’ll ask you to stay in the center of the hall and to not touch anything. None of you should touch anything, of course. As I was saying, this Art is safely viewable by the public. To enter the Hall of Great Art, one must be at least a Third Circle Mage and certify themselves as able to withstand moderate persuasion by a certified representative of the Circle of Minds. I wish I could give you time to properly appreciate this place, but our time is short and we’ve much to see.”
The next doors led them into another stunningly large open area, and Brin felt a small bit of vertigo, as if he were suffering from megalophobia. His first impression was that of an indoor shopping mall, and it only went about seven stories up, which he knew was only a tiny portion of the Tower. He just wasn’t expecting the fountain, or the pearlescent white tree, clearly and stunningly alive even though it was entirely bare of leaves. People in robes or student clothes like them were moving to and fro, though any of them that drew near stopped in their tracks and tilted their heads in respect at the Master.
“Any questions so far? I’ll answer one that someone always asks on this tour, assuming I’m not the one who’s guiding it, that is. How many Circles am I? How many is [Archmage] Gundavald, or this instructor or that instructor? The answer is that we stop counting after ten.”
He stopped in front of the fountain, where the sound of water falling across the laughing statues of mermaids on four consecutive platforms drowned out any of the noise of [Mages] going about their business in the atrium around them. To his immediate left was a signboard, that in Brin’s world would’ve held a map of the shopping mall, but this one was completely blank.
“Your entry to the Tower earned you the right to call yourself a First Circle Mage. For each Circle after that, you’ll need to demonstrate adequate proficiency in a specific subject of magic, as verified by an official Circle of Mages. It’s likely that you’ll find cause to join several such Circles. Weaker [Mages] set a lot of stock in such things, and I have no reason to protest the methods by which you all organize yourselves, so long as it does not disrupt the work of the Tower.
“Remember this, however. The Tower is not a school. The Tower has a school. Your lessons are a service that we provide out of patriotic duty. We do not need or want your lands or titles and we certainly have little need for your politics. No one inside these halls care about who you are outside of it, and I don’t care who you are either here or anywhere else. We are all [Mages] first, united in the common cause of the discovery and mastery of magic. Save those necessary servants and assistants, I suppose, who should by no means be treated with anything less than due respect.”
Brin looked around to see eager nods from all his schoolmates, who he was sure would be agreeing just as eagerly if the Master had just said the exact opposite.
Behind the Master, and behind the fountain, that milky white tree rose high into the air. [Inspect] called it the Tree of Harrowing, and it had as much weight in the Wyrd as Brin would expect a high level caster, but he didn’t sense any bonds of relationships; it only had authority over its own magic. Whatever that was. The name was ominous. Were they here to be harrowed? He didn’t want to get harrowed by that thing.
“Now, who here will join the Life track?” asked the Master.
A quarter of the students raised their hands, Bia among them. Brin noted that fun little detail down. Not Mind then? He couldn’t begin to guess what kind of Life magic a [Farseeing Scout] would have. He also wanted to learn as much Life magic as he could, but he wouldn’t be able to join any official classes on it during his first year.
“Tomorrow at first period you’ll meet in your homeroom, which is room 2AZ. That’s on the second floor, down the hall there and to the left. They’ll sort your class schedule for you then. Put your hands down. Thank you. Mind? No, no, I jest. I won’t force you to expose yourselves here. The room is 2AW. Now, all hands for Fire track.”
Brin raised his hands for Fire, who got around as many students as Life. Air, Water, and Earth magic split the remaining fifty percent, with Air magic taking the fewest students of all. All the classrooms the Master pointed them to were on the second and third floors. Only after he’d given them all instructions to each of their homerooms did he admit there was an easier way.
The Master touched the blank signboard next to him, and a glowing circle appeared on its face. He beckoned a student forward, the tall [Mage of Sparks] named Cherles. That’s what he got for being so tall, the jerk. Cherles nervously pressed his hand onto the circle on the Master’s instruction, and a map appeared, covering the rest of the board.
“The map will show you where you are, how to get where you wish to be, or where it is that you’re supposed to be, whichever question is foremost on your mind,” explained the instructor.
“Now, our next stop...” He trailed off.
A level 50 [Grand Magus of Thorns] named Teodos approached. He quickly squeezed through the students and rushed over to whisper something in the Master’s ear.
The Master nodded. “I must leave you all for a moment. Stay here until I return. And Lord Vitor, please–”
Vitor had been leaning against a wooden park bench facing the fountain, and in surprise at being addressed he flinched and broke one of the boards of the backrest.
“Please don’t touch the fountain. Or anything else. I will return,” said the Master. He flicked a finger at the park chair and it repaired itself in a moment like a soldier snapping to attention.
Brin sucked in a breath at the sight of the Master using magic. He knew what kind of magic that guy used, and it wasn’t something to throw around casually. Or maybe it was; he was clearly in complete control. It was almost a more impressive display than if he’d thrown a fireball, because of how completely fit for purpose it was. He sort of expected Chaos magic to not be fit for regular life, not after watching how a single spell of his had begun and promptly finished the first battle of the War of Arcaena. If he could fix wood with it, then was there anything he couldn’t do? Surely there was a weakness or a flaw. Surely there wasn’t a man in this Tower with “do anything, kill anyone” magic.
True to his word, the Master left with the [Grand Magus], and as soon as he was out of sight, the students returned to chattering, which Brin assumed was their natural state. He would’ve been happy to be left out of it so he could take in the building around them and watch the [Mages] move about their days, but of course that wasn’t going to happen. For the second time today, Brin felt all eyes shift to him and stay there.