Nym had once read a book that said less than five percent of all mages made it to the third circle. It postulated some theories as to why so few people were able to reach that threshold, everything from ‘humans just weren’t meant for it’ to ‘those in power have deliberately held back the true methods in order to remain solely in power.’ Nym didn’t necessarily think that was true, considering how many second circle mages were actively trying to grow their power, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think that third circle mages were sharing every secret they knew in an attempt to expand their numbers.
If Lord Feldstal was to be believed though, there was some bottleneck that accounted for the low ratios. More than that, the nobleman implied he knew what it was, and that his team was actively working on a solution for it. That seemed like it could connect nicely with some of his earlier experiments on his own daughter, so Nym was inclined to believe the man.
“What exactly are you trying to do?” he asked.
“I’m sure you’ve done some research on how to reach the third layer. Every mage does at some point in time. You know about how the second layer is shaped, and the accepted methods for circumventing those obstacles? Well, here’s the big secret, the reason so few mages are able to make it.”
Lord Feldstal leaned forward and looked directly into Nym’s eyes. “It’s not the conduits that’s the problem. Sure, it stops some mages, but almost all of them? No. The real block is biological. The fact is many, many mages do manage to reach the third layer. And then when they get there, they find out that they can’t hold enough arcana in their soul well to cast the simplest third circle spell.”
Nym blinked. “What?”
“Hah! I love watching new mages learn that. Yes, it seems unfair, doesn’t it? The sad truth is no matter how skilled you are, if you have an average sized soul well, you will never cast a third circle spell. An adult in his prime with a Helingar-Bistal score below seventeen cannot hold enough arcana from the Astral Sea to ever cast even the very simplest third circle spell.
“Plenty of mages can and do strengthen their will enough to pierce the third layer, and then… nothing. They discover they can’t pull in enough arcana to do anything with it. And it’s not possible to add soul channels to your body so that you can hold more arcana without already being able to cast a third circle spell. So they stall out.”
“No, this makes no sense,” Nym protested. “If that’s the real reason, why isn’t it common knowledge? If so many mages hit this wall, surely the knowledge must have gotten around.”
“Ah, you’d think so, right? I’m inclined to agree myself. It certainly seems like it’s something that should be taught. Why let future mages waste their time striving for that next level when it’s physically impossible to do anything with it once they get there?
“There are a couple reasons. The easiest one is that probably something like half of all second circle mages truly can’t make that conduit to get to the third layer. Then of the ones that do, there are a few who don’t understand what’s happening, because third layer arcana feels weird. They think they’ve made a mistake. Of the ones who do eventually get some help or figure it out on their own, there’s the few who can hold enough arcana to never run into this problem.
“And then there’s that demographic you’re thinking of, the ones who successfully forge a conduit, understand that they’ve reached the third layer, and figure out that no matter what spell they try, they aren’t physically equipped to hold enough arcana or expel it fast enough to support a third circle spell.
“The real answer is simple: it’s a tradition. It’s been going on for hundreds of years. Everyone in that situation hopes that someone will figure out the answer. They work on it, their friends work on it, their children work on it. There’s a whole sub-culture of second circle mages actively working to figure out how to expand their soul wells so they can ascend to third circle. Reaching that point and finding yourself able to draw in the arcana but not use it is a rite of passage, a hazing ritual almost.”
“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” Nym said immediately.
“Consider for a moment how many classically trained mages there are compared to how many are like you. Almost every mage goes through the Academy, and the real conspiracy there is the price. It’s deliberately expensive so that mages need financial help to get through. That’s how the army gets its mage corps. It’s how noble families force indentured servitude on upcoming mages. We want to train you, yes, and we want you beholden to us. Without that training, precious few mages ever come close to approaching true power.
“So the government has a chokehold on where fresh-faced new mages learn. The faculty is measuring everybody when they come in, and regularly remeasuring throughout the years. We know who has the physical capability to become a master mage. We keep track. We’re the ones new mages come to for help when they do break that barrier. And do you know what we do?”
“What’s that?” Nym asked.
“We send them to me! I am the grand coordinator, the man who gathers up those mages who could cast third circle spells but for a quirk of their biology. And I organize them into research teams, I provide the funding, I collaborate between them. Believe me, this is not a new project. King Maleotrak has been funding this for decades, and his father before him. We are very interested in having an army of third circle mages ten times bigger than any other country’s, and we don’t want those countries to know about it until we’ve pulled it off.”
That was disturbingly more plausible to Nym than the initial explanation. The nobles and the military controlled education and the mages; the educators knew which mages would be most likely to meet their specific criteria, and then they were recruited into the big conspiracy to figure out how to turn themselves into third circle mages. Everything was kept quiet because the king wanted to launch a surprise invasion using his hidden military might, once he actually had it.
Nym wasn’t sure he bought it. That was still a lot of people keeping their mouths shut. It could be true, he guessed, but in the end, it didn’t really matter much to him. Whether or not there was a conspiracy didn’t change the fact that he was still in a mage cell and even if they let him out, his matrix was still screwed up in some way that was limiting his arcana flow.
“Okay, let’s pretend I trust you implicitly and believe every single word you’ve said to me. What are you doing here in the middle of this undead invasion? Wouldn’t it be easier to do your research somewhere else?”
“Normally, yes. But here, we have research specimens. We’ve captured a number of wights to experiment on with some of our more dangerous theories that are too risky for an actual mage to try out. Also, the third circle mages we do have are working rotating twelve hour shifts to keep this whole outbreak contained.”
Nym’s eyebrows shot up. He considered the walls, the soldiers, the ghouls roaming the woods. “It doesn’t seem very contained,” he said.
Lord Feldstal waved away his comment. “Those ghouls that are getting out are nothing. That damn reaper is the real problem. We’ve got that ritual site locked down hard to keep it from escaping through the Veil. The problem is we can’t repair it yet. We need more third circle capable mages. And so, our little project got a lot of extra funding and attached directly to the military in an effort to accelerate our progress.”
“But the ritual site was sealed, decades ago,” Nym pointed out.
“It was,” Lord Feldstal agreed. “And back then it was significantly smaller. One single third circle mage and his group of ragtag adventurers was all it took. We really should have been keeping a closer eye on this place. The reaper… what was its name... Ul-something… it slips my mind right now, but regardless, it’s had years to pick at it and it’s widened the breach in the Veil significantly. We even had an archmage in here working on it, and he couldn’t close the damned thing either.”
Nym slumped back into his chair. “This is… kind of a lot to take in,” he said. “Give me a minute please, just to process everything.”
“Certainly, take some time. When you’re ready, we’ll get the geas taken care of, and then we can start working on replicating what you’ve been doing and teaching you the techniques we’ve come up with.”
“I’m sorry, the what?”
“The geas. Of course a conspiracy of this magnitude doesn’t maintain secrecy without it being magically enforced. You’ll be bound not to reveal the existence or purpose of this research to anyone who doesn’t have the same geas on them. You physically won’t be able to talk about it.”
Nym felt the visceral rejection of that idea in his soul. No part of him wanted to bound by some sort of magical contract that guaranteed his silence and cooperation. The gears in his mind immediately started spinning, trying to find some way out that didn’t involve agreeing to a geas.
“It’s really not that big of a deal,” Lord Feldstal said after a moment of studying Nym’s face. “As these things go, it’s quite straightforward. Even if you decided not to join us, which would be a mistake for you and a loss of valuable information for us, but still your choice, even then, you would have to be bound to a geas before you were allowed to leave.”
What Nym understood from that explanation was that there was no way they were voluntarily letting him go without getting their hooks into him. He could play along, agree to join up, then try to blast his way free once he was outside the mage cell, but he wasn’t confident in his ability to fight just Lord Feldstal by himself, not crippled as he still was, maybe not even at his full strength.
And he doubted it would be just one third circle mage between him and freedom. This group was smart, organized, and well-funded. If their conspiracy was as deep and long-running as he’d been told, they prioritized keeping their secrets. There would be an immediate secret man-hunt for him, probably executed with extreme prejudice and orders to kill on sight.
As much as he hated the idea of being bound by a geas, he wasn’t seeing a way out of it. The most likely path to true freedom was allowing himself to be bound, then immediately start researching how to break a geas. Or, he supposed if the project was a success and the king got his strike force of third circle mages, the geas would possibly dissolve on its own after they made their first attack at some enemy nation.
Nym took a couple deep breaths to calm himself down. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me more about this geas. What exactly am I supposed to be agreeing to here?”
Lord Feldstal studied him for a moment. “Yes, my son was right. You really don’t like the idea of anybody having any sort of claim on you. I understand. I’m much the same way. It is a privilege of power not to be subjected to such things, and you, unfortunately, are the powerless one here.
“But come, my new friend, let me explain the ways of the world to you. Trust me when I say you won’t find it too odious.”
Nym had once read a book that said less than five percent of all mages made it to the third circle. It postulated some theories as to why so few people were able to reach that threshold, everything from ‘humans just weren’t meant for it’ to ‘those in power have deliberately held back the true methods in order to remain solely in power.’ Nym didn’t necessarily think that was true, considering how many second circle mages were actively trying to grow their power, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think that third circle mages were sharing every secret they knew in an attempt to expand their numbers.
If Lord Feldstal was to be believed though, there was some bottleneck that accounted for the low ratios. More than that, the nobleman implied he knew what it was, and that his team was actively working on a solution for it. That seemed like it could connect nicely with some of his earlier experiments on his own daughter, so Nym was inclined to believe the man.
“What exactly are you trying to do?” he asked.
“I’m sure you’ve done some research on how to reach the third layer. Every mage does at some point in time. You know about how the second layer is shaped, and the accepted methods for circumventing those obstacles? Well, here’s the big secret, the reason so few mages are able to make it.”
Lord Feldstal leaned forward and looked directly into Nym’s eyes. “It’s not the conduits that’s the problem. Sure, it stops some mages, but almost all of them? No. The real block is biological. The fact is many, many mages do manage to reach the third layer. And then when they get there, they find out that they can’t hold enough arcana in their soul well to cast the simplest third circle spell.”
Nym blinked. “What?”
“Hah! I love watching new mages learn that. Yes, it seems unfair, doesn’t it? The sad truth is no matter how skilled you are, if you have an average sized soul well, you will never cast a third circle spell. An adult in his prime with a Helingar-Bistal score below seventeen cannot hold enough arcana from the Astral Sea to ever cast even the very simplest third circle spell.
“Plenty of mages can and do strengthen their will enough to pierce the third layer, and then… nothing. They discover they can’t pull in enough arcana to do anything with it. And it’s not possible to add soul channels to your body so that you can hold more arcana without already being able to cast a third circle spell. So they stall out.”
“No, this makes no sense,” Nym protested. “If that’s the real reason, why isn’t it common knowledge? If so many mages hit this wall, surely the knowledge must have gotten around.”
“Ah, you’d think so, right? I’m inclined to agree myself. It certainly seems like it’s something that should be taught. Why let future mages waste their time striving for that next level when it’s physically impossible to do anything with it once they get there?
“There are a couple reasons. The easiest one is that probably something like half of all second circle mages truly can’t make that conduit to get to the third layer. Then of the ones that do, there are a few who don’t understand what’s happening, because third layer arcana feels weird. They think they’ve made a mistake. Of the ones who do eventually get some help or figure it out on their own, there’s the few who can hold enough arcana to never run into this problem.
“And then there’s that demographic you’re thinking of, the ones who successfully forge a conduit, understand that they’ve reached the third layer, and figure out that no matter what spell they try, they aren’t physically equipped to hold enough arcana or expel it fast enough to support a third circle spell.
“The real answer is simple: it’s a tradition. It’s been going on for hundreds of years. Everyone in that situation hopes that someone will figure out the answer. They work on it, their friends work on it, their children work on it. There’s a whole sub-culture of second circle mages actively working to figure out how to expand their soul wells so they can ascend to third circle. Reaching that point and finding yourself able to draw in the arcana but not use it is a rite of passage, a hazing ritual almost.”
“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” Nym said immediately.
“Consider for a moment how many classically trained mages there are compared to how many are like you. Almost every mage goes through the Academy, and the real conspiracy there is the price. It’s deliberately expensive so that mages need financial help to get through. That’s how the army gets its mage corps. It’s how noble families force indentured servitude on upcoming mages. We want to train you, yes, and we want you beholden to us. Without that training, precious few mages ever come close to approaching true power.
“So the government has a chokehold on where fresh-faced new mages learn. The faculty is measuring everybody when they come in, and regularly remeasuring throughout the years. We know who has the physical capability to become a master mage. We keep track. We’re the ones new mages come to for help when they do break that barrier. And do you know what we do?”
“What’s that?” Nym asked.
“We send them to me! I am the grand coordinator, the man who gathers up those mages who could cast third circle spells but for a quirk of their biology. And I organize them into research teams, I provide the funding, I collaborate between them. Believe me, this is not a new project. King Maleotrak has been funding this for decades, and his father before him. We are very interested in having an army of third circle mages ten times bigger than any other country’s, and we don’t want those countries to know about it until we’ve pulled it off.”
That was disturbingly more plausible to Nym than the initial explanation. The nobles and the military controlled education and the mages; the educators knew which mages would be most likely to meet their specific criteria, and then they were recruited into the big conspiracy to figure out how to turn themselves into third circle mages. Everything was kept quiet because the king wanted to launch a surprise invasion using his hidden military might, once he actually had it.
Nym wasn’t sure he bought it. That was still a lot of people keeping their mouths shut. It could be true, he guessed, but in the end, it didn’t really matter much to him. Whether or not there was a conspiracy didn’t change the fact that he was still in a mage cell and even if they let him out, his matrix was still screwed up in some way that was limiting his arcana flow.
“Okay, let’s pretend I trust you implicitly and believe every single word you’ve said to me. What are you doing here in the middle of this undead invasion? Wouldn’t it be easier to do your research somewhere else?”
“Normally, yes. But here, we have research specimens. We’ve captured a number of wights to experiment on with some of our more dangerous theories that are too risky for an actual mage to try out. Also, the third circle mages we do have are working rotating twelve hour shifts to keep this whole outbreak contained.”
Nym’s eyebrows shot up. He considered the walls, the soldiers, the ghouls roaming the woods. “It doesn’t seem very contained,” he said.
Lord Feldstal waved away his comment. “Those ghouls that are getting out are nothing. That damn reaper is the real problem. We’ve got that ritual site locked down hard to keep it from escaping through the Veil. The problem is we can’t repair it yet. We need more third circle capable mages. And so, our little project got a lot of extra funding and attached directly to the military in an effort to accelerate our progress.”
“But the ritual site was sealed, decades ago,” Nym pointed out.
“It was,” Lord Feldstal agreed. “And back then it was significantly smaller. One single third circle mage and his group of ragtag adventurers was all it took. We really should have been keeping a closer eye on this place. The reaper… what was its name... Ul-something… it slips my mind right now, but regardless, it’s had years to pick at it and it’s widened the breach in the Veil significantly. We even had an archmage in here working on it, and he couldn’t close the damned thing either.”
Nym slumped back into his chair. “This is… kind of a lot to take in,” he said. “Give me a minute please, just to process everything.”
“Certainly, take some time. When you’re ready, we’ll get the geas taken care of, and then we can start working on replicating what you’ve been doing and teaching you the techniques we’ve come up with.”
“I’m sorry, the what?”
“The geas. Of course a conspiracy of this magnitude doesn’t maintain secrecy without it being magically enforced. You’ll be bound not to reveal the existence or purpose of this research to anyone who doesn’t have the same geas on them. You physically won’t be able to talk about it.”
Nym felt the visceral rejection of that idea in his soul. No part of him wanted to bound by some sort of magical contract that guaranteed his silence and cooperation. The gears in his mind immediately started spinning, trying to find some way out that didn’t involve agreeing to a geas.
“It’s really not that big of a deal,” Lord Feldstal said after a moment of studying Nym’s face. “As these things go, it’s quite straightforward. Even if you decided not to join us, which would be a mistake for you and a loss of valuable information for us, but still your choice, even then, you would have to be bound to a geas before you were allowed to leave.”
What Nym understood from that explanation was that there was no way they were voluntarily letting him go without getting their hooks into him. He could play along, agree to join up, then try to blast his way free once he was outside the mage cell, but he wasn’t confident in his ability to fight just Lord Feldstal by himself, not crippled as he still was, maybe not even at his full strength.
And he doubted it would be just one third circle mage between him and freedom. This group was smart, organized, and well-funded. If their conspiracy was as deep and long-running as he’d been told, they prioritized keeping their secrets. There would be an immediate secret man-hunt for him, probably executed with extreme prejudice and orders to kill on sight.
As much as he hated the idea of being bound by a geas, he wasn’t seeing a way out of it. The most likely path to true freedom was allowing himself to be bound, then immediately start researching how to break a geas. Or, he supposed if the project was a success and the king got his strike force of third circle mages, the geas would possibly dissolve on its own after they made their first attack at some enemy nation.
Nym took a couple deep breaths to calm himself down. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me more about this geas. What exactly am I supposed to be agreeing to here?”
Lord Feldstal studied him for a moment. “Yes, my son was right. You really don’t like the idea of anybody having any sort of claim on you. I understand. I’m much the same way. It is a privilege of power not to be subjected to such things, and you, unfortunately, are the powerless one here.
“But come, my new friend, let me explain the ways of the world to you. Trust me when I say you won’t find it too odious.”
