Nym felt off. All week, he’d felt like he couldn’t make up his mind about anything. That cold, cynical part of him that belonged to his past life, that only cared about himself and saw other people for what they were worth to him instead of as friends was constantly intruding in his thoughts. Normally it was easy to shut that part away. Normally, he didn’t think those kind of thoughts in the first place.
That had changed after the day the undead broke loose. Perhaps it was a result of relying on it too much, or perhaps it was just an inevitable merging of personalities as he learned more and more about who he used to be. Either way, having two different thought processes pulling him in different directions made it difficult to interact with other people.
Fortunately, he wasn’t doing a lot of interacting at the moment. One thing both he and his past self agreed on was that he needed to continue to advance his magical capabilities. In that matter at least, it was easy to talk to Archmage Veran. His past self’s personality pushed him to try to find another way to take advantage of the man, to be as greedy as possible, but Nym didn’t let those thoughts control him.
His bargain with the archmage was still in full effect, and Nym felt kind of bad about it. His spiral conduit that reached the third layer worked, technically, but it wasn’t efficient and it wouldn’t help him reach the fourth layer, let alone bore through it to the fifth. That didn’t mean it was a total loss though, as it did allow him to start the process of enhancing his body. Under Archmage Veran’s skilled guidance, Nym started carving arcana overflow channels into his body.
That was just the first of many enhancements that could be made, and his new teacher assured him that a true ascendant knew a thousand more methods for altering a mortal body to be stronger, more efficient, and faster to react. Third circle spells were the threshold when mages could start making permanent changes to the world, changes that would last long after the magic was spent.
Of particular interest in Nym’s case were alterations he could make to his brain that made it easier to enforce his will on the world. A stronger will essentially meant a stronger conduit on a fundamental level, so strong in fact that all his complicated work arounds to navigate the second layer became redundant.
An archmage did not need to navigate the layer with finesse. Nym could simply break through any obstacles using willpower and momentum. He learned how to shape the tip of his conduit into a sort of splitting wedge that, given enough power, could crack the chunk of crystallized mana blocking his way in two.
Puncturing the membrane was a different matter, but there was, inevitably, a solution to that in Archmage Veran’s bag of tricks. He set Nym to a series of training exercises designed to increase his mental flexibility so that he could learn to shift a conduit he’d already formed without remaking it. Those exercises were infuriating. Nym hated them so much, but he grudgingly did them.
Each one made his brain hurt, like trying to trace the lines in those impossible pictures where everything seemed right as long as he didn’t look too closely, or as long as he only looked at a small piece. They were impossible to connect together and difficult to envision how the lines should look while the picture was still in front of him. The training exercises were like that, and Nym never once completed one without a splitting headache accompanying it.
He was a dutiful student, but everyone needed the occasional vacation. After a week of breaking his brain, Nym took a much-needed trip out of the sanctum. Archmage Veran had many other duties to attend to anyway, so when Nym decided to leave, he simply informed the old man that he was going to check on his friends and make sure everything was fine with them. He’d seen them once on the second day when he’d dropped off what he’d salvaged of their belongings, and they were still staying in Geldrin while everyone recovered and they planned out their next move.
Nym was hoping Analia would be with them. Archmage Veran had assured him his conditions had been met and she’d been returned to her friends, but Nym had been busy acclimating to some of the new modifications he’d made. Now that he’d finished the physical adjustment period and learned how to compensate for the changes, it was time for a little fresh air.
He still needed his coil conduit for the time being, but the filters he’d learned kept it calm enough to channel continuously. Between that and the mental reinforcements, it was easy to handle the third layer arcana now. Nym built his teleport construct with the alteration needed to bypass the sanctum wards and teleported into the air above Geldrin. There was no disorientation now, and he appeared smoothly in the sky above the town.
A quick scrying spell showed Ophelia and Bildar eating lunch together, though the twins were nowhere to be found. Analia was not visible either, but Nym wasn’t surprised. Hopefully she’d be there anyway. He landed in front of the inn they’d taken rooms at and walked in.
Bildar saw him first. “Oh, there he is,” the bearded mage said. “Just disappears for a whole week and then walks in like it’s nothing.”
Ophelia twisted in her chair to look at him. “You look older again,” she said. “Maybe sixteen now? And you definitely need a razor and someone to teach you to shave. Not Bildar, of course. The whole reason he even keeps a beard is he can’t shave it out without cutting his face up.”
“Here now, that’s not true and you know it,” Bildar protested. “You’re just jealous that I can cover up the bottom half of my face and you can’t.”
Ophelia snatched up some kind of bread roll and pelted Bildar with it. He grinned as he snatched it out of the air after it rebounded off his face. “Don’t hate me because it’s true,” he told her solemnly.
“Hmmm… a shave huh?” Nym mused aloud. He wove a quick first circle spell and swept it across his face. The patchy stubble that was starting to come in fell free from his skin and landed on his shirt. Nym dusted it off and let it fall to the floor.
“Now that’s a useful spell,” Bildar said.
“Is… is that… where did you learn that spell?” Ophelia asked.
“Yes, it’s the spell you’re thinking of, just modified slightly.”
“What are you two talking about?” Bildar asked, looking back and forth between them.
Ophelia ignored her brother. “Where did you learn it?”
“Found it in a book,” Nym said offhandedly.
“And what, pray tell, were you doing with a book like that?”
“A book like what?” Bildar demanded. “It just looks like a basic hygiene spell to me.”
“Where do you think I get most of my spells from?” Nym asked Ophelia. “I would think the source would be obvious.”
“Ah… hmmm. I shall be having a talk with that girl. She’s too young for those kinds of spellbooks.”
“What in God’s name are you two going on about?” Bildar said.
“That spell is not meant to remove hair on a person’s face,” Ophelia told him. “It’s not meant to remove hair on a man at all.”
Bildar’s eyes widened and his face reddened. He slumped back into his chair and said in a very small voice, “Oh.”
“What other spells did you learn from that book, Nym?” Ophelia said sharply, turning back to Nym.
“None that I think it would be smart to admit to,” Nym told her. Most of the spells were innocent enough, if not terribly applicable to him, but a few of them dealt with certain other matters which had made Nym blush far harder upon reading them than Bildar was at the table.
Nym hooked a chair from a nearby table with his foot and dragged it over to sit down. “Speaking of, where is everyone else at?”
“Oh, somewhere off in the foothills north of town.” Bildar waved a hand behind him, apparently not realizing or not caring that the west wall of the inn was to his back. “Analia’s been trying to rebuild her stock of alchemical supplies for days. She dragged Monick and Nomick off to ‘keep her safe,’ in her words, which I took to mean ‘use as a pair of pack mules.’”
“I didn’t know she was doing alchemy,” Nym said, surprised.
“For over a month now. You’ve been lost in your own little world and not paying much attention to what the rest of us have been up to lately.”
“Ah… yes. I have. Sorry. There were… things, which actually, I can tell you about now. I had the geas absolved a few days ago. Once everyone gets back, I’ll tell you some of the deep dark secrets the nobles are keeping from us.”
Bildar snorted. “It’s going to be five or six hours before she shows up. They won’t even turn around until it gets dark out.”
Nym did have another visit planned for his day off. He had thought he’d do lunch in Geldrin, and dinner in Palmara. He wanted to check on the cube as well. It wasn’t that he expected it to be gone; it was just that it contained literally his entire life prior to a year ago, and that apparently included an unimaginable amount of magical might.
He still had only a vague notion of what exactly an ascendant was compared to someone like Archmage Veran. The old man was impressive enough on his own, and Nym couldn’t imagine a mage so powerful that his magic made an archmage look like a child. He supposed he’d find out soon enough.
Then again, he might not. Nym had a lot of mixed emotions about the whole idea of resuming his former life. Exarch Niramyn was a repugnant, selfish man, judging by what Nym had learned of him. Almost universally, everything he’d learned about his former life painted the picture of a man who’d cared for nothing but his own power, and his intruding thoughts supported that picture.
The only outlier was the mysterious bit of charity he’d shown Archmage Veran about fifteen years ago when he’d taught the human mage how to reach the fifth layer. The archmage remembered Exarch Niramyn fondly, but that one single act of kindness didn’t really match everything else Nym had seen. He suspected there were ulterior motives, and planned on figuring out what those were as one of his first projects once he had access to his old memories.
Nym brought himself back to the present when he realized Ophelia had said something, but he’d completely missed what it was. “I’m sorry?” he said.
“I asked if you wanted to order something to eat,” she said.
“Oh, no. I think I might just come back for dinner so I can talk to you all at once. I’ve got something else I need to do today anyway. I was going to do it after spending some time here, but I think it’d be better to flip it.”
“That’ll be fine. You’re leaving right away then?” Bildar asked.
Nym nodded. “No point in putting it off. I’ll see you in five hours or so?”
“We’ll be here,” Bildar said. “We can tell you what we’re thinking of doing next as well. Maybe you’ll want to come along. I promise there will be no undead this time.”
Nym laughed. “That’s a good selling point. I’ll see you guys for dinner.”
He teleported directly out of the inn and appeared on his favorite stretch of beach. Sitting in a boat with her back turned to shore, pulling up a rope line hand over hand, was Ciana. With a small smile, Nym lifted himself into the air and flew the few hundred feet out over the water to her boat, then set himself gently down behind her so as not to alert her.
“Hi,” he said.
Ciana yelped in surprise and jumped so hard she fell out of the boat. Still laughing, Nym grabbed her and lifted her out of the water with his magic. Dripping wet and wild-eyed, she glared at him. “That is not funny!”
Nym just laughed harder.
Nym felt off. All week, he’d felt like he couldn’t make up his mind about anything. That cold, cynical part of him that belonged to his past life, that only cared about himself and saw other people for what they were worth to him instead of as friends was constantly intruding in his thoughts. Normally it was easy to shut that part away. Normally, he didn’t think those kind of thoughts in the first place.
That had changed after the day the undead broke loose. Perhaps it was a result of relying on it too much, or perhaps it was just an inevitable merging of personalities as he learned more and more about who he used to be. Either way, having two different thought processes pulling him in different directions made it difficult to interact with other people.
Fortunately, he wasn’t doing a lot of interacting at the moment. One thing both he and his past self agreed on was that he needed to continue to advance his magical capabilities. In that matter at least, it was easy to talk to Archmage Veran. His past self’s personality pushed him to try to find another way to take advantage of the man, to be as greedy as possible, but Nym didn’t let those thoughts control him.
His bargain with the archmage was still in full effect, and Nym felt kind of bad about it. His spiral conduit that reached the third layer worked, technically, but it wasn’t efficient and it wouldn’t help him reach the fourth layer, let alone bore through it to the fifth. That didn’t mean it was a total loss though, as it did allow him to start the process of enhancing his body. Under Archmage Veran’s skilled guidance, Nym started carving arcana overflow channels into his body.
That was just the first of many enhancements that could be made, and his new teacher assured him that a true ascendant knew a thousand more methods for altering a mortal body to be stronger, more efficient, and faster to react. Third circle spells were the threshold when mages could start making permanent changes to the world, changes that would last long after the magic was spent.
Of particular interest in Nym’s case were alterations he could make to his brain that made it easier to enforce his will on the world. A stronger will essentially meant a stronger conduit on a fundamental level, so strong in fact that all his complicated work arounds to navigate the second layer became redundant.
An archmage did not need to navigate the layer with finesse. Nym could simply break through any obstacles using willpower and momentum. He learned how to shape the tip of his conduit into a sort of splitting wedge that, given enough power, could crack the chunk of crystallized mana blocking his way in two.
Puncturing the membrane was a different matter, but there was, inevitably, a solution to that in Archmage Veran’s bag of tricks. He set Nym to a series of training exercises designed to increase his mental flexibility so that he could learn to shift a conduit he’d already formed without remaking it. Those exercises were infuriating. Nym hated them so much, but he grudgingly did them.
Each one made his brain hurt, like trying to trace the lines in those impossible pictures where everything seemed right as long as he didn’t look too closely, or as long as he only looked at a small piece. They were impossible to connect together and difficult to envision how the lines should look while the picture was still in front of him. The training exercises were like that, and Nym never once completed one without a splitting headache accompanying it.
He was a dutiful student, but everyone needed the occasional vacation. After a week of breaking his brain, Nym took a much-needed trip out of the sanctum. Archmage Veran had many other duties to attend to anyway, so when Nym decided to leave, he simply informed the old man that he was going to check on his friends and make sure everything was fine with them. He’d seen them once on the second day when he’d dropped off what he’d salvaged of their belongings, and they were still staying in Geldrin while everyone recovered and they planned out their next move.
Nym was hoping Analia would be with them. Archmage Veran had assured him his conditions had been met and she’d been returned to her friends, but Nym had been busy acclimating to some of the new modifications he’d made. Now that he’d finished the physical adjustment period and learned how to compensate for the changes, it was time for a little fresh air.
He still needed his coil conduit for the time being, but the filters he’d learned kept it calm enough to channel continuously. Between that and the mental reinforcements, it was easy to handle the third layer arcana now. Nym built his teleport construct with the alteration needed to bypass the sanctum wards and teleported into the air above Geldrin. There was no disorientation now, and he appeared smoothly in the sky above the town.
A quick scrying spell showed Ophelia and Bildar eating lunch together, though the twins were nowhere to be found. Analia was not visible either, but Nym wasn’t surprised. Hopefully she’d be there anyway. He landed in front of the inn they’d taken rooms at and walked in.
Bildar saw him first. “Oh, there he is,” the bearded mage said. “Just disappears for a whole week and then walks in like it’s nothing.”
Ophelia twisted in her chair to look at him. “You look older again,” she said. “Maybe sixteen now? And you definitely need a razor and someone to teach you to shave. Not Bildar, of course. The whole reason he even keeps a beard is he can’t shave it out without cutting his face up.”
“Here now, that’s not true and you know it,” Bildar protested. “You’re just jealous that I can cover up the bottom half of my face and you can’t.”
Ophelia snatched up some kind of bread roll and pelted Bildar with it. He grinned as he snatched it out of the air after it rebounded off his face. “Don’t hate me because it’s true,” he told her solemnly.
“Hmmm… a shave huh?” Nym mused aloud. He wove a quick first circle spell and swept it across his face. The patchy stubble that was starting to come in fell free from his skin and landed on his shirt. Nym dusted it off and let it fall to the floor.
“Now that’s a useful spell,” Bildar said.
“Is… is that… where did you learn that spell?” Ophelia asked.
“Yes, it’s the spell you’re thinking of, just modified slightly.”
“What are you two talking about?” Bildar asked, looking back and forth between them.
Ophelia ignored her brother. “Where did you learn it?”
“Found it in a book,” Nym said offhandedly.
“And what, pray tell, were you doing with a book like that?”
“A book like what?” Bildar demanded. “It just looks like a basic hygiene spell to me.”
“Where do you think I get most of my spells from?” Nym asked Ophelia. “I would think the source would be obvious.”
“Ah… hmmm. I shall be having a talk with that girl. She’s too young for those kinds of spellbooks.”
“What in God’s name are you two going on about?” Bildar said.
“That spell is not meant to remove hair on a person’s face,” Ophelia told him. “It’s not meant to remove hair on a man at all.”
Bildar’s eyes widened and his face reddened. He slumped back into his chair and said in a very small voice, “Oh.”
“What other spells did you learn from that book, Nym?” Ophelia said sharply, turning back to Nym.
“None that I think it would be smart to admit to,” Nym told her. Most of the spells were innocent enough, if not terribly applicable to him, but a few of them dealt with certain other matters which had made Nym blush far harder upon reading them than Bildar was at the table.
Nym hooked a chair from a nearby table with his foot and dragged it over to sit down. “Speaking of, where is everyone else at?”
“Oh, somewhere off in the foothills north of town.” Bildar waved a hand behind him, apparently not realizing or not caring that the west wall of the inn was to his back. “Analia’s been trying to rebuild her stock of alchemical supplies for days. She dragged Monick and Nomick off to ‘keep her safe,’ in her words, which I took to mean ‘use as a pair of pack mules.’”
“I didn’t know she was doing alchemy,” Nym said, surprised.
“For over a month now. You’ve been lost in your own little world and not paying much attention to what the rest of us have been up to lately.”
“Ah… yes. I have. Sorry. There were… things, which actually, I can tell you about now. I had the geas absolved a few days ago. Once everyone gets back, I’ll tell you some of the deep dark secrets the nobles are keeping from us.”
Bildar snorted. “It’s going to be five or six hours before she shows up. They won’t even turn around until it gets dark out.”
Nym did have another visit planned for his day off. He had thought he’d do lunch in Geldrin, and dinner in Palmara. He wanted to check on the cube as well. It wasn’t that he expected it to be gone; it was just that it contained literally his entire life prior to a year ago, and that apparently included an unimaginable amount of magical might.
He still had only a vague notion of what exactly an ascendant was compared to someone like Archmage Veran. The old man was impressive enough on his own, and Nym couldn’t imagine a mage so powerful that his magic made an archmage look like a child. He supposed he’d find out soon enough.
Then again, he might not. Nym had a lot of mixed emotions about the whole idea of resuming his former life. Exarch Niramyn was a repugnant, selfish man, judging by what Nym had learned of him. Almost universally, everything he’d learned about his former life painted the picture of a man who’d cared for nothing but his own power, and his intruding thoughts supported that picture.
The only outlier was the mysterious bit of charity he’d shown Archmage Veran about fifteen years ago when he’d taught the human mage how to reach the fifth layer. The archmage remembered Exarch Niramyn fondly, but that one single act of kindness didn’t really match everything else Nym had seen. He suspected there were ulterior motives, and planned on figuring out what those were as one of his first projects once he had access to his old memories.
Nym brought himself back to the present when he realized Ophelia had said something, but he’d completely missed what it was. “I’m sorry?” he said.
“I asked if you wanted to order something to eat,” she said.
“Oh, no. I think I might just come back for dinner so I can talk to you all at once. I’ve got something else I need to do today anyway. I was going to do it after spending some time here, but I think it’d be better to flip it.”
“That’ll be fine. You’re leaving right away then?” Bildar asked.
Nym nodded. “No point in putting it off. I’ll see you in five hours or so?”
“We’ll be here,” Bildar said. “We can tell you what we’re thinking of doing next as well. Maybe you’ll want to come along. I promise there will be no undead this time.”
Nym laughed. “That’s a good selling point. I’ll see you guys for dinner.”
He teleported directly out of the inn and appeared on his favorite stretch of beach. Sitting in a boat with her back turned to shore, pulling up a rope line hand over hand, was Ciana. With a small smile, Nym lifted himself into the air and flew the few hundred feet out over the water to her boat, then set himself gently down behind her so as not to alert her.
“Hi,” he said.
Ciana yelped in surprise and jumped so hard she fell out of the boat. Still laughing, Nym grabbed her and lifted her out of the water with his magic. Dripping wet and wild-eyed, she glared at him. “That is not funny!”
Nym just laughed harder.
