The Whetstone Fist
Episode 1
Brian Declan
Chapter 1:
Silence is so rare. Not the fake semi-silence that you can find in any library, or the forced silence that fills the space between strangers stuck in the same room. No those are cheap imitations of silence. Real peace inducing absence of noise was impossibly rare. And harnessing the power of that silence required you to be in only a handful of places, under the strictest of circumstances, at very specific times.
For Lucas that time had always been in the dead of night when the world sleeps. That place was his father’s workshop. The circumstances, those were difficult. They required such specific procedure, such strict attention to detail, and to Lucas’s dismay, an ability that he did not possess. In fact, it was an ability that according to history, nobody had possessed for centuries. He needed a Temporal Slide.
The bad side, it took him nine years to learn what he needed. Nine years of painful, sleepless nights since his father died in front of his eyes. Coughing, choking, and sputtering one name. William.
That was his father’s last words. His own brother’s name. Lucas’s uncle, and now his guardian. The name of the man responsible for his father’s death. But why would a brother kill brother. Power. Secrets. Ambition. All of them.
Who knew? Lucas had two older brothers and none of those reasons could ever bring him to fratricide. Never. Ever. In fact, no reason could bring him to harm his own brothers. But at the same time, he could not trust them. Not with the secret his uncle was willing to kill his own brother for.
Trans dimensional relocation. It was the single greatest spell that his family used to maintain their powerbase. It was capable of moving any object or person from one location to another instantaneously. Done properly it could even be stabilized to create the most valuable military asset in the country. A continuous Waygate.
Waygates could transport thousands of troops across an unfathomable distance in the blink of an eye. And they alone were the reason their country had not seen war in centuries.
Still keeping secrets and conducting middle of the night experiments had taught Lucas two things. First, the best way to keep secrets was to act like an idiot. If you got caught, you just had to play dumb. And second, even a son of the wealthiest and most powerful family in the country was not allowed to sleep in.
So, he forced himself out of bed at the ass crack of dawn and made his way to the dining room of his uncle’s estate. Before he opened the door to the dining room, his oldest brother, Liam, came rushing into the hallway without a care in the world.
“Whoa, look who’s alive,” said Liam. Even this early in the day he managed to be full of energy. Not so witty but perky none the less.
“Yes,” said Lucas, “Despite what mother tells you, sleeping while the sun’s up will not actually kill you.”
“Nor will getting some sun,” said Liam as he jabbed Lucas in the arm with what he probably thought was a loving and playful gesture. It was annoying.
“And breakfast?” asked Lucas.
Liam chuckled then clapped Lucas on the shoulder with another one of his annoying gestures, “I guess you’ll have to find out. And be quick about it. Ya know before mother sends someone to fetch you.”
“Then perhaps you’ll get out of the way?” asked Lucas.
Liam glanced to the side and finally realized he was blocking the door, “Oh right,” then he took a short step to the side, “Good luck today.”
“Thanks, you too,” said Lucas in an attempt to be polite, then he slipped past his brother and entered the dining room.
He hadn’t taken more than two steps before his other brother, Lenard, caught sight of him, twisted over the side of his chair and acted like he was throwing up, “Ahhh, ugghh, Pukas, help.”
Their mother cracked Lenard in the back of the head without batting an eye, “Shut it, this is your brother’s initiation and I won’t have you jeopardizing this family’s reputation,” then she stood up to offer Lucas a hug.
As if that was going to give him some divine power.
“Hear that Pukas,” said Lenard, “you’re jeopardizing the family name. Maybe you should take uncle’s advice and wait another year.”
Yeah, our uncle’s as much of an ass as you are.
“Thank you, mother,” said Lucas as he gave his mother a quick embrace to keep her from having a panic attack, then he pulled up a chair to sit next to her.
Despite their mother’s warning Lenard started taunting him with more fake puking. He loved his puke jokes. Regardless, Lucas tuned it out and pulled a tray of baked pastries across the table. He was about to dive in when his mother yanked his plate away, “No sweets, you need a hearty meal if you’re to excel at the challenges.”
Nonsense, sweets were just the energy boost he needed, but there was no point arguing. It would just waste time and he wanted to be the first one to complete the challenges. Well, he didn’t really care about being first but to avoid the crowds you had to be early.
“No fish please,” said Lucas as his mother loaded his plate up with what she deemed to be the ideal breakfast. Potatoes, some sort of disgusting meat covered in fat, eggs and slice of brown bread that he knew would taste like sand.
“Take your time,” said his mother as she placed the plate in front of him.
“I’m not Liam,” said Lucas as he debated the best way to fake that he ate some portion of his breakfast.
“You’re not leaving until I see you eat something,” warned his mother.
So much for plan A, on to plan B. Get it over with as quick as possible. Like jumping into a cold bath. He adjusted his fork then alternated between shoveling eggs and potatoes into his mouth. Within sixty seconds he cleaned half the plate. All that was left was a piece of sandpaper bread and a few slices of fat covered bacon.
“What did I say,” asked his mother.
“You said to eat,” answered Lucas as he stacked the bacon on top of the bread and folded it in half, “I ate.”
“It’s a miracle you and your brother haven’t choked to death by now,” said his mother as she poured a glass of juice.
With her attention focused elsewhere, Lucas quickly stuffed the bread into his pocket then worked his mouth as if he’d just taken a few massive bites.
His mother shook her head then handed him the glass of juice, “Drink then you can go.”
In two gulps he drained the glass of juice and handed it back to his mother, “Done.”
She took the glass but before he could escape she pulled him into her arms. She squeezed and mumbled some incoherent nonsense about her baby. Knowing his mother, this could go on for a while. So Lucas held his breath and returned her hug for a few long seconds then let go in the hope that she’d follow his que.
Of course, she didn’t, she clung to him until he caught her shoulders and pried himself loose, “Mother, I need to prepare.”
Finally, she came to her senses, straightened the front of her dress, and wiped some unwarranted tears from her face, “Yes, yes, good luck. I have faith that you will do your family proud.”
Faith and luck, that wasn’t going to help me. Not that he needed help to begin with. The challenges were nothing more than a distraction. The sooner he got them over with the sooner he could move onto his real goal for the day. Finding a Temporal who could Slide.
“Yeah Pukas, don’t screw up,” taunted Lenard, “1400 or uncle will hold you back a year.”
He didn’t bother with a reply because he knew something all younger brothers learn before they can walk. The more you fight back the worse it gets.
Fighting back might make it worse but that didn’t mean he had to do nothing. Perhaps a more subtle way of pissing
in Len’s face, “Hey Len, what was your score again?”
“What?” said Lenard because he was too busy making his stupid puke sounds.
“Last year, what was your score?” asked Lucas.
“1523,” said their mother.
“Thanks,” said Lucas then he slammed the door shut behind him.
His original plan for the day was to score 1401 to annoy his uncle, but after Len’s constant harassment he decided to make a last-minute change. He was going to score 1524 but to do that he’d need to adjust his auraband. Right now he had it calibrated to only release 40.1 percent of his, or more accurately it’s maximum power. He’d need to dial it up to 52.4 percent. It would delay him by a few minutes, but it was worth it.
He popped off his auraband, snapped it straight then held it up to the light and began tapping away at its translucent surface to make the necessary adjustments.
A few minutes later, he finished the calibration, slapped it back on his wrist and headed to the back of the estate to attempt the challenges. He’d need to test it to be totally sure the changes were accurate but there was no time for any of that. His rough calculations should be close enough.
Once outside he found a swarm of Waystar Academy students gathered around the challenges. Two of them anyway. The third challenge nobody cared about so naturally he went to that one first. It was the speed challenge called the Endless Hourglass. Most skipped it because no matter how skilled, it was impossible to fire a spell fast enough to score any points. The target was simply too far away.
Everyone cared more about the pretty lights at the power challenge, or to watch initiates look like fools at the finesse challenge.
Still it wouldn’t be right to just skip it, he had his family’s reputation to think about after all. So he walked up to the first booth in a row of six. There he was greeted by a bleary-eyed student who probably wanted to go back to sleep as much Lucas did.
“Auraband,” said the proctor.
Lucas gave the proctor his wrist, waited for him to write everything into his notebook then pulled his spellrod off his belt.
“The timer starts the first time you use mana,” said the proctor as he flipped a small wooden hourglass, “It won’t stop until you hit the first target. Hit any of the others and it doesn’t count. Any questions?”
“No,” said Lucas as he scrolled down his auraband until he found the correct spell then he selected High Speed Homing. Once he was ready he raised his spellrod, sighted in on the first target and fired. It would take approximately seven seconds to travel the distance but he didn’t bother waiting around to see.
“You’re not going to make sure it hits?” asked the proctor as he started to walk away.
“Nope,” said Lucas as he continued on his way.
“You know the timer will keep running,” warned the proctor.
“Yes,” said Lucas and that was the last thing he said before his homing spell connected. Right on target.
Now onto what the only real challenge of the day, and the one with the smaller crowd out of the two remaining challenges. Thread the Needle. That challenge was all about finesse, the goal was to recover an egg-shaped jewel from a pedestal surrounded by sand. But for every grain of sand that you moved you lost a point.
That could be a real bitch, even initiates who could fly would create wind that moved the sand. Lucas had a much better idea, freeze the sand. Well not actually freeze it but bind it in place with a stasis field.
When he got to the second challenge, there were two people in front of him. The first had a Transference Blessing and could basically teleport. Kind of like what he was looking for with a Temporal Slide, but a weaker version. Too ineffective. It was however the perfect ability to tackle this challenge if he was fast enough. He wasn’t fast enough, well he’d just get stuck in the middle of the sand.
And as expected he teleported to the pedestal, and got stuck. All because he could not teleport twice in a row. The guy did have a give it a good try and attempted to balance on top of the pedestal. Within three seconds he slipped and landed flat on his back in the middle of the sand. That would result in a big fat zero.
The next initiate had a Searing Blessing, in other words fire. That was less suited to the challenge but he was smarter. All he did was fire a small fireball at the pedestal and knocked the egg out of the sand pit. It was almost flawless, except some pieces of the pedestal broke off and landed in the sand. Not perfect but a solid attempt none the less.
Lucas stepped up to take his turn. The proctor was a girl this time. She checked his auraband with a smile, “Pretty simple, all you need to do is get the egg without moving the sand. Any questions?”
Lucas pulled three small butter knives out of his pocket, “Can I use these?”
“What are they?” asked the girl.
“I believe they are called butter knives,” answered Lucas. Which was true they were simple knives he swiped from the breakfast table. However, in a few moments he was going to enchant them.
“Sure as long as they aren’t enchanted,” said the proctor.
“Not yet,” said Lucas.
Lucas placed the knives on the ground and held his spellrod above them as he channeled mana into his hand. The enchantment wasn’t difficult, for him anyway, but he’d need a generous reserve of mana for the spellrod to pull from. That took focus, and of course while he was focusing, he heard Lenard’s voice on the opposite side of the sand pit.
“Pukas, Pukas, Pukas,” he chanted over and over until someone else in the crowd started to copy him. Probably one of Lenard’s friends. Then another person joined in and another. Before he knew it half the crowd was chanting Pukas.
Whatever, he tuned them out and channeled more than enough mana into his hand. Then with a steady hand he drew a quick series of words in the air above the knives, “Triterra Mediocrasis Habitus.”
As he spoke, the words he had written in the air sank into the three knives and seared into their surface. Good, the tough part was over. Next he stabbed one of them into the ground, then he picked up the other two and started walking heel to toe around the perimeter of the sand pit.
Fifty-one steps. Divide by three, seventeen. A second time he started walking around the sand pit, heel to toe. On his seventeenth step, he stabbed another knife into the ground then he repeated the process for the third knife. The moment the third knife touched the dirt, he felt his enchantments lock together and freeze everything in place.
Without a moment’s hesitation he walked across the sand, grabbed the egg and marched over to the proctor, “Here you go.”
She tapped the egg with a single finger, “Just butter knives.”
The egg disintegrated into grains of sand and slipped through his fingers, “Yup, it will wear off in about…” Lucas paused to check his auraband, “twenty-three seconds.”
“Twenty-two,” said the proctor as she scribbled in her notebook, “Twenty-one, twenty…”
No reason to stick around and listen to her count, so he moved on to the third and final challenge. Breaker’s tower. It was the simplest and stupidest challenge of the three. Shoot tower with mana. Watch tower light up. And there were three times as many people gathered around it as the previous challenge.
Sure it was cool, it had lights, and it tested power.
The problem was it didn’t test real power, it only tested the density of mana which was the primary function of a spellrod. So all you had to do to get the full 1000 points was to charge the spellrod to its maximum capacity and fire. Few initiates would be comfortable doing that, but it was achievable for anyone. Now if they reinstated the rule that forbade using a spellrod, that was a real gauge of potential. But then only a fraction of initiates would score over two hundred points.
Nowadays it was all about equality. Pseudo-equality anyway. Regardless the fucked-up rules gave him an opportunity to achieve any score he wanted. Like 524 putting him a single point higher than Lenard.
Well he could get any s
core he wanted as soon as he got to the damn tower. The cluster fuck of people pushing their way closer to the tower turned out to be the real challenge. Good thing he was a pretty small person, he waited for people to leave slight gaps as they shuffled around, then he slipped in-between them. It took over ten minutes, but he found his way to the front of the crowd without incident.
Patience, his secret weapon.
Of course, that gave Lenard and his group of friends ample time to amass on the far side of the tower. You can never outrun the scorn of an older brother. Especially one as determined as Lenard.
For a full minute he considered deactivating the limiter on his spellrod, but that would only mean he let Lenard get under his skin. No, he’d stick with the plan. Better to let everyone think he was incompetent. Most of all his uncle.
Granted they’d probably figure it out at some point, but if he was at Waystar by then, what could they really do.
“Who’s next?” asked the proctor as he scanned the crowd then he pointed at random. Not at Lucas. So, Lucas returned to his thoughts, and watched the flash lights like everyone else.
That was what entertained everyone, but for whatever reason they seemed to like watching the initiates that performed poorly. Yeah they would cheer when someone did well but more often than not the boos outweighed the applause.
If only they knew how much of a sham the tower was. At least the other challenges were an accurate measure of comparative skill and potential. Eh, ignorance is bliss. Maybe they should change the name to Buffoon’s tower. It was certainly more fitting.
Before he could finish that thought, the proctor pointed at him, “Step on up, don’t be scared.”
“Yeah don’t be scared, Pukas,” yelled Lenard then he motioned to his friends and started up his chant again, “Pukas, Pukas, Pukas.”
Limiter or not. One look at his brother’s smug face and he decided he was going to give Lenard a big fuck you. Just not today.
With that decided, he stepped out of the crowd, and showed the proctor his auraband. The proctor wrote down his name and Blessing as he precharged his spellrod.
The Whetstone Fist 3 Page 1