Ethria- the Pioneer

by Aaron Holloway

  Ailsa’s expression turned from angry nurse dealing with an unruly patient, to curious. Pro tip about fairies, they’re basically just balls of magic, light, and ADHD. They would have thrived in the internet culture of my parents' era.“Like what?”

  “Like, reading. Do you have any books of lore, or magic, or really anything useful that I might be able to read?” The purple fairy looked thoughtful for a moment.

  “I do have a book that I’ve been working through myself the last few months, trying to get a handle on it. But it's a very advanced piece of theoretical work, not really something that would be useful to you. Hmmm. Be right back.” A few seconds later she appeared in my vision, carrying a book about equal to her in size, it was roughly the size of a paperback novel, but had two wooden covers, and was bound in the back by leather straps. “Asked the elves if they had their homework on them, and they both did, though I doubt they’ve done it. Elves are really bad at doing homework at that age, it's impossible to keep their interest in anything that isn’t shiny, vibrant, or dangerously fun. They’re a lot like fairies that way…” She trailed off for a second before coming back to herself.

  “Anyway, this is an intermediate primer on the basic elemental magical theory. It's not a Magic-Book, so you won’t instantly learn anything by opening it, you will only get out of it what you put in, but it will at least distract you and keep you from moving too much.” She said this to herself as if deciding on whether to give me the book or not. “Alright, you can read this.” She said finally deciding. “But Telli is going to need it back at nightfall if she’s going to learn anything about elemental magical theory.” It took me a moment to realize that she must have been talking about the young female elf.

  “That’s a cute name,” I said “I should tell my brother to name his next kid that when I get back. He’d love it.”

  Ailsa looked at me sadly for a moment, and then gently dropped the book onto my lap. “Don’t drop it, okay?” She said softly. “And if you have questions, best save them till you feel better. Don’t fight sleep, alright?” I nodded softly. I knew I had to have been a piteous sight, barely able to nod my head without my vision blurring, or my head swooning, but I was determined to do something useful.

  I moved the books to the area just next to me in the cart, and slowly, purposefully, maneuvered myself to where I was laying on my side. I began to read, about two or three pages at a time, before I drowsily drifted off into a half-sleep, woken by the jostling of the cart as it went over the road, or a particularly painful throb in my head. After waking, I would go back to reading.

  This process happened countless times that day, but I was determined. The book was relatively short, only about fifty pages long, and written in flowing elvish script that I was able to read and understand as if it were English thanks to my gift of tongues. It was very simplistic writing for elvish, I honestly felt like I was reading an elementary school textbook. I probably am, and the thought amused me.

  Eventually, the sun rose high overhead, warming us and the path. We stopped briefly for lunch, and Ailsa, Tol’geth, and Rigil all came back to eat with me. The old man whose cart I was in didn’t act in the least bit bothered by the fact that Ailsa was a fairy, or Tol’geth could have probably killed him by breathing too hard in his general direction. After we quickly ate together, the two elves on lookout duty, we got back on the road.

  Ailsa came back to check on me a few times, recharging the pain relief enchantment before speeding off again to where I honestly didn’t know, and could barely concentrate enough to care. Eventually, the sun fell to just barely over the trees. At that point, we pulled off the road, and Ailsa appeared again to recharge the pebble, and retrieve the book. “Well, Rayid? How did things go? I didn’t hear any moaning or complaining, so I’m guessing that you were able to sleep?”

  “Things went well,” I said exhausted. I spoke slowly speaking every word deliberately and with care trying not to aggravate my headache. It had ebbed significantly as the day had gone by, but it was still there. “I’m about done, just a few more pages to go. Could Telli let me finish it and I’ll return it tomorrow morning? I’ve learned a lot already.”

  “Really? You’re almost done!?” Ailsa shouted, more like squeaked louder than usual, in excitement. “How? That book took me nearly a year to read from cover to cover.” She brought her voice back down to normal levels when she saw me wincing. Her eyes glazed over for a minute while she checked a screen. After a moment of reading, she whistled slowly. “Dear Gods above, below, and who walk among us. Your reading and writing skill levels are master ranked, and your skill score is in the grandmaster range.”

  “I read a lot back home. What about it?” I asked more curious than anything. I was far too tired to be defensive.

  “What constitutes a lot?” she asked her voice now low and conspiratorial.

  “About a book day, if they were shorter than two hundred pages. I usually read about two or three a week though, I'm usually pretty busy most of the time with school. But that's just for fun. Academic stuff? I’ll usually get through a textbook in about a week or two if I dedicate a few hours a day to it.” I was starting to drift off as I spoke. Each word coming out slower, and each thought more sluggish than the last. “Maybe just give this back to Telli, I’ll finish it tomorrow” and I was asleep before I finished the last word.

  Chapter 5: The Word and the Law

  “The more that you read, the more that you know... The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go!” - Dr. Seuss

  Northwest of the Twins, just outside of The Clearing. Frega, 24th, 2987 AoR

  I woke up as the cart began to move, and I found myself exhausted but for the most part out of pain. I also found the small book I had been reading from the day before still beside me. With it, I found another, thicker, and larger volume. Ailsa left me reading materials. I have to remember to thank her, I thought as I turned on my side to read as the cart continued. The first volume was titled “Elements Of Magic: A Fundamental Primer For The Improvement of Young Minds” the title was burned into the wooden cover of the book in the flowing and heavily stylized elvish script.

  The second book, when I turned it over and inspected it was titled “Argumentai Materiali: A Discussion Of The Magical Properties Of Metals And Other Extracted Materials” but not nearly in so many words. The translation from elvish into English lengthened both titles by at least two or three words.

  I don’t really remember much from what I read yesterday , I thought annoyed. I flipped through some of the pages of Elements of Magic and looked at some of the diagrams and illustrations the book had to offer. They were familiar, but in the same way as a fever dream, half-remembered and ethereal. I decided to begin the days' readings with that book first. Best to get the basics down before I move on to more complex things , I thought as I turned to page one and began reading.

  The first five or so pages where just lists of definitions I would no doubt need to memorize at some point, so I skipped them and moved on to the first topic. It described the 14 native magics of Ethria and gave a small diagram of how they were related. They were broken up into three categories, the lesser powers: Water, Fire, Air, Earth, Light, Dark, and Force; the greater powers, Blood, Life, Spirit, and Death; and the Cosmic Energies, Time, Creation, Space, and Entropy. The diagram had the nine lesser powers laid out in an eight-pointed star with Force being at the center. Light was opposite Dark, which only made sense but oddly Water was opposite to Air, not Fire like I would have thought. And Earth was opposite to Fire, not Air which again went against the general theories of elemental relationships back home.

  The Greater Powers were laid out in a square that touched each point of the lesser powers star, with Blood and Life being paired together on top, and Spirit and Death being paired together on the bottom. The Cosmic Energies were arranged in a diamond that seemed to cut through all of the other magics with Creation at the top opposite Entropy, and Space and Time opposite each other h
orizontally. Something that I found interesting was that the thinner elemental lines that represented their various relationships between categories of powers all cut through Force magic which was at the very heart of the diagram.

  The book only had explanations of the Lesser Powers, starting with force, and ending with Dark magic. Both the first and the last entries where rather sparse, but all of the magics in between seemed to have rather detailed explanations of how the mana one used was meant to be shaped, along with at least two or three exercises that a new student should do in order to tap into what the book described as the “elemental synergy.” A look at the definitions in the front just described this as “the indefinable feeling of syncing one's own…” There was a word here that meant soul, essence, and will, all rolled into one “... with the …” That word again “Of the element one is trying to manipulate.” The word was Anima-atiumi, similar to the Latin words for both the soul and the will, but different. I thought about the two connections, first in the title, and now in this word, between elvish and old Latin. It was possible that they simply had a similar vocabulary, it wasn’t unheard of back on Earth for two languages from completely different parts of the world to have similar-sounding words, to have those words have similar meanings? That was something altogether different, and suspicious.

  Leaving the contemplation of any potential connection between the two languages for another day, I reread the portion on Force magic. Apparently, it was the first type of magic a person under formal tutelage learned, as it is the easiest to synergize with. After all, what is the movement of one's arm, but an act of will that creates force? And it was instinctual, almost automatic.

  The book had only one technique to try and get my Anima-atiumi in sync with Force magic, and it was one that I was pretty sure I was already familiar with. “Hey, hey Ailsa!” I called, my voice much louder in the relatively silent forest then I thought it would be. I winced, as the cart halted, and I heard large heavy footsteps walking my way.

  Tol’geth came into sight with his finger over his lips shushing me. I guess that's a universal gesture. Ailsa appeared then overhead and did the same. She came close before speaking directly into my ear in a harsh whisper.

  “There are tracks in the woods off to both sides of the road. We’re almost to the clearing, but if we're going to get attacked it will be here in the next few minutes. Be quiet so we can hear them come if they do.” Ailsa backed up and looked me in the eyes to make sure I understood. I nodded in acknowledgment, and she and Tol’geth went back to whatever they had been doing before.

  I turned my attention back to what I was doing and sat up in the lotus position I had tried meditating in before when I met Riggil along the side of the road. This time my back was up against the front of the cart, my legs under me Indian style. I was confident that if we did run into any trouble the two, seemingly extremely powerful beings I was traveling with, could handle it without my pathetic sword skills.

  I placed the book directly on my lap, closed my eyes, and started to do as it instructed. I cleared my mind of all major thoughts, struggling to get to a place where I was pure instinct or will. Not worried about the future, and not concerned with the past. Focused solely and wholly on the here and now. I took all of my grief, pain, anger, and exhaustion both emotional and physical, and turned it into a red, angry pulsing cloud in my mind.

  I breathed in deeply and then exhaled that red cloud. It took me several attempts before I was able to get rid of it all. My heart rate was even and slow, my mind was clear, and, perhaps it was a figment of my imagination, but I swear I could see stars in front of me as I was surrounded by clean, blue and white clouds that calmed and soothed. The clouds were not new, I had experienced them every time I had done this exercise in college, but the stars, those were. I reached my hand out to touch one, and my world exploded.

  I opened my eyes a few seconds later and all I could see was white. I blinked furiously, and slowly things came back to clarity. As my vision cleared, I read a prompt that appeared though I had to read it several times before my brain could fully comprehend what was happening.

  “Congratulations! You have accessed your mana pool for the first time! You have taken the first step on the path of a magic-user. Continue down this path and the whole of Ethria will one day bend to your will. You have learned the spell Force Bolt 1. Access your Spell Sheet to learn the specifics on this spell. You have gained the skill Force Magic. You have gained the skill Average Magic Skill. You have gained access to your Spell Sheet. You have gained access to your Mana Regulation Screen.”

  I heard someone shouting as if from far away, muffled and angry voices surrounded me and slowly came into focus at the same time and pace as my vision. “...stupidest thing I’ve ever…” “That is a big hole…” and “... There goes our position…” were the first things I recognized as words. After a few more insults and exclamations the voices went silent as they, I learned later, went to scout the perimeter, tend the scared pony, or other important tasks.

  My mind cleared before my senses did, and I pulled up the new screens. First was the Mana Manipulation screen. It was simple and easily understood. I had a feeling as I progressed in this world, It would become much more complicated.

  Magical Abilities

  None

  Mana Regen: Minute / Second

  9

  0.15

  Mana Pool: Max / Current

  90

  90

  The second screen I visited was the Spell Sheet, it had only one, forlorn-looking spell listed.

  Spell Name

  Description/School

  Cost

  Casting Time / Duration

  Cool Down

  Attack Bonus

  Force Bolt 1

  School: Force

  5 Mana

  Instant

  1 second

  10.3

  Effects

  1d6 + Modifiers damage. Will slightly auto-adjust to target, +3 to attack.

  Modifiers

  Damage: Intelligence, Emotional Stability.

  Interesting , I thought. It's similar to the old Dungeons and Dragons Magic Missile. Not as good, as it doesn’t automatically hit your enemy, but it does auto-adjust, I wonder how much that makes up for? Hmmm. With a one second cooldown, it is like firing one of those old bolt action rifles, and the damage output could kill a person at my level. So, a single bolt would probably not kill a grown man, but it could severely wound them.

  I thought about various ways I could utilize the spell, and how odd it was that I could see my screens even though my eyes were closed, and my vision was still a swirl of various shades of darkness and light. I guess it makes sense, these screens are not actually visual, they are mental magic designed to operate in my mind rather than visually. I guess it can directly interact with my brain That was a scary, and intriguing thought. Similar to the Delve tech in some ways.

  After a few more minutes my senses fully returned to me and I sat up. My head and vision swam for a second, before finally settling leaving behind a light headache that quickly subsided. I looked around for the others and didn’t find any, save Riggil who was tending the spooked pony. What I did find left me in awe.

  A massive hole, as wide as a bicycle, yet only about half a foot deep in the road behind the cart glared at me in the nearly noonday sun. “I did that?” I asked softly. “Well…” I looked at my hands, the book, and then the hole again.

  “Yeah meathead, that was you. You gave away our location to everyone and thing in the forest.” Ailsa floated gently, almost contemplatively, over the hole I had made examining it with a critical eye.

  “Still, that’s a big hole.” She turned around and looked at me smiling bemusedly. She pointed at the whole before saying “That means you have a lot of magical potential. You kind of just bypassed the entire ‘guided access meditation to interact with your mana for the first time’ thing, that almost every student of magic has to suffer through. Impressive, i
f unintelligent.” Motioning to the hole, she buzzed around me for a few seconds and then stopped in front of me as if coming to a decision.

  “I’ve come to a decision,” She said her wings buzzing behind her as she pretended to walk back and forth in front of me her finger in the air imperiously. “I will train you in the basic elements myself. Normally a guide wouldn’t have to do this, I'm just here to make sure you don’t get yourself murdered by a particularly angry chicken your first week or so, and teach you how to access your screens and what they all mean.”

  “But…” She stopped, turned towards me, her arms behind her and legs spread apart slightly as if she were at military rest. She raised her head affecting the same air reminiscent of drill sergeants and trainers I had seen from so many old TV shows and movies. “...You show promise, despite your obvious lack of judgment when it comes to magic. I’m sure that just comes from ignorance though...” She nodded almost to herself, reaffirming her decision. “Yup. You’re now my student in the mystical and magical arts.”

  “Uhhh, thank you? I think?” I found very early on that no creature on all of Ethria was as good at giving both genuine insult and heartfelt praise at the same time, then the Fae. Fairies where no exception to this rule.

  “You’re welcome. Now, I don’t know how master-apprentice relationships work where you come from. But here on…” She almost said Ethria, I could see it in the flutter stutter of her wings, but she caught herself in time. “...On ...the… mainland… Apprenticeships work as follows. I get to exploit your labor whenever I want and in whatever way I want, without feeling any guilt whatsoever, and in exchange, I will teach you how to cast basic elemental magics. Do we have a deal?” She stuck out her little hand towards me.