Sufficiently Advanced Magic

by Andrew Rowe

  I’d...always wanted a retainer. Someone to watch my back, to tell me when I was being an idiot. Someone who could cover for my weaknesses and reinforce my strengths.

  Of course, I’d expected it to be Sera kneeling in front of me. If life had taken a little different path, we would have taken formal oaths to each other the day after we’d received our attunements.

  This was better.

  I didn’t want someone to be my bodyguard because their family had pressed them into my service as a child.

  Patrick’s motives might have been skewed by a desire to be close to Sera, but that was fine.

  He’d stepped in to defend me against Teft on the first day of classes without me even needing to ask.

  He’d stepped in to deflect a shot that would have hit me right at the beginning of the war cane test. Then we’d fought side-by-side.

  And, moreover, he’d treated me like my three year disappearance had never happened. He was still the same friend I’d known since childhood.

  That was the kind of person that I could trust.

  If he was willing to take this serious of a step in order to be closer to my family... All the better. I couldn’t see how having a retainer with a close connection with Sera would have a downside.

  I smiled and knelt down, my eyes level with his.

  “I’m bad at tradition,” I explained. “But I’d be honored to have you as a retainer, Patrick. You’ve always been a loyal friend. And if you want to say the oath, I know the words.”

  He winced. “I’m going to need the note.”

  “Well, get it out, then.”

  Patrick opened his pack, retrieving a carefully rolled scroll. A scroll. This really was formal.

  He broke the wax seal on the scroll and unrolled it, and he began to read.

  “I, Patrick Wayland, do hereby swear my loyalty to Corin of the House of Cadence.

  I offer him my strength of arms, my wise council, and my life’s blood.

  I will serve no other master.

  I will make no other oath that would betray this one.

  I will take no action that would betray my master’s trust.

  I offer this service of my free will and with honest intent.

  May the goddess witness this oath and bind me with this pledge.”

  I felt a foreign pang of emotion that I couldn’t quite characterize. I’d never been good at emotions, but there was something bittersweet about the scene we were playing out. I think a part of me wanted to let out a few tears in that moment.

  I took a deep breath.

  “I, Corin Cadence, do hereby accept you, Patrick Wayland, into the service of House Cadence.

  I will be sheltered by your strength, be guided by your council, and be preserved by your blood.

  I will honor your oath with my own.

  I will entrust you with my safety, for you are my shield.

  I will entrust you with my knowledge, for you are my guide.

  And I will grant you my strength, for you are my hand.

  My house is now your own, and you will always have shelter there.

  I accept your bond of my free will and with honest intent.

  May the goddess witness this oath and bind me with this pledge.”

  I closed my eyes and, with the slightest hint of a tear forming, chuckled softly. “Arise, Patrick, retainer of the House of Cadence. I think we have some paperwork to sign.”

  He extended his hand and I clasped it.

  And, with that, we stood as one.

  ***

  I spent much of the rest of the day with Patrick, between dealing with the paperwork that we’d need to mail off to formally make him my retainer and just discussing how he should approach Sera about the dance.

  We ended up agreeing that we’d wait until we received a formal acceptance of his new status before he’d ask. Not because we thought Sera would disapprove otherwise, but because it would put Patrick in a stronger position.

  When I handed in the paperwork at the courier’s office, I knew the first place it would be going was to my father. His signature would be required to formalize the process. Even as a potential family heir, I couldn’t take on a new retainer without his express permission.

  I didn’t foresee any problems, though. If anything, this would probably be one rare event in which my father would actually be pleased. Earning a retainer would help legitimize me as a noble.

  I hadn’t passed Patrick my glove. That was a more significant step, essentially trusting a single favored retainer to be my primary one. Since I didn’t even have multiple retainers, it seemed like the gesture wouldn’t mean as much. I’d planned to give it to Sera when we’d been young, but she’d been literally groomed from birth to protect me, so it would have been strange not to.

  In retrospect, I hoped that bringing Patrick into my service wouldn’t offend Sera — it was possible she’d been considering asking him to work for her — but I didn’t think it would pose a problem. Retainers in service to a specific family member were still expected to be a part of the household and work closely with everyone else in the house; serving me in specific was more of a formality, at least from my perspective.

  Of course, if he actually wanted to try to marry her, that would be a bit more complicated, but I wasn’t thinking of that as a serious possibility. We were teenagers, and he had a passing crush.

  Probably.

  I didn’t really understand relationship stuff.

  Anyway, with that hurdle cleared, I got back to my work and my newly-acquired pile of gold.

  Sera’s letter had, unfortunately, left explicit instructions on what I was supposed to do with it.

  “Corin,

  I’ve been working on a priority list for items that I think we need for the next test. Of these, I believe my top priorities are as follows:

  Mana storage or some other method of increasing my mana capacity.

  A method for increasing the power of my summoned creatures. Ideally, something to provide a vast amount of power in an emergency.

  Teleportation or flight.

  Stronger defensive measures.

  Healing.

  I would like for you to build me as powerful of an item as you can for one of the five above functions, in order of priority. If any gold is remaining after the first item is completed, focus on the second, and so forth. You may keep one of the six coins as your commission.

  See me if you have any questions.

  Yours,

  Sera”

  I wanted to argue with her priorities to work on what I thought was important, but I couldn’t disagree with her. That was actually a really solid list.

  I did, however, need considerably more detail to know which option to work with. So, I went to visit Sera to ask her directly.

  She wasn’t at her room, so I ended up spending the rest of the day working on my own projects. I finally remembered to talk to her again a couple days later.

  When she opened the door to her room, she folded her arms, glowering at me. “Corin. To what do I owe the magnanimity of your presence?”

  I blinked. “I wanted to talk to you about the items you wanted?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “What, you didn’t want to just, decide on something important like that without me?”

  “Uh...no?” I scratched my chin. “You’re pretty obviously angry at me, but let’s assume I’m a complete jerk and don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Ugh. Come in.” She gestured and I followed her inside. She shut the door loudly, but I wouldn’t quite call it a “slam”.

  Back to folded arms. “I just received a letter from father asking what I think about your decision to offer a retainer position to Patrick.”

  Oh.

  Well, this is awkward.

  “Aaaand your mad because I didn’t ask you about it first?”

  She nodded firmly. “Patrick and I are friends, too, you know! Did you never consider that I might have some input? And a retainer
— that’s a very serious decision, Corin. Not just for you, for the whole house!”

  I winced. She was right about that, of course. And, I’d more or less promised to treat her as an equal, so making an executive decision about Patrick without even bringing the idea up to her...might have been a little bit hasty.

  “I’m bad at these things, Sera. Sorry?” I put my hands up in a gesture of surrender.

  “This is not a matter where a simple apology will be sufficient, Corin. Did you ever consider that maybe, just possibly, I had been thinking about making him my retainer?”

  “Afterward,” I admitted, “But that probably would have made things more awkward.”

  “What, is asking me something really so difficult?”

  I lowered my eyes, shaking my head while I considered how to address the situation. “Uh, no. It’s not that at all. There were...special circumstances? If I told you more, it might be a problem with Patrick.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying you didn’t consult me because Patrick has some sort of problem with me? Because, you know, that would be an even bigger reason to talk to me before—”

  “It’s not that, Sera.” I sighed. “I’m bad at this, so Patrick is just going to have to forgive me for being blunt. Has he asked you anything...uh, event related, recently?”

  She frowned, looking briefly introspective. “No?”

  I wiped my forehead. “Okay, spoiling the surprise here. He wants to ask you to the winter ball. And, since you’re a noble now, he was worried that would be inappropriate. Of course, asking you to make him your retainer right before asking you to a dance would look like he was just trying to get in your pants to move up the social ladder. So...”

  “...you made him your retainer, so that he could have sufficient standing to ask me to a dance.”

  I made a concluding swish of my hands. “Precisely.”

  She put a hand over her eyes. “Are you daft, Corin? You let him take a life-long sacred oath so he could ask me to a dance?”

  “Mmm. When you put it that way, it does sound pretty bad. But he was so sincere and adorable about wanting to ask you—”

  Sera sighed, folding her hands in front of her. “Corin. For the future, please promise me you will not make any life-altering oaths in order to influence my love life.”

  I considered that for a moment. “Wait, wouldn’t agreeing to that be a contradiction? I mean, wouldn’t I literally be making a—”

  She took a step closer, looking me in the eyes. “Corin. I’m not kidding with you here. I am not amused by this, but I can tell you didn’t have any malicious intent. You thought he was being romantic. Fine. That is not a sufficient reason to make a decision regarding our house without my knowledge. Especially if it was to enable someone to court me.”

  That wasn’t the only reason. I really did want Patrick as a retainer.

  I took a deep breath. I wanted to argue, to snap back that the oath was between me and Patrick, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she had a point.

  I’d put her in a bad position. If he’d gone this far out of his way just to get the standing necessary to ask her to a dance, saying “no” to him would be devastating. Which meant that I’d just put a bunch of pressure on Sera, without even considering how she felt about the situation.

  I turned my head away. “Okay. You’re right. I made a decision that impacts you without even thinking about it. I’m sorry, and I won’t do it again. From this point on, I’ll talk to you about any other house-related matters before I make any decisions.”

  “House-related or anything pertaining directly to me, Corin.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I just... didn’t want to ruin the surprise of him asking you. You know?”

  “I understand, Corin. If he was just asking for advice from a friend, that’s fine. I don’t expect you to tell me about that. But for what it’s worth? You don’t know a thing about my love life. You’ve never asked. And, as it happens, I already have a date for that dance.”

  “...Oh.”

  She folded her arms. “And now, you get to share in my awkwardness. Assuming Patrick ever gets up the resolve to ask.”

  And that was how I learned to never interfere in the relationships of my friends.

  ***

  It was about twenty more minutes before we’d finally finished talking things out and gotten to a point where she was willing to talk to me about business again.

  I pointed at the list. “Okay, first item. Mana storage device.”

  She sat down on the floor, and I sat across from her, the paper between us. “Yeah. Seems rather obvious - running out of mana is a common problem, so I could use something that would help me refill my supply.”

  “I figured that was your plan. Unfortunately, that particular route won’t work.”

  She twisted her lips. “Why not? It sounds like a simple enchantment.”

  “It is. It would, however, also probably kill you.”

  “What?”

  I chuckled. “A little hyperbole, maybe. So, when I enchant something, the item basically has my mana signature on it. Even if you store mana in it, that mana is getting exposed to my mana that’s in the device all the time. And mana belonging to other people is generally toxic.”

  “Even for siblings? Wouldn’t we have similar mana?”

  I...hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe? I don’t actually know how dangerous that would be... probably less than it would be for strangers, yeah. We probably do have similar types of mana. But I don’t know how far that goes. I’ve never heard of anyone sharing mana.”

  And, while I wasn’t going to say it out loud — she’d just finally started to forgive me for my blunder with Patrick — I wasn’t actually certain we were siblings. Half-siblings seemed more likely, if even that. Knowing my father, this whole “legitimizing” her could have been a political game of some kind.

  Could I determine that through magic?

  Almost definitely, I decided.

  I imagined magical paternity tests were probably routine for cases where people were accused of infidelity, and someone had probably come up with a way to test people further removed for bloodline connections. Like to determine if someone was from a royal line, for instance.

  I’d have to look into that at some point.

  “Okay, so it’d be a risk. How hard would it be to try it with just a small amount of mana?

  I scratched my chin. “I don’t actually think you could use a storage device even if I made one, unless you have a spell to pull mana out of things. Shapers can do that, and I think more advanced Enchanters might be able to, but I don’t think it’s a standard thing for all attunements.”

  “Oh. I guess I was just picturing something where I push on a rune and it starts sending mana into me until I push the rune again?”

  I shook my head. “Your skin would block it. We’re all naturally resistant to mana getting into our bodies from outside sources. It’s not a simple process to force mana into someone. That’s part of why you see so many offensive spells that focus on throwing projectiles — or making an attack explode right in front of someone — rather than, say, making a fireball inside someone’s body. Even if you made physical contact, which would make it somewhat easier, you’d have to force your mana through the body’s natural insulation.”

  She stared at the page, looking contemplative. “Huh.”

  I don’t think I’d ever managed to stymy her so thoroughly before. Nice.

  “Wait, what about how Derek’s monster helped recharge my mana during the Survival Match?”

  I thought about that. “I don’t know a lot about how monsters work, honestly. I assume it had some way of purifying the mana to make it safe, then it probably had to force a lot of mana into you to get through your skin. I can’t make an item that does that at my level of skill.”

  She seemed to accept that answer, but I decided I’d have to look into it more at some point. Mana recharging charging
items could be useful. In the meantime, I had an alternate suggestion. “If I had mana in an item and put in a rune to eject it into the air, would you be able to reshape it into a spell?”

  Sera frowned. “Don’t think so. If it was ice mana, maybe I could make an attack out of it? But doesn’t mana dissipate quickly in the air?”

  “Yeah, it’d be inefficient. You’d probably lose a lot of mana that way. Don’t know another way to make a storage device you could use, though.”

  We sat for a minute in silence.

  “What about something that just added more mana into a spell I’m casting?”

  “Maybe?” I considered the idea. How would that work? “I don’t know enough about how your spells work to answer that, honestly. I pretty much just shove mana at things.”

  “So, my incantations determine the spell that I’m casting. Different incantation? Different spell. Except there are these things called ‘shaping lines’. They’re extra lines I can add to an incantation to change the way it works, with an extra cost. When I finish the spell, my attunement draws the necessary mana out of me, and the spell happens.”

  I nodded. “Do you guide your attunement toward which parts of the body it draws from?”

  “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “How?”

  “Just by thinking about where I want it to take from.”

  I scratched my chin. “There’s some potential there, then... if you could get your attunement to think an item was a part of your body, maybe it could reach into the item to pay the mana cost. But that might mean passing the mana through the object into your body before the spell goes off — which could, as we discussed earlier, make you sick. If you could even use the item at all.”

  “Okay, what about setting up the item to detect when I’m casting a spell, detect the result of the spell, and channel mana into the result?”

  That...seemed possible, but it also didn’t seem to help. “Yeah? You could do that, but I don’t think it’d make your spell any cheaper.”

  She pointed at the second item on the list. “I was thinking something more like that. Or, in between the first item and the second.”

  “Oh, to make the spell stronger? Yeah, that actually seems pretty doable. But would just throwing extra mana into a summoning spell actually do anything useful?”