by Andrew Rowe
“That is all. I have more teams to observe, so there will be no questions today. You may come with questions next week, before your second matches. Your next opponents will be better prepared. You should ensure that you are as well.”
And with that, Teft spun on his heels and left the room.
Sera managed to make it home before she cried.
Chapter IV – Restricted Attunements
After Sera rushed up to her room, the rest of us sat down in the main living area.
Derek was reading a book when we arrived. “Huh, she’s in a hurry. Something happen?”
We explained the situation.
“I could punch Teft for her?” Derek offered, helpful as usual.
“No, Derek, I suspect that would only complicate things further.” I shook my head. “And she doesn’t blame him, anyway. She blames herself — probably mostly for dragging Patrick’s score down.”
“Aw, it’s not that big of a deal.” Patrick waved a hand dismissively. “We’ll just do better next week.”
“She won’t see it that way.”
Patrick shrugged. “She’s a great student, though. Always has been. Even if we get kicked out of this class, we can still graduate. It’s an elective.”
“Just graduating would never be good enough. And if she caused someone else to fail a class, I don’t think she’d ever forgive herself.”
Patrick laughed. “She did fine. You guys just did better.” He stretched his arm. “Mara, you’ve got a mean punch.”
“At least you had a shield to help with that. That lightning aura went right through me.” She shivered. “Maybe less of that for sparrin’ in the future?”
He blinked. “Oh, sure. Didn’t realize it would hurt that much.”
Derek leaned over. “New lesson, Patrick. Lightning hurts people. Considerably.”
Patrick scratched behind his head sheepishly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Was a good trick, though. Almost had me.” Marissa grinned.
“Uh, thanks?” Patrick blushed a little. “Right, uh, back to Sera, though. Corin, you should go talk to her.”
I pointed at myself. “Me?”
“Uh, yeah? Obviously? You’re her brother.”
“Sure, but I also was on the team that just beat her.”
“All the more reason you should talk to her,” Derek offered. “If you’re right about how she thinks, seeing Patrick again will probably just make her feel worse.”
Maybe, or maybe it would help if Patrick told her he didn’t care. Eh.
Either way, I was overruled, so I stood up. “Fine, fine. I’ll go talk to her.”
I headed up to Sera’s room. The door was closed, so I knocked.
She didn’t answer, but I could hear her quietly sobbing inside. And coughing a little, too.
“Sera, it’s Corin. Can I come in?”
I knew she couldn’t verbally tell me to go away, so I was making things a little awkward. Eventually, she opened the door, still wiping her eyes.
I offered her a handkerchief, which she accepted and used to wipe her face and nose more effectively. Then she put on a stronger face, folded her arms, and stared at me expectantly.
“Can I come in?”
She stared a little harder. She wasn’t going to make this easy.
“Sorry, Sera. I’m no good at this. I’ve never been good with...emotional stuff in general.” I paused for a moment. “Not really sure what to say. You fought fine back there. Would have beaten us hard if you had your spells, and it’s not your fault you lost them. You saved our lives back in that tower. No question. We’d be dead if you hadn’t summoned Seiryu.”
Sera turned her head away, letting out a sigh.
“I mean it. And I know you’re suffering right now, but it’s not your fault, and we will find a way to fix this. It doesn’t sound easy, but I’ve already been doing some research, like I said earlier.”
That got her to turn her head back toward me, tilting her head up to meet my eyes. Then she twisted her lips, turned, and gestured for me to come into her room.
“Thanks.”
I came in and sat down on a chair next to her bed. “You want to hear about what I’ve found?”
Sera sat down on her bed, wiping her nose again.
“Okay. I’ll fill you in.”
I summarized everything the Researcher had told me about her situation.
“So, I’ll read the book about the mountain. If I think I can handle it, we’ll go ourselves. If it sounds too dangerous, I can ask Keras or Derek to handle it. If the flower doesn’t work, we can look into some of the other treatments she mentioned. Since my new attunement involves life mana, I might even be able to learn healing magic myself eventually and treat it directly. I’ll start looking into that.”
She listened patiently, but got up when I’d finished and grabbed a sheet of paper to write a reply.
Flower will take too long. We fight other teams in a week, and they won’t go easy on me like you did. I can’t keep dragging Patrick down, or whoever else they pair me with.
“I didn’t go easy on you.”
She tilted her head downward to glare at me.
“No, seriously. I was focusing my effort on figuring out how the runes worked. That not only helped me figure out the safe tiles for this time, but now I have a better idea of how they work in general. I can probably figure out the functions at a glance next week. Or for any other similar tests we take — I doubt they made that arena just for this.”
She wrote again.
Fine. If you really spent all that time on purpose, I won’t argue. But most enemies won’t give me that much time to maneuver before they start fighting, and I have no advantages right now. I can’t even use the sword Katashi gave me. Not that I know how to use it, anyway.
“Okay, so you need something quicker. That’s fine. I’ll dig into alternate options. But Patrick doesn’t blame you one bit — he said so earlier. You need to stop worrying about this. You’re injured, we’ll heal you. Plain and simple.”
She gave me a grudging nod, then hesitated before writing one final word.
Promise?
I didn’t like the idea of making promises without all the relevant information, but it seemed like an achievable goal.
And I needed one of those. Maybe more than she did.
“I can’t promise I’ll find a perfect solution. I don’t know enough about it yet, and it wouldn’t be fair to you to make a promise I don’t know if I can keep. But I’ll do more research, and from everything I’ve heard so far, it sounds like a solvable problem. And I promise I’ll try to help you solve it.”
Maybe it wasn’t the traditional platitude that she’d been looking for, but it was what I could offer her. And looking at her expression after that? I think it helped.
I hadn’t given her false hope. From the expression she gave me afterward, I’d given her something a little different.
Resolve.
We’d beat this together.
I even gave her a hug. It was easier to have physical contact without panicking if I initiated it.
So, now that the hard part is over, I just have the easy part of figuring out how to heal nearly incurable damage in a week.
I started with the most logical place I could think of, but that had some dangers of its own.
***
“I have questions.” I set the wineskin, filled with the last remnants of the water from the attunement font, down on the table in front of Professor Vellum.
Vellum didn’t look away from the apparatus she was working with — some kind of distilling tool. Maybe an elixir still? I’d seen one before, and this looked subtly different — it had a larger chamber on top, and the collection chamber was metal instead of glass — but it was potentially a variant design. “And I have answers for thee, if only ye answer me these questions three.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ask away, oh-ancient-one.”
She cackled. “Why are you botherin
g me in the middle of an experiment, child?”
“Well, I have a rather unique potion here, and I think you might be interested...”
“Potions are not unique, Corin. There are merely ones you haven’t grown familiar with yet. Now, be silent and watch, and I will inspect your precious ‘unique’ potion when I’m finished.”
As it turned out, she wasn’t merely monitoring the still. She reached over to an empty crystal container on the left side, opened her palm, and a sliver of solid crystal dropped into it.
Then she grabbed the flask, added a tube connecting it to the larger apparatus, placed a metallic holder below it, and opened her palm again.
A flame, near identical to the ones I’d seen from alchemical burners, emerged from her hand.
“Is that an Elementalist spell, or are you—”
“Quiet.”
I shut up.
I watched the glass. The crystal within shimmered...and changed.
I’d been guessing she was trying to evaporate it from a semi-solid state, like ice. I was wrong; the crystal changed, but not into vapor. It turned orange, glimmering brighter, and began to smoke.
“The compound that I’m brewing is colloquially referred to as dragon’s breath. This is nonsense, of course, because dragons are nonexistent. But it does burn quite impressively.”
I desperately wanted to ask more, but I waited patiently. After a few moments, she pulled her hand away, slipped a metal insert between the crystal chamber and the rest of the still, and then disconnected the flask from the rest of the apparatus.
With that, she whispered a word, and the metal insert wrapped around the top of the bottle, creating a complete seal. “The smoke is not terribly dangerous on its own, but it is best not to take the risk of breathing much of it. The smoke I released into the chamber now makes its way into the condensation chamber,” she motioned to a globe on the top of the apparatus, “where it mixes with other components, takes on a liquid state, and gradually drizzles into the destination flask.” She pointed at the metallic container I’d seen before.
“Mixing fire essence directly into the compound causes the herbs to combust, but the smoke, trapped within a primer of enhancement essence, can be slowly introduced into the rest of the compound without adverse effects. Except, of course, if it is exposed to air.”
I couldn’t help myself. “And if it is?”
“It combusts, naturally. There are a number of explosive alchemical compounds, but this is among my favorites. Can you guess why?”
Without knowing the other materials, I didn’t have a lot to go on... Except the name and her own personality. “It’s really, extraordinarily impressive looking?”
Vellum chuckled. “Quite so. I am using it as the basis for developing new fireworks for the winter ball.”
The ball. Vellum was going to the ball?
Vellum must have caught my expression. She set the flask down, waving a hand dismissively. “I’m not too old to dance, child. Nor am I too old to collect a tidy profit from selling the patent for this particular formula to Eldritch Engineering.” She paused deliberately, “Your best bet in mana products, guaranteed.”
I stood frozen for a moment before doubling over with laughter.
“Okay, Vellum. You win. That was good.”
“Of course it was. I’m bloody brilliant. Now,” she waved at this flask. “What’s that you’ve got there?”
I waved at the apparatus. “Are you already done with that?”
“Not by a long stretch, but I can’t add the next ingredient for another hour. Now, answer my question.”
“Oh, right, questions three from ancient thee. Yeah, I found that in the tower. During my judgment. Just before getting my attunement.” I waved at it. “Because drinking that type of liquid is how I got my attunement.”
She shook her head once. “No, it’s not.”
I blinked. “Pretty sure it was.”
“Allow me to educate you.” She walked around the table, lifting up the potion. She glanced at the runes on the side. “Preservation glyphs? At least you have some sense, limited as it may be.”
That was the nicest thing she’d ever said to me.
“I do try to be somewhat prepared, at least.”
“Oh, yes, I know. Never quite in the right ways, but you certainly try.” She unstoppered the potion, sniffing at it, then swishing it around. “Not much left. I’ll run a simple test to confirm my suspicions, but it will only take a few drops.”
Her tone brooked no argument, so I just nodded.
She handed me the potion, then went and retrieved two tubes filled with clear liquids and set them up next to each other in a rack. Then, she retrieved a potions syringe — a needle-and-chamber tool specifically designed for extracting bits of potions — and drew a bit of liquid out of my potion.
She distributed one droplet into each of tubes on the rack, frowning as she observed.
Nothing happened.
After a few moments, I raised a tentative eyebrow, but nothing changed.
Vellum nodded to herself, lifted a hand, and a tiny spark of flame brushed up against one of the vials.
The liquid inside shimmered and turned crimson.
“Mm.” She moved her hand to the other vial, focused, and the glass began to freeze.
The water within shifted to a deep cerulean hue.
Vellum lifted one of the vials, inspecting it more closely. “It is, of course, what I expected.”
“Meaning...?”
She slipped the vial back into the rack. “Meaning what you have is an attunement primer solution.”
“And that is...?”
Vellum sighed. “Something you shouldn’t have. But, since you somehow managed to stumble upon it, now it’s merely something you shouldn’t use. An attunement primer is used to ready the body to receive an attunement. It does not carry an attunement itself — no potion does.”
“But then how—”
“Magic.” She waved at the vials. “Specifically, the primer reacts to magic. It’s the catalyst for a reaction that, when a proper spell is used, forms an attunement in the body.”
Vellum pointed at the crimson vial. “Expose the primer to flame, and the gray mana in the solution becomes flame mana, saturating your body. A proper attunement-granting spell contains the specific domi—, or, mana types necessary to form that particular attunement, as well as instructions for the mana to take the proper shape.”
She paused, mumbling, “More of a ritual, really, given the complexity and material components necessary...”
I folded my arms. “Wait. You’re saying someone casts a spell to create an attunement? I understand that artificial attunements might work that way, but...”
I don’t remember anyone casting a spell.
I remember drinking the fluid, then a vision...
Was that a hallucination?
Or did someone — or something — cast a spell on me?
The Voice...Tristan...had some kind of entity that was talking to me. Did he cast something on me? Or was it some kind of enchantment on the basin?
When he put that rusted sword in there, he pulled Selys-Lyann out. Maybe the sword was repaired by the water, or maybe he withdrew a completely different weapon — either way, the basin itself was enchanted. Could that be what the true source of my attunement was?
Vellum shrugged her shoulders. “I know everyone wants to believe the goddess just gives them to us, but even goddesses have methods. That method happens to be infusing us with liquid, then activating the liquid with a complex spell that creates an attunement.”
I waved at the vials. “And what happened there? I take it you didn’t attune the water.
“No, just basic spells to test the liquid’s reactivity. I’m afraid I can’t attune a liquid, though that would be quite a good trick. A large part of what forms an attunement is the mana already within your body, it’s simply being reshaped by the primer and the spell.”
I frowned. “A
nd if you happened to drink some if you already had an attunement...?”
“Let’s see, shall we?” She found the syringe again and withdrew another droplet. I mourned the loss of a little more of my potion, but it was worth it to see the results of the experiment.
Vellum dropped a single droplet into each vial.
Again, nothing happened.
Until she flicked an electrical spark toward the crimson vial...
...And it burst apart, sparking liquid dripping flowing across the table.
“The primer remains isolated until it is exposed to any spell effect, at which point it changes to the appropriate type...often with unpleasant results.”
I stepped back to avoid the flow of liquid. “And if the spell effect isn’t the right type to create an attunement?”
“It would simply flood the body with that much mana of the types used in the spell.”
“How do people earn second attunements, then?”
“Very carefully.” Vellum chuckled. “Whoever — or whatever — force in the tower grants the attunements would have to strip all active spell effects off the person to prevent them from triggering the primer, then isolate their existing attunement somehow to prevent that mana from flowing into the primer and triggering it.”
“And...hypothetically...if someone didn’t go through that exhaustive process?”
She pointed at the broken vial in the puddle of liquid.
Oh, Sera. I’m so sorry.
I frowned. But that still doesn’t exactly match with what happened to you. You didn’t...explode.
“What are you thinking about, boy? You did something, didn’t you?” She folded her arms and glared at me.
“I, uh... It was an emergency?”
“Speak.”
“My sister, Sera, may have drank some of the fluid. But it didn’t explode — her attunement changed.”