by Eric Vall
“I’ll work it out,” I assured him. “Do you have any idea where we should start on the rebuild?”
“Well, since you have a good connection to our element, you could probably take on the three training halls that were damaged,” Markus told me. “It makes it kind of impossible to utilize the space properly now, so if you guys wanna start there, that’d really help get the mages back to studying as soon as possible.”
I nodded. “Which ones?”
“The Aer, Ignis, and Flumen halls,” Markus said as he crouched and touched the stonework again, and I did the same to share in the circuit with him. The blueprint of the Oculus came to the forefront of my mind again, but this time, the presence of the ancient mages was gone. It was just a memory of what I’d seen far below the city, and Markus rotated the image to show me where we were headed.
“That double spire marks the Aer training hall,” he explained, “and just on the opposite side of the waterway is the Flumen training hall. The Ignis one is closer to the library on the northern side. See it?”
“Yeah, I see it,” I replied and broke the connection. “We’ll start with those and get all three repaired today.”
“Okay, but be extremely careful with the ceiling in the Aer Mages’ training hall,” Markus warned. “It dictates most of their lesson work, and if one stone is out of place, it’ll have to be redone again.”
“Good to know,” I replied, “and thanks for the lesson. Really. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
“You’re welcome,” Markus said, but he was already turning back to his archway, which I now knew from the schematics was meant to extend and meet the buildings on either side.
I stared for a minute before Haragh and I headed down the street toward the training hall for the Aer Mages, and once we were out of earshot, I nudged the half-ogre in the arm.
“Can you imagine how advanced every Terra Mage in the Order would be with that guy instructing them?” I muttered as I tried to process the residual buzzing in my veins. “We’d surpass the other elements in a month.”
Haragh raised his brow as a cocky grin came to his face. “Well, I like the sound of that.”
“Me, too,” I chuckled. “Think what we could accomplish, though. You have no idea how complex magery gets once you tap into the ancient presence of it. It was … ” I couldn’t even find the right words to describe it, and I furrowed my brow as I tried to adjust to reality again. “With an instructor like that, their skills would sky-rocket. The citizens are still struggling to get the tradesmen’s quarters built up, but we could update every quarter of the entire city with a dozen mages as skilled as Markus in a matter of days. Not to mention Falmount.”
“Wouldn’t mind making Falmount twice as impressive as the capital,” Haragh mused. “Give Temin a run for his money.”
“I could appoint Kurna to instruct the Ignis Mages, too,” I said half to myself. “He’d bring them all up to speed just as quickly.”
The sight of the brawny mage igniting his entire head last night came to mind, and I hadn’t forgotten he’d managed to teach Aurora the same stunt within only a few drunken minutes.
“Don’t get too far ahead of yourself,” Haragh chuckled as we turned down a side street. “Temin might let ye’ put Markus in a better position here, but you can’t assume he’d let ye’ do as you please with everything.”
I glanced sidelong at the half-ogre. “Actually, Temin kind of … offered me Wyresus’ job.”
Haragh stopped in his tracks, and I turned to see him staring dumbfounded at me. “He wants ye’ to become head of the Order?”
“Yeah,” I admitted, “but I haven’t given him an answer yet. I honestly don’t think I have the time for that kind of responsibility. It would be kind of cool, though, and--”
“The fuck is the matter with ye’?” Haragh cut in. “Take the job.”
I sighed and turned to continue down the street. “Yeah, Raynor said the same thing.”
“Good,” the half-ogre snorted. “He’s right. You already clean up every mess that comes along while Wyresus rots in that cellar all day. May as well claim the title with the power. Then you could appoint anyone you wanted without having to run it by Temin.”
“I don’t mind running things by Temin,” I told him. “He’s usually on board with my ideas anyways.”
Haragh shook his head. “What do your women have to say about it?”
“I haven’t told them yet,” I admitted.
“Yeaaah, you’re takin’ the job,” Haragh assured me, and his tone suggested I officially had no say in the matter anymore. “One slip of the tongue from me, and those women will be acceptin’ the post for ye’.”
“Okay, not cool,” I muttered. “Cayla would never let me turn it down.”
“Mm-hmm,” he said smugly as we came to the remains of the Aer Mages’ training hall, and he held out a big green arm as he motioned for me to lead the way.
I sent the half-ogre a disapproving glare as I passed, but once we were inside, I was abruptly distracted.
Half the lofty ceiling had collapsed, and the rubble destroyed most of the floor and several columns on impact. The dim hall must have spanned half the length of a football field, and the stonework of the walls and ceiling were constructed from a light gray granite while the marble floors looked forest green beneath the debris. Tasteful columns lined both walls every six feet, but there were no windows anywhere, which made sense since the Aer Mages were meant to contain their powers within the ancient hall. Instead, torch mounts were centered between each column from one end to the other, and as I craned my neck, I could make out the peculiar vaulting design used in the portion of the ceiling that still remained.
I could sense how old the construction was because the undamaged stones hadn’t been moved in hundreds of years, and my Terra powers sparked eagerly in my veins at the opportunity to restore it all to its original glory.
“Not bad,” Haragh mused as he climbed over the rubble and took a look around. “The Aer Mages have it pretty good here.”
“You can see the various patterns they’re meant to practice,” I pointed out as I gestured to the ceiling. “The air would funnel through the corner vaultings, then probably flow back to the ground and cycle upward to the center vaultings, which means they have to rotate the directional flow at the last second to avoid the stone ribbing. They could practice every pattern of movement in here, and once they’re familiar with the feeling of each, they would have the precision necessary to wield their element with accuracy anywhere they wanted. Pretty impressive approach.”
“Eh, it’s just a bunch of wind,” Haragh grunted. “Stone’s much more difficult.”
“Sure,” I chuckled as I used my boot to clear a space on the floor. Then I knelt down and placed my palms on the deep green marble. “You ready?”
“Yeah.” Haragh jumped down from the rubble with a heavy thud, and he kicked a few shards of stone aside before mirroring me and summoning his Terra Magic.
“Remember what Markus said about getting the ceiling exactly right,” I reminded the half-ogre, and we combined our powers in a circuit as I zeroed in on the mental schematics to locate the Aer Mages’ hall.
Once we studied the design for a few minutes, Haragh started reforming the crumbled walls while I steadily restored the columns as each portion was completed. The heavy sound of stone scraping into place filled the hall as we worked with our eyes closed, and I kept my attention on the design in my mind while the rubble reshaped itself into stout blocks and began fusing into place. Then we took some time to be sure each seam at the upper portion of the wall was perfectly level before we moved on to the vaulted ceiling.
I could sense Haragh’s confusion over the various angles interconnecting all over the place, but if we worked in the same spot together, we were able to stabilize the stone ribbing without it collapsing during the process. Once the ribbing was in place, we each began on our own areas again, and it took us nearly half an hour
to fill in the gaps with the proper sloping for the Aer Mages’ element to flow as needed.
Then we broke our connection and stood up, and while Haragh reformed the marble floor and smoothed the surface to one seamless slab, I checked our handiwork and compared it to every inch of the design.
It was identical to the original structure that had been built hundreds of years before, and a huge grin came to my face as I turned in a full circle to admire the kaleidoscopic design.
“Seems like overkill,” Haragh grunted.
I sighed. “You’re jealous. This place is fucking awesome.”
“Terra hall’s better,” he mumbled stubbornly, and he headed for the entrance as I continued gaping at the strange vaulting patterns above me for a minute.
Then I jogged to catch up to Haragh, and we took a winding cobblestone street that lead to the northern edge of the Great Library. It was easy to find the Ignis training hall because the two giant pilasters that flanked the entrance had intricate engravings from top to bottom, and they looked like massive black infernos frozen in time.
Inside, we could see someone had blasted the entire eastern wall apart, and with daylight shining in, it was easier to get a look around the blackened training hall. From floor to ceiling, the place was crafted from polished black granite, and while it was just as large and windowless as the Aer Mages’ hall, the design was like night and day. There were no torch mounts in sight, which I thought was strange at first until I realized they would hardly be necessary to a bunch of Ignis Mages, and the ceiling was a simple gabled arch that reminded me of old cathedrals.
What really grabbed my attention, though, was the floor.
From the entryway, it looked like a slate black bee’s nest, but as I walked forward a ways, I could see each of the cylindrical pits that dotted the hall had a thin line of steps circling its walls. I followed one of these down into the granite hole, and the walls rose five feet above my head once I made it to the bottom. It felt eerily like I was in a tomb, but then Haragh’s head appeared over the edge, and his chuckle echoed around the polished hall.
“Not much down there for a Terra Mage to do,” he informed me.
“What do they use these for?” I asked as I ran my hand along the sleek, black wall.
“I asked Aurora that once,” he told me. “Said anyone can shoot flames all over the place but learning to wield fire is about taming and directing the element more accurately.”
“That sounds like her,” I chuckled. “So, how does it work? They can’t let any flames escape their pod while they train?”
Haragh nodded. “Down there, they have a tight space to work within, too, so they can focus on exactitude of movement rather than just sending jets in one direction.”
“Alright, that’s fucking cool,” I mused. “How did they come up with this approach?”
“Who cares?” Haragh grunted. “Still just a bunch of flames flyin’ around, except now you’re in a hole.”
I sighed as the half-ogre turned away, and I climbed back up the blackened steps to join him near the shattered wall.
“Ye’ wanna head to the Flumen hall?” the half-ogre asked as he sparked his magic and raised his palms. “I can finish this one up no problem.”
“Sounds good,” I replied and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll meet you back in the front quarter in a bit.”
Haragh nodded as the shattered granite began to shudder around us, and I wound my way through the beehive of pods as I headed back toward the streets.
I had to reform a collapsed bridge to cross the central waterway of the Oculus, but once I skirted my way around the decimated blacksmith’s quarters, I finally found the structure I was looking for. Unfortunately, the Flumen training hall was surrounded in the jagged remains of what used to be a cobblestone street, and whoever tore it all up had burst the wall of the canal in the process. Now, water flowed freely between the rubble, and from where I stood, it looked like it had flooded the entire interior of the training hall, too.
I couldn’t do anything to clear the water without a Flumen Mage around, but after I climbed to higher ground, I found a broken wall I could balance on. From here, I was still able to connect with the stonework through my Terra powers, and I seeped into the ground to repair the street first. With the jagged rock reformed into squat bricks and leveled off, I sent my Terra Powers into the walls of the Flumen training hall next.
At first, I couldn’t find any structural damage anywhere, but then I realized the burst canal wall used to split into fifteen aqueducts that flowed beneath the street and siphoned into the training hall to run widthwise across the floor. All of the underground channels had been obliterated when the street was torn apart, but as I connected with the previous schematics of the city, I could sense the dimensions of the aqueducts that provided the water for the Flumen Mages.
So, I carved a swatch of the street out and began reforming the underground channels as water sloshed around the stone. Then I sealed the surface off once more and checked to make sure they were all aligned properly with the fifteen channels inside the training hall.
To look at it, the place was still a complete mess with water flowing up as high as my knees, but I could feel the design beneath the surface was restored. I would have to send a Flumen Defender this way to direct the canal water back into the main waterway, but there was one last thing I wanted to do first.
I kept my Terra powers sparked as I returned to the blueprint in my mind, and now that I was familiar with the general layout of the training halls, it was easy to locate a fourth one. I paid close attention to the map as I headed back toward the library, and on the southern side, I finally found what I was looking for.
I’d never visited the Terra training hall before, but I couldn’t resist taking a few minutes to finally explore the place. Until today, I hadn’t even been aware each element had a designated training hall in the Oculus, but after seeing the others, I was itching to get a look at what the other Terra Mages had to work with. So, I scaled the steps leading up to an open gothic archway, and a dozen ideas came to mind of what the ancient mages might have come up with.
At first glance, though, I was honestly a bit disappointed. The Terra training hall looked like an empty building still waiting to be embellished, with columns and torch mounts much like the Aer Mages’ hall. This building had a series of circular windows lining the upper walls that allowed a few dim shafts of light to spill in, and the ceiling was less elaborate than any of the others. Then I walked into the center of the room, and I finally realized the floor was the big draw of the place.
My boots passed over slate, obsidian, soapstone, and shale, and when I knelt and placed my palms down, I almost laughed out loud. My powers expanded through the floor to send back all manner of materials stacked thirty feet deep, and while the surface was created from fourteen different kinds of stone alone, the layers below were just as varied. I sensed whole slabs of jade, quartz, and diorite sporadically fused within the arrangement, and my veins started to vibrate pleasantly from the presence of the many earthen wares hiding beneath the hall. A Terra Mage could familiarize themselves with locating and altering every one of them in here, and extracting each while maintaining the structure would probably be involved in the more advanced lessons.
I chuckled as I stood and glanced around at the dim hall, and part of me regretted that I hadn’t been trained here. Every Terra Mage who came before me no doubt spent years learning to connect with and influence their element within these walls, and even though I’d advanced quickly with my magery on my own, I didn’t recognize half of the minerals underneath my boots. My fingertips tingled eagerly at the prospect of tapping into every one of them, and I grinned as I imagined lining my entryway with sculpted jade pillars like a fucking monolith.
Then I nearly jumped out of my skin as the sultry timber of the Baroness’ voice drifted from the shadows of the hall.
“You look at home here,” she said, and a wave of fear rushed thro
ugh my limbs.
I should have known she’d pop up again, but I hadn’t expected her to stick around once the attack had ended. She was the type to travel ahead of the fray, and I doubted there was much left here to profit from now that the battle was over.
Well, besides me.
“Let me guess,” I replied as I turned and eyed the distant corners. “You’re here to be of absolutely no help with repairing the Oculus.”
The Baroness chuckled as she emerged from the shadows, and I couldn’t help but notice her breasts nearly caused her tight black velvet corset to burst at the seams. Her long black hair cascaded over her shoulders and rippled with every step, and the way her skirts rustled across the stone made it look like she was gliding.
Then she brought herself so close the exotic smell of her wafted over me like a cloud, and she looked up at me as she blinked her two-toned eyes.
“Why should I exert my efforts to repair something that is not mine?” the Baroness asked.
“Why are you lingering around here if you don’t give a shit about the place?” I tossed back, and her coy smile faded slightly.
She looked back at me for a long moment while I tried to decide if I should walk off, and half of me wanted to before her arrogance could irritate me any further.
I was constantly in a war between whether I could trust the Tenebrae Mage or not, but her habit of always being around and somehow contributing nothing had started to grate on my nerves. Especially after I found out she could have alerted everyone to the impending attack on the Oculus but didn’t. She probably made a decent amount of money from that secret, too, and someone who worked in the shadows for her own gain was no one I needed to get involved with.
“You’re upset with me,” the Baroness finally said, and her ghostly white eye betrayed her disappointment for a fleeting second. “Why?”
“Besides the stalking me for information you can sell part?” I asked as I crossed my arms. “Probably because you clearly only have your own interests in mind, you run around doing favors for some nameless dear friend, and thanks to your selfishness, the oldest city in Illaria is half destroyed.”