#wizards

These stones have no name. They bear markings carved with care and precision, they stand neatly arranged in a perfect circle, but no trace of their origin remains to history. It’s too convenient; maybe this is where my mind betrays me again, floor crumbling under me just as the light of the exit comes into view. But it’s all I have. If any of this is real, I’ll know soon enough. I’ll know.

I take out the ritual knife, and pause for a moment, contemplating the dubious wisdom of spilling my blood for a spell that might not be real, in a place that might not be real, for a truth that might not be real… No, this is pointless to dwell on. I’m far, far past this now. My blood might not be real. All I can do is follow the plan, and hope for a miracle. In any case, I’m out of time. I see (think I see) several points of light in the distance, approaching quickly. I cut my hand, letting the blood run down the ancient stone, and begin reciting the incantation. Did I remember it right? I only had a few moments with that crumbling scroll, before the guards arrived and I had to run (if any of that really happened), but I’ve always had an excellent memory. I remember always having had an excellent memory, anyway… It’ll have to do.

Around me, the inscriptions on all seventeen standing stones begin to glow, arcs of light drawing themselves through the air around and across the circle. I continue chanting, as the lights approaching in the distance resolve themselves into human figures on levitating disks. Council Executioners, by the uniforms. So those do exist; or my imagination is taking a turn for the conspiratorial. It’s about the response I’d expect, though. After all, if this world exists, then what I think I’m doing could potentially destroy it, according to a speculative hypothesis by a man who might have lived once, as quoted by the author of a book that my memory tells me I read last month. It’s worth the risk. Or at least, there’s no way to convince myself otherwise.

“The first thing you must understand about the Wizards of the First Age is this: the Wizards of the Second Age dubbed themselves ‘wizards’ after painstakingly assembling half-understood fragments of their art; the Wizards of the Third Age inherited the barest slivers of surviving knowledge from the Second Age, and called themselves ‘wizards’ in turn; and so it goes. Though we of the Sixth Age have seen fit to adopt the same title, we must not imagine ourselves the equals of our forebears. If the greatest and most learned among us were to seek to comprehend the magics of the First Age, they would be as an ant contemplating the gulf between galaxies.

“The second thing you must understand is that the Wizards of the First Age are not dead. The very concept may well be meaningless to them. They linger on, dormant – asleep in the deepest oceans, adrift among the stars, latent even in pattern and language. I do not believe we will ever understand by what means the Wizards of the First Age drove each other into this slumber, or how the Wizards of the Second Age created tighter seals to keep them there. What we do know is that when those seals began to falter with time, the Wizards of the Third Age designed failsafe mechanisms on absurd scales – their craft extended to the motions of the heavens, and the workings of fate itself. Every 121 years, Akwel’s Comet returns to our skies, perfectly timed to confuse the return journey of the Blue Wizard and send it wandering the far reaches of the cosmos once more. In every 72nd generation, a new Sacred Archer is born, chosen by the Bow of Ym to slay the Supplicant Titan before it can reawaken the Green Wizard on Mount Olo. The Wizards of the Third Age constructed vast cycles to perpetually forestall the return of the First, time and time again. These cycles are older than any language still spoken, and have maintained their delicate balance without fail from the Third Age until now.

To:
Suffer Wayte-Archer IV
Aesyl Hall, Room 13γ
Aletheia University, College of Medical Magick

Kiddo,

Thanks for your letter! Your friends sound like great fun, and your lava pit immolation notes were a fascinating read. I only wish the Tigerfang Band were half as willing to help further the progress of medical science.

The Band have certainly been giving me plenty of work, although most of it is fairly boring stuff – spiked pits, decapitations, the occasional rolling boulder trap. Honestly, they’d save a fortune on trap-related deaths if they were willing to get over their paranoid prejudices and recruit a rogue. I can’t exactly complain, though, seeing as they’re footing your tuition and then some.

I did get one quite interesting job a couple of days ago. No signs of any struggle or even panic, no obvious injuries or indicators of common poisons, no traces at all of what might have killed them, except that each one of them had a slight discoloration at the tip of their left ring finger. What’s more, all of the standard corpse-available resurrections – Zheng’s Recall, Vital Reversal, Autoincarnation, you name it – were completely useless. The spells worked perfectly, but they instantly died again. I even performed Selomon’s Regrowth starting from a single toe – exact same result. I tried as many variations as I could, in the name of due diligence of course, and took detailed notes, but I have to admit I’m still stumped. I ended up doing corpse-unavailable resurrections, which brought them back fine, but thanks to the memory cutoff, I couldn’t get any information about exactly how they died. I’ll be sure to send you the full writeup and a finger once I’ve had time to copy down and organize everything, I’d love to hear what you make of it.

Professor Tarkovsky stared down at his desk, head in hands, and sighed. “So, let me make sure I have this right,” he said wearily, looking up at the two students seated across from him. “The two of you met in Miss Surn’s dormitory room for a study session.”

“Yeah,” said Susan.

Lilias nodded.

“At half past midnight?”

“Yup.”

“Exams soon.”

“Okay, 1, please knock next time. 2, this is not the reason I’m in Temporal, it’s just, like, a perk? And 3, this isn’t –”

“Look, it’s fine, Dev, you do y…yyour own thing, I’ll absolutely remember to knock –”

“No, listen, this isn’t some sort of smug intellectual nobody-else-is-my-equal whatever garbage. Look, I know sometimes I can get a little up my ow— sometimes I can get a little stuck up about grades and projects and stuff, but I’m trying to be better about that, and that’s not what this is about! Like, I spent 5 years thinking I was just asexual, and honestly, not sure this doesn’t still count? I’ve never felt sexually attracted to anyone else, but a few months ago I was hanging out by myself, felt like experimenting a little, and I ended up really liking it. So it just became something I do now and then, but like, it’s not an ego trip thing, okay?”

“Okay, yeah. I, uh, I get what you’re saying, sorry if I like, hit a nerve or…”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Just, I’ve already spent a bunch of time beating mys— having internal negative self-talk about, do I just think I’m better than everyone, are other people just not good enough for the amazing Dev Malim or what. And I’ve mostly gotten past that by now, but I just really don’t want anyone else thinking that about me. Y’know?”

“That makes sense, yeah. Sorry about that.”

“Thanks. That’s all I wanted to say. Anyway, this is already an awkward conversation, it’s gonna be even more awkward to listen to again from under my blankets in half an hour, so uh, talk more later, okay?”

Aletheia University Dungeoneering Practicum

Party No. 17

• Lilias Calbach, College of Elemental Magick
• Dev Malim, College of Temporal Magick
• Susan Surn, College of Martial Magick
• Suffer Wayte-Archer IV, College of Medical Magick

Proctor’s Notes

Party “completed” the Master-Level Dungeon in 9 hours 43 minutes, the shortest time so far on record. Several of the walls will need to be rebuilt, and I will need to check the Library Archives to look up the exact text of the Riddle Scrolls in order to recopy them from scratch. Party complained that the Master-Level Dungeon was insufficiently confusing, violent, life-threatening, and flammable, and asked if I had anything “harder” available, despite my explanations that they had already received the highest possible score on the Practicum. Faced with their repeated insistent demands, I finally directed them to the Sealed Dungeon, designed and constructed by Horus Obliq the Pale shortly before the revocation of his tenure 30 years ago. As no staff member sent in to dismantle the Sealed Dungeon had ever been heard from again, I judged it to be a thoroughly suitable challenge for this group of students.

Due to the powerful barrier surrounding the Sealed Dungeon, I was unable to use the Scrying Beacons worn by the party to monitor their progress in real time, but the beacons provided a full transcript of their explorations upon their return three days later, which I have included below.

[…]

SURN: “Hang on, what’s this purple shit?”
[A purple fog fills the chamber.]
[Calbach snaps her fingers, producing a small flame.]
CALBACH: “Not flammable.”
[Calbach continues staring at the flame.]
MALIM: “I’m feeling itchy.”
SURN: “Yeah, me too.”
[Wayte-Archer examines the party’s faces and arms.]
WAYTE-ARCHER: “Hmmm, the coloration of these lesions, and this pattern of the edges… Wait, it couldn’t be… This is Langleigh’s Flesh-Eating Pox! It was supposed to have been eradicated 25 years ago! And an airborne variant is completely unheard-of, this is incredible!”
[Wayte-Archer begins excitedly pulling out vials from their satchel, collecting samples of the fog and cultures from the lesions on their own arms.]

To Chancellor Alastric Emmannulas Noens pel Colophon the Grey, XVIIth Gryphonhorn Magus, Th.M. M.Ex. O.S. Esq.

Chancellor,

It has been some time since we last had the chance to speak. I hope that you are well, and that next week’s unseasonably cold weather will not trouble you overmuch.

With the selection committee for this year’s Clarinet Lochrian Award for Thaumaturgical Ingenuity convening soon, I would like to nominate one of my students in the College of Temporal Magick, Dev Malim. Dev has consistently demonstrated an aptitude for devising creative solutions to challenging temporal problems, using finely-honed instincts to supplement his skill at complex divinations. However, it is his performance in the recent mid-semester tournament of my Paracausal Tactics course, in particular, which compels me to make this nomination.

One of the things I enjoy most about teaching Paracausal Tactics is the opportunity to work with students from the College of Martial Magick, and observe their exchange of ideas with my Temporal students. These sorts of interdisciplinary courses are where Aletheia’s students shine brightest, and it is always fascinating to see Martial students’ approaches to the field of Temporal Magick.

In this year’s course, one Susan Surn has particularly stood out among the Martial attendees. Senior Professor Blatchley has spoken quite highly of Susan at intercollegiate luncheons, and her performance in Paracausal Tactics has indeed been astonishing. While I must admit that I am unsure how much I can teach Susan from a thaumaturgical standpoint, she has aptly followed my lessons on the nature of Time and its role in combat, and her fighting instincts are truly impressive. Moreover, her presence has been highly instructive for my Temporal students. She has provided many of them with object lessons in the limitations of mere foreknowledge, and has inspired some to far greater heights of tactical creativity.

To Chancellor Alastric Emmannulas Noens pel Colophon the Grey, XVIIth Gryphonhorn Magus, Th.M. M.Ex. O.S. Esq.

Chancellor,

I am writing to share some serious concerns regarding one of our students at the College of Martial Magick, which I have unfortunately been unable to resolve internally through dialogue with the other faculty of the College. I believe this matter requires attention and action from the University administration, in order to ensure that the mission and educational principles of Aletheia University are upheld.

The student in question, Susan Surn, joined the College of Martial Magick via our Combat Trial Admissions process. Her score was apparently the fourth-highest anyone has achieved since the College’s founding, and as this year’s Combat Admissions Supervisor, Senior Professor Blatchley was quite enthusiastic about her performance.

However, during the very first practical recitation of my Advanced Combat Rituals course, it became abundantly clear to me that Susan Surn has no thaumaturgical aptitude whatsoever. When asked to perform Relter’s Strengthening Charm, Surn merely spat on her knuckles, and proceeded to punch a training dummy through the wall. Her attempt at a Kalixian Defensive Ward was a single circle sloppily drawn in the dirt with her foot, and a threatening glare which prompted her assigned sparring partner to excuse himself from the remainder of the recitation. For her demonstration of the Fifth Rite of Destruction, she pummeled the target with both fists while shouting some sort of repetitive battlecry, until nothing remained except fine rubble. When I pointed out that these were simply acts of physical violence and not spells at all, Surn replied that they were “somatic components.” This appears to be the one piece of terminology she has retained from my lectures, although I do not believe she understands what it means.

To Chancellor Alastric Emmannulas Noens pel Colophon the Grey, XVIIth Gryphonhorn Magus, Th.M. M.Ex. O.S. Esq.

Chancellor,

I would like to apologize for my outburst during my visit to your office last month. While I was indeed quite upset by the verdict of the CDLXXIIIrd Disciplinary Council, my tone was nevertheless inappropriate for a professional setting, and my personal remarks were entirely uncalled for. I must also acknowledge that, while I still have some concerns regarding Lilias Calbach’s future pyromantic research even with Professor Tarkovsky’s now-mandatory pre-approval and oversight, my judgment of Calbach may have been slightly harsher than was necessary.

This past week, to my consternation, Calbach arrived nearly half an hour late to her Council-mandated duties assisting with the cleanup and restoration of the Library Wing. She did not appear to have slept or bathed the previous day, and brought with her a large handcart filled with notebooks from the University Depot. When I demanded to know the reason for her tardiness, she gave no reply, and merely handed me one of the notebooks from her cart. Opening it, I was astounded to discover Chapters V and VI of Kyrius’ Quaestio Radix Magia, which had been completely destroyed in the recent fire, with no other known extant copies. To the best of my recollection of the grimoire’s contents, the reproduction in the notebook was flawless, including the illustrations and diagrams. Examining more of Calbach’s notebooks, all of them contained similarly perfect reproductions of rare texts I had believed irrevocably lost. Upon closer inspection, the notebooks’ contents were clearly not inked by a quill or printing press, but scorched into the pages. I turned to her in pure astonishment and asked how this could be possible; she responded simply “The fire remembers,” and promptly fell asleep on one of the couches we had salvaged.