Chapter 53: Library (Patreon)

Chapter 53: Library

Raven found on the college ramparts, shooting Ankhs of Decay into the darkening sky.

She landed beside me, telekinesis pushing out a small ring of snow. “You seem… chipper,” she said.

“Have you ever taken a test thinking you had all the answers?” I asked.

“No.”

I shut my eyes. “Just listen for a second okay,” I said. “You’re here as my therapist or something, aren’t you?”

“I’m here as your friend.”

I bit my lip, looking away. “Imagine you were taking a test,” I said again. “So you go in and the proctor starts asking questions, and you answer them. You answer them confidently, because if you don’t know the answer, you lose points.”

Raven nodded.

“So, you think you’re doing a good job. Then, the proctor just starts laughing at you…” I clenched my fist. “And she tells you that you’re a fucking moron.”

Raven tilted her head. “I take it your meeting with the Archmage went…poorly.”

“No,” I said, eyes growing hot. “It actually went well. It’s just…” I fired another Ankh into the sky, it… cost less than half as much mana as it did when I first designed it, all from one conversation with a real planeswalker. “It’s just that everything I thought I knew about magic was wrong.”

“Oh?”

Another Ankh shrieked into the night. “I thought I was adapting magic,” I said. “Understanding the different systems of magic on the planes I went to and adapting them to my own.” I shook my head. “It made sense at the time.”

“And what did Vess tell you?”

“What makes more sense, she asked me,” I said, “‘what makes more sense? an innate understanding of every system of magic, despite the inability to use them, or the innate understanding of the only system of magic…from which all else is derived.”

“And?” Raven asked. “Why does that matter?”

I grit my teeth, “It matters because I’m an idiot,” I said. “I—so much wasted time, doing things this backwards way. Trying to match the watered-down versions of what my spells could actually be.”

“Destiny…” Raven said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does!” I said “I could have been stronger. I could have been strong enough.”

“…You couldn’t have known,” Raven said, she reached out before pulling back. “And even if you did, you couldn’t… you couldn’t have saved him.”

I choked back a sob. “I could have though,” I said. With a wave of my hand, I summoned Remedi’s data crystal. “I had all the information in the palm of my hand…”

“Destiny.”

“You say I couldn’t have saved him,” I said. “Maybe you’re right, maybe Klarion was just too powerful, Maybe Kent was just too far gone.” My cloak rippled in tune with the waves of mana beneath my skin. I clenched my fist and the crystal shattered. “But my kind is capable of so much more. And maybe if I’d seen that, instead of getting playing dress up…”

Raven winced, before placing her hand on my shoulder. “You can’t know that,” she said.

I gave her a weary smile. “You’re right. I can’t know, I’ll never know,” I said.

Raven huffed. “Destiny—”

“No more platitudes,” I said.

“Destiny,” Raven said, rolling her eyes. “I’m supposed to be the gloomy one. You’re taking my spot.”

I blinked. “What?”

“You’re taking my spot,” she said. “You’re the determined one, that helps the pitiful half demon through her inner turmoil. Making me switch places isn’t fair, I’m bad at it.”

“Really bad at it,” I muttered.

Raven shrugged. 

I shot a glare at her. “That doesn’t really help, you know. I messed up, I’m messed up, and…”

“Kent wouldn’t tell you not to be sad, you know,” Raven said with a sigh. “I barely knew him and even I could tell you that. You don’t have to ‘be strong.’ But he wouldn’t tell you not to be happy either.”

“That’s not the point,” I said. “The point is that I could have been stronger, but I wasn’t! I could have been better and—”

“And at what cost?” Raven asked softly.

I looked down. “If I’d known…” I started again.

“Kent still would have asked you to join the team,” she said.

Wind whipped over the battlements.

“He was on good terms with the league.” Raven coughed. “Probably lots of other mages.”

I shrugged. “He…”

“He knew just how strong you could be, Destiny,” Raven said. I didn’t reply as she shuffled half a step closer. I leaned towards her, the rage draining out of me. “But that wasn’t what he wanted for you.”

“Why, though?” I asked.

Raven gave a small smile. “Power makes demons of us all,” she said. “Heroes need…a more nurturing approach.” She gave a slight laugh, “Maybe, if I’d understood that better back on Azarath I wouldn’t have always been in trouble with the monks.”

I…chuckled slightly at her words. “Is that two jokes from you in one day?”

Raven just shrugged. “Well…” she paused, rubbing her throat.

I frowned, “Are you okay?”

“You made me talk,” Raven grumbled, “a lot.”

I snorted. “Really?” I asked. “Your throat’s sore?” Raven just nodded, and I gave a much put-upon sigh. “Come on, let’s get you something to drink. I heard the journeymage hall always has food.” I paused. “Though I’ve yet to see a servant around here…”

“Strict no mages policy,” Raven said. “Servitors do the chores.”

“Would that the mountain had the same level of convenience,” I said, walking towards where the wall dropped into the courtyard. 

“Stairs?” Raven asked.

I gave a wan smile, “Come now, I’ve just learned that I’m a being of phenomenal cosmic power twice over, what’s that worth, if I don’t get to show it off.” And with that, I walked down the air towards the path below. Behind me, I heard Raven sigh as she floated after me, but I kept my face resolutely forward. As long as I kept focused on was right in front of me, well…at least then I wouldn’t be moving backwards any longer.

We brushed past the various students in the courtyard. I got the impression that they were a pretty eclectic bunch but…I wasn’t really interested in them.

There was some simple bread and cheese, along with ample wine and other spirits, at the dining area on the second floor. Raven sagged into a chair and took a long pull from one of the bottles. At my raised eyebrow, she said, “I said I was raised by monks, didn’t I?”

I took a seat, idly putting together a sandwich, “I thought you said Azarath was this pure dimension, without sin or vice?”

Raven took another drink.

“The more things change,” I murmured. I looked down at my own meal, before pushing it vaguely in Raven’s direction, and summoning Remedi’s archive again. 

It was such an unassuming little thing, an octahedron just large enough to rest comfortably in my hand. Encoded within it, in channels etched by pure magic, were pages and pages of information about magic. But it was dry and filled with jargon, beyond my comprehension, so I’d forgotten about it. 

It was almost funny. At first, I’d thought that Remedi had hidden key information to keep me from understanding her work, but in truth, I’d missed a tenant so simple that Remedi would never think to include it. Now though?

Now I saw things clearly.

According to Remedi’s notes, this research was covetated by more than one party, which made me wonder why she’d parted with it so easily. Perhaps it had been fear, or else she’d been desperate to share her findings with someone after so long. In either case, it was only my fortune, as the process itself was nearing perfection, and described in exacting detail, by the time I’d arrived on Ivalice.

Parts were missing, but they were parts my spark allowed me to bypass. All of the dross about exact mana extraction matricies, and spell conversion formulae, I could accomplish by feel.

Well, that was a lie, the part of the working that…exchanged the real world for the artificial plane was well beyond me, but I hardly needed that part. By limiting the plane in scope, I could also confine its activation, it would also make balancing the colors of mana…doable. The rest could be solved with trial and error, but first, I would need a base to build upon.

“You should eat,” Raven said, some time later.

“Not hungry,” I replied.

“More for me then!” A new voice said.

I stiffened as a slim hand reached out and snatched my untouched sandwich from over my shoulder. “This is neat,” Iliria said. The assassin dragon born, took a big bite our of my meal, chewing it thoughtfully. “You know, I’ve never really been big on boring people food after my transformation, but this is pretty interesting.” She tilted her head, “Cutting the bread seems tedious, though.”

With a sigh I waved at an untouched loaf, with a flex of my will, it split into nearly a dozen slices. “There,” I said. “Make all the sandwiches you want.” I stood.

“Sandwiches?” Iliria’s head tilted to the side. For a moment, her eyes unfocused. It would have been the optimal time to escape, if she wasn’t blocking me into the table.

“Hey,” I said. No response. I snapped my fingers in front of her face, and Iliria blinked once.

“Yeah?”

“You’re in the way.”

She smiled at me, leaning closer, “Sorry,” she said.

“You know,” I replied, as Raven stood, darkness crackling around her fingers. “I was more than tempted to just stab you and throw you over the side when we were on the back of your dragon, but I can do it know if you prefer.”

Iliria shuddered, eyes drifting half shut for a moment. It made me feel dirty. “You say the nicest things,” she murmured.

“Move.”

With a roll of her eyes, Iliria stepped back. “Going to ask me what I want?” she said.

“Let me take a wild guess, spells,” I said. Her eyes glinted eagerly. “Sadly, they’re not for sale. Now then, if you’ll excuse me, I have something actually important to take care of.”

I brushed past her. She muttered something, but I only caught “…would be unlockable.”

“Say,” Iliria said suddenly. “It sounds like you need someone to do a job.”

Raven crossed her arms. “We prefer to handle our own problems.”

“Oh, come on, I’m a really good problem solver,” she said. “I have a lot of connections too, to places you’ve probably never even heard of, so are you looking for something…” she smiled as I tensed. Not for the first time, I bemoaned how my power had changed. “You are? What is it? I’ll find it for you.”

Raven glanced at me, and I sighed. But then, I’d also promised myself not to hold back any more, didn’t I? And with a chance like this dropping into my lap…

“I’m looking for an artifact of great power,” I said. “Nothing specific, but something capable of holding a great working of magic within it.” I paused. “Preferably… a book of some sort.”

“A book?” Iliria asked, frowning. “What, something like this?”

From some pouch on her person, she pulled out a slim tome, with the symbol of a flaming palm on the front. I took it, glancing it over quickly. I plucked at the mana construct bound within watching it ripple beneath my fingers.

“This?” I said, “No, it’s too…flimsy.” I pressed my finger to the cover, pulling away the binding and letting the pages crumble into ash. Iliria huffed. “A spell that teaches itself to the reader?” I asked. “Ingenious, but it consumes the book itself as fuel.” I shook my head. “Something like this, maybe, no—definitely something like this, but it would need to be much more stable. If possible, something that had lasted through ages of magic.”

“Oh?” Iliria smiled. “Sounds like you’re talking about an Elder Scroll.”

I shrugged. “If you think it fits the bill.”

“It does, it does indeed,” Iliria said. She rubbed her hands together. “I’ll be back soon, don’t go anywhere!”

I blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, normally people just stay where I can find them, but you’re a weird one, you know?”