A Lot to Learn

Eric and Welyvyne finally arrived at their dorm room. The walk had been harder than he expected; his hip kept giving out, causing his legs to cross mid-stride. Welyvyne caught him the first time it happened, nearly bowling her over in the process. A fresh wave of frustration hit him. For the remainder of the walk, she tucked herself under his arm to hold him steady. When they entered the room, Eric turned and locked the door.

“We need to get wards on this door,” Eric said as he turned the lock, “and we shouldn’t trust anyone here.”

The words made him sound paranoid, but he didn’t care. This wasn’t a time to pretend everything was fine.

Welyvyne turned around; she was halfway to the couch in the middle of the room. She looked at him with concern, maybe mixed with sadness. Eric couldn’t really tell. “Are you going to be okay? Really, I’m worried about you.”

Eric frowned, rubbing his face before he started toward her. He stumbled once before he made it to the couch and plopped down hard before forcing himself upright.

“Yes… maybe. I don’t know,” he said quietly. The honest answer was no. “What I do know is that I don’t feel safe here. And I don’t think you are either. I’m worried you’re still in danger. People who go this far don’t stop after one attempt.”

Welyvyne glanced toward the door, then back to Eric. “I don’t think they’ll try again too soon. The mercenaries they used were expensive.” She looked down, her hand clenching. “Kaelen told me that. Now I don’t know if I can trust him.” She hesitated. “Maybe… we should find that apartment. I don’t think adding wards to our dorm is a good idea.”

A sharp knock on the door sent Eric lurching to his feet. His hip gave out immediately, and he crashed back onto the couch with a muted grunt. The sound seemed far too loud in the small room.

Welyvyne moved with him at once, then froze, her eyes snapping to the door.

She turned and hurried into her room. Seconds later she returned, staff in hand, her grip tight and ready. She squared her shoulders and spoke loudly enough to carry through the wood. She was protecting him, making him feel helpless.

“Who is it.”

Lyren’s muffled voice came through the door a moment later. “It’s me, Lyren, and Kaelen. Can we come in?”

Welyvyne looked at Eric and sighed, then walked to the door, turned the lock, and opened it.

Through the open door, Eric noticed that Lyren and Kaelen weren’t alone. Two armed guards stood behind them. Shit. Why didn’t they warn us? Instinct took over; he summoned his longsword into his hand and started to rise.

This was it. The second attempt.

Kaelen saw the movement and raised a hand. “It’s okay, Eric. I hired guards to stand outside your dorm. Had I known they were going after Welyvyne as well, I’d have hired them a week ago.”

Eric’s eyes flicked to Lyren, and she gave a slight nod that put him at ease. He put his sword back into his inventory and settled back into the seat.

Once Lyren and Kaelen entered the room, the guards took position on either side of the door, and Welyvyne closed it.

Kaelen sat opposite him. He looked up at Eric and paused before he spoke. “I thought having guards outside might help you sleep tonight, Eric. Both you and Welyvyne are targets now.”

Lyren took a seat next to Eric. Eric glanced at her, then focused on Kaelen.

“I don't think I'm going to get much sleep tonight. I have a lot to think about… a lot to do.”

Lyren turned to Eric with a knowing smile.

“I assumed you’d say that. I’d argue you should rest—but I know that won’t happen.”

Kaelen looked at Lyren for a moment. Whatever passed between them was silent, but not subtle. Lyren caught his eye, then turned back to Eric.

“What do you guys plan to do from here?” Lyren said. “I mean, are you planning on staying on campus? You know you can always get a room at the Adventurer's Guild.”

Eric’s gaze moved from Lyren to Kaelen, then back again. He didn’t answer right away.

“Was that your suggestion or his?” Eric said.

Lyren paused and looked at Kaelen, then turned back to Eric.

“The question was his, the suggestion was mine. Look, I know you don't trust Kaelen, but I do. I know he means well, and if I thought he'd actually betray you, I'd kill him.”

Eric chuckled and smiled, then nodded to Kaelen.

“No need for killing. I just wanted to be clear who was leading this conversation. Kaelen, please speak for yourself next time.”

Welyvyne hadn’t sat down. She still hadn’t put her staff away.

She turned on him, scowling.

“Why are you even taking suggestions from him? He was going to kill you.”

Eric thought back to when he’d first met Kaelen.

If he was going to kill me, why didn’t he try?

Eric let out a slow breath and met Welyvyne’s eyes.

“If Kaelen was going to kill me, he would have done it already.”

Kaelen cleared his throat. The room went quiet.

“May I speak for myself?”

Eric’s gaze moved to Welyvyne, then to Lyren. At their silence, he nodded once toward Kaelen.

Kaelen inclined his head in return.

“I was never searching for a reason to kill Eric. I was looking for reasons not to. Every choice I made after that followed naturally.”

Lyren smiled and turned to Welyvyne.

“I know you may never trust Kaelen, but I do. The contract he took wasn’t personal. It was public service.”

Eric leaned forward on the couch, fingers laced, expression thoughtful.

“Let’s set the Triple A aside for the moment. If Kaelen wanted me dead, he had a perfect opportunity while I was in a coma.”

Kaelen nodded, a small smile finding its way to his face.

“Thank you. If it would make you feel safer, I can arrange a room for you both at the guild. It’s the least I can do.”

Welyvyne shook her head, her expression hardening.

“No. Tomorrow we’ll look for a place to rent. We have our own money. We don’t need handouts—especially not from you.”

Lyren glanced at Kaelen, her frown measured.

“Looks like you have a lot of trust to earn back.”

Lyren clapped her hands together, a smile breaking through.

“Mind if I come with you? It sounds like fun.”

Eric smiled warmly at Lyren, then looked to Welyvyne.

“So,” he said, “what do you think? We let Lyren join us, find a place with a yard so we’ve got room to practice—and Kaelen can join us in it.”

He paused, just long enough.

“Right next to the doghouse I’ll build for him.”

Lyren laughed—something Eric hadn’t heard in a while.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it. She hadn’t laughed like that for some time now.

Lyren turned to Eric, her brows knitting.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Eric said, a smile forming despite himself. “Just thinking.”

Lyren gave him a look, then turned to Kaelen.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here. I’m sure they need some time to settle in.”

Welyvyne led them to the door and opened it, revealing the two guards still standing watch. They straightened and nodded as Kaelen and Lyren stepped out.

Lyren offered a quick goodbye, and Welyvyne shut the door behind them. She leaned back against it and let out a slow sigh.

Welyvyne straightened and walked toward him.

“So, what do you want to do now?” she asked. “I’m guessing you want to start making plans.”

Eric smiled. “Something like that. I need to see if I can still cycle. After that, I want to check my core and affinities, but first:”

He limped over to his desk and sat in his chair, summoning his armor an inch above the desktop. It clattered down.

He turned to Welyvyne and pointed at the armor’s mana crystal. “I know I intended to put shielding on this chest plate, but I’m rethinking it. Is there a way to cast from a mana crystal?”

Welyvyne raised an eyebrow, then rotated her staff to show him the bright red crystal set into it. She tapped it with a finger and met his eyes. “This sort of does something like that, but it’s not casting with the mana in it. It amplifies spells.”

Eric nodded and smiled. “I figured it did something like that. But how does it amplify a spell? I’m assuming it’s some kind of mana stone, and it imparts its own mana into the spell.”

Welyvyne frowned and looked down at her staff, her eyes tracing the runes etched into the wood. “I’m not really sure. I think,” she said, pointing at a line of runes spiraling down the haft, “this line has something to do with it. But I haven’t studied how amplification actually works. It’s a bit beyond my understanding.”

Eric chuckled and glanced at the stack of books, then back to her staff. “I guess once I finish cycling, we can go dig through the books?”

Welyvyne shrugged. “I’m not sure they’ll have what we need. This isn’t basic artificing.” She pointed at the staff again. “These are compound runes, a blend of runes that become something new. Kind of like how you use fire and air affinities to make lightning.”

Welyvyne glanced at the books and sighed. “I’ll start on the books. You go do your thing.”

Eric smiled and sat on the rug in the middle of the living area. He tried to cross his legs, but his body resisted. With a quiet grunt, he pulled the uncooperative leg into place and closed his eyes.

He attempted to cycle, slowly at first. He could feel the strain immediately.

It was odd. It felt like fire and ice at the same time, a cold, burning sensation that only worsened as he continued. He frowned and eased into a pace that was bearable, then committed to it.

Then he pulled himself inward and looked at his core.

His core looked like an angry sun. Wisps, like solar flares, arced away and dissipated. He imagined himself leaking mana, which would make sense if he couldn’t use more than one percent of his max.

He frowned and shifted his attention to his Earth affinity. It had moved closer. Interestingly enough, entropy and order were closer too.

He hadn’t worried about them yet, so it was odd that they’d moved at all.

Interesting, he thought. I wonder if that has anything to do with how I used them in the watch.

Then he thought of something Welyvyne had just said. New runes could be combined to make compound ones.

He looked closer at the connections between air, fire, and lightning and saw a faint link, like a thread. On closer inspection, the thread had runes etched along it. Modifiers. The same kind he used in artificing.

So that’s how they figured this out, he thought.

He considered what it meant.

If lightning was created from the concepts of fire and air, then what other concepts could I pull from fire and air? Or water and air? Or earth?

He stopped mid-thought as understanding snapped into place.

Healing involved water and earth. If I had both, could I create a life affinity?

He’d have to ask Lyren later.

There was something he could test, though. He knew light was created from fire and air too.

Could I create a light affinity? And what good would that be in the long run?

Welyvyne made a strangled sound of frustration. “This is pointless. We need to head to the library if we’re going to get anywhere with this.”

Eric pulled himself back from his core and opened his eyes. “Morning, then. But First, I want to ask you something.”

Welyvyne looked up and snapped the book closed. “Go on. It has to be better than this.”

Eric smirked, then let the question land. “Why do we learn to modify fire and air to make light? If you can combine runes into one, wouldn’t it make more sense to just make a light rune?”

Welyvyne laughed. “Because combining runes isn’t as simple as pushing them together. It’s… more complicated than that. When runes combine, they make something new. The shapes aren’t just two half-runes slapped together. They’re…” She hesitated, searching for the word. “Hmm.”

She frowned, then looked up. “Think about Lyren’s heavens-granted item. It’s like that. Runes aren’t really two-dimensional, they’re three-dimensional. The symbol you draw is what appears when you ‘look through’ that space at the right concepts. When they align, the rune resolves into the shape you need. That’s the best way to put it.”

She paused before continuing. “We can’t make the three-dimensional version. It’s way beyond us. Well, beyond most of us. There are some who can. Anyway… what we can do is copy the part we can see. We carve the shape that shows up, and it always shows the same way. And it works.”

Eric frowned, eyes lowering. “So the takeaway is: I’ve got a lot to learn.”