28 - Test Subject

Arielle quickly made the aura charm while Lyra was in the privy, then packed away her charm-making equipment.
Then she went off in search of her test subject.
Arielle wanted someone relatively weak.
She wanted someone without a good core connection, someone who at least occasionally struggled to do spells, so that she could test the true efficacy of the charm.
She then thought about where such a person would be at this time.
The answer: the second floor of the Luxarium.
The second floor had study rooms where students often went to practice spell-casting. They hoped that the Luxa-infused atmosphere would grant them a better understanding or ingenuity to help them do better.
As Ari approached the first room on that floor, which had the door cracked open, she heard someone casting a spell.
She opened the door to witness a boy, his robes clearly too small for his form, swinging around a wand and whispering, “[Kinetic Push].”
She recognized him from his side profile. He was the one with the overly long front teeth, the one who had told her good luck on her first day of class.
His robe made a stretching sound as he jabbed his wand forward, trying to release the burst of air.
When it didn’t happen, he sighed and rolled his neck, spotting her in the process.
“Merciful Sentinel!” He jumped back instantly, releasing a squeak of shock.
“Hello,” Arielle said. “Would you like a charm?”
“What?” His heart was beating fast, and he laid a hand on his chest to slow it.
“A vitality charm. It will help you sense your cores better.”
“Oh.” His brows drew together. “Th-that’s very expensive. You would just give that to me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you clearly need it.”
He blushed, and she took the scroll out of her pocket and handed it to him.
He frowned down at it. “Is this Winthrome?”
“No,” she said. “It’s better, and it’s very safe.” She added a comforting smile at the end, and he gave her a peculiar one in return.
He swallowed as he stared down at the charm and then slowly tore it.
Arielle watched the magic swirl around him, knowing that it had activated even though he shook his head.
“I don’t feel anything.”
“It’s slow-acting,” she responded. She then took out her aura-reading charm and ripped it in two, her vision going hazy for a second before the colors blended back together.
She could see his aura, the colors of the essences mixed in with the color of his emotions, a murky blend of greens, blues, purples, and browns that was hard to distinguish at first but got easier the longer she looked.
He was staring at her now, too.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “I’ll help you with the spell you were trying to do.”
His eyes widened, a bright yellow pushing out of him instantly. “Really?”
“Really. Now let’s start.”
“Okay.” Black tinged his emotional aura now, and when she saw him swallow and wipe his brow with shaky hands, she figured it was fear he was feeling.
“Don’t be afraid,” Ari said. “Backlash from a spell like this won’t kill you.”
“No, that’s not what I’m scared of,” he said. “I just don’t want to screw up in front of you.”
Ah. Arielle understood that. She didn’t like failing in front of people either.
“If you screw up, you just do it again.”
He swallowed, and she saw the black retreat, pink spreading. Now that she was seeing it in action, the aura reading charm would be good for more than just observing essence use.
She could use it to read people’s emotions better, too, so she could have improved communication with them, and they would stop needing so much space from her.
“[Kinetic Push],” he said as he thrust his wand, and Arielle instantly saw the problem.
Well, several problems.
First, the connection was barely there. His aura only slightly moved when he uttered the spell because he had a weak connection with the essences. Calor, at least, came out sluggishly, but Vacu would need a lot better than that to come into play.
Then there was his wand movement, which was off.
And his shaky voice confused the essences around him. There was just no conviction in his tone.
As he was about to do it again, Arielle said, “Stop.”
He stopped, and the black was back.
“First off, stand up straight. Don’t slouch,” she said because the boy seemed to have a permanent curved back. “It doesn’t help you connect to your cores, and it makes you look weak.” The essences wouldn’t appreciate a weak master.
“Oh. Right.”
“Secondly, wave your wand like this.” She made the motion in the air with her bare hand. “You’re not forcing the spell to happen, you’re merely guiding it.”
He nodded again.
“Try again.”
He did it again, but before he could call out the spell, she said, “Stop.”
He stopped.
“You’re still not connecting to your cores. Close your eyes.”
He did it instantly, letting his wand hand fall by his side.
“Take a deep breath and hold it,” Arielle coached.
He did as she asked, inhaling. She let him hold his breath for five seconds, then asked him to exhale.
“What did you feel in your gut?”
“Heat,” he admitted readily.
“Okay. Do that five more times.”
To her surprise, he did it without arguing, and at the end of the fifth time, she asked him again, “Now what did you feel?”
“Energy.”
She nodded. “Use that energy within to guide the energy without. Make sure you connect them both, even if it’s with just your breath.”
He pressed his lips together and nodded with determination. He tried to cast the spell again, and once more she stopped him to adjust his stance.
It happened two more times, each time she fixed something about his posture until he was standing tall with his back straight, the way a mage was supposed to stand.
“Now go.”
“[Kinetic Push],” he said, and this time the spell reached completion, and a gust of wind exploded into the opposite wall with enough force to nearly push him back.

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After it was done, his jaw dropped.
He eyed Arielle, clearly shocked.
“I did it?” It was a question and a declaration all rolled in one.
“You did,” she said.
“Thank you so much!” He gripped his wand in both hands hard enough to nearly snap the wood. “I’ve been trying that spell for a few days now with no progress. That charm was excellent.”
“It is.” Now, if only she could convince Lyra of this.
“Um…I’m Maus by the way.”
She blinked. “That’s an unfortunate name.”
He laughed uncomfortably. “Yes. I know, but it could have been worse.”
Arielle didn’t see how, but she didn’t mention it. “I’m Arielle Blacksoil.”
“I know that too. I think everyone on campus knows at this point.”
“Okay,” she said.
Then, not knowing what else to say, she curtsied, turned around, and walked away, feeling triumphant but also worried that Lyra would never give it a chance.

---

Maus was on his way to combat class the next day when a heavy hand landed hard on his shoulder.
“Mousey boy.” Faulkey’s tone was calm, but it had that undercurrent of annoyance that had Maus stiffening regardless. “Have you been hiding from me?”
“N-no.” Darn it. He hated it when he stammered, but he couldn’t help it around Faulkey.
It wasn’t just that the other boy was much taller than him, and probably much stronger and better at magic.
It was also that everything about him made Maus want to crawl into a hole.
It was his attitude, command mixed in with a tinge of cruelty. Faulkey had never done anything particularly egregious to Maus. As a matter of fact, he’d been friendly with Maus so far, mostly because Maus had never done anything to defy him.
Because Faulkey represented everything Maus had been taught to instinctively obey and cower to.
He automatically hunched his shoulders over, then instantly remembered Arielle’s words yesterday.
“Stand up straight. Don’t slouch…it makes you weak.”
I don’t just look weak, he’d wanted to say. I am weak.
Maus had even come to terms with weakness long ago.
He couldn’t help it. He was from the Order of the Dutiful Mole, made up of traders and mercenaries serving underneath the Strongholds–a branch of the Stonewardens–carrying out the type of work that they didn’t deem fit to carry themselves. His father had been Edgar Stronghold’s steward, and his mother a seamstress who often adjusted the cloudsilk robes of the concubines of Mason Stronghold.
Maus remembered the day that his father was prostrate for hours, with his forehead on the ground, simply because Edgar Stronghold had told him to do it as punishment for some perceived slight.
Maus had been five at the time.
Then there was also the day that his mother had been in a panic and nearly threw herself off a high balcony to catch a cloudsilk robe she was mending before it fluttered to the ground and got dirty.
It had belonged to the second wife of Mason Stronghold, and when Mother managed to catch it, she’d wept with relief and cradled it to her chest like something precious. More precious apparently than her life.
It hadn’t taken him long at all to figure it out.
Subservience was baked into his blood.
He was a born gopher.
His parents had been ecstatic when he’d been tested to have some essence affinity. They’d spent what little they made to pay for a tutor to develop his cores as quickly as they could before school started.
Maus had done really well with the theoretical portion of the entrance exam, passing with flying colors. He’d done passably well with the practicalls too.
However, now that he was here, amongst nobles who had trained from when they were younger and had far better trainers than he…he knew it wasn’t looking good.
He was not the weakest in his class, but sometimes he felt like it, simply because other people had things to compensate for their weakness.
Lyra was a Vitae-dominant user, which was rare, and thanks to her family, there was a good chance she would awaken a bloodline trait.
Sure, she was struggling now, but all Vitae-dominants struggled in the beginning, simply because they tended to have extremely unbalanced cores, and since they didn’t necessarily have to balance Vitae out with anything, yet Vitae could not act on its own, at least three essences were needed for every Vitae-containing spell.
But that was the very thing that made the spells more powerful.
Then there was Riorke, who was also terrible with spellwork, but he was an Ashbourne, one of the most powerful families of knights in the world, and he would likely be a powerful mage-knight considering how he was currently undefeated in combat.
Maus had nothing to offset his weakness, so there was no point in fighting against the tides because the status quo would forever be what it would be. He wasn’t strong enough, and wasn’t important enough to even make it past the next severance trials, probably. So he thought he might as well enjoy the time he had here and enjoy the hope his family had in him until he was kicked out and his magic suppressed.
In any case, he stood still as Faulkey said, “Is Friday’s presentation ready?”
They were to give a presentation in Creatures and Clans for their preliminary findings on their given topic.
“Almost,” Maus said. “I haven’t put everything together yet.”
“What’s taking so long?”
“There are a lot of books I have to read along with my regular school work.”
Faulkey gave him an annoyed look. Maus could have pointed out that they would find the information faster if Faulkey and the rest of the group did some share of the work instead of dumping it all on him.
But talk like that would only get him in even more trouble.
“I’ll get it done by class time on Friday.”
“Good.” Faulkey grinned. “I knew I could count on you.”
With that, he patted his shoulder and sauntered ahead of him, that confident swagger in every step, like he knew the world was at his feet.
Maus took a breath and followed him.
As duels began, Maus continued to take breaths, exhaling, remembering Arielle’s words about feeling things in his core.
They still tingled, somehow feeling more energetic than they had the day before.
That was odd. To his knowledge, the effect of charms was mild and should wear off within a few hours. He’d used a vitality charm only once, because his father had taken it as a reward for not revealing ‘certain things’ to the land inspector. That one had been expensive, and it had helped him cast spells, but he hadn’t felt it this deeply.
This one was lasting longer than normal, too.
He closed his eyes and tried to focus on his core, as she had taught him to, and noted that he felt the tingling energy even more potently. They were starting to feel distinct, too, like there were five different thunderous bulbs within.
What was happening?
“Oof.” A thump distracted him as Professor Graham drawled, “Yet another two-second win from Areille.”
Maus opened his eyes in time to see Arielle with an impassive expression, take her seat beside Riorke as though unaware or uncaring of the people staring at her in awe.
She was incredible.
She won all her duels within a handful of seconds and always walked off without fanfare, like it was no big deal.
Maus had wanted to talk to her so many times, but he was always intimidated. He didn’t even have the boldness to ask her how she managed to cast the [Kinetic Push] spell so quickly.
It was a miracle that she’d shown up at that study room and chosen to help him.
Yet even after the session they had, he knew he couldn’t get close to her. In the hierarchy of power, he was so far below that it wouldn’t make any sense.
But one day, when she was a powerful Archmage like Gio Li, he would be able to tell people that he knew her.
“Mouse versus Faulkey.”
“You mean Maus,” Lyra corrected, and Graham gave her a look.
Maus’ stomach plunged to his feet.
No. He didn’t want to go against Faulkey.
He wanted to raise his hand and arrange a substitution, but recalled that Faukey might take that as an insult or evidence they weren’t ’really ‘friends.’
Maus sighed and reluctantly rose, telling himself it wouldn’t be that terrible. At least, Faulkey couldn’t hurt him too badly here.
It would simply be very embarrassing.
“You can do it, Maus.” Lyra was nice enough to call out encouragement, but Maus knew he couldn’t do it.
It was probably hopeless to even try. Yet he had to try anyway because Professor Graham would make him do it again if he felt like he didn’t put in enough effort.
“Straighten your back.”
The words cracked like a whip from the side, and he glanced over at Arielle, sitting with her arms crossed, her eyes leaving the minute they touched his.
“You’re slouching again,” she said. “You won’t be able to feel your cores properly like that. Also, it makes you look weaker than you already are.”
Someone gasped, and Faulkey laughed.
“Arielle,” Professor Graham said. ’It’s not nice to mock.”
“I wasn’t mocking.”
Maus didn’t think she’d been mocking him either. Her face was too serious for that. Her words sounded harsh, but they also sounded like she was trying to help.
So he did as she asked and straightened his back. He closed his eyes too, sensing the energy within, connecting it to the energy without.
It was so simple. Almost instinctive. Was it the effect of the vitality charm, or was something else at play?
When the bell rang, he heard Faulkey shout, “[Kinder Sprout]!
That would make small sparks hit his feet
Without missing a beat, he shouted, “[Kinetic Push].”
Again, he felt it, the huge rush of energy within him. He heard Faulkey’s exclamation as it hit him, sending him outside the circle. Then he heard nothing at all but shocked silence as he opened his eyes and realized…
He had knocked Faulkey down.
Faulkey. A Stonewarden. Maus had knocked him down.
“What the hell?!” Faulkey boomed, his voice more angry than hurt.
“Sorry,” Maus said automatically. He ran to help Faulkey up as Faulkey shoved him off.
“Don’t look so smug,” Faulkey said. “That was a lucky hit.”
“Yes,” he nodded. But he couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face. He’d never done something like that before. With a Tier 3 spell. How exciting.
Faulkey pointed his finger. “How the heck did you even do that?”
“I’m curious to know myself,” Professor Graham said, and Maus knew that he might get in trouble if he revealed that he’d used the charm before the duel.
Except that he hadn’t used it before the duel. He’d used it last night, and the charm’s effects were supposed to have worn off by now.
But maybe it wasn’t the charm. Maybe it was just Arielle.
He stared back at Arielle, and she stared back at him, nodding her approval.
“I had a good teacher,” was all he said.

---

Later that day, Arielle saw something odd on her way to visit Professor Valeria to ask a question.
She had already told Maus that she planned on selling the charms, and he said he would help her advertise them. However, before she began sales, she’d wanted to know what the limit was on individual charm use, as the textbook didn’t mention it for some reason.
When she stepped through the Luxarium front doors, she saw it: a trail of Vacu rushing up the stairs, moving faster than she’d seen Vacu move before.
She frowned and followed it, all the way to the fifth floor, where Cohort 4 typically had classes.
It was full of specialized rooms with runes at the door, and the Vacu was rushing through one of the closed doors.
Through tempered glass, Arielle saw a swirling coalescence of Vacu so strong that it generated a force that dragged the desks forward, seemingly attracting them to the orbit. There was almost no other essence there, and the shape wasn’t so much a shape as it was trembling orbs of entropy that shifted constantly, and that he seemed to be straining every muscle to keep together.
He being Telip, of course.
Arielle was frozen in place, watching it. She wanted to ask him what he was doing, but she didn’t want to break his focus lest he get sucked into the orbit. She tried to count how many orbs he was using, but they were too many to really count. There were multiple runes on the walls, all glowing, all shaking, all seeming on the verge of breaking.
Was he summoning something?
Perhaps a demon.
“Are you spying, first year?” came a voice from behind, and she glanced over to find Selena Gregor walking straight toward her.