He cleared his throat. “So… what now?”
Ulrick leaned back, the chair groaning. He dragged a hand through his beard, his eyes never leaving Jeremiah. “Now,” he said, voice steady, “under normal circumstances we’d start pickin’ through the pieces. A new mage and their teacher can spend weeks — months, sometimes — tryin’ to name their song. To find what their affinity truly is. Because just as there are endless affinities, lad, there are endless ways those affinities take shape.”
Jeremiah nodded slowly, chewing on the thought. While he knew learning magic wouldn’t be quick or easy, that was a long time to learn what the System already told him.
His brow creased. “And there’s no way to just… test for it? Surely there’s something like this—” he gestured toward the cube, its faint runes still glowing, “—that can tell us what we need to know.” The thought that mages, with centuries of practice, hadn’t built some tool to cut through the guesswork struck him as absurd.
Ulrick chuckled, “Aye, there are tests. But nothing so absolute. What we look for isn’t a neat name to slap on it, but understanding. The closer a mage comes to that, the greater their command. A mage’s strength isn’t measured in flashy tricks, Jeremiah, but in how well they’ve come to know the song their bones hum with. That’s the difference between a child tossing sparks and a firewright who can split a mountain’s heart.”
He tapped a thick finger against the table. “Affinities aren’t neat little boxes folk like to believe. They’re shades. Colors. Layers. ‘Water’ to one mage might mean the slow grind of a river, patient and steady. To another, it’s storm and tide, raging with all the fury of the sky. Same with fire. One hears the blaze that warms a home. Another feels the inferno that razes a city. Both are fire, but they sing to different ears. ”
Leaning forward, Ulrick’s eyes narrowed, the glint behind them sharpening. “Course, in your case, things may be simpler. That artificial graft, as I called it, didn’t get stitched in by accident. Whoever’s behind this little project of Sarah’s, I’d wager they’ve already told you what it’s meant to be. Why else would you know to come knockin’ on my door?”
Jeremiah blinked, caught. He nodded once, lips parting. “I—”
But Ulrick raised a hand, palm broad enough to halt the air itself. “Nonetheless,” Ulrick said, “I want to hear what you think. Not what you’ve been told. Not what you’ve read in some paper or had whispered in your ear. What do you feel your affinity is?”
Jeremiah tilted his head.
Ulrick leaned forward, “I’ve met teachers who’ll hand their students a tidy answer and call the job done. But a mage who takes another’s words as gospel will never know their own craft. I’ve found a mage does better, rises higher, when the knowing comes from their own heart. When the word they choose feels like home. So I’ll not ask you to parrot what you’ve been told. I’ll ask what you believe. What sat in your chest just now, when those threads pulled taut?”
Jeremiah swallowed hard. His gaze drifted back to the cube. He couldn’t deny the memory of those dark-blue cords tugged at him. The way they had slipped through the chaos, steady and patient. They had been calam even through the turmoil. His chest tightened. The System had called it Ocean, but what did that truly mean?
Like Ulrick had said, the word ‘Ocean’ could mean a lot of things to a lot of people. To one person, the word might conjure a pristine shore, white sand gleaming beneath a bright sun, waves rolling shallow and turquoise. To another, it could mean a wrathful sea, towering waves crashing down with violence enough to grind a ship to splinters. For someone else, it might be the silence of endless ice, a frozen plain stretching flat and merciless until it split with the sharp crack of shifting floes.
Every image belonged to the Ocean, yet each carried its own voice, its own song. Jeremiah clenched his jaw, frustration prickling beneath his skin. If an Ocean could mean all of that, how in the hells was he supposed to pin it down into something that felt like his? How was he supposed to put that into words?
He drew a slow breath, fingers curling against the wobbling table. “I…” His voice faltered. He closed his eyes, reaching back for that sensation.
When he opened them again, Ulrick was still watching, patient as stone. Waiting.
The cube’s glow had faded, but the weight of it lingered. Jeremiah flexed his hands against the table, half-expecting to still feel the threads tugging at his skin. The image refused to leave him: a snarl of colors, restless and broken, with one steady line working its way through the chaos. He hadn’t known what to make of it at first, only that the sight had felt less like a judgment and more like a mirror. Messy, flawed, but not collapsing. Something inside him clung to that vision, as if the threads had left a mark deeper than flesh.
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“I…” He faltered as he tried to put it into words. “I was… told it was ‘Ocean.’ But it didn’t feel like it was just one thing. Not just… water, or storms, or waves.”
Ulrick leaned forward, arms folding across the table, his gaze steady as stone. “Then what was it, lad? What did it feel like to you?”
Jeremiah dragged a hand back through his hair.
“It felt like… connection. That’s the closest word I’ve got. The blue threads didn’t force anything. They didn’t hammer the mess into order. They just… slipped through. Gave everything room to breathe. They pulled knots apart without breaking the strands, coaxed them loose until the rest could settle. They were less about strength and more about tying pieces together that would’ve torn each other apart otherwise.”
An image surfaced, unbidden, and he went with it. “It was like a current. The kind that carries ships, goods, and people. Oceans don’t just divide places. They connect them. The same water touches every shore, no matter how far apart. That’s what it felt like — a pull that ties scattered things together.”
Ulrick’s brow arched, eyes narrowing with interest. “Endless paths, then. And how did it sit in you? What did it whisper to your bones?”
Jeremiah drew a slow breath. His voice steadied, quieter, but firmer. “Of standing on the shore, looking out forever. You see the surface — the waves, the horizon — but you know there’s more beneath than you could ever touch. You could spend a lifetime diving and still never see half of it. Sure, it can be dangerous; there storms, monsters, waves that drag you under. But it’s boundless. If you’re willing to leave the sand, if you dive in, there’s always more waiting. Always another connection to be made.”
No sooner had the words left his lips than a System screen appeared in his vision.
——————?——————
Congratulations! You have solidified your Affinity!
Affinity Unlocked: Oceanic Affinity - Subdomain: The Tides Between.
New User Skill granted.
—?—
The Tides Between – (G)
Type: Passive – Growth – Affinity
Description: Yours is not the Ocean’s fury nor the Ocean’s stillness, but the Ocean of passage. You are the current that threads between shores, the silent pull that joins what was never meant to touch. Where others see fracture, you sense the tide that carries one place to another.
Resonance attunes to bonds, transitions, and liminal states. The User may ease discord between conflicting Aspects, stabilize tangled resonances, or sense the quiet currents of connection that pass unseen.
Effects:
-
Grants a passive increase to resistance against destabilizing or chaotic forces.
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Slightly improves the User’s ability to mediate, merge, or stabilize conflicting energies (mana, affinities, or emotional states).
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User gains a subtle awareness of nearby “currents of connection”: relationships, influences, or unseen flows binding people, places, and things.
Growth: This skill deepens by interacting with bonds and thresholds — forging connections, crossing liminal spaces, or mediating opposed forces. Growth path may unlock specialized techniques tied to connection, passage, or mediation.
~ One water, many shores. What is set apart may yet be connected, if you dare to follow the tides between. ~
—?—
——————?——————
Jeremiah’s eyes widened as the glowing text flared across his vision. He hadn’t expected the System to acknowledge it in this way. Yet, the words burned themselves into his mind, crisp and undeniable.
His lips parted, the name slipping out almost without breath, as though speaking it too loudly might shatter it.
“The Tides Between…”
Across the table, Ulrick cocked his head. He nodded slowly, scratching through his beard, eyes thoughtful. “The Tides Between, eh? A more poetic name than I’d expect from a neophyte. But if that’s what sings to you the most, then that’s what we’ll go with.”
Jeremiah flinched, realizing too late he’d spoken aloud. He swallowed, then gave a quick nod, though a pang of unease tightened in his gut. Ulrick’s earlier words circled back. Narrow roads, narrow affinities could be… restrictive.
“But… will you still be able to teach me?” he asked, his voice low. “You said before, the more complex affinities can be harder to shape. That they’re narrower in focus.”
For a moment, Ulrick only looked at him, then his beard split with a booming laugh. The sound filled the bakery, rolling warm as oven heat. He slapped the table once for good measure, the wood rattling.
“Lad, you’ve no need to worry about that.” His grin flashed white under the bristle of his beard. “There’s an old belief among mages — that a new mage always finds the right teacher. Some call it fate, others say it’s just the way resonance pulls folk together. I don’t claim to know which it is, but in my years I’ve seen it prove true more often than not.”
He leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking under his bulk. “My song may not be the same as your own, but they share enough notes for me to guide you at the start.”
Jeremiah nodded, reassured, though curiosity nagged at him. His brow furrowed, head tilting slightly. “Wait. You never actually said what your affinity is, did you?”
Ulrick’s grin widened, mischievous. “Because you never asked.”
Then he threw his head back and roared with laughter again, deep and unrestrained. Jeremiah blinked, caught off guard, but found himself smiling despite the heat creeping into his ears.
When the laughter finally trailed off, Ulrick shook his head, wiping at one eye. “Ah, but fair’s fair. I’ll give you the short of it. The name for mine doesn’t fit neatly in the common tongue. But put simply—” he held up one thick hand, fingers curling as though shaping the air itself— “my affinity deals with cycles. With transitions. The passing of seasons, the cycle of life, the steps between one state and the next. That’s the heart of it, though it touches other domains besides.”
Jeremiah let the words sink in. He wasn’t quite sure why, but it… suited the man somehow. In some wordless way he couldn’t name.
Before he could form a reply, Ulrick clapped his hands together, . He surged to his feet, looming over the table with a grin that carried all the eagerness of a man about to start work he loved.
“But enough of that!” he boomed, leaning down until his shadow fell across Jeremiah’s half-empty teacup. “Ready to learn some magic, lad?”
The grin that tugged at Jeremiah’s mouth was quick and unguarded, excitement sparking hot in his chest.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m ready.”