He had held better, though. His parents had bought it for him to learn on. That didn’t make it low quality, no, it was just that it was a sort of one-size-fits-all orb. For the technique he was practicing at the moment he felt it performed poorly. The beginning invocation of Clou-Diobeu's {} conjuration would be easier to perform on something with a bouncier, quicker feel. An opal or jade sphere would be ideal.
Additionally, a pale jade material would manifest a moonlight blade of a more thematically appropriate color.
Filcarel cracked open his window’s shutters and the cold night air swept into the room. He pulled the flaps of his robe together more securely and gazed out the window. It was midnight, or later, but the moon was only a slivered crescent. Looking down across the the town it was dark, because of course people were asleep. The Tree was visible, glowing a little brighter than normal, and if he stuck his head out the window and looked right, he knew he would see some windows lit up in the mage’s guild tower.
Of most interest to Filcarel in the darkness outside though were the constellations. Their influence on magic was usually subtle, but a diligent spell caster checked all the factors. Filcarel recognized the dragon Kadoav, and it was surrounded by… other stars. He was not an expert on astrology. Perhaps he had only been looking for a little inspiration, or a brief break from studying.
The magic user closed his shutters, fastening them with a cord. The room was dark now, because whiled he’d been enjoying the fresh air a breath of wind had blown out his candle. This was a good opportunity for him to go to sleep, he could take it as a sign that he should finally go to bed. Filcarel had that thought, and then he rejected it. One more time through the whole conjuration. Then, when he could say he’d made progress, then he would be finished for the night.
He re-lit the candle, and skimmed over the long scroll, replaying the whole spell in his mind. Then he picked up his grapefruit sized labradorite sphere and focused mana around it.
C-D {} was broken into three sections and would require all of Filcarel’s mental focus and energy. It was both a conjuration and an animation so two separate orbits made sense, and there was another orbit that coordinated things between them. The Imitateuriste masters like Clou-Dioubeu were famous for their overly complex spells, but also for their stylish beauty, which Filcarel adored.
The first section of the conjuration was the most crucial and difficult. Well, it wasn’t any more complex or difficult than the others, but any sloppiness or mistakes made during the opening would render the spell useless or malfunctional. The rest of the spell could be sort of muddled through a little bit and still produce a result.
He had practiced the first section extensively but he hadn't yet mastered it. In the first orbit there were three strands of magical webs that needed to be built simultaneously. Each strand was like it's own melody that needed to synchronize with the other two. There were also seventeen loose ends that needed to be maintained for use later— requiring additional concentration.
Filcarel began performing the spell. Skeins of mana condensed and unraveled into an intricate magical geometry creating a beautiful rhythmic pattern that filled the room. His orb was the center of the design; tracers arced and bounced, extending along and outward from it. It's perfect spherical shape was the guide that allowed the young mage to create such unerring forms— everything was an arc or circle, hoop or bubble.
Filcarel faltered. His concentration waned at a moment where the design needed to split to accommodate one of the 17 leads. The crucial mistake would not be noticed by an observer, but Filcarel knew the spell was ruined. He stopped. And started again. He was tired, and that had likely contributed to his failure, but he could not quit on a mistake.
The next time through the spell Filcarel refined his focus. There was no room to think about anything but the pattern. It was critical to not think about failing for example, also, don’t think about the process of concentrating. Success depended on keeping his mind calm, and pure. Somehow despite his fatigue he immersed himself in the spell and completed the first phase.
After wiping sweat from his forehead and taking a few deep breaths he continued the second section. It was another elaborate pattern and he had not practiced all it’s particular intricacies, but the spell had seemingly been designed to give the caster a break. This was the part where the 'sword' was described, and while the motions required were truly virtuosic there was only one strand to the orbit.
Filcarel faked his way through the expansive and graceful second section. The design he created was inexact in every aspect, but at least it had the right general feel and was integrated with the first section correctly.
The third section was tricky again, it gave the floating blade purpose and governed it's movement. When he got to it Filcarel paused and slowed down. He studied the scroll and did small sections at a time. The pauses ruined the artistry and grace of the spell, but they were necessary. He hadn’t practiced it enough to do more than robotically copy it. Still, when he was finally done he knew he would be able to go to sleep with pride.
The whole spell had taken over thirty minutes when it really should take only five, but it was finished. A feeling of contentment overwhelmed him as he admired the finished spell.
The tracery of mana, the ethereal geometry that filled the room was breathtaking on it's own. It would be invisible to anyone who wasn’t attuned to magic, but Filcarel himself appreciated the bones of the spell as much or more than the actual result. He stood in awe of his own creation, admiring how the mana spun and whirled.
Filcarel pulled the spell in, collapsing it’s three orbits towards his orb. There was no reason it's construction should fill the whole room— no reason other than it was easier to see what he was doing as he performed it’s formation. With the spell collapsed and compressed to the inches surrounding the dark orb, it took on a new beauty of impossibly intricate clockwork.
For Filcarel, the spell work itself was enough. He hadn’t actually finished casting it yet. To do so would require a large investment of viz. The fulgar stone around his neck held enough power to do it, although to emptying it was at least in theory a considerable waste. This was the first time he’d completed the spell from beginning to end though, so Filcarel didn’t weigh his options.
He did worry a little that he might wake someone up in a neighboring apartment as the spell began manifesting itself physically. There were bright glowing lights that spun erratically and high pitched pinging and a low pitched buzzing noise filling the room as the magical sword formed itself out of the aether. These by products were at least partially intentional and not just a result of inaccuracies in the spell formation. It was supposed to be stylish, if not obnoxiously flashy.
After a few exciting seconds the spell was complete only a soft hum remained, oscillating pleasantly like a soft whisper. The dancing blade itself hung in the air, bobbing and spinning slowly. It was a beautiful polished dark green, almost black and as it danced in the candle light and twirled circles around it's master, iridescent blue flashes on it's surface made Filcarel think he'd never seen anything more stunning.
Artistically everything was fine, you might even call it excellent or a triumph, but the magical sword was not right. It didn't balance itself correctly, it didn't drip moonlight, it definitely wasn't . And there were even more problems with how it ‘danced’. At first, it seemed to be working correctly. You could imagine that it might be able to defend it’s master from hostile attacks.
Then the swords smooth smooth sweeping arc through the room caused it to bump into a chair, and then the summoned bodyguard was revealed to be an impostor.
It jerked to a stop and hesitantly floated into a corner of the ceiling where it rattled around uselessly. Filcarel stood on his bed and retrieved it, letting it go again at arms length. It floated there for a moment, and then swung tip down like a pendulum for a full minute before it sunk to the floor and slid itself unceremoniously into the shadows under his bed.
Well it was still a success, Filcarel declared to himself as he wrapped the sword in a spare blanket and stuffed it in the closet. This was merely a milestone in a long journey. He would master the rest of the spell soon. Perhaps with only a few months more of diligent practice he would be the envy of all his friends!
Filcarel strolled through the city the next morning, pleased with himself. As he walked down the cobblestone avenue he wondered just how many of the people in town could possibly perform a {dancing sword} conjuration. Tumas was not large, but it was comparatively wealthy and the Mage’s Guild had an excellent reputation.
There were six full mages at the guild, but he knew that two of them didn’t even practice orb casting. Then there was Baron Calcel’s royal wizard. Filcarel didn’t know anything about him except that he was old, and you had to assume he was skilled at all types of magery. So at best he might be the sixth strongest caster in the valley, despite not being a fully transformed mage.
There were of course other talented amateurs around, but he thought he knew most of them and he doubted that any were advanced enough to learn Clou-Diobeu's {}. Really, most amateurs only ever learned to invoke magic using single rune words, simple stuff, and a smaller number could chant or draw out spells. Any orb caster, even bad ones, were more ambitious than the vast majority of adepts.
He held his chin at an angle that suggested a certain sense of superiority as he passed the fruit market on Low Street. Filcarel wasn’t a noble anymore, or rich, or popular, or even well known for his magical ability, but he still thought of himself as one of Tumas’ elite. Most people weren’t magically sensitive at all, and so his chosen measure of success was a convenient one for his self esteem.
No doubt the group of soldiers who were walking directly down the center of the street also thought themselves superior to ordinary citizens. They wore the Baron’s emblem on their red and green surcoats and held their spears at slightly antagonistic angles, suggesting that they thought they were at the top the local military hierarchy. Filcarel thought poorly of peacocks like them.
Swagger alone didn’t make a person important. Furthermore, a gentleman didn’t stoop to violence. He hadn’t learned to summon a magical sword so he could actually stab anyone! Learning such an advanced spell was just a way to hone and potentially display his talent. It honestly hadn’t even crossed his mind that he might engage in actual combat.
Avoiding the group of rowdy soldiers, Filcarel crossed up to High Street which was nicer and less crowded this time of day. He passed the most fashionable tailors, cobblers, and hatters, and looked in the windows of the jewelry shop, resting his eyes on accessories he couldn’t afford. Then there was the Sendings and Seeings salon, which Filcarel disapproved of.
The owner of the business was a mage he’d forgotten to count, one who sold magical services to the public. Filcarel disliked the unapologetic mercantile spirit the storefront communicated. Magic should be pursued for the art and passion of it, not for the sake of profit. Well, the Mage’s guild was certainly known for making a profit off of people, but they were also known for being idiosyncratic scholars that never stopped learning. A comfortable life performing the same few spells over and over again proved that the proprietor had an unforgivable lack of ambition.
A few blocks further down Filcarel slowed down as he neared his destination. The Artificer’s guild. All his proud thoughts evaporated, and he rubbed his temples in anticipation of a headache. He sighed and altered his course. It was better for him to go in the side door. Perhaps he could enter unnoticed.
"Well look who finally showed up!" Mleh the goblin crowed as he slid through the door. Filcarel winced but didn't look up.
"YOU'RE LATE!" Heef the project manager yelled, angrily.
Filcarel ignored him too and and went directly to his workbench without responding to his critics. It was his job to build and repair magical lamps for the guild. They were popular with Tumas' many miners and prospectors who worked every day underground. People also hung them in houses or businesses as a sign of prestige since the fulgar stones they ran on were expensive. A waste of fulgar, Filcarel thought, but few people were spellcasters.
The runes he had learned to carve were tedious and uninteresting. It wasn’t that artificing was simple, the opposite was true, it was complicated and he wasn’t knowledgeable enough to do anything more than copy the same design over and over. But he had perfected the art of copying, he could almost do it with his eyes closed.
There were thousands of runes on each lantern, requiring dozens of hours of work. It wasn’t just carving, there was a materium inlay that had to be tested and adjusted as you went. Carve, inlay, test, fix, test, carve and so on. Little changes in the metals could make big changes in the magical resonance so he was always compensating for unforeseen problems. He did all this automatically now, from years of experience.
It was a soul numbing trudge, and hard on his fingers too. But the worst part was that after all this hard work, the lamps mad a flickery and inefficient light, even when they were working well! A more robust or just better design could improve the result a little, but the real issue was a basic limitation. Runes couldn’t adapt to the mana environment like a properly cast spell. This meant that Filcarel couldn’t really take satisfaction from his work, even if it was perfect.
"I thought we talked about this already, Filcarel." Heef had approached. "It's almost noon. I will dock your pay."
Filcarel met Heef's disapproving gaze. "You're right. We did talk about it."
Filcarel didn't like Heef, and so he didn't elaborate. The large and fat man with beady little eyes always spoke too loudly right into to your face, and Filcarel had always thought his technical competence and organizational ability were over shadowed by his rude personality. Filcarel wanted to be paid according to his productivity, but he had agreed that having his pay reduced for tardiness would be fair enough.
Heef evidently thought that they had agreed Filcarel would begin a new work ethic. Filcarel had understood the threat differently, hoping that he could show up when he pleased without being hassled.
Heef stalked off after another moment of being ignored. Filcarel continued his work, knowing that Heef was probably going off to speak to the Guildmaster. He needed to do that as well, if only to defend his reputation in some way, but he was only paid monthly, so Filcarel didn’t feel any urgency. If his salary was going to be reduced he wouldn’t need to argue about the amount until later.
He could of course quit if things got bad, but the Artificer’s guild didn’t tolerate competition. It wasn’t as if he could make magical items out of his kitchen or something. Despite the toxic work environment his job here was better than anything else he was going to find in Tumas. He had explored other options in the past.
For now, Filcarel felt his position in the guild was actually fairly secure. His job required a certain amount of magical sensitivity, so it would be really hard for the guild to find a replacement for him. And besides Heef, most of the senior guild members were reasonable, logical people. He was sure he wouldn’t be fired or demoted without having a chance to defend himself.
"Late again? Did your servants forget to wake you, ?"
Mleh the goblin worked at the next table over from Filcarel. He didn't respond to the goblin’s envious comments. Mleh knew that he didn't have servants. If he were wealthy he wouldn't be scratching runes at the Art guild. He wasn’t a Lord either, his family’s titles were as long gone as his actual family.
"Working class parents would have taught you how to actually work." Mleh continued. He was probably the only goblin living in Tumas, which made Filcarel probably the only person in Tumas to be bullied by a goblin.
"My parents are ." Filcarel decided to throw that out there as he lined up the base of a lantern.
"What? ?" Mleh only sounded curious.
"As far as you know. Or me, it’s not like they write."
Mleh stopped working on his own lantern and pulled out a monocle. He examined Filcarel through it, like liked to do. It was a magical eyepiece that had some kind of weak appraisal spell somehow layered into the glass. Despite it's questionable quality it was very valuable, since that kind of enchantment was usually not portable.
"Did you sleep at all last night? Your intelligence is even lower than normal." Mleh sounded especially smug.
Filcarel shruged. He was still thinking about his parents, wishing of course that they were still around. Instead, he had to deal with people like Mleh and Heef. Another coworker, Benmi, approached, taking off his leather apron. He was a metalworker and got along with everyone in a kind of older brother way.
"Why don’t we take an early lunch and let Filly get some carving done."
Mleh squinted through his monocle a little more furiously for a moment.
“I could eat.” The goblin gnashed his sharp little teeth in anticipation. Filcarel shivered involuntarily. Goblins were creepy. And why was he so obsessed with his stupid monocle? Attribute ratings were not that interesting. If Filcarel owned something like that he would sell it and maybe take some time off, and/or renew his membership to the mage’s guild.
There were three rune carvers working on the lantern team. Heef was the project manager and he made the worst lanterns. That’s what seniority got you, he supposed. Filcarel had been working at the Artificer’s guild for almost ten years, since he was fifteen, but Heef was at least fifty years old and had been there probably forever.
Mleh also had seniority and did good work, but he was a goblin. Perhaps it was that, or his general attitude of disrespect that held him back in the guild’s hierarchy. Filcarel didn’t really care, it’s not like he thought the goblin would be a better boss. His moods were pretty erratic, and he talked to himself all the time, too.
Filcarel made the best lanterns, of course. He didn’t finish quite as many as Heef or Mleh, but that was probably because his magical sensitivity was higher and so he spent more time tuning them. They were brighter and lasted longer, and he knew they sold first for more money. Heef was probably just envious of his skill. It was silly to worry about his job security.
But since he was worried, Filcarel worked diligently the rest of the day and he even stayed late. He also started a little journal detailing his attendance, which he assumed would come in handy later. This made him feel better about his financial circumstances. It’s not like he was broke, he actually had a decent amount of money saved. He could even afford to buy himself something nice.
Filcarel looked like he could be the son of some kind of minor Lord. He dressed well— always in rich blue cloth purchased from the best or second best tailors in Tumas. And of course there was his prized possession, the fulgar stone that he wore proudly around his neck. It sparkled and even sparked with energy as it rested against his chest. A family heirloom, he was lucky to keep it after his family’s political disgrace.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He didn’t hide the fact that he had a
skill either. It was something fancy nobles and rich merchants invested in learning. Besides impressing people with his privileged upbringing it also suggested that he had valuable things to safeguard. And he did: a few magic books and scrolls, coins, little sentimental things, and his enchanted stone orb.
Filcarel wanted another orb. He didn’t need one, but whoever heard of an orbcaster who only used one orb? And you know, he deserved another orb. Perhaps a caster should have one orb for every top tier spell in their repertoire? He had learned Clou-Diobeu's {} a few years ago, and now it was only a matter of time before he had an acceptable mastery of {} too. He should reward himself for his hard work.
You might buy a mage's orb from someone at the Mage's guild. They had that kind of thing laying around. Filcarel didn’t want to go asking around there. He wasn’t a member since their rates were ridiculous, and he always felt awkward going there in there. He knew some of the people there of course, and they always treated him nice, but they would ask. Why not join the guild and study full time, maybe even work towards the ascension to full Magehood? He couldn’t afford it.
You could get an orb from the Merchant’s guild. It would be a simple transaction. Walk in, see what there was, and buy one. They had a great selection actually, for such a niche item. There were even some exotic imported ones. He did go in to look at them from time to time. But Filcarel wasn’t good at haggling, and the merchants there were. The best place to go for anything rock based, in Tumas anyway, was the Miner’s guild.
The Miner’s guild was the biggest guild in Tumas. It bustled. It had large stone steps leading up to it's over-sized doors. The Lobby was all polished marble fitted with precious metals. In it there was always a lot of business being done. Permits, claim registration, complaints, mineral identification, license renewals, and so on.
Filcarel walked through the crowds, down a hallway and through an unremarkable doorway to what was a somewhat hidden and plain room where objects were sold on consignment. Miners could bring their interesting or rare mineral specimens here without going through a merchant. It was sort of an open secret and not advertised, which made it fun. Filcarel didn’t know why it was so out of the way, but he supposed that it wasn't really their core business, and also they probably didn't want to annoy the Merchants guild too much.
There was no one at the counter when he walked in, so he perused the shelfs. There were a huge variety of rocks in different colors and shapes which were fun to look at, but most of the stuff wasn't useful to Filcarel. There were some low quality fulgar stones that were irregular in some way, that were probably perfectly usable, but he wasn’t looking for that today.
There were only two small shelves full of orbs and Filcarel knew instantly that he wasn't interested in any of them. They were all too small for serious spellcasting, or they weren’t homogeneous enough. An orb needed to be almost perfectly symmetrical, in shape and composition. You could adapt to an orbs individual character, but Filcarel wanted something premium, something better than what he had already.
It was a minor disappointment, seeing the lack of quality here. He had been hoping to find something special, like a diamond in the rough. There was good stuff here, he knew, but it wasn't out on display. It was another nonsensical peculiarity, that they kept their best specimens in a back-back storeroom. Once the person on duty showed up he would ask them to find what he was looking for.
He walked around the room looking at the displays, but no employee appeared. Filcarel began to be a little impatient and so he went behind the counter and poked his head into the storeroom. He half yelled 'is anyone here?'. There was no answer. He decided to give it another minute before giving up.
Finally a girl came in from the front, who knew where she had been for the last ten minutes? It was poor customer service, but this was the Miner’s guild after all. She didn't even greet him as she came through and sat down on her stool behind the counter.
"Excuse me, I'm sorry to bother." Filcarel began. "I am looking for an orb, for use in magical spell casting."
The girl sighed. "There's a shelf over there." She pointed sloppily and then began to turn around, making her way to the back room.
"No no no." Filcarel objected. “I require something more refined, not one of your cheap rejects." He produced a silver coin out of the air, plucking it straight from his
and placed it on the counter to get her attention.
The girls eyes slid over to the coin. "Yeah, ok." She returned to the counter. "We've got stuff in the back... It's not real organized though."
Filcarel sighed and put another demi down to match the first. "Large, pale jade. High polish. There can't be any flaws."
"Ok. Be right back." She slid the coins into her pouch and disappeared to the back room.
Filcarel was mentally prepared for another lengthy wait, but the girl reappeared after only a minute. Maybe it wasn’t as much of a mess back there as she implied.
She had a wooden box that she plopped down on the counter. On the side of the box it said 'good jade orbs' and inside were six good jade orbs. Four of them were green jade and two were pale, almost white. The green ones and the pale ones were from different miners, according to the tags.
Filcarel reached for the pale orbs, and took one into each hand. They were seemingly identical in every way except that one was a bit larger. The smaller one was almost too small, but it was also half the price of the larger one.
"Very nice." Ficarel said softly. They were beautiful specimens. There was no need to conceal his approval since there wouldn't be any haggling. The consignment prices were what they were, and already far cheaper than he would get from a merchant. Still, the price was high. Even the smaller one was as much as he paid for monthly room and board. He questioned for a brief moment whether it was a wise purchase.
"Those'll do?" The girl asked.
"A jade orb, you see, has a very tight, quick, mana response. A spell like, oh, say, Clou-Diobeu's {} is a perfect compliment..." Filcarel began pulling arcs of mana from the orb in his right hand. Intricate patterns, mesmerizing geometries filled the room. He looked over at the girl.
She was studying her fingernails, magically ignorant and somehow uninterested in his expert commentary. Well, why would you expect someone working the consignment room at the Miner’s guild to care about his refined topics of conversation? Filcarel raked his fingers through his silver hair and frowned. He didn’t demand that people respect him, but usually people did.
The attendant was attractive, and her disinterest made him look at her a little more closely. He could ask for her name. They likely had nothing in common. She would be a merchant or guildmaster’s daughter. Filcarel’s background, formerly a child of the political elite, made finding peers difficult. Besides losing his parents, it meant that he had no real friends anymore either.
"I'll just take this smaller one."
After a week of practice with the new orb Filcarel felt it's expense was justified. It was just a more precise instrument than his Labradorite orb. The precision made the little things easier, and that was important for when the overall spell was very difficult.
Filcarel didn’t like just doing easy spells. He liked to challenge himself. He spent most all of his time working on things that were too difficult for his skill level. This, at least in theory, helped him improve. You’ll never be able to perform more difficult spells if you don’t perform more difficult spells. Well, his old tutor would have probably said something about exercises and fundamentals.
Filcarel stood by his methods. At times though it could be demoralizing. He was still very far from mastering {dancing moonlight blade}. Some progress has been made, but things weren’t falling into place like they had when he was studying {raiment of sun and moon}. It hadn’t just been the characteristics of his orb holding him back. Something about the structure of {dmb} was different, and maybe it was possible that his skills were insufficient.
So instead of banging his head against a wall, Filcarel was working on basic spells. Getting his confidence back. Taking it easy. Besides his prized CD {dmb} and {rsm} scrolls he owned other spell books of varying difficulty levels. 'Aullorai Technique' and 'of seven useful spells' for example, were ones that he liked to revisit.
He worked on all seven useful spells. He didn't have them memorized but he could perform them all with style and ease while glancing at the book for reference. Being able to cast a spell with ease was important if you ever planned to use them for something useful in the real world. This wasn’t really Filcarel’s ambition, to perform magic publicly, but it was a good way to test his abilities. When he practiced the simple {light} spell after dusk in the main square (the lower one by the Merchant’s guild) people complimented him on it's warm comforting glow.
While working on his useful spells Filcarel switched back and forth between the two orbs. He discovered that the jade orb was less sensitive. It was quicker and more precise than his labradorite orb, but it's range of expression was smaller. It wasn’t better or worse, just different, and learning the difference forced him to focus intensely on his mana pulling technique. He thought that he was making real progress!
After eating dinner his motivation for practicing was still strong, maybe it had even increased, so he went home to work on the more abstract exercises found in ‘Aullorai Technique’. They were not spells, just tricky patterns, like magical tongue twisters, designed to train all the different aspects of mana shaping. You had to really love magic to find them fun, most students considered the book to be some kind of torture.
The next morning Filcarel slept in. It was unavoidable, since he’d stayed up half the night again, and he was afraid there would be trouble when he did finally show up at the Artificer’s Guild. Heef had been increasingly erratic and unreasonable over the last week. Lately, he’d even been yelling at Mleh who was kind of a brown-noser to be honest.
He snuck into the workshop with messy hair, no breakfast, and bloodshot eyes. He actually ducked down behind a table to avoid being seen. Amazingly, he managed to get to his work bench without incident and took a few deep breaths. Was he even capable of doing precise rune work in his current state?
He looked over the progress he had made yesterday, just sort of checking for errors. Did he even care right now about runes? He really didn’t. Filcarel’s mind was still full of 12 part color harmonies and constellation vectors, and tuning orbit frequencies…
Mleh the goblin sidled up to him. He stood there for a moment with his monocle. Filcarel tried to ignore him, but gave up. He had no mental stamina for mind games either. Mleh smiled, showing off his triangular teeth, as if he liked what he saw through his lens.
“You just keep hitting all time lows!” The little creature was trying to be antagonistic again.
Filcarel never fell for this kind of bait. If Mleh wanted to stand there and use his [Compare] lens or whatever it was on him, he could. Filcarel didn’t mind. Mleh probably beat him on Intelligence on a good day. Filcarel prided himself on his hard won skill, not on his underlying attributes.
"Boss wants to see you." Mleh finally added, casually.
Filcarel looked over to Heef's area. He wasn't there so, he thought he would just ignore the summons.
"Not Heef, Guildmaster Siee." Mleh clarified. "You're late."
Filcarel's face fell. He wanted to talk to the guildmaster, but not when he was suffering from sleep deprivation. This was probably the worst possible timing for him to try defending himself. Heef must have been making a list of infractions this whole time. Was he going to be fired? Just like that? It was going to be bad.
Mleh had finally gotten a reaction from him and thought it was hilarious. He had an annoyingly high pitched and piercing laugh that Filcarel hardly noticed because he was so wrapped up in the sudden consequences of his own stupidity. Had the guildmaster been waiting for him all morning? He moved like a zombie, but his brain was racing back and forth. He was late! What kind of excuse could he come up with?
“Don’t say anything stupid! Dummy! Don’t admit anything!” Mleh’s advice went unheard. "Hey. Comb your hair first, at least." The goblin handed him a wooden comb which snapped the young man back to his senses.
Filcarel felt his hair in fresh mortification. Trying to make it presentable was a distraction as he made his way up the marble staircase to the third floor and then to stand in front of the giant carved oak doors that led to his doom. He tried to smile and be brave, couldn’t, and then just decided to accept whatever verdict had been made. No need to make a scene.
After Filcarel stood there for a moment trying to compose himself the door swung open on it’s own. The Guildmaster sat at his desk, a log book open in front of him. Maybe an accounting book. He looked up as Filcarel entered, then looked meaningfully at his magical timepiece that sat prominently on the desk. Several pendulums swayed slowly back and forth. Filcarel had no idea how you were supposed to interpret it’s motions.
"Adept Filcarel." Guildmaster Siee began. "Have a seat." He was a tall man with unusually large hands. Siee was of course a master craftsman, as well as a Mage of unknown ability. He was also a Grand Knight of the Rosette Kingdom, a pillar of the community. Filcarel liked and respected him and so his emotions changed to shame, that it had come to this.
The Guildmaster frowned, like he didn’t want to talk about something. Something disagreeable. "You might not know why you're here."
Filcarel didn't know how to phrase it either. "Well. Heef..."
Heef had probably exaggerated his poor attendance. It would be difficult for him to argue his side of it now considering his late appearance today.
The Guildmaster nodded. He looked angry.
"Heef has accused you of stealing from the guild. Our designs and our rune formations are as much our property as tools and raw materials." He looked sternly at Filcarel. "A number of items have been turning up lately. In town. Non-guild. Including lamps."
Filcarel was stunned. "Oh."
“I’d like to hear your side of the story.”
Filcarel’s brain was still trying to catch up. Heef must be the one responsible, and he was trying to pin it on Filcarel. It might work.
“Mleh has spoken in your defense and I have my own opinions, but I need to investigate these things thoroughly.”
The guild took this kind of thing very seriously. They wouldn't actually kill anyone over it. Filcarel didn’t really know how far they might go.
"You’ve been staying up late. Working long into the night at your home?" The Guildmaster said, unexpectedly.
Filcarel was still befuddled, processing the new information. He had surprisingly mixed emotions about Heef. He didn't like him at all but also was intimidated and repelled by the guild's ruthless monopoly. And was there any evidence?
The Guildmaster was staring Filcarel down. He didn't like the look he was getting. Then he realized that he was actually under suspicion. Perhaps the guildmaster was trying to get him to lower his guard? It didn’t matter, he was innocent. Unless someone had planted something somewhere!
It wouldn't look good to suddenly go on the defensive. Filcarel took a deep breath and tried to speak confidently.
“I didn’t know anything about this. I thought this was about my poor attendance. If you had one of the… the black market lamps I could tell you who, which one of us, probably who, it shouldn’t be hard to tell who made them. Just from looking.”
“I’ve looked at them myself already, trust me. A clever criminal would make an effort to disguise their work though, wouldn’t they?”
“I… I suppose.”
“You have a
skill. In the interest of… transparency, could I see what you have inside?”
Filcarel shrugged. He wasn’t sure it would prove anything, but it wouldn’t incriminate him either, he was sure. He hadn’t cleaned it out in years, but everything that was stored in his personal void space would be explainable because he had put it there himself.
“You want me to disgorge it?” Filcarel restated the request, looking for an appropriate place to dump his stuff. The guildmaster’s desk was very large and mostly empty, so they cleared it off, moving the guildmaster’s things to a side table.
It all came out in a clatter. There were more things than even Filcarel expected, like an empty cup and a toy spinner he’d forgotten about. There was even a carving tool that he was sure someone had stolen. Most of the volume was made of books. Some of the volumes, like “Orb Formations I-III” were quite large. Filcarel bent down to the floor and went on his hands and knees, apologizing as he collected some coins and game chips that haphazardly rolled off the desk.
The Guildmaster was shocked at the sheer volume of things Filcarel had had stored. “Doesn’t that weigh you down?”
“Oh, yeah. A little. You get used to it. Don’t you have one?”
“Yeah. It’s like a… pull on your soul, like there’s a resistance to everything you do! But, I suppose I’d forgotten about your background.”
New respect had changed the dynamic of the conversation, but the guildmaster was still not happy with some of the things he saw.
“Why do you keep a Staff of Blasts in your
?”
“Ah, that would be dangerous wouldn’t it? My father gave that to me when I was ten, but it’s not enchanted. Fun for a kid.” The long black staff, silver wires inlaid lengthwise, with an eight inch conical force deflector near one end rolled and clattered onto the floor.
"What are these scrolls?" The guildmaster shook his head and kicked the staff aside in annoyance. “If there are any stolen rune formations in here, or tucked in these books…”
Filcarel could see why Siee was suspicious. The scrolls, when they were fully unrolled were about twelve feet long, so they would be perfect for copying the guild’s proprietary rune formations.
"It’s not rune formations. Look for yourself.” The guildmaster did not look. Perhaps he was afraid of what he would find.
“They’re just spells. Orb notation.” Filcarel pointed to his labradorite and jade orbs, also sitting on the desk. Somehow they hadn’t rolled.
The Guildmaster pulled the scrolls out of their cases. He scrutinized them. "These are... quite advanced. Aren't they?" He put the small jade orb in his overly large hand and studied the notation as if he might begin the spell. Instead, the guildmaster placed the orb back onto the table. "I was never good at orb casting. Waste of effort. You can cast these??"
Filcarel was a little offended, but just nodded. He might not be able to, right at that moment, considering the lack of sleep and the tenseness of the situation. He reached for ‘seven useful spells’ and started stacking all his orb casting volumes together. The clutter of the table bothered him.
"Don’t touch anything, I’ll look through it all. I'm surprised someone in the Artificer’s guild is an orb specialist. I mean, I suppose I remember now, you were a promising lad. But that was years ago. There’s nothing about runes in here? Not even the ten thousand?"
He continued looking through the pile of things, odds and ends, but the Siee was relaxed now. Filcarel sat in a chair, watching as the guildmaster sorted through his life.
“So. You stay up all night practicing advanced spells, the kind real Mages would be proud of, and then you come to the Artificer’s guild and put your heart and soul into the demanding work we do here all day. How do you have time to chase women? Or play games?”
Siee had one of his chips now, and he activated it on the table. A little horseman appeared less than an inch tall. It raised it’s miniscule spear in a sort of salute, and then when it was ignored started exploring around the pile of Filcarel’s possessions. It was more than a little nostalgic, watching the little guy, but he felt irritated that he no longer remembered the name of the mounted knight.
“I don’t, really. I haven’t played the
“Ah, you do have it! This copy of ‘10,000 Runes’ is an antique! You should get the updated edition— it has better exposition.”
“I never use it anyway.”
“There are better books. But these are almost all orb casting manuals.”
Siee was flipping through ‘ENCHANTMENT’ which wasn’t strictly about orbcasting. And then there was “the Lion-kyba” which was more about philosophy than magic, and “The Complete Book of Choen” which only touched on rune magic and was written before orb casting even existed.
“Are you saving for the transformation?”
There were 18 gold coins, now carefully stacked. It was a lot, but also not a lot. The Mage’s guild fee for uplifting someones innate magical ability to it’s highest potential was more like 10,000 tropa in total.
“I like to be a full Mage…”
Filcarel didn’t want to dwell on how far he was from his goal. It was a goal. It was always his goal, but he was bad at saving. Not that his salary would get him there in a reasonable amount of time even if he was. That was part of the problem.
"We still need to talk about your tardiness."
The Guildmaster smiled broadly at his employee. The business with Heef wasn’t forgotten, but he sensed an opportunity. Quite wrongly, Siee believed that he now had some leverage on Filcarel. He thought he could tempt him with money.
“You can save up for it! You just need a little push, when I was younger the guild was very different…”
Filcarel endured a long lecture about ambition from his superior. Halfway through he began to zone out and he wondered if it would be disrespectful to start putting his stuff back in his
. Instead he sat there awkwardly. He listened a little and learned some things about his boss, but he wasn’t feeling good about this new level of the relationship.
“… So, I’ve decided to end the Lantern project.”
Filcarel was jerked back to attention.
“There’s a secret from the Merchant’s guild: scarcity increases value. Besides the counterfeit ones out there now, and I will catch him, or them— we have a back stock of the things. This will be for everyone’s good.”
Who Siee thought “everyone” was was a mystery to Filcarel. It didn’t include him!
“I’m making Mleh and you Senior Artificers. You don’t deserve it really, but it’ll force you to grow! You’ll be responsible for your own formations. And that responsibility means personal growth, and more money in the form of commission. You’ll see the real value of your work. It took me, oh, a dozen years saving up for my mage blood. There’s no reason you can’t do it even quicker. Put your nose to the grindstone, so to speak!”
Filcarel didn’t know how to object. The Guildmaster was very caught up in his own plan, and he was the guildmaster. You didn’t argue with someone in authority when they were excited like that, and what could he say even if he did want to interject something? He couldn’t just tell him that he sort of loathed runes, and not just the 10,000 in the book.
He couldn’t tell Guildmaster Siee that this was the opposite of what he wanted or that the only thing he liked about his work at the guild was the of it. He didn’t want to create his own rune formations! He hadn’t even considered doing something like that. The idea of inventing some new device… it actually repelled him.
Filcarel knew about rune formations. He had no idea why the lanterns he made worked. He just copied the runes in the right order as he’d been taught. It was intentional from him; an ordinary craftsman would be curious about his craft, but Filcarel had suppressed his curiosity. For a decade he had made lamps, and he hadn’t even memorized any of it— keeping the reference sheets for the formations open and constantly checking them twice wasn’t an act of diligence like his coworkers assumed.
As an artificer he was a worker bee and nothing more.
He saved all his mental energy for his spells. Practicing a spell was hard work. That’s where his ambition was. All of his curiosity and all of his passion went into his love of orb casting. There had been nothing else in his life for the past ten years. He barely remembered sitting at his workbench five days a week. He had been sleepwalking like a zombie through his days for a decade, and now Siee expected him to be a Senior Artificer, an expert at a discipline he had a deliberate ignorance of?
Filcarel could not accept the promotion, it would only lead to trouble for him. But Guildmaster Siee wouldn’t accept Filcarel’s protests. He thought it was modesty, or lack of ambition. But the guildmaster now remembered that Filcarel was someone special and that he had potential. He looked at the young man as a project, someone he could personally guide towards greatness.
Filcarel recognized the look in his superior’s eye immediately. There was no way that he would be able to work at the Artificer’s Guild and continue the life he currently enjoyed. He was going to have to quit.