Ascendant

True to her word, Ophelia was waiting for him in the common room the next morning. She was demolishing her breakfast, on her third plate at least judging by the amount of flatware scattered across the table when Nym sat down across from her, still rubbing at his eyes.

“How are you this perky?” he asked.

“I’ve always been a morning person,” she said. Then she grinned wickedly and added, “And Bildar is really, really, really not. It drives him crazy, so I make an effort to be extra cheerful when I wake him up.”

“You’re evil.”

“I know. It’s fantastic.”

Nym got his own food, and while they were eating, Ophelia asked, “What do you normally do with your mornings?”

“Go out of the city and practice my magic. It’s one of the reasons I took a room here. It’s close to the edge of town.” He left unsaid his other new hobby of going by the Silk Box and scrying to look for Analia. He liked the crew, but he wasn’t going to reveal her existence until after she’d already arrived and they’d had a chance to discuss future plans. Nym had learned his lesson already about giving information to adults who might decide they knew better than him how to run his life.

“What are you working on?” Ophelia asked, curious.

“Trying to modify an ice golem spell to work with dirt and stone.”

She let out a low whistle. “That’s a tall order. I don’t even know how to make a golem. Would you mind if I looked at the spell schematics?”

“I can draw them out for you if you want,” Nym said. He doubted they’d be anywhere near as good as anything he’d seen in the spellbooks he’d learned from, but he was confident he could make something passable enough that it would make sense if he was there to explain it.

“No, no, not the modifications you’re trying to make. The original schematic you’re basing it off of.”

Nym blinked. He didn’t have anything like that since he’d learned the spell directly from the wolf-thing matriarch. “I don’t have them,” he confessed. “I learned it up north.”

“How are you supposed to modify them if you don’t have the original spell then?”

“Just kind of doing it in my head and playing around with different pieces to see what works.”

“Playing around with… what. Okay, you’re full of it. There is no way you have a spell to create a golem memorized.”

Nym concentrated for a few seconds and raised a four-inch tall ice golem out of his soup. It was more brown and yellow than frosty white and blue, and it only lasted a few seconds due to the haste with which he’d constructed it, but it waved a hand at Ophelia before collapsing back into soup. He shrugged and scooped up a spoonful. “If you say so,” he said.

Ophelia’s eye twitched.

Even the soup golem was a stretch of the spell. It only worked because the base was liquid, and because he’d spent so much time trying to figure out how to incorporate that stupid heating stone into the golem. Noodles and vegetables weren’t quite the same thing, but a foreign object was still a foreign object, and his modifications to add it worked on a small, temporary scale.

“I would very much appreciate if you could draw out the schematic for the construct for me to review,” she said slowly, through gritted teeth.

Nym ate another spoonful of soup and considered it. “Sure,” he said after an appropriately theatrical pause. “It’s the least I can do.”

“This kid,” she muttered.

Nym laughed quietly. That reaction never got old.

* * *

The pair stood in a field a mile or so outside the city. Nym demonstrated some of his elemental earth skills and Ophelia gave pointers. He asked her to demonstrate a few spells that she was working on, just so that he could ‘see what the end result was supposed to look like,’ but also because it helped to get an uninterrupted, up close, real time viewing of the spell being cast.

Nym mostly ignored her advice, as it involved a lot of stuff like feeling the power of the earth beneath his feet and channeling its stability through his limbs. All that sounded suitably mystical, but he had no idea what it meant and she refused to elaborate. The live demonstrations were much more useful, in his opinion.

Nym did sketch out the construct pattern for the ice golem in the dirt, along with his own modifications next to it. He pointed out the parts he was having trouble getting locked together, and explained how when making an ice golem, the biggest problem was that the arcana would start to freeze into place, and individual pieces would also freeze to each other before they were properly set.

“But with the earth golem variation, that’s not the problem I’m having. Instead, individual pieces start to sag. It’s like the arcana is too heavy to support itself. It’s actually a problem I’ve been having with everything I try, but most things are quick enough that I can get the spell off before it becomes an overwhelming issue,” he finished.

“It sounds like you need to work on your intent filtering some more, like I’ve been telling you. You’re not feeling the power of the earth and channeling it right,” she said. “Yes, the arcana should be solid and heavy, but it should also be strong enough to hold its shape.”

“I tried that, but then it became so rigid that I couldn’t get it to form the construct.”

“Well you’re a smart boy. You’ll get there,” she told him.

“What happened with the meeting with the guildmaster?” he said, changing the subject.

“It’s not until tomorrow morning, way earlier than Bildar wants to be awake too. It’s going to be so fun waking him up.”

“Any idea how it’ll go?” he asked, messing with the intent filtering. It would be so much easier if he could copy that from other people too. “How do mages fight if they have to keep changing their intent with every spell?”

“Most mages stick to a single element if they get forced into a fight, or if they’re doing something more complicated, they’ll prepare in advance. That’s why we’re all earth mages. It’s what we’re good at. If a monster or a belligerent guildsman with a grudge comes at me, I’m going to use earth magic to defend myself.”

Nym considered that. It wasn’t really what he’d ever done. He’d switched intent filters rapidly during dangerous situations before, but his range of spells was extremely limited compared to someone like Ophelia. He wondered how much more effective he’d be if he could learn a full set of air magic and blast them out one after another without having to pull in new flavors of arcana.

He could work on adding to his repertoire on his own, but it would be easier to find a spellbook to study from. In the meantime, he’d just have to split his concentration between his evasive flying abilities and the more complicated lightning and fire attacks he already knew. As long as he didn’t have to face down another hive queen in the near future, that would be good enough.

As the sun rose higher, Nym asked, “Do you need to get heading back? It’s almost noon?”

Ophelia sighed and stood up. The dirt on her flew away, repelled by her magic. “I suppose so. I don’t want to be late. You’ll come with me?”

“I have an errand to run, but I can meet you at the job site.”

“Oh really? A secret errand? What is it?”

“It’s secret,” he said dryly.

“Is it about a girl? Ermy, your face is getting red. It is about a girl, isn’t it!”

“Not like you’re thinking,” he choked out. “Goodbye, Ophelia. I’ll see you later.”

Then he lifted himself in the air and flew off, leaving her behind.

“Hey,” she yelled out. “If you’re going to do that, at least take me with you!”

Nym just flew faster.

* * *

Another day of scrying revealed nothing. Nym just sighed and started to walk away. He made it back onto the main street and practically bumped into a person he hadn’t realized was there. “Sorry,” he muttered, looking up. He froze. “Analia?”

One look at her shirt was enough to figure it out. Of course he couldn’t find her by scrying the Silk Box. Scrying had never worked on her. He could have sat there all day and he never would have seen her with his magic alone.

“Nym! There you are. What took you so long? I’ve been here for over a week now.”

“I’ve been looking for you since I got here about a week ago!” he said.

“I don’t know how you could have missed me. I swear I spend hours sitting out in the open watching for you every day,” she said. “Nevermind, we found each other now.”

She pulled him into a hug, which surprised him and he only tentatively returned. “Sitting out in the open where?” he asked.

“In the Silk Box, of course. That’s where we agreed to meet.”

“I didn’t take a room here,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s way too expensive. I’ve just been coming by once or twice a day and scrying the place to see if you’re here. And I just realized ten seconds ago why that plan didn’t work.”

“It’s not that expensive. Only three shields a day.”

“That’s… that’s twice what I paid for an entire week.”

Analia’s nose crinkled up and she said, “What, are you staying in a stable?”

“No! It’s a regular inn for normal people who aren’t rich!”

She was just like he remembered her, dressed in expensive clothes with no concept of the value of money, but friendly and indifferent to their respective stations. Today she was wearing a long, frilly blouse with a matching skirt and a wide brimmed hat. The clothes were all vibrant, and the runes stitched into them practically sparkled in the sunlight. A bright smile was plastered onto her face.

“How was your trip down here?”

“Cold and miserable. I got eaten by a giant worm,” he said. “And yours?”

“Snuck out of the house and bought a teleport a week ago. It’s been weird not having any servants, but the Silk Box’s staff has been an adequate replacement. What do you mean you got eaten?”

“Big giant worm was making the blizzard that hit the area. I had to kill it to clear the weather up so I could leave. It was… close.” He shuddered at the memory.

“Wait, that was you who killed the tecula hive queen? There’s been a ton of speculation about that back home. Some people think it was put there by the Karshics and that they lost control of it and had to kill it themselves.”

“It was very much alive when I ran into it,” he told her. “But anyway, it was an eventful trip that I never want to repeat. We’re both here now though, so we need to figure out where we’re going next.”

“Come on, let’s get lunch. I want to hear all about how you killed the tecula colony. I’ll tell you some of the more outlandish theories that have been floating around.”

“Er, I’m actually supposed to meet some people soon,” he said. “Let me tell you about them though. I didn’t want to let them know about you until we had a chance to talk and decide what we’re going to do. They might be leaving town soon, and if they do, I thought maybe we’d go with them.”

“Oh? Well, you can be a few minutes late. Come on, there’s a charming little café just down the street. We can have a quick, light lunch while you tell me all about them.”

Ignoring his protests, Analia seized Nym’s arm and dragged him along with her.