Awaken Online: Ember (Tarot #1)

by Bagwell, Travis

  “Each of you holds mana in your bodies, keyed to your specific affinity. This mana can be directed with a series of specific hand gestures, directing the mana out of your body and allowing you to then control that mana outside yourself,” Lamia explained.

  “The first step is to visualize your own mana pool. I find that for water mana, it is easier to visualize an open-faced well or bowl.” Lamia placed her index fingers and thumbs together, forming a rough triangle. “Form this pattern with your hands and imagine that there is a cup in the center. Then imagine that you are pouring a few drops of your mana from your well into that cup.”

  As she finished speaking, a cloud of blue particles began to form in the air above Lamia’s hands. As Finn and the class looked on, the vapor condensed until a brilliant, perfectly symmetrical shard of ice rested above her outstretched fingers, slowly twirling in the air.

  “For some of you, this may require using most of your well. And don’t be concerned if the summoning is not as—”

  Lamia was cut off as a blinding crackle of light illuminated the room, followed closely by a thunderclap that left Finn’s ears ringing. It felt like a bomb had gone off on one side of the room, the noise amplified by the hard, stone walls of the classroom.

  Finn blinked rapidly to try to clear his vision. As the room resolved back into focus, he was able to see what had happened.

  One of the novices – a young woman – appeared to be on fire. Burns riddled her skin and her hair, and part of her clothes were still aflame. The girl might have been screaming, her mouth open and tears streaming down her cheeks, but Finn couldn’t make out the sound over the ringing in his ears.

  Their teacher acted quickly. With a few swift gestures, moisture accumulated out of the air, forming a massive globe of liquid that promptly splashed the screaming girl. The flames extinguished into streamers of smoke and steam, and the girl slumped to the ground, shaking slightly.

  “Hmm,” Lamia said, confirming that Finn’s hearing was beginning to return. The teacher looked down at the injured girl calmly, noting the gnarled wounds along her skin. Although, on reflection, Finn supposed she might have been looking at the water that now drenched the floor. She didn’t seem overly concerned about the girl.

  Lamia noted the class was now staring at her, many with their mouths hanging open. “As I was about to say, the goal here is concentration and stability. At first, you may find your mana difficult to control. Start slowly and then ramp up.”

  No one in the group made any move, sitting still as statutes.

  “What exactly are you waiting for? Begin!” Lamia ordered.

  Finn and Kyyle shared another look.

  “Right, sure. Let’s just try not to blow ourselves up…” Kyyle muttered.

  Finn shared his skepticism. In part, because he could still hear the girl sobbing slightly and Lamia cursing as she stepped out into the hall to summon some help. A moment later, a pair of green-robed mages entered the room and lifted the girl to her feet, half-carrying her out of the classroom. As she passed him, Finn noted with some relief that the girl’s injuries had already begun to heal, although her eyes were still distant and confused. He suspected the game must have also muted the pain feedback. It was likely the surprise that had left her in shock.

  At least, he hoped so.

  Finn glanced around the room and saw the other students cautiously going through the practice exercise, although they seemed to be struggling a little. Whether that was from fear or a function of having less control over their mana, he couldn’t be sure.

  Not knowing what else to do, Finn cautiously formed a triangle with his fingers and closed his eyes, trying to tamp down on the worry in the pit of his stomach. He most assuredly did not want to end up like that girl…

  Okay, now visualize my own mana.

  Almost instantly, Finn’s thoughts returned to the raging inferno he had seen in the Seer’s tent – the flames dancing and roaring in his mind’s eye. It felt almost comforting to watch the fire, his concerns bleeding away and replaced by a faint hum of excitement that seemed to spread through his veins with a glowing warmth. The feeling was inexplicable. Like he was a child on Christmas morning, filled with energy and too anxious to sit still. He wanted to scale a mountain, build something, jump up from his seat and shout his excitement.

  It took most of his willpower to remain still.

  Finn forced himself to focus on the task at hand, suppressing the strange energy that flowed through him. The next step was to visualize a cup between his fingers. Although, he realized that probably wasn’t going to work with the way he had imagined his own mana. How did you pour a bonfire? Instead, he visualized a single piece of straw floating between his fingers.

  Now came the tricky part.

  Finn had learned his lesson from the girl’s mistake, and he could practically hear Abbad growling in his ear. He could not make a scene here or blow them all to kingdom come. He was going to use a spark – the smallest one possible.

  Ever so carefully, he visualized a single flickering ember drifting from the flames and resting against the tip of the straw. Almost immediately, the material caught fire, flames sweeping through the dry stalk.

  Finn opened his eyes slowly.

  A small tendril of flame flickered between his hands, carefully contained, and floating in mid-air. His fingers shielded the small orb of fire from the view of the rest of the class. At the same time, a prompt appeared in his peripheral vision.

  New Skill: Mana Mastery

  Your body contains natural mana, and you have a high affinity for fire magic. Through training, you have learned to summon your mana. Continued study will allow you to master this trait, to the point where conjuring your own mana will be as natural as breathing.

  Skill Level: Beginner Level 1

  Effect: -1% to the mana cost of spells.

  “Wow, that was fast,” Kyyle said.

  Finn jumped, having forgotten that the gangly youth was sitting beside him. Abruptly, the flame sputtered out.

  “Shit, you surprised me,” Finn said.

  “Yeah, I saw that,” the young man replied with an amused smile. “How did you do that so quick? Besides the girl that blew herself up, the rest of the class seems to be struggling.”

  Finn shrugged. “I’m not sure. I just did what the teacher said.”

  As though he had summoned her, Lamia’s voice rang across the room. “Really? None of you have managed to summon your mana yet? I thought I’d never see the day that an entire class gets expelled.

  “Perhaps you simply lack incentive,” Lamia murmured, eyeing the class. “The first student who manages to summon their mana – in a controlled way – will be given their first spell,” she said.

  Immediately, the students scrambled to try again, some of their reservation at the girl’s injury fading in the face of Lamia’s reward. Finn could only shake his head. Their instructor’s offer seemed pretty transparent from his point of view.

  “You already managed to…” Kyyle began, but Finn cut him off.

  “Quiet. I don’t want credit,” Finn said quickly.

  Mostly, he didn’t want to get on Lamia’s radar. He had already messed up by showing up to class late. He’d prefer if she never knew his name. Besides, he suspected the teacher’s reward would either involve dumping the spell’s information into his brain or would highlight the fact that he didn’t know the mage language. He wanted to avoid the former and sure as hell didn’t want to broadcast the latter.

  However, Kyyle seemed to draw a different conclusion, his brow furrowing as he glanced back and forth between Finn and the rest of the class. “You don’t want them to know your affinity, do you? Since we’ll ultimately be competing against each other, that would give them an advantage?”

  Finn cocked his head. He supposed that explanation made sense. Actually, now that Kyyle had said it aloud, that was actually a pretty good reason to keep that sort of information close to the vest. Their affinity and the spe
lls they were capable of casting would soon become valuable information.

  However, he was saved from responding when a shout went up from the front of the class. The overachiever from their orientation had risen from her seat, a small ball of water held between her hands – the mana stable.

  Go figure, Finn thought dryly.

  “Well, it seems we have a winner. Someone managed the very basics of spellcasting. Let’s all celebrate this mundane victory,” Lamia said, clapping her hands in a bored rhythm. “What’s your name, girl?”

  “Vanessa,” she replied, a glowing smile on her face as she stared at the ball of water mana – despite Lamia’s sour tone.

  With a swipe of her hand, Lamia immediately dispelled the mana, the water disintegrating into small tendrils of mist. Then her fingers darted forward and touched Vanessa’s temple, a trickle of sapphire energy seeping through the skin.

  Vanessa blinked rapidly, tilting her head to the side with a curious expression on her face.

  “Go ahead, cast the spell,” Lamia urged her. The entire class was watching anxiously.

  Slowly, Vanessa’s hands began to twine through a series of gestures, the girl muttering words under her breath. Finn watched her fingers carefully, noting that there seemed to be a pattern to the way they moved. Tendrils of vapor condensed in the air in front of the girl, swiftly forming a shard of ice that grew until it was nearly a foot long and the tip was jagged and sharp. With a final gesture, Vanessa released the spell.

  The bolt launched across the room, students diving out of the way, before crashing into the stone wall on the other side of the room. The spear of ice fractured into dozens of pieces, some of the frozen shards bouncing off Finn’s shirt.

  “That is the type of power you all are striving to achieve,” Lamia said softly into the hushed silence that followed. “And this is merely the first step. With dedication and training, Vanessa can summon a swirling vortex of ice and snow that could level entire towns or freeze a charging warrior in place. This is what it means to be a mage.”

  Lamia’s eyes swept back across the class. “Now, who else can conjure their mana?”

  ***

  The class lasted another two hours.

  Nearly all of the students had managed to summon their mana – although, many were less controlled than Vanessa, the energy sputtering out quickly or exploding violently. Luckily, no one had been injured as severely as the first air mage.

  Finn had steadfastly refused to summon the flame again.

  He was among the handful of students that had “failed” to achieve the task.

  When she finally grew impatient with the slower students, Lamia had moved on to teach them about the hand gestures that controlled their mana. There were a simple set of basic gestures that directed the flow of mana and specific spells used certain combinations of those gestures. This explained the movements that Vanessa’s fingers had made when she cast the Ice Bolt.

  Finn emulated each gesture with his fingers, carefully practicing the movements. Yet he still refused to summon his own mana again. He resolved to attempt the process in private once he was able to return to the library. There was no sense in drawing any more attention.

  “We’ll conclude here for today. Go and practice,” Lamia called out, interrupting the latest practice session. “We will meet again in two days. I expect you all to have advanced to at least beginner level 5 in Mana Mastery by that time. You should repeat the basic hand gestures until they are second nature.”

  This was met with a murmur of noise as the students began to disperse. Finn noticed that some of the other students were already beginning to collect into groups. For example, a few students had approached Vanessa, and Finn noticed the burly man from their “orientation” was huddled with a group of guys. It seemed that cliques had already started to form.

  Shaking his head, Finn lifted himself from his seat. Yet he hesitated when he noticed that Kyyle hadn’t moved. The young man was staring into space, his hands dancing in the air.

  “What are you doing?” Finn asked.

  Kyyle barely spared him a glance, before his eyes flitted to the other students. He gestured for Finn to move closer and he sat back down on the bench.

  “I’m creating a journal,” Kyyle said in a whisper. “After I noticed you hiding your mana earlier, I decided to start tracking each person’s name, affinity, rank, and known spells.”

  Finn didn’t have to ask why. He had to admit that this was useful information, especially with the upcoming duels. That might also go a long way towards explaining why Kyyle had done his best to imitate Finn during the class. The young man had managed to summon a small ball of earth but had immediately dismissed the mana.

  “It’s a good idea,” Finn acknowledged. “But how exactly are you recording that information? It just looks like you’re waving at the air.”

  Kyyle paused, staring at him incredulously. “I’m using the in-game console,” he said. “Seriously, did you read anything about the game before logging in?”

  Finn’s eyes widened, completely ignoring Kyyle’s teasing. With a few quick swipes, he brought up his system UI and scrolled down the menus until he found the console. He tapped the icon, and a translucent blue screen and keyboard appeared in front of him. Finn could only stare at the console numbly.

  Holy shit. A few ideas for how to tackle his language training were already tumbling through his brain.

  “…so the headset connects to the public network and simulates a normal workstation here. Hey, are you listening?” Kyyle snapped, forcing Finn to look at him.

  “Uh, sorry. I just got distracted trying to find the console,” he replied. “Isn’t this immersion-breaking, being able to access the public network in-game?”

  Kyyle shrugged. “It’s probably more about convenience. Adding this sort of feature keeps us in-game longer since we don’t need to log out to answer an email or look something up.”

  “I guess that makes sense…” Finn murmured distractedly.

  The idea that had been hovering at the edges of Finn’s mind was back with a vengeance, suddenly shifting from an ephemeral thought to something far more tangible. “What’s to stop someone from abusing the console or using it to aid them in-game?” he suddenly asked.

  “What do you mean?” Kyyle asked.

  “What if a player tried to modify the game’s code, for example?”

  Kyyle just stared at him with a deadpan expression.

  “Wait, are you serious?”

  “Sure, why not?” Finn asked.

  “Uh, because this is a horribly sophisticated game system and the AI is cutting edge,” Kyyle answered immediately. “It would take a really experienced programmer to mess with the code. Besides, I bet the AI would shut that down hard and fast. I remember reading something somewhere about Cerillion Entertainment holding an open invitation to hack its software during the beta. They had like a two-million-dollar prize.”

  “And?” Finn asked.

  “And no one beat it. No one,” Kyyle answered. “Forget regular anti-cheat protections. This game is un-hackable.”

  Finn ran a hand through his hair, his thoughts already spinning. “Yeah, but what if we didn’t try to cheat? Older games used to have approved UI mods for example – most were just for convenience or to better keep track of information. Isn’t that what you’re doing with the in-game console right now? Using it to jot down information?”

  “Well, I mean, I guess that’s sort of the same idea,” Kyyle said, glancing between Finn and a screen he couldn’t see. “But—”

  Kyyle stopped talking abruptly, his eyes centering on something over Finn’s shoulder.

  He turned to find their teacher standing behind him, her eyes watching him calmly. Most of the other students had already emptied from the room, giving Lamia a wide berth. There was something about their instructor that was a little… well, terrifying. Maybe it was the feeling that she would freeze someone alive without a second thought.

&n
bsp; “Well, if it isn’t our tardy student. I couldn’t help but notice that you didn’t manage to summon your mana during class,” Lamia said, judgment lacing her voice.

  Kyyle opened his mouth, and Finn stepped on his foot discreetly, the younger man biting back a yelp. “It was challenging, but I will keep practicing,” Finn replied, bowing his head as he had seen Abbad do with Nefreet.

  “See that you do,” Lamia replied. “Otherwise, I may need to make an example of you for the rest of the class.”

  When Finn looked up, he found a broad, terrifying smile on the woman’s face. There was something off about it, as though it showed too much teeth. Or maybe it was the malicious glint in her eye.

  “I find an early expulsion always encourages the other students to work harder.”

  With that, she turned on her heel and strode out of the room, leaving the pair alone.

  “Wow, that woman gives me the creeps,” Kyyle muttered.

  “Yeah, you and me both,” Finn replied.

  A weight had settled in his stomach. He was treading a precarious path here. He needed to be cautious about revealing his high affinity, but it appeared he had erred too far in the other direction – indicating that he was the weak and injured animal in the pack. And Lamia had just looked very much like a lion, waiting for a single misstep.

  He could always reveal his ability to summon mana, but that wouldn’t change the fact that he didn’t know Veridian. It would become obvious soon just how far behind the others he really was. And Lamia was already watching – waiting for him to give her a reason to “make an example of him.”

  Finn glanced back at Kyyle, who was already tapping away at his notes again. Maybe Finn could remedy the situation. After discovering the in-game console, an idea was beginning to take shape in his mind. There might be a way to possibly catch back up with the others.

  He just hoped it would work.